How a Plan to Save the Power System Disappeared
A federal lab found a way to modernize the grid, reduce reliance on coal, and save consumers billions. Then Trump appointees blocked it. The Atlantic Story by Peter Fairley
Trump
New York Review of Books Strikes Again
One scathing essay and one graphic strip in the New York Review Daily which need sharing: The first is an essay from David Rothkopf: ‘The Most Ignorant and Unfit’: What Made America’s Worst Ever Leader? “Being president,” former First Lady Michelle Obama has said, “doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” In … [Read more…]
Republicans are hypocrites. They happily ‘de-funded’ the police we actually need
The Guardian, again, hits the nail on the head with this spot on essay “Republicans are hypocrites. They happily ‘de-funded’ the police we actually need” by David Sirota: After two weeks of police violence and protests, Republican politicians have been pretending to have a fainting spell over the phrase “defund the police.” “There won’t be … [Read more…]
Fifty-seven years ago today …
From a Mother Jones Daily newsletter by Ben Dreyfuss: June 11, 2020 Fifty-seven years ago today, noted segregationist George Wallace — then of Alabama, now of Hell—infamously stood in the schoolhouse door in an attempt to block two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending the University of Alabama. In response, President John … [Read more…]
The NEWS you may not have read …
In the Columbia Journalism Review is an essay The bad news quietly buried during the pandemic by Zoë Beery: With the world’s attention glued to the coronavirus pandemic, news about anything else has been slipping farther and farther down the proverbial front page. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s been going on. Whether by design or … [Read more…]
This picture says it all
Wishing he’d explode …
Lillian Hellman: Scoundrel Time
I just finished reading Lillian Hellman’s Scoundrel Time and am fascinated that these events from 1951 – 1952, the HUAC hearings, have such resonance with today’s administration. Today, thieves are thick, grandstanding the operative mode, derision and bullying are the norm as they were with Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon in this era. Employing such … [Read more…]
The investor class is excited
From the comments on this NYT essay on The Disastrous Employment Numbers, May 8, 2020: sedanchair Seattle 9h ago @nero Because thanks to Trump, they can simply steal our money and get away with it on a scale unprecedented even in previous bailouts. As with every scam Trump ever participated in, there’s no need for … [Read more…]
Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing
In the Atlantic is an essay covering the confusion surrounding the pandemic, it is well worth the time to read: Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing A guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend Story by Ed Yong April 29. 2020 And the … [Read more…]
We Are Living in a Failed State
Sobering summary of our current state from The Atlantic’s George Packer: When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, … [Read more…]