As shocking as it may seem, the pipeline company that was attacked last week by criminal hackers and then reportedly shelled out $5 million in ransom did almost nothing to deal with this hacker threat when it shut down the pipeline for 4 days and caused hours long lines at gas stations all across the East Coast. It seems that they didn’t even report the ransom demands for four days, and then weren’t very cooperative when the authorities discovered the crime. What we have learned is that the government has very little power to make these private companies cooperate and even less to force them to upgrade security even though they are deeply involved with national security. This is something the administration has to look into. We can’t let cowardly corporations bow to criminal terrorists and undermine our national security. Homeland Security seemed to feel the same way this week because on Tuesday they issued a decree informing all such companies that they will have to adhere to a series of guidelines regarding any attempt by foreign or domestic criminals or terrorists to threaten their ability to deliver services to the American public. Maybe this will make them reconsider their duty to deliver services as much as they worry about their media image or their bottom line.
*****
Last week the House voted, in a bi-partisan manner, to okay a commission that will look into the events of Jan 6, but the Senate did not do the same. There is no way the GOP wants to continue to deal with the events of Jan 6 and Moscow Mitch will do anything to just make it all go away. The last thing he wants is for people to be talking about what actually happened and who directed a group of deliberately misinformed, radical white Supremacists to ignore the constitution and invade the Capitol. This, for some reason, has brought about much lamenting among Democrats. Why? The Democrats made the attempt and as expected the Senate GOP acted like seditionist traitors. Now Pelosi can have her commission without having to listen to Republicans like Marjory Taylor Greene or Josh Hawley, who would be natural GOP picks on a bi-partisan commission. Forget the bipartisan crap, have Pelosi appoint her own commission with four Democrats and 4 Republicans and let them have at it.
Pelosi will control it all so she can appoint Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger along with two other functional Republicans to go with the Democrats and we won’t have to listen to idiots like Jim Jordan make a farce out of the hearings. The GOP did it with Benghazi and they weren’t anywhere nearly as fair as I am suggesting. The important thing is, it’s time the American people got the facts on the Jan 6th attack and blame is assigned to the traitors who attempted to overthrow our Democratic Government in support of a would-be dictator.
*****
It’s a moment we had to arrive at. There are now enough vaccinated people in this country to start changing the way we deal with life after the pandemic. The CDC announced this week that we could take off the masks, as long as we are vaccinated. But what about those who have chosen not to get vaccinated. Should we now set up a protocol that identifies who is vaccinated and who isn’t? If we don’t, how can we tell the difference? The idea that we should just take people’s word is ludicrous because those who have not gotten vaccinated and refuse to do so have already proven that they are too selfish or too stupid to be believed.
It’s a fact that we live in a world where there are people who just don’t give a damn about anyone else. We have just come off a period where we had a president who epitomized that position. Common sense, remember common sense? Well it tells us that when you have to deal with this type of person you must put personal safety ahead of everything else. You just can’t take someone’s word that they have gotten the vaccine. People must have to prove it and the way to do that is a certificate of having been vaccinated. Most sites that vaccinated have given out paper work to that effect. Sure they are easily counterfeited so they should be replaced by some other kind of more secure identification.
There are lots of reasons why people don’t get vaccinated, not all of them are anti-social, but regardless of the reason, the fact remains that by not getting vaccinated one is endangering him or herself as well as all those he or she comes in contact with. That’s a bad thing for them and for society, regardless of whether the reasoning is political, religious or pseudo-scientific. We all want the country to fully open up. It’s time to get the dingbats on the train.
*****
The Republicans responded to Biden’s almost $2 trillion infrastructure bill with a lame proposal that would amount to about $900 billion in roads, bridges, trains and planes reconstruction, much of it already on this year’s budget. It’s a slight improvement on their earlier, insulting $650 billion offer but still not anything that can be taken seriously. It’s obvious that the GOP doesn’t care whether the bill is bi-partisan and just as obvious that the Democrats shouldn’t either. They have the votes. They should push it through and then stand back and brag that they did this for the people that the GOP is trying to crush. That could be the winning theme in 2022 in all those states in which the GOP is trying to suppress the vote.
*****
This was the week that scared the living crap out of the fossil fuel industry. It started with the Netherlands government telling Royal Dutch Shell, a company already dedicated to cutting its emissions to zero by 2050, to get off its ass and move faster. That was followed by a shareholders meeting at Chevron where investors voted to have the company reduce its contribution to climate change and to move forward using more renewals, while down the block at Exxon Mobile investors demanded that the company’s management move more quickly into developing renewable products.
As that was going on, the hedge fund company Engine No. 1 forced two renewable friendly directors onto the board at Exxon Mobile.
Sure it looks like a lot of action and to some extent it is, but considering how long we have known the truth about the poisoning of our planet it might be too little too late. The big difference is occurring in the technology. That’s where improvements in profitability, cost of construction and deliverability are crushing the old fossil model. The work of Tesla alone, which has shown the auto giants that you can make an electric car that will be cheaper to manufacturer, will be easier to keep functioning and that will outperform the combustion engine, has changed the auto industry forever. Add to that the earth shattering decision of Ford to convert the F150 pickup truck, the highest selling vehicle in the history of auto making, to an electric truck. This will be be the game changer.
All that is huge but the lower cost of building renewable plant and the far cheaper cost of renewable delivery per Kilowatt-hour are the crushers. Renewables aren’t coming. They’re here baby and anyone who doesn’t recognize that is going to be left in their carbon free dust.
May 31 – good column Bill!