Stephan: Very few people seem to understand, or even realize, that the Electoral College was a creature and an accommodation arising from the power struggle between the slave states and the free states. I have thought for decades that the college should be eliminated. And that may be the parting good news of the Trump administration. A majority of Americans now favor getting rid of it, and hopefully, we will see that happen in the Biden administration.
The apportionment of the Electoral College Credit: ADL
President Donald Trump is trying, and failing, to steal the 2020 presidential election won by Democratic rival Joe Biden by pressuring Republican state and local officials in states Biden won to override the will of the people, block the certification of their state’s election results and name Trump the winner.
In 2016, the Electoral College allowed Trump to win the presidency in spite of losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. Now Trump is attempting to use the system for a scheme to overturn his loss in the electoral vote and attack the bedrock of American democracy, the peaceful transfer of power.
The 2020 presidential election is not remotely close in the national popular vote. Biden leads Trump by nearly 6 million votes, or 3.8 percentage points. That percentage margin is the same as President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection victory and is expected to grow further as […]
Stephan: Good news that can change a trend sometimes comes in unexpected ways and forms. This popular account of a new research study is such an example. The American cultural obsession with every person for himself, that has emerged instead of creating social wellbeing, something the Founders specifically organized the country to achieve, has produced a belief that the poor are lesser people. It distorts our entire society. But the study discussed in this report suggests that may be changing. I hope this is the case. Until we as a society collectively understand that wellbeing at every level must be our first priority we are doomed to pain, violence, and death.
The study, “Recognizing the Impact of COVID-19 on the Poor Alters Attitudes Towards Poverty and Inequality“, was authored by Dylan Wiwad, Brett Mercier, Paul K. Piff, Azim Shariff, and Lara B. Aknin.TrendMD v2.4.8
The coronavirus pandemic may have altered how many people in the United States view the poor, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The study indicates that people became more likely to blame external factors for poverty and less likely to blame personal failings after the outbreak of the virus.
Based on their previous research, the authors of the new study had reason to believe that the pandemic might alter attitudes about the poor and inequality.
“My co-authors and I recently published a paper in Nature Human Behavior in which we found that one reason driving American’s relatively low concern about economic inequality is that people don’t readily recognize the situational causes of poverty (e.g., discrimination, luck), and instead assume that poverty is caused by dispositional factors (e.g., laziness),” explained study author Dylan Wiwad, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
“We also showed that a simple intervention (a 10-minute poverty simulation, www.playspent.org) successfully increased recognition of these uncontrollable causes of poverty […]
Stephan: In spite of the chaos of the last four years, the momentum of the transportation trend all over the world is the transition to electric vehicles, and that is good news. Here is a good status report on where this trend stands.
Tesla semi. Credit: Tesla
There’s a growing consensus in the climate change community that the key to transitioning the US economy from fossil fuels is to electrify everything — shift the electricity grid over to carbon-free power and shift other big polluting sectors like transportation and heating over to electricity.
When it comes to transportation, electrification is going to be tricky. Not long ago, the consensus was that the cost and power limitations of batteries would make it difficult to fully electrify anything larger than passenger vehicles.
But batteries have been progressing in leaps and bounds. Full electrification is still beyond the reach of huge vehicles, the long-distance airliners and container ships, but recently it has become a possibility for a large and significant category of vehicles in the middle: medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, just 6 percent of the registered vehicles on US roads in 2018 were medium- and heavy-duty, but they were responsible for 23 percent of transportation-sector greenhouse gas emissions (about 7 percent of total US emissions).
Stephan: This is why it is so important that we voted the orange psychopath out of the presidency. But in the remaining days of his administration, there is still a great deal of damage he can, and wants to do. This is a man with a long history of, and deep commitment to, revenge.
Despite being the world’s biggest contributors to plastic pollution, the U.S. and U.K. have sofar declined to join a global treaty pledging to tackle the problem. Credit: Laura Lezza/Getty
Despite being one of the world’s biggest contributors to plastic pollution, the U.S. has so far shown no signs of joining an international treaty aimed at stopping plastics from flowing into the world’s oceans and other natural habitats—leaving the country in a small minority as more than two-thirds of United Nations member states signal that a treaty is forthcoming.
At a virtual conference attended last week by the U.N.’s working group on ocean pollution and microplastics, countries in Africa, the Pacific, the Baltic region, and throughout Europe confirmed that they are open to signing a treaty aimed at sharply reducing marine plastic pollution and potentially all plastic waste.
The U.S. was joined by the United Kingdom in declining to participate in the treaty, although the two countries are the biggest per capita plastic polluters in the world. British environmental minister Zac Goldsmith is expected to announce soon whether the country is open to […]
Stephan: What we are seeing in this weird transition period between administrations is a full display of Trump's vindictiveness and utter lack of interest concerning the wellbeing of the country he is sworn to serve. And the silence of the Congressional Republicans should also be noted.
Michael Kuperberg, scientist removed by Trump in order to cripple America’s ability to deal with climate change. Credit: The New York Times
The White House has removed the head of the program that produces the federal government’s most definitive scientific report on climate change, according to three sources with knowledge of the move.
Michael Kuperberg had worked as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the National Climate Assessment. The move comes just days after the White House tapped Betsy Weatherhead to lead the sweeping climate study. Weatherhead joined the U.S. Geological Survey after working at climate analytics firm Jupiter Intelligence.
POLITICO received an automatic reply from Kuperberg’s USGCRP email address that indicated his detail there ended Nov. 6 and that he was heading back to the Energy Department.
Context: Kuperberg’s reassignment is the latest in a string of high-level personnel moves to remove officials deemed insufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump after his reelection loss. Earlier on Monday, Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper. On Friday, Neil Chatterjee was removed as FERC chair on Friday after advocating for opening […]
