|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:09:06 GMT -8
With great reflexes comes great response ability.
You Don't Need to Go To Maui to Encounter Natural Disaster: Oregon
Rural areas near California's border with Oregon were under evacuation orders Wednesday after gusty winds from a thunderstorm sent a lightning-sparked wildfire racing through national forest lands, authorities said.
The blaze in Siskiyou County, dubbed the Head Fire, was one of at least 20 fires — most of them small— that erupted in the Klamath National Forest as thunderstorms brought lightning and downdrafts that drove the flames through timber and rural lands.
The U.S. Forest Service said in a Facebook post Wednesday night that there were 13 fires within the Smith River Complex in Del Norte County, three of which had been fully contained. The remaining 10 fires are estimated to cover over 1,500 acres, according to the post.
Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.
The California Department of Transportation closed U.S. Route 199 from Pioneer Road near Gasquet to the Oregon state line on Wednesday.
Yellowknife
Air evacuations were to begin Thursday to move residents in the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories out of the path of wildfires that neared the city of 20,000 people.
People in the four areas of Yellowknife at highest risk should leave as soon as possible and residents in other areas have until noon Friday to leave, the Northwest Territories government said. Only those who don’t have the option of leaving by road should register for the flights out, officials added. People who are immunocompromised or have a condition that puts them at higher risk were encouraged to sign up.
Tenerife
An out-of-control wildfire on the Spanish Canary island of Tenerife has burned thousands of acres and affected nearly 8,000 people who are either evacuated or confined, authorities said Thursday.
Regional President Fernando Clavijo said some 250 firefighters and members of the Spanish army are tackling the blaze, located in the north of the island, a key tourist destination. Clavijo said the fire had a nearly 30-kilometer-long (19-mile) perimeter.
“This is probably the most complicated blaze we have had on the Canary Islands, if not ever, then at least in the last 40 years,” Clavijo told reporters. Extreme temperatures in the island, he said, added to “specific meteorological conditions” caused by the fire that turned the area into a virtual oven.
The blaze, which started Tuesday night, is centered on a craggy, mountainous area, which is difficult for emergency brigades to access. Spanish authorities said their main goal is to contain the fire and prevent it from reaching more populated areas. The island’s main town, Santa Cruz, is 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from the flames.
Southern California
The first tropical threat to the U.S. this season isn’t on the East Coast or in the Gulf of Mexico — it’s in Southern California.
Tropical Storm Hilary formed Wednesday morning along Mexico’s western coast and is forecast to bring intense rains to Southern California early next week. If it makes landfall, it would become only the fourth storm of at least tropical storm strength to hit the area.
Conditions are favorable for Hilary to increase in intensity over the next two to three days. The National Hurricane Center forecasts the storm’s peak intensity Saturday morning as a Category 3 hurricane with 120 mph winds. The storm is expected to weaken soon after that due to cooler ocean temperatures and potential land interaction with Mexico’s Baja, just south of California. By Sunday, heavy rainfall is expected to reach Southern California and southwest Arizona.
A recorded storm has never moved into California as a hurricane, and only three storms have made it into California as tropical storms: Nora in 1997, Kathleen in 1976 and Long Beach storm in 1939. That said, there are dozens of instances of tropical rain reaching Southern California and the Southwest from the remnants of tropical storms and hurricanes. Most recently, Hurricane Kay in 2022 killed a person when their house was caught in a debris flow in San Bernardino County.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:14:55 GMT -8
Da Polls! Da Polls!Four-time indictee Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican primary according to just about all polling—national, statewide, or otherwise. But while Trump's drip, drip, drip of criminal indictments shows few signs so far of hurting him with the GOP base, it certainly isn't boosting his general election chances—mostly because he’s further repelling independents. Let's check out several data points from the latest polling. A Quinnipiac University poll, conducted partially after the Georgia indictment dropped, (Aug. 10 - 14), found that a 54% majority of Americans think Trump should be criminally prosecuted, 12 points more than the 42% who say he shouldn't. Crucially, independent voters favor Trump being prosecuted by 20 points, 57% - 37%. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) call the federal charges serious, with a 52% majority saying they are "very serious" while just 21% say they are "not serious at all." Again, crucially, 51% of independents think the federal criminal charges are very serious. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans (68%) think a felony conviction should render someone ineligible to be president. Independents hold that view by a roughly 40-point margin, 67% - 25%. None of that polling is good news for Trump, particularly since independents could doom him in a general election. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats won the independent vote in exit polling by 12 points and trounced Republicans. Four years later, Democrats defied conventional wisdom, won independents by 2 points in a midterm where they controlled the White House, and wildly outperformed expectations. And look at 2020: 94% of Democrats voted for Joe Biden, 94% of Republicans voted for Trump, and independents—who accounted for roughly one-quarter of the electorate—favored Biden by 13 points, 54% - 41%. Chart showing Independents favored Joe Biden in 2020 by 13 points, 54% - 41%.  The latest AP-NORC poll (conducted before the Georgia indictment dropped) also had promising news for Democrats: 64% of Americans say they definitely (53%) or probably (11%) would vote against Trump in the 2024 general election. The same question about supporting Biden found 54% would definitely (43%) or probably (11%) not vote for him. The AP-NORC survey also found that 51% of Americans think Trump's attempt to interfere in Georgia's election was "illegal" while just 15% say he did "nothing wrong." Among Independents, 41% believe Trump's actions were illegal while just 14% say he did nothing wrong.  If 2024 is a Biden-Trump rematch, it will be dominated by negative partisanship and likely decided by independents. Even as Trump continues to consolidate the Republican base, it's more a reflection of the GOP field's weakness than of Trump's strength. When you look under the hood, Trump's support in a general election is softening. Da Panic! Da Panic!Donald Trump may have finally reached a tipping point with voters after his fourth indictment, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Republicans were "quietly panicking" about their 2024 chances. The twice-impeached ex-president was charged with racketeering in Georgia for his role in a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn his election loss in the state, and he faces charges in two federal cases and another case in New York, and the "Morning Joe" host pointed to new poll numbers that show few Americans believe he did nothing wrong. "This is what Republicans have quietly been panicking about," Scarborough said. "You look at these numbers -- 64 percent in the [Associated Press] poll, 64 percent say they're not going to support Trump next year. I actually saw people connected with Mitch McConnell and other Republicans tweeting that out, that this is devastating. That's who the Republicans are moving towards putting up. He has a 33-percent approval rating, a favorable rating in that poll. The majority believe what he did was illegal, and there are so many other polls that came out yesterday that are showing the same thing. Independents breaking dramatically away from Donald Trump. Independents saying he should have been indicted, independents saying overwhelmingly that what he did was illegal."
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:18:24 GMT -8
Gov DeathSentence Exemplifies Flori-Dumb
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is purportedly trying to defeat former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but a super PAC working on his behalf thinks he should take on a strategy of defending the man he wants to beat.
The New York Times has unearthed a leaked strategy memo posted on the website of Axiom Strategies, a company owned by the chief strategist of the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down Super PAC, which recommends that DeSantis "defend Donald Trump" when he gets attacked by other candidates during the upcoming Republican presidential primary debate.
While he's going easy on Trump, whom all polls suggest is the runaway favorite to win the 2024 nomination, the memo recommends that DeSantis take a "sledgehammer" to Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-"woke" businessman who has emerged as DeSantis' top rival for second place.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
Many political observers found this strategy by DeSantis baffling since he is supposed to be running for the actual Republican presidential nomination, not duking it out with a fellow also-ran.
"Real Man of Genius," joked The Bulwark's Charlie Sykes.
Princeton historian Kevin Kruse, meanwhile, used a football analogy to show the absurdity of the DeSantis super PAC plan.
"What will the Patriots' strategy be in their opening game?" he asked rhetorically. "According to Bill Belichick's playbook: 'Let the Eagles Score As Much As Possible.'"
Anti-Trump conservative Christian Vanderbrouk, meanwhile, said that the DeSantis strategy gave Trump absolutely no incentive to bother showing up if the Florida governor would simply do his job for him.
Apparently His SuperPac Didn't Get the Memo
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:19:40 GMT -8
Another Real Man of Genius
MyPillow CEO and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell's latest voter fraud "summit" was plunged into chaos and embarrassment when he went to play a video on election rigging, and got a Jimmy Kimmel monologue instead, reported The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
"During a conversation with The Daily Beast last month in which he laid out his 'My Cousin Vinny' plan to defeat Dominion Voting System’s $1.3-billion defamation lawsuit against him, Lindell previewed this event," reported Justin Baragona, adding that Lindell promised it would "fix the elections." But "at the start of Wednesday’s confab, Lindell told the crowd that he wouldn’t show any new evidence of rampant voter fraud, adding that he’d already shown enough in the past. After taking the stage, a screen blared 'Election Crime Bureau' behind him."
He then told people watching to watch the video behind him "only to quickly grow flustered: It was the wrong video, showing Kimmel delivering a monologue," said the report. Lindell has previously been featured on Kimmel's show, where the comedian has roasted his conspiracy theories and repeated failures to prove the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:22:53 GMT -8
Is This Pie in the Sky?
We could soon be getting energy from solar power harvested in space[/font] The idea of space-based solar power (SBSP) – using satellites to collect energy from the sun and “beam” it to collection points on Earth – has been around since at least the late 1960s. Despite its huge potential, the concept has not gained sufficient traction due to cost and technological hurdles. Can some of these problems now be solved? If so, SBSP could become a vital part of the world’s transition away from fossil fuels to green energy. We already harvest energy from the sun. It’s collected directly through what we generally call solar power. This comprises different technologies such as photovoltaics (PV) and solar-thermal energy. The sun’s energy is also gathered indirectly: wind energy is an example of this, because breezes are generated by uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun. But these green forms of power generation have limitations. They take up lots of space on land and are limited by the availability of light and wind. For example, solar farms don’t collect energy at night and gather less of it in winter and on cloudy days. PV in orbit won’t be limited by the onset of night. A satellite in geostationary orbit (GEO) – a circular orbit around 36,000 km above the Earth – is exposed to the Sun for more than 99% of the time during a whole year. This allows it to produce green energy 24/7. GEO is ideal for when energy needs to be sent from the spacecraft to an energy collector, or ground station, because satellites here are stationary with respect to the Earth. It’s thought that there’s 100 times more solar power available from GEO, than the estimated global power demands of humanity by 2050.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:24:02 GMT -8
No Pardon for You! Next!!!
Georgia’s most powerful Republican politicians rejected pro-Donald Trump calls to change the state constitution to give the governor direct authority to pardon those convicted of crimes.
Far-right Trump supporters have pressed Kemp and other GOP leaders to pursue an overhaul of pardon rules after the former president was charged this week with orchestrating a far-ranging “criminal enterprise” to overturn his defeat in Georgia’s 2020 election.
Such a move would involve a constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly and support from a majority of voters in a referendum. It can’t pass without significant Democratic support, rendering it a political impossibility.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:26:22 GMT -8
No Tunnel For You! Next!!!The world's longest rail tunnel has been shut to passenger services after a derailment in Switzerland caused damage that will take months to repair. Swiss authorities said there was "no indication" when the Gotthard Base Tunnel would reopen. Sixteen wagons derailed and are still stuck inside, a week after the incident on 10 August. Opened in 2016, the Gotthard rail link took 20 years to build and cost more than $12bn (£8.2bn). Thousands of products including wine, lemonade and tinned tomatoes have been strewn across the tracks An investigation is being led by the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (STSB) and the public prosecutor's office of the Canton of Ticino. SBB said that in total, around 8km (4.9 miles) of track and 20,000 concrete sleepers needed to be replaced. The rail operator added that one side of the tunnel was unaffected and should be operating "in principle" for freight usage from 23 August, but passenger trains would not be able to use the unaffected side due to safety reasons. 
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:32:58 GMT -8
Hunter's Lawyer is Doing WHAT???Hunter Biden lawyer steps down so he can be a witness The Hunter Biden case keeps getting weirder and weirder: The lawyer who represented Hunter Biden in plea negotiations to end a five-year Justice Department investigation into tax and gun offenses stepped down early Tuesday, saying that he intends to testify as a witness on behalf of the president’s son. ....This week, Abbe Lowell, a veteran lawyer in Washington who has represented a wide range of clients, including Jared Kushner, filed court documents indicating he now represented Mr. Biden in the case. How often does this happen? I can't remember a case like it. Lawyers step down all the time for various reasons, but stepping down so you can testify for your client? That's pretty unusual. Hunter Biden’s Lawyer Steps Down From Case
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:35:13 GMT -8
No! The Weather Isn't Racist. People Are.
About 20,000 excess deaths – the numbers of observed rather than expected deaths – occurred in the immediate aftermath of 179 named storms and hurricanes which struck the US mainland between 1988 and 2019.
More than two thirds of the total excess death toll – and 17 of the 20 deadliest storms – have occurred during the past 15 years, as ocean-heating fossil-fuel emissions have driven increasingly intense hurricanes.
The highest death counts were in counties with majority Black, brown and Indigenous residents, suggesting historical government neglect plays a role in the loss of life in the aftermath of tropical storms, according to the study published in Science Advances.
Tropical storms and hurricanes wreak billions of dollars of damage every year especially on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Yet this is the first study to quantify the storm-related excess death toll over time nationwide – data which could save lives.
“Cyclones don’t hit the whole country. They tend to hit places which have more Black, Indigenous and Latin people who’ve been historically underserved and overburdened through racism, and it’s these socially vulnerable communities who are bearing the brunt of post-cyclone excess deaths,” said Robbie Parks, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s public health school and lead author.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:43:35 GMT -8
They Got the Right-Wing Nuts Right Judges (Or Is It the Wrong Judges?)
Access to the abortion pill mifepristone must be restricted, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday, ordering a ban on telemedicine prescriptions and shipments of the drug by mail, though the decision will not immediately take effect.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stopped short of ruling that the drug must be pulled off the market altogether, as a lower court had done.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice said that the Biden administration will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, supports abortion rights and last year ordered the federal health agency to expand access to mifepristone.
The ruling will not take effect until the Supreme Court reviews it, which could occur in its upcoming term from October to June.
The three-judge 5th Circuit panel was reviewing an order in April by U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas. While it was a preliminary ruling that applied while the case was pending, Kacsmaryk said he was ultimately likely to make it permanent.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by four anti-abortion groups headed by the recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and four anti-abortion doctors who sued in November.
They contend the FDA used an improper process when it approved mifepristone in 2000 and did not adequately consider the drug's safety when used by minors.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of abortion rights group Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the decision "makes it clear that mifepristone's approval is very much still at risk, as is the FDA's independence."
GenBioPro Inc, which sells a generic version of mifepristone, said in a statement from CEO Evan Masingill: "We remain concerned about extremists and special interests using the courts in an attempt to undermine science and access to evidence-based medication, as well as attempts to undermine the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority."
All three judges on the panel are staunchly conservative, with a history of opposing abortion rights. One of them, Circuit Judge James Ho, said he would have gone further and pulled mifepristone off the market, but the other two judges said the lawsuit came too late to challenge the original 2000 approval.
Instead, the majority of the panel rolled back FDA actions that had made the drug easier to access in recent years.
Those included its decision in 2021 to allow the drug to be prescribed by telemedicine and sent by mail, instead of requiring an in-person doctor visit. The court also reversed the agency's 2016 decision to allow mifepristone to be used to 10 weeks of pregnancy, up from seven.
Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the majority opinion that those steps "were taken without sufficient consideration of the effects those changes would have on patients."
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:45:21 GMT -8
Stone Cold Evidence
An unearthed video featuring longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone could provide key evidence for prosecutors investigating fake elector schemes if it can be proven the former president's allies were aware of the illegality of the plot, according to a legal expert.
On Wednesday, MSNBC played a clip of Stone discussing a plan to install fake electors who could say that Trump had won in states in 2020 where he had lost, on the basis the results were rigged "though fraud."
Stone also described the need to "lobby" Republican figures to support the plan, an allegation Trump is accused of doing in both Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal investigation and Fulton County District County Fani Willis election interference probe in Georgia.
The footage, which was captured by Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen for his documentary A Storm Foretold, was recorded on November 5, 2020, two days before Joe Biden was officially declared the winner of the last election.
The clip could potentially lay doubts on the former president and his inner circle's claims that the fake electoral plot to falsely declare that Trump won in seven states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—was carried out on the basis that they believed that last election was rigged due to voter fraud as Stone was discussing such a scheme even before Trump officially lost to Biden
Michael McAuliffe, Florida attorney and former federal prosecutor, said the plot Stone was recorded discussing "mirrors almost exactly" what actually occurred in the key swing states and explained how it could be used to implicate Stone in the criminal investigations into the schemes involving the former president. Stone has been contacted for comment via email.
"It's important to note that Trump—so far—isn't running away from the efforts to create alternative slates of electors supporting him," McAuliffe told Newsweek.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Aug 17, 2023 9:49:59 GMT -8
Oops!
Following his raid of a local newspaper, Marion, Kansas, Police Chief Gideon Cody said, “I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.” Days later, County Attorney Joel Ensey has withdrawn the search warrant Cody used to storm the offices of the Marion County Record and its publisher’s home.
The county attorney’s statement is … interesting:
On Monday, August 14, 2023, I reviewed in detail the warrant application made Friday, August 11, 2023 to search various locations in Marion County, including the office of the Marion County Record. The affidavits, which I am asking the court to release, established probable cause to believe that an employee of the newspaper may have committed the crime of K.S.A. 21-5839, Unlawful Acts Concerning Computers. Upon further review, however, I have come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized.
Does it sound to anyone else like the county attorney is saying that he had not reviewed in detail the warrant application before the search was conducted? And only went back and looked at it “in detail” after there was a public firestorm over the search of the office of a newspaper, a business that should receive extra protections in the name of freedom of the press? It seems like the careful review should have happened first, and the fact that it didn’t raises more questions about the legal system rather than vindicating it. Ensey is also the same guy who was telling reporters over the weekend that the affidavit was not a public document. Now he’s asking for it to be released.
Additionally, in this case the newspaper’s publisher raised concerns that the paper had been investigating sexual misconduct allegations against the very same chief of police who was on the scene for the search in which computers were seized that had confidential information about the sources making those allegations. And just to make the whole thing that much more appalling, the 98-year-old mother of the publisher died suddenly the day after the search of her home.
|
|
