This was fun. There are two different types of forests in New York State, but, the majority is the Northern Hardwood Forest. I will begin to discuss the other two next week.

July 23, 2019

At the turn of the 20th century, (click here) the American chestnut accounted for a quarter of the hardwood trees in some parts of Appalachia. The large tree was a crucial food source, producing nuts that were a staple in the diets of white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and bears.

In 1904, a fungal blight was first discovered on trees in New York City, accidentally introduced via imported Asian chestnut trees. The invader spread quickly: by 1906 it was estimated that 98% of American chestnuts in New York City were impacted by the blight, which first forms a canker under the bark of a tree and then forms a ring that "girdles" the tree, killing everything above it.

The blight spread quickly. Just a half-century after it was discovered, the blight had all but eradicated mature American chestnut trees from the North American landscape, infecting an estimated 4 billion trees and irrevocably altering Appalachian forest ecosystems.

Now, a $500,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture will help Associate Professor Jason Holliday of the College of Natural Resources and Environment research methods to utilize the genetic diversity of remaining trees as part of broader efforts to introduce disease-resistant American chestnuts to U.S. forests....

Myodes gapperi

Common Name:
Southern red-backed vole

Food for the raptors. 

The presence (click here) of some forms of wildlife is easy to note while others are nearly impossible to detect. By restricting activities to places hidden from view, many creatures are able to maintain a secretive life.  Small size and protective coloration can further reduce the chances of some animals from ever being glimpsed even on those occasions when they temporarily venture into a more exposed location.  Not producing a call or any audible sound can also add to the stealth-like nature of many creatures, and failing to leave any visible sign of feeding or travel routes can make an animal unknown in those areas in which it is abundant....

Habitat: cool, mossy coniferous forests with stumps, logs, or brush piles used for nesting.

Scientific Name: See title to entry - thank you
Type: Mammal
Group Name/Family:Cricetidae

Average Life Span: The southern red-backed vole has a life expectancy of 10-20 months so its breeding cycle is quick! Breeding season runs from March through October. The female gives birth to two to eight young. She will have two to three litters a year. The gestation period is 17-19 days and the young are weaned when they are 17-21 days old. They are ready to mate when they are three months old!

A species with this short of a life cycle and such vital importance to a food chain can easily begin a decline in the entire ecosystem if they die off for whatever reason might occur, including disease or groundwater contamination, etc.

Size: 8.5 inches in length and a 16 inch wing span

Weight: 1.8 ounces

Diet: Red-backed voles are omnivores and their diet changes with the season.

They eat insects, seeds, grains, nuts, flowers, leaves, roots, bark, lichens, and fungi.

Size: The head and body length of red-backed voles varies between 70 and 112 mm  2.8 to 4.4 inches). The tail is 25 to 60 mm long (1 to 2.4 inches). Weighs between 6 and 42 grams (0.2 to 1.5 ounces)

Sugriva the chimpanzee swipes through photos on Instagram (click here for PETA's assessment - thank you)

This entry is just for fun. Republicans will make some wise cracking jokes about it.

Sphyrapicus varius

It is not a red headed woodpecker. Although the holes in that tree belong to that bird.

Although (click here) its name sounds like a cartoonist's invention, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker does exist. This species is common in the north and east, and is replaced by close relatives in the west. Quiet in winter, it becomes noisy in spring, with cat-like calls and staccato drumming.

Drills tiny holes in tree bark, usually in neatly spaced rows, and then returns to them periodically to feed on the sap that oozes out. Also eats bits of cambium (cambium is the growth ring on the outer most layer of the tree, it is covered with the tree bark.) and other tree tissues, as well as insects that are attracted to the sap. Besides drilling sap wells, also gleans insects from tree trunks in more typical woodpecker fashion, and sallies out to catch insects in the air. Berries and fruits are eaten at all seasons, and birds may concentrate in fruiting wild trees in winter.

Diet Includes insects, tree sap, fruit. Feeds on a wide variety of insects, including many ants (taken from tree trunks). Also regularly feeds on tree sap, and on berries and fruits.

Common Name: Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
Scientific Name: See title to entry - thank you
Type: Aves
Group Name/Family: Picidae
Average Life Span: 7.8 years
Size: 8.5 inches in length and a 16 inch wing span
Weight: 1.8 ounces

...sapsucker feeding (50 or more holes in a band or patch) (click here) can lower wood quality, reduce growth, and even kill birch trees. Besides discoloration and decay, their feeding injuries cause a localized ring shake. Sapsuckers kill trees and cause top dying by girdling the main stem within and just beneath the live crown. Sapsuckers frequently return to feed on favorite trees in successive breeding seasons until the trees are killed.

These birds feed on trees of all sizes, but most heavily on large saw-log and polesize trees. They prefer feeding on healthy dominant and codominant trees that have been excessively exposed by heavy thinning, or growing along roads, rightof-ways, and openings. Even in unmanaged stands, they select the largest paper and yellow birches as favorite feeding trees. Sapsuckers are also attracted to old sapsucker wounds and other types of injuries.

Sapsuckers are protected by State and Federal laws and probably could not be controlled by shooting or poisoning because other birds would soon fill vacant territories.

Let me explain that a little bit. I think the idea of poisoning anything in nature is a bad idea. It would effect other creatures as well as people that happen to be hiking. But, the idea of shooting ANY nuisance animal, especially birds, is just a bad idea. The best example is the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon over 110 years ago (click here). A more recent phenomenon is the reckless and endless killing of blackbirds as a sport. A single hunter will take 50 or more birds in a day. That is the type of killing that never ends and causes extinction. That is why most states prohibit such acts of control of what some might label as a nuisance. It is far better to maintain an annual count and determine if they are overpopulating any forest. Annual bird counts are conducted by the Audobon Society.

...These birds are not considered threatened or endangered, (click here) but they are occasionally persecuted because of a belief that their wells may damage trees. While it is true that a heavily drilled tree may suffer, this is rare and not usually a cause for concern. In many areas, populations yellow-bellied sapsuckers are expanding because of increasing second growth forest with favored tree types....

How do I hate animals, let me count the ways.

July 24, 2019
By Emily Cureton

The picture to the left are two newborn Wild Mustang foals.

I believe it was the Late Senator John McCain who would find the one item of frivolous government spending. Here is the winner for 2019.

Among the many horses, (click here) fence panels and mounds of manure at a Bureau of Land Management wild horse corral, a nursing colt ducked between his mother’s legs.

The mare swung around him to watch a tractor lift hay bales the size of cars. Like more than 11,000 wild horses last year, she was removed from public rangeland. She gave birth at this BLM corral in Eastern Oregon, and the collar around her neck means it could be her last foal: She’d been tagged to undergo surgical sterilization.

The procedure hasn’t been widely performed on wild horses before, but after years of opposition, the BLM hopes to operate on test mares as soon as next month....

President Trump wants to end the birth of Mustang babies. Talk about being a confused guy, he doesn't want women to have contraceptives or abortions, but, if you are a Wild Mustang Mare, you will lose your fertility until extinct.

It isn't sheep this time, it is crony cows that are more important.

Odocoileus virginianus

Common Name: White - Tailed Deer

The picture to the left is a female. She can have one to two fawns per year.

Scientific Name: See above

Type: Mammal

Diet: The white-tailed deer is an herbivore or plant eater. It follows well-used trails to its feeding areas. It feeds in the early morning hours and in the late afternoon. A deer's diet changes depending on its habitat and the season. It eats green plants in the spring and summer. In the fall, it eats corn, acorns and other nuts. In the winter, it eats the buds and twigs of woody plants.

Group Name/Family: Cervidae

Average Life Span: Most live 2-3 years due to hunting. Normal life span is 20 years but few live beyond 10 years old.

Size: Shoulder height is from 30 to 40 inches. Length is 60 to 85 inches long.

Weight: 120 to 301 pounds 

Whitetails are active around the clock, (click here) but less so during daylight hours. Most often, white-tailed deer are on the move at dawn and dusk. They commonly graze from dawn to a few hours later, the word describing that behavior is crepuscular. This behavior can prove hazardous to humans during the breeding season in the fall. Commuters to and from work often encounter deer on the move at this time of year which can result in serious accidents. Drivers should pay special attention October through December when traveling through zones marked with deer crossing signs.

There will always be a love-hate relationship between White Tailed Deer and people. They are important as a grazer that maintains the undergrowth in a forest, but, their numbers can't become so high that they overrun the forest and cause damage to trees in large numbers. The sport of hunting often helps maintain a healthy population. So, they are definitely an indicator species in their abundance with a balance to their numbers.

The real reason the ESA is under attack. It is called the Pebble Mine.

There are consistently two things that come to my attention whenever a Republican president is in office, the Grey Wolf and the Pebble Mine. Both need to be left alone.

As soon as guns became part of the picture with some population of wolves reaching a more normalized number they always overdo it and the numbers fall again. There was one female, an Alpha, that had many healthy litters and was shot by a hunter. She was hard to lose because she was so competent a mother.

The grey wolf in the USA is the southern boundary of the mammal. It is a very important "cornerstone species." A cornerstone has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance. The best example, of course, is Yellowstone National Park and the legendary effect of the Grey Wolf on the entire ecosystem. Without the wolf, the park became overrun with Elk and they overran the plants to the point where the river was eroding it's banks and etc. and etc. The legendary Grey Wolf is well known to be a magnificent example of a cornerstone species.

The Trump White House lacks wisdom regarding the management of the country's natural resources, including cornerstone species like the Grey Wolf. Yes, the Grey Wolf is an asset to the land of the country and needs management that protects the species well enough to maintain needed populations. Sheep aren't everything. For the first time ever, Trump lumped the wolf count into one number of 5000 and said it was good enough, no wolf needs protection. Amazing. Then they are fought in court.

The other natural resource that is vital to the USA are the Salmon runs. There is one in particular in Bristol Bay that has 40 million fish annually. Some estimates are as high as 50 to 70 million healthy salmon. That just has to be left alone. This is a warming planet and these salmon runs are vital to the country. Unfortunately, nearby is a gold mine called "The Pebble Mine." It cannot be mined because of the vital salmon runs. That is a fact of life.

The Obama Administration conducted a meticulous review of the area. Hanging in the balance was the salmon. The Pebble Mine is not to be mined. A good friend of mine states with every time this becomes an issue, "I believe God set the mine there as a trial to every President that is elected by the USA."

Regardless of a trial by God or not, the gold will remain in the mine for a long, long time if not forever. Trump completely disregards the value of waters and decides alone he knows what is best and that is corporate profits. He is valuing the wrong corporate profits.

August 9, 2019

By Scott Bronstein, Curt Devine, Drew Griffin and Ashley Hackett

The Environmental Protection Agency (click here) told staff scientists that it was no longer opposing a controversial Alaska mining project that could devastate one of the world's most valuable wild salmon fisheries just one day after President Trump met with Alaska's governor, CNN has learned.

The EPA publicly announced the reversal July 30, but EPA staff sources tell CNN that they were informed of the decision a month earlier, during a hastily arranged video conference after Trump's meeting with Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The governor, a supporter of the project, emerged from that meeting saying the president assured him that he's "doing everything he can to work with us on our mining concerns.

The news came as a "total shock" to some top EPA scientists who were planning to oppose the project on environmental grounds, according to sources. Those sources asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
The copper-and-gold mine planned near Bristol Bay, Alaska, known as Pebble Mine, was blocked by the Obama administration's EPA after scientists found that the mine would cause "complete loss of" the bay's fish habitat.                           

There is quite a storm outside and I will be offline for a while.

Sorry.

I will finish this as soon as the storm passes.

Seinrus noveboracensis

Common Name: Northern Waterthrush (There is another species of Waterthrush and that is the Louisiana Waterthrush - which is slightly bigger with a wing span of 10 inches and a weight of 0.72 ounces as an adult.)
Scientific Name: See title of entry
Type: Aves (Birds are not mammals, they lay eggs)

Habitat: Swampy or wet woods, (click here) streamsides, lake shores; in migration, also thickets. Breeds mostly in coniferous forests with standing or sluggish water, as found in shrubby bogs and edges of northern lakes, less often along swift streams. In migration, may appear in any habitat; more frequent in thickets along edges of water. In winter in tropics, often in coastal mangrove swamps.

Diet:Walks on ground and wades in shallow water. Often forages on half-submerged logs. Uncovers prey by tossing aside dead and soggy leaves found in rock crevices. Defends winter feeding territories against other waterthrushes.

Aquatic and terrestrial insects, crustaceans. Feeds mainly on insects, including water beetles, water bugs, flea beetles, damselflies, weevils, mosquitoes, ants, fly pupae, caterpillars, moths; also some slugs, snails, crustaceans, and occasionally small fish. Takes mostly insects in winter, also some small crustaceans and other invertebrates.

Group Name/Family:Phylloscopidae / Wood Warblers
Average Life Span: 8.9 years
Size: Six inches long, 9.5 inches wing span
Weight: 0.63 ounces  (adult)

August 13, 2019
By Gabrielle Canon

A coalition of 22 states (click here) including California and New York, six cities and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington this week in an attempt to block repeal and replace of the Clean Power Plan (CPP)(click here), an Obama-era policy that set emission-reduction targets, required states to restrict their use of coal-burning power plants and mandated a switch to renewable energy.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols announced the move Tuesday, marking the state's latest battle in court over climate change.

In June, the Trump administration finalized its Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule, which replaces the Clean Power Plan with one that weakens the emissions targets and protects the coal industry. EPA Administer Andrew Wheeler said at the time that the administration’s new plan was constructed to protect low and middle-income Americans from rising energy costs....

Common Name: North American Porcupine
Scientific Name: Erethizon dorsatum
Type: Mammals
Diet: Herbivore
Group Name: Erethizontidea (click here)
Average Life Span: 5 to 7 years (feel free to name them if often encountered)
Size: Head and body: 25 to 36 inches; tail: 8 to 10 inches
Weight: 12 to 35 pounds

Hurricane Season is from June 1 through November 1

August 18, 2019
2300 UTC
Weather Underground Sea Surface Temperatures (click here)
There have been three storms to date in 2019. (click here)

Atlantic Ocean Season

l. Subtropical Storm Andrea (click here)
2. Hurricane Barry (click here)
3. Tropical Depression Three (click here - advisories listed only)

I don't recall such an anemic Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Indicator Species of the Northern Hardwood Forest

Birds

White-throated Sparrow
Northern Junco
Purple Finch
Northern Waterthrush
Mourning Warbler
Canada Warbler
American Redstart
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Blue-headed Vireo
Hermit Thrush
Black-capped Chickadee
Brown Creeper
Golden-Crowned Kinglet
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Cedar Waxwing

Other Mammals

Red-backed Vole
Snowshoe (Varying) Hare
Red Squirrel
Porcupine
White-tailed Deer (in abundance, but, not overrun)

"It's Sunday Night"

Forest Dance | Animal Song for Kids (click here for "Maple Leaf Learning" - thank you)

Forest Dance by Maple Leaf Learning (click here for official website - thank you)

Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
Bear, bear, bear.
Deer, deer, deer.
Let’s do the forest dance

Fox, fox, fox
Owl, owl, owl
Snake, snake, snake
Let’s do the forest dance

Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel
Bear, bear, bear
Deer, deer, deer
Let’s do the forest dance

Fox, fox, fox
Owl, owl, owl
Snake, snake, snake
Let’s do the forest dance

Continued from previous entry - thank you

d. Jared Kushner's-Continuing Contacts with Simes

Between the April 2016 speech at the Mayflower Hotel and the presidential election, Jared Kushner had periodic contacts with Simes.648 Those contacts consisted of both in-person meetings and phone conversations, which concerned how to address issues relating to Russia in the Campaign and how to move forward with the advisory group of foreign policy experts that Simes had proposed.649 Simes recalled that he, not Kushner, initiated all conversations about Russia, and that Kushner never asked him to set up back-channel conversations with Russians.650 According to Simes, after the Mayflower speech in late April, Simes raised the issue of Russian contacts with Kushner, advised that it was bad optics for the Campaign to develop hidden Russian contacts, and told Kushner both that the Campaign should not highlight Russia as an issue and should handle any contacts with Russians with care.651 Kushner generally provided a similar account of his interactions with Simes.652

Oops, there it is. Mr. Simes from the CNI told Jared Kushner to be careful about overt signs of contacts with Russians. That alone is a connection to the Russian attacks. Simes, whether in contact with Putin or not, wanted to maintain clear boundaries between Trump's campaign and Russians of any vernacular.

Among the Kushner-Simes meetings was one held on August 17, 2016, at Simes' s request, in Kushner's New York office. The meeting was to address foreign policy advice that CNI was providing and how to respond to the Clinton Campaign's Russia-related attacks on candidate Trump.653 In advance of the meeting, Simes sent Kushner a "Russia Policy Memo" laying out "what Mr. Trump may want to say about Russia."654 In a cover email transmitting that memo and a phone call to set up the meeting, Simes mentioned "a well-documented story of highly questionable connections between Bill Clinton" and the Russian government, 

That is very clever. If Bill Clinton was having connections with the Russia government then why shouldn't Donald J. Trump.

"parts of [which]" (according to Simes) had even been "discussed with the CIA and the FBI in the late 1990s 

Oh, Simes had intimidation in mind to quiet Hillary's statements about Trump. Wow. In the 1990's Bill Clinton was either governor of Arkansas or President of the USA.

and shared with the [Independent Counsel] at the end of the Clinton presidency."655 Kushner forwarded the email to senior Trump Campaign officials Stephen Miller, Paul Manafort, and Rick Gates, with the note "suggestion only."656 Manafort subsequently forwarded the email to his assistant and scheduled a meeting with Simes.657 (Manafort was on the verge of leaving the Campaign by the time of the scheduled meeting with Simes, and Simes ended up meeting only with Kushner). 

continued on following entry 

Footnote 648 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27. 
Footnote 649 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27. 
Footnote 650 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27. 

Footnote 651 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27. During this period of time, the Campaign received a request for a high level Campaign official to meet with an officer at a Russian state-owned bank "to discuss an offer [that officer] claims to be carrying from President Putin to meet with" candidate Trump. NOSC00005653 (5/17/16 Email, Dearborn to Kushner (8: 12 a.m.)). Copying Manafort and Gates, Kushner responded, "Pass on this. A lot of people come claiming to carry messages. Very few are able to verify. For now I think we decline such meetings. Most likely these people go back home and claim they have special access to gain importance for themselves. Be careful." NOSC00005653 (5/17/16 Email, Kushner to Dearborn).

Footnote 652 Kushner 4/11 /18 302, at 11-13. 

Footnote 653 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 29-30; Simes 3/27 /18 302, at 6; Kushner 4/11/18 302, at 12; C00007269 (8/10/16 Meeting Invitation, Vargas to Simes et al.); DJTFP00023484 (8/11/16 Email, Hagan to Manafmt (5:57:15 p.m.)).

Footnote 654 C00007981-84 (8/9/16 Email, Simes to Kushner (6:09:21 p.m.)). The memorandum recommended "downplaying Russia as a U.S. foreign policy priority at this time" and suggested that "some tend to exaggerate Putin's flaws." The memorandum also recommended approaching general Russian related questions in the framework of "how to work with Russia to advance important U.S. national interests" and that a Trump Administration "not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." The memorandum did not discuss sanctions but did address how to handle Ukraine-related questions, including questions about Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea. 

Footnote 655 C00007981 (8/9/16 Email, Simes to Kushner (6:09:21 p.m.)).
Footnote 656 DJTFP00023459 (8/10/16 Email, Kushner to S. Miller et al. (11 :30: 13 a.m.)).
Footnote 657 DJTFP00023484 (8/1 1/16 Email, Hagan to Manafort (5:57:15 p.m.)).

Below

Dimitri Simes’ interactions with the Trump campaign were of keen interest to the special prosecutor and he was heavily featured in the Mueller report. Simes, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and is now President and CEO of the Center for the National Interest, gives his exclusive interview to Christiane Amanpour.

Continued from a previous entry on July 30, 2019.

I was planning to continue the read of the Special Counsel Report but was interrupted by yet another mass murder in the USA.

Page 107 of the Special Counsel Report and Page 115 on the PDF. (click here)

The Office found no evidence that Kislyak conversed with either Trump or Sessions after the speech, or would have had the opportunity to do so. Simes, for example, did not recall seeing Kislyak at the post-speech luncheon,632 and the only witness who accounted for Sessions's whereabouts stated that Sessions may have spoken to the press after the event but then departed for Capitol Hill.633 Saunders recalled, based in part on a food-related request he received from a Campaign staff member, that Trump left the hotel a few minutes after the speech to go to the airport. 634

The assault on the 2018 elections seems to be contained within the Putin intelligence agencies. There was no behavior by any of the Trump campaign that was a clue to their conspiracy.

c. Jeff Sessions's Post-Speech Interactions with CNI (click here)

In the wake of Sessions' s confirmation hearings as Attorney General, questions arose about whether Sessions's campaign-period interactions with CNI apart from the Mayflower speech included any additional meetings with Ambassador Kislyak or involved Russian-related matters. With respect to Kislyak contacts, on May 23, 2016, Sessions attended CNI 's Distinguished Service Award dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C.635 Sessions attended a pre-dinner reception and was seated at one of two head tables for the event. 636 A seating chart prepared by Saunders indicates that Sessions was scheduled to be seated next to Kislyak, who appears to have responded to the invitation by indicating he would attend the event.637 Sessions, however, did not remember seeing, speaking with, or sitting next to Kislyak at the dinner.638 Although CNI board member Charles Boyd said he may have seen Kislyak at the dinner,639 Simes, Saunders, and Jacob Heilbrunn--editor of the National Interest-all had no recollection of seeing Kislyak at the May 23 event. 640 Kislyak also does not appear in any of the photos from the event that the Office obtained.

In the summer of 2016, CNI organized at least two dinners in Washington, D.C. for Sessions to meet with experienced foreign policy professionals.641 The dinners included CNI affiliated individuals, such as Richard Burt and Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq and the person who had introduced Trump before the April 27, 2016 foreign policy speech.642 Khalilzad also met with Sessions one-on-one separately from the, dinners.643 At the dinners and in the meetings, the participants addressed U.S. relations with Russia, including how U.S. relations with NATO and European countries affected U.S. policy toward Russia.644 But the discussions were not exclusively focused on Russia.645 Khalilzad, for example, recalled discussing "nation-building" and violent extremism with Sessions.646 In addition, Sessions asked Saunders (of CNI) to draft two memoranda not specific to Russia: one on Hillary Clinton's foreign policy shortcomings and another on Egypt.647

CNI was actively involved in the Trump campaign foreign policy including assessment of the Clinton foreign policy. But, it was also providing insight to Afghanistan and Iraq where the USA still had troops in the Middle East.

Footnote 632 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 22; Heilbrunn 2/1/18 302, at 7.
Footnote 633 Luff 1 /30/18 302, at 4.
Footnote 634 Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 15. 
635 Sessions 1/17 /18 302, at 22; Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 17.
636 Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 17; C00004779-80 (5/23/16 Email, Cantelmo to Saunders & Hagberg (9:30: 12 a.m.); C00004362 (5/23/16 Email, Bauman to Cantelmo et al. (2:02:32 a.m.).
637 C00004362 (5/23/16 Email Bauman to Cantelmo et al. (2:02:32 a.m.).
638 Sessions 1/17/18 302, at 22.
639 Boyd 1/24/18 302, at 4.
640 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 23; Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 18; Heilbrunn 2/1/18 302, at 7.
641 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 31; Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 19; Burt 2/9/18 302, at 9-1 0; Khalilzad 1/9/ 18 302, at 5.
642 Butt 2/9/18 302, at 9-10; Khalilzad 1/9/18 302, at 1-2, 5.
643 Khalilzad 1/9/18 302, at 5-6.
644 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 31; Burt 2/9/ 18 302, at 9-1 O; Khalilzad 1 /9/18 302, at 5.
645 Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 20.
646 Khalilzad 1/9/18 302, at 6.
647 Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 19-20.

continued in following entry

August 18, 2019

By Steven Shankland

In 1995, I visited the Russian nuclear weapons city of Sarov. Here, I'm showing a copy of the newspaper where I worked at the time, the Los Alamos Monitor, to physicist Viktor Adamsky, who helped design the Tsar Bomba -- the most powerful nuclear weapon ever exploded.

I spent more than five years (click here) as a reporter in Los Alamos, New Mexico, birthplace of the atomic bomb, home to a major national laboratory, and the 18,000-person town where I grew up. I covered everything from President Bill Clinton visiting the lab to mostly harmless radioactive cat poop triggering radiation alarms at the county landfill. But the story that made the biggest impression on me took place thousands of miles away, in Russia.

In May 1995, I was part of a seven-person civilian delegation that traveled to Los Alamos sister city Sarov, about 230 miles east of Moscow. It's the home of the institute where Russia developed its first atomic bomb. Our visit was timed to coincide with a 50th anniversary celebration of the end of the Great Patriotic War, aka World War II, which for the Russians ended when the Germans capitulated in May 1945.

It was a sobering visit -- the economic devastation; the Soviet-era microphones bugging away in our hotel; the angry and impoverished veterans; and the daunting quantities of vodka, champagne and cognac that accompanied us during a weeklong series of banquets. I spoke with Viktor Adamsky, one of the designers of the biggest nuclear bomb of all time, the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, which was more powerful than all the bombs dropped in World War II.

I'm remembering it now because I've recently interviewed Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and a key leader of the US-Russian lab collaboration that led to my trip.

During the time of my trip, relations between Russia and the US were warming, but now they're cooling once again. That troubles Hecker -- even though he spent much of his career designing the nuclear weapons the US aimed at the then-USSR....

Russia has a long history of disrespecting life when it comes to testing their nuclear stockpile.

Fear. That is Trump's election strategy. Evidently, fear never enters into his foreign policy though.

Sooner or later the emergency rooms across the country will begin to be overwhelmed by people sincerely ill because they don't receive preventive care. When that happens Americans will have their care delayed at the ER and of those delayed there will be some that die.

Anyone fully vested in Trump's hate regime to win elections is a racist.

August 18, 2019
By Sophia Toreen

Diabetics skipping regular checkups. (click here) Young asthmatics not getting preventive care. A surge in expensive emergency room visits.

Doctors and public health experts warn of poor health and rising costs they say will come from sweeping Trump administration changes that would deny green cards to many immigrants who use Medicaid, as well as food stamps and other forms of public assistance. Some advocates say they're already seeing the fallout even before the complex 837-page rule takes effect in October.

President Donald Trump's administration trumpeted its aggressive approach this past week as a way to keep only self-sufficient immigrants in the country, but health experts argue it could force potentially millions of low-income migrants to choose between needed services and their bid to stay legally in the U.S.

"People are going to be sicker. They're not going to go get health care, or not until they have to go to an emergency room," said Lisa David, president and CEO of Public Health Solutions, New York's largest public health organization. "It's going to cost the system a lot of money."...       

Anyone selling land to Trump is committing a human rights abuse and I mean that.

An insult in Trump World is a compliment in the Real World.