2022 Archives

For much of the past four decades, climate activists have been warning us that we’re approaching tipping points that will alter how Americans live - now we’re there. There’s a new study out about climate change — and our new climate normal — that is truly shocking and, for those of us concerned about future generations, alarming. The lead researcher’s first name is Cassandra, no doubt an unintentional choice in the paper’s authors’ pecking order, but still. For much of the past four decades, climate activists have been warning us that we’re approaching tipping points and thresholds that will alter how Americans live, cost us a fortune, and kill thousands of Americans every year. Now we’re there. Our “normal” climate is dead; the weather has gone insane, and it is killing Americans and millions of people all around the globe.

The future of our nation is now at risk just as much as it was in 1800, only this time it’s a radicalized Supreme Court that’s hell-bent on rewriting the American social and legal compact. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” — Ecclesiastes 1:9 In that famous verse, Solomon could have been writing about the Republicans who control today’s Supreme Court. Having helped blow up the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch now want to dial the First Amendment back to 1798.

Saturday Report 6/2/22 - Can a Flu Shot Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by 40%? Thom plus logo The Best of the Rest of the News. — This weekend we celebrate the Founding generation successfully fighting a Revolutionary War against what several identified as the rich, theocrats, and warlord kings. — Polling shows that Trump beats all comers, including DeSantis, in a Republican primary as speculation swirls that he may announce a 2024 run for president this 4th of July weekend. — This Supreme Court is committed to remaking America in the vision of the rightwing billionaires who paid for it. — Texas educators are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place when it comes to teaching the history of slavery in that state. — Tucker Carlson is two-timing Orbán for Bolsonaro, his newest favorite strongman wannabee dictator. — Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law took effect this past week and schools are rolling out restrictions on teachers wearing rainbows, blocking discussion in class of same-sex parents, and forcing teachers to notify parents if they think a child may be dressing or behaving in a way that’s not “traditional” for their gender. — Arizona is doubling down on the GOP war on public education wit a new “universal voucher” law that gives $7000 a year to families who pull their kids out of public schools and put them into for-profit private, religious, or all-white rightwing schools. — Worries about the economy are spreading, according to polling. — Geeky Science! Can a flu shot reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by as much as 40 percent? — Crazy Alert! Rudy Giuliani was offended when Cassidy Hutchison testified this past week that he’d sought a pardon from former President Trump.

Big money is the cancer that has been eating away American politics ever since the Supreme Court blew up hundreds of good government laws designed to protect our democracy from predators like Trump. Donald Trump wasn’t joking back in 2000 when he first seriously considered running for president and told us, “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” While president, he raked in an estimated $1.6 billion, much of it (particularly during the pandemic) money from pushing government contracts and the like to his own properties and companies.