The Big Myth: climate change; djt

djt should want a speedy trial, right?

Hank Green said, I Can’t Stop Thinking that People Who Deny Climate Change are Lying.

It’s more insidious than that, I believe. Last week, I attended a book review of The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government & Love the Free Market by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.

The description: “In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with “big government” and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. “

On ABC News’ This Week for September 3, 2023, meteorologist Ginger Zee describes “how rhetoric around climate change science became so polarizing.” George HW Bush (41) went to Rio de Janeiro to support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. His son, George W. Bush (43), waffled, listening to voices such as talk show giant Rush Limbaugh, who claimed he could find as many scientists on each side of the global warming “debate.”

Yes, but

While running for President in 2000, W said, “Global warming needs to be taken very seriously… But science, there’s a lot of — there’s differing opinions.” His Vice-President suggested, “there does not appear to be a consensus… as the extent to which as part of a normal cycle versus the extent to which it’s caused by man.”

Pollster Frank Luntz advised Republicans in a memo that climate change was “not a winning issue for the party in the early 2000s” and that they lean into the “lack of scientific certainty.” It’s advice he’s now backed away from.

Were W and Cheney telling the truth about their beliefs?

I think it’s weird that Vivek Ramaswamy, the youngest of the candidates at the first Republican debate of 2023, said, “The climate change is a hoax… Drill, frack, burn coal, and brace nuclear.” Most younger adults accept human-created global warming as settled science.

Was Ramaswamy telling the truth about his beliefs?

The Big Lie

Similarly, most of the sycophants running against djt for President committed to voting for him even if he is convicted in one of these felony trials. Some would even pardon him.

As a poli sci guy, I’m fascinated that “two conservative law professors [are]  suggesting that President Trump should be disqualified under Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which bars anyone from office who participated in insurrection or gave aid and comfort to enemies of the Constitution from being on the ballot.”  It’s something that will be hashed out in the courts, of course.

The Weekly Sift guy indicates What an innocent Trump should do. “Trump’s people are saying the charges against him are bogus, that it’s all politics waged by overzealous partisan prosecutors. It’s election interference whose purpose is to promote slanders against Trump during the campaign…

“But if that’s what’s going on, then Trump’s lawyers should be chomping at the bit to get into a courtroom, where they can tell the real story, introduce the “complete” and “irrefutable” evidence that clears Trump…”

Vindication?

“So if all Trump’s indictments are nothing but weaponization of the justice system, that’s what he should want: Bring in 12 ordinary Americans who are not part of the vast Biden conspiracy, let them examine all the evidence, and then see what they think. In particular, Trump should want to get as many vindicating verdicts as possible on the record before the election so that voters could put aside all doubts about his guilt…

“But if you look at what Trump, his lawyers, and his cultists are doing, they seem scared to death of him facing a jury. His legal strategy revolves around endless delay…”

So, the defense of the major player in the government for four years is leaning into the Loathe the Government sentiment. It’s brilliant, if bizarre.

Presidents Day 2019: Second Bill of Rights

“The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.”

Abraham Lincoln 1836
Abraham Lincoln, Congressman-elect from Illinois. icholas H. Shepherd, photographer. Springfield, Ill., 1846 or 1847

Some Presidential trivia:

From Summer Bowl 9 (Chuck Miller)

Donald Trump has 24, Ronald Reagan has 10, and John Tyler has the most at 30. The most what?

Who was the last U.S. President who did not nominate a judge for the U.S. Supreme Court?

JEOPARDY! game #7807 aired 2018-07-17

CITING THE PRESIDENT $400: In the 1970s: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”
CITING THE PRESIDENT $800: In the 1970s: “Our long national nightmare is over”
CITING THE PRESIDENT $1200: “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved–I do not expect the house to fall–but I do expect it will cease to be divided”
CITING THE PRESIDENT $2000: In an early 20th c. message to Congress: “We have stood apart, studiously neutral”
CITING THE PRESIDENT $2,000 (Daily Double): In the early 20th c.: “I took the canal zone, & let Congress debate, & while the debate goes on the canal does also”

JEOPARDY! game #7806 aired 2018-07-16

4, 4 (two words, each with four letters) $1000: In 1848 Martin Van Buren was the presidential candidate of this party that opposed slavery in western territories

JEOPARDY! game #7868 aired 2018-11-21

PRESIDENTIAL IRONY, Final Jeopardy! 1 of the 2 Presidents who offered Daniel Webster the VP slot; he declined both, thinking the job went nowhere.

Answers below.

Why Thomas Jefferson Owned a Qur’an

Why James Madison would say our real problem is not misinformation

“The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.” Rutherford B. Hayes

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State of the Union Message to Congress, January 11, 1944, including the Second Bill of Rights:
“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence… People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
“In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station, race, or creed.”

“I don’t give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them, and they think it’s Hell.” – Harry S Truman, 1948

“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956

The Eisenhower Matrix

When the President and His Chef Feuded Over Cold Beans

Thursday, August 8, 1974: the night that Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency (three hours)

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter pass up riches to live modest, giving and truthful lives

George HW Bush was a complex man who somehow perfectly embodied a simpler time: both a blue-blood and, to quote Nixon, a ‘nut-cutter’ who knew how to carry out the dirty work of politics

When New York Tried to Take Away a W

What Obama secretly did at Sandy Hook Elementary School

Pastor: When White Folks Say Obama Was an ‘Embarrassment’, Here’s What You Say

One Last Time (44 Remix) – Christopher Jackson, Barack Obama, Bebe Winans #Hamildrop

Answers to quizzes:

Summer Bowl 9:
The number of the age difference between the President and his First Lady
Jimmy Carter

JEOPARDY!
Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Abe Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt
Free Soil
William Henry Harrison or Zachary Taylor

Jackie and John Kennedy wedding
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and John Kennedy talking at their wedding reception, Newport, Rhode Island / Toni Frissell. 1907-1988, photographer, 12 September 1953


Photos from the Library of Congress. No known copyright restrictions.

December rambling: Ken Berry “Bush-wacked”

Here’s to the State of Mississippi –

Your Tax Dollars Help Starve Children in Yemen

The End of the American Order

America’s democracy problem

Self-dealing – of the money contributed to his 2020 campaign, $1.1 million has been spent at his businesses

“Witch hunts” explained

The Lame-Duck Power Grab

The Media isn’t “Polarized”, It Has a Right-Wing Cancer

Racism in America: Why Nothing Has Changed

Deconstructing a Genius Climate Change Argument

The Insect Apocalypse

On The Melian Dialogue

My car lost its hometown…

Understanding Rheumatoid Arthritis

How Restaurants Got So Loud

Graduate School Can Have Terrible Effects on People’s Mental Health

Everything That’s Ethical to Steal From Work—And Why We Do It in the First Place

Ken Berry, Star of ‘F Troop’ and ‘Mama’s Family’ has dieds at 85 and Dance like Ken Berry and Ken Berry’s been “Bush-wacked”

Did Ross Perot cost George HW Bush a second term as President? and The Dirty Secrets of George HW Bush and Why All the Bush Nostalgia?

This ’80s PBS Show Made It Cool To Love Math

The first installment of the Gasoline Alley newspaper strip appeared in newspapers 100 years ago, and it is still running

Toy Industry to Induct Three New Members into Esteemed Hall of Fame, including the late Stan Lee

Chuck Dixon is now the most prolific comic book writer of all time

The Chilling Killing Wind cover reveal

City Lights is the greatest silent film ever made

Now I Know: The International Dispute That Slowed Down Time and The Space Capsule That Crashed in Oklahoma and The Helium Balloon With a Magical Ending and Floating Away On a Raft of Disappointment and The Hockey Save that Started in the Stands

Cookie Monster: pays a visit to the popular vlog, Rocketboom and The Lord of the Crumbs and C is for Cookie and CM Nosh and Les Mousserables and Furry Potter and the Goblet of Cookies and the Cookie Ballet with superstar ballerina Misty Copeland and HashtagPBS with Martha Stewart

MUSIC

Here’s to the State of Mississippi – Phil Ochs

The Split – Cordell Jackson, the rockin’ granny

Coverville 1242: The Randy Newman Cover Story III

Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2

K-Chuck Radio: I need a good Squeeze right now

Overture from Der Freischutz, composed by Carl Maria von Weber

Arthur’s Weekend Diversion: George Ezra and Hot Chocolate

Tightrope – Janelle Monáe

The Little Things – Chris Heron

Jump For My Love – Perpetuum Jazzile

Saturn (Sleeping at Last cover) – That Cello Guy

Help You Out – AlexSpacesOut

Hell No- Ingrid Michaelson, who attended Binghamton University

Hazel Scott Was Once the Biggest Star in Jazz. Here’s Why You’ve Never Heard of Her

Once was smooth jazz

Deadpool defends Nickelback

May rambling: Red-Eyed Tree Frogs

The gayageum is a Korean Instrument Dating Back to the 6th Century


Change Can Happen Faster Than You Think

Sierra Club secures 24,000 pages of EPA emails, calls logs, and documents which expose the culture of corruption in and around Scott Pruitt

NYSUT congratulates Albany Med nurses on the decision to unionize

Waging Peace: Two Billboards Outside Albany, New York

Speaking in Code: Two phrases that no longer mean what they used to

Roy Cohn, the Original Donald Trump

America’s Word is Worthless

‘Project Trumpmore’ to Carve President’s Face into Melting Iceberg

Federal Employees Face Cuts To Retirement Benefits And Pay Freezes

Cartoon: Circular Sarah

What ‘Daily Show’ host Trevor Noah means by ‘the 5:30 curse’

The point at which the US politics firmly pivoted toward the Right

It’s A Toxic Myth That Celibacy Makes Men Violent

Monica Lewinsky: What We All Can Learn from My Disinvitation Debacle

Ancient Mass Child Sacrifice May Be World’s Largest

New Yorker cartoon: Late at night is my sacred time to catalog every single instance of when and how I am a terrible person

Is this the loneliest generation?

She was the first woman senator. Her term lasted exactly a day

Culture Cruise: ‘Homer’s Phobia’

Did Little Syria in Lower Manhattan Consist of Asian-Americans?

Their Ancestors Were on Opposite Sides of a Lynching. Now, They’re Friends

Free press: the future of Boulder, CO’s Daily Camera

The architecture of First Presbyterian Church in Albany, an article by Warren Roberts, who died this week, struck by two cars in Florida.

Science Marches On

Wait But Why: A thing happened while I was at the coffee shop

This Video is about Red-Eyed Tree Frogs? and How to Win

Ken Levine on the state of network TV

Internet Wading: The return

“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”

Why Whales Got So Big

Gone to the dogs

Names list offers origins, statistics and popularity rankings for people names

Now I Know: The Color Changing Building (and Democracy Experiment) and The Accident and the Musical Savant and Why Dippin’ Dots Never Became the Ice Cream of the Future and When the NBA Doubled Its Money and I Can’t Believe It’s All Butter

Magnolias In The Park

Credit and Debt Management

The Best Coffee in Every State

MUSIC

Confounds the Science – parody of Sound of Silence

My Last Day Without You – Nicole Behari

Dire Straits’ “Sultans Of Swing” Played on the Gayageum, a Korean Instrument Dating Back to the 6th Century

Birdsong – Kina Grannis

I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You – Louis Armstrong

I’m Not in Love – Don’s Mobile Barbers (UK surf act)

Slow Turning – John Hiatt

Coverville: 1215: Cover Stories for Adele and Captain & Tennille and 1216: The Irving Berlin Cover Story

Uptown Funk- Big Daddy

When I’m Sixty-Four -MonaLisa Twins

The Hamilton Polka – The Casts of Hamilton

Black Water – some Doobie Brothers and the Playing for Change Band

Riley B King – Keb’ Mo’

In The Mood – Henhouse Five Plus Two

Beatle For 13 Days

Hit Parade: The B-Sides Edition

Presidents Day 2014

MartinVanBurenFrom JEOPARDY show 6666: MY “SON”, THE PRESIDENT (each answer has the word “son” in it)
*Chronologically, he was the first who fits the category
*He was preceded & succeeded as president by the same man
*He beat Clinton–DeWitt Clinton–in 1812
*For refusing to shine the boots of a British officer as a child, he got a saber across the face
*He whipped 2 former presidents in the same election by an electoral score of 435-88-8

Another quiz question: Who was the last president to outpoll non-voters in a presidential race?

Some music trivia: What blues legend, who performed under a pseudonym, was actually named after a US President?

(Answers at the end)

Nixontapes.org is the only website dedicated solely to the scholarly production and dissemination of digitized Nixon tape audio and transcripts. We have the most complete digitized Nixon tape collection in existence–approximately 2,300 hours spread over 2.5 terabytes of hard drives that contain more than 7,000 audio files. This is the only website in the world that makes the complete collection of Nixon tapes available directly to the public in a user-friendly format, free of charge.” There are a total of 3,700 hours of tapes, so the job is only 2/3s done!”

The song The ’68 Nixon (This Year’s Model)- Denver, Boise & Johnson [LISTEN]. And here are the LYRICS.

Thomas Jefferson’s Silent Armies. Also, re TJ: Esopus Spitzenburg and the Newtown Pippin.

James Garfield: good at math.

Former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, were the official witnesses of a marriage between two women in Maine last September. “Several other notable Republicans have voiced support for gay marriage, including Bush’s son, former President George W. Bush.” That last sentence I did not know; didn’t seem evident during his administration.

If Hillary Clinton becomes President, will she name Bill as Secretary of State? No, she can’t, unless they get divorced. And I gather the law banning it was in reaction to John Kennedy naming his brother Bobby as Attorney General.

“Expansionism and intervention are oppressive forms of activism. From that perspective, it’s easier to arrive at the four worst Presidents.

Five-year-old kid who knows more about US Presidents than most people I meet.

And a 12-year-old girl who showed that all the Presidents, save for one, have a common, royal, ancestor; that would be 42 of 43 Presidents, despite what the article headline reads. And there is only one President whose native language was not English, and that would be that same outlier, the guy pictured.

ANSWERS –
Who was:
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
James Madison
Andrew Jackson
Woodrow Wilson

and Theodore Roosevelt.
I had guessed LBJ, who beat Barry AuH2O badly in 1964. Dan reminded me that “Johnson got the highest vote total of the century, but the non-voters still beat him. Goldwater’s veep went to Albany Law School. He was also the first Catholic veep nominee for the Re-pubs. His name? [which I DID remember] ‘Here’s a riddle, it’s a killer/ Who the hell is William Miller?’ His daughter is comedienne and talk show host Stephanie Miller.”

The musical answer is Howlin’ Wolf, who was born Chester Arthur Burnett.

Oh, the guy pictured: Martin Van Buren, whose native language was Dutch. This was a quiz on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanapoulous earlier this year, and NONE of the panelists got it right.

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