“Rolling electric power blackouts afflicted roughly 2 million California residents in August as a heat wave gripped the Golden State. At the center of the problem is a state policy requiring that 33 percent of California’s electricity come from renewable sources such as solar and wind power, rising to a goal of 60 percent by 2030. Yet data showed that power demand peaks just before the sun begins to go down, when overheated people turn up their air conditioning in the late afternoon. Meanwhile, the power output from California’s wind farms in August was erratic.
Until this summer, California utilities and grid operators were able to purchase extra electricity from other states. But the August heat wave stretched from Texas to Oregon, so there was little to no surplus energy available.”
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“California has been bringing the hammer down on a huge source of safe, reliable, always-on, non-carbon-dioxide-emitting electricity: nuclear power. In 2013, state regulators forced the closing of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, which supplied electricity to 1.4 million households. By 2025, California regulators plan to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which can supply electricity to 3 million households.
The problem of climate change, along with the blackouts resulting from the vagaries of wind and solar power, suggests that California should not only keep its nuclear power plants running but also build more innovative reactors designed to flexibly back up variable renewable electricity generation.”
“We have an economy where wealthy people make money just by having money, not by creating value. We live in an economic system where it is more profitable to invest in lobbying government for favorable regulations and policies than it is to create a valuable, useful product. In fact, in this economy many useless activities are more profitable than innovation, seeking new markets, and creating value, useless things like collusion with competitors and betting on stock performance rather than investing in stocks directly(derivatives). We have an economy where exorbitant sums of money are being made without the contribution of anything of value from those who benefit. In this economic system, less and less real money is in the money supply and it is being replaced by borrowed money. What appears as a student loan, mortgage, and consumer debt in accounts of the many show up as real dollars in the accounts of the few (the top 10%). It seems every bank on the planet is reporting growing debt to GDP ratios. Why are we on this crash course? Because of unrestrained rent-seeking in nearly every aspect of our economy.”
“we also have 20,000 Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan, Glaser notes, and 8,000 of them are American. We may be removing members of the military, but America’s footprint in Afghanistan will remain large”
“The third time wasn’t the charm for the Pentagon, which has once again failed to successfully complete an audit.
Thomas Harker, the Pentagon’s comptroller, told Reuters that it could be another seven years before the department can pass an audit—something that it has never accomplished. Previous attempts in 2018 and 2019 turned up literally thousands of problems with the Pentagon’s accounting system and millions of dollars’ worth of missing equipment.”
“Imagine that, four years ago, Donald Trump lost the presidential election by 2.9 million votes, but there was no Electoral College to weight the results in his favor. In January 2017, Hillary Clinton was inaugurated as president, and the Trumpist faction of the GOP was blamed for blowing an election Republicans could have won.
The GOP would have been locked out of presidential power for three straight terms, after winning the crucial popular vote only once since 1988. It might have lost the Supreme Court, too.
And so Republicans would likely have done what Democrats did in 1992, after they lost three straight presidential elections: reform their agenda and their messaging, and try to build a broader coalition, one capable of winning power by winning votes. This is the way democracy disciplines political parties: Parties want to win, and to do so, they need to listen to the public. But that’s only true for one of our political parties.
Take the most recent election. Joe Biden is on track to beat Donald Trump by around 5 million votes. But as my colleague Andrew Prokop notes, a roughly 50,000-vote swing in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin would have created a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College, tossing the election to the state delegations in the House, where Trump would’ve won because Republicans control more states, though not more seats. Trump didn’t almost win reelection because of polarization. He almost won reelection because of the Electoral College.”
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“The simplest way to understand American politics right now is that we have a two-party system set up to create a center-left political coalition and a far-right political coalition.
Two reinforcing features of our political system have converged to create that result. First, the system weights the votes of small states and rural areas more heavily. Second, elections are administered, and House districts drawn, by partisan politicians.
Over the past few decades, our politics has become sharply divided by density, with Democrats dominating cities and Republicans dominating rural areas. That’s given Republicans an electoral advantage, which they’ve in turn used to stack electoral rules in their favor through aggressive gerrymandering, favorable Supreme Court decisions, and more. As a result, Democrats and Republicans are operating in what are, functionally, different electoral systems, with very different incentives.”
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“To reliably win the Electoral College, Democrats need to win the popular vote by 3 or 4 percentage points. To reliably win the Senate, they need to run 6 to 7 points ahead of Republicans. To reliably win the House, they need to win the vote by 3 or 4 points. As such, Democrats need to consciously strategize to appeal to voters who do not naturally agree with them. That’s how they ended up with Joe Biden as their nominee.”
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“For Republicans, the incentives are exactly the reverse. They can win the presidency despite getting fewer votes. They can win the Senate despite getting fewer votes. They can win the House despite getting fewer votes. They can control the balance of state legislatures despite getting fewer votes.”
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“If Republicans were more worried about winning back some of Biden’s voters rather than placating Trump’s base, they wouldn’t be indulging his post-election tantrum. It would be offensive to the voters they’re losing, and whom they’ll need in the future. But they’re not, and so they have aligned themselves with Trump’s claims of theft — with profoundly dangerous consequences for America.
Trump is not in the White House, refusing to accept the results of the election, because America is polarized. He is there because of the Electoral College. Mitch McConnell is not favored to remain Senate majority leader because America is polarized. He is favored to remain Senate majority leader because the Senate is the most undemocratic legislative chamber in the Western world, and the only way Republicans seem to lose control is to lose successive landslide elections, as happened in 2006 and 2008.
In politics, as in any competition, the teams adopt the strategies the rules demand. America’s political parties are adopting the strategies that their very different electoral positions demand. That has made the Democratic Party a big-tent, center-left coalition that puts an emphasis on pluralistic outreach. And it has let the Republican Party adopt more extreme candidates, dangerous strategies, and unpopular agendas, because it can win most elections even while it’s losing most voters.”
National tribute to the memory of Samuel Paty – Speech by Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, at the Sorbonne (21 October 2020) Emmanuel Macron. 21 October 2020. France Diplomacy. https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/human-rights/freedom-of-religion-or-belief/article/national-tribute-to-the-memory-of-samuel-paty-speech-by-emmanuel-macron France Muhammad cartoon row: What you need to know DW. https://www.dw.com/en/france-muhammad-cartoon-row-what-you-need-to-know/a-55409316
“Last week, I argued that President Donald Trump’s own behavior—rather than a vast nationwide voter-fraud conspiracy—caused his election defeat. I’m used to all types of angry responses (and even had ones over the years that required police intervention), but many of the responses have left me more fearful about the nation’s future than I’ve been in a while.
The comments’ tenor were not the problem. Almost everyone who contacted me was remarkably civil, including those who believe that yours truly is a blithering idiot. Differences of opinion are what makes the world go round, but I am worried about the vast differences in the sources that people rely upon—and by the fundamental lack of trust that many people have in the nation’s institutions.”
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“Let’s look at how debates should work. For example, I’ve repeatedly railed against income-tax hikes. I argue that the state should get its spending in order before taxing us again and taxes depress economic growth. In response, tax supporters argue that the rich don’t pay their fair share. We then look at the numbers and argue over what they mean. We draw different conclusions but accept the premise even if we pick nits with some of the data.
Now imagine having that taxation argument with someone who claims (without a scintilla of evidence) that the Department of Finance is rigging the numbers and that none of its data can be trusted. Or with a person who believes that poor people pay the bulk of state taxes. What if upon seeing evidence to the contrary, that person accuses me of ignoring the TRUTH!!! and directs me to a brilliant but unknown economist Grandpa found on YouTube?
You can see the problem. Regarding the Trump voter-fraud conspiracy, many of us rely on the 38-plus judicial rulings that have thus far rebuked the president’s arguments. We trust the nation’s elections system, which—despite its obvious flaws—has been one of the world’s democratic triumphs. If the president had evidence of systemic fraud, we figure most of that would emerge in the courts.
The ensuing debate would center on specific legal cases and judicial findings. What happens, though, when large numbers of people believe that the entire court system, election process, and federal government are essentially in on the scam? As a libertarian, I’m fully aware of flaws in every political and governmental system, but still believe that sufficient checks and balances exist—and that our system is fundamentally legitimate.
What happens when people believe that most journalists are establishment tools who refuse to report that the election was stolen—perhaps by Venezuelan communists who rigged the electronic-voting software? That particular allegation can be disproven with hand counts, but never mind such petty details. It only proves that I’m listening to “lamestream” media sources rather than seeking out the real truth-tellers.”
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“What can you say when a major political movement (Trumpism) finds it easier to believe that every major American institution is potentially corrupt than it is to think that a president with a history of telling whoppers is being dishonest again?”
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“I used to think the proliferation of sources—including access to primary source material—would save our democracy by empowering people to go around gatekeepers. The biased media system used to limit our voices, after all. In our newly democratized media world, however, Aunt Ethel’s post from some errant numbskull is as credible as a well-researched report in The Wall Street Journal.
A 2018 report from Rand Corporation refers to the situation as “Truth Decay,” which results in “the erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis, alienation and disengagement of individuals from political and civic institutions, and uncertainty over national policy.” That’s putting it mildly. If Americans cannot figure out how to agree on basic facts and restore trust in our institutions, then how long will we remain a peaceful and free society?”