Sleeping on the floor in airports

Many people will be doing that tonight.  I’ve done it twice–once in Edmonton and once in Las Vegas.  It is not pleasant.  When I did it, however, I was fairly sure I would be flying out the next day.  Those poor people stranded now have no such assurance.

 I heard the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Homeland Security on why this happened, and both of these clowns blamed Congress.  You know, the Congress that has been in the control of Republicans.

On the other hand, the ballroom construction and the disappearing of immigrants seems to be going rather well.

"Kill the Endangered Species Act" proposed legislation

This is a tense time.  The newly elected Congress is not sworn in until January.  That gives the Republicans (and Fetterman) time to screw up all kinds of things, and they are at work doing just that.  

The Senate has already approved the “Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026” also known as the “Kill the Endangered Species Act.”

Some Democrats voted for it, saying they will make amendments in the final version after the bill goes to the House.  Why vote for it at all?  

Here are some of the provisions:

it will weaken protections across the country by gutting the national system for protecting endangered species, replacing it with a patchwork of up to 50 different state processes.  

it will exempt some highway and water projects from endangered species requirements, never asking if the project might jeopardize the existence of an endangered species.

it will shift conservation responsibilities to state agencies.  You think South Dakota and Wyoming give a damn about endangered species?

it will even cut federal wildlife scientists out of decisions about projects that threaten endangered animals.  

This bill should never have seen the light of day.

Information for this post was provided by Defenders of Wildlife, although it was I who renamed the bill. 

Sen. Colom

I just looked at the clock and it is the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the time when the WWI Armistice went into effect.  

I have a birthday coming up soon.  I’ll be 84.  I have lived long enough to see a human walk on the moon, to see a Black president elected, and now to see a Black U.S. Senator elected from Mississippi.  Amazing.

Tomorrow I am going to the gym.  Tonight I’ll get a good night’s sleep.  I am trying to stay healthy so I live long enough to see Trump arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to prison.  Then I can die even happier than I am tonight.

Trump and Big Bend National Park

The lower Federal courts have been a bulwark against many of Trump’s actions, only to be overruled by the Supreme Court.  The latest example is in Big Bend National Park.  A lower court federal judge ruled that Congress had not authorized the use of 30 foot tall steel walls and new roads through the Park.  She ordered an immediate stop to all construction-related activity.  

The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal, lying about the number of border crossings in the area.  The U.S. Supreme Court said the Administration could continue with the wall construction.  The Court said that the law limits judges powers to intervene when the federal government decided speedy border barrier construction is necessary.

In Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Sawyer (1952) the Supreme Court said President Truman did not have the power to seize steel mills even though he claimed troops in Korea needed steel production because of the Korean War.  That was when the U.S. Supreme Court took its job (and the Constitution) seriously.

Remember what can be built can also be torn down, but in the meantime cross-border animal migrations have also been stopped and one our best national parks desecrated.  

We have got to put term limits on the Court, or limit its jurisdiction, or add judges.  None of those items need a Constitutional amendment, just legislation.  

Political friends

In 1965 a political scientist named Mancur Olson wrote a guide to group recruitment and maintenance.  The book was entitled The Logic of Collective Action.  Olson said that there were three reasons people joined groups or continued to support group activity.  

Purposive reasons were when you believed in the goals of a group and wished to support the group’s ideology.  If you liked history, you might join a preservation society.  An environmentalist could join Nature Conservancy; a civil libertarian would join the ACLU.

Material reasons are obvious.  People form labor unions for higher wages or better pensions.  Some groups formed for non-material purposes will also give their members material incentives–calendars or discounts on certain products as a reward for joining.

Olson noted that sometimes people who joined a group stayed active for what he called solidary reasons, or what I would call friendship.  Their associations turned into something more than membership for material gains or ideological goals.  They got along with each other, liked each other, formed close friendships.  

Political party activists at one time may have registered and became active for material motives.  This is no doubt why Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg suck up to Republican Party leaders like Trump.  Most activists, however, don’t expect to gain employment or favors.  Civil service certainly has cut down on that aspect.

I would guess that most party activists, certainly the ones I know, become active in Democratic Party politics because they believe in health care for all, or they support a woman’s right to control her reproductive decisions, or they are worried about global warming, or they dislike the brutality of ICE.  

An interesting aspect of this activism is that they become friends with one another.  At least that is the case for me.  I don’t have a huge number of friends, but those that I have tend to be political cohorts.  I obviously know some people who are MAGA types, and I might even be able to think of one who I consider a friend (give me some time on that), but most of my friends are on the left (or far left) end of the political spectrum.

 

Harvie and Fitzpatrick

If this were 1950 or even 2000 I would think it was too bad that Congressman Fitzpatrick from Southeast Pennsylvania lost his seat.  He was a decent man, a good vote on the environment, and a frequent critic of Trump.  But it is 2026, with a polarized country and a Republican Party firmly in control of President Trump.  If Trump dies and Vance dies, House Speaker Mike Johnson becomes President.  Republicans control all Committees in the House.  The 2024 Republican platform was written by the Heritage Foundation, a far right group of fanatics.  

If Fitzpatrick really wanted to stop Trump and to reflect his constituents, all he had to do was change parties.  He wouldn’t have been the first congressman to switch.  He could have resigned in protest.  He could have switched to Independent.

Or he could lose the race last Tuesday to Democrat Bob Harvie.  I don’t feel the same satisfaction I did with the races in Ohio or Texas or Kansas or Michigan, but I am still happy with that outcome.  

The Commie threat!

A local newspaper reporter interviewed voters in Lehighton on the day of the election.  One voter said it was important to vote because “We don’t need any communists.”  At the same polling location another voter explained,” I hope (this) morning we don’t have to get up and say we’re communists.”

I don’t even know what to say to that.