Steve's Politics Blog

Previously, I posted a description of how one goes about Making Electronic Voting Transparent.

The thought just occurred to me that the way to make this happen is to set come standards. Who better to set these standards than the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)?

From the smart electric power grid and electronic health records to atomic clocks, advanced nanomaterials, and computer chips, innumerable products and services rely in some way on technology, measurement, and standards provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Founded in 1901, NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST’s mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.

What could be more in need of some improved measurement science than how to count the votes that are the foundation of our democracy?

YouTube has the video Libertarianism Debunked.

If you’d like to live in a world where the government didn’t interfere in your private life, where you paid minimal taxes, and were free to do whatever you wanted as long as it didn’t infringe on others freedoms? Well then, you might be a libertarian…or you might not be a libertarian. Hasan Piker of Pop Crunch breaks down libertarianism.

I used to believe in Libertarianism until I figured out what this guy has figured out. My epiphany came in 1962. I guess I stopped being surprised many years ago that some people just never outgrow their fascination with this utopian scheme that has a huge blind spot to the major part of reality.

YouTube has the interview Jill Stein: Time To Reject The ‘Lesser-Evil’ & Stand Up For The Greater Good.

MintPress editor in chief Mnar Muhawesh interviews Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein on how alternative voices during elections are purposely excluded because of their anti-corporation and anti-war stance on politics.

This is the interview that was part of my previous post Mnar Muhawesh: Why I’m Choosing Peace & Voting Jill Stein For President.

This may be over a year old, but as things have unfolded more recently, these remarks are more relevant today than they seemed to be a year ago. I didn’t pay much attention to Jill Stein because I was happy with Bernie Sanders, and he even had a chance of winning. Now that we don’t have Bernie Sanders to pin our hopes on, I find that Jill Stein actually represents my point of view even better than Bernie Sanders did.

Mint Press has the article Mnar Muhawesh: Why I’m Choosing Peace & Voting Jill Stein For President.  Here is just a taste of what is in the commentary of the article.

Stein’s plan would redirect these billions — by far the biggest expenditure in the federal budget — into creating a “Green New Deal,” a peace economy built around a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The Green Party candidate plans to “[c]reate millions of jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, and investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, and conservation.”

As a proponent of Modern Money Theory (MMT) I am always pointing out the fallacy of thinking that we have to increase taxes or cut the budget to “afford”  some government program.  As I step back and consider what is being said here, I have to admit that there is nothing wrong with avoiding expenditures that we  do not need to make, and that are actually harmful  to us.

The limits of what the government can do come from real resources, not from the creation of money which the FED does everyday with some keystrokes on a computer keyboard.  The money we  spend on the military budget is used to employ real resources that would be better used  for more peaceful purposes.  So in that sense, it is a very good idea to cut the military budget and put that money (and the resources that money buys) to more productive uses.

Have you ever thought about how much you depend on electricity and the internet?

I had a horrible thought as I got some money out of an ATM machine recently.  Since I mostly use a credit card, I seldom need cash.  I may go to an ATM machine every few months just to make sure I am not down to my last dollar bill.

With the vulnerability of our power grid infrastructure and the increasing electronic dependence of most business transactions, what would I (or you) do if we had a regional or nation wide power outage that lasted for weeks?  Or maybe even days?  How would you eat?  How would you travel without gasoline electrically pumped into your car at the gas station?

As great a nation as we think we are, what would happen if someone or some group figured out how to crash our power grid?  What if some natural disaster took it  down?  What would rugged individualism get you?  At least I can go out and eat the bark off the trees in my yard.

I guess I never did get around to posting the link to the Naked Capitalism article What Will You Do When The Lights Go Out? The Inevitable Failure Of The US Grid.

Think Progress has the article Fracking’s Total Environmental Impact Is Staggering, Report Finds which contains a link to the original report.

“For the past decade, fracking has been a nightmare for our drinking water, our open spaces, and our climate,” Rachel Richardson, a co-author of the paper from Environment America, told ThinkProgress.

Maybe natural gas acquired by fracking is not such a clean transition away from oil.  We are heading toward disaster all the while we are fooling ourselves into thinking we are slowing our steady march toward that disaster.

If you want to consider Hillary Clinton’s part in this ongoing march, consider the Nation of Change article There’s Something Iffy About Hillary’s Pick to Set Up her White House.

Democracy now has two related videos.  Will Hillary Clinton Flip-Flop Again on TPP After Election Day? We Ask Her Adviser Joseph Stiglitz,  and Why Did Clinton Just Tap a Pro-TPP, Pro-KXL, Pro-Fracking Politician to Head Her Transition Team?

I am going to present them to you in the order in which they were recorded.

It was so difficult to watch an economist that I had respected prostitute himself in this way, that I just could not finish watching his degradation any further. Maybe you have the fortitude to watch it all.

Watching Joe Stiglitz embarrass himself in the above video was doubly hard because I had seen the video below first. Watching a demonstration of the naivete or the strong desire to convince himself of the unconvinceable is enough to make you want to mourn for Stiglitz. Perhaps viewing the videos in this order will make what Stiglitz had to say just a tad less embarrassing.

Alternet has the interesting article Teaching Kids Empathy: In Danish Schools, It’s … Well, It’s a Piece of Cake.

“Our job as the teacher is to make sure that the children understand how the other feels, and see why the other feels as they do. This way, we come up with a solution together based on real listening and real understanding.”

This is what is missing in our culture and our politics.   We cannot work together if we don’t give a damn about how the other person feels. This is exactly what I found missing in Ayn Rand’s books when I finally learned some empathy as a Sophomore in college.  This is exactly what is missing in Libertarian philosophy.

The purpose of the standouts in the next few weeks is to give Jill Stein more name recognition. I am preparing a few signs to hold up.

Politifact has the article What we know about Russia’s role in the DNC email leak.

“The consensus that Russia hacked the DNC is at this point very strong, albeit not unanimous,” said cybersecurity consultant Matt Tait, who has been critical of Clinton’s email practices. “The consensus that Russia hacked the DNC in support of Trump is, by contrast, plausible, but something for which the jury at this stage is very much still out.”

The following plays a small part in the overall picture presented in the article.

As of yet, there’s no evidence anyone other than Russia breached the DNC. So unless someone hacked the Russian agencies, the Russian government is likely WikiLeaks’ source, Hennessey said. Additionally, Assange and the Russian government have a well-documented relationship, for example the fact that Assange has hosted a television show on RT, a state-owned network.

The connection of Julian Assange to Russia because of his appearance on RT is overblown as evidence of anything. The only place where American dissenters can have a voice seems to be on RT. No doubt that our government would want to discredit RT.