Issues You May Know, 11 April 2025.
A list of things you might want to know about - or write your reps about.
The Trump administration is attempting to defund libraries and we can't let that happen.
My letter to reps:
I use the library often for a variety of reasons, and have done so my whole life. Trips to the library are some of my earliest and fondest memories, including the rural bookmobile that came to the town where I spent summers in my youth. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is imperative for our communities including children, students, seniors, disabled, and even businesses. It's enormous and practically priceless for those of us who use the library! But it's just 0.003% of the federal budget and so there's no "fiscal" argument that justifies the White House executive order issued on March 14. Congress needs prevent the defunding of libraries. It's just common sense. Ask anyone who's ever used a library – which is almost everyone.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
More info from the American Library Association.
By the way, this is library week.
📍 There is a Tax Day Rally on April 15th 2025 across Pennsylvania.
In Scranton and Philly that I’ve heard about. Note that this is a different event than the national April 19th demonstrations that are planned.
Treasury Secretary says federal job cuts necessary because the US government was crowding out the private market.
The New Republic - Malcolm Ferguson/ April 7, 2025 Treasury Secretary Says Fired Federal Workers Can Work in the Factory Scott Bessent has an unbelievable career pivot in mind for all the federal employees the Trump administration has fired “And we’re going to relever the private sector. So the private sector, in essence, has been in recession during the Biden years. And this is an opportunity to right-size the federal government and unleash the private sector again, because it’s been hemmed down by excessive regulation, and it’s been crowded out by the government.” — Scott Bessent (emphasis added)
China is trying to recruit current and former feds, intelligence document warns The notice is one of the first public acknowledgements from the U.S. intelligence community showing how adversaries are leveraging DOGE-led layoffs to target the government. April 9, 2025 11:12 AM ET By David DiMolfetta, Cybersecurity Reporter, Nextgov/FCW China and other groups are “targeting current and former U.S. government (USG) employees for recruitment by posing as consulting firms, corporate headhunters, think tanks, and other entities on social and professional networking sites,” said the document, which also contains seals from the Justice Department and the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. (emphasis added)
Average people are not aware of what right wing media people tell their audiences.
The lies being told on social media, where most people get their news, as well as on right-wing news sources, radio shows, cable tv, and youtube, are beyond what most sensible people can fathom. Likely most people don’t believe all of it, but with the mere exposure effect, many come to believe a lot of wrong and not real things.
Among the claims: Big covid checks are coming again, the stock market drop is Joe Biden’s fault, the migrants sent to a foreign outsourced offshored prison are all convicted criminals, and hospital workers are actively killing people, or at least are masking in medical settings just to be so-called “woke”, and supposedly sexualizing newborn babies at the hospital.
They use advertising, online marketing, the major media, social media, influencers, pundits, and content creators to signal, hint, and straight out tell false stories and promote gamified conspiracy fictions. And some people believe at least some of it, and even probably make decisions based on wrong ideas unfortunately.
An ad on Youtube for right-wing influencer youtuber that shows a baby, a woman wearing a medical mask, and a man with a worried look, and the caption reads “What’s your baby’s sexuality? woke insanity hits creepy new low. Sponsored Brad Polumbo clips”
AI generated fossil fuel pollution must be opposed.
The air pollution from power plants dedicated to noise pollution generating data centers are currently running roughshod over communities already. How long are we going to wait and put up with these negative externalities that are being shoved off on the human population?
San Francisco Examiner - AI-induced pollution could kill hundreds, cost billions, researchers say By Troy Wolverton | Examiner staff writer | Feb 11, 2025 Demand for computing power for AI models is prompting the construction of increasing numbers of data centers. The manufacturing of chips and other hardware used in those facilities, the fossil-fuel power plants often used to provide electricity to them, and the typically diesel-powered backup generators used to keep them running during power outages or times of high electricity demand all generate air pollution, the researchers noted in their study. The researchers said exposure to that air pollution — in the form of particulates, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide — can lead to maladies such as lung cancer, asthma and cardiovascular disease, and premature deaths. Already disadvantaged communities are likely to absorb much of that pollution.
And when you understand what AI really is, and more importantly what it's not, you realize a lot of this is superficial profiteering and a lot of tech hype based on nothing, but that can do a lot of damage anyway, and with dire consequences.
AI does not exist but it will ruin everything anyway Angela Collier Jul 16, 2023
My letter to reps:
I don't want to live in a community wrecked by air pollution because of pointless AI data centers and the supporting power plants. I've heard of power plants burning coal, coal waste, construction debris, and looking to burn rubber, just to run private data centers that wind up also disrupting communities they set up in. They're talking about starting up Three Mile Island again just to power some chatbots for Microsoft. This is clearly all madness and we need to put a stop to this because AI isn't even a real thing and it's not even particularly useful the way they sell it with their dubious marketing.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
Government workers in Pennsylvania are not covered by OSHA standards, but there's a bill to change that.
Pennsylvania General Assembly - House Bill 308 - 2025-2026 Regular Session An Act providing for workplace health and safety standards for public employees; providing for powers and duties of the Secretary of Labor and Industry; establishing the Pennsylvania Occupational Safety and Health Review Board; providing for workplace inspections; and imposing penalties.
If you live in Pennsylvania, you should write at least your state representative about this as it's currently in the House.
My letter to my state rep, state senator, and governor.
I'm happy to see HB 308 introduced in the PA state house. Please make it so government workers in Pennsylvania agave OSHA-equivalent safety standards by a state health & safety review board.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
These "dire wolf" animals sound like the wolf version of rose bushes that get fancy stuff grafted on.
"They are using the attention economy to drive up the value of their company."
— Johannes Vogel, Director General of the Berlin's Museum of Natural History
on DW News.
I’m a little disturbed by the people saying “oh but they’re lying for a higher purpose” — if they’re lying, they’re lying, that’s not noble, it’s just PR marketing misleading people to think that something works in a way it can’t. This story is very similar to the AI hype in the tech sector which tries to mislead people into thinking AI is something it’s not. And that also gets sold as a way that we don’t need to worry about climate or endangered species too, because daddy AI will fix everything.
The right-wing opposition to proxy voting is the same old opposition to remote anything.
There's a bill in Congress to allow proxy voting for representatives with new babies. Mike Johsnon has gone so far as to just shut down everything for the week just to stop this bill, because there are Republicans who support it.
There is no issue with proxy voting being "corrupted" because all these votes are public, not by secret ballot. So there's no functional or practical reason to not allow remote voting. It could always be verified that it was done on the level.
But it's the same old story about remote work and forcing Return To Office.
If they start to allow new parents to remote vote with new babies…
Of course this will become the disability accessibility issue that it really is. They likely don't want to create precedents because the far right is eugenicist and resents anyone disabled from participating in society, let alone the halls of power.
Constituents will start to question why their representatives have to live in DC and hobnob with each other more than their own neighbors back home that they represent. They will say they need to collaborate with the magic of in-person - as if telephones haven't existed and party calls for decades already. But we know what that means. It means that they're more interested in getting a long weekend from their job than actually doing their job - representing us.
People who want to serve in Congress will start questioning all sorts of barriers. Anand Giridharadas recently recounted a story on a livestream about how some years ago he had talked to someone about a possible run for some office, and the person who talked to him basically told him to forget about spending any time with his toddlers for the duration of holding office. Why is it made so hard for people to actually be a part of the ruling bodies do you think? It absolutely disincentivizes people running who actually want to spend time with their families, who actually want to live in the district they represent, who actually want to hang with their neighbors in their district, and it incentivizes people who would maybe prefer to hobnob with fancy lobbyists and donors from the upper class. The donor class certainly likes having them all in one place for easy access by the lobbying groups they set up in DC.
And think of the fossil fuel use. If you think it's important to stop unnecessary travel, like commutes where telework makes more sense, and reducing business airline travel, these people in Congress fly way more than the average person. But if they didn't actually have to be there in person, why couldn't they live normal lives working remotely most of the time?
I don't know why this sounds tough to conceptualize to some people but this is what it's really about when it comes right down to it. We need changes in the way we do things.
My letter to my congressperson:
I support proxy voting in Congress and so should you.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
FAFO tipping point wish-casting is apocalyptic hopium based in libertarian accelerationism fantasy.
There’s no invisible hand of the market, and people rarely learn lessons in time — people often just get harmed.
“And so I would often hear something like the following -- "Yes, yes. I understand that the people in your experiments and some of the people I know do foolish things, but in markets, then -- and then I claim..." They could never quite finish this sentence without literally waving their hands, and the argument is somehow if you choose the wrong career or fail to save for retirement, that the market will somehow push you back toward being rational. There's a reason why no one can make this argument without waving their hands, and that's because the argument is just silly. You know, if you don't save enough for retirement, what happens to you? You're poor when you're old. The market doesn't discipline you. Suppose people have a weakness for gambling. What's going to happen? Will people build casinos, or will they offer programs to help people curb their gambling addiction? Well, people have made a lot more money on casinos than on programs to stop gambling.”
— Richard Thaler on PBS - Hacking Your Mind
People who know better push for societal solutions to mitigate the worst happening to most. Don’t wait for everybody to push for that.
"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
— John Maynard Keynes
Beaver having a lily pad dinner.
