I. All the President's Men
[Pence, Barr, Pompeo, Mulvaney] "Together they represent the four tent poles of the modern GOP circus: the extreme Christian right, the stolid GOP establishment, the corporate Koch brothers wing and the allegedly anti-deficit, actually white nationalist Tea Party." "Pompeo warned that Trump would be "an authoritarian president who ignored our Constitution." He subscribed to Trump's stonewalling agenda when he "attempted to defy Democratic subpoenas for information about the Ukraine mess, complaining his political opponents were intimidating and bullying State Department officials." [1]
Mick Mulvaney "peddles the budget-busting Trump tax cuts. "Now he's the guy who gave the order to halt congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine, as Trump dictated. He has also been subpoenaed to provide a libraryful of administration documents to the committees investigating impeachment."
II. The Burden of War on the Few
"The burden of nearly two decades of war -- nearly 7,000 dead and more than 50,000 wounded -- has been largely sustained by 1% of our population." "Under the military's current standards, 71% of Americans ages 17 to 24 do not meet physical or mental qualifications for military service. People often assume the draft was compulsory for an entire generation , but this was never the case. Of those killed in Vietnam, the war most inextricably linked to the draft, 69.3% were volunteers." "Our World War II military was 61.2% conscripted. In Vietnam it was 25%." "In the run-up to the 2018 mid-term elections, 42% of Americans didn't know whether or not we were still at war in Afghanistan." [2]
"Here's what a reverse-engineered draft could look like: The Department of Defense would annually set a certain number of draftees for induction into the armed forces for two-year enlistments, which is half the typical enlistment of a volunteer. This number would be kept small as a percentage of the overall active-duty force, let's say 5%, or 65,000 people, which is roughly the size of the Coast Guard," "Which comes to a final aspect of the reverse -engineered draft: those whose families fall into the top income bracket would be the only ones eligible."
III. Child Care Expenses
Except for the very wealthy, childcare is very expensive. "In 28 states and the District of Columbia, one year of infant care, on average, sets parents back as much as a four-year public college, and nationally, childcare costs, on average, are between $4,000 and $9,600 annually, according to the advocacy organization, Child Care Aware." "Nearly 2 million parents had to leave work, change jobs, or turn down a job offer because of childcare obligations in 2016, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank" [3]
"The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that nearly 1.2 million people are employed in childcare in America, not including the countless number who are self-employed." In 2018, according to the Institute for Family Studies, only 28% of married mothers with children under 18 said that working full time was ideal." "A 2017 white paper from the U.S. Census Bureau that followed more than 2 million children for five years, found that those who were less likely to repeat a year of school are those in family day care or with relatives or babysitters." "But wages for childcare workers have remained largely stagnant, increasing by just 1% from 1997 to 2013, and barely keeping pace with the rising coat of living, according to a 2014 report by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. During that time, the average weekly cost of care for children under 5 more than doubled, according to the same report."
Footnotes:
[1] Joan Walsh, "All the President's Men," The Nation (I omitted the date in my notes.)
[2] Elliot Ackerman, "Born into war," TIME, October 21-28 2019.
[3] Katie Reilly and Belinda Luscombe, "At what cost?" TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Fishing, Homeless People, and Long-Term Service Needs by the Numbers
I. Fishing, Gone
126 - Pounds that a Chinook salmon, Alaska's state fish, can weigh.
$595M - Estimated value of Alaska's commercial salmon harvest in 2018.
$3.3B - Average annual export value of Alaska's seafood.
55F - Warmest water temperature a salmon can handle before its health starts to decline.
81.7F - Water temperature recorded in July in the Deshka River, a major salmon stream north of Anchorage.
1M - Number of pink salmon in the Shaktoolik River threatened by warming waters. (Source: The Nation, October 14, 2019.)
II. Homeless People
553K - Estimated number of homeless people in the United States on a given night in 2018.
37.8M - US households that pay more than 30 percent of their income toward housing.
24 - Percentage of homeless people who have physical or mental disabilities.
1.5 - Median wait in years for a Section 8 housing voucher.
6M - Substandard homes in the US.
2.1M - People living in public housing in the US.
1.5M - Vacant homes in the US. (Source: The Nation, October 21, 2019.)
III. Long-Term Service Needs
88M - Number of people in the United States over the age of 65 by the year 2050.
50% - Percentage of those who will have significant long-term service needs.
$266K - Projected average annual cost for those with significant long-term service needs.
$11.57 - Median hourly wage for a home care worker in the United States.
87% - Percentage of home care workers who are women -- more than half of them women of color. (Source: The Nation, October 28/November 4 , 2019.)
IV. A Wealth Tax
"The top 1 percent of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and that gulf is growing. Those in the top 0.1 percent have doubled their share of the country's wealth over the past four decades from about 10 to 20 percent of all wealth."
"According to tax law experts Lily Batchelder and David Kamin, the bottom 95 percent of income earners make 80 percent of their income from wages and salaries. In contrast, the top 1 percent earn just over half their income this way, and that number drops rapidly as you go up the ladder."
Probably the major objection lodged against the wealth tax is that it is too difficult to account for the wealth of rich people; however, fortunately, much wealth is in stocks and bonds, which are easily calculated. And the IRS can develop new evaluation techniques for other financial assets.
A 2% tax on wealth over $50 million affects only the top 0.1%. If it raises the full $2.75 trillion over 10 years, it would be enough to pay for 10 years of paid family leave; free public college; universal day care; and universal child allowance. (Sources: Mike Konczal, "Tax the Filthy Rich!" The Nation, October 28/November 4, 2019; Saez and Zucman; FAMILY ACT; American Family Act; Estimates from Warren and Sanders campaigns, IWPR; and Moody's Analytics.)
V. Selective Marshals Detention Facilities (Per-Prisoner Payments)
Central Arizona - Rate: $120 --- Rio Grande - Rate: $90 --- Leavenworth - Rate: $100 --- Val Verde County - Rate: $60 --- East Hidalgo - Rate: $60.
Average daily population of Marshals detainees by facility: State/local - 36,000; Privately owned - 9,900; Federal - 9,700.
Marshals payments to detention facilities: CoreCivic - $310M; GEO Group - $56M; State/local - $747M.
Percentages of detention categories for U.S. Marshals: 1.) In fiscal year 2018, nearly 75% of all federal defendants were detained before trial. In 1988, nearly 30% were. 2.) 88% of Latino federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 45% of whites were. 3.) 71% of noncitizen federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 53% of citizen defendants were. 4.) More than 113,000 Marshals detainees were held on immigration charges, a 94% increase over 2017. (Source for V: Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*Trump says other countries, including Russia and China, should be responsible for protecting U.S. -allied Kurds.
*The State Department is promoting Mike Pompeo as a Christian leader.
*Mike Pompeo said that he never heard about military aid being conditioned on opening investigations, yet he was on the July 25 call.
*On October 20, Trump quoted "Mark Esperento, Secretary of Defense." as saying the ceasefire is holding up nicely." His name is Mark Esper.
126 - Pounds that a Chinook salmon, Alaska's state fish, can weigh.
$595M - Estimated value of Alaska's commercial salmon harvest in 2018.
$3.3B - Average annual export value of Alaska's seafood.
55F - Warmest water temperature a salmon can handle before its health starts to decline.
81.7F - Water temperature recorded in July in the Deshka River, a major salmon stream north of Anchorage.
1M - Number of pink salmon in the Shaktoolik River threatened by warming waters. (Source: The Nation, October 14, 2019.)
II. Homeless People
553K - Estimated number of homeless people in the United States on a given night in 2018.
37.8M - US households that pay more than 30 percent of their income toward housing.
24 - Percentage of homeless people who have physical or mental disabilities.
1.5 - Median wait in years for a Section 8 housing voucher.
6M - Substandard homes in the US.
2.1M - People living in public housing in the US.
1.5M - Vacant homes in the US. (Source: The Nation, October 21, 2019.)
III. Long-Term Service Needs
88M - Number of people in the United States over the age of 65 by the year 2050.
50% - Percentage of those who will have significant long-term service needs.
$266K - Projected average annual cost for those with significant long-term service needs.
$11.57 - Median hourly wage for a home care worker in the United States.
87% - Percentage of home care workers who are women -- more than half of them women of color. (Source: The Nation, October 28/November 4 , 2019.)
IV. A Wealth Tax
"The top 1 percent of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and that gulf is growing. Those in the top 0.1 percent have doubled their share of the country's wealth over the past four decades from about 10 to 20 percent of all wealth."
"According to tax law experts Lily Batchelder and David Kamin, the bottom 95 percent of income earners make 80 percent of their income from wages and salaries. In contrast, the top 1 percent earn just over half their income this way, and that number drops rapidly as you go up the ladder."
Probably the major objection lodged against the wealth tax is that it is too difficult to account for the wealth of rich people; however, fortunately, much wealth is in stocks and bonds, which are easily calculated. And the IRS can develop new evaluation techniques for other financial assets.
A 2% tax on wealth over $50 million affects only the top 0.1%. If it raises the full $2.75 trillion over 10 years, it would be enough to pay for 10 years of paid family leave; free public college; universal day care; and universal child allowance. (Sources: Mike Konczal, "Tax the Filthy Rich!" The Nation, October 28/November 4, 2019; Saez and Zucman; FAMILY ACT; American Family Act; Estimates from Warren and Sanders campaigns, IWPR; and Moody's Analytics.)
V. Selective Marshals Detention Facilities (Per-Prisoner Payments)
Central Arizona - Rate: $120 --- Rio Grande - Rate: $90 --- Leavenworth - Rate: $100 --- Val Verde County - Rate: $60 --- East Hidalgo - Rate: $60.
Average daily population of Marshals detainees by facility: State/local - 36,000; Privately owned - 9,900; Federal - 9,700.
Marshals payments to detention facilities: CoreCivic - $310M; GEO Group - $56M; State/local - $747M.
Percentages of detention categories for U.S. Marshals: 1.) In fiscal year 2018, nearly 75% of all federal defendants were detained before trial. In 1988, nearly 30% were. 2.) 88% of Latino federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 45% of whites were. 3.) 71% of noncitizen federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 53% of citizen defendants were. 4.) More than 113,000 Marshals detainees were held on immigration charges, a 94% increase over 2017. (Source for V: Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*Trump says other countries, including Russia and China, should be responsible for protecting U.S. -allied Kurds.
*The State Department is promoting Mike Pompeo as a Christian leader.
*Mike Pompeo said that he never heard about military aid being conditioned on opening investigations, yet he was on the July 25 call.
*On October 20, Trump quoted "Mark Esperento, Secretary of Defense." as saying the ceasefire is holding up nicely." His name is Mark Esper.
Friday, October 18, 2019
Kafka Excerpts, Elite Plus Schools, and Guns! Guns! Guns!
I. Kafka Excerpts
p. 81 - " 'Charge stacking' vastly increases the prosecutor's power in plea bargaining: the defendant faces very long consecutive sentences and a sometimes confusing trial where there are so many counts that a conviction on at least one of them is likely." "Because of the phenomenal growth in the number of offenses, even professors and practicing attorneys who have spent most of their careers wrestling with the intricacies of the criminal law are familiar with only a fraction of the statutes to which we are subject." "If knowledge of the criminal law consists in the ability to make reliable forecasts about what conduct will be punished, it follows that no one knows the law." [1]
p. 85 - "About 90 million living Americans have used an illicit drug, an activity for which many could have been sent to prison if detected and prosecuted. Even occupants of our highest offices have engaged in felonious drug use... Second, astronomical numbers of young adults have engaged in music piracy. According to some estimates, 52 percent of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 21 commit this crime by illegally downloading approximately 3.6 billion songs each month..."
"The ownership of offshore Internet casinos that do business in the United States includes many of the most prestigious investment firms in the world: Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, Golden Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others. Only prosecutable discretion prevents criminal liability from extending to the highest reaches of mainstream society."
"Perhaps over 70% of living adult Americans have committed an imprisonable offense at some point in their life." "We are steadily moving to a world in which the law on the books makes everyone a felon." "If present trends continue, nearly one in 15 Americans born in 2001 will serve some time in n prison during their lifetimes... One in three black men, one in seven Hispanic men, and one in 17 white men."
p. 88 - In place of an earlier order in which criminal process involved many jury trials, and locally elected prosecutors responsive to poor and working class constituencies, we created prosecutors' offices characterized by 'bureaucratic detachment' "... "The consequences were poor crime control, rapidly changing punishment practices, and massive inequality. "
p. 90 - "The increasingly lengthy sentences in our criminal codes together with the triumph of plea bargaining has led us to our shocking levels of imprisonment."
II. Elite Plus Schools
"In recent years, the Elite Plus' colleges have enrolled more students from the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom half. They devote vast resources to educating these already privileged students. The most selective schools spend almost eight times as much per student as the least selective ones, according to one estimate." [2]
"Four fifths of the partners at the most profitable law firms in America graduated from the top five law schools. Elite schooling has become the dynastic technology of choice for the 1%." Education must become less hierarchical and less meritorious." "The shares of Americans age 25 to 29 to get a B.A. nearly quadrupled between 1940 and 1980, but the rate of growth then slowed dramatically and has now stalled."
III. Guns! Guns! Guns!
There are 393 million firearms in the United States, a statistic so staggering that it is necessary to render it in simple terms. For every 100 Americans -- regardless of age, criminal history, mental health, or physical ability -- there are 120 weapons. Last year nearly 40,000 people died in gun-related violence, two thirds of them from suicide." [3]
ADDENDUMS:
*A federal judge dismisses Trump's law suit seeking to bock the Manhattan district attorney from obtaining his tax returns.
*President Trump has called for Mitt Romney's impeachment.
*In 2017, Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to intervene in the prosecution of a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer who was represented by Rudolph W. Giuliani.
*Sen.Lindsey Graham has called Trump's decision on Syria the "biggest blunder of his presidency."
Footnotes:
[1] Robert P. Burns, "Kafka's Law," University of Chicago Press, 2014.
[2] Daniel Markovits, "Less Elite, More Equal," TIME, September 30, 2019.
[3] Laila Salami, "Our Best Shot," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
p. 81 - " 'Charge stacking' vastly increases the prosecutor's power in plea bargaining: the defendant faces very long consecutive sentences and a sometimes confusing trial where there are so many counts that a conviction on at least one of them is likely." "Because of the phenomenal growth in the number of offenses, even professors and practicing attorneys who have spent most of their careers wrestling with the intricacies of the criminal law are familiar with only a fraction of the statutes to which we are subject." "If knowledge of the criminal law consists in the ability to make reliable forecasts about what conduct will be punished, it follows that no one knows the law." [1]
p. 85 - "About 90 million living Americans have used an illicit drug, an activity for which many could have been sent to prison if detected and prosecuted. Even occupants of our highest offices have engaged in felonious drug use... Second, astronomical numbers of young adults have engaged in music piracy. According to some estimates, 52 percent of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 21 commit this crime by illegally downloading approximately 3.6 billion songs each month..."
"The ownership of offshore Internet casinos that do business in the United States includes many of the most prestigious investment firms in the world: Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, Golden Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others. Only prosecutable discretion prevents criminal liability from extending to the highest reaches of mainstream society."
"Perhaps over 70% of living adult Americans have committed an imprisonable offense at some point in their life." "We are steadily moving to a world in which the law on the books makes everyone a felon." "If present trends continue, nearly one in 15 Americans born in 2001 will serve some time in n prison during their lifetimes... One in three black men, one in seven Hispanic men, and one in 17 white men."
p. 88 - In place of an earlier order in which criminal process involved many jury trials, and locally elected prosecutors responsive to poor and working class constituencies, we created prosecutors' offices characterized by 'bureaucratic detachment' "... "The consequences were poor crime control, rapidly changing punishment practices, and massive inequality. "
p. 90 - "The increasingly lengthy sentences in our criminal codes together with the triumph of plea bargaining has led us to our shocking levels of imprisonment."
II. Elite Plus Schools
"In recent years, the Elite Plus' colleges have enrolled more students from the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom half. They devote vast resources to educating these already privileged students. The most selective schools spend almost eight times as much per student as the least selective ones, according to one estimate." [2]
"Four fifths of the partners at the most profitable law firms in America graduated from the top five law schools. Elite schooling has become the dynastic technology of choice for the 1%." Education must become less hierarchical and less meritorious." "The shares of Americans age 25 to 29 to get a B.A. nearly quadrupled between 1940 and 1980, but the rate of growth then slowed dramatically and has now stalled."
III. Guns! Guns! Guns!
There are 393 million firearms in the United States, a statistic so staggering that it is necessary to render it in simple terms. For every 100 Americans -- regardless of age, criminal history, mental health, or physical ability -- there are 120 weapons. Last year nearly 40,000 people died in gun-related violence, two thirds of them from suicide." [3]
ADDENDUMS:
*A federal judge dismisses Trump's law suit seeking to bock the Manhattan district attorney from obtaining his tax returns.
*President Trump has called for Mitt Romney's impeachment.
*In 2017, Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to intervene in the prosecution of a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer who was represented by Rudolph W. Giuliani.
*Sen.Lindsey Graham has called Trump's decision on Syria the "biggest blunder of his presidency."
Footnotes:
[1] Robert P. Burns, "Kafka's Law," University of Chicago Press, 2014.
[2] Daniel Markovits, "Less Elite, More Equal," TIME, September 30, 2019.
[3] Laila Salami, "Our Best Shot," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Environmental Problems and One Proposed Solution
I. The Shrinking Amazon
"Five decades ago, Brazil incentivized its people to colonize the Amazon." Since the inauguration of President Jair Bolosnaro in January, the rate of deforestation has soared..." "At least half of the shrinking forest will give way to savanna. With as much as 17% of the forest lost already. scientists believe that the tipping point will be reached at 20% to 25% of deforestation even if climate change is tamed." [1]
"Despite growing outrage and threats by Western leaders to withhold trade with Brazil until Bolosnaro reverses course. On the ground [Kate Sandy and allies] discovered the battle for the Amazon is close to being lost. The emboldened forces of development are screaming without restraint and the stakes for the planet couldn't be higher."
"The Amazon is 10 million years old. Home to 390 billion trees the vast basin reigns over South America an is an unrivaled nest of biodiversity." "August is burning season when Amazon farmers use a rare period of dry weather to set fires to clear fields ready to plant crops. But 2019 was different; satellite data showed more than 46,000 fires in the Amazon, an alarming 111% increase over the last year."
"Cattle farming accounts for up to 80% of deforested land In 2018, Brazil exported some $6 billion worth of beef, more than any other country in history."
"The [Amazon] forest stores up to 120 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to almost 12 years of global emissions at current rates."
II. Climate Change Is Not Healthful
"The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, by a collaboration among 13 U.S. scientific agencies, highlights how higher temperatures, severe whether events and rising seas can contribute to health-related cardiopulmonary illness, infectious disease and mental-health issues." "Climate change is a public-health issue. It has been linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and can shove the body's response to existing environmental assaults into overdrive." "In the U.S.,urban communities of color, often also low-income areas, are especially at risk." [2]
III. Destroying Wetland Habitat
"Ecologists say coastal wetlands are capable of trapping carbon up to 40 times faster per hectare than tropical rainforests. But over the past 400 years, farmland, coastal development, and rising sea levels have combined to destroy 91% of wetland habitat on the Essex coast." "From 2005 to 2015, Europe's forest cover grew by the equivalent of 1,900 football fields every day, as the E.U. pent several billion euros to fund the planting, often on farmland that had been abandoned because of changing agricultural practices in places like France and Italy." [3]
"A Pew Research poll released three weeks after the 2008 Iowa caucuses found that 1% of Americans ranked the issue as the nation's most important problem."
"Across Iowa, the annual precipitation level averaged less than 33 inches during every decade of the 20th century." "This spring alone, extreme rain put 100,000 acres of farmland underwater in the state, resulting in tens of millions of dollars to farmers." "By 2050, climate change threatens to erase all the gains made in agricultural productivity since the 1980s in the Midwest, meaning farmers will need to spend heavily or cut production, according to the National Climate Assessment."
IV. Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon
Bernie Sanders's Green New Deal "calls for government action on a heroic scale --committing the United States to do its fair share to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, in line with the findings of the landmark scientific report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPCC) last October -- and outlines a set of bold policies to achieve that extremely ambitious goal. The plan's 10-year, $16.3 trillion price tag raised eyebrows among the usual inside-the-Beltway suspects." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Kate Sandy, "The Tipping Point," TIME, September 23, 2019.
[2] Adrienne L. Hollis, "Climate change is he global..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[3] Ciara Nugent, "Take a Walk..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[4] Tom Athanasiou, "Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
"Five decades ago, Brazil incentivized its people to colonize the Amazon." Since the inauguration of President Jair Bolosnaro in January, the rate of deforestation has soared..." "At least half of the shrinking forest will give way to savanna. With as much as 17% of the forest lost already. scientists believe that the tipping point will be reached at 20% to 25% of deforestation even if climate change is tamed." [1]
"Despite growing outrage and threats by Western leaders to withhold trade with Brazil until Bolosnaro reverses course. On the ground [Kate Sandy and allies] discovered the battle for the Amazon is close to being lost. The emboldened forces of development are screaming without restraint and the stakes for the planet couldn't be higher."
"The Amazon is 10 million years old. Home to 390 billion trees the vast basin reigns over South America an is an unrivaled nest of biodiversity." "August is burning season when Amazon farmers use a rare period of dry weather to set fires to clear fields ready to plant crops. But 2019 was different; satellite data showed more than 46,000 fires in the Amazon, an alarming 111% increase over the last year."
"Cattle farming accounts for up to 80% of deforested land In 2018, Brazil exported some $6 billion worth of beef, more than any other country in history."
"The [Amazon] forest stores up to 120 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to almost 12 years of global emissions at current rates."
II. Climate Change Is Not Healthful
"The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, by a collaboration among 13 U.S. scientific agencies, highlights how higher temperatures, severe whether events and rising seas can contribute to health-related cardiopulmonary illness, infectious disease and mental-health issues." "Climate change is a public-health issue. It has been linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and can shove the body's response to existing environmental assaults into overdrive." "In the U.S.,urban communities of color, often also low-income areas, are especially at risk." [2]
III. Destroying Wetland Habitat
"Ecologists say coastal wetlands are capable of trapping carbon up to 40 times faster per hectare than tropical rainforests. But over the past 400 years, farmland, coastal development, and rising sea levels have combined to destroy 91% of wetland habitat on the Essex coast." "From 2005 to 2015, Europe's forest cover grew by the equivalent of 1,900 football fields every day, as the E.U. pent several billion euros to fund the planting, often on farmland that had been abandoned because of changing agricultural practices in places like France and Italy." [3]
"A Pew Research poll released three weeks after the 2008 Iowa caucuses found that 1% of Americans ranked the issue as the nation's most important problem."
"Across Iowa, the annual precipitation level averaged less than 33 inches during every decade of the 20th century." "This spring alone, extreme rain put 100,000 acres of farmland underwater in the state, resulting in tens of millions of dollars to farmers." "By 2050, climate change threatens to erase all the gains made in agricultural productivity since the 1980s in the Midwest, meaning farmers will need to spend heavily or cut production, according to the National Climate Assessment."
IV. Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon
Bernie Sanders's Green New Deal "calls for government action on a heroic scale --committing the United States to do its fair share to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, in line with the findings of the landmark scientific report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPCC) last October -- and outlines a set of bold policies to achieve that extremely ambitious goal. The plan's 10-year, $16.3 trillion price tag raised eyebrows among the usual inside-the-Beltway suspects." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Kate Sandy, "The Tipping Point," TIME, September 23, 2019.
[2] Adrienne L. Hollis, "Climate change is he global..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[3] Ciara Nugent, "Take a Walk..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[4] Tom Athanasiou, "Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
Monday, October 14, 2019
Vaping, Controlling Platform Companies, EPA Rule Rollbacks, and Latin American Interference
I. Vaping
Last November, "the FDA announced that almost 21% of high school students had vaped during the previous month, a 78% increase over the year before. That number jumped again this year, to 27.5%, meaning that more than 4 million American teenagers vape regularly, according to preliminary reports from federal health officials. [1]
"Eighth-graders who vape are 10 times as likely to eventually smoke cigarettes as their nonvaping peers, HHS says."
"Juul has assiduously followed Big Tobacco's playbook: aggressively marketing to youth and making implied health claims a central pillar of its business plan."
"A four-pack costs $16, and each 200-puff pod delivers a much nicotine as a pack of 20 cigarettes."
II. Vaping More Popular Than Smoking in High Schools
Percentage of high schoolers who, in the past month, have smoked: 16% in 2011 versus 6% in 2019.
Percentage who have vaped: 2% in 2011 versus 28% in 2019.
Percentage of vapers among adults: 3% versus 28% among high schoolers. [2]
III. Controlling Platform Companies
"In the intelligence world, countries copy what works, and the FBI has already said China and Iran are getting in on the game. Just this year, Facebook and Twitter have taken down hundreds of accounts and handles affiliated with Iran influence operations." [3]
"That doesn't mean government has no role. Congress should amend the Communications Decency Act of 1996, particularly Section 230. It was that law that declared the platform companies were not publishers and gave them blanket immunity for the content that is on them."
"I've long thought that we don't have a 'fake news' problem, we have a media literacy problem. Millions of people just can't tell the difference between a made-up story and a factual one, and don't know how to do so."
IV. EPA Rule Rollbacks
"A recent New York Times analysis found that [Trump's] White House has killed, stymied. or targeted 84 environmental rules. Among the regulations the administration has set its sights on are those regarding chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to neurological damage in children. [4]
"And then Trump took office. In March 2017, shortly after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, the leading manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the prohibition in July, despite a court-order, the EPA again refused to implement a ban."
ADDENDUM:
*"From 1900 to 2006, power changed hands in [Latin America] 162 times via military coup, typically announced from a studio of a state broadcaster. In a striking number of cases -- at least 41, by the count of a Harvard study -- the force behind the coup was the U.S., which maintained a proprietary hold over the hemisphere it regarded as its realm. [5]
Footnotes:
[1[ TIME, September 30, 2019.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Excerpts from a forthcoming book, "Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation & What We Can Do About It" by Stengel.
[4] Molly Minta, "EPA Rules Rollbacks," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
[5] Karl Vick, "The U.S. watches Venezuela teeters," TIME, May 13, 2019.
Last November, "the FDA announced that almost 21% of high school students had vaped during the previous month, a 78% increase over the year before. That number jumped again this year, to 27.5%, meaning that more than 4 million American teenagers vape regularly, according to preliminary reports from federal health officials. [1]
"Eighth-graders who vape are 10 times as likely to eventually smoke cigarettes as their nonvaping peers, HHS says."
"Juul has assiduously followed Big Tobacco's playbook: aggressively marketing to youth and making implied health claims a central pillar of its business plan."
"A four-pack costs $16, and each 200-puff pod delivers a much nicotine as a pack of 20 cigarettes."
II. Vaping More Popular Than Smoking in High Schools
Percentage of high schoolers who, in the past month, have smoked: 16% in 2011 versus 6% in 2019.
Percentage who have vaped: 2% in 2011 versus 28% in 2019.
Percentage of vapers among adults: 3% versus 28% among high schoolers. [2]
III. Controlling Platform Companies
"In the intelligence world, countries copy what works, and the FBI has already said China and Iran are getting in on the game. Just this year, Facebook and Twitter have taken down hundreds of accounts and handles affiliated with Iran influence operations." [3]
"That doesn't mean government has no role. Congress should amend the Communications Decency Act of 1996, particularly Section 230. It was that law that declared the platform companies were not publishers and gave them blanket immunity for the content that is on them."
"I've long thought that we don't have a 'fake news' problem, we have a media literacy problem. Millions of people just can't tell the difference between a made-up story and a factual one, and don't know how to do so."
IV. EPA Rule Rollbacks
"A recent New York Times analysis found that [Trump's] White House has killed, stymied. or targeted 84 environmental rules. Among the regulations the administration has set its sights on are those regarding chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to neurological damage in children. [4]
"And then Trump took office. In March 2017, shortly after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, the leading manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the prohibition in July, despite a court-order, the EPA again refused to implement a ban."
ADDENDUM:
*"From 1900 to 2006, power changed hands in [Latin America] 162 times via military coup, typically announced from a studio of a state broadcaster. In a striking number of cases -- at least 41, by the count of a Harvard study -- the force behind the coup was the U.S., which maintained a proprietary hold over the hemisphere it regarded as its realm. [5]
Footnotes:
[1[ TIME, September 30, 2019.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Excerpts from a forthcoming book, "Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation & What We Can Do About It" by Stengel.
[4] Molly Minta, "EPA Rules Rollbacks," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
[5] Karl Vick, "The U.S. watches Venezuela teeters," TIME, May 13, 2019.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Ukraine-Related Material
On July 24, President Trump triumphantly announced that Robert Mueller found "no collusion." On July 25, he made a phone call to the Ukrainian president. Trump said that there was no quid pro quo during the call because there was no mention of withholding military aid of about $270 million. If Trump claimed that he had to prove that he had to establish lack of corruption in Ukraine before he would release the funding, than he shouldn't have praised the president for cleaning up the corruption.
Given that Ukraine wanted that aid as soon as possible, because it was being pressured by Russia, Trump was increasing Ukraine's peril by withholding funding. Ukraine knew as early as mid-July that the funding was not coming in. Rudy Giuliani or others could have linked the withholding of funding to Ukraine opening an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump said that the aid to Ukraine was withheld because other countries did not offer to help: "I want other countries to put up money, they say 'oh, let it go, and I let it go." He specifically mentioned Germany and France. On Monday, September 23, he said the funding was withheld because he was concerned that the Ukrainian government was corrupt. "I want to make sure that county (sic) is honest." It's very important to talk about corruption. If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt." Of Biden, he said: "I did not make a statement 'you have to do this or I'm not going to give you aid.' I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't do that."
Rudy Giuliani said two Department of State officials were working with him on Ukraine. Both the IG and the DNI were preparing to refer a criminal complaint to the DoJ. A.G. Barr relied strictly on the White House notes on deciding not to release the whistleblower report to Congress. In his testimony to Congress DNI Joseph Maguire claimed the President is not part of the intelligence community. Rep. Adam Schiff and Maguire agree that the whistleblower is "credible," and his report is an "urgent concern." Maguire was vague about the word "shell." Maguire said several times in his testimony that he went to the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel first, but then finally admitted that he went to the White House first. Schiff pushed hard on why Maguire remained silent when Trump called the whistleblower a "political hack" and maybe even a traitor. Maguire couldn't answer who made the decision to defy a subpoena. He seemed to be saying that the President's executive privilege power, even when not claimed, trumps the whistleblower legal protection.
Maguire wouldn't answer if he spoke to Trump, even after Schiff advised him that he wasn't asking about substance, he wanted to know if Maguire spoke to Trump. Maguire seems to believe that even the question of whom he spoke to is covered by executive privilege.
The whistleblower said that the Ukrainian call transcript was put in a separate compartment designed for highly sensitive, politically damaging documents -- other calls may have been put in that compartment. Maguire said that he had no jurisdiction over that matter. He also said that whether or not Giuliani had a security clearance is not in his jurisdiction, and he couldn't answer questions about him, because of attorney-client privilege.
On September 27, Trump accused Rep. Adam Schiff of lying to Congress and called on him to resign based on fraud.
Given that Ukraine wanted that aid as soon as possible, because it was being pressured by Russia, Trump was increasing Ukraine's peril by withholding funding. Ukraine knew as early as mid-July that the funding was not coming in. Rudy Giuliani or others could have linked the withholding of funding to Ukraine opening an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump said that the aid to Ukraine was withheld because other countries did not offer to help: "I want other countries to put up money, they say 'oh, let it go, and I let it go." He specifically mentioned Germany and France. On Monday, September 23, he said the funding was withheld because he was concerned that the Ukrainian government was corrupt. "I want to make sure that county (sic) is honest." It's very important to talk about corruption. If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt." Of Biden, he said: "I did not make a statement 'you have to do this or I'm not going to give you aid.' I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't do that."
Rudy Giuliani said two Department of State officials were working with him on Ukraine. Both the IG and the DNI were preparing to refer a criminal complaint to the DoJ. A.G. Barr relied strictly on the White House notes on deciding not to release the whistleblower report to Congress. In his testimony to Congress DNI Joseph Maguire claimed the President is not part of the intelligence community. Rep. Adam Schiff and Maguire agree that the whistleblower is "credible," and his report is an "urgent concern." Maguire was vague about the word "shell." Maguire said several times in his testimony that he went to the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel first, but then finally admitted that he went to the White House first. Schiff pushed hard on why Maguire remained silent when Trump called the whistleblower a "political hack" and maybe even a traitor. Maguire couldn't answer who made the decision to defy a subpoena. He seemed to be saying that the President's executive privilege power, even when not claimed, trumps the whistleblower legal protection.
Maguire wouldn't answer if he spoke to Trump, even after Schiff advised him that he wasn't asking about substance, he wanted to know if Maguire spoke to Trump. Maguire seems to believe that even the question of whom he spoke to is covered by executive privilege.
The whistleblower said that the Ukrainian call transcript was put in a separate compartment designed for highly sensitive, politically damaging documents -- other calls may have been put in that compartment. Maguire said that he had no jurisdiction over that matter. He also said that whether or not Giuliani had a security clearance is not in his jurisdiction, and he couldn't answer questions about him, because of attorney-client privilege.
On September 27, Trump accused Rep. Adam Schiff of lying to Congress and called on him to resign based on fraud.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Abortion in Mexico/Central America
I. Abortion in Mexico/Central America
Amy Littlefield and Laura Gotteodiener, "A Second Assault," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
"On average, from 2007 trough 2016 across Mexico, one person was reported to authorities every day on suspicion of abortion." "According to a 2006 Human Rights Watch report, 'actual access to safe abortion procedures is made virtually impossible by a maze of administrative hurdles as well as -- most pointedly -- by official negligence and obstruction.' " "From 2009 to 2016, there were 111,413 rapes reported to federal and local attorney generals." "Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal death in Mexico."
"Today, though the national law says survivors in any Mexican state can go to a public hospital and get an abortion without reporting the crime to authorities first, 11 states impose some form of time limit on the books that require victims to file a report." "Twelve states impose some form of time limit in abortions for rape survivors, mostly confining it to the first trimester of pregnancy." "Across the country, activists say that one of the biggest remaining hurdles is not the law itself but rather the doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and other public officials who fail to understand it or carry it out."
"Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws, with several banning abortion outright." "In 2014, at least 10 percent of maternal deaths in the region resulted from unsafe abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive heath research organization."
II. Iran Meeting Is Absurd
Brian Bennett and John Walcott, "Iran Gets Tough," TIME, September 30, 2019.
" 'Trump's desire for a meeting with Iran is absurd at this point,' says the director for the hawkish Foundation for Defense for Democracies. 'Trump finds himself backed into a corner because for a year now he has marched down an escalating path while insisting he doesn't want a conflict,' says Jeffrey Prescott, former senior adviser under President Obama. But Secretary of State Pompeo has argued that easing pressure on Iran before it makes concessions on its nuclear program or reduce its use of proxy forces in the region, would be dangerous, as it would reward that behavior."
III. Extreme Poverty in the Black Hills
Brooke Jarvis, "American Sphinx," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
Larry Smalley, an advocate for abused children, told Brooke Jarvis that kids in Pine Ridge are experiencing 'a state of emergency,' and that it's not uncommon for three or four or even five families to have to share a trailer -- feeling squeezed into the vast contradiction that is the modern Back Hills. "Here, sites of theft and genocide have become monuments to patriotism, a symbol of resistance has become a source of revenue, and old stories of broken promises and appropriation recur."
IV. Contradictory Words From Trump and Biden
A statement from the Justice Department contradicts President Trump's words about Attorney General William Barr's involvement in pressuring the Ukrainian government in digging up dirt on Joe Biden. "The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son." "The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine -- on this or any other matters."
In his call to Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump said: "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great."
Amy Littlefield and Laura Gotteodiener, "A Second Assault," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
"On average, from 2007 trough 2016 across Mexico, one person was reported to authorities every day on suspicion of abortion." "According to a 2006 Human Rights Watch report, 'actual access to safe abortion procedures is made virtually impossible by a maze of administrative hurdles as well as -- most pointedly -- by official negligence and obstruction.' " "From 2009 to 2016, there were 111,413 rapes reported to federal and local attorney generals." "Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal death in Mexico."
"Today, though the national law says survivors in any Mexican state can go to a public hospital and get an abortion without reporting the crime to authorities first, 11 states impose some form of time limit on the books that require victims to file a report." "Twelve states impose some form of time limit in abortions for rape survivors, mostly confining it to the first trimester of pregnancy." "Across the country, activists say that one of the biggest remaining hurdles is not the law itself but rather the doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and other public officials who fail to understand it or carry it out."
"Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws, with several banning abortion outright." "In 2014, at least 10 percent of maternal deaths in the region resulted from unsafe abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive heath research organization."
II. Iran Meeting Is Absurd
Brian Bennett and John Walcott, "Iran Gets Tough," TIME, September 30, 2019.
" 'Trump's desire for a meeting with Iran is absurd at this point,' says the director for the hawkish Foundation for Defense for Democracies. 'Trump finds himself backed into a corner because for a year now he has marched down an escalating path while insisting he doesn't want a conflict,' says Jeffrey Prescott, former senior adviser under President Obama. But Secretary of State Pompeo has argued that easing pressure on Iran before it makes concessions on its nuclear program or reduce its use of proxy forces in the region, would be dangerous, as it would reward that behavior."
III. Extreme Poverty in the Black Hills
Brooke Jarvis, "American Sphinx," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
Larry Smalley, an advocate for abused children, told Brooke Jarvis that kids in Pine Ridge are experiencing 'a state of emergency,' and that it's not uncommon for three or four or even five families to have to share a trailer -- feeling squeezed into the vast contradiction that is the modern Back Hills. "Here, sites of theft and genocide have become monuments to patriotism, a symbol of resistance has become a source of revenue, and old stories of broken promises and appropriation recur."
IV. Contradictory Words From Trump and Biden
A statement from the Justice Department contradicts President Trump's words about Attorney General William Barr's involvement in pressuring the Ukrainian government in digging up dirt on Joe Biden. "The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son." "The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine -- on this or any other matters."
In his call to Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump said: "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great."
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Donald Trump's Assault on Campaign Finance Law
Donald Trump's assault on campaign finance law started with the June 9, 2016 meeting in the Trump Tower, which didn't come to light until notice of it came in one of the many revisions that Jared Kushner made on his national security form, picked up by The New York Times. Trump went through a series of ever increasing attempts to tone down the seriousness of a meeting originally pitched to Donald Trump Jr as the Russian government offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Trump, senior, finally got to the point where he said that "everyone" would have taken that call. He described it as "opo" (opposition) "research."
The next major point in Trump commenting on campaign finance law came in an Oval Office interview of President Trump by George Stephanopoulos, who asked it the president would accept a call from a foreign government with derogatory information on a political rival. Trump said that he would decide whether or not to report the call to the FBI or some other governmental agency. Knowing what we do about Donald Trump, it is very likely that if what he hears is very damaging to a rival, that it not the type of call that Trump will report.
What's different about President Trump's July 25 call to the Ukrainian president is that he is soliciting the head of a foreign government to break U.S. campaign finance law. Once more, according the whistleblower's report, Trump continued to bring up the subject during the call.
Getting now to Trump's supporters' attempts to discredit the whistleblower, one of the main talking points is that the report is a second-hand, not a first-hand account of the call. The inspector general for the intelligence community has been prompted to issue a lengthy memo explaining that the whistleblower protection law does not require that a report must be first-hand: it must be credible. The whistleblower in this case was serving in an inter-agency capacity, and was getting reports from those with first-hand information. Of great importance is that the whistleblower's report tracks very closely with the call transcript released by the Trump administration. In that transcript, the Ukrainian president is asked to open an investigation of corruption on the part of Joe Biden to, presumably, kill an investigation of his son, Hunter, who was serving on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The attorney for the first whistleblower is now representing a second whistleblower, who, he says, does have first-hand information, thereby shooting down the Trump surrogates' vain attempt to discredit the first whistleblower.
When the Trump administration released a sketchy transcript of a 30-minute call, President Trump apparently believed that the suspension of military aid was not specifically mentioned meant that there was no quid pro quo. This kind of linkage could have been revealed to the Ukrainian government either by Rudy Guiliani or through other means. Regarding the suspension of military aid, Trump has given two very different reasons for doing it: 1.) He was concerned about the corruption in the Ukrainian government, and didn't want to give military aid until the corruption problem was addressed; and 2.) He was waiting to see what other governments, such as Germany and France, would contribute in military aid.
ADDENDUMS:
*On September 30, Trump called for Adam Schiff to be arrested for treason for exaggerating parts of the President's call with Ukraine's leader.
*Trump denounced six members of Congress as "Do Nothing Democrat Savages," included were three women of color.
*As many as 130 officials have been questioned in a renewed probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.
*Attorney General William Barr has urged foreign governments to aid in his investigation of CIA and FBI activities related to the 2016 election.
*The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) allowed drug makers to increase production of opioids even as overdose deaths were skyrocketing. Opioid overdose deaths increased by 71 percent per year between 2013 and 2017, as the DEA authorized manufacturers to produce "substantially larger amounts of opioids," reads the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General.
*When on ABC's "This Week," host Martha Raddatz asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo what he knew about Trump's phone conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Pompeo answered: "None of which I've seen." Pompeo referred to Ukraine's foreign minister saying that there was no pressure. Pompeo also said that Biden should be investigated. It took about a week for Pompeo to admit that he was on the call.
The next major point in Trump commenting on campaign finance law came in an Oval Office interview of President Trump by George Stephanopoulos, who asked it the president would accept a call from a foreign government with derogatory information on a political rival. Trump said that he would decide whether or not to report the call to the FBI or some other governmental agency. Knowing what we do about Donald Trump, it is very likely that if what he hears is very damaging to a rival, that it not the type of call that Trump will report.
What's different about President Trump's July 25 call to the Ukrainian president is that he is soliciting the head of a foreign government to break U.S. campaign finance law. Once more, according the whistleblower's report, Trump continued to bring up the subject during the call.
Getting now to Trump's supporters' attempts to discredit the whistleblower, one of the main talking points is that the report is a second-hand, not a first-hand account of the call. The inspector general for the intelligence community has been prompted to issue a lengthy memo explaining that the whistleblower protection law does not require that a report must be first-hand: it must be credible. The whistleblower in this case was serving in an inter-agency capacity, and was getting reports from those with first-hand information. Of great importance is that the whistleblower's report tracks very closely with the call transcript released by the Trump administration. In that transcript, the Ukrainian president is asked to open an investigation of corruption on the part of Joe Biden to, presumably, kill an investigation of his son, Hunter, who was serving on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The attorney for the first whistleblower is now representing a second whistleblower, who, he says, does have first-hand information, thereby shooting down the Trump surrogates' vain attempt to discredit the first whistleblower.
When the Trump administration released a sketchy transcript of a 30-minute call, President Trump apparently believed that the suspension of military aid was not specifically mentioned meant that there was no quid pro quo. This kind of linkage could have been revealed to the Ukrainian government either by Rudy Guiliani or through other means. Regarding the suspension of military aid, Trump has given two very different reasons for doing it: 1.) He was concerned about the corruption in the Ukrainian government, and didn't want to give military aid until the corruption problem was addressed; and 2.) He was waiting to see what other governments, such as Germany and France, would contribute in military aid.
ADDENDUMS:
*On September 30, Trump called for Adam Schiff to be arrested for treason for exaggerating parts of the President's call with Ukraine's leader.
*Trump denounced six members of Congress as "Do Nothing Democrat Savages," included were three women of color.
*As many as 130 officials have been questioned in a renewed probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.
*Attorney General William Barr has urged foreign governments to aid in his investigation of CIA and FBI activities related to the 2016 election.
*The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) allowed drug makers to increase production of opioids even as overdose deaths were skyrocketing. Opioid overdose deaths increased by 71 percent per year between 2013 and 2017, as the DEA authorized manufacturers to produce "substantially larger amounts of opioids," reads the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General.
*When on ABC's "This Week," host Martha Raddatz asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo what he knew about Trump's phone conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Pompeo answered: "None of which I've seen." Pompeo referred to Ukraine's foreign minister saying that there was no pressure. Pompeo also said that Biden should be investigated. It took about a week for Pompeo to admit that he was on the call.
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Student Diversity, Indicting a President, and an Altered Environment
I. Student Diversity
Three-quarters in Los Angeles, California schools are poor, and more than seventy per cent of black and Latino children attend schools in which most of the students live in poverty. Forty-three percent of the city's population is composed of white students, yet they account for only fifteen percent of the public-school population. Black and Latino students together make up almost seventy percent of the public school population in the specialized high schools. Asian-American students account for sixteen percent of the enrollment at specialized high schools. Asian-American students tend to receive lower scores on the most subjective parts of college admissions evaluations -- often in ways that correspond to personality stereotypes attached to Asian-Americans. [1]
II. Indicting Sitting President
Ina 75-page opinion, Judge Victor Manero writes that too much weight has been given to the proposition that a sitting president can't be indicted. He says that "the theory has gained a certain degree of axiomatic acceptance, and the DOJ Memos which propagate it have assumed substantial legal force as if their conclusion were inscribed on constitutional tablets so etched by the Supreme Court." "The Court considers such popular currency for the categorical concept and its legal support as not warranted." Judge Manero says that the conclusion a sitting President can't be indicted is based on "an unqualified abstract doctrine." Instead, " the presidential immunity theory substantially relies on suppositions, practicalities... as well as conjurings of remote prospects and hyperbolic horrors about the consequences to the Presidency and the nation as a whole..."
III. "Severely Altered" Environment
According to the United Nations, humans have "severely altered" two-thirds of the earth's maritime environment. "Each decade we lose ten per cent of the world's sea-grass meadows and dump some four billions of tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other industrial wastes into the world's waters." Also, according to the United Nations study, "Humans have accelerated the rate of global species extinction by a factor of 'tens of hundreds of times' more than in the previous ten million years." "Already, humans are expected to force more than a million species into extinction, and, by 2050, to fill the oceans with a greater mass of plastic than there is of fish." [2]
In his article, Ben Taub reports that only half of Africa's population lives within a mile of a functional road. "Deliveries of blood to rural health centers are slow and unreliable; refrigerated medicines go bad before they arrive." "The continent has three per cent of the world's motor vehicles, but account for eighteen per cent of the world's road deaths."
ADDENDUMS:
*As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence signed a law that requires fetal remains of miscarriages and abortions, at any stage of pregnancy, to be cremated or buried. Jia Tolentino says that she "had grown up Baptist in Texas, with the idea that girls should consecrate their bodies for God and for their future husbands." [3]
*House Minority Leader Kevin McCrthy sees nothing wrong with Vice-President Pence staying at a hotel from which Trump profits, even claiming that those resorts were "just like any other hotel." "The president's resorts are hotels he owns." McCarthy says Trump is "competing in a private enterprise." At least 60 military service members have stayed at Trump's Turnberry resort.
*Diana Ohlbaum, Senior Strategist and Legislative Director for Foreign Policy of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, says that the 180-year-old AUMF has been used to justify 41 military operations in 19 countries.
*President Trump has said that he was blocked from building infrasructure by the Democrats; however, at a joint meeting to build an infrastructure plan, Sen. Schumer bought a 39-page plan, and Trump brought nothing.The Trump staff had prepositioned a podium in the Rose Garden, with spending figures on the Mueller investigation.
Footnotes:
[1] Jelani Cobb, "This Is a Test," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
[2] Ben Taub, "Ideas in the Sky," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
[3] Jia Tolentino, "All Aunt Lydia's Children," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
Three-quarters in Los Angeles, California schools are poor, and more than seventy per cent of black and Latino children attend schools in which most of the students live in poverty. Forty-three percent of the city's population is composed of white students, yet they account for only fifteen percent of the public-school population. Black and Latino students together make up almost seventy percent of the public school population in the specialized high schools. Asian-American students account for sixteen percent of the enrollment at specialized high schools. Asian-American students tend to receive lower scores on the most subjective parts of college admissions evaluations -- often in ways that correspond to personality stereotypes attached to Asian-Americans. [1]
II. Indicting Sitting President
Ina 75-page opinion, Judge Victor Manero writes that too much weight has been given to the proposition that a sitting president can't be indicted. He says that "the theory has gained a certain degree of axiomatic acceptance, and the DOJ Memos which propagate it have assumed substantial legal force as if their conclusion were inscribed on constitutional tablets so etched by the Supreme Court." "The Court considers such popular currency for the categorical concept and its legal support as not warranted." Judge Manero says that the conclusion a sitting President can't be indicted is based on "an unqualified abstract doctrine." Instead, " the presidential immunity theory substantially relies on suppositions, practicalities... as well as conjurings of remote prospects and hyperbolic horrors about the consequences to the Presidency and the nation as a whole..."
III. "Severely Altered" Environment
According to the United Nations, humans have "severely altered" two-thirds of the earth's maritime environment. "Each decade we lose ten per cent of the world's sea-grass meadows and dump some four billions of tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other industrial wastes into the world's waters." Also, according to the United Nations study, "Humans have accelerated the rate of global species extinction by a factor of 'tens of hundreds of times' more than in the previous ten million years." "Already, humans are expected to force more than a million species into extinction, and, by 2050, to fill the oceans with a greater mass of plastic than there is of fish." [2]
In his article, Ben Taub reports that only half of Africa's population lives within a mile of a functional road. "Deliveries of blood to rural health centers are slow and unreliable; refrigerated medicines go bad before they arrive." "The continent has three per cent of the world's motor vehicles, but account for eighteen per cent of the world's road deaths."
ADDENDUMS:
*As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence signed a law that requires fetal remains of miscarriages and abortions, at any stage of pregnancy, to be cremated or buried. Jia Tolentino says that she "had grown up Baptist in Texas, with the idea that girls should consecrate their bodies for God and for their future husbands." [3]
*House Minority Leader Kevin McCrthy sees nothing wrong with Vice-President Pence staying at a hotel from which Trump profits, even claiming that those resorts were "just like any other hotel." "The president's resorts are hotels he owns." McCarthy says Trump is "competing in a private enterprise." At least 60 military service members have stayed at Trump's Turnberry resort.
*Diana Ohlbaum, Senior Strategist and Legislative Director for Foreign Policy of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, says that the 180-year-old AUMF has been used to justify 41 military operations in 19 countries.
*President Trump has said that he was blocked from building infrasructure by the Democrats; however, at a joint meeting to build an infrastructure plan, Sen. Schumer bought a 39-page plan, and Trump brought nothing.The Trump staff had prepositioned a podium in the Rose Garden, with spending figures on the Mueller investigation.
Footnotes:
[1] Jelani Cobb, "This Is a Test," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
[2] Ben Taub, "Ideas in the Sky," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
[3] Jia Tolentino, "All Aunt Lydia's Children," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
The UkraineTranscripts Ignored by GOP Lawmakers
After U.S. House members questioned Kurt Volker for about nine hours, all of the Republican lawmakers who talked to the media said that nothing that happened in the hearing did any damage to President Trump. The unreliability of these GOP lawmakers is illustrated by the transcripts presented in the hearing. The identity of the persons participating in the transcript exchanges is as follows: Kurt Volker - former special envoy to Ukraine; Gordon Sondland - U.S. Ambassador to the European Union; Bill Taylor - charge d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine; and Andrey Yermak - aide to President Zelensky of Ukraine.
8/8/19 - Yermak texted Volker a news story entitled, "Trump Holds Up Ukraine Military Aid Meant to Confront Russia."
8/9 - Sondland sends a text to Volker suggesting that Zelensky hold a news conference announcing his intent to investigate. "To avoid misunderstanding, might be helpful to ask [the Zelensky aide] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover."
8/10 - Volker: "I agree with your approach. Let's iron out statement and use that to get date and then PreZ can go forward with it."
8/10 - Yermak: "Once we have a date, will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of US-Ukraine relating among other things Burisma and election meddling."
8/13 - Volker: He says that "special attention should be paid to the political processes of the United States, especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians." "We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 elections, which in turn will prevent the reoccurrence of this problem in the future."
9/1 - Taylor: "Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?"
9/8 - Taylor: "The nightmare is they give the interview and don't get the security assistance."
9/9 - Taylor: "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help for a political campaign."
9/9 - Sondland: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quids of any kind." Sondland then says: "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text." Sondland tells Taylor that if he has concerns, he should contact Secretary of State Pompeo.
The references to a date involve a White House visit after President Zelensky issues a statement agreeing to demanded investigations. The statement by Kurt Volker on 8/10 lays bare the link between the statement and the White House visit. When Bill Taylor says "interview" he probably means press conference. Burisma refers to the gas company whose board Hunter Biden served on. When Gorgon Sondland suggests stopping the texting, he probably is concerned that a written record could cause problems in the future. Bill Taylor is obviously very concerned about linkage between investigations and a White House visit; also, he worries about a link between withholding military aid and Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.
Although Sondlund texted that Trump stressed no quid pro quos, there were at least three specific ones: 1.) a demand for a statement from Zelensky that he will investigate the Bidens and Burisma before a date will be set for a White House visit; 2;) a demand voiced by Kurt Volker that the Ukraine role in meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections must be included in the investigation, and 3.) a quid pro quo linking withholding military aid to helping a political campaign.
Here is the narrative about Trump withholding military aid from Ukraine. The withholding started in June when Trump ordered John Bolton and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to conduct a policy review; however, John C. Rood, the undersecretary for defense, had already sent a letter to congressional committees in May -- including the committee chaired by Sen Chuck Grassley -- to give assurance that the "Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance."
In interagency meetings on July 23 and July 26, Office of Management and Budget officials stated that the instruction to suspend military aid came from President Trump without a policy directive.
When President Trump was asked at the United Nations session why he suspended the military aid, he said he had to know if Ukraine had eliminated corruption, because he didn't want to send aid to a corrupt nation. Yet when he was asked a second time, he said he was waiting to see if EU nations like Germany and France were making a military aid commitment to Ukraine.
In conclusion, it is clear that there were quid pro quos with Ukraine, and that the withholding of military aid to aid a political campaign was elevated over helping Ukraine to withstand a major threat to its sovereignty by Russia.
8/8/19 - Yermak texted Volker a news story entitled, "Trump Holds Up Ukraine Military Aid Meant to Confront Russia."
8/9 - Sondland sends a text to Volker suggesting that Zelensky hold a news conference announcing his intent to investigate. "To avoid misunderstanding, might be helpful to ask [the Zelensky aide] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover."
8/10 - Volker: "I agree with your approach. Let's iron out statement and use that to get date and then PreZ can go forward with it."
8/10 - Yermak: "Once we have a date, will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of US-Ukraine relating among other things Burisma and election meddling."
8/13 - Volker: He says that "special attention should be paid to the political processes of the United States, especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians." "We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 elections, which in turn will prevent the reoccurrence of this problem in the future."
9/1 - Taylor: "Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?"
9/8 - Taylor: "The nightmare is they give the interview and don't get the security assistance."
9/9 - Taylor: "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help for a political campaign."
9/9 - Sondland: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quids of any kind." Sondland then says: "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text." Sondland tells Taylor that if he has concerns, he should contact Secretary of State Pompeo.
The references to a date involve a White House visit after President Zelensky issues a statement agreeing to demanded investigations. The statement by Kurt Volker on 8/10 lays bare the link between the statement and the White House visit. When Bill Taylor says "interview" he probably means press conference. Burisma refers to the gas company whose board Hunter Biden served on. When Gorgon Sondland suggests stopping the texting, he probably is concerned that a written record could cause problems in the future. Bill Taylor is obviously very concerned about linkage between investigations and a White House visit; also, he worries about a link between withholding military aid and Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.
Although Sondlund texted that Trump stressed no quid pro quos, there were at least three specific ones: 1.) a demand for a statement from Zelensky that he will investigate the Bidens and Burisma before a date will be set for a White House visit; 2;) a demand voiced by Kurt Volker that the Ukraine role in meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections must be included in the investigation, and 3.) a quid pro quo linking withholding military aid to helping a political campaign.
Here is the narrative about Trump withholding military aid from Ukraine. The withholding started in June when Trump ordered John Bolton and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to conduct a policy review; however, John C. Rood, the undersecretary for defense, had already sent a letter to congressional committees in May -- including the committee chaired by Sen Chuck Grassley -- to give assurance that the "Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance."
In interagency meetings on July 23 and July 26, Office of Management and Budget officials stated that the instruction to suspend military aid came from President Trump without a policy directive.
When President Trump was asked at the United Nations session why he suspended the military aid, he said he had to know if Ukraine had eliminated corruption, because he didn't want to send aid to a corrupt nation. Yet when he was asked a second time, he said he was waiting to see if EU nations like Germany and France were making a military aid commitment to Ukraine.
In conclusion, it is clear that there were quid pro quos with Ukraine, and that the withholding of military aid to aid a political campaign was elevated over helping Ukraine to withstand a major threat to its sovereignty by Russia.
Friday, October 4, 2019
The Violence in Donald Trump's Makeup
Donald Trump has exhibited the violence that is in his makeup throughout the presidential campaign and continuing into his presidency.
#In at least two debates among the Republican candidates for president in 2015 and 2016, Trump said he would kill the families of terrorists. He has never repudiated that position.
#Also in the debates, Trump said he would allow military troops to take actions that violated the Code of Military Conduct and other restrictions. When he was asked by a debate moderator if commanders would issue such an order to their troops, Trump replied: "They will, believe me." The Trump campaign staff then put out a statement saying that all existing laws restricting military behavior and actions would be followed.
#In a March 9, 2016 interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Trump was asked if he had reversed himself on killing the families of terrorists, his answer was: "I didn't reverse anything." Trump then contended that he never said he would kill the families, but had only said "go after them." In that interview he called for the laws on terrorism to be "a lot tougher." "We have rules that are very onerous." Cooper: "When you say increase the laws and do more with waterboarding, what is that specifically?" Trump: "I'll work with the generals." Then Trump reiterated his support for waterboarding.
It is not clear from that interview if Trump was also saying that restrictions on the behavior and actions of military troops were also "very onerous."
#During the GOP presidential debates, Trump sad he would "go well beyond waterboarding" in a torture program. During the Transition period between his election victory and taking office, Gen. James Mattis told him that he could accomplish more with a few "cigarettes and a sixpack" than he could by the use of torture. Right on the spot, Trump designated Mattis as the person who would decide if and when torture should be used. After talking with intelligence officials well into his presidency, Trump said they had convinced him that torture "works." Torture "works" is apparently President Trump's current position.
#On a day in March 2016, Donald Trump said that women who have abortions must pay a penalty. Before 5 p.m. Eastern time that very day, the Trump campaign issued a statement saying that mothers-to-be who have an abortion are "victims." In an interview with CBS political reporter, John Dickerson, Trump said that "abortion is murder." Given that murder does not have a statute of limitations in all or virtually all legal jurisdictions, this means that self-aborters, and those who perform abortions can be charged with murder; also, those who bring their fetuses to an abortionist can be charged with being accessories to murder. Trump's most recent position on abortion seems to be that he supports exemptions in cases of rape or a threat to the pregnant women's physical safety.
#At his campaign rallies, Donald Trump was generally hostile to protesters. At one rally, he said he would pay the legal expenses of anyone who beat up a protester, and at another rally he said he would like to "slam his fist" into the face of a protester.
#While president, there have been notable instances in which Trump has threatened or acquiesced in doing harm to others. There were, of course, the infamous chants of "Lock her up!" leveled at Hillary Clinton without the niceties of being indicted and then convicted in a court trial. There was the time that Trump said that Hillary, as president, might be taken out by a zealous Second Amendment supporter. He later passed it off as a joke, as he has done in other occasions when what he said has stirred up hostile reaction.
#At a recent breakfast event in New York City, Trump said: "Basically, that person [the whistleblower] never saw that call, he never saw the call -- heard something and decided that he or she whoever the hell they saw -- they're about a spy." "I don't know who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that's close to a spy." "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart. Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little different than we do now."
#Treason is a crime punishable by death. According to Axios, for the 25th time, Trump has accused someone,or something, of acting as a traitor. Included in the list are: those behind the Russia investigation, the Russia investigation itself, Democrats who speak about North Korea, Democrats who take action to protect immigrants at the southern border, Hillary Clinton, Andrew McCabe, and newspapers such as the Washington Post and The New York Times.
#Commentators often refer to "at least a dozen" women who have claimed that Trump sexually assaulted them. A more accurate group number is "nearly two dozen." A publication came out a few months ago that showed the photo, name, and a brief description of twenty women who claimed Trump had sexually assaulted them. A few said Trump aggressively kissed them against their will. Added to that list would be Jean Carroll, who recently claimed Trump had sexually "penetrated" (raped) her in a clothing change room in a Macy's store. Also added would the woman who fled a lawsuit after Trump became president, alleging that Donald Trump raped her when she was 13 years old. She withdrew her lawsuit when she began receiving death threats. The 23rd person would be Trump's first wife, who initially charged in their divorce filing that Donald had dragged her by the hair, and threw her down the stairs. She withdrew that charge in the final divorce settlement.
#In at least two debates among the Republican candidates for president in 2015 and 2016, Trump said he would kill the families of terrorists. He has never repudiated that position.
#Also in the debates, Trump said he would allow military troops to take actions that violated the Code of Military Conduct and other restrictions. When he was asked by a debate moderator if commanders would issue such an order to their troops, Trump replied: "They will, believe me." The Trump campaign staff then put out a statement saying that all existing laws restricting military behavior and actions would be followed.
#In a March 9, 2016 interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Trump was asked if he had reversed himself on killing the families of terrorists, his answer was: "I didn't reverse anything." Trump then contended that he never said he would kill the families, but had only said "go after them." In that interview he called for the laws on terrorism to be "a lot tougher." "We have rules that are very onerous." Cooper: "When you say increase the laws and do more with waterboarding, what is that specifically?" Trump: "I'll work with the generals." Then Trump reiterated his support for waterboarding.
It is not clear from that interview if Trump was also saying that restrictions on the behavior and actions of military troops were also "very onerous."
#During the GOP presidential debates, Trump sad he would "go well beyond waterboarding" in a torture program. During the Transition period between his election victory and taking office, Gen. James Mattis told him that he could accomplish more with a few "cigarettes and a sixpack" than he could by the use of torture. Right on the spot, Trump designated Mattis as the person who would decide if and when torture should be used. After talking with intelligence officials well into his presidency, Trump said they had convinced him that torture "works." Torture "works" is apparently President Trump's current position.
#On a day in March 2016, Donald Trump said that women who have abortions must pay a penalty. Before 5 p.m. Eastern time that very day, the Trump campaign issued a statement saying that mothers-to-be who have an abortion are "victims." In an interview with CBS political reporter, John Dickerson, Trump said that "abortion is murder." Given that murder does not have a statute of limitations in all or virtually all legal jurisdictions, this means that self-aborters, and those who perform abortions can be charged with murder; also, those who bring their fetuses to an abortionist can be charged with being accessories to murder. Trump's most recent position on abortion seems to be that he supports exemptions in cases of rape or a threat to the pregnant women's physical safety.
#At his campaign rallies, Donald Trump was generally hostile to protesters. At one rally, he said he would pay the legal expenses of anyone who beat up a protester, and at another rally he said he would like to "slam his fist" into the face of a protester.
#While president, there have been notable instances in which Trump has threatened or acquiesced in doing harm to others. There were, of course, the infamous chants of "Lock her up!" leveled at Hillary Clinton without the niceties of being indicted and then convicted in a court trial. There was the time that Trump said that Hillary, as president, might be taken out by a zealous Second Amendment supporter. He later passed it off as a joke, as he has done in other occasions when what he said has stirred up hostile reaction.
#At a recent breakfast event in New York City, Trump said: "Basically, that person [the whistleblower] never saw that call, he never saw the call -- heard something and decided that he or she whoever the hell they saw -- they're about a spy." "I don't know who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that's close to a spy." "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart. Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little different than we do now."
#Treason is a crime punishable by death. According to Axios, for the 25th time, Trump has accused someone,or something, of acting as a traitor. Included in the list are: those behind the Russia investigation, the Russia investigation itself, Democrats who speak about North Korea, Democrats who take action to protect immigrants at the southern border, Hillary Clinton, Andrew McCabe, and newspapers such as the Washington Post and The New York Times.
#Commentators often refer to "at least a dozen" women who have claimed that Trump sexually assaulted them. A more accurate group number is "nearly two dozen." A publication came out a few months ago that showed the photo, name, and a brief description of twenty women who claimed Trump had sexually assaulted them. A few said Trump aggressively kissed them against their will. Added to that list would be Jean Carroll, who recently claimed Trump had sexually "penetrated" (raped) her in a clothing change room in a Macy's store. Also added would the woman who fled a lawsuit after Trump became president, alleging that Donald Trump raped her when she was 13 years old. She withdrew her lawsuit when she began receiving death threats. The 23rd person would be Trump's first wife, who initially charged in their divorce filing that Donald had dragged her by the hair, and threw her down the stairs. She withdrew that charge in the final divorce settlement.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
The Numbers on Sea Change and Hurricane Ferocity
I. Sea Change Numbers
21 - Years until the sea level is projected to rise by 12 inches in Florida's Miami-Dade County.
20% - Area of Miami that will be underwater if the sea level rises by 12 inches.
380 - Estimated number of tidal floods that Miami-Dade County will experience every year with a 15-inch rise.
$1.7T - Property value at risk of being wiped out by a sea-level rise in South Florida by 2030.
2.4M - Number of people who live less than four feet from the current high-tide in Florida.
$3.2B - Amount needed to build barriers to shield just Miami-Dade County from sea-level rise. (Source: Molly Minta, "By the Numbers," The Nation, September 23, 2019.)
II. Hurricane Numbers
4 - Consecutive years with at least one Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic -- a record set this year.
2017 - Year when three of the five costliest US hurricanes occurred: Harvey, Maria and Irma.
$1.7T - Total cost of the 250 weather and climate disasters with damages of at least $1 billion that the US endured since 1980.
185 mph - Hurricane Dorian's wind speed at landfall -- tied for an Atlantic record with the Labor Day hurricane of 1935.
76K - Number of people left homeless on Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands as a result of Dorian.
1 - Number of news segments (out of 216) on ABC, CBS, and NBC from August 28 to September 5 that linked climate change to hurricanes like Dorian, according to Media Matters. (Source: Teddy Ostrow, "By the Numbers," The Nation, September 30, 2019.)
III. Popularity of Vaping
Percentage of high schoolers who, in the last month, have smoked cigarettes: 16% in 2011, and 6% in 2019. Percentage who have vaped: 2% in 2911, and 28% in 2019.
Percentage of vapers among adults: 3%, versus 28% of high schoolers.
Addictive Nicotine: One Juul pod delivers the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. (Sources: NATIONAL YOUTH TOBACCO SURVEY; CDC; Juul Labs Inc.; Truth Initiative: Pediatrics, Vol. 141.
IV. EPA Rule Rollbacks
A recent New York Times analysis found that the [Trump] White House has killed, stymied, or targeted 84 environmental rules. Among the regulations the administration has set its sights on are those regarding chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to neurological damage in children.
In March 2017, shortly after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, the leading manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, the then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the prohibition in July, despite a court order, the EPA again refused to implement a ban. Last year, at least 5 million pounds of chlorpyrifos was applied to US cropland. (Source: Molly Minta, "EPA Rule Rollbacks," The Nation, September 30, 2019.)
V. U.S. Intervention in Latin America
"From 1900 to 2006,power changed hands in the region 162 times via military coup, typically announced from the studio of a state broadcaster. In a striking number of cases -- at least 41, by the count of a Harvard study -- the force behind the coup was the U.S., which maintained a proprietary hold over the hemisphere it regarded as its realm." (Source: Karl Vick, "The U.S. watches, Venezuela teeters," TIME, May 3, 2019.)
VI. Understanding Currency Devaluation
On August 5, China allowed traders to push the value of its currency below the psychological barrier of 7 yuan to 1 U.S. dollar. That move was designed to hurt the U.S. company by making U.S. products more expensive for Chinese consumers and companies to buy, and to help Chinese producers by making Chinese products more affordable in the U.S. In that sense, it weakens the impact of the Trump tariffs.
21 - Years until the sea level is projected to rise by 12 inches in Florida's Miami-Dade County.
20% - Area of Miami that will be underwater if the sea level rises by 12 inches.
380 - Estimated number of tidal floods that Miami-Dade County will experience every year with a 15-inch rise.
$1.7T - Property value at risk of being wiped out by a sea-level rise in South Florida by 2030.
2.4M - Number of people who live less than four feet from the current high-tide in Florida.
$3.2B - Amount needed to build barriers to shield just Miami-Dade County from sea-level rise. (Source: Molly Minta, "By the Numbers," The Nation, September 23, 2019.)
II. Hurricane Numbers
4 - Consecutive years with at least one Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic -- a record set this year.
2017 - Year when three of the five costliest US hurricanes occurred: Harvey, Maria and Irma.
$1.7T - Total cost of the 250 weather and climate disasters with damages of at least $1 billion that the US endured since 1980.
185 mph - Hurricane Dorian's wind speed at landfall -- tied for an Atlantic record with the Labor Day hurricane of 1935.
76K - Number of people left homeless on Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands as a result of Dorian.
1 - Number of news segments (out of 216) on ABC, CBS, and NBC from August 28 to September 5 that linked climate change to hurricanes like Dorian, according to Media Matters. (Source: Teddy Ostrow, "By the Numbers," The Nation, September 30, 2019.)
III. Popularity of Vaping
Percentage of high schoolers who, in the last month, have smoked cigarettes: 16% in 2011, and 6% in 2019. Percentage who have vaped: 2% in 2911, and 28% in 2019.
Percentage of vapers among adults: 3%, versus 28% of high schoolers.
Addictive Nicotine: One Juul pod delivers the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. (Sources: NATIONAL YOUTH TOBACCO SURVEY; CDC; Juul Labs Inc.; Truth Initiative: Pediatrics, Vol. 141.
IV. EPA Rule Rollbacks
A recent New York Times analysis found that the [Trump] White House has killed, stymied, or targeted 84 environmental rules. Among the regulations the administration has set its sights on are those regarding chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to neurological damage in children.
In March 2017, shortly after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, the leading manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, the then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the prohibition in July, despite a court order, the EPA again refused to implement a ban. Last year, at least 5 million pounds of chlorpyrifos was applied to US cropland. (Source: Molly Minta, "EPA Rule Rollbacks," The Nation, September 30, 2019.)
V. U.S. Intervention in Latin America
"From 1900 to 2006,power changed hands in the region 162 times via military coup, typically announced from the studio of a state broadcaster. In a striking number of cases -- at least 41, by the count of a Harvard study -- the force behind the coup was the U.S., which maintained a proprietary hold over the hemisphere it regarded as its realm." (Source: Karl Vick, "The U.S. watches, Venezuela teeters," TIME, May 3, 2019.)
VI. Understanding Currency Devaluation
On August 5, China allowed traders to push the value of its currency below the psychological barrier of 7 yuan to 1 U.S. dollar. That move was designed to hurt the U.S. company by making U.S. products more expensive for Chinese consumers and companies to buy, and to help Chinese producers by making Chinese products more affordable in the U.S. In that sense, it weakens the impact of the Trump tariffs.
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