HEATHER COX RICHARDSON, - Letters From an American
Stephan:
How blatant the TCP has become that dictator Viktor Orban was so welcomed by evangelicals, The Conservative Action Project, and the Heritage Foundation. The TCP is actively trying to turn America into a pseudo-democracy like Hungary and Russia. Hold elections but rig them so the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
Heritage Foundation Makes Plans to Staff Next G.O.P. Administration Credit: The New York Times
On Friday, journalist Casey Michel, who specializes in the study of kleptocracy, pointed out that reporters had missed an important meeting last week. Michel noted that while reporters covered Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to former president Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, they paid far less attention to the visit Orbán paid to the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Heritage Foundation on Friday, March 8. There, Orbán spoke privately to an audience that included the president of the organization, Kevin Roberts, and, according to a state media printout, “renowned U.S. right-wing politicians, analysts and public personalities.”
Michel noted that it was “nothing short of shocking” that Orbán declined to meet with administration officials and instead went to Washington, D.C., to meet with a right-wing think tank. With Roberts’s appointment as head of Heritage in 2021, the conservative organization swung to the position that its role is “institutionalizing Trumpism.”
Roberts has been vocal about his admiration for Orbán, tweeting in 2022 that it was an honor to meet him. At last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Orbán boasted that Hungary is […]
In my view, Benjamin Netanyahu and his fascist cabinet should be indicted and tried for war crimes against humanity. They are carrying out an attempt at genocide, and as an American, I am ashamed that Biden is still supplying the weapons to carry out much of this devastation. The U.N. children’s agency said on Sunday “Over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s offensive, adding many kids were suffering from severe malnutrition and did not even have the energy to cry.” Because I am so appalled by what Israel is doing I have been researching to see how Netanyahu might at least be forced from office, which might stop these atrocities. Like Trump, Netanyahu is under indictment in Israel, but that doesn’t look like it is going anywhere. What might make his government collapse is something unique to Israel as this report describes.
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox don’t serve in its armed forces. That’s getting harder than ever to justify. Credit: Ilia Yefimovich / Getty
The most controversial Israeli comedy sketch of the current war is just 88 seconds long. Aired in February on Eretz Nehederet, Israel’s equivalent of Saturday Night Live, it opens with two ashen-faced officers knocking on the door of a nondescript apartment, ready to deliver devastating news to the inhabitants. The officers are greeted by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who is similarly stricken when he sees them.
“I’ve been terrified of this knock,” he says. “Ever since the war began, I knew it would eventually come for me.” But before the pained officers can continue, he interjects: “Listen, there is no situation in which I will enlist—forget about it.”
It turns out that the officers have the wrong address. This is not the home of a fallen soldier, but of one of the many thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not serve in Israel’s army, thanks to a special exemption. As the officers depart to find the right family, the man calls after them, “Tell them that we prayed for him! We did everything we could.”
Here we have yet another warning that the United States is woefully unprepared for what climate change is going to do to our society. While the TCPs in the House spend most of their time and millions of our dollars trying to find some way to embarrass President Biden and his family, and the Senate TCPs block help for Ukraine, the infrastructure, of bridges, roads, electric grid, and airports built from the 1920s to the 1960s age and falter. We are so unprepared that it is going to produce great misery and deaths, and yet you hardly see it mentioned by corporate news on television, state legislatures, particularly those controlled by the TCPs can’t be bothered, and it is hardly a factor in the 2024 election in November. It took me several Google searches and 20 minutes to find this piece in Time Magazine.
Transmission lines exit the plant at Pacific Gas and Electric’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the only operating nuclear powered plant in California. Credit: Los Angeles Times / Getty
Michael Polsky, the founder and CEO of renewable energy developer Invenergy, has earned a reputation as a renewable energy pioneer. His company, founded in 2001, has more than 200 clean energy projects across the world completed or in progress.
When we spoke this week at this year’s Aspen Ideas: Climate conference, he could have taken a bit of a victory lap. But instead he was eager to deliver a warning: without a concerted effort to fix its electric grid the U.S. may soon face electric reliability issues, not to mention challenges meeting its climate goals. “People don’t realize how fragile the grid is,” he said.
Polsky is far from alone. In the year and a half since the passage of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), energy experts have called for regulatory reforms to help fix the grid—think of expediting permits for transmission lines that deliver electricity from power plants to cities and speeding up the process of connecting new power plants to the grid. A 2022 […]
A major change in real estate transactions has just occurred, as this report describes. It is probably going to lower house prices and change the whole cost of buying or selling a house. If any of you are in the midst or such a sale or purchase check to see what effect it is going to have on your transaction.
An aerial view of homes in a housing development on September 08, 2023 in Santa Clarita, California. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty
In a sweeping move expected to dramatically reduce the cost of buying and selling a home, the National Association of Realtors announced Friday a settlement with groups of homesellers, agreeing to end landmark antitrust lawsuits by paying $418 million in damages and eliminating rules on commissions.
The NAR, which represents more than 1 million Realtors, also agreed to put in place a set of new rules. One prohibits agents’ compensation from being included on listings placed on local centralized listing portals known as multiple listing services, which critics say led brokers to push more expensive properties on customers. Another ends requirements that brokers subscribe to multiple listing services — many of which are owned by NAR subsidiaries — where homes are given a wide viewing in a local market. Another new rule will require buyers’ brokers to enter into written agreements with their buyers.
The agreement effectively will destroy the current homebuying and selling business model, in which sellers pay both their broker and a buyer’s broker, which critics say have driven housing prices artificially higher.
Yet another story of the failure of the U.S. government at both the federal and state levels to plan ahead and foster wellbeing. Anyone who does a half hour researching what climate change is going to do learns quickly there are going to be more forest fires, and to preserve our nation’s forests we need much more preparation and planning, and building a much larger cadre of trained personnel. Here is an earthy but accurate presentation covering this issue. LIke the previous grid story in today’s edition, we just are not doing what is needed to prepare for our future.
Firefighter Credit: ProPublica
Highly skilled firefighters are the last line of defense against wildfires, but that line is fraying because the government decided long ago that they’re not worth very much.
Black Butte is an inactive volcano that rises from the high desert in eastern Oregon. In May 2022, a turboprop plane approached its pine-blanketed slopes, carrying about 10 men wearing bulky Kevlar outfits. They were smokejumpers with the United States Forest Service, the agency that directs the majority of the nation’s efforts to manage wildfires. Within the vast and hierarchical fire service, smokejumpers occupy a singular niche, parachuting into remote areas to fight early-stage wildfires. There are only about 450 nationwide, and the physical requirements are rigorous.
One of the smokejumpers on board was Ben Elkind. Thirty-seven years old with a long, athletic build and restless energy, he had been fighting wildfires for 14 years and jumping for the last eight of them. Despite his elite status, Elkind earned about $43,000 in 2021 over the course of the seven-month fire season. His base paycheck, though, was less than half of that. Like most wildland firefighters, he relied on overtime and hazard pay, which can […]
