Here’s a sampling of things I ran across recently that I thought worth scrolling through for those with a few minutes to spare.
• Tired of all those emails and texts begging for money? Jeremy Schulman at Mother Jones reports Team Red is really REALLY desperate.
Last month, I got an angry email from the Republican Party. I’d just written a snarky blog post about some dubious fundraising solicitations from the House GOP campaign arm—”13X MATCH today only!”—but that wasn’t what they were writing to complain about.
No, they were upset I hadn’t responded to an “exit poll” that would apparently help “secure our elections” (and would also provide another chance to get that 13X match).
“I am absolutely heartbroken that you’ve ignored us time and time again,” wrote Meg at the National Republican Congressional Committee, a few days after the midterm elections.
“At one moment in time, you would have JUMPED at the opportunity to supply House Republicans with the information they need to verify the results of our Midterm Elections,” she added. “But now? You won’t even lift a finger to fill out our two-question exit poll, even though we BEGGED you time and time again to respond.”
More at the link, of course.
• What WAS Trump doing with all those documents and other thingies he stashed a Mar-A-Lardo? Chris Christie via Huffington Post reports he has a pretty good idea.
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie is convinced Donald Trump took White House documents to stash at his home as “trophies” to soothe his wounded ego after losing the presidential election.
“He wanted to keep these documents as a trophy; that’s what they were more than anything else,” Christie told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “He walks around and says, ‘Look, I got this, I’ve got this classified document or that.’”
Trump still “can’t believe he’s not president,” Christie explained. “He needs to display to everybody down at Mar-a-Lago, or up in Bedminster ... that he still has some of those trappings: the replica Resolute Desk [from the Oval Office] in Mar-a-Lago and all the rest of those things. [They’re] assuaging his disappointment and his disbelief that he’s not the president anymore,” Christie explained.
Nothing says Donald Trump is a loser like Chris Christie turning on him — and then there’s this closer:
Asked if he considered that evidence of obstruction of justice, [Trump lying about withholding documents, etc.] Christie, a former prosecutor, responded with an emphatic “yes.”
Video of Christie at the link, appearing on “This Week”.
• In the world of people who work for a living, Jane Slaughter at Labor Notes reports a big shakeup in the works at the United Auto Workers.
Reformers in the United Auto Workers are jubilant as they seem set to make a historic change in the top leadership of their union, ending 70 years of one-party top-down rule. As mail-ballot votes were counted this week, it appeared very possible that the UAW Members United slate would eventually take all seven of the seats it contested, out of 14 on the union’s executive board.
This is nothing short of an earthquake in one of the country’s largest manufacturing unions. The last time anyone was elected to the executive board in opposition to the ruling Administration Caucus was 34 years ago, when Jerry Tucker of the New Directions Movement became a regional director.
The Members United slate was created by the reform movement Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), which formed in 2019 to fight for members’ right to vote on their top officers. Members voted a year ago to switch to that system, a result of the U.S. Justice Department’s monitorship that was installed to address the union’s egregious corruption.
More at the link.
• Biden’s global energy BFD: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian at Yahoo Finance are amazed at how President Biden has become something of a global energy czar.
Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book explained how leaders and groups need each other for power: “For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” President Biden has breathed new confidence into allied unity and resolve—and has in turn been strengthened by our international allies.
Overcoming the self-destructive America First isolationism of our recent past, Biden has rebuilt trust through collective action. Most recently, America’s continued triumphs in international energy diplomacy—ranging from reining in OPEC+ to the successful rollout of the Russian oil price caps to helping the EU work through its gas supply challenges, all in the face of tremendous skepticism—have stabilized the global [hotlink]energy[/hotlink] markets and brought down prices all while cutting into Putin’s profits.
These accomplishments remain underappreciated. Contrary to Putin’s hopes that Europeans would freeze with insufficient gas to heat homes, splintering allied unity, his gas gambit has thoroughly failed. Europe has secured enough supplies to avoid an energy crunch this winter, with the proactive help of the U.S. and the international coalition, as we correctly predicted months ago.
While it may be a little early to assume Europe is going to make it through winter okay — see the next item — it’s nice to see Biden getting some credit, including a bit about how market forces cut both ways.\
And contrary to the analysts who gloomily forecasted Saudi Arabia’s oil intransigence would drive prices up, Biden has proven his mettle by helping the G7 and 27 EU nations realize that oil-producing nations need to sell their oil at least as much as customer nations need to purchase it.
After 62 years of one-sided bullying in the marketplace, the U.S. and its allies finally banded together to fight back. Finally, the OPEC+ producers’ cartel has met its match with the first buyers’ cartel. Rather than try years of impossible global antitrust regulation where the U.S. has no legal jurisdiction, the Biden Administration is showing the power of countervailing market power to keep OPEC+ in check—all while dangling occasional carrots to the Saudis.
This, of course, is contrary to the prevailing press narrative that Biden has been a failure on energy, single-handedly causing oil prices to rise. More at the link. And...
• Germany is getting pumped up — heat pumped that is. Melissa Eddy and Patrick Junker at The NY Times report Germans are moving to switch from Russian natural gas for heating to heat pumps.
REMSCHEID, Germany — After decades of heating their homes with relatively cheap Russian natural gas, Germans are facing exorbitant prices for energy. The search is on for an alternative source of warmth that is climate-friendly and free from natural gas.
Enter, the heat pump.
Using a technology that dates to the 1970s, these boxy machines have suddenly been embraced across Germany — so much so that heat pumps are often sold out, and the wait for a qualified installer can last months.
The German government is among the fans.
“This is the technology of the future,” Robert Habeck, the minister for the economy, told reporters last month while announcing a government plan to promote heat pumps.
More at the link — behind the Times paywall unfortunately.
The comments on this article are worth reading, as Eddy and Junker don’t appear to be fully up on the latest developments in heath pump technology. A number of commenters cite their own experiences with how well they work even in cold weather now, and how much money they’re saving — especially when they have solar panels to provide power for their heat pumps.
The big problems for Germans are supply chain issues, the higher cost of the units, and the backlog waiting on qualified people to do installations. (The higher initial cost of a heat pump over a gas furnace is more than made up by lower electricity costs than gas over time.) The natural gas industry in America is certainly doing its best to spread FUD about heat pumps, like this Astroturf group in New York State.
• Blast from the (recent) past: Via the Hill — Texas museum removes wax Trump figure after visitors kept punching it. ICYMI, this was back in March of 2021.
A wax museum in downtown San Antonio, Texas, removed its wax statue of former President Trump after it was repeatedly vandalized, the San Antonio Express-News reports.
Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks pulled the figure from public view after it sustained multiple beatings and transferred it into storage.
The scratches on the Trump figure’s face were especially damaging, said Clay Stewart, the regional manager of parent company Ripley’s Entertainment.
“When it’s a highly political figure, attacks can be a problem,” Stewart said, according to the Express-News.
A quick check doesn’t find any mention that the statue is back on display…
• Word of the year: Goblin Mode. Imogen Jones at The BBC reports the Oxford English Dictionary has settled on this phrase after a voting process.
The first Oxford word of the year to be chosen by public vote has been announced.
The winning word, "goblin mode", is a slang term describing "unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy" behaviour.
It was one of three potential choices selected by Oxford lexicographers.
Thousands managed to drag themselves out of goblin mode to vote, as the phrase won by a landslide with 318,956 votes, making up 93% of the total.
Further,
According to Oxford University Press, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, it is a slang term often used in the expressions such as "I am in goblin mode" or "to go goblin mode".
It went on to explain it as "a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations".
The term started appearing online in 2009, but went viral earlier this year over a fictitious headline scandal involving actress and model Julia Fox as well as a popular Reddit post describing someone who has been acting like a goblin.
And,
"Given the year we've just experienced, 'goblin mode' resonates with all of us who are feeling a little overwhelmed at this point. It's a relief to acknowledge that we're not always the idealized, curated selves that we're encouraged to present on our Instagram and TikTok feeds."
The runner up was metaverse with 14,484 votes, followed by #IStandWith with 8,639 votes.
Given the rumblings coming from the incoming GOP caucus in the House, the phrase is likely to take on political connotations as well.
Got any news you think is worthy of a little more attention? Feel free to bring it up in comments.