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Evening Shade---Resistance Rising---Sunday, May 4 [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-04
YOU CAN REPOST IT AS COMMENT in the DIARY
WHEN YOU FIND SOMETHING in the DIARY that you LIKE
THE PERSON who MAKES the FIRST COMMENT WILL GET TWO CRITTERS
(Or NOT As the CASE MAY BE)
YOU WILL FIND in the DIARIES a LOT of POLITICS
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Don’t miss bilboteach’s morning diary, Holds: A One Senator Wrecking Tactic!
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This Sunday morning I'm sipping a delicious cup of coffee, listening to the wind chimes ringing in a rain-fresh breeze that's bringing moisture to the seeds I planted yesterday. I read the news and am amazed yet again at how the internet brings the whole world to my desk. I'm thinking about friends traveling. I smile with family members who lost government jobs but face their path forward with cheerful optimism. They say happiness is not having what you want but wanting what you have. I don’t have a fortune but life is good. This morning Donald Trump is unhappy because he's only a real estate magnate, TV star,and president. No one will make him the pope. He never has enough, poor guy. Savor your Sunday, Shadesters, and be glad for all good things that you have! That's resistance too.
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Trump doesn’t get to declare a fake war so that he can not only deport immigrants, he can see them tortured for life.
x A Trump-nominated judge on Thursday issued a groundbreaking ruling that said the president was wrong to claim that the activities of a Venezuelan gang in the U.S. amounted to an “invasion” that justified invoking a wartime law.
[image or embed] — The New York Times (@nytimes.com) May 3, 2025 at 3:18 PM
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It’s actually even worse than this. Trump is trying to hide the fact that he has no idea what the constitution says and he’s too lazy to read it.
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Your protests really do matter.
x "Trump's sinking approval ratings matter. His enablers will get cold feet as the country turns against him. And it's proof that our activism and our protest is working."
- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
[image or embed] — StrictlyChristo 🦋🇺🇦🌻 (@strictlychristo.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 12:14 AM
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How does DOGE do it? Big Balls Coristine explains the logic by which DOGE decides that a government expenditure is waste or fraud: he just cuts everything he doesn’t understand.
He insisted that he was looking to “root out fraud and waste” and he was looking at the payment systems. “So you look at a specific line item, like $20 million. You’re like, OK, well, what is this money going to? And for the majority of payment systems, it’s like, well, we don’t really know,” Coristine said. (Gizmodo)
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And what does he get paid for his lack of research?
x As we’ve said before now confirmed. FOIA requests reveal that DOGE employees are pulling in six-figure salaries, with many holding the title of “Expert,” a specific Office of Personnel Management (OPM) designation that pays around $190,000 a year. — Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 8:10 PM
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So how much money is DOGE really saving? Hardly anything, and at the cost of wrecking government services and firing the experts.
x DOGE initially promised to save taxpayers $2 trillion. Now it admits it's only delivered $160B in cuts. And even those minimal savings are nearly wiped out by the cost of implementing DOGE's cuts: $135B. We're losing vital government services for basically nothing in return. — Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 1:00 PM
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This DOGE story didn’t get enough attention last week. Is it more alarming that kids who don’t understand what they read are messing with our nuclear apps, or that some of those kids are known for hacking and selling company secrets?
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x Trump is already facing pushback from Congress on his budget proposal and now he’s planning to override them entirely. His new budget would slash nearly every federal program by a total of $163 billion while leaving defense spending untouched. — Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM
x Even many Republicans are uneasy with the plan. But instead of negotiating, Trump’s team is stating they will simply ignore Congress and bring back impoundment, the practice of withholding funds that Congress has already approved. There’s just one problem: that’s unconstitutional. — Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM
x The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 makes it illegal for the president to unilaterally withhold or redirect funds that Congress has appropriated. This law was passed after Nixon tried similar abuses of power, and it was designed to protect the core constitutional principle that — Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM
x Congress controls the nation’s purse strings, not the president. Trump and his allies, including OMB chief and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, have called the Impoundment Act unconstitutional and want to revive presidential impoundment authority. — Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM
(An aside: I’m still tickled that one of our best news sources through this crisis is the park ranger resistance. Support their efforts here.)
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Sunday Science
The federal government’s sixth National Climate Assessment may not be published. Trump lacks the authority to cancel it but his administration has fired the scientists who prepare it.
On April 28, the Trump administration abruptly dismissed the hundreds of U.S. scientists working on the sixth National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated interagency report. The latest report was expected to be released in 2028, but now its future is in doubt. And that could greatly hobble the nation’s ability to prepare for future climate-related extreme events. It assesses the risks of heat waves, drought, storms, floods and other climate change–exacerbated disasters and how they might impact a broad range of sectors, including health, fisheries, energy, agriculture and transportation. Extreme heat, for instance, can cause deadly heat stroke, boost mosquito-borne diseases, fuel wildfires and ruin crops. The fifth, most recent National Climate Assessment, released in 2023, provided even more insight at the local and state level by delving into climate change’s expected impacts on specific regions of the country. As of this story’s publication, that fifth assessment is still available for download here. (Science News)
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How much danger do massive solar flares present? Those superflares might happen as often as once every hundred years.
If the sun did blow off a superflare today, what would be the effects? The impacts to life on Earth would probably be pretty minimal; our planet’s magnetic field acts as a shield against incoming subatomic particles, and our atmosphere would absorb most of the associated high-energy electromagnetic radiation (such as gamma and x-rays). Our technological civilization is another matter, though. A huge flare could fry the electronics on all but the most protected satellites and disrupt power grids to cause widespread and long-lasting blackouts. Engineers have devised safeguards to prevent damaging electrical surges from most instances of extreme space weather, but if a flare is powerful enough, there may not be much we could do to avoid severe damage. Should we worry? The takeaway from the study is that it’s possible the sun produces superflares more often than we previously thought, but this conclusion is not conclusive. So consider this research a good start—and a good argument for getting more and better information. Don’t panic just yet! (Scientific American)
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Can the government change the weather? Not with a sharpie. But while spraying aerosols that reflect the sun’s rays generally requires altitudes higher than our planes reach, there’s some benefit to spraying at altitudes that we can reach near the poles.
The most commonly discussed form of geoengineering hinges on a strategy known as solar aerosol injection — spraying reflecting particles into the atmosphere to beam sunlight away from the planet. Research suggests the most effective height for particle spraying is around 12.5 miles above the surface of the Earth. But most existing aircraft can’t safely fly at that altitude. That means any future large-scale geoengineering operation would require a fleet of specially designed planes, which could take years to develop. But the new study suggests effective geoengineering still could be possible at lower altitudes. ...conditions for low-altitude particle spraying were most favorable closer to the Earth’s poles, where the shape and thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere is slightly different than it is closer to the equator. They also found that spring and summer were the best seasons, when there’s more sunlight for the particles to reflect. These experiments were still far less efficient than high-altitude injections, the study noted. In fact, they’re only about 35 percent as effective as similar projects conducted at the recommended 12.5 miles high in the subtropics. But they still could make a meaningful dent in the Earth’s temperatures at just 8 miles above the surface of the Earth — a height that’s safe for many commercial aircraft. (Scientific American)
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Today is a red letter day! It is the 50th Anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail! If you didn’t see a celebratory showing in a local theater today, check your listings for another later this week. It’s hard to pick a favorite scene. There are so many memorable lines in this movie! What’s your favorite?
x YouTube Video
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And if that’s not enough, it’s also Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you!
x YouTube Video
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It’s National Self Employed Day, celebrating people who run their own businesses (and their CATS).
x YouTube Video
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It’s National Weather Observer Day and also Bird Day!
x YouTube Video
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It’s National Lemonade Day, National Orange Juice Day, and National Candied Citrus Peel Day! (Chocolate dipped orange peels: yum!)
x YouTube Video
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It’s National Join Hands Day, in which the older and younger generations join in a day of volunteering.
x YouTube Video
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The Sunday before Mother’s Day is National Infertility Survival Day. It’s also National Renewal Day. Out with the old, in with the new!
And it’s National Day of Reason, which originated in 2003 in response to the perceived unconstitutional National Day of Prayer. The National Day of Prayer, according to its originators, “violates the First Amendment of The United States Constitution because it asks federal, state and local government entities to set aside tax dollar supported time and space to engage in religious ceremonies.”
x YouTube Video
Happy Sunday, Shadesters!
[END]
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