Get Thee Behind Me, Bitch

Father Ed - Nova Scotia

If I'd had a guy like this guy back when I was a smart-ass mouthy teenager, maybe I'd've known more than I knew, and maybe it takes not quite so fucking long for me to get a few things figured out.

Econ 201

I'm a big fan of Keynesian Economics - at least the part about government being the basic circulation pump for the life blood of the economy (ie: money), and the part that says while government needs to stay outa the way as much as possible, it has to step in on occasion to be the Customer &/or the Employer Of Last Resort.

note: And that's about as far as I got in my first abortive attempt at college.

The biggest problem with that though is when we use government to boost this sector or that sector, or to provide a safety net that gets too big and too generous. If you go overboard on that shit, you get some really bad things like inflation and worsening inequity, which makes it all too easy for cynical manipulators to jump in and make some political hay out of the pain being felt by people who end up kinda grasping at straws - "Save me, Daddy - please".

So anyway, here's a fair rundown on some very troubling news from WaPo:

Five charts explaining why inflation is at a 40-year high

The bumpy economic recovery has had policymakers, economists and Americans households grappling with greater price hikes for gas, groceries, cars, rent and other essentials.

The latest inflation data, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that prices in June climbed 9.1 percent compared with the year before, the highest measure in 40 years and a new pandemic-era peak. This is a breakdown of how we got here.

Persistent supply chain backlogs and high consumer demand for goods have kept prices elevated. More recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has strained global energy markets and sent the national average for a gallon of gas above $5 last month. And though gas prices have since ticked down, there is no clear answer for when overall costs will subside, leaving Americans to feel the strain in their pocketbooks in the meantime.

Inflation explained: How prices took off

The run-up in gas prices has become one of the most visceral ways people feel inflation in their daily lives. In some parts of the country, particularly on the West Coast, it was not uncommon to find gasoline well above $5 or even $6 a gallon in June. Since then, gas has trended down slowly, with the national average hitting $4.65 on Tuesday, according to AAA.

The concerns over soaring gas prices, home prices and rising rents have economists worried about whether cost increases will last even after the coronavirus pandemic has mostly passed, and if the Fed’s tools will be enough of a match. The White House points to its recent moves to lower prices, including through the release of 1 million barrels a day from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve and an emergency waiver to allow use of blended biofuels. But gas prices in particular have become a fraught economic and political issue for the Fed and Biden administration.

Families across the nation are also facing higher prices at the grocery store and could see more of a pinch if Russia’s invasion causes widespread shortages of wheat, corn and other items. People are also stretching their wallets for dairy, fruits and vegetables, baked goods and meats.

Throughout the pandemic, new and used cars have been a kind of litmus test for the country’s supply chain issues and related price hikes. Used cars and trucks were a driving force behind the surge in inflation last year.

The market relies heavily on trade-ins and auto parts, which have been in low supply during a global microchip shortage. That pinch has made it more expensive for dealers to get any of their models, much less repair them. All of those problems are also hurting the supply of used cars, which depend on trade-ins as well as rental car company inventories.

There are some encouraging signs. The rise in used car prices — which made up a bulk of inflation for much of the past year — has slowed in recent months and are expected to drop as semiconductor shortages improve. The red-hot housing market is also cooling, as a runup in mortgage rates discourages aspiring buyers from competing for the few homes available.

The Federal Reserve has launched major interest rate increases to get inflation under control, penciling in seven hikes by the end of the year. In June, the Fed raised rates by three quarters of a percentage point, the most aggressive hike since 2000. Higher rates will slow the economy by making it more expensive to borrow money, which will discourage businesses from expanding and raise the cost of consumer loans like mortgages.

Jobs report fuels White House optimism that recession will be averted

The challenge is a delicate one: If the Federal Reserve moves too forcefully to slow the economy, it could cause a recession and spell unwanted consequences for the job market and rest of the recovery.

“We’re not trying to provoke — and don’t think that we will need to provoke — a recession,” Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell told Congress last month. “But we do think it’s absolutely essential that we restore price stability, really for the benefit of the labor market as much as anything else.”

Jan6 Stuff

We got some good fill-in-the-blanks stuff from yesterday's hearing - particularly about a meeting at the White House that nearly turned into a bar fight.

Liz Cheney hit the nail square on the head (the first 22 seconds or so):

There's an interesting kind of parallel here. The spin is that Trump was misled.

OK, but what about all the rubes who've been going along with this shit? A metric fuck ton of them are still convinced that the whole "stolen election" thing is legit.

So if the spin doctors are now insisting that Trump was punked, it has to follow that everybody he's been preaching this nonsense to have also been punked - by him - in turn.

WTF here, guys? When can we expect the big "Oops - sorry - never mind" ?

we're waiting

Meanwhile, we need to make sure we don't just breeze on by without noting who "The Overstock Guy" is.

Insider:

Patrick Byrne, the pro-Trump former Overstock CEO admits funneling cash to his ex-lover Maria Butina, the glamorous spy expected to be elected to Russia's parliament

Maria Butina, the Russian agent convicted and jailed for trying to infiltrate political organizations in the United States, is expected to be elected to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament in Russia, this week.

The 32-year-old stood for President Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party as a list candidate in the rural region of Kirov Oblast, in last week's elections.

United Russia is predicted to have a significant majority in the legislature following allegations of massive fraud by opponents, according to Reuters. With 99.9% of ballots counted, United Russia had won nearly 50% of the vote Central Election Commission, the news agency reported.

It is the latest chapter in a political thriller of a life for the young Russian. She has played the role of the girlfriend to powerful men on the US Right and grabbed the headlines when she was arrested for spying. She was imprisoned before being deported to her homeland to a hero's welcome.

The Russian agent arrived in the US in the guise of a guns-rights activist and focussed on the leadership of the National Rifle Association (NRA) to meet high-profile Republican politicians and set up a "back-channel" of communications with the Kremlin, according to reports.

But Butina was arrested in July 2018 in Washington DC and accused by federal prosecutors of infiltrating powerful political circles at the direction of Russian officials.

She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a foreign agent and was jailed for 18 months. Putin called the sentencing "an outrage." After her release in October 2019, she was deported back to Russia.
'I have one weakness as a woman — I really like smart men'

Insider can reveal that Butina has not severed all her connections with the US. She has received large sums of money in the last year from Patrick Byrne, 59, the former CEO of online furniture retailer Overstock.com and Donald Trump supporter and conspiracy theorist.

When asked about the monetary gifts, Byrne told Insider, in an email: "I made a gift to Maria out of a desire to let her land on her feet and restart her life in Russia."

Byrne and Butina had been in a romantic relationship, and Byrne later claimed that he had been passing information on his lover to the FBI.

Federal prosecutors said that Butina traded sex-for-favors while networking in political circles in Washington DC.

Butina formed a romantic relationship with Paul Erickson, 59, a longtime Republican strategist and guns-rights activist, who she met in Moscow in 2013 and with who she also lived for some time.

In 2015, Butina emailed him about her plan to influence US policy towards Russia by making inroads with the GOP through the NRA, and Erickson responded with advice.

Around this time, Butina also began a romantic relationship with Byrne.

Butina said of Byrne, according to The New York Post: "I have one weakness as a woman — I really like smart men. That's my biggest weakness, and that I guess gets me in trouble all the time."

Byrne later said he continued his relationship with Butina at the direction of the FBI. Butina once claimed that he tried to poison her in order to interrogate her while under the influence.

Despite the apparent betrayal, a video made by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny's team revealed that Byrne gifted Butina tens of millions of Russian rubles in the last year, according to her asset disclosures.

Recalling their unique relationship, Byrne told Insider the money he recently sent her was to make amends: "Because I felt badly for Maria, for the role I had played in helping the FBI set her up, and in the way I had misused her in my own designs."

But, he added, the couple will never be reunited.

"Maria and I know that we will never meet again, but it seemed like the right thing to do. When I performed this act of generosity I made sure it was done with full legality and notification to the proper authorities."

Last month Russia's Communist Party called on election officials to reject Butina's candidacy on the grounds that she is the recipient of "foreign funding," specifically referring to Byrne's gifts.

Insider could not reach Butina for comment.
Butina was photographed with top GOP politicians at NRA events

Butina's foray into politics began in 2011, when she founded a Russian gun-rights group called Right to Bear Arms, and started working as a special assistant for former senator and current Central Bank official Alexander Torshin.

Butina and Torshin formed close relationships with the NRA, regularly flying to the US to attend conferences and being named "life members" by the organization.

In 2014 and 2015 Butina was photographed with senior Republican politicians at NRA events, including Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

She also met Donald Trump Jr. at an NRA convention and asked Donald Trump a question about relations with Russia at an event.

In 2016 she moved to the US on a student visa, at which point the FBI supposedly started monitoring her and eventually snared her as a spy.

After serving her jail sentence, Butina returned to Moscow and took a job at the Russian state-funded television channel RT.

In April 2021 Butina filmed a segment in which she visited Alexei Navalny in prison to report on the "exemplary" jail conditions and to counter the opposition leader's protests that he was being poorly treated.

At the time Navalny was on a hunger strike after being denied medical treatment.

This weekend's parliamentary elections in Russia have been widely described as lacking transparency and fairness after the Kremlin cracked down on political opposition and limited press freedom.

Alexei Navalny had encouraged voters to vote tactically in order to beat United Russia candidates, as part of a movement called "smart voting."

It remains to be seen what kind of politician the reinvented Butina will be, and what this next chapter will hold.

In a recent campaign video Butina said she felt indebted to her country and her people after "everyone from the President to residents in the depths of Russia fought for my release."

"I will be very glad to be useful to the Kirov region," she said.

Everything that goes on with Trump and Republicans and the NRA - it always leads back to Russia.

So maybe Mr Byrne was in that meeting because Putin needed eyes and ears in the room.

Go ahead - try to talk me outa that one.

GOP Fuckery

Republican fuckery is - and has been - costing us dearly. And not just in terms of jobs, and wages, and prices, and competitive advantage, and rights, and and and.

For generations, they've been chipping away at the institutions every modern-era democratic society relies on to sustain itself.

It's good to hear that even a Press Poodle like Dana Milbank has finally gotten the word on this shit.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion
How Republican leaders broke Americans’ confidence

On Tuesday, the venerable Gallup organization reported that just 27 percent of Americans expressed confidence in their institutions — the lowest level of trust since the questions were first asked half a century ago.

On Wednesday, Mitch McConnell showed us why Americans feel this way.

Republican senators announced that, under orders from the Senate Republican leader, they were pulling out of House-Senate talks finalizing details on bipartisan legislation to help the United States compete with China on semiconductor chips.

It wasn’t because McConnell objected to the China bill; he was one of 19 Republican senators who voted for the Senate’s version. It’s because he objects to a second, unrelated bill Democrats are working on to lower prescription drug prices.

McConnell wants to stop Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), from using a process known as “reconciliation” to pass that prescription-drug bill by a simple majority vote, immune from any GOP filibuster. And to stop Americans from getting cheaper prescriptions, he is willing to sabotage American manufacturers (and therefore assist China) by denying them $52 billion in support under the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act.

In both cases, Americans lose — because McConnell thinks it’s to Republicans’ advantage in the midterm elections. He is willing to hurt the country, and help the Chinese, in order to harm Democrats’ political standing.

“Let me be perfectly clear: there will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill,” he tweeted.

And let me be perfectly clear: This cynicism has destroyed Americans’ faith in their government.

You can see it in this year’s edition of the annual Gallup poll on 14 U.S. institutions: Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, the military, business, police, media, churches, schools and more. The average confidence level, 27 percent, has declined from 46 percent in 1989.

Though opinions of individual institutions vary widely among groups, the overall distrust of institutions is universal — with little variation by gender, age, race, education or even party.

Though the economic and political cycles play some role, Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones, who led the study, tells me that the declining confidence is more because of a “general idea of government not being able to address the problems facing the country.”

That’s backed up by other data. Two decades ago, just 5 percent cited the government as the most important problem facing the country. That reached 32 percent for 2019, and has remained at or above 20 percent for the years since then.

This is no accident. For three decades, as the Republicans transitioned from a limited-government party to an anti-government party, GOP leaders have seen political advantage in undermining Americans’ confidence in their institutions, and in sabotaging the functions of government. That’s a major theme of my book, out next month, “The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party.”

It began with Newt Gingrich’s instructions to Republicans on how to refer to Democrats (and the government) in 1990: “Traitors.” “Corrupt.” “Cheat.” “Decay.” “Failure.” “Incompetent.” “Abuse of power.” As the era of government shutdowns, default brinkmanship, hostage-taking, name-calling and mindless obstruction was just beginning, Vice President Al Gore presciently remarked: “The Republicans are determined to wreck Congress in order to control it — and then to wreck a presidency in order to recapture it.”

McConnell played a major part in the sabotage, and not just with his extravagant intransigence toward legislation and nominees, highlighted by the theft of a Supreme Court seat in 2016.

In 2009, he urged the Obama administration to support legislation creating a debt-reduction committee — and then opposed the legislation after the Obama administration supported it. In 2012, he threw his support behind a majority vote on a debt-ceiling proposal — and then, when it appeared the bill would pass, he said he would block it with a filibuster.

Now, we see the fruits of such labors.

After Republicans’ years of throwing sand in the gears of government, just 7 percent have confidence in the legislature and 23 percent in the presidency. After Republicans’ use of underhanded tactics to secure a highly partisan supermajority on the Supreme Court, just 25 percent have confidence in the high court. After years of Republicans’ attacks on the media (culminating in Trump’s “enemy of the people” formulation) and after the GOP’s fostering of propaganda outlets such as Fox News, just 11 percent of Americans have confidence in television news (16 percent in newspapers).

They’ve hacked away at public schools (critical race theory! trans athletes!), at the “broken” military and at the criminal justice system (“corrupt” FBI and Justice Department leaders) — and Americans’ trust in those institutions has slipped, too.

Now, against all odds, Washington is on the cusp of lowering drug prices and boosting U.S. technology over China’s. And so, McConnell, top Senate Republican, steps in to sabotage both.

It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Today's Tweet

And I doubt these are the only snakes in the nest.

Here are the 10 House Republicans who met Trump in December 2020 to plan to overturn the election results:

Marjorie Taylor Greene
Matt Gaetz
Jim Jordan
Louie Gohmert
Paul Gosar
Andy Biggs
Andy Harris
Jody Hice
Scott Perry
Brian Babin

Subpoena all of them now!

— Republicans against Trumpism (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 12, 2022

Uh-Oh

Tourists. Whaddaya gonna do.

Avalanche in Kyrgyzstan

Tipping Into The Green

Bloomberg:

US Crosses the Electric-Car Tipping Point for Mass Adoption

Once 5% of new-car sales go fully electric, everything changes — according to a Bloomberg analysis of the 19 countries that have made the EV pivot.

Many people of a certain age can recall the first time they held a smartphone. The devices were weird and expensive and novel enough to draw a crowd at parties. Then, less than a decade later, it became unusual not to own one.

That same society-altering shift is happening now with electric vehicles, according to a Bloomberg analysis of adoption rates around the world. The US is the latest country to pass what’s become a critical EV tipping point: 5% of new car sales powered only by electricity. This threshold signals the start of mass EV adoption, the period when technological preferences rapidly flip, according to the analysis.

For the past six months, the US joined Europe and China — collectively the three largest car markets — in moving beyond the 5% tipping point. If the US follows the trend established by 18 countries that came before it, a quarter of new car sales could be electric by the end of 2025. That would be a year or two ahead of most major forecasts.

Why is 5% so important?

Most successful new technologies — electricity, televisions, mobile phones, the internet, even LED lightbulbs — follow an S-shaped adoption curve. Sales move at a crawl in the early-adopter phase, then surprisingly quickly once things go mainstream. (The top of the S curve represents the last holdouts who refuse to give up their old flip phones.)

In the case of electric vehicles, 5% seems to be the point when early adopters are overtaken by mainstream demand. Before then, sales tend to be slow and unpredictable. Afterward, rapidly accelerating demand ensues.

It makes sense that countries around the world would follow similar patterns of EV adoption. Most impediments are universal: there aren’t enough public chargers, the cars are expensive and in limited supply, buyers don’t know much about them. Once the road has been paved for the first 5%, the masses soon follow.

Thus the adoption curve followed by South Korea starting in 2021 ends up looking a lot like the one taken by China in 2018, which is similar to Norway after its first 5% quarter in 2013. The next major car markets approaching the tipping point this year include Canada, Australia, and Spain.

A higher bar for hybrids

The analysis above is for vehicles that run on batteries only. Some countries, primarily in Europe, were quicker to adopt plug-in hybrids, which have smaller batteries backed by a gasoline-powered engine. Including those, the world just surpassed 20 million electric vehicles on the road, and that figure will double again by the end of next year, according to a recent report by analysts at BloombergNEF.

Since using a plug-in hybrid doesn’t require the same level of infrastructure or consumer awareness, the early phase of adoption was less consistent. A consistent tipping point for this broader category of EVs wasn’t achieved until 10% of new vehicles had a plug.

The US and China mostly skipped plug-in hybrids and went straight to fully-electric vehicles, and the US hasn’t yet crossed the 10% threshold.

Behind every country that crossed an EV tipping point is a program of federal incentives and pollution standards. In the US, the Biden administration last year issued an executive order calling for EVs to make up half of new vehicles by 2030 (including plug-in hybrids). According to the tipping-point analysis, it should beat that goal with several years to spare.
Tipping the carmakers

Continued growth also depends on the ability of automakers and their suppliers to increase production fast enough. Volkswagen, Ford, and BMW are each targeting 50% or more of their global sales to be fully electric by the end of the decade.

It turns out, automakers have tipping points, too. Factories must be retooled and supply chains reconfigured. To achieve the most cost savings, the entire vehicle must be redesigned with electrification in mind. In Europe, once 10% of an automaker’s quarterly sales go electric, the share triples in less than two years.

The chart below doesn’t include Toyota, which is the biggest automaker that hasn’t reached the 10% EV threshold in Europe. Toyota’s target of 3.5 million annual EV sales by 2030, as a share of its 10 million annual vehicle sales, is among the least aggressive of the major automakers. The chart also doesn’t include Tesla, the world’s biggest EV maker, whose sales are entirely electric.

Is the world’s transition to EVs inevitable?

So far, 90% of the world's EV sales have come from the US, China and Europe. That means countries responsible for about a third of global annual auto sales haven't passed the tipping point. None of the countries in Latin America, Africa, or Southeast Asia has made the jump. If they do, it’s uncertain whether global miners will be able to keep up with demand for battery metals.

Still, global sales of electric vehicles tripled in the last two years, according to the International Energy Agency. All of the net growth in global car sales in 2021 came from electric cars, and that’s a trend that BloobmergNEF forecasts suggest will continue indefinitely. This year could be the high water mark for vehicles on the road without a plug.

Applying the tipping point analysis to the entire globe, the share of fully electric vehicles worldwide passed the 5% threshold for the first time last year. Including plug-in hybrids, the 10% tipping point will be passed sometime this year. If the trends holds true, accelerating demand can be expected.

Jan6 Stuff

A lot of folks are wondering why these bozos recorded their plotting and planning. Some of these goons went so far as to have documentarians follow them around with video cameras to catch every move.

Stop wondering. This is one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism, and it fits very well with Timothy Snyder's list of things we need to watch out for ("On Tyranny"):

Obeying in advance

Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. Individuals think ahead about what a repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked.

Trump will never give anyone a direct order to commit some crime for him. But every member of the cult knows he wants all manner of fuckery to happen. And they know they'll be rewarded in some way for it. So they hatch all kinds of weird schemes, and they need to have their valiant efforts documented so they can show the boss what good little devotees they've been.

There's a reason we know so much about the horrendous events that occurred under regimes like Pol Pot and Sadam and Hitler, et al. The Daddy State always develops a very good bureaucracy to keep track of the shit they do - they have to be able to show the boss.

Rachel Maddow: (thru about 20:40)

BTW - These assholes had hand grenades!?!

BTW 2 - "I don't fucking care that they have weapons - they're not here to hurt me..."

This is a guy who's always yammering about "false flag" and "AnitFa in disguise". Why is he not at all concerned that one of "his people" is in fact not one of his people and is in fact there to hurt hm? This is of course also part-n-parcel of the Daddy State bullshit about taking your fantasy version of reality and twisting it and smash-fitting it, so it serves your immediate political need.

On Guns And Babies

An interesting take: Abortion as self defense.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion
I asked about abortion at a Texas gun show. The answer I got was grim.

Standing next to a display of military-grade weapons, I wondered aloud to the dealers at the gun-show booth if more women should get guns in Texas to protect themselves now that they will be forced to carry a pregnancy to term even in cases of rape.

“You can’t rape a .38,” one of the gun dealers said, smiling.

The line was equal parts laughably cheesy and tragically grim. As we spoke, a little boy walked by waving around a toy machine gun, pretending to spray everyone in the vicinity with imaginary bullets. A few booths over, a female attendant wore a black-and-red “All Lives Splatter” T-shirt.

The Fort Worth Gun Show, at the Amon Carter Exhibit Hall, is one of the oldest gun shows in gun-loving North Texas. I attended the two-day event this month to see what it would be like on the heels of both the Uvalde school massacre and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I wanted to see how the Texas gun community would make sense of the two events.

A dealer asked me whether I wanted to hold an MP-5, a military-grade rifle. “I’m sorry to say this,” he said. “But for women who deal with break-ins, many times the woman gets raped.” For my first gun, the dealers agreed I should start out with a .22 rifle.

Does the end of one constitutional right mean women should rush to embrace another that our Supreme Court is rushing to expand? Even before the fall of Roe it was a common pitch of gun enthusiasts: Women are safer when they own a gun. But the reality is, women who have guns are more likely to have them used against them. And the biggest danger is not a stranger slipping through a window or lurking in a parking garage, but a man already in their life.

Sadly, the threat of gun violence is even more true for pregnant women. According to a study published last year in the journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women and those who have recently given birth.

The study, conducted by Tulane University researchers, revealed that the “pregnancy-associated homicide” rate in 2018 and 2019 was 3.62 per 100,000 women — 16 percent higher than homicides of women who are not pregnant or haven’t recently given birth. Homicide beat hemorrhage and pregnancy-related hypertension as the top single cause of death. A majority of the slain women were killed with guns, and two-thirds were killed in their homes, suggesting partners were involved, according to the authors. The rates were highest among Black women and younger women.

In Texas, the news here is a sad reflection of this. In October, 25-year-old Cavanna Smith had told her boyfriend that she was pregnant, and sent him a card with a picture of the ultrasound; she was later found dead, shot in the head. The boyfriend has been charged with her murder. In April, 20-year-old Dontia Clark was found shot to death in her Houston apartment a day after learning she was eight weeks pregnant. According to reports, there were no signs of forced entry.

Much has been said and written about women who seek abortions for medical threats such as ectopic pregnancies. But what of women who seek to end their pregnancies to protect themselves from violence at the hands of the men in their lives? Or who don’t want to bring a child into the world with a potential abuser? In Texas, women can no longer choose a safe abortion as a means of self-defense. What are we going to do, tell them to get a .22?

Much has also been made of the Senate’s recent agreement to close the “boyfriend loophole” on gun restrictions. Previously, under federal law, domestic abusers could be prohibited, via the national instant criminal background check system, from having guns only in cases where they have been married to, lived with or had a child with the victim; that’s now been widened to include those who have been in a serious relationship with the target. But in Texas, which allows private gun owners to sell to others without background checks, another enormous loophole remains open.

It’s no stretch to expect that even more pregnant women will be assaulted and killed by partners now that abortion is all but banned here. Texas lags other states in mental health resources and has faced funding shortages for domestic violence prevention. If women are to be forced to carry pregnancies — if Texas truly wants to “protect life” — so much more must be done about the issues of maternal homicide and interpersonal violence.

I left the gun show without a .22 rifle. Sad to say, but as a woman who values access to safe reproductive choices, my best form of defense is probably leaving my home state altogether.

Today's History Lesson

Teach it like this and you'd get more people who give a fuck about where they live.

Of course, it's not so much their fault. They've been told for 40 years that they don't need to know anything.

And now they're being "taught" all the wrong shit, and that they shouldn't think at all if they know what's good 'em - which of course they don't because nobody will teach them anything anyway.

We gotta figure how to unfuck this joint.

The American Revolution Oversimplified - Part 1

Part 2