i know i keep saying this, but right now has STRONG Venezuela ~2006 energy. all these little complicated micro-scandals where the president is obviously breaking the law or violating long-standing practice to consolidate power.
news-savvy individuals and toothless opposition cry out in anguish, but nothing happens. then on to the next politicized court ruling or sacking of inconvenient bureaucrats or take-over and gutting of a previously-functioning part of the state.
at this point Trump can do whatever he wants, and I'll be amazed if we have a free and fair election in 2020. people keep talking about electability as if the election itself is going to be fairly normal.
Iowa's Democratic caucus disaster is normal. The parties, not our government, build the tools.
It’s worth reading the rest of @rabble’s Twitter thread to understand why Iowa’s Democratic caucus was such a disaster. What happened with the app that Iowa’s Democrats used is normal. Our country doesn’t invest in electoral software, because the parties are concerned that if they make good tools which can last for more than one campaign, those tools will be used against them. it’s all about maintaining power. It’s corrupt.
We should demand that Congress fund open source software, free for any campaign to use. Lower the barriers to be able to run a successful campaign. Ensure that software is built to the highest standards—ease of use; security; etc.
"What the Iowa fallout revealed about the 2020 candidates"
A good summary of the top presidential candidates’ reactions to the caucuses in Iowa, from Ryan Cooper in The Week:
People's character tends to reveal itself in times of stress, which the bungled Iowa caucuses at least provided in spades. We see today Buttigieg the ruthless and opportunistic political climber, Biden the incompetent and panicky bungler, Sanders the patient movement-builder, and Warren the steady and dogged campaigner. Future primary voters should take these revelations into account when making their choice.
"Trump Campaigned on Saving Factory Jobs, but U.S. Manufacturing Just Went Through a Year-Long Recession"
Peter Suderman, writing for libertarian Reason magazine:
Last week, the Federal Reserve reported that U.S. manufacturing was in a recession for all of 2019. This wasn't slow growth; the sector actually became smaller. The slowdown was relatively mild, with factory production shrinking by about 1.3 percent. But it was the worst performance since 2015, the year that Trump started his presidential campaign…
…the uncertainty and increased costs surrounding Trump's trade war, which was billed as a way of supporting American factory jobs, has instead wreaked havoc on an export-heavy sector that relies on the global flow of goods to operate. Trump's interventions were intended to prop up U.S. manufacturing. But they backfired, harming the people he claimed to help…
…
Nor are manufacturing jobs the only ones to be hit by trade costs and uncertainty. As a New York Times report notes, middle-wage job growth, which includes manufacturing as well as occupations like mining and construction, slowed considerably over 2019, dropping from 2.6 percent to 1.3 percent, owing to trade-war squabbling. "That slowdown is driving the deceleration of job growth across the American economy," the report notes. Farming, another industry that Trump campaigned on helping, was so harmed by the trade war that the Trump administration ended up spending some $28 billion—more than double the price tag of President Obama's auto bailout—to keep them afloat.
Time to do something about this mess...
We deserve a better life, and we will have it when we organize.
Most clinical trials don't report results to FDA, and the FDA does nothing about it
This should be huge news. These authors estimate that as much as ~60% of all clinical trials, whose results are required by law to be reported to the FDA, aren’t. And even though the FDA can fine these companies and research labs, they just… don’t.
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Proof the big corporate media care more about outrage than analysis
These major corporations could hire people who study politics as a science for a living, who are trained to teach it, and are about as objective as it gets. They know what they’re talking about, can explain the complexities, and won’t intentionally spin things (at least not nearly as often).
Instead, our largest, most influential television news companies choose to hire political operatives, with less knowledge, and greater incentive to lie. They’re poisoning our politics, because that’s supposedly what’s best for their profits.
"NASA Animates World Path of Smoke and Aerosols from Australian Fires"
The images are wild. So much of Australia burned, that the smoke will likely “make at least one full circuit around the globe, returning once again to the skies over Australia.”
NASA:
The fires in Australia are not just causing devastation locally. The unprecedented conditions that include searing heat combined with historic dryness, have led to the formation of an unusually large number of pyrocumulonimbus (pyrCbs) events. PyroCbs are essentially fire-induced thunderstorms. They are triggered by the uplift of ash, smoke, and burning material via super-heated updrafts. As these materials cool, clouds are formed that behave like traditional thunderstorms but without the accompanying precipitation.
PyroCb events provide a pathway for smoke to reach the stratosphere more than 10 miles (16 km) in altitude. Once in the stratosphere, the smoke can travel thousands of miles from its source, affecting atmospheric conditions globally. The effects of those events -- whether the smoke provides a net atmospheric cooling or warming, what happens to underlying clouds, etc.) -- is currently the subject of intense study.