The End of the World: A Political Thread. A New Hope coming soon!
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Rising sea levels is because of rocks.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/17/politics/mo-brooks-nasa-climate-change/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/17/politics/mo-brooks-nasa-climate-change/index.html
GOP congressman asks if rocks are causing sea levels to rise
A member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology evinced skepticism about climate change during an exchange with a witness about rising sea levels.
Instead, Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks offered an additional culprit: soil or rock deposits into the world's waters.
A study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March documented accelerating sea-level rise driven by climate change.
E&E News reported on the comments of Brooks and others at the hearing, including California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher who said he was "disturbed" that he heard people warning against questioning the link between human activity and climate change.
On Wednesday, at a hearing titled "using technology to address climate change," Brooks began by raising a broad question about rising ocean levels to the witness panel.
Philip Duffy, president of Woods Hole Research Center, said in response to the question that "the last 100-year increase in sea-level rise, as I mentioned earlier, has clearly been attributed to human activities, greenhouse gas emissions."
Brooks interjected and rephrased his question again, asking if there "are other factors."
"What about erosion?" Brooks offered during the exchange. He added: "Every time you have that soil or rock, whatever it is, that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise because now you've got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up."
Duffy responded that he did not believe that explained sea-level rise.
"I'm pretty sure that on human time scales those are minuscule effects," Duffy said.
Brooks then moved to ice levels and asserted that Antarctic ice is growing, to which Duffy responded that satellite records have documented "shrinkage of the Antarctic ice sheet and an acceleration of that shrinkage."
Brooks wrapped up his questioning by saying he had heard differently from NASA, and said there were "plenty of studies" showing an ice sheet increase in Antarctica.
"I've got a NASA base in my district," Brooks said. "And apparently, they're telling you one thing and me a different thing."
A day after the hearing, the committee tweeted a link to an op-ed from The Wall Street Journal denying climate change caused sea-level rise.
According to NASA, Antarctica's ice sheets have lost mass since 2002.
The agency's site also said, "Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers and the expansion of seawater as it warms."
Duffy, who worked on climate change policy in the Obama administration, told CNN on Thursday that while he had "never heard that particular line" on sea level rise before, he essentially had expected the tone of the hearing to feature climate change skepticism.
"None of that is new," Duffy said. "They've been doing that forever."
Duffy said he would have hoped a "productive" science committee would seek to formulate aggressive policy on climate change as well as expand the nation's scientific capabilities.
And as for the question of sea level rise, Duffy said, "It's really caused by climate change."
A member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology evinced skepticism about climate change during an exchange with a witness about rising sea levels.
Instead, Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks offered an additional culprit: soil or rock deposits into the world's waters.
A study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March documented accelerating sea-level rise driven by climate change.
E&E News reported on the comments of Brooks and others at the hearing, including California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher who said he was "disturbed" that he heard people warning against questioning the link between human activity and climate change.
On Wednesday, at a hearing titled "using technology to address climate change," Brooks began by raising a broad question about rising ocean levels to the witness panel.
Philip Duffy, president of Woods Hole Research Center, said in response to the question that "the last 100-year increase in sea-level rise, as I mentioned earlier, has clearly been attributed to human activities, greenhouse gas emissions."
Brooks interjected and rephrased his question again, asking if there "are other factors."
"What about erosion?" Brooks offered during the exchange. He added: "Every time you have that soil or rock, whatever it is, that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise because now you've got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up."
Duffy responded that he did not believe that explained sea-level rise.
"I'm pretty sure that on human time scales those are minuscule effects," Duffy said.
Brooks then moved to ice levels and asserted that Antarctic ice is growing, to which Duffy responded that satellite records have documented "shrinkage of the Antarctic ice sheet and an acceleration of that shrinkage."
Brooks wrapped up his questioning by saying he had heard differently from NASA, and said there were "plenty of studies" showing an ice sheet increase in Antarctica.
"I've got a NASA base in my district," Brooks said. "And apparently, they're telling you one thing and me a different thing."
A day after the hearing, the committee tweeted a link to an op-ed from The Wall Street Journal denying climate change caused sea-level rise.
According to NASA, Antarctica's ice sheets have lost mass since 2002.
The agency's site also said, "Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers and the expansion of seawater as it warms."
Duffy, who worked on climate change policy in the Obama administration, told CNN on Thursday that while he had "never heard that particular line" on sea level rise before, he essentially had expected the tone of the hearing to feature climate change skepticism.
"None of that is new," Duffy said. "They've been doing that forever."
Duffy said he would have hoped a "productive" science committee would seek to formulate aggressive policy on climate change as well as expand the nation's scientific capabilities.
And as for the question of sea level rise, Duffy said, "It's really caused by climate change."
If we want anything to be done about it, we need to have it rebranded as "Climate Evolution" - and then the GOP would have to be against it because Jesus slew Darwin before anointing Trump.
Please tell me why someone that has no education or experience in anything STEM, is a member of a committee related to those fields.
Judge Berman (the Manafort case in DC, not the one in VA) just requested the prosecution to show the court the unredacted search warrants for the raids on Manafort, in response to his team's motion to have the unredacted versions released to them. She's the one who's already denied their attempt to have the charges and indictment dismissed because of the silly arguments that Mueller's exceeded his scope, so there's no risk fo that - I think this is mostly just to see how much of the information on the warrants needs to be shielded.
I don't think this is what Meghan McCain had in mind.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-remark-gets-out/ar-AAxrU8X?OCID=ansmsnnews11
To sum up, Kelly Sadler said in a meeting that (approximate quote) "John McCain is dying anyway". And while any decent organization would compel her to apologize, plus would apologize itself, and claim that they're going to make sure that sort of thing never happens again, in Soviet Trumpistan, it's the people who reported the offense that should be fired. I suppose that's consistent, at least - you've half your campaign leaders either indicted or already pleading guilty to crimes, but the only people you want to blame are the investigators nailing them.
God Bless those leakers and the ones yet to come. Although DJT wants to run this country like it's Russia, as long as we have real f***ing patriots who believe in the Constitution and Bill of Rights as it was written, not as the GOP's Red Army distorts it to be, there's hope. Dim hope, but hope nonetheless.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-remark-gets-out/ar-AAxrU8X?OCID=ansmsnnews11
To sum up, Kelly Sadler said in a meeting that (approximate quote) "John McCain is dying anyway". And while any decent organization would compel her to apologize, plus would apologize itself, and claim that they're going to make sure that sort of thing never happens again, in Soviet Trumpistan, it's the people who reported the offense that should be fired. I suppose that's consistent, at least - you've half your campaign leaders either indicted or already pleading guilty to crimes, but the only people you want to blame are the investigators nailing them.
God Bless those leakers and the ones yet to come. Although DJT wants to run this country like it's Russia, as long as we have real f***ing patriots who believe in the Constitution and Bill of Rights as it was written, not as the GOP's Red Army distorts it to be, there's hope. Dim hope, but hope nonetheless.
I'm sure rocks were responsible for this as well.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...secutive-warm-month/618484002/?csp=chromepush
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...secutive-warm-month/618484002/?csp=chromepush
Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming
It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts.
It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.
Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.
The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels.
"We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. "Speeding by a '400' sign only underscores that, but it does not prove anything new."
Climate scientists use the 20th-century average as a benchmark for global temperature measurements. That's because it's fixed in time, allowing for consistent "goal posts" when reviewing climate data. It's also a sufficiently long period to include several cycles of climate variability.
"The thing that really matters is that, by whatever metric, we've spent every month for several decades on the warm side of any reasonable baseline," Arndt said.
NOAA's analysis found last month was the 3rd-warmest April on record globally. The unusual heat was most noteworthy in Europe, which had its warmest April on record, and Australia, which had its second-warmest.
Portions of Asia also experienced some extreme heat: In southern Pakistan, the town of Nawabshah soared to a scalding 122.4 degrees on April 30, which may have been the warmest April temperature on record for the globe, according to Meteo France.
Argentina also had its warmest April since national records began there in 1961.
North America was the one part of the world that didn't get in on the heat parade. Last month, the average U.S. temperature was 48.9 degrees, 2.2 degrees below average, "making it the 13th-coldest April on record and the coldest since 1997," NOAA said.
It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts.
It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.
Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.
The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels.
"We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. "Speeding by a '400' sign only underscores that, but it does not prove anything new."
Climate scientists use the 20th-century average as a benchmark for global temperature measurements. That's because it's fixed in time, allowing for consistent "goal posts" when reviewing climate data. It's also a sufficiently long period to include several cycles of climate variability.
"The thing that really matters is that, by whatever metric, we've spent every month for several decades on the warm side of any reasonable baseline," Arndt said.
NOAA's analysis found last month was the 3rd-warmest April on record globally. The unusual heat was most noteworthy in Europe, which had its warmest April on record, and Australia, which had its second-warmest.
Portions of Asia also experienced some extreme heat: In southern Pakistan, the town of Nawabshah soared to a scalding 122.4 degrees on April 30, which may have been the warmest April temperature on record for the globe, according to Meteo France.
Argentina also had its warmest April since national records began there in 1961.
North America was the one part of the world that didn't get in on the heat parade. Last month, the average U.S. temperature was 48.9 degrees, 2.2 degrees below average, "making it the 13th-coldest April on record and the coldest since 1997," NOAA said.
Second amendment people. Isn't your right to bear arms supposed to stop a tyrannical government?
I wouldn't encourage that. But I will say that this is even more Putinesque; Putin pretty much took over and then told the oligarchs that if they wanted to stay wealthy oligarchs and not face state punishment, that they'd give him a 50% cut of everything. Preet Bharara's podcast a couple of weeks back (the only one I've listened to, just because I stumbled on it) detailed the whole Magnitsky situation with the American ex-pat who was set up and that Magnitsky was representing. And this Putin is the guy that Trump seems to be trying to live up to, almost like Cohen wants to be like Trump.
That was a great podcast. I had heard of the Magnitsky Act but didn't know much about the story behind it.
trolling Trump
https://schiff.house.gov/news/press...ive-branch-spending-at-trump-owned-businesses
Schiff Introduces Legislation Requiring Disclosure of Executive Branch Spending at Trump-Owned Businesses
Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and ten other Members of Congress introduced the Disclosing Official Spending at Presidential Businesses Act. This legislation would require that the head of each executive agency submit a report to the Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) detailing any official expenses at any privately held company that is owned, either in whole or in part, by the president, or a trust controlled by the president. The Director must then publish this information on OGE’s public website within ten days. This legislation would not prohibit such expenses, but require their public disclosure.
“The immense honor and responsibility of serving as President of the United States should never be exploited for profit, and this President, like no president before him, has made an art of making money off the federal government,” said Rep. Adam Schiff. “Each time President Trump visits one of his hotels or golf courses, many officials travel with him – including Secret Service agents, White House staff and other federal officials – racking up expenses that directly benefit the Trump Organization. This spending must be made completely transparent so that the public can see how their tax dollars are being used to enrich the nation’s chief executive and his family.”
"The Constitution is very clear: the President is not allowed to receive emoluments from the federal government under any circumstances,” said Norm Eisen, Chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The Disclosing Official Spending at Presidential Businesses Act is an important step in preventing constitutional violations, allowing the federal government, the public – and Congress itself – to respond appropriately if they occur."
Since taking office, President Trump has spent 155 days at Trump properties, requiring White House staff, Secret Service agents, and other federal officials to travel with him and accumulate expenses at Trump-owned properties that directly benefit the First Family’s businesses. Reporters have uncovered other glaring examples of how the Presidency has become a profit generator for Trump. For example, the State Department reportedly spent more than $15,000 to book 19 rooms at a Trump property in Vancouver in February 2017. Last October, CNN found that the Secret Service had spent at least $63,700 at the President’s Mar-a-Lago resort. In early 2018, the President’s golf club in Scotland received more than $7,600 for VIP hotel stays. Schiff’s legislation would allow the public to see the full scope of federal spending at the President’s businesses.
This legislation was co-sponsored by Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Henry Johnson Jr. (D-GA), James McGovern (D-MA), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Bobby Rush (D-IL), and Brad Sherman (D-CA).
Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and ten other Members of Congress introduced the Disclosing Official Spending at Presidential Businesses Act. This legislation would require that the head of each executive agency submit a report to the Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) detailing any official expenses at any privately held company that is owned, either in whole or in part, by the president, or a trust controlled by the president. The Director must then publish this information on OGE’s public website within ten days. This legislation would not prohibit such expenses, but require their public disclosure.
“The immense honor and responsibility of serving as President of the United States should never be exploited for profit, and this President, like no president before him, has made an art of making money off the federal government,” said Rep. Adam Schiff. “Each time President Trump visits one of his hotels or golf courses, many officials travel with him – including Secret Service agents, White House staff and other federal officials – racking up expenses that directly benefit the Trump Organization. This spending must be made completely transparent so that the public can see how their tax dollars are being used to enrich the nation’s chief executive and his family.”
"The Constitution is very clear: the President is not allowed to receive emoluments from the federal government under any circumstances,” said Norm Eisen, Chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The Disclosing Official Spending at Presidential Businesses Act is an important step in preventing constitutional violations, allowing the federal government, the public – and Congress itself – to respond appropriately if they occur."
Since taking office, President Trump has spent 155 days at Trump properties, requiring White House staff, Secret Service agents, and other federal officials to travel with him and accumulate expenses at Trump-owned properties that directly benefit the First Family’s businesses. Reporters have uncovered other glaring examples of how the Presidency has become a profit generator for Trump. For example, the State Department reportedly spent more than $15,000 to book 19 rooms at a Trump property in Vancouver in February 2017. Last October, CNN found that the Secret Service had spent at least $63,700 at the President’s Mar-a-Lago resort. In early 2018, the President’s golf club in Scotland received more than $7,600 for VIP hotel stays. Schiff’s legislation would allow the public to see the full scope of federal spending at the President’s businesses.
This legislation was co-sponsored by Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Henry Johnson Jr. (D-GA), James McGovern (D-MA), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Bobby Rush (D-IL), and Brad Sherman (D-CA).
Interesting study on wealth and how those born during or after the 80s have a lot less of it (Wall St Journal has a write up on it but it is beyhind a paywall).
Basically, even factoring out the great financial crisis, younger people are doing much, much worse financially.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/Files/PDFs/HFS/essays/HFS_essay_2_2018.pdf?la=en
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2018/05/21/crisis-hits-1980s-generation/
Basically, even factoring out the great financial crisis, younger people are doing much, much worse financially.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/Files/PDFs/HFS/essays/HFS_essay_2_2018.pdf?la=en
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2018/05/21/crisis-hits-1980s-generation/
Whatever happened to that silly little Constitutional amendment that came before the gun one?
Kicking the AP out is a flat out violation of the 1st amendment. Reuters and the AP are real news and not infotainment like the TV networks.
Kicking the AP out is a flat out violation of the 1st amendment. Reuters and the AP are real news and not infotainment like the TV networks.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ter-hack-iphone-hillary-clinton-a8362736.html
Trump ignores White House's secure phone rules because they are 'inconvenient', says report
Donald Trump has shrugged off attempts by White House staff to improve the security around his mobile phones because doing so would be “inconvenient”, it has been claimed.
The US President is said to use two iPhones – having switched from Android earlier in his tenure – of which only one is capable of making phone calls.
The other device features just the Twitter app and a number of news sites, Politico reported, and both are issued by the White House’s IT and communications teams.
But Mr Trump has not heeded aides’ pleas that he use a new Twitter-enabled phone every month because it would be “too inconvenient”, Politico cited an administration official as claiming. It has reportedly been five months since the device was last checked by experts.
The White House did not comment officially but Politico cited a West Wing official as saying that “inherent capabilities and advancement in technologies” made the phones “more secure than any Obama-era devices”.
The Twitter-enabled phone’s own security features, and that of the app, have been deemed sufficient protection, that official added.
Donald Trump has shrugged off attempts by White House staff to improve the security around his mobile phones because doing so would be “inconvenient”, it has been claimed.
The US President is said to use two iPhones – having switched from Android earlier in his tenure – of which only one is capable of making phone calls.
The other device features just the Twitter app and a number of news sites, Politico reported, and both are issued by the White House’s IT and communications teams.
But Mr Trump has not heeded aides’ pleas that he use a new Twitter-enabled phone every month because it would be “too inconvenient”, Politico cited an administration official as claiming. It has reportedly been five months since the device was last checked by experts.
The White House did not comment officially but Politico cited a West Wing official as saying that “inherent capabilities and advancement in technologies” made the phones “more secure than any Obama-era devices”.
The Twitter-enabled phone’s own security features, and that of the app, have been deemed sufficient protection, that official added.
The only way we'd know if Trump's twitter was hacked would be if the Random Capitalization and Spelling errors suddenly Disappeared!
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