Fire away…

Manchin collecting his cash for making sure the poor stay poor and billionaires like Langone pay no taxes. https://t.co/9XYW3yg6jU

— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) November 10, 2021

Found in Translation: New York Times Says Democrats Shouldn’t Challenge Oligarchy

A few days after the Nov. 2 election, the New York Times published a vehement editorial calling for the Democratic Party to adopt “moderate” positions and avoid seeking “progressive policies at the expense of bipartisan ideas.” It was a statement by the Times editorial board, which the newspaper describes as “a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values.”

The editorial certainly reflected “longstanding values”—since the Times has recycled them for decades in its relentless attacks on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

The Times editorial board began its polemic by calling for the party to “return” to “moderate policies.”

Translation: Stick to corporate-friendly policies of the sort that we applauded during 16 years of the Clinton and Obama presidencies.

While scolding “a national Democratic Party that talks up progressive policies at the expense of bipartisan ideas,” the editorial warned against “becoming a marginal Democratic Party appealing only to the left.”

Translation: The Biden administration should reach across the aisle even more solicitously to the leadership of an obstructionist, largely racist, largely climate-change-denying, Trump-cultish Republican Party.

The election results “are a sign that significant parts of the electorate are feeling leery of a sharp leftward push in the party, including on priorities like Build Back Better, which have some strong provisions and some discretionary ones driving up the price tag.”

Translation: Although poll after poll shows that the Build Back Better agenda is popular with the broad public, especially increased taxation on wealthy and corporate elites to pay for it, we need to characterize the plan as part of “a sharp leftward push.”

“The concerns of more centrist Americans about a rush to spend taxpayer money, a rush to grow the government, should not be dismissed.”

Translation: While we don’t object to the ongoing “rush to spend taxpayer money” on the military, and we did not editorialize against the bloated Pentagon budget, we oppose efforts to “grow the government” too much for such purposes as healthcare, childcare, education, housing and mitigating the climate crisis.

“Mr. Biden did not win the Democratic primary because he promised a progressive revolution. There were plenty of other candidates doing that. He captured the nomination—and the presidency—because he promised an exhausted nation a return to sanity, decency and competence.”

Translation: No need to fret about the anti-democratic power of great wealth and corporate monopolies. We liked the status quo before the Trump presidency, and that’s more or less what we want now.

“‘Nobody elected him to be F.D.R.,’ Representative Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrat from Virginia, told the Times after Tuesday’s drubbing.”

Translation: Spanberger, a former CIA case officer and current member of the corporate Blue Dog Coalition in Congress, is our kind of Democrat.

“Democrats should work to implement policies to help the American people.”

Translation: Democrats should work to implement policies to help the American people but not go overboard by helping them too much. We sometimes write editorials bemoaning the vast income inequality in this country, but we don’t want the government to do much to reduce it.

“Congress should focus on what is possible, not what would be possible if Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and—frankly—a host of lesser-known Democratic moderates who haven’t had to vote on policies they might oppose were not in office.”

Translation: We editorialize about social justice, but we don’t want structural changes and substantial new government policies that could bring it much closer. We editorialize about the climate crisis, but not in favor of government actions anywhere near commensurate with the crisis. Our type of tepid liberalism is an approach that won’t be a bottom-line threat to the Times owners and big advertisers=—and won’t diminish the leverage and holdings of wealthy elites, including the New York Times Company’s chairman A.G. Sulzberger and the company’s board of directors. We want change, but not too much!

“Democrats agree about far more than they disagree about. But it doesn’t look that way to voters after months and months of intraparty squabbling. Time to focus on—and pass—policies with broad support.”

Translation: Although progressives are fighting for programs that actually do have broad public support, we’ll keep declaring those programs don’t have broad public support. Progressives should give up and surrender to the corporate forces we like to call “moderate.”

Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Promotes Subsidize Logging

Congress just passed the big infrastructure bill, and I expect President Biden will sign it—maybe before you read this commentary.

Funding is for numerous projects including upgrading bridges, highway construction, expanding broadband in rural communities to environmental restoration like reclaiming abandoned mines.

As with any broad legislation, there is probably a lot of “pork” as well as likely improvements that ultimately are necessary to the country’s infrastructure. I will leave the judgment of these things to others.

However, the bill does deal with wildfire issues. Some of which are positive, such as providing funds to bury powerlines (which are common ignition sources for wildfires) to funding to reduce the flammability of homes.

Nevertheless, the main thrust of the legislation continues to promote the idea that “fuels” are the problem and logging is the primary way to deal with climate-induced wildfire.

Among other provisions, the Infrastructure Bill includes a legislative mandate for 30 million acres of additional logging on federal public lands over the next 15 years. Thirty million acres are nearly equal to the area of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined!

The legislation provides $3.3 billion for wildfire risk reduction efforts, including hazardous fuels reduction (a euphemism for logging), controlled burns, community wildfire defense grants, collaborative landscape forest restoration projects (another name for logging), and firefighting resources.

The emphasis on “fuel reductions” has several immediate problems.

Ironically, logging will only exacerbate CO2 emissions driving climate warming and make it far more challenging to meet the Biden administration’s 50% reduction in climate warming. As noted in a recent letter to Congress signed by more than 200 scientistslogging in U.S. forests emits 723 million tons of uncounted CO2 into our atmosphere each year—more than ten times the amount emitted by wildfires and tree mortality from insects combined.

Although the burning of fossil fuels for transportation accounts for the greatest percentage of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the emissions from logging in U.S. forests are now comparable to the annual CO2 emissions from U.S. coal-burning and annual emissions from the building sector. For example, logging accounts for 35% of Oregon’s annual CO2 emissions, more than all the state’s cars, trucks, and airplanes!

Besides the fact that logging contributes to climate warming, we have studies and numerous examples across the West where fuel reduction does not work in the face of extreme fire weather.

For instance, two of the largest fires this past summer, the 900,000 acres plus Dixie Fire in California and the 400,000 acres plus Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, occurred where most of the land had been previously logged/thinned. A rough estimate suggests that 75% of the Bootleg Fire area had experienced fuel reduction, including logging/thinning and prescribed burning.

This map of the Dixie Fire perimeter in August shows how ineffective logging/fuel reductions were in controlling the blaze. All the brightly colored portions of the map were previously logged and thinned. The blue is Lake Almanor near Chester, California. Map by Bryant Baker.

I visited both burns and found where even large clearcuts with almost no fuel failed to halt the spread of these wind-driven blazes.

Yet despite these failures, the Forest Service, timber industry, and its allies like the Nature Conservancy, Conservation Northwest, California Wilderness Coalition, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and other so-called “conservation organizations” continue to support fuel reductions, despite their apparent inability to preclude large blazes.

Worse for our communities is that logging/thinning by opening the canopy logging can hasten the drying of fuels and increase wind penetration—both major factors in fire spread. The irony seen in numerous fires across the West is that wildfire severity and spread are typically proportionally lower in areas where logging/thinning is prohibited, like wilderness areas and national parks where presumably fuel biomass is higher.

Wildfires burn through previously “thinned and logged” areas, especially when high winds push fires through and over such projects. For example, the 48,000 acre Eagle Creek Fire of 2017 that burned some of the forestlands within the Columbia River Gorge jumped the mile and half wide Columbia River (with no fuel) to ignite blazes on the Washington side of the river.

The legislation undermines environmental protection by weakening current laws to create a broad exemption for logging projects on federal lands.

The infrastructure bill language will permit the continued use of “Categorical Exclusions,” which eliminates environmental analysis under NEPA for an unlimited number of logging projects on federal lands. According to the legislation CEs projects up to 1,000 feet wide and 3,000 acres in size are permitted. CEs were initially designed to allow the Forest Service to do small tasks like constructing an outhouse in a campground without bothering with an Environmental Impact Statement or other burdensome paperwork. Instead, CEs provisions are regularly exploited to facilitate logging.

For comparison, a football field is approximately 1 acre in size. Therefore, every CE can impact an area the size of 3000 football fields.

The emphasis on fuel reductions is misguided. Logging is not benign. It significantly contributes to GHG emissions, the spread of weeds, displaces wildlife, causes sedimentation that compromises aquatic ecosystems, and much more. Moreover, since one can’t predict where a fire might occur, most of these “fuel reductions” never encounter a fire during a time when they might be effective. So we suffer these negatives now and gain few if any benefits in wildfire reduction and increase climate warming that is ultimately the source of growing wildfire size and spread.

Millionaires who think they are above the protocols of safety…

N.F.L. Fines Aaron Rodgers and Packers for Violating Covid-19 Protocols

The N.F.L. has fined the Green Bay Packers $300,000 and two of its players, quarterback Aaron Rodgers and wide receiver Allen Lazard, $14,650 each for failing to follow the Covid-19 protocols agreed on by the league and players’ union.

The penalties come about a week after Rodgers tested positive for the coronavirus and his subsequent public statements espousing false and unfounded claims about the Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. Those comments were condemned by public health officials and by some fellow athletes but the league’s decision focused on his compliance with the rules.

Rodgers and Lazard, who is also unvaccinated, were penalized for attending a Halloween party even though the Covid-19 protocols prohibit unvaccinated players from gathering outside of the team facility in a group of more than three players.

Rodgers also did not wear a mask when speaking with reporters, another violation of the league’s rules.