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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
“I think the evidence is clear. The president refused to lift a finger to send aid after he incited a violent rebellion against our republic,” “The president, therefore, betrayed his oath of office and betrayed his constitution of duty.”
— Carolyn Maloney, Former U.S. Representative, New York
Exactly.  Whether or not Trump incited the insurrection can be argued.  What’s perfectly clear is that he made no effort to stop it for more than three hours, thus violating his oath of office.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

If you’re looking for a few minutes of amusement, tune in to Newsmax for a moment and watch them ridicule Fox News.

Fox recently discovered that spreading lies has the potential to turn into defamation lawsuits, and that these can be as expensive as hell. When they had that horrible realization, they got into a milder, less direct form of the  disinformation business, and are now far more measured in the claims they make.

Newsmax seizes on this opportunity, like a hungry bear just out of hibernation goes after its first salmon.  Most of their programming is shaming Fox for its abandonment of the principles of the ultra-right-wing: Trump is always right, the woke, godless left is a scourge to the nation, etc.

It’s worth a look.  A brief one.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

One has to applaud this Buddhist man of honor for what he says here.  But let’s examine his statement honestly and look at it straight in the eye.

Some would say that the subject of religion is inherently belligerent. For theistic religions, it comes down to this: My God is the only true God; yours is an imposter–and you’re an idiot for believing in such nonsense.  That’s a slap in the face any way you look at it.

Managing relations between the great tribes of the world’s nations, even if our differences could be resolved with reason, would be extremely difficult, especially now that we have disinformation sewn into our populations via the increasing influence of social media.

Add into that equation that God favors a certain tribe over others, and you have a total morass. As a person who happened to have been born in the United States, the idea that God should bless America over France, or Uruguay, is simply yet one more form of idiocy.

It’s just another way to inspire fools to go off to war for the economic interests of our country’s wealthiest.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s something that young people today may not be able to understand.

And just look at the intensity of the face on that kid.

Now, when I’m having breakfast, I’m praying for at least some level of evidence that the U.S. has somehow stopped its fall into authoritarianism.  Can we please have some indictments against the people who came within a gnat’s a** of overthrowing our government?

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Re: the question raised in the meme here, as much as I hate Trump and desperately want to see him face justice for his myriad crimes, I actually don’t think I could convict him of that particular crime.

If I were a juror and heard evidence that Trump, on the morning of January 6th, urged his to supporters to “go down to the Capitol and fight like hell, or you won’t have a country anymore,” I’m not sure I could convict him of seditious conspiracy, even though considerable violence ensued.

But his attorneys will say, “Yes, he used the word ‘fight.’  But he didn’t mean to resort to violence.  When MLK said that American negroes needed to ‘fight’ for their rights, he most certainly wasn’t urging black people to literally beat the pulp out of those who stood in their way.” Insofar as the standard of proof in criminal cases is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, I would have to (begrudgingly) acquit him.

But what to make of us Trump’s watching the insurrection he had fomented–and its violence–on television for more than three hours before intervening. I’m not sure which criminal code that violates, but there must be one, if not dozens.  In the military, it’s called, at a very minimum, “dereliction of duty.”

What it’s called in the civilian code I can’t say, but he clearly declined to insert himself so as to avoid what is arguably the single most disgraceful moment in U.S. history.

The world around us, to this day, stands with its mouths collectively agape with the knowledge that the great United States of America came within a hair’s breadth of losing its democracy that day.  And we’re still nowhere close to having all the threats of autocracy put behind us.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Someone sent me this, and I thought it was funny; I hope readers will forgive the vulgarity.

I recall the moment I realized that Donald Trump had arrived on the political scene in 2015.  I called my mom and asked, “Wasn’t there an unwritten rule that a viable candidate for U.S. president couldn’t be a terrible human being?”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

We are surrounded by people whose intellects are perfectly suited to accept the idea that more guns will make us safer.

Worse, their votes count just as much as yours and mine.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

From ultra-right-wing religious fanatic Mike Huckabee writes:  Our kids are hearing that the Earth is doomed. Naturally, they’re scared—but they don’t need to be. It’s why (my) team created The Kids Guide to The Truth About Climate Change. It gives kids a close look at the facts behind climate change so they can feel safe.

“The Truth About Climate Change” claims to dispel the three myths from the screen cap here.

In fact:

1) Our kids are most certainly not “safe.”  That said, there are plenty of reasons to believe that our civilization can limit the damage associated with climate change if it acts rapidly and decisively.

2) The situation is, in reality, getting worse.  There are no climate scientists who aren’t in the pocket of Big Oil who refute this.

3) Ultimately, the cause is capitalism, insofar as it calls for a) infinite growth on a planet of finite size, an absurdity, and b) massive removal of laws that regulate environmentally destructive practices.  Those who understand this, and who care about the fate of life on Earth, are proponents of what is called “conscious capitalism,”  “democratic socialism,” etc.

For many different reasons, I favor being truthful with our children.  It’s said that “honesty is the best policy.”

But beyond that, it enables them to get involved early.  By the time kids are five, they’re old enough to understand that we all live on one planet, that this is our home, and that we need to take care of it.  By the time they reach nine or ten, they can grasp the basic concept of anthropogenic global warming, i.e., that human activity is changing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, creating an imbalance in the amount of heat that the Earth absorbs and reradiates back into space.

Do you think for a moment that people like Huckabee and the others who do the bidding of Big Oil honestly believe that climate change is a hoax?  That’s a sad joke.  The Christian zealots, and Huckabee may be among them, actively welcome the end of the Earth and the ensuing events laid out in the last book of the bible, Revelation.

The rest are “people” whose life work is directed at enriching themselves, all the while knowing that their wealth is gained at the cost of inflicting unprecedented suffering on billions of people.  They are the personification of evil.   Relative to theirs, Huckabee’s crime is a parking violation.

 

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I have to admit, if I lived in a place in which most people held these beliefs, I probably would move.

I’m reminded of a guy I met recently who is a retired university professor with a daughter who lives in Florida.  Apparently, his kid suggested that he visit, and the dad replied, “I’d love to see you, but you’ll have to come out here (to California).  I’m not stepping foot in Florida, for any reason whatsoever.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Huge voter turnout is precisely what’s needed here, and, fortunately, it’s bound to happen.

Before 2016, being apolitical was an option for some people, not any longer.

It would make sense that a moderate Republican could become the next U.S. president, but here’s the problem: there are more unicorns in this country.

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