News and Current Events - 2017 - 2022

[Jeff Wrangler]

Over lunch today, I was reading my New Yorker, and I came across this sentence:

"Those who don't want to learn do not."

Made me think of the Fake President's base, those people who don't think it matters that the President of the United States lies like a dirty white shag carpet.

[fritzkep]

Yeah, they think his lies are "owning the libs", whatever that's supposed to mean. They don't care what they're doing to themselves, as long as their perceived enemy is hurt at least a little.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Yes, Jeff, "you can lead a horse to water..."
___

Fritz, some commentators often remark that the people they talk to who support Trump are most happy because it drives liberals nuts. (And, of course, they don't consider any conservatives who don't support Trump as conservatives any longer.)

Why do so many of these people blame everyone else for their hurt when it's the party they support that keeps them hurting. (As I've mentioned before, there is a several year old book now about exactly that, titled "What's the Matter with Kansas?" About how the Republican party has gotten their voters to vote for them and against their own interests.

"Owning the libs." I've heard that so frequently I decided to google the phrase and see what came up. Lots. There is a great article, though, that I just read. It's entertaining as well as informative and I recommend a read if one is so inclined. It was published a little over one year ago.

Owning the Libs
Conservatives love it earnestly, liberals love it ironically. How did we get here?
by Eve Peyser
July, 2018 / Rolling Stone Magazine

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/own-the-libs-meaning-703845/

[Lyle (Mooska)]

With all the coverage of Trump not wanting to stop lying about his hurricane tweet and doubling down on stupid, things even pass by the news media and late night talk show hosts and comedians.

In this youtube video that I watched, and have actually seen several times before--the first part is a clip of a reporter asking about Trump's Sharpie doctored hurricane map and then his reply, which is at 0:39 seconds in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK7UH6AEgkI

This time I noticed Trump said something that no one I know of picked up on previously, so I commented on the video:

DID ANYONE NOTICE right at the beginning Trump said, "The original path that most people thought it was going to be taking, as you know, was right through Florida, where on the right would've been Georgia, Alabama, etc."



Trump even altered the geography of the United States so that the hurricane path up the right side of Florida would include Alabama, which even on the map he's holding, is on the left...where the people of the country are currently heading.

There should be a humorous book published called "What If Obama Said That?" and a sequel "What if Obama Did That?"  At the very least Fox would have ridiculed Obama ad infinitum (and still longer) if he'd made what would have been an innocent gaffe, a mis-spoken word, and yet even one of Trump's deteriorating brain statements is over-looked because there's such a blizzard of them that it's only a drop in the ocean...off the north of Texas, I'm guessing.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Now we find out that:

NOAA Staff Warned in Sept. 1 Directive Against Contradicting Trump

In an agency wide directive sent Sept. 1 to National Weather Service personnel, hours after Trump asserted, with no evidence, that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,” the staff was told to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.” They were also told not to “provide any opinion,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The Washington Post. A NOAA meteorologist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said the note, understood internally to be referring to Trump, came after the National Weather Service office in Birmingham contradicted Trump by tweeting Alabama would “NOT see any impacts from the hurricane.”

The Birmingham office only sent the tweet after receiving a flurry of phone calls from concerned residents following Trump’s message. NOAA sent a similar message warning scientists and meteorologists not to speak out on Sept. 4, after Trump showed a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama. “This is the first time I’ve felt pressure from above to not say what truly is the forecast,” the meteorologist said. “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around. One of the things we train on is to dispel inaccurate rumors and ultimately that is what was occurring — ultimately what the Alabama office did is provide a forecast with their tweet, that is what they get paid to do.” An NWS spokesperson said, “NWS leadership sent this guidance to field staff so they (and the entire agency) could maintain operational focus on Dorian and other severe weather hazards without distraction.”

Late Friday afternoon, NOAA officials further angered scientists within and beyond the agency by releasing a statement, attributed to an unnamed agency spokesperson, supporting Trump’s claims on Alabama and chastising the agency’s Birmingham meteorologists for speaking in absolutes. That statement set off a firestorm among scientists, who attacked NOAA officials for bending to Trump’s will.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/noaa-staff-warned/2019/09/07/12a52d1a_story.html

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

[Lyle (Mooska)]

attributed to an unnamed agency spokesperson

Are his initials DJT?

[Lyle (Mooska)]

SOME REACTIONS TO THE ABOVE STORY:

--Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society, said in a statement that “the criticism of the Birmingham forecast office is unwarranted; rather they should have been commended for their quick action based on science in clearly communicating the lack of threat to the citizens of Alabama.”

--One of the strongest reactions to the NOAA statement came from David Titley, an atmospheric scientist who served as the chief operating officer of NOAA under Obama. “Perhaps the darkest day ever for leadership. Don’t know how they will ever look their workforce in the eye again. Moral cowardice,” he tweeted.

--Others who weighed in on social media were also scathing in their response to NOAA’s decision to publicly defend Trump. “I have never been so embarrassed by NOAA. What they did is just disgusting,” Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service’s labor union, wrote on Twitter Friday. “Let me assure you the hard working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent out by NOAA management tonight.”

--A popular television broadcast meteorologist in Birmingham also came to the defense of his city’s National Weather Service team. “The tweet from NWS Birmingham was spot on and accurate,” James Spann tweeted. “If they are coming after them, they might as well come after me. How in the world has it come to this?”

--On Saturday, the National Weather Service leadership seemingly tried to address the outcry in an all-hands letter to its employees to thank them for their hard work during the hurricane. The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, assured employees they were valued. “We want to assure you that we stand behind our entire workforce and the integrity of the forecast process, including the incredible scientific, technical and engineering skill you demonstrated for this event,” the NWS leadership wrote. “We saw first hand that our integrated forecast process works, and we continue to embrace and uphold the essential integrity of the entire forecast process as it was applied by ALL NWS offices to ensure public safety first and foremost.”

[Lyle (Mooska)]

In the meantime:

Laura Ingraham pulls VILE stunt on her Fox News show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLtDwL2kHbk

[killersmom]

The world as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket...............

[Jeff Wrangler]

The world as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket...............

"Going?" I think we got there months ago. ...

[Paul029]

Government scientists blast Trump weather wars after NOAA defends his hurricane forecast

Following a week in which the president refused to back down on his inaccurate claim that Alabama could be hit hard by Dorian, and after first the president’s homeland security adviser and then the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) came to Trump’s defence, civil servants and past leaders of both organizations spent the days that followed denouncing the hurricane’s transformation into a political storm.

It’s not the first time a government agency has bent over to back up the president’s public statements, but it may be the first time the rank and file pushed back so publicly.

The uproar stemmed largely from an unattributed press statement released by NOAA on Friday evening in which it rebuked forecasters at the Birmingham outpost of the National Weather Service for declaring that, contrary to what the president had announced on Twitter, there were no major threats posed to the state at that time.

The latest brushback came on Monday, when the director of the National Weather Service offered a full-throated defence of his agency’s Birmingham outpost, leading a gathering of meteorologists in a standing ovation in support of the NWS staff at Birmingham. In a keynote address at the annual meeting of the National Weather Association he asserted that, contrary to what the Sept. 6 NOAA statement might have indicated, “the integrity of the forecast process was maintained by the Birmingham office and across the entire” weather service.

In a message to NOAA staff members, Inspector General Peggy E. Gustafson wrote that the episode had called “into question the NWS’s processes, scientific independence, and ability to communicate accurate and timely weather warnings and data to the nation in times of national emergency.”

The Inspector General's office has asked NOAA employees to preserve their communications relating to the Friday statement, according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, the acting chief scientist of the NOAA is reportedly investigating whether the unsigned statement was a breach of ethics. “The content of this press release is very concerning as it compromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information necessary to avoid substantial and specific danger to public health and safety," Craig McLean said in a Sunday email.

Trump has repeatedly doubled down on his claim during the controversy, including his presentation of an NOAA map which appeared to have been altered with a marker to show Alabama in Dorian’s path.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/09/scientists-trump-noaa-hurricane-alabama-1487628
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/460624-inspector-general-investigating-noaas-statement-backing-trump-on


But scientists and civil servants aren’t the only ones who are outraged...

[fritzkep]

I'd love to know what the guy holding the map with the purple tie was thinking.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Thinking? Thinking? Someone in this administration is thinking?

[Lyle (Mooska)]

By the way, the New York Times has reported it was Secretary of Commerce Chief Wilbur Ross who threatened firings at NOAA after Trump’s Dorian tweets if they didn't, how shall we say, kiss Trump's ass.

You know, this guy......another one of those humorless trolls in the Trump orbit.

There are calls for him to resign. That won't happen. That would involve some sort of realization that one have integrity.

By the way, for all intents and purposes, NOAA should be under the auspices of the Department of the Interior and not the Department of Commerce. It is in the Commerce Dept. because when Richard Nixon was re-organizing certain cabinet departments, he was becoming less and less happy with his appointed Interior Secretary, Walter Hickel, so he put NOAA in the Commerce Dept. In 2012, Obama tried to put it where it belongs and, of course, the Republicans in Congress wouldn't do even something so simple as that if Obama wanted it.

[Jeff Wrangler]

So John Bolton's out.