AND A BATTLEFIELD IT DOTH APPEAR TO BE. I begin with the tale of the passionate determination of the Tea Party Militia of Wisconsin (!) to insure that voting (for the other party!) will not be a smooth pathway. I quote below from “Tea Party Militia Group Threatens to Arrest Democrats at Polling Places,” by Josh Kilburn of Election 2014:

“If you want more evidence that the difference between Mussolini’s Blackshirts and the current state of the Tea Party is only about 70 years, here’s a story out of Wisconsin where a self-proclaimed ‘poll watcher’ militia group announced they will confront Democratic voters at the polls on November 4 over outstanding warrants or tax defaults.

“The group, named the Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia” — Love those militaristic labels! — “claims that it’s going to check names on the 2012 recall petition for Republican Gov. Scott Walker and confront those voters that they believe are wanted on warrants. They said on Twitter that they would be ‘targeting heavily Democrat districts, so it is doubtful’ that any Republicans would be reported. Gosh, imagine that!

“So yes, this is just a thinly veiled excuse to bully people away from the polls. This is the same stunt pulled by Mussolini’s Blackshirts; the only difference is that they’ve gotten better at lying about their intentions. Not much better, mind you.

“And if the presence of a group with ‘militia’ in their name wasn’t enough, the group posted on Facebook that they ‘prefer our people be armed.’ They continued:

“‘We prefer our people be armed. Some will be heading to some of Milwaukee, Racine, and Beloit’s worst areas. We will be armed with a list of people to look for at each location.”

There ain’t nothing like folks with guns to encourage voter turnout! Especially those voters who were planning to vote for candidates the gunfolk hate with a passion!

Next we move to a familiar “conservative” refrain: Now that we’re moving to full GOP control of Congress, what can we do to lard up the tax breaks for our corporate friends whilst shafting the deluded middle class?

From “Obama Threatens to Veto GOP Plan to Screw Middle Class and Give More Huge Tax Breaks to Corporations,” by Bob Cull in Economic Issues, Nov. 26:

“Congress has nearly reached bipartisan agreement on a tax bill that would retroactively renew tax breaks that expired at the end of last year, making them permanent. But President Obama has said that he will veto the bill if it reaches his desk because it heavily favors business while ignoring middle- and lower-income families.

“‘The president would veto the proposed deal because it would give permanent tax breaks to help well-connected corporations while neglecting working families,’ White House spokeswoman Jennifer Friedman said.

“The deal negotiated by aides to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Republicans would lock in tax breaks that have been renewed on a short-term basis year after year, making them permanent. Supporters of the bill say this would give businesses more certainty in making investments, but Democrats say that they negotiated the best bill they could before the Republican takeover in January.

“Not everyone agrees that this bill would benefit the country.

“‘It’s somewhat ironic they’re willing to just proceed here, unpaid for, leave the middle class behind and include a lot of things that I think wouldn’t benefit our economy,’ said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

“The president and Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, responded to the news that an agreement was reached by personally calling Democratic lawmakers to elicit support to sustain a veto, as did Shaun Donovan, the White House budget director, and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew.

“Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also made a round of calls to make sure that she had the votes in the House to sustain a veto.

“Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said that the Senate would sustain a veto as well no matter how many tax breaks the bill includes for his constituents.

“‘The light of day has changed the way this agreement looks,’ Brown said.

“The bill would make permanent provisions that the president has supported in the past, such as an expanded research and development tax credit, the deduction for state and local sales taxes and the American Opportunity Tax Credit for college costs.

“It would also phase out the tax credit for wind power, ending it completely by the end of 2017 — a credit that the president supports but which conservatives object to as being unfair competition for alternative energy over the fossil fuel industry.” (And how’s that for a flashing red light signaling where the heart of the GOP — and this crummy bill stunt — lies! Dump alternatives, lather fossils with cash!)

“Republicans say they have included their version of provisions which the president had supported but that he now won’t take yes for an answer.

“‘An extender package that makes permanent expiring business provisions without addressing tax credits for working families is the wrong approach, at the expense of middle-class families,’ Lew said. ‘Any deal on tax extenders must ensure that the economic benefits are broadly shared.’

“The bill gives two thirds of the value of the tax breaks to business while eliminating the expanded earned-income credit and a child tax credit for the working poor.” (And take that you lazy bums!) “Those measures were targeted by Republicans angry over the president’s executive order allowing undocumented immigrants to temporarily get work permits, which they say will add to the numbers of those entitled to those tax benefits.”

Next, a piece that will no doubt maintain its relevance throughout the holiday season, “How To Talk To Your Climate Denier Uncle This Thanksgiving,” by Ryan Koronowski of Climate Progress, Nov. 26: 

“Obstreperous, argumentative, conservative relatives are often expected to be uncles, but climate denial can peep out of aunts, grandparents, children, or spouses!

“Everyone likes to talk about the weather. It affects all of us, it’s always happening, and it’s uncontroversial — not like third rails of polite company such as politics, religion, or money. So when you spend the holidays with extended family, one of your relatives who denies the reality of climate science may see a little snow as an easy opportunity try to land a non-political jab about climate change. Or global warming. Whatever those hippies are calling it these days!

“It’s easy to get blindsided, so here are some key points to help everyone stick to the facts, and ensure you don’t spend the holidays caught in a morass of climate denial just because it’s snowing.

“Just because it’s cold right now in the place where you live does not disprove basic climate science. ‘How can there be global warming, it’s so cold out?’ asks Grandma. ‘Global warming, am I right?’ shouts Uncle Bob derisively from the porch as you shovel off the driveway.

“This is one of the most common misconceptions about climate change. If someone tries to disprove decades and decades of climate science by pointing to abnormally cold weather, agree that yes, sometimes it gets cold. Whether it’s called climate change or global warming, it does not mean that cold weather will just stop happening.

“Weather is not the same as climate any more than one ocean wave is the same as the tide. To understand what’s really happening to the climate, you have to gather a lot of data points (weather) together over a period of decades or centuries and look at the trend. You’ll find that there have been fewer cold records and more hot records. Though this year in the U.S. there has been a big spike in cold records, the larger trend is for more extremely hot days.

“But the biggest and most difficult point is that climate change is about what is happening to the whole world — it’s why they call it ‘global warming’ and not ‘Des Moines warming’. It is almost a certainty at this point that the year 2014 will be officially known as the hottest year on record, after the world saw its hottest April (tie), spring, May, June, August, September and October, according to independent analyses from the world’s top meteorological organizations.

“NOAA said the 12 months between October of 2013 and September 2014 were the hottest on record (italics mine). And all this with less and less likelihood of an El Niño effect, the ocean temperature cycle that historically has accompanied the hottest years we’ve ever seen.

“Isn’t it more amazing, and alarming, that climate change is so relentless that the world is probably going to see its hottest year on record even with the U.S. getting creamed by a weird jet stream, Polar Vortex, Artic Outbreak or the fact that the Bills and the Jets had to play in Detroit because Buffalo got snowed out?

“There is no ‘pause’ in global warming! But Uncle Bob keeps at it. ‘Hasn’t it not warmed in the last 16 years?’ he asks you while pulling the turkey out of the oven. ‘I heard something about a pause in global warming.’ This is a very common talking point from climate deniers and those who share their skepticism — that there has not been any global warming since 1998. The reason 1998 was so hot was because it was a very strong El Niño year, which boosted its already rising average temperature extremely high relative to the broader trend.

“But there have been hotter years on record, and they’ve all come after 1998.

“In fact, nine of the 10 hottest years on record globally happened in the 21st century — with 1998 being the lone exception. Even then, 2010 was the hottest year on record, with 2005 a close second (italics mine).

“… Teenagers today have not seen a colder-than-average month in their entire lives. And at the rate humans are spewing carbon emissions into the atmosphere, they are locked into 4 degrees Celsius of warming by the time they are in their 80s, according to a recent report from the World Bank.

“Two degrees of warming is the level most scientists have set as the limit we can adapt to without suffering catastrophic consequences!! (italics and exclamation marks mine!)

And so it goes in the real world — that is, the world not spelled out for the public by the spinmeisters of Wall Street! And a scary scenario indeed for our future!

Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.