You’ve probably heard that #47 has asked the Pentagon to be ready for action. According to an article in The Hill, President #47 has labeled Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern”, or CPC. This designation stems from news that Islamic terrorists are allegedly attacking Nigerian Christians. A group of approximately 30 American Christian religious leaders and a few politicians like Ted Cruz and Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) as well as the entertainers Nicki Minaj and Bill Maher have made a convincing enough case for the President to make the CPC declaration.
The [CPC] designation compels the president to consult with the designated government, draft up a foreign policy action plan, and consult with Congress about implementation. [H.R.2431 — 105th Congress (1997-1998) within 90 days.] –Laura Kelly – 11/03/25, The Hill
If you read H.R. 2431 (2018), you’ll find:
Title IV: Presidential Actions – Subtitle I: Targeted Responses to Violations of Religious Freedom Abroad – Directs the President, for each foreign country in which the government engages in or tolerates violations of religious freedom (including particularly severe violations), to oppose such violations by taking certain actions and promoting the right to freedom of religion in that country. [emphasis mine]
(Sec. 405) Specifies among the actions the President maytake: (1) public condemnation; (2) delay or cancellation of scientific and cultural exchanges; (3) withdrawal, limitation, or suspension of U.S. development assistance and U.S. security assistance; (4) instruction of U.S. executive directors of international financial institutions to vote against loans primarily benefiting the foreign government responsible for such violations; (5) restrictions on the issuance of licenses to export any goods or technology to such foreign government; (6) prohibition against the making, guaranteeing, or insuring of loans, or extension of credit by certain U.S. financial institutions to the violating government; and (7) prohibition of U.S. Government procurement of goods or services from such government. Provides for: (1) commensurate actions in substitution for any of the above presidential actions; and (2) binding agreements with foreign governments obliging them to cease, or take substantial steps to address and phase out, the acts, policies, or practices constituting violations of religious freedom.
(Sec. 407) Authorizes the President to waive the requirements of this Act if certain conditions are met.
(Sec. 410) Prohibits judicial review of presidential actions or agency actions taken under this Act.
My reading of Title IV of H.R. 2431 is that the President is compelled to take certain actions against Nigeria. While taking no action does not seem to be specifically barred, I didn’t see it listed as an option.
The potential threat by the President is in sending an expeditionary military force to Nigeria to stop the violence on Christians. According to Wikipedia, the population (2023) of Nigeria is estimated at 236,747,130 people. Unless the terrorists are wearing military uniforms, how will our troops find them and what’s to prevent a guerrilla war with the terrorists gradually taking bites out of our soldiers as they did in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan? Guerilla warfare has time and again proven successful against superior military forces.
America does not need another distant land war … this time in west-central Africa with guerilla fighters in the jungle. Peace through superior firepower only works if you can find the targets. Perhaps we should call in favors from Israeli special forces?
Finally, conflict between religions is a conflict between ideas. When both sides believe that they have authority based on the supernatural, short of religious conversion or death how do you decisively win such a war? A war of attrition, perhaps?
As a military conflict progresses, what is to prevent escalation on the part of US forces. Or is this just to be the work of a few military advisors? Remember, that is how the US stumbled into the Viet Nam war.
Secretary of Defense Hegseth and the public affairs office with the Department of War in Washington, DC, announced late Friday that 2 policy changes will go into effect on January 1, 2026, both relating to the military dress code. First, unless otherwise specified, Fridays will become casual Friday. Second, ties worn by service members will be red and extra-long. This change has been in the works since 2016.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was rushed from the White House outhouse to the hospital late Friday evening for a severe RCI, Rectal-Cranial Inversion. Members of his immediate family said only that this came as no surprise.
A spokesman for President Trump said that the East Wing conversion has already gone over budget owing to the late addition of state-of-the-art-secret doors and passageways. The secret doors are designed for the quiet removal of foreign guests who refuse to speak English.
The White House Office of Global Disruption has announced the decision to rename an offensive digit. It has been named “Trump” and it replaces the name “five”. MAGA rejoiced in the elimination of the Antifa-approved name five, e.g. trump, trumpteen or trump thousand trump hundred and trumptytrump. When asked whether or not this is a wise move, Trump replied that someone said that this will be the greatest change ever in mathematics.
In this politically turbulent time, I can’t help but recall a quote from Grover Norquist in 2001. From Liasson, Mara (May 25, 2001). “Conservative advocate”. Morning Edition. NPR.
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”–Grover Norquist
The anti-government coup that is taking place presently resembles closely an attempt to convert the USA into a libertarian state. {How the Project 2025 elite will tolerate Trump’s authoritarian reflex is unclear.} More than just economics, there is also a component of Christian nationalism as well. From what I know about the John Birch Society, the combination of libertarianism and enthusiastic support from far-right Christian evangelicalism adds up to a theocratic-leaning anti-democracy regime. What’s wrong with minimal government? Some negatives are listed below. The six bullet points are copied directly from Google using the searched under libertarian negatives.
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“Increased inequality: Critics worry that with minimal government intervention and lower taxes, the gap between the wealthy and the poor could widen significantly.
Difficulty addressing social and environmental problems: A philosophy that advocates for very limited government is criticized for being unable to effectively address issues like pollution, climate change, and other negative externalities that require collective action and regulation.
Neglect of public goods and services: The libertarian ideal of minimal government may lead to underfunding or elimination of essential public services, which may negatively impact infrastructure, education, and social welfare programs.
Conditional freedom: Some argue that a purely libertarian framework might make freedom conditional on an individual’s ability to afford certain protections or opportunities, failing to provide a baseline of security for everyone.
Challenges in complex societies: The principles of libertarianism, which often rely on small-scale, community-based reasoning, may struggle to provide adequate solutions for the scale and complexity of modern societies and economies.
Limited safety net: The minimal government model may not provide the necessary social safety net for those who are unable to work or are facing hardship, leaving vulnerable populations without support. “
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What’s appealing about libertarianism? Again, straight from Google and searched under libertarian positives-
“Libertarians advocate the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination,
Emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice.”
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What’s not to like about libertarianism in the above libertarian positives bullet points? In a more humorous mood, I might joke that libertarianism is the theoretical foundation which supports and normalizes greed. If not here already, we are approaching a new gilded age and Project 2025 will lock it into place. The lion’s share of natural resources and related industry is in the hands of fewer and fewer people and corporations. Theoretical question: Shouldn’t a child today expect that by virtue of being born on this planet expect to share in the resource wealth of this world? Every minute of every day, children are born into a world where its riches have already been hoarded by people or by entities far away.
The world is a hazardous place, and nature has many tricks to kill us. Our government in the US has been active in managing our safety and to construct frameworks to monitor infectious disease, dangerous weather, the actions of potential enemies, food safety, pollution, work safety, chemical and nuclear safety, air, land and sea transportation safety, and put in place and maintain the national highway system. Oh yes, and the US military is busy guarding our borders to protect commerce.
Over time our gov’t has identified ways to make life safer and healthier for all citizens, irrespective of race, color or creed. After WWII, the US became the global hegemon. While very far from perfect, the US has contributed to the health and wellbeing of countless people and countries. Where do so many people emigrating from their homelands want to go? To Russia or China? Until now the US was synonymous with opportunity and freedom. But the world has tired of US hegemony and new alliances are being forged.
The sly schemers at the Heritage Foundation who dreamt up Project 2025 seem to have put into play a populist movement that closely rhymes with Norquist’s idea. Make the unpopular cuts in the federal government during a conservative supermajority with a president who has risen to folk hero status. Presently, we are in a 2-year span between national elections. By the time the Democratic party has legislative or executive control, untying the MAGA/GOP web snugged into place will take a new Congress and a new president years to repair, if ever.
Trump is still in office partly because the bulk of the US population respects the national election schedule. In doing so, citizens are trapped in the stretch of history with him in office. This respect is in contrast to Trump’s disrespect for government institutions and the Constitution. His greed mentality, animated by his transactional approach to seemingly everything, keeps him pushing the boundaries of presidential norms. Instead of legislating his plans for the country, he rules by executive order and relies on the courts to validate his actions. The GOP strategy from years back of filling the courts with conservative judges is paying off by planting Trump-friendly judges in many districts. However, it doesn’t always payoff for the orange Jesus.
The viewpoint voiced by Michelle Obama saying to the effect of “if they go low, we go high” has fallen limp and become only a hopeful aphorism. The power of this statement seems inadequate to win many elections for liberal candidates. Part and parcel of the “Woke” accusation by MAGAs is the idea that liberals can’t stomach what needs to be done. It comes from the same playbook that includes advice to spank your kids and ignore the tragedy of gender misclassification. Dems, they say, are too soft headed to apply tough love.
In politics and religion, you find people who are devotees of particular doctrines that they perhaps do not understand clearly. If you are a devotional thinker, you strive to absorb doctrine. If you are an analytical thinker, you will make the effort to dissect an assertion and examine it for accuracy, clarity and implications. This is obviously a spectrum and “devotional” and “analytical” are the bookends of that spectrum. America is a mix of doctrinaire and analytical thinkers who may respond differently to a given idea or point.
The most effective way to outfox your political opponents is to make outrageous statements and repeat them endlessly à la Trump. An outrageous sentence takes only a few seconds to utter but can take many hours or days to research and prepare a rebuttal. Worse yet, the rebuttal isn’t guaranteed to get popular airtime unless delivered by a famous person like a late-night TV host, George Clooney or Gov. Newsom. We’ve become accustomed to outrageous statements paraded in the media in the form of a freak show. Everyone has watched satire and absurdism as entertainment. Superficially, Trump’s absurd statements seem to cray that no one could believe him. But people do take his ridiculous utterances seriously.
All of the legacy news organizations in the US media are owned by corporations. Corporations have both stockholders and stakeholders. Stockholders (owners) of a corporation can be the public, select individuals or the founder and/or upper management. The stakeholders are customers, employees, vendors and other organizations whose livelihood depends on the corporation. The management and stockholders of the major media outlets demand maximum quarterly profits (normal), so news directors have no motive to risk losing eyeballs to the competition for fear of losing their jobs. Newsrooms usually have a well-honed sense of what it takes to hold the flighty attention span of its audiences. Factually accurate and rational analysis, if ever delivered, are likely to remain on a hard drive unless there are some important heart strings to tug. News directors and editors are loathe to broadcast or print content that Dan Rather once called MEGO- My Eyes Glaze Over.
One of the attributes of stockholder ownership of a public stock is that the stockholders are very often like absentee landlords. They have nothing to do with the actual day-to-day operation of the corporation other than apply pressure on C-Suite management from a distance. To them, a given company is just a profitable parking spot for their cash irrespective of the merits of the company’s product to society. They have been given legal personhood but without the expectation of kindness and other human attributes. It’s hard to fathom how this might be different.
The popular news media are more accurately defined as semi-analytical show business.
While the news media have been bathing in the warm glow of its status as the 4th Estate, the inherent attribute of being a corporate entity with stockholders as absentee landlords is approaching the corporate bookend. That bookend can be found in the curriculum of any popular MBA program. Find the gap between the current state and the desired conditions and use KPIs, Key Performance Indicators, to close the gap. The more quantitative the KPIs, the more enshrined they’ll become in the C-Suite. It allows the accounting and finance MBAs to sit at their spreadsheets and plot impressive bar graphs with hockey stick projections of near-term EBITDA.
I will offer that if Trump somehow gets elected for a 3rd term, the USA as we knew it has collapsed. If a single party can manage to illegally keep a man in office for an extra term, then the government is very much out of control. At that point, what are the citizens to do? Sit and endure the new authoritarian state like so many have in history? Or do we take up arms and fight a tyrannical government? Isn’t that what the 2nd amendment to the Constitution is for? Something to think about.
Note: This is a repeat of a post I uploaded in 2017. I thought it was worth posting again for the new folks.
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The weighty voices of the GOP evangelical propaganda wing have activated following the awful soaking that Houston received. The wagging fingers of TV evangelists were not far behind to remind us of the looming existential threat.
We’ve witnessed a burlesque of righteous-sounding preachers leaning in from the video pulpit and warning, solemnly and in no uncertain terms, that hurricane Harvey is only the latest in a series of calamities to befall our nation. Our corrupt society is wallowing in a fetid pit of sin and depravity. The storms were heaven sent they intone, to show Who is actually in charge.
It’s all so very clear to these folks. According to many evangelicals the root cause of the mass murder at Sandy Hook and hurricanes Katrina, and now Harvey is the grievous sin of omission. But of what? For failing to put an end to abortion and gay marriage. They’ve been connecting the dots and these dots lead to perdition. An existential threat is on the move. It’s Old Nick up to no good.
The conservative fear machine has kicked into full ruckus configuration. They deploy their weapons of incitement via their heavy presence on AM radio and cable TV. For elections and in the face of national debate, these evangelical conservatives know that they can dependably frighten just enough people to swerve the Republican hive mind. Who are these pliable voters? I think more than a few of them are people who for one reason or another did not take advantage of the education opportunities decades ago and now find themselves near the terminus of a life of toil.
Conveniently for those left of center, the Democratic Party is comatose and strapped into an iron lung, wheezing away the years in an undisclosed location.
9/10/17, Addendum. In case I was not clear, it’s my observation that conservative protestant evangelical organizations have become a menace to American civilization. It seems to me that the election of Trump and the support bestowed upon him by conservative Christian groups, many of whom can be found out in the open on his evangelical board, has opened the door to opaque theocratic influence on the large scale conduct of American government.
It’s axiomatic that people have an inherent right to worship as they please. So imagine the nightmare of trying to control what people believe when religion is folded into the curriculum of the public schools. What a tragic misunderstanding of human nature it would be to attempt to impose religious doctrine upon students. Public school parents would have none of it. But, a private school may have much more flexibility to teach a particular sect of religious belief. Is it a coincidence that privatizing schools is favored by many religious organizations?
Finally, there is the matter of magisteria. Steven J. Gould wrote about religion and science as being non-overlapping magisteria. A magisterium is defined as a “a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution”. A magisterium may or may not recognize an external system of laws, facts, or values. Gould maintained that science and religion were non-overlapping magisteria in the sense that the tools of science were of no use in solving religious questions.
The secular world can be thought of that which describes what is human made and of human concern. It can also be thought of as that which is independent of religion. It is not atheistic or better or worse in any way. In chemistry we might say that the secular is orthogonal or perpendicular the religious. A bolt, an integrated circuit, or a tractor would be in the domain of the secular. So would the National Electrical Code, city ordinances, and state and federal law. All of these items are contrivances made by people for purposes living a better and safer life. Added to these items would be mathematics, the sciences and engineering. That which is measurable like the volt or the kilogram have no defining attribute which traces back to religious definition.
It has been said that the purpose of government is to protect ourselves from each other. I would extend that to include the general domain of the secular. Having secular government means that subjective interpretations of religious matters must be secondary. This is owing to the reality that there are many religious beliefs in the world and the question of whose religion will prevail in an action involving the public will rapidly become intractable due to disparate beliefs. The secular world has elements of logic, measurement and guidelines for evidence or objective observation. All of these examples could be contained within a secular magisterium.
Public schools have long been the institutions where secular matters were introduced and learned. Government at all levels has been steadfastly kept within the secular domain. There was and remains to be a need for government to manage the secular details of a thriving civilization. The religious magisterium has a heavy reliance on beliefs which is a subjective matter subject to interpretation. A democracy requires a goodly amount of objectivity and evidence.
The notion of non-overlapping magisteria raises an interesting question. What if elements in one magisterium want control of elements in another magisterium? To have elements of a subjective domain in control of elements in the objective domain is to introduce chaos in both. Since neither side has the toolkit to operate in the other, we have to conclude that this circumstance makes no sense for either domain.
Note: This essay is written mostly for a foreign audience whose members may lack a more nuanced view of America if only by virtue of distance or language.
The awful shooting in Michigan recently as well as other shootings in the last several days are a reminder- as if we need it- that this mass shooting business is not a bug but rather a feature of current American culture. It is yet more male violence. So far, Americans have failed to hold males culpable for this trend. The way we raise men in general needs to be rejiggered to produce better citizens overall. Make no mistake, there are a great many good and decent fellas in the US- maybe most of us- but a minority are quite problematic.
Surely there must be a way to address this matter without government interference. This is in large part a civics problem. The question is this: How can we make everyone better citizens, men especially?
A great many US citizens are forced to endure gun violence because any argument that might impede any aspect of anyone’s ability to own a gun is met with howls of indignation and angry hand waving arguments based on the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. Okay, fine. Conservative politicians are loathe to touch this electrified 3rd rail of politics. Candidates for the US House of Representatives will sometime post pictures of themselves in ads holding a firearm with a flag somewhere in the picture. This is meant to assure conservative voters that they as patriots will uphold the 2nd Amendment to the US constitution. I understand this and I cannot believe that any liberal politician could successfully part gun owners with their guns. There would be shooting. The government confiscating American guns is in no way politically feasible.
I also support anyone’s right to stand in a pool of gasoline and play with matches, barring any violation of local ordinances of course.
For the most part, school killings were unusual prior to the Columbine shootings in 1999. What has changed? One notable change relates to the emergence of smart phones and the internet. According to Wikipedia-
Below is a graphic from the K-12 Shooting Database. Of course, in the USA K-12 refers to the 13 years of basic education all children receive in public and private schools.
Source: K-12 Shooting Database. The Mormon church shooting or other recent shootings in public places aren’t part of this data set.
If you wade into the data, you’ll find that the definition of ‘mass shooting’ might vary a bit. Sometimes the definition refers to 3 or more deaths, but for the most part there is no agreed upon definition.
As a kid I recall exploring with a .22 caliber rifle out in a grassy river bottom. Maybe it is just me, but I was always itching for an excuse to fire the gun at something, maybe even a badger or a fish. I never shot a badger or a fish, thankfully. I’m only saying that possessing a gun and ammo can gave me a sense of power and authority. My imagination tells me that there are others.
These mass shootings are the status quo and usually fail to generate more than a day or two of concern for most Americans. Except for Charlie Kirk. Thoughts and prayers are offered by many, but to no useful end so far. Flowers and stuffed animals are left at the crime scene, but most people return to their streaming episodes of TV with gunplay being central to the show.
Americans have a fascination with murder as a plot line for their entertainment. Hollywood feigns some concern over the violence but continues to bang out more grotesque violence in their creations. As much as actors would like to think, the artistic qualities of film are no more than secondary. A movie project is much like a speculative construction project- plans are made, money is secured, contractors are hired and the building project is begun. The whole thing is based on a fair probability that eventual sale of the building will sell at a healthy profit. It is a wager made by people who believe that they understand the market in the near future.
Investors in a movie or TV series also bet on a spec project where their money is gathered on the guess that the production will be a hit and rake in profits. Whereas a building project depends on scarcity in the real estate market and vanity to some extent, a movie project is all about vanity. Investors believe that they alone can select a project likely to be profitable. Directors and writers believe that their work product will put butts in seats or eyeballs on the TV screens. In film, the artistic elements are complex and expensive. However, the artistic sensibilities of audiences are fickle at best.
All of this leads to a critical point. Spec buildings and movies both rely on the notion that if you build it, customers will come. Buildings can be designed and located in appealing ways to attract buyers. Movies can be produced with stars, popular directors, and the myriad specialists who put a successful film together. So, why would investors back a movie project that lacks large scale appeal to audiences? If gunplay or other violence puts butts in seats, investors may require it before committing funds. Writers, producers and directors understand this and may only go forward with a movie project having a minimum of violent action sequences, car chases and a bit of nudity to dial in some edginess. Very often, though, star power leads the charge to success. Stars are likely to favor certain types of movie projects with ‘action’, where action includes scenes with combat, one-on-one fighting and gunplay which add to ticket sales. Think Tom Cruise, Keano Reeves and many others
Having been in the theater exhibition business, I can verify that people will line up in droves to see a new Tom Cruise or 007 movie. The appeal of shoot- ‘em-up action movies is undeniable and bankable. So, the question is-
Why fund a movie that is less than best effort, where ‘best effort’ means attractive elements known to draw crowds? Why leave out scenes of gun violence when the public expects it?
Our citizens are programmed early on to tolerate or enjoy gun violence. Guns are used to solve conflict. Violence in entertainment is something that we have normalized by sheer repetition leading to satisfying conclusions.
The prevalence of violent video games exposes young men and kids to killing. Some deny that these games promote violence, but the enthusiastic death dealing and mayhem produced by the players is telling. People are immensely entertained by it. I’ve seen where the military even encourages its active-duty soldiers to play games with violent gunplay. That is the job of soldiers. Causing casualties is what they train to do because it is necessary. I get it.
Why were these large-scale killings scarce before 1990? For the school shootings, the hockey stick curve above shows that from about 2010, the incident count exploded until 2018 where it leveled off briefly but rapidly took off again. Has entertainment conditioned us to tolerate or even enjoy gun violence? The actual fallout from untimely death is brutal for family and friends.
Before 1990 there was an internet in its infancy, but no smart phones. Unless you had access to a computer, electronic entertainment and news had limited reach. Unlike today, a great many people were isolated from events and politics. There were only the 3 major networks plus PBS, newspapers and magazines. All suffered from time delays owing to content production complexity. The standards and practices required discipline and ‘proper’ content absent speculation and hype. There were the tabloids like the National Enquirer that indulged in gossip, but their credibility low, at least among educated people.
Today with the 24-hr. news cycle, content is broadcast immediately and most of the entire population are free to take half-baked, poorly content edited news items and crank themselves into a tizzy. Unlike the past, today producers of news content rely on ‘clicks’, ‘likes’, or other indicators of viewing to base their advertising invoices on.
Scrolling through content online is driven by our curiosity and FOMO- Fear Of Missing Out. I can personally add that it is certainly say this is true for myself. While I do enjoy ‘action‘ movies, I must occasionally remind myself that the violence on fellow humans is only a plot element. But like Jane Goodall observed in ape and chimp behaviors, our human primate behavior includes sometimes extreme violence. It’s built in and for many it lurks just below the surface, waiting to spring out.
Much of what we learn is based on observation of other people. Are we saying that civilized social norms can screen out or ignore violence in entertainment? For most mature people, the aversion to violence is strong and a 2-hour movie will not change that. But for some, the application of violence may get considerable thought. The realization that a violent act may be called for. Socially or mentally fragile people may see the application of gunplay as a plausible solution to their problem. To become a social issue, only a very few violence prone individuals are needed.
Gun violence is our own fault as Americans and will only be solved by a concerted effort in America to see violence as an undesirable aberration. We cannot expect a change of heart in the entertainment business. As long as there is profit in violence, they will continue to produce it.
The anti-Trump action in the UK prior to, during and after the American president’s visit has been awe inspiring for many of us in America. The grotesque and nauseating Trump has managed to emotionally unify Britain for a time in shared revulsion. Someone said that Trump speaks English like a dog walks on his hind legs.
Trump’s attempt to offer “elder statesman” advice to members of the EU and the greater collection of attendees at the UN actually blew up in his face, though it isn’t likely that he realized it. That said, he is extremely sensitive to perceived slights and is quite thin skinned even by his own admission. At the UN, Trump’s clown car of staff sycophants and pale underlings immediately assumed the escalator and teleprompter incidents malevolent acts meant to humiliate him. If they were acts of protest, then good on them.
It looks like the majority of Americans can see through his charade as a benevolent billionaire, the all-knowing sage of capitalism. If a general election were held now, it is becoming more likely that MAGA would lose control of the House of Representatives. The outcome of the 2028 general election, if Trump doesn’t interfere with it, is in doubt for the MAGA party.
Prior to Trump’s election in 2016, I don’t think he has ever led a publicly owned company. This means that he has never had to be accountable to the public. His actions are always buried within the board of directors of whom he is either the chairman or in control of some relative or other lackey.
I’ve been noticing more examples on YouTube about what foreigners, especially Brits and Canadians, really think about America: And it ain’t pretty either. The negative feelings expressed have torn through the curtain of polite silence to a full venting of the spleen. The traditionally understated Brits are aghast at the boastful American Orange Jesus. This frustration with the USA didn’t suddenly surface from the Trump era. It has been growing quietly for decades. America presumed it’s hegemony and has acted accordingly. Once the sparkling city on the hill, on close inspection we have a darker side, a grubby and mean-spirited side that persists despite all of our self-aggrandizement.
Aren’t Americans themselves embarrassed at Trump’s behavior? Yes, dammit. But due to the election cycle, MAGA congressional support and an impotent judiciary, there seems to be no way around immediate remedy. We must wait for the 2026 midterm elections and hope that the Congressional MAGA monopoly is toppled.
Even if Trump voluntarily resigns, there is the matter of his vice-president, JD Vance. As president, he would be pressured to carry out Trump’s “policies”, which so far have amounted to vengeance and the Project 2025 plan to drown the federal government by holding its head under water in the bathtub to paraphrase a republican strategist. Vance is an unknown quantity to most Americans. He was very critical of Trump before being chosen as the VP candidate. Somehow, he “saw the light” and became Trump’s VP. How would he really behave as president? Connect his dots and project into the future with a linear extrapolation, to begin with.
Trump has already done irreparable damage to US credibility and leadership in the world. I don’t see how this can be reversed back to pre-2015 days. American hegemony has come and gone now that the barnyard gate is open. New alliances in trade, absent US participation, are being set as in the case of Canada. American military leadership will linger well passed the rejiggering trade situation. America has a true talent for the military arts and sciences. Not because of American exceptionalism, but because of the vast sums that we have spent in the past plus our natural resources.
It is good for Americans to see ourselves through the eyes of foreign nations, painful as it might be. Television has a large impact on how we view ourselves. Ever vigilant for new trends or ways of keeping eyeballs fixed on the tube, broadcasters produce content that satisfies by exaggerating our merits or strengths and by burying certain parts of history. Huge corporate news organizations profit by taking a populist political stance and setting inflammatory political content on repeat cycle. Corporations are like a penis- they have no brain and all they want is more.
What is the deal with Russia? Why do the Russian people tolerate the lack of basic freedoms we in the West are accustomed to? Dissatisfaction with their government has been there since the beginning. Hundreds of millions have been deprived of liberty and prosperity following Russian revolution.
The history of early 20th century reveals the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Later, after much blood and treasure was spilled after the revolution and then through the cold war, the Soviet Union collapsed after a brief attempt at openness. Many around the world saw the collapse as a positive thing and a sign of better times ahead, especially for the people of the former USSR. There was hope in the West for a transition to some variety of Russian-tinted democracy and for freedoms heretofore absent for the average citizens of the former USSR.
To Russians in power, the very idea of a democratic republic is alien and inconceivable. There is a baseline level of distrust and fear of the infectiousness of the democratic spirit among Russian/Soviet leadership. Even the population has been convinced that the moral collapse of the West would spread to their homeland without an iron-fisted leader.
For a part of the world that has been strangling under autocratic rule and economic stratification since before the time of the Tsars, there has not been a historical Russian-style power sharing agreement between the monarchy and the nobility or the serfs from which to build upon. After generations of polarization by Soviet propaganda focused on Western hegemony and the moral turpitude of the West, there was no likelihood of building upon a Western style democratic model. The Russian propaganda engine continues to this day as strong as ever but with the help of the internet, artificial intelligence and widespread political indifference or gullibility.
The decade of the 1990’s following the collapse of the former USSR was a time of redistribution of wealth for a lucky few. Large Soviet industrial sectors were absorbed by a few private interests, producing fabulously wealthy oligarchs. This did not go unnoticed by the populace, who simmered in anger over it because they expected a freedom and prosperity dividend from the collapse. Amidst the confusion and dissatisfaction with Russian President Yeltsin, there arose a growing sense that Russia needed a strongman leader. Many even spoke admiringly of Stalin.
The collapse of the USSR left an internal power vacuum that would soon be filled by former Soviet citizens. Boris Yeltsin was elected President of Russia in December 1991 and remained as President until 1999 when his selected successor Prime Minister and former FSB director Vlad Putin took over as acting president. Putin was elected president in May of 2000.
I’ve been trying to understand why present-day Russia seems so … belligerent. My focus to start with is Putin. Rather than being a one-of-a-kind freak of nature, Putin is rather ordinary as a dictator except that his regime has a nuclear triad. Until its invasion of Ukraine, Russia also had the benefit of whatever left-over respect it may have had from its Soviet military reputation. But that has changed dramatically.
Putin has long expressed the view that the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy. He wants to rebuild the stature of Russia into a global superpower. Soviet leaders held the view that in order for Moscow to be safe from attack by the West, the Slavic eastern European countries bordering Western Russia had to be under the wing of the Kremlin. It was this deep boundary in combination with the Russian winter that helped to wear down the invasions of Napolean and Hitler. Both armies were substantially weakened by traversing the extensive farmlands and steppes of Ukraine and Poland. It is difficult to believe that this thinking has changed since the collapse.
When the USSR collapsed it left much more than empty senior positions and titles to fill. The Soviet governing apparatus was abandoned when the Kremlin finally conceded that the USSR was economically unsustainable. Even a culture built upon bribery and corruption needs an all-encompassing structural skeleton to manifest its national identity and sustain an economy, security and a global presence. Even a corrupt government needs some sustainability.
Unfortunately for present day Russia, extensive government bribery and corruption in all sectors was already baked in from Soviet times. On a practical level, getting things done involved bribery. Bribes were expected and paid as a matter of routine in the military and all other areas of government. Today there have been show trials with certain high-level officials being tried, convicted and imprisoned on bribery charges. It gives the population bread and circuses to consume and hopefully optimism for a brighter future.
The USSR and later the Russian Federation did not have the benefit of English common law which evolved from the Magna Carta. Born of earlier conquest by the Rus, the Bolsheviks had nothing to build upon for a more democratic legal system like the American colonists had. Overall, Bolsheviks forcibly switched from monarchy to an autocratic socialist empire. Conquest of the tsarist Russian empire by the Bolsheviks was difficult because there were numerous groups vying for power, leading to the Russian civil war following the 1917 revolution.
Although Putin and the cranky Dimitry Medvedev have done a bit of nuclear saber rattling, the West has been concerned about Russian nukes since their very first test in the late 1940’s, so not much new here. Putin’s stern public warnings about nuclear retaliation were not necessary for the Western experts to be on alert. This apparent “virtue signaling” in the form of a public warning by Putin is just a part of Russia’s overall hybrid warfare approach. They’ll use every word and inflection uttered by Russian and Western media as well as the Kremlin to fortify their propaganda with doubt, suspicion and existential threats. They are also actively injecting propaganda into every media stream in the West they can manage. Putin’s dire public warnings about lowering the threshold for a tactical nuclear release were meant to cause a great clenching of public sphincters with the usual fear and loathing leading to internal political pressure for its enemies.
/*begin anecdote/*
Russia’s triad of Soviet-era nuclear weapons have been aging in storage. Are Russian nuclear bomb designs immune to shelf-life issues? By comparison, American-style nuclear weapons have a relatively short shelf-life because of their boosted triggers. According to one source, the entire US nuclear arsenal of nuclear triggers are boosted. American nuclear trigger designs have a short shelf-life stemming from tritium’s 4500 +/- 8 day half-life or 12.32 years (NIST, 2000). US fission triggers have a hollow core which contains a 1 to 1 deuterium-tritium mixture. This booster gas undergoes fusion during ignition in the center of the core and increases the fission yield by the release of abundant 14 MeV neutrons into the surrounding fissile material. With the use of a booster to breed neutrons, the critical mass of fissile explosive is reduced because more neutrons are dispersed to initiate a runaway fission while under intense compression. The reduced mass of fissile material in a bomb is also resistant to unintended ignition by a nearby source of neutrons, like a nearby nuclear explosion.
Tritium is 3H, with 1 proton and 2 neutrons. It undergoes a beta decay where a neutron decays to a proton and an ejected electron, forming 3Helium with 2 protons and a neutron. So, wouldn’t you know, 3Helium is a poison with a very high neutron capture cross section. An aging booster gas loses its tritium potency as well as gaining an effective neutron poison.
But for this application to work, an ongoing supply of tritium is required. Tritium must be produced in a breeder reactor or accelerator. In addition to its short half-life, tritium decay is problematic to monitor because of its low 5.7 keV average beta radiation energy. Tritium atoms or molecules can be detected and measured by mass spectroscopy, but its beta decay radiation requires special equipment to detect. Tritium emits very low energy, low penetrating beta particles which are limited to 6 mm of travel in air and are blocked by the dead layer of skin cells on the surface of the skin. Getting through the window of a Geiger-Muller tube is a problem. So, measurement of tritium activity requires a liquid scintillation detector or an ionization chamber. A sample of radioactive material is dissolved in a vial of scintillation cocktail and run through a scintillation detector which detects faint flashes of light corresponding particle emissions. Perhaps detectors using scintillation crystals like cesium iodide are available for tritium detection.
/*end anecdote/*
A History of Conflict
The lands of Eurasia have, over time, been overprinted with layers upon of layers of conflict over thousands of years. While it may seem reasonable to assume that the current national borders of Europe have finally overcome the urge for military conquest, this seems over-optimistic. The ease with which Putin dashed in to grab large tracts of Ukraine in 2014 show that land-grab invasions are not just left to the past.
The more you learn about the last 4000 years of history of the lands covering the British Isles to Portugal to Mongolia to north Africa and the Levant, the more apparent it is that battles of conquest and defense have overwhelmingly been the norm.
There have been so many armies who have fought bloody battles and died or prevailed on the Eurasian landscape since before Roman times, it is a wonder that there aren’t still great heaps of bones wrapped in rotted battle gear. As always, much remains below the surface in history.
Putin’s Botched War
The Putin-Ukraine war is a war of conquest begun by a dictator who somehow didn’t understand or foresee the accurate weapons made available to Ukraine by the USA and Europe. He misunderstood the willingness of the West to come to Ukraine’s aid, but also and maybe more importantly, the magnitude of the relative sophistication of Western armaments and war materiel. This was a major blunder. While Russian military intelligence should have kept the Kremlin updated on Western weaponry, Putin should have asked more penetating questions. But perhaps most importantly, he underestimated the combative spirit of the Ukrainians and their president.
How did Russia manage to fall so far behind the West in the art of war? A high reliance was placed on its giant fleet of tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery. Much of this equipment was left over from WWII and the cold war. In contrast to its ground operations, Russia’s use of airpower in the early days of the war was weak and ineffective. Western military strategy has a high reliance on air power.
Russia was completely unprepared for the evolving drone tactics used against them. Drones were able to provide intelligence and pinpoint delivery of relatively small bombs at critical locations on launchers, vehicles, individual soldiers and in trenches. While Russian tanks were covered with reactive armor, the Ukrainian drones could place bombs in weak spots on the vehicles or even drop them through crew hatches to the interior where propellant and warheads could be ignited.
Post-War
To the discredit of both Russia and Ukraine, extensive use of land mines as well as cluster munitions has been made. The immorality of these munitions lies in what happens to the left-over mines and cluster bomblets remaining after the conflict. After the war, the lands are going to be recovered and farmed or rebuilt. Land mines and cluster munitions are well known to remain extremely dangerous for decades. Other conflict zones that have been so mined have left a legacy of death and mutilation for civilians.
At some point, the victor of the Putin-Ukraine war will want to salvage the scrap metal of the many thousands of vehicle carcasses left on the battlefields. One question relates to the explosive reactive armor (ERA) on the exterior of the destroyed tanks. ERA consists of a sandwich of a metal “flyer plate” facing the incoming projectile, a layer of high brisance explosive, and another metal flyer plate facing the tank armor. In order to respond to a high velocity kinetic or shaped charged projectile, a high shock-velocity, highly energetic explosive is needed for fast response to impact by a projectile. The ERA must be insensitive to small arms fire.
A great many videos of the destruction of tanks show that a tank can be destroyed and its crew killed by artillery or drones, but a large fraction of the reactive armor remains. The reactive armor contains enough high explosive to diffuse some of the incoming projectile’s energy release, yet seems to be rather insensitive to the shock of a hit a few feet away. This unexploded reactive armor will need collection and disposal.
Ukrainian farmers will need to level out the thousands of bomb craters in their fields so their equipment can traverse the ground. Obviously, Sappers or bomb disposal crews will need to de-mine the roads and pathways. Extensive trench systems will need to be filled in to recover the croplands. The environmental insult to the bombed-out battlefields is already substantial. The environmental toxicity of explosive residues may need evaluation.
Finally, in victory the brave people of Ukraine face the daunting prospect of rebuilding their homeland. Generations of children have been exposed to serious trauma and violence that no one should have to face. Their childhoods have been stolen from them and their educational prospects badly damaged.
If Russia prevails, the citizens of Ukraine face loss of their national identity and progressive Russification. All of the post-war issues given above will still be present, but the economic and social upheaval resulting from a vengeful Russian takeover will be traumatic. Many Ukrainian fighters and political leaders will no doubt be jailed, sent to gulags or perhaps defenestration.
A Russian victory in Ukraine signals bad times ahead for the rest of eastern Europe and the Baltic states. These countries, Poland in particular, already understand this and are preparing for this eventuality. Putin has previously expressed a kinship with the Slavic peoples of Eurasia and this may be part of his motivation for establishing a Russian empire.
The Fall of the American Empire
As bad luck would have it, this aggressive act of Putin’s Russia coincided with a political catastrophe in the United States. The Republican Party (GOP) in America has adopted the old Tea Party platform including libertarians and ultraconservative evangelical Christians to morph into a party of fanatical fascists, sometimes called Christo-Fascists. This is a reprehensible development that has taken decades to pull off. These Make America Great Again (MAGA) people have decided that American democracy doesn’t work. They favor a weak, authoritarian flavored democracy, similar to what Orban in Hungary has led.
The combination of the election of Donald Trump along with allowance of dark money OK’d by the US Supreme Court, the fanatical support of MAGA voters and a detailed coup strategy penned by the Heritage Foundation and funded by numerous billionaires has turned America around the corner towards an ultra-nationalist dictatorship. Trump ignores the courts, the legal role of the congress, and has lately taken a fancy to sending troops into US cities.
Some knowledgeable scholars have offered that American hegemony, in place since the end of WWII, is all but over. Some estimate that the American empire reached its peak influence perhaps 15 years ago and has been in decline since then but Americans haven’t paid attention. Trump, with his claims on Panama, Canada and Greenland as well as his manic desire to impose tariffs on globally has sent American credibility into the waste bin. The global economic upset caused by Trump has forced former friends to forge new alliances, leaving America behind.
Even if the stars lined up right and Trump and Vance disappeared tomorrow, a return to the previous status quo is unlikely to happen. The rapid trade disengagement by Canada suggests that they have had serious doubts with the USA already and this Trump fiasco was the last straw. There has been grumbling by other nations in the past that the American 4-year presidential cycle leads to excessive and frequent foreign policy changes that cause difficulties for them.
Trump’s “America First” declaration and radical disengagement with previous foreign policy has left an apparent power vacuum in the world. This has not gone unnoticed by anyone. Of course, the BRICS nations (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russian Federation, South Africa, and United Arab Emirates) are taking advantage of this sea change and are considering moving from the US dollar as the principal reserve currency. America is willingly abandoning its historical global stabilizing ability in exchange for a more libertarian internal structure.
[Note: This post is about replacing the hydrogen atoms along the carbon backbone of a polyolefin polymer with fluorine atoms to produce a fluorocarbon surface on a finished good. Here “finished good” refers to anything from polyolefin pellets, powders, components or blow molded articles such as HDPE bottles.]
Recent news has highlighted the use of fluorinated High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) packaging for pesticides and other products, bringing more attention to the issue of PFAS/PFOS contamination.
What we’re not talking about is a polymer made from fluorinated monomers or comonomers. This refers to a hydrocarbon HDPE bottle made from ethylene (H2C=CH2) monomer that is fluorinated after the bottle is manufactured.
What’s more, the HDPE fluorination process is said to produce PFAS/PFOS (how?) substances that can migrate. Although this technology is not new, and fluorinated hydrocarbon bottles have been around well before the widespread concern over PFAS/PFOS residues, the significance of such contamination was not fully anticipated. As a chemist, the extensive release of fluorinated low molecular weight alkyl derivatives like PFAS/PFOS came as a surprise to me despite knowing that an analogous situation with fluorinated pharmaceuticals that are getting through wastewater plants due to their resistance to microbiological decomposition. For myself only, very little concern for PFAS/PFOS pollution has been noted. You might suppose that chemists could have led the way to understanding. But, not to my knowledge.
The perfluorinated alkyl materials in question bear a close resemblance to TeflonTM which is known for its chemical inertness and lubricity. In chemistry, Teflon is usually ignored as unreactive with most chemicals, except perhaps molten alkali metals. Strategically placed fluorinated features on a molecule can lend the property of greater hydrophobicity or lipophobicity with increased electron withdrawing properties. The high electronegativity of fluorine pulls electron density towards the fluorine atoms through the sigma bonds of a molecular skeleton. Fluorinated organic acids very often have dramatically increased acidity like triflic acid, CF3SO3H, or increased alkylating reactivity like magic methyl, F-SO2(OCH3). By contrast, fluorinated carbon chains themselves are fairly unreactive and quite hydrophobic, as in water repellant. The water repellency of fluorinated hydrocarbons is a very attractive property commercially.
Below are images of the hydrocarbon hexane in ball and stick form and below in a space filling rendering. To the right is perfluorohexane and below that is its space filling rendering. Hexane is just an example of an “ordinary” hydrocarbon that could be perfluorinated.
Graphics by Sam Hill. Hexane (left) and perfluorohexane (right). As can be seen on the right, the green fluorine atoms are rendered larger than the corresponding white hydrogen atoms because fluorine atoms are larger than hydrogen atoms. In some rendering software, the space filling structures are adjusted to show where some percentage (i.e., 95 %) of the electron density is located. These renderings are by ChemSketch so God only knows how atoms are scaled.
A brief interlude on molecular polarity
Before we go on, there is the matter of polarity, dipolarity, dipolar chemical bonds and dipolar molecules. A dipolar polar chemical bond is one in which the distribution of electrons is lop-sided. That is, one atom of a chemical bond has a bit more negative charge than the other, which is thereby deficient in negative charge, or by default carrying a partial positive charge. Chemical bonds, functional groups and entire molecules can be dipolar.
But charge comes in whole numbers, so how can we talk about partial charge? A covalent chemical bond consisting of 2 atoms, same or different, will hold together because the two atoms share a pair of outer electrons. If one of the two atoms in the bond has a greater affinity for negative charge, then the cloud of 2 bonding electrons will spend a bit more time near the more electronegative atom. This shift leaves the other nucleus slightly deficient of negative charge averaged over time meaning that the positive charge of the nucleus is slightly more exposed to the world.
Graphics by Jed Klampett. Polar and nonpolar molecules.
In chemistry there is a saying- “likes dissolve likes”. This means that a polar solvent like water can more readily dissolve polar solids and may mix freely with other polar liquids. Nonpolar liquids like hydrocarbons can dissolve nonpolar solids and may mix freely with other nonpolar liquids. Amphiphilic substances have both polar and non-polar features allowing them to compatibilize polar and nonpolar molecules together. Soaps and detergents are in this category.
We should be careful here. The polar-polar and nonpolar-nonpolar solubility generalizations above are really just bookends across a vast open shelf of partial solubilities between them. Nonetheless, it is a useful rule of thumb.
So, if likes dissolve likes, and the fluorine atoms on a molecule accumulate a bit of negative charge, then why doesn’t a fully fluorinated organic molecule freely dissolve in water owing to fluorine’s negative polarity via hydrogen bonding with water’s positively polarized hydrogen atoms?
Carbon atoms can form bonds with itself or other atoms in several ways that give rise to different overall shapes.
Back to our regularly scheduled content
In situ fluorinated packaging, a niche within the packaging industry, was not something I was fully cognizant of until recently. I have come to understand that HDPE, along with numerous other polymers, can undergo treatment with elemental fluorine or fluorinated reagents to alter the hydrocarbon polymer’s C-H groups and convert them into C-F groups. This alteration gives the HDPE surface properties similar to a perfluorocarbon like Teflon™. For HDPE pesticide packaging, this fluorocarbon layer reduces the product’s permeability to the pesticide’s components. Package fluorination is all about reducing permeability of the container.
Definition: Hydrocarbon. A category of substances composed only of hydrogen (H) and carbon (C). There are 4 main sub-categories: Alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, and aromatics. A hydrocarbon can be composed of any combination of the 4. The principal mineral sources of hydrocarbons are coal, petroleum and natural gas. A hydrocarbon may also be called an organic substance, where organic refers to a carbon-based substance.
HDPE, high density polyethylene, is a hydrocarbon polymer of ethylene gas and often with various hydrocarbon comonomers. Hydrocarbon polymers, also called polyolefins, are notable for their considerably inert chemical properties. Inertness is the resistance to chemical change. However, contact with certain fluorinating agents like F2, ClF3, NF3, etc., diluted in an inert gas can, at relatively low temperatures, exchange the H atoms of HDPE with F atoms. Eventually, all or most of the H atoms on the polymer surface will be exchanged. A carbon molecule that has F atoms replacing all H atoms is said to be perfluorinated.
Pesticides are meant to be spread over selected parts of the environment to do their trick. A great many pesticides are synthetic organic chemicals so naturally there is the possibility of any given pesticide or solvent to diffuse through a hydrocarbon-based container. Migration of product molecules into the polyolefin packaging, in this case (HDPE), can result in the release of the hazardous contents and compromise the overall containment, possibly resulting in exposure to the public and the environment.
It should be possible to slow the rate of diffusion of any given hazardous material through a non-fluorinated container by simply making the container walls thicker. The polyolefin manufacturers would be in favor of this, but the converters who buy the plastic pellets to blow mold the containers may balk. Their raw material costs would rise and they would have to pass the costs to customers, who will resist the cost increase. Then with the increase in mass flow of polymer melt necessary, perhaps the throughput or required extruder torque might change unfavorably. Hard to say.
Some of the small-molecule bad actors
On March 5, 2021, EPA published the list below of PFAS/PFOS compounds found in the 20-50 ppb level in fluorinated HDPE containers used to store and transport a mosquito control pesticide product.
Abbreviated
Full Name
PFBA
Perfluoro-butanoic acid
PFPeA
Perfluoro-pentanoic acid
PFHxA
Perfluoro-hexanoic acid
PFHpA
Perfluoro-heptanoic acid
PFOA
Perfluoro-octanoic acid
PFNA
Perfluoro-nananoic acid
PFDA
Perfluoro-decanoic acid
PFUdA
Perfluoro-undecanoic acid
These are all perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids listed by increasing chain length. Notably the terminal carbon is fully oxidized to the carboxylic acid and is not fluorinated. This acidic end gives a chemically reactive handle for further manipulation of the PFAS/PFOS if desired.
PFOA, perfluorooctanoic acid, has been industrially produced by what is now 3M since the mid-1940s. It has been used to place TeflonTM coatings on frying pans. It was originally prepared by the electrochemical fluorination (ECF) of octanoyl (ock TAN oh ill) chloride, the hydrogen saturated 8-carbon acid chloride. ECF produces the perfluorooctanoyl fluoride which is then hydrolyzed to the acid chloride liberating HF.
Perfluorination of HDPE bottles relies on the most electronegative element, diatomic fluorine gas, F2, or other similarly reactive fluorinating reagents, and does chemistry on a solid polyolefin surface. Fluorine gas is diluted in a suitably noninterfering gas like nitrogen, argon or CO2 and then exposed to the polymer of interest at a prescribed pressure, temperature and exposure time. Fluorine atoms replace hydrogen atoms on the polymer chain. According to one source, the rate of fluorination is diffusion limited. This means that the fluorination reaction is very fast. The presence of molecular oxygen with molecular fluorine had a retarding effect on fluorination proportional to the concentration of oxygen gas. The presence of oxygen led to it being incorporated onto the polymer.
Given the advantage of impermeability provided by fluorinated polyolefin articles, it is clear that there are many excellent applications of in situ fluorinated polyolefins. The replacement of glass and metal with lighter fluorinated HDPE containers may save on transportation costs on a weight basis. Whether or not the economics favor fluorinated polyolefins over glass or metal manufacturing costs kg for kg is unclear.
The range of application categories listed above is quite large. Each entry in the list has many individual components that may be subject to fluorination as well. It is no wonder that PFAS contaminants are spread widely around the world. The US EPA has issued a letter (below) to companies fluorinating HDPE to beware of accidentally producing PFAS/PFOS in their operations. Specifically warning about the connection of PFAS formation caused by the inclusion of oxygen in the fluorination process. The letter specifically cites “EPA’s 2020 long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylate (LCPFAC) Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) (40CFR § 721.10536), that are found to be present in or on fluorinated polyolefins may be subject to TSCA regulations and enforcement.”
“It is during certain types of fluorination (e.g., the presence of oxygen) that the manufacture of PFAS has occurred. Manufacturers (including importers), processors, distributors, users, and those that dispose of fluorinated HDPE containers should be reminded of this potential for manufacturing PFAS and comply with any applicable regulations under TSCA, as described in the next section.“
“EPA is aware of alternative fluorination processes that use fluorine gas in the presence of gaseous inerting (e.g., nitrogen) without the presence of oxygen that could reduce the potential for unintentional manufacture of PFAS. These alternative processes for fluorination of polyethylene are highlighted in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) August 2021 letter on this issue as it relates to food contact articles.”
“Requirements under TSCA PFAS Significant New Use Rules. Certain PFAS, including long-chain PFAS as defined in EPA’s 2020 long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylate (LCPFAC) Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) (40 CFR § 721.10536), that are found to be present in or on fluorinated polyolefins may be subject to TSCA regulations and enforcement. EPA considers the manufacturing of certain PFAS from the fluorination of polyolefins to be a significant new use under TSCA. LCPFAC chemical substances present in polyolefins due to the fluorination process would be considered byproducts of the manufacturing process because they are produced during the manufacture of the fluorinated polyolefins and do not have a separate commercial intent (40 CFR § 720.3(d)). LCPFAC chemical substances that are byproducts of the manufacturing process for fluorinated polyolefins do not meet the requirements of the byproducts exemption at 40 CFR § 721.45(e)5 and are subject to significant new use notice requirements. Significant new use rules require industry to notify EPA at least 90 days before commencing the manufacturer including import or processing of subject chemical substances for a significant new use. The required significant new use notification (SNUN) initiates EPA’s evaluation of the conditions of use associated with the significant new use. Entities may not commence manufacturing (including import) or processing for the significant new use until EPA has conducted a review of the notice, made an appropriate determination on the notice, and taken such actions as are required in association with that determination. Tala R. Henry, Ph.D., Deputy Director Office of Pollution Prevention & Toxics 2022/03/24.”
Fluorination and fluoridation. What’s the difference?
So we do not make people worried about their fluoride toothpaste or their fluoridated drinking water, let’s sort this out. Toothpaste and drinking water have a soluble ionic fluoride salt like sodium fluoride, NaF, or sodium monofluorophosphate, sodium MFP or chemically Na2PO3F. Sodium MFP is water soluble but not stable in water. It hydrolyzes to release fluoride by displacement by water to form dibasic phosphate. The MFP hydrolysis reaction is: PO3F2− + HO– → HPO42− + F−. The fluoride anion, F–, is not nearly the same as fluorine gas, F2. The F– ion bumps into tooth enamel where it binds tightly with calcium in the tooth: Ca5(PO4)3+(aq) + F−(aq) → Ca5(PO4)3F(s). This is the context in which the word “fluoridation” is used. Fluoride ions bond tightly to calcium++ ions in general. Fluoridation is just a specialized variety of fluorination and is mostly confined to the area of water treatment and toothpaste.
Fluorination is a chemical process wherein fluorine atoms are added to chemical compounds. Contact between organic substances and pure elemental fluorine gas is extremely exothermic and sometimes explosive. The dilution of F2 gas with an inert gas like nitrogen, helium or argon has a thermal safety component as well.
Polymer fluorinationout in the world- Patents
One source of manufacturing information about proprietary articles and processes is the US Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO. In order to secure your legal right to a patent, the patent applicant must disclose the exact art that is being claimed. This is because the world must have a fair chance to avoid infringement. Google Patents provides the exact text of individual patents, US and others. It also provides a timeline showing the ownership of the patent and whether or not the patent is active, expired or abandoned. Google patents also provide links to patents cited in the patent and patents that have cited the instant example.
Being a Google product, Google Patents has extensive and flexible search capacity. Rather than attempt to make a list, it is a better use of the reader’s time to go to the site yourselves and explore. Note that a search will find patents from all over the world as well as patent applications. Google patent provides a English translated version of the patent.
In searching for patents claiming compositions and methods around the fluorination of polymers, more than a few patents can be found. One can search for patents using the USPTO website (obviously) or from Google Patents.
Another good place to look for relevant art is from a patent you have already pulled up in Google Patents. Near the bottom of the patent from Google Patents is a section labeled “Patent Citations.” This section list prior art patents disclosed by the assignee and those found by the patent examiner in the course of the examination process. Prior art is disclosed by the assignee in the granted patent as well, but in Google Patents there are hotlinks to patents to aid the convenience factor.
In situ fluorination
There are companies who will fluorinate the surface(s) of High-Density PolyEthylene (HDPE) and PolyPropylene (PP) containers. HDPE and PP are especially of interest owing to their utility in packaging liquids. These two polymer classes have great rigidity and strength and are in wide use. However, they share certain weaknesses such as air permeability and permeability of the contents. Air permeability is highly undesired in food packaging as it allows for reduced shelf life or customer satisfaction with the contents. Food and drugs may be susceptible to air degradation and possible reduction of shelf life.
Note: The expiration date on a product does not necessarily mean that the product will go bad when that date arrives. The day after the expiration date is that date at which the manufacturer/seller will no longer guarantee “freshness” or some other type of quality. For instance, normal pasteurized milk is not sterile. Pasteurized milk should be good up to 1 week past the code date as long as it has not been allowed to warm up or been contaminated. Once the milk has warmed to room temperature, the normal bacteria loading will enter log-phase growth and could spoil within 1 day.
In situ fluorination is process wherein hydrocarbon polymer containers are exposed to diluted fluorine gas at a specified temperature for a specified time. At the surface hydrogen atoms along the length of the polymer are replaced with fluorine atoms. The result is a polymer along the surface which resembles TeflonTM to some extent. Some of the desirable properties of TeflonTM are then taken on by the HDPE or PP surface. This H/F exchange at the surface does not affect the properties of the base polymer.
There is one caveat, however. The fluorination must be performed with the exclusion of oxygen. One source says that the vacuum chamber in which the fluorination will take place must be pumped down to 0.1 Torr of residual air prior to exposure to fluorene gas.
Fluorination patents
Below us from the description in US5274049A Filing date 1991-07-19, Application filed by SHAMBAN WILLIAM S, W S SHAMBAN AND Co.
A method for the direct fluorination of elastomers “in order to reduce the static and dynamic friction characteristics and to increase the wear life and abrasion resistance of the elastomers. The invention also relates to elastomeric articles modified by the fluorination method.”
“What is claimed is:
1. A method of producing fluorinated elastomeric articles, consisting essentially of the following steps:
providing an elastomeric article, said elastomeric article comprising an elastomeric polymer having a backbone chain having a plurality of hydrogen atoms attached thereto;and
exposing said elastomeric article to gaseous fluorine under conditions sufficient to reduce the friction coefficient of said article without promoting degradation of the tensile properties of said article.”
Claim 8 claims a method using a hydrogen fluoride scavenger …
“8. A method for producing a fluorinated elastomeric article having a reduced coefficient of friction, comprising the steps of:
placing a thermoset elastomeric article and a hydrogen fluoride scavenger in a closed reactor vessel, said thermoset elastomeric article comprising an elastomeric base polymer having a backbone chain, said backbone chain including sufficient carbon atoms having replaceable aliphatic carbon-hydrogen bonds so that a fluorinated matrix of said fluorinated elastomeric article reduces said coefficient of friction;”
In the description the patent cites sodium fluoride, NaF, as an HF scavenger wherein NaF + HF => Na[HF2], sodium bifluoride.
Inhance Technologies LLC filed application US20190040219A1, but it was later it was abandoned due to failure to respond to an office action. The application claimed a multistep method for fluorinating elastomeric workpieces with 20 % F2 in nitrogen and “altering certain mechanical properties such as tensile property [and] the elastic modulus, an impact property, a wear property, etc.“
Systems and methods for processing fluoropolymer materials and related workpieces, US11879025, filed 2021-04-23, Current Assignee: Inhance Technologies LLC. Claims method of removing perfluorinated compounds from fluoropolymers. The core of the art involves placing a fluoropolymer work piece in a thoroughly deoxygenated chamber, heated from 25 C to 300 C and exposed to a fluorinating atmosphere such as F2/N2 for specified time period. This treatment is claimed to remove fluorocarbons like PFOA to non-detectable levels. There is no mention of where the PFOA goes afterwards, but it looks promising if accurate. However, the granted patent is off-limits for 20 years unless a license is obtained or some other arrangement is made.
Fluorination is imbedded deeply into the design of a great many articles of commerce. The water repellency of perfluorinated polymers in fabrics is one of the chief applications of fluorinated organic materials. The inherent lubricity of PTFE, its built-in chemical inertness and its hydrophobicity have ingratiated millions of consumers and have met performance expectations world wide.
Perfluorinated foams for fire protection in aircraft hangers and industrial spaces are valuable for their ability to float on the surface of burning liquid fuels, blanketing the surface as a vapor and oxygen barrier. The suppression of flammable volatiles in a fire by a layer of protective foam can inhibit flashover of the fire, reducing the overall damage of a fire. The fire retardancy of perfluorinated substances inhibits their combustion and discourages continued burning when the flame source is removed. Halogens as a group have been used for fire retardancy and with bromine in particular.
The chemical origin of the fire retardancy properties of perfluorinated organic materials lies in the low reactivity of the -CF2– fluorine atoms with oxygen. In the combustion of hydrocarbons, hydrogen atoms are readily removed by oxygen or radical species to form water. The C-F bond is one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry and is slow to be removed by oxygen.
Drug molecules are frequently fluorinated in particular locations on the drug molecule. A C-F bond resists catabolic degradation and enhances the local hydrophobicity of the drug allowing for greater half-life and enhanced drug potency. The down side is the resistance to catabolic degradation and excretion. Many drug molecules are released intact into sewage treatment facilities where they also resist degradation, possibly due in part to the fluorinated features. The effect is that fish and other organisms are exposed to the drug. As with humans, fish and other creatures of the waterways and soil did not evolve with biochemical mechanisms to deal with fluorinated organics.
In the in situ fluorination process, PFAS/PFOS side products can form, especially when oxygen is present. This can be monitored by quality control but companies will comply with recommended PFAS/PFOS best practices only if there are regulations or the threat of them. Nations regulating PFAS/PFOS contamination will have to compete with nations who do not impose regulations. This is the usual scenario for nations with heavy reliance on imported articles but uneven regulation.
Colorado, 8/12/25. I find myself in the murky world of the Anti-Trump movement. Millions of voices cry out in opposition of this American President, yet he remains in office supported by the current House and Senate Republican majorities and the election cycle. America is stuck with this condition at least until the 2026 election. At that time the majority leadership of both houses could fall to the Democrats. or not.
The current plague of house and senate MAGA elected officials is with us at least until 2026. The present deconstruction of the US federal government was planned out by the American political group Heritage Foundation and published for all to see in the form of “Project 2025“. Musk’s DOGE may have been connected, but I do not know.
Some people trace the current political catastrophe to President Reagan in the 1980s. This is when he endorsed the trickle-down supply side Laffer Curve to press forward the view that returning tax dollars to the wealthy would in return result in greater general prosperity for all. Wealth would “trickle down” from the wealthy and onto the millions of pointy heads who believed it.
The world should know that a large liberal progressive population still exists in America and is getting stronger. The problem is that the liberal Democratic Party in America has failed to surface any charismatic leadership beyond a few individuals. There are no liberal rallies to attend in my part of the US. Democratic politicians seem to have their heads down trying to plow through endless political outrage.
America’s current president, #47, is a huge embarrassment for most Americans. I can say that we apologize to the western nations for letting this buffoon loose on the world. For America to fall apart because a greedy and precocious real estate developer is building an authoritarian state is just too much to comprehend.
I began to notice cracks in the political foundation around 1976. I stopped at a booth on the July 4th fair fairgrounds and listened to the people there. They were the John Birch Society and were supporting anti-communism, right wing populism and libertarianism. They were unrepentant in their focused anti-establishment views on how to carry out American civilization. What they described resembled anarchism but with close ties to conservative protestant evangelicalism. Never a churchy person or a fan of communism, I stood and listened for a while just to hear their screwy arguments. I found it unworkably utopian and their conspiracy arguments for their ideology too much of a stretch. Their interlocking diatribes match with what I see today.
To my European friends, there is hope for the USA yet in the coming few years. I have to believe that our culture is still strong enough to survive this orange monstrosity in the White House. We cannot allow this guy to convert a long term liberal democracy into an illiberal democracy.
I have noticed that ChatGPT has been visiting this site more and more frequently. I can’t tell what posts they have been visiting. I do write the occasional humorous or lampoon style of post so I hope for the sake of mankind that ChatGPT can tell the difference.
We’ll see if my fictional Poltroon University gains wider recognition from AI.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
