Sunday, November 11, 2018

Week-end Wrap - November 10, 2018

Week-end Wrap - November 10, 2018
by Tony Wikrent
Economics Action Group, North Carolina Democratic Party Progressive Caucus

2018 Election Night Live Blog/Open Thread
Lambert Strether, November 6, 2018 [Naked Capitalism]
Now, we might ask ourselves what we’re going to get out of all this, should the Democrats win the House (or even the House and the Senate). This question interests me far more than the horserace, and I believe that I’ve shown the answer: “Not much.” This is true for at least two reasons: First, as I have shown, 2018’s left hasn’t got enough institutional power to force the Democrat Party to change direction; indeed, all signs point to a reactionary liberal Democrat desiire for restoration of the November 7, 2016 status quo ante ancien regime(perhaps with an admixture of new faces, as aspirational identity politicians assume new positions). This is clearly true if you make #MedicareForAll your litmus test on policy. Second, as I have shown, the composition of Democrat candidates in key districts is heavily weighted (25%) toward MILOs (Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Other). Further militarizing the Democrat Party says nothing good about policy, domestic or foreign. Now, as usual given the choices on offer, gridlock is our friend, so there’s nothing wrong with Democrats controlling the House; but as far as using or even reconceptualizing government to convey universal concrete material benefits, especially to the working class…. Well, we won’t be seeing anything like that, thank you very much. Which is unfortunate, because if you wanted to arrest the country’s decades-long rightward slide, that would be the way to do it. See under Roosevelt, Franklin Delano.
The Resistance Is Not a Call for Restoration
Robert L. Borosage, November 5, 2018 [The Nation, via Naked Capitalism 11-7-18]
After the midterms, Democrats must embrace the insurgencies that have reenergized the people and the party....
Establishment Democrats control the party, and have the money, and prominence in the media—but they still don’t have a clue. The progressive revolution that began building long before 2016 isn’t about to roll over. It’s enjoyed remarkable success in past years. Led by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, progressives have dominated the ideas debate. Medicare for All, tuition-free college, a 15-dollar-an-hour minimum wage, and criminal-justice and immigration-reform have gained ever-greater traction within the party. More and more Democratic candidates found it necessary to forgo taking corporate PAC money, even as small-donor contributions soared. Progressives will win victories up and down the ballot on Tuesday. The signature upsets of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley over Democratic incumbents put the rest of the party on notice. Progressive electoral capacity—from traditional groups like Moveon.org, Democracy for America, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Democratic Socialists of America, to newcomers like Indivisible, People’s Action (where I serve as a senior adviser), and the Movement for Black Lives—has expanded exponentially. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, already the largest values-based caucus in the Congress, is gearing up to push for major reforms....
Restoration is both bad politics and bad policy. Despite continued economic growth and low unemployment, the economy still doesn’t work for working people. Inequality grows worse; political corruption deepens; endless wars continue without victory, real security threats like catastrophic climate change are ignored. Repudiating Trump’s vile racist politics is necessary, but far from sufficient. 
Moreover, a restoration candidate gives Trump a stronger hand, allowing him to cast himself once more as the populist agent of change against an entrenched and failed establishment. And even if successful in ridding us of Trump, the result would be a Democratic administration that will once more fail working people, a failure that will surely feed an even uglier political reaction. 
To avoid this, the progressive movement needs to continue to build independently, inside and outside the party. Voters are looking for answers. They are just beginning to be introduced to bold ideas like Medicare for All and tuition-free college. That agenda needs to be expanded—and defended. In Congress, anything that passes from a Democratic-controlled House will die in the Republican Senate, so progressives should use the opportunity to hold hearings that detail bold reforms, and pass “message bills” that frame the alternative. Similarly, at the state and local level, progressives should use advances to drive bold reforms on everything from big money in politics and holding corporations accountable, to criminal-justice reform. One focus should be on the jobs and growth that can be generated by public investment in a Green New Deal, modernizing America while rebuilding it. Progressives should be pushing at every level to empower workers—and to curb a perverted capitalism that rewards CEOs for plundering their own companies.
Emphasis mine. In North Carolina, we must use the Progressive Caucuses and other organizations around the state, such as Neighbors on Call, and IndvisibleFlipNC, to persuade U.S. Representatives David Price, George K. Butterfield Jr., and Alma Adams to hold hearings and introduce legislation to "frame the alternative" to the past decades of misrule by both Republicans and Democrats, which has led USA down the path from a republic to an oligarchy. Price is probably going to be given the chairmanship of an important Appropriations subcommittee.

The Finance 202: The president's party just suffered a historically big wipeout during a strong economy
By Tory Newmyer, November 8, 2018 [Washington Post, via Naked Capitalism 11-7-18]
Measured against the strength of the economy, the GOP’s losses in the House mark the worst midterm results for a president's own party in at least a century, per Michael Cembalest, JPMorgan Asset Management’s chairman of market and investment strategy. 
The Midterm Results Gave Everybody Just Enough To Keep Fighting
[Intercept, via Naked Capitalism 11-7-18]
Democrats, on the back of historic turnout — the product of two years of post-Trump grassroots organizing — seized control of a House of Representatives that had been meticulously gerrymandered in order to assure that they would never be able to do just that.... 
The New York win ushered in not just incoming state Sen. Julia Salazar, but also at least a dozen senators backed by the Working Families Party, putting an end to an era of “three men in a room” rule in Albany.... 
The failure to deliver a knockout blow to Trump will exacerbate tensions within the Democratic Party, torn between its progressive wing, which wants to lean into small-dollar donors and run as the only party free of corporate corruption, and its centrist wing, which argues that only with corporate money and an inoffensive platform can Democrats take power.

....Democrats across the board ran as the most progressive class of challengers in a generation. But the most progressive of them — the ones who were hoping to prove that a bold message could carry deep red districts — fell short. Richard Ojeda lost in West Virginia; J.D. Scholtenlost by 11,000 votes to white nationalist Steve King in Iowa; in Omaha, Nebraska, Kara Eastman, whom the national party fought against in the primary, was trailing late into the night; in Syracuse, New York, Dana Balter, whom the party had also battled, lost her bid; Leslie Cockburn lost in rural Virginia; and Jess King lost in rural Pennsylvania. 
Some of the centrist candidates that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fought for in contested primaries won their races. Jason Crow emerged victorious in Colorado, and Elaine Luria persevered in Virginia, as did Lizzie Pannill Fletcher in Texas — lining up the kind of wins that will embolden party leadership to continue intervening in primaries against candidates that are deemed too progressive.

Early exit polls: US midterms all about Trump
[Politico, via Naked Capitalism 11-7-18]  
“More than three-in-four voters said that recent extremist violence was either the most important or an important factor in their vote today, the CNN poll found.”

Strikes and Picket Lines, Explained
[Teen Vogue, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18]  
“The past month has seen multiple sports teams run afoul with one of the most important current labor actions in America: a massive nationwide hotel work stoppage happening right now, with more than 7,700 members of a hospitality workers’ union on strike…. Why is it such a big deal that they and their unionized cohorts crossed the Marriott picket line? Why does the concept “never cross a picket line” matter? What does it mean to “go out on strike” or to be a “scab”? Let’s break it down using these recent examples....
Instead, stand with striking workers, donate to strike funds when you can, and never cross a picket line!
Lambert Strether asks: "How come we’re seeing this in Teen Vogue, and not, say, in the Washington Post or the New York Times?"

Why Doctors Hate Their Computers 
[The New Yorker, via Naked Capitalism 11-6-18] 
“A 2016 study found that physicians spent about two hours doing computer work for every hour spent face to face with a patient—whatever the brand of medical software. In the examination room, physicians devoted half of their patient time facing the screen to do electronic tasks. And these tasks were spilling over after hours. The University of Wisconsin found that the average workday for its family physicians had grown to eleven and a half hours. The result has been epidemic levels of burnout among clinicians. Forty per cent screen positive for depression, and seven per cent report suicidal thinking—almost double the rate of the general working population. Something’s gone terribly wrong. Doctors are among the most technology-avid people in society; computerization has simplified tasks in many industries. Yet somehow we’ve reached a point where people in the medical profession actively, viscerally, volubly hate their computers.”

What The Attack On NYC’s African Burial Ground Says About The Elite’s Attempts To Divide Workers
November 6, 2018
By Joe Maniscalco[Labor Press]
Last week’s vandalism at the African Burial Ground National Monument — now removed — appeared as a scrawled invective to “Kill N – – – – – s” on a plaque recalling the solemn memorial’s historical significance to all Americans. 
As astute historians have already noted — white supremacy and racism have, indeed, for a very long time, been the elite’s tools of choice to divide and diminish the power of America’s working class. Billionaire Donald Trump and his corporate-dominated administration have only sought to ratchet up the hate and ensuing confusion even further. 
“We are clear about what is happening in this country right now,” Council Member Jumaane Williams told LaborPress. “We’ve been talking about these issues before two years ago [when Trump was elected], because we knew they were there. Right now, we have a space where people don’t even feel ashamed to espouse their belief in nationalism; their belief in white supremacy.That is a dangerous thing — particularly, when you add that to the access to guns.” 
A report issued in May from the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, found that since Trump took office, hate crimes have risen 12.5-percent in 10 of the country’s biggest cities.

Trump the Revealer
Barry Ritholtz, November 4, 2018 (The Big Picture)
...I have been rolling over a fascinating idea in my mind about President Trump: He has revealed (or reminded) many great truths to us about human nature, history, tactics, manipulation, institutions, and the nation. By this, I don’t mean to imply he himself has spoken great truths; rather, that we can learn a great deal about many things simply from watching his effects on the world.[i] 
If you doubt this to be true, then consider this short list truths revealed by Trump: 
....
Social Media: is toxic. Facebook is a clusterfuck of confirmation bias and stupidity; Twitter is too incompetent to police its own ranks – my best guess is somewhere between 25% and 50% of all accounts are bots, trolls, frauds and Russian scammers; Even YouTube is a mess of racism, sexism, and violence. The internet works well to bring together those former loners, giving them comfort to learn there are others who think like them. 
....
Deficit (Chicken) Hawks: Do not care about fiscal responsibility or “the debt we are foisting on our grandchildren,” or even effective economic policy. So-called “Deficit Hawks” care about only one thing: using debt as a cudgel to hurt their political opponents and help themselves. The US could have used a giant stimulus in 2009, but that might have helped their political opponent. Mitch McConnell killed any thought of a multitrillion-dollar stimulus. The Fauxhawks all screamed deficits, despite this being the depths of the Great Recession, when the spend would have done the most good.
Instead, McConnell & Crew waited for 2017 to implement a trillion-dollar deficit funded tax cut. If you think “Party First, Nation Second” sounds like misplaced priorities, well you are right. Its border-line treason. Trump revealed the deficit hawks as full of chickenshit.
.... 
America is Anti-Semitic: As a Jew, I should have known this. But I hardly experience antisemitism personally in and around NYC or when I travel within the US or to Europe.[iii] World War Two is over, and the Nazis lost, right? It is hard to believe a Nazi movement is rising in America when it should be dead and buried for 75 years. Yet prior to Trump, it was unimaginable to me that someone would shoot up a synagogue of Holocaust survivors in Pittsburgh because they were Jews.
....
Trump revealed the evangelicals as frauds – they ignore the Bible, care more about power than saving souls, and are without shame or a moral center.” 
Lambert Strether included this last sentence in the article by Ritholtz in NC's Water Cooler 11-6-18, and added:
Nonsense. Bush revealed the evangelicals as frauds. Worse, he revealed the evangelicals as unfit to govern. This, along with much else, has long been obvious to anybody who pays attention. This is not a bad piece, but so many, many things that are presumed to have become problems only with Trump’s ascent have in fact been festering for one, two, three, or four administrations.

Their Soybeans Piling Up, Farmers Hope Trade War Ends Before Beans Rot
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18] 
“But this year, the Chinese have all but stopped buying. The largest market for one of America’s largest exports has shut its doors. The Chinese government imposed a tariff on American soybeans in response to the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods. The latest federal data, through mid-October, shows American soybean sales to China have declined by 94 percent from last year’s harvest.”
The Liberal International Order
PAULR, November 7, 2018 [irrussianality, via Naked Capitalism 11-8-18]
....both Herbst and Fried had a lot to say about the ‘liberal international order’, which they felt was under threat for all the reasons mentioned above. And then Herbst said something quite interesting. Talking about Ukraine, he remarked that he was confident that reform would continue even if current frontrunner Yulia Timoshenko wins next year’s Ukrainian presidential election. Timoshenko is running a campaign based in part on rejection of much of the proposed reform program. But, Herbst pointed out, Ukraine is in desperate need of money. So we needn’t worry, he said, for the West can use the IMF ‘to bash her on the head’ (or words to that effect) to force Timoshenko and the Ukrainian parliament to enact the reforms that the West deems necessary. 
And there’s the ‘liberal international order’ for you. Unwittingly, Herbst let the cat out of the bag and told us something important about how members of the Western establishment view the purpose of international institutions – not as institutions designed to facilitate foreign governments’ efforts to pursue the policies they wish to pursue, but as tools of the West to force them to do what the West wants them to do. In other words, the liberal international order, isn’t really international, but an extension of Western power. As you will notice, there’s also very little about this which is ‘liberal’.
The People, No [The populist revolt against liberalism] 
Thomas Frank [The Baffler, via Naked Capitalism 11-8-18]
A must-read, that is short and powerful. Though, if you don't know at least a little bit about the populist movement of the 1870s through 1890s, you might be mystified about why Frank is upset.
The common man appeared to be in open rebellion against liberalism, and it was no passing tantrum. Dozens of tax revolts and busing riots and flag battles later, The Baffler tried to gauge the volcanic perversity of the spectacle. Populism, we thought in 1999, had once been a phenomenon of the left; it was a mobilization of the people united in outrage against bankers, industrialists, or just “the establishment.” How had it come to pass that middle-class Americans now poured into the streets to demand that the taxes of the rich be cut or that the coal mines be deregulated? And how could the backlash keep going as it dismantled the middle-class arrangements on which its fantasies were based? 
....The story of how racist right-wing demagoguery came to be the meaning of “populism” rather than a perversion of the populist impulse is a fascinating one, but what’s even more critical now is the implication of the change. 
What does it tell us when liberals, faced with epic political corruption, spectacular bank misbehavior, and towering inequality, take that opportunity to declare war on populism?

Abby Martin: The Democratic Party’s ‘Abysmal Failure’ Presenting a Platform
[Real News Network 11-9-18]
Being anti-Trump is not good enough for defeating Trump. The Democratic Party needs a clearer and more progressive platform if it hopes to halt the country’s rightward movement, says Empire Files’ Abby Martin on the TRNN midterm election panel
Midterm Elections: Corporate Democrats Versus the Monster They Empowered
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor [Black Agenda Report 11-8-18]
Only transformational programs, like single payer health care, can erode the coherence of the White Supremacist Bloc, and at the same time galvanize the numeric majority of the nation.

Howie Klein: Democratic Party Supported Corporate Dems Over Progressives ‘100 to 1’
[Real News Network 11-9-18]
Down with Tyranny! blogger Howie Klein, who joined the TRNN panel on election night, explains that one reason why progressive candidates did not fare so well in this midterm election is that the Democratic Party did not support progressives at all
The Southernization of the Midwest
by Benjamin Studebaker [benjaminstudebaker.com, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18]
In 2008, Barack Obama won Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won only Illinois and Minnesota, and Minnesota was a close call, decided by just a single point. This is the region that has changed the most politically in the last decade. Most of these states have, at some point in the last 10 years, fallen under control of a Republican governor who has attempted to radically reform their labour laws and pension systems in bids to remodel these Midwestern states after the states of the deep south. Their strategy is simple–lower taxes, stifle wage growth, strangle unions, kill regulations, and pirate jobs and investment from the states that fail to do the same.... 
Minnesota and Illinois have done the best job resisting southernization, and they retain the two highest real median household incomes in the region as a result. The trouble is that because these states are surrounded by Midwestern states which are participating in the race to the bottom, they are constantly seeing opportunistic employers relocate jobs and investment to red states where taxes, wages, and regulations are lower. The more other Midwestern states southernize, the more pressure there is on Illinois and Minnesota to follow suit.

Trump’s Judges Imperil Our Rights for Decades
[TruthOut, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18]
A very depressing review of Neil Gorsuch's conservative decisions on the Supreme Court, and of Trump's appointees to lower federal courts. 
Trump’s circuit court appointees are displaying a disturbing record of regressive decisions that threaten the rights of all but the very powerful and uphold unlimited money in politics, as the report shows.
Trump Administration Spares Corporate Wrongdoers Billions in Penalties
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18]

Campaign Spending Isn’t The Problem – Where The Money Comes From Is
[International Business Times, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18]
Barely one-half of 1 percent of the adult population has given $200 or more in connection with this year’s federal elections. Yet collectively they have accounted for more than 66 percent of campaign funds, or more than $3.4 billion. 
More strikingly, a little more than 37,000 people – or about one-thousandth of one percent of the adult population – have so far given $10,000 or more each, aggregating to nearly $1.9 billion, or 38 percent of the total.
The theory of republican government recognized the two major threats to a republic are a permanent military establishment, and concentrated economic power. Our polity has established, over time, political traditions and norms of behavior that circumscribe and limit the political involvement, and even the free speech, of military officers. We need to develop similar political traditions and norms of behavior regarding the rich. Only a cultural renaissance of republican thinking can accomplish placing acceptable limits on the political activity and speech rights of the rich without destroying the speech rights of all. 

Perhaps this is one approach:
Modern Family creator Steve Levitan Says He Won’t Work With Fox Broadcasting While Fox News Is ‘Destructive Voice’ 
[Variety, via The Big Picture 11-4-18]

Progressivism is Popular and Conservatism is Not!
[Data for Progress, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18] 
“An exploration of the crosstabs on the single payer question demonstrates further the popularity of progressive policies. The Upshot/Siena team asked “Do you support the creation of a national insurance program, in which every American would get insurance from a single government plans?” Support for such a program goes beyond Obamacare and the standard position of the Democratic party, and doesn’t even mention the popular Medicare program. And yet, it is overwhelmingly popular among swing district Democrats and very popular among swing district independents. Even one-fourth of Republicans support this progressive dream!”

How Everything Became the Culture War 
[Politico, via The Big Picture 11-5-18]
President Donald Trump has pioneered a new politics of perpetual culture war, relentlessly rallying his supporters against kneeling black athletes, undocumented Latino immigrants and soft-on-crime, weak-on-the-border Democrats. He reverses the traditional relationship between politics and governance, weaponizing policy to mobilize his base rather than mobilizing his base to change policy. 
....the next big Republican culture war will be a war on college. For generations, the notion of higher education as a ladder of opportunity for everyone has been an anodyne nonpartisan talking point, even if Democrats and Republicans disagreed on the appropriate levels of federal funding and regulation. But Republican attitudes are changing. In Ohio, I heard them talk about taxpayer-funded school bureaucrats who trick kids into believing that expensive and often useless liberal-indoctrination universities are the only way to get ahead in life; siphoning students away from vocational programs that could prepare them for well-paying jobs. 
It’s probably not a coincidence that this shift is happening at a time when college-educated voters are trending Democratic and noncollege whites have been Trump’s most reliable constituency. Policies that hurt colleges, like policies that hurt cities, are policies that hurt Democrats. To listen to pols talk about college these days is to watch a wedge issue in its embryonic stage, as substantive questions about the cost and relevance of higher ed, the burdens of student debt, the adequacy of worker training and the power of political correctness on campus start to morph into red-meat attacks on pointy-headed elitists who look down on ironworkers and brainwash America’s youth. Republicans are starting to fit the Democratic push for universal free college into their larger critique of the Democratic urge to hand out free stuff to Democratic voters. And they’re portraying a liberal arts education as a culturally liberal thing, like kale or Kwanzaa or reusable shopping bags.

Mark Sumner, November 7, 2018 [DailyKos]
Democrats took the House in a massive repudiation of Donald Trump, throwing Republicans out of district after district. On the other hand, the Senate edged more Republican as Trump proved that 70 percent of the Senate really does represent 30 percent of the population. But even those numbers are deceptive. Here are the real Senate results from last night, as of 8 AM this morning … 
Senate Vote Totals 
Democratic Party: 44.9 million votes

Republican Party: 32.9 million votes

 
Gerrymandering: The wall that prevented a true Democratic victory
By Rob Schofield, November 7, 2018 [North Carolina Policy Watch]
This was most obvious in the state’s [North Carolina] 13 congressional districts where the total vote was almost dead even, despite the presence of nine extremely well-funded Republican incumbents and one race — the third district — in which Democrats didn’t even field a candidate. In the 12 contested races, the vote total thus far shows Republicans winning 1,642,344 votes or about 48.5% while Democrats won 1,747,742 or around 51.5%. Yet, despite this impressive performance, Democrats only won three of the 12 seats.

Panasonic Says Gigafactory Profit in Sight as Tesla Ramps Output
[Industry Week, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18]  
“Panasonic Corp. is on the verge of turning a profit at the giant U.S. battery factory it operates with Tesla Inc., finally yielding returns for a Japanese company shelling out billions to make power cells for Elon Musk. Panasonic already makes money on batteries for the Model S and Model X, which it produces domestically, President Kazuhiro Tsuga said in an interview. It’s now ramping up output at the two-year-old Gigafactory in Nevada, which is dedicated to making batteries for the Model 3 but still losing money, he said.”
The $6 Trillion Barrier Holding Electric Cars Back 
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 11-7-18]  
Consumers bought more than 1 million electric vehicles last year, an increase of almost 60 percent from 2016, even as global car demand turned lower. China, with an aggressive green vehicle policy, accounts for almost half of worldwide electric passenger-car sales. The average price of lithium ion batteries, which account for almost half a car’s cost, has dropped from $599 per kilowatt-hour to $208 per kWh over the past five years. Drivers now have almost 600,000 charging outlets globally, of which more than half are in China.... 
The trouble is, the sales numbers don’t say much about quality or technology. Earlier this year, analysts from UBS Group AG went to scope out electric-car batteries around Asia-Pacific. The reality on the ground wasn’t as good as the figures suggested. China’s domestic batteries performed poorly at low temperatures and companies had other manufacturing issues, the analysts noted after speaking to unidentified industry participants.... 
An estimated $6 trillion is theoretically needed to build the infrastructure that electric cars need such as charging stations and power networks, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. That’s about 7.5 percent to 8 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.
There’s No Plan B for Port Security 
[Foreign Policy, via Naked Capitalism 11-6-18]  
“80 percent of the world’s trade still goes by sea. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the 40 largest ports handle 60 percent of all the goods shipped around the world. That loading and unloading used to be done by hand, back when dock work was a mainstay of industrial cities. But, as noted by Mark Hagerott, a retired U.S. Navy officer who is now the chancellor of the North Dakota University System, ‘ports are designed for efficiency: automation and low cost,’ and all of it is digitally connected. ‘In case of a digital disruption, we don’t have the ability to revert a Plan B using more manual offloading. There aren’t enough dock workers on site, nor does the cargo lend itself to manual movement.'”
[Houston Chronicle (tiered subscription model) (11/8), via American Wind Energy Association 11-9-18]
Residents and businesses in Texas shaved nearly $5 billion off their utility bills between 2010 and 2017 by sourcing electricity from renewables, according to a report commissioned by the American Wind Energy Association and other industry groups. In addition, the wind and solar industries employ almost 33,000 people in the state.

FERC: Only wind, solar projects came online in Sept.
[Renewables Now (Bulgaria) (tiered subscription model) (11/6) via American Wind Energy Association 11-6-18]
Wind and solar projects represented 100% of the new capacity added to the US electrical grid in September, adding a combined 702 megawatts to the grid, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The figures include the launch of the 200-MW Persimmon Creek Wind Farm in Oklahoma and a 160-MW project in Texas.

National lab report confirms wind's contributions to a reliable power system
[Into the Wind blog (11/5) via American Wind Energy Association 11-6-18]
There is an all too common misconception among policymakers, regulators and power market participants that wind energy isn't reliable, and that turbines can't provide essential grid reliability services. In reality, wind turbines can provide many of the services needed for reliable grid operations, including voltage and reactive power control, frequency response, active power control, and voltage and frequency ride-through.
Report: UK has more renewable energy capacity than fossil fuel
[Reuters (11/6) via American Wind Energy Association 11-6-18]
Wind and other renewables accounted for 42 gigawatts of the UK's generating capacity in 2018, putting the energy sources ahead of fossil fuels for the first time, according to the Imperial College London. The report said fossil fuel sources accounted for 40.6 GW of the UK's generating capacity.
Study finds wind the lowest-cost energy source in much of the US
[Daily Energy Insider (11/5)via American Wind Energy Association 11-5-18]
Wind is the most economical energy source in several US regions, including the Midwest and Texas, the High Plains and parts of the Northeast, according to a University of Texas at Austin study. Researchers have developed a map based on the levelized cost of electricity to help stakeholders visualize the cost of various energy sources in the US.

Engineers at The Georgia Institute of Technology have merged the ancient art of folding paper, origami, with 3D printing to come up with a one-step approach to fabricating complex expandable structures.
Saving Lives with 3D Printing
[Machine Design 11-7-18]
Printing models continues to aid surgeries, while researchers think they are closer than ever to printing an organ.
Introducing Sierra, the World’s Third-Fastest Supercomputer
[Machine Design 11-7-18]
In another step toward exascale computing, the DoE acquires a new supercomputer to maintain the country’s nuclear stockpile.
How a traumatized America finds relief in hate 
[Philadelphia Inquirer, via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18] 
“The connecting line between addiction and hate, according to Maté, is trauma. “‘What happened in Pittsburgh is a manifestation of trauma,’ [Dr. Gabor Maté] told the Inquirer. ‘There is no mass killer who wasn’t a traumatized person.’…. “The research is absolutely clear,’ Maté says. ‘The more inequality in a society, the more hate, the more dysfunction, the more mental illness, the more physical illness.‘ It should come as no surprise, then, that we see more addiction and more mass shootings since ‘the inequality is rising all the time.’ Violence against racial, ethnic, or religious groups ‘is a manifestation of a society that foments division amongst people and sets people against each other.'”
Five True Things About Mike Pence 
[Down with Tyranny, via Naked Capitalism 11-6-18] 


Thom Hartmann [Truthdig, via Naked Capitalism 11-6-18]
In Canada, every citizen has a Canadian government-issued “Health Insurance Card” (you can see Quebec’s card at the link). It’s largely only available to citizens, as all citizens are eligible for the Canadian Medicare system; everybody else has to work out other insurance options (yes, there are insurance companies in Canada). And in most provinces, the card has your photo and works as an ID card as well as a driver’s license or passport. 
And the Canadian government also explicitly says right here on Quebec’s elections website that your Medicare card is also your first-choice voter ID card....
But with a national ID system in place that’s universally used because it’s the key to getting your health care and medications, there’s no need for “voter registration” and thus no ability for the GOP to purge voters. Voter registration, after all, is a practice we largely got after the Civil War because Southern white politicians warned of “voter fraud” being committed by recently freed black people, and some Northern states used it to prevent poor whites from voting.

Try These 5 Techniques to Make Your Next Political Argument Fruitful
[Scientific American,via Naked Capitalism 11-6-18]  
“Our modern political parties are powerful tribes through which we express our social identities and take cues on how to vote. Often, it’s more important to humans that they be accepted by their tribe than to be right. And it’s not even that irrational: evolutionarily, not being part of a tribe was a death sentence.”


via Naked Capitalism 11-5-18]
Having destroyed thousands — literally, thousands — of real town centers, Walmart is now creating faux town centers around its ailing stores.

Food trucks, farmers markets, restaurants. First one in Loveland, CO.

There’s a video. I’m losing my mind.https://www.
walmartreimagined.com
Posted by Tony Wikrent at 8:12 AM

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