It's Good If We Have A President Who Is Grounded In The Current Century... Unlike You-Know-Who

John Oliver: "The truth is, from employers' point of view, a big selling point for automation is that it increases productivity and it maximizes profits. And, for displaced workers, that has caused immense main throughout history-- and not just in factories. For instance, in the 90s, as voice recognition technology improved, phone company operators were rightly worried for their jobs... A job automated is not necessarily a job lost. Frequently, machines don;'t replace jobs so much as tasks... Fear of [ATM-related] job losses turned out to be completely overblown; bankteller employment actually increased over the next 30 years. What happened was, ATMs took over the job of dispensing cash and tellers were then freed up to do sales or other work. Jobs didn't go; they changed. And when automation does lead to job loss in certain sectors, historically, it also actually created jobs... Fifty years from now, people will be doing jobs that we can't imagine right now..."

But he also warns that "it might not be easy for displaced workers to transition into them. For instance, right now our economy is creating lots of jobs in the tech sector. At the same time, we have 3 and a half million truckers possibly facing unemployment due to driverless technology... So the big question is, how do you harness what is good about automation while minimizing the damage to those hurt by it? Well, the best thing would be, if America were in the hands of someone nimble and forward-thinking."

That, of course brings us back to Trump, who is neither nimble nor forward thinking. Oliver goes on to discuss what a luddite Trump is and how he's doing none of the things he could and should be doing to help displaced workers. He obviously doesn't understand what's going on around him, nor, more fundamentally, does he or the people around him understand the role of government in these kinds of upheavals.

Just yesterday, Jonathan Swan wrote for Axios that Trump hates "crazy" driverless cars. In his view, "self-driving cars are a menace to society. A skeptic of cutting-edge technology-- as his tweets about Boeing's 'complex' planes emphasized-- Trump has privately said he thinks the autonomous vehicle (AV) revolution is 'crazy' and that he'd never let a computer drive him around.

Why it matters: Most Americans share Trump's view: 71% of U.S. drivers would be afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle, per AAA. Yet his own administration is encouraging AV development by removing barriers and issuing voluntary guidance instead of regulations. And we see no evidence Trump has imposed his personal views on the policy process... In conversations on Air Force One and in the White House, Trump has acted out scenes of self-driving cars veering out of control and crashing into walls. He's said he doesn't think autonomous vehicles make sense, according to four sources who've heard him discuss the subject. 'You know when he's telling a story, and he does the hand motions,' said a source who has heard Trump talk about hypothetical accidents involving self-driving cars. 'He says, Can you imagine, you're sitting in the back seat and all of a sudden this car is zig-zagging around the corner and you can't stop the f---ing thing? He's definitely an automated car skeptic,' the source said. Another source said Trump told him self-driving cars 'will never work.'"

In one of the early 2017 meetings with CEOs in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Elon Musk and Trump shared a lighthearted exchange about Tesla's "Autopilot" technology. Trump told Musk he preferred traditional cars, according to a source who was in the room.

And in the summer of 2017, at his Bedminster golf club, Trump was chatting with club members when one raised the subject of AV technology. The club member was "excited" about a new Tesla he bought, recalled a source who was part of the conversation. "And [Trump] was like, 'Yeah that's cool but I would never get in a self-driving car. ... I don't trust some computer to drive me around.'"

The world is moving forward, even if Trump isn't. Relatively saner elements inside his administration are trying to keep up, even if Trump is gumming top the works wherever he can. Swan wrote that "A source who has discussed autonomous vehicles with Trump says he thinks it wouldn't take much for the president to rapidly reverse his administration's hands-off approach to hands-free vehicles. Trump already calls self-driving cars out-of-control death traps, so any news fueling that fear could jolt him into action."

So which candidates are way, way, way more forward-thinking and nimble than Trump? The obvious ones are Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Beto, Tulsi, Kamala, Cory Booker, Mayor Pete, Andrew Yang, Julian Castro, Marianne Williamson, Jay Inslee... In fact, most anyone other than Status Quo Joe-- who might be a little less of a luddite than Trump... but not enough to qualify as a 21st Century president.

Luddites' Latest Stand: The Battle Of The Bulb

Early yesterday we explained that the sociopaths and nihilists who can exercise considerable control over the House Republican caucus off on to their latest crusade into the Dark Ages-- killing lightbulb efficiency standards.

[T]hey have a vote scheduled today that would repeal energy efficiency standards for light bulbs set in 2007 with strong bipartisan support. Republicans no longer support anything that makes sense and will surely vote en masse to take a giant step backwards. The standards the Republicans plan to gut today will save consumers about $100 per family per year, or about $12 billion nationally, when fully implemented. They will also reduce energy demand, avoiding the need for 30 large power plants. The standards will prevent more than 100 million tons of carbon pollution per year-- the equivalent of taking 17 million cars off the road. And the new standards are sparking investment in American jobs-- prompting manufacturers to build new U.S. plants and create new U.S. jobs making more energy efficient lighting technologies. For example, TCP, a bulb maker that traditionally has done all of its manufacturing in China, plans to open its first U.S. plant, in Ohio, where it will make new CFL bulbs. When’s the last time you heard of something like that happening? Does that explain their opposition? Progress is a horrible thing for reactionaries; it always has been-- which is why they are always on the wrong side of history.

With bought-off and cynical luddites like Rush Limbaugh and Oily Joe Barton, along with social Neanderthals like Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck leading the way, no one couldn't have predicted the shameful and embarrassing circus this has turned into.

The House started debating the bill yesterday and it doesn't appear likely to garner the two-thirds it needs to be sent along to the Senate, where it would be laughed into oblivion anyway. Looks like the House vote will be today.

Originally the bipartisan lightbulb efficiency legislation was co-sponsored by Fred Upton (R-MI) and then-Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) and it passed easily through the House Energy and Commerce Committee and was added as an amendment to a bill that passed the Senate by a vote of 86-8, the House by a vote of 314-100, and was signed by Bush.

So how did Republicans get from there to here on the lightbulb law?

The answer has very little to do with energy policy, and everything to do with tea party politics.

Barton, the bill’s sponsor, turned his attention to the lightbulb law last fall, when he found himself pitted in a bitter contest with Upton for chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. The rivalry played out in the weeks after the November elections, when Republicans were giddy with excitement over their tea party-fueled takeover of the House.

The conservative Barton, who has declared that he was “tea party before tea party was cool,” rode that wave in his campaign against Upton, digging up pieces of his opponent’s record that he believed would show that Upton was too moderate to hold a prominent leadership post. Among them: Upton’s sponsorship of the lightbulb standards.

Barton turned Upton’s support of the lightbulb standard into one of his key pieces of ammunition against the moderate Michigander, launching the “Save the Lightbulb” campaign. It was promptly picked up by Beck, Limbaugh, and Bachmann. Barton ultimately lost the contest for Energy Chairman, but his lightbulb campaign became a top talking point for conservatives.

By February, it had gained steam and a Senate companion bill, introduced on February 17 by Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo. In a sign of its momentum, 27 other Republicans signed on to the bill that day.

All of that alarmed manufacturers, who had begun producing the new bulbs, and feared the rollback of the standards would undermine their investments in developing energy-efficient bulbs. Bulb-maker Philips began an aggressive lobbying campaign, meeting with lawmakers and staffers on Capitol Hill, urging them not to roll back the lightbulb law. They brought along samples of the new bulbs, similar in appearance from the old bulbs.

“The new energy efficient incandescent bulbs look and feel just like the old lights that consumers are used to. The only real difference Americans will notice with the new lightbulbs is their lower electricity bills. Electricity savings per family will be about $100 per year,” said Randy Moorhead, Vice President of Government Affairs for Philips Electronics, reprising the pitch he’s been making tirelessly to GOP lawmakers.

After meeting with Philips, some Republican energy policy staffers privately admitted that rolling back the lightbulb law seemed like a bad idea, especially when they saw that the efficient bulbs looked exactly like the old bulbs, and learned that manufacturers feared they would hurt their bottom line.

Despite the quiet heartburn that the bill is now generating in some moderate Republican offices, GOP leaders are still driving it forward, in hopes that Monday’s House floor debate will generate campaign talking points for tea party candidates across the country-- including Bachmann.

UPDATE: GOP Fails To Turn Out The Lights

Cantor needed two-thirds to turn back the clock. The vote was 233-193, so he failed. Nancy Pelosi: "It’s lights out on the Republicans’ latest bright idea: ignoring jobs, making light bulbs less energy efficient, and asking American families to foot the bill. After 6 months in the majority, it’s time Republicans shined a spotlight on Americans’ top priority-– jobs. Republicans can’t stay in the dark forever; they must abandon their ideological assault on the environment, the economy, and the middle class, and get to work creating jobs and strengthening our economy."

I wonder if she noticed that five of those reactionary "Republicans" are members of her own caucus: Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Nick Rahall (WV), Jerry Costello (IL), and Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT). 10 Republicans voted for the energy-efficient bulbs with the rest of the Democratic caucus.

The Senate's Theoretical Vote On Shared Sacrifice-- Teactionary Filibuster Broken... And The GOP's Efforts In The House To Shut Out The Lights

S.1323 is Harry Reid's bill that "expresses the sense of the Senate that any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1 million or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort." Reid and his colleagues have, perhaps, been shamed by Bernie Sander's relentless work in the area. Bernie, in fact, cosponsored the resolution with Reid. Needless to say, the Republican extremists, lead by teabag phony Jim DeMint moved immediately to filibuster it and prevent a vote. Shockingly most Republicans joined the Democrats and passed a cloture motion to end the filibuster last week. The right-wing filibuster failed 22-74, only one putative Democrat, Nebraska reactionary Ben Nelson, joining the likes of Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Jim Inhofe, Ron Johnson, Tom Coburn, Dean Heller, Chris Lee, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt and the rest of the far right garbage who feel millionaires and billionaires shouldn't pay their fair share of taxes. These are the followers of the fascist ideology first propounded by American pro-Nazi plutocrat Lammont DuPont in a 1942 address to the National Manufacturers Association:

"We will win the war by reducing taxes on corporations, high income brackets, and increasing taxes on lower incomes, by removing unions from any power to tell industry how to produce, how to deal with their employees or anything else, by destroying any and all government agencies that stand in the way of free enterprise."

The far right believed it then and they believe it today. DuPont introduced the far right's freshly minted new religion: so-called "free enterprise." Among the conservative Republicans voting with the Democrats against this creed-- and against the sociopaths in their caucus-- included Miss McConnell, Jeff Sessions, John Cornyn, John McCain, Jon Kyl, John Thune, David "Diapers" Vitter, Pat Roberts and Dan Coats.

Meanwhile over in the House-- run by sociopaths and nihilists-- they have a vote scheduled today that would repeal energy efficiency standards for light bulbs set in 2007 with strong bipartisan support. Republicans no longer support anything that makes sense and will surely vote en masse to take a giant step backwards. The standards the Republicans plan to gut today will save consumers about $100 per family per year, or about $12 billion nationally, when fully implemented. They will also reduce energy demand, avoiding the need for 30 large power plants. The standards will prevent more than 100 million tons of carbon pollution per year-- the equivalent of taking 17 million cars off the road. And the new standards are sparking investment in American jobs-- prompting manufacturers to build new U.S. plants and create new U.S. jobs making more energy efficient lighting technologies. For example, TCP, a bulb maker that traditionally has done all of its manufacturing in China, plans to open its first U.S. plant, in Ohio, where it will make new CFL bulbs. When’s the last time you heard of something like that happening? Does that explain their opposition? Progress is a horrible thing for reactionaries; it always has been-- which is why they are always on the wrong side of history.