Text messages for former President Donald Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to four people briefed on the matter and internal emails.
This discovery of missing records for the senior-most homeland security officials, which has not been previously reported, increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regardingthe time around the Capitol attack.
What a surprise. Ken Cuccinelli, who, as Virginia Attorney General was widely mocked for his crusade against climate scientist Michael Mann and others, is involved in the cover up of the January 6th Insurrection.
Not a coincidence that climate deniers have been leading in a long term slide into right wing disregard for law.
Senators voted 92-2 to approve the Water Resources Development Act, which includes authorization for the project as well as others. The bill has now passed both chambers with authorization for the project, but the House and Senate will have to iron out differences in the two versions before sending it to Biden.
The Ike Dike plan centers on gates that would be built across the mouth of Galveston Bay and lowered ahead of hurricanes to block waves of water from pushing up the Houston Ship Channel and flooding industrial facilities and homes. Supporters urging the project ahead say officials already stalled too long in doing something to protect the vulnerable area.
“Think of all the hurricanes and damage that we’ve heard over the years that have come in on the eastern shore of Galveston and Houston,” said U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, before the vote. “This will help mitigate the impacts of future hurricanes and ensure critical port assets can continue to serve our country’s shipping and supply chain needs.”
U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, added that the bill would allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to “protect communities from climate change-exacerbated events like flooding and drought.”
Storms are expected to get stronger as the globe warms. Still, environmental advocates have raised concerns about how the foundations of the large gates in the water will impact the flow of water between Galveston Bay and the saltier Gulf. Animal species depend on being able to move freely between the two at different stages of their lives.
Of course there will be environmental impacts to this environmentally-driven project.
Endlessly marveling at the recycling of climate denial memes from the past even as we are living the climate-changed future, which is, well, not so great. One of the oddest practitioners is “philosopher” Alex Epstein, aka “The smartest guy at the Frat House Kegger”, the most recent fresh-faced darling of the climate denial media. Today, he discovered the “CO2 feeds plants” meme. If that reminds you of “Brawndo has what plants crave”, well, me too.
What connects the present heatwave in the Pacific NW with flooding in Missouri? The jet stream! Large ridge (northward bulge) in the west pumps heat northward while downstream trough (southward bulge) sets up conditions for thunderstorms in the Midwest: pic.twitter.com/s2H54lUy8L
— Dr. Jennifer Francis (@JFrancisClimate) July 27, 2022
Just three days ago, the River Des Peres, which carries storm water from the city of St. Louis, was “almost bone dry,” the city’s fire chief said, as Missouri experienced what the governor called increasingly dry conditions and the growing threat of serious drought.
Then came record rainfall early Tuesday, drenching parts of St. Louis and other areas of Missouri with up to a foot of rain that quickly transformed interstates and neighborhood streets into roaring rivers that collapsed roofs and forced residents to flee their homes in inflatable boats.
While officials worked to assess the full scope of the damage, Chief Dennis M. Jenkerson of the St. Louis Fire Department said at a news conference on Tuesday that one person who had been pulled from a flooded vehicle had died. There was about 8.5 feet of water in the area, he said.
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The flash flooding was only the latest entry in what seemed to be an unceasing onslaught of extreme weather disasters, with ferocious wildfires, punishing heat waves, crippling droughts and deadly floods in the United States and across the globe.
While a variety of factors contribute to flooding, researchers expect that, as the climate warms, flash floods will increase and get “flashier,” meaning their duration will shorten as their magnitude increases. Severe flash floods can be more dangerous and destructive.
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City officials said they were not sure how many people had been displaced in Tuesday’s storm, but Jim Sieveking, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in St. Louis, described the flash flooding as “catastrophic” and the rainfall as “historic.”
More than nine inches of rain fell in the St. Louis area overnight, the highest 24-hour rainfall total on record there, the National Weather Service said. It surpassed the 7.02 inches that fell in 1915 from the remnants of the Galveston hurricane. The normal amount of rain in St. Louis for July and August combined is 7.31 inches.
Manchin, according to reports, may have accepted a deal brokered by Chuck Schumer – coincidentally he just tested positive for Covid. Is that what it takes?
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday reached a deal with Democratic leaders on legislation that aims to lower health-care costs, combat climate change and reduce the federal deficit, a massive potential breakthrough for President Biden’s long-stalled economic agenda.
The new agreement, brokered between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), opens the door for party lawmakers to try to advance the measure in the coming weeks. It caps off months of fierce debate, delay and acrimony, a level of infighting that some Democrats came to see as detrimental to their political fate ahead of this fall’s elections.
Under the deal, Manchin agreed to support roughly $433 billion in new investments, much of which is focused on climate change and energy production. In total, Democrats say their proposal — now known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — could lower energy costs, increase clean energy production and reduce carbon emissions roughly 40 percent by 2030.
Neither Schumer nor Manchin released the full details of the plan. But Manchin’s support for such spending still marked a dramatic reversal from only two weeks ago, when the moderate lawmaker from coal-heavy West Virginia said he could not support climate-related investments in any package moving through the chamber this month.
Behind the scenes, though, Schumer continued to advocate for climate spending with Manchin, whose objections were rooted in a belief that more federal spending would worsen inflation. The accord came in part because Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Biden agreed to seek and pass new legislation targeting permitting for pipelines and other infrastructure in the coming months, Manchin said.
The deal with Manchin also includes plans to lower healthcare costs for Americans, chiefly by allowing Medicare to begin negotiating the price of select prescription drugs on behalf of seniors. And party lawmakers agreed on a critical provision that essentially would spare about 13 million Americans from seeing insurance premium increases next year, by continuing subsidies for people who buy coverage on exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act.
True to form, right wing media out in force with the “pay no attention to your lying eyes” message.
Above, Laura Ingraham cites a study from the University of Bristol that purportedly downplays current heat events, and points to intense events in past decades.
The authors said that the global public may have paid less attention to some of the earlier heat waves because they took place in developing countries.
“Climate change is one of the greatest global health problems of our time, and we have shown that many heat waves outside of the developed world have gone largely unnoticed,” said Dann Mitchell, Professor in Climate Sciences at the University of Bristol and co-author of the paper. “The country-level burden of heat on mortality can be in the thousands of deaths, and countries which experience temperatures outside their normal range are the most susceptible to these shocks.”
Last year’s heat wave in western North America was the deadliest in Canadian history, the researchers said in the statement, causing hundreds of fatalities and widespread destruction through wildfires.
Thompson added that models suggest that the progressing climate warming is likely to increase the magnitude of heat waves over the next 100 years.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday (May 4).
Fox News host Dan Bongino questioned whether the planet is getting warmer and whether humanity played a role in it, asking: “What kind of a dunce believes that? Come on. Is it [the planet] getting warmer? The answer is maybe. … The question isn’t is it getting warmer; the question is what’s human beings’ role in it.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/19/22]
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton wrote on Twitter: “There is obviously no ‘climate emergency’.” [Twitter, 7/19/22]
Fox host Tucker Carlson devoted a monologue to undermining the existence of climate change, reducing climate predictions to: “It’s gonna be hot and then it’s gonna rain hard.” “No one really believes in global warming,” he continued, “and that’s why all of the liberals in the United States live on the coasts – because they don’t believe it… The entire theory is absurd and they know it. … The whole thing is a joke.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 7/20/22]
On Fox, conservative British political commentator Douglas Murray dismissed the urgency of the climate crisis, saying, “Whenever there is not an absolutely vital recent emergency, we can always fall back on – oh and the climate emergency.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/20/22]
Fox anchor Dana Perino asked: “What has changed with the science that would lead a president to need to declare an emergency?” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/20/22]
Fox host Todd Piro said that climate impacts, particularly the ones affecting the most vulnerable communities, did not meet his criteria for an emergency: “While we all love clean air and clean water — I, in fact, use both … this is not an emergency that we need to focus on today. We got a lot of other problems in the world.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 7/20/22]
Fox host Sean Hannity responded to new actions by the Biden administration to address climate change by dismissing the role of human influence over global warming saying, “I think these might be acts of nature, and God, and way out of the realm of something that human beings can prevent.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/20/22]
Green energy was supposed to be the unreliable one.
The obvious lesson from the state bailout of German utility Uniper agreed UN01 -12.69%▼ on Friday is geopolitical: Russia has turned out to be an untrustworthy partner. But another plotline in this cautionary tale is the shift toward sustainable power sources, which is making fossil fuel markets more brittle and uncertain.
Natural gas was once seen as a safe, reliable fuel that would complement growing supplies of renewable power during the energy transition. Uniper bet the house on Russian sources. When Moscow weaponized energy, the utility was left buying expensive gas on the spot market to replace the shortfall in Russian deliveries. Berlin has stepped in with a total of €15 billion, equivalent to $15.3 billion, in equity and credit lines, prompting wild movements in the stock. It fell almost 8% Monday after a 29% plunge Friday.
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The transition could now be happening faster than expected. Fossil fuel investments remain limited, despite today’s tight supply and high prices. In contrast, clean energy investments are rising as many sustainable options are already cost effective. Two-thirds of electricity is generated in countries where it is cheaper to build new solar or onshore wind than to run existing coal or gas power facilities, according to BloombergNEF.
There are other forces for change too: Extreme weather is testing existing facilities; energy security has re-emerged as a priority; and higher fuel and emission prices increase the risk of stranded assets.
On the eve of a European Union emergency meeting on cutting natural gas consumption, Russia’s state-owned gas monopoly said Monday that it would slash gas deliveries to Germany, as President Vladimir V. Putin once again showed his unpredictability and his power to inflict pain on the bloc for backing Ukraine.
E.U. energy ministers are set to meet Tuesday to weigh a 15 percent reduction in gas use, specifically because of fears that the Kremlin could create artificial shortages threatening heat and power generation over the winter. As if to confirm such worries, Gazprom, the Russian company, on Monday said it would cut by half the flow through its North Sea pipeline to Germany to just 20 percent of capacity — less than a week after resuming limited flows following a maintenance shutdown.
Western officials dismissed the Russian explanation of equipment troubles — coincidentally or not, with German equipment — as nothing but a cover for its manipulation. “Based on our information, there is no technical reason for a reduction in deliveries,” the German Economy Ministry said in a statement.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the E.U. executive branch, said last week, “Putin is trying to push us around this winter,” as she proposed that member countries cut gas use by 15 percent through next spring. The reduction is aimed at building up depleted stores and better positioning themselves for a possible Russian squeeze.
“This is exactly the sort of scenario that President von der Leyen was referring to last week,” her spokesman said on Monday. “This development validates our analysis.”
Below, Cartoonist Bill Mauldin in 1982, as concerns were growing over German dependence on Russian gas.
It would be nice if mass media has finally woken up to the climate emergency. I’m not sure I believe it yet, but certainly at least with the recent string of disasters, a number of outlets seem to have Michael Mann on speed dial, and Mike continues to set the bar as to best communication practice for climate scientists.
Key: “We don’t need magic new technology…what we need is the will..”
A fast-spreading wildfire burning in California on the doorstep of Yosemite National Park has forced thousands to flee their homes.@GeoffRBennett speaks to @MichaelEMann, a professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, about climate change's role. pic.twitter.com/E4JfwkoW1j
