Republican Climate Change Denial – Kicking the Can Down an Increasingly Dusty Road

   Lake Oroville California

    Lake Mead Nevada

It’s no secret that California is the preferred target for Republican attacks, even as it produces the majority of the nation’s vegetables, is America’s innovation/technology leader, has 13% of the nation’s population, would be the fifth largest global economy if it were a separate nation… and has even elected the Republican House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy. According to Republicans, California is a socialist state heading for bankruptcy. Hard to explain our budget surplus to bigoted deaf ears. And yes, it’s a GOP attitude that may be focused on California but is also directed at blue states in need of disaster relief. There is irony, as damage from floods, hurricanes and tornados rises almost exponentially, that red states are now bearing a sizeable share of climate change damage.

I remember elected Republicans in Congress, after 2012 superstorm Sandy slammed into the US Northeast (that hurricane inflicted $70 billion in damage and killed 233 people across eight countries from the Caribbean to Canada), seriously considering denying FEMA aid to blue states. Recently, after California wildfires, Donald Trump claimed that state was to blame for those fires, even as California’s forest management policies mirrored those in neighboring federal forestland, which were equally destroyed.

Yet climate changes issues have been so linked to California, where water rationing is escalating in major cities, where farmers (the biggest consumers of water) cannot get enough to grow their most necessary crops, where rainfall is contracting, snow disappears from mountains earlier every year, and where lakes and reservoirs are at their lowest levels in recorded history. Even as California has its own local oil and gas reserves, right-wing fossil fuel producing states lead the cabal against both California and climate change itself. And yes, this is a fundamental GOP plank that does not exist in the Democratic Party.

According to AmericanProgess.org (March 20, 2021), “there are still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress, including 109 representatives and 30 senators, who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. All 139 of these climate-denying elected officials have made recent statements casting doubt on the clear, established scientific consensus that the world is warming—and that human activity is to blame. These same 139 climate-denying members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries.

“While the number of climate deniers has shrunk by 11 members (from 150 to 139) since the CAP Action Fund’s analysis of the 116th Congress—largely in the face of growing and overwhelming public support for action on climate—their numbers still include the majority of the congressional Republican caucus.* These climate deniers comprise 52 percent of House Republicans; 60 percent of Senate Republicans; and more than one-quarter of the total number of elected officials in Congress. Furthermore, despite the decline in total overall deniers in Congress, a new concerning trend has emerged: Of the 69 freshmen representatives and senators elected to their respective offices in 2020, one-third deny the science of climate change, including 20 new House Republicans and three-of-four new Republican senators. Of note, no currently serving Democratic or independent elected officials have engaged in explicit climate denial by this analysis’ definition.” They’re killing us! We keep hearing about unprecedented “natural disasters,” most directly linked to climate change, but denial still prevents necessary solutions.

Times OpEd writer, LZ Granderson (May 5th) adds some caustic details of this rampant denial: “But what should be abundantly clear to everyone is that ever since Hurricane Katrina pummeled 90,000 square miles of the country — roughly equivalent to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined, for those keeping score at home — when it comes to natural disasters, the ‘unprecedented’ has become the ‘more frequent.’

“When Katrina struck in 2005, I thought a productive conversation about climate change could be had. Clearly that was foolish. Each year since 2019, PBS has had to update its titleholder for ‘costliest year for weather and climate disasters since 1980.’ Thanks in large part to Hurricane Ida’s $75-billion price tag, last year was the third costliest on the list… [Republican climate change deniers, however,] are the people we are depending on to steer the Southwest through its driest period since Vikings roamed the seas.

“Anyone concerned?... Particularly among the 25 million people across three states and Mexico who rely on Lake Mead for water… The levels have dropped so low that the lake’s original intake valve from 1971 is now visible. In some ways, it’s fitting for the largest man-made reservoir in the country to be the scene where some of our transgressions are being spat back out in our faces.

“Not to be outdone by Mead, water levels at Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the country, have dropped about 100 feet in three years. It is now just 32 feet away from not being able to produce electricity. New rules requiring many Californians to limit outdoor watering to one day a week may be just the opening act to this crisis… Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said the biggest contributor to water use in the region isn’t urban growth but farming. You can’t get more ‘blue vs. red’ than that.

“Considering how willing many politicians were to gaslight voters about a deadly pandemic, I fear the damage that will come from a political landscape in which wooing climate deniers is part of the election strategy. Nearly 50% of Republicans still believe human activity is not causing any changes in the climate.

“Imagine being a candidate in Texas for the upcoming midterm, trying to make it through a Republican primary during a water crisis caused by a 22-year megadrought for which half your voters don’t think humans are responsible. And yet nearly 84% of Texans are affected, so you have to say something nuanced at a time when social media has rendered nuance a depreciating asset.

“With last July being the planet’s hottest month in recorded history and the West being the driest in 1,200 years, you would think we would be more unified on the issue. You would be wrong… In March, Pew reported that nearly 60% of conservative Republicans didn’t want the U.S. to join the international effort to fight climate change. Last year, current GOP darling Ron DeSantis loosely referred to efforts to address global warming as ‘left-wing stuff.’… These aren’t examples from decades ago. This is right now, as the rivers and lakes disappear. As talk of electricity loss and water restrictions become more real.” Facts seem to be very unpopular these days.

Still, California pays more into federal coffers than it receives in federal values, the opposite of most red states. Further, we must remember that nature does not succumb to political unpopularity or any form of denial. The laws of physics do not stand for reelection. Humanity proceeds at its own peril.

I’m Peter Dekom, and remember nature started with rocks, gas and water… and if life comes or goes, nature does not care!

Not Since the Dinosaur Apocalypse

 

               Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

One of the most interesting forms of denial has embraced humanity’s reaction to the disasters that roil from unequivocal and direct climate change causation. Fossil fuel producers lambast scientific studies – despite a virtual uniform agreement among the relevant scientific community that global warming is the planet’s most dire existential challenge, far eclipsing the unparalleled devastation from our pandemic. Some fossil fuel states even charge homeowners who have the audacity to install solar panels on their roofs. It is, to them, a problem for future generations.

We use words like “sustained mega-drought” instead of irreversible “desertification.” Wildfires are a production of such “droughts.” We speak of the explosion of mega-storms and storm surges as “normal cyclical natural phenomena,” even as they intensify with the rising global temperature averages. A one-way rise, hardly a cycle. As cold and warm fronts collide with increasing intensity, we ignore the trend of more frequent, more widespread, intense tornados. We ignore island nations that are disappearing from rising seas and laugh at the inconvenience of street flooding in the Miami area.

In short, we continually look at the symptoms, respond to those symptoms, spend billions rising to trillions of dollars to restore and repair those specific disasters, as if that pattern of sidestepping dealing with the underlying cause is “enough.” Some religious orders claim that God promised not to punish the Earth again (after the “great flood”). Others claim the dire warnings are simply exaggerations from left-wing extremists attempting to oust and replace those energy sources that “built America.” Poor countries cry out that the costs should be born by the rich nations who built their wealth on raping their natural resources and powered industrialization based on fossil fuels.

But all this seems to be a chronic, kick-the-can-down-the-road human resistance to do what must be done now to save most of us, including the wildlife (plants and animals) that have no vote in mankind’s profligate ways. Scientists, not as concerned about convincing than they are about warning, continue to use the “end of the century” metric of horribles. Instead of dealing with the here and now, perhaps the clearly visible immediate future, these metrics simply aid and abet that kick-the-can-down-the-road mentality. Further, the pattern of treating the individual disasters resulting from climate change while fighting “budget and affordability” battles that prevent true deeper solutions, seems to be akin to treating chronic bleeding disorder in humans – hemophilia – by using increasingly bigger bandages.

If all of these disasters are something we can readily see, what is happening in areas of Earth that are not so apparent? What is happening under those vast waves of saltwater we call “oceans” and “seas”? For oceanographers, scientists whose chose field is to look beneath, it is no mystery. What we are experiencing on land is apparently so much worse in that watery mantle that covers most of the planet. What is happening is mass extinction of undersea life. Plants that process carbon dioxide and feed other sea life. Animals that complete the oceanic ecosystem. Even as food for an exploding human population.

The last time Earth faced such catastrophic annihilation, the planet turned morbidly dark after being struck by a massive asteroid… and the era of dinosaurs ended most unpleasantly for the largest animals that roamed the planet, along with a litany of other species unable to adapt. Millions of years ago. Well, it’s happening again, but we have replaced the asteroid with the choking accumulation of greenhouse gases.

Last month, Princeton University earth scientists Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch published their study in Science, tracking ocean losses and damage, using statistics and computer models to analyze the acceleration of extinction. Those rising and immediate effects, if they continue unchecked, would create a mega-pattern of extinction which would slowly purge one-third of all existing species over the next three centuries. I know: too far in the future. But there are signs everywhere in the here and now. “Dead zones” are exploding. You just have to look at the great coral reefs all over the planet to see what we are facing now. What has happened as average global temperatures have risen 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since the pre-industrial era. Sarah Kaplan, writing for the April 28th Washington Post, summarizes that published report:

“Warming waters are cooking creatures in their own habitats. Many species are slowly suffocating as oxygen leaches out of the seas. Even populations that have managed to withstand the ravages of overfishing, pollution and habitat loss are struggling to survive amid accelerating climate change… The oceans have absorbed a third of the carbon and 90 percent of the excess heat created by humans, but their vast expanse and forbidding depths mean scientists are just beginning to understand what creatures face there…

“These rising ocean temperatures are shifting the boundaries of marine creatures’ comfort zones. Many are fleeing northward in search of cooler waters, causing ‘extirpation’ — or local disappearance — of once-common species… Polar creatures that can survive only in the most frigid conditions may soon find themselves with nowhere to go. Species that can’t easily move in search of new habitats, such as fish that depend on specific coastal wetlands or geologic formations on the sea floor, will be more likely die out.

“Using climate models that predict the behavior of species based on simulated organism types, Deutsch and Penn found that the number of extirpations, or local disappearances of particular species, increases about 10 percent with every 1 degree Celsius of warming… The danger of warming is compounded by the fact that hotter waters start to lose dissolved oxygen — even though higher temperatures speed up the metabolisms of many marine organisms, so that they need more oxygen to live… The ocean contains just one-60th as much oxygen as the atmosphere; even less in warmer areas where water molecules are less able to keep the precious oxygen from bubbling back into the air. As global temperatures increase, that reservoir declines even further.

“The heating of the sea surface also causes the ocean to stratify into distinct layers, making it harder for warmer, oxygenated waters above to mix with the cooler depths. Scientists have documented expanding ‘shadow zones’ where oxygen levels are so low that most life can’t survive.

“Deoxygenation poses one of the greatest climate threats to marine life, said Deutsch, one of the study’s co-authors. Most species can expend a bit of extra energy to cope with higher temperatures or adjust to rising acidity. Even some corals have found ways to keep their calcium carbonate skeletons from eroding in more acidic waters.” However, many species cannot adapt; they just die off. The massive changes in our oceans are hardly a “canary in the coal mine”; they represent the entire coal mine if the warning signs are not taken seriously right now.

I’m Peter Dekom, but if humanity wises up and deals effectively to contain climate change, those Princeton scholars tell us that we could eliminate 70% of those mass oceanic extinctions.

Do Dems Seriously Want to Fight Inflation?

 

Lesson One: The Republicans are out fighting culture wars and imposing extremist evangelical mandates. For those who believe in these values, the Christian nationalists with more than a few antisemitic white supremacists in the mix, there is absolutely nothing short of embracing these views wholeheartedly that the Dems can do to reverse that vote. Republicans might not have any solutions to real problems, most notably rising crime rates and inflation, but they are happy to stick “failure” labels on Dems for not fixing those issues. Evangelical support of Israel is hardly altruistic. Armageddon, which triggers the “Rapture” and the “Second Coming of Christ,” requires a global war of annihilation that must begin in the Middle East, where only evangelicals survive. Only a strong Israel, in their view of the Bible, can trigger that prophecy.

Lesson Two: Stalwart Republican voters are so immutably locked into their beliefs that contrary facts are totally irrelevant. So, stop trying to argue with them. That there will be more impoverished mouths to feed with serious negative long-term consequences, if Roe v Wade is truly reversed and purged in red states, is irrelevant. That rising crime rates are directly proportionate to increasing penetration of semiautomatic weapons under lax gun control laws, and the cartels south of the border have power only because of masses of illegal guns which drives terrified victims to our border seeking asylum, is equally ignored.

Bottom line: Joe Biden’s carefully avoiding significant reversals of Trump imposed policies so as not to generate Republican opposition is beyond stupid. The only serious solutions to high crime rates, immigration reform and inflation require reversing Trump policies in each of those arenas. So, if we follow a most basic political credo – “It’s the economy stupid!” – Dems have a very short window to make a difference before the mid-terms.

Political columnist, Fareed Zacharia, writing an OpEd for the May 19th Washington Post, explains the effective economic response very directly: “As a reminder, a tariff is a tax on goods paid by the U.S. consumer who buys those goods. It is by definition inflationary; it raises the price of a good such as an imported car. But it causes even more inflation than that, because it raises the price of the domestically made equivalent goods as well. If a Mazda sells for more, then Ford and General Motors also tend to raise prices on their cars… The reverse logic applies as well. If you cut tariffs, that also has a broader effect: When the Mazda gets cheaper, Ford and GM will cut prices to compete.

“In March, the Peterson Institute for International Economics produced a study estimating that reversing most of the Trump tariffs would reduce inflation by 1.3 percentage points. Lawrence H. Summers, a Post contributing columnist who has been prescient on many things in this economic crisis [and an American economist who served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as the 8th Director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006], endorsed that study, concurring that trade barrier reduction was the single biggest microeconomic measure ‘by far’ that could be taken to alleviate inflation in the near term.

“The second one, he noted, would be immigration reform. This is the time to reverse more of Trump’s restrictions on immigration, many done by executive action and hundreds of which are still in effect, which have caused severe worker shortages in industries such as farming, construction and health care.” So where are the obvious breakpoints?

China: Like or not, over 18% of the global economy is driven by China. High tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have made prices of virtually all manufactured goods (regardless of the country of origin) more expensive right here in the United States. We have lots of horse-trading issues to exchange with China, including restraining their support of Russia during the Ukraine war, Taiwanese territorial integrity (which Biden pushed hard on in his Asia trip), opposing their militarization of and claims in South China Sea, and protecting American intellectual property from illegal appropriation. Our market is huge, and lowering tariffs both ways cuts inflation big time. Trade, Joe, trade!

Iran: In 2018, when Trump withdrew from the six-nation accord aimed at containing Iran’s ability to enrich weapons-grade plutonium, every one of our intelligence agencies informed the President that the treaty was working. Iran soon resumed its enrichment program despite additional US sanctions. Remember, Russia was providing 12% of the global oil production (about even with Saudi Arabia) before the Ukraine invasion. Those exports have been sanctioned by 37 nations, under US leadership. Meanwhile, also under US sanction, Iran possesses 13% of global oil reserves and produces over four million barrels per day, accounting for 4% of total global output. It is capable of producing much more. Iran has signaled a willingness to re-engage in talks aimed at limiting its military ability to generate nuclear weapons in exchange for reduced sanctions. Trade, Joe, trade!

Labor Shortages and HB Visa Relief (H-1B, etc.): Donald Trump slammed the tech industry as well healthcare, construction, and agriculture industries by severely cutting back on the necessary visas for workers that could not be sufficiently recruited within the United States, either because of educational shortages or work Americans just won’t do. Our supply chain suffers from rising labor costs or complete shortages of workers needed to restart a more normalized production/ delivery flow. Get pragmatic about the workers we need. Now!

While there might be lots of immediate negative statements about reversing any of the above sanctions, tariffs and visa limitations, guess how Americans would react to falling prices at the pump, restored supply chain flow and a more sustainable inflation rate. Exactly!

I’m Peter Dekom, and dogmatic policies, particularly those based on xenophobic “go it alone” assumptions (the MAGA world), just will not solve our serious inflation concerns.

Now What?

  

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Could Justice Samuel Alito be right, assuming that Roe vs Wade had never been decided, that an inferred “right to privacy” under the Fourteenth Amendment was not an ideal plank upon which to build such a momentous ubiquitous “right to abortion” constitutional decision? Even RBG agreed with that notion, but… Experts argue that the case is not appropriate for review as “unconstitutional,” since in fact a. it is within the clear prerogative of the Supreme Court to define broad sweeping provisions of the Constitution (thus, expanding the Fourteenth Amendment to embrace a personal and equal application of “privacy”) in its rulings. and b. it is a clear precedent of the Court that has overwhelming popular support, having given rise to practices and expectations of American women for almost half a century.

Yes, it would have been more efficacious for the Roe Court to have relied more heavily on the words “equal protection,” but that panel of justices was compelled in its decision by another, 1965 Supreme Court precedent (Griswold vs Connecticut). Justice William O Douglas wrote the majority ruling in that matter, where Connecticut had banned the distribution of contraceptives, and created a constructional notion of privacy, transmitted to the states under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment but based on a mix of interpretations of provisions of the Bill of Rights. If Roe falls, are same sex marriages (Obergefell v. Hodges – 2015) and conception bans next to be reversed? Both have substantial “privacy” underpinnings.

While British common law had gently touched upon the question of a right of privacy over many decades earlier, there was no clear American right to privacy in any embodied American statutes. Indeed, the topic exploded as a Harvard educated Dean of the School of Jurisprudence at UC Berkeley, the author of a continuously updated “hornbook” (a basic expert text generally accepted by the legal community as a legal practice guide in the relevant field) – Prosser on Torts (which began publication in 1941, but truly began a more detailed examination of privacy in 1960) – tackled the notion in depth.

The expansion of tort law (civil wrongs other than a breach of contract) to create a right of “privacy” (as newspapers of the time were deemed to be unnecessarily personally intrusive) became the hot topic just as the Court was examining the Griswold case. Douglas embraced this new right of “privacy” and applied that notion to limit states’ impinging on individual personal matters… like contraception. So, the 1973 Roe court simply used the same reasoning to matters of abortion. It was the easy button. Roe without Griswold could just as easily have been decided on a pure “equal protection” basis.

Assuming Roe is reversed, 26 states with severe if not total abortion bans (many with automatic “triggers” the day Roe is reversed) are ready to take the abortion option off the table for millions of American women. There are no comparable statutory provisions for those unwanted children, many born to children in deep poverty, and the system is woefully unprepared for the resulting adoption necessity. So, what can the unradicalized women of America do – that over 70% segment who do not want Roe reversed? Kate Kelly (attorney and author of Ordinary Equality: The Fearless Women and Queer People Who Shaped the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Rights Amendment), writing for the May 23rd Los Angeles Times, suggests that implementing the Equal Rights Amendment might be a concept whose time is right.

Kelly traces the history of that amendment… in very different times: “[In 1972,] The House approved the ERA [reproduced above] 354 to 23, and just eight senators voted against it. But it had still not been ratified by 1973 when Roe came down. With the Constitution still lacking an explicit right to equality, the Roe decision is a technical, medicalized one. It hyperfocuses on a pregnant person’s body and pregnancy timing rather than a right to equal citizenship and freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex…

“The ERA barreled through 30 of the 38 necessary state ratifications in the first year after its passage, and ratification seemed inevitable. But after the Roe decision, many conservatives channeled their opposition to abortion toward the ERA, launching a wider fight against women’s rights. Phyllis Schlafly’s STOP ERA movement was born.

“As the religious right’s political influence began to grow, this group of far-right activists chose abortion as a wedge issue to activate their base — but zeroed in on opposition to the ERA as the first concrete campaign to flex their newfound political power. Catholics, evangelicals and Mormons banded together against the amendment. In 1982, when the extended time limit on ratifying the ERA expired, STOP ERA declared victory.

“Many feminists gave up on the fight, falsely thinking at least access to abortion was secure. However, in recent years and with increasing threats to our basic liberties, the ERA has found new life. The amendment stands now as the most straightforward solution to current constitutional woes.

“The ERA has already met all the constitutional requirements for ratification. [see above map] In 2020, Virginia became the 38th and final state needed to satisfy the Constitution’s Article V, which governs the amendment process. With the amendment having passed in Congress by more than the two-thirds vote required, and being ratified by enough states, respected constitutional legal scholars agree that the ERA is now the 28th Amendment. The only step left required by statute says the national archivist has to certify the additional ratifications and publish the amendment in the Federal Register. We are literally one signature away from changing the Constitution.” The clock ticked passed the deadline, the national Archivist failed to certify the result, and the 28th Amendment (the ERA) sits… and sits. Kelly continues:

“Though two years have passed since Virginia’s ratification, the archivist has refused to act, saying a green light is needed from the White House. Yet Harvard professor Laurence Tribe wrote to Congress in March that his ‘conclusion as a constitutional scholar is that the ERA is currently a valid part of the United States Constitution,’ that Congress should recognize it as such and that ‘even if Congress takes no such action the Archivist should publish it as the Twenty-Eighth Amendment.’

“The states that have ratified in the modern era, Nevada, Illinois and Virginia, filed suit against the archivist in 2020 to compel him to recognize their ratifications. Though the states lost in federal district court, they have appealed to the D.C. Circuit, where the case now stands. Depending on the outcome, the case could end up before the Supreme Court. But a strict reading of Article V makes amending the Constitution a political question not for the courts to resolve.”

Does the ERA instead need a do-over with a perilous path in red states? How strongly do voters feel about treating woman equally? Arguments like exposing women to a military draft seem archaic as American women soldiers, sailors and air combatants are routinely deployed today in harm’s way. What are the real reasons woman should be second class citizens? Isn’t it time to fix that?!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I continue to be amazed that there still is resistance to making American women the full equals of American men.

Fear and Extremism Are Good for Business

 

Texas officials on May 25th, led by Gov. Greg Abbott, 

explaining away the Uvalde massacre as a mental health issue

•  Fear and Extremism Are Good for Business

If you believe those oft-spoken words from the NRA – suggesting well-armed citizens are necessary to ensure that Congress and the federal government are reflective of their values – are just fluff, think again. Beginning with the aftermath of the Vietnam War, American small arms manufacturers (mostly in Connecticut and Massachusetts) were facing a disastrous shortfall in orders for weapons. They enlisted a non-profit gun safety organization, the NRA, to open a for-profit public relations/lobbying wing to push for greater consumer gun demand and limited if any government regulation. That was 1976, a time when there had never been a Supreme Court decision ruling that the Second Amendment embodied a universal American right to own a gun.

Based on the wildly successful and well-funded NRA efforts, that decision came in a 2008, a 5-4 ruling (Heller vs DC) based on what legal experts believe was a severely distorted analysis of the plain meaning of the Amendment. Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion applied his “originalist” logic to modern guns – skipping over the reality of flintlocks and musket from 1789 – essentially ignored the “well regulated militia” language as immaterial and invoked an interpretation of British law in the late 18th century that purportedly inspired that Amendment, a view that British jurists have found abysmally incorrect.

Subsequent federal courts, a trend that has accelerated with Trump-appointed judges, have widened Heller to apply to military-grade assault weapons, voided even modest state and municipal gun laws (for example, a California law requiring that, with few exceptions, one must be at least 21 to buy a gun) and generally supported red states’ loosening of gun laws, thus striking down blue states, facing rising big city gun crimes, attempting to control the carnage. There are now more guns than people in the United States, and by NRA estimates, over 15 million semiautomatic assault rifles in civilian hands.

In my May 26th Only in America blog, I presented specifics on the NRA’s pattern of making large campaign contributions, particularly to incumbent Republican Senators (a practice that extends to state offices as well), to make sure federal gun control legislation – which is favored by 90% of Americans even in red states – never happens… and that states struggling to create and enforce their own gun laws are stopped dead in their tracks by “federal preemption.” Despite our mass shootings that do not take place anywhere else in the world (other than nations at war), that Republican Senate bloc, bolstered by the cloture/filibuster rule that requires a 60% vote on most bills just to muster a floor vote, pretend that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and defeat popularly supported legislation, even to provide universal background checks or increase federal agencies’ ability with increasingly well-armed domestic militia with a clear anti-democratic goal. You may have seen them marching on January 6, 2021.

But nothing brings home the dramatically nefarious goal of the gun lobby to sell as many guns as they can, for any reason they can think of: to cartels south of the border with marketing campaigns specifically targeting that segment, even including weapons engraved with Latin American heroes, to north of the border to fearful Americans, gangs in escalating turf wars… and yes, to tactically trained anti-democratic militia. To understand exactly how we got here, here some interesting observations from a former strategist for that gun lobby, Ryan Busse, writing an OpEd for the May 26th The Guardian (UK) entitled: Shootings aren’t a sign America is ‘broken’. It's working exactly as intended. While this is a longer piece, this excerpt is really worth reading:

For more than two decades, I worked in the highest levels of the firearms industry. I spent my career working to hold on to the principles of responsible gun ownership and fighting against the very predictable results of increasing extremism and the pursuit of profit above all else… I wrote my book Gunfight about the truth of what the industry has become and about my life fighting it from the inside. Today I’m a senior adviser to the gun violence prevention group founded by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords – not a career path I thought I’d have when I first started out in the firearms industry, but one that felt very necessary to me given what I experienced.

For the first few years of my career, which started in 1995, the industry adhered to self-imposed rules and norms – such as restricting tactical gear like that worn by the Buffalo and Uvalde shooters to the law enforcement and military sections of trade shows. Even up until about 15 years ago, self-imposed policies like this were strictly enforced by the industry’s own trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). Industry norms prohibited displaying tactical gear, certain marketing campaigns or incendiary firearms names, for fear of what might spread throughout the country.

But as the increasing vitriol of the National Rifle Association (NRA) proved politically effective, some in the gun business realized this messaging could be adopted by the firearms industry to sell more guns. All that was required for success was a dedication to frighteningly dangerous rhetoric and increasingly powerful weaponry. Cultural norms and responsibility would have to go… The extreme risks and likely outcomes of such an experiment seemed obvious to me and to others. I refused to join the growing tactical market and worked to weaken the NRA behind the scenes. And I wasn’t the only one.

A number of other people in the industry sounded their own alarms about the impacts of ‘terrorist rifles’ and a nation with unlimited gun sales and insufficient responsibility. Those warnings resulted in the quick and very public loss of careers at the hands of the NRA and its growing radicalized troll army.

Everyone else got the message. Speaking up for responsibility was not to be tolerated. Unpleasantries like radicalized young men with too many guns were to be treated like diffuse pollution that could be dealt with by someone downstream. Even when unspeakable tragedies, such as the murders at Sandy Hook, were linked directly to shockingly irresponsible marketing campaigns that promised a metaphorical ‘man card’ to any young man who purchased an AR-15, the NSSF opted to look the other way.

For years, the NSSF worked behind the scenes to criticize and marginalize people like me who spoke up. Today the organization openly attacks anyone who speaks out in support of gun safety. But it has nothing to say about Kyle Rittenhouse or armed men menacing the Michigan capital. So far there is silence from the NSSF and the NRA on the 10 Black Americans murdered in Buffalo and the 19 children and two teachers murdered in Uvalde.

The NSSF helped craft a new world of gun lobby extremism in which profits are all that matter. With the election of America’s first Black president, the lobby embraced conspiracy-mongering, racism and fear campaigns. Gun sales soared from less than 8m guns in 2008 to more than 16m in 2016.

In 2016, the firearms industry was all-in on Donald Trump and even piped his 2017 American Carnage inauguration speech throughout the industry trade show like a religious ceremony. The industry celebrated because Trump was the perfect salesman for more guns. This system was simply being pushed to its next stage.

This Friday [5/27], Trump is scheduled to speak at the annual NRA convention in Houston – less than 300 miles from Uvalde. The convention hall will be full of NSSF industry members lining up to court Trump and his frenzied fans. The system continues to work just as it was designed by the NRA and NSSF; from their point of view, nothing about it is broken.

Right after the Uvalde massacre of elementary school children: “Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pushing a vote to advance a House-passed bill that would set up domestic terrorism offices across three federal agencies. Republicans argue the bill, spurred by alarm over the rise in incidents of homegrown violent extremism, is unnecessary and that Democrats are trying to score political points.” Washington Post, May 26th. It has zero chance of passage. Meanwhile, in Houston, Texas, the annual meeting of the NRA, replete with high profile Republicans speaking, took place at a venue where, by NRA rules, guns were not permitted. Yet, their overwhelming message: More guns to stop gun violence.

For those Republicans who believe teachers should be armed and cops (retired or current) should be stationed in every school in America, I remind them that cops outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, stood outside for an estimated 40 minutes, listening to gunshots inside the school, waiting for orders. It was a Border Patrol Agent who eventually shot the perpetrator. Teachers with guns? Every jurisdiction on earth, including some movements earlier even in the United States, that has pulled guns out of society watched gun violence drop accordingly. It’s the easy button, but we need to push it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and every legislator, every member of Congress and every judge voting or ruling against reasonable gun control has the blood of young children on their hands.

Only in America

 

                                                                Poster for late May, annual meeting

We are all acutely aware of the recent mass shootings: On May 14, 2022, identified as 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, a self-proclaimed avowed racist, began a mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in Kingsley, an eastern neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, United States. Ten people were killed (all Black), and three others were injured. On May 24, 2022, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States, killing 19 children and 2 teachers, and wounding about 16 others. A picture of mourners is above. Earlier that day, Ramos shot and wounded his 66-year-old grandmother. Lots of “our prayers and condolences” across the nation – a withering same-old/same-old – in a country with almost as many guns as people. Oh, lots of people are “in shock” – why I cannot fathom – and repeated cries from Americans are everywhere, including from the President, for reasonable gun control. Again. And again. And again. But nothing ever happens except looser gun laws.

We are well north of 160 mass shootings this year alone. Are we likely to see national gun control, statutes that will not be struck down by Trump-appointed federal judges? Don’t hold your breath. We couldn’t even get very modest gun control during a Democratic administration after the 2012 Sandy Hook (Newton, CT) mass school shooting (26 killed, of which 20 were between the ages of 6 and 7). We’re relegated to “active shooter” drills in what are supposed to be safe places for our children. Schools.

According to the Brady Campaign, an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control, looking at numbers from the last national election, “More than 90% of Americans want stronger gun laws, like expanding Brady Background Checks to all gun sales, yet Trump has only pandered to the gun lobby, refusing to listen to the will of the people and take up common-sense gun reform.” And they are quick to point out that while the National Rifle Association may have begun as a sun safety organization, the NRA shifted to becoming primarily a paid lobby for American gunmakers in the mid-1970s, as those manufacturers were losing government sales with the end of the Vietnam War.

Guns are durable and, if reasonably maintained, have an exceptionally long functional life. So, the NRA was well paid a. to legitimize ubiquitous gun ownership (which required an entirely new interpretation of the Second Amendment that had never existed before) and b. to support candidates who supported open gun ownership and defeat those who represented reasonable gun control… because an entirely new generation of “cool” weapons were about to hit the market. Their efforts paid off brilliantly with the only Supreme Court decision (Heller vs DC – 2008) since our nation began that ruled the Second Amendment created a basic and universal right to gun ownership. The Court ignored the plain “a well regulated militia” language of that amendment and miscited British law in existence when the amendment passed, era to get there. The decision was rendered well after there were mass school shootings (e.g., Columbine), but the Court’s narrow 5-4 decision seemed to ignore that rising trend. Americans, including children, were expendable dupes to the NRA mandate.

We know that statistically, only one out of thirty-five civilian gun homicides are deemed “justifiable,” thus rendering “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy like a gun” NRA mantra both wrong and dangerously misleading. Strange that after each mass shooting, instead of fighting for reasonable gun control, even universal background checks, red states and Republican Senators push for fewer restrictions on gun ownership and the weapons themselves. Post-mass shooting sales skyrocket every time, as people fear the common-sense gun control, that never comes, will finally pass. As so it goes. We are the only country on earth, not at war, where civilian guns death have reached epidemic proportions. We know are never going to achieve the fewer than ten civilian guns deaths per year that represents Japan, where organized crime is still significant (the infamous Yakuza), but we can do a whole lot better than what exists.

Despite the occurrence of mass school shootings in their home states, Senators like Colorado’s Cory Gardner (from the state where 14 were killed in the Columbine High School massacre in 1999) and Florida’s Marco Rubio (from the state of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that killed 17 in 2018) continue to push against even limited efforts to rein in gun violence. It’s the US Senate, where rural states benefit from the unrepresentative skew of two Senators per state regardless of population, that has been the problem. Given the cloture/ filibuster rule, these bills don’t even make it to a floor vote. Looking at the last national election, Brady examined NRA contributions to each incumbent US Senator. Here are just the top ten recipients of that largesse, all Republicans:

Mitt Romney (R/UT - $13,647,676, average gun deaths per year: 365), Richard Burr (R/NC - $6,987,380, average gun deaths per year: 1311), Roy Blunt (R/MO - $4,555,722, average gun deaths per year: 1074), Thom Tillis (R/NC - $4,421,333, average gun deaths per year: 1311), Cory Gardner (R/CO - $3,939,199, average gun deaths per year: 715), Marco Rubio (R/FL - $3,303,355, average gun deaths per year: 2,568), Joni Ernst (R/IA - $3,124,773, average gun deaths per year: 264), Roy Portman (R/OH - $3,063,327, average gun deaths per year: 1402), Todd Young (R/IN – $2,897,582, average gun deaths per year: 907), Bill Cassidy (R/LA - $2,867,074, average gun deaths per year: 946). A hall of shame. Each and every Senator who has consistently voted against popularly supported gun control should be held personally accountable for these murders.

Texas, home of the latest school massacre (Uvalde), aids and abets gun crime and mass shootings with laws allowing open carry, unpermitted concealed carry, “stand your ground,” legitimized sales of large magazines and military-grade assault weapons and general opposition to universal background checks. Texas is hardly alone in these crime/shooting enabling statutes. They are pervasive in one form or another, where red state legislatures have long prioritized gun ownership over human life… even the lives of their children. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a diehard right-wing Republican, suggested after the Uvalde shooting that schools needed more well-armed guards in school, not gun control. Seriously. And yes, even a majority of Texans support some level of reasonable gun control, but the NRA writes bigger campaign checks.

If you want a list of what this nation needs to mandate, within a narrowing interpretation or total reversal of Heller, in order of likely passage: 1. Universal background checks for all gun owners (weeding out those with a clear propensity for violence, mental illness or criminal convictions), 2. Civil and criminal responsibility for parents with guns in their household where their children commit gun crimes with those weapons. 3. Banning all untraceable guns (those without serial numbers and ghost guns). 4. Repealing all laws that encourage guns for self-defense where there is an alternative for self-protection. 5. Banning large capacity magazines, silencers and other mass shooting enabling devices. 6. Banning semiautomatic assault weapons. 6. Repealing the exemption accorded gunmakers for crimes committed with their weapons (focusing on marketing and lobbying to inappropriate buyers). Mexico and points south, where cartels effectively rule the streets, are almost entirely enabled with American-made guns bought easily here and very easily smuggled there. Days after Uvalde, major Republicans are about to speak at the 2022 NRA annual meeting. Shame? None!

I’m Peter Dekom, and it does seem that the only way to “make the bad man stop” is by voting out GOP Senators who have voted as a bloc against gun control… and have succeeded wildly.

Bitcoin or Bitcrime

 

“Whether you’re Binance or Ethereum, Dogecoin or Bitcoin, this is a great bill.”

Florida Representative John Snyder, a Palm City Republican, referring to a law exempting crypto exchanges and coins from state securities laws.

Cryptocurrencies exist as a parallel, decentralized form of “money,” protected through a massive, electricity gobbling (lots of file servers) combination of an open access “platform” (literally a digital ledger like Ethereum or Bitcoin) and a litany of digital codes, stored across many file servers (digital lockers), which codes must be combined to release and deploy the “currency.” Blockchain is like a huge, multiparty controlled digital combination lock. Think of all of this as a massive peer-to-peer currency network without any centralized control or policy. There are few cracks in the system that have resulted in theft, and entire cryptocurrencies have been completely hijacked. Although these nightmares are rare, the extreme volatility of cryptocurrencies, for example rising and falling 30% in a single day, is simply part of the risk. 

A cryptocurrency user opens an account on one of many sites with differing currencies (Bitcoin is the largest) or downloads an app… buys the desired amount of crypto (which is recorded on a digital platform)… and is able to pay in crypto or simply hold the crypto as an “investment.” Lots of folks have made a whole pile of money on these platforms… others, well, not so much. Skeptics worry, with some justification, that some obvious negative challenge to any one or all cryptocurrencies could cause a complete collapse. A 1929-like fall of the crypto world. And although the Biden administration has ordered all federal agencies to come up with updated proposals to regulate this field, it is still the wild, wild west of uncertainty.

Traditional currencies, like dollars, pounds and euros, are predicated on the widespread faith in the underlying nation and its economic policies. The way of national currencies “backed by gold reserves” has faded. The United States abandoned the gold standard in 1971. Cryptocurrencies likewise are built around a faith in the blockchain security system and the underlying expected supply and demand realities. Faith. Stories of legendary wealth, the machinations of Elon Musk and obvious evidence that even some countries, notably El Salvador, have even officially recognized crypto as government sanctioned tender have moved the crypto value meter up. That Crypto.com (an exchange where crypto can be bought, sold, traded, etc.) paid $700 million just for naming rights for the arena (above), where the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers and Kings play, created many new crypto believers. 

While some countries are going the opposite way of El Salvador – China has banned cryptocurrencies – here in the United States, the federal government still treats these currencies as securities – like stocks and bonds. That these virtual currencies can be used for hard-to-trace dark market transactions, to move ill-gotten gains freely (money laundering), in drug trades, or avoid taxes, seems to slip by. Note, the current IRS forms ask if you have engaged in any crypto deals, and if you did but do not check the box, you can add perjury to a possible charge of tax evasion. If a parallel currency system gets large enough, that could also negate a nation’s ability to impose and enforce its monetary and fiscal policies.

Most solicitations and trades in passive investments are regulated by so-called securities laws. These consumer/investor protection statutes came as a direct result of the 1929 Wall Street market crash, and by 1934 federal securities laws rose to cover any transaction that crossed state lines. Likewise, every state in the union also adopted securities laws that applied to local fund raising, often releasing when a “security” was listed on a nationally accepted exchange (like the NYSE). With the rise in cryptocurrencies, we have recently witnessed a new trend, mostly in states that prioritize corporate values over individual and consumer protection: the exemption of cryptocurrency trading from state securities laws with a hope that the feds will follow.

With midterms approaching and candidates’ hands extended, it is no wonder that now well-heeled crypto companies have wrangled their way into state legislatures and have actually drafted those statutory exemptions. The “swampland for sale capital of the US” – Florida – has once again undistinguished itself in leading this campaign of state statutory exemptions to existing consumer protection laws, knowing that the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal enforcement agency, is woefully unprepared and understaffed to deal meaningfully in this field… not to mention the dearth of needed SEC regulations.

Last month, after four-minute debate, the Florida House passed the lobbyist-drafted exemption bill, quickly followed by the state Senate. It was instantly signed into law by the governor. Writing for the April 10th New York Times, Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany fill in some of the details: “Florida’s warm embrace of the cryptocurrency agenda is just the tip of an aggressive industry-led push to position states as crypto-friendly beachheads. Across the nation, crypto executives and lobbyists are helping to draft bills to benefit the fast-growing industry, then pushing lawmakers to adopt these made-to-order laws, before moving rapidly to profit from the legislative victories…

“Many states are racing to satisfy the wish lists from crypto companies and their lobbyists, betting that the industry can generate new jobs. But some consumer advocates worry that this aim-to-please effort could leave investors and businesses more vulnerable to the scams and risky practices that have plagued crypto’s early growth.

“In Florida, the new money-transmission legislation emerged from a monthslong collaboration between Representative Vance Aloupis Jr., a Republican of South Miami, and Samuel Armes, who is starting a cryptocurrency investment firm, Tortuga Venture Fund… ‘Vance has been an incredible asset to the blockchain and crypto community,’ Mr. Armes said.

“Similar teamwork has been on display in Wyoming, North Carolina, Illinois, Mississippi, Kentucky and other states, according to a New York Times review of state legislative proposals and interviews with legislators and their industry allies… At least 153 pieces of cryptocurrency-related legislation were pending this year in 40 states and Puerto Rico, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures. While it was unclear how many were influenced by the crypto industry, some bills have used industry-proposed language almost word for word. One bill pending in Illinois lifted entire sentences from a draft provided by a lobbyist.”

Digital currency, in fact almost everything that flies across the worldwide Web, is confounding state and federal legislators and regulators. They are breathlessly running behind the changes, trying to shoehorn both legitimate malignant practices into constitutional and statutory paradigms, with limited success. At least the federal government has sufficient expertise to evaluate the risk, an ability that is countered by partisan polarization and a snail-paced legislative process. Watching seriously uninformed state legislators, however, dive into shark infested waters after being assured by questionable lobbyists that water is safe… well, this could get very ugly very fast.

I’m Peter Dekom, and just embracing a new parallel currency with massive potential for fraud and abuse, without really understanding the risks, is becoming typical of the new plutocracy that is defining an increasing part of American governance.

In Pursuit of Racial and Ethnic Purity

Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán

WWII Nazi Poster

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

14 words that are the log line of American White Supremacists: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” First spoken by convicted White nationalist terrorist David Lane. “14” - now a rallying cry for White supremacists.

A brown-haired Austrian house painter became enamored of Nordic, blonde-haired bodies. He blamed Jews (it started with “Jewish bankers” and then generalized) for the harsh reparations imposed by victorious allies on his adopted nation (Germany) after WWI, reparations that literally crushed daily lives for ordinary Germans. He used ethnic pride and a clear target to blame to claw and then purge his way to power. He was the archetypal White Christian supremacist. His “Thousand Year Reich” lasted an ugly 12 years (1933-45), ending in Hitler’s suicide and the Nuremburg trials with somewhere between 40 and 50 million people killed. Humanity has never learned the lessons of Adolph Hitler’s brutal and genocidal rise to power.

Genocide (euphemistically “ethnic cleansing”) has infected swaths of modern humanity, from Myanmar, Bosnia and Armenia to Rwanda, Russia, Nanking and even Indonesia, to name a few. It always starts with a deep belief in the superiority of one ethnic or racial group over another… or all other ethnic or racial groups. It develops, builds on like-minded individuals eager to find scape goats or vulnerable peoples, until the hated “other” no longer is viewed as relevant, sometimes as even human. It always starts with fear or feeling increasingly marginalized by those unfortunate targets selected for blame.

But since these are ethnic and/or racial targets that actually do not move I lockstep and are often themselves marginalized, the vulnerabilities of the chosen blame-targets give rise to sanctimonious discrimination that always generates violence. And it escalates from there. The class of blame-targets is often expanded to include anyone who opposes that racial and ethnic superiority… or simply people who are different. “Deviants” and those who challenge gender and sexual “norms” of that “pure” segment of society almost always find their way to that excluded and marginalized class of “inferior people” who must be purged.

But the brutality of one racial and ethnic group claiming superiority over others does not start with genocide. Government sanctioned oppression of the sanctioned class is hardly the first step. It usually starts with an unscrupulous politician, preying on the fears of a significant constituency with sufficient clout to implement repressive targeting, to voice a rallying cry: they’re taking our jobs, raping our women, committing crimes against us and corrupting our moral values. Sound familiar?

If that message resonates, if those words awaken deep prejudices that were often kept private, if enough “adherents” rally to the “cause” and if mass media normalizes that hatred and discrimination, we begin to see official government programs aimed at the blame-targets. Discrimination and marginalization of the blame-targets becomes governmental policy. Acts of violence against blame-targets becomes more frequent, and even if “punished,” such selective violence is often glorified by those claiming ethnic and/or racial superiority.

If we want to see a fully-implemented government sanctioned policy of racial and ethnic purity, one that has not needed to escalate to genocide because of the success of installing that desired “purity,” we only need look at Hungary, a NATO/European Union member, and its strongman, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Fidez Party, Viktor Mihály Orbán. Hungary’s language is barrier enough – it is difficult to learn and does not mirror any other major language (there is a slight resemblance to Finnish) – but Orbán has become the leader of Hungarian ethnic purity, excluding other ethnic and racial groups with particular disdain for LGBTQ individuals:

“In 2020, he banned adoption by same-sex couples — which has been legal in all U.S. states since 2017 — and made it impossible for transgender people to legally change their gender. Last year, his government passed a law that prohibited sharing content with minors seen as promoting homosexuality or sex reassignment. It also contained provisions restricting education on homosexuality and establishing a searchable registry of convicted pedophiles. The legislation triggered a firestorm of criticism elsewhere in the European Union and plunged Hungary into a slow-rolling clash with its E.U. partners to the West.” From the first (May 18th) of a Washington Post series of articles on Orbán led by WP columnist Ishaan Tharoor.

Orbán is a favorite of Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson, has enjoyed political input from people like Steve Banon and other staunch American conservatives. He has encouraged White Christian women in Hungary to have more White babies, even offering bounties for those women who comply. An open admirer of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, he is one of the few NATO leaders who refuses to comply with most of the NATO sanctions on Russia. Orbán also is totally opposed to immigration, particularly against persons of color and fleeing Muslims.

If you listen to Donald Trump’s campaign speeches from 2016 to present, if you follow his policy decisions while in office and understand his sway with populist right-wing voters, particularly his running themes that support White supremacy in the United States, his words mirror those of Orbán in Hungary. Trump has Fox News and a few other comparable media supporters. Orbán simply shut down opposing media.

But there is new right-wing sheriff in America now, one with clear presidential aspirations as aging and besieged Donald Trump’s star has begun to fade. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reflects Orbán’s policies in Hungary more than any other American voice. DeSantis is a leader in limiting recognition that racism still exists in America. His recent “don’t say” gay legislation and his punishment of Disney for opposing that view are right out of Orbán’s playbook. DeSantis’ popularity among conservatives is soaring. And with gerrymandering and voter suppression, that demographic segment has a solid hold on the GOP… and a large part of the United States.

According to Rod Dreher, senior editor at the American Conservative and an outspoken Orbán admirer (Dreher just moved to Budapest), “Florida — under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — is attracting influential American conservatives who are eager to take up residence in a state being steadily reshaped by one of the country’s most ambitious elected politicians. In his telling, that’s like the Hungarian capital, which has turned into a popular convening ground for right-wing pundits and intellectuals, and is set to host an overseas edition of the U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference [in mid-May].

“The convergence goes far deeper. Orban, who has remained in power since 2010 and recently won reelection, is adored by American conservatives as a leader who has achieved both political and cultural victories in his country. Orban presides over what he declares is a ‘Christian democracy,’ an illiberal state where ‘traditional’ values hold sway and liberal adversaries have been sidelined or frozen out of key institutions.” The Post. Sound familiar? Red alert! Funny (not in a humorous way) that Ron DeSantis’ undergraduate degree at Yale was history.

I’m Peter Dekom, the biggest political question facing America today is whether its political system and purported underpinnings of democracy can survive this terrifying pursuit of racial, gender and ethnic “purity.”