Posts Tagged ‘Disinformation’

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Robert Reich on the One Big Beautiful Bill

May 23, 2025

Reich asked people to share….. Hence I’m sharing – and as usual it demonstrates Trump’s neoliberal priorities – Benefit his own class of people first, and stomp on everyone else.

The bill is over a thousand pages long, it is almost certain that there are pork-barrel sections in it for particular Republicans.

No sensible bill should be that long, Congress should know what it is voting on.

********************

Reich says:

The old professor in me thinks the best way to convey to you how utterly awful the so-called “one big beautiful bill” passed by the House last night actually is would be to give you this short ten-question exam. (Answers are in parenthesis, but first try to answer without looking at them.)

1. Does the House’s “one big beautiful bill” cut Medicare?

2. Because the bill cuts Medicaid, how many Americans are expected to lose Medicaid coverage?

3. Will the tax cut in the bill benefit the rich or the poor or everyone?

4. How much will the top 0.1 percent of earners stand to gain from it?

5. If you figure in the benefit cuts and the tax cuts, will Americans making between about $17,000 and $51,000 gain or lose?

  • (They’ll lose about $700 a year).

6. How about Americans with incomes less than $17,000?

  • (They’ll lose more than $1,000 per year on average).

7. How much will the bill add to the federal debt?

8. Who will pay the interest on this extra debt?

  • (All of us, in both our tax payments and higher interest rates for mortgages, car loans, and all other longer-term borrowing.)

9. Who collects this interest?

  • (People who lend to the U.S. government, 70 percent of whom are American and most of whom are wealthy.)

10. Bonus question: Is the $400 million airplane from Qatar a gift to the United States for every future president to use, or a gift to Trump for his own personal use?

  • (It’s a personal gift because he’ll get to use it after he leaves the presidency.)

11. [In another email Reich argues that: the courts are now without ability to enforce judgements against Trump and his coterie in government.]

The courts have one power to make their orders stick: holding federal officials in contempt and enforcing such contempt citations against them. [However the big bill states]

“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued….”

As U.C. Berkeley School of Law Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law Erwin Chemerinsky notes, this provision would eliminate any restraint on Trump.

‘Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law. …

‘This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.”

With this single provision, in other words, Trump will have crowned himself king.

[12. Another source states that the US government’s authority to borrow, known as the debt limit, will increase by $4tn. Anyone who has followed American Politics knows that Republicans try to stop debt limit expansion when there is a Democrat President. It also admits that Trump will hugely increase the deficit despite the chaos generated by Doge. This is usually considered bad.]

[If you didn’t know this,] that’s because of

(1) distortions and cover-ups emanating from Trump and magnified by Fox News and other rightwing outlets.

(2) A public that’s overwhelmed with the blitzkrieg of everything Trump is doing, and can’t focus on this. [“Flood the zone with shit” as Bannon says]

(3) Outright silencing of many in the media who fear retaliation from the Trump regime if they reveal things that Trump doesn’t want revealed, [and the ownership of Media by Billionaires and corporations, who will benefit in the short term from Trump’s policies.]

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Are Trump voters responsible for him being anti-democracy and destroying the country?

February 17, 2025

No.

All 77,302,580 Trump voters do not have to support Trump’s moves for anti-democracy and destroying the country.

As far as I know Trump never campaigned saying he is anti-democracy and aimed at destroying the country. So few people. who voted for him were voting for that.

Trump also did not get 50% of the total electorate voting for him, he even got less than 50% of those who did vote. Other Presidents have had much bigger majorities in the Electoral College, and it did not stop them being opposed. There was no landslide of support.

So Trump can have lied (surprise!), or completely misunderstood what he is doing (Surprise!!!!). And, sadly with high-rating 100% pro-Trump media, many people may never have encountered the truth of what he promised to do.

So, lets ignore the fact that he threatened to terminate the constitution to prevent him from losing elections, and promised to be a dictator. People were told this was exaggerated or even lies, despite being truth. We cannot blame people for believing what trusted sources tell them repeatedly. This is unfortunately how people work, when they cannot have had experience.

My argument is that Trump does not know, or understand, what he is doing is bad. He may even be completely well-intentioned in his actions.

The problem for the USA is that Trump is a corporate boss, with no adult experience of being anything else.

Bosses never have to deal with democracy. They can more or less do what they like to their workers, to their company and to their property. They can betray and deceive other people. If they have influence and personal riches they can get away with almost anything (as Trump has), unless corporations of equal power get in the way.

On top of this, Trump thinks he knows everything. Therefore he does not have to consult or negotiate with anyone. People just have to do what he says, because he is the boss and knows best. People who advise anything else are defining themselves as enemies.

Partly because he is a positive thinker, Trump forbids people to discuss issues he does not like. Events he deliberately ignores did not happen, or will recover by the force of his personality and positive thought. People who do not gush over him and agree to ignore disliked events, are disloyal to America, hence they have to be sacked. Climate change, for example, is not real, or to be mentioned by government departments. Pandemics are likewise not anything people can discuss. This, in his mind, makes America safe again.

You cannot run any non-totalitarian State like that, Especially democratic states. People are supposed to be able to disagree, they are supposed to notice unpleasant events. And even totalitarian States will fail without accurate feedback about the world, because the leader governs in fantasy and nobody who wants to survive can advise the great leader to change their mind or understanding.

Trump is ending democracy not deliberately, but because he does not understand what it needs or how it works. He thinks being a President makes him the unchallenged boss of that country..

Trump also does not understand how social and economic forces work. Again this is partly because he is a boss, and all bosses care about is the bottom line and their profit. This may be fair enough for a company, but Presidents and politicians should consider what is good for most people in the country in the long run. They should not be governing just for personal profit, the profit of shareholders, or for the next quarter. They should be governing for everyone, and for the best possible next 200 years at least.

However, over the last 40 years, for nearly all Republicans, and many Democrats have embraced neoliberalism: “what is good for big business is good for the country.” Which often translates as what is good for bosses is good for the country. If that means lots of homelessness, if that means lots of disease ridden people, if that means low wages and no hope of social mobility no matter how hard you work then, that is the price you pay to support big business and The Market. Trump seems to agree. Anything which might inhibit bosses or profits like Climate Change should be ignored. We should not even prepare for likely future disasters.

So he will continue and intensify the policies that have made America “Second Rate’’ if you will.

In terms of the world. Trump has clearly shown the USA cannot be trusted. He has surrendered to Putin over Ukraine before the negotiations started (breaking his own principle laws of the deal), and without even talking to the Ukrainians, or NATO. The sensible thing for NATO to do is to reject any negotiated solution if it does not include Russian withdrawal and compensation for the damage of the invasion, and to discuss whether to expel the USA from NATO as it clearly considers it is a boss and not a partner. Trump might be happy with the expulsion, but I suspect he will be offended, and that might lead to war, and to American deaths over events that could have been avoided.

His proposal to override Palestinian property rights in Gaza and ethically cleanse Palestinians by force to make money for real estate developers, probably including himself, also demonstrates that he cares nothing for Democracy or poorer people in general. Profit is everything, consequently he is, for neoliberal minds, doing good.

His overseas policies announce that the USA is no longer a force for good, but a force for profit and dictatorship. The free world can no longer be led by the USA. End of story. Maybe Trump wants to be the leader of the autocratic world, and destroy democracy elsewhere as well?

Non of this was known by all Trump voters before the election. In many cases, it could not have been known. As a result, they do not have to support his anti democracy moves or his destruction of the USA. Some of the more badly informed, will continue supporting him, because they do not understand or wish to understand, but it is probable that Trump will continue to lose support as his actions come to affect people, and they lose government support they depended upon, and prices keep rising while wages do not. Most Trump supporters have been deceived, but they it is possible they can start seeing what is happening, and admit to themselves that the deceiver deceived.

That is, unless Democrats drive them away, because its easier to attack supporters than to attack Trump.

Democrats do seem to be that stupid sometimes.

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Nuclear again and again and again

July 15, 2024

The Coalitions “Nuclear Fantasy” is not generated by concerns about:

  • Energy supply, as the seven nukes will not even replace the coal power generated electricity that is being shut down, never mind grant the increase in energy we will need by 2040.
    • Small Modular Reactors do not exist commercially, so after a lot of blather, they are only going to use two of them, in the hope they will eventually exist. The experimental SMRs also seem to produce less electricity than do normal reactors, so they are not a substitute for normal reactors. We will probably need three times the number of nukes.
    • The Smart Energy Council calculates that the seven reactors will only provide 3.7% of Australia’s electricity demand by 2050. This is pretty trivial, and may not be worth the cost or the risk.
  • Emissions reduction or reducing climate damage, because they also want to cut back large scale renewable projects, and they are abandoning emissions reduction targets. They will have to increase emissions, to get the energy needed, probably from gas burning.
    • Nuclear is not very flexible, it is required to generate a baseload, that means that as with coal, it gets disrupted by high levels of solar generation. This implies that to make it work, cheaper renewable energy has to be turned off. This also implies that the Coalition will need to prevent the regular export of electricity from your rooftop into the grid, so solar will become more expensive to operate.
  • Delay or the electricity generation gap. Given the illegality of nuclear energy in Australia, even assuming best building practice in a country that has never built such a thing, it will take at least 15 years to complete, and many of those years will be without coal power or adequate renewables. So electricity prices will climb, and we will have shortages.
  • Lowering costs of electricity as they seem to be ignoring the costs of building, insuring and decommissioning nukes, and making renewables harder to use. In the UK for example electricity prices from the new nukes are so high (because of the cost of building), that they will massively increase the price of electricity generally.
    • The long delay means that nuclear will do nothing to lower energy prices in the near future, although they are trying to imply it will.
    • The CSIRO GenCost report, finds conventional nuclear power stations will cost about 2.5 times as much as onshore wind and 5 times more than large-scale solar. If so, the electricity price has to be higher to recover the capital cost.
    • Not surprisingly Nuclear reactors cost more to run than wind or solar. They have large numbers of moving parts, materials are dangerous, and a lot of care and precision is required.
  • Communities. They are happy to support opposition to, and veto over, renewable projects (because they oppose renewab;es), but no community will get a veto over nuclear because its in the “national interest”.
    • Coalition policy continues to ignore that the best thing for rural towns is community owned renewable energy, it keeps the money in the town, gives them control over their development and means everyone gets buy in.
  • Issues of taxpayer subsidies which will be required for the build, as there is no evidence that corporations want to build any nuclear energy for themselves, unlike renewables.
  • Costs of insurance and decommissioning. In general, even though nuclear is usually safe, because of the possibility of severe accidents insurance companies are reluctant to cover them, and taxpayers usually end up taking the risk and taxpayers usually pay the billions or more to demolish the reactors safely.
  • Money. As the project will probably be built by foreign companies, most of the money will leave Australia.
  • Nuclear waste. that appears to be something we worry about in the future.

Given the policy is not about anything sensible, it would seem to be about

  • Continuing their war on renewables
  • Supporting fossil fuel companies, and their emissions, for at least another 15 to 20 years

and

  • wasting lots of money, on something which could produce huge problems for Australia.

It appears this is the usual swamp politics of subsidising and protecting the fossil fuel corporate sector from change, at the taxpayers’ expense.

Nuclear might have been a great idea 10 to 20 years ago, but is not now a whole answer, or even a partial answer especially if emissions are being increased and alternatives suppressed.

In other words don’t think that building a few nuclear power stations stops the need for other action.

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More on Dutton and Nukes

June 25, 2024

This is basically a summary of a news article which you should read.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/24/coalition-nuclear-policy-peter-dutton-power-plants-100-years-run-time

Plus a few other references. If this summary contravenes copyright, please let me know….

Age

Ted O’Brien, the shadow energy minister, has said the nuclear plants built here will last for between 80 and 100 years.

This is clearly likely to be guesswork as there are no 100 year old plants anywhere in the world…. Nuclear power plants did not exist in 1924.

The mean age of the 416 active nuclear reactors is about 32 years. The average age of the 29 reactors that have shut over the past five years, is less than 43.

16 reactors have been operating for 51 or more years. Mycle Schneider, an independent analyst who coordinates the annual world nuclear industry status report says “There is zero experience of a 60-year-old operating reactor, zero. It never happened. Leave alone 80 years or beyond” (The world’s oldest, Switzerland’s Beznau, has clocked up 55 years with periods of outages.)

CSIRO’s report looked at a 30 to 40 year life for a large nuclear plant as there was “little evidence presented that private financing would be comfortable” with the risk for any longer.

As plants age, maintenance costs are likely to increase (physical entropy or wear), as they have in France. Apparently the US has avoided this problem, although with declining investment over the last decade the average reactor age has increased from 32 to 42 years. So we need to find out how that was done.

What is the state of the global nuclear industry?

Five nuclear reactors opened last year and five were shut down

Over the last 20 years 102 reactors opened and 104 shut down

China has added 49 during that period and closed none. Nuclear energy provides about 5% of China’s electricity, which seems to be slightly more than the Coalition is going for in Australia

Last year, China added 1GW of nuclear energy but more than 200GW of solar.

In the world, solar passed nuclear for total energy production in 2022 while wind overtook it a decade ago.

Schneider says “In industrial terms, nuclear power is irrelevant in the overall global market for electricity generating technology.”

Data from an annual statistical review by the Energy Institute implies there is no global wave of nuclear energy investment or construction. Global generation peaked in 2006, dipped after Fukushima and has stayed about the same since 2000. However, renewables, starting from almost zero in 2000, have now risen to generate 50% more than nuclear.

SMR’s

Bill Gates’ company has been trying to build commercial SMR’s for 18 years and not succeeded yet.

The CSIRO Gencost report noted that the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems SMR, was cancelled last November. In 2020 its estimated cost of of $18,200/kiloWatt, was more than double that of large-scale plants at $8,655/kW (in 2023 dollars). But by “late 2022 UAMPS updated their capital cost to $28,580/kW” the CSIRO said. “The UAMPS estimate implies nuclear SMR has been hit by a 57% cost increase which is much larger than the average 20% observed in other technologies.”

Nuscale, the only company to have received design approval from US regulators for an SMR, were building SMRs for US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. NuScale announced at the start of 2023 that the target cost of power for this project had increased by 53% since 2021 to US$89/ MWh. they had, in one account failed to attract customers at these prices.

Big Economies and Nuclear

The Coalition says that Australia is the only one of the top 20 economies that doesn’t have or isn’t getting nuclear energy. However, Germany has abandoned nukes as is well known, and Germany is also using less coal power than it has in decades. Italy shut down reactors after 1990. Saudi Arabia has been considering developing nuclear for about 15 years but, still has not embarked on it, and has set a goal of 50% of electricity coming from solar by 2030.

It may be that only five reactors have been finished this century. Construction has taken more than twice as long as forecast, with the cost being between two and six times the initial estimates.

Who is still building large reactors?

The 35 construction starts since 2019 were either in China, or were Russian-built in various nations. It is unlikely the Coalition will go to China or Russia for builders.

France?

Nuclear provides almost two-thirds (62%) of France’s electricity. However, the French company EDF has €54.5bn debt and hasn’t finished a plant since 2007.

EDF is building Hinkley Point C in the UK, which has suffered from cost blowouts and delays. The current estimate is that it may not start until 2031 and may cost $90bn to complete. High electricity prices have been promised to keep it solvent.

In 2014, the Government aimed to reduce nuclear’s share of electricity generation to 50% by 2025. This target was delayed in 2019 to 2035, before being abandoned in 2023. Apparently 1 reactor is currently under construction. The amount of energy produced in 2022-3 declined due to necessary repairs [1] and in 2016 all the reactors were offline due to a long-term coverup of manufacturing faults. By the end of April 2022 it was reported that 28 of France’s 56 nuclear reactors were offline

US?

The 4.5GW Vogtle plant reached full capacity in April, making it the US’s largest nuclear power station. Its first two units exceeded $US35bn, with the state of Georgia’s Public Service Commission saying cost increases and delays have “completely eliminated any benefit on a lifecycle costs basis”.

The Virgil C Summer plant in South Carolina was cancelled in 2017 after more than A$13bn had been spent as it became too expensive to justify.

Finland

Finland’s Olkiluoto 3, came online last year, 21 years after it was announced and 13 years after it was expected to be operational.

That leaves us with

Korea?

The Korean company Kepco built the 5.6GW Barakah plant in the United Arab Emirates. As Schneider’s report notes, the UAE “did not agree” to the disclosure of cost, delays or impairment losses. so we have no knowledge of the problems, cost overruns etc…..

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Summary of the Dutton Nuclear position

June 23, 2024

1) There is no costing at all, except for claiming it is cheaper than Labor’s renewable plan. The CSIRO’s costing are just officially denied. We have no idea of the cost and are not promised a costing.

2) The costs and time frames of nuclear energy production, are notoriously under-estimated even by experienced builders. Australia has never built a nuclear power station, and we are now to build 7 of them (simultaneously?), so we can assume any estimate is an under-estimate.

3) Given that no Australian company will be able to build them, then most of the money for building and supplies will go overseas.

4) The plans seems completely inadequate. The energy generated by seven nukes will not replace the energy from the coal fired power stations that are closing down. On top of that, they clearly cannot supply the extra energy the country may require.

5) Commercially available SMRs are currently hopeful fictions. They may produce about a third of the energy of standard nuclear energy stations. We have no idea what they will cost to build.

6) Dutton apparently thinks a drawing of a building is the same as a ‘concept design’, so his pronouncements that SMRs are viable are hopeful fantasies.

7) The Dutton plan does not care about emissions reduction, and the only reason for altering the energy system is because of the need to reduce emissions. If a plan does not reduce emissions significantly it is a waste of money.

8) There are no plans to reduce emissions from transport or farming.

9) The Dutton plan also seems to involve the suppression of large scale renewables.

10) This suppression plus the inadequacy of the number of reactors, pretty much guarantees that methane burning, and its emissions, will increase to provide the necessary energy.

11) Dutton will scrap the 2030 emissions reduction targets, breaking his own government’s previous agreements at the Paris COP. This, again, illustrates the plan’s lack of concern about emissions reduction. Supposedly net zero will occur after the reactors are built, even though the reactors do not provide significant reduction, gas burning will increase emissions, and other sources of reduction are not being mentioned.

12) Hence it seems plausible to assume that the idea has nothing to do with emissions reduction, other than to distract from it. Therefore it is a complete waste of money, no matter how cheap it is.

13) The Dutton plan for people’s resistance to nuclear is simply to ignore it and suppress it by force or bribery of particular people. However, the Coalition encourages opposition to renewables.

14) There is no comprehensive plan for waste disposal. We can worry about that later.

15) There is no evidence that the proposed sites have enough water for cooling, or that the local environment can handle the heating from taking waste heat.

16) Taxpayers will be responsible for the entire life-time costs of the reactors. It is not clear whether tax payers will get all the profits. Renewable energy is largely financed by the private sector.

17) The economic benefits are asserted rather than proven and would apply to renewables all over the country as well.

18) The Nuclear plan is unlikely to reduce the cost of electricity at all. It will most likely it will boost the price, by stopping the expansion of cheaper low emissions sources, and being inadequate to what is required.

19) Again the nuclear plan will not set Australia on course for net-zero by 2050, or even reduce emissions in any real sense.

It is a complete waste of money and effort, for no obvious benefit.

See the two previous posts on the Australian Coalition’s nuclear energy policy for documentation

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Peter Dutton and Action on Climate Change

June 13, 2024

For non-Australians, Peter Dutton is the leader of the opposition right wing party.

Whether you think Dutton is a bad thing is of course a matter of opinion.

Some people apparently think protecting fossil fuel company sales and profits is good, because they are the people who built the modern world and we should continue down that path.

Some people think climate change does not matter because a socialist conspiracy of scientists all over the world is far more probable than a conspiracy of right wing politicians, and corporations who are profiting, to deny climate change.

Some people think that not acting is a really bad choice that will kill Australians and lead to more floods, fires and droughts.

Some people think it is a really bad choice that will kill Australians and lead to more floods, fires and droughts, so we need the money from gas and coal exports….

Peter Dutton does not want fossil fuel energy to be replaced with renewable energy. As a result he has has claimed the 2030 Labor Party emissions targets are difficult and so are unobtainable, and they are bad for the economy, so he won’t bother to have any emissions reduction targets, or at least won’t bother to announce them before the next election. This protects fossil fuel emissions, and so he seems to be serious about protecting fossil fuel company profits.

In the old days would ‘Conservatives’ have shrunk from a problem because it was difficult?

His respect for the corporate economy seems much greater than his respect for human lives and the property of ordinary people. He seems to expect that it will be possible to attain the cutbacks by 2050, but of course with enough delay from not having any targets now those later targets probably won’t happen because they have also become way too difficult.

That is why he is proposing nuclear energy, which the CSIRO has said will be far more expensive than renewables plus all their oncosts of storage, cabling etc. At the best nuclear won’t be ready to run in Australia until 2040, which means at least another 16 years of fossil fuel profits. He almost certainly knows nuclear energy will not really get going, so as to replace all fossil fuels, for another 20 years after that, even if he wanted to. The problems of building the necessary 20 to 50 nuclear power stations at the same time in the one country nowadays are severe or possibly insurmountable, so it won’t happen. [We now know that they have no intention of replacing all fossil fuel generate energy with nuclear] Nuclear power also has huge costs for decommissioning, and for insurance (if you can get any). Taxpayers should not have to pay this or the billions in costs to build.

Nuclear energy also involves water for cooling so, in Australia, this probably means seaside plants only, as the rivers are already drying up. Nukes in France were shut down a year or so ago because of lack of water.

From a reducing climate turmoil point of view, Labor’s targets are inadequate as well, but far less inadequate than Dutton’s.

Dutton is also running around the country campaigning against windfarms at sea (10 or more Km away from habited zones), supposedly for both ecological and consulting with community reasons. Likewise National Party leader David Littleproud spent a day meeting with fishing and anti-wind farm groups opposed to plans for up to 200 floating turbines offshore between Wombarra and Kiama and said the Coalition was committed to overturning the two offshore wind zones now declared for the Illawarra and Port Stephens in the NSW Hunter. 

“We should have a slow transition from some of our coal-fired power stations to nuclear power plants that are zero emissions and firm that up with gas and carbon capture storage, which is zero emissions as well,”

National Party leader David Littleproud promises to scrap NSW offshore wind zones in Labor heartland

However the Coalition have never opposed offshore drilling despite it producing continual noise at depth, and being notably damaging to marine life. I’m also prepared to bet that he won’t go on endlessly about community consultation for nuke installation, if he is serious about it [again this does seem to be correct]. People will just have cop it, especially in Labor electorates, or it will not go ahead and fossil fuel company profits are guaranteed for even longer. which in his eyes seems good.

The latest move the US elites through the Atlas network, corporate bought think-tanks and Murdoch media, in their fight to preserve oil company profits, is not to focus entirely on denial of climate change or scientific conspiracy, as they are perhaps getting a little unpersuasive, but to try and get people worked up about industrial size renewables and their possible local ecological destructiveness. They do not seem to promote objection to industrial coal, gas or even diesel energy and mines, despite their documented detrimental ecological and health effects, especially when at sea, and so it seems less well organised.

There is some evidence to suggest that money is also following this trail from the USA to Australia, along with faked academic papers [2], and other fake news [3], [4], and ‘community resistance’ which has in some places been purchasing support. These activists also make sure not to ever mention the possibility of community led renewable energy – because it is (by definition) not corporate, and they do not bother to compare known effects of climate change with less likely effects of offshore wind warms.

Peter Dutton may well be following his American sponsors. He is probably also betting that Trump will win the next US Presidential election (which seems likely), and that result will be unrestrained action for oil companies and polluters (“Drill, baby, drill.”). Dutton, wants to support his American allies, because he wants to be on the winning side.

Whatever his policies are, Dutton’s choice is not a death wish as some have alleged. He will get funding from mining and fossil fuel companies, he will get corporate and pro-Trump think tanks churning out material to justify him, pay his supporters, and clog social media. He will get support from Murdoch and most of the rest of the media. He will get unity in his Party (who seem to be largely climate deniers), and the whole fossil fuel and corporate ‘Deep State’ will be behind him. He is obviously courting Gina Rinehart [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. He may even get some Russian support through social media, as Putin is keen to continue to sell fossil fuels, and may logically think climate change will make Russia more habitable and gain northern ports.

In terms of gaining victory Dutton is not making a foolish choice, in terms of looking after Australia, its people, wildlife and future, he is.

Even the inadequate Labor Party actions will not be allowed to continue if he wins.

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Agenda 47: Lets make more climate change and eco destruction

June 8, 2024

As a neoliberal, Trump gets really upset about climate change being used ‘politically’ to encourage energy transition, cut back the burning of fossil fuels, helping electric cars or promoting corporate responsibility. The only responsibility that Corporations have is to make money, and that can never destroy their ability to survive.

To Recap: Agenda 47 gives Trump’s official policies, many of which are also present in the corporate manifesto Project 2025. They seem to be heavily oriented towards crushing dissent.

This section considers his ecological and climate attitudes.

Against Corporate Responsibility and Shareholder action

He makes it clear by his non-political support of free speech that it should be forbidden for shareholders to ask companies not to destroy the environment. The sole moral responsibility of companies is to make profit. That’s all; not to be safe for workers, not protect the communities they operate in, not consider the effects of their actions on others, or whatever, just make profit.

When President Trump returns to the White House, he will immediately ban ESG [Environmental, social, and governance] investments through executive order and work with Congress to enact a permanent ban.

“When I’m back in the White House, I will sign an executive order and, with Congress’ support, a law to keep politics away from America’s retirement accounts forever.”

The entire ESG scheme is designed to funnel your retirement money to the maniacs on the radical left.

But pensions and retirement accounts with his radicalism and incompetence, they’re going down and they’re going down big and nobody’s seen anything like it.

I will demand that funds invest your money to help you, not them, but to help you. Not to help the radical left communists, because that’s exactly what they are. I will once again protect our seniors, just like I did before, from the woke left and the woke left is bad news. They destroy countries.

Agenda47: President Trump Continues to Lead on Protecting Americans from Radical Leftist ESG Investments
February 25, 2023

ESG simply means asking companies not to destroy the environment that people (including old people) live in, to pay fair wages, not defraud people, adhere to labour laws, factor in the risks of their actions and be transparent and responsible. However, this will be prevented.

Under Trumps laws, no one, including shareholders will be able to ask companies to stop destroying things or poisoning people, apparently because not destroying things and not exploiting workers, is a radical leftism which destroys countries. It should also be remembered that shareholders are company owners, and that if they cannot influence what their companies do, other than support them going for more profit, then that is a fairly odd definition of capitalist property rights.

It seems that, for Trump, it is disloyal to America to challenge corporate power, while siding with corporate power is completely non-political. All those who disagree are “radical left communists, because that’s exactly what they are.” Asking companies to disclose climate risks is also criminal.

Against Recognising Corporate Climate Risk

In May 2021, Biden issued an Executive Order that required federal agencies to define “climate-related financial risk to the financial stability of the… U.S. financial system” which led the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require private companies to publicly disclose climate-related risks.

This ruling will force companies to share with investors their estimated impact on the environment, which will allow climate crusaders in investment firms to punish companies that do not conform to their radical environmental agenda.

Agenda47: America Must Have the #1 Lowest Cost Energy and Electricity on Earth
September 07, 2023

Apparently looking at climate related risk is too big a risk for corporate liberty to pollute and harm people, to be requested.

More Fossil Fuels

Given Trump being against people acting within the normal rules of capitalism, and effectively putting an end to shareholder motions requesting responsibility, it is not surprising that his energy policy is more fossil fuels, despite the warnings about what this will produce.

He states:

“Joe Biden’s war on American energy is one of the key drivers of the worst inflation in 58 years, and it’s hitting every single American family very, very hard… Biden reversed every action I took that achieved energy independence and soon we were going to be energy dominant all over the world.”

Agenda47: President Trump on Making America Energy Independent Again February 09, 2023

Let us ignore that Biden has pushed for the greatest expansion of American fossil fuel production ever, and presided over huge increases in profits for oil companies [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]: that is not enough for Trump.

Nobody has more liquid gold under their feet than the United States of America. And we will use it and profit by it and live with it. And we will be rich again and we will be happy again. And we will be proud again. Thank you very much.

So lets burn more oil and make things harder for non-rich people by encouraging climate change.

On Day One, President Trump will rescind every one of Joe Biden’s industry-killing, jobs-killing, pro-China and anti-American electricity regulations.

China is being made into an enemy, and trying to go against Republican fossil fuel ideology is traitorous.

President Trump will DRILL, BABY, DRILL.

President Trump will remove all red tape that is leaving oil and natural gas projects stranded, including speeding up approval of natural gas pipelines into the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York.

Yes we don’t have to worry about whether going after shale oil and gas will damage people, water or whatever, we just have to support fossil fuels and the profits they generate. People who might think this is not automatically good, or who protest, will presumably be told they are not real Americans but woke Marxists, and removed.

Stopping Legal Protest

President Trump will stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists that hold up critical energy development projects for years, increase project costs, and discourage future development.

Agenda47: America Must Have the #1 Lowest Cost Energy and Electricity on Earth
September 07, 2023

It should not be a surprise to find out that people’s legal ability to protest and disagree with the demands of corporations is denounced as illegitimate and to be prevented. People should obey and curb their speech before their masters. They know nothing, and should have no power to disagree.

Against Climate Agreements and China

Biden is bad because:

he reentered the horrendous Paris Climate Accord, so unfair to the United States, good for other countries, so bad for us. He put up huge roadblocks to new oil, gas and coal production and much, much more…. The country that now benefits most from Joe Biden’s radical left Green New Deal is China.

President Trump will once again exit the horrendously unfair Paris Climate Accords and oppose all of the radical left’s Green New Deal policies that are designed to shut down the development of America’s abundant energy resources, which exceed any country’s in the world, including Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Agenda47: America Must Have the #1 Lowest Cost Energy and Electricity on Earth
September 07, 2023

We know by now that we should not expect evidence, but the point seems to be that the current COP agreement involves possible cuts to fossil fuel production, and thus should be repudiated, no matter what the consequences. Corporate profit is the fundamentally important thing. Oddly he uses a justice argument to excuse this, the agreement is unfair…. Fairness presumably means powerful people and countries should do what they like. I guess that by attacking the ‘green new deal’ he is objecting to providing jobs by helping the energy transition. Fossil fuels have to remain the main source of US energy.

As you know, China paid hundreds of billions of dollars to the United States when I was president.

I presume this means the tariffs on Chinese goods, which Americans paid, not the Chinese. It is possible that China lost some deals, but they did not directly pay any money to the US because of the tariffs. We might hope a President would realise this, so I suspect the idea he is referring to tariffs is wrong.

Against EVs

Trump is opposed to electric cars, and people making a choice.

Because EVs cost an average of TWICE as much as gas-powered vehicles, take longer to fully charge, and have shorter ranges, almost two-thirds of Americans prefer their next car purchase to be a gas-powered vehicle, nearly half of all car dealerships would never sell an EV, and about half of current EV owners plan to switch back to a gas-powered car.

This is probably one reason why Elon Musk is attempting to cozy up to Trump. He realises that if Biden wins, he will be no worse off, but if Trump wins, EVs might be banned or taxed or put out of action, to protect fossil fuels.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Trump does make a few sensible statements.

According to two 2022 studies, the vast majority of CCS projects have underperformed or failed to date and hydrogen blending is plagued with safety and effectiveness concerns

This is true, but in context, it means that even symbolic attempts to reduce emissions should not be allowed.

So in summary:

Basically most of Trump’s Agenda 47 policies take the attitude that anyone who disagrees with him should be dismissed, punished, or prevented from acting.

This does imply that, whether he claims to be or not, he will act as a dictator and attempt to purge the USA of the liberty of dissent, and prolong ecological destruction and climate change.

Agenda 47 makes clear:

  • Trump is fighting non-existent ‘communists’, and those he calls ‘woke.’ Both terms seem to mean people he does not like or who disagree with him.
  • He is enthusiastic about protecting America from free speech he does not like.
  • People who disagree or inconvenience him are not real Americans.
  • The DoJ should support him, and the Party, alone, and go after people he does not like.
  • Education should only reinforce Republican doctrine as anything else is political.
  • Attempts to recognise that the USA has a history of racism, are racist.
  • Corporations should have free rip, particularly oil companies, and people (even shareholders) should not be free to object to corporate behavior, or attempt to alter it it.
  • He opposes any ideas that people should protect America (or the world) from environmental destruction, as such protection is Marxist.
  • Fossil fuels must be the only energy source to be protected.
  • He wants to stack the government with pro-Trumpists so he will never hear anything he does not like..

This, seems a complete recipe for destruction. Under Trump the USA will not face its real problems, although it may try to crush people who recognize those problems as only Marxists and Woke people would notice them and want to solve them.

Part 1: (Back) Justice

Part 2 (Back) Education

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Agenda 47: Education as propaganda

June 8, 2024

Education goes the same way. It will become “non-political”. And it becomes non-political by banning everything that the Republican Party Machine might disapprove of. In a plan for an online educational institute for Adults or teens, which sounds like a good idea, he says

It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that’s going to be allowed.

Agenda47: The American Academy

This might seem an odd use of the term ‘non-political,’ but it does try and pretend that his political views are not political, but the common sense of all Americans. He will make sure that only the right material is taught in schools, and lie about what is taught in schools now. It is perhaps too much to expect him to describe what he means by wokeness, but it usually seems to mean any realisation that not all is perfect, and recognition that some people suffer from inequalities and social bias. He is also very upset about the possibility of tolerating non-traditional gender behaviour in schools.

In another display of non-politicisation of education he says:

President Trump will get Critical Race Theory, transgender ideology, and left-wing indoctrination OUT of our schools—and he will get reading, writing, and arithmetic back IN, so that America’s young people have the knowledge, skills, and training they need to get a great job and lead a successful career.

President Trump will cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children—and he will pursue civil rights investigations into any school that engages in race-based discrimination.

Agenda47: President Trump’s Ten Principles For Great Schools Leading To Great Jobs

“Race based discrimination” seems to be telling people that white folk have not always been perfect, but it is a bit vague. However, Critical Race Theory, tends to be a term used by the Right, to mean teaching anyone about the history of American Race Relations. The aim seems to be that people should just ignore race relations and problems will go away, or we should learn that slavery was good, and taught ignorant Africans about agriculture.

The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left, and we will do that

When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.

Agenda47: Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs Infecting Educational Institutions, July 17, 2023

We can assume that, as usual, ‘Marxist’ is a non-political term, which means person who disagrees with the Republican view of America, or who wants to teach history reasonably accurately, as it is highly unlikely that any followers of Karl Marx dominate education, given the smallness of the movement in the USA. It is so small that most people do not seem to know what Marxism is about.

He continues in his non-political manner by saying that education should

protect… free speech by removing all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats,… [and] schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their endowment taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.

Presumably the aim is to halt any criticism, diversity, equity or inclusion, and that any attempts to compensate for, or recognise, inequalities etc, will result in huge fines. My guess this that the last sentence is directed at endowed universities… because stripping away property from those who dare to differ from Republican ideas does not violate Republican ideals. Another way of interpreting his statement is that he seems to want to use education to continue the class system and inequality.

However the idea that education is only about making children into workers is perfectly standard practice.

His non-political positive vision is that:

President Trump will fight for patriotic education in America’s schools…. [because] decades of poor scholarship have vilified our Founders and the principles that they championed and have taught many of our young people to hate their own country…. we will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like they’re taught right now.

No evidence is presented, of course, as this is not about evidence. Who when talking about education would want evidence? But the point is that students have to think America has always been good, and that other views cannot be allowed.

Non-political education is also about religion:

we will support bringing back prayer to our schools.

Agenda47: President Trump’s Ten Principles For Great Schools Leading To Great Jobs

President Trump will once again fiercely protect the First Amendment right to pray in public schools—and he will ensure that every American’s fundamental right to the Free Exercise of Religion does NOT end when you walk into a classroom.

In reality, no one is prevented praying in American public schools, however they are prevented from forcing others to pray to their particular God. We can guess what might happen if an Islamic teacher insisted their students prayed to Allah before engaging in football.

We can also guess that his defense of the right of parents to fire teachers is to get rid of teachers who might teach forbidden topics like evolution or climate science, so religion can be another non-political tool used to stop education and support Trump.

The key slur terms like ‘wokeness,’ ‘Marxist’ and ‘vilification’ are left undefined, precisely to get teachers to worry about whether some Republican will apply these words to them, to get them persecuted or dismissed.

The point, of this non-political free speech in education policy, seems to be to suppress free speech, real education and thinking about problems and issues, and teaching only safe Republican ideology.

Part 1 (back) Justice

Part 3 Climate and energy

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Media climate denial

April 21, 2024

A list of points in the Globalist Billionaire owned Murdoch media (Fox, Australian, Sun, Aus Daily Telegraph, etc). What am I missing?:

* There is no such thing as global warming,

* Global warming is natural and we can’t do anything,

* Climate change is not a big deal. The climate is always changing.

* Fixing global warming will destroy the economy and destroy jobs,

* Fixing global warming harms all the fun in life,

* Fixing climate will destroy your liberty, especially your liberty to make your own smog,

* The problem is population, not how much GHG are emitted per head of population

* There are more important things to worry about than climate change,

* Its a socialist conspiracy and we should ignore it,

* Look! this renewable farm destroys a forest! (lets ignore coal, fracking, oil and gas damage),

* We need more oil,

* The problem will get fixed by the free market, so there is nothing we need do.

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Another source of information mess

April 9, 2024

Intellectual humility is usually taken to be a virtue, but recent research by Matteo Colombo, Kevin Strangmann, Lieke Houkes, Zhasmina Kostadinova & Mark J. Brandt reports that Intellectual humility may also have a relationship with prejudice. They state:

  • First, people are systematically prejudiced towards members of groups perceived as dissimilar.
  • Second, intellectual humility weakens the association between perceived dissimilarity and prejudice.
  • Third, more intellectual humility is associated with more prejudice overall. 

“That is, the higher a participant score on the measures of intellectual humility, the more prejudice they express on average across all of the groups…” They also tie this to justification and good evidence

The basic idea is that those high in IH will tolerate a plurality of views and values and would not be prejudiced against those views and values. However, when the groups who hold these views and values are perceived to be low in IH, this will elicit a higher overall prejudicial response in those high in IH…. our findings might be driven not by the views associated with target social groups, but by the perceived epistemic attitudes associated with them.

I guess when I think about it, the results do make sense. Intellectually humble people are quite possibly likely to be dogmatists and go with the crowd or with authority of their crowd, and think a few confirming cases of their dogma prove universality.

For example. Let us suppose my crowd believes “Theory Q”. A skeptic might wonder about the truth/accuracy of theory Q, because that is their general position – they ‘arrogantly’ assume that some other people, can be wrong. However, a humble person like myself is likely to say, “I don’t understand Theory Q, it seems contradictory, and not in keeping with my experience, but all these people I admire go along with it. Is it more likely that they are wrong, or that I am lacking in understanding?” Being aware of my own intellectual limits I must assume they are more likely to be correct and I am deficient in some way.

Accepting Theory Q, may have the secondary reinforcement that it also makes life pleasant. Most other people I know, can accept me, as I go along with their dogma and assertions. It adds to my peace. So intellectually humble persons ‘logically’ support Theory Q dogma, no matter what misery it brings to themselves or others, and do not get carried away with the conceit of skepticism.

If the people I dislike, because they are in a socially disapproved outgroup, also happen to deny Theory Q, then their obvious lack of virtue, the arrogance with which they dismiss Theory Q, etc, leads me to be glad I am with people who believe theory Q. Its part of who we are. If I disagreed with theory Q then I must be like one of the despised outgroup and that cannot be. I would loose my support and meaning in life. I may not recognise that the outgroup is not being arrogant in its dislike of Theory Q, they may even object to it mildly, but how could I see that, when it is a mystery to me?

Of course if I were already to believe Theory Q, then I can stick with it, whatever the evidence, because again people I admire and trust go along with the dogma as well. Perhaps people they have been taught to dislike do not like theory Q. In either case, this dogmatism supports the rest of the group in its dogmatism. People cheerfully bring in evidence for the position and ignore counter evidence together, and chuckle at the idiots in the outgroup who are skeptical.

If people I admire etc, tell me that all people who are Z are also Y, then why not believe them? Especially if people who are Z seem visibly in the outgroup. What would I know? If I find that a person who is Z is rude to me, or hostile to me, it confirms that the dogma is correct, even if I have encountered people who are Z and I did not know it (they are perhaps hiding because of the general assertion they are Y) or they were quite pleasant even with my prejudice against them on display.

If some of this ‘reasoning’ is correct then intellectually humble people, or people who recognise the world is terribly complicated, can perhaps easily become dogmatic and non skeptical of their socially directed biases. They might even congratulate themselves on their intellectual humility, as it leads them to believe things they would not ordinarily believe and lets them be ‘saved’ or remain part of their identity group.

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