In 1982, my cousin, a prominent climate scientist, gave me a mini-seminar on climate change, which was not even close to being on my radar. He said we had, at most, about 20 years -- until 2002 -- to begin mitigation. He and others made a presentation to Congress, which the majority ignored. Yes, it's too late. The parochial interests of too many nations, which got us into this fix, will prevent the all-out cooperation and coordination in the crash program needed _now_ to reduce CO2 emissions.

Civics is no longer taught in many schools nor is any meaningful account of our nation's history. Consequently, we have a growing number of ahistorical citizens who have no notion of how govt works. They are easy marks for fake news, conspiracy theories, cults, and dumbed-down or outright false assertions in textbooks because they have no frame of reference, the one once provided by education.

Last I checked, the Republican leadership in Congress is a willing accomplice to Trump's relentless sabotage of democracy, replacing it step but step with an authoritarian state. Those steps, BTW, are predictably common in the rise authoritarianism, as if there were a playbook. Most but not all of the rank and file gauleiters in Congress who carry water for Trump are Republicans. The party has long had authoritarian instincts and caters to the perennial subset of Americans who yearn for authoritatian rule, for the daddy state. Most of us are frogs in the proverbial pot, either unaware of, indifferent to, or silently complicit in the slowmotion coup underway. Historically, the rise of fascism or totalitarianism goes unchecked until the water in the pot gets unbearably hot. By then it's too late.

Hardly "minor" -- it's policy. In order to "destroy the administrative state," Steve Bannon's wettest dream, all the cabinet henhouses have been stuffed with rapacious, corrupt foxes intent on freeing the US of chickens (not the frightened kind) who would contribute to the commonweal rather than trashing it.

Pai is a Trump appointee.

Did you happen to notice that Verizon hack Ajit Pai, in his arrogant rush to repeal NN (for which the FCC is being sued because he ignored millions of public comments opposed to repeal, a gross violation of the rule-making process) reclassified ISPs as common carriers, freeing states to make their own NN rules, which is proceeding apace, much to Pai's consternation. WTF did he think would happen? Answer: He didn't think. A lawsuit to overturn this "oversight" has been threatened or is in the works. Good luck with that. For Republicans (especially) and other free-marketeers, states' rights are Good until they're Bad, deregulation is Good until unintended market-skewing consequences in favor of consumers make it Bad.