Christmas bits: COVID vaccine data; Commentary about the USSC protecting DJT; Etc.

Merry Christmas!

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From the We Already Knew That Files: A cohort study of more than 1.5 million hospital admissions in Canada through the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic has quantified the benefit of vaccinations. Unvaccinated patients were found to be up to 15 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated patients. A person vaccinated with two or more doses was 12 times less likely for ICU admission and 15 times less likely to die. The authors did not consider socioeconomic status because just age and vaccination status were analyzed.

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Various sources are commenting on the unexplained USSC decision to not hear the issue of whether DJT is immune from crimes committed in office. Most normal people who believe in democracy and the rule of law would find it silly for this to even be an issue. But now America is no longer controlled mostly by normal people. Instead, corrupt, radical authoritarians wield significant power, especially the radicalized and corrupted USSC. The authoritarians are using their power to openly attack and destroy democracy and the pesky rule of law.

A NYT opinion comments (not paywalled off): The Supreme Court Helped Trump’s Delay Strategy. By How Much Remains to Be Seen. The former president’s claim that he is immune from prosecution will now be taken up by a federal appeals court — and could end up back in front of the justices within weeks. The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday not to fast-track consideration of former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he is immune to prosecution on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election was unquestionably a victory for Mr. Trump and his lawyers. The choice by the justices not to take up the issue now — rendered without explanation — gave a boost to the former president’s legal strategy of delaying the proceedings as much as possible in the hopes of running out the clock before Election Day. 

Another NYT opinion: 

The Supreme Court’s Big Trump Test Is Here 

America is experiencing a creeping sense of déjà vu. Twenty-three years ago, a bare majority of the justices halted a recount in Florida, effectively handing the presidency to George W. Bush. The specter of Bush v. Gore, the case that stands as a marker of how not to resolve searing political disputes. On Friday, the court turned down Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request for fast-track review of Donald Trump’s claim that former presidents have “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for their conduct while in office. But that critical question will almost certainly return to the Supreme Court soon: The D.C. federal appeals court is hearing the case on Jan. 9 and will probably rule shortly thereafter. 

The point is not that getting the underlying legal questions “right” is irrelevant. But when the stakes are this high and the legal questions are novel, the justices have a duty to hand down decisions that resonate across the political spectrum — or at least that avoid inciting violence in the streets. That’s not subverting the rule of law; it’s preserving it.  

A universe in which the court somehow splits the difference — for example, keeping Mr. Trump on the ballot while refusing to endorse (if not affirmatively repudiating) his conduct and spurning his kinglike claim to total immunity — could go a long way toward reducing the temperature of the coming election cycle. Such an outcome could also help restore at least some of the court’s credibility.

As usual for clueless MSM opinionators, the two yahoos who wrote the latter opinion (Steven V. Mazie and Stephen I. Vladeck) refer to the six Republicans on the bench as “conservative.” Sigh. 

These people still cannot see anti-democratic authoritarianism, even when it’s repeatedly hitting them up side the head with a 2x4. Anti-democratic authoritarianism is not pro-democracy conservative, it is anti-democracy authoritarian. As Mark Zuckerberg would comment, dumb fucks. 

The MSM might learn, but

probably not until it’s too late

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The WaPo comments that the Ukrainian military is running out of munitions:

Ukrainian forces are suffering from a shortage of artillery shells on the front line, prompting some units to cancel planned assaults, soldiers said this week, and stoking fears over how long Kyiv’s troops will be able to hold their ground against continuing Russian attacks.

“The guys are tired — very tired,” a member of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade said. “They are still motivated — many people understand that they have no other choice.”

“But you can’t win a war only on motivation,” he continued. “You should have some kind of a numerical advantage, and with the weapons and weapons systems, it only gets worse and worse. How long can we last? It’s hard to say, but it can’t be long. Everyone understands this.” 

We can thank America's authoritarian, radical right Republican Party for the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian military. Once again, American moral cowardice and untrustworthiness is out in the open for everyone to see and enjoy. Lest we forget, the US promised in 1994 to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for it turning over Russian nuclear weapons. We broke that promise.

Regarding that 1994 promise:

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. When Ukrainian-Russian negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. The result was the Trilateral Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination. In return, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and nuclear infrastructure on its territory.

American assurances aren’t worth spit.

Various bits: Climate timeline; How the Irish see the US; New anti-aggression technology

A great timeline of Earth’s temperature from 20,000 BC until now shows natural climate variations and what happened once humans started influencing the climate in the early 1900s. These screenshots show the timeline from ~20,000 BC - ~19,300 BC, ~9700 BC - ~8600 BC,  and ~2500 BC until today. Notice that at ~20,000 BC, the climate was a heck of a lot cooler than it is now. Temperature change was natural until ~1920, which was after the industrial revolution had been underway for about 80 years. Thanks to Raven for bringing this chart to my attention.

 

This should give people some feel for how temperature variation influences climate. A 2ᵒ C increase is going to be a big deal. If we stay on the current path, things will start to get real ugly late this century.

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This is an opinion by Lara Marlow at the The Irish Times: 

Americans are sleepwalking into a dictatorship. 

Why aren’t they more afraid?

Worldview: A second Trump presidency could spell the disintegration of the Nato alliance, and would have far-reaching consequences for the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East

Trump leads all other Republican candidates by double-digit figures in opinion polls. “Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president,” Robert Kagan, a prominent neo-conservative commentator, predicted in the Washington Post. “When that happens, there will be a swift and dramatic shift in the political power dynamic, in his favour… There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day.”

The sense of alarm is shared in Paris and London. “Is American democracy entering its last year?” Piotr Smolar, Le Monde’s Washington correspondent, asked rhetorically.

“There is no point in pretending that a man who believes that any election he loses is rigged, that the judicial system is rotten and corrupt, and that his political enemies belong in jail, is a believer in democracy,” Edward Luce wrote in the Financial Times.  

It is one of the mysteries of the American soul that, as David Remnick writes in the New Yorker, “Tens of millions of Americans seem undeterred by the prospect of absolutism, cruelty and corruption on the horizon.”  

The majority of respondents to a YouGov poll in August, and four out of five Republicans, believe the Biden administration has manipulated the justice system to undermine Trump. They would find it perfectly logical for Trump to appoint special prosecutors to pursue his enemies.

The answer in the sleepwalking question is in the question itself. Enough Americans aren't afraid either because they are sleepwalking, or because they want to live their miserable lives under the iron fisted rule of a kleptocratic dictator.

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Our good friends at PLOS Biology have published an Earth-shattering discovery about how to lower human male aggression. An article, A chemical signal in human female tears lowers aggression in males, comments:

Rodent tears contain social chemosignals with diverse effects, including blocking male aggression. Human tears also contain a chemosignal that lowers male testosterone, but its behavioral significance was unclear. Because reduced testosterone is associated with reduced aggression, we tested the hypothesis that human tears act like rodent tears to block male aggression. Using a standard behavioral paradigm, we found that sniffing emotional tears with no odor percept reduced human male aggression by 43.7%. To probe the peripheral brain substrates of this effect, we applied tears to 62 human olfactory receptors in vitro. We identified 4 receptors that responded in a dose-dependent manner to this stimulus. Finally, to probe the central brain substrates of this effect, we repeated the experiment concurrent with functional brain imaging. We found that sniffing tears increased functional connectivity between the neural substrates of olfaction and aggression, reducing overall levels of neural activity in the latter.

Research is now focusing on the chemical identity of the signal factor(s) responsible for reducing male aggression. Human female tears were collected like this:

We conducted a long-term screen for women who can cry with ease, ultimately identifying 6 regular donor women. First, we harvested emotional tears from human female donors (6 regular donor women, age range 22 to 25 years) using methods previously described. Donors completed .... specific questionnaires with each donation, on questions such as .... the nature of emotions during donation. Because tears that trickled down the cheek and into the collection device may have collected skin-bound signaling molecules not originating from tear fluid, as a control substance, we trickled saline down the cheeks of the very same donors and collected it in a similar manner. .... To obtain tears, the donor women watched sad film clips in isolation and used a mirror to place a vial and capture the tears trickling down their cheeks. A typical donation used in this study contained approximately 1.6 ml of tears.

One can imagine that the US government working feverishly on tear bombs that will calm things down in international situations of insufficient calm. Police could use tear grenades (not tear gas grenades) to de-escalate unduly chaotic local situations. 

Fig 4. Tears reduced activation in the 

brain substrates of reactive aggression   

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From the Violent, Ignorant Dictator Supporter Files: The HuffPo writes:

Colorado Secretary Of State ‘Extremely Concerned’ 

About Pro-Trump Violence

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold received 64 death threats and more than 900 threats of abuse within three weeks of the case being filed to keep Trump off the state ballot

“I’ve been concerned about violence and threats of violence since Donald Trump incited the insurrection,” Griswold, who has been Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state since 2019, said in an interview. “I’ve received hundreds if not thousands of threats at this point.”

Jena Griswold - she gets lots of threats by thugs 

“I did not file this case. I’m part of this case because I’m the secretary of state,” Griswold said. “Within three weeks of it being filed, I received 64 death threats and over 900 non-lethal threats of abuse. I stopped counting after that.”

“So yes, I’m extremely concerned,” she added. “It just underlines that Donald Trump is a major threat to American democracy, elections and stability. He uses threats and intimidation against his political opponents. When he doesn’t win elections, he tries to steal them. He is a dangerous leader for this country.”

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Huge win for DJT at the USSC: The Hill reports:

The Supreme Court declined to take up whether President Trump can be prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, punting for now the question on the limits of presidential immunity as the former president seeks to toss the case.

The refusal, which had no noted dissents, comes as an appeals court weighs a motion from Trump to dismiss the case; he argues he has absolute presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s gambit to skip over an intermediate appeals court and bring the issue directly before the Supreme Court was aimed at keeping the schedule of the trial — the first of Trump’s four criminal proceedings — on track.

It looks like the USSC supports DJT’s tactic to delay until after the election. If the three Dems on the bench agreed with this, they should be impeached along along with all six corrupt, radical Repub authoritarians. IMO, whoever on the court agreed with this is a traitor.

Once again, we clearly see the grievous damage that waiting too long to prosecute traitors causes to democracy and the rule of law. This could be the death knell of American democracy, civil liberties and whatever is left of the rule of law.

News chunk 'n bits: Democracy vs autocrcacy; The Gaza body count; Etc.

Even the editorial Board at the WaPo has figured it out (article not paywalled off). This is about how pro-democracy forces are loosening the grip of dictators on the free flow of honest information. Essentially all dictators now realize that that is it critically important to control the internet and flood it with disinformation, lies, slanders, hate, bigotry, etc. Putin learned that lesson from his murdering war of aggression against Ukraine. The pro-dictatorship FTZWS (flood the zone with shit) propaganda tactic that Steve Bannon put a catchy name to has gone global. The WaPo Editors write:

ANNALS OF AUTOCRACY

Opinion | How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won

For more than a decade and a half, autocracy has been steadily advancing around the globe. Dictators routinely arrest their foes, including those demanding basic rights such as freedom of expression. But they have modernized their methods, taking control of the internet and using it to broadcast disinformation while censoring the truth. They have forced independent media to close and aimed surveillance at social media and the people who use it. They have created firewalls and imposed internet shutdowns. Freedom House found in its latest annual survey of political rights and civil liberties that democracy has been in decline for 17 years — and one of the biggest drivers has been attacks on freedom of expression.

But there are ways to confront the forces of authoritarianism, especially on the information battlefield, where the future of democracy may be decided for millions of people. The stakes are enormous: Will open societies thrive and grow, or will more of the globe fall under the sway of dictatorships such as the one in China, where information manipulation is the norm and surveillance technology watches over everyone, all the time?

[In response to the Iranian dictatorship shutting down the internet in sensitive areas in rebellion during a period of social unrest] a little-known channel helped millions of Iranians stay in the know. A nongovernmental organization in Los Angeles, NetFreedom Pioneers, had created a method to bypass the internet entirely and broadcast files — text, audio or video — from commercial satellites to anyone with a receiver dish. It is called Toosheh, or Knapsack. The group collected photos and news reports from social media platforms and elsewhere, uploaded them to a satellite and then down to homes in blacked-out Iran. The news was easily shareable on a flash drive.

Toosheh, founded by an Iranian émigré, brought fresh and uncensored information into a censored country, offering a ray of hope in the struggle between forces of dictatorship and democracy.

This opinion piece highlights the centrality and power of information and disinformation in the war between democracy and dictatorships, which are usually kleptocratic or at least deeply corrupt, like Russia.

For years, I have been arguing that about the most powerful weapon that modern dictator-kleptocrats have is control and suppression of inconvenient fact and truth and replacing that void via the FTZWS dark free speech tactic. This exemplifies why I see lying, slandering, irrational emotional manipulation (fomenting unwarranted fear, hate, bigotry, racism, etc.) and crackpottery as not just deplorable. It is literally evil (not just immoral) because harm to democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law are all intended. Innocent people will get killed, harmed or oppressed.

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From the endless Israel-Palestine misery and war horror story: More than 20,000 dead in Gaza, a historic human toll -- The Gaza Health Ministry said early Friday that 20,057 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since Oct. 7.

Dec. 6, outskirts of Gaza City

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From the Dictators getting their collective act together files: In Russia, parents are having gay children abducted to be ‘cured’ -- In Russia, where the entire LGBTQ+ community has been banned as “extremist,” some parents are paying thugs to abduct their queer sons and daughters, forcing them into secure private centers to “cure” them with so-called conversion therapy. Former residents say conditions behind high concrete walls are like small unregulated prisons, designed for alcoholics, drug addicts, or people whose families see them as problems. Many were tricked or abducted, then held for months. They recounted being beaten, humiliated or forced to read out confessions that they were destructive and selfish because of their “addiction” to their sexual or gender identity — mimicking rigid programs designed to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

Does that sound familiar? It should. 

Flogging the non-heterosexual community is a fun and popular anti-democracy, pro-dictator tactic. It is used effectively to foment social bigotry and irrational fear and hate of the LGBTQ+ community, just like the corrupt, bigoted Christian nationalism wealth and power movement is doing here in the US. Dictators everywhere are catching on to this wonderful wealth and power TFZWS propaganda tactic.

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From the rampaging GOP authoritarianism files: Seattle hospital sues Texas AG who sought records of trans minors:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) tried to compel a Seattle hospital to hand over information about gender-affirming treatment Texas youths may have received across state lines, according to court filings, signaling an escalation of his office’s attempts to crack down on Texans’ ability to access such health care.

The Seattle Children’s Hospital requested a Texas judge nullify, or at least rein in, Paxton’s demands, arguing that his office lacks the jurisdiction over the Washington state hospital. In filings this month, the hospital said Paxton’s queries — made under the guise of an investigation by the AG’s consumer protection division — were “sham requests.”

If memory serves, states passing laws (mostly slave-related, I think) that other states refused to honor was a significant factor in splitting the country, paving the way to civil war. Now it’s happening again.

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Rudy Giuliani files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York after defamation case -- Rudy Giuliani has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York, one day after a federal judge ruled that he must immediately pay the $148 million he owes two Georgia women he falsely accused of helping to steal the 2020 election. In paperwork filed Thursday to seek protection from creditors, Giuliani listed up to $500 million in debts, including the $148 million he owes former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss. .... He listed his assets between $1 million and $10 million.

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More Israel-Palestine horror: A Times Investigation Tracked Israel’s Use of One of Its Most Destructive Bombs in South Gaza -- .... according to an analysis of visual evidence by The New York Times. The video investigation focuses on the use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area of southern Gaza where Israel had ordered civilians to move for safety. While bombs of that size are used by several Western militaries, munitions experts say they are almost never dropped by U.S. forces in densely populated areas anymore.

My Christmas wishes for America and inhabitants of Dissident Politics.

 

Snowflake is gonna take a well-deserved break for the Holidays, But before I go, a few words:

I think at this time of year, we should spread the cheer far and wide, and include (almost) everyone in our warm wishes.

Whatcha think?

So, I wish peace and happiness to Democrats and Republicans alike. I even wish the best for the Trumps. Being so small and insecure must be a devastating disability to live with so who am I to pile on this time of year?

(ditto for the MAGA crowd)

I also wish peace and happiness for Russians and  Ukrainians. Putin not included. I also wish peace and happiness for the Palestinians and Israelis alike.  Hamas not included. 

I wish peace and happiness to all the bigots of the world. All the racists. After all, what group of people are MORE in need of finding peace and happiness than that group of people?

Most of all, I wish peace and happiness to the inhabitants of Dissident Politics. I wish more than anything, that for a week or few days, the angst and anxieties and deep concerns will fall off of your shoulders, allowing you to see that there are still good people in the world. 

Most especially good people like Jesus and Santa (and the occasional Snowflake).

Too early for my New Year's wishes, but I have a few, especially for the Democrats. But that is for another day.

And remember, it's still Christmas even when it's Happy Holidays. 

Finally.........

News bits: A New Year’s resolution: Respect for the rule of law declines; Etc.

A NYT opinion by Michelle Goldberg argues for resolution to fight DJT in 2024:

Make a New Year’s Resolution to Fight Trump

Before we can fight authoritarianism, we have to fight fatalism. My great hope for 2024 is that anti-Trump Americans can transcend exhaustion, burnout and self-protective pessimism to mobilize once again for the latest most important election of our lifetimes. It’s perfectly understandable that many people galvanized by abhorrence of Trump would step back once his immediate threat to the Republic receded. The obsession with politics that took over the country during his administration was neither sustainable nor healthy. But if you don’t want an even uglier and more despairing replay of those years, the time to act is now.

One place to start is with donations to grass-roots organizations working on voter turnout, which are desperately underfunded. (The Movement Voter Project has a clickable map with links to such groups all over the country.) You can also get involved with the campaigns to put referendums protecting abortion rights on the ballot in states like Arizona and Florida, efforts that could both undo cruel abortion bans and drive voter turnout.

It’s going to be especially important next year to give people reasons to vote beyond the presidential election. .... Faced with an unenthusiastic electorate, Democrats will need down-ballot candidates who can motivate people to go the polls. Few are doing more to bring exciting new candidates into the political process than Run for Something, which recruits and trains young progressives to run for office.

“As we look to our strategy for ’24, we want to make sure especially that we’re prioritizing resources for local candidates whose races can have an impact at the top of the ticket,” said Amanda Litman, Run for Something’s co-founder. Young voters, she said, “are not particularly psyched about Joe Biden right now. But thanks to years of education and each of these special elections, they deeply understand the need to show up locally.”

Goldberg points out that while the DJT's time in office was a disaster, re-electing him will lead to far worse consequences. She referred to the situation in Turkey like this:

While Trump demonized journalists, [Turkey’s dictator] Erdogan imprisoned them. In the absence of serious state repression, Trump’s critics rarely had to hide their sentiments, making it easier to maintain hope that they, and not their freakish madman of a president, represented this country’s future. I fear that in a second Trump administration it will be much harder to keep the faith.

In a second DJT rut at dictatorship, he will try his best to impose serious state repression. His intention to do that has been made publicly and clearly.

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The WaPO reports about new poll data that points to DJT’s and Trumpism’s ability to erode respect for the rule of law:

We can affix a number to how many of them think that Trump breaking the law for political ends is okay.

About 3 in 10.

That’s the finding of a new Fox News poll this weekend. It phrased the question thusly:

“Some people say things in the U.S. are so far off track that we need a president willing to break some rules and laws to set things right, while others say the president should always follow the rules and laws. Which comes closest to your view?”

Voters who supported Trump in 2020 were about twice as likely to endorse the break-rules-and-laws view as 2020 Biden backers. While 65 percent of Trump backers said a president should always follow the rules and the law, 30 percent said breaking rules and laws could be justified. The split among Biden voters was 83-15 against breaking rules and laws.  

The new poll builds on previous polling showing a greater appetite on the right for disregarding the usual guardrails.

One of the most threatening aspects of Trumpism include fomenting open contempt for the rule of law. DJT and some or most of the elites charged with various felonies are completely unrepentant. They brazenly lie about how innocent they are and how political and biased lawsuits against them are. 

In doing this, DJT has inflicted great damage by normalizing acceptance of lies, slanders, vulgarity, racism, corruption and disrespect for democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning. His toxic, pro-kleptocratic dictatorship influence in this is arguably more poisonous than anyone in the last 100 years has been able to inflict. That poison can and might spread from the political authoritarian radical right to the center and left.

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Rudi gets whacked again: 

Defamed Georgia poll workers who won $148M 

from Giuliani sue him again

Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman asked a federal judge to swiftly enforce last week’s massive defamation damages award before Giuliani’s assets are dissipated

Lawyers for the two Georgia election workers who won $148 million in damages from former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani last week filed a new lawsuit Monday, asking a federal judge to order him to stop repeating his damaging debunked claims about the poll workers and to immediately enforce the jury’s massive award before his assets are dissipated.

This is another example of disrespect for the rule of law that DJT and Trumpism has fomented. The pro-dictator jackass Rudi slandered the two women again with the same lies he got whacked for in his first defamation trial. Just showing up for another trial is going to cost Rudi some money. And if he loses again, as one would fully expect because he publicly asserted the same slander he got whacked for the 1st time, that will cost him more.

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Those anti-abortionists are a persistent and feisty lot:

After Ohio Supreme Court dismisses anti-abortion arguments, 

advocates work to unveil total abortion ban

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Anti-abortion advocates say they are working with Ohio lawmakers to put forward a total abortion ban. This comes after the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed the state's appeal to enforce a near-total abortion ban.

Right now, anti-abortion advocate Austin Beigel is working with lawmakers to introduce a total abortion ban. His group, End Abortion Ohio, is a growing coalition of anti-abortion advocates and lobbyists. [They want to] create a total abortion ban, with an exception for the life of the mother. It would make the abortion procedure or abortion pill a homicide. 

The cells, zygote, embryo, fetus and eventually baby-in-womb would have all the same rights as someone who is already born, meaning all criminal and civil laws would apply.

Ohio voters protected abortion rights in the recent election by putting a right to abortion in the state constitution. However, neither public opinion nor the law matters to radical right authoritarian abortion haters in Ohio. They still try to get rid of abortion in their state.

Q: Should the egg and sperm also have all the same rights as someone who is already born? 

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Poll asks whether DJT will be a dictator: 

More than half of all voters believe former President Trump will act like a dictator if reelected to office, according to a new poll.

 
The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that 56 percent of those surveyed at least somewhat agree that Trump, who is the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination, will act like a dictator if given a second term, including almost 40 percent who strongly agree.  

The poll also found that 59 percent of voters believe Democrats are unfairly trying to scare voters over Trump by saying he wants to be a dictator.

That means some rank and file Republican voters will be voting for a person they believe will be a dictator. For the 59% who believe DJT dictator warnings are merely Dem propaganda, they are clueless and/or deceived by authoritarian radical right propaganda.

JWST image of rings of Neptune taken 

with the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera)

Tree rings

News chunks: Normalized hypocrisy & broken government; Capitalism trickles harm down

Above The Law reports a story about ARR (authoritarian radical right) Elon Musk and the ARR GOP's hypocrisy and broken government:

Republicans Are Mad The FCC Rejected Elon Musk’s Attempt To Get A Billion Dollars In Subsidies To Deliver Pricey Satellite Broadband To Some Traffic Medians

You might recall that Elon Musk claims to hate taxpayer subsidies. They should all be “deleted.” Except for the subsidies given to his companies (often for doing nothing), of course.

Back in 2020, Musk’s satellite broadband venture, Starlink, gamed a Trump-era FCC subsidy program to try and grab $886 million in taxpayer dollars. It was a deal consumer groups noted was a huge waste of money, because the proposal itself — which involved bringing expensive satellite broadband to places like airport parking lots and traffic medians — clearly wasn’t the best use of taxpayer funds.

[The Biden administration] expressed concerns that the service might not be affordable to the heavily rural, lower income users most in need of help. Starlink requires a $600 up front equipment fee and costs $110 a month, and data consistently shows that affordability is a key obstacle to broadband adoption.

So this week, the FCC formally finalized its rejection of Starlink’s attempt to grab a billion dollars to deliver satellite broadband to some parking lots.

Republicans like the FCC’s Brendan Carr are already throwing hissy fits because the Biden FCC refused to waste a billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies on an expensive service that doesn’t scale. Carr, as is his way, took a very valid rejection of a wasteful proposal, and distorted it into a narrative where the government is somehow being particularly unfair to Elon Musk:

Even Elon’s mommy popped up to complain that the mean old government is being mean because it refused to give her son a billion dollars for no coherent reason:

It’s worth pointing out that Musk’s company certainly wasn’t alone in trying to game this particular program (the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF) with the Trump FCC and Brendan Carr’s help. The Biden FCC has had to come in and clean up the mess, suing numerous companies that tried to mislead the agency to grab taxpayer money for services they couldn’t actually deliver. All under Carr’s watch.

In fact the Trump FCC and Carr screwed up this particular subsidy program so badly, that when it came time to dole out $42 billion in infrastructure bill broadband funds, the Biden administration leapfrogged the FCC and put the NTIA in charge of managing much of it instead because they no longer trusted the agency’s reputation or competency. So Carr whining about the end result is particularly exhausting.

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Modern brass knuckles capitalism, just like old-fashioned laissez-faire capitalism, hates government, regulations and labor unions. The core guiding moral value is to trickle most of the wealth and power up to a few elites at the top, while trickling most or all of the harm and damage down to society and the environment, including endangered species. The Minnesota Reformer reports an example:

Toxic: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, 

but didn’t tell the public, government

Internal documents show the Minnesota company hid the dangers for decades

3M toxicologist Richard Purdy did a study in 1998 to see whether any of the company’s perfluorochemicals showed up in the blood of eagles and albatrosses.

That seemed unlikely, given the birds’ diet consists mostly of fish. So Purdy was surprised and disturbed when he found levels in their blood similar to those found in human blood. It even showed up in bald eagle nestlings whose only food was fish their parents fed them from remote lakes.

That indicated what Purdy later called “widespread environmental contamination” — the likelihood the manmade, toxic chemicals were moving through the food chain and accumulating in animals.

He told company officials in an email there was a significant risk of ecological harm, which should be reported to the EPA.

In response, 3M managers dispersed the team collecting the data, Purdy alleged.

Purdy resigned in 1999 and sent his resignation letter to the EPA, informing them that while 3M had disclosed to the EPA that a chemical called PFOS “had been found in the blood of animals,” it didn’t mention that it was found in the blood of eaglets.

The per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) had spread — through groundwater and products like Scotchgard stain repellent, Teflon cookware, food wrapping and fire retardant — and were showing up in the blood of people and animals in every corner of the world. They were in nearly every living thing, from house dust to human blood, in wildlife in the Arctic circle and drinking water, rivers, streams and breast milk.

Purdy’s warnings were clear, as revealed by former Attorney General Attorney General Lori Swanson, who sued 3M in 2010, alleging the company failed for decades to report that its chemicals could be toxic to humans, animals and the environment, keeping information from regulators and scientists to protect its lucrative revenue stream.

The morning the case was set to go to trial in 2018, after 22 hours of negotiation, 3M and the state settled. 3M agreed to pay $850 million to help provide Minnesotans clean drinking water.  

But it amounted to just 2.6% of 3M’s nearly $33 billion in revenue in 2018.

The company admitted nothing, and maintains to this day that its chemicals have no adverse health or environmental consequences.

3M spokesman Grant Thompson said in an email that 3M’s position reflects the weight of scientific evidence from decades of research showing exposure to PFOA and PFOS at current and historical levels found in people and the environment has not been shown to cause adverse health effects.

For context, the US government says this:

CDC/ATSDR recognizes that exposure to high levels of PFAS may impact the immune system. A National Toxicology Program review found that exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) is an immune hazard to humans based on a high level of evidence that PFOA and PFOS suppressed the antibody response from animals and a moderate level of evidence from studies in humans (NTP, 2016).

Reality check: Most big corporations are not your friend or the friend of society generally.