Unplanned, Unexpected and Maybe Uninsurable

  

Nobody really expected the NYC subway system to flood, beginning with Superstorm Sandy (2012), but it has happened enough for the city to install inflatable “corks” where the system is closest to the sea (like the tip of Manhattan; see above left). But rising sea levels and more virulent tropical storms across the United States are making flooding very common in major urban areas. If you live in Florida, you know exactly what I mean. Flooding streets are very common in the cities of South Florida (above right is downtown Miami), and right now, it is still simply a tolerable inconvenience. But as climate change-related insurance premiums skyrocket – especially in regions plagued by wildfires, floods and coast surges – the nuisance of maintaining an insured home moves to desperate red alert.

Insurance companies are pulling entirely out of some states impacted by these events, even as governors, legislatures and even many in Congress continue to deny or marginalize the rising risks and damage easily attributable to climate change. Indeed, there are states where the only wildfire and flood insurance available is the less-than-normal coverage from the states themselves, the disaster insurers of last resort. The industry refers to such areas as “insurance deserts.” Writing for the January 8th The Wall Street Journal, Jean Eaglesham, notes:

“‘Climate change will destabilize the global insurance industry,’ research firm Forrester Research predicted in a fall report. Increasingly extreme weather will make it harder for insurance companies to model and predict exposures, accurately calculate reserves, offer coverage and pay claims, the report said. As a result, Forrester forecast, ‘more insurers will leave markets besides the high-stakes states like California, Florida, and Louisiana.’

“Allstate CEO Wilson said: ‘There will be [more] insurance deserts. … Florida’s insurer of last resort is now the main provider of home coverage in that state.” As Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, slides around the country in a failing effort to take the GOP presidential party nod, his constituents are suggesting that he focus on their own local problems, exacerbated by Florida’s very flat geography, hurricane patterns and widespread subsurface and very porous limestone in lieu of solid bedrock. Sinkholes and flooding are exceptionally common, and given the state’s official minimization of climate change, there’s not much in the way of government preparation for what is obviously an irreversible trend.

In Italy, as Venice continues to sink into the sea, billions and billions of dollars are being spent to block major seaways with astoundingly complex “reactive” dams and plans to pump up vast stretches of this art-laden city. Florida will share that ignominious fate with that ancient city, but so will every major US coastal city. Denial, marginalization, not planning or preparing for floods, coastal surges and wildfires may just be the most expensive mistake our local, state and federal governments can make, especially if they are not spending enough to stop greenhouse gas emissions in the first place.

To measure the lack of preparedness by US cities, professors from both the Yale School of Management (SOM) and the Harvard Business School (HBS) decided to see if they could find the relevant metrics. In Yale Insights for December 19th, Rebessa Beyer summarizes their results (a revised paper was published on November 27th on SSRN):

“When a major credit rating agency announced a few years ago that it would start incorporating climate risk into its ratings of municipal bonds, Yale SOM’s Anya Nakhmurina and her co-author Shirley Lu [HBS] decided it would be interesting to know how cities across the United States were adapting to the consequences of climate change… But, despite the enormity of the problem—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says billion-dollar inland flood events have risen sharply over the last four decades—no one seemed to be monitoring cities’ preparation levels… ‘It was impossible to get aggregated, archival data,’ Nakhmurina says. ‘We thought, ‘Both of us are experts in financial reporting, and we really care about this issue, so why don’t we just leverage our expertise to compose the data ourselves?’ ’

“The results—based on financial disclosures data for more than 400 cities, which took two years to collect—offer a fascinating glimpse into the country’s climate preparedness, or lack thereof. The study looks specifically at flood risk, in part because, as Nakhmurina explains, humanity has ‘centuries of innovation’ to draw from in dealing with excess water as compared to say, managing exposure to extreme heat.

“The most startling finding in the paper is that, while high-risk cities in general have higher adaptation than low-risk cities, more than half of high-risk cities have below-average adaptation levels. ‘That really shocked us,’ Nakhmurina says. Perhaps also surprising: the factors correlated with low adaptation levels include budget constraints and shorter-term planning, but not any particular political leaning…

“Based on the data, the researchers explored three factors that might explain the adaptation gaps, drawing on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report: political affiliation, financial constraints, and planning horizons. Despite the politicization of climate change in the United States, they did not find any correlation between Republican-led cities and lower levels of preparedness. Instead, adaptation gaps are associated with more quantitative concerns: cities with less money and shorter planning horizons (one year versus five years) are 7% and 4% more likely, respectively, to have a gap between their adaptation efforts and their risk of flooding.

“‘Given all the research we have about drastic differences in climate change views between Democrats and Republicans, we were very surprised to find that differences in beliefs don’t map into differences in action,’ Nakhmurina says. In contrast, ‘long-term planning actually matters a lot.’ Experience also seems to matter: The data revealed that high-risk cities increased their adaptation by 19% following major hurricanes.

“The paper is unique in that it provides systematic panel data for so many cities over several years and that it is based on cities’ financial documents, rather than their stated plans and goals…‘ A plan can change,” Nakhmurina says. ‘But if something is in the budget, that means it is less likely to change. If it’s in an annual report, that means it actually happened.’” And the American tradition of kicking the can down the road just might be the vastly most expensive path we can take.

As a parting note and as reported in the January 9th USA Today, try this reality on for size: “New satellite images show the eastern US coast is sinking at a faster rate than what was first reported last year…” From 0.6 inches/year to 0.8. Not much, right? Add that to rising seas and coastal erosion. Not a pretty combination!

I’m Peter Dekom, and knee jerk reactions to cut budgets and taxes, instead of looking at genuine needs and values, are a sure path to a litany of massive and unaffordable natural disasters for which we are woefully underprepared.

Put a Tiger in Your Tank… Or Let Him Run Wild?

Put a Tiger in Your Tank… Or Let Him Run Wild?

Purging Experts and the “Deep State” from Government?

If you are a large corporation, you almost always want to rein in government regulation and minimize taxes. You got your tax wish with Trump’s 2017 deficit-busting slash of the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Now if only corporate America could do away with federal administrative agencies protecting consumers, requiring public companies to file complete and accurate statements to the public, supporting workers trying to unionize, supervise food and drug sales and quality, protect the public from pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental damage, etc. Well, on January 17th, we got one more example on how the MAGA movement has gone beyond Congress and state legislatures through a rightwing set of Supreme Court Trump appointments to act as a de facto legislature, without limits, to implement that agenda. The oral arguments before the Court on January 16th presented just such an opportunity.

Writing for CNN on January 17th, Joan Biskupic, sets the stage: “Wealthy business entities and conservative advocates have been building toward this Supreme Court moment for decades. And now with three appointees of former President Donald Trump on the bench, their goal appears within reach, and the regulatory world could be turned on its head… Justices who’ve been gradually constraining federal regulators sounded ready during arguments on Wednesday [1/16] to make their most substantial move yet and gut a 1984 ruling that has given US agencies wide latitude over policy, from environmental protection to workplace safety.

“Reversal of the so-called Chevron deference approach was a priority for the judicial selection team that served Trump – on par with some right-wing activists’ quest for reversal of constitutional abortion rights. The reconstituted Supreme Court delivered on that agenda item in 2022 when it overturned Roe v. Wade.

“Former White House counsel Don McGahn, who controlled Trump’s judicial selections, regularly touted the administration’s anti-regulation agenda. He was especially drawn to the first two Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, for their records in that regard… ‘There’s a coherent plan here, where actually the judicial selection and the deregulatory effort are really the flip side of the same coin,’ McGahn said at a 2018 appearance…McGahn also remarked publicly of Gorsuch’s personal history. The Chevron case traces to the early 1980s tenure of Anne Gorsuch [Neil’s mother], then the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who cut back on air and water quality initiatives in the Reagan era of deregulation.” MAGA conservatives want to end courts’ deference to statutory interpretations given by specialized federal administrative agencies created by Congress.

Anti-Deep State, MAGA believers have called for the abolition of the IRS, Dept of Education and the EPA, among many administrative agencies created by Congress. And as Adam Liptak, writing for The Morning news feed from the January 18th NY Times, tells us, they just might be getting their way: “Now that abortion is restricted and affirmative action is hobbled, the conservative legal movement has set its sights on a third precedent: Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council… The 1984 decision, one of the most cited in American law but largely unknown to the public, bolstered the power of executive agencies that regulate the environment, the marketplace, the work force, the airwaves and countless other aspects of modern life. Overturning it has been a key goal of the right and is part of a project to demolish the ‘administrative state.’

“A decision rejecting Chevron would threaten regulations covering — just for starters — health care, consumer safety, government benefit programs and climate change… After three and a half hours of lively arguments on Wednesday [1/16] that appeared to divide the justices along the usual lines, it seemed that the court’s conservative majority was prepared to limit or even eliminate the precedent.

“Chevron — and bear with me here, this will hurt only for a minute — established the principle that courts must defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. The theory is that agencies have more expertise than judges, are more accountable to voters and are better able to establish uniform national policies. ‘Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of the government,’ Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984 for a unanimous court (though three of its justices recused for reasons of health or financial conflict). Stevens later said of the opinion, which was easily his most influential, that it was ‘simply a restatement of existing law.’… ‘If Chevron amounted to a revolution, it seems almost everyone missed it,’ Justice Neil Gorsuch, the harshest critic of the doctrine on the current court, wrote in 2022, saying that courts had read it too broadly.”

Even rightwing Supreme Court Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia, felt that given the required expertise in a modern world, “I tend to think, however, that in the long run Chevron [deference] will endure and be given its full scope-not so much because it represents a rule that is easier to follow and thus easier to predict (though that is true enough), but because it more accurately reflects the reality of government, and thus more adequately serves its needs.” Duke Law Journal, June 1989.

But if the rightwing cadre of Trump appointees are leaning to repeal the Chevron deference entirely, is there a middle ground that could work? Writing for the January 18th Journal of the American Bar Assn., Debra Cassens Weiss, explains:” Conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to limit or overturn the 1984 decision that established Chevron deference, the principle that federal courts should defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous laws, according to media coverage of oral arguments Wednesday [1/16].

“One option, explored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was ‘Kisorizing’ the Chevron doctrine, which was a reference to the 2019 decision in Kisor v. Wilkie that trimmed the use of Auer deference, Law360 reports… Auer deference is the principle that courts should defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous regulations… Justice Elena Kagan, author of the Kisor opinion, ‘promptly adopted’ Barrett’s term, according to Law360. She and the high court’s two other liberal justices expressed support for continuing to rely on the doctrine because agencies have the expertise to interpret ambiguous laws… Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that overturning Chevron deference could turn courts into ‘uber-legislators.’... ‘My concern is that if we take away something like Chevron, the court will then suddenly become a policymaker,’ Jackson said.

“Justice Brett Kavanaugh saw a downside to keeping Chevron deference in place, according to the news coverage by the New York Times, SCOTUSblog, Reuters and the Washington Post… He said Chevron deference ‘ushers in shocks to the system every four or eight years when a new administration comes in’ and adopts ‘massive change’ in areas such as securities, communications and environmental laws.” But a fact-averse, gridlocked Congress is not the obvious answer. Courts vainly seeking a clear legislative intent could be equally frustrating.

“And to tell the truth, the quest for the ‘genuine’ legislative intent is probably a wild-goose chase anyway. In the vast majority of cases I expect that Congress neither (1) intended a single result, nor (2) meant to confer discretion upon the agency, but rather (3) didn't think about the matter at all. If I am correct in that, then any rule adopted in this field represents merely a fictional, presumed intent, and operates principally as a background rule of law against which Congress can legislate. If that is the principal function to be served, Chevron is unquestionably better than what preceded it. Congress now knows that the ambiguities it creates, whether intentionally or unintentionally, will be resolved, within the bounds of permissible interpretation, not by the courts but by a particular agency, whose policy biases will ordinarily be known.” Scalia.

I’m Peter Dekom, and in a highly complex modern world where much understanding requires expertise, the Supreme Court needs to be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

What’s It Gonna Cost, Alfie?

 

From: University of Florida/IFAS Extension Brevard County

Republicans, for the most part denying the immediacy of necessary steps to contain the ravages of climate change – literally to stop and reverse the greenhouse impact of carbon-based emissions into the atmosphere – base their opposition two factors: 1. We cannot afford the effort, which will throw too many people out of work and disrupt too many businesses. 2. We have oil, and we really should focus our money on more drilling, not wasting tax dollars to incent alternative energy (labeled as “woke”). 3. Everyone on earth needs to take steps to mitigate carbon emissions, and unless they do, what’s the point?

The general response to those in the alternative energy sectors looks like this: 1. Alternative energy is creating vastly more jobs than will be lost in the old-world fossil fuel economy. 2. We are one of the major users of fossil fuels on earth and should lead by example. 3. Burning fossil fuels necessarily results in greenhouse gasses, and some fossil fuels are exceptional polluters (like coal). 4. All those wildfires, coastal flooding, searing summer heat, general floods in some areas while others are simply permanently drying up, more frequent and intense weather disasters (e.g., hurricanes), migration of disease carrying insects follows their climate requirements… cost us trillions of hard dollars, far more than the aggregation of taxpayer dollars and investment dollars lost to climate change. And more than a little misery.

So, experts have lining up to address the most basic question. What actually are the costs to address (contain and reverse) climate change? The first step is to apply metrics that would be acceptable to the experts. A study presented in the November 30th issue of Science, by authors and Matthew Kotchen, professor of economics at the Yale School of the Environment, James Rising, assistant professor at the University of Delaware and Gernot Wagner, Columbia University climate economist tackles the conflicting valuation issues:

“How much will it cost to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a global scale? The answer is critical for assessments of how to address climate change—affecting public support, political will, and policy choices. We find that the ‘bottom-up’ estimation approach emphasized by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports considerably lower costs for emission reductions than leading ‘top-down’ economic models. We also find that one core feature explains the vast majority of the difference: The bottom-up estimates include substantial reductions that appear to come at zero cost, or even at a savings, whereas the economic models assume no such ‘free lunch.’ The fact that different methodological approaches produce different results may not be surprising. But that nearly all of the discrepancy loads on how much mitigation is seemingly costless raises important challenges for understanding and communicating the actual costs of reducing emissions.”

Writing for the Yale School of the Environment, Dylan Walsh, explains what all that means, beginning with one example (electric vehicles). “The overall cost of an EV, when taking into account things like maintenance and operation, might be estimated below the cost of a comparable car with an internal combustion engine. EVs are also associated with lower emissions, so with this model it appears that adopting an EV would have both a climate and economic benefit. In total, the IPCC estimates that enough EVs and other ‘win-win’ technologies and processes exist to cut emissions by 16% by 2030 while saving money across the global economy…

“It is likely the IPCC estimates are overly optimistic about how little it will cost to reduce emissions, but the economics IAMs are also likely to be overly pessimistic. The true costs are likely between these two extremes… These different avenues of logic lead to substantially different conclusions. If countries were willing to invest in actions that cost up to $50 per ton to mitigate GHG emissions, the IPCC models anticipate that this would generate a reduction of 43% by 2030; the economic models instead project only a 26% reduction of GHG emissions.

“[To resolve this discrepancy, citing Professor Kotchen, Walsh adds:] First, researchers should further explore the 16% of climate mitigation measures that the IPCC suggests can save money. The authors note that this 16% accounts for almost all of the divergence between models. A better understanding of how much mitigation is truly ‘costless’ could bring the models into closer harmony… It is likely the IPCC estimates are overly optimistic about how little it will cost to reduce emissions, but the economics IAMs are also likely to be overly pessimistic. The true costs are likely between these two extremes…

“Second, reinforcing the connection between economists and the IPCC and strengthening collaborations between economists and climate scientists could provide a more clear-eyed view of the costs associated with addressing climate change. This, in turn, could help to cultivate more realistic and politically feasible policy proposals.

“Third, more research is needed to better understand barriers surrounding the adoption of mitigation efforts and energy efficiency programs. The out-of-pocket costs are not the only barrier. People have ‘nonmonetary”’considerations as well. For example, with cars, consumers have concerns about performance and familiarity with the technology. Behavioral and social science research should look into interventions that can overcome these barriers.

“Finally, the standard economic models should be continually updated to reflect the newest information on GHG mitigation costs. Currently, a process exists to update the costs associated with climate change and calibrate them between top-down and bottom-up approaches. Currently, no such efforts exist with climate mitigation costs.”

So, what do we actually know? People are dying from the heat, the loss of agricultural productivity and the mega environmental disasters listed above. We know that we face trillions and trillions in hard dollars … without having to calculate the hard individual cost of the death, destruction and sheet misery climate change is already throwing at humanity… and every living thing on this planet… including you and your heirs! The numbers are just one piece of information that would be nice to know. But it is getting worse; 2023 was the warmest year in recorded history!

I’m Peter Dekom, and how much expense would you accept to live in a world that is getting more uncomfortable, perhaps even uninhabitable, if we save that money now?

California, Notorious for Flakes, Has Almost No Snow

California, Notorious for Flakes, Has Almost No Snow

If You Get My Drift

For too many, there’s not a lot of humor in what the Western states face vis-à-vis the BIG ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE: WATER. They called them atmospheric rivers, as the Earth currents produced massive rainfalls snailing across the Western United States. What should have been a blessing in water-parched California turned into a curse of floods, mud rivers, landslides, destructive waves and surf plus flooded streets… but the rainfall released most of its wet load onto coastal regions. Sure, reservoirs received some needed water, but that precious snowpack, which normally accounts for as much a third of state’s water supply, is not showing up inland, in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada range. The spring melt is supposed to be a major source of replenishment for state’s rivers, lakes, streams and aquifers… but experts suggest that these snow melts may fall well below normal expectations. It is now being referred to as a “snow drought.”

There’s still time for snowfall to develop, but if excessively arid conditions persist in these mountains, their forests become very dry timber in the summer in a state already devastated by wildfires. Writing for the January 3rd Los Angeles Times, Hayley Smith writes what the experts are seeing: “‘In some cases there is literally no measurable snow on the ground at all,’ [Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA Swain] said during a briefing Tuesday [1/2]. ‘What this means is that right now, as of today, snowpack is at or below all-time record-low numbers for the beginning of January, and I know that’s pretty alarming.’”

It's deeply troubling for ski resorts all across the Western states (although a mid-January storm dropped barely enough for many to reopen), but recreational disasters pale in comparison to all the essential water needs in this part of the United States. Even as significant efforts are being implemented – severe water usage restrictions, building new reservoirs to contain rain runoff, redesigning flood channels to capture and slow more rainwater and even Los Angeles’ effort to recycle purified sewage water back into our drinking water supply – it’s clearly not enough. Not enough for California or most of the Western states:

“On Tuesday [1/2], state officials conducted their first snow survey of the season at Phillips Station, near South Lake Tahoe, where the ground was a patchy mixture of grass and powder. The monthly surveys in winter and spring are key to forecasting how the state’s resources will be allocated each year.

“Snowpack at the location measured 7.5 inches, with a snow water content of 3 inches, said Sean de Guzman, manager of the California Department of Water Resources’ snow surveys and water supply forecasting unit. That amounts to just 30% of average for the date, and 12% of the average for April 1, when snowpack is typically at its deepest… ‘The January snow survey is always our first big reveal of snow conditions for the year,’ de Guzman said. ‘Last year on this date, we were standing on almost 5 feet of snow — so vastly different than what we are standing on here today.’

“Electronic readings from 130 stations across California indicate the snow water content statewide is just 2.5 inches, or 25% of average for the date, compared with 185% at the same time last year… ‘While we are glad the recent storms brought a small boost to the snowpack, the dry fall and below average conditions today shows how fast water conditions can change,’ de Guzman said.

“Low precipitation and warm temperatures are causing snow drought conditions throughout the West, not just in the Sierra Nevada, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. Other regions include the Northern Rockies and parts of the Lower Colorado River Basin and Rio Grand River Basin…

“‘California saw firsthand last year how historic drought conditions can quickly give way to unprecedented, dangerous flooding,’ read a statement from [California Department of Water Resources] Director Karla Nemeth. ‘Although El Niño does not guarantee an above average water year, California is preparing for the possibility of more extreme storms while increasing our climate resilience for the next drought.’

“Seasonal outlooks from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration still favor warmer-than-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation in California through at least March, de Guzman said, noting ‘we still have a lot of season left.’” Smith. The bigger questions we should ask what the more permanent changes are and what can we do to alleviate the problem.

The struggles to find and maintain adequate water for agriculture (the biggest user) and consumer access are only mounting. How can Las Vegas or Phoenix remain viable or how long will Los Angeles be habitable without solving this mega-issue, particularly as Congress’ polarization – challenging water-preserving infrastructure budget allocations – makes the situation worse? An obsessive-compulsive MAGA drive to keep taxes for the mega-rich low, combined with the general GOP marginalization of climate change, could wind up being an American farm and city killer. Those ubiquitous water issues are constant, including how to allocate the water resources we still have.

Water, water not everywhere, but not a drop to drink? Indeed, the seven Western states which entered into a water allocation agreement in 1922 over the Colorado River, accorded more water than was actually available. After a tumultuous spate of negotiation, in May of 2023, those seven states reached an agreement “to cut consumption and help save a river that provides drinking water for 40 million people and irrigation for some of the country's most bountiful farmland… Arizona, California and Nevada will reduce intake by 3 million acre-feet (3.7 billion cubic meters) through the end of 2026, an amount equal to 13% of their river allotment, under a deal brokered and announced by the Biden administration.” Reuters (5/22/23).

Our priorities cannot be to preserve income and wealth inequality favoring the mega-wealthy while our nation is facing problems that need expensive proactive solutions. Nature truly does not care if Republicans do not want adequately to address these issues or continue to insist that climate change fears are overblown and too expensive to fix anyway. Simply put, Congressional action of inaction will not repeal the laws of physics.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Americans really need to ask how their elected representatives intend to address their needs versus the greedy desires of those who have too much wealth in the first place.

The New China Syndrome vs A Taipei Personality

“Every election in Taiwan is to some degree about China… It’s always going to be about identity or are you Chinese or Taiwanese?... This is baked into the party system.”

Nathan Batto, a longtime scholar of Taiwan’s politics at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Political Science

In 1972, China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and Mao Zedong’s life (1893-1976) were nearing an end. To put it mildly, the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) was a mess, isolated and very much mired in the past; the Cultural Revolution had dramatically eroded most of that nation’s functioning institutions. Her population was then pressing toward 900,000, making her the most populous nation on Earth. To us, she was a communist nightmare, our military opponent the Korean War two decades earlier, without direct diplomatic communications with the United States. We only recognized the Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan) – Chang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist island nation – as the legitimate “China.” US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger changed all that, secretly working behind the scenes. He organized a visit by Republican Richard Nixon to Beijing in 1972, a president whose party had been vehemently anti-communist.

The United States thus opened a diplomatic door with Chairman Mao, but there were a lot of strings attached. Foremost, the United States had to acknowledge that there was but one legitimate China, and that eventually Taiwan would be absorbed within the Peoples’ Republic. Mao seemed to have won his battle against the Nationalists. The PRC instantly replaced the ROC in the permanent membership of the UN Security Council, our “embassy” in the ROC was closed and replaced by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a non-governmental organization mandated by the Taiwan Relations Act to carry out the United States’ unofficial relations with Taiwan. Yet our support of Taiwan, militarily and economically, remained strong right into the present day.

Despite some threats, bold speeches and flurries of military brinkmanship over the years – as the PRC asserted its territorial claim over Taiwan as an inseparable part of China – the status quo of a de facto two-state reality remained in place. Taiwan remained in the Western alliance camp, and the US guaranteed her territorial integrity arguing that the absorption of the ROC into the PRC would have to be voluntary and peaceful. Indeed, the two Chinas began trading with each other, and the status quo seemed assured. After all, as Joyu Wang, writing for the January 13th The Wall Street Journal, observed: “The latest polls tracking Taiwanese identity show the proportion of people on the island who identify primarily as Chinese plummeting to below 3%.”

And then, in 2012, President Xi Jinping assumed the leadership of the PRC, rapidly consolidating his power, eliminating term limits to his presidency and began pushing against the billionaire oligarchs whom, he believed had too much power. He supercharged the development of his Peoples’ Liberation Army (the PLA, which is actually under the Communist Party and not technically a direct part of the government itself) and began asserting hegemony if not direct control of vast stretches of the region’s waterways, even going so far as to expand (lots of new soil artificially added) an island in the Spratley chain into a menacing military base.

But most of all, Xi let the world know that the time when Taiwan would become a formal part of China, by force if necessary, was rapidly approaching. Tensions between the United States – which is actually one of the PRC’s biggest trading partners – and China deteriorated to a new low. US Navel vessels and jet aircraft played a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with their PRC counterparts in regional international waters claimed by the PRC. See the above photo of a near collision between US and PRC naval vessels in the South China Sea. Xi’s brutality with Hong Kong served as a red flag to many Taiwanese contemplating a possible reunification with the PRC.

It is within this historical contest that Taiwan held its most recent presidential election. Young Taiwanese, disillusioned with equality and housing affordability under the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DDP), supported a rising third party. The old-world nationalists were the real threat to the DDP. Still the PRC raged against any notion that favored a “separatist” candidate. They rattled sabers. Bold anti-separatist rhetoric abounded. PRC hackers slipped in a powerful online campaign, roiling with mis- and disinformation. To the PRC’s chagrin, the ROC reached a result that promised to continue if not exacerbate the already strained Sino-American relations.

“China’s least preferred candidate won Taiwan’s presidential vote on Saturday [1/13], extending the dominance of a ruling party that Beijing has denounced as a separatist force and raising the specter of four more years of geopolitical tensions around the island democracy… Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te claimed 40% of the vote in a rare and volatile three-way race, beating out second-place finisher Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, by nearly 7 percentage points.

“The result gives the ruling Democratic Progressive Party an unprecedented third straight term in the presidency, and signals that self-ruled Taiwan will continue to travel along the political and economic trajectory away from Beijing established under outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, who is stepping down due to term limits.” WSJ. China’s response was immediate: “Our stance on resolving the Taiwan question and realizing national reunification remains consistent, and our determination is as firm as rock,” said Chen Binhua of the official Xinhua News Agency.

Will China risk an armed assault in the near term? Later… or can some other peaceful resolution find a place. As China cozies up to Putin’s Russia and fails to rein in Kim Jong-Un’s threatening militarism in North Korea, it is easy to see how an already fractious world just become even more unsettled. Did Democracy win one or simply escalate the rise of global authoritarianism one more notch? Even our 2024 elections are very much in the headlights for both Chinas.

I’m Peter Dekom, and given the willingness of our long-standing enemies to engage in military force, our own presidential race may well determine the future of democracy around the world.

Mexico Needed a Wall against the US Gift that Keeps on Giving: US Guns

 

One of the biggest reasons people are fleeing their homes south of the border is violence born of drug trafficking… and the politicians’ drug money, most of which comes from users in the United States, that feeds their outstretched hands. We forget little things like MS 13, now heavily focused in El Salvador, that was actually born in the streets of Los Angeles and spread by California’s gang-infested prison system. We also forget that the narco-traffickers control their fiefdoms, often entire countries with the millions of US firearms that were bought easily in the US and then even more easily smuggled south. Cops, military officers, politicians, even entire police departments, bought and thoroughly paid for by US users. Cartels are happy to close the final mile.

But for those not banging on our southern border seeking asylum, those who remain behind and are not facing drought-damaged farms that no long produce crops… who just want to live in the country of the birth… life is often very tenuous. There are ways to deal with this violence – none of which is about US forces invading Mexico and killing cartel members off (remember Afghanistan and the heroin traffickers we never stopped?) – (i) accept and counter it or (ii) change the reported statistics. As Patrick J. McDonnell and Cecilia Sánchez Vidal, writing for the January 1st Los Angeles Times, noted… with Presidential elections looming over Mexico… that: “Mexico’s violence is a key issue for voters… For many Mexicans, it was difficult to square the headlines with official statistics showing that homicides are on the decline.

“Mexico had 32,323 homicides in 2022, down 9.7% from 2021, according to the government, which has reported that killings were on pace to fall another 9% in 2023. The total is about 50% higher than it was a decade ago.” But few believe the declining numbers. Mass shootings, massacres actually, are rather common. Narco-cartels exterminating competitors… and their families and sometime even the local villager to show who’s boss. In December, one more example of unrestrained urban warfare produced on attack of at “least 195 shells expended in the Dec. 10 assault, which left 11 people dead….

“The attack was one of three high-profile massacres last month in Guanajuato state, an industrial and agricultural hub that in recent years has mutated into a battleground for organized crime. With the country preparing for national elections in June, it was not surprising that the violence quickly became politicized… ‘This barbarism cannot continue,’ Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz, the leading opposition candidate for president, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. ‘An urgent change is needed to the security policy of the federal government.’

“Taking aim at President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his strategy to fight crime with ‘hugs not bullets’ by improving economic and educational opportunities, Gálvez continued: ‘Enough with hugs for the criminals and bullets for the young people.’” LA Times. Convoys of bullet proof vehicles ferry mega-wealthy Mexicans, with their very well-armed guards, from their armed fortresses they call home. Protecting politicians, especially those in the lower reaches of any administration, often misses more than a few here or there. And journalists? They have a life expectancy only slightly longer than their counterparts in Gaza.

“Nationwide, more than 90% of homicides go unsolved… Many of the victims of the recent violence ‘belong to a generation that has spent all of their lives in the middle of a lost war,’ wrote columnist Salvador Camarena in the newspaper El Financiero, referring to a battle against drug cartels that began in 2006 and is widely blamed for sparking a massive rise in homicides. ‘All they have heard about are cartels, massacres, police, soldiers, kidnappings’....

“Polls have indicated that insecurity is the major worry of Mexican voters before this year’s elections, which include balloting for a new president… Perhaps nowhere is that more true than in the state of Guanajuato, which once stood out as an island of relative calm. General Motors, Mazda and Toyota make autos here, and U.S. tourists and retirees flock to the leafy enclave of San Miguel de Allende.

“Now the state has the fourth-highest homicide rate in the country, with a total of 4,256 killings in 2022, or 68 for every 100,000 residents. Though that figure is down 20% from 2020, it is well over double the national rate and nearly seven times the rate for Los Angeles.” LA Times. Guanajuato reported a recent spate that killed 100 people in 7 days, according to the Yucatan Times (6/26/2020). What’s even worse about all this is that Mexico is hardly the worst of the lot. Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have proportionately worse statistics.

But specific gang wars can ramp up death and destruction in bullet-ridden competition. “Across Guanajato, a local crime syndicate known as the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel has been engaged in a bloody turf war with the much larger Jalisco New Generation cartel… The rivals battle for control of contraband gasoline, local methamphetamine markets and dominion over drug-smuggling routes leading north to the United States.” LA Times. Ah yes, that same United States that blames those running for their lives seeking asylum in the very nation that caused this mess, where pressures to close the border completely have become a cause célèbre among the pro-gun House Freedom Caucus MAGA uber-rightwing, constantly holding the House of Representatives hostage for their many absurd demands.

I’m Peter Dekom, and for those anti-“woke” Republicans telling their compatriots to “man-up,” I would suggest that taking responsibility for your actions, whether as a former president attempting to overturn an election by inciting violence or legislators opposing gun control and appointing judges to issues highly expanded rules permitting guns everywhere, of almost every kind, almost all the time… is the “man-up” they really need to implement.

Rewriting History and the Myth of Democracy’s Resilience

 

“I know your pain. I know your hurt… But you have to go home now… We love you. You’re very special.” 

 Donald Trump, to the invaders hours after the January 6th attack on the Capitol began 

“President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes ... join together and let’s stop this.” 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, days after the 2020 election

"When you talk about insurrection, what they're doing, that's the real deal. That's the real deal. Not patriotically and peacefully — peacefully and patriotically." 

Donald Trump 

“But let me be clear, there was no insurrection and to call it an insurrection in my opinion, is a bold faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol, and walk through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures, you know.” 

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.

"The truth is that this was a riot that should never have happened…It just infuriated me… I remember thinking, you know, 'Not this, not here, not at the United States Capitol.'" 

Mike Pence

The only accurate and honest quote above is Mike Pence’s recent statement on CNN. Every other quote is dispelled by the facts as clearly illustrated by the above photographs showing violence, Congresspeople diving behind desks and the chaos in the Capitol Rotunda on January 6, 2021. Donald Trump, the remaining GOP candidates and virtually every Republican member of Congress have attempted to recast the January 6th violence at the Capitol, in which there were serious injuries and resulting deaths, as peaceful and patriotic.

Trump, having been so certain of his nomination as the GOP presidential candidate for 2024, has not appeared at a single GOP primary debate. An actual trial in Colorado, sustained by the Colorado Supreme Court and now pending before the US Supreme Court, reviewed the facts surrounding the Capitol events, heard many witnesses, and concluded that Trump was indeed an “insurrectionist.”

Trump’s recent campaign rhetoric includes words like “dictatorship,” “retribution,” and make frequent references to suspending the Constitution while using the military and various federal agencies to jail his political opponents as he uses his constitutional power to pardon most of the convicted January 6th insurrectionists. Yet, most of the GOP leadership who declared Trump responsible for the Capitol insurrection now endorse his candidacy.

Joe Biden, a chief of state with one of the most solid global economic success stories, showing growth exceeding that of virtually every other developed nation on earth, is either neck-and-neck with Trump or trailing him in every poll I have seen. Despite the rallying economy, where wages finally exceed inflation, and that Trump is not that much younger, Biden suffers from an image as a doddering octogenarian, “repetition credibility” – where false criticism (here, the consistent GOP “terrible economy” mantra) is accepted as truth if repeated enough – and a divisive war in Gaza, pitting younger Democrats (including Jews), in horror at the number of Palestinian fatalities, against older Democrats who support Israel. These issues, and a feeling of unease across the land, pulls too many Americans to ignore what is really at stake: democracy itself.

The threat to democracy is underscored in this January 7th piece by Associated Press writer, Lisa Mascaro: “In the 2023 follow-up to their 2018 bestseller, “How Democracies Die,” Harvard professors Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky wrote about three rules that political parties must follow: accept the results of fair elections, reject the use of violence to gain power, and break ties to extremists… In the aftermath of the 2020 election, they wrote in ‘Tyranny of the Minority,’ only one U.S. political party ‘violated all three.’

“Saturday [1/6] marked the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and Donald Trump, the president at the time, is far and away the leading Republican candidate in 2024 polling… He still refuses to acknowledge his loss to Joe Biden. Far from rejecting the Jan. 6 rioters, he has suggested that, if reelected, he would pardon some who have been convicted of violent crimes. Rather than distance himself from extremists, he welcomes them at his rallies and calls them patriots…

“The [GOP] support for Trump highlights the divisions in the aftermath of the deadly storming of the Capitol and frames the question about whose definition of governance will prevail — or if democracy will prevail at all… ‘If our political leaders do not stand up in defense of democracy, our democracy won’t be defended,’ Levitsky told the Associated Press. ‘There’s no country in the world, no country on Earth in history, where the politicians abdicated democracy but the institutions held. People have to defend democracy.’

“The third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack comes during the most convulsive period in U.S. politics in at least a generation, with Congress barely able to keep up with the basics of governing and the start of the presidential nominating contests just over a week away… Trump’s persistent false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — which have been rejected in at least 60 court cases, by every state election certification and by the former president’s onetime attorney general — continue to animate the race as he eyes a rematch with President Biden.

“Meanwhile, Trump faces 91 felony criminal charges in federal and state courts, including the federal indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith that accused him of conspiring to defraud the U.S. over the election… Biden, speaking Friday [1/5] near Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge, recounted the events of Jan. 6, saying, ‘We nearly lost America — lost it all.’” The search for justice and accountability is now labeled a “witch hunt,” and Trump’s followers (most of the GOP) reject the indisputable violence of January 6th as if it never happened.

As rightwing populism rises all over the earth, most genuine democracies fear the possibility of Trump’s reelection not just as a threat to the United States… but “if it could happen there, it just might happen here.” After all, look at how many “democracies” have voted autocrats into power, from Hitler over three quarters of a century ago to Chavez/Maduro in Venezuela, Erdogan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary, Putin in Russia, etc. today. Indeed, on too many occasions, democracies all over the world have repealed democracy!

I’m Peter Dekom, and all the checks and balances embodied in our Constitution were never designed to create guardrails against a vote to repeal democracy itself.

Biden’s Falling Poll Numbers: Toast or Hoax?

 

Biden loyalists point to the poll-projected Big Red Wave for the 2022 mid-terms. While the GOP did squeeze to take the House, a reality that kept Congress from passing legislation, the Senate remained with the Dems. That Big Red Wave became a minor pink ripple, although the resultant House MAGA/Freedom Caucus in-fighting resulted in a gridlocked Congress, held hostage by an ultra-rightwing minority in the House. This gridlock produced a mere 27 bills in 2023 from a Congress that normally does well over ten times that number. The House GOP seems hell-bent on finding impeachment evidence (none yet) that Hunter Biden’s connections to his father make Joe just as corrupt as people accuse Trump of being. The ploy has found some traction.

And while most voters really do not like the geriatric rematch between Trump and Biden, it sure looks as if that’s what we are going to get. Discussions in the media have pitted an “insurrectionist” facing criminal trials against a doddering octogenarian whose vocabulary seems mired in the 1950s. Issues have taken second place to character analysis. Democracy itself is at stake, yet one set of voters will not attribute anything negative to Donald Trump. The other is just plain confused or ambivalent. Enough to support the “insurrectionist,” a self-declared angel of “retribution” who plans on being a MAGA dictator? “Oh no, we won’t vote for Trump,” they say, “We might not vote at all or vote for a third-party candidate instead.” That could elect Donald.

Some third-party candidates, most notably conservative/moderate Democrat Joe Manchin if he chooses to run as a purported “neutral” No Labels candidate, would probably doom Biden’s chances. Others, well, NBC News writer, Alex Seitz-Wal (December 26th) looks at third-party candidates amid voter frustration: “While minor-party candidates are nothing new, the ballot may be extra long next year, with well-known independents like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, along with possible centrist candidacies from West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and an effort backed by No Labels, on top of the familiar presence of the Green and Libertarian parties… ‘This is a pretty unique historical moment when more than 60% of the population says they’re open to voting for a third-party or independent candidate,’ said Tony Lyons, Kennedy’s book publisher and the co-founder of a super PAC that has already raised millions to support the ex-Democrat.

“Several recent polls show Kennedy’s support above 19%, the modern record for a non-major-party candidate set by billionaire Ross Perot during his 1992 independent campaign, despite mostly negative coverage in the mainstream media, Lyons said. And then there are the results of an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in December, summarized by AP journalists, Will Weissert and Linley Sanders, on January 5th: “In this time of war overseas, more Americans think foreign policy should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2024, with a new poll showing international concerns and immigration rising in importance with the public.

“About 4 in 10 U.S. adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on in the next year, according to a December poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research… That’s about twice as many who mentioned the topic in the AP-NORC poll conducted in late 2022… Long-standing economic worries still overshadow other issues. But the new poll’s findings point to increased concern about U.S. involvement overseas — 20% voiced that sentiment in the poll, versus 5% a year ago.

“It also shows that the Israel-Hamas war is feeding public anxiety. It was mentioned by 5%, while almost no one cited the long-running Mideast conflict a year ago. The issue has dominated geopolitics since Israel declared war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israeli soil… Four percent of U.S. adults mentioned the war between Russia and Ukraine as something for their government to focus on this year. That’s similar to the 6% who mentioned it at the end of 2022.

“Foreign policy has gained importance among respondents from both parties. Some 46% of Republicans named it, up from 23% a year earlier. And 34% of Democrats list foreign policy as a focal point, compared with 16% a year ago.” But the view on Biden from the UK’s The Economist (January 5th), which despises Trump, is positively scathing: “The man supposed to stop Donald Trump is an unpopular 81-year-old… In failing to look past Joe Biden, Democrats have shown cowardice and complacency.

“American politics is paralysed by a contradiction as big as the Grand Canyon. Democrats rage about how re-electing Donald Trump would doom their country’s democracy. And yet, in deciding who to put up against him in November’s election, the party looks as if it will meekly submit to the candidacy of an 81-year-old with the worst approval rating of any modern president at this stage in his term. How did it come to this?

“Joe Biden’s net approval rating stands at minus 16 points. Mr Trump, leading polls in the swing states where the election will be decided, is a coin-toss away from a second presidential win. Even if you do not see Mr Trump as a potential dictator, that is an alarming prospect… There are no secrets about what makes Mr Biden so unpopular. Part of it is the sustained burst of inflation that has been laid at his door. Then there is his age. Most Americans know someone in their 80s who is starting to show their years. They also know that no matter how fine that person’s character, they should not be given a four-year stint in the world’s hardest job…

“Like many pusillanimous congressional Republicans, who disliked Mr Trump and considered him dangerous—but could not find it within themselves to impeach or even criticise him—Democratic stalwarts have been unwilling to act on their concerns about Mr Biden’s folly. If that was because of the threat to their own careers, their behaviour was cowardly. If it was thinking that Mr Trump is his own worst enemy, it was complacent. Mr Biden’s approval ratings have continued to slide, while the 91 criminal charges Mr Trump faces have, so far, only made him stronger.

“Given this, you might think that the best thing would be for Mr Biden to stand aside. After all, the election is still ten months away and the Democratic Party has talent. Alas, not only is that exceedingly unlikely, but the closer you look at what would happen, finding an alternative to Mr Biden at this stage would be a desperate and unwise throw of the dice... Were he to withdraw today, the Democratic Party would have to frantically recast its primary, because filing deadlines have already passed in many states and the only other candidates on the ballot are a little-known congressman called Dean Phillips and a self-help guru called Marianne Williamson. Assuming this was possible, and that the flurry of ensuing lawsuits was manageable, state legislatures would have to approve new dates for the primaries closer to the convention in August…

“The president is not a good campaigner and is up against a candidate whose rallies are a cult meeting crossed with a vaudeville show. He needs someone who can speak to crowds and go on television for him. That person is not Ms Harris… One way she could serve her party and her country, and help keep Mr Trump out of the White House, would be to forswear another term as vice-president. Mr Biden could present his second term as a different kind of presidency, one in which he would share more responsibility with a vice-president acting more like a CEO. Either way, Mr Biden needs the help of an army of enthusiastic Democrats willing to campaign alongside him. At the moment he and his party are sleepwalking towards disaster.” Wow!

There are no easy answers. Biden should have dropped out a while ago. But that unwritten rule that “you do not run against an incumbent president in your own party seeking reelection” has held viable candidates back. Or maybe, that Red Trump Wave will fizzle out as well. Time will tell.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while I have a pile of blogs in inventory, I am having shoulder surgery that will immobilize my right arm for many weeks… so excuse my failure to add to that inventory, but I will be back!

America’s Massive Will Against Pervasive Super-Guns vs the US Supreme Court

    

Year	Events	Dead	Injured	Victims
2023	520	519	1476	1995
2022	695	762	2902	3664
2021	690	431	1688	2125
2020	615	521	2541	3062
2019	434	517	1643	2160
2018	323	387	1283	1670

Wikipedia Summary of US Mass Shootings From 2018 to 9/8/23

There is a huge difference between a revolver and a semiautomatic rifle with an oversized magazine. There’s a bigger difference between a crazed zealot with a knife and a crazed zealot with an AR-15. We absolutely know that anyone in the US with even a low IQ or even mental illness who wants a gun, even a military grade assault weapon, can get one. Background checks and limitations on who can possess a gun have proven wildly ineffective.

Even allowing states to set their own gun laws does not help contain crime in neighboring states. There’s no way to stop someone buying a major firearm legal in Gary, Indiana and then driving for less than an hour and reselling it to a gangbanger in Chicago, Illinois. And anyone who believes semiautomatic assault weapons are perfectly acceptable hunting rifles in rural areas could probably be convinced that to eliminate crime in NYC, you just have to nuke it.

Indeed, the ease of buying these firearms in the United States has resulted in a massive arming of Latin American drug cartels which use money from US narcotics buyers to purchase and then smuggle literally millions of US guns of all types to points south. Realizing that there really are virtually no “lone wolves” fomenting mass shootings – they are all connected to each other and often radicalized online, at least – in sympathy with the people of Palestine and in support of Hamas’ attack on Israel, al-Qaeda and ISIS have called on their followers (particularly those purported “lone wolves”) to kill Jews and strike US and Israeli targets. These terrorists do not have to supply any weapons for attacks in the US; they are so easy to obtain.

As of November 2023, a clear majority of Americans favored an assault weapon ban and a much larger majority, including many gun owners, have expressed a desire to impose a greater level of gun control across the land. In 2008, following an effective decades-long NRA public relations effort to declare gun ownership an essential 2nd Amendment right, the US Supreme Court made precisely that ruling (Heller vs DC), the first such interpretation since that amendment was passed over two centuries ago. See my November 23rd Give It Your Best Shot? blog for more details. After Heller, the Supreme Court and lower courts following what they believed was a new mandate to support adult gun ownership, issued a spate of rulings reversing state laws limiting concealed firearms, restricting open carry laws, banning making oversized magazines or cheap technology to convert semiautomatic weapons to fully automatic and attempting to restrict where guns could be carried.

But as you can see from the above chart, gun violence, particularly mass shootings using high capacity assault weapons, has become a national disease, particularly in crowded urban environments. The battle in the courts continues, as blue states facing staggering escalations in gun violence – now the number one killer of children and teens – squared off with red states which seem to treat firearms as if they were a religious mandate. Kevin Rector, writing for the December 31st Associated Press, wrote: “[In late November], a coalition of 19 U.S. states and the District of Columbia came together to support California’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“In a brief filed in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a challenge to California’s law is being considered, the coalition argued that California’s ban is ‘wholly consistent’ with the 2nd Amendment and should be upheld as lawful… [In late December], 25 other states responded with their own brief arguing just the opposite. They said California’s ammunition ban was a threat to the 2nd Amendment and to individual gun owners’ right to self-defense, and should be overturned as unconstitutional.

“The dueling legal briefs showcased in clear terms something most Americans already understand from years of robust gun debates and an endless barrage of mass shootings: This is a nation deeply divided on gun policy. ‘This is a reflection of where the country is,’ said Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who focuses on 2nd Amendment law. ‘It really highlights a political divide.’ … The briefs also showed how differently the attorneys general and other legal leaders in red and blue states are interpreting the sweeping new limits the U.S. Supreme Court placed on gun laws nationwide last year, Winkler said — with liberal leaders perceiving ample wiggle room for state gun restrictions to survive, and their conservative counterparts seeing far less.”

Amid the carnage that defines American gun ownership – with more guns than people across the country – some judges now seem to embrace a modicum of common sense. “In a recent development, the ninth US circuit court of appeals has given the green light for California's law restricting the carrying of guns in most public places to be enacted starting January 1, 2024. This decision comes after the court suspended an injunction from December 20, which had deemed the law unconstitutional.

“The law, signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2023, was slated to take effect on January 1, 2024. However, a judge's ruling in December raised constitutional concerns, prompting legal battles over the right to bear arms as protected by the second amendment… The three-judge panel issued an administrative stay, temporarily lifting the injunction until another panel within the ninth circuit can deliberate on a more extended pause, allowing further time for legal proceedings.” This three-judge panel fully expected a full nine-judge panel to review this ruling. Whatever the result, the matter is likely to go to the US Supreme Court, where the justices are themselves protected against gun violence by full-time, fully armed federal officers.

The pervasiveness of guns in this country, with the obvious resulting gun violence, has produced travel advisories for foreign tourists coming to the United States, even from many of our major allies, from nations in Europe to Australia. Common sense says we have long since passed the limits of acceptable gun violence, the worst of any nation on Earth that is not at war. The Supreme Court, with its support of voting restrictions, reversal of Roe vs Wade and this spate of pro-gun rulings has made decisions against the desires of most Americans. With questionable ethics practices of several justices and these rulings, the Supreme Court no longer generates the confidence of a majority of us.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 reconfigured the Supreme Court into a judicial theocracy with little regard for personal rights to our own bodies or safety on our streets.