Archives for November 2017

 

 

Photo by Robert DelTredici

 

Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 24 November 2017, Day 309:

 

Dueling Appointments Lead to Clash at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, The New York Times, Tara Aiegel Bernard, Friday, 24 November 2017: “President Trump on Friday named his budget director as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, moving to take control of the agency hours after its departing leader had taken steps to install his own choice for acting chief. By the end of the night, an agency born of the financial meltdown — and one Republicans have tried to kill from the start — had dueling directors, and there was little sense of who actually would be in charge Monday morning. The bureaucratic standoff began Friday afternoon when Richard Cordray, the Obama-appointed leader of the bureau, abruptly announced he would leave the job at the close of business, a week earlier than anticipated. He followed up with a letter naming his chief of staff, Leandra English, as the agency’s deputy director. The announcement came with a twist. Under the law, he said, that appointment would make the new deputy director the agency’s acting director. The move was seen as an effort to delay Mr. Trump from appointing his own director, whose confirmation could take months. The White House retaliated, saying that the budget director, Mick Mulvaney, who once characterized the consumer protection bureau as a ‘sad, sick joke,’ would be running the agency. He would also keep his current job as head of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Mulvaney said he would assume the additional role until a permanent successor was found…. In a letter to the consumer protection agency’s staff, Mr. Cordray named Ms. English as deputy director. Under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which established the regulatory agency, the deputy director is to serve as acting director in the absence of a permanent leader, Mr. Cordray said. The conflicting appointments were a fitting development for an agency under constant attack from Republican leaders, and it leaves supporters wondering about the agency’s future with Mr. Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of both houses of Congress.”

While eyes are on Russia, Attorney General Jeff Sessions dramatically reshapes the Justice Department, The Washington Post, Matt Zapotosky and Sari Horwitz, Friday, 24 November 2017: “For more than five hours, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sat in a hearing room on Capitol Hill this month, fending off inquiries on Washington’s two favorite topics: President Trump and Russia. But legislators spent little time asking Sessions about the dramatic and controversial changes in policy he has made since taking over the top law enforcement job in the United States nine months ago. From his crackdown on illegal immigration to his reversal of Obama administration policies on criminal justice and policing, Sessions is methodically reshaping the Justice Department to reflect his nationalist ideology and hard-line views — moves drawing comparatively less public scrutiny than the ongoing investigations into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin. Sessions has implemented a new charging and sentencing policy that calls for prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible, even if that might mean minority defendants face stiff, mandatory minimum penalties. He has defended the president’s travel ban and tried to strip funding from cities with policies he considers too friendly toward undocumented immigrants. Sessions has even adjusted the department’s legal stances in cases involving voting rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in a way that advocates warn might disenfranchise poor minorities and give certain religious people a license to discriminate.”

State Department Diplomats Sound the Alarm as They Are Pushed Out in Droves, The New York Times, Gardiner Harris, Friday, 24 November 2017: “Of all the State Department employees who might have been vulnerable in the staff reductions that Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has initiated as he reshapes the department, the one person who seemed least likely to be a target was the chief of security, Bill A. Miller. Republicans pilloried Hillary Clinton for what they claimed was her inadequate attention to security as secretary of state in the months before the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Congress even passed legislation mandating that the department’s top security official have unrestricted access to the secretary of state. But in his first nine months in office, Mr. Tillerson turned down repeated and sometimes urgent requests from the department’s security staff to brief him, according to several former top officials in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Finally, Mr. Miller, the acting assistant secretary for diplomatic security, was forced to cite the law’s requirement that he be allowed to speak to Mr. Tillerson. Mr. Miller got just five minutes with the secretary of state, the former officials said. Afterward, Mr. Miller, a career Foreign Service officer, was pushed out, joining a parade of dismissals and early retirements that has decimated the State Department’s senior ranks. Mr. Miller declined to comment. The departures mark a new stage in the broken and increasingly contentious relationship between Mr. Tillerson and much of his department’s work force. By last spring, interviews at the time suggested, the guarded optimism that greeted his arrival had given way to concern among diplomats about his aloofness and lack of communication. By the summer, the secretary’s focus on efficiency and reorganization over policy provoked off-the-record anger. Now the estrangement is in the open, as diplomats going out the door make their feelings known and members of Congress raise questions about the impact of their leaving. In a letter to Mr. Tillerson last week, Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee, citing what they said was ‘the exodus of more than 100 senior Foreign Service officers from the State Department since January,’ expressed concern about ‘what appears to be the intentional hollowing-out of our senior diplomatic ranks.'”

Continue reading Week 45, Friday, 24 November – Thursday, 30 November 2017 (Days 309-315)

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Photo by Robert DelTredici

 

Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 17 November 2017, Day 302:

 

This remarkable, angry exchange between Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) over who would benefit from the Senate’s version of the tax bill unmasks the Republicans’ tax-cut lies, The Washington Post, Greg Sargent, Friday, 17 November 2017: “Late last night, just before the Finance Committee passed the Senate’s version of the tax bill slashing taxes on corporations and the rich, a remarkable moment unfolded that perfectly captured the GOP’s whole handling of the tax debate — in all its dishonesty, misdirection and bottomless bad faith. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) engaged in extended sparring with committee chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) over who would benefit from the Senate bill, with Brown insisting that it fundamentally represents a tax cut for the rich and not the middle class. This drew an enraged response from Hatch, even though Brown’s argument was 100 percent correct.”

For Now, Trump to Keep Ban on Importing Elephant Trophies, The New York Times, Emily Cochrane, Friday, 17 November 2017: “President Trump on Friday reversed the government’s decision to start allowing hunters to import trophies of elephants that were killed in two African countries, pending a further review. His evening Twitter message reversed a decision by his own administration over Zimbabwe that was announced this week and promoted as recently as Friday afternoon by the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. ‘Put big game trophy decision on hold until such time as I review all conservation facts,’ Mr. Trump tweeted. ‘Under study for years. Will update soon with Secretary Zinke. Thank you!’ Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said in a statement later Friday night that the decision applied to two African countries, though it did not name them.”

In Mocking Franken Over Claims of Sexual Misconduct, Trump Joins a Debate He Started, The New York Times, Peter Baker, 17 November 2017: “Last fall, Donald J. Trump inadvertently touched off a national conversation about sexual harassment when a recording of him boasting about groping women was made public at the same time a succession of women came forward to assert that groping was something he did more than talk about. A year later, after a wave of harassment claims against powerful men in entertainment, politics, the arts and the news media, the discussion has come full circle with President Trump criticizing the latest politician exposed for sexual misconduct even as he continues to deny any of the accusations against him. In this case, Mr. Trump focused his Twitter-fueled mockery on a Democratic senator while largely avoiding a similar condemnation of a Republican Senate candidate facing far more allegations. The turn in the political dialogue threatened to transform a moment of cleansing debate about sexual harassment into another weapon in the war between the political parties, led by the president himself…. But the notion that Mr. Trump himself would weigh in given his own history of crude talk about women and the multiple allegations against him surprised many in Washington who thought he could not surprise them anymore. A typical politician with Mr. Trump’s history would stay far away from discussing someone else’s behavior lest it dredge his own back into the spotlight. But as Mr. Trump has shown repeatedly during his 10-month presidency, he is rarely deterred by conventional political wisdom even as he leaves it to his staff to fend off the cries of hypocrisy.”

Continue reading Week 44, Friday, 17 November – Thursday, 23 November 2017 (Days 302-308)

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Photo by Robert DelTredici

 

Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 10 November 2017, Day 295:

 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller Probes Former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s Role in Alleged Plan to Deliver Muslim Cleric Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish Government, The Wall Street Journal, James V. Grimaldi, Shane Harris, and Aruna Viswanatha, Friday, 10 November 2017: “Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating former White House national security adviser Mike Flynn’s alleged role in a plan to forcibly remove a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to Turkey in return for millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the investigation. Under the alleged proposal, Mr. Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., were to be paid as much as $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, according to people with knowledge of discussions Mr. Flynn had with Turkish representatives. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has pressed the U.S. to extradite him, views the cleric as a political enemy. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have asked at least four individuals about a meeting in mid-December at the ‘21’ Club in New York City, where Mr. Flynn and representatives of the Turkish government discussed removing Mr. Gulen, according to people with knowledge of the FBI’s inquiries. The discussions allegedly involved the possibility of transporting Mr. Gulen on a private jet to the Turkish prison island of Imrali, according to one of the people who has spoken to the FBI. The Wall Street Journal previously reported on efforts by Turkish officials to get Mr. Gulen to Turkey without going through the U.S. extradition legal process, an effort that included an earlier meeting with Mr. Flynn in September 2016. The investigation is being handled by Mr. Mueller as part of his probe of Trump campaign advisers and Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to those familiar with the investigation.”

Republicans Try to Block Roy Moore’s Path as Senate Republican Candidate Denies Sexual Misconduct, The New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, Friday, 10 November 2017: “Senate Republicans scrambled on Friday to find a way to block Roy S. Moore’s path to the Senate, exploring extraordinary measures to rid themselves of their own nominee in Alabama after accusations emerged that he had made sexual advances on four teenage girls when he was in his 30s. Mr. Moore, meanwhile, remained defiant, insisting in a radio interview with Sean Hannity that he would stay in the race. He told Mr. Hannity, the Fox News host, who has endorsed Mr. Moore’s candidacy, that he “never had any contact” with Leigh Corfman, the woman who told The Washington Post that Mr. Moore touched her sexually when she was 14, though he did not deny dating some teenagers. ‘I have never known this woman, or anything,’ said Mr. Moore, who described the accusations as ‘politically motivated.’ Republican senators and their advisers, in a flurry of phone calls, emails and text messages, discussed fielding a write-in candidate, pushing Alabama’s governor to delay the Dec. 12 special election or even not seating Mr. Moore at all should he be elected. In an interview, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, declined to say whether he would agree to seat Mr. Moore should he win. Mr. McConnell deferred a question about a possible write-in campaign by Senator Luther Strange, the current occupant of the seat, to Mr. Strange. The Senate Republican campaign arm, which Mr. McConnell effectively oversees, withdrew Friday from a joint fund-raising agreement with Mr. Moore’s campaign. And Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Steve Daines of Montana rescinded their endorsements of the candidate.” See also, Roy Moore’s Republican Opponents Chased Rumors About ‘Women Issues’ for Years, but Could Never Nail Them Down, The Intercept, Jonathan Lee Krohn and Ryan Grim, Friday, 10 November 2017: “Republican strategists in Alabama have for years heard rumors that Roy Moore had ‘women issues’ — a euphemism for sexual misconduct used in the politics business — according to four sources who ran various campaigns against Moore, but they were never able to get definitive proof. ‘There’s been a rumor for a while,’ said David Mowery, an independent political consultant who first heard the allegations in his role as campaign manager for Bob Vance, Moore’s opponent in a 2012 race for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. ‘But I don’t know if anyone knew the extent of it, if you know what I mean,’ Mowery added.  Moore is the Republican candidate in a December special election for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama…. One Republican strategist who declined to be named said Moore’s problematic history with women was common knowledge in political circles, but the specifics — that he preyed on and molested a 14-year-old girl, as the Washington Post reported on Thursday — were unknown until this week. Part of the problem with chasing the story, the strategist added, is that rumors attach to so many men in power. ‘He’s got women issues going way back,’ the strategist said he was told. ‘I feel like you hear that about everybody.'” See also, Alabama state official invokes the Bible and Joseph and Mary to defend Roy Moore, CNN, Miranda Green, Friday, 10 November 2017: “An Alabama state official is citing the Bible to defend GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore against sexual assault allegations on a 14-year-old girl decades ago. Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Republican, dismissed the charges brought forth in a Washington Post article about Moore Thursday, telling The Washington Examiner that the relationship would be akin to that of Joseph and Mary. ‘Take the Bible: Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance,’ Zeigler said. ‘Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.’ In the Bible, Jesus is conceived through the Holy Spirit, not sexual relations between Mary and Joseph. The Post report said Moore allegedly initiated the sexual encounter with a 14-year-old teenager in the late 1970s. Three other women also told The Post that Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s. None of those three women told the Post that Moore sexually harassed, or assaulted them, or forced them into a relationship. Alabama’s legal age of consent is 16.” See also, Trump casts doubt on allegations against Roy Moore, leaving Republicans an impossible choice, The Washington Post, Aaron Blake, Friday, 10 November 2017: “A day after Senate Republicans tried to buy some time amid the allegation that Alabama’s GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore had initiated sexual contact with a 14-year-old when he was 32, the last two GOP presidential nominees pulled them in opposite directions. While President Trump cast increasing doubt on the accusations, Mitt Romney issued a strong statement that puts pressure on other Republicans to denounce Moore. In a written statement delivered by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump joined in the Senate GOP’s he-should-drop-out-if-it’s-true chorus, but also noticeably upped the doubt factor as to whether the accusations are true. ‘Like most Americans, the president believes that we cannot allow a mere allegation — in this case, one from many years ago — to destroy a person’s life,’ Sanders said. ‘However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.’ Two parts of that stand out: The words ‘mere allegation’ and ‘one from many years ago.’ Up front — and unlike the reactions from Senate Republicans — Trump decided he would like to stress that these accusations might not be true. This is perhaps understandable and to be expected from another politician who has been accused of sexual misconduct and strenuously denied it.” See also, Roy Moore’s shaky defense of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, annotated, The Washington Post, Amber Phillips and Eugene Scott, Friday, 10 November 2017. See also, How low will the Republican party sink? The Washington Post, Editorial Board, Friday, 10 November 2017: “In 1979, Roy Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney in Alabama, allegedly brought a 14-year-old girl to his home alone. She told The Post that Mr. Moore served her alcoholic drinks, kissed her and undressed her. Mr. Moore reportedly pursued relationships with three other teenagers between 16 and 18 during that same time period. Such predatory behavior is appalling from any quarter — particularly from a government official with great power in his community. It is especially egregious in a candidate for federal office. Yet Republican officials have yet to denounce the alleged conduct of Mr. Moore, the GOP’s nominee for senator from Alabama, as clearly beyond the pale. The four women who spoke to The Post all described similar behavior from Mr. Moore, who flattered the teenagers before asking them out on dates or taking them to his house. Only one woman, Leigh Corfman, remembered the candidate as having initiated sexual contact beyond kissing. Ms. Corfman was 14 at the time, below Alabama’s age of consent at 16 — meaning Mr. Moore’s alleged actions would have broken state law. Mr. Moore’s campaign declares that ‘this garbage is the very definition of fake news.’ ‘Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections,’ former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wrote, demanding that Mr. Moore withdraw from the race. ‘I believe Leigh Corfman.’ Unfortunately, other members of Mr. Romney’s party lack this moral clarity. With some exceptions — including Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who likewise called for Mr. Moore to step aside — Republicans in Washington have hedged their condemnations. ‘If true, [the allegations] would disqualify anyone from serving in office,’ a statement from Vice President Pence’s office announced. ‘If these allegations are true, he must step aside,’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared.”

Will the Republican Party Fail Another Roy Moore Test? The New Yorker, Amy Davidson Sorkin, Friday, 10 November 2017: “The report, in the Washington Post, that Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, engaged in predatory behavior with teen-age girls when he was in his thirties, poses a test for Republicans, but it would be farcical to say that it is the first difficult problem that he has posed for them. Roy Moore tests have been administered regularly, and with few exceptions the G.O.P.’s leaders have failed them spectacularly. On October 26th, for example, Senator Jeff Flake, of Arizona, said that he could not endorse Moore because ‘a guy who says a Muslim member of Congress shouldn’t be able to serve—that’s not right.’ This is, indeed, something that Moore said, in 2006, in an opinion piece for WorldNetDaily, in which he argued that Representative Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, should not be seated; when questioned about it in October, he said that the article was an accurate expression of his views. But, two days before Flake’s remarks, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee had entered into a joint fund-raising agreement with Moore, one of a number of ways that the institutional Party has put its weight behind his campaign. (On Friday afternoon, the N.S.R.C. withdrew.) Neither Flake’s warning nor a speech that he gave on the Senate floor pointing out that Moore, who talks a good deal about religious freedom, was trampling on that tradition caused anyone in the Republican leadership to budge. This was true even though, in the Alabama primary, the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, had endorsed Moore’s opponent Luther Strange. But Moore’s victory seemed to wash all that away. The Majority Whip, Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, endorsed him, and so did Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Others dodged questions about him. One of the only other Republican senators to join Flake—who is, perhaps not incidentally, retiring after this term—in openly refusing to endorse Moore was Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, who said, ‘The Constitution is pretty dang clear about not having a religious litmus test.’ What litmus tests does the Republican Party have these days? Islamophobia evidently wasn’t enough to end its support of Moore, but neither, apparently, were his imprecations that homosexuality should be criminally punished and that the Supreme Court’s marriage-equality ruling was worse than the Dred Scott decision; or his record of being twice removed from the Alabama bench for defying, and ordering other judges to defy, federal courts, once regarding a Ten Commandments monument outside his courthouse, and once for his attempt to deny marriage equality to Alabama couples; or that the foundation he formed has hosted ‘Secession Day’ events; or his brandishing of a gun on a stage at a political rally; or his comments about the Bible superseding American law; or his belief in birtherism—though that one, actually, loops back to Islamophobia, and to President Trump. The President, who first backed Strange, later said that Moore ‘sounds like a really great guy.’ If all that really weren’t enough, the Republican Party now has the alleged abuse of teen-age girls to consider.”

 

Continue reading Week 43, Friday, 10 November – Thursday, 16 November 2017 (Days 295-301)

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 3 November 2017, Day 288:

 

‘Very Frustrated’ Trump Becomes Top Critic of Law Enforcement and Says Justice Department and F.B.I. Must ‘Do What Is Right’ and Investigate Democrats, The New York Times, Peter Baker, Friday, 3 November 2017: “One of President Trump’s biggest disappointments in office, by his own account, was discovering that he is not supposed to personally direct law enforcement decisions by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. So, instead, he has made himself into perhaps the most vocal critic of America’s system of justice ever to occupy the Oval Office. Just this week, he denounced the criminal justice system as ‘a joke’ and ‘a laughingstock.’ He demanded that the suspect in the New York terrorist attack be executed. He spent Friday berating the Justice Department and F.B.I. for not investigating his political opponents. He then turned to the military justice system and called a court-martial decision ‘a complete and total disgrace.’ The repeated assaults on law enforcement cross lines that presidents have largely observed since the Watergate era, raising questions about the separation of politics and the law. But as extraordinary as Mr. Trump’s broadsides are, perhaps more striking is that investigators and prosecutors are so far ignoring the head of the executive branch in which they serve while military judges and juries are for the most part disregarding the opinions of their commander in chief. ‘You know, the saddest thing is that because I’m the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department,’ Mr. Trump said in a radio interview on Thursday on the ‘Larry O’Connor Show.’ ‘I am not supposed to be involved with the F.B.I. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I’m very frustrated by it.’ That frustration has been fueled particularly by Mr. Trump’s inability to control the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign coordinated with Russia during last year’s election, an investigation that unveiled its first criminal charges this week against Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman and two other advisers. Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the attorney general and the F.B.I. director as his personal agents rather than independent figures, lashing out at both for not protecting him from the Russia investigation.” See also, Trump pressures Justice Department to investigate ‘Crooked Hillary,’ The Washington Post, Philip Rucker, Friday, 3 November 2017: “President Trump on Friday pressured the Department of Justice — and specifically the FBI — to investigate Hillary Clinton, ticking through a slew of issues involving the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and her party, and urging law enforcement to ‘do what is right and proper.’ Trump’s advocacy for criminal probe of his political opponent marked a significant breach of the traditional boundaries within the executive branch designed to prevent investigations from being politicized.”

Commercial Real Estate, Which Fueled Trump’s Fortune, Fares Well in Tax Plan, The New York Times, Alan Rappeport, Friday, 3 November 2017: “An industry familiar to President Trump appears to have emerged from the Republican tax rewrite relatively unscathed: commercial real estate. For months, commercial real estate developers had been concerned that the tax plan in the works would make it more difficult or expensive for them to take out huge bank loans or would damage demand in the property market. But if the plan unveiled this week by House Republicans comes to pass, developers like Mr. Trump, who made much of his fortune building skyscrapers, hotels and resorts, will have little to worry about. ‘The industry was left whole,’ said Thomas J. Bisacquino, president of NAIOP, a commercial real estate development trade group. ‘The provisions we feel are working will still work.'”

13 Federal Agencies Unveiled an Exhaustive Scientific Report That Says Humans Are the Dominant Cause of Climate Change, Contradicting Top Officials in the Trump Administration, The New York Times, Lisa Friedman and Glenn Thrush, Friday, 3 November 2017: “Directly contradicting much of the Trump administration’s position on climate change, 13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report on Friday that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization. Over the past 115 years global average temperatures have increased 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to record-breaking weather events and temperature extremes, the report says. The global, long-term warming trend is ‘unambiguous,’ it says, and there is ‘no convincing alternative explanation’ that anything other than humans — the cars we drive, the power plants we operate, the forests we destroy — are to blame. The report was approved for release by the White House, but the findings come as the Trump administration is defending its climate change policies. The United Nations convenes its annual climate change conference next week in Bonn, Germany, and the American delegation is expected to face harsh criticism over President Trump’s decision to walk away from the 195-nation Paris climate accord and top administration officials’ stated doubts about the causes and impacts of a warming planet. ‘This report has some very powerful, hard-hitting statements that are totally at odds with senior administration folks and at odds with their policies,’ said Philip B. Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center. ‘It begs the question, where are members of the administration getting their information from? They’re obviously not getting it from their own scientists.’ While there were pockets of resistance to the report in the Trump administration, according to climate scientists involved in drafting the report, there was little appetite for a knockdown fight over climate change among Mr. Trump’s top advisers, who are intensely focused on passing a tax reform bill — an effort they think could determine the fate of his presidency.” See also, What the Climate Report Says About the Impact of Global Warming, The New York Times, Henry Fountain and Bard Plumer, Friday, 3 November 2017: “The same, only worse. Global warming is affecting the United States more than ever, and the impacts — on communities, regions, infrastructure and sectors of the economy — are expected to increase. That’s the gist of Volume II of the National Climate Assessment, a draft report made public on Friday that focuses on the current and future impacts of climate change. The draft will eventually accompany a report on the science of climate change that was unveiled by 13 federal agencies in its final form on the same day. In addition to comments by members of the public, Volume II is being reviewed by an expert committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. After revisions by the agencies involved it is expected to be published in December 2018. Like the scientific report, the draft of Volume II contains many of the same findings cited in the previous National Climate Assessment, published in 2014. But reflecting some of the impacts that have been felt across the country in the past three years, some of the emphasis has changed.” See also, Trump administration releases scientific report finding ‘no convincing alternative explanation’ for climate change, The Washington Post, Chris Mooney, Juliet Eilperin, and Brady Dennis, Friday, 3 November 2017.

 

Continue reading Week 42, Friday, 3 November – Thursday, 9 November 2017 (Days 288-294)

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