Manchin opposed to For the People Act

Ana gives a long, detail-filled rant against Manchin for using Repugnancon talking points against election reform. In addition his corporate donors don't want him to.

But what about the excuse that he comes from a conservative State so this can't pass? Ana also provided the polling stats (6:40) on the Act: Overall support 62% (Dems 79%, Independent 61%, Repug 43%).* Looking at the WVA Sec. of State voter registration for March '21: 35.77% Dem, 37.71% Repug, No Party 22.31%. Putting those two stats together indicates that the For the People Act has majority support in WVA.

So what should Democrats do about it? 

"Democrats need to get active. And the need to campaign in his State. They need to campaign in AZ. And they need to hold him and other lawmakers who stand in the way of this legislation accountable. They need to call out their own. [...] Why don't they? It might be because they have the same donors" (11:55).

* The %s are a bit different at their website, actually showing more Repug support.

Biden's speech to Congress in 42 seconds

Frames matter. And they matter a lot when they come from the President of the US. This short clip reiterates themes that the majority of Americans agree with. In this case it's about corporations and the wealthy paying their fair share. Imagine what Biden could do with a campaign for democracy and against voter suppression, particularly framing how the filibuster is destroying democracy.

AOC's Courage to Change PAC

Continuing this post: Did those Demacorps who got CTC money meet these qualifications?

"Will the outcome of this race shift political power back to working-class people?"

"Is this person a progressive, movement-oriented, underdog candidate?"

"Does the candidate display a strong history of community involvement and a deep understanding of local issues?"

The names of the Democrats who returned AOC's donations are: Chris Pappas (NH), Conor Lamb (PA), Elissa Slotkin (MI), Carolyn Bourdeux (GA) and Ron Kind (WI). None of the are in the progressive caucus. So the answers to all of the above requirements for contributions from AOC's PAC are HELL NO.

More CDC recommendations

 

Cable time

What goes around comes around.

 

More on AOC's contributions to Demacorps

Continuing this post, here's more info. AOC's rationale is that she is "committed to protecting a Democratic majority in the House." Ironically, at least 4 of those Demacorps have returned the contributions because they don't want to be associated with her 'socialist' agenda. Meaning, you know, helping people instead of corporations. 

So not only did AOC violate the very mission of her Courage to Change PAC by contributing to Demacorps, they turned around and slapped her in the face for doing it. Stick to your mission AOC and contribute to the campaigns of progressives who are trying to unseat those bribed lackeys. That's where your money should go if you really are "committed to protecting a Democratic majority in the House."

Responsible economics

Corporations and their bribed Repugnacon and Demacorp lackeys have no intention of ever doing "responsible economics."

The fascist hit parade

It's called accountability, not cancel culture. ACCOUNTABILITY!

Corporate media buys YouTube

No surprise here, that because they pay so much money to YouTube it favors it on its platform. YouTube's CEO admitted as much. 

This is another reason why progressive media sources on the Tube must be supported if we ever want to get anything other than corporate spin. Unfortunately, even some progressives are buying the corporate and establishment Dem spin that such alternatives are extreme. The fact is that progressive media are promoting ideas and policies that are well with the Overton Window, meaning what the majority of Americans want.

Biden campaigns in GA for infrastructure plan

He also  plans to do so in PA and VA. Kudos to him for getting out there and using the immense bully pulpit of the Presidency to pass a key Bill that will help get our economy going again, as well as create many renewal energy jobs and expand the social safety net. He's also trying to pressure Demacorps to support it, as some of them, including Manchin, don't want to raise corporate taxes to 28% to pay for it. They are counter-offering a raise to 25% which might get their votes.

Fortunately the Parliamentarian has advised that the infrastructure Bill can be done through Reconciliation. Unfortunately, some of the funding mechanisms in the Bill might be advised against by the Parliamentarian, thus once again throwing a monkey wrench into the process. Then Biden, not having the courage to go against the Parliamentarian, would have to change the plan making it at best less effective.

So we're back to the same old dilemma: The filibuster must go to enact Biden's agenda. And it certainly must go to pass the For the People Act which deals with election reforms which would not come under the auspices of Reconciliation. If only we could get Biden to use the same kind of bully pulpit campaigning power to force the Demacorps to agree to filibuster elimination as he's doing right now to garner support for the infrastructure plan. 

And if he won't, if only we can get the progressive caucus to use their voting block power to force the issue. The bottom line is simple: Progressives cannot win future elections because the Repug States are passing voter suppression laws that will prevent those victories. Our only option at this point is to pass the For the People Act in the Senate to override those State Bills. And the only way to get that passed is to eliminate the filibuster. This is the ultimate hill upon which Biden and progressives must stand if democracy is to survive.

Why is AOC contributing to Blue Dog incumbents?

The Guardian poses this very good question. The stated mission of her PAC, Courage to Change, follows. So what's up with this AOC?

“Contributions will be used to make early investments in progressive challengers that can even the playing field against established incumbents, and bolster progressive leaders in Congress who take difficult but righteous stands. All endorsees will embody the ideals of racial, social, economic, and environmental justice. Courage to Change will refuse all corporate PAC donations, as will our candidates.” 

 

Reality v. lying spin

You know the lie Repugs tell. The reality: Treat workers right and they do a better job and everyone benefits. What a concept that greedy bastards just cannot grasp.

Suzanne Simard: Unearthing the secret social life of trees

Podcast here. The blurb:

"Over her career, first as a forester and then as a professor of forest ecology, Suzanne Simard has been uncovering the hidden fungal networks that connect trees and allow them to send signals and share resources. Speaking to Suzanne about her new book, Finding the Mother Tree, Linda Geddes discovers how these underground webs allow plants to cooperate and communicate with each other."

Latest CDC guidelines for fully vaccinated people

Dated 4/27/21. While we can "visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing," we still must "take precautions in indoor public settings like wearing a well-fitted mask" and "avoid indoor large-sized in-person gatherings." While "a growing body of evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people are less likely to have asymptomatic infection or transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others," however "further investigation is ongoing" and "vaccinated people could potentially still get COVID-19 and spread it to others." This is particularly concerning due to "reduced antibody neutralization and efficacy have been observed for the B.1.351 strain (originally identified in South Africa)."

As a social dancer I was at first thrilled to see this, hoping that I could return to dancing. And this might be the case for dancing with one of a few fully vaccinated partners in a private setting. But we still should not return to public dancing in a larger crowd. And yet I've seen videos where that is what some are doing now as if the pandemic is over and we can return to normal. Seriously, WTF is wrong with some people?

Power to the people

That's where it belongs in a democracy. If we want to retain it then we must constantly fight the fascism that wants to destroy it, both from without and within.

 

I yam what I yam

And that's all that I yam. And that's good enough for me.

Ignorant freedom is dangerous

And can and does kill others. US Covid stats here. Death toll as of today: 588,042. Out of 32,969,295 total cases, 25,568, 886 have recovered. Substracting the deaths and recovered, that leaves 6,812,367 current active infections. And how many of the recovered have ongoing and debilitating symptoms?

Reich: Capitol police were warned and ignored it

Here's his FB post (copied below) commenting on this article. The same pretty much happened with the national guard, also warned and refusing to protect the Capitol. We must investigate and find out why top officials were complicit in the overthrow of our government and democracy.

"Capitol security’s failure to prepare for the violence of January 6th keeps getting worse and worse. Numerous reports have revealed that security officials had ample warning, from multiple sources, about what the pro-Trump crowd was planning to do. In addition to formal intelligence reports, new emails show an outside group flagged a series of troubling social media posts that unequivocally called for storming the Capitol — but Capitol security officials dismissed the warnings and claimed there was “no talk about any credible threats or storming the Capitol.”

"There is no excuse for this. Capitol security officials had multiple forms of intelligence that spelled out exactly what was going to happen on January 6th, and they did not fail to prepare — they outright refused to. Time and again, we’ve watched as militarized police forces are deployed to counter peaceful protesters standing up for Black lives and racial justice, spraying them with tear gas and stun grenades and the like. But when literal white supremacists and far-right militia members prepare to attack the bedrock of our democracy, suddenly there’s no need to prepare for violence. Unacceptable."

Enforce paying your fair share

It's time to properly fund the IRS to go after big tax cheaters. Repugs starved that funding to cover for the cheaters, who just so happened to buy them off. Biden has proposed to do so. Congress, to pass it though, will like always have to eliminate the Senate filibuster or it won't get done.

 

Phoney-Parrot ignores request to recuse on dark money

This Supreme Corp (In)Justice got boatloads of money from Americans for Prosperity (AFP) in the campaign to appoint her. And now a case involving AFP is before the Corp. She was asked to recuse herself and just ignored it and continued to sit for it. 

The case involves AP appealing a CA policy for charities to disclose donors, which exposes 'dark money' influence on politics. Phoney-Parrot's questions, along with those by Gorsuch and Kavanaugh (who were also supported by AFP), indicate they will side with dark money and against democratic transparency. 

Money is free speech and corporations are people my friend. So buh-bye democracy and hello corporate fascism.

Embodied realism, dependent origination as 5th person perspectives

Tom Murray's contribution to the Integral Review special issue on Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality is lengthy and detailed. Of particular note for me is the section on embodied realism and metaphorical pluralism (starting on page 201). Since developmental level is an important metric in integral and metamodern circles, he sees the work of Lakoff and Johnson as displaying a postmetaphysical 5th person perspective, or as Cook-Greuter describes it, construct awareness.*

They highlight the nature of perception and conception as graded and fuzzy categories dependent on prototypical examples that are generally in the middle of taxonomic hierarchies. This challenges the metaphysical claims of strict categories based on necessary and sufficient conditions that construct hierarchies from a foundational particular to a universal general. The latter is based on a logic of the excluded middle while the former not only includes the middle but finds it is the glue that relates phenomena.

Their work was predated by, and consistent with, the Buddhist experience and interpretation of dependent origination, another 5th person perspective. That is, all phenomena are intertwined with and defined by their relationships to others, not having any essential, independent nature apart from that network. This is known as the "middle way" between nihilism and essentialism. It too doesn't separate phenomena into distinct, dualistic categories where it is one or the other but neither and both in the mutual entailment and dynamic tensegrity of the between.

Murray makes a convincing case that integral postmetaphysical spirituality is a construct aware level expression, while the other described expressions are not so much. Given the integral and metamodern obsession with developmental level as critical to an emerging paradigm necessary to correct humanity's course away from destruction and toward a new promised land, we might do well to consider the postmetaphysical perspective as part and parcel of that enactment.

* Murray also mentions O'Fallen's work, which extends into 6th person perspectives. From descriptions of the latter I'd suggest that the above certainly falls within that level. Since there is relatively little empirical data at this point to support it, that level to date is speculative at best.

PS: Another expression of this is hier(an)archical synplexity. Also see this video.

The difference between them

At least the Repugs are straight out honest about it. The Demacorps pretend to be concerned but beat around the bush to effectively the same result. The progressives try to actually help, and now have the power to do so, but they don't yet know how to use it to play effective hardball with either. Meanwhile, we're losing democracy by the day.

 

Ball: Class framing more effective than racial framing

Krystal makes clear that while racism is real and prevalent, using it as a basis for framing a progressive issue isn't nearly as effective as using class. She cites some studies to support it. Class framing is effective across not only racial but across political groups while racial framing turns off conservatives. The latter are turned on though by the good fight against the corporate overlords who are the ones ruining their lives.

Bernie is particularly adept at this, pitting the working class--which includes all races--against the 1%. Hence his appeal even with some working class conservatives. And why both establishment Parties cannot stand him, since they long ago abandoned the working class so they both prefer to race bait instead. It's also why the corporate media does its best to ignore or at best minimize class issues in their reporting, also preferring the more distracting racial frames.

So when you get criticized by politically correct culture warriors who claim that you aren't emphasizing racial issues and therefore somehow racist, like they did against Bernie, remember that Bernie included racial justice implicitly in his class framing and was the more effective for doing so. Meaning his class issue frames all polled well across political lines. That he lost the primary has way more to do with establishment politics and media desperately trying to keep effective class issues and framing off the public radar.

It's time they pay their fair share

It's high time they pay back to a society that gives them so much.

AOC on healthcare

Congress works for us: We are the boss and they are the employees. Since when do the employees get better healthcare than the boss?

Our individual rights

Only in the case of the pandemic, not wearing a mask also spreads contagion, sickness and sometimes even death to others too. Our individual rights never included harming others.

What is an integral postmetaphysical spirituality?

It's a topic that Integral Review devoted an entire issue to it. This article gives a few of our brief descriptions of what it is. Mine follows:

‘Integral’ is the term generally used to refer to Wilber’s integral theory, or the integration of body, mind, soul and spirit in self, nature and culture. The idea is that there are increasing levels of progressive development within all those domains, and to explore how those domains interrelate. Metaphysics generally refers to the exploration of reality. Postmetaphysics then is a kind of metaphysics but without some of the assumptions and premises traditionally associated with that study. Those include the notion that humanity can accurately perceive reality as such either through some meditative state of consciousness, and/or through the notion of pure Platonic forms via abstract, a priori reason. The postmetaphysical turn in philosophy instead grounds metaphysics in the empirical study of intersubjective cultural communication and the second generation cognitive science which sees the topic as embodied, enacted, embedded and extended is all domains.

How then does spirituality express postmetaphysically? First of all it is no longer a domain diametrically opposed to the material domain. Another hallmark of metaphysical thinking is this opposition, with the spiritual or absolute domain the source and cause of the material or relative domain. Postmetaphysical spirituality acknowledges the virtual realm, akin to the absolute realm, but in a very different relationship with the actual or material domain. The virtual domain is still generative of the actual, but its own genesis lies not in a metaphysical plane but within its relationship to the actual in a co-generative process.

It also has to do with the difference between the transcendent and the transcendental. The former assumes a metaphysical foundation for knowledge as described above. Transcendental deduction bypasses such a framing by speculating on what virtual preconditions must be supposed for knowledge to be possible. The virtual by this definition is multiple and immanent without any any need of a transcendent, metaphysical underpinning and thus postmetaphysical in that sense.

The meta-awareness of meditative states is often contextualized as something that transcends the world of manifestation by directly perceiving the absolute. But Thompson and other neuroscientific researchers see such a state as an embodied, pre-personal base state of consciousness, a naturalist conception of the embodied mind. What is being accessed is a baseline attention that is fully embodied and thereby limited by that embodied constraint. Such a consciousness without an object doesn’t lay claim to access to the reality of all, or even access to all of our personal cognitive unconscious or collective unconscious. It’s just accessing that embodied part of our natural awareness available to us by virtue of having the body and brain we do with all its limitations. Furthermore, the above research makes clear that meta-awareness itself is not strictly an individual affair but rather involves internalized social cognition and interaction with the natural environment. Hence spiritually in this context is not only about a syntegration within the domains of self, culture and nature but also between them.

Trickle down really means hoard at the top

It's a fake spin to justify greed, nothing more. It's never worked for society or the economy as a whole and it never will. 

 

Fascism marches on

The only thing that will stop it is the federal For the People Act. It must pass the Senate and to do that we must eliminate the filibuster. Get it done, no excuses. The alternative is a complete fascist takeover.

The irony

They're afraid what they did unto others will return onto them. It's what the peaceful People's Revolution is about: Taking back what was stolen from us: Good jobs, living wages, benefits, leisure time, vacations, education, self-respect etc. They don't like that either but we will not give up the fight.

Facebook complicit in Jan. 6 insurrection according to Facebook

From their own internal report Facebook failed to take action to stop the copious insurrection propaganda on its platform about Stop the Steal and planned violence. They excused their failure as protecting free speech, that they couldn't tell the difference between that and treason. Thereby proving that Facecrook is all about making money no matter the cost to democracy. One might even suppose they encourage its demise since it's better for business.

Hiding behind the norms and traditions

This cartoon highlights the spin about norms hiding the fact that Repugs don't give a shit about them, only about money and power.

Progressives are so rude

For pointing out how centrists let people die when they cannot afford to live. It's also rude to point out that it's not the people's fault for being in that position but the very system that centrists have created that is harming us. How rude, really. Better rude than crude and cruel I suppose.

Who am I?

I finally got around to watching this video (below). I find internal family systems (IFS) therapy particularly interesting, as I've come to a similar practice via my own integral transformative practice (ITP). For example, my practice of vipassana allowed me to become aware of the many different voices continually running through my head. That practice requires one to just observe and let the voices go, which leads to a deep relaxation.

However another practice I picked up, which name escapes me at the moment, is similar to IFS in that one engages in dialogue with these different internal voices. In IFS terms, the Self gives the exiled parts of psyche a voice and engages with them. This theoretically allows our exiled parts to 'heal' in that they are no longer repressed and insidiously acting out in our sometimes inexplicable and destructive behavior.

Such repression actually keeps these parts stuck on the developmental level at which they were formed. Hence our psyches are literally all over the developmental map. Once brought to consciousness and engaged the destructive aspects are released and we can syntegrate these aspects within the Self, the latter being sort of like the esoteric traditions have described as our true nature, higher self, or holy guardian angel.

Now for me a question still remains. Do these parts that were formed at earlier stages, once integrated, move up to the overall and higher level of the Self? Or perhaps do they still remain at the level they were formed? And in the latter case, their syntegration into the Self doesn't so much require that they come up to its level but rather that we continue to be a multi-level construction of the various healthy parts interacting and conversing with each other?

It's a difference between what I've referred to in the past as a model where our lower or earlier parts are subsumed into the Self via hierarchical complexity, and a model where the parts remain what they are and from whence they came and its more of a enactive view of structural coupling, where the parts retain their autonomy yet nonetheless continue to interact with each other. And the Self in this model is perhaps not a distinct Self at a higher level coordinating everything but is instead rather in the distributive tensegrity of the entire system via e.g. Mark Edwards work. It is a difference that makes a huge difference.

Another view of Self, consistent with Edwards, is from Thompson based on his interpretation of the Buddhist Nagarjuna. Here is an excerpt of my review of his book Waking, Being, Dreaming (chapter 10):

The self is neither identical with nor separate from the five aggregates. The latter are body, feeling, perception, will and consciousness. Hence consciousness per se is not the foundation for the self or the universe at large. Thompson's enactive view of the self, which he bases on his interpretation of Nagarjuna, does not see it as an eternal essence but as dependently arisen and contingent, yet not reducible to the ephemerally fluctuating aggregates. It is “a self-specifying system,” a “collection of processes that mutually specify each other so that they constitute the system as a self-perpetuating whole in relation to the environment” (325). Here we see the sort of dynamic systems autonomy Levi Bryant or Francisco Varela discusses.

Or as Thompson said in that chapter concerning enlightenment:

"It consists in wisdom that includes not being taken in by the appearance of the self as having independent existence while that appearance nonetheless is still there and performing its important I-making function. [...] Nor does 'enlightenment' or 'liberation' consist in somehow abandoning all I-making or I-ing—all self-individuating and self-appropriating activity—though it does include knowing how to inhabit that activity without being taken in by the appearance of there being an independent self that's performing the activity and controlling what happens."

I suggest that the notion of the Self from said metaphysical traditions is still interpreting it as something 'essential' above and beyond all that base personality stuff. Whereas Thompson, well versed in the various Buddhist traditions, also finds such an interpretation metaphysical and therefore prefers the more Tsongkhapa interpretation of Nagarjuna. It's an ongoing debate in Tibetan Buddhism the history and analysis of which can be found here.

PS: The above dependently originated and conditional interpretations of self are consistent with Paul's overall emphasis on relative and concrete utopias versus the more abstract versions. He is consistent with this approach except for the language and conception of the Self as "the core spiritual essence, the fundamental essential nature of human beings" (26:20).

Real Time: Repugs hate democracy

And love fascism. This discussion panel cannot be any more clear and they are right. It's why Repugs must stop us from voting and end our free speech. You know, fascist stuff.

Maher praises Biden

Then shifts gears to criticize an insidious prejudice: Ageism. Which of course was, and continues to be, used against Biden by Pox Views and Repugs, despite being proven wrong about Biden time and again. Not that facts matter to them, as prejudice of various flavors is their stock in trade. Right out of the fascist playbook. 

Maher then returns to praising Biden because he's been around the block so many times that his experience is what is turning the corner back to democracy and away from Repug fascism. And THAT is why they keep harping on his age, because they really got nothing of any substance against him.

Granted we progressives have some legitimate criticism about him but that's for another post and another time.

Honest Government Ad: Electric vehicles

 These are not only funny but highly informative about corrupt conservative government, in this case Australia. The US government is no angel regarding EVs either, as the oil companies have obstructed their development and sales since forever. Fortunately Biden and company are at least trying to move in this direction.

Unions are a prerequisite to a democracy

Hence why the neo-fascists and neo-liberals are hell bent on destroying them. They are also prerequisite to any form of socio-economics that purports to go 'meta' on that. E.g., Hanzi's social liberalism 2.0. or the collaborative commons. 

I'd also note that when we use Facebook to organize as a group by sharing information, that too is a form of 'union' that inspires and motivates collective action. We don't just complain on it but join activist organizations, as well as contact representatives by the millions. Don't buy into the establishment propaganda that we here on FB aren't doing anything. They know we are and want to curtail us just like they do workers unions.

Gary Puckett - Lady Willpower

The title of this post brought up this old song for me. 

And that's just what we did in 2016

The real cancel culture

 

It's now or never

How many progressives support the For the People Act? I'm guessing most if not all. How many progressives though think it's absolutely necessary to curtail the Repugnacon laws at voter suppression? I'm guessing most if not all. Given that, how many support completely getting rid of the Senate filibuster to achieve that end? Again, most if not all.

So it comes down to, for me at least, doing what the progressive caucus explicitly stated was the goal of their new rules: To use their voting block power to ensure that the above gets done. And that requires also using that voting block power to hold up any and all future legislation until the above gets done. I'm confident that if they used this power that way Biden would capitulate. As would the recalcitrant conservative Dems like Manchin and Sinema, once tremendous pressure is put on them by Biden, the entire Dem Party and their considerable influence, power and money.

It seems that the latter is where at least some of us disagree. Some claim we can't do it that way, that the only way is to get more progressives in Congress until we have a majority, and then we can do it. Sure, maybe. But we'll always have those States where only a more conservative Dem can beat a Repug, so even in this future mythical world we still have the problem of how to get past those obstructing Senate Dems. Plus if the Repug laws continue to suppress more of the vote, getting more progressives in Congress in the future is a pipe dream. We have the answer and the power right here, right now, if we only have the courage of our convictions to use it.

The filibuster must go and the For the People Act must pass. NOW.

Those damned commies

How dare they want us to contribute to a better world for all! WTF is wrong with them?

Sfear

So much for enlightened self interest

This is pretty much all it gets you. Well, that and a multi-billion $ propaganda campaign to get you to believe otherwise.

Frames

This meme highlights the difference between the Parties. Progressives need to do a better job at framing to reach across this divide to win over some of the conservatives who are being manipulated by those effective yet insidious lies.

As Hartmann notes, a large part of it is that the Repugs have established huge media networks that hammer these lies home repeatedly. Progressives have far fewer and less powerful media networks. And yet what media they do have via the internet and YouTube, like The Young Turks and Rising, some  progressives are themselves fooled by the establishment media's framing of them as being extreme, unproductive and therefore easily dismissed. Corporate media framing is insidious and effective and we the people must not let it fool us. We need to support our progressive media sources if we have any hope of defeating the establishment.

The Blue Wall

That's one of the necessary police reforms: Eliminate retaliation against whistleblowing by making the whistleblower anonymous and the complaint adjudicated outside of the police force altogether. Tear down the Blue Wall that enables bad cops.

Make DC a State

Of course it's not fair. Since when do Repugnacons give a shit about fairness? It's obvious they do not want we the people to vote, let alone have a say in government. 

Chomsky: Jan 6 "very clearly an attempt to carry out a coup"

A good question then is this: Do the Democrats have what it takes to follow through on fully prosecuting this obvious insurrection? Up to and including Congressional members, Twitler and his (Dis)Administration?

Universal scaling across biochemical networks on earth

Following up on this post, some of the same authors in the last reference followed up with this article continuing with the theme that

"while biochemical networks are not scale-free, they nonetheless exhibit common structure across different levels of organization, independent of the projection chosen, suggestive of shared organizing principles across all biochemical networks."

So what then are shared organizing principles and common structure across different levels of organization? They "are characterized by scaling laws" in a "nested hierarchy" but are not 'scale-free.' And yet they are universal in that they "scale in the same way across levels." However they "did not require the scaling coefficients to be exactly the same [...] but we did require the same fit to be shared across our data (indicating the possibility of shared generative mechanisms) to qualify as universal."

So it seems the apparent discrepancy, at least to me, is in what they determine as "the same fit to be shared across our data." What that "same fit" entails is lost to me in all the technical and statistic jargon. Anyone else have any better luck with deciphering this?

It apparently has to do with the following, but I can't make heads or tails of it:

"We therefore focus on topological measures such as average shortest path length, average clustering coefficient, and assortativity (degree correlation coefficient)."

Workers are fine: Crapitalism is broken (meme)

 

Workers are fine: Crapitalism is broken

Businesses complain that they cannot find workers. Repugnacons frame it that since workers are getting unemployment and pandemic benefits they're too lazy to work. The truthful frame is that many of these businesses pay shit with shitty hours and no benefits. Workers are fine; Crapitalism is broken.

"The game of American capitalism is still rigged against the worker. Which is why business models in everything from tourism to early childhood care need to be fundamentally reconceived — and built in a way that doesn’t hinge on workers making poverty-level wages. [...] Collectively, we should be thinking of different funding models, different ownership scenarios, and different growth imperatives. Failure to do so is simply resigning ourselves to another round of this rigged game.

Frame on!

Continuing this post: The human torch in the Fantastic Four, in order to activate his super power, would invoke loudly: "Flame on!" Perhaps we should do the same with "Frame on!" Fire it up!

Hartmann: The bottom line for Repugnacons

That would be the sickness and deadly sin of greed. To hide this obvious fact they spin a lot of lies about political correctness, cancel culture, charity, Christianity, conservatism, immigrants, American values etc. It's all a smoke screen to cover their basic illness. Granted they are very good at creating smoke screens, but that's all it is.

"At the end of the day, all Republicans care about is money. Greed is their principle animating force. It doesn’t matter how many Americans die, how many humans struggle in misery and poverty, how many children’s growth is stunted or are poisoned by industrial and mining waste being poured into our air and rivers. As long as the money keeps rolling in and their billionaire patron’s taxes remain absurdly low, that’s all Republicans care about and are willing to fight for."

How does this happen?

Why do people there keep re-electing the very representatives who are hurting them? Because Repugnacons have learned how to effectively frame issues. Granted, they lie while doing so, but they are still effective. When will liberals learn how to frame properly? They can do it with truth but just using the truth doesn't work. Here's a primer. Pay attention!

Exactly why Big Pharma doesn't want it legalized

TFB, as more States are doing just that. NM just joined the team.

AOC/Markey reintroduce Green New Deal

We need this to be enacted in order to avert an even worse climate crisis, as well as to create many new jobs for the economy. Given that the proposal shares widespread support well within the Overton Window, a requirement for the progressive caucus to use its voting block power, let's remind them of this power and to use it.

"The Data for Progress survey (pdf) found that 60% of likely U.S. voters back the Green New Deal (GND), with 83% of respondents identifying as Democrats, 57% of independents, and 36% of Republicans saying they support it. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said they support their members of Congress co-sponsoring a GND resolution, with 81% of likely Democratic voters, 57% of independents, and one-third of Republicans in favor of such a move."

Two Proud Boys returned to jail pre-trial

According to this report:

"A federal judge ordered the two key figures in the conspiracy—Ethan Nordean of Auburn, Washington, and Joe Biggs of Ormond Beach, Florida, both major figures in the far-right street-brawling organization—returned to prison to await their trials on multiple felony charges, including conspiracy to 'stop, delay, or hinder Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote.' They were returned because 'new evidence produced by federal prosecutors had persuaded him that the men posed a potential threat to public safety prior to their trials, and that they needed to be behind bars.'"

There is an FBI investigation into a Blight House official's relationship to the Proud Boys, so it will be interesting if this comes out in their trial.

Scarcity of scale-free topology is universal across biochemical networks

Named article in Nature (3/22/21) applying the statistical methodology of Broido and Clauset. Excerpt from the Abstract:

"The results confirm no more than a few biochemical networks are any more than super-weakly scale-free. Additionally, we test the distinguishability of individual and ecosystem-level biochemical networks and show there is no sharp transition in the structure of biochemical networks across these levels of organization moving from individuals to ecosystems. This result holds across different network projections. Our results indicate that while biochemical networks are not scale-free, they nonetheless exhibit common structure across different levels of organization, independent of the projection chosen, suggestive of shared organizing principles across all biochemical networks."

They conclude:

"To understand complex interacting systems, such as the systems of reactions underlying all life on Earth, it may be the case that we should forgo the allure of simple, singular models with only one coarse-grained description. Instead, to characterize living processes, it may be time to adopt and develop theory for statistical analyses over many projections in tandem."

Chauvin guilty on all counts

A sigh of relief that the jury came back guilty on all  counts. 

"Chauvin is facing 40 years for second-degree murder, 25 years for third-degree murder, and 10 years for second-degree manslaughter."

Now we'll have to see how fairly the judge doles out the sentence.

Repugs try to re-write the history of the Capitol terrorist attack

Hartmann comments on this fascist historical propaganda. They're trying to make it sound innocuous, that it was just some innocent protesters who got blamed for antifa or BLM instigators. Meanwhile there's an investigation into the details of the insurrection and of course Repugs are fighting it at every turn--even to the point of destroying evidence--because the facts in no way comport with their lying spin. To the contrary the growing evidence points to their very complicity. As but one example, we now know that Acting Secretary of Defense Miller knew of the threat to the Capitol before January 6 and yet completely neutered the National Guard from helping to defend it. 

We cannot let them get away with yet another Big Lie to hide their treason. We must pursue this investigation with the gravity of national security, for it was a fascist coup intent on destroying democracy. And not just Twit and his cronies in the Disadministration, but Repug Congressional members were in on the treason. Biden and Dems must fiercely get to the bottom of this and every single person involved up to Twitler must be indicted and prosecuted for treason. Anything less is just asking for it to happen again, and by many of the same people involved.

A reassuring lie

Or an inconvenient truth? Of the latter the truth is that it's not just the MAGATs but also the establishment Dimocraps who assume the neoliberal lie as foundational truth.

 

The biotensegrity of our living body

This article on biotensegrity describes the difference in how we represent our living body. Applying linear math to our biological structures comes form the misapprehension that it works like inanimate machines. Such math comes from a top-down and bottom-up approach noted earlier, the sort of logic that assumes necessary and sufficient conditions to categorize things in a particular set theoretic model. The biotensegrity of our bodies via fascia though doesn't work in that way; it's a whole system functionality that depends on the connectivity of the parts working in unison. The function is distributed in the overall tensegrity of the system, not in the linear set relationships between the parts and the whole.

Contemporary biomechanics uses linear equations to describe this, simplifying the math to a straight line for ease and consistency. However "true linearity does not exist in biology - not even as an approximation."  The math of its function is better represented by a curve, which operates differently "at all its different levels and size-scales [... so it is] incredibly complicated to analyze mathematically." 

Such a complicated math is required to even come close to representing how our living body works. Reducing it to the math of scale-free repetition might work well for a metaphysical set theory but not for living systems. And we are the latter, so if we want to represent it properly then we'll have to do the necessary math. Such a math would itself have to be almost if not as complex and the system it represents: Different at "different levels and size-scales." Of course such a math would need to operate on different axioms or first principles. As the article notes, biotensegrity is indeed based on the first principles of empirical physics, not the Platonic or Aristotelian first principles of metaphysical categories.

Media hypocrisy on killer cops

How about cops just quit killing unarmed black men for no reason? Ooops, I must be unfairly limiting or cancelling them.

If only getting a gun was as hard

As Repugnacons make it to vote. Which goes to show: Repugs would rather people get killed than vote. 

Gamazda - Hotel California

One of my all-time favorite songs as creatively interpreted and impeccably arranged by this piano virtuosa. I was a bit concerned that her keyboard would fly off its support, as the one end was held up by only her case. 

Democracy Index

To be more technical, the US has a flawed democracy. Definitions:

Full democracies are nations where civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms are not only respected but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, an independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and diverse and independent media. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning.^[8]

Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.^[8]

Hybrid regimes are nations with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracies. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opposition, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.^[8]

Authoritarian regimes are nations where political pluralism is nonexistent or severely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meagre significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair and free, the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and censorship and suppression of governmental criticism are commonplace.^[8]

Who is in charge?

It ain't we the people. But I thought that's how it worked in a democracy? In case you hadn't noticed, that ain't what we got. 

There is no good reason for legal assault weapons

This seems like a no-brainer, but apparently not to people with no brains. We had a ban on them before and it reduced mass shootings. It's apparent that outside the military, which uses such weapons for efficient mass death, there is no use for them in civilian society other than mass killings. That's a bad reason. We do not have the 'freedom' to kill each other. We must do what's necessary to ban them again if we ever hope to reduce the senseless murder of our citizens.

Those damned liberals

Valuing children's lives. What the hell is wrong with them?

Supreme Corp's Handmaid's Tale ruling

CA had a pandemic health and safety law that restricted in-home gatherings to no more that three different families. So in this decision the Corp ruled 5-4 that it infringes on religious liberty and struck it down. And they did so in their 'shadow docket,' which means there were no briefs, the case wasn't argued, it was not on the regular calendar and there was no signed opinion.

Once again this Handmaid's Tale of a Corp favors so-called religious freedom over actual public safety and health. As usual, the religious are entitled to sacrifice human lives for their beliefs much like most of their history. After all, if they die they're going to heaven so who cares about this life on Satan's hell of a planet. 

This is exactly why the Democrats must increase the number of Justices on the Corp to 13 and install sane ones thereon. They've introduced legislation in the House to do just that. Now we must apply the utmost pressure for it to pass there and then in the Senate. The same pressure must be applied to Biden, for to date he's been against the idea and his commission to 'study' the matter means little to nothing. We simply cannot continue down this path to the Handmaid's Tale and the Democrats must fight it tooth and nail every inch of the way. I am not exaggerating to once again state the obvious: Democracy is at stake.

Repugnacon pedophile ring

I know: It sounds like the sort of conspiracy theory Repugnacon's make up about Democrats. And yet every instance in this video is fact. Weird how Repugs tend to project on others what they do. 

SNL: Star Trek spin off

When Star Trek meets white snowflake privilege. 

A fascist match made in hell

And it ain't going nowhere. 

PDA summary of 2021 legislative accomplishments

For those concerned citizens in NM. Great job Progressive Democrats of America. From their email.

"This summary of key bills briefly describes the results of bills introduced in the 2021 legislative session for which those of you who were on the PDA Legislative Action Alert team received Action Alerts.  We were so pleased that 250 of you participated by telling committee members that we supported those bills, and why.  The members of our bill tracking team (see their names at the end of this document) want to express their sincere thanks to you for your willingness to put up with all those Action Alerts in your inbox!

This was a major undertaking.  We sent out 99 Action Alerts on 66 bills as they worked their way through the several committees in the House and Senate.

The summary below includes bills that we considered key accomplishments and that were signed by the governor, and it also includes especially good bills that failed to pass in the Legislature.  For those of you who would like to see the summary of results for all bills that we tracked, see the Excel document here."

Climate Crisis/Renewable Energy

 

Key accomplishments

• SB 84, Community Solar Act, signed by governor.
• SB 112, Sustainable Economy Task Force, signed by governor.  The task force will be attached to the department of economic development and will be responsible for developing and implementing a plan to transition the state economy away from reliance on fossil fuel extraction to a more sustainable economy.

   

 Special Disappointments

• HB 9, Climate Solutions Act, died in the State Government, Elections, & Indian Affairs Committee
• SB 113, Wiring for Photovoltaic System, failed on Senate floor.  The wiring would accommodate solar power and supply of electricity for electric vehicles.
• SB 132, Photovoltaic Systems in New Homes, Died in the Tax, Business, & Transportation Committee.  Similar to SB 113.
• SBS 149, Prohibit New Fracking licenses, died in the Judiciary Committee.
• SJR 3, Environmental Rights.  Died in the Judiciary Committee.  This proposed constitutional amendment would have established the so-called “Green Amendment”, that includes the right of the people to a clean and healthy environment.

HealthCare

 

Key accomplishments

• HB 47, Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act, signed by governor.
• HB 67, Primary Care Council Act, signed by governor.
• HB 122, Health Insurance Premium Surtax, incorporated into SB 317 and signed by governor.  The bill would establish a health care affordability fund to reduce premiums.
• HM 2, Public Health Task Force, passed and signed by the House.
• SB 71, Patients’ Debt Collection Protection Act, signed by governor.
• SB 317, No Behavioral Health Cost Sharing, signed by governor.  The content of HB 122 was folded into this bill.

 

Special Disappointments

• HB 154, Prescription Drug Affordability Act.  Tabled in first committee.  There is, however, a commitment to take this up in the Interim Health & Human Services Committee.
• HB 272, Health Easy Enrollment Program, time ran out on Senate floor.
• SB 351, Global Hospital Budgets Task Force, died in the Finance Committee.

Social & Economic Justice

Key accomplishments

• HB 4, NM Civil Rights Act, signed by governor.  Among other things, this bill eliminates qualified immunity of police and other members of state and local government 
• HB 10, Broadband Development Division, signed by governor.
• HB 12, Cannabis Regulation Act, no vote on Senate Floor. Provisions from this bill were included in Special Session bills HB 2 Cannabis Regulation Act and Special Session SB 2 Expungement of Certain Criminal Records which were both signed by the Governor.  
• SB 10, Repeal Abortion Ban, passed and signed by governor.
• SB 32, Wildlife Conservation & Public Safety Act, signed by governor.
• SB 93, Broadband Access & Expansion Act, signed by governor.  The bill creates a “’Broadband Access and Expansion Fund’ for appropriations, gifts, grants, and donations as subject to appropriation by the Legislature”.  We do not know if there was an appropriation for the fund.

Special Disappointments 

• HB 40, Private Detention Facility Moratorium Act, died in the Appropriations & Finance Committee
• HB 84, HB 85, HB 86, and HB 87, a family of bills to appropriate funds for needed activities in Native American areas.  At this time, we don’t know why they all died in the Appropriations and Finance Committee.
• HB 166, Create New Firearms Crimes, died in HJC.  This bill would have included Ghost Guns(3D manufactured guns).
• HB 236, Public Banking Act, died in the Appropriations & Finance Committee.
• HB 110, Phased Minimum Wage Increase, died in the Commerce & Economic Development Committee
• HB 208, Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women TF, died in the Appropriations & Finance Committee.
• SB 56, New Personal Income Tax Bracket.  Not heard in a committee.  This bill would have established a new higher rate tax bracket for upper incomes, needed for fairness, and for addressing the loss of revenue as fossil fuels are phased out.
• SB 224, Crime of Failure to Secure Firearm, died in the Judiciary Committee.
• SB 227, Inspection of Police Misconduct Investigation.  Died in the Judiciary Committee.  This bill would have eliminated qualified immunity, among other things.
• SB 313, Public Banking Act.  This bill was not scheduled in a committee.  The bill is identical to HB 236, which passed its first committee, but was not heard in the Appropriations & Finance Committee.

Voting & Elections

Key accomplishments

• HB 211, Redistricting Act; content moved to SB 304, which was signed by the governor.  Not everything we wanted, but SB 304 is a significant improvement.  It does establish a bipartisan redistricting commission.  See more below.
• HB 231, Native American Polling Place Protection, signed by governor.
• SB 4, Redistricting Precinct boundaries.  Content included in SB 304.
• SB 15, Redistricting Committee.  Content included in SB 304.
• SB 304, Voting District Geographic Data, signed by governor.  This bill, as amended, would establish a Citizen Redistricting Committee that would develop district boundaries for consideration by the Legislature.  We would prefer that the boundaries established by the Committee would not be subject to change by the Legislature.  However, the New Mexico Constitution requires the Legislature to make the final decision.

Special Disappointments

• SB 14, Election Changes, not scheduled for hearing.  It would have established Automatic Voter Registration.
• SB 235, Absent Voter Act.  This bill would have allowed a one-time, permanent application for receiving a mailed ballot prior to each state-wide election.

PDA  Legislative Action Alert Bill Tracking Team members were:

·      Melissa Alexander

·      Amy Antle

·      Pat Bartels

·      Lisa Franzen

·      Bill Kass

·      Lora Lucero

·      Deb Marez-Baca

·      Dan McLaughlin

·      Angela Merkert

·      Theresa Palmer

·      Laura Stokes

·      Paul Stokes