The Death of Science in America | Stand Up for Science MARCH 7

 

The End of Science in America
This is a video about how science in this country is screwed.

It's Up to Us to Save Science in America
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The Postal Service runs out of money in three months

Dear MoveOn member,

The U.S. Postal Service could be dead in three months unless Congress provides emergency funding to shore up this crucial public service.¹

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and the Republicans are refusing to include the Postal Service in any coronavirus relief legislation, because privatizing mail delivery has been a long-term goal of the conservative movement, and they see this crisis as their opportunity to kill off the Postal Service once and for all.²

Meanwhile, Donald Trump hates the Postal Service for his own sociopathic reason: The Postal Service delivers packages for Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, also owns The Washington Post, a newspaper that hasn't been afraid to publish hard-hitting journalism on the Trump administration.³ So, in the middle of a global pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Trump is threatening to bankrupt a critically important public service to exact revenge for his petty grievances.⁴

Democrats are pushing hard to get emergency funding for the Postal Service included in the next coronavirus relief bill, and MoveOn is launching a digital ad campaign to demand that Trump and the Republicans stop blocking Postal Service relief funding. To make sure they can't ignore us, we will run targeted ads in rural districts that would be hit hardest by the Postal Service shutdown—communities that Trump must win big to have any chance of re-election.

On average, MoveOn's monthly donors chip in about $10 a month. Can you chip in $10 a month to help launch and sustain a digital ad campaign calling on Congress to include desperately needed aid to the United States Postal Service in the next stimulus package and to continue to fight to save the Post Office all the way until Election Day?

Yes, I'll chip in monthly.

No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.

The death of the Postal Service would be a crushing blow to Americans desperately trying to get by while sheltering in place.

Rural communities might never bounce back without the guarantee of reliable, standard-rate mail service. Small businesses in rural communities that rely on mail-order customers would go bankrupt. And people who live in these communities would be unable to get the essential deliveries—including medicine—they count on the Postal Service to deliver.⁵

The death of the Postal Service would also eliminate any kind of vote-by-mail program, disenfranchising millions of voters in November. And postal workers—39% of whom are people of color—would be left jobless.⁶

Most Americans don't know it, but the Postal Service doesn't receive a single taxpayer dollar.⁷ It is entirely funded by revenue from the sales of stamps and postage. But just like so many other businesses, the Postal Service has seen its revenue collapse during this pandemic. As a result, the entire operation could go bust by September, according to the postmaster general and the postal workers union.

It's especially tragic considering that postal workers, like doctors, nurses, and other essential workers, are getting sick and dying while working on the front lines of this pandemic to keep the rest of us afloat.⁸

Just imagine what life would be like right now if the mail stopped coming or if the only way to send or receive mail was to pay FedEx rates. It would be devastating. But Trump can't get over the fact that The Washington Post doesn't give him nonstop positive coverage. And privatization of mail delivery would be a massive boon to his corporate donors—at the expense of everyday, working-people Americans.

The next coronavirus relief bill could get passed as early as next week, and funding for the Postal Service must be included in it. If MoveOn can raise $150,000 by Monday, we will be able to launch a digital ad campaign calling out Trump and McConnell for blocking this desperately needed funding.

Can you chip in $10 a month to help launch and sustain a digital ad campaign, and keep it running for as long as it takes to stop Donald Trump from shutting down the United States Postal Service? (The average gift from a MoveOn monthly donor is about $10 a month, but whatever you can afford will go a long way.)

Yes, I'll chip in monthly to help save the U.S. Postal Service.

No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.

Thanks for all you do.

–Kelly, Seth, Jenn, Lisa, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "The Head of the Postal Workers Union Says the Postal Service Could Be Dead in Three Months," In These Times, April 16, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119675?t=6&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp

2. "White House rejects bailout for U.S. Postal Service battered by coronavirus," The Washington Post, April 11, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119602?t=8&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp

3. "Trump's Vendetta Against Jeff Bezos Could Destroy the Postal Service," Vanity Fair, April 13, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119676?t=10&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp

4. "Coronavirus job losses could total 47 million, unemployment rate may hit 32 percent, Fed estimates," NBC News, March 30, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119371?t=12&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp

5. "If the US Postal Service fails, rural America will suffer the most," Vox, April 16, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119677?t=14&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp

6. "Workforce Diversity and Inclusiveness," U.S. Postal Service, accessed April 18, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119623?t=16&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp

7. "The U.S. Postal Service is Owned by the People—Let's Keep it That Way," AFL-CIO, April 23, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/119678?t=18&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp

8. "The U.S. Postal Service Needs Help Now: 'The Situation Is Absolutely Dire,'" New York, April 17, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119679?t=20&akid=262134%2E33957374%2EClncmp 

Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?

Yes, I'll chip in $5 a month.

No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.

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PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

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Bruce Springsteen on Donald Trump: He 'Has No Interest in Uniting the Country, Really' | Billboard

Bruce Springsteen has never shied away from expressing his political views onstage and in his music, and the rocker's most recent interview is no exception -- especially when the conversation turned to Donald Trump.

For Esquire's December cover story, Springsteen invited the magazine backstage at the Walter Kerr Theater, where he's in the midst of his Springsteen on Broadway run. The show is a combination of memoir and song, in that the star reads from his own writings about his childhood, his family, his career and his love, and stripped-down musical interludes separate these throws to Springsteen's memories. Several times, he turns to the Vietnam War, 9/11 and other events that have shaped modern American history and identity, and he took the opportunity to explain his perspective on what's currently going on in the United States and what Trump and the "dark angels" who support him represent…

…“[He] has no interest in uniting the country, really, and actually has an interest in doing the opposite and dividing us, which he does on an almost daily basis." he continued. "So that’s simply a crime against humanity, as far as I’m concerned. It’s an awful, awful message to send out into the world if you’re in that job and in that position. It’s just an ugly, awful message. You are intentionally trying to disenfranchise a large portion of Americans... And then there’s just the rise of -- whether it’s the alt-right or the folks who were marching in Charlottesville with their tiki torches and all of that coming to the fore again, you know? Which our president was more than happy to play into and to play to. So these are folks who are invested in denying the idea of a united America and an America for all. It’s a critical moment. This has come so far to the surface, and it’s so toxic... It’s a scary moment for any conscientious American, I think.”

more: Bruce Springsteen on Donald Trump: He 'Has No Interest in Uniting the Country, Really' | Billboard

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers | President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

just a few items cobbled together...

this first one thanks to California Chaparral Institute on Facebook –

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers preventing logging and a supposed fuel build up via past fire suppression.

1. Most of California's most devastating fires were far from any forest (see map below).

2. For those few devastating fires that were near forests, all of those forests around the communities destroyed had the kind of suggested thinning and fuel treatments misinformed commentators claim didn't exist.

3. Much of the area around Paradise that burned in the Camp Fire had burned 10 years ago, had been salvage logged, and was composed of habitats other than forest (e.g. post fire shrublands). The wind-driven ember rain that destroyed the town came primarily from open grassland/post fire/mixed woodland environments northeast of the town. A large percentage of the trees within the devastated town did not burn. See the fire progression map here and match it with the current view on Google Earth:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/6250/4/90791

4. Climate change is drying the state. Dryer conditions lead to a more flammable landscape. We may see more of the kind of winds that powered the Camp Fire into Paradise. More fires will dramatically alter the kinds of habitats we are used to seeing. Non-native weed filled landscapes that dominate places like Riverside County will likely become more common. More on this issue here:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/threatstochaparral.html

It is more than discouraging when someone claims our wildfires are all about forests, dead trees, lack of logging, or unnatural fuel build up via past fire suppression. Such claims are a disservice to the families who have lost so much and hamper our efforts to solve the problem.

What is it about? Flammable homes and communities located on flammable terrain.

Please see our solutions in our letter to Governor Brown below.

Here is a well-researched article on the Woolsey Fire from the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/proj…/la-me-woolsey-fire-progression/

Here's how to protect your home from wildfire:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/bprotectingyourhome.html

Here's our information flyer on external sprinklers:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/INDEPENDENT_EXTERNAL_S…

Here's why Governor Brown and the California State Legislature failed us - they ignored the real problem:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/Gov_Brown_2017_Wildfir…

Here are the most devastating wildfires in California to November 17, 2018 (fire, structures burned, fatalities):

Fires 2017-2018
Camp/12,263/71 (as of 11/17/2018)*
Tubbs/ 5636/ 22
Redwood/ 546 / 9
Carr/ 1599/ 8
Atlas/ 783/ 6
Nuns/ 1355/ 3
Woolsey/500+/3 (as of 11/17/2018)
Thomas/ 1063/ 2
Ferguson/ 131/ 2
Mendocino/ 277/ 1

Previous devastating fires prior to 2017 where losses were also unrelated to forests and dead trees:
Tunnel (1991)/ 2900 /25
Cedar (2003)/ 2820/ 15
Harris (2007)/ 548/ 8
Old (2003)/ 1003/ 6
Witch Creek (2007)/ 1650/ 2
Butte (2015)/ 921/ 2
Jones (1999)/ 954/ 1
Paint (1990)/ 641/ 1

Significant forested area involved, but not seriously impacted by dead trees:
Valley (2015)/ 1955/ 4
*Camp Fire involved forest within the fire perimeter, but most of the area within/near the devastated town of Paradise was a mix of habitats.

President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

(CNN)With the shocking loss of thousands of homes and dozens of lives in the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern and Southern California, people are looking for answers as they try to understand how a tragedy such as this can be prevented in the future.

As people struggled to evacuate, President Donald Trump in a tweet blamed the fires on poor forest management and repeated the claims before his visit to California. While Trump did not explicitly call for an expansion of logging in his latest response, he has previously touted this strategy as a way to curb fires. Meanwhile, the federal government is moving to allow commercial logging in areas such as the Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara, claiming it will prevent fires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also blamed "environmental terrorist groups" for preventing the government from properly managing forests.

It is deeply troubling that Trump and his administration would support logging as a way to curb fires when studies have shown it's ineffective. In the most comprehensive scientific analysis conducted on the issue of forest management and fire intensity -- which looked at more than 1,500 fires on tens of millions of acres across the Western United States over three decades -- we found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging actually tend to burn much more intensely, not less.

This may seem counterintuitive, but logging leaves behind combustible twigs and branches on the forest floor, which can make fires spread faster. It also reduces the cooling shade of the forest canopy, which creates hotter and drier conditions, and the invasive weeds that take over readily burn. Denser forests buffer and reduce the winds that drive wildland fires, but this effect is largely eliminated by logging.

The fact is that Northern California's Butte County, which has been ravaged by the Camp Fire, had been heavily logged in previous years. In the area immediately to the east of Paradise, dead trees had been extensively logged and removed on both private and public lands, and commercial "thinning" operations had been conducted across large expanses of the nearby Plumas National Forest, supposedly to protect nearby towns from wild land fire…

more: President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

A retired Army general just gave an epic response to Trump's military parade demand

“Donald Trump has continually shown himself to have authoritarian tendencies, and this is just another worrisome example,” his barrage opens.  He was just getting warmed up.

“For someone who just declared it was ‘treasonous’ to not applaud him, and for someone who has, in the past, admired tactics of everyone from Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin, it is clear that a military parade isn’t about saluting the military – it’s about making a display of the military saluting him.”

“The military is not Donald Trump’s to use and abuse in this way,” Eaton’s statement continues. “Our military is the very best in the world – they are not to be reduced to stagecraft to prop up Donald Trump’s image.”

“Any commander in chief who respects the traditions of the military would understand that. Unfortunately, we do not have a commander in chief, right now, as much as we have a wannabe banana republic strongman.”

complete article with link to original text: A retired Army general just gave an epic response to Trump's military parade demand

:O

Donald Trump just asked Congress to end the rule of law.

Donald Trump’s first State of the Union was a deeply dangerous speech.

It was deeply dangerous because he finally followed in the footsteps of European leaders like Hungarian President Viktor Orban who have long ago learned to give an attractive look to authoritarian populism.

Like them, Trump eschewed openly racist remarks in his speech, even emphasizing how much he (supposedly) cares about the fate of Latinos and black Americans. Like them, he called for economic policies, like paid family leave, that would actually benefit ordinary people. And like them, he then cast himself as the only man willing to prioritize the interests of his supporters over those of foreigners and political elites.

It was Bannonism without Bannon’s penchant for shock and awe. And it played shockingly well.

But Trump’s speech was also deeply dangerous for an even more important reason: Under the cover of his soothing rhetoric about unity and bipartisanship, Trump called on Congress to give him unprecedented and unquestionably antidemocratic powers: “Tonight,” he said, “I call on the congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers—and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people…”

more: Donald Trump just asked Congress to end the rule of law.

Protest Sat Nov 11: No “Fire & Fury” Against North Korea or Iran, No U.S. Aggression in the Middle East! This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! | In the Name of Humanity We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America

No “Fire & Fury” Against North Korea or Iran
No U.S. Aggression in the Middle East!
This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!
Saturday Nov 11 Protest (click for locations and times)

Protest Sat Nov 11: No “Fire & Fury” Against North Korea or Iran, No U.S. Aggression in the Middle East! This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! | In the Name of Humanity We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America

Refuse Fascism Events on Facebook

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