David Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine this week had his book titled “The Uninhabitable Earth” published. This is a followup to an article of the same name that he wrote for The New York Magazine a couple of years ago. That article was considered“bleak.” This book fleshes out much of what may be happening and happening soon.
Prepare yourself for grisly descriptions of how the body breaks down in overwhelming heat, predictions of prehistoric plagues springing back to life beneath melting permafrost, and the possibility of an economic collapse several times worse than the Great Depression.
David Wallace-Wells’ dystopian vision of where we’re headed is guaranteed to scare the bejesus out of readers of his new book, The Uninhabitable Earth. Some will surely have to look away. Wallace-Wells, perhaps surprisingly, seems OK with that. More than a hundred pages in, he writes, “If you have made it this far, you are a brave reader.”
Here Wallace-Wells is interviewed on DemocracyNow! From last Thursday: (13 minutes)
Suddenly from almost nowhere Jussie Smollet is everywhere as corporate media everywhere, especially Fox News(?) does all it can to divert attention from all the real news of things like the coming climate disaster, the findings that our current president is the poster child for corruption and a Kremlin employee, and the war on our children that goes on by the minute.
Fortunately for the corporate media, the Oscars are here just in time to lift the burden of filling 24 hours a day with Jussie Smollet. For at least a week there won’t be an extra moment to fit in real news. Something will come along to fill the hole once again by that time.
Oy Vey can it get much worse? Why yes it can!
One story that Fox is diverting from is that of Christopher Paul Hasson, would be right wing assassin. What branch of the government does Hasson work for?
Hasson had a long list of targets. Included were many cable news hosts from what cable station?
William Barr is now the US Attorney General. Where has acting AG, Iowa’s own Matt Whitaker, landed?
Another teacher’s strike kicked off in Oakland, Ca. Thursday. What state ended a teacher’s strike quickly when lawmakers dropped a bill to tie teachers pay to funding charter schools?
Funny! What dirty trickster posted a picture of the judge in his case with crosshairs near the judge’s head?
Freedom Summer (1964) became a huge event in civil rights history. The goal of Freedom summer was to register African-American voters in what state?
Stating “I have nothing to apologize for” what Iowa congress member announce Thursday he was ready to run again in 2020?
What TV fan is totally POed at Saturday Night Live? He called it a “totally Republican hit job” and “this is the real Collusion!”
“it is “better” for children in Kentucky to have a border wall than it is for them to have new schools.” Thus stated what top Republican senator?
Members of the US House this coming Tuesday will vote on a bill to rescind what order of Dear Leader?
What two of the world’s top Dear Leaders will be meeting in Hanoi next week?
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” was a letter written by what civil rights leader during his incarceration in April of 1963?
Inspired by Greta Thunberg, students across Europe are staging school walkouts to protest what?
Iowa Republican legislators are restarting the process to put gun rights amendment in the constitution after whose clerical error stopped the process?
Andrew McCabe, former interim head of the FBI, had a book published this week concerning the current administration with what title?
The current administration is rushing to sell nuclear power plants to what country, despite that country having huge sunlight for renewable energy?
In the North Carolina 9th congressional election hearing, what surprise witness debunked the story by the Mark Harris campaign that they had no idea McCrae Dowless was involved in election theft?
A small town editor in Alabama called for the return of what organization to battle Democrats in DC?
Following his declaration of a National Emergency, Dear Leader’s first action to attend to this Emergency was to do what?
Iowa’s governor surprised most everyone when she declined to have the state appeal a ruling on what abortion related bill?
Peter Tork died Thursday. And so another stepping stone in my (and millions of others) path to adulthood fades away. Whatever else you thought of The Monkees, their music was good. Thank you, Peter, for what you gave to us.
Answers:
The Coast Guard
MSNBC
Still in the DOJ as a senior counselor in the office that oversees civil litigation, including civil rights, anti-trust and environmental cases. (What a joke)
West Virginia
Roger Stone – the judge was not amused
Mississippi
Steve King
Dear Leader – he is not amused. The TV can be turned off, you know that?
Lindsey Graham
The National Emergency
Our Dear Leader and North Korea’s Dear Leader. Isn’t Hanoi associated with treason in American history?
Martin Luther King
Climate change
Iowa SoS, Paul Pace
“The Threat”
Saudi Arabia – I think you know why
Harris’s son John Harris
The Ku Klux Klan
Go on a long golfing weekend at Mar-a-Lago
The fetal heartbeat bill.
Thursday it snowed in Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas. So how soon before we hear from the “what Climate Change” crowd?
One of the really bad bills that the Trumpublican Party is trying to get enacted in the Iowa legislature this session is a two pronged bill that would first eliminate the need for a concealed carry permit and second end the ban on guns on school grounds.
Seems to me that if one of the evils in the world you are trying to eliminate is shooting in schools the best approach would be to make it harder to get guns near schools. Guess that is too logical.
Our principal made a big show of welcoming the officers to the building, laughing & greeted them by their names like they were old friends.
We had never seen them before. And the officers never introduced themselves to the group, never told us their names
The whole thing turned out to be facilitated by an LLC run by former law enforcement who perceived a business opportunity in the private sector.
From the sterling client roster they rattled off at the beginning of the session, there’s $$$ to be made
Reinforcing this perception: we were forced to sign waivers absolving the company of any responsibility for any & all harm we might experience during the scenarios.
<< skip >>
Instead, each powerpoint slide was riddled with acronyms:
4E: “Educate, Engage, Escape, Evade.”
RP: “Rally Point”
RUP: “ReUnification Point”
One slide had a toolbox with 4 golden Es in the lid & the text: “Not a single solution approach. Flexible. Use what you believe works. Tools for your toolbox”
The slides weren’t just cheesy – they were designed to cut off critical thinking. Substantive Qs were “unprofessional”
They showed us a surreal video of shootings, all set to an instrumental version of “Say Something I’m Giving Up On You.”
<< skip >>
A colleague whispers to me, “We’re just sitting here waiting to get shot at.”
She looks ashen, wants to start prepping the classroom now
We hear them shoot blanks in the hallway. The gun sounds like a really bad prop for a school play.
People spring into action, trying to push tables against the door.
But nobody shut the door first, & it’s left open
A brief debrief in which the officer repeatedly emphasizes there are no wrong answers, it’s just completely up to us, the important thing is to do something.
<< skip >>
You get the drift. Since this is a twitter thread it is a fairly quick read. Unfortunately, it is a truly disturbing one.
Hey, there, lawmakers. How about you get some guts and deal with the real issue – the proliferation of guns. Making it easier for kids to be targets of any goofball who can get his hands on a gun is very cowardly. What are you afraid of? The NRA? C’mon, think of the kids and forget the NRA money.
Stop the problem before it becomes a problem.
this guy wouldn’t be accepted into today’s Trumpublican Party
Part 1 of the Muscatine county legislative forum 2/2/2019. 45 minutes.
Our weekly listing of forums and other get togethers with legislators. These are listed in time and date order. As always, click on the city you wish to attend a forum in for the exact location. Once again, big thanks to http://www.infonetiowa.org/calendar/events/. We are getting down to the critical part of the session. As most of you already know one of the annual major issues – school funding – has already been decided. However, Republicans are trying to push some really bad bills on the state, especially the change in judicial nominations.
Eliminate permits for concealed carry; allowing guns on school grounds
Affordable, Accessible Health care (see below)
From Iowa Statehouse Progressive Network:
Affordable, Accessible Health Care
The rising cost of health care is a heavy burden too many Iowa families face today. Coupled with changes made by GOP lawmakers in recent years that have also reduced access, health care has become a crisis in Iowa.
The first step in making health care affordable and accessible for Iowans is fixing Iowa’s broken Medicaid system. We should work together to protect our most vulnerable citizens who need long-term services and support (LTSS) because of chronic illness, aging or a disability. These Iowans need help with daily tasks like bathing, dressing, and eating.
As Republicans and the Governor continue to ignore problems with privatization, Iowans with disabilities have been denied critical services and equipment, kicked out of their current living arrangements because of reimbursement issues, or had to switch case managers who understand their complex needs best.
The bills we are working on this year (House File 135/Senate File 156) will move these vulnerable Iowans out of managed care, to not only improve their access to health care, but also make it more affordable. Other action we take to improve Medicaid includes making sure providers are paid for the work they do and having Iowans make critical health care decisions, not out of state companies.
Here are some other ideas we’ll be working on this session to make health care more affordable and accessible:
• Protecting Iowans with pre-existing conditions
• Making family planning services available to Iowans statewide
• Expanding mental health care
• Protecting seniors from financial exploitation, neglect and abuse
Bill Watch
Below is a list of bills we’re tracking this session that may be of interest to you. As session continues, we’ll be updating this list for you to keep you up to speed on the legislative process and take action.
Democratic Bills: Improving Life for Everyday Iowans
If you want to find out what was said on this edition of Iowa Press but you don’t want to spend one more minute of a single day of your life talking yourself down from the anger-produced adrenaline surge that always comes with listening to Republicans justify their actions, do yourself a favor and just skip over it. You won’t miss anything. Go straight to Mary Wolfe’s comments. Prof. Allan Vestal, former Dean and current professor from Drake University helps her out a couple of times and is worth listening to. Although on second thought you won’t want to miss David Yepsen’s unbiased, journalistic query of Mary Wolfe, after she describes the blatant Republican power grab: “But what are conservatives to do if they are unhappy?” Yep. He actually asked her that question.
Bill sponsors and impacted citizens among speakers addressing the need for a factory farm moratorium in Iowa.
Legislators and impacted community members will share their concerns and experiences surrounding factory farms during a Press Conference and Rally held during the afternoon of the Factory Farm Moratorium Lobby Day.
Those presenting include:
Bill Stowe, Des Moines Water Works CEO and General Manager
Representative Sharon Steckman (D-53) – Sponsor of HF 203
Senator Claire Celsi (D-21) – Sponsor of the Senate moratorium bill
Barb Kalbach, Family Farmer and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Member
Diane Rosenberg, Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture Co-founder
Emma Schmit, Food and Water Watch Iowa Organizer
Iowa is in the midst of a factory farm crisis. Please join us on Thursday, February 21 to let our legislators know we need to fix it with a moratorium NOW!
Here’s the schedule for the Factory Farm Moratorium Lobby Day and Rally:
9:30 – 10:00 am – Wallace Building Auditorium. Register and enjoy some hot coffee and refreshments to power up for the day
10:00 – 10:30 am – Lobby Day Training. Get talking points on the moratorium bills. Learn lobbying basics from Iowa CCI’s Adam Mason. Form small groups before heading over to the Rotunda.
10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Lobby Elected Officials
12:30 – 1:30 pm – Lunch Break. Enjoy a meal in the lower level State House cafeteria or in several nearby restaurants.
1:30 pm – Press Conference and Rally– Assemble in the Rotunda for the press conference and rally that begins promptly at 2:00 pm. Bring some signs or use some of ours.
2:30 – Enjoy a sing-a-long performance of the Raging Grannies after the press conference concludes.
The Factory Farm Moratorium Lobby Day is jointly organized by the Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, and Food and Water Watch.
Here’s where to go:
Wallace Building Auditorium, 502 E. 9thStreet, Des Moines
(Across the street from the State Capital)
Iowa State Capitol, 1007 E. Grand Avenue, Des Moines
Don’t miss this opportunity on February 21 to send an important message to the Iowa State Legislature that Iowa’s factory farm system harms too many people and needs to be fixed. It’s time for a factory farm moratorium NOW!
The continuing lack of competition in this country is very worrying. However, business and industry continues to merge or swallow competition in this country as the government does nothing or in many cases assists.
Competition is supposed to be the very basic tenet of capitalism and democracy. Yet, somehow during the Reagan era America seemed to turn its back on that tenet and embraced the concept that the bigger, the better.
The consolidation of companies within and across industries has been a great deterrent to entrepreneurs and innovation. No doubt it has cost America.
But what was the reasoning behind this change in America’s basic philosophy?
As often happens, a person is sitting quietly with some background noise when suddenly a story comes on that clicks. For me that happens frequently while listening to Thom Hartmann. Often these stories tellof something that many looked as insignificant at he time that instead had a deep impact.
So here is 19 minutes of Thom Hartmann in his newly revived “conversations with great minds” speaking with Barak Orbach. I found this quite enlightening – I hope you do also.
One of the worst things we have seen in this country since Reagan is consolidation in the media. With Sinclair recently gobbling up a large swath od TV stations to carry their propaganda we can see that consolidation is not good and a large diversity of voices is a much better situation.
Now a company called Digital First Media is threatening to take over Gannet newspapers. This will of course knock one more competitor from the news business. Gannet is a huge player in the newspaper business. They own USAToday and many large local papers including the Des Moines Register and Iowa City Press-Citizen in Iowa.
Some may remember that Gannet became the huge player it is by buying up local newspapers across the country and driving out competition in those markets. So Gannet is in the process of being hoisted on its own petard. But the American people and democracy in general will be the ultimate loser.
This consolidation has happened in every industry. Of course there are other factors that are slashing competition to the point where we will have only one or two companies left in any sector. Toys’R’Us was driven out of business by the vulture capitalists that take over ailing companies, strip out anything of value snd then spit out the emaciated remains to die. Thus Walmart (and Amazon) lose another major competitor. How soon before they merge? Bigger is better, after all.
The thing that is really interesting in this video is that the devil behind this huge change in the American philosophy is a man most think of as one of history’s losers – Robert Bork. Guess it was really the Americn people that got Borked in the end.
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
