Pacific Gas & Electric - Deregulation Reduces CA to Appalling Uncertainty

A generation of short-run profit maximization for shareholders (not in the public interest) has combined with conditions of drought and climate leading to projections of shutting off the power in many parts of California.  Fire risk from high winds is the worry;  where we have built houses; forestry management practices are at the root of the problem supposedly?

Or are they the problem or is it the drive to deregulate.  Why can't PG&E turn around safety inspections in a day or less.  Is infrastructure being maintained ... what is the PG&E workforce composition today ... what was it 10 years ago?

This kind of trade off happens all too often.  The costs to people of losing a home are ignored.

See from over two years ago -

Private & Corporate Greed vs Public Good & Neighbors - Why Regulation? Perfect Poster Child

...I have an engineering friend who deals with zoning and regulation all the time.  He is glad to have some government "rules" or he would be building high rises without sprinkler systems - because the customer would want it that way in order to compete with other builders. ...

Pacific Gas & Electric #PG&E - #Deregulation Reduces #CA to Appalling Uncertainty - No #Power to the People - #Profits first

Who is being duped? > How The U.S. Hacked ISIS ?!

How The U.S. Hacked ISIS ?!

They began moving through the ISIS networks they had mapped for months. Participants describe it like watching a raid team clearing a house, except it was all online. Logging into accounts they had followed. Using passwords they discovered. Then, just as their move through targets started to accelerate, a roadblock: a security question. A standard, "what was your high school mascot"-type security question.

The question: "What is the name of your pet?"

The room quieted down.

"And we're stuck dead in our tracks," Neil said. "We all look to each other and we're like, what can we do? There's no way we're going to get in. This is going to stop the 20 or 30 targets after this."

Then an analyst stood up in the back of the room.

"Sir, 1-2-5-7," he said.

"We're like, what?" Neil says.

"Sir, 1-2-5-7."

I guess this is ok and strategic but it does concern me.  The same tools and techniques can be used against us.  After 9/11 the government illegally listened in on our phone calls for a longtime before being uncovered and stopped.  What is going on now with "foreign governments" with Congress being blocked, in a general sense, from oversight is alarming in these times.  Large corporations are not held accountable for illegally cooperating with the government.  Targeting journalists, like Jamal Khashoggi, has evidently been done by other governments and is even included in the NPR story. Tools used by journalists, let alone the rest of us, make them vulnerable and I doubt they are really secure (WhatsApp is owned by FB after all).  The interference, like dropped connections, may be just frustrating but also deadly.  The story has a "tell" ... can you believe they could say "FIRE" and not anticipate "password security questions" for potentially aborting such a high level program ... who is being duped?


Who is being #duped? > How The U.S. Hacked #ISIS ?!  #Journalists #NPR - Remember #GlomarChallenger #CoverStory #HowardHughes

Terror Management Theory

Now We Know - Income Disparity Makes People Unhappy



We're All Gonna Die!

Many people tend to push frightening realities out of mind, rather than face them head on. That's especially true when it comes to the terrifying event that no one can escape—death. Psychologist Sheldon Solomon says people may suppress conscious thoughts about their mortality, but unconscious ones still seep through.

In the book The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life, Solomon, along with psychologists Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, illustrate how death anxiety influences people's behavior in ways they would never suspect. The fear of death is so overwhelming, they say, that people go to great lengths to seek security; they embrace belief systems that give them a sense of meaning—religion, values, community.

Through decades of studies, Solomon and his colleagues have shown that people suppress their fear of mortality by supporting those who are similar to themselves. "If somebody does something that's in accord with your belief system then being reminded of death should make you like them more so," Solomon says.

People don't just respond by clinging to their in-group. They act in ways that make them feel better about themselves, whether that's demonstrating their physical prowess or buying status goods. In short, Solomon says, "we shore up our self-esteem in response to existential anxieties." [Hidden Brain]

NPR: As Income Gap Balloons, Is It Holding Back Growth?

Greed is good? NOT!  A perspective on the implications of inequality of incomes.  How deregulation has led to current  problems and other ideas.  After 1933 banking crises disappeared until the 1980s.

The GOP Social Security Medicare Plan - Political Suicide

• Red states by population derive more social benefits from Federal programs than Blue states?
• The only major group that Romney clearly carried was white males, especially "old ones"?
• By cutting social benefits older white males will die off even faster since they will be forced to chose between eating and healthcare? [e.g., Chained Cost of Living Adjustment]
• The majority of Tea Party members and politicians come from Red states where the 2010  Census was used to give them secure seats?

Effects:

• The Tea Party and/or GOP is reducing its only significant voting block nationally and especially in Red states by cutting social benefits.
• Blue states will become more blue.
• Secure "Tea Party" districts will become less secure and surviving spouses may become even more resentful and resolved to change the situation.
• By killing off seniors faster Medicare and Social Security may become even more solvent than it currently is.

#TerrorManagementTheory - The Strange Way It Affects Our #Behavior!   We are all going to die! Now We Know - Income Disparity Makes People Unhappy ; As #Income Gap Balloons, Is It Holding Back Growth?

Real Time with Bill Maher -- Alan Lichtman on Impeachment

Food for thought ...

Real Time with Bill #Maher -- Alan #Lichtman on #Impeachment of #Trump - Is he a human of #GoodCharacter ?

It's enough to #Impeach #Trump .

Wikipedia - Title of Nobility Clause

The Title of Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution,^[1] that prohibits the federal government from granting titles of nobility, and restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states and monarchies without the consent of the United States Congress. The Clause is subject to interpretation.^[2] Also known as the Emoluments Clause, it was designed to shield the federal officeholders of the United States against so-called "corrupting foreign influences." The clause is reinforced by the corresponding prohibition on state titles of nobility in Article I, Section 10, and more generally by the Republican Guarantee Clause in Article IV, Section 4.^[3]

What is the ‘Emoluments Clause’? Does it apply to President Trump?

A good discussion  -

By David A. Fahrenthold and

Jonathan O'Connell

January 23, 2017

On Monday morning, a liberal watchdog group filed a lawsuit against President Trump, alleging he’d violated a previously obscure provision in the Constitution, the “Emoluments Clause.”

The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that the clause prohibits Trump-owned businesses from accepting payments from foreign governments.

They asked a court to stop Trump’s businesses from taking them now.

“This cannot be allowed,” the group wrote in its legal complaint. 

#Emoluents Clause - It's enough to #Impeach #Trump now, already. ... #GOP want to use process to muck up the process!  Is he a HUMAN of #GoodCharacter ? 

Corporate Cronies get Payoff from WI GOP on Road Transportation Fixes - John Doe Pays

WisGOPs want everyday drivers to pay to fix Scottholes, but not their trucking buddies -

Jake's Wisconsin Funhouse

So people that drive light trucks every day are looking at a fee increase. But companies who have 4-5 ton dump trucks will GET THEIR FEES CUT, some by $55! And 18-wheelers won’t pay anything more than they do today, which removes a provision Evers had that would have raised their fees by 10%. 

I can't think of any reason to do this other than as payback for campaign contributions from the trucking and construction industries, and it causes a disgusting free ride for the business owners whose vehicles do the most damage to our roads. Oh, but it’s people that are on Medicaid that are the real “welfare” cases, right John Nygren?

So now I know ... Gov. Evers wanted to pay by "use" tax, i.e., raise gas tax!  Which do you think is fair?  Which lobbyists wrote the GOP proposal?


Corporate Cronies get Payoff from WI #GOP on #Road #Transportation Fixes - John Doe Pays for #Scottholes #Vos #DefeatVos #Fitzgerald #DefeatFitzgerald

#SCOTUS Beware: DredScott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe v. Wade

The appointment of Brett Kavanaugh as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States for it's significance was so problematic.

The controversies of his accused behavior and the examples of the behavior of our President, who nominated him, toward women is beyond ironic.

...  that we now seem certain to see the Supreme Court reconsider Roe v. Wade.

During his testimony he was questioned again and again about "settled law".  Part of his various answer(s) was to hold up the "Dred Scott Supreme Court decision" as an example "settled law" that was justifiably reversed.

This was alarming because it means Kavanaugh will use "Dred Scott" as rationalizing justification for reversing "Roe v. Wade" - bad law

Said more bluntly "The Supreme Court took a man and made him into a slave."

What "right" will supersede a "women's right to privacy" under the "Due Process Clause" of  the 14th Amendment. 


#SupremeCourt #SCOTUS Beware: #DredScott , #Plessy-Ferguson , #Roe-Wade , #Dreamers , #BLM, #Thomas #Alito , et al

#SupremeCourt #SCOTUS Beware: #DredScott , #Plessy-Ferguson , #Roe-Wade , #Dreamers > If #Trump is above the #LAW SCOTUS becomes his tool :(   #Thomas #Alito , et al 2022