Open Thread June 28, 2023 SCOTUS closing out the year.
Important Cases to be decided by SCOTUS. Affirmative Action, Student Loans, Gay Rights, Religious Rights, and some Voting (still remains). Some important issues left which will either please or displease many people.
Open Thread June 24, 2023 SCOTUS and Standing, Angry Bear, Angry Bear Blog
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-06-28/The-magic-seed-How-does-Chinese-rice-helps-Africa-combat-hunger–1l0nLrn43MA/index.html
June 28, 2023
The magic seed: How does Chinese rice help Africa combat hunger?
Rice, an important food crop in the world, feeds more than half of the world’s population. Africa has a long history of planting rice, but it has been suffering from a low yield, with key bottlenecks, such as a shortage of new rice varieties and planting expertise.
To solve the problem, China has sent rice scientists to the tropical continent, hoping to bring new prospects to China-Africa cooperation in agriculture and poverty alleviation.
Chinese hybrid rice expert Hu Yuefang arrived in Madagascar in 2008 and has been devoted to studying localized hybrid rice varieties and helping the local people increase their rice yields.
The 65-year-old is still working at the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center’s Africa sub-center in Madagascan town Mahitsy, about 8,500 kilometers away from his hometown of Yiyang in central China’s Hunan Province.
With an area of about 600,000 square kilometers, the African island experiences four kinds of climate, featuring four types of terrains: tropical rainforest, tropical savanna, tropical plateau and a semi-arid zone. Hu and his team have traveled to almost every rice-growing area on the island to find the best-adapted varieties.
In 2010, Hu and his team selected three hybrid rice varieties capable of achieving high yields in areas with different altitudes, which received technical validation from Madagascar’s Ministry of Agriculture.
“The yield per hectare of these three hybrid rice varieties is three to four times higher than that of traditional Malagasy rice,” said Hu.
Madagascar has been cooperating with China in developing hybrid rice since 2007. Currently, the cumulative area of Chinese hybrid rice cultivation in the country has exceeded 50,000 hectares, with an average yield of around 7.5 tonnes per hectare.
In Africa, Madagascar has the largest area of hybrid rice cultivation and the highest yield, and it is also the first African country to realize the whole industrial chain of hybrid rice breeding, seed production, planting, processing and sales.
In Madagascar, the pattern of Chinese hybrid rice is printed on its 20,000 ariary banknote, the largest denomination in the country. It shows the gratitude of the country’s government and people who have taken a major step toward food self-sufficiency by planting hybrid rice….
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-06-25/World-s-largest-hydro-solar-power-station-officially-operates-in-China-1kV6xfwZ7Pi/index.html
June 26, 2023
World’s largest hydro-solar power station enters operation in China
The first phase of the world’s largest hydro-solar power plant, also the world’s highest power station of its kind, entered full operation in China on Sunday.
With an installed capacity scale of one million kilowatts, the Kela photovoltaic power station’s annual generating capacity of the first phase will be two billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), and that is enough to cover the needs of 700,000 households for a whole year,” which is equivalent to 600,000 tonnes of standard coal and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.6 million tonnes,” Yang Zhiwei, the construction project manager, told China Media Group (CMG).
The plant, situated in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in southwest China’s Sichuan Province’s Yajiang County, is now connected with Lianghekou hydropower plant, which was put into operation in March with a total installed capacity of three million kilowatts, marking the completion of the first phase of the grand project.
Upon full completion, the Kela project’s total installed capacity scale will exceed 100 million kilowatts, with annual power generation of around 300 billion kWh, sufficient to serve 100 million households for a year.
With a reliance on sunlight to generate electricity, the power generation of photovoltaic power stations fluctuates between day and night amid weather events. The hydropower component helps to regulate all instability in PV power supply, providing stable and high-quality clean electricity for the power grid….
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/us/supreme-court-corporations-lawsuits.html
June 27, 2023
Supreme Court Allows Unusual Pennsylvania Law on Corporate Suits
A novel Pennsylvania law requires corporations that do business in the state to consent to being sued there, even if the suits have nothing to do with the state.
By Abbie VanSickle and Adam Liptak
[ An important ruling that balances consumer interests relative to corporate interests. Supported by court liberals and conservatives, and showing how independent the court still is. ]
A reader wrote several times about climate change being too theoretically vague to be worth planning to avert and cope with. However, the climate change mechanism is remarkably well-defined and of immediate concern. The last 8 years, since 2015, each and all, have been the warmest years globally since 1880. This year promises to add to these warmest of years, and will likely be near the very warmest ever recorded. As for investing in climate change limiting and effect averting, the need is immediate and there are no “negative externalities.”
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00410c.html
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Biden Says He Is ‘Turning Things Around’ on the Economy
NY Times – June 28
President Biden hopes to claim credit for what the White House describes as a record-breaking economic revival in America.
… Flanked by blue signs with the word “Bidenomics,” Mr. Biden delivered to a Chicago crowd what aides called a cornerstone speech of his presidency. In it, he hailed the impact of his economic agenda as the 2024 campaign cycle heats up.
“The trickle-down approach failed the middle class,” he told an audience of about 200 supporters, referring to economic policies favoring lower taxation for the wealthy that were popularized by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. “It failed America, it blew up the deficit, it increased inequity and it weakened our infrastructure. It stripped the dignity, pride and hope out of communities, one after another.”
By contrast, Mr. Biden asserted that his willingness to plunge the American government more directly into supporting key industries like silicon chips has revitalized manufacturing. He said investments in rebuilding crumbling infrastructure have begun to pave the way for growth. And he insisted that spending billions of dollars on programs like student debt relief will let more people find their way to a comfortable, middle-class life. …
Biden Says He Is ‘Turning Things Around’ on the Economy
“When I ran, I came into office determined to change the economic direction of this country,” Mr. Biden said, later urging union leaders — and perhaps a reminder for himself — that “you’ve got to brag a little bit more about what you do.”
Mr. Biden’s speech echoed his efforts for more than a year to persuade voters that the economy is humming thanks to his policies — but in more forceful terms, and with little allusion to the rapid price increases that have frustrated consumers on his watch. Progressive groups and Democratic lawmakers have urged Mr. Biden to boast more about his economic record, and Mr. Biden’s aides have grown confident that conditions in the economy are favorable for voters to start giving the president the credit they say he is due.
With his speech, Mr. Biden is shaking off some of his caution in balancing attempts to celebrate the economy with the reality that millions of Americans are still struggling to recover from the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic — including job losses and, most importantly, the fastest burst of price increases in 40 years.
For the moment, Mr. Biden and his aides are trying to focus on what the administration has done, hoping to counter polls that show three-fourths of those surveyed believe the country under Mr. Biden’s leadership is on the wrong track. Only about a third say they approve of his handling of the economy.
But Mr. Biden also hinted that as he seeks a second term, he will need to convince voters that he has a plan to do even more.
“I’m not here to declare victory in the economy,” he said. “I’m here to say we have a plan that is turning things around incredibly quickly.” He added that “we have more work to do.” …
Mr. Biden has signed trillions of dollars in economic legislation since taking office. That includes a $1.9 trillion package to hasten recovery from the pandemic recession, which economists say contributed at least to some degree to rising inflation, and bipartisan bills to invest in infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. On party lines, Democrats also passed an energy, climate and tax bill that has already led to new factory announcements for electric vehicles, batteries and more.
Administration officials this week released new analyses to underscore how those laws are beginning to boost the economy. The Treasury Department calculated that the historical pace of investment in manufacturing construction — led by semiconductor factories targeted by one of the bipartisan bills — has essentially doubled this year after adjusting for inflation. The Energy Department said low-emission energy jobs, like in offshore wind, rose by 4 percent last year.
In other areas, though, administration officials continue to make claims about Mr. Biden’s record that are not supported by evidence. A White House statement this week said that Mr. Biden “presided over $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction — a larger reduction than under any other president in American history.” That claim ignores the fact that much of that deficit reduction was the result of pandemic spending aid programs expiring and not being renewed.
It also does not mention that the deficit is rising again this year, even though Mr. Biden signed a deal this month with Republicans in Congress to reduce some federal spending. The deficit hit $1.16 trillion for the 2023 fiscal year in May, according to the Treasury Department, which is more than double its size at the same point in 2022.
Still, the president’s advisers say they believe Americans will start shaking off the economic hangover from the pandemic and begin to feel the benefits of Mr. Biden’s policies in action. …
President Biden makes pitch that economy is thriving under ‘Bidenomics’
AP – June 28
President Joe Biden made his pitch Wednesday to a skeptical public that the U.S. economy is thriving under what he now touts as “Bidenomics” — even as a new poll showed that could be a hard sell as the foundation for his 2024 reelection campaign.
In a major economic speech in Chicago, Biden said his administration’s efforts were sparking recovery after Republican policies had crushed America’s middle class. But the poll said only one in three U.S. adults approve of his economic leadership.
That 34% figure is even lower than his overall approval rating of 41%, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Biden’s approval figures have barely moved for the past year and a half, a source of concern for a president pursuing a second term on his ability to govern and focus on workers. He wants voters to connect local roads and bridge projects, factory construction and the rise of electric vehicles and renewable energy to the millions of dollars in initiatives he signed into law during the first two years of his administration.
“Bidenomics is about the future,” he declared in his Wednesday speech to cheering supporters. “Bidenomics is just another way of saying: Restore the American dream.”
At the same time, he sought to paint previous Republican tax cuts as deeply flawed, saying they helped the rich but failed the middle class for decades as the promised “trickle down” benefits never seemed to come to the less wealthy.
“The trickle down approach failed the middle class,” he said. “It failed America. It blew up the deficit. It increased inequity. And it weakened our infrastructure. It stripped the dignity, pride and hope out of communities, one after another.”
As he was departing Washington on Wednesday, Biden said he believes the U.S. will avoid the recession that many economic analysts have been expecting. Republican leaders such as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said last year that the high inflation under Biden’s watch meant that “we are in a recession,” but that is not the case under economic definitions. …
Indeed, the economy has steadily improved over the past year of Biden’s term in the White House. Unemployment stands near a historic low at 3.7%. The inflation that has plagued Biden’s presidency has fallen to 4% from a peak of 9.1% last June. But prices are still rising significantly faster than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, a worry for voters and a line of attack for Republican lawmakers and other presidential candidates. …
After MTG calls Lauren Boebert ‘a little [expletive],’ long-simmering feud reaches boiling point
Boston Globe – June 28
Representatives Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene were once seen as kindred spirits, sharing a divisive political style and intense opposition to Democrats.
The Republicans protested the certification of Joe Biden as president and heckled him during his first State of the Union address. They often sat beside each other in the House chamber or walked the halls together. Both stalwart Donald Trump supporters, they seemed to maintain the same circle of right-wing colleagues.
But over the past year, they have been locked in an increasingly public feud that has made their alliance seem like a distant memory.
It all came to a head last week, when Greene called Boebert a “little [expletive]” on the House floor, a remark she later doubled down on. The verbal sparring and digs in the press raise the question: Were the two ever really friends at all? …
Justice Thomas describes the Constitution as ‘colorblind’ but says university admissions are not
Boston Globe – just in
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion that his support of the majority’s ruling on affirmative action was based on his “originalist” view of how the Constitution should be interpreted by the court. He called the adoption of the 13th and 14th amendments after the Civil War a “second founding,” and quoted from a well-known 1896 dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson that described the Constitution as “color-blind.”
In his concurring opinion, Thomas documented the Reconstruction era debate in Congress over the adoption of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and the 14th Amendment’s expanding equal protection to Black Americans and formerly enslaved people. At the same time, there was a push by some lawmakers to codify bans on race-based discrimination, efforts that Thomas said did not specify the race of people the measures were intended to help.
The 14th Amendment, Thomas wrote, using italics for emphasis, “ensures racial equality with no textual reference to race whatsoever.”
”All forms of discrimination based on race — including so called affirmative action — are prohibited under the Constitution,” Thomas wrote. “The government can plainly remedy a race-based injury that it has inflicted — though such remedies must be meant to further a colorblind government, not to perpetuate racial consciousness.”
Thomas was also disdainful towards Harvard and UNC. He wrote that Harvard’s admissions plans actively discriminated against Jewish applicants in the 1920s, and that UNC did not admit a single Black student until 1955, and only after a long court battle forced the administration to accept them.
The two universities’ history “hardly recommend them as trustworthy arbiters of whether racial discrimination is necessary to achieve educational goals,’’ he wrote. “Universities self-described righteousness does not afford them license to discriminate on the basis of race.”
By allowing the race of an applicant to influence whether the are admitted to Harvard or other elite colleges, Thomas wrote, some Black applicants may lose out.
”These programs are over-inclusive, providing the same admissions bump to a wealthy black applicant given every advantage in life as to a black from a poor family with seemingly insurmountable barriers to overcome,” he wrote. “The programs may wind up helping the most-well off members of minority races without meaningfully assisting those who struggle with real hardships.”
Thomas concluded his concurrence by stating he hoped the country “will live up” to the principles upon which it was founded. …
Note that Harvard is known (around these pahts anyway) for very generous financial aid to those who are accepted for admission and not able to afford the cost of attending.
Enough so that it is considered (under the circumstances above) to be something of a bargain. Probably by taking into account the life-long benefits of possessing a Harvard degree.