New Year’s 2024 Reads: Damn the Predictions! Full Steam Ahead!

Posted: January 1, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

John Buss, @repeat1968

Happy New Year’s Day, Sky Dancers!

I’m still rattled by the overwhelming use of fireworks last night by my little house along the Mississipi.  It was like the ghosts of the Battle of New Orleans had taken up arms again! It went on for hours. The cats completely disappeared, and Temple and I hung out in the pillow fort.  I can’t believe that with all the wars raging in the world right now, some people’s children would find like-sounds appealing. I’ve started my year with a jury summons. I wish I lived in the District, and summons was for you know who’s felonies. I have no idea how I will manage it, but I hope my doctor can explain the challenges I face this year. The process has been automated, so it might be easier if I don’t have to appear and then be sent home daily.

Mother Earth started the New Year off with a bang and a rattle.  Japan experienced a 7.5 earthquake that was followed by a tsunami threatening Japan’s and South Korea’s coasts.  About 100.000 people had to evacuate, 10s of thousands are still without power, and a building collapse killed one man.  A 4.1 earthquake hit South of L.A. this morning. This one was par for the course for Coastal California.

The big question is, will 2024 bring worse climate change disasters than 2023? This is from the Washington Post. “The climate future arrived in 2023. It left scars across the planet. The year will mark a point when humanity crossed into a new climate era — an age of “global boiling,” as the U.N. Secretary General called it.”  This is reported by Chico Harlen.

One explanation for 2023’s extreme heat is El Niño — a recurring oceanic phenomenon that warms the waters in the Pacific and causes a global ripple of consequences. But the scale of this year’s heat — amplified by human-caused factors and the burning of fossil fuels — is still well beyond what most scientists had thought possible. Some have theorized that planetary warming may be accelerating. Others have said there’s not enough evidence. What they agree upon, though, is that the earth is trending toward more extreme heat.

The list of examples from around the globe should shock a few politicians into taking action. I can say that it won’t happen here in America’s Oil Coast. Our politicians are wholly owned subsidiaries of oil and gas companies.  Our next Governor will be worse than Jindal, which says a lot. All Republican pols are saying that we’re not drilling enough and 2023 has evidence to the contrary. This is also from The Washington Post. “U.S. oil production hit a record under Biden. He seldom mentions it. The politics of oil are particularly tricky for Democrats, whose chances for victory in next year’s elections can hinge on whether young, climate-focused voters come out in big numbers.”

You won’t hear President Biden talking about it much, but a key record has been broken during his watch: The United States is producing more oil than any country ever has.

The flow of huge amounts of crude from American producers is playing a big role in keeping prices down at the pump, diminishing the geopolitical power of OPEC and taming inflation. The average price of a gallon of regular gasolinenationwide has dropped to close to $3, and analysts project it could stay that way leading up to the presidential election, potentially assuaging the economic anxieties of swing-state voters who will be crucial to Biden’s hopes of a second term.

But it is not something the president publicly boasts about. The politics of oil are particularly tricky for Democrats, whose chances for victory in the 2024 elections could hinge on whether young, climate-conscious voters come out in big numbers. Many of those voters want to hear that Biden is doing everything in his power to keep oil in the ground.

“If you are not looking carefully at what the administration is actually doing, it is easy to get the wrong impression,” said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm. “There are a lot of things going on at once. This is an administration which is focused on the energy transition, but also taking a pragmatic approach on fossil fuels.”

The United States is producing about 13.2 million barrels of crude oil per day. That is millions of gallons more than is coming out of Saudi Arabia or Russia. It is more oil than was being produced even at its peak during the pro-fossil-fuels administration of former president Donald Trump, when production was 13 million barrels a day in November 2019.

There are plenty more theats than promises on our horizon for 2024.  This reminder from ABC News should focus attention on getting another Blue Wave. “Former Trump White House insiders call possible 2nd term a threat to American democracy. “We don’t need to speculate,” one told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.”   Is it just me or are all these Baby New Year cartoons a bit dystopian?  We need a Shero!!

Three women who served in former President Donald Trump‘s White House are now warning against a possible second Trump term, with one of them saying it could mean “the end of American democracy as we know it.”

For the first time, former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin, former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, and former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson sat down together with ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl to discuss their roles in speaking out against Trump in the wake of Jan. 6.

“Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” Griffin, now a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” told Karl, accusing the former president of having gone to “historic and unconstitutional lengths” in attempting to “steal a democratic election” and to stay in power.

“I’m very concerned about what the term would actually look like,” Griffin continued.

“We don’t need to speculate what a second Trump term would like because we already saw it play out,” Matthews told Karl.

“To this day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was stolen and fraudulent,” Matthews said, claiming Trump’s rhetoric has become “increasingly erratic,” citing his threats to skirt the Constitution and suggestions about weaponizing the Justice Department to retaliate against his political enemies.

Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to Trump’s last White House chief of staff Mark Meadows – and who stood by Trump the longest after the 2020 election – said there’s a large portion of the population that’s not recognizing their mistakes, that’s not working to continue to better our country.”

“This is a fundamental election to continue to safeguard our institutions and our constitutional republic,” Hutchinson said. “We’re extremely fragile as a country, and so is the democratic experiment.”

This was the first time Griffin, Matthews, and Hutchinson, who all cooperated with the House select committee that investigated the Capitol attack by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, gathered to share their experiences.

Gustaf Kilander of The Independent has a major reform in mind that’s been discussed quite a bit this century. “The Electoral College is a ‘bad’ and ‘undemocratic’ system. So why does the US still use it? In the most powerful democracy in the world, two of its last four leaders have been chosen by a minority of voters. The US’s Electoral College system is now functioning far from how its creators originally intended,”  Indeed.

In the 2016 election, it was Hillary Clinton who won the popular vote with almost three million more votes than Donald Trump. But the showboating businessman ended up in the West Wing regardless.

To put it simply, in the most powerful democracy in the world, two of the nation’s last four leaders have been the less popular option among voters – due to an Electoral College system that many feel is undemocratic and needs to change.

“They came up with the Electoral College at the very end of the Constitutional Convention,” Kermit Roosevelt, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, tells The Independent about the founding of American democracy.

“They didn’t really pick it because it had features that they liked, so much as they couldn’t figure out any other way to accommodate people’s concerns.”

As it currently stands, to get to the White House, a candidate has to reach at least 270 out of the 538 electoral votes which are distributed to the states according to population.

However, most states have instituted winner-take-all systems.

This means that a candidate could win the most votes across the country but lose the electoral college by running up the numbers in some states and losing by smaller margins in others.

Partisan sorting appears to have worsened this phenomenon, as people move to areas where their neighbours share their political beliefs.

The size of some states is also so vastly different that smaller states have ended up with more representation in the Electoral College than their population may justify.

This is a really long read with a lot of history and some analysis that really will wake you up even though we’re all aware of the issue.

The end result of this system is that very few voters actually matter.

“We’ve got sort of an aristocracy of the Dakotas and Wyoming, and Rhode Island,” Mr Roosevelt says.

“The big way in which the Electoral College distorts our political process … is that it makes people focus on the swing states” both when it comes to campaigning and governing, he adds.

“This is a point that I think is often lost or distorted – people say, ‘Well, if you didn’t have the Electoral College, no one would pay attention to the small states’. And I don’t think that’s true because a vote from a small state will matter just as much,” he says.

“Candidates don’t pay attention to small states, they pay attention to swing states. So you get all of this attention on Pennsylvania and Florida and Ohio and Wisconsin, North Carolina – the states that are in play.

“And no one pays attention to California or New York – or even Texas. There are millions of people in those states who may be persuadable, and maybe if you address their concerns, you could win their votes, but no one even tried.”

It’s frightening that Trump could win again without even approaching the 50% mark.

Is Israeli justice finally catching up to Bibi?  The weekend was full of protests in the streets and calls for an election.  Will the electorate and courts deal with this crook also? This is from the New York Times.  This is especially important since Netanyu has just announced the war will continue for an unspecified period of time of months.  “Israel-Hamas WarIsraeli Justices Reject Netanyahu-Led Move to Limit Court. The law, passed by the Israeli Parliament in July, had sharply divided Israelis and sparked mass protests. Monday’s ruling raised the prospect of renewed discord as Israel wages war in Gaza.” This is written by Isabel Kershner.

In a momentous ruling that could ignite a constitutional crisis, Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government that was meant to limit the court’s own powers, by a majority of eight judges to seven.

The decision is likely to rekindle the grave domestic crisis that began a year ago over the right-wing government’s judicial overhaul plan — which sparked mass protests that brought the country to a near standstill at times — even as Israel is at war in Gaza.

The court, sitting with a full panel of all 15 of its justices for the first time in its history, rejected a law passed by Parliament in July. The law barred judges from using a particular legal standard to overrule decisions made by government ministers.

The court’s decision heralds a potential showdown between the top judicial authority and the ruling coalition, and could fundamentally reshape Israeli democracy, pitting the power of the government against that of the court.

Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history, has argued that the Supreme Court has overreached its authority and subverted the will of the voters and the function of the elected government. They argue that the legal concept of “reasonableness” — which the court used a year ago to strike down Mr. Netanyahu’s appointment as finance minister of a political ally who had been convicted of tax fraud — is ill defined and subjective.

But in a country that has one house of Parliament, no formal written constitution and a largely ceremonial president, many defenders of Israel’s liberal democracy view the Supreme Court as the only bulwark against government power, and the standard of reasonableness to be one of the primary tools at the judges’ disposal.

You may read more about the decision at the breaking news at the links.  The war itself is moving South which is exactly where Bibi sent Palenstian civilians.  This is from the AP.  “Israel is pulling thousands of troops from Gaza as combat focuses on enclave’s main southern city.”

Thousands of Israeli soldiers are being shifted out of the Gaza Strip, the military said Monday, in the first significant drawdown of troops since the war began as forces continued to bear down on the main city in the southern half of the enclave.

The troop movement could signal that fighting is being scaled back in some areas of Gaza, particularly in the northern half where the military has said it is close to assuming operational control. Israel has been under pressure from its chief ally, the United States, to begin to switch to lower-intensity fighting.

Word of the drawdown came ahead of a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region and after the Biden administration bypassed Congress for the second time this month to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel.

But fierce fighting continued in other areas of Gaza, especially the southern city Khan Younis and central areas of the territory. Israel has pledged to charge ahead until its war aims have been achieved, including dismantling Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years.

The year is definitely going to be a challenging one.   Al-Jezeera reports on the latest coming from Ukraine.  Putin plans to escalate.  We need to help the fast! “Putin vows to ‘intensify’ strikes on Ukraine after deadly Belgorod attack.  At least five people are killed in New Year’s Day attacks on Odesa, southern Ukraine and Russian-occupied Donetsk.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to intensify strikes on Ukraine after an unprecedented attack on the Russian city of Belgorod over the weekend.

Saturday’s air attack killed at least 25 people and wounded more than 100, according to Russian officials.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the attack, which was one of the deadliest to take place on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started more than 22 months ago.

“We’re going to intensify the strikes. No crime against civilians will rest unpunished – that’s for certain,” Putin said on Monday during a visit to a military hospital.

He said Russia would continue hitting what he called “military installations”.

“We are doing that today, and tomorrow, we will continue doing it,” Putin said.

Putin previously called the destruction in Belgorod a “terrorist attack” and accused Ukrainian forces of targeting “the city centre, where people were walking before New Year’s Eve”.

He said Ukraine was being used by the West to “settle its problems” and insisted the course of the war was changing in Russia’s favour.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said Ukraine hit Belgorod with two missiles and several rockets. It said most of the weapons were shot down, but some debris fell on the city.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said the attack damaged 30 apartment buildings and several houses and cars.

I don’t want to get to deep in the weeds, but North Korea and China are sabre-rattling again too.   This is from the AP. “North Korea’s Kim says military should ‘thoroughly annihilate’ US and South Korea if provoked.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his military should “thoroughly annihilate” the United States and South Korea if provoked, state media reported Monday, after he vowed to boost national defense to cope with what he called an unprecedented U.S.-led confrontation.

North Korea has increased its warlike rhetoric in recent months in response to an expansion of U.S.-South Korean military drills. Experts expect Kim will continue to escalate his rhetoric and weapons tests because he likely believes he can use heightened tensions to wrest U.S. concessions if former President Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November.

In a five-day major ruling party meeting last week, Kim said he will launch three more military spy satellites, produce more nuclear materials and develop attack drones this year in what observers say is an attempt to increase his leverage in future diplomacy with the U.S.

It looks like Secretary Blinken and his team have their hands full.  I’m still concerned about this news from two days ago via Reuters. I’m all for giving Israel defense equipment and keeping their shield at-ready, but have serious doubts about gifting them more offensive weapons. “US skips congressional review to approve sale of artillery projectiles to Israel.” It’s going to be a tough year for us Peaceniks and Justice Freaks.

But, anyway, I hope you have the ability to hunker down in peace and quiet in your home!  And …

Here’s one with John, Yoko, and the late Tommy Smothers live from Bed in 1969,

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Happy New Year!  Hang in here with us for 2024!