;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 23, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Your Classic White House Friday Afternoon Holiday News Dump. Despite his natural instinct for science, everything Donald Trump says is wrong (but we knew that):
... Coral Davenport & Kendra Pierre-Louis of the New York Times: "A major scientific report issued by 13 federal agencies on Friday presents the starkest warnings to date of the consequences of climate change for the United States, predicting that if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century's end. The report, which was mandated by Congress and made public by the White House, is notable not only for the precision of its calculations and bluntness of its conclusions, but also because its findings are directly at odds with President Trump's agenda of environmental deregulation, which he asserts will spur economic growth. Mr. Trump has taken aggressive steps to allow more planet-warming pollution from vehicle tailpipes and power plant smokestacks, and has vowed to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, under which nearly every country in the world pledged to cut carbon emissions. Just this week, he mocked the science of climate change because of a cold snap in the Northeast,tweeting, 'Whatever happened to Global Warming?' But in direct language, the 1,656-page assessment lays out the devastating effects of a changing climate on the economy, health and environment, including record wildfires in California, crop failures in the Midwest and crumbling infrastructure in the South."
Lomi Kriel of the Houston Chronicle: There are "a record 14,030 immigrant children in shelters across the country as of Nov. 15, including more than 5,600 in Texas, according to new federal and state statistics released this week. It is almost three times the number of children in federal detention a year ago, and more than during the Central American child crisis in 2014 that marked the beginning of the exodus from the so-called Northern Triangle countries.... The shelters aren't near capacity because more children are arriving. They are instead being detained longer.... Advocates largely fault a new government requirement, implemented this summer, that requires all adults in a household seeking to care for an immigrant child to submit their fingerprints for a background check. That information is shared with the Department of Homeland Security and at least 41 so-called sponsors lacking legal status have been arrested, according to testimony Matthew Albence, acting deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gave to Congress in September. Previous administrations didn't look into people's immigration status when deciding whether to release children to them."
Greg Sargent: "President Trump has again brushed off the horrifying murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, blithely claiming that the Saudi crown prince 'vehemently denied' any role in the killing. Trump again appears to be contradicting the CIA, which has reportedly determined that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did, in fact, order the assassination.... But, while in some ways Trump's latest comments ... reiterate his reprehensible statement from earlier this week, this time Trump went further, both in taking a cavalier stance toward the murder and in casting doubt on the CIA's reported conclusion.... This raises the questions: What did the intelligence conclude, and is Trump deliberately downplaying it, which would constitute active participation in covering up the truth...? In an interview with me, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) -- the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- confirmed that the committee will be examining these and other questions related to Trump's response to the Khashoggi murder and its broader implications."
Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi is in plea negotiations with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to a person with knowledge of the talks. The talks with Corsi -- an associate of both President Trump and GOP operative Roger Stone -- could bring Mueller's team closer to determining whether Trump or his advisers were linked to WikiLeaks' release of hacked Democratic emails in 2016, a key part of his long-running inquiry. Corsi provided research on Democratic figures during the campaign to Stone...."
Senator Cindy Still Fighting for Slavery Southern "Heritage." Or Something. Matt Viser of the Washington Post: Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (Rebel-Miss.) has in "several instances ... embrace[d] a pride in the Confederacy and its aftermath.... The U.S. Senate runoff on Tuesday between Hyde-Smith, the appointed Republican incumbent, and Democratic former congressman Mike Espy, who is seeking to become the first African American senator from the state since just after the Civil War, has exploded beyond the boundaries of ideology and politics. The election has turned into a contest pitting the Old South -- marked by pride in the Confederacy and resistance to tearing down monuments commemorating the Civil War -- against the New South, which has sought greater racial harmony, toppled past Confederate icons and taken pride in the surprisingly strong races run this year by several black candidates in the region, even as their contests were marred by racial epithets."
Ewww! Page Six of the New York Post: "The National Enquirer's long-held secrets about Donald Trump may be about to get substantially less secret. Page Six is told that the longtime executive editor of the tabloid, Barry Levine, is penning a book for Hachette about the president. A source says that the book will look into 'Trump and his women,' although other insiders tell us that it could be more wide-ranging, even looking at the formerly cozy relationship between the Enquirer's owner, David Pecker, and Trump. That said, it's unclear exactly what Levine's contract with the Enquirer would allow him to reveal about Pecker. Of course, Pecker has been at the center of an investigation into alleged hush money payouts made to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels -- who both claim to have had affairs with Trump while he was married to First Lady Melania Trump. In August, Pecker was granted immunity in the probe."
Tim Egan of the New York Times: "Our A-plus president didn’t even have enough of a presidential grip to get the name of the ruined town of Paradise right. (He repeatedly called it 'Pleasure.') Nor does he pretend to know the difference between sub-Arctic Finland and arid California. His administration blamed 'radical environmentalists' for the [California] fires. But it wasn't environmentalists who kicked up 50-mile-an hour winds in a state that had seen barely a whisper of rain over the last six months, hot gusts that bounced through canyons thick with man-made combustibles. The national parks, oft-called America's best idea, were created by people who looked beyond their own lives. Those people made great ancestors -- benevolent, farsighted, selfless. What they protected were islands of diversity that humans were fast destroying. Climate change has put these parks in real peril."
*****
Here are troops having Thanksgiving dinner at Camp TrumpStunt at the U.S.-Mexico border:
Here are the Trumpies having Thanksgiving dinner at Fort Mar-a-Lago on the Florida-Atlantic border:
... You can bet most of the people in the shot are paying "guests." Still, you can't be too careful about mingling with the riff-raff; they appear to be cordoned off -- with velvet rope -- from their Imperial Highnesses. I wonder if that clutchbag in the foreground of the picture belongs to Trump's nominee for ambassador to South Africa, luxury handbag designer Lana Marks, who does belong to the Mar-a-Lago club. ...
... Michael Burke of the Hill: "President Trump and his family hosted a Thanksgiving dinner Thursday evening at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with a menu that featured turkey, a salad bar and seafood.... As reporters were briefly brought into the ballroom, a man performed 'Music of the Night' from the musical 'Phantom at the Opera' at the president's request. The menu for the dinner was a lengthy one and included a full salad bar and a chilled seafood display with crab, oysters, jumbo shrimp and clams. There was also a carving station with turkey, beef tenderloin, lamb and salmon, while the entrees for the dinner were Chilean Sea bass, Red Snapper and ribs. Whipped potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables and stuffing were among the sides."
Here's Barbara Bush (who accompanied her then-President husband George) having a Thanksgiving meal with the troops in Saudi Arabia (yes, that Saudi Arabia) during the 1990 Desert Shield operation:
Source: Bush Library.
He's never been interested in going. He's afraid of those situations. He's afraid people want to kill him. -- Former Senior White House Official, on why Donald Trump has not visited troops in combat zones ...
... David Graham of The Atlantic: "Nearly four years ago, my colleague James Fallows wrote a cover story in The Atlantic labeling the United States a 'chickenhawk nation.' Americans today 'love the troops, but we'd rather not think about them,' he wrote...If those trends were apparent at the start of 2015, they are visible in crisp, high-definition detail in the Trump era.... Trump is the perfect chickenhawk president for a chickenhawk nation." --s
... Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump's Thanksgiving began, as his days often do, with an all-caps tweet: 'HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!' Minutes later, he tweeted of potential 'bedlam, chaos, injury and death,' a harbinger of what would be a frenetic Thanksgiving morning. Over the span of a few hours, the president would mix the traditional pablum of Thanksgiving tidings with renouncing the findings of his Central Intelligence Agency, threatening Mexico, criticizing court decisions, attacking Hillary Clinton over her emails, misstating facts about the economy, floating a shutdown of the government -- and per usual, jousting with the news media. Asked what he was most thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day -- a question that for commanders in chief usually prompts praise of service members in harm's way -- Trump delivered a singularly Trumpian answer. 'I made a tremendous difference in our country,' he said, citing himself." ...
... Trump Celebrates Thanksgiving ...
... by Threatening All Migrants. Michael Burke of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday threatened to close off the southern border, telling reporters that he would 'close entry into the country' if immigration gets 'uncontrollable.' 'If we find that it gets to a level where we're going to lose control or people are going to start getting hurt, we will close entry into the country for a period of time until we can get it under control,' he said. Trump added that he meant the 'whole border,' though he appeared to be referring only to the southern border. 'We're either going to have a border or we're not,' he said, adding that Mexico wouldn't "be able to sell their cars" into the U.S. Trump also claimed that the U.S. closed the border earlier this week, though it was unclear what he was referring to. Earlier this week traffic lanes near a key port of entry in San Diego were temporarily shut down. 'Two days ago, we closed the border. We actually just closed it,' Trump said. "We said, "Nobody's coming in." Because it's out of control.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... but by Pardoning a Multi-Billionaire Murderer. Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Thursday contradicted the CIA's assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, insisting that the agency had 'feelings' but did not firmly place blame for the death. Trump, in defiant remarks to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, defended his continued support for Mohammed in the face of a CIA assessment that the crown prince had ordered the killing. 'He denies it vehemently,' Trump said of the crown prince. He said his own conclusion was that 'maybe he did, maybe he didn't.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) (See also Reuters report, linked below.) ...
... by Threatening to Shut Down the Government. Roberta Rampton of Reuters: "... Donald Trump warned on Thursday there could be a government shutdown next month over security on the border with Mexico, suggesting he could hold up a funding deal if no more money is provided for a wall between the two countries." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... by Politicizing the Military. Jeremy Diamond & Kate Sullivan of CNN: "... Donald Trump struck a nakedly political tone during a Thanksgiving call with US service members stationed around the world as he steered the conversation toward controversial political topics. Speaking with a US general in Afghanistan, Trump likened the fight against terrorists to his efforts to prevent a group of migrants from illegally entering the United States, and he assailed federal judges who have ruled against his administration. The President also pressed the commanding officer of a Coast Guard ship in Bahrain on trade before touting his trade policies and arguing that 'every nation in the world is taking advantage of us.' US Presidents have traditionally called troops stationed abroad during the holidays to boost morale and remind the country of their service, making Trump's rhetoric yet another striking break from the norms of presidential behavior." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... by Dissing the Judiciary Again. Vanessa Romo of NPR: "As of Thursday morning, President Trump was still ruminating on a rare upbraiding from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, continuing attacks against the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and calling it 'a complete & total disaster.' 'It is out of control, has a horrible reputation,' Trump wrote on Twitter. He insisted judges 'know nothing' about security and safety issues along the border and alleged they are 'making our Country unsafe.' He also said 'there will be only bedlam, chaos, injury and death' unless law enforcement can 'DO THEIR JOB.'... A few hours later during a televised teleconference with members of the military, Trump again bashed the San Francisco-based court. 'We get a lot of bad court decisions from the Ninth Circuit, which has become a big thorn in our side,' he said. 'It's a terrible thing when judges take over your protective services, when they tell you how to protect your border. It's a disgrace.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... by Saying that More Than Anything Else, He's Thankful for Himself. Aris Folley of the Hill: "... when asked by reporters what he is grateful for on Thanksgiving, [Trump said,] 'I've made a tremendous difference in the country.... This country's so much stronger than it was when I took office and you wouldn't believe it. I mean you see it, but [it's] so much stronger that people can't even believe it.... When I see foreign leaders, they say, "We cannot believe the difference in strength between the United States now and the United States two years ago."'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Eliana Johnson of Politico: "... Donald Trump this week presided over an explosive meeting on a new Cabinet order granting the troops deployed at the southern border the right to use lethal force to defend border patrol agents. Several White House aides and external advisers who have supported the president's hawkish immigration agenda attended the Monday meeting, which devolved into a melee pitting two of Trump's embattled aides, White House chief of staff John Kelly and Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, against other attendees, according to three people briefed on the exchange. Kelly and Nielsen initially argued against signing the declaration, which granted the military broad authority at the border, telling the president that the move was beyond his constitutional powers. They were vocally opposed by, among others, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller; Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council; and Brandon Judd, president of the border patrol union. Also present was Vice President Mike Pence, who did not take a stand on the issue, according to one of the people briefed on the debate. Kelly and Nielsen eventually came around to the president's position, and the bitter dispute ended Tuesday evening when Kelly, on Trump's orders, signed a Cabinet declaration granting the military the disputed authority. The move ran afoul of the guidance offered by the White House counsel, Emmet Flood, who cautioned that it was likely to run into constitutional roadblocks, according to a second source...." ...
... Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that American troops stationed at the southwest border would not be armed with guns to confront incoming migrants, despite a White House directive that aims to protect border security officials by pairing them with military forces.... 'We are not doing law enforcement,' Mr. Mattis insisted. 'There is no arrest authority under Posse Comitatus for U.S. federal troops.'" ...
... Heather Hurlburt of New York on John Kelly's strange memo: "It has been very settled law for more than a century that active-duty troops may not be used for law enforcement functions within U.S. borders. That law, the Posse Comitatus Act, was passed just after the Civil War and Reconstruction, specifically to protect state governments from having policies they didn't like enforced by federal military personnel on their soil. The exceptions are extreme.... There are several strange things about this document that immediately jump out. It was called a 'Cabinet order,' but the Cabinet has no constitutional authority to make orders, and certainly not of the military.... This memo, instead of invoking the president's authority, was signed by Chief of Staff John Kelly -- but chiefs of staff have no authority to command anyone except White House employees.... Members of Congress from both parties should be speaking up to demand clarification." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm see that every sensible (and far more knowledgeable) commentator agrees with my initial "Say What?" response to Kelly's memo. Now, based on Eliana Johnson's reporting, I'm beginning to think that Kelly maneuvered to sign the memo because he knew he did not have the authority to direct troops; that is, appeasing bigots Trump & Miller while having no effect on whatever make-work border operations the military is engaged in.
Dominic Evans of Reuters: "A Turkish newspaper reported on Thursday CIA director Gina Haspel signaled to Turkish officials last month that the agency had a recording of a call in which Saudi Arabia's crown prince gave instructions to 'silence' Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi."
"Trump Hired Whitaker to Lock up Hillary." Jonathan Chait: "At the second presidential debate, Donald Trump pointed at Hillary Clinton and issued a chilling threat. 'If I win,' he warned, 'I am going to instruct my Attorney General to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception....' Trump has repeated variations of this threat many times.... [Tuesday] night, the New York Times reported that Trump repeatedly directed his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to order the Department of Justice to investigate Clinton along with James Comey.... A later version of the story adds a significant new tidbit. Trump 'repeatedly pressed Justice Department officials about the status of Clinton-related investigations, including [Matt] Whitaker when he was the chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions....' In his position working as chief of staff..., Whitaker had not only repeated contact with Trump, but -- as Murray Waas reported reported in a little-noticed scoop two weeks ago -- advised Trump on how to pressure the department into submitting to his demands that it prosecute Clinton. CNN reports that Trump raised this with Whitaker (and his then-superior.Rod Rosenstein) several times. All of these communications ought to constitute impeachable offenses." ...
... MEANWHILE. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The House Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas for James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Loretta E. Lynch, the former attorney general, as part of an investigation into their handling of inquiries into Hillary Clinton's email server and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The subpoenas, issued on Wednesday by Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia, the committee's chairman and a Republican, require Mr. Comey and Ms. Lynch to appear in closed-door sessions with members of Mr. Goodlatte's committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.... On Twitter, Mr. Comey objected to the format.... 'I'm still happy to sit in the light and answer all questions,' he said. 'But I will resist a "closed door" thing because I've seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion. Let's have a hearing and invite everyone to see.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Goodlatte's last stand here is what happens when a dimwitted partisan starts to believe his own crazy lies. This is Goodlatte's last stand. He has retired.
Clinton Would Build Wall -- Around Western Europe. Matt Stevens, et al., of the New York Times: "Europe's leaders need to send a much stronger message that they will no longer offer 'refuge and support' to migrants if they want to curb the right-wing populism spreading across the Continent, Hillary Clinton warned in an interview published Thursday. Mrs. Clinton said that while the decision of some nations to welcome migrants was admirable, it had opened the door to political turmoil, the rise of the right and Britain's decision to withdraw from the European Union. 'I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,' Mrs. Clinton said in the interview with The Guardian, which was conducted before the United States midterm elections this month.... Mrs. Clinton's remarks to The Guardian drew criticism and a dose of surprise from an array of scholars, immigration advocates and pundits on both the left and the right, some of whom were so perplexed by the comments that they wondered aloud whether Mrs. Clinton had perhaps misspoken. Mrs. Clinton, many said, has a long history of supporting refugees -- a track record seemingly at odds with her recent remarks. Her immigration platform in the 2016 presidential election boasted that 'we embrace immigrants, not denigrate them.'" ...
... Guardian stories by Patrick Wintour, are here and here. They include remarks by former British PM Tony Blair & former Italian PM Matteo Renzi. "The other two interviewees, Tony Blair and Matteo Renzi, agreed that the migration issue had posed significant problems for centrist politics."
Zack Ford of ThinkProgress: "[The] 6,000 troops at the southern border ... the Pentagon now reports, will cost U.S. taxpayers $72 million. Combined with the $138 million spent on the 2,100 National Guard troops that have been deployed there since April, that brings the total cost of securing the border this year to $210 million." --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course that's just military costs and does not include the bajillions associated with civilian border patrol ops.
Pelosi's Progressive Backbone. Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "[F]or those whose political horizons go back a bit longer [than the Obama presidency], [Nancy Pelosi] stands out as the exemplary progressive among powerful Democrats. She had a role in stiffening President Obama's spine after Scott Brown threw the future of the Affordable Care Act into doubt, and her opposition to the Iraq War came at a time when the party's other legislative leaders ... and presidential aspirants ... were backing it. But more fundamentally, her reputation as a shrewd and effective leader dates back to the huge fight over privatizing Social Security in the mid-aughts.... Pelosi's insight was that ... [i]f Democrats simply stayed united and critical of privatization, the GOP plan would collapse under its own weight.... It worked. While Democrats refused to engage in the details of the debate, infighting consumed Republicans." --s
Election 2018. Diana Ofusu of ThinkProgress has an in-depth look at demographics in the 2018 midterm elections. Contains lots of interesting data points. --s
Lisa Seville of NBC News (Nov. 21): "A federal judge in Michigan ordered the release of about 100 Iraqi detainees Tuesday, blasting the government for submitting false statements and saying he plans to issue sanctions. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith said delays by the government in responding to court orders and producing documents in response to a class action lawsuit had 'shattered' the families of detained Iraqis facing deportation. 'From the earliest stages of this case,' he wrote, 'the Government made demonstrably false statements to the Court designed to delay the proceedings.' The ruling is the latest in a series of judicial rebukes to the Trump administration's immigration policies, including this week's battle over the administration's new asylum policy."
Pam Belluck of the New York Times (Nov. 21): "More than two decades ago, Congress adopted a sweeping law that outlawed female genital mutilation, an ancient practice that 200 million women and girls around the world have undergone. But a federal court considering the first legal challenge to the statute found the law unconstitutional on Tuesday.... A federal judge in Michigan issued the ruling in a case that involved two doctors and four parents, among others, who had been criminally charged last year with participating in or enabling the ritual genital cutting of girls. Their families belong to a small Shiite Muslim sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, that is originally from western India.... In the 28-page ruling, [Judge Bernard Friedman wrote,] 'Congress overstepped its bounds by legislating to prohibit FGM' because 'FGM is a "local criminal activity" which, in keeping with longstanding tradition and our federal system of government, is for the states to regulate, not Congress.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This looks like a pretty good way for the Supremes to overturn Roe v. Wade; decide abortion is a "local criminal activity" & leave laws governing abortion to the states to write.
Peer Pressure. Linda Greenhouse on how the right-wing Federalist Society continues to impose its influence on Supreme Court justices it has managed to install in the high court.
Nellie Bowles & Zach Wichter of the New York Times: "Joining a long tradition of companies and campaigns that drop bad news on holidays, Facebook on Thanksgiving eve took responsibility for hiring a Washington-based lobbying company, Definers Public Affairs, that pushed negative stories about Facebook's critics, including the philanthropist George Soros. Facebook's communications and policy chief, Elliot Schrage, said in a memo posted Wednesday that he was responsible for hiring the group, and had done so to help protect the company's image and conduct research about high-profile individuals who spoke critically about the social media platform. Mr. Schrage will be leaving the company, a move planned before the memo was released. Facebook fired Definers last week, after a New York Times investigation published on Nov. 14.... This is a change from just a few days ago, when Facebook wrote on Nov. 15 that the Times report was full of 'inaccuracies.' The same day, Sheryl Sandberg, the company's chief operating officer, posted on her Facebook page that she had no idea the company had hired Definers."
E.A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "The Coast Guard has ordered the company responsible for an oil spill that has been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for 14 years to clean up the environmental catastrophe or face a $40,000 per day fine. The spill has largely gone unnoticed until recently but it is one of the largest spills ever in North America.... Taylor allowed a broken oil platform off the coast of southeast Louisiana to leak an estimated 10,500 gallons to 29,000 gallons of oil per day, five to 13 times larger than the government's initial estimates.... [T]he spill has in fact generated between 1.5 million and 3.5 million barrels. For comparison, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, considered the worst in U.S. history, spilled 4 million barrels and is still undergoing cleanup." --s
I recommend checking out the Democracy Now! interview of, "A.C. Thompson, correspondent for Frontline PBS and reporter for ProPublica.... [O]ne of the key findings [of] ... Thompson's new investigation, 'Documenting Hate: New American Nazis,' [is that] America's perpetual warfare abroad has led to an increase in white supremacist violence at home." The investigation premiered last Tuesday on PBS, you can watch it online here. --safari
DeNeen Brown of the Washington Post: "Olivia Hooker called it 'The Catastrophe,' the notorious 48 hours of fire and death that leveled 'Black Wall Street' in Tulsa. She was 6 at the time of the Tulsa Race Massacre, which erupted on May 31, 1921, when a white lynch mob descended on the courthouse where a black teenager was being held. A group of black war veterans tried to protect the teen, and in the ensuing violence, as many as 300 black people died and thousands more saw their homes and livelihoods destroyed by torch. Some people were burned alive, and 40 square blocks of business and residential property -- valued then at more than $1 million -- were destroyed. Dr. Hooker later was among the first black women to serve in the Coast Guard and retired as an associate professor of psychology at Fordham University in New York. But at the time of her death on Nov. 21 at 103, she had also become one of the last known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre and an enduring witness to what is often regarded as the deadliest episode of racial violence in American history -- and one that was long an afterthought in history texts, if mentioned at all."
Flower Power. Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "The collapse in bee populations can be reversed if countries adopt a new farmer-friendly strategy, the architect of a new masterplan for pollinators will tell the UN biodiversity conference this week. Stefanie Christmann of the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas will present the results of a new study that shows substantial gains in income and biodiversity from devoting a quarter of cropland to flowering economic crops such as spices, oil seeds, medicinal and forage plants.... The essence of the technique is to devote one in every four cultivation strips to flowering crops, such as oil seeds and spices. In addition, she provides pollinators with cheap nesting support, such as old wood and beaten soil that ground nesting bees can burrow into.... In all four different climatic regions that she studied, the total income of farmers increased, though the benefits were most marked on degraded land and farms without honeybees." --s
Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "According to scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, October 2018 marks the 42nd consecutive October, and the '406th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.'" --s
Beyond the Beltway
California. AP: "A former state senator convicted of lying about his residence and three refugees from Vietnam who could face deportation are among 38 people pardoned Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Brown's pardons also include a man who just lost his Paradise home in a wildfire."
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Reader Comments (5)
What a bloody shame this widdle wombat of a man is too frightened to have Thanksgiving with the troops because he's afraid someone will do him in. REALLY? You're with the military, you dolt––you know the ones who have guns and are there to protect us? Oh, well, just another "Christ! did he really say that?" moment.
Here's an interesting take on those stalwart pilgrims that we all learned came here because of religious freedom; what we weren't told was those who didn't cotton to the faith of these followers were done in–-hanged in some cases. But what is overlooked is the real reason for the pilgrims sojourn: Economic–-or what we call Colonial Capitalism . (with video)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/on-thanksgiving-a-look-back-at-colonial-capitalism
Re: FGM
A practice certainly disturbing in itself, but in their own bloodless way, the implications of the judge's decision equally so should we begin to screen all wrongdoing the same way.
After all, there is that old phrase "ALL criminality is local..."
Hillary Clinton’s solution to the problem of white supremacy, nationalism, and right-wing hate groups is basically to mollify them. Rather than addressing the real issue (all of the above), which admittedly is difficult but can be done in democracies by a powerful showing from the center and the left, and by serious and committed leadership, she seems to be suggesting that, if immigrants piss off the haters, get rid of the immigrants. So, will that make the neo-Nazis good citizens? Hell no. They’ll just find some other group to blame for all their imagined slights.
It’s not unlike the right-wing “solution” to the problem of poverty and the social consequences of income inequality: step on them even more; disenfranchise the poor as much as possible, thereby shutting them up, and build more for-profit prisons to warehouse those who refuse to shut up.
@Akhilleus: Hillary Clinton does not seem to have consistent core values. When she was a teenager, she was a Goldwater Republican. You can't really blame teenagers for having dumb ideas they may have absorbed from their parents, so how refreshing that when she got to Wellesley, she became sort of a feminist radical. She stuck with this for awhile working with Marian Wright Edelman. But then she let Bill Clinton's Southern Democrat/"Third Way" ideas take over her political philosophy. Then Bill left the presidency & got into money-making, and she was all in with that. When she was a Senator, she joined a GOP Bible study group. And she was famously hawkish, I think because she admires the "strongman" type of leader. Although she was a dutiful Secretary of State, she could never quite get to Obama's relatively moderate (uh, drones!) use-of-force views. And now, meeting with Tony Blair in the shadow of Donald Trump, she's all into appeasing Nazis.
People's views do change, and that's a good thing. But Hillary's changes seem dependent upon what her elite "set" is saying at any given moment. And her elite set, certainly far more elite than Trump's, is nearly as transactional as he is and nearly as corrupt. Ask yourself how Hillary would be handling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Bone Saw right now. I suspect that, like Trump, she could find an excuse to overlook his murdering ways, if harumphing a bit about his jailing Saudi feminists.
Bea,
Nice description of HRC's journey.
Over the years she has triangulated her way to irrelevance.