So, Trump is trying to brainwash people, and he is clearly especially interested in doing that with impressionable young people who will be wowed by his presidential status. He wants to brainwash them into seriously believing that he can literally do whatever he wants, since he is the president. Of course, he seemed to already possess that same false sense of entitlement before he was elected to the White House. Now, however, it is through the roof!
He needs to be stopped. And we need to remember that he does not have the right to do whatever he wants. He believes he is an absolute ruler, like the old days in France, just before the Revolution broke out, when France had an absolute monarchy, and the kings did not have to worry about anyone keeping their power in check. Look how well that turned out for them, once their decades, and perhaps even centuries, of irresponsibility finally caught up with them.
Lest we forget, a large part of what bankrupted France was a war they fought against the British in order to help the American colonies achieve independence. We gained independence because we did not believe that a tyrant thousands of miles away should make decisions about the lives of people literally an ocean away. They were against taxation without representation, and were willing to put everything on the line to fight a revolution and end the king's rule here.
We should remind each other, as Americans, that we did not merely fight that war against a monarch with delusions of grandeur and a sense of entitlement to make whatever decision he wants without bothering to worry about the impact it has on people's lives, in order to voluntarily submit to a 21st century version of that kind of lazy, cowardly, arrogant and ignorant monarch. The United States got rid of the rule by monarchs nearly two and a half centuries ago, and we need to remind Trump, and anyone else who believes in some kind of absolute, all-powerful ruler, that this is a place that shook up history with "the shot heard around the world" that was the beginning of the end of monarchy here in this country. Let us not merely give all of those principles up now, simply because some arrogant billionaire "reality television" star who somehow got into the highest office - without winning the popular vote - now has delusions of grandeur, and is trying to act as if he already owns that absolute monarchy style of power.
Again, we fought a revolution and, against all odds, defeated the superpower of that time, in order to set up a new system of government that ended a monarch's ability to do whatever he liked in ruling over us. We set up a Constitution in order to ensure that such abuse of power would never again befall Americans. All of what was not done merely so that some erratic imbecile with a prideful mixture of ignorance (clearly, especially of the Constitution that he swore to uphold) and arrogance could now erase legal traditions that are well over two hundred years old. The Constitutions does not give him the power to do whatever he wants. It was set up to put limits on abuses of power, and he is using this document, and those legal precedents, to try and convince people that, in fact, it gives him the power and privilege to do whatever the hell he wants, even though it clearly, without question, does not.
We do not have absolute rulers here in America. Let us remind Trump and his ridiculous supporters of that fact, whatever the price. Let us cut him off at the knees now, and make sure that the Constitution that our Founding Fathers literally risked everything in order to achieve still works, and still protects Americans with a solid system of checks and balances. Trump is a joke, but there is a danger with him, because he and his supporters are the only ones who do not see him as a joke. In past history, people laughed at dictators before they gained absolute power and did unbelievable damage. We see the threat. Let us deal with it now, and let us get rid of Trump and Trump wanna be's, before they do irreparable damage to the Constitution, and our way of life overall.
Yes, I want to keep these short today, because I am tired of covering this lowlife who has been elected as our president. He is a pathetic man, and perhaps the only thing more pathetic than his incessant lying, race-baiting, and active polarization of the nation, are those tens of millions of people who remain his loyal supporter, and who apparently adamantly refuse to acknowledge that this very flawed and, frankly, sick man is less than absolutely perfect.
So, yes, I am keeping this brief. Here are a couple of recent stories on the Trump front (I did not initially intend to make that sound like a racist front group, but since the shoe fits with this man and so many of his supporters, I decided to keep it):
Trump’s Border Patrol Chief Admits to Being in Racist Facebook Group
What a shocker, huh?
Donald Trump once claimed not to have a racist bone in his body, and has said in the past that you will never meet someone less racist than him.
Besides not really meaning much of anything, it is simply not true. And besides, there are all of those episodes where he betrayed racist sentiments. From the Central Park Five incident decades ago, to singling out Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, to ushering in a new confidence among white supremacist groups that enthusiastically supported him, to advocating for a national registry of Muslims, to his claim that there were “good people” among the Nazis and outright white supremacists who incited violence in Charlottesville, to labelling dozens of African and Latin American countries as “shithole nations,” to recent suggestions that four non-white Congresswomen should go back to their countries, to his recent, ridiculous feuding with Congressman Elijah Cummings, and his constant, relentless fixation on trying to undo everything that Barack Obama did in the White House, to probably some other incidents with him that I am forgetting, Trump has provided plenty of evidence to contradict his own claims that he is not a racist. Maybe he is just completely lacking in class instead, if that is any better. After all, he also made fun of a disabled reporter, and has attacked decorated war veterans, including his absurd beef with John McCain which he could not even end after McCain died.
But one thing for sure: Trump’s political rise has ushered in a new era of blatant racism in the country. Hate crimes have spiked, white supremacist groups feel emboldened and make no secret in looking to Trump as their great white hope for the country, and there seems to be a huge spike in simple racist sentiments going around. Look at how many white supremacists seem to take up arms and go crazy, initiating mass shootings, sometimes apparently in delusional hopes of beginning some kind of a race war.
So, is it really a shock that we find that high-ranking members of Trump’s team seem to have ties to racist groups?
Indeed, Carla Provost, Trump’s Border Patrol Chief, recently admitted to being a part of a racist online group. Here is the link to the story:
Trump’s Border Patrol Chief Was In Secret, Racist Facebook Group by the Associated Press, 07/25/2019:
Trump Claims He Helped First Responders Clear Rubble at Ground Zero
The other bit of Trump news is yet another piece of evidence about his incessant lying. The man just simply seems to be allergic to telling the truth, and tells these unbelievable whoppers to try and change the mythology surrounding him.
The most recent obvious, blatant lie was Trump claiming that he was at Ground Zero shortly after the 9/11 attacks. He apparently is trying to get everyone to believe that he was there with the first responders, trying to clear rubble.
Here, specifically, is what he said:
"I was down there also, but I'm not considering myself a first responder," Trump said. "But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you."
You just know that if this were true, Trump would have been bragging about it for years and years. Instead, on the day itself, apparently Trump bragged that he now had the tallest building in Manhattan, which also happened not to be true.
How low can you get?
So, what was Trump actually doing on September 11, 2001?
One thing he was doing was getting on the phone with WWOR's Alan Marcus to talk about the attacks and their aftermath. It was in that interview that Trump said this about a property -- 40 Wall Street -- that he owned:
"40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest—and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it's the tallest."
You'll never believe what Donald Trump just said about 9/11 by Chris Cillizza, Mon July 29, 2019:
Trump Defends Using Illegal Immigrants on NJ Golf Clubs & Claims "Every Club" Did Same
Finally, one last story about Trump.
This one is about a well-known story long before Trump ever even ran for the White House.
For all of his tough talk about building a wall and making Mexico pay for it, and for all of his trashing illegal immigrants who came into the country and, according to him, took good jobs from Americans, that did not stop him from hiring unauthorized immigrants from working at his New Jersey golf club. He used to deny this, now he has shifted gears, and is claiming that “every club” did this.
And you know what? He just might actually be right about that one. That does not make it right, though, does it?
Yet one more reason to remember what George Carlin said about golf being an elitist sport, and shame on you if you play it.
Here is the link to the Trump illegal immigrants hired for his golf course story:
Trump on reports of unauthorized immigrants working at his N.J. golf club. ‘Every club’ did this. by Jonathan D. Salant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, Jul 5, 2019:
It’s morning again in America, and we have yet another high profile mass shooting. The dates, locations, and specific circumstances always seem to change. The general rampages of violence, however, and the inaction that they are met with, basically never do. And one other thing does not seem to change: these kinds of events rarely ever seem to occur in other advanced and peacetime nations, while they have become the new norm here in the United States. It is hard not to ask the question of why that is, but apparently, millions of people manage not to seriously ever dissect the problem. This one could have been far worse, if not for the very fast response time by local law enforcement, who fatally shot the mass shooter before the possibility that the shooting could have gotten much, much worse. Still, three are dead, not including the shooter, and two of the dead are children. One of them was a 6-year old boy, Stephen Romero. The other was a 13-year old girl, Keyla Salazar. Both of them were from nearby San Jose. The other victim was Trevor Irby, 25, who lived in Romulus, New York. There were 12 other people who were wounded in the rampage.
The local police officers started shooting at the gunman in less than one minute, and managed to kill the gunman quickly thereafter. Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee was very thankful for the quick response time, saying that it averted what might have been a far worse situation, given how many people were crowded into a relatively small place:
“We had thousands of people there in a very small area,” he said, his eyes tearing up. “It could have gotten so much worse, so fast. I’m really proud that they got there as quickly as they did. There absolutely would have been more bloodshed.”
The shooter’s name is Santino William Legan, a local 19-year old resident of Gilroy, California, where the Garlic Festival was taking place, and where the man – let us remember that he was, legally, already a man, and not a boy – decided to go on his deadly rampage.
The festival did have security, but Legan was able to get past that by going in the back, crossing a creek, and then cut through a fence before gaining entry into the grounds of the festival, where he began his rampage.
Legan used what was described as a military-style semiautomatic rifle in the attack, and this poses a problem that, to me, seems so obvious, but which seems to conveniently escape gun rights activists when they suggest that states with more restrictive gun laws often have very high gun violence despite the laws. The gun that he used was purchased in nearby Nevada earlier this month, a neighboring state which is not difficult to get to for most Californians, especially those with a car.
California Governor Gavin Newsome addressed this rather obvious issue and explained his own frustration and sense of powerlessness:
“You can’t put borders up, speaking of borders, to a neighboring state where you can buy this damn stuff legally. How in the hell is that possible?” Newsom told reporters at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. “I have no problem with the Second Amendment, you have a right to bear arms but not weapons of goddamned mass destruction.”
It was discovered that Legan had also read and discussed some far right extremist literature, and had posted something about a white supremacist manifesto on his Instagram account earlier in the day. According to an article by Ben Collins of NBC News (see link below), this material has been pirated and spread for free on far-right websites, and “strongly advocates combat, violence and death along racial lines, and is filled with anti-Semitic rhetoric. It is a staple among neo-Nazis and white supremacists on extremist sites.”
Of course, we have a man in the Oval Office who officially has denied that racism is a real problem in this country, even though he himself has been accused of harboring racist sentiment and making very racist statements. Many acknowledge that there has been a marked and undeniable spike in hate crimes since the political rise of Trump to the White House in the 2016 election.
My sympathy goes out to the victims and their families, as well as the innocent people scarred by these events, including those who attended the event, and the shaken local residents of Gilroy.
Of course, anytime that you talk about the problem of so many mass shootings here in the United States, and ask why this is so common place here in the aftermath of yet another mass shooting, you open yourself up to criticism that you are “politicking” the tragedy. One of the problems, however, is that we seem to have so many such incidents, that there are rare instances when there has not been a mass shooting on some scale or other for any significant length of time. That is the sad truth.
So, at the risk of so doing, I will say again, just a couple of days after this latest shooting, what I have said before: we have a serious problem in this country. And yes, it is unique to this country, specifically. Sure, there may be some countries out there with perhaps worse gun violence than we have. But generally, these are countries that have been disabled by incredible instability, or which are torn by war. Yes, there are African and Asian nations which have incredible gang violence, and where horrible things happen.
But again, the undeniable fact is that the United States stands alone as the only advanced nation with such a huge, glaring problem with gun violence, and it is the only nation in the world which experiences such a staggering number of seemingly random mass shootings.
Until we are able to be honest with this problem, which like so many other huge problems in this country, seems to boil down to a “for profit” industry (this one the gun industry and, specifically, the NRA), then we cannot hope to actually resolve it anytime soon. And while it may be morning again in America, it sometimes feels like there has been a very real darkness that has descended and which has hovered over the country now for entirely too long. Given where we are, the political realities of these time, we clearly are still waiting for the morning of reason and rationality to dawn again in America.
Police ID Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting suspect as Santino William Legan; victims include 2 children by Ruben Vives, Matthew Ormseth, Laura J. Nelson, Hannah Fry, and Richard Winton, writing for The Los Angeles Times, JULY 29, 2019:
Instagram account connected to Gilroy shooter pushed staple of white supremacist internet forums The material is part of a years-long recruiting technique by white nationalists to target those vulnerable to their message on forums frequently populated by teenagers. By Ben Collins, July 29, 2019:
Trump told a group of young students last week that the Constitution gave him the right to do whatever the hell he liked.
Seriously, that was what he basically said. Here is the precise wording that he used:
“I could take anybody in this audience. Give me $40 million. Give me unlimited FBI, unlimited interviews, unlimited – they interviewed 500 people. Listen to this: Two thousand five hundred subpoenas. They did everything. Their collusion; no collusion. They have no collusion.
“Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president. But I don’t even talk about that because they did a report and there was no obstruction.”
This man is a true megalomaniac. He knows no limits to his own power, and does not believe in any kind of restraint.
What that translates to, as well, is that he does not understand, or worse, believe, in how democracy actually works. He clearly had a skeptical approach towards checks and balances between the branches of government, since he always had tried to circumvent them, and went on petty, immature tantrums whenever he was targeted in these.
Now, he is showing his true colors. He truly believes that, as president, he is above the law, that there are literally no limits to his power.
Perhaps he will claim later that he was joking, although my guess is that he will not, because this is, after all, what he truly believes. People like me, who believed that this man could seriously become an American dictator, suspected this much all along. He can claim that he was joking about certain things, such as when he flirted with being “President for Life,” or other power grabs.
In truth, that is what he seems to truly believe. As much as he apparently believed that he truly was the only man who could save a nation of well over 300 million people, he still believes it, and feels that all of the rules should either be bent or outright broken or, in this case, apparently erased off the books altogether, because now, he is in charge.
This is what we have a Constitution for, folks. And he, like all other presidents before him, swore an oath to abide by and protect that Constitution. He swore an oath to limit his own powers, in other words.
Apparently, it was just another lie for him, just another broken promise, like so many others that he has left in his wake.
I have said this before, and I will say it again: this man is serious every single time that he talks about his desire for more power, and every time that he makes public his desire for more power. That was what this was, for that matter. A claim to more power than he actually has, in reality. He is trying to shift everything so that this is the first step towards it becoming reality. Perhaps he did not need a Reichstag Fire after all. He is just brazen enough – not in a positive way – to proclaim a national emergency that only he can fix.
And guess what? Do not count on his supporters to show any skepticism or criticism of their man, even though, by now, he had clearly breached presidential protocols multiple times, and has shown, in multiple ways including, but certainly not limited to, outright proclaiming as much.
This is beginning to feel more than a simple Constitutional crisis by now. This is a crisis that threatens American democracy itself. Trump is and always has been a threat to that democracy. He was an extreme narcissist before he ever took the oath of office, and he had abused his powers before he ever announced his candidacy. Even when Mueller suggests that Trump could get in legal trouble once he leaves office, this does not worry Trump, and he proclaims victory.
Why?
Because Trump does not intend to leave office anytime soon. Not by impeachment, and certainly not through resignation, like Nixon, when the nation still apparently had standards, even the Republican party. Trump does not plan to leave on January 20, 2021 either, regardless of whether he, in fact, wins or loses the election. Frankly, I do not believe that he expects to leave within the next decade. He had already outright claimed that his supporters might “demand” that he would get a third term in office, even though he actually has not won a second term, and did not win the popular vote in order to get a first term.
That is the danger of Trump, and that is why he was far worse than anything or anyone we have seen in recent decades. No other leader would so boldly proclaim such things, or make transparent his obvious desire to grab more power and more power, and to make sure that he never lost that power, either.
This is why Nancy Pelosi is dead wrong in not seeking impeachment proceedings, or in being on the fence with it. She is exactly the kind of weak-willed Democrat that has grown so used to losing, that the Democrats have justly “earned” a reputation for being losers and cowards who back down. This is why many people cannot support mainstream Democrats like Pelosi, and others who dilly dally. After all, Pelosi just recently claimed that Trump says and seems to do racist thing, but she apparently is not convinced that he thinks racist things. Does that kind of rationalizing even mean anything? That seems, to me, exactly the kind of wishy-washy approach that got so many Democrats, including presidential candidates like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, the two last losing Democratic nominees for the White House, had regarding Iraq, and which proved very costly.
They were against the Iraq invasion, sort of. They voted in favor of it, but they explained it as simply giving President Bush the power to invade, even though, in reality, everyone knew that Bush and his administration had every attempt to go to war against Iraq. Then, they criticized Bush administration’s mishandling of the war effort, but not too harshly. After all, when he proclaimed victory, they could bask in the glow of that victory. Until it proved not to be a victory, and the war continued on and on, and eventually became a quagmire.
Some people felt that it was one of the biggest foreign policy disasters in American history, and the Democrats too frequently remained on the fence, unable to fully make up their minds about whether the war was a good idea or not. Much like they remain on the fence today about whether or not to hold President Trump accountable for breaking the law, for obstructing justice, and for constantly lying and abusing his powers.
We need stronger leadership from Congress to hold this ridiculous farce of a president to task and to account. Frankly, he should have been impeached a long time ago, and to hell with his absurd, militant supporters. Law is the law, after all.
So, Trump is trying to brainwash people, and he is clearly especially interested in doing that with impressionable young people who will be wowed by his presidential status. He wants to brainwash them into seriously believing that he can literally do whatever he wants, since he is the president. Of course, he seemed to already possess that same false sense of entitlement before he was elected to the White House. Now, however, it is through the roof!
He needs to be stopped. And we need to remember that he does not have the right to do whatever he wants. He believes he is an absolute ruler, like the old days in France, just before the Revolution broke out, when France had an absolute monarchy, and the kings did not have to worry about anyone keeping their power in check. Look how well that turned out for them, once their decades, and perhaps even centuries, of irresponsibility finally caught up with them.
Lest we forget, a large part of what bankrupted France was a war they fought against the British in order to help the American colonies achieve independence. We gained independence because we did not believe that a tyrant thousands of miles away should make decisions about the lives of people literally an ocean away. They were against taxation without representation, and were willing to put everything on the line to fight a revolution and end the king's rule here.
We should remind each other, as Americans, that we did not merely fight that war against a monarch with delusions of grandeur and a sense of entitlement to make whatever decision he wants without bothering to worry about the impact it has on people's lives, in order to voluntarily submit to a 21st century version of that kind of lazy, cowardly, arrogant and ignorant monarch. The United States got rid of the rule by monarchs nearly two and a half centuries ago, and we need to remind Trump, and anyone else who believes in some kind of absolute, all-powerful ruler, that this is a place that shook up history with "the shot heard around the world" that was the beginning of the end of monarchy here in this country. Let us not merely give all of those principles up now, simply because some arrogant billionaire "reality television" star who somehow got into the highest office - without winning the popular vote - now has delusions of grandeur, and is trying to act as if he already owns that absolute monarchy style of power.
Again, we fought a revolution and, against all odds, defeated the superpower of that time, in order to set up a new system of government that ended a monarch's ability to do whatever he liked in ruling over us. We set up a Constitution in order to ensure that such abuse of power would never again befall Americans. All of what was not done merely so that some erratic imbecile with a prideful mixture of ignorance (clearly, especially of the Constitution that he swore to uphold) and arrogance could now erase legal traditions that are well over two hundred years old. The Constitutions does not give him the power to do whatever he wants. It was set up to put limits on abuses of power, and he is using this document, and those legal precedents, to try and convince people that, in fact, it gives him the power and privilege to do whatever the hell he wants, even though it clearly, without question, does not.
We do not have absolute rulers here in America. Let us remind Trump and his ridiculous supporters of that fact, whatever the price. Let us cut him off at the knees now, and make sure that the Constitution that our Founding Fathers literally risked everything in order to achieve still works, and still protects Americans with a solid system of checks and balances. Trump is a joke, but there is a danger with him, because he and his supporters are the only ones who do not see him as a joke. In past history, people laughed at dictators before they gained absolute power and did unbelievable damage. We see the threat. Let us deal with it now, and let us get rid of Trump and Trump wanna be's, before they do irreparable damage to the Constitution, and our way of life overall.
Trump: Constitution gives me ‘the right to do whatever I want’ by Steve Benen Trump: Constitution gives me ‘the right to do whatever I want’ 07/24/19:
Just ran into this article, which seemed worthy of The Onion.
It was the headline that grabbed me. The idea of millions being shocked and in mourning when a lunatic asylum escapee like Ted Nugent is shockingly discovered to be still alive.
Just thought I would post this, which is meant in jest, for humor.
Here is the link to the article:
Millions Mourn As Rocker/Activist Ted Nugent, Age 68, Found Alive Posted about by Alexander Crouton-Skitch of The National Report, published in 2015 :
Again, I am trying to keep it a bit light on the weekends. There is enough bad news around the world going around, and we all need a bit of a break from it every now and then, right? Certain, I need a break from it, even if there is a temptation to keep writing about more serious matters, because the news does not stop on weekends, of course.
However, it seemed to me appropriate to have another relatively lighthearted post on the weekend, and there is usually no better way to do that than by looking to The Onion for some material.
Yet, this one does not really have any politics in it, which seems to make it a rare news story indeed these days. Yet, this one has humor, and it is not about the Kardashians or some of the other trashy "reality television" stars.
This one is about how Eminem is very scared when his daughter starts dating a boy who grew up listening to Eminem's music.
It is an old article, from more than six year ago. Yet, it has aged well, and not lost much in the translation over the span of six years. Plus, it is new to me, and so maybe it will be new to you, as well. Hopefully, anyway.
Too funny!
Eminem Terrified As Daughter Begins Dating Man Raised On His Music 6/27/13 3:55pmSEE MORE: ENTERTAINMENT
Sorry, I did not want to talk about Trump at all this weekend.
But then, I saw this headline, and I just could not resist putting this up.
What a ridiculous joke this man, and his so-called presidency, is! What an absolute jackass!
Here is the link to this story, which is NOT from The Onion, but sadly, only too real.
Trump is blaming Barack Obama for - of all things - the apparently bad quality of air-conditioning in the White House. Mind you, this is the third consecutive summer that Trump has been in the White House. You might think that he would have had ample time to fix that problem by now. Maybe somewhere in between his endless rounds of golf that he promised, as a candidate, that he would not have the time for if elected into the apparently badly air conditioned White House.
Is anyone even really surprised anymore with this kind of nonsense from our beloved leader?
Trump Blames White House Air Conditioning on Obama THE ASSOCIATED PRESS July 26, 2019, 6:21 PM EDT Updated on July 27, 2019:
It is the weekend, and while there is plenty to write about going on around the world right now, I am trying, for my own sake, to give myself a break and take on lighter things for the weekend on this blog page. There have been a lot of heavy stories and issues lately. I wrote yesterday about the scorching temperatures around the world throughout the year of 2019, and how last month was the hottest on record in the recorded history of our planet. I will be writing more about that, soon, and more, of course, on Trump, on his twin separated at birth and newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson.
But all of that can wait for a while. It is the weekend, and I want to take a more relaxed approach, as a rule. Sometimes, I might not keep to this, but there has to be an effort to try and do this.
This weekend, it seemed like a good idea to do something that I have wanted to do for some time now: post some previously unpublished pictures. These are pictures of many things, including past trips, and concerts, shows, and other events that I never got around to reviewing, and other things, as well.
And so I shall, beginning with some pictures from the trip my son and I took to the Rockies last year. That included a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park, where we actually went to the top of a mountain. No, we did not climb it, we drove and then did the mild hike to the very peak. It was much colder than the summer temperatures from the bottom, but well worth it, given the view!
It was Trail Ridge Mountain Road, which at some point crossed the Continental Divide at Milner Pass (elev. 10,758 ft or 3,279 m), and which also reached a peak elevation of 12,183 ft (3,713 m), near Fall River Pass.
I also added some other pictures, including from our hike at a park in Ward, Colorado, also high up among the Rocky Mountains, as well as some pictures of the Stanley Hotel (the inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shining") and the time we were driving back from some incredible sites at Yellowstone, and saw a buffalo walking casually along our side of the road, almost so close that we could reach out and touch him, even though we did not, since that would have been ill-advised and, I believe, disrespectful.
The picture which I put on top, and which begins the collection below is one which I enjoy very much. It shows my son and I atop the mountain, which is probably the highest point of Rocky Mountain National Park. The colors look so vivid, that it appeals to the eye. One of my very favorites! Both my son and I are wearing sweatshirts that we got during our visit to Yellowstone.
I have mentioned before that there have been record hot temperatures in various different regions of the world, which would seem to confirm what many American detractors refer to as the “global warming hoax.” Indeed, in case you have not been keeping up, many of these record hot temperatures have occurred in areas that actually are known for being extremely hot, which is saying something.
A little more than two years ago, I wrote an entry here on "The Charbor Chronicles about this very subject, because it was an issue. At that point, there was an unbelievable heatwave in the southwest that set all sorts of record hot temperatures, and since that is the Mojave desert, that is saying something. Here is part of what I wrote back then:
Indeed, temperatures in parts of the west were so staggeringly high, to the point that they were downright dangerous. Severe burns could occur immediately if someone fell on pavement, because temperatures for pavement (which absorbs the heat) reached close to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). It was so hot, that flights to Phoenix were cancelled, because some planes simply could not handle that level of heat. In fact, it was so hot, that apparently people could feel it even with their eyes, which could dry out surprisingly quick in that degree of heat - and remember out there, it is what they call a "dry heat."
I went on to write about how this appeared to be more of a trend, and not something merely isolated to the southwestern United States:
Temperatures in certain parts of Death Valley reached 129 degrees Fahrenheit (53.8 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, which was the hottest day of this heat wave.
Record extreme heat is something that we have seen throughout the world now in the last couple of years. From the Mojave Desert in North America, to eastern Australia earlier this year, and to Kuwait last year, temperatures have reached scorching levels that made it downright dangerous for residents of these regions.
Last year in Kuwait, temperatures reached a sweltering 54 degrees Celcius (129 degrees Fahrenheit), which at least challenged the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the world's history. Going back over a century ago, to July 1913, temperatures in Death Valley, California, reached a staggering 56.7 Celcius (134 degrees Fahrenheit).
Earlier this year in Australia, a record heat wave brought temperatures to the mid-40's Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) and even reached up to 47 degrees Celsius (116 degrees Fahrenheit).
Well, we seem to be experiencing more record heat, and in even more places, including some of the places that I mentioned in that previous blog entry over two years ago.
That has happened now several times in Australia. There were record hot temperatures in Australia – a place known for extreme heat – experienced this past December.
There were record hot temperatures in other places, as well. California not only experienced the hottest month in it’s history in July of last year, but in Death Valley, that month was the hottest month ever seen anywhere in the world, period. Average temperatures in Death Valley – again, another place very well known for hot temperatures - for that month of July were an astonishing 108.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep in mind, that was the average temperature, including both highs and lows through the day and night! It should go without saying that those kinds of temperatures can contribute significantly to the wildfires that are experienced throughout the western United States.
And in yet another place known for extremely hot weather, there was record heat last month throughout and around the Arabian peninsula. Kuwait saw 52.2 degrees Celcisus, or 125.96 Fahrenheit. It was even hotter in the southern province of Maysan, in Iraq, which experienced 55.6 degrees Celcius, or 132.08 degrees Fahrenheit.
Now, another part of the world much less well known for hot temperatures is seeing record heat: Europe.
According to AccuWeather broadcast yesterday, it was 42.6 degrees Celcius, or 108.7 Fahrenheit, in Paris yesterday. That is an all-time record hot temperature for Paris, breaking a record that had stood for nearly seven decades! And in Bordeaux two days ago, it was so hot that the grass median separating two different sides of a highway suddenly burst on fire. In case you were wondering, these are not normal temperatures or conditions that anyone sees in France, even during summertime. Nor is it relegated to France. Incredibly hot temperatures were experienced in much of western Europe, including the Benelux countries and Germany. It was 41.7 in Deelen, Netherlands, yesterday. That is the first time in history that the Netherlands has seen temperatures over 40 degrees Celcius.
Oh, just in case you are skeptical about it being so hot, that the grass median dividing a highway at Bordeaux, France, actually went on fire, here is some video:
Here are some descriptions of the record heat, according to a very recent article by Angela Charlton and Kirsten Grieshaber (see link below):
“Temperature records that had stood for decades or even just hours fell minute by minute Thursday afternoon and Europeans and tourists alike jumped into fountains, lakes, rivers or the sea to escape a suffocating heat wave rising up from the Sahara.
"France's heat alert system went to its maximum level of red for the first time during last month's heat wave , when France saw its highest-ever recorded temperature of 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit). On Thursday, about one-fifth of French territory was under a red alert, stretching from the English Channel through the Paris region and down to Burgundy, affecting at least 20 million people."
Why is this happening?
"There is likely the DNA of climate change in the record-breaking heat that Europe and other parts of the world are experiencing. And it is unfortunately going to continue to worsen," said Marshall Shepherd, professor of meteorology at University of Georgia.
So, just how bad was it? Here are some stats, also taken from the article by Angela Charlton and Kirsten Grieshaber (see link below):
— The Paris area hit 42.6 C (108.7 F), beating the previous record of 40.4 C (104.7 F) set in 1947.
— The Netherlands' meteorological institute announced a record that beat the previous record set just a day ago: 40.7 C (105.3 F) in the Gilze Rijen municipality near the Belgian border.
— Belgium hit all-time records twice in the day, rising to 40.7 C (105.3 F) in the western town of Beitem. "This is the highest recorded temperature for Belgium in history since the beginning of the measurements in 1833," said Alex Dewalque of the country's Royal Meteorological Institute.
— The northern German town of Lingen set a new national temperature record at least three times Thursday, finally hitting 42.6 C (108.7 F). Those repeated records came after the country had set a national record Wednesday of 40.5 C (104.9 F) in Geilenkirchen near the Belgian border.
— London recorded its hottest day on record for July, with the mercury climbing to 36.9 C (98.4 F) at Heathrow Airport. The previous July record was 36.7 C (98 F) in 2015.
— In Britain overall, temperatures hit 38.1 C (100.6 F) in southern England, which gave the country a record for the highest July temperature ever but did not beat the national record of 38.5 C (101.3 F) set in August 2003. Britain's Met Office said its temperature records go back to 1865.
— The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment issued a "smog alarm" Thursday for areas including the densely populated cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague due to high ozone levels.
And guess what? Europe's heat waves (yes, there have been more than one in Europe already in 2019) have not simply melted away, to be quickly forgotten. Those scorching temperatures also reached the Arctic, which has experienced a warm weather season like no other in history. In fact, last month - June, 2019 - was the warmest month not only in history in the Arctic, but the warmest month ever recorded around the globe. Here are some excerpts from an article (originally written in Russian) by y Atle Staalesen of The Barents Observer which explains in a bit more detail just how unusual this year's summer season in the northern hemisphere has been:
Never before have temperatures this high been registered at this time of year. June 2019 was the warmest ever on record on planet earth.
The previous record from 2016 was smashed. It was the world’s 43rd consecutive June and the 414th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th century average. Nine of the 10 warmest Junes have occurred since 2010, the World Meteorological Organization informs.
The Arctic was no exception. Parts of the far northern region saw temperatures more common to southern beach resorts. In North Siberia, along the coast of the Laptev Sea, heat brought average temperatures for the month up to 8 degrees Celsius above normal, information from Russia’s meteorological institute Roshydromet shows.
That incredible heat wave in the Arctic region was also felt in the United States, in the predominately Republican state of Alaska, to boot. Here, according to Tom DiLiberto, was a description:
[NOAA by Tom Di Liberto] Experiencing a summer heat wave with temperatures in the nineties is probably pretty normal for most people. But now imagine you live in Alaska. Not so normal anymore, is it? Alaska has just come to the end of a period of warmth that re-wrote the record books for multiple cities and communities across the state. And crazy enough, it was one of several jaw dropping climate events taking place across our largest state.
So, how hot did it get? Well, from the same article, here is more of a detailed description with specific temperatures. And please keep in mind, this is Alaska, in areas near or at the Arctic region:
Starting on the Fourth of July and lasting multiple days, temperatures across Alaska were 20 to 30 degrees above average in some locations. On July 4, all-time high temperature records were set in Kenai, Palmer, King Salmon, and Anchorage International Airport. The airport reached an astounding, for Alaska, 90°F, breaking the previous all-time record by 5°F! The average temperature in Anchorage during summer is normally in the mid-sixties. Anchorage, Talkeetna (which saw a July record daily high of 93°F), and King Salmon also observed their warmest week on record.
And the anomalous Arctic heat has not been short-lived. Through July 10, Juneau saw the high temperature reach at least 70°F for a record 17 consecutive days. In Anchorage, the highs have reached 80°F for a record six consecutive days, doubling the previous record. And three of those days broke or tied the previous all-time record! The average high temperature from June 27 through July 8 was nearly 81°F, 5.5°F higher than the previous 12-day record. There’s out of the ordinary, and then there is what has been happening in Alaska.
Oh, and by the way, it is not merely that it is unusually hot and perhaps bothersome, perhaps even dangerous, to locals, simply because of hottern than normal temperatures. The unusual weather has had other impacts, as well. What are they? Again, a bit from the same article:
Where to begin? June was the second warmest on record for Alaska. The hot temperatures were accompanied by dry conditions, creating the perfect set-up for wildfires. Alaskan wildfires have burned well 1.6 million acres in 2019 through July 14, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordinate Center. Nearly 1,000,000 acres have burned just since July 3.
You might think that this would be the major news story, all around the globe. That we would finally collectively get up off our asses and realize that maybe, just maybe, there really is something to what the scientists are trying to warn us about.
Instead, Trump and the American Republican party remain as self-assured as ever that this is all some sort of hoax, apparently invented by the Chinese. And in Brazil, Bolsonaro is giving the green light to destroy yet more of the Amazon rainforest, perhaps to accelerate it even faster. It almost seems like they believe themselves to be exempt from the ramifications of their actions, which all seem to be about short-term profit, even if it proves costly for the entire world, and apparently, no longer in the distant future. The detrimental effects of climate change are upon us already, and this is only the beginning.
But here in the United States, Trump and company assure us there is no cause for alarm. When there are scary headlines, they know exactly how to handle it: censor the news and/or dismiss it as "fake news." Or, perhaps, simply to say that hot temperatures in the summer are not really news, and that the climate has always changed and will always change, and all of the other platitudes that they try to give in order to justify not doing a single thing about it. After all, this is all just part of the great, big Chinese hoax known as global warming, or climate change, right?
Boy, if global warming is a Chinese hoax, like our enlightened and beloved leader has said in the past, then they sure know how to make a convincing one, don't they?
Here is the link to the article I used about the record heat wave in Europe in the past couple of days:
Europe melts under Sahara heat wave, smashes heat records by Angela Charlton and Kirsten Grieshaber of the Associated Press, July 25, 2019:
Link to an article about record heat in and around the Arabian peninsula last month:
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia record highest temperature on earth The heatwave is expected to continue well into the summer season by Sara Al Shurafa, Web Editor, June 12, 2019:
The two links to the articles on record heat in the Arctic, including Alaska:
Arctic summer 2019: record-beating heat, dramatic ice loss and raging wildfires Gloomy pictures of climate change from the top of the world. Read in Russian | Читать по-русски By Atle Staalesen 63753 July 22, 2019:
Trump made an appearance yesterday, but there was something a little bit stranger about it.
We all know that Trump takes himself very, very seriously. And of course, he wants his presidency to be taken very, very seriously, as well.
The only problem is that he acts like a living, breathing parody all of the time. And his administration, which he once described as running like a well-oiled machine, has been instead a pathetic joke. Sure, he denies or ignores this, and tries to convince any and all of how much the administration has accomplished, and how hard he works towards his clearly stated goal to “Make America Great Again.”
But outside of his most loyal supporters, who are well known to be blind about some obvious flaws regarding their beloved leader, everyone else has seen a chaotic administration that often trips on it’s own badly tied shoelaces. There have been so many firings and forced resignations, that the White House has more closely resembled a revolving door place of employment, rather than the usual extremely prestigious place to be employed.
Then, there is his ridiculous, over the top praising of himself, and thanking himself for a job well done. Sorry, but whether or not you like him, that just is not anything that normal people do, even egomaniacs of a slightly milder nature. Again, this plays well to those who are apparently not bright enough to see through this turkey, but for most people, it is a huge embarrassment and national disgrace to have such a ridiculous, farcical character representing this nation, being the voice and the literal face of the "Ugly American."
Some aspects of Trump’s idiocy and, frankly, evil, are not laughing matters. He has been rightly regarded as blatantly racist after refusing to criticize Nazis, and referring to numerous Latin American and African countries as “shithole nations.” He has disgraced the nation repeatedly by denying climate change and pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. He has pulled the country out of numerous other international treaties, and has initiated trade wars against countries around the world, friend and foe alike. He has treated countless people like crap, showing a complete lack of dignity and class, let alone anything resembling a more typical, statesman like posture from an elected world leader. He has betrayed arrogance and ignorance of the law, always assuming that he has far more power than the Constitution actually gives him. He has continually lied to exaggerate his own significance and popularity, including his ridiculous claims of a historically dominant election win in 2016, and the also easily repudiated claims of having a historically large crowd at his inauguration, and his continual, and also easily proven false, claims of having done things that he never did, and claiming that his political enemies are doing horrible things that, in fact, he is far more guilty of than anyone else.
Trump has also had more than a comical few gaffes, though, of course. He has been called incompetent by some other major figures in the world, and been called an idiot by hand-picked members of his own administration. He has misspoken quite frequently, including numerous spelling errors among his countless, ridiculous tweets. He has been laughed at to his face by other world leaders in an address before the United Nations. There have been numerous times when he has been giving a speech, and he has made little to no sense, either because he becomes incoherent, or he says something so blatantly, laughably stupid, that it makes world news headlines, such as his recent claim that the Continental Army had seized airports in the struggle against the British Empire to help the cause of independence, more than one hundred years before the first airplane would even be invented.
Well, there was another laughable moment of the Trump presidency yesterday, when Trump made a speech during the Turning Point USA event two days ago. He gave his typical speech, promoting himself shamelessly, as he always does. But what made this so memorable was the altered Presidential Seal, which was proudly displayed while Trump was on stage.
What was the problem with the seal? Well, there were a few things. Firstly, it had a two-headed eagle, which was a clear shot at Trump’s strange relations with Russia, which apparently helped him get elected in the first place in 2016. Also, the eagle was holding golf clubs in it’s left talon, clearly a shot at Trump’s excessive love of golf, which he of course promised not to have time for if elected to the White House back when he was still merely a candidate. In the other talon, the eagle held a wad of cash. And instead of the Latin “E Pluibus Unum”, the quote above this eagle said: “45 es un titere.” That is Spanish for “45 is a puppet.”
Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up.
In typical Trump fashion, the person responsible for this gaffe was quickly fired. Apparently, whoever was responsible had quickly taken this obviously unofficial seal and used it for the event. Also typically, the president was made to look like the fool that most people understand he really is as a result.
You cannot make this stuff up! What an embarrassment this president is! Let us hope that we learn something from all of this buffonry once this idiot is relegated to the darker corners of past history, and no longer a daily embarrassment and disgrace to the nation.
This is the way to defeat Trump, I think: by laughing at him, regularly. Knock that unbelievably enormous ego down a few pegs. Hit him where it hurts the most (or second most, after the wallet): his pride. Let him have even more difficulty trying to establish himself as a legitimate leader, let alone a great one.
What a joke!
Here is an enlarged picture with the two different Trump seals, side by side. One is the official seal, on the right. The one on the left is, frankly, the de facto seal that truly best represents the presidency during these absurd Trump years:
