13 one-minute videos: Worst of the worst of the Trump presidency

Here's the YouTube playlist.

This was not good either.

Some art I spotted on Bluesky

U.S. presidential elections are coin flips

With some exceptions like 1996 and 2008, U.S. presidential elections are coin flips. We just do not know. The fact that neither pulls ahead doesn't mean that either candidate is running ineffectively.

This election, though, is indeed especially close. CNN’s senior political data reporter Harry Enten said in October: "Based upon the polls at this point, we are heading into the election with the closest polls in the Electoral College that we have ever seen at least over the last 50 years."

My opinion: Rather than blaming the Black candidate for not outperforming the racist candidate in public opinion, please blame the racist candidate for his racism. It's far more productive.

Post-inauguration

"There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things."
A view from north of the border, Robert Reich, Jan 24, 2025

Who will stand up to Trump's bullying?

GOP leaders won't stand up to Trump's bullying of them

"So, if you ever want to get things to get better, then, at some point, you have to pick a spot to take a stand. And a week out from probably the most contentious, the most divisive, and the most important election of all of our lifetimes, that would be a really great spot to take that stand."
Episode 159 - Standing Up to the Bully
In this episode, I try to get to the bottom of why more GOP and conservative people aren't speaking out about the very real danger of what a second Donald Trump presidency would do to this country.
Griff Sombke
Oct 28, 2024
26:48–27:15

...but if he loses the election, he may go to prison (and then he couldn't directly threaten anyone?)

See my article: Trump is running to stay out of prison - Oct 25, 2024 - 5-min read

Stand up to fascism. Just do it

"Let’s take the last big challenge of this century, fascism. How to solve it? Well, how did we do it last time? We passed hate speech laws and made it illegal to belong to fascist organizations and made an International Criminal Court. All of that took decades, by the way — the ICC wasn’t set up until the 90s. If we wanted to take our fascists on, we would simply have to begin by using these institutions. America is a case study in getting it wrong. It never signed up to the ICC — and so today, genocide is being committed in concentration camps. Hardly a suprise that you end up run by fascists when you won’t sign up to laws outlawing them, duh."
Umair Haque, The Age of Needless Catastrophe, Eudaimonia and Co, September 5, 2021

Countdown to the election

Please vote.

"Trump is a bully you can topple with your little finger," says Timothy Snyder. "Or at least with the hand that casts the vote."

Voters will see that Kamala Harris is not just elected, but sworn in

Yesterday, Anat Shenker-Osorio gave five pairs of “dos and don’ts” for the Harris–Walz campaign: Five things Harris — and you — can do to close the deal. It’s a post on The Ink, to which I subscribe.

Here's one, which I've condensed:

“Run like you’re leading the winning team” and don’t “act like underdogs”

Say that voters will turn out and that we’ll get Kamala Harris sworn into office.

"The campaign can’t just be saying, 'Harris is going to win,' as if the win fairy was going to come down from the heavens…What we need to be saying…is that voters are turning out in record numbers to swear in Kamala Harris…We say 'swear in' and not 'elect' because we gotta get this ball all the way down the field…through January 6th, and all of the rest of it."

If you grant Trump the narrative that he’s winning and that Harris is the underdog, he’ll draw on that narrative when he disputes a Harris victory.

Local elections are important too

Read more about the election on Authors4Harris.

Speaking of swearing in: Why do politicians 'swear in to office' on a Bible?

Two new climate books

"Isn’t it healthy to be concerned, as long as it is not debilitating? Isn’t it part of a process towards seeking change?" — Jonathan Watts, Would abandoning false hope help us to tackle the climate crisis?, The Guardian, Oct 24, 2024

Recommendations:

"Many congratulations to Bryan Alexander, whose book “Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis” won the Frederic W. Ness Book Award from the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

Another notable new book comes from attorney Jared Sullivan; it covers the legal drama that ensued when a giant coal ash dam let loose in Tennessee, unleashing a toxic fifty-foot high tsunami."

— Bill McKibben, Notes from the doors: Our democracy lurches toward a moment unlike any other, The Crucial Years, Oct 24, 2024

The transition to renewable energy is hanging on Harris being elected

From HEATED:

"Here’s the good(-ish) news: as long as Trump doesn’t touch tax credits for wind, solar, and battery storage, the analysis says his presidency should only have a “limited” negative impact on the energy transition: 25 gigawatts (GW) fewer renewables than under a business-as-usual scenario by 2040.

But here’s the bad news: if Trump does repeal those tax credits—as both he and Project 2025 have proposed—the analysis says a “significant slowdown in the pace of the energy transition” would occur.

Specifically, a Trump presidency could hinder solar, wind, and battery deployment by 212 GW by 2040 if tax credits are ended next year, according to the report.

212 GW is, for context, a huge amount of renewable energy development to lose out on. It is enough to power 159 million homes—more than all the homes in the U.S."

— Emily Atkin and Arielle Samuelson, How bad could Trump be for renewables? A previously unreported study predicts a massive decrease in solar, wind, and battery development if Trump adopts just one proposal in Project 2025., HEATED, Oct 24, 2024

Read my article: Project 2025 won't listen to climate scientists, August 12, 2024 - 8 min read on Medium

Project 2025 Annotation: A Summary. "EDGI’s Environmental Historians Action Collaborative working group annotated select sections of Project 2025, placing its environmental messages and proposals within their larger political and historical contexts."

The climate stakes of the Harris-Trump election From public health to public lands, here are 15 ways the next president could affect the climate and your life, Grist Staff, October 26, 2024

Project 2025 mentioned the National Science Foundation as having too much to do with "an all-encompassing technology transition," and now:

The Next Front of Trump’s Renewables War Is Contract Law: And that’s on top of the constitutional questions. Robinson Meyer, Heatmap, February 12, 2025

1% of world's GDP would get us on track to stop the climate crisis

Bill McKibben a couple days ago:

"But here’s the part that kills me. We could get back on track by spending…about one percent of the world’s GDP each year.

When it comes to finance, UNEP said the cost of the transition is relatively affordable. While funding for mitigation needs to be more focused on developing countries, investment globally must increase between $900 billion and $2.1 trillion per year, roughly 1% of the world’s total economic output, to achieve net zero by 2050.

To explain how dumb our delay is, here’s another new study that tries to point out the economic damage that’s beginning to mount, even in rich America

“I think the cost of climate [change] is increasingly a threat to our already very fragile fiscal outlook,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. Factoring in the prospect that the government must spend “tens of billions or hundreds of billions more each year to help mitigate the fallout of climate events,” he added, “the outlook looks even darker.”

One percent of GDP would be the savviest financial planning in the history of the earth."

— Bill McKibben, Notes from the doors: Our democracy lurches toward a moment unlike any other, The Crucial Years, Oct 24, 2024

Wrecking biodiversity is not an accomplishment

Trump destroyed the right to abortion. Vote on Nov 5

During Trump's term in office, he appointed the three Supreme Court Justices who promptly went on to overturn the right to abortion.

This is the first election since the MAGA Supreme Court ended Roe—why are we talking about anything else?, Jason Sattler, I Know How Much You Care, Oct 20, 2024 — 5 min read

If he wins a second term, this situation will worsen.

"Abortion bans are neither compassionate nor rooted in evidence. That’s probably why a solid majority of Americans continue to support access and oppose restrictions. Most 'people of faith' believe abortion should be legal, and research has also consistently shown the majority of Americans who obtain an abortion are religiously affiliated. We also know from American Atheists' own U.S. Secular Survey that protecting access to abortion and contraception is a top priority for many nonreligious Americans."
— American Atheists email, October 26, 2024

Talk to your friends/family about the election, especially if you believe they might be persuadable. Don't concede defeat.

Check out Authors4Harris

Podcast about U.S. election polling

"this is the most important election in climate history" — Bill McKibben, Notes from the doors: Our democracy lurches toward a moment unlike any other, The Crucial Years, Oct 24, 2024

The end of ice

🔒 Paywalled: The Midwest is experiencing a ‘lost winter.’ Here’s what that means.: Snow is absent, ice is dangerously thin, and many cities are experiencing their warmest winter on record
Washington Post, February 14, 2024

Here's the PDF of the Nature article in the Bluesky post. The introduction begins:

"Lake ice is a critical component of the cryosphere upon which populations in the northern latitudes rely. Societies derive tangible benefits from ice-covered lakes, including for transportation, fishing for sport and food, recreation and entertainment. Ice roads, for example, provide a critical lifeline to northern and Indigenous communities during winter, as well as support trade and economic activity, including the movement of CAD$500 million in goods per year from the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road. In addition, ice cover strongly modulates the lakes’ physical characteristics, including temperature, stratification and light, which, in turn, influence under-ice ecology."

Wild temperature swings are coming the rest of the year. Here’s what to expect, Mary Gilbert, CNN Meteorologist, 3 minute read, December 18, 2024

EU phasing out subsidies for fossil-fuel boilers: Jan 1, 2025

You 'can't' run a lottery to persuade people to register to vote

It's illegal, but if you're part of the immunity class, you can do it.

LA Times, tied to Elon Musk, won't endorse a presidential candidate

Update: As of Monday, Oct 28, 8% of subscribers — about 200,000 — had canceled their Washington Post subscription.

Previously

Oh, look, now the Washington Post won't either.

Billionaire Newspaper Owners Crush Editorial Endorsements, Dave Levitan, Splinter, October 25, 2024

The Washington Post opinion editor approved a Harris endorsement. A week later, Jeff Bezos killed it. By Sewell Chan, Columbia Journalism Review, October 25, 2024

NPR:

Does it matter?

The Washington Post and LA Times refused to endorse a candidate. Why? There’s no way to see this decision other than as an appalling display of cowardice and a dereliction of their public duty. Margaret Sullivan, Guardian, 25 Oct 2024

"I’ve worked at two newspapers owned by billionaires. Warren Buffett owned The Buffalo News, my hometown daily where I began as a summer intern in 1980 and became the paper’s first woman editor in chief in 1999. To his credit, Buffett never interfered in the editorial policy of the paper; he certainly never killed an editorial, as billionaire owners did this week at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post."
— Margaret Sullivan, We needed courage. We got cowardice. My thoughts on billionaires who own newspapers and betray the public interest. Substack, Oct 26, 2024

Of course:
Donald Trump weaponizes non-endorsements from The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, Hadas Gold, CNN, October 30, 2024

Musk helped kill a congressional spending bill. But much of what he spread was misinformation, Melissa Goldin, AP, December 21, 2024

In January 2025, the LA Times edited an opinion writer's message [the author on Bluesky] to the point of changing its meaning. Read more: "I wouldn't trust that newspaper": Author accuses Los Angeles Times of "distorting" RFK Jr. critique, Eric Reinhart said the Los Angeles Times changed his piece to make it look like he backs Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Griffin Eckstein, Salon, January 31, 2025

The New Republic published the op-ed as originally intended.

September 2024

Elon Musk deletes post questioning the Trump assassination attempt. David Goldman, CNN, September 16, 2024

Elon Musk is on track to soon become the world’s first trillionaire Matt Egan, CNN, September 17, 2024

After making a comment about assassinating Kamala Harris, Musk talks about it with Carlson: Elon Musk And Tucker Carlson Laugh Over Idea Of Kamala Harris Assassination The X owner also said this would be "the last election" if Trump loses. Ron Dicker, HuffPost, Oct 8, 2024

These two men are making political commentary and manufacturing a laugh track (ha! ha! ha!) for plausible deniability. They care about no one's safety. But leaving aside whether they intend their comments to be funny, Musk, as the richest man on the planet and a close ally of Trump, should be more cautious than most people about comments he makes about Trump's political opponents — and is not.

Also, he's a scammer

The LA Times’ new AI tool sympathized with the KKK. Its owner wasn’t aware until hours later. Liam Reilly, CNN, March 5, 2025

Give the land back to the sea?

A Radical Approach to Flooding in England: Give Land Back to the Sea (unlocked) When a huge tract of land on the Somerset coast was deliberately flooded, the project was slammed as “ridiculous” by a local lawmaker. But the results have been transformative. By Rory Smith. Photographs and Video by Andrew Testa. Reporting from Steart Marshes, in Somerset, southwest England. New York Times. Oct. 22, 2024

B.C. politicians debate reflooding Sumas Prairie: New UBC report says restoring the lake would help with climate adaptation, Cathy Kearney, CBC News, Jun 08, 2024

2024: Anti-trans politics didn't win elections for Canadian Conservatives this time

Erin Reed tells us:

"Blaine Higgs, in an interview with the Canadian Press, defended his record as the first Canadian premier to unilaterally implement anti-trans policies in schools, stating that he “would not change anything” and calling the idea an election winner. His revisions to what is collectively known as Policy 713 required that transgender youth under the age of 16 be forcibly outed to their parents. The policy also mandated that teachers misgender and deadname trans students if they did not have parental consent or were not out to their parents.

* * *

On Tuesday [today, October 22], it became clear that the Progressive Conservative party, the right-leaning party in the province, faced a decisive defeat. In 2020, the party won 27 seats compared to the Liberals' 17, but this year, the Liberals secured 31 seats to the PCs' 16. Not only did Blaine Higgs' party lose power, but the premier also lost his own “safe” seat in Quispamsis, the most conservative district in 2020."

— Erin Reed, Conservative Canadian Premier Blaine Higgs Loses Election After Calling Anti-Trans Stances "A Political Winner", October 22, 2024

Ecological damage in the Caspian Sea

About the Caspian Sea, "a colossal-sized endorheic basin — or a major lake — that is also bounded by five countries, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan."

"Moving from Tehran to the more northerly lakeside city of Rasht aged 13, Khashayar Javanmardi’s youth was punctuated by weekends and extended holidays on the Iranian coastline of the Caspian Sea. “It was a dreamy place,” the photographer reminisced on a phonecall with CNN. “It was my utopia; everything happened for me at the Caspian.”

Diluting this picturesque vignette, Javanmardi recalled the nuisance of the accompanying gammarus: an amphipod crustacean similar to a freshwater shrimp that would nibble at his feet whenever he ventured into the water. He had always hated them, but as he grew aware of their absence, alarm bells started to ring. “That was the first thing I noticed change,” he said. “Later I read that, due to pollution, they were extinct. They had been food for bigger species…”

Striking photographs document environmental decay on world’s largest lake, by Zoe Whitfield, CNN, October 18, 2024