Unsurprising from the lord of the flies. Will unaffordable fuel be the line in the sand for magas? It’s been 10 years of teachable moments. I’m exhausted.
“Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who helped push the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act through Congress last year, said, ‘Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away.’”
I am watching Massie's primary on May 19 closely. If he defeats the MAGA guy running against him, and particularly if he does so soundly, that will show just how weakened Trump is.
I actually gave Massie $100 two months ago when I heard that Trump was pouring millions into an attempt to primary the co-author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Unfortunately, Massie sold my info, and now I'm getting 5-6 spam texts a day from Dems asking for money. Becerra in CA sends me 2-3 a day, which has gotten super annoying.
Katie Johnson is alleging rape in NY, where there is no statute of limitations and no immunity. If you listen to her testimony, I’d welcome an update on whether it changed your perspective.
You're on the right track. For sensible people, it was all over a year ago when Trump threatened to invade Denmark if it didn't turn Greenland over to him. It's been nonstop claptrap since then. The issue became singular: the America that was once widely considered the "leader of the free world" is now a zombie nation animated by actual imbeciles and lawless fanatics. Literally mentally ill folks: pathological liars and their lickspittles. That's the issue. Everything else is a distraction stemming from that sad fact.
Plus distraction from rising prices and consumer anger thanks to his stupid war. Have you caught those news conferences with Hellsbreath and Ragin' Caine? They must have sore chests after all that thumping.
Trump and Israel started this war for ever-shifting reasons: nuclear enrichment, regime change, ballistic missiles and support for Shi'a militias. The Strait of Hormuz wasn't even on the radar. Iran has turned the tables and made it THE issue. Trump plays Checkers while Iran is playing Chess.
I haven't seen coverage of the horrid gulags that ICE has set up for their quota-filling, bonus-earning non-violent immigrants. (Meanwhile, ICE is buying warehouses built with little sewage and water support and nominal HVAC to house thousands of people.)
Wouldn’t it be a lovely irony if, because of Dumb as a stump tRump’s stupid and illegal war, it led to a huge increase in the purchase of EVs, the building of more solar farms, windmills, etc., and caused huge financial losses to the fossil fuel industry.
Right, but I think the renewable energy companies in the US will continue to march along as well, like Fervo Energy out of Texas who are doing geothermal energy. And even the Kochs, who I agree are 100% evil, are heavily invested in things like lithium production for batteries. Making money will trump Trump, and renewables are making money. They just need to tread lightly around the "mad king" to avoid costly DOJ retribution and legal costs.
The NY Times just won a Pulitzer for investigative journalism for this piece exposing the astronomical grift the Trump family is accumulating and how it affects policy.
Nice link, thanks. It would make a fitting, if lengthy, epitaph for the America I grew up in. Reminds me of Sir Edward Grey's comment some years ago, to paraphrase: "The lights are going out all over America. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime". Pessimistic? Maybe.
Stop being intimidated by the imaginary world of our Faux King POTUS the 1st, the GREATEST LEADER of ALL TIME, and the executive producer of an AMAZINGLY SUCCESSFUL reality TV show, "TRUMP 47, King of the WORLD. It's far beyond the time this fool loses all his power.
In Trump's fever dreams he schedules the fabulous episodes for his TV show. But now, several are running far beyond their allotted time;
"Epstein Who I Barely Knew", "Iran who I Defeated before I Began," "Oil Prices that went Up for No GOOD Reason" and "Affordability".
But don't worry America, HE and only HE is fixing this issue. Soon we'll just worry about Seashells and Windmills when we should be worried about our country that is being taken over by American billionaire oligarchs.
I see we took the same train. It is high anxiety for me and feeling so frozen and immersed in it. I have to force myself to turn on my tunes and get busy having better thoughts. Gummies help.
It is a waste of time to attempt predicting the attitudes or behaviors of irrational people. Indeed anyone with a shred of rationally (or decency) would have abandoned Trump and his enablers years ago.
It's not about rationality as much as the information they're using to make their rationales. For some people politics exists solely in the realm of philosophical, abstract argument about values and priorities - an arena in which the right has always been able to compete on equal footing with liberalism - and the actual facts of what happens are so jumbled and obfuscated to them that they can't apply any empirical reasoning whatsoever. They are just too confused - mostly because they watch a lot of media that lies to them, and are smart enough to know they're being lied to, but not how, or what the truth is.
Pretty much sums it up. I've spent so much time arguing with right-wingers, and every time I come away going "they don't know anything!!!" It's one thing if you don't know what the truth is. It's something else if you, in fact, demonstrably, don't know anything about the subject but are sure you do, solely because the information you have came from someone who says they're a Republican. Even more ironically, these people tend to be the types who make "nobody can fool me!" a central part of their personality. I cannot handle the dissonance of someone strutting around calling themselves a "sheep-dog" and displaying a level of skepticism that borders on paranoia, while at the same time parroting lies that some con-man specifically crafted to deceive them.
I do think it's all about gas prices, and I think Mr. Krugman misses the point here today.
It's not that Trump "loves oil" or even that he's particularly swayed by his oil industry donors. I mean, he'll take their money, but he would never trade a lot of votes for them.
When people hear, "bla bla bla green energy" etc., most only hear one thing: the gas they buy everyday for their car is going to go up.
And no, saying that green energy will reduce their home energy bill "someday" isn't very persuasive. First, that's "someday" and not NOW. Trump, as the consummate populist, knows that most voters don't care about "tomorrow", they care about today.
Second, Home energy is usually only around 50% of one's total energy bill, and consumers are much more aware of fluctuations in price since it literally stares them in the face when they gas up.
Trump knows, instinctively, that being anti-environment will endear him to millions of voters who will assume that means gas prices will go down IMMEDIATELY when he is elected and will stay down while he's in office. This is why Iran has so much leverage in this war.
But don't say this is some kind of conspiracy by the oil industry to pay off politicians because, at root, it's not. Obviously the industry will (sorry) help throw gasoline on the fire, but the root driver here is pure amoral populism.
And on that note, if gas prices keep going up because US domestic oil producers price their commodity according to the worldwide price level (as in, do what they normally do in a free market), don't be surprised when Trump effectively NATIONALIZES THE US OIL INDUSTRY and forces them to sell their oil at the price of his choosing.
The narrative that Trump and the GOP are owned by their oil industry overlords would tell you that is impossible. But that narrative is wrong. If prices stay high, I personally believe this is exactly what will happen.
I wish the liberals, socialists, real religiosity’s leaders would step back and look at the issues of drugification and denial…lots of distractions from the horror that is the current president’s administration! And we have played a role in this.
* Fear and loathing on a nuclear scale, white Christian nationalism!
* Murder in our name on our streets by ‘Brownshirt thugs!’
* Criminal corruption in timing stocks trades and a ‘Cryto’, betting on the timing of bombings?! Betting at all!?
* Now we have the glinting of a soiled man; gold plating is a sin! One of the commandments about idolatry I think.
* A lie of a war to feed the fear…and the racism of removing anything good Obama did!
And we could bring wealth of the robber-barons (Sili-con), and stagnant wages, and health care, and bison, and demolition, wind and solar power, and the Supreme Court (we need to impeachment at least one.)
There is literally nothing ‘good’ he has accomplished except maybe getting folks out to vote…maybe. The missing 70,000,000…
How many years have knowledgeable people said, "Leave it in the ground"? Everyone had plenty of warning to transition away from fossil fuels.
The LGBT community should relinquish the rainbow symbol back to Greenpeace immediately. LGBT can find something else. Maybe they can be lavender menaces again.
In March, power generation from solar and wind increased 15% and 8%, respectively, outside of China. Even in the US, renewables generated a greater share of electricity than gas for the first time!
Cheaper, longer laster EVs are flooding markets. Recognizing this is a win for energy security is a key messaging opportunity.
These are moments that could be worth celebrating if the circumstances weren't so dire. Instead, Trump is doing irreparable damage to America's standing, to the American economy, and to people all across the globe.
It’s amazing how foolish, willfully ignorant everyday people are in regards to this. Fossil fuels cost so much money in myriad ways that go beyond something like the current price of a barrel of crude.
And speaking of cheap EVs…we have essentially no cheap cars of any kind left in America because US companies stopped making them. Another spot where one can’t “vote with their wallet” because the choice isn’t even available.
And as of yet we can’t buy the Chinese EV’s without paying the Trump tariffs, which is limiting import numbers and making them unaffordable. They are showing up in Europe though and are nice.
Not just BYD. Chinese cars from around 7 Chinese brands are dominating the European market - and they are good with competitive pricing and advanced technology. Chinese brands are now targeting the electric van market and tap into the fleet market.
I’ve read that. It’s the new blade technology in battery packs that BYD developed. We aren’t going to see such new technological innovations in the internal combustion engine, are we?
American firms can't make inexpensive cars in part because of the tariffs on steel and aluminum. There's also the crazy situation where parts cross the Mexican or Canadian borders multiple times, paying tariffs each time. That situation didn't start the decline, though. Ford quit selling sedans in the U.S. a year or two back. Ford now sells the Mustang and their truck lineup. They still sell cars outside the States. GM made headlines a couple years back when they shut down an assembly line due to poor sales.
Yeah the tariffs are a major obstacle for pricing in all auto manufacturing now. But the discontinuation of many smaller models, and certainly many of the budget models, happened several years ago. You mentioned sedans…the recent Toyota “sedan” we bought is nearly as big as my “midsize” SUV. It’s not unlike the new houses often being built, bigger makes them more money. And many Americans do seem to love bigger given the number of full size trucks and the XL grand whatever SUVs all over. 😒 But with 92% of households owning a car (according to a quick search & many of those owning multiple cars), there should be plenty of market for variety in size. Ooo it grinds my gears. (😉 ba-dum-ching)
Assembly lines closing due to poor sales…this always irritates me because in some ways it’s of their own doing. They have too many models. They can’t all be “top” sellers. Of course some won’t sell as well, but their solution is to cut out entire categories.
That grinds my gears too. In Europe and New Zealand I’ve recently seen cars and light trucks/vans/SUVs produced by Ford Europe. But they won’t sell them here. The warped logic, as you mentioned, is for both American automakers and home builders, larger is more profitable. The profit margin is larger on more expensive items. So U.S. automakers give up the small and midsize sedan and SUV market to the foreign manufacturers for U.S. sales. The foreign manufacturers are clued in to what Americans have been fooled into buying. Compare the size of earlier Toyota RAV4s with today’s model. Honda Civics are now larger than Accords from 15 or 20 years ago. All of these are full of gadgets that no one can figure out how to use and are costly to repair once broken. All because Americans love to oh and awe over gadgets and shiny toys. My daughter traded in a 21 year old Honda for an Acura (everyone in our family keeps autos for a minimum of 20 years and 250,000 miles) and spent the first three months of ownership detuning it, turning off features she didn’t want or need but came with that base model.
I keep having the sense that the rest of the world has the US in their rearview mirror. And the US is getting smaller and smaller as the rest of the world pulls away into a renewable energy future. SAD.
The rest of the world will be hesitant to trust us on anything in the future! Why should they since we elected DJT twice, knowing who he is, and have allowed his band of horribles to run the country. I don't trust us, and I live here.
And yet I believe that the US's reputation will be instantly reinstated when the Democrats gain a veto-proof majority in the midterms, while the GOP loses House and Senate.
We can only hope that the rest of the world isn't soured long-term on an America that has made decisions that have compromised so many nations and broken so many promises to our allies.
"hope that the rest of the world isn't soured long-term"
I'm not sure what you mean with "soured." I would conjecture that the world sees America's problems, and as long as these problems persist, they might be reluctant to believe any promises coming from a US government.
But such reluctance is likely merely rational, without the emotional baggage that a word like "soured" seems to imply.
We Homo Ignorami destroyed our environment virtually overnight (in geological terms). Yes, it WILL take years (centuries?) to repair all the damage, but we can STOP creating most GHGs (virtually) overnight - IF we care enough to do so.
When I was born in 1945, the Cumulative Global Atmospheric GHGs weighed 205.5 billion tonnes (metric tons). By 2024, GHGs weighed 1.85 TRILLION tonnes. IOW, 89% of ALL GHGs created planet-to-date were created in my lifetime (so, it's my fault?? 😳)!!!
Globally, we doubled the amount of energy produced from renewables in just two decades, and that was without really trying. We can make enormous progress - IF we care enough to do so.
Never mind the half million (500,000) toddlers and babies in effect murdered by default because Trump defunded USAid with projections suggesting that because of this and related actions by Trump 14milion will die in the developing who could live for an awful lot less than the $17billion cost of one of Trumps proposed new aircraft carriers.
The green transition is very much in evidence over here in France, and in Europe in general. It's now part of many political parties' platforms (so: no longer just the Greens), which is encouraging. Thanks, Paul, for reminding us that there is a planetary silver lining to the US administration's craziness and cruel, short-sighted carrying on.
I am having a surfeit of irony this morning. The carbon-loving doofus in the White House may be creating the conditions to end carbon pollution! I hope I live long enough to see this happen.
We should all be writing to offer our sincere thanks to the accidental hero who is saving the world from climate disaster, by propelling us all at speed towards Net Zero...
Even if it took his really stupid war with Iran to make us all realise how undependable the US has become: and to go for renewables in a really big way, just in the nick of time.
Thank You Mr President Sir. Please accept the World Net Zero Renewable Energy (Accidental) Hero's Medal.
A lot of people are saying that grown men with tears in their eyes come up to Trump and say "Sir, thank you for committing political suicide and confirming that the United States is a global pariah."
Thank you Stacy--Yes, how wonderful and unexpectedly ironic!! I too (born in 1946) hope so much that I get to live long enough to see this happen! I so love all of nature and this beautiful earth that is our home and want it to regain its health and for all sentient life to continue to live and thrive!
A worthy goal Stacy. I’ll be joining you either in this lifetime or from beyond wherever we are. Hopefully, we'll still be here! Frankly, I think we'd be joined by millions in this celebration. If I'm still here, hopefully, I'll be joyfully "Dancing in the Streets". Remember that song performed by Martha and the Vandellas? Well, some of us "mature, wise, elder Baby Boomers" will remember! Ok, we definitely had the BEST music, imho.
Just remember: "only the good die young" and "the devil takes care of his own". Trump may be with us longer than we would like and his GOP may live on after him.
Yes, I keep being baffled at people predicting that his demise is near. He seems to me to be in fairly robust condition, even if suffering common aging issues.
I was mostly kidding, but yeah, it does not seem like the kind of job he would want. He seems like not just someone who wants to have power, or someone who wants to lead, he wants to lead HIS people through a crisis. And when it is over, he is probably going to be pretty damn tired.
Brilliant insight was not required. 20 years ago it was clear to anyone who made a cursory analysis that solar and wind represented the future of energy. Barack Obama campaigned on that message starting from 2007. He wanted America to lead this emerging industry into the future. But....here we are. 20 years later and hopelessly behind. Heads stubbornly buried in the sand, a delusional President and his acquiescent enablers, unwittingly accelerating the inevitable future of renewables they still refuse to see.
The cause of U.S. self-immolation is not complicated.
The USA elected a black man as president in 2008 and re-elected him in 2012, and almost half the U.S. population lost their minds at this unspeakable horror and decided to support the loudest, most obnoxious, most unqualified, most racist in modern times, and most corrupt white man they could find.
We could have done more to make them less afraid, in retrospect. Even if they were stupid to be afraid.
But at the same time, I don't blame us... the force and speed of the backlash caught us all off guard. Who could have known that something like calling it "stupid" for a cop to arrest a college professor trying to get into his own house would be treated like an attempt at inciting a race war?
(He didn't even call the cop "stupid"! He said he "acted stupidly"! God dammit, 2009!)
That's only one of seven. (It's a very good list.) Greed was the motivation, and yes, the root. But wrath, pride, and envy were also key in obtaining the public consent needed to achieve their goals.
Republicanism and christian nationalism. That’s how we are self destructing. The sane rational people can never understand it because it doesn’t and has never made sense.
Obama wasn't telling the DOJ to prosecute or not prosecute. The DOJ looked at the people they would be charging and their massive army of lawyers they would be up against and said "no thanks, we don't have the resources". Just like what happens in the bowels of the IRS whenever a billionaire files a tax form that says they owe only $750 for the 10th year in a row.
Obama gave the "look forward" speech because he was told the billionaire class was untouchable by the DOJ, not because he was protecting them. He did pass the ACA which was a tax increase on the wealthy, after all.
Barack Obama was a relatively good president. What you wrote is absolutely true, but it doesn't change the fact that he lacked the courage to meet the moment that could have made him a great president.
He also gave a campaign speech in Cushing, OK, the "pipeline crossroads of the world' in front of a pile of oil pipes declaring his energy policy would support the use of all energy resources, which is actually no energy policy at all.
He didn't push renewables as much as Biden did because the cost of energy from renewables and EV's weren't lower than fossil fuels at the time. That doesn't mean he didn't try (Remember Soylandra?)
By the time he had the opportunity to get big things done on renewables the Republicans had taken over Congress and his Presidency was basically over.
Carter put solar panels on the White House in 1979. Reagan took them down in 1980. Stupidity and senselessness have long been the hallmarks of the Republican party.
We get all our electricity from our solar panels (Chinese) as stored in our gigantic battery (also Chinese). We charge our EV that way too. Power is taken away from dictator and oligopolistic companies and given to us all. Power to the people!
The number 9 represents humanitarianism, completion, and spiritual wisdom, acting as the highest single-digit number (in base 10) that symbolizes the end of a cycle and universal love. It is deeply associated with compassion, selflessness, and a global, non-judgmental perspective, often regarded as a magical or divine number.
My house solar panels and house battery were manufactured in the US, but I’m sure they contain some China-sourced components. As long as they continue to work, I’m happy.
Trump cannot stop progress. But he can sideline the United States' influence for the remainder of the 21st century and beyond. We could have led the way forward, and we chose not to. Perhaps this is the inevitability of America's decline.
Don't mistake trend for destiny. The Trump experience is sidelining the US influences that enabled MAGA. Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Healthcare, are such big parts of life today that their decline feels like the US is declining. But it's only the end of a chapter, not the end of the story. It will take decades, and the world will look different, but the US will rebound.
IF the US rebounds, it will be a different country. It can only rebound if it remakes the political institutions currently making us a petro-state and handing our future over to the dominance fantasies of the techbros and their AI tools. Either we strengthen democratic control and ability to tax and regulate through institutions that are not in plutocratic hands or we keep declining.
Can what Mark Carney called “the middle states” learn to coordinate and cooperate to a degree that will give them power to offset the power-hunger, greed and revenge fantasies of the former “superpowers” (Russia and US)? Can they emerge as a coherent liberal/social democratic bloc strong enough to offset China’s huge advantages in (educated) population and (socially useful) investments? what will China’s plans for Africa and Latin America produce in “development” terms? Can the US join the middle states as a partner or must we try to regain control?
Electorates are immortal. Politicians and oligarchs die... eventually.
Individual politicians care about status... a lot. Electorates care about stable employment and commerce, security, and predictable, fair conflict resolution - to the extent electorates care about status it is as a means to these things.
Given that the current crop of plutocrats are delivering erratic employment, masked police terrorizing citizens in the streets, and a blatantly biased DOJ, the US electorate will eventually assert control and insist that voters choose the government (instead of the reverse) and insist that the institutions of government deal with reality, not put on a show of smoke-and-mirrors.
However, being immortal, the electorate may not be quick.
Today, the Canadian Prime Minister better represents the Canadian electorate, than the US President represents the US electorate. So Mark Carney's view is probably closer to what we will see in the coming years.
But the focus is what approach will provide stable employment, commerce, security, and fair conflict resolution - not who has the most prestigious label.
I do believe we will throw off this authoritarian streak and make adjustments that improve our democracy but I wonder if the US population wants the responsibility of being a superpower or the superpower? Or even if the rest of the world would have us in that role? Or have anyone else in that role? People in the US lost sight of the responsibility that comes with being a superpower. We’re in a time of extreme contingency, as historian Joanne Freeman often says. (Which always reminds me of the red wheelbarrow and the white chickens that so much depends on. 🙃)
It doesn't seem like people have generally suffered from living in non-influential countries. Like, Lichtenstein seems nice and I assume hasn't had much influence on anything since wars were being fought with pikes.
Of course, our understudy global superpower is an even more openly authoritarian state, so, that's not great.
Trump is digging a big hole for the US. I just wish a bigger political push back would roll out in the US. Soon.
I listened to two other American Trump Whisperers yesterday on radio interviews, both staunchly defending his (indefensible) war with Iran. They sounded to me like two anachronistic tin pots rattling loudly. But still they defend the indefensible. God give me patience!
Americans have a genius for politicising the good, the harmless and the obvious, from masks to “windmills”. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic.
In 1954, three inventors, Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson, invented the first working solar panels at the Bell Labs in New Jersey. The country that invented this cutting edge technology abandoned it and allowed China to lead.
A group of blue-blooded Americans penned project 2025 whose sole aim was to cynically stick it to Americans by gutting progress including undermining the fine institutions the nation has built that is the envy of the world. If a foreign adversary had done this to us, we’d consider it an act of war. And yet, we are consciously inflicting this backwardness upon ourselves.
As we bury our heads in the sand like ostriches, the rest of the world and China aren’t waiting for us to wake up. Thankfully, a WOKE state like California knows better.
And the transistor was invented in 1947 at Bell Labs and abandoned. Japan moved it forward.
Bell Labs was primarily interested in licensing their inventions. What happened a few times was that other companies in other nations simply waited until the patents expired.
The DNC has nothing to do with too many people running as Democrats for the nomination. Political parties in the USA are very non-centralized. There is no national party organization that picks and chooses what candidates stands for what office.
Oh, there is a national party organization that picks candidates. Fortunately (or un) it can't prevent others from running. They worked very hard to sabotage Graham Platner's campaign in Maine. The other candidate just dropped out.
You are correct. His whining is risible given that he cares even less about animals - any animal - than he does about human beings. And the only human being he cares about is himself.
Unfortunately, Trump is also making the American auto industry completely irrelevant. I wonder if, at some point, these companies decide that they have to be able to compete on the world stage and go electric whether or not Trump likes it. I hope so.
many of these domestic auto mfg leaders like GM and others are very stupid in my opinion....they go all in for EVs a few years ago then abandoned it for higher profit margin ice suvs and trucks and never addressing the range fear issue with EVs by investing in charging infrastructure....when I asked my chev dealer if I can buy a small suv with electric battery and extended range gas gen, they told me only mfg them in China
Trump said the other days - falsely - that because of his tariffs, a bunch of new auto plants have been created. It would be hysterical if it were true - and they were all set up to build EVs. I wonder what he would do to prevent them from ever going into operation?
An Asian company (Korea?) was building a plant in a southern state. ICE arrested all of their engineers and shipped them home. Put a big dent in the construction of their battery plant.
Hey, I'm sure the foreign automakers will keep the brands alive when they buy all their assets for pennies on the dollar. You can still get your F-150, it'll just be made by Honda.
It could very well be that the future of American cars is restricted to especially popular brands and models or those with loyal customer bases. Mustangs, F-150s, Jeeps, Chargers/Challengers, Cadillacs, etc.
I think it might be too late for the US auto mfrs this time around. They have a product line most of which is rapidly becoming obsolete, with a supply chain in economic tatters, dodging a fearsome competitor kept at bay by a one trick pony who is a lame duck. Not a good look at all.
7% of US single-family homes had solar systems as of 1/2026
3.5% of commercial/industrial buildings in the United States have solar systems.
6,100 new residential systems were installed on 147 million US homes in 2025.
$25,000 = Avg cost of US residential solar system.
Solar can be leased in most areas.
2% of US vehicles are EVs as of 1/2026.
16,300,000 new cars sold in US in '25 - avg cost = $50k, 8% were EVs - avg cost = $55k.
Americans are about 4.2% of global peeps, yet we consume 15% of global energy, 2nd only to China which has 4X the population of the US and uses about 25% of it's energy producing export products.
Conclusion? We enjoy paying Big Bucks for energy that could be FREE, we enjoy being economically predated on by Big Oil, we enjoy being subject to the hissy fits of insane presidents, we enjoy polluting the global environment unnecessarily…
"Americans will always do the right thing, but only after trying everything else first." - Churchill
"moron" /môr′ŏn″/, noun - "A person who is considered foolish or stupid."
Yup, that fits. The thing I can't grok is WHY we always stand out as the most brain-dead peeps on Ma Earth. For Goddess' sake, the conservatives among us happily vote for wackadoodles who 1) refuse to provide citizens with Universal Healthcare (like most nations do, even including the poverty-stricken ones like Botswana and Cuba etc) and 2) want to force us to have babies!
Mah' Grandaddy was a conservative, mah Daddy was a conservative and ah'm a conservative too, by gum!
Donald J Trump is Wrong About Everything. He’s a weather vane permanently pointing in the wrong direction - diversity, renewable energy, colonising Canada, leaving NATO, befriending Russia.
How can one man be so stupid and not realise it? His obsession with oil is just perverse - he expected Exxon and Chevron to be excited about access to Venezuelan crude….totally unaware that it is the sludgy kind of oil that is only marginally profitable at best.
Where does Trump’s hatred of wind turbines originate? Americans may not be aware of the humiliating defeat Trump experienced in Scotland. A decade ago he tried to block an offshore wind farm being built in Scotland that was visible from his golf course. The Scottish courts (and government) told him to “go away and stop being an annoying baby” (carefully phrased in legal terms and Scottish colourful language…). Scotland laughed for weeks.
I think this is the real reason Trump is so triggered by wind farms, not just the cash given to him by fossil fuels….
"Most of it comes out of the ground with the consistency of cold peanut butter. To even move it through a pipe, you must mix it with costly imported diluents (such as naphtha), which adds roughly $15 per barrel to your costs before you’ve even reached a port. And when it gets onto a tanker, it’s still some of the hardest crude on the planet to turn into something useful. It requires specialized equipment and it emits a lot of carbon for each gallon of gasoline or other useful product. Because it requires complex “coker” refineries to process, it currently sells at a $12–$20 discount compared to global benchmarks like Brent."
That piece also notes what Trump said in this clip from 2023:
" we're buying tar from Venezuela and we're refining it in Houston the dirtiest worst oil probably anywhere in the world and we're refining it so you can imagine
what's going up in the air and all beautiful stuff we're not taking out of the ground and making a lot of money and paying off debt and reducing taxes"
"Tar", huh? And just how does oil taken out of the ground by private companies pay off US debt?
And he's full of it anyway - that it wasn't being done in 2023. That was another of his fantasies - that we weren't pumping tons of oil during the Biden administration, and that the oil companies weren't making record profits! So much so, that Biden wanted a special tax - a modest one - but of course, that didn't even merit discussion in Congress.
Thanks for the detail, “cold peanut butter” - that doesn’t sound easy to work with. I just remember Trump calling a group of oil executives to the White House in January, presumably expecting gratitude for opening up Venezuela. I just remember the Exxon man, clearly not thrilled and with no desire to invest in Venezuelan oil …
I remember that too. And perhaps that is why we haven't heard anything more about Venezuelan oil. If only the media followed up on such things, instead of taking dictation from the ever-flowing spout of "Trump says".
Let’s not pretend that hostility to the energy transition has anything to do with faith in free markets or the desire to keep energy cheap. Trump and his minions are actively trying to stop the expansion of green energy even when it’s profitable. In the latest development, the administration is using bogus national security concerns to block the development of wind power:
Unsurprising from the lord of the flies. Will unaffordable fuel be the line in the sand for magas? It’s been 10 years of teachable moments. I’m exhausted.
You mean lord of the “files”, right?
“Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who helped push the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act through Congress last year, said, ‘Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away.’”
I am watching Massie's primary on May 19 closely. If he defeats the MAGA guy running against him, and particularly if he does so soundly, that will show just how weakened Trump is.
I actually gave Massie $100 two months ago when I heard that Trump was pouring millions into an attempt to primary the co-author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Unfortunately, Massie sold my info, and now I'm getting 5-6 spam texts a day from Dems asking for money. Becerra in CA sends me 2-3 a day, which has gotten super annoying.
Sorry to hear. You just can't trust most people or organizations anymore. Money is literally the only thing most of them care about.
Dems need to somehow reign in this fundraising spamming. John Stewart said as much a few weeks ago. It creates a super bad look.
I haven't seen much mention of the Epstein files lately, so apparently Trump has found a successful distraction.
That’s my cue…apologies for the repost but I believe that every adult in this country needs to read it.
Katie Johnson alleges that, when she was a 13 year old child, she was tied to the four corners of a bed and raped, while onlookers ignored her screams for help. In 1994, the year this allegedly happened, the most requested Christmas gifts for 13 year old girls were Polly Pocket and Furby. https://katemanne.substack.com/p/the-actual-conspiracy-theory-surrounding. https://katemanne.substack.com/p/they-tried-to-bury-the-katie-johnson?r=2g4u&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/ghislaine-maxwell-transferred-to-minimum-security-prison-camp-in-texas. https://www.kcra.com/article/maxwell-invokes-fifth-clemency/70291961
Katie Johnson is alleging rape in NY, where there is no statute of limitations and no immunity. If you listen to her testimony, I’d welcome an update on whether it changed your perspective.
You're on the right track. For sensible people, it was all over a year ago when Trump threatened to invade Denmark if it didn't turn Greenland over to him. It's been nonstop claptrap since then. The issue became singular: the America that was once widely considered the "leader of the free world" is now a zombie nation animated by actual imbeciles and lawless fanatics. Literally mentally ill folks: pathological liars and their lickspittles. That's the issue. Everything else is a distraction stemming from that sad fact.
Right-o! It's about the extraterrestrial MAGA species on Earth. Their alien sex practices were safe from view on Epstein's island.
Plus distraction from rising prices and consumer anger thanks to his stupid war. Have you caught those news conferences with Hellsbreath and Ragin' Caine? They must have sore chests after all that thumping.
Trump and Israel started this war for ever-shifting reasons: nuclear enrichment, regime change, ballistic missiles and support for Shi'a militias. The Strait of Hormuz wasn't even on the radar. Iran has turned the tables and made it THE issue. Trump plays Checkers while Iran is playing Chess.
I haven't seen coverage of the horrid gulags that ICE has set up for their quota-filling, bonus-earning non-violent immigrants. (Meanwhile, ICE is buying warehouses built with little sewage and water support and nominal HVAC to house thousands of people.)
Wouldn’t it be a lovely irony if, because of Dumb as a stump tRump’s stupid and illegal war, it led to a huge increase in the purchase of EVs, the building of more solar farms, windmills, etc., and caused huge financial losses to the fossil fuel industry.
"Lord of the flies" is a translation of Beelzebub aka Satan. A very appropriate soubriquet for Trump.
Thank you for that chuckle. 😉
Not necessarily. After all, Trump is full of sh*t, and flies do like sh*t.
Lord of the Elves?
Very clever!
Yes. Got auto corrected!
Right, but I think the renewable energy companies in the US will continue to march along as well, like Fervo Energy out of Texas who are doing geothermal energy. And even the Kochs, who I agree are 100% evil, are heavily invested in things like lithium production for batteries. Making money will trump Trump, and renewables are making money. They just need to tread lightly around the "mad king" to avoid costly DOJ retribution and legal costs.
He's all about making money for himself and his family.
The NY Times just won a Pulitzer for investigative journalism for this piece exposing the astronomical grift the Trump family is accumulating and how it affects policy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/us/politics/trump-crypto-world-liberty-financial.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gFA.plsN.UHUV8AHJ9Rn2&smid=url-share
Nice link, thanks. It would make a fitting, if lengthy, epitaph for the America I grew up in. Reminds me of Sir Edward Grey's comment some years ago, to paraphrase: "The lights are going out all over America. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime". Pessimistic? Maybe.
Stop being intimidated by the imaginary world of our Faux King POTUS the 1st, the GREATEST LEADER of ALL TIME, and the executive producer of an AMAZINGLY SUCCESSFUL reality TV show, "TRUMP 47, King of the WORLD. It's far beyond the time this fool loses all his power.
In Trump's fever dreams he schedules the fabulous episodes for his TV show. But now, several are running far beyond their allotted time;
"Epstein Who I Barely Knew", "Iran who I Defeated before I Began," "Oil Prices that went Up for No GOOD Reason" and "Affordability".
But don't worry America, HE and only HE is fixing this issue. Soon we'll just worry about Seashells and Windmills when we should be worried about our country that is being taken over by American billionaire oligarchs.
I see we took the same train. It is high anxiety for me and feeling so frozen and immersed in it. I have to force myself to turn on my tunes and get busy having better thoughts. Gummies help.
Fervor IPO'd yesterday!
Fervo Energy (FRVO) is scheduled to go public on Wednesday, May 13, 2026.
It is a waste of time to attempt predicting the attitudes or behaviors of irrational people. Indeed anyone with a shred of rationally (or decency) would have abandoned Trump and his enablers years ago.
It's not about rationality as much as the information they're using to make their rationales. For some people politics exists solely in the realm of philosophical, abstract argument about values and priorities - an arena in which the right has always been able to compete on equal footing with liberalism - and the actual facts of what happens are so jumbled and obfuscated to them that they can't apply any empirical reasoning whatsoever. They are just too confused - mostly because they watch a lot of media that lies to them, and are smart enough to know they're being lied to, but not how, or what the truth is.
Pretty much sums it up. I've spent so much time arguing with right-wingers, and every time I come away going "they don't know anything!!!" It's one thing if you don't know what the truth is. It's something else if you, in fact, demonstrably, don't know anything about the subject but are sure you do, solely because the information you have came from someone who says they're a Republican. Even more ironically, these people tend to be the types who make "nobody can fool me!" a central part of their personality. I cannot handle the dissonance of someone strutting around calling themselves a "sheep-dog" and displaying a level of skepticism that borders on paranoia, while at the same time parroting lies that some con-man specifically crafted to deceive them.
"Files", "Flies", it's kind of the same thing: As much as Trump has succeeded in hiding the Epstein files from light of day, he can't hide the smell.
💯
When they can't afford gas for the pickup, or it comes to a choice about food on the table, maybe they will realize they backed the wrong horse?
Maybe. But they're equally likely to say that it's all Joe Biden's fault.
Yeap, they’ll say it’s Biden’s fault, and they would vote for trump all over again.
I bet they would vote for him all over again…
Lord of the Files. Thanks for jolting me out of a morose state. Good one. Hope you don't mind my using it!
🙏 I’m honored! Thank you!
88% approval per even recent polling. I'm thinking there is nothing that gets you out of the cult.
I do think it's all about gas prices, and I think Mr. Krugman misses the point here today.
It's not that Trump "loves oil" or even that he's particularly swayed by his oil industry donors. I mean, he'll take their money, but he would never trade a lot of votes for them.
When people hear, "bla bla bla green energy" etc., most only hear one thing: the gas they buy everyday for their car is going to go up.
And no, saying that green energy will reduce their home energy bill "someday" isn't very persuasive. First, that's "someday" and not NOW. Trump, as the consummate populist, knows that most voters don't care about "tomorrow", they care about today.
Second, Home energy is usually only around 50% of one's total energy bill, and consumers are much more aware of fluctuations in price since it literally stares them in the face when they gas up.
Trump knows, instinctively, that being anti-environment will endear him to millions of voters who will assume that means gas prices will go down IMMEDIATELY when he is elected and will stay down while he's in office. This is why Iran has so much leverage in this war.
But don't say this is some kind of conspiracy by the oil industry to pay off politicians because, at root, it's not. Obviously the industry will (sorry) help throw gasoline on the fire, but the root driver here is pure amoral populism.
And on that note, if gas prices keep going up because US domestic oil producers price their commodity according to the worldwide price level (as in, do what they normally do in a free market), don't be surprised when Trump effectively NATIONALIZES THE US OIL INDUSTRY and forces them to sell their oil at the price of his choosing.
The narrative that Trump and the GOP are owned by their oil industry overlords would tell you that is impossible. But that narrative is wrong. If prices stay high, I personally believe this is exactly what will happen.
How are greed, hubris and despotism all related Dr. Krugman?
The End of the PetroDollar Era is happening before our eyes and There Will Be Blood…
FernGully and Avatar had it right.
I wish the liberals, socialists, real religiosity’s leaders would step back and look at the issues of drugification and denial…lots of distractions from the horror that is the current president’s administration! And we have played a role in this.
* Fear and loathing on a nuclear scale, white Christian nationalism!
* Murder in our name on our streets by ‘Brownshirt thugs!’
* Criminal corruption in timing stocks trades and a ‘Cryto’, betting on the timing of bombings?! Betting at all!?
* Now we have the glinting of a soiled man; gold plating is a sin! One of the commandments about idolatry I think.
* A lie of a war to feed the fear…and the racism of removing anything good Obama did!
And we could bring wealth of the robber-barons (Sili-con), and stagnant wages, and health care, and bison, and demolition, wind and solar power, and the Supreme Court (we need to impeachment at least one.)
There is literally nothing ‘good’ he has accomplished except maybe getting folks out to vote…maybe. The missing 70,000,000…
“Fortunately, America is not the world.” Paul Krugman summarizes so much of what is going on.
No it just be a line under the sand
How many years have knowledgeable people said, "Leave it in the ground"? Everyone had plenty of warning to transition away from fossil fuels.
The LGBT community should relinquish the rainbow symbol back to Greenpeace immediately. LGBT can find something else. Maybe they can be lavender menaces again.
Love "lord of the flies". Because you know what flies are attracted to. 😉
In March, power generation from solar and wind increased 15% and 8%, respectively, outside of China. Even in the US, renewables generated a greater share of electricity than gas for the first time!
https://nuancematters.substack.com/p/has-the-iran-war-shuffled-the-energy
Cheaper, longer laster EVs are flooding markets. Recognizing this is a win for energy security is a key messaging opportunity.
These are moments that could be worth celebrating if the circumstances weren't so dire. Instead, Trump is doing irreparable damage to America's standing, to the American economy, and to people all across the globe.
It’s amazing how foolish, willfully ignorant everyday people are in regards to this. Fossil fuels cost so much money in myriad ways that go beyond something like the current price of a barrel of crude.
And speaking of cheap EVs…we have essentially no cheap cars of any kind left in America because US companies stopped making them. Another spot where one can’t “vote with their wallet” because the choice isn’t even available.
And as of yet we can’t buy the Chinese EV’s without paying the Trump tariffs, which is limiting import numbers and making them unaffordable. They are showing up in Europe though and are nice.
I understand that the Chinese BYD cars have a recharge time of only 5 minutes, about the time it takes to pump gas!
Not just BYD. Chinese cars from around 7 Chinese brands are dominating the European market - and they are good with competitive pricing and advanced technology. Chinese brands are now targeting the electric van market and tap into the fleet market.
I’ve read that. It’s the new blade technology in battery packs that BYD developed. We aren’t going to see such new technological innovations in the internal combustion engine, are we?
American firms can't make inexpensive cars in part because of the tariffs on steel and aluminum. There's also the crazy situation where parts cross the Mexican or Canadian borders multiple times, paying tariffs each time. That situation didn't start the decline, though. Ford quit selling sedans in the U.S. a year or two back. Ford now sells the Mustang and their truck lineup. They still sell cars outside the States. GM made headlines a couple years back when they shut down an assembly line due to poor sales.
Yeah the tariffs are a major obstacle for pricing in all auto manufacturing now. But the discontinuation of many smaller models, and certainly many of the budget models, happened several years ago. You mentioned sedans…the recent Toyota “sedan” we bought is nearly as big as my “midsize” SUV. It’s not unlike the new houses often being built, bigger makes them more money. And many Americans do seem to love bigger given the number of full size trucks and the XL grand whatever SUVs all over. 😒 But with 92% of households owning a car (according to a quick search & many of those owning multiple cars), there should be plenty of market for variety in size. Ooo it grinds my gears. (😉 ba-dum-ching)
Assembly lines closing due to poor sales…this always irritates me because in some ways it’s of their own doing. They have too many models. They can’t all be “top” sellers. Of course some won’t sell as well, but their solution is to cut out entire categories.
That grinds my gears too. In Europe and New Zealand I’ve recently seen cars and light trucks/vans/SUVs produced by Ford Europe. But they won’t sell them here. The warped logic, as you mentioned, is for both American automakers and home builders, larger is more profitable. The profit margin is larger on more expensive items. So U.S. automakers give up the small and midsize sedan and SUV market to the foreign manufacturers for U.S. sales. The foreign manufacturers are clued in to what Americans have been fooled into buying. Compare the size of earlier Toyota RAV4s with today’s model. Honda Civics are now larger than Accords from 15 or 20 years ago. All of these are full of gadgets that no one can figure out how to use and are costly to repair once broken. All because Americans love to oh and awe over gadgets and shiny toys. My daughter traded in a 21 year old Honda for an Acura (everyone in our family keeps autos for a minimum of 20 years and 250,000 miles) and spent the first three months of ownership detuning it, turning off features she didn’t want or need but came with that base model.
Apparently Ford is going to release an electric truck.
Ford tried that last year. They called it the F-150 Lightning. Production ceased last December.
Apparently they’re trying again.
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ford-ev-electric-truck-7fdb0e0a
I keep having the sense that the rest of the world has the US in their rearview mirror. And the US is getting smaller and smaller as the rest of the world pulls away into a renewable energy future. SAD.
The rest of the world will be hesitant to trust us on anything in the future! Why should they since we elected DJT twice, knowing who he is, and have allowed his band of horribles to run the country. I don't trust us, and I live here.
True. I saw a 'cast a few minutes ago that Germany has banned the use of Palantir for their military because of security concerns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQHXJPiVYtM
That's a good channel, thanks for the pointer.
"we elected DJT twice, knowing who he is"
And yet I believe that the US's reputation will be instantly reinstated when the Democrats gain a veto-proof majority in the midterms, while the GOP loses House and Senate.
Or rather, "if" instead of "when."
We will still be stuck with DonnyJon's courts for the lifetimes of their judges.
"We will still be stuck with DonnyJon's courts for the lifetimes of their judges."
Not necessarily. With sufficient majorities the Democrats could stack the court and introduce term limits, to name but a few steps.
The lower courts will still be at least half Trump appointees. He and McConnell were very busy in his first term.
We can only hope that the rest of the world isn't soured long-term on an America that has made decisions that have compromised so many nations and broken so many promises to our allies.
"hope that the rest of the world isn't soured long-term"
I'm not sure what you mean with "soured." I would conjecture that the world sees America's problems, and as long as these problems persist, they might be reluctant to believe any promises coming from a US government.
But such reluctance is likely merely rational, without the emotional baggage that a word like "soured" seems to imply.
Yes, the reluctance is rational, but I fear we're burdened with lots of emotional baggage.
Ain’t the end of empire great?
Your sense is not wrong.
Look on youtube for comparisons between living in the USA and other countries often written by (ex-)Americans.
As an example :
https://youtube.com/@typeashton
We Homo Ignorami destroyed our environment virtually overnight (in geological terms). Yes, it WILL take years (centuries?) to repair all the damage, but we can STOP creating most GHGs (virtually) overnight - IF we care enough to do so.
When I was born in 1945, the Cumulative Global Atmospheric GHGs weighed 205.5 billion tonnes (metric tons). By 2024, GHGs weighed 1.85 TRILLION tonnes. IOW, 89% of ALL GHGs created planet-to-date were created in my lifetime (so, it's my fault?? 😳)!!!
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?time=1945..latest&country=CHN~USA~OWID_EU27~IND~OWID_WRL
Globally, we doubled the amount of energy produced from renewables in just two decades, and that was without really trying. We can make enormous progress - IF we care enough to do so.
https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy
The solution comes up every morning -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA3ec-YmLYw&list=RDEA3ec-YmLYw&start_radio=1
"as a result of the Iran debacle, Trump’s presidency has been a net positive for the global green energy revolution."
As the saying goes, "There's no great loss without some small gain."
Up next (hopefully), "a very important person chokes on a Big Mac."
I check the front pages for the obit every day.
Maybe the ghosts of Ray Kroc and Ronny Raygun can help us out and have an intervention with Donnie Demento.
You must be joking. Those guys would just pat him on the back and say "Atta boy!"
Never mind the half million (500,000) toddlers and babies in effect murdered by default because Trump defunded USAid with projections suggesting that because of this and related actions by Trump 14milion will die in the developing who could live for an awful lot less than the $17billion cost of one of Trumps proposed new aircraft carriers.
They're still worth celebrating. In 30 months Trump will be gone, and this momentum will persist.
The green transition is very much in evidence over here in France, and in Europe in general. It's now part of many political parties' platforms (so: no longer just the Greens), which is encouraging. Thanks, Paul, for reminding us that there is a planetary silver lining to the US administration's craziness and cruel, short-sighted carrying on.
tRump destroys everything he touches, including his own ideology!
and the USA which is headed towards enshitification.
I am having a surfeit of irony this morning. The carbon-loving doofus in the White House may be creating the conditions to end carbon pollution! I hope I live long enough to see this happen.
We should all be writing to offer our sincere thanks to the accidental hero who is saving the world from climate disaster, by propelling us all at speed towards Net Zero...
Even if it took his really stupid war with Iran to make us all realise how undependable the US has become: and to go for renewables in a really big way, just in the nick of time.
Thank You Mr President Sir. Please accept the World Net Zero Renewable Energy (Accidental) Hero's Medal.
A lot of people are saying that grown men with tears in their eyes come up to Trump and say "Sir, thank you for committing political suicide and confirming that the United States is a global pariah."
I may end up having to tip my cap to the accelerationists I've been yelling at my whole life.
Thank you Stacy--Yes, how wonderful and unexpectedly ironic!! I too (born in 1946) hope so much that I get to live long enough to see this happen! I so love all of nature and this beautiful earth that is our home and want it to regain its health and for all sentient life to continue to live and thrive!
Lilla, I also want to live long enough to desecrate the grave of our fellow 46er, His Trumpness.
A worthy goal Stacy. I’ll be joining you either in this lifetime or from beyond wherever we are. Hopefully, we'll still be here! Frankly, I think we'd be joined by millions in this celebration. If I'm still here, hopefully, I'll be joyfully "Dancing in the Streets". Remember that song performed by Martha and the Vandellas? Well, some of us "mature, wise, elder Baby Boomers" will remember! Ok, we definitely had the BEST music, imho.
This event would definitely spawn the largest spontaneous dancing-in-the-street party the world has ever seen. I'm asbsolutely sure of this.
Yes! It sure would. We’d be ecstatic!
That should require only a few more months, given his health problems.
Just remember: "only the good die young" and "the devil takes care of his own". Trump may be with us longer than we would like and his GOP may live on after him.
Yes, I keep being baffled at people predicting that his demise is near. He seems to me to be in fairly robust condition, even if suffering common aging issues.
You might want to consider the fact that he has not released the results of his annual medical exam, which was due last month.
From your mouth to God's ear!
Clearly this was all a conspiracy by the NWO to discredit conservatism and oligarchy and usher in a one world liberal government headed by Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy along with Carney! This would be my dream. If only....
IMO, Zelenskyy would not want the job.
I was mostly kidding, but yeah, it does not seem like the kind of job he would want. He seems like not just someone who wants to have power, or someone who wants to lead, he wants to lead HIS people through a crisis. And when it is over, he is probably going to be pretty damn tired.
Don’t get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
Zelenskyy and/ or Mark Carney.
Brilliant insight was not required. 20 years ago it was clear to anyone who made a cursory analysis that solar and wind represented the future of energy. Barack Obama campaigned on that message starting from 2007. He wanted America to lead this emerging industry into the future. But....here we are. 20 years later and hopelessly behind. Heads stubbornly buried in the sand, a delusional President and his acquiescent enablers, unwittingly accelerating the inevitable future of renewables they still refuse to see.
Many books will be written about America's self-immolation. I keep trying to understand it, but it is unfathomable.
The cause of U.S. self-immolation is not complicated.
The USA elected a black man as president in 2008 and re-elected him in 2012, and almost half the U.S. population lost their minds at this unspeakable horror and decided to support the loudest, most obnoxious, most unqualified, most racist in modern times, and most corrupt white man they could find.
We could have done more to make them less afraid, in retrospect. Even if they were stupid to be afraid.
But at the same time, I don't blame us... the force and speed of the backlash caught us all off guard. Who could have known that something like calling it "stupid" for a cop to arrest a college professor trying to get into his own house would be treated like an attempt at inciting a race war?
(He didn't even call the cop "stupid"! He said he "acted stupidly"! God dammit, 2009!)
I had forgotten about that.
Gene, right you are!
it's the root of all evil.....greed
That's only one of seven. (It's a very good list.) Greed was the motivation, and yes, the root. But wrath, pride, and envy were also key in obtaining the public consent needed to achieve their goals.
Pride for sure (and its relation - arrogance).
Not on that list, but also factors are fear, shame, and narcissism.
Absolutely John!!
Republicanism and christian nationalism. That’s how we are self destructing. The sane rational people can never understand it because it doesn’t and has never made sense.
Self-immolation describes it perfectly. A tragic waste without explanation.
And hilarious
If only Barack Obama would have had the courage to punish the bankers. It's always about money here in the land of the free.
Obama wasn't telling the DOJ to prosecute or not prosecute. The DOJ looked at the people they would be charging and their massive army of lawyers they would be up against and said "no thanks, we don't have the resources". Just like what happens in the bowels of the IRS whenever a billionaire files a tax form that says they owe only $750 for the 10th year in a row.
Obama gave the "look forward" speech because he was told the billionaire class was untouchable by the DOJ, not because he was protecting them. He did pass the ACA which was a tax increase on the wealthy, after all.
Barack Obama was a relatively good president. What you wrote is absolutely true, but it doesn't change the fact that he lacked the courage to meet the moment that could have made him a great president.
He also gave a campaign speech in Cushing, OK, the "pipeline crossroads of the world' in front of a pile of oil pipes declaring his energy policy would support the use of all energy resources, which is actually no energy policy at all.
You focus on what he said and not what he did.
He didn't push renewables as much as Biden did because the cost of energy from renewables and EV's weren't lower than fossil fuels at the time. That doesn't mean he didn't try (Remember Soylandra?)
By the time he had the opportunity to get big things done on renewables the Republicans had taken over Congress and his Presidency was basically over.
Carter put solar panels on the White House in 1979. Reagan took them down in 1980. Stupidity and senselessness have long been the hallmarks of the Republican party.
BECAUSE THE KOCH FOSSIL FUEL COMPANY OWNED EVERY REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT
SINCE Reagan
We get all our electricity from our solar panels (Chinese) as stored in our gigantic battery (also Chinese). We charge our EV that way too. Power is taken away from dictator and oligopolistic companies and given to us all. Power to the people!
Speaking of John Lennon, I really think this is the revolution he was referring to. And it's actually happening
Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9...
The number 9 represents humanitarianism, completion, and spiritual wisdom, acting as the highest single-digit number (in base 10) that symbolizes the end of a cycle and universal love. It is deeply associated with compassion, selflessness, and a global, non-judgmental perspective, often regarded as a magical or divine number.
Wikipedia
My house solar panels and house battery were manufactured in the US, but I’m sure they contain some China-sourced components. As long as they continue to work, I’m happy.
Trump cannot stop progress. But he can sideline the United States' influence for the remainder of the 21st century and beyond. We could have led the way forward, and we chose not to. Perhaps this is the inevitability of America's decline.
Don't mistake trend for destiny. The Trump experience is sidelining the US influences that enabled MAGA. Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Healthcare, are such big parts of life today that their decline feels like the US is declining. But it's only the end of a chapter, not the end of the story. It will take decades, and the world will look different, but the US will rebound.
IF the US rebounds, it will be a different country. It can only rebound if it remakes the political institutions currently making us a petro-state and handing our future over to the dominance fantasies of the techbros and their AI tools. Either we strengthen democratic control and ability to tax and regulate through institutions that are not in plutocratic hands or we keep declining.
Can what Mark Carney called “the middle states” learn to coordinate and cooperate to a degree that will give them power to offset the power-hunger, greed and revenge fantasies of the former “superpowers” (Russia and US)? Can they emerge as a coherent liberal/social democratic bloc strong enough to offset China’s huge advantages in (educated) population and (socially useful) investments? what will China’s plans for Africa and Latin America produce in “development” terms? Can the US join the middle states as a partner or must we try to regain control?
Electorates are immortal. Politicians and oligarchs die... eventually.
Individual politicians care about status... a lot. Electorates care about stable employment and commerce, security, and predictable, fair conflict resolution - to the extent electorates care about status it is as a means to these things.
Given that the current crop of plutocrats are delivering erratic employment, masked police terrorizing citizens in the streets, and a blatantly biased DOJ, the US electorate will eventually assert control and insist that voters choose the government (instead of the reverse) and insist that the institutions of government deal with reality, not put on a show of smoke-and-mirrors.
However, being immortal, the electorate may not be quick.
Today, the Canadian Prime Minister better represents the Canadian electorate, than the US President represents the US electorate. So Mark Carney's view is probably closer to what we will see in the coming years.
But the focus is what approach will provide stable employment, commerce, security, and fair conflict resolution - not who has the most prestigious label.
Exactly. Trump is a symptom, not a cause.
You might appreciate this post by Johan, a behavioral economist and former foreign service officer. https://johanuniverseends.substack.com/p/the-world-is-hedging-america-is-alone?r=5k9s3t&utm_medium=ios
I do believe we will throw off this authoritarian streak and make adjustments that improve our democracy but I wonder if the US population wants the responsibility of being a superpower or the superpower? Or even if the rest of the world would have us in that role? Or have anyone else in that role? People in the US lost sight of the responsibility that comes with being a superpower. We’re in a time of extreme contingency, as historian Joanne Freeman often says. (Which always reminds me of the red wheelbarrow and the white chickens that so much depends on. 🙃)
"Don't mistake trend for destiny." <- something every politics-watcher desperately needs drilled into their head.
It doesn't seem like people have generally suffered from living in non-influential countries. Like, Lichtenstein seems nice and I assume hasn't had much influence on anything since wars were being fought with pikes.
Of course, our understudy global superpower is an even more openly authoritarian state, so, that's not great.
Hi Paul.
Trump is digging a big hole for the US. I just wish a bigger political push back would roll out in the US. Soon.
I listened to two other American Trump Whisperers yesterday on radio interviews, both staunchly defending his (indefensible) war with Iran. They sounded to me like two anachronistic tin pots rattling loudly. But still they defend the indefensible. God give me patience!
Regards, Anthony
Americans have a genius for politicising the good, the harmless and the obvious, from masks to “windmills”. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic.
and vaccines
Well said.
In 1954, three inventors, Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson, invented the first working solar panels at the Bell Labs in New Jersey. The country that invented this cutting edge technology abandoned it and allowed China to lead.
A group of blue-blooded Americans penned project 2025 whose sole aim was to cynically stick it to Americans by gutting progress including undermining the fine institutions the nation has built that is the envy of the world. If a foreign adversary had done this to us, we’d consider it an act of war. And yet, we are consciously inflicting this backwardness upon ourselves.
As we bury our heads in the sand like ostriches, the rest of the world and China aren’t waiting for us to wake up. Thankfully, a WOKE state like California knows better.
And the transistor was invented in 1947 at Bell Labs and abandoned. Japan moved it forward.
Bell Labs was primarily interested in licensing their inventions. What happened a few times was that other companies in other nations simply waited until the patents expired.
California may be in for a maga governor next fall due to the chaos and incompetence of the DNC. Wish I knew how to prevent that.
The DNC has nothing to do with too many people running as Democrats for the nomination. Political parties in the USA are very non-centralized. There is no national party organization that picks and chooses what candidates stands for what office.
Oh, there is a national party organization that picks candidates. Fortunately (or un) it can't prevent others from running. They worked very hard to sabotage Graham Platner's campaign in Maine. The other candidate just dropped out.
In fact I bet about 80% of those redundant candidates spend a lot of time exhaustingly bitching about "the DNC".
I wish there was so that we would be spared the threat of Repub governor!
People think that's how it works and claim to not like it.
never happen
Chris Wright is a jerk.
I don’t care which country profits most from green energy as long as it happens!
How does Drumpf know what whales think?
He knows what whales think because he had an uncle who taught at MIT.
Similar body type.
As if Trump gave a damn about birds or whales...but he might think other people do, who believe any old crazy story
You are correct. His whining is risible given that he cares even less about animals - any animal - than he does about human beings. And the only human being he cares about is himself.
Unfortunately, Trump is also making the American auto industry completely irrelevant. I wonder if, at some point, these companies decide that they have to be able to compete on the world stage and go electric whether or not Trump likes it. I hope so.
many of these domestic auto mfg leaders like GM and others are very stupid in my opinion....they go all in for EVs a few years ago then abandoned it for higher profit margin ice suvs and trucks and never addressing the range fear issue with EVs by investing in charging infrastructure....when I asked my chev dealer if I can buy a small suv with electric battery and extended range gas gen, they told me only mfg them in China
Trump said the other days - falsely - that because of his tariffs, a bunch of new auto plants have been created. It would be hysterical if it were true - and they were all set up to build EVs. I wonder what he would do to prevent them from ever going into operation?
An Asian company (Korea?) was building a plant in a southern state. ICE arrested all of their engineers and shipped them home. Put a big dent in the construction of their battery plant.
Thanks.
Hey, I'm sure the foreign automakers will keep the brands alive when they buy all their assets for pennies on the dollar. You can still get your F-150, it'll just be made by Honda.
Ford is doing very well with the F-series trucks. Not badly with the Mustangs either. Good luck buying anything else from them in the U.S..
It could very well be that the future of American cars is restricted to especially popular brands and models or those with loyal customer bases. Mustangs, F-150s, Jeeps, Chargers/Challengers, Cadillacs, etc.
I sure hope so too Richard.
I think it might be too late for the US auto mfrs this time around. They have a product line most of which is rapidly becoming obsolete, with a supply chain in economic tatters, dodging a fearsome competitor kept at bay by a one trick pony who is a lame duck. Not a good look at all.
As long as tariffs keep out the new Chinese EVs.
7% of US single-family homes had solar systems as of 1/2026
3.5% of commercial/industrial buildings in the United States have solar systems.
6,100 new residential systems were installed on 147 million US homes in 2025.
$25,000 = Avg cost of US residential solar system.
Solar can be leased in most areas.
2% of US vehicles are EVs as of 1/2026.
16,300,000 new cars sold in US in '25 - avg cost = $50k, 8% were EVs - avg cost = $55k.
Americans are about 4.2% of global peeps, yet we consume 15% of global energy, 2nd only to China which has 4X the population of the US and uses about 25% of it's energy producing export products.
Conclusion? We enjoy paying Big Bucks for energy that could be FREE, we enjoy being economically predated on by Big Oil, we enjoy being subject to the hissy fits of insane presidents, we enjoy polluting the global environment unnecessarily…
"Americans will always do the right thing, but only after trying everything else first." - Churchill
The simpler conclusion is that a huge number of us are morons. And I think that's a conclusion that is irrefutable.
"moron" /môr′ŏn″/, noun - "A person who is considered foolish or stupid."
Yup, that fits. The thing I can't grok is WHY we always stand out as the most brain-dead peeps on Ma Earth. For Goddess' sake, the conservatives among us happily vote for wackadoodles who 1) refuse to provide citizens with Universal Healthcare (like most nations do, even including the poverty-stricken ones like Botswana and Cuba etc) and 2) want to force us to have babies!
Mah' Grandaddy was a conservative, mah Daddy was a conservative and ah'm a conservative too, by gum!
That last sentence sums it up pretty well.
Typo line 2 - combustion, not consumption
Not a typo - the engine eats the passengers.
True, but consumption fits as well.
I think it may have been deliberate.
After all it consumes physical matter; where an EV does not.
Donald J Trump is Wrong About Everything. He’s a weather vane permanently pointing in the wrong direction - diversity, renewable energy, colonising Canada, leaving NATO, befriending Russia.
How can one man be so stupid and not realise it? His obsession with oil is just perverse - he expected Exxon and Chevron to be excited about access to Venezuelan crude….totally unaware that it is the sludgy kind of oil that is only marginally profitable at best.
Where does Trump’s hatred of wind turbines originate? Americans may not be aware of the humiliating defeat Trump experienced in Scotland. A decade ago he tried to block an offshore wind farm being built in Scotland that was visible from his golf course. The Scottish courts (and government) told him to “go away and stop being an annoying baby” (carefully phrased in legal terms and Scottish colourful language…). Scotland laughed for weeks.
I think this is the real reason Trump is so triggered by wind farms, not just the cash given to him by fossil fuels….
You're right about that oil, which I didn't know:
"Most of it comes out of the ground with the consistency of cold peanut butter. To even move it through a pipe, you must mix it with costly imported diluents (such as naphtha), which adds roughly $15 per barrel to your costs before you’ve even reached a port. And when it gets onto a tanker, it’s still some of the hardest crude on the planet to turn into something useful. It requires specialized equipment and it emits a lot of carbon for each gallon of gasoline or other useful product. Because it requires complex “coker” refineries to process, it currently sells at a $12–$20 discount compared to global benchmarks like Brent."
https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/too-dirty-too-late-why-the-economics-of-venezuelas-oil-dont-pencil-out/
That piece also notes what Trump said in this clip from 2023:
" we're buying tar from Venezuela and we're refining it in Houston the dirtiest worst oil probably anywhere in the world and we're refining it so you can imagine
what's going up in the air and all beautiful stuff we're not taking out of the ground and making a lot of money and paying off debt and reducing taxes"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL2SlXzrzoE
"Tar", huh? And just how does oil taken out of the ground by private companies pay off US debt?
And he's full of it anyway - that it wasn't being done in 2023. That was another of his fantasies - that we weren't pumping tons of oil during the Biden administration, and that the oil companies weren't making record profits! So much so, that Biden wanted a special tax - a modest one - but of course, that didn't even merit discussion in Congress.
Thanks for the detail, “cold peanut butter” - that doesn’t sound easy to work with. I just remember Trump calling a group of oil executives to the White House in January, presumably expecting gratitude for opening up Venezuela. I just remember the Exxon man, clearly not thrilled and with no desire to invest in Venezuelan oil …
I remember that too. And perhaps that is why we haven't heard anything more about Venezuelan oil. If only the media followed up on such things, instead of taking dictation from the ever-flowing spout of "Trump says".
Let’s not pretend that hostility to the energy transition has anything to do with faith in free markets or the desire to keep energy cheap. Trump and his minions are actively trying to stop the expansion of green energy even when it’s profitable. In the latest development, the administration is using bogus national security concerns to block the development of wind power: