Proof. The Republicans are NOT the government of the people.

Greg Abbot, the current governor of Texas, is calling a special session of the state legislature to pass oppressive voting laws. He did that the minute it was known the US Senate was going to defeat the voting rights bill.

The Republicans are playing a dangerous game with voting rights as if the people voting are the problem and not them. To the Republicans, including Moscow Mitch, this is politics. There is no such thing as governing with the Republicans.

June 22, 2021
By Mike DeBonis

Senate Republicans (click here) banded together Tuesday to block a sweeping Democratic bill that would revamp the architecture of American democracy, dealing a grave blow to efforts to federally override dozens of GOP-passed state voting laws.

The test vote, which would have cleared the way to start debate on voting legislation, failed 50-50 on straight party lines — 10 votes short of the supermajority needed to advance legislation in the Senate.

It came after Democrat after Democrat delivered warnings about the dire state of American democracy, blaming former president Donald Trump for undermining its foundations by challenging the 2020 election results, which, in turn, prompted his supporters in numerous state legislatures to pass new laws rolling back ballot access.

“Are we going to let reactionary state legislatures drag us back into the muck of voter suppression? Are we going to let the most dishonest president in history continue to poison our democracy from the inside?” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the vote. “Or will we stand up to defend what generations of Americans have organized, marched, fought and died for — the sacred, sacred right to vote?”...

Abbot signed into law a bill that changes the history of racism in the state of Texas. The Republicans are introducing confusion to USA history. That is exactly what they want. What kind of power is this? What gives anyone the idea that history is supposed to reflect a political ideology? I tell you who does these things. An incompetent dictator does things like this. There is no benevolence left to the Republicans, only a desire to rewrite history and destroy the USA Constitution.

There is every reason to impeach Greg Abbot, but, that won't happen because the majority of the Texas legislature passed the bill in the first place. There would not be enough votes to impeach.

June 22, 2021

By Isabella Zou

Gov. Greg Abbott (click here) signed into law a bill last week that restricts how current events and America’s history of racism can be taught in Texas schools. It’s been commonly referred to as the “critical race theory” bill, though the term “critical race theory” never appears in it.

But in signing the bill, Abbott said “more must be done” to “abolish critical race theory in Texas,” and announced that he would ask the Legislature to address the issue during a special session this summer....

Don't believe that this ruling means the perpetrators cited as defendants are correct in their actions.

These decisions by the judiciary are about the office and the USA Constitution. The actions by officers were not incorrect. They acted according to the orders they received from the highest members of the chain of command. The idea this was an illegal act is incorrect on it's face.

The issue that CONTINUES TO GO UNADDRESSED is the corruption and abuse of power by Trump and his minions in the Republican Party, legislature, and the administration. The people elected a crook to the Oval Office. What transpired after receiving the oath of office was an enormous amount of corruption that even sought to undermine the USA's national security by providing highly classified material to Russia.

The only reason Trump maintained his office is that the Republican Party, especially in the US Senate is corrupt to the core, with perhaps the exception of Senators Mitt Romney and Cornyn. Senator Cornyn is still conducting investigations by his committee assignments and acting in the best interest of the people of Texas. I disagree with most of his world views, but, I believe him to be honest and loyal to the USA Constitution.

While I understand the need for democratic organizations and governments to take action to bring about justice, the fact of the matter is this is not a Rule of Law issue so much as it is an issue of deep-seated corruption and abuse of power.

Rep. Liz Cheney prefers to see it as a lack of real competency/education. That is primarily true of the Republican House members and voters that treat politics as popular and are FANS of WWF and all that mess that propels Republicans to vote for figures such as Trump and his "You're Fired" POWER.

However, this particular issue is not about the Rule of Law. Should a legitimate reason be needed to 'send in the police,' that must be kept intact. It isn't the Rule of Law on trial in Lafayette Square. The police acted as they were ordered and it was a much-practiced drill. The problem is the UNDERLYING corruption of the government that ordered the attack on demonstrators while clearing the streets for Trump's photo-op.

These attempts at bringing about justice through the backdoor continue because Trump was not impeached and the right-wing extremism seen in characters such as Josh Hawley continues to be touted as correct and best. I find the insight of Rep. Liz Cheney regarding the personal safety of Congress members and their families paramount to overcoming the continued attempts to overthrow the USA Constitution.

The threats of members of Congress are somewhat expected as realized by attacks on the homes of Speaker Pelosi and then-Majority Leader Moscow Mitch. But, if there are constituents and/or other Congressional members that are actively threatening members of Congress in either house, there need to be investigations by the FBI and arrests to those seeking to harm their representatives and their families. This is a major problem and the investigative agencies, even at the local level, need to investigate and act to prosecute. This return of the strength of the USA Constitution is not over.

June 21, 2021

By Spencer H. Hsu

A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed most claims (click here) filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., Black Lives Matter and others in lawsuits that accused the Trump administration of authorizing an unprovoked attack on demonstrators in Lafayette Square last year.

The plaintiffs asserted the government used unnecessary force to enable a photo op of President Donald Trump holding a Bible outside of the historical St. John’s Church. But U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of Washington called allegations that federal officials conspired to make way for the photo too speculative.

The judge’s decision came in a 51-page opinion after the Justice Department requested she toss four overlapping lawsuits naming dozens of federal individual and agency defendants, as well as D.C. and Arlington police, in the June 2020 incident....

Anyone that has watched ignorance take over our elections know she is right.

The USA Constitution is not about consumerism, but, today's GOP seeks to support populism and Wall Street pandering. We don't have a country if this ignorance by the electorate continues.

Rep. Liz Cheney is a hero among the few to be found in the GOP. I am sure her father has plenty of ideas to nurture the GOP back to health.

Rep. Liz Cheney deserves the respect the people of the USA can afford her because she does see the USA Constitution as under attack. She needs to correct the path of the two party system.

June 21, 2021
By Jennifer Rubin

Representative Liz Cheney, R-Wyo awaits...in the Roosevelt Room for bill signing.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) (click here) has refused to allow her party the luxury of uncontested lying. A party that still wallows in the “big lie” of a stolen election, offers outlandish and Putin-like conspiracy theories (e.g., blaming the police and not the mob for the results of the Jan. 6 insurrection) and conducts a campaign of slander against the nation’s most esteemed immunologist should not be able to rely on the right-wing echo chamber to blot out inconvenient facts.

But while intentional misrepresentation is now rampant and widely accepted in the GOP, there is also a problem of abject ignorance, as Cheney told the New York Times’s Mark Leibovich in an interview:

“We’ve got people we’ve entrusted with the perpetuation of the Republic who don’t know what the rule of law is,” she said. “We probably need to do Constitution boot camps for newly sworn-in members of Congress. Clearly.”

She said her main pursuit now involved teaching basic civics to voters who had been misinformed by Mr. Trump and other Republicans who should know better. “I’m not naïve about the education that has to go on here,” Ms. Cheney said. “This is dangerous. It’s not complicated. I think Trump has a plan.”

Representatives such as Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) serve as a reminder that a working knowledge of the Constitution (let alone emotional stability) is not a requirement for members of Congress. It is tempting to say that members of Congress in the MAGA cult must be lying because no one could possibly be so uninformed, but both are likely at play. If Cheney is right about the ignorance of her colleagues (they seem daily to prove her point) and the Republican base, we should think seriously about the remedy....

She is absolutely correct in that January 6, 2021, is an existential threat to the USA Consitution. The astounding truth of the current Republican Party is that they are serving under duress. They are serving with a threat to their lives and families. That has to be addressed.

June 7, 2021

By Carolina Kelly

Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (click here) accused former President Donald Trump of having committed the worst violation of a president's oath of office by inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection -- and taking a jab at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy over his subsequent visit to Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

"I was stunned. I could not imagine any justification for doing that," Cheney said of McCarthy's visit to Trump during an episode of David Axelrod's "The Axe Files" podcast, which was taped Saturday afternoon as part of a University of Chicago alumni weekend event. "And I asked him why he had done it, and he said, well, he had just been in the neighborhood, essentially."

House Republicans ousted Cheney from her leadership position last month over her public rejection of Trump's lie that he won the election -- an ouster that McCarthy supported. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has repeatedly clashed with McCarthy, who has tried to align himself with Trump, and subsequently the Republican base, going into the 2022 midterms....

DeJoy is a threat to democracy and the USA Constitution.

June 21, 2021

By Charles Davis

Twenty-one state attorneys general (click here) argued in a joint statement on Monday that delaying first-class mail delivery by as many as two days would harm rural communities and could disenfranchise those who cast absentee ballots.

In March, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, unveiled a plan to raise prices and slash services at the US Postal Service, citing a need to address a revenue shortfall, The Washington Post reported.

In particular, DeJoy outlined a proposal to slow down the delivery of first-class mail. Instead of two to three days, nonlocal mail could take as many as five days to reach its destination.

The attorneys general say that reflects a "flawed philosophy that would prioritize the services it offers in competitive markets," such as package delivery, "over those that it alone provides and on which countless Americans depend." The comments come in a letter addressing the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent agency responsible for ensuring that USPS abides by the law....

DeJoy is wasting taxpayer's money by refusing to purchase electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles are going to look different because they are not burdened with room for an internal combustion engine. There will be more room for any cargo because the electric motor does not require all the appliances attached to an internal combustion engine such as the carburetor and/or fuel injectors, huge radiators, fuel pumps, air filters, etc.

June 19, 2021

Spurned bidder (click here) for the right to make the new postal trucks claims it wasn't given due consideration—and also accuses the feds of being lukewarm on electric trucks.

In February, the U.S. Postal Service awarded a deal for up to 165,000 new mail trucks worth up to $6 billion to defense contractor Oshkosh. The search for new delivery vehicles took the USPS around seven years, and once the Internet learned what the quirky new van would look like, much merriment ensued. Not everyone was happy, though.

Workhorse, formerly known as Amp Electric Vehicles, was one of two other contractors bidding for the USPS contract (the other was Karsan). This week, Workhorse sued the postal service over the terms of the deal, especially whether or not the mail carrier ever seriously considered Workhorse's electric vehicles as suitable replacements for the Grumman "Long Life Vehicles" that are commonly seen delivering mail today.

Workhorse's lawsuit—the version that the public can see, anyway—is vague, as the company said the revealing all of the contract information would release details about its bid for the contract and the company's EVs that would be helpful to competitors. Alongside the court filing, Workhorse issued a media statement that said Workhorse representatives met with the USPS in early March to "discuss the award and further specifics of the USPS selection process," but that the details of the meeting "cannot be disclosed at this time."...
 

People are dying due to a hot climate. End the use of fossil fuels including slash and burn and peat burning in Africa.

This image is from the same article as below. It is OBVIOUS that methane is anthropogenic. The densest concentration is the northern hemisphere where the majority of the population of people live.

KNOCK IT OFF.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGIES ARE THE ONLY WAY FORWARD!

Methane leaks must be controlled and drilling ended.

The line (click here) of the graph on the left all the way to the right is going straight up. That is anthropogenic methane. The Earth is not leaking methane, humans are.

17 June 2021
By Victoria Bekiempis

The Earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, (click here) according to new research, described as an “unprecedented” increase amid the climate crisis.

Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), reported in a new study that Earth’s “energy imbalance approximately doubled” from 2005 to 2019. The increase was described as “alarming”.

“Energy imbalance” refers to the difference between how much of the Sun’s “radiative energy” is absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere and surface, compared to how much “thermal infrared radiation” bounces back into space.

“A positive energy imbalance means the Earth system is gaining energy, causing the planet to heat up,” Nasa said in a statement about this study.

Scientists determined there was an energy imbalance by comparing data from satellite sensors – which track how much energy enters and exits Earth’s system – and data from ocean floats....

From the same article as above, this graph clearly shows civilization was on the road to minimizing methane use and leaks. Then after the Cheney Energy Report came out in 2005, fracking became fashionable and the amount of leaks and use returned to pre-precaution levels.