Tim Michels Is Another Donald Trump
By John Nichols

Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 by convincing Americans that his experience as a businessman would make him a decisive and effective president of the United States. Trump's claims about his management prowess were always based on fantasy, as he wasn't a particularly good businessman - he went bankrupt four times and is currently under investigation for massive irregularities in his financial dealings. But he managed to secure an Electoral College win.

Four years later, after experiencing Trump's management style, Americans rejected the Republican and elected Democrat Joe Biden. The voters gave Biden a popular vote majority of 7 million ballots, a solid Electoral College mandate and a charge to clean up the mess that his twice-impeached predecessor made of pretty much everything - including what should have been a straightforward response to the coronavirus pandemic.

There are a lot of reasons why Trump's presidency crashed and burned. But the core problem was that he had no experience with governing and embraced the fatally flawed theory that government can and should be run like a business.

Some business leaders who go into politics recognize this reality and adjust accordingly. They use their management skills to serve in the public interest. But Trump never figured out how to do that, and his presidency produced a wreckage of broken promises, failed schemes, corruption and scandal.

Unfortunately, Trump did not learn any lessons from the experience. He has denied the reality of his election defeat, going so far as to try and disenfranchise Wisconsin voters whose ballots tipped the state from his column to Biden's. And he continues to advocate for candidates who share the view that a businessman running as a "political outsider" is best suited to govern.

In Wisconsin, Trump has found a perfect match in Tim Michels, a construction company magnate who has spent most of the past decade living on a lavish estate in Connecticut. The former president endorsed the self-financing millionaire for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in a contest with a significantly better prepared candidate, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.

Michels prevailed in the primary by aligning his candidacy with Trump, ideologically and stylistically.

"I'm not looking for a political career," said Michels. "I'm 59 years old. I am doing this to serve. President Trump didn't have to run for president, but he wanted to drain the swamp. I don't have to run for governor, but I'm going to turn Madison upside down."

As he campaigns this fall, Michels wants voters to hear his talk of turning Madison upside down as a election promise. But Wisconsinites who are concerned about maintaining the strong commitment to public education, public services and sound fiscal management that have been the characteristics of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers's tenure will be forgiven if they hear a threat.

Throughout this campaign, Michels has regularly reframed his positions on critical issues like abortion rights, fair elections and how he might upend public education with voucher schemes. In doing so, he has shown himself to be more like Trump than anyone expected. Though Michels has run for office before - as a failed candidate for the state Senate in 1998 and the U.S. Senate in 2004 - he does not seem to have thought a lot about what he would do if he actually won an election.

This month's gubernatorial debate illustrated the problem. While Evers detailed his record and spelled out precise plans, Michels made grandiose statements that were lacking in substance. For instance, when the issue of gun violence arose, Evers spoke in detail about popular initiatives such as red-flag laws and universal background checks. How did the Republican respond? "And guns? I have a solution for that," said Michels, who, the Associated Press noted, made his pronouncement "without detailing what that solution was."

If that sounds familiar, it should. Trump did the same thing on issue after issue during the 2016 campaign. When he got power, however, his solutions were self-serving, ill-conceived and frequently disastrous.

Now, Michels proposes to repeat the fiasco in Wisconsin.

Early in this year's gubernatorial campaign, a Wisconsin Public Radio headline announced, "Tim Michels has run as a political outsider. To many, what he would do as governor is a mystery."

As Election Day approaches, there's no mystery. Tim Michels is another Donald Trump. If Michels succeeds in buying Wisconsin's governorship, the chaos that the former president unleashed on Washington from 2017 to 2021 will be unleashed on Madison.

(c) 2022 John Nichols writes about politics for The Capitol Times. His book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, is published by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising.

How The Celtic Holiday Samhain Became Halloween
By James Donahue

Halloween is a contemporary version of an ancient Celtic holiday called Samhain, a celebration of the last harvest, the end of summer and for them, the first day of the New Year.

The Celts celebrated the beginning of the New Year on November 1 because it was the mid-way point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice.

The day also had a dark side because it marked the beginning of the long cold winter. It was a time of the year associated with human death.

The Celts believed on the night before the New Year, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. Samhain thus was a strange event that occurred on the night of October 31. The people believed it was a time that the spirits of the dead returned to earth.

The spirits were believed to damage crops and cause other troubles so the Druids built large sacred bonfires to frighten them off. During the celebration, the people wore costumes, usually consisting of animal heads and skins.

When Christianity swept Europe and reached its tentacles into Ireland and Scotland, the Celtic people not only adopted this new religion, but the church strangely absorbed the Samhain celebration. Today the fundamental Christians want no part of Halloween and proclaim it profane.

Yet the holiday persists, and it has evolved through a variety of names including Day of the Dead, All Soul's Day, All Saint's Day, Hallowtide, Hallowmass, Harvest Home, Witches New Year, All Hallow's Eve and finally Halloween.

Before Christianity arrived, the Romans conquered the Celtic territory and during the 400 years of Roman rule, the festivals of the Romans were gradually blended in with those of the Celts. The Romans brought Feralia, a day in late October when they commemorated the passing of the dead. They also celebrated Pomona, a tribute to the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. It is from this old holiday that the tradition of "bobbing" for apples on Halloween had its origin.

In the Seventh Century Pope Boniface IV declared November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It was said the pope was attempting to use the religious holiday to displace the Celtic festival of the dead. Instead of destroying it, the people of Ireland merely blended the two celebrations together, creating the All Hallows Eve. The big bonfires, costumes and tricks never ceased.

The name of the two-day holiday eventually became twisted to Hallowmas, and then Halloween.

People still practice the old Samhain traditions by dressing up as spirits on Halloween. While the adults gather for parties, the children roam from house to house, seeking treats. The practice of leaving food at the door goes back to a time when people believed it pleased the spirits and that they would be left alone during the long winter months. So where did the other traditions of Halloween come from.

The scary face in the pumpkin, or jack-o-lantern, is nothing more than another old custom designed to ward off ghosts and witches. It was believed these evil spirits feared fire, thus the candle in the pumpkin. Originally it was said the people merely posted a candle on the top of a turnip. This evolved into the face in a pumpkin.

The name jack-o-lantern also has Irish origins. There is an old folk tale about a man named Jack that played a trick on the Devil. To get back at Jack, the Devil threw a burning coal from hell. Jack used the coal to light his "lantern" and then roamed the earth in search of a place to rest. The black cats, skulls and witches also were part of the old Celtic story. They believed witches used skulls to communicate with the dead. They derived their power to evoke evil spirits from black cats.

The Celts believed black cats were originally humans that were transformed by the witches.

(c) 2022 James L. Donahue is a retired newspaper reporter, editor and columnist with more than 40 years of experience in professional writing. He is the published author of five books, all dealing with Michigan history, and several magazine articles.

If We Can Find Just 238 More Congress Members Who Don't Want Us All To Die . . .
By David Swanson

When an election has been very close, many factors can be pointed to as each having been enough to make the difference. One of those in 2016 was very suggestive and very much ignored by, as far as I know, every single major media outlet except this one. I mean the phenomenon of military families voting against Hillary Clinton, believing her more likely than Donald Trump to get their loved ones killed. It seems this factor decided the election.

We're often told that the U.S. public loves war and militarism. But the U.S. public usually tries, if given any possible means of doing it, to vote for peace. Every successful U.S. presidential candidate since George W. Bush (himself against "nation building") has sought to be depicted as in favor of peace (although the policy details have not always fully matched the rhetoric). Candidate Richard Nixon had a secret plan for peace that we're still waiting to see, and his predecessors back to FDR presented themselves as antiwar, including FDR in the election of 1940, similar to Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for reelection because of his unpopularity, driven by his warmaking in Vietnam. George H.W. Bush thought a war might get him reelected; it did not. Peace, as a general rule, is popular, and when it becomes an election issue, as in the Congressional elections of 2006 it can lead all the exit polls as the top motivation for voters. It's a good idea to be on the right side of peace when such moments arise. It's also a good idea not to stab your voters in the back by escalating the war you were just elected to end, as the Democratic Congress did in 2007. Presidential candidate Joe Biden (the 2020 version) blatantly lied about his longstanding support for wars, including his leading role in launching the 2003 war on Iraq. He knew that a record of support for that war had helped to do in the presidential election campaigns of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and numerous others, including Joe Biden in past years. He knew that a major advantage for Barack Obama had been not having been in Congress in time to vote for that war. Biden had to campaign on ending the war on Afghanistan, and later actually do so. But he campaigned on a number of other things the public very much wanted, although Biden apparently had no intention of keeping these promises. Here are four examples:

The 2020 Democratic Party platform and the Biden for President campaign website promised to "end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and help bring the war to an end." Not only has Biden not done this, not only is he Saudi Arabia's biggest weapons dealer, but Congress has not voted to end this war, as it did when it could count on a Trump veto. A single member of Congress could force a new vote, but not a single one has the decency to do so.

The same Party platform promised to reduce military spending: "We spend 13 times more on the military than we do on diplomacy. We spend five times more in Afghanistan each year than we do on global public health and preventing the next pandemic. We can maintain a strong defense and protect our safety and security for less." President Biden has twice demanded major increases in military spending. Congress has twice given him more than he asked for. And that's not counting giving Ukraine tens of billions of dollars worth of free weapons, with not a single Democrat so much as voting No even once passage was assured.

The same Party platform promised to repeal old "Authorizations for the Use of Military Force." Congress has not done so.

The Biden campaign website promised to get war weapons off U.S. streets: "In 2005, then-Senator Biden voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but gun manufacturers successfully lobbied Congress to secure its passage. This law protects these manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products – a protection granted to no other industry. Biden will prioritize repealing this protection. Get weapons of war off our streets. The bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that Biden, along with Senator Feinstein, secured in 1994 reduced the lethality of mass shootings. But, in order to secure the passage of the bans, they had to agree to a 10-year sunset provision and when the time came, the Bush Administration failed to extend them. As president, Biden will: Ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. . . . Buy back the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines already in our communities."

None of this has been done.

For the past eight months it's been virtually impossible to get any Democrat, or any corporate media outlet that isn't Fox News, to say anything even sane about war, peace, or Ukraine. I've found myself in agreement with Henry Kissinger, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, and Donald Trump - reduced to relying on radioactive time bombs to be right twice a day. For the past eight months, people have been telling me to vote for Republicans, and marveling at the supposedly novel phenomenon of Congress Members flipping their war rhetoric based on the Party of the president. Often a rational view on Ukraine is accompanied by a demand for war on China, or other odious positions. But on Monday, 30 Congress Members sent a letter to Biden saying something we hadn't seen for two-thirds of a year:

"[W]e urge you to make vigorous diplomatic efforts in support of a negotiated settlement and ceasefire, engage in direct talks with Russia, explore prospects for a new European security arrangement acceptable to all parties that will allow for a sovereign and independent Ukraine, and, in coordination with our Ukrainian partners, seek a rapid end to the conflict and reiterate this goal as America's chief priority."

That's the best we've got after eight months. No hint at voting against more giant shipments of free weapons. No suggestion of using Congressional power in any way. No opposition to Ukraine joining NATO. No change in nuclear weapons policy. Just the expression of a desire to negotiate an end to the war. To get even a bare majority of the House and Senate to that point, we would need about 268 more of them to come around. Of course we wouldn't need the Senate if the House were to act by blocking something rather than passing something, but that really isn't how things are politely done, and the important thing at a time like this is manners. So, instead of 188, we need 238 more.

But what if we got that many Congress Members to sign even a slightly more sternly worded letter, while at the same time voting for infinite free weapons, NATO expansion, nuclear weapons construction, new bases in Europe, bigger military bills, and so on? I'll tell you one thing we're likely to get: Republicans. When people are fed up, even good rhetoric can be worse than nothing, in the absence of good actions. Given two revolting choices, most people pick the one they haven't been trying to stomach for the past couple of years.

That even the letter signed by 30 members was not intended to mean much was pointed out by its author Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal some hours later on Monday evening:

"In a letter to President Biden today, my colleagues and I advocated for the administration to continue ongoing military and economic support for Ukrainians while pursuing diplomatic support to Ukraine to ensure we are helpful partners on efforts to reach ‘a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine. . . . Let me be clear: we are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion, and nothing in the letter advocates for a change in that support."

Impressive. A meaningless letter presented as meaningless. This sort of stunt tends to just highlight the absence of what's needed, namely elected officials who would not have handled the Cuban Missile Crisis by killing all of our parents and grandparents. Where can we find such people? Not on any ballots I've seen.

I know that corporate polling suggests, and is aimed at suggesting, that U.S. voters want more weapons sent to Ukraine. But other polling suggests that view is quite unstable. I believe it is just possible that

1) The U.S. public has learned what Ukraine is.

2) The U.S. public has learned that wars have victims.

3) The U.S. public has learned that wars cost money.

(It took a proxy war with white victims for these things to happen.) and just maybe

4) The U.S. public has begun to catch on that the war in Ukraine is a choice, chosen by both sides, not a necessity.

But it's simply not possible that

5) Democrats will ever learn anything.

(c) 2022 David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.

In terms of resilience, social acceptance and economic viability, natural infrastructure is one of the most effective climate adaptation solutions

Trees Help Cities Tackle Climate Crisis And Inequality By David Suzuki Environmental racism or discrimination can take many forms. It can mean building polluting factories or mines next to Indigenous communities, or "relocating" marginalized or racialized people to make room for an industrial project or dam. To find an urban example, look to the trees. Research shows wealthier neighbourhoods usually have better tree and shrub cover than poorer, more diverse neighbourhoods. That's important for a number of reasons. First, most of us live in cities - 80 per cent in Canada. Beyond the fact that they look nice and increase property values, trees and shrubs reduce pollution and noise, keep air cooler, decrease flooding and runoff, make cities more resilient, improve mental health and well-being, and provide shelter and habitat for numerous animals. Trees' ability to cool and shade is particularly critical as the planet heats up. Sadly, people in areas with fewer trees also often lack air conditioners or public buildings where they can get relief. Giving more people better access to treed green spaces is something everyone can get behind. David Suzuki Foundation studies in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto found residents in all three cities are willing to invest in "an urban forest with a higher density of trees, a wider diversity of tree species, the presence of street shrubs." The studies - conducted by researchers at the University of Quebec in Outaouais and University of Montreal - point out that, in terms of resilience, social acceptance and economic viability, natural infrastructure is one of the most effective climate adaptation solutions. They also noted that "the distribution of vegetation over a city's territory is generally uneven: poorer or more multicultural neighbourhoods often have a thinner canopy than their richer or white neighbours. These well-documented inequalities can be seen in cities around the world, and Canadian cities are no exception." It's especially important as research shows urban areas are heating faster than rural areas - on average about 29 per cent. A study by scientists at Nanjing and Yale universities found planting trees along streets, creating rain gardens and removing pavement can create a cooling effect and reduce the rate of urban warming. Increasing trees and green spaces in urban areas has already reduced heat in cities in Europe and the U.S. But just as urban life can be difficult for residents in areas lacking green spaces and trees, it can also be difficult for trees. "Trees are not given enough room, they have poor soil quality and limited access to water," University of British Columbia assistant forestry professor Lorien Nesbitt told the West End Journal. "They're usually planted in an environment after all the grey infrastructure has already gone in. We need to create more space for trees in our city, and to prioritize protecting them." A recent study in Nature found that "more than two-thirds of tree species across cities worldwide are facing severe climate risks, undermining their roles in climate adaptation and other ecosystem services they provide." The researchers recommend cities everywhere take immediate measures such as planting more trees and shrubs, especially climate-resilient ones, and channelling rainfall into rain gardens or tanks. An urban forest is not, after all, the same as a wild forest, with its incredible diversity, mother trees, interconnected mycelial networks and abundance of wildlife. Urban plantings need to be planned and executed in ways that ensure resilience, including increasing tree and shrub diversity. The Foundation study found that, just as tree cover is lacking in neighbourhoods with socio-economically vulnerable populations, tree diversity was also proportionately lower, increasing "the risk of destruction of a larger part of the urban forest in these neighbourhoods following a disturbance." It's no wonder that research found such widespread support for more urban greening. Not only do trees, shrubs, rain gardens, "Butterflyways" and other green spaces offer numerous benefits for everything from human health and well-being to the climate crisis, they can also save enormous amounts of money by reducing health care costs, making city infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather-related events and even reducing crime. Greening cities is a crucial part of resolving the climate crisis, but it also offers ways to address the many inequities that poor urban planning has created and climate disruption has exacerbated. It's an affordable, practical, popular solution with numerous benefits and no real downside. (c) 2022 Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Protesters supporting Medicare for All hold a rally outside PhRMA headquarters April 29,
2019 in Washington, DC. The rally was held by the group Progressive Democrats of America.

Medicare For All Remains Best Cure For Sick Healthcare System This broken system consumes hundreds of billions of dollars annually and should be central in every election debate. By Amy Goodman Early voting in the 2022 midterm elections has begun in many states, and inflation, the economy, and recession are top concerns for most voters, according to polls. Democratic political consultant James Carville's 1992 presidential campaign quip, "It's the economy, stupid," has been getting lots of use lately. If true, it's odd that healthcare has hardly been raised as a campaign issue, even though it accounts for 20% of the U.S. economy. U.S. healthcare is a complex patchwork of public and private entities and programs, resulting in the most expensive per capita healthcare in the world. Yet, the health of people in this country, on average, is worse than in other wealthy nations. A key driver of this disparity is the hugely profitable private health insurance industry that has inserted itself between patient and doctor. This broken system consumes hundreds of billions of dollars annually and should be central in every election debate. One solution to this uniquely American problem would be adoption of single-payer healthcare, or Medicare for All, eliminating private insurers entirely. In a 2019 academic paper entitled "It's Still The Prices, Stupid: Why The US Spends So Much On Health Care," Johns Hopkins Professor Gerard Anderson and colleagues explain, "US per capita health spending was $9,892 in 2016. The US spending level was 25 percent higher than that of Switzerland ($7,919)...108 percent higher than that of neighboring Canada ($4,753)." Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a primary care physician and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Plan, which advocates for a U.S. single-payer system. She appeared on the Democracy Now! news hour in November, 2020, explaining, "What we really need is to provide good insurance to everyone. We call that single-payer or Medicare for All. It's a type of system that the rest of the developed world has, like Canada, like Scotland. You enroll in insurance the day you're born, and you keep it your entire life. It's not free; you pay for it through your taxes. But it's a much more efficient system, because you don't have all this administrative complexity and hassle that is eating up a huge share of U.S. healthcare spending, probably more than a third. So, by simplifying healthcare, moving it away from a business to a public service, you save a lot of money, that allows you to cover everyone and also remove copayments and deductibles, which have been a major problem in the ACA [Affordable Care Act]." The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed enormous gaps, flaws, and inequities in our healthcare system. Widespread access to publicly-subsidized vaccines here has radically altered the course of the pandemic, but COVID-19 is still causing deaths and hospitalizations and stressing our healthcare delivery system, especially frontline healthcare workers. The CDC reports that 323 people on average are dying daily from COVID in the U.S. This mostly preventable death toll is predicted to get worse this winter as people move indoors and new Omicron variants emerge. This week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra extended the COVID-19 public health emergency for another 3 months. This provides for a significant array of taxpayer-funded support, like free COVID vaccinations and testing kits. Perhaps more importantly, the emergency declaration extends added access to Medicaid coverage and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). When the Public Health Emergency ends, HHS estimates, up to 15 million people will lose their health insurance. Medicare for All is largely absent in media coverage. Could this be related to the media's money stream, the constant barrage of pharmaceutical and insurance company advertisements? Nevertheless, single-payer is being championed by many progressive candidates. Rep. Cori Bush, Democratic Congressmember from Missouri's 1st Congressional District, is running for reelection as she completes her first term. Cori Bush is the first African American woman representing Missouri in Congress. The formerly unhoused single mother is also a nurse. In her just-published memoir, "The Forerunner," she writes, "As someone who has been either uninsured or underinsured for most of my adult life, I know what it's like to be burdened by thousands of dollars in medical debt and to have to seek out routine medical care in an emergency room rather than with a primary care doctor. And as a nurse, I've seen too many patients forgo mental health services or be forced to ration their insulin because they couldn't afford the cost of treatment or medication. It's also why I fight for Medicare for All, including for easy access to comprehensive mental health services and affordable prescription drugs, because health care is a human right and must be guaranteed for everyone." Unmitigated greed of private health insurers and drug companies is a major driver of inequality in our society. Medicare for All is a long-overdue prescription for our ailing healthcare system. (c) 2022 Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now,!" a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 750 stations in North America. She is the co"author of "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times," recently released in paperback and "Breaking The Sound Barrier."

The Quotable Quote - "Let's be clear. The debate over health care in this country is not a debate about medical treatment or the best way to prevent disease. It is a debate about economics and class politics. Either we maintain a profit-driven health care system whose main function is to enrich certain individuals and institutions, or we develop a nonprofit, cost-effective system that provides quality health care for all people as a right of citizenship." ~~~ Bernie Sanders

One City In China Plans More Offshore Wind Capacity By 2030 Than The Entire United States By Juan Cole Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - The Shenzhen Daily reports that the city of Chaozhou in China's southern Guangdong Province is planning the world's largest offshore wind farm, at 43.3 gigawatts. The United States has almost no offshore wind now, but the Biden Administration has a goal of 30 gigawatts by 2030 and the Interior Department has leased large tracts of coastal waters to companies seeking to build offshore wind facilities. The upshot is that one city, Chaozhou, intends to outstrip the entire United States in offshore wind-generated electricity. China is a leader in this technology, so that 45% of the entire offshore wind capacity in the whole world is in China. Last year it opened a giant offshore wind facility off Jiangsu Province in the Yellow Sea; Asia is disorienting for Americans because it is full of enormous, vital cities and provinces to which we seldom give much attention, even if we have heard of them, which isn't often. I once spent some time as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Lingnang University in the north of Hong Kong, only a 20 minute drive from Guangdong Province, where Chaozhou is located. Chaozhou has a population inside city limits of roughly 2.5 million, making it similar to Houston or Chicago in the United States. So this would be like Houston putting in 45 gigs of new offshore wind power all by itself. While there are plans for such facilities in the Gulf of Mexico off Houston, they are presently far more modest. Chaozhou is a major ceramics center, with 12,000 companies specialized in making this material. It not only makes and exports household ceramics but also ceramic wafers for electronics and optical communication ceramics. The city elders want to create 5 manufacturing hubs in the city to expand beyond this industry to "modern agriculture, coastal industries, cultural tourism and emergency response industry." This planned expansion of economic clusters will need a lot of energy, hence the investment in offshore wind. The area of ocean in which the Chaozhou municipal officials plan to site the wind farms sees steady gusts, so that they estimate that the turbines will turn between 42% and 50% of the time, which is an extraordinary statistic. They also believe that the electricity generated by this enormous offshore wind facility will be competitive with that generated by fossil fuels like coal. Some 62% of Chinese electricity is coal-fired, though that statistic is way down from 85% two decades ago. China says it will reach zero carbon in 2060. That is late, but Chinese officials are afraid that moving more quickly to green the grid could cause a backlash from, e.g., coal miners and workers. My guess is that the Chinese Communist Party is underestimating how quickly the economy will be greened, since this process is not serial but exponential. Guangdong Province has a a population of over 126 million, so it is roughly as populous as Mexico or Japan. It has a gross domestic product of about $2 trillion per year, similar to that of Russia or Italy. Its capital is Guangzhou, which used to be known as Canton. If you say you prefer a Cantonese to a Sichuan restaurant (i.e. mild to spicy cuisine), you are voting for the recipes of Guangzhou. Because it has an enormous coastline, Guangdong Province has long been a cosmopolitan part of China and a key international trading node. Known for agriculture and rice cultivation in the 19th century, in recent decades it industrialized and has moved from an initial concentration on light textiles to electronics. Some two-thirds of the population of Guangdong Province is urban. (c) 2022 Juan R.I. Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia and has given numerous media interviews on the war on terrorism and the Iraq War. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years and continues to travel widely there. He speaks Arabic, Farsi and Urdu.

The One Thing To Know Before You Vote By Robert Reich Many of the biggest issues affecting our day-to-day lives are determined by state and local officials who are running for office down here - as well as ballot measures. But these races at the bottom of the ballot often receive less attention - and fewer votes - than federal positions that appear at the top of your ballot. Why? Well many people who vote simply don't fill out their entire ballot. It's a serious issue. And I get it. I mean, how can you be expected to know what a comptroller does? Does anyone really know? And you may not be familiar with all of the other names you see on your ballot. But these state and local government officials are going to be vital for holding on to what we have -- protecting many of the rights that extremist Republicans in Washington and the Supreme Court are actively trying to erode. Down ballot races are also critical if we want to advance progressive changes at the state level -- like raising the minimum wage, instituting ranked choice voting, inscribing abortion rights into state constitutions, expanding Medicaid, protecting trans youth, making public higher education more affordable. All of these become possible when we pay attention to down ballot races. Control of many state legislatures is often determined down here - by a handful of races that can swing in either direction based on a relatively small number of votes. Republicans have been focused on state and local races for decades - especially when it comes to funding them. It's long past time for the Democratic Party to do the same. On top of that, ballot roll-off - a phenomenon where people vote for top-of-ticket candidates but then don't vote for down ballot offices - has been a huge problem for Democrats as of late in key battleground states. A recent analysis of presidential election results from 10 swing states dating back to 2012 showed that in contested races, the Democratic presidential nominee at the top of the ticket received more votes 87% of the time compared to Democratic state legislative candidates at the bottom of the ballot. On the flip side, the Republican nominee for president received more votes than Republican state legislative candidates just 45% of the time. Folks, it's not enough to just vote for President - or even Governor - and call it a day. As we have seen, the consequences of doing so are enormous. So here are a few things you can do to get prepared to vote down-ballot. Get your ballot early - request a sample ballot from your local election office. Take it home and familiarize yourself with it. Next, research ALL down ballot candidates. There are some great organizations to guide you - Sister District, The States Project, Bolts Magazine, and People's Action are just a few. I've linked to them below, but feel free to leave a comment with other local resources you've found helpful. Lastly, connect with your friends and share this information. Get them to vote down-ballot, too. Research shows that texting a friend about voting increases turnout. We don't win overnight. We win by connecting with our communities. Paying attention to candidates up and down the ballot - even organizing for them. When it comes to power in America, remember to vote for the little folks down at the bottom of your ballot. (c) 2022 Robert B. Reich is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. His latest book is "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few." His web site is www.robertreich.org.

We Must Choose: Democracy Or War History shows that letting dictators get away with land grabs & genocidal attacks on nearby nations leads not to peace but to even worse wars than stopping that activity early would have done By Thom Hartmann (c) 2022 Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print. The Cartoon Corner - This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of ~~~ Scott Stantis ~~~

To End On A Happy Note - Have You Seen This -

Parting Shots - Netflix Gains 2 Million Subscribers By Making Characters In Shows Subscribe To Netflix By The Onion LOS GATOS, CA-In a major reversal of its long-declining numbers, streaming service Netflix released a quarterly report Thursday showing it had gained over 2 million subscribers by making the characters in its shows subscribe to Netflix. "The Bridgerton family, those teens from 13 Reasons Why, Grace and Frankie-they are all now subscribers to Netflix," said CEO Ted Sarandos, who confirmed that everybody trapped in the Upside Down from Stranger Things was paying $19.99 for a premium Netflix plan. "Really, anytime any of the characters from your favorite Netflix shows aren't on screen, it means they're in the other room watching Netflix. We even have Dahmer logging in. He loves Space Force. The best part is that the more spin-offs and sequels we make, the more subscribers we get. Soon, we won't need anybody who isn't a character on a Netflix show to subscribe at all." At press time, Netflix had reportedly lost all 2 million new subscribers after the characters were driven to suicide by the discovery of their own lives playing out on screen. (c) 2022 The Onion Email:uncle -ernie@journalist.com Issues & Alibis Vol 22 # 42 (c) 10/28/2022 Issues & Alibis is published in America every Friday. We are not affiliated with, nor do we accept funds from any political party. We are a non -profit group that is dedicated to the restoration of the American Republic. All views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of Issues & Alibis.Org. In regards to copying anything from this site remember that everything here is copyrighted. Issues & Alibis has been given permission to publish everything on this site. When this isn't possible we rely on the "Fair Use"copyright law provisions. If you copy anything from this site to reprint make sure that you do too. We ask that you get our permission to reprint anything from this site and that you provide a link back to us. Here is the "Fair Use"provision. "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors."