We have a split Congress and face the prospect of a presidential rematch next year. President Biden managed Republican hecklers reasonably well during his State of the Union speech. And in response, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said,
The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.
She should know, and we're pretty sure which side she's on.
I've wondered how many near-misses there may have been during the Ukraine war, especially since Putin put his nuclear forces on "high alert," that we won't learn about for many years (if we ever do). How close have we come to the brink without realizing it? It remains entirely possible that a mistake, tomorrow or next week or next month, could start World War III.
This is the world we now live in, and it's why the warnings behind the Doomsday Clock are nothing to sneeze at. And we haven't even gotten to climate change ...Evaggelos Vallianatos notes that U.S. actions shouldn't be overlooked as a contributing factor.
[G]uests in the doomsday clock ceremony denounced Russia but said nothing about America funding the war in the Ukraine that could explode into a doomsday war. This is disturbing. After all, these doomsday clock scientists should not allow narrow nationalistic feelings to confuse them about the high moral ground they espouse for the abolition of their handiwork, nuclear weapons. Taking sides diminishes their standing, and that of the importance of the iconic doomsday clock.
Robert Hunziker quotes Julian Cribb on the bigger picture.
We humans are facing the greatest emergency of our entire million-year existence. This is a crisis compounded of 10 catastrophic risks, each of our own making. These threats are deeply interconnected and are now arriving together. However, their collective scale is so vast and their relationships so complex that few yet understand the peril they place us in.
The annual average temperature was 0.3°C above the reference period of 1991-2020, which equates to approximately 1.2°C higher than the period 1850-1900.
The observed warming trends persisted in 2022 despite three consecutive years of La Niña, a climate pattern marked by cooler-than-normal sea surface temperatures near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, which tends to suppress warming across the world.
And ocean heat content set another record for the fourth year in a row.
[T]he oceans are growing more stratified, meaning warm and cold water masses aren't mixing as easily and are instead getting stuck on top of one another, like layers in a cake. Stratification can make it harder for heat, oxygen and vital nutrients to be transported throughout the water column. That can damage marine ecosystems and trap heat near the surface of the water, where it can then proceed to further warm the atmosphere.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
