The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved a bill demanding that the Justice Department release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The finally tally was 427-1, with five members not voting.
A bit of skepticism and mistrust of government is healthy for a democracy: but we now have an authoritarian government actively lying, burying factual history, and disappearing government data that we used to rely on.
When it comes to operational facts Trump is the least transparent since Nixon days, and he’s certainly added some pages to Tricky Dick’s political strategy playbook.
This is why it’s no surprise at all that instances of his name in the Epstein files would be redacted or removed.
From NPR:
The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.
Some files have not been made public despite a law mandating their release. These include what appears to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, and notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor.
NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January. NPR’s investigation found dozens of pages cataloged by the Justice Department but not shared publicly.
In this article Associated Press breaks down the most likely Trump lies that we will hear in tonight’s joint session of congress gathering for the State of the Union presidential address.
Sad that we can predict that our president will lie tonight because he tells the same lies over and over again knowing that repetition will create belief among the gullible.
Energy
Trump consistently lauds coal as the ideal energy source, calling it “beautiful, clean coal.” The production of coal is cleaner now than it has been historically, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean.
Planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from the coal industry have decreased over the past 30 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And yet United Nations-backed research has found that coal production worldwide still needs to be reduced sharply to address climate change.
Along with carbon dioxide, burning coal emits sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that contribute to acid rain, smog and respiratory illnesses, according to the EIA.
Trump wants ratepayers to pay more for energy while increasing the incidence of deaths related to coal energy.
Trump has many friends in the coal industry, and their influence with him appears to be even higher after they gave him a trophy hailing him as the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”
For a second I thought about captioning this “Nazghuls present Sauron with Trophy for Murdering” but I’ll make it an aside & go with the AP caption below… At a White House event in February, the president was presented a trophy by Jim Grech, president and CEO of Peabody Energy and chair of the National Coal Council. Evan Vucci/AP
Trump has not only mandated more purchasing of coal energy for the U.S. Military, but now he is also demanding two Colorado coal energy plants halt their scheduled cost burden retirement against the wishes of the operating utility companies. Those costs from the delay will be passed along to consumers, even though there are cleaner energy sources available that come at lower cost to ratepayers and the environment.
Make no mistake: this is Trump taking a spiteful shit in our clean energy future bathtub just to muddy the waters of highly popular Democrat clean air and climate initiatives. The bile this president seems to have for our future children just keeps mounting as he creeps daily closer to his death bed.
When it comes to coal, there’s no such thing as “clean” and saying that is just another big lie from Trump.
When burning coal power plants are required to scrub their stacks to prevent many pollutants from entering our air in massive quantities (literally millions of tons per year.) Some of the poisons still get through no matter what the Coal industry says about ‘Clean Coal. When these particles, gasses, and fly ash do pass the scrubbers they increase the incidence of coal-related deaths among us humans and other wildlife. I’ll cover some of the worst offenders below.
CO2 – the one everyone knows
When measuring CO2 per BTU produced, coal is the worst offender except for Petroleum Coke aka “pet coke” which emits ~ 5-10 percent more CO2 – but Pet Coke is a subject I’ll break down in the future. Burning coal for energy is a massive contributor to modern climate change, contributing 15.8 billion tons of CO2 per annum. Coal is about the worst fuel in terms of adding to climate change and our human-driven warming trend.
The United States is the third worst contributor to CO2 generation from coal.
Coal Ash is poisonous, carcinogenic, and radioactive
Besides miners dying from coal production, (including silicosis, mesothelioma, and other diseases you get from breathing fine, radioactive particulates all day), people near coal energy plants also die in higher numbers from the effects of coal ash. Burning coal for energy produces highly poisonous coal ash, some of which gets out of the stack into the air the plant’s neighbors breath, and some of which much be mucked out and disposed of. Here’s a segment on that waste coal ash from Earth Justice :
“Coal ash contains hazardous pollutants including arsenic, boron, cobalt, chromium, lead, lithium, mercury, molybdenum, radium, selenium, and other heavy metals, which have been linked to cancer, heart and thyroid disease, reproductive failure, and neurological harm. Industry’s own data indicate that across the country 91% of coal plants are currently polluting groundwater above federal health standards with toxic pollutants.”
As I came of age I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the municipal utility system generated electricity from coal on the Southeast side of the subdivision I lived in, and the University of Alaska generated energy to the Northwest. Every Winter the snowbanks would transition from white, to gray, to eventual black after every snowfall as the coal ash settled on them and melted in.
Now at 70 I sleep with oxygen and a CPAP every night, and I can’t help but think that growing up in that coal dust could not have helped my resperation. I’m lucky in that I haven’t gotten lung cancer like both of my parents died from, but I have to wonder if coal or smoking did that to them.
I’m going to conclude now with words that even Trump can understand.
Over ten years ago I wrote about how home medical sensors would become common in the next decade and while that’s become true, there are several shortcomings to how the current sets and suites work. Nobody has yet created the complete home set, a kit of devices that could be prescribed for patients needing long term monitoring for changes in their condition.
This kit would at minimum include the following sensors:
thermometer
pulse-oximeter w/ respiration rate sensors
blood pressure cuff with arrhythmia sensors
weight scale
blood sugar monitor
The kit should be able to record the results by time and date locally, and also store them and share them via the internet. Right now most device and app makers tend to cater to fitness rather than maintaining wellness, something that leaves seniors in the lurch. The data gathered would be invaluable for doctors monitoring their patients for changes, and when anonymized and bulked would provide really great statistics for use by health professionals world wide.
Someone could be making money, but so far none have risen to this challenge. So instead seniors are stuck using a drawer full of devices that do not interoperate, and separate apps that do not play well together – and when you want to share with a doctor you better get out the pencil and pad.
In which Peter Hadfield, aka Potholer54 tracks the November 2018 claims back to sources, and shows how wrong they are in their interpretation of the data regarding the new Solar Grand Minimum. He also does a great job of looking through the past RW blogosphere claims of coming ice ages to show how wrong they were.
Of course Peter sticks to the facts and the papers, just pointing out the fallacies, whereas I am going to question the motives. Why does the Right Wing blogsphere have a such an interest in sowing doubt? Are they paid by lobbies to sow doubt, ala Heartland institute, or is there a lot of wish full magical thinking going on in order to make recalcitrant facts fit their worldview? I suspect it’s a bit of both, but honestly don’t have the energy or time to track this all back the way that Peter does.
We can with solid authority state that you should never trust RW blogs, or for that matter any blogs, when it comes to science. Instead you should trust Scientists and go to their papers and their statements.
Stephen Colbert with an extended interview with Joe Biden, presumptive democrat nominee for president. The horrific corona virus response is covered, and Joe covers plans to tackle the pandemic when he gets in office.
KARLAN: "Imagine living in a part of Texas that's prone to devastating flooding. What would you think if your governor asked for a meeting w/POTUS to discuss getting disaster aid that Congress has provided for [and POTUS] said, 'I would like you to do us a favor?'" pic.twitter.com/JGcXFQHUBO
You must be logged in to post a comment.