February 26, 2019: One Chance in a Million that Climate Change Is Not Human-Caused

 

2/26/19: The president is getting settled in Vietnam, in preparation for the summit with Kim Jong-un.

 

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Five-sigma level certainty on climate change.

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Meanwhile, scientists report that evidence for man-made global warming has reached a “gold standard” level of certainty. As Reuters explains, scientists, “said confidence that human activities were raising the heat at the Earth’s surface had reached a ‘five-sigma’ level, a statistical gauge meaning there is only a one-in-a-million chance that the signal would appear if there was no warming.” 

So, you can say, like Trump’s new pick for U.N. ambassador, that there is “good science” on both sides of the issue. You have one chance that human-caused climate change is not really occurring. 

And let’s burn more coal! (See: 2/23-24/19.)

 

Or you have 999,999 chances that human-caused climate change is occurring and talking about cow gas means you’re an ignoramus. See, for example: Sean Hannity’s show. Writing in the journal Nature, a U.S.-led team studying the matter warned, “Humanity cannot afford to ignore such clear signals.” 

Benjamin Santer, lead author of Monday’s study at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said he hoped the findings would win over skeptics and spur action.

 

“The narrative out there that scientists don’t know the cause of climate change is wrong,” he told Reuters. “We do.”

 

It might not be clear what must be done to address the threat, or what sacrifices will be required and by whom. Of this much, scientists are clear. Burning fossil fuels has led to more floods, more droughts, more heat waves, and rising sea levels. 

In this case, experts from the United States, Canada and Scotland studied satellite data in drawing up conclusions. 

For his part, President Trump serves up what precious little he knows in simplistic tweets.

 

In a July 2018 poll, 90 percent of Democrats (going with the 999,999 chances) said they believed there is solid evidence of global climate change. For Republicans (banking on the other chance), it was 50 percent. 

In fact, as recently as 2014, the United States led the world in climate deniers and led by a wide margin.

  

* 

SINCE OUR TOPIC TODAY is lack of understanding, let’s go with what clueless Presidential Assistant Ivanka Trump said during an interview today. 

Asked about her father’s plans for the next two years, she said dad was a genius, whereas Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a nincompoop, and all wrong with her socialist, handouts-for-all plans for struggling Americans. 

(I am paraphrasing.) 

Referring to the congresswoman, who grew up in a middle class neighborhood in New York City, and worked as a bartender to pay bills after college, Ivanka explained, “I don’t think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years. People want to work for what they get.” 

Just as she did as the struggling daughter of a self-proclaimed billionaire – who then worked her way to the top, and landed a White House position by virtue of her DNA matching her father’s.

March 1, 2019: Michael Cohen Testifies for Seven Hours - GOP Lawmakers Miss Every Key Point

 

March 1, 2019: I’m going to assume you did not have seven hours to invest in watching former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testify before the House Oversight Committee. I’m retired. So, I watched till my eyes bugged out. 

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In those glory days, Cohen was lying for Trump.

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It was hard, while watching, not to imagine that Republicans on the panel were suffering from mass hysteria. They were boiling mad to learn that Cohen had lied to Congress in September 2017, even though they controlled both the House and Senate at the time and could have investigated more thoroughly if they had wished. Then again, in those glory days, Cohen was lying for Trump. 

A few observations follow.

 

*

LET’S PICK UP the thread of testimony, allowing for a little literary license, with the first Republican speaking and/or yelling: 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): ADMIT IT, MR. COHEN, YOU ARE A LIAR! DID ANYONE EVER TELL YOU THAT? 

Cohen: Yes. 

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI.): Admit it! You are a COLOSSAL LIAR! 

Cohen: I did lie. 

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-VA): Admit it! You lied to CONGRESS? 

Cohen: I just admitted it. 

At that point, Foxx “yielded back” her time (each representative had five minutes) to Rep. Jordan, who started shouting again. Rep. Jordan looked like he wanted to leap over the dais and throttle the witness. You got the feeling he was the kind of guy who could strangle a puppy without remorse.

 

I decided to pause my TV and look up what Cohen said back on September 19, 2017, testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. That’s when he lied. In those days, Republicans, and the president himself, were thrilled with what Cohen said under oath. 

Given my own proximity to the President of the United States as a candidate, let me also say that I never saw anything - not a hint of anything - that demonstrated his involvement in Russian interference in our election or any form of Russian collusion.

 

I assume we will discuss the rejected proposal to build a Trump property in Moscow that was terminated in January of 2016; which occurred before the Iowa caucus and months before the very first primary. This was solely a real estate deal and nothing more. I was doing my job. I would ask that the two-page statement about the Moscow proposal that I sent to the Committee in August be incorporated into and attached to this transcript.

 

I hit the pause again, to restart the hearings. 

Jordan (still yelling at Cohen): YOU SNAKE! YOU ARE A HUMONGOUS LIAR!!!

 

Me (thinking): Cohen knew in September 2017 about a secret June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort with agents of the Russian Federation. That was the meeting all three “forgot.” Then the truth came out because the “enemies of the people,” in the free press were digging to find it. Then the president lied about the purpose of the meeting. Next, Press Secretary Pinocchio lied and said her boss never lied about that purpose. Later the president’s lawyer admitted, “Okay, he did lie.”

 

My reverie was interrupted by another shouting Republican, Rep. Bob Gibbs of Ohio. He called Cohen a liar. 

 

The President of the United States had to know. 

Me (still thinking): Cohen lied again when he claimed negotiations to build a Trump property in Moscow ended in January 2016. Those lies served to shield Mr. Trump. Surely, the next GOP lawmaker to speak is going to realize…

 

Mark Meadows (R-NC): I hope you rot in jail for 5,000 years, Mr. Cohen. You are a liar. Have we not asked if you are? 

Cohen: I lied. So did the presi….. 

Meadows: SILENCE!! 

Me: Cohen lied about payments to keep a porn star’s story out of the news. Those lies also benefited Trump. Someone on the Republican side is sure to bring this up.

 

Mark Green (R-TN): Liar, liar, pants on fire! Let the American people note: We have a poster to make the point! 

(He gestures toward it.) 

Meadows, Jordan and Massie: inordinately proud of their poster.

 

Me: If Cohen lied to Congress, the President of the United States had to know! The president had a tongue that wagged and Twitter thumbs to tap out correction. Even the greatest idiot ever elected to Congress should be able to figure this out…

 

Thomas Massie (R-KY): I’m not going to ask you again, Mr. Cohen, you fraud, you faker, you falsifier? You LIED, DIDN’T YOU! 

Cohen: Yes. 

Massie (beaming): I knew it!!!!! 

Me (thinking, as always): Maybe I should mute the TV when Jordan talks next and just watch facial expressions…. 

Jordan: ----- 

Me: I never knew veins on a neck could stick out that far. Okay, next is this Democratic guy; I’ll unmute the TV.

 

Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD): I wonder……………if………Mr. Cohen………… 

Me: This guy is phrasing his question so deliberately I don’t think he’s going to get it out before his five minutes are up. 

I take a quick bathroom break. When I return Sarbanes is done but I have no idea what he said. Another Republican is shouting at Cohen. 

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ): You are a THUG, MR. COHEN. Also, has anyone mentioned that you are a cheat, a phony, and a swindler? If President Trump was a liar, a cheat and a racist, as you claim, why did you work for him for TEN YEARS!” 

Gosar gets so fired up, because he thinks he has Cohen trapped, that he blathers on and when he tries to launch into a quotation that he says he loves, his five minutes are up. He’s left mumbling incomprehensibly into his microphone. 

Me (pondering the obvious): If Cohen was a thug and a liar, why was Trump happy to keep him around for a decade? 

 

“Someone I always liked & respected.” 

The hearings continued. I was amused when GOP lawmakers acted as if they couldn’t believe what a sleazebag Cohen had always been – what with cheating on his taxes, which Cohen also admitted he did. Fortunately, I had a vestige of memory and knew Cohen had been the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee until June 2018. He lost his post only after it became clear he might turn on President Trump and, shall we say, start correcting his story. 

I’m sure no one on the GOP side wanted viewers to recall that Elliott Broidy, another RNC deputy finance chair, had employed Cohen to arrange a secret hush money payment. In that case, Broidy had to fork over $1.6 million to shut up another Playboy Bunny – as opposed to the hush money payment Cohen helped arrange to shut up the other Playboy Bunny with whom Trump had had an affair. 

So, yeah, Cohen, what a thug! 

Or was it a “rat.” Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) seemed interested in the fact that the President of the United States had labeled Cohen a “rat” on Twitter, after it became clear he would cooperate with prosecutors. This seemed odd, because until it became clear Cohen was going to turn, Trump had tweeted, calling Cohen a “good man” and someone “I always liked & respected.” 

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) spoke next. Higgins, a bullet-headed gentleman, proved unique in that he was clearly baffled by the simplest facts. At one point, Cohen produced evidence, a signed check for $35,000, indicating President Trump was paying him as late as August 1, 2017, for his role in covering up the story of Stormy Daniels, the porn queen, in violation of campaign finance laws. 

He said he had more evidence he could share. 

Higgins (now chastising the witness): By thunderation, sir, where is this treasure trove of documents of which you speak? Why are you hiding evidence, good sir? Do you think we Republicans on this committee are fools? 

Cohen: These documents are in a storage locker. They were seized last April in a raid on my office and home. They aren’t “hidden.” They were returned to me by investigators after they gathered the evidence they needed. 

Higgins: What kind of monster would hide boxes of evidence, by God and all the 12 Commandments!!! 

Cohen: Um…

 

There was, here and there during testimony, some good news for the president. Cohen said that he himself had never been to Prague. A potentially devastating allegation, included in the Steele dossier, was that Cohen flew there in the summer of 2016 to work out payments to Russian hackers so they could keep up their good work interfering in the election to help Trump win. 

A Democratic member, whose name I missed, asked Mr. Cohen about other stories he might have helped “capture and kill” to protect Trump. Was there an elevator tape that might show him striking Mrs. Trump, as had been rumored? Cohen was adamant in stating that he did not believe the president would ever strike his wife. He also said that he did not believe a tape of hookers peeing on a Moscow hotel bed for the viewing pleasure of Donald J. Trump existed. 

 

Trump must have wanted him to lie. 

That was it for the good news. Cohen pointed out that his false testimony in September 2017 had been vetted by defense lawyers for Mr. Trump. He said he discussed his testimony with the president himself. 

Me: So if that testimony was false… 

Meadows: Why are we listening to THIS DECEIVER, THIS DISSEMBLER? 

Me: Trump must have wanted him to lie…

 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): “When was the last time you had contact with Mr. Trump in regard to possible testimony before Congress or cooperation with investigators?” 

Cohen: I think…about June 2018. I cannot comment further because the matter is part of an ongoing investigation in the Southern District of New York. I am in constant contact with prosecutors. 

Rep. Jordan gets five minutes “yielded back” by a GOP colleague and spends them calling Cohen a liar. 

Eleanor Norton (D-DC): Mr. Cohen, are there other crimes involving Mr. Trump which this panel should know about? 

Cohen: Yes. But I cannot comment further because investigations are…

 

Rep. Meadows: Mr. Cohen, I would like you to look up here. Behind me, we have Lynn Patton, an actual African American woman! She has worked for Donald J. Trump for many years and now holds a government post. She says Trump is not a racist. How dare you say Mr. Trump is a racist now that we can show he has a black friend?” 

(Ms. Patton stands there, not opening her mouth, looking like a hostage who might want to try blinking in Morse code.) 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI): The fact that my colleague would use an African American as a prop is, in itself, a racist ploy. 

Meadows (looking like he might be suffering a stroke): How dare you call me a racist!!! 

Tlaib: Mr. Cohen, do you believe the president and others have been trying to intimidate you, to convince you not to correct the record before Congress? 

Cohen: I do. I worry. I never walk with my wife and children in public anymore. I send them ahead. I’m afraid one of Trump’s 62 million Twitter followers might attack the people I love.

 

Finally, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has her turn to question the witness, and here, and in the Democratic questions above, we quote actual questioning and testimony verbatim. The young Democrat from New York goes straight to the point. She has learned, she says, that Trump often overvalued assets, golf courses and the like, if he wanted to win favorable loan treatment from large money-laundering, international banks. To avoid paying property taxes he would then order lawyers and accountants to undervalue the same properties. Was this an accurate assessment, she asked? 

Cohen: Yes. 

Ocasio-Cortez: Would anyone else know about such practices? 

Cohen: Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari.

 

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez: A recent article in The New York Times notes that taxpayers spent $127 million to help build Trump Links, a Trump property in the Bronx, my district. But the deal allowed Mr. Trump to keep almost every dollar the golf club took in. Is it possible he undervalued Trump Links for tax purposes? On financial disclosure forms the president claimed that Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida was worth $50 million. Yet he reported to local tax authorities that the property was worth no more than $5 million [emphasis added]. 

Cohen: That is identical to what Mr. Trump did with Briarcliff Manor, another private golf club. 

Ocasio-Cortez: Would it help for the committee to obtain federal and state tax returns from the president and his companies to address that discrepancy? 

Cohen: I believe so. 

That was when I decided to click off the TV and go pour myself a stiff drink. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: The parents of Otto Warmbier react today to President Trump’s recent comments regarding Kim Jong-un. Donald says his pal Kim Jong-un must not have known about the brutal abuse of the young American prisoner. Otto’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are having no part of Trump’s sucking up to a murderous dictator. “We have been respectful during this summit process,” they explain in a statement. “Now we must speak out. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.” 

You almost expect Trump to lash out at Otto’s parents, but for once someone keeps the president in check, and no Twitter attack results.

March 31, 2021: Rep. Matt Gaetz - Sounding Creepy

 

3/31/21: It’s a tough day for Trumpophiles. One of the heroes of their crowd, Rep. Matt Gaetz, is under investigation for carrying a minor across state lines for the purposes of sex. 

 

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“There’s no age that you can’t be sexy.” 

Retweet by Matt Gaetz

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He may of course be innocent. 

We of the liberal persuasion do not chant, “Lock him up,” until there has been a trial, if necessary, and a guilty verdict if merited. 

But if ever anyone looked like the type who might resort to enticing a minor across state lines for sex, Matt is the man. 

A number of old tweets from Gaetz have not aged like Dom Perignon. My least favorite comes from August 2019. Someone named Bebe Rexha tweeted: “There’s no age that you can’t be sexy.” 

Gaetz retweeted, saying, “I say we change Florida’s welcome signs to this.”

 

This one isn’t a whole lot better, although you could see where it might be completely innocuous.

 

Anyway, no chanting, “Lock Matt up!” until all the facts are known and his case, if any, adjudicated. That’s the American way, even if Gaetz’s favorite former president and his favorite former president’s fans never could figure that out.

 

I am reminded, however, of his previous comments regarding Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose ideas he called “dangerous for America.” In a pervy kind of way, he also said she was “attractive,” and said he’d swipe right – a la Tinder – to do a bill with her. There was also his comment, in regard to her tweet on helping communities ravaged by the War on Drugs. 

Dear, weird Rep. Gaetz thought an appropriate response was to reply, “You had me at hello.” 

Finally, as an official older person, I learned in checking up on Gaetz that – at least according to a hip young writer –the fire emoji, is “the universal symbol for ‘u + me = yes, tonight?’” 

Eight days after her dad got thumped in his bid for a second term, Matt slapped that emoji on a picture posted by Tiffany Trump. He tossed in a heart emoji, a face emoji with hearts for eyes, and a thumbs up emoji. 

I’m old and too lazy to copy and paste the proper emojis to my text. So here’s a link to the story. 

And here’s the picture:

 

* 

SPEAKING OF creepy: The Supreme Court of New York has rejected Tiffany’s dad’s appeal to terminate a defamation lawsuit brought by Summer Zervos. Dad stalled it out while president. Now his claim that defending himself in a trial would take away from his time to defend America, work on a healthcare plan, which we never saw, and go golfing all the time, no longer pertains. 

Zervos is one of nearly two-dozen women to accuse then-Citizen Trump of sexual abuse and harassment of varying kinds. Zervos is the only one then-Candidate-for-president Trump singled out by name and called a liar. 

Chances are good that Citizen-again Trump will have to provide a deposition. If you’ve ever read his comical responses to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s questions, where he was allowed to have a lawyer help him write them, and filled them out like a take-home test in elementary school, you know he’s going to have almost zero chance of avoiding a stinging civil case loss. 

Plus, a bunch of other accusers are likely to be deposed by Zervos’ lawyers to support her claims.

 

* 

FINALLY, in other court-related news, two police officers injured in the Capitol Hill riot have sued Donald. 

Their story is worth a read. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Tucker Carlson invited Rep. Gaetz to come on his show and explain his side of the story. Gaetz, who could be innocent, flubbed his chance so badly even Carlson admitted afterward, that was “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.” 

Gaetz did claim the Department of Justice and F.B.I. have tape of an individual trying to extort money from his family, by lodging a bogus sexual misconduct claim against him. So, he could be…yes…innocent. 

And then there’s that guy he allegedly brought to the White House in 2019, to meet that other guy who ran the place, who was definitely the porn-star-banging type. The guy he brought, Joel Greenberg, was indicted last summer on a range of charges…including sex-trafficking a child.

 

Other highlights of Gaetz’s career include bringing a Holocaust denier to hear the 2018 State of the Union address. In 2017 he was the only member of the House or Senate “to vote against a law that gave the federal government more power and money to fight human trafficking.” 

Still. Still. There’s no smoking gun! Gaetz could be innocent! There’s just that general air of creepiness.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (3/21/22): We try to be fair. So, we should point out that Zervos eventually dropped her suit against the former president. Not sure why – possibly, her lawyers felt Trump’s comments might be covered by free speech.