Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Trump’s Republican House withheld authority from the Special Council? So, the only effective way for Trump to block testimony now from the Special Council is through the Senate. I thought it was interesting how the US Senate issued a subpoena to Michael Cohen before the US House could act after Cohen canceled his testimony.

I suppose the Special Council has all the information it needs already when it comes to Michael Cohen, but, you never know really. And then there is the issue of making unclassified material available to the public that may be an issue for Trump.

What did they talk about in Helsinki?

Putin is planning a multi-front attack on The West. Europe will be busy with Ukraine and the USA will be held in place by it's near border wars. North Korea is a direct threat to allies and that might just complete the picture with China a grateful servant to secure it's monetary dominance of the world. Israel is hemmed in by interceptor missiles in Syria.

I suppose one could say that is quite an imagination and my response would be, "You betcha and it is all based in real possibilities."

Impeachment takes a while, although it doesn't have to; so the way to work with Trump still in the Oval Office and move the USA to protect itself and allies, is to bring on former Presidents and their assessments.

Estimates value this at nearly a trillion dollars US. A lot of things come to mind of which money laundering is one, but, weapon systems can be easily purchased for that kind of money.

Trump has to be the most gullible idiot on the planet if he isn't clamping down on Russian activity in the Western Hemisphere.

The Pentagon should be examining satellite data to find out what kind of cargo has been sent to the region lately. Columbia may have the answer and then again with refugees pouring in, Columbia may be overwhelmed to know the particulars of the Russia plan for a near border war with the USA.

30 January 2019
By Daria Litvinova

Russian authorities (click here) have moved to quash suspicions that 20 tonnes of gold are about to be moved from the Venezuela’s national bank to Moscow.

Allegations that a Russian jet which landed in Caracas was due to load an $840 million portion of the country's gold reserves surfaced early on Wednesday.

Venezuela’s opposition-controlled parliament, sidelined by the Maduro regime, said in a tweet that they received information from the Bank of Venezuela that a plane from Moscow arrived to Caracas to “extract at least 20 tons of gold” - 20 per cent of the bank’s holdings.

“We are demanding the Bank [to reveal] details of what is happening. That gold does not belong to Calixto Ortega, [head of the Bank]. It belongs to the Venezuelan people,” the tweet read....

I hate to say I told you so, but, I am telling you. This is more than money laundering, this is a strategic deployment.

Caravan's from the Northern Triad make for an interesting distraction for Trump and Putin evidently.

January 30, 2019
By Madeline Roache

As Washington intensifies its push (click here) to drive Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro from power, Russia's Vladimir Putin has vowed to support his South American "strategic partner" and warned of the "catastrophic" consequences if the United States were to send military assistance to opposition leader Juan Guaido.

When the US called a special United Nations Security Council session on Saturday, focused on the crisis in Venezuela, Russia used the session to warn against foreign intervention in the Latin American nation and accused the US of attempting a "coup".

Russian private military contractors have flown into Venezuela in recent days to increase security for Maduro, according to Reuters news agency.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied the reports.

On Friday, Russia offered to mediate between Maduro's "legitimate" government and the opposition if necessary, saying it was ready to cooperate with all political forces that acted responsibly....

Putin is selling weapons to Venezuela. The region has huge issues now. Russia probably wanted to be paid up front, but, there could have been smugglers acting and the payment is coming after the fact delivery took place.

...Pete Duncan, a Russian politics professor at University College London said: "Losing ties with Venezuela would be a huge blow to Russia. Putin will do his utmost to prevent regime change."...

It isn't like Trump won't lay down cover for Putin either, he will. Trump will deny and make a story for the desperate Russian president. This is trouble. Big trouble and Trump doesn't trust USA intelligence. I'll be darn.

The USA needs to remove any doubt about what it will tolerate from Venezuela. An arms build up will destabilize the region. 

The climate anomalies are really adding up to a movement toward a homogeneous climate.

I usually address current issues before the public on the weekends. But, let's get this out there for those sincerely interested in the truth.

Below is a graph that Danish scientists record every year. The first particular graph is from 1958. The graph at the bottom of this entry is from 2018.

DMI Danish Meteorological Institute (click here) 

Comparing those two graphs seems obvious to me. I am willing to guess it is not obvious to everyone.

The green line. Oh, wait a minute. I betcha folks are going, so what is this mess? Right? At the top of the graph is a TITLE. "Daily Mean Temperature for plus 80N - with ERA40 climate." 80 N is 80 North Latitude. In the image to the right is a map. Denmark can be noted on that map. What also is noted on that map is the latitude of the Arctic Circle, 66 degrees, 30 minutes north.

So, the Danish scientists have been making measurements of the climate at these high latitudes (North Pole is  90.0000° N, 135.0000° W) since 1958. That is 60 years of a unique record and this year will be the 61st year of such scientific assessments.

Now, as to the assessment part, the green line is a mean (average) over time. It is a standard to measure and compare climate change over time. The green line is applied to the graph every year in the same way. That said, the green line is assigned a name, "climate." Climate is a long term measurement and not a day to day, week to week reporting of the WEATHER. Weather is important to note because we live on a planet with a very active day to day, week to week changes in weather. BUT, CLIMATE IS A LONG TERM MEASUREMENT. The green line is climate.

The blue line across the top is titled, "melt." That is fairly straight forward. That is where the ice at these high latitudes melt. So, noting that CONSTANT in this equation of monitoring climate is to note how much ice is MAINTAINED in any given year. We all know that ice in the artic areas of Earth is what COOLS the climate. So, high fluctuations in that reality could be dangerous to life on Earth.

Now to the 'real time' information that tells scientists what is happening NOW is the red line called "mean temp., Era 40." In viewing both these graphs it is really easy to see the vast difference between the two.

The DEPARTURE from the green line is what tells the tale. The labels of this graph are obvious. Yes? The Y-axis (the left side of the graph) is Temperature recorded in Kelvin (click here for history and comparison between the Kelvin Scale and Fahrenheit and Celsius).

The line at the bottom of the graph; the X-axis: is days of the year. So, day 0 (zero) doesn't matter because there is no day 0 on the calendar used by countries on Earth. The calendar begins with Day 1 (January 1). The zero-day is important on the graph because it is also a CONSTANT in recording and assessing the information. The zero is always in the same place with the graph, hence, the red line is consistently based on the same MEASUREMENT OF TEMPERATURE.

Scientists always conduct QUALITY OF METHOD, QUALITY OF INSTRUMENTS to be sure there is a very high degree of accuracy.

So, to close this entry, the dedicated Danish scientists that have carried out these measurements can easily report there are VERY significant changes in Earth's temperatures in the highest Arctic areas of Earth. The 2018 graph has very few records that dip below the green line. That is not the case with 1958.

2018 is not an anomaly. For all the record heat years, consistently there are records that do not cross the green line or only come close to crossing it.

This is a climate crisis. It is not a lie and what people are experiencing in these next few days in the American Midwest is a climate crisis. Know, that the polar vortex is displaced and meanders now at lower latitudes and not over the North Pole. It is too warm at the North Pole to support the Polar Vortex.

For those folks citing the temperature of Chicago as -12 F and temperature in Antarctica of -12 F; the real question is not that Chicago is frigidly cold, but, why is Antarctica ONLY -12F.

Think about it.

I personally thank the Danish people for their dedication to the truth and providing their scientists with the ability to monitor a very, very important aspect of Earth's nature. I thank the Danish scientists for their dedication to provide such a factual reality. I send my best regards.

27 February 2018
By Jonathan Watts

An alarming heatwave(click here) in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.

Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.

The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month. Greenland has already experienced 61 hours above freezing in 2018 - more than three times as many hours as in any previous year.

Seasoned observers have described what is happening as “crazy,” “weird,” and “simply shocking”.

“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The Arctic has always been regarded as a bellwether because of the vicious circle that amplify human-caused warming in that particular region. And it is sending out a clear warning.”...


There is an issue in Texas with the efficacy of it's voter rolls.

Was someone monkeying around with voter records before the 2018 election? It just seems odd it falls into question now.

January 29, 2019
By Julieta Chiquillo, James Barragan and Robert T. Garrett

The Texas secretary of state’s office (click here) asked several county elections offices Tuesday to hold off on demanding proof of citizenship from people on a state list of 98,000 potential non-U.S. citizen voters because the data may be flawed.

Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole said her office got a call from a state official Tuesday asking her to not send any notices to the nearly 10,000 county voters who appear on the list. Pippins-Poole said the state official told her office that some names on the list had provided proof of citizenship to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which also facilitates voter registrations.

Remi Garza, the county elections administrator for Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley, said the secretary of state's office gave his office information on Tuesday morning that suggested the numbers they were originally provided "may have been overstated" and that "individuals that had already provided proof of citizenship to the DPS office had been included in the original list provided to the county."

The state initially told Cameron County that about 1,500 of the nearly 1,600 names on their list had been placed there in error. The state then called Cameron County and said they had given them the wrong number, Garza said....

States Rights

Donald Trump has a fatal flaw to his border wall. It is "States Rights." No one understands their borders better than the states themselves. Even though the USA sovereign borders are the authority of the federal government and eminent domain can be used to obtain the land for a wall, that is the exact problem Trump doesn't seem to understand. He understands "The Wall" is an emotional issue with his base, but, to actually have a workable plan requires information from the states affected by "The Wall." The lack of research and insight into what actually works will bolster the idea of States Rights and competing plans for the USA sovereign border. 

The Democrats need a spokesperson and the best person for that job is Beto O'Rouke. He knows Texas, the state with the longest exposure to the USA southern border. He is clear and concise to what will work and what won't. Texas does not want interference by the federal government, but, it needs the support of the federal government in providing border security when the state cannot provide a budget for it's plans.

November 26, 2018
By Megan Keller

Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) (click here) said Monday the U.S. should follow its own standing immigration laws in dealing with the caravan of migrants attempting to cross the border.

"Let’s do this the right way and follow our own laws," O'Rourke, who unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the recent midterms, wrote in a post on Medium. "Allow asylum seekers to petition for asylum at our ports of entry."

"They must do so peacefully and follow our laws; but we must also ensure the capacity to effectively and timely process those claims (right now 5,000 waiting in Tijuana and only 40 to 100 are processed a day)," he continued. "Those who have a credible fear of returning to their home country (as determined by a U.S. judge) will be able stay until their full asylum request has been determined....
The current critics of the new prison and sentence reform law are wardens of prisons and the reformers that work with inmates. The problem with current releases of prisoners from prison is not its correctness, most state such reform is long overdo. The criticism is money. Inmates walking out the front doors of prisons now do not have enough money to prevent recidivism.

Most of these inmates were on programs planned for the length of their prison terms. Not only are these inmates ill prepared for their release, there is little support outside of prison for them. Just as a reality check, people wrongfully convicted of crimes like murder have recourse through the courts, but, these inmates having served far longer sentences than appropriate may not have that option.
It is easy to criticize Elizabeth Warren’s tax plan, but, when doing so how does Mike Bloomberg and Howard Schultz plan to pay down the national debt so many generations are not burdened with their greed. In the USA, there are “sundown” options to end such measures after they have served their purpose. I don’t want to hear how tax laws are not the way the wealthy get and keep their wealth, otherwise, why do it in a way that burdens American taxpayers with continuing going debt? I thought million-billionaires had wealth because they had a corner on invention and innovation, not because they embrace “easy street.” 

Basically, when does the wealthy care about the country enough to realize their own adverse effect on others paying higher tax rates? One more time, why does Warren Buffet pay a smaller percentage of his income than his secretary?