The severity of the charges being brought against the top “foot-soldiers” who stormed the Capitol Building is red-hot news here in the U.S.  It’s conceivable that some of these morons could even face the death penalty.

I admit that it would be great to unravel the entire chain of communication, i.e., how the leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were contacted and urged to “stop the steal.”  Our Constitution is quite clear that, at 1 PM on January 6th following each presidential election, the President of the Senate (the Vice President) counts the votes and certifies the election in favor of the victor.  What was the exact chronology in terms of who told what to whom, that resulted in hundreds of idiots smashing their way through the place to disrupt the proceedings at precisely this time and date?

Outside of that, to be honest, I’m fairly uninterested.  What they did was wrong, and they will be punished for it.  But their lawyers will argue, and I think effectively, that their clients were mentally unstable going into all this, the victims of heavy disinformation campaigns, which led to their accepting orders from no less than the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military, and the most powerful person on Earth.

“If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country any longer,” Trump commanded.  As former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner says, that’s the equivalent of a Civil War general’s yelling “Charge!”

Either we prosecute Trump for attempting to overthrow the government, or all this is a failure.

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The eyes of the world are on the criminal prosecution of those responsible for fomenting the insurrection, i.e., the storming of the U.S. Capitol in an effort to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election.  And, depending on how all this goes, the United States may see some extremely broad changes in terms of turning off sources of disinformation.

As suggested here, it may soon be proved that Fox “News” played an instrumental role spreading the “Big Lie,” i.e.,that Trump would have won the election were it not for widespread voter fraud.  If that’s the case, and the organization was at least partially responsible for the coup attempt, it’s conceivable that the FCC will revoke its broadcast license.

That will be a great day in America.

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What Lincoln wrote here is a much more eloquent statement of what I like to say about current-day Americans, i.e., OK, we’re stupid, but we’re not that stupid. 

Every time I’ve gone down this line, I’ve eaten crow.  We live in a country in which about one-third of voters believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen by Joe Biden.  Their reasoning? That’s what Trump says.

Let’s face it.  We’re dim bulbs.

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Re: the meme here, a reader notes: We are devolving back into the days of the Wild West. Guns everywhere and shootouts in the middle of crowded streets.

In truth, the “wild west” of the late 19th Century was far more sane than what we’re forced to endure here in the 21st.

Yes, there were gun fights, but did either contestant try to kill anyone but his enemy?

We have people going into schools, intent on murdering as many little kids as possible?

Was there a multi-billion dollar gun lobby making it impossible for us to protect the lives of our children?

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From this:

Newsmax announced today that veteran news anchor and broadcaster Greta Van Susteren will join the network as host of “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” adding her three decades of experience in journalism to the rising cable channel.

Based in Washington, D.C., and set to premiere on Tuesday, June 14, “The Record with Greta Van Susteren” will lead the network’s weeknight lineup with a solid hour of factual, fair, and independent perspective on the news.

Here’s a question: why does a “news” source have to describe itself as “factual, fair, and independent?”  Does the New York Times go out of its way to convince readers that it’s legitimate?

This is disgraceful. Learning that Van Susteren is joining a sewer of disinformation like Newsmax late in her career is akin to reading that Barack Obama is opening up a used car lot.

 

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Re: the photo here of a Lexus SUV that puts out 409 horsepower, a friend writes, “Japanese auto design leaves a lot to be desired. I have some theories on that we should discuss over a beer or glass of wine.”

The only aspect of the design here that has any importance to me is that it’s obscene. We live on a planet that is baking due to overconsumption of fossil fuels, and you pigs want to sell us this?

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This from Bill Gates:

I’ve just published my latest suggestions for books you could read over the summer. Although they’re about a range of serious topics like gender equality and climate change, none of them feels like a heavy read. They’re all engaging, thought-provoking, and fast-paced.

Check out my 5 recommendations (more…)

Below is something I found compelling from the “Lincoln Project” just now, a group whose purpose is to preserve democracy and remove Trumpism from the U.S. political scene.  I’ve interspersed some of my comments along the way. (more…)

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In response to my post Quantifying Sea-Level Rise, in which I asserted that our pathetic response to global warming is less about stupidity than it is about selfishness and greed, senior energy analyst Glenn Doty writes:

I agree in part… and in part I think it’s just a lack of comprehension on the part of those who are in office who do conceive that this is a problem, but they don’t understand how great of a problem it is, and they certainly don’t understand the nature and the potential limits, of a few of the solutions that they have latched onto. (more…)

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In response to my recent post Latest Carbon Dioxide Reading Falls in Line with Past Data, senior energy analyst Glenn Doty writes:

It’s horrible.
Current median projections show a 40 cm sea-level-rise for the U.S. by 2050. We’ll SEE that. When the Thwaites Glacier starts to go, the rate of sea level rise will increase by 5-15 FOLD… That’s the tipping point that has terrified me since I was in high school, and it’s supposed to begin within 5 years (though until recently I actually thought it would be the collapse of the Greenland Ice Shelf, that began first, not the West Antarctic Ice Shelf).

(more…)

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