Scorn for Fox

In a deposition as part of the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News, Sean Hannity was asked about the claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election.

I did not believe it for one second.

Given how much damage those lies have done to trust in elections, it's infuriating and unconscionable that they would promote actual fake news. Will anyone be held accountable? 

Update (February 26, 2023):  A news organization should report the truth to the best of their ability, but people at Fox News understood their audience didn't want to hear the truth. And so Fox perpetuated election lies even though they knew the truth.

Amanda Marcotte reports on documents produced by Dominion Voting Systems.

"Sidney Powell is lying," host Tucker Carlson texted to fellow host Laura Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020. Powell was a regular Fox News guest who was a primary source of Big Lie allegations.

"Sidney is a complete nut," Ingraham texted back. "Ditto Rudy."

Marcotte notes the Fox defense is that "we hear them" and are showing "respect" for their audience.

To most people, the idea that you "respect" someone by lying to them is nonsensical. But it makes sense if you realize they aren't trying to deceive their audiences, not really. It's more that they are collaborating with their viewers to prop up the narrative the viewers prefer. Since viewers don't care about the truth, but only about winning at any cost, this is a matter of Fox News respecting their wishes.

Update (March 13, 2023):  Katie Phang thinks Fox News is going down.

Fox is now trapped in an ever-worsening spiral of lies of its own creation. ... And the result just might be a financial death penalty for the network.

[P]eople at Fox News allegedly knew the channel was repeatedly peddling lies. But it didn’t care. Because, according to the lawsuit, profits were more important than the truth.

Update (March 30, 2023):  In an email released as part of the defamation suit, Fox CEO Suzanne Scott wants reporter Eric Shawn to stop fact-checking Dear Leader's lies about the 2020 election.

[T]here is a lack of understanding what is happening in these shows. The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material. [This is] bad for business.

Update (April 16, 2023):  The lawsuit is going to trial. Rae Hodge notes:

In the courtroom, the bar Dominion must clear is high. But all those mocking remarks captured in the text and email evidence have led some observers to wonder whether Fox News can prove it didn't act with actual malice.

If Fox News wins this case, it will no doubt be emboldened to repeat its borderline-reckless behavior. If Dominion wins, we need not expect some scary rollback of First Amendment rights. There's at least a chance that this case could begin a revival of the once-treasured fairness doctrine, on the principle that a "news" badge only protects those who wear it honestly.

Update (April 18, 2023):  It's disappointing to learn Dominion settled with Fox just before the opening statements of the trial for $787.5 million--a bit less than half of what they originally asked for. Fortunately, Smartmatic has also filed a lawsuit. 

Dominion's litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox's disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest.

Smartmatic remains committed to clearing its name, recouping the significant damage done to the company, and holding Fox accountable for undermining democracy.

Fusion Breakthrough

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has produced a net energy gain in a fusion reaction. The accomplishment took decades of research. My worry is that some people will assume this solves the climate issue and no other efforts are needed.

According to Daniel Jassby, commercial development won't be anytime soon.

I don’t know if magnetic fusion is ever going to be feasible. Inertial fusion is at least half a century away.

Tony Roulstone says many engineering obstacles remain.

I think the science is great. [But] we don't really know what the power plant would look like.

Update (December 23):  A fact that didn't get highlighted in the initial reporting is that NIF is primarily for military research. Linda Pentz Gunter quotes Edwin Lyman:

This achievement will be far more useful for US nuclear weapon maintenance and "modernization" than for generating clean energy in the foreseeable future.

Update (December 27):  Brian Tokar makes the connection between several hyped climate solutions.

[W]hy all this attention toward the imagined potential for fusion energy? It is yet another attempt by those who believe that only a mega-scaled, technology-intensive approach can be a viable alternative to our current fossil fuel-dependent energy infrastructure. Some of the same interests continue to promote the false claims that a "new generation" of nuclear fission reactors will solve the persistent problems with nuclear power, or that massive-scale capture and burial of carbon dioxide from fossil-fueled power plants will make it possible to perpetuate the fossil-based economy far into the future.

Update (January 27, 2023):  Joshua Frank quotes the LLNL website on the mission of the National Ignition Facility:

NIF's high energy density and inertial confinement fusion experiments, coupled with the increasingly sophisticated simulations available from some of the world's most powerful supercomputers, increase our understanding of weapon physics.

On-going Threats to Democracy

While the worst results were avoided in this year's election, Jessica Goodheart outlines six areas of concern:

1. An election system that can be subverted

2. A media ecosystem that breeds disinformation and mistrust in elections

3. Concerted attempts to undermine the voting process

4. Gerrymandering leading to partisan minority rule

5. Laws that limit who votes

6. Upcoming Supreme Court rulings that could upend elections

Regarding Moore v. Harper, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has a very simple question:

I don’t understand how you can cut the state constitution out of the equation when it is giving the state legislature authority to exercise the legislative power.

Update (December 12):  And just to underscore the threat we face, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has an "interesting" take on the January 6 insurrection.

If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.

Of course, after sharp condemnation, it turns out to be a "joke".

The White House needs to learn how sarcasm works. My comments were making fun of Joe Biden and the Democrats, who have continuously made me a political target since January 6th.

Update (December 13):  Talking Points Memo released hundreds of text messages involving Mark Meadows. Representative Ralph Norman sent this message to Meadows on January 17, 2021:

Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! [sic] PLEASE URGE THE PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!

And Representative Jamie Raskin didn't find Greene's "joke" very funny.

If you and Bannon organized the violent insurrection against our government on 1/6 you'd be going to jail with everyone else convicted of seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to interfere with a federal proceeding. These are crimes, not stupid laugh lines.

Update (January 15, 2023):  Republicans across the country filed almost as many lawsuits over election results in 2022 as 2020. Marc Elias has an explanation. 

Republicans found themselves unable to persuade a majority of the electorate to support their candidates. This sparked a conviction among many on the right that their best hope to win elections rested on restricting who can vote and shaping the electorate.

Conviction

Five "Oath Keepers" on trial for activities related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection were found guilty on multiple charges. Two were convicted of seditious conspiracy, including the founder Stewart Rhodes.

Harry Litman:

The effect of these guilty verdicts, in a trial conducted with thoroughness and care, will be to marginalize the apologists for January 6. They can’t help but look more and more like wingnuts or monsters now, inveighing against what a critical mass of society has accepted and denying a jury’s account that squares with what the whole country saw in real time.

In probably related news, good ol' Orangeman makes his January 6 intentions regarding the 2020 election crystal clear.

A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.

Voting For Democracy

Though control of the House of Representatives and Senate is still not decided, Senator Mark Kelly's win means Republicans need the last two undecided races to win control and the Georgia runoff isn't until December 6.

There is a small chance Democrats could keep control of the House, but more likely is a split Congress and maybe gridlock is the best we can hope for these days.

But Amanda Marcotte points to a positive aspect:

Americans voted in an astonishingly high turnout election. They also did serious damage to [Dear Leader's] best — and possibly only — path toward illegally installing himself in the White House in 2024.

[He] tried to install people into powerful offices who could steal the election for him. And most of them have lost. It doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet. If it's close enough in 2024, he may only need to steal one state in order to pull off a coup.

And John Stoehr notes that flipping Congress in a midterm election is really a more recent phenomenon (a party can often lose many seats without losing control). 

[T]he conventional wisdom, based on [recent] electoral patterns, said the Republicans would wipe out the Democrats the way they did in 2010.

Then something happened.

Whatever it was (the fall of Roe, probably, and/or the J6 insurrection), it pushed 2 percent of white women, who are unaffiliated with either party, to choose Democratic candidates.

These are respectable white people. These are the Americans who determine which party establishes and maintains a political regime. The GOP has lost the support of respectable white people in a year when they would normally rely on them. If they don’t have that support now, they won’t have that support two years from now.

I'm not sure I'm as optimistic that we're in "a new regime in which a majority favors the ideas and policies of the Democrats over those of the Republicans", but the Republicans built in all kinds of advantages (gerrymandering, etc) and will just barely win the House. It's possible our polarized standoff may last for years to come, but perhaps the transition is in motion. Unfortunately, urgent issues don't allow the luxury of much time.

Update (November 13):  Democrats have retained control of the Senate with Senator Catherine Cortez Masto's win in Nevada.

But Chauncey DeVega reminds us that the fascists are not yet defeated.

In a reasonable society, the Republican Party would have been utterly vanquished or driven to the political margins, but instead it retains its cult-like hold on tens of millions of white Americans. The midterms represented a welcome setback for their movement, but have not altered that fundamental fact.

Update (November 16):  Republicans are projected to win control of the House of Representatives. So, that sucks. 

Update (December 10):  Senator Warnock was re-elected in Georgia, but Senator Sinema mucks things up by switching to "independent" in party affiliation. The Senate will still have a chance to do more useful things than investigate Hunter Biden.

A Defeat for Authoritarianism

It's close, but it's also a win for the global environment.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, defeating far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in a heated contest during which the incumbent repeatedly threatened to dismantle the world’s fourth-largest democracy.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal called the race for da Silva just before 7 p.m. Eastern time, with the leftist holding a narrow 50.83% to 48.17% lead with more than 98% of votes counted.

Record GHG Concentrations

The World Meteorological Organization reports that greenhouse gas concentrations reached the highest levels since records began.

WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin reported the biggest year-on-year jump in methane concentrations in 2021 since systematic measurements began nearly 40 years ago. The reason for this exceptional increase is not clear, but seems to be a result of both biological and human-induced processes.

The increase in carbon dioxide levels from 2020 to 2021 was larger than the average annual growth rate over the last decade. Measurements from WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch network stations show that these levels continues to rise in 2022 over the whole globe.

Between 1990 and 2021, the warming effect on our climate (known as radiative forcing) by long-lived greenhouse gases rose by nearly 50%, with carbon dioxide accounting for about 80% of this increase.

Carbon dioxide concentrations in 2021 were 415.7 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1908 parts per billion (ppb) and nitrous oxide at 334.5 ppb. These values constitute, respectively, 149%, 262% and 124% of pre-industrial levels before human activities started disrupting natural equilibrium of these gases in the atmosphere.

Needless to say, the Emissions Gap report from the United Nations Environment Programme describes global efforts to reduce carbon pollution "highly inadequate".

Update (November 4):  A study published in PLOS finds an interesting, though implausible, result.

The worldwide phase out of animal agriculture, combined with a global switch to a plant-based diet, would effectively halt the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases for 30 years and give humanity more time to end its reliance on fossil fuels.

[E]ven in the absence of any other emission reductions, persistent drops in atmospheric methane and nitrous oxide levels, and slower carbon dioxide accumulation, following a phaseout of livestock production would, through the end of the century, have the same cumulative effect on the warming potential of the atmosphere as a 25 gigaton per year reduction in anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, providing half of the net emission reductions necessary to limit warming to 2°C.

Update (November 6):  WMO further reports that the past eight years are the warmest period on record.

The global mean temperature in 2022 is currently estimated to be about 1.15 [1.02 to 1.28] °C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

Update (December 10):  In conjunction with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Washington Post examined 1200 scenarios produced by climate models. Pathways to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celcius by 2100 narrow as realistic assumptions are considered. And those generally include dramatic carbon dioxide removal or significant overshoot of 1.5 degrees until temperatures come back down late in the century.

Not everybody will agree with these models — or, the cutoffs imposed by the Potsdam Institute researchers. Some experts are more optimistic about technology and humanity’s ability to innovate. Others point out that it is easy to imagine countries failing to achieve what is necessary to stay below 2C at all.

In the end, these are simply well-informed models of how the world will work. What’s more, we still have a limited understanding of how the climate system will respond to emissions.

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference late last month, world leaders reaffirmed the 1.5C goal. But these scenarios show that without dramatic action — action the leaders did not commit to taking — it most likely will not be possible.

The Evils of Capitalism

A study published in World Development disputes the notion that capitalism has produced a dramatic decrease in extreme poverty over the past 200 years.

The rise of capitalism caused a dramatic deterioration of human welfare. In all regions studied here, incorporation into the capitalist world-system was associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality. In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, key welfare metrics have still not recovered.

Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began several centuries after the rise of capitalism. In the core regions of Northwest Europe, progress began in the 1880s, while in the periphery and semi-periphery it began in the mid-20th century, a period characterized by the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements that redistributed incomes and established public provisioning systems.

Future Tipping

A study published in Science updates previous climate tipping point analyses. Greater amounts of warming lead to additional irreversible changes and any effort to reduce emissions matters.

Current global warming of ~1.1°C above pre-industrial already lies within the lower end of five CTP uncertainty ranges. Six CTPs become likely (with a further four possible) within the Paris Agreement range of 1.5 to <2°C warming, including collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, die-off of low-latitude coral reefs, and widespread abrupt permafrost thaw. An additional CTP becomes likely and another three possible at the ~2.6°C of warming expected under current policies.

Currently the world is heading toward ~2 to 3°C of global warming; at best, if all net-zero pledges and nationally determined contributions are implemented it could reach just below 2°C. This would lower tipping point risks somewhat but would still be dangerous as it could trigger multiple climate tipping points.

Update (September 23):  Simon Clark calls it the "scariest climate science paper" he's read. 

Update (October 2):  The report Climate Dominoes published by Breakthrough - National Centre for Climate Restoration concludes:

At just 1.2°C of global average warming, tipping points have been passed for several large Earth systems. These include Arctic sea ice, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Amundsen Sea glaciers in West Antarctica, the eastern Amazonian rainforest, and the world’s coral systems. The world will warm to 1.5°C by around 2030 with additional warming well beyond 1.5°C in the system after that. Yet even at the current level of warming, these systems will continue to move to qualitatively different states. In most cases, strong positive feedbacks are driving abrupt change. At higher levels of warming, the rate of change will quicken. The meme that "we have eight years to avoid 1.5°C and tipping points" should be deleted from the climate advocacy vocabulary. It is simply wrong: 1.5°C will be reached around 2030 regardless of the emissions path, and some tipping points are already here.

Update (December 12, 2023):  The Global Tipping Points report shows that five thresholds have been exceeded with three more possible if warming goes past 1.5 degrees Celsius.  

More Than One Can Bear

I'm in a reading group for Speed & Scale by the venture capitalist John Doerr. The book does emphasize the urgency of reducing carbon emissions and the need for scale which is often overlooked when exciting new technologies are proposed. The numbers "add up" in a general sense, but any details are quickly overwhelming--how much of this plan is truly politically and technically possible?

And so I come across more and more material addressing the sense that humans need to come to terms with the situation we have created. It's not a new point of view to me. But some lessons need to be repeated to be understood. A video by Michael Dowd, "Hopium Dealers Hall of Fame", quotes William Catton from Overshoot:

Ecological understanding of the human predicament indicates that we live in times when the American habit of responding to a problem by asking "All right, now what do we do about it?" must be replaced by a different query that does not assume all problems are soluble: "What must we avoid doing to keep from making a bad situation unnecessarily worse?"

The video "Blip" by Chris Clugston highlights the coming end of humanity's overconsumption of non-renewable resources. For example, simply switching to electric vehicles (as promoted by the Inflation Reduction Act) does nothing to alter an unsustainable way of life. Books like An Inconvenient Apocalypse by Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen and Power by Richard Heinberg warn against "technological fundamentalism" and point to the need to learn to live within limits.

Even an exploration of animal intelligence, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal by Justin Gregg, expresses the paradox that humans may ultimately be a less successful species specifically due to our complex intelligence.

It is still quite difficult to imagine that a collapse is likely. The Covid pandemic already seems challenging enough--what will people do as life gets progressively worse for us all? Already, a single person can have enough of a following to credibly threaten violence--can we really produce the levels of cooperation needed to avoid the worst outcomes?

I find death hard to talk about. I know it's there, but I don't want to think about it. It's so easy to go day to day as if time just didn't matter. My mom's death seemed to come faster than I expected. There's just no way to know the timing. It feels more important, but not easy, to be prepared. Elizabeth West offers "Learning How to Die: Finding Meaning in the Midst of Collapse".

If we tell ourselves the truth, we know that things will never "get back to normal".

[I]n everyone’s personal life—and now in the life of the Earth– there comes a point when a convergence of natural forces relays the message that we are no longer the master of our physical fate.

We are now primarily in the realm of palliative measures. I continue to bow—with profound respect– to the activists who are using their lives, possibly their last breaths, to defend pieces of this beautiful planet and the various worthy species (including our own), to soften suffering, or to call for justice, but I no longer hold out hope for any sweeping worldly victories. And with that recognition, I find myself asking: What is my role? How can I do this well? How do I find meaningful direction in the midst of this often frightening process of dissolution?

Of course there is grief –and anger–when we contemplate the loss, the suffering. And it all must be honored. But if these are allowed to overtake us, if despair and hopelessness are left to eclipse all else, then we may miss our opportunity to prise from this process all that It has to offer, to transcend our egos’ addiction to survival at all cost, to become who we always believed we could be, to live as if each breath and each thought and each word matters. We may miss the only chance we have to learn to die well.

Even as you attend to the mundane, using whatever tools you need to stay afloat, go ahead and learn how to die. Start by taking the radical step of showing up, heart open to all that is, even and especially when so much is dying around you. Resist the instinct to flee, fight or freeze. This is not about surviving, it is about living. While the world we have known dies.

Using the F-word

Amanda Marcotte praises President Biden for acknowledging what most people avoid saying out loud.

What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It's not just [Fuckface], it's the entire philosophy that underpins the — I'm going to say something — it's like semi-fascism.

Marcotte argues that an honest discussion of the threat to democracy needs to be blunt.

Yes, a lot of Republicans are not personally invested in a fascist ideology but are merely conservatives who go along with [Dear Leader] to maintain their own power.

The first step to getting people to wake up is chipping away at the wall of denial that fascism could happen in America. Just hearing the word used a lot in respect to American politics will help whittle away that defensive head-in-the-sand reaction.

Update (August 29):  Heather Digby Parton notes that toadies such as Senator Lindsey Graham are echoing Dear Leader's threats.

The fact that [Fuckface] is leveraging this particular power to incite violence around these legal cases is a sign of weakness. He cannot persuade anyone who isn't already persuaded and party officials are with him only out of fear or as long as he is useful to them. Calling for riots in the streets is a nuclear option that may or may not detonate the way he thinks it will. But it has the potential to blow the country apart either way.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre points out that Graham's "riots in the streets" comment proves Biden's point.

We have seen MAGA Republicans attack our democracy. We have seen MAGA Republicans take away our rights. Make threats of violence, including this weekend [by Senator Graham], and that is what the president was referring to when you all asked me last week about the "semi-fascism" comment.

Update (August 31):  Amanda Marcotte argues that prosecution is the best way to counter threats of violence.

[Fuckface] is leveraging the fears of another January 6 — or worse — in hopes that it will intimidate law enforcement into backing down and letting him commit crimes, even possible espionage, in peace.

[Dear Leader's supporters are] entranced by his apparently bottomless power to rewrite reality and force others, including federal law enforcement, to kowtow to his lies. ... [But that] power is built on sand. Once his backers feel he's lost his magical ability to impose his will over reality, they will stop being so into him.

And John Stoehr defends Biden's language.

If the president says some of the Republicans are fascist, and that the soul of democracy is at stake in the coming midterms, that probably indicates that he believes a majority of Americans is behind him. (It indicates, especially, that respectable white people are behind him.) I can’t imagine him using the "f-word" if he thought for a millisecond that using it jeopardized the Democrats’ majorities in the Congress.

Update (September 1):  William Saletan also defends using the "f-word".

Biden was right. Many of the ideas and tactics deployed by [Dear Leader] and his apologists, including those who decry Biden’s comparison, fit the dictionary definition of fascism.

[His] cult includes many components common to previous fascist movements—paranoia, fantastic lies, anti-intellectualism, a mythologized national past, selective appeals to law and order, and propaganda about enemies of the state.

Saletan describes many instances falling under that definition. Using "emergency powers to override the will of Congress" over the border wall. Discussions to seize voting machines. Endorsing calls for political violence. Attempting to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Embracing authoritarian leaders such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. As usual, the Right points to the Left as the real fascists.

Update (September 2):  President Biden didn't use the "f-word" again, but he did give a warning.

For a long time, we've reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us. MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people and refuse to accept the results of a free election.

Heather Digby Parton isn't at all surprised by the resulting GOP hissy fit.

[Referring to Biden as] Satanic, Hitler, Nazi, that's all fine. Just don't call [them] semi-fascist. That would be wrong, very wrong.

And Amanda Marcotte critisizes journalists who boil everything down to partisanship.

Do they level with their readers and tell them Biden is telling the unvarnished truth? Or do they sidestep the issue of what is true, in favor of the usual "he said/he said" coverage that refuses to adjudicate, even when one side is plainly lying?

Update (September 7):  Paul Street doesn't hesitate to call out fascists--no "semi" required. He takes issue with Biden's basic remedy of merely voting for Democrats.

Do what you want for two minutes in a ballot booth once every two and/or four years but the historical record is clear as day: in the absence of militant people's movements beneath and beyond the holy ruling class electoral spectacles, nothing progressive is going to be achieved and Democrats in nominal power will consistently give way to officeholders from a major capitalist party that has crossed into fascist space.

Update (September 9):  Amanda Marcotte notes that 58 percent of Americans agree with the president's warning.

Biden is betting that a significant chunk of Republicans are harboring doubts about [Orangeman]. The polling suggests this suspicion has some merit. One out of four Republicans polled by Reuters agreed that [Dear Leader] and MAGA are a threat to democracy. True, that's only a minority of Republicans and far from the "mainstream" of the party. But Republicans still need those voters to win elections. If they start to lose some of those folks because of [Fuckface], it could go a long way towards weakening [his] power and derailing the MAGA movement.

Mineral Shortages

A study by Simon Michaux titled "The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth" finds that renewable energy technology is facing practical limits from the availability of necessary elements.

It is clear that society consumes more mineral resources each year. It is also clear that society does not really understand its dependency on minerals to function. The recycling industry is still in its infancy and is only just gaining momentum. Even when fully developed, industrial recycling cannot facilitate the transformation of the industrial ecosystem as a single solution. The mining of minerals is not only necessary in parallel to a fully developed recycling network but will be needed at an unprecedented volume to supply the construction of the post fossil fuel industrial system. Availability of minerals could be an issue in the future, where it becomes too expensive to extract metals due to decreasing grade. Discovery of new deposits is also decreasing.

Arctic Amplification

From a paper published in Communications Earth & Environment titled "The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979":

[W]e show, by using several observational datasets which cover the Arctic region, that during the last 43 years the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the globe, which is a higher ratio than generally reported in literature.

In addition, some Arctic regions have warmed as much as seven times the global average. 

Update (August 15):  Jonathan Bamber discusses the implications of the findings.

Although there are some regional differences in the magnitude of Arctic amplification, the observed pace of Arctic warming is far higher than the models implied. This brings us perilously close to key climate thresholds that if passed will have global consequences.

Build Back Something

Senate Democrats apparently outsmarted Mitch McConnell and agreed on an "Inflation Reduction Act" that includes $369 billion in clean energy investments. While Senator Brian Schatz calls it the "biggest climate action in human history", it's been criticized as a "climate suicide pact" by Brett Hartl with the Center for Biological Diversity for requiring new oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaska.

It’s self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it’s a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels.

We can’t let the renewable energy transition be held hostage by fossil fuel companies. The Manchin bill is a devil’s bargain that ignores science and locks us into at least a decade of new oil and gas extraction. There’s a way forward that doesn’t spew more greenhouse gas pollution into the air and harm frontline communities, and it means eliminating these giveaways to the fossil-fuel industry.

This legislation may be a mixed bag and it's already greatly scaled back from initial proposals. Is there the political will to do more? Anthony DiMaggio has conducted polls of people who have experienced extreme weather events.

[M]y survey findings should provide environmental activists some encouragement. They suggest that the public is increasingly waking up to the severity of the threat at hand. People's real-life experiences with extreme weather are acting as a catalyst driving support for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and will likely fuel rising support for action in the future as the climate crisis worsens.

Writing about record high temperatures in England, George Monbiot wonders if we can "reach the social tipping point before we hit the environmental tipping point" given that we know what really needs to be done.

Let’s stop lying to ourselves and others by pretending that small measures deliver major change. Let’s abandon the timidity and tokenism. Let’s stop bringing buckets of water when only fire engines will do.

Update (August 1):  While proponents claim IRA will reduce emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (estimated to be a 20 percent reduction in the absence of this bill), it seems the oil industry views the bill as a mixed bag as well. For example, they are all for the new oil and gas leasing, but concerned about the electric vehicle subsidies and the 15 percent minimum corporate tax. Perhaps this is what political compromise is all about. It's only the future of civilization at stake.

Update (August 2):  Julia Kane, Emily Pontecorvo, and Zoya Teirstein quote Adam Orford that IRA is an "overall positive", but

experts are concerned that the permitting legislation Democrats promised to pass in a few months could make it easier for companies to get fossil fuel infrastructure approved more quickly.

And, of course, it only takes one Democrat to torpedo the whole thing--even Manchin might not be above wrecking his own bill. 

Jake Johnson quotes Lauren Pagel.

The world is on fire and Congress is attacking it with a squirt gun while giving Senator Manchin and fossil fuel executives more matches by fast-tracking oil and gas drilling and hydrogen boondoggles. Drilling for oil and gas is no solution to the climate crisis.

Noah Berlatsky acknowledges a number of shortcomings in the bill. 

However, climate advocates in general see these concessions as a small price to pay for what is in other respects easily the most substantial effort to fight global warming in US history.

Update (August 4):  Food and Water Watch criticizes Manchin's "side deal".

Creating new wind and solar tax credits while giving fossil fuel polluters a green light is the ultimate devil’s bargain. Lawmakers must speak up strongly and swiftly against this massive rollback of public health and environmental protections that will fast track fossil fuel projects.

But who knows, maybe Senator Sinema will decide the rich need to keep their tax loophole and vote down the whole thing. (A short time later) Looks like Sinema got enough changes to vote in favor.

Update (August 7):  The Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate 50 to 50 with Vice President Harris casting the tie-breaker vote.

Update (August 9):  Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was determined to get a bill passed.

I told my caucus all along, including the most pro-environmental people, that we’re going to have to swallow some bad stuff to get good stuff.

Update (August 12):  The Inflation Reduction Act passed the House of Representatives 220 to 207. Robert Hunziker notes the urgency of our situation.

The entire planet is reeling from global warming. America’s modest couple hundred billion climate plan is a drop in the world’s bucket.

Update (August 15):  The more I read about this law, the more problems it seems to have. Incentives for carbon capture account for one-sixth to one-fifth of projected emissions reductions. Prices per ton go up for both carbon capture with storage as well as capture for use in enhanced oil recovery (though up not as much). Storage would also require the construction of thousands of miles of pipeline.

In addition, it's possible many electric vehicles will be ineligible for incentives.

[IRA] requires that new electric vehicles meet stringent sourcing requirements for critical materials, the components of the battery, and final assembly to qualify for the tax credits. While some automakers, like Tesla and GM, have well-developed domestic supply chains, no electric vehicle manufacturer currently meets all the bill’s requirements.

Update (August 16):  As President Biden signs the bill into law, I'm glad that activists such as Lisa Frank are tempering celebration with a dose of reality.

[This law is] a start to, not the culmination of, our work to reduce global warming pollution and ensure clean air, clean water, and the preservation of open spaces.

And Representative Rashida Tlaib promises to work against the noxious "side deal" which requires a separate vote.

[H]andshake deals made by others in closed rooms do not dictate how I vote, and we sure as hell don't owe Joe Manchin anything now.

He and his fossil fuel donors already got far too much in the IRA.

Update (August 18):  Carl Pope offers three steps to follow up on IRA.

Recapture fugitive methane, amounting to more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Leapfrog over 100 gigawatts of unneeded, polluting gas power plants. Replace coal-burning plants with more solar and wind instead.

Electrify cars and trucks, and make electric vehicles a cleaner and more reliable option in every zip code.

Update (September 9):  Progressives in Congress are pushing back against the Manchin "side deal". The plan is to include it in the continuing resolution that keeps the government funded past the end of the fiscal year.

Update (September 27):  Senator Manchin's "side deal" has been removed from the continuing resolution.

Update (October 6):  Liane Schalatek gives an overview of the IRA. And Basav Sen notes that the "side deal" isn't quite dead.

Increasing Risk of Collapse

A report from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction points out a growing probability of civilizational collapse.

Despite progress, risk creation is outstripping risk reduction. Disasters, economic loss and the underlying vulnerabilities that drive risk, such as poverty and inequality, are increasing just as ecosystems and biospheres are at risk of collapse.

Nafeez Ahmed highlights the significance.

[This report] is the first time that the United Nations has clearly underscored the impending risk of "total societal collapse" if the human system continues to cross the planetary boundaries critical to maintaining a safe operating space for the earth system.

Yet, despite this urgent warning, not only has it fallen on deaf ears, the UN itself appears to have diluted its own findings. Like the fictional film Don’t Look Up, we are more concerned with celebrity gossip and political scandals, seemingly unable – or unwilling – to confront the most important challenge that now faces us as a species.

Either way, these UN documents show that recognising the risk of collapse is not about doom-mongering, but about understanding risks so we can make better choices and avoid worst-case outcomes. As the report acknowledges, there is still much that can be done. But the time for action is not after 2030. It’s now.

Update (August 1):  A paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds a lack of investigation into the potential impacts of famine, extreme weather, war and disease due to climate change.

Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe. Analyzing the mechanisms for these extreme consequences could help galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform policy, including emergency responses.

Villainy

In just one of a series of despicable decisions, the Supreme Court gutted the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions.

The court ruled that EPA regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions under a specific provision of the 1970 Clean Air Act are not permissible because Congress did not specifically authorize the EPA to regulate carbon emissions.

According to the court, the EPA’s regulation of power plant emissions amounts to a large enough new regulatory proposal targeting a large enough segment of the economy to require specific congressional authorization.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent. 

Today, the court strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to the most pressing environmental challenge of our time. The Court appoints itself— instead of Congress or the expert agency— the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.

Robert Rohde notes the greater implication. 

The immediate issue is the limits of the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. The broader issue is the ability of federal agencies to regulate anything at all.

Update (July 4):  Thom Hartmann notes the worst may be yet to come in a Fall case before the Court.

[The Independent State Legislature Doctrine]—the basis of John Eastman and [Dear Leader's] effort to get states to submit multiple slates of electors—asserts that a plain reading of Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution says that each state's legislature has final say in which candidate gets their states' Electoral College vote, governors and the will of the voters be damned.

Republicans point out that the Constitution says that it's up to the states—"in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct"—to decide which presidential candidate gets their Electoral College votes.

But the Electoral Count Act requires a governor's sign-off, and half [of the battleground] states have Democratic governors. Which has precedence, the Constitution or the Act?

Confronting Horror

Chauncey DeVega argues Dear Leader is the culmination of a decades long conservative backlash.

As part of that long-term assault, most or all the historic victories of the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the gay rights movement, the labor and environmental movements and other struggles for human dignity and a more just society are being rolled back. If this project succeeds, America's already threadbare social safety net will be virtually eliminated. White Christian fascists and corporate plutocrats will forge a ruling coalition with near-total dominion over American life and society. The separation of church and state, along with the guarantee of free speech and most of the Bill of Rights, will disappear.

He quotes Wajahat Ali.

If you believe that there is a "team normal" in the modern GOP, then you'll also probably believe that fewer doors and arming teachers will reduce mass gun shootings, banning books will save your child from being transgender, and climate change is a hoax created by China.

Either way, you're not acknowledging that the GOP is now a weaponized cult that no longer produces "rational" Republicans, but instead caters to the festering, fevered paranoid swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories and white supremacist ideologies. This persistent right-wing disinformation has now radicalized its base, in which many members believe violence is necessary to "take back" their country. The reality is that Team Normal and Team Crazy both play for the GOP, wear the same uniforms, and, for now, worship the golden calf known as [Fuckface].

Political problems go far deeper than one person.

In reality, [Dear Leader] — as a man, a symbol and a political leader — and everything he embodies is the product of our society, driven by extreme social inequality, consumerism and greed, unfulfilled dreams, widespread alienation and loneliness, anti-intellectualism, racism and white supremacy, the cult of the spectacle, our fetish for violence and a range of related antisocial and anti-human values and tendencies.

DeVega also quotes Chris Hedges on how traditional politics has failed.

The ruling parties were already in lockstep for decades on the major issues, including: war, trade deals, austerity, the militarization of police, prisons, government surveillance and assaults on civil liberties. They worked in tandem to pervert and destroy democratic institutions on behalf of the rich and corporations.

I appreciate efforts to reduce polarization. It is important to understand how the currect system has pushed so many people toward authoritarianism. We need to build greater understanding of "both sides". The question is whether those entangled in creating the situation are in a position to lead us out of it. 

The Whole World Should Be Watching

The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol started a series of hearings to make the case for a conspiracy to hold on to power. Dear Leader was called out for his lies about the election and for inspiring right wing extremists to try to stop Congress from certifying the election.

I'm hoping some accountability can come out of this. A report from the Brookings Institution argues that Fuckface definitely had criminal intent. Noah Bookbinder and Norman Eisen:

We already have a clear foundation for demonstrating [von Clownstick's] corrupt intent: his long-established pattern of crying "fraud" to undermine results he didn't like.

[His] claims of fraud were not in response to reports or evidence. They were not in response to a genuine concern about our democracy. Before the first ballot was even cast, [his] team was prepared to mount a baseless offensive that supported the conclusion they wanted to reach.

Update (June 10):  Marita Vlachou lists ten key moments from the hearing.

Then Attorney General William Barr told [Orangeman] his claims the election was stolen were "bullshit".

[Daughter] told the committee she was "affected" by Barr’s comments.

[His] campaign staff told the former president he had lost the election.

[Son-in-law] dismissed White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s threats to resign as "whining".

[Manbaby] cheered supporters wanting to hang Mike Pence.

The committee released never-before-seen brutal video of violence at the U.S. Capitol.

Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn shed tears while watching videos of the riots.

Proud Boy said membership "tripled probably" following [Fuckface] comment in presidential debate.

Officer Edwards described "the carnage" and "absolute war zone" outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Capitol rioters said they were invited by [Dear Leader].

Also, Heather Digby Parton considers the seven-part plan to overturn the election refered to by Representative Liz Cheney and outlined by CNN:

[The former guy] engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to the American public claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him. 

[He] corruptly planned to replace the acting attorney general, so that the Department of Justice would support his fake election claims. 

[He] corruptly pressured Vice President Pence to refuse to count certified electoral votes in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the law. 

[He] corruptly pressured state election officials, and state legislators, to change election results. 

[His] legal team and other associates instructed Republicans in multiple states to create false electoral slates and transmit those slates to Congress and the National Archives. 

[He] summoned and assembled a violent mob in Washington and directed them to march on the U.S. Capitol. 

As the violence was underway, [Fuckface] ignored multiple pleas for assistance and failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol.

Parton expects a flood of damning detail to come. 

[Dear Leader] staged a coup attempt, and Republican officials have known this from the beginning. But after a brief moment of common sense and decency, they reverted to type and excused it, defended it and even endorsed it.

As Cheney said, "There will come a day when [this asshole] is gone, but your dishonor will remain."

Update (June 11):  Jeff Sharlet doubts the hearings can correct a massive divide.

[T]o my ear the tone of the first hearing was elegiac. A lament, an expression of longing, a wish that it had been and will be otherwise, threaded with the knowledge that it likely will not. There's little chance the hearings will result in even some small justice, much less bind the nation back into the functioning democracy that in truth it never has quite been.

[F]or all of its precision and sorrow, the hearing could only measure the smallness of the question left to it to answer: What happened on Jan. 6, 2021? What is happening now meanwhile, with American fascism strangling backroads like knotweed or kudzu ... the hearing could not speak to.

At one point Cheney noted that the insurrection raged before a painting of George Washington "voluntarily relinquishing power". A "noble act," she insisted. I could almost hear [Dear Leader] in front of his TV in Mar-a-Lago, sneering at the first president: "What a loser." George Washington, Liz Cheney, all of us watching and listening to the hearings as if the illness [Fuckface] made fully manifest — the many-colored [flags of] hate flying in the night breeze [everywhere] — might still somehow be quarantined to that one terrible day in January.

Update (June 14):  Ryan Grenoble lists seven key moments from the second hearing. 

Senior staffers said [Dear Leader] rejected their advice and listened to a drunk Rudy Giuliani instead.

Former Fox News political editor: [von Clownstick] claimed victory based on a "red mirage".

William Barr: Claims about defective voting machines were "complete nonsense".

Bill Stepien: [Manbaby] ran a "structurally and fiscally deficient" reelection campaign.

[The former guy's] mind was "made up" on mail-in ballots, regardless of the evidence, Stepien said.

Investigators said the "Big Lie" was a big windfall for [Fuckface].

The Justice Department looked into Giuliani and [Orangeman's] fraud allegations in swing states and found nothing.

Update (June 15):  Paul Street quotes Laurence Tribe on Merrick Garland's difficult decision over accountability.

Many people are telling [Garland] it would cause deep unrest, violent reaction, maybe even civil war for the popular former president to be indicted. What he’ll have to do is ask whether the costs to the country in terms of having this repeat itself and in terms of having us absolutely go down the tubes as a democracy, whether those outcomes outweigh the undoubted complicated costs of indicting a former president.

Street responds:

Does Tribe think "violent unrest" and "even civil war" is any less likely if Garland takes the cowardly path?

The negative historian lesson – likely to be avoided in mainstream US media-politics culture because of the doctrinal American Exceptionalist belief that "it can’t happen here" – is Adolph Hitler getting off lightly and continuing on as a major political actor seeking to Make Germany Great Again after the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1924.

Update (June 16):  In a third hearing, evidence was presented that John Eastman pressured Vice President Mike Pence multiple times to implement a plan to overturn the Electoral College vote. The pressure continued even after Congress resumed the certification process. 

Once the riot at the Capitol ended, Eastman again emailed [Pence counsel Greg] Jacob to say the vice president should refuse to certify the election and send it back to the states.

Fuckface also poured it on, calling Pence in the morning of January 6 and refering to him as a pussy. Dear Leader blasted Pence in a tweet as the insurrection was taking place with an informant testifying that the Proud Boys "would have killed Mike Pence if given the chance".

Lindsay Beyerstein notes an email exchange during the attack:

"And thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege," Jacob wrote to Eastman from the secure location.

Eastman shot back that the siege was happening "because you and your boss did not do what was necessary."

There you have it in Eastman's own words: the mob stormed the Capitol because Pence refused to play his assigned role in the coup.

Eventually, Eastman decided he needed protection from his actions.

There's likely a long list of pardon requests, including from members of Congress.

Lydia O'Connor lists ten key moments from the third hearing.

Eastman told [von Clownstick] their plan was illegal, a Pence aide said.

Eastman knew the other legislative branches would dismantle their scheme.

Eastman reportedly shrugged off the possibility of inciting a riot.

Eastman asked for a pardon after the attack.

Despite [the former guy's] claims otherwise, Pence allegedly told him "many times" he disagreed with him.

Weeks before the riot, Pence thought he didn’t have the power to overturn the vote, his aide said.

[Fuckface] snapped at Pence in the heat of their Jan. 6 disagreement, according to [his daughter].

The mob got dangerously close to Pence.

The crowd surged when [Dear Leader] tweeted his anger at Pence.

A Pence adviser said he believes [Manbaby] remains a threat to democracy.

Update (June 17):  Heather Digby Parton theorizes there was more to the planned coup.

[T]estimony strongly suggests that [Eastman and Fuckface] were well prepared for, perhaps even anticipating, violence as a result of their actions.

[It suggests] a plan to invoke the [Insurrection Act] after Pence overturned the election, inciting expected street protests from the people whose votes had just been discarded and whose democracy had just been incinerated. This would have given [Dear Leader] the excuse he needed to solidify his coup with a classic military intervention.

Update (June 19):  Glenn Kirschner argues Dear Leader should be charged with treason.

[There are] five data points that I think demonstrate [Fuckface] levied war against the United States--that's the very definition of treason: whoever owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them, the United States, is guilty of treason.

He recruited the Proud Boys and others, "stand back and stand by", await before their orders.

He set the date for the Capitol attack: "come to DC January 6th, will be wild".

He deployed them, and he gave the order: "go to the Capitol, fight like hell or you won't have a country anymore", go stop the certification. He used the word "steal", which is helpful because it helps expose his corrupt intent.

He then sat in the White House dining room for three hours, watching the attack with people streaming in begging him to call off his attack dogs and he wouldn't.

And we know they asked him to send reinforcements to the Capitol to defend the people who were under attack and he refused. Mike Pence finally had to give the order to send reinforcements, an order he may not have been authorized to give. And now we know [the former guy] also sided with the supporters, saying maybe Mike Pence should be hanged.

As Judge J. Michael Luttig testified:

A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge.

America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other – over our democracy.

Almost two years after that fateful day … [Dear Leader] and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. (emphasis added)

That’s not because of what happened on January 6. It is because to this very day the former president and his allies and supporters pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican party presidential candidate were to lose that election, they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.

Update (June 20):  In an interview with Isaac Chotiner, Barbara McQuade discusses prosecutorial discretion.

Some of the things they need to think about are: What precedent does this set? Will we become a country where every new President files charges against their predecessor? That’s not good for the country. What kind of distraction is this in a world where we need to pay attention to things like climate change, and a pandemic, and hostile foreign adversaries? If we are spending the next couple of years on this case, is it really in the best interest of the country? Could it result in civil unrest or even civil war? All of those questions need to be answered.

On the other hand, to not hold him accountable, to not file charges, might be even worse because one of the reasons we punish people criminally is to deter them and others from doing it again in the future. And, if you don’t hold them accountable, will people just keep trying to do this?

Fear of Republican retaliation is an enormous disservice to the rule of law. It seems that either choice points to a bleak outcome.

Update (June 21):  Here's how the lies of our disgusting piece-of-shit Crybaby impacted two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss:

Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?

[T]here was just a lot of horrible things. A lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, "Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920."

I stayed away from my home for approximately two months. It was horrible. I felt homeless. I felt, you know, I can’t believe this person has caused this much damage to me and my family.

By casting doubt on outcomes and intimidating anyone involved with the election process, future winners will be determined by violence. Amanda Marcotte:

"We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence," Cheney declared. But that's exactly the path the country is on. [Dear Leader] hasn't faced any legal penalities for his crimes. Worse, most of GOP has rallied to [his] side, ready to make the state-by-state strategy of falsifying votes and sending fake electors work next time around. ... If more isn't done to protect elections on the state level, the next time [Fuckface] attempts a coup, it's likely to succeed.

Sara Boboltz and Lydia O'Connor list seven key moments from the fourth hearing. 

[Dear Leader's] lawyers pressured Republican officials in swing states to overturn the election results but provided no proof of fraud.

A mother-daughter duo of Georgia election workers described how their lives were affected by [the asshole's] targeted attacks.

[Fuckface] supporters flooded other officials with messages telling them to say [he] won a second term ― or else.

[The sore loser] said [Arizona Speaker Rusty] Bowers agreed the election was rigged. Bowers said that’s not true.

[Manbaby] allies, including Representative Andy Biggs, pressured Bowers to decertify Arizona’s slate of electors.

Senator Ron Johnson allegedly tried to give Vice President Mike Pence a fake slate of pro-[fascist] electors.

[Von Clownstick] and his team allegedly solicited help from the RNC to push its "alternate" elector scheme.

And I'll add one more: 

Rudy Giuliani [amitted to Bowers he] had "lots of theories" about voter fraud "but no evidence".

Update (June 22):  Heather Digby Parton recounts how violent rhetoric has long been part of Republican's "legitimate political discourse".

The threat of political violence is now an everyday feature of right-wing political activism.

[Dear Leader] didn't create this phenomenon. ... But that doesn't absolve him of responsibility for the atmosphere he amplified during his time in office. He not only publicly modeled the bullying and authoritarian style of the mob boss, but he also encouraged his followers to use threats and intimidation to force political acquiescence over democratic means. Of course, they would resort to violence. That's the whole point.

Update (June 23):  Jeffrey Clark, the lower level Department of Justice official who wanted DOJ to push election lies in a letter to battleground states even though his professional responsibilities had nothing to do with elections, held inappropriate meetings with Dear Leader who sought to name the unqualified Clark as acting Attorney General. Fuckface had to back off this plan when the entire department leadership threatened to resign. Up till then, nearly daily calls took place to pressure DOJ to pursue baseless election fraud claims.

Amanda Marcotte argues prosecution "is the best shot we have to keep the DOJ from becoming a wholly corrupt institution serving the whims of a dictatorial president".

There is no decision that [Merrick] Garland and the DOJ can make that is "apolitical". Refusing to arrest [the former guy] in the face of overwhelming evidence of his guilt is political behavior, as it's far more about appeasing Republican partisans than it is following the law. Since every move he's going to make is going to be refracted through politics, Garland needs to worry less about "looking" political, and start fulfilling his promise to go where the evidence leads. Garland takes the reputation of the DOJ very seriously. If he wants his legacy to be the preservation of that reputation, he must charge [Fuckface] for his various crimes. Failure to do so is an invitation for [him] to come back to the White House, where he will immediately turn the Justice Department into a MAGA clown show.

The January 6 Committee also released testimony that several members of Congress asked for pardons: Scott Perry (who previously denied doing so), Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Update (June 24):  Heather Digby Parton has more to say about the famous draft letter.

This letter also recommended that the Georgia General Assembly convene a special session to approve a new slate of electors. It indicated that a set of fake [von Clownstick] electors had already been transmitted to the U.S. Capitol.

What this means is that the plot was not really operating on separate tracks as previously assumed. We now know that the Department of Justice plot was entwined with the John Eastman fake electors - Mike Pence plot. The coup was more organized than we knew.

Update (June 28):  A few days before January 6, 2021, Rudy Giuliani told Cassidy Hutchinson how excited he was about going to the Capitol on the 6th. 

It’s going to be great. The president’s going to be there. He’s going to look powerful.

Hutchinson asked her boss, Mark Meadows, about it.

There’s a lot going on. Things might get real, real bad on January 6.

As Dear Leader prepared to address his supporters, he became angry that the crowd size looked too small when people declined to be screened and have their weapons siezed.

I heard the president say something to the effect of, "I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the fucking mags [metal detectors] away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here."

After the rally, Fuckface insisted on going to the Capitol, and started an altercation with his own security.

The president said something to the effect of, "I’m the fucking president, take me up to the Capitol now."

Among several meltdowns, one occured after Bill Barr indicated there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney general’s AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall, which was causing them to have to clean up, so I grabbed a towel and started wiping the ketchup off of the wall to help the valet out.

Hutchinson also testified that both Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows asked for presidential pardons.

Another former Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, tweeted that he believes Hutchinson and said the biggest story is evidence of witness tampering.

A stunning 2 hours:

1)  [The former guy] knew the protesters had guns

2)  He assaulted his own security team

3)  There may be a line from Proud Boys to the White House

4)  Top aides asked for pardons

5)  The commission thinks they have evidence of witness tampering

David Laufman says today's hearing provides strong grounds to investigate von Clownstick on seditious conspiracy charges based on his "foreknowledge of violence and overt acts to join in".

Amanda Marcotte says Hutchinson's testimony paints a "vivid picture".

[T]he main takeaway is so wild it would be hard to believe if it were any other president. [His] vision for January 6 was that he would be a general in an ill-fitting suit, standing before Congress with an army of armed red hats behind him, telling the legislature to give him the White House or else.

We're dealing with a violent bully.

[Fuckface] frequently careens between an obvious longing to champion violence openly and a lawyer-induced awareness that such talk can create legal troubles. As Hutchinson's testimony demonstrated, that tension was in full effect on January 6 and in the days before and after. Her testimony indicates that Meadows, at least, seemed quite aware that all the hype around [that day] was about drawing a violent crowd to the Capitol ... [But] Meadows was too afraid to offend [Dear Leader] to even discuss asking [him] to pull his foot off the gas. She also testified repeatedly that [his] lawyers seemed quite aware that the intent here was to incite a fascist riot.

Ryan Grenoble lists nine key moments from the sixth hearing. 

Meadows thought things might get "real, real bad on January 6".

[Orangeman] knew the crowd was heavily armed.

"They’re not here to hurt me."

The House minority leader told [the loser] not to come to the Capitol on January 6.

[Manbaby] tried to grab the steering wheel of his limousine and assaulted a Secret Service agent.

[Crybaby] repeatedly threw his food at the wall.

Michael Flynn pleaded the Fifth instead of supporting the peaceful transfer of power.

"He thinks Mike [Pence] deserves it."

Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows both asked [Dear Leader] for pardons.

Update (July 5):  Gregg Barak says indictments (state and federal) will happen.

Recall that [Fuckface] had successfully defended himself from "incitement of insurrection" during his second impeachment trial, contending that his Ellipse speech was protected by the First Amendment and that he had no knowledge about the crowd's makeup, its intentions or its possible weaponry.

[His] defense was plausible, at least at that point, because after only four weeks of investigation the House impeachment managers' case against him was based on circumstantial rather than direct evidence. All of that changed with the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson.

Update (July 7):  In an interview with Chauncey DeVega, Hugo Lowell says Hutchinson's testimony raises further questions that deserve answers.

[Dear Leader] knew that his supporters were armed. He knew they were likely to cause harm — just not to him. He knowingly sent them to the Capitol with the biggest incentive he could give, which is, "I'm going to be there with you".

Everything in [his] conduct on [January 6] was about sending his supporters to somehow make sure that certification didn't happen ... . If you put everything together, the picture you get is a president who should know he lost the election and trying to weaponize his supporters to forcefully stop the certification. That is the definition of a coup.

I'm fixated on the nexus of the militia groups, the White House and the Willard hotel figures. ... I want to know why the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were being mentioned around the White House when Giuliani was there. I want to know why [Fuckface] directed [Mark] Meadows to talk to Roger Stone and Mike Flynn on the night of the 5th. I want to know why Meadows desired so desperately to go to the Willard.

Update (July 12):  It was after an hours long, unplanned, "unhinged" meeting with Team Crazy that Dear Leader issued his call to action in the wee hours of December 19, 2020.

Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild! 

This spurred a wave of organizing for that day. Marching to the Capitol was always in the plan, but was kept secret. A draft tweet that referred to marching to the Capitol wasn't sent.

POTUS is just going to call for it "unexpectedly".

He ad-libbed the comment about going with them.

Stephen Ayres, who recently pleaded guilty to disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, summed up his experience.

I felt like I had like horse blinders on. I was locked in the whole time. Take the blinders off, make sure you step back and see what’s going on before it’s too late.

Former Oath Keeper Jason Van Tatenhove explained that the organization wanted von Clownstick to invoke the Insurrection Act to give their violent goals "legitimacy".

I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths and what it was going to be was an armed revolution.

And amazingly, after a previous warning about tampering, Representative Liz Cheney had to call out Fuckface by name indicating that he tried to contact a witness in the time since the last hearing.

That person declined to answer or respond to [the] call, and instead alerted their lawyer. Their lawyer alerted us. This Committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.

Amanda Marcotte acknowledges the delicate task of reaching out to followers.

The same tribalism and self-deception that led these two [witnesses] to extreme lengths is endemic in the world of Republican voters. ... Putting Ayers and Van Tatenhove at the center of the hearing today — and portraying them, ultimately, as [Dear Leader's] victims — sends a message to [his] voters: It's okay to walk away. It's okay to entertain doubts. There is a path out, as long as you find the courage to take the first steps.

Most [of his] voters, of course, will ignore the message. The ego bruising of admitting it was wrong to support him is more than most can take. But still, it's hard to imagine that some who harbor doubts won't feel a pang of recognition hearing these two men tell their story. [His] power runs only through his cult-like hold over his base. The more people who realize he's just using them and decide to walk away, the weaker he gets.

Al Jazeera lists five key moments from the seventh hearing. 

Cipollone confirms he rejected theory that Pence could overturn election.

Election deniers and other aides clashed at White House meeting.

[The former guy] set the date.

Committee attempts to draw link between far-right groups and [Fuckface].

[Manbaby] tried to contact committee witness.

Update (July 13):  Heather Digby Parton notes (via Andrew Weissman) that Dear Leader was at the "hub" of multiple "spokes" intended to keep him in power. She describes the results of that "unhinged" December 18 meeting.

[Fuckface] may have realized that the Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani spokes of his strategy were not going anywhere but [he] still had his fake electors and Mike Pence plot going and it was becoming clear that the 6th was where he would make his last stand. He needed the troops behind him for that so he put out the call.

He has only one degree of separation from militia groups through his old friend Roger Stone and his own government warned him repeatedly that there was a possibility of violence. At this point, it's hard to believe that wasn't exactly what [Dear Leader] wanted.

Barbara McQuade thinks there's a case for serious charges.

If you can make that connection that this was a planned attack, you could supersede that seditious conspiracy indictment to add [Fuckface] or [Roger Stone] or anyone else who was involved in the planning.

The other thing that is coming clear to me is there is a potential charge here against [von Clownstick] for manslaughter. Knowing that this crowd is armed, he has a duty as the president of the United States, as the commander-in-chief to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to call off that mob and do everything he can to stop it. Instead, he sits idly by during those 187 minutes.

Update (July 14):  Brian Karem looks at the appeal--and the downfall--of a would-be dictator.

[Fuckface von Clownstick] led, encouraged and planned that insurrection, and loved watching it. ... He relished in it. It was theater for [him] — as his entire life has been. Taking a page from [Dear Leader's] playbook, the January 6 committee is using theater to expose his wretchedness.

[Manbaby] gives people permission to be as horrible as they want to be. The January 6 hearings are slowly backing him into a corner, connecting the dots and exposing his vicious, seditious activities for the anti-democratic crap they truly are.

Update (July 16):  Camila DeChalus lists five federal laws Fuckface could be charged with violating.

Conspiracy to defraud the government (knowingly agreed with others to attempt to obstruct Congress's election certification process by deceit or dishonesty)

Obstructing an official proceeding

Wire fraud (obtain money through false or fraudulent pretenses)

Witness tampering

Inciting a rebellion (knew in advance that violence would occur on January 6)

Update (July 21):  Testimony confirms that the former guy's desire to go to the Capitol raised serious security concerns.

[He] wanted to lead tens of thousands of people to the Capitol. I think that was enough grounds for us to be alarmed.

Sargent Mark Robinson was aware of the confrontation.

The only description I received was that the president was upset and adamant about going to the Capitol and there was a heated discussion about that.

While moving Vice President Pence to a secure location after the attack started, Secret Service agents began to fear for their lives.

There was a lot of yelling, a lot of very personal calls over the radio. It was disturbing. I don’t like talking about it, but there were calls to say goodbye to family members. The VP detail thought that this was going to get very ugly.

Dear Leader chose not to act to stop the violence for 187 minutes. He had to be pushed to make further comments the next day to reassure the country there would be an "orderly transition". And yet

I don’t want to say the election is over.

Representative Liz Cheney summed up:

You saw an American president faced with a stark, unmistakable choice between right and wrong. To ignore ongoing violence against law enforcement. To threaten our constitutional order. There is no way to excuse that behavior. It was indefensible.

Update (July 23):  The Wall Street Journal condemns the former guy.

[T]he facts ... are sobering. The most horrifying to date came Thursday in a hearing on [Dear Leader's] conduct as the riot raged and he sat watching TV, posting inflammatory tweets and refusing to send help.

[He] took an oath to defend the Constitution, and he had a duty as Commander in Chief to protect the Capitol from a mob attacking it in his name. He refused. He didn't call the military to send help. He didn't call Mr. Pence to check on the safety of his loyal VP. Instead he fed the mob's anger and let the riot play out.

There has been much debate over whether [his] rally speech on January 6, 2021, constituted "incitement". That’s somewhat of a red herring. What matters more — and has become crystal clear in recent days — is that [Fuckface] didn't lift a finger to stop the violence that followed. And he was the only person who could stop what was happening. He was the only one the crowd was listening to. It was incitement by silence.

But Lucian Truscott reminds us that very, very few Republicans had any problems with the guy until recently.

As Liz Cheney is at last admitting, they don't give a shit about [Manbaby] so long as they've got their tax cuts and their millions and billions and they can keep the minimum wage at $7.25 an hour and maintain their control over red-state governments. [Dear Leader] was just a hireling. He strayed off the reservation, and they grew tired of his gross lack of taste and slovenly appearance. So they're serving up a few schmucks with smug grins on their faces to tell us what a bad guy they suddenly discovered he is, after his usefulness to them came to an end.

It's a con job. Don't believe a word of it. They're just ridding themselves of a cancer they accidentally found growing on one of their legs so they can continue stomping on poor people and women and gay people and anybody they don't like and ensuring we stay in our place. They're Republicans. It's what they do.

Update (July 27):  The Washington Post reports that the Department of Justice is definitely investigating the actions of the former guy regarding the events of January 6, 2021. The New York Times has also obtained emails from organizers of the fake electors scheme in which they themselves constantly used the word "fake".

Update (October 15):  In possibly their last public appearance, the Select Committee voted unanimously to subpoena Dear Leader. I would think they actually have enough evidence to make a criminal referral. Heather Digby Parton sums it up.

The cumulative effect of all the January 6 hearings, culminating in Thursday's wrap-up of the central narrative, has made clear that [Fuckface von Clownstick] set up the coup before the election, was personally involved in the various attempts to execute it, understood that violence was possible on January 6, and incited the crowd to storm the Capitol and refused to take any action to stop them. Everything that happened came at his direction and was done in his name.

Update (December 19):  An Executive Summary of the Select Committee's final report has been released. There are four criminal referrals to the Department of Justice for Dear Leader:

Obstruction of an Official Proceeding (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c))

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371)

Conspiracy to Make a False Statement (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1001)

"Incite," "Assist" or "Aid and Comfort" an Insurrection (18 U.S.C. § 2383)

Other criminal referrals are in the report as well as referrals to the House Ethics Committee for Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, and Andy Biggs.

Amanda Marcotte says the committee is emphasizing the point that without accountability, "American democracy will remain in serious trouble".

There is no doubt that prosecuting [Fuckface] will be hard. Attorney General Merrick Garland has for months been reluctant to deal with [the former guy's] insurrection-related crimes. It's widely believed his main reason is fear that securing a conviction could be difficult. Republican voters on a jury might behave as Senate Republicans did during the impeachment and ignore the evidence and vote to acquit anyway.

It's not enough to hope the political system will fix this on its own. Yes, the 2022 midterms were a rebuke to [von Clownstick] and his fascist movement, with election deniers losing key races that [he] really needed in order to pull off his main strategy for stealing the White House in 2024. However, when fascists lose their path toward seizing power through faux-legalistic rationales, they often shift toward violence.

[A] standard Republican deflection is to claim [violent] rhetoric is simply hyperbole or jokes. As long as [Fuckface] remains unprosecuted for inciting the Capitol riot, this shaky argument has some public justification. The committee's point was clear: [Dear Leader] and other Republicans will continue to use such language, so long as they are confident that the DOJ is afraid to hold elected or high-level officials accountable.

Update (December 22):  The Select Committee has released the transcript of further testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson indicating that a lawyer provided for her by those connected to the former guy tried to manipulate her comments. As she tried to prepare to make her original testimony accurate, she recalled Stefan Passantino told her:

No, no, no. Look, we want to get you in, get you out. We're going to downplay your role. You were a secretary. You had an administrative role. Everyone's on the same page about this. It's extremely unfair that the committee is putting you in this position in the first place. You really have nothing to do with this. It's Mark's fault you're even involved in this. We're completely happy to be taking care of you now. We had no idea that you weren't being taken care of this last year. So we're really happy you reached back out to us. But, the less you remember, the better.

I don't want you to perjure yourself, but "I don't recall" isn't perjury. They don't know what you can and can't recall.

The full January 6 report has been released.