Stephan: White supremacy has been a curse on American society and politics since the 1600s and colonial times. We have never been able to expunge it, and in the Red value states, particularly the southern ones, it is still destructive, a kind of social 4th stage cancer. Sadly the Republican Party has become the political entity expressing that cancer, which is one of the reasons the South, more than a century and a half after the civil war, has such poor social outcomes. Many of these states, left to their own devices, are basically Third World racist oligarchies.
It has really begun to concern me, and I think it should concern you, that the Republican Party has devolved into a racist cult and that people like Paul Gosar are elected for high public office.
Republican Representative and overt White supremacist Paul Gosar
Former Republican lawmakers slammed the GOP for its silence after Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., spoke at a conference organized by a white nationalist who praised the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, weeks after being linked to the rally that sparked the deadly attack
Gosar skipped Friday’s vote on a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package approved by the House to attend the America First Political Action Conference, which was organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who mused about killing members of Congress days before the riot. Gosar later condemned “white racism” during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference ahead of former President Donald Trump’s speech over the weekend — and then met with Fuentes again after the event.
Former Rep. Joe Walsh, an Illinois Republican who was elected alongside Gosar during the 2010 Tea Party wave before rejecting far-right extremism after Trump’s rise to power, said he was “stunned” by Gosar’s extremist turn and expressed frustration that Republican leaders have stayed silent on his appearance […]
Stephen Groves, Reporter - The Washington Post/Associated Press
Stephan: South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem has proven again and again she is an incompetent Trumper. Now it becomes clear she is also another Republican grifter. It has gotten to a point where I wonder if it is possible for the party to back anyone for office who isn't ethical scum. It seems to be a requirement.
This story is the latest on Noem, and it is particularly disgusting. Noem is so obviously incompetent one can only ask, what were the people of South Dakota thinking? Were they thinking? Can they think?
South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem speaking at CPAC. Credita: John Raoux/Associated Press
PIERRE, SOUTH DAKOTA — Family members of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem received more than $600,000 in funds from a state grant program pushed by the governor that directed federal coronavirus relief funds to small businesses.
A ranch belonging to Noem’s family, Racota Valley Ranch Partnership, received one payment of $500,000, and a business operated by her brothers, Rock and Robb Arnold, received payments of just over $100,000, according to records on the grant program.
The Legislature approved the grant plan in October, but the family businesses benefitted from adjustments the Republican governor made. The plan initially capped grants at $100,000, but later in the month, with plentiful federal funds at their disposal, Noem’s administration adjusted the grant cap to $500,000. The governor also later opened up a second round of grant applications to businesses hurt by the pandemic from September to November.
A total of 126 businesses across the state — less than 4% of grant applicants — received grants of $500,000. Some received even more because they […]
Stephan: There is a growing amount of discussion in both the scientific and popular media about sea rise. Far less about the weight of cities compacting the soil upon which they are built to compress and cause them to sink. Here is a good introduction to this topic.
The primary paper upon which this report is based, The Weight of Cities: Urbanization Effects on Earth's Subsurface
Credit: Alexander Spatari/Moment/Getty
Cities don’t just have sea level rises to worry about – they’re also slowly sinking under the weight of their own development, according to new research, which emphasises the importance of factoring subsidence into models of climate change risk.
Geophysicist Tom Parsons, from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) agency, looked at San Francisco as a case study of how large urban developments could be affecting and depressing the actual surface of the Earth.
By his calculations, San Francisco might have sunk as much as 80 millimetres (3.1 inches) as the city has grown over time. Considering the Bay Area is under threat from as much as 300 mm (11.8 inches) of sea level rise by 2050, the extra variation added by slow subsidence is significant enough to be concerning.
“As global populations move disproportionately toward the coasts, this additional subsidence in combination with expected sea level rise may exacerbate risk associated with inundation,” writes Parsons in his paper.
Taking into account an inventory of all the buildings in the […]
Stephan: One in seven children in the United States has hunger issues. One in seven. Forty seven percent of the American population is over 65, and nearly 14% of them are in poverty. As Jackson, Louisiana proves America's infrastructure, much of it built nearly or over 100 years ago is coming apart. Jackson has been without potable water, or any water, for 16 days.
Yet we have spent trillions, that's TRILLIONS, of dollars on F-35s, a new fighter aircraft, a form of aircraft increasingly irrelevant to military strategy, and in any case the plane is a dud.
The reality, which few Americans can even conceptualize, is that we spend more on our defense budget than the next highest defense budgets of the next seven nations COMBINED. What could possibly justify that? Why corporate profits of course. American defense contractors are amongst the highest profit corporations in the world. We are a very sick fearful country.
F-35
Somehow the United States has managed to develop a fighter jet for all three services — the Air Force, Navy and Marines — that goes for $100 million apiece, ran up almost a half-trillion dollars in total development costs, will cost almost $2 trillion over the life of the plane, and yet it can’t be flown safely.
Top eight defense budgets by nation
How did this happen, you ask? Well, it’s a long, complicated story, but basically it involves taking something that’s supposed to do one thing and do it well, like take off from the ground and fly really fast, and adding stuff like being able to take off and land on an aircraft carrier or hover like a hummingbird.
That’s why they call it the “flying Swiss Army knife.” Have you ever tried to use one of the things? First of all, you can’t find the knife blade, hidden as it is among scissors and screwdrivers and […]
Stephan: You wouldn't think that anyone seriously believed that secession by their state was a good idea. But in the fantasy world of Trumperism and QAnon a movement for secession has been growing like a toadstool in the dark. One of the reasons proponents believe this is possible is that people in Red states continue to vote for people like Greg Abbott, Mary Taylor Greene, Ron Johnson, Ron DeSantis, or Kristi Noem. To Trumpers this suggests a voter population so ignorant or racist, hate-filled, and resentful they can be manipulated to vote against their own self-interest. If you can't even vote for your own personal wellbeing, Republican politicians figure, you can be talked into anything as long as your resentments, fears, and prejudices are stimulated.
A man wears a face covering that reads “secede” outside the Texas state capitol on Jan. 16, 2021 in Austin, Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores / Getty
For the past few months, a long-buried idea has been creeping from the fringe into mainstream Republican discourse: secession. Following President Joe Biden’s victory in November, GOP officials from Wyoming to Florida to Mississippi have floated the idea, claiming that the time for a national fracturing may be near. While there’s something of a seasonal flavor to this injection of rhetoric — Republican honchos like former Texas Gov. Rick Perry openly discussed secession following Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency, for instance — the recent rounds feel qualitatively different. As journalist and author Richard Kreitner, an expert on American secessionism, recently wrote, it’s time to “take secessionist talk seriously.”
While there’s something of a seasonal flavor to this injection of secessionist rhetoric the recent rounds feel qualitatively different.
