A Recovered Blog Not Previously Posted

 

The Political World According to Bill

(A rant about former President Trump written just after the 1^st impeachment was announced)

 

Anyone who watches the national news regularly surely must have come to the same conclusions as I have, and, by all accounts, most of our foreign counterparts have; those who see the effects of our political machinations on a global scale and are impartial observers of American politics. Their common refrain is ‘Americans seem to have lost their minds.’

The reason for this view is that our nation now regularly does things that are counter-productive for ourselves and for the rest of the world. On the aggregate, it is safe to say that only the deranged can do something that harms both themselves and others and then brag about it. This is the work of a self-described ‘stable genius’ according to one high ranking leader, one who seemed deranged even as he announced his intellectual capability to an unbelieving world.

Foreigners imply that we began losing our national competency in 2016 when the Republican Party decided to allow a neophyte to join the ranks of a dozen or more political wanna-be’s who sought the Presidency of the United States; they allowed a man who was completely unfit for any political office, one who had no qualifications even to serve as dogcatcher, to become a candidate for the highest office in the land. His candidacy was a joke as he relied on juvenile name-calling to denigrate his competitors. He appealed to only the lowest ranks of the Party, promising no new ideas beyond a disjointed effort to dismantle the accomplishments of his predecessor. His campaign was based on hate, lies and sentences with only small words uttered loudly with feigned indignation. It was both sad and shameful to watch red-hatted supporters completely succumb to his brand of skullduggery.

His Democratic competitor, a woman, won the hearts of the electorate by a popular vote majority of several million votes. Yet the Republican candidate limped into the Presidency courtesy of the outdated electoral college that no one understands, a bag of dirty tricks (including the illegal help of Russia), suppression of votes, Republican Gerrymandering, and a dearth of uninformed voters who must have been fans of the reality TV show that featured an unskilled actor who adopted a make-up ritual of orange face paint and a yellow comb over pasted to a shiny skull.

Number 45 began his Administration by hiring crooks to become the leaders of the massive bureaucracy in the US government. When the dust settled, the government had become a look-alike assemblage of old white men with beautiful secretaries who echoed only those things they believed that the Trumpeter wanted to hear. His special brand of incompetence came into clear focus quickly as he named one after another Secretaries of State, all of whom whispered about his stupidity.

POTUS quickly aroused tensions around the world by insulting our most cherished allies and then after promising a nuclear war, suddenly changed course to treat despots like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as old friends or, in the case of Kim, as new lovers. Other missteps by Comrade Trump were more serious. On a whim, our leader of the free world suddenly decided to abandon our allies by removing our troops from a field of conflict, giving up our bases to the Russians and leaving allies open to a massacre, that in fact occurred.

While he was stumbling in Europe and the Middle East, he secretly longed to spread his ideology across the American continent and follow up on an idiotic promise that had been made, that of building a wall at our southern border that would rival the Great Wall of China. When it became painfully obvious that such an idea was an absurdity, he reverted to a 2^nd goal: that of preventing emigration at the Mexican-US border. For this, he hired an especial set of officers, those who were totally lacking in humanity and had no sensitivity to human suffering and grief. These were men and women who were capable of stealing children from their parents to discourage emigration. The stolen children were first jailed, then hidden, then lost track of, before public pressure demanded that it be stopped. It was announced that that policy has ended, but recent revelations indicate that it has not; that children are continuing to be kidnapped by US border officials in the ongoing racist effort that is a secret government program.

And now we have Corona Virus, the most potent killer the world has ever imagined with Mr. Unqualified to lead us from our misery. We were doomed from the outset as our Bunker Boy removed the federal office that had been developed specifically to deal with pandemics. And then the worst happened; # 45 decided that the battle against the corona virus provided him with a wonderful opportunity to showcase his skills as a war time leader. He decided to personally lead the US effort against the dreaded disease. One of his first objectives was to secretly invalidate Obama Care by having his lawyers prove to the Supreme Court that helping ordinary Americans with their health care was bad governing. When that didn’t work, he initiated Plan B; attacking the world’s infectious disease specialists and ending our support and association with the World Health Organization. How’s that for helping combat the pandemic?

The results of having Mr. Know-It-All leading efforts to combat the Corona Virus were predictable – the United States now has the worst record in the world in battling the virus as we have more dead, more sickness and more suffering than any other nation. No one disputes these facts yet Mr. Big Lie reports that we are the envy of the world in dealing with the virus. Sadly, there are some who continue to believe his lies even as they see the suffering of their fellow citizens on the nightly news.

I suspect that knowledgeable foreigners who repeat the notion of Americans losing their minds do so with the knowledge that we have had at least two opportunities to remove the cancer at the top of our bureaucracy. The first was when his cabinet officers began to understand his incompetence and whispered to one another about implementing the rules of the 25^th amendment to remove an unfit President. I understand they included Vice President Pence in their number, and he agreed to the take-over of the top job if there was unanimous support for the idea. The group wanted iron-clad evidence and a plot was hatched for the 2^nd in command at the Dept. of Justice to wear a wire at a meeting to obtain the evidence wanted. Somehow the plot was divulged to a news reporter before the plotters were ready and the first opportunity to eliminate the orange-faced mobster was lost.

The second opportunity followed the impeachment of the President and the resultant trial in the Senate where we learned that we had elected the only Republican politicians in the world who were born without backbones. These poor souls meekly followed the demands of the Republican party leader and voted not guilty at a trial that was held without witnesses, thus depriving our long-suffering citizenry of the chance to make a change at the top.

The remedy to all this madness is the one thing that we can do and have done over the 200 plus years of our experiment in democracy: Throw the bums out at the next election. Only this time we have an additional special concern, what if he decides not to go as he has hinted several times? I hope that someone in government has a plan for that eventuality and has the handcuffs ready to lead him toward the nearest jail for his numerous attempts at robbing the American people and damaging the world order. It is the least we can do to show that our nation can rouse itself in returning to sanity.

 

 

The Situation at the Poles

 

The Situation at the Earth’s Poles

[Time Magazine recently sent one of their correspondents, Aryn Baker, to both the Artic and Antarctic to report on recent climate changes at the two poles. Her findings were reported in the May 22/May30, 2022 issue of Time and are summarized here]

“After visiting both ends of the earth, I realized how much trouble we’re in.” Aryn Baker

The indigenous people who live in the Artic depend upon the ocean for their sustenance. In the words of a 96-year-old resident, “The ocean is our grocery store.” Their grocery is increasingly being depleted by the inexorable changes wrought on both poles by increasing temperatures. The food chain for many of the world’s critters begins in the coldest areas of our oceans where tiny animals known as krill cling to the bottoms of sea ice flows. Many other sea creatures depend on sea ice for their food including seals, walrus and polar bears. The tiny krill become food for other animals. Those who feed exclusively on krill are beginning to show the effects of fewer krill as ice cover disappears because of increasing ambient temperatures at the poles.

The loveable Chinstrap Penguins in the Artic are one of those who depend upon krill. These natives to the coldest areas are disappearing rapidly as the krill population declines. Recent studies of several colonies show some have declined as much as 50% of their former numbers while others have lost 77% of their former size. The cause - less ice is formed later in the fall and it melts sooner in the spring. Another of the native animals that is disappearing is the bearded seal that natives know as ugruk. This critter has been used for food and a variety of other purposes for as long as anyone can remember by Inkupiak people who live on and about the village of Unalakleet. The seals are now so rare that hunters can no longer count on them as a food source.

Overall, the Artic is increasing in temperature four times faster than the rest of the globe. Both poles are similarly affected by increasing temperatures. At Argentina’s weather station on Esperanza Island in Antarctica a new, high temperature record was noted in the middle of winter – on Feb 6, 2020 the mercury climbed to a nearly unbelievable 65 F near the middle of winter. At the other end of the world, the temperature reached 100 F on June 20, 2020. The sea ice didn’t last long at either pole at these winter temperatures.

The concern over increasing temperatures is not just about the poles and the food supply at those regions. Science has proven that the poles have an overarching effect on weather around the globe. In fact, the poles regulate our climate, our weather patterns and our maritime food supply. These effects occur since sea ice reflects sunlight, minimizing temperature changes from the incident sunlight. When the ice melts, the sunshine is absorbed by the dark ocean raising its temperature, thus altering ocean currents, weakening the jet stream and changing wind patterns. These changes are the birthplace for greater droughts, storms and flooding in areas around the globe, the very things we are experiencing in our western states and other areas around the world. The extraordinary costs of these changes and the uprooting of people’s lives has grown to nearly incalculable heights.

Despite the continuing insults to the polar regions that have occurred to date, the worst may be yet to come. Much of the polar regions are girded by a subsurface soil layer known as permafrost. This soil contains thick layers of nature’s detritus accumulated over thousands of years. As it melts, the frozen material has the potential to release the accumulated carbonaceous material in the form of carbon dioxide. This further insult to the atmosphere can become another major new source for air pollution that will add to the problem of climate change.

The science is clear; to prevent further disruption to our way of life from climate change, we must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2010 levels. As the 2020’s wear on, it appears increasingly unlikely that we will be able to meet this goal given our current lackluster progress.

“Our polar regions protect life as we know it only as much as we protect them.” Aryn Baker

 

So, what is next for us? The Artic is nearing a tipping point. Overall, 2020 marked the hottest year on record at the two poles heralding the smallest amount of sea ice cover ever seen in the two regions. The ice melt raises the level of ocean waters thus threatening low-lying regions around the world. Possibly even worse is the effect on permafrost. The permafrost layer at the poles is a carbon bomb waiting to go off. As increasing temperatures melt the subsurface layer beneath the ice, the carbon rich soil becomes ready to give up a mix of gases that are rich in carbon dioxide, further exacerbating the climate problem.

Life as we know it will change unless significant improvements in preventing greenhouse gas emissions into our fragile atmosphere are made soon. 2030 is date that many regard as the tipping point for the globe. Unless we can make major changes in greenhouse gas emissions before then, increasing frequency of storm, fire and flooding disasters are expected at extraordinary costs and further loss of life.

I thought you should know.