Enjoy the New Year
We all hope that the world will regain it's sanity and the fucking Orangutan will be dumped, them sent to prison. All the fucking shits in the world drop dead..
Well we can hope...
The first new post of the year will be Monday, will be taking a few days off.
December 31, 2019
Called Out All the Bullshit
Fearless, Fed-Up Students Who Called Out All the Bullshit
March For Our Lives and the school climate strikes defined a new generation of witty, furious activism.
JAMES WEST
Furious, funny, and fed up. True heroes of the decade: the students who spoke up, walked out, and shook us from paralysis and moral complacency.
I’m talking, of course, about the recent youth movements—March For Our Lives and the global climate strike school walkouts. Each was a unique response to a monumental crisis, but they are linked by organizational prowess and by an unfiltered “We Call BS” ethos, the latter best embodied by student leader Emma González, who secured her place as an icon of this long American decade.
Enough is enough, they said, and their howls for action on guns and climate policy now define a new generation of activist: They ok-boomered the old guard with digital-native nuance that deflected even the most savage attack, making critics look precious and obsessed. When Fox News star and pious white supremacist Laura Ingraham smeared Parkland massacre survivor David Hogg for being rejected by some universities (he’d already been ultra-vilified by the right as a Nazi crisis actor), he arranged an advertiser boycott. TripAdvisor, Hulu, Johnson & Johnson, and Nestlé, among others, fled. Ingraham apologized. We love a David Hogg vs. Goliath yarn.
“Whenever somebody called you a ‘dick’, or whatever, just say, ‘I love you’,” Hogg told journalist Carlos Maza at Vox for this video on how Hogg beats back bullies. “We don’t need anybody else being super mean to each other, like Laura was to me, or anybody else. Point out the few that are just absolutely ridiculous. And after that, people will start fighting for you.”
And fight they did. In March last year, I went to DC as young Americans jammed the capital (and every other city) in a display of angry optimism, executed with the precision production values of a Beyoncé tour. “It’s all about making civic engagement cool,” 17-year-old March For Our Lives co-founder Jaclyn Corin told me during a roundtable discussion hosted by Mother Jones around the same time. “They see people that are the same age as them getting up there and actually doing amazing things around the country and say, ‘Oh, these kids are my age and are getting out there and doing all this amazing work, so why can’t I?’”
We caught up with David Hogg in the midst of the “Road to Change” bus tour, six months after the shooting. The movement had found an immediate target: registering and turning out voters for the 2018 midterms. “We’ve spoken in more congressional districts than almost any presidential campaign has in the same time span,” Hogg said—25 states in 60 days. “We know what America’s thinking right now.”
March For Our Lives and the school climate strikes defined a new generation of witty, furious activism.
JAMES WEST
Furious, funny, and fed up. True heroes of the decade: the students who spoke up, walked out, and shook us from paralysis and moral complacency.
I’m talking, of course, about the recent youth movements—March For Our Lives and the global climate strike school walkouts. Each was a unique response to a monumental crisis, but they are linked by organizational prowess and by an unfiltered “We Call BS” ethos, the latter best embodied by student leader Emma González, who secured her place as an icon of this long American decade.
Enough is enough, they said, and their howls for action on guns and climate policy now define a new generation of activist: They ok-boomered the old guard with digital-native nuance that deflected even the most savage attack, making critics look precious and obsessed. When Fox News star and pious white supremacist Laura Ingraham smeared Parkland massacre survivor David Hogg for being rejected by some universities (he’d already been ultra-vilified by the right as a Nazi crisis actor), he arranged an advertiser boycott. TripAdvisor, Hulu, Johnson & Johnson, and Nestlé, among others, fled. Ingraham apologized. We love a David Hogg vs. Goliath yarn.
“Whenever somebody called you a ‘dick’, or whatever, just say, ‘I love you’,” Hogg told journalist Carlos Maza at Vox for this video on how Hogg beats back bullies. “We don’t need anybody else being super mean to each other, like Laura was to me, or anybody else. Point out the few that are just absolutely ridiculous. And after that, people will start fighting for you.”
And fight they did. In March last year, I went to DC as young Americans jammed the capital (and every other city) in a display of angry optimism, executed with the precision production values of a Beyoncé tour. “It’s all about making civic engagement cool,” 17-year-old March For Our Lives co-founder Jaclyn Corin told me during a roundtable discussion hosted by Mother Jones around the same time. “They see people that are the same age as them getting up there and actually doing amazing things around the country and say, ‘Oh, these kids are my age and are getting out there and doing all this amazing work, so why can’t I?’”
We caught up with David Hogg in the midst of the “Road to Change” bus tour, six months after the shooting. The movement had found an immediate target: registering and turning out voters for the 2018 midterms. “We’ve spoken in more congressional districts than almost any presidential campaign has in the same time span,” Hogg said—25 states in 60 days. “We know what America’s thinking right now.”
"Billion Dollar” Climate Disasters
There Were More Than 100 “Billion Dollar” Climate Disasters in the Past Decade
And 6 other disturbing numbers that show just how bad the climate change crisis has gotten.
SARAH RUIZ-GROSSMAN and LYDIA O'CONNOR
In the words of 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg: “People are already suffering and dying from the climate and ecological emergency, and it will continue to get worse.”
In the past decade, the climate crisis, and its fatal consequences, deepened further, as temperatures rose around the globe, ice caps melted, sea levels rose and record-breaking hurricanes, floods and wildfires devastated communities across the US.
The United Nations released report after report detailing the heightening emergency of human-caused global warming and warning world leaders to take dramatic and swift action to avert catastrophe.
Here are seven figures that show just how dire the climate situation grew this decade alone.
The past five years were the hottest ever recorded on the planet
Globally, the past five years, from 2014 through 2018, all had record-breaking temperatures, with reports from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing the hottest year ever as 2016, followed by 2017, 2015, 2018 and 2014.
These recent peak temperatures followed decades of warming around the globe. Higher temperatures are linked to a range of dangerous natural disasters—including extreme floods, hurricanes and deadly wildfires—and deaths. Since 2016 alone, at least 50 percent of coral reefs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—the largest coral reef in the world—have died amid the rising heat. Humans aren’t far behind: A study published in January found that more than a quarter-million people may die each year as a result of climate change in the decades to come.
While reports for 2019 won’t be released until early next year, this year has already experienced several record-breaking months. This June, July and September were the hottest June, July and September ever recorded on Earth.
Four of the five largest wildfires in California history happened this decade
Wildfires worsened in California in recent years, with hotter temperatures and dry conditions often combining with high winds to create a longer fire season with more destructive blazes. Scientists linked the worsening fires across the Western US to climate change.
Among the five largest wildfires in the fire-prone state, four happened this decade alone. The largest ever in the state, the Mendocino complex fire of July 2018, blazed through nearly half a million acres.
What’s more, seven of the 10 most destructive fires in California occurred since 2015; and the deadliest ever fire in state history took place in 2018: the Camp fire, which killed 85 people and burned down nearly the entire town of Paradise.
“I’ve been in the fire service for over 30 years, and I’m horrified at what I’ve seen,” Cal Fire officer Jerry Fernandez told HuffPost in October 2017 amid the Tubbs fire in Napa and Sonoma, which killed 22 people and turned block after block of houses in Santa Rosa to ash.
Six Category 5 hurricanes tore through the Atlantic region in the past four years
The scientific community—including experts at the NOAA—has long warned that man-made climate change influences extreme weather events. Scientists found that climate change has likely increased the intensity of hurricanes, particularly in the North Atlantic region, albeit not the frequency of the storms.
When Hurricane Dorian slammed into the northern Bahamas earlier this year as a Category 5 storm, it decimated entire communities and flooded 70 percent of Grand Bahama, an island of some 50,000 people. It also became the sixth Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic region in the past four years—along with record-breaking Hurricane Lorenzo in September; Hurricane Michael in 2018; Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which killed thousands in Puerto Rico; and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, one of the strongest, longest-lasting hurricanes of its kind on record.
And Category 5 hurricanes are not the only ones that wreak havoc on communities. Hurricane Harvey, which landed in 2017 as a Category 4, broke the continental US rainfall record, dumping more than 50 inches of rain in parts of Texas and killing more than 80 people. Scientists said climate change made the storm worse, with rain associated with the lethal storm at least 15 percent stronger due to global warming.
The previous decade of the 2000s also saw a high number of Category 5 storms, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005. However, this decade had the most consecutive years of Category 5 hurricanes, with the catastrophic-sized storms hitting each of the past four years.
Arctic sea ice cover dropped about 13 percent this decade
Ice sheets are melting and glaciers are shrinking in “unprecedented” ways, according to a 2019 report from the UN. A widespread shrinking of the cryosphere—or the frozen parts of the planet—has left large stretches of land uncovered by ice for the first time in millennia. And sea level rise is accelerating dramatically as all that ice melts.
Since 1979, when satellite observations first began, Arctic sea ice cover, measured every September, has dropped by about 13 percent each decade, per the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Late this summer, the Arctic reached its second-lowest sea-ice coverage on record, per the NOAA.
In August, officials in Iceland held a funeral for a glacier that melted away amid rising temperatures.
Researchers with the IPCC warned that coastal communities were the most vulnerable to many “climate-related hazards, including tropical cyclones, extreme sea levels and flooding, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss and permafrost thaw.” Around 680 million people currently live in areas that would be impacted by such hazards, which the UN noted often have the least capacity to deal with climate change.
Floods with a 0.1 percent chance of happening in any given year became a frequent occurrence
With more heat in the atmosphere came more rainfall, and with more rainfall came more floods. But these weren’t just any floods; they were torrents so enormous that they were classified as having only a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in any given year—forcing the scientific community to reconsider what they call these increasingly frequent events.
Flooding associated with Hurricane Harvey was one of those “1,000 year” events, meaning there was only a 0.1 percent chance of such a deluge striking in 2017 based on the century of flood data researchers have to work off of.
The likelihood of such flooding was hard for people to grasp given how many other “1,000 year” floods had already occurred in recent years. Back in September 2016, when five of those floods had already hit the US that year, experts pondered whether rapidly rising global temperatures had rendered the current flood-prediction model useless.
“We may, in other words, already have shifted so far into a new climate regime that probabilities have been turned on their head,” Scott Weaver, a senior climate scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote at the time.
Studies at the start of the decade more or less predicted the phenomenon. In 2012, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University found that by around the year 2100, what we called “100 year” floods—ones that have a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year—would need to be reclassified as 1-in-20-year or even 1-in-3-year events.
There were more than 100 “billion dollar” climate disasters, double from the decade before
A HuffPost analysis of federal data on the costliest droughts, floods, storms, cyclones and fires in the US this decade offered a grim look at how expensive it became for the country to continue with business as usual.
In the last 10 years, the US experienced at least 115 climate and weather disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each, according to data from the NOAA that runs through Oct. 8 of this year.
That’s nearly double the number of such events that took place in the US during the previous decade, when the NOAA tallied 59 events that caused at least $1 billion in damage. There were 52 such events in the 1990s and 28 in the 1980s. That’s as far back as the NOAA’s data—which is adjusted for inflation—goes.
Of the five most expensive billion-dollar events in the NOAA’s records, four took place this decade. The most expensive disaster of the 2010s was Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which caused an estimated $130 billion in damages. It’s followed by Hurricane Maria at $93 billion, Hurricane Sandy at $73 billion and Hurricane Irma at $52 billion.
The devastating California wildfires in 2017 and 2018 were also the two most expensive disasters of their kind from the last four decades. The 2018 fires—which include the one that burned Paradise, California, to the ground—totaled $24 billion in damage, while the 2017 fires that scorched the state’s wine country caused $19 billion worth of destruction.
Meanwhile, we pumped a record 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2019
Global carbon emissions quadrupled since 1960. After emissions steadied from about 2014 to 2016, they then rose again in 2017 and have been climbing since.
Carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018 and then again this year—when scientists estimated that countries worldwide spewed more than 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air. The rise was spurred in part by increased output in China and India, per a study from researchers for the annual Global Carbon Budget.
This bleak news came amid a series of reports released this year urging a dramatic cutback of carbon emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
We’re ending this decade on track to warm a catastrophic 3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century
Like pretty much every other climate report from this decade, an emissions assessment the UN released at the end of 2019 came with a dire warning. According to a study of the so-called emissions gap—a marker of the difference between the amount of planet-heating gases countries have agreed to cut and where the current projections are headed—global temperatures are on pace to rise as much as 3.2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by the end of the century. That’s more than double what scientists project is enough warming to cause irreversible damage to the planet.
To change that fate, the next 10 years will be crucial. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last fall that humanity has just under a decade to get climate change under control. But as grim as the report is, it reaffirms that making such sweeping changes—however unprecedented such a drastic adjustment may be—is still possible.
And 6 other disturbing numbers that show just how bad the climate change crisis has gotten.
SARAH RUIZ-GROSSMAN and LYDIA O'CONNOR
In the words of 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg: “People are already suffering and dying from the climate and ecological emergency, and it will continue to get worse.”
In the past decade, the climate crisis, and its fatal consequences, deepened further, as temperatures rose around the globe, ice caps melted, sea levels rose and record-breaking hurricanes, floods and wildfires devastated communities across the US.
The United Nations released report after report detailing the heightening emergency of human-caused global warming and warning world leaders to take dramatic and swift action to avert catastrophe.
Here are seven figures that show just how dire the climate situation grew this decade alone.
The past five years were the hottest ever recorded on the planet
Globally, the past five years, from 2014 through 2018, all had record-breaking temperatures, with reports from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing the hottest year ever as 2016, followed by 2017, 2015, 2018 and 2014.
These recent peak temperatures followed decades of warming around the globe. Higher temperatures are linked to a range of dangerous natural disasters—including extreme floods, hurricanes and deadly wildfires—and deaths. Since 2016 alone, at least 50 percent of coral reefs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—the largest coral reef in the world—have died amid the rising heat. Humans aren’t far behind: A study published in January found that more than a quarter-million people may die each year as a result of climate change in the decades to come.
While reports for 2019 won’t be released until early next year, this year has already experienced several record-breaking months. This June, July and September were the hottest June, July and September ever recorded on Earth.
Four of the five largest wildfires in California history happened this decade
Wildfires worsened in California in recent years, with hotter temperatures and dry conditions often combining with high winds to create a longer fire season with more destructive blazes. Scientists linked the worsening fires across the Western US to climate change.
Among the five largest wildfires in the fire-prone state, four happened this decade alone. The largest ever in the state, the Mendocino complex fire of July 2018, blazed through nearly half a million acres.
What’s more, seven of the 10 most destructive fires in California occurred since 2015; and the deadliest ever fire in state history took place in 2018: the Camp fire, which killed 85 people and burned down nearly the entire town of Paradise.
“I’ve been in the fire service for over 30 years, and I’m horrified at what I’ve seen,” Cal Fire officer Jerry Fernandez told HuffPost in October 2017 amid the Tubbs fire in Napa and Sonoma, which killed 22 people and turned block after block of houses in Santa Rosa to ash.
Six Category 5 hurricanes tore through the Atlantic region in the past four years
The scientific community—including experts at the NOAA—has long warned that man-made climate change influences extreme weather events. Scientists found that climate change has likely increased the intensity of hurricanes, particularly in the North Atlantic region, albeit not the frequency of the storms.
When Hurricane Dorian slammed into the northern Bahamas earlier this year as a Category 5 storm, it decimated entire communities and flooded 70 percent of Grand Bahama, an island of some 50,000 people. It also became the sixth Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic region in the past four years—along with record-breaking Hurricane Lorenzo in September; Hurricane Michael in 2018; Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which killed thousands in Puerto Rico; and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, one of the strongest, longest-lasting hurricanes of its kind on record.
And Category 5 hurricanes are not the only ones that wreak havoc on communities. Hurricane Harvey, which landed in 2017 as a Category 4, broke the continental US rainfall record, dumping more than 50 inches of rain in parts of Texas and killing more than 80 people. Scientists said climate change made the storm worse, with rain associated with the lethal storm at least 15 percent stronger due to global warming.
The previous decade of the 2000s also saw a high number of Category 5 storms, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005. However, this decade had the most consecutive years of Category 5 hurricanes, with the catastrophic-sized storms hitting each of the past four years.
Arctic sea ice cover dropped about 13 percent this decade
Ice sheets are melting and glaciers are shrinking in “unprecedented” ways, according to a 2019 report from the UN. A widespread shrinking of the cryosphere—or the frozen parts of the planet—has left large stretches of land uncovered by ice for the first time in millennia. And sea level rise is accelerating dramatically as all that ice melts.
Since 1979, when satellite observations first began, Arctic sea ice cover, measured every September, has dropped by about 13 percent each decade, per the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Late this summer, the Arctic reached its second-lowest sea-ice coverage on record, per the NOAA.
In August, officials in Iceland held a funeral for a glacier that melted away amid rising temperatures.
Researchers with the IPCC warned that coastal communities were the most vulnerable to many “climate-related hazards, including tropical cyclones, extreme sea levels and flooding, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss and permafrost thaw.” Around 680 million people currently live in areas that would be impacted by such hazards, which the UN noted often have the least capacity to deal with climate change.
Floods with a 0.1 percent chance of happening in any given year became a frequent occurrence
With more heat in the atmosphere came more rainfall, and with more rainfall came more floods. But these weren’t just any floods; they were torrents so enormous that they were classified as having only a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in any given year—forcing the scientific community to reconsider what they call these increasingly frequent events.
Flooding associated with Hurricane Harvey was one of those “1,000 year” events, meaning there was only a 0.1 percent chance of such a deluge striking in 2017 based on the century of flood data researchers have to work off of.
The likelihood of such flooding was hard for people to grasp given how many other “1,000 year” floods had already occurred in recent years. Back in September 2016, when five of those floods had already hit the US that year, experts pondered whether rapidly rising global temperatures had rendered the current flood-prediction model useless.
“We may, in other words, already have shifted so far into a new climate regime that probabilities have been turned on their head,” Scott Weaver, a senior climate scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote at the time.
Studies at the start of the decade more or less predicted the phenomenon. In 2012, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University found that by around the year 2100, what we called “100 year” floods—ones that have a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year—would need to be reclassified as 1-in-20-year or even 1-in-3-year events.
There were more than 100 “billion dollar” climate disasters, double from the decade before
A HuffPost analysis of federal data on the costliest droughts, floods, storms, cyclones and fires in the US this decade offered a grim look at how expensive it became for the country to continue with business as usual.
In the last 10 years, the US experienced at least 115 climate and weather disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each, according to data from the NOAA that runs through Oct. 8 of this year.
That’s nearly double the number of such events that took place in the US during the previous decade, when the NOAA tallied 59 events that caused at least $1 billion in damage. There were 52 such events in the 1990s and 28 in the 1980s. That’s as far back as the NOAA’s data—which is adjusted for inflation—goes.
Of the five most expensive billion-dollar events in the NOAA’s records, four took place this decade. The most expensive disaster of the 2010s was Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which caused an estimated $130 billion in damages. It’s followed by Hurricane Maria at $93 billion, Hurricane Sandy at $73 billion and Hurricane Irma at $52 billion.
The devastating California wildfires in 2017 and 2018 were also the two most expensive disasters of their kind from the last four decades. The 2018 fires—which include the one that burned Paradise, California, to the ground—totaled $24 billion in damage, while the 2017 fires that scorched the state’s wine country caused $19 billion worth of destruction.
Meanwhile, we pumped a record 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2019
Global carbon emissions quadrupled since 1960. After emissions steadied from about 2014 to 2016, they then rose again in 2017 and have been climbing since.
Carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018 and then again this year—when scientists estimated that countries worldwide spewed more than 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air. The rise was spurred in part by increased output in China and India, per a study from researchers for the annual Global Carbon Budget.
This bleak news came amid a series of reports released this year urging a dramatic cutback of carbon emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
We’re ending this decade on track to warm a catastrophic 3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century
Like pretty much every other climate report from this decade, an emissions assessment the UN released at the end of 2019 came with a dire warning. According to a study of the so-called emissions gap—a marker of the difference between the amount of planet-heating gases countries have agreed to cut and where the current projections are headed—global temperatures are on pace to rise as much as 3.2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by the end of the century. That’s more than double what scientists project is enough warming to cause irreversible damage to the planet.
To change that fate, the next 10 years will be crucial. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last fall that humanity has just under a decade to get climate change under control. But as grim as the report is, it reaffirms that making such sweeping changes—however unprecedented such a drastic adjustment may be—is still possible.
It is the end of the year (not the decade) so here is the first post from back in 2011, the beginning....
Not the first day of the Universe, but it is for this blog...
 |
| At transition between two worlds here on Earth. |
Dark political year
A grim end to a dark political year
Analysis by Stephen Collinson
A rancorous year is raging to a close in apt fashion, with a prolonged burst of presidential fury, partisan dislocation in Washington and amid warnings that America's very soul is under threat.
On the last day of 2019, President Donald Trump is fuming about acquiring the historic stain of becoming the third president to be impeached after stretching the boundaries of his office one too many times.
He's whipping up a storm of misinformation that challenged the very notion of fact itself, creating an alternative narrative for Republicans, who are trapped by his mastery of the party's grassroots base, to adopt.
Democrats had hoped to use the House majority handed to them by midterm election voters last year to spotlight the issues their presidential field is encountering on the trail -- access to health care, high college costs and rebalancing an economy tilted further toward the rich and corporations by Trump's mammoth tax cut.
But Trump's pressure on Ukraine for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden -- a possible 2020 foe -- forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bow to her liberal base and drop her antipathy to impeachment. She will learn next year whether the process, which has deepened divides between two halves of a nation with no common political language, will backfire among swing-state voters.
GOP lawmakers ignored a strong body of evidence of presidential malfeasance in Ukraine, leading to questions over whether the insurmountable partisan divisions in Washington render the ultimate constitutional tool designed to constrain an unchained president is now obsolete.
And once again the specter of foreign interference is threatening to cloud a US presidential election, raising the possibility that whatever happens next year, the legitimacy of Trump's second term -- or the new mandate of the 46th President -- will be compromised in the minds of millions of American voters.
The economy -- one of the few bright spots
There were a few bright spots in 2019. The economy extended its unlikely winning streak -- over a decade now since the Great Recession -- as the jobless rate hovered at a half-century low and even wages began to rise. Its success is one reason why Trump is a viable candidate heading into his reelection year -- but also underscores that, absent his divisive, scorched earth brand of politics, his approval rating would surely be far higher than the mid- to low-40s.
And a rare joint agreement by Trump and Democrats on a refashioned US-Canada-Mexico trade deal and a year-end budget accord showed that, despite the fury on Capitol Hill, some things can get done when both sides have a political incentive to do so. Trump is touting a phase one trade deal with China but experts suggest its limited progress is hardly worth the cost of the tariff war. And with tensions with Iran racing back to the boil, American foreign policy seems set for a testing period ahead.
Back in the US, in the last days of the year, the political mood darkened further. Democrats and Republicans seemed to track further apart on the arrangements for the Senate impeachment trial expected to start within days. Trump's GOP allies in the Senate are refusing to reopen investigations and to call witnesses -- despite new evidence of the administration's machinations over Ukraine that have emerged in recent days. Pelosi is yet to transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate as she awaits the shape of the possible trial -- in a sign of how partisanship is infecting the operating system of American democracy.
A knife attack on a rabbi's home in New York may not turn out to be politically motivated. But it underscored the brittle national mood as key power brokers suggested that the latest assault on a Jewish target on US soil was an emblem of something badly wrong. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, warned of intolerance, anger and hatred exploding into an "American cancer in the body politic."
Trump's daughter, Ivanka, blamed local New York leaders -- many of whom are political foes of her father -- for doing too little to stem a rise on anti-Semitic attacks. "Attacks on Jewish New Yorkers were reported almost every single day this past week. The increasing frequency of anti-Semitic violence in New York (and around the country) receives far too little local governmental action and national press attention," she tweeted.
Her tweet sparked a volley of responses from critics who believe the President's wild, sometimes racially tinged rhetoric has contributed to a rise in right-wing extremism.
And just when it seemed like a leaden holiday season could not get much worse, it did.
Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a beloved civil rights hero, announced on Sunday the foreboding diagnosis of his stage IV pancreatic cancer. The 79-year-old is one of the last living links to an era when aspirational politics overcame entrenched intolerance and discrimination -- an equation that often seemed reversed in the rough political year of 2019.
A holiday seasons that encapsulated a nation's divides
Political exchanges that crackled over the holiday season exemplified a sense of national estrangement.
America's President spent the season of peace and goodwill tweeting abuse at great US cities that are home to his top political opponents. He retweeted conspiracy theorists and tweets that might have outed a whistleblower whose revelations prompted an impeachment case against him for abuse of power.
Most recent presidents went off the grid at Christmas. They were more likely to be accused of responding too slowly to events than refusing to cede the spotlight.
But Trump, fulminating over impeachment, quickly disregarded his own advice spelled out in his holiday message: "Together we must strive to foster a culture of deeper understanding and respect -- traits that exemplify the teachings of Christ."
Trump's invective offers a window into how he wields power -- by creating a charged and chaotic political atmosphere in which he seems more comfortable than other leaders.
He long ago dismissed the notion that the presidency helps set the moral tone of the nation. He's used the platform from the start to advance his own personal and political grievances.
Biden, who is no stranger to tough campaign trail rhetoric, accused Trump of going much further than the norm by subverting America's moral fabric.
"Today's politics are too toxic, mean and divisive," Biden wrote in a Sunday editorial carried by Religion News Service.
"People are too quick to demonize and dehumanize, too ready to dismiss all that we have in common as Americans," the former vice president wrote.
"(Trump) doesn't understand America. He doesn't know what it means to live for or believe in something bigger than himself," Biden wrote.
Trump's defenders often tell those shocked by the President's antics not to overreact to tweets that might question someone not used to the vitriol to question the commander-in-chief's state of mind.
Yet Trump has 68 million Twitter followers. His tweets are official presidential statements. And so they are bound to shape the nation's political discourse.
The President knows his unrestrained behavior is key to his political appeal. His supporters love conduct that tramples every code of the political elites whom they abhor and prove that the outsider that won election in 2016 has not gone native. Media squeamishness about the rhetoric only solidifies his appeal to his flock.
There is risk for Trump, however, in his culture-war tactics. Recent polling and analysis suggest he's lost support among white female voters - to such an extent that his prospects in the swing states he needs to win reelection could be compromised.
Still, there's no sign that key Republicans who understand the forces shaping the party's base are ready to distance themselves from the President -- a sure sign of his political strength.
Asked about Trump retweeting an item that contained the unsubstantiated name of a person named by some right-wing outlets as a whistleblower at the center of the Ukraine scandal, Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy demurred.
"I have enough trouble paddling my own canoe. But I do agree with Mrs. Trump that -- and I have suggested before to the White House -- that if the President would tweet a little bit less, it wouldn't cause brain damage," Kennedy told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" on Sunday.
Trump also used his holiday season tweets to spread misleading news accounts about the Ukraine episode from conservative media outlets and commentators. He personally attacked Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer -- the top two Democrats involved in his impeachment and the Senate trial to come.
His incessant attacks are a bleak omen. If 2019 was a poisoned political year, 2020 will very likely be much worse.
Analysis by Stephen Collinson
A rancorous year is raging to a close in apt fashion, with a prolonged burst of presidential fury, partisan dislocation in Washington and amid warnings that America's very soul is under threat.
On the last day of 2019, President Donald Trump is fuming about acquiring the historic stain of becoming the third president to be impeached after stretching the boundaries of his office one too many times.
He's whipping up a storm of misinformation that challenged the very notion of fact itself, creating an alternative narrative for Republicans, who are trapped by his mastery of the party's grassroots base, to adopt.
Democrats had hoped to use the House majority handed to them by midterm election voters last year to spotlight the issues their presidential field is encountering on the trail -- access to health care, high college costs and rebalancing an economy tilted further toward the rich and corporations by Trump's mammoth tax cut.
But Trump's pressure on Ukraine for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden -- a possible 2020 foe -- forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bow to her liberal base and drop her antipathy to impeachment. She will learn next year whether the process, which has deepened divides between two halves of a nation with no common political language, will backfire among swing-state voters.
GOP lawmakers ignored a strong body of evidence of presidential malfeasance in Ukraine, leading to questions over whether the insurmountable partisan divisions in Washington render the ultimate constitutional tool designed to constrain an unchained president is now obsolete.
And once again the specter of foreign interference is threatening to cloud a US presidential election, raising the possibility that whatever happens next year, the legitimacy of Trump's second term -- or the new mandate of the 46th President -- will be compromised in the minds of millions of American voters.
The economy -- one of the few bright spots
There were a few bright spots in 2019. The economy extended its unlikely winning streak -- over a decade now since the Great Recession -- as the jobless rate hovered at a half-century low and even wages began to rise. Its success is one reason why Trump is a viable candidate heading into his reelection year -- but also underscores that, absent his divisive, scorched earth brand of politics, his approval rating would surely be far higher than the mid- to low-40s.
And a rare joint agreement by Trump and Democrats on a refashioned US-Canada-Mexico trade deal and a year-end budget accord showed that, despite the fury on Capitol Hill, some things can get done when both sides have a political incentive to do so. Trump is touting a phase one trade deal with China but experts suggest its limited progress is hardly worth the cost of the tariff war. And with tensions with Iran racing back to the boil, American foreign policy seems set for a testing period ahead.
Back in the US, in the last days of the year, the political mood darkened further. Democrats and Republicans seemed to track further apart on the arrangements for the Senate impeachment trial expected to start within days. Trump's GOP allies in the Senate are refusing to reopen investigations and to call witnesses -- despite new evidence of the administration's machinations over Ukraine that have emerged in recent days. Pelosi is yet to transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate as she awaits the shape of the possible trial -- in a sign of how partisanship is infecting the operating system of American democracy.
A knife attack on a rabbi's home in New York may not turn out to be politically motivated. But it underscored the brittle national mood as key power brokers suggested that the latest assault on a Jewish target on US soil was an emblem of something badly wrong. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, warned of intolerance, anger and hatred exploding into an "American cancer in the body politic."
Trump's daughter, Ivanka, blamed local New York leaders -- many of whom are political foes of her father -- for doing too little to stem a rise on anti-Semitic attacks. "Attacks on Jewish New Yorkers were reported almost every single day this past week. The increasing frequency of anti-Semitic violence in New York (and around the country) receives far too little local governmental action and national press attention," she tweeted.
Her tweet sparked a volley of responses from critics who believe the President's wild, sometimes racially tinged rhetoric has contributed to a rise in right-wing extremism.
And just when it seemed like a leaden holiday season could not get much worse, it did.
Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a beloved civil rights hero, announced on Sunday the foreboding diagnosis of his stage IV pancreatic cancer. The 79-year-old is one of the last living links to an era when aspirational politics overcame entrenched intolerance and discrimination -- an equation that often seemed reversed in the rough political year of 2019.
A holiday seasons that encapsulated a nation's divides
Political exchanges that crackled over the holiday season exemplified a sense of national estrangement.
America's President spent the season of peace and goodwill tweeting abuse at great US cities that are home to his top political opponents. He retweeted conspiracy theorists and tweets that might have outed a whistleblower whose revelations prompted an impeachment case against him for abuse of power.
Most recent presidents went off the grid at Christmas. They were more likely to be accused of responding too slowly to events than refusing to cede the spotlight.
But Trump, fulminating over impeachment, quickly disregarded his own advice spelled out in his holiday message: "Together we must strive to foster a culture of deeper understanding and respect -- traits that exemplify the teachings of Christ."
Trump's invective offers a window into how he wields power -- by creating a charged and chaotic political atmosphere in which he seems more comfortable than other leaders.
He long ago dismissed the notion that the presidency helps set the moral tone of the nation. He's used the platform from the start to advance his own personal and political grievances.
Biden, who is no stranger to tough campaign trail rhetoric, accused Trump of going much further than the norm by subverting America's moral fabric.
"Today's politics are too toxic, mean and divisive," Biden wrote in a Sunday editorial carried by Religion News Service.
"People are too quick to demonize and dehumanize, too ready to dismiss all that we have in common as Americans," the former vice president wrote.
"(Trump) doesn't understand America. He doesn't know what it means to live for or believe in something bigger than himself," Biden wrote.
Trump's defenders often tell those shocked by the President's antics not to overreact to tweets that might question someone not used to the vitriol to question the commander-in-chief's state of mind.
Yet Trump has 68 million Twitter followers. His tweets are official presidential statements. And so they are bound to shape the nation's political discourse.
The President knows his unrestrained behavior is key to his political appeal. His supporters love conduct that tramples every code of the political elites whom they abhor and prove that the outsider that won election in 2016 has not gone native. Media squeamishness about the rhetoric only solidifies his appeal to his flock.
There is risk for Trump, however, in his culture-war tactics. Recent polling and analysis suggest he's lost support among white female voters - to such an extent that his prospects in the swing states he needs to win reelection could be compromised.
Still, there's no sign that key Republicans who understand the forces shaping the party's base are ready to distance themselves from the President -- a sure sign of his political strength.
Asked about Trump retweeting an item that contained the unsubstantiated name of a person named by some right-wing outlets as a whistleblower at the center of the Ukraine scandal, Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy demurred.
"I have enough trouble paddling my own canoe. But I do agree with Mrs. Trump that -- and I have suggested before to the White House -- that if the President would tweet a little bit less, it wouldn't cause brain damage," Kennedy told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" on Sunday.
Trump also used his holiday season tweets to spread misleading news accounts about the Ukraine episode from conservative media outlets and commentators. He personally attacked Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer -- the top two Democrats involved in his impeachment and the Senate trial to come.
His incessant attacks are a bleak omen. If 2019 was a poisoned political year, 2020 will very likely be much worse.
1 of every 5 days.....
Trump spent 1 of every 5 days in 2019 at a golf club
By Betsy Klein
How has President Donald Trump spent his Christmas vacation? Working, he says, but also on the golf course.
As of Monday, Trump has visited the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach for all 11 days of his Florida vacation so far, despite severe rain nearly every day.
According to CNN's tally, he has spent at least 251 days at a Trump golf club and 332 days at a Trump property as President.
This year alone, he's spent at least 85 days at a golf club, despite a late start due to the government shutdown. The golf excursions have included the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia; his Bedminister, New Jersey, golf club; Trump National Doral outside Miami; and Trump International Doonbeg in Ireland.
Trump joins a long list of presidents with a love of the game, though he is the only one who publicly -- and frequently -- criticized his predecessor, former President Barack Obama. Trump went after Obama's golf habits repeatedly on Twitter and on the campaign trail.
"I mean he's played more golf than most people on the PGA Tour, this guy," Trump said during a 2016 campaign stop in New Hampshire. "What is it, over 300 rounds? Hey, look, it's good. Golf is fine. But always play with leaders of countries and people that can help us! Don't play with your friends all the time."
Obama played 333 rounds of golf during his eight years in office, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps detailed statistics of presidencies.
Though Trump criticized Obama for the price of his golf outings, the President's trips to Trump properties also raises questions about the federal government spending money at his namesake properties.
During a Christmas Eve call with US service members, Trump was asked about his holiday plans.
"I'm at a place called Mar-a-Lago, we call it the southern White House," he said. "I really pretty much work. That's what I like to do."
But Trump has long been known to mix business with pleasure at his golf properties both before and after assuming office.
As the US military carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria late Sunday morning, Trump was at his club. It's unclear whether he was playing golf at the time, however, CNN spotted him on the 14th hole approximately two hours after the strikes.
And while the President has repeatedly railed against impeachment on Twitter during his vacation, it's likely the topic has come up on the links, as well. His golf partners have included former Rep. Trey Gowdy on Sunday, Georgia Sen. David Perdue on Saturday, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham on Monday. Trump was seen in the club's dining room with radio host Rush Limbaugh, his son Eric, and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney the previous weekend. He's also been joined by some less political partners, including golf pro Gene Sauers.
As for Trump's second week of vacation, it's likely the pattern will continue -- highs in the 70s and low 80s in the forecast.
By Betsy Klein
How has President Donald Trump spent his Christmas vacation? Working, he says, but also on the golf course.
As of Monday, Trump has visited the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach for all 11 days of his Florida vacation so far, despite severe rain nearly every day.
According to CNN's tally, he has spent at least 251 days at a Trump golf club and 332 days at a Trump property as President.
This year alone, he's spent at least 85 days at a golf club, despite a late start due to the government shutdown. The golf excursions have included the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia; his Bedminister, New Jersey, golf club; Trump National Doral outside Miami; and Trump International Doonbeg in Ireland.
Trump joins a long list of presidents with a love of the game, though he is the only one who publicly -- and frequently -- criticized his predecessor, former President Barack Obama. Trump went after Obama's golf habits repeatedly on Twitter and on the campaign trail.
"I mean he's played more golf than most people on the PGA Tour, this guy," Trump said during a 2016 campaign stop in New Hampshire. "What is it, over 300 rounds? Hey, look, it's good. Golf is fine. But always play with leaders of countries and people that can help us! Don't play with your friends all the time."
Obama played 333 rounds of golf during his eight years in office, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps detailed statistics of presidencies.
Though Trump criticized Obama for the price of his golf outings, the President's trips to Trump properties also raises questions about the federal government spending money at his namesake properties.
During a Christmas Eve call with US service members, Trump was asked about his holiday plans.
"I'm at a place called Mar-a-Lago, we call it the southern White House," he said. "I really pretty much work. That's what I like to do."
But Trump has long been known to mix business with pleasure at his golf properties both before and after assuming office.
As the US military carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria late Sunday morning, Trump was at his club. It's unclear whether he was playing golf at the time, however, CNN spotted him on the 14th hole approximately two hours after the strikes.
And while the President has repeatedly railed against impeachment on Twitter during his vacation, it's likely the topic has come up on the links, as well. His golf partners have included former Rep. Trey Gowdy on Sunday, Georgia Sen. David Perdue on Saturday, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham on Monday. Trump was seen in the club's dining room with radio host Rush Limbaugh, his son Eric, and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney the previous weekend. He's also been joined by some less political partners, including golf pro Gene Sauers.
As for Trump's second week of vacation, it's likely the pattern will continue -- highs in the 70s and low 80s in the forecast.
Beach towns ablaze
Australian beach towns ablaze as wildfire crisis intensifies
Jason Scott
Australia's wildfire crisis intensified Tuesday as coastal towns across the southeast caught fire, forcing thousands of stranded tourists and locals to seek refuge on beaches.
Thick black smoke billowing from infernos in Victoria and New South Wales states turned the morning sky pitch black or choked the coastline in a haunting red haze. Two people were killed as a fire ripped through the small community of Cobargo, taking the death toll since the devastating fire season began several weeks ago to 12. Five others are missing.
There's no end in sight to the emergency as strong winds fan flames, wreaking havoc in popular tourist spots such as Batemans Bay during the peak summer holiday season.
"It's been a truly awful day," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters, adding that the fire season was the worst in the state's history. "We've got literally hundreds, thousands of people up and down the coast, taking refuge on the beaches, in clubhouses, surf clubs."
The crisis gripping the world's driest inhabited continent has impacted all six states amid a prolonged drought. Almost 4 million hectares of forest and bushland have been destroyed in New South Wales alone. Fires are so intense they are generating their own weather systems, with dry thunderstorms sparking new blazes. A firefighter was killed on Monday when what authorities described as a "fire tornado" flipped the 10-ton truck he was in.
The emergency has placed scrutiny on Australia's capacity to combat blazes that have spread over massive areas, pushing fire services largely manned by volunteers to their limits. It's also put international focus on the conservative government's climate change policies, with environmentalists saying Prime Minister Scott Morrison's support of the nation's massive coal-export industry has worsened conditions.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor defended the government's record of tackling climate change in an op-ed published in The Australian on Tuesday, saying emissions had fallen in the past year and Australia was meeting its carbon-reduction targets.
"Shrill cries that we should be 'ashamed to be Australian' do not ring true with the quiet Australians," Taylor said. "That won't stop some commentators telling us that we should feel guilty about our performance on emissions reduction. They are wrong."
While fires have been burning for weeks, conditions worsened at the weekend as a heatwave pushed temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius in the southeast. Authorities on Sunday urged some 30,000 holiday-makers in Victoria's East Gippsland region to evacuate. Thousands did, but those who remained found themselves trapped as the blazes intermittently shut the main highway.
Australia's government will deploy helicopters, aircraft and navy ships to assist efforts in the East Gippsland region, Linda Reynolds, the nation's defense minister, tweeted Tuesday.
About 4,000 people were forced to gather on the foreshore or take to boats in the town of Mallacoota overnight and through much of the day as an out-of-control inferno bore down on the remote community.
Country Fire Authority chief officer Steve Warrington said a cheer went up from the jetty where many were sheltering as authorities battling spotfires in the town announced the wind had changed and the main threat had passed.
Across the state border in New South Wales, buildings in Batemans Bay caught fire as thousands sheltered on the beach and ash rained down on the picturesque beachside town of Merimbula.
"It's going to be an a very long, difficult and dangerous night still ahead,' Fitzsimmons said. "It's going to be another difficult day again tomorrow."
While cities such as Canberra and Parramatta canceled fireworks celebrations to bring in the new year, Sydney's harborside festivities that draw in tens of thousands of tourists will go ahead.
The city council rejected a petition calling for the display to be scrapped and the money to be donated to bushfire and drought relief projects, saying the event is watched by millions of people worldwide and generates A$130 million ($91 million) for the local economy.
As thousands of people gathered along the foreshore of Sydney harbor to get a prime viewing spot of the midnight fireworks, smoke drifting in from bushfires caused a polluting haze.
Protesters who claim the Morrison government's pro-coal mining policies are exacerbating the crisis aren't about to give the prime minister a rest on New Year's Eve and are planning to block roads around his official Sydney residence.
Jason Scott
Australia's wildfire crisis intensified Tuesday as coastal towns across the southeast caught fire, forcing thousands of stranded tourists and locals to seek refuge on beaches.
Thick black smoke billowing from infernos in Victoria and New South Wales states turned the morning sky pitch black or choked the coastline in a haunting red haze. Two people were killed as a fire ripped through the small community of Cobargo, taking the death toll since the devastating fire season began several weeks ago to 12. Five others are missing.
There's no end in sight to the emergency as strong winds fan flames, wreaking havoc in popular tourist spots such as Batemans Bay during the peak summer holiday season.
"It's been a truly awful day," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters, adding that the fire season was the worst in the state's history. "We've got literally hundreds, thousands of people up and down the coast, taking refuge on the beaches, in clubhouses, surf clubs."
The crisis gripping the world's driest inhabited continent has impacted all six states amid a prolonged drought. Almost 4 million hectares of forest and bushland have been destroyed in New South Wales alone. Fires are so intense they are generating their own weather systems, with dry thunderstorms sparking new blazes. A firefighter was killed on Monday when what authorities described as a "fire tornado" flipped the 10-ton truck he was in.
The emergency has placed scrutiny on Australia's capacity to combat blazes that have spread over massive areas, pushing fire services largely manned by volunteers to their limits. It's also put international focus on the conservative government's climate change policies, with environmentalists saying Prime Minister Scott Morrison's support of the nation's massive coal-export industry has worsened conditions.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor defended the government's record of tackling climate change in an op-ed published in The Australian on Tuesday, saying emissions had fallen in the past year and Australia was meeting its carbon-reduction targets.
"Shrill cries that we should be 'ashamed to be Australian' do not ring true with the quiet Australians," Taylor said. "That won't stop some commentators telling us that we should feel guilty about our performance on emissions reduction. They are wrong."
While fires have been burning for weeks, conditions worsened at the weekend as a heatwave pushed temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius in the southeast. Authorities on Sunday urged some 30,000 holiday-makers in Victoria's East Gippsland region to evacuate. Thousands did, but those who remained found themselves trapped as the blazes intermittently shut the main highway.
Australia's government will deploy helicopters, aircraft and navy ships to assist efforts in the East Gippsland region, Linda Reynolds, the nation's defense minister, tweeted Tuesday.
About 4,000 people were forced to gather on the foreshore or take to boats in the town of Mallacoota overnight and through much of the day as an out-of-control inferno bore down on the remote community.
Country Fire Authority chief officer Steve Warrington said a cheer went up from the jetty where many were sheltering as authorities battling spotfires in the town announced the wind had changed and the main threat had passed.
Across the state border in New South Wales, buildings in Batemans Bay caught fire as thousands sheltered on the beach and ash rained down on the picturesque beachside town of Merimbula.
"It's going to be an a very long, difficult and dangerous night still ahead,' Fitzsimmons said. "It's going to be another difficult day again tomorrow."
While cities such as Canberra and Parramatta canceled fireworks celebrations to bring in the new year, Sydney's harborside festivities that draw in tens of thousands of tourists will go ahead.
The city council rejected a petition calling for the display to be scrapped and the money to be donated to bushfire and drought relief projects, saying the event is watched by millions of people worldwide and generates A$130 million ($91 million) for the local economy.
As thousands of people gathered along the foreshore of Sydney harbor to get a prime viewing spot of the midnight fireworks, smoke drifting in from bushfires caused a polluting haze.
Protesters who claim the Morrison government's pro-coal mining policies are exacerbating the crisis aren't about to give the prime minister a rest on New Year's Eve and are planning to block roads around his official Sydney residence.
Still using his cellphone
Trump is still using his cellphone for official business. It's a big risk.
The Washington Post
The Kremlin might know more about conversations between President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and others involved in the Ukraine gambit that led to Congress' impeachment inquiry than congressional investigators themselves. The reason for this alarming reality? A dangerous fondness for cellphones.
Trump's insistence on using his personal cellphone for official communications was a problem the moment he stepped into the Oval Office - after a campaign spent railing against rival Hillary Clinton for sending state emails on a private server. Now, call records obtained by the House have resurrected concerns about how the president and his closest associates communicate about the most sensitive of matters, and who exactly might be listening.
Trump claims he relies exclusively on government-issued devices hardened against hacks. But last year, the New York Times reported he favored a mass-market iPhone for dialing his friends, and Chinese spies often eavesdropped for insights on how they might sway the administration. Even if all the commander in chief's phones are now specifically programmed for protection, there's still a risk if they're not routinely scrubbed or swapped out - measures Trump in the past allegedly declared "too inconvenient."
Security experts also say cellphones are generally more vulnerable than landlines. Adversaries eager to intercept privileged chats, for example, can "spoof" the towers through which calls are routed. John Kelly's success in getting Trump to move to White House channels was short-lived; the president discovered that meant the then-chief of staff could access a log of his calls, and he reverted to his old habits.
Even if Trump conducted conversations only from sanctified facilities such as the Situation Room, they would still be only as safe from surveillance as their recipient - which, as witness testimony these past few weeks has revealed, is not safe at all. Mr. Giuliani's communications, it seems, were not encrypted with any of the widely available services such as WhatsApp and Signal. Similarly, U.S. ambassadors speaking to the president are supposed to do so from an embassy on a secure line, not from a restaurant in Kyiv on an unsecured cellphone.
The White House, in short, seems content to privilege convenience over secrecy. Barack Obama famously fought to keep his BlackBerry when he became president. He won, but the device he ended up with was so restricted for security's sake that using it, he said, was "no fun." At least he understood that it wasn't supposed to be.
The Washington Post
The Kremlin might know more about conversations between President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and others involved in the Ukraine gambit that led to Congress' impeachment inquiry than congressional investigators themselves. The reason for this alarming reality? A dangerous fondness for cellphones.
Trump's insistence on using his personal cellphone for official communications was a problem the moment he stepped into the Oval Office - after a campaign spent railing against rival Hillary Clinton for sending state emails on a private server. Now, call records obtained by the House have resurrected concerns about how the president and his closest associates communicate about the most sensitive of matters, and who exactly might be listening.
Trump claims he relies exclusively on government-issued devices hardened against hacks. But last year, the New York Times reported he favored a mass-market iPhone for dialing his friends, and Chinese spies often eavesdropped for insights on how they might sway the administration. Even if all the commander in chief's phones are now specifically programmed for protection, there's still a risk if they're not routinely scrubbed or swapped out - measures Trump in the past allegedly declared "too inconvenient."
Security experts also say cellphones are generally more vulnerable than landlines. Adversaries eager to intercept privileged chats, for example, can "spoof" the towers through which calls are routed. John Kelly's success in getting Trump to move to White House channels was short-lived; the president discovered that meant the then-chief of staff could access a log of his calls, and he reverted to his old habits.
Even if Trump conducted conversations only from sanctified facilities such as the Situation Room, they would still be only as safe from surveillance as their recipient - which, as witness testimony these past few weeks has revealed, is not safe at all. Mr. Giuliani's communications, it seems, were not encrypted with any of the widely available services such as WhatsApp and Signal. Similarly, U.S. ambassadors speaking to the president are supposed to do so from an embassy on a secure line, not from a restaurant in Kyiv on an unsecured cellphone.
The White House, in short, seems content to privilege convenience over secrecy. Barack Obama famously fought to keep his BlackBerry when he became president. He won, but the device he ended up with was so restricted for security's sake that using it, he said, was "no fun." At least he understood that it wasn't supposed to be.
M33
The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems. As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 7 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe.
Seizes on new report...
Schumer seizes on new reporting in calls for trial witnesses
By MARIANNE LEVINE
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer renewed his call Monday for White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial after The New York Times published new details about the effort to withhold aid to Ukraine.
“Simply put: In our fight to have key documents and witnesses in a Senate impeachment trial, these new revelations are a game-changer,” Schumer said at a news conference in New York City.
The Times’ investigation shed new light on the extent to which President Donald Trump sought to freeze military assistance to Ukraine, despite pleas from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Bolton. The Times also offered new details of the role Mulvaney played in executing Trump’s request.
In addition to Bolton and Mulvaney, Senate Democrats have also called for testimony from Michael Duffey, an official at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Robert Blair, assistant to the president and senior adviser to Mulvaney. The White House has repeatedly blocked witnesses from testifying.
Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remain at an impasse over the terms of the forthcoming Senate impeachment trial. While Democrats want to decide on witnesses at the outset of the trial, Senate Republicans in recent weeks have held off deciding on witnesses until after the House managers — the lawmakers House Democrats pick to act as prosecutors — and the president present their cases. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will not send over the articles of impeachment until she knows the trial details.
The New York Times story comes after the Center for Public Integrity obtained emails from Duffey that showed he contacted the Defense Department to hold off delivering aid to Ukraine about 90 minutes after Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens during a July 25 call.
“When you combine these new revelations with the explosive emails from Michael Duffey released last weekend, it makes the strongest case yet for a Senate trial to include the witnesses and documents we have requested,” Schumer said. “I hope every Republican senator should read this story and explains why they would oppose our reasonable request for witnesses and documents in the Senate trial.”
By MARIANNE LEVINE
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer renewed his call Monday for White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial after The New York Times published new details about the effort to withhold aid to Ukraine.
“Simply put: In our fight to have key documents and witnesses in a Senate impeachment trial, these new revelations are a game-changer,” Schumer said at a news conference in New York City.
The Times’ investigation shed new light on the extent to which President Donald Trump sought to freeze military assistance to Ukraine, despite pleas from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Bolton. The Times also offered new details of the role Mulvaney played in executing Trump’s request.
In addition to Bolton and Mulvaney, Senate Democrats have also called for testimony from Michael Duffey, an official at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Robert Blair, assistant to the president and senior adviser to Mulvaney. The White House has repeatedly blocked witnesses from testifying.
Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remain at an impasse over the terms of the forthcoming Senate impeachment trial. While Democrats want to decide on witnesses at the outset of the trial, Senate Republicans in recent weeks have held off deciding on witnesses until after the House managers — the lawmakers House Democrats pick to act as prosecutors — and the president present their cases. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will not send over the articles of impeachment until she knows the trial details.
The New York Times story comes after the Center for Public Integrity obtained emails from Duffey that showed he contacted the Defense Department to hold off delivering aid to Ukraine about 90 minutes after Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens during a July 25 call.
“When you combine these new revelations with the explosive emails from Michael Duffey released last weekend, it makes the strongest case yet for a Senate trial to include the witnesses and documents we have requested,” Schumer said. “I hope every Republican senator should read this story and explains why they would oppose our reasonable request for witnesses and documents in the Senate trial.”
Shifting population means shifting seats...
Epic redistricting battles loom in states poised to gain, lose House seats
Texas and Florida could each gain multiple seats next decade, according to projections based on new Census data.
By ALLY MUTNICK
The U.S. population continues to shift south and west, according to new Census Bureau data that offers the clearest picture yet of how the 435 congressional seats will be distributed among the 50 states.
The latest numbers, released Monday, represent the final estimates from the government before next year's decennial Census, which will determine how many House seats and Electoral College votes each state will have for the next decade. That reapportionment, expected in December 2020, will kick off the year-and-a-half-long process of redrawing congressional-district maps — still in many states a brazen partisan battle that makes strange bedfellows, unplanned retirements and intense member-versus-member races, especially in states poised to lose seats.
“The first two years of any decade when districts are drawn produce the whitest knuckles in Congress,” said former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who led House Democrats’ campaign arm in the 2012 cycle. “People are trying to hold onto their seats at all costs.”
According to projections from Election Data Services, a political consulting firm that specializes in redistricting, 17 states are slated to see changes to the sizes of their delegations, including 10 that are forecast to lose a seat beginning in 2022.
The biggest winners appear to be Texas and Florida, which are on track to gain three seats and two seats, respectively, according to the projections. Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and North Carolina are estimated to add one seat, as is Montana, which currently has just one at-large seat.
Meanwhile, 10 states are on track to lose one seat: Rhode Island, West Virginia, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Alabama, Illinois and California, which would drop a House seat for the first time in its 169-year history.
“I think it’s really a continuation of what we’ve seen since 1930,” said Kimball Brace, the president of Election Data Services. "It is a movement away from the Northeast and the Upper Midwest to the South and to the West."
For members in states that lose seats, the redistricting cycle beginning in 2021 will be a political version of musical chairs. The process is felt most acutely in the smaller states where delegations are projected to dwindle.
West Virginia, which has three congressional districts stacked vertically, is likely to drop down to two in 2022. The most vulnerable member of the all-Republican delegation is Rep. Alex Mooney, whose seat is sandwiched between Reps. David McKinley and Carol Miller.
“Well, I’m in the north, and Carol’s on the bottom. So I think it has to be in the middle,” McKinley said when asked which of them was the most at risk in the redraw.
A former Maryland state senator who moved to West Virginia to run for Congress, Mooney said in an interview earlier this month that he plans on running even if it means challenging a colleague in a primary. “I would have to see how it was drawn," he said. "But, yeah, sure, I would anticipate staying in.”
McKinley, first elected in 2010, said the delegation hadn’t discussed the prospect of losing a seat, but he didn’t anticipate any awkwardness between the three. “It will work itself out. But, yeah, what a shame. Now we have 925,000 people per representative. That will be the largest in the country.”
Rhode Island is slated to lose one of its two seats, which could pit Rep. David Cicilline, a rising star in Democratic leadership, against fellow Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin, the first quadriplegic to serve in the House.
“Haven’t thought about it. It’s a long way away,” Cicilline said when asked about the prospect of a primary with Langevin.
If the state does lose a seat, Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo is also term-limited in 2022, opening an enticing statewide option for one of the Democrats. And in interviews, both members expressed hope that a robust Census effort could prevent a hit to the delegation.
“The governor put together a complete count committee to make certain that we count every Rhode Islander, and we hope if we do that we will retain two seats,” said Cicilline, chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.
The looming reapportionment brings into sharper focus the high stakes surrounding the partisan battle for control of state legislatures and the fight to ensure an accurate Census count.
Some states, such as Rhode Island and California, are actively working to avoid an undercount. Other state governments, such as Texas, have not made similar investments.
In his projections, Brace is using the estimates released Monday by the Census Bureau to predict what the states' populations will be next year, when the Census is taken. Other estimates, which simply apportion House seats according to the 2019 estimates, show smaller gains for Texas and Florida, where the population has been booming year-over-year this decade.
Brace also noted he’s unable to take into account the accuracy of the Census, which will be a major factor in determining the final reapportionment. “We’ve seen it over the decades: Less and less people are likely to participate in the Census,” he said. “That participation rate has gone down each 10 years.”
Moreover, unsuccessful attempts by President Donald Trump and his administration to include a citizenship question on next year's Census have advocates worried that millions of residents, especially nonwhites, won't fill out the Census. That could negatively impact the count in heavily Latino states like Texas, where Democrats are plotting a political comeback — if they can get a seat at the table in redistricting.
Democratic groups are plowing money into the battle for control of the state legislature in the hopes of crafting a more favorable map for the next decade. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting several seats in the state in 2020, but some operatives in the party concede the fight for the state House in Austin may be a greater prize.
The number of Democrats in the congressional delegation would be very likely to increase if the party flips the nine seats needed to take the state House. Republicans hold 23 of the state's 36 congressional seats; Democrats hold just 13.
“There’s no question that you’d see a map that elected more Democratic members,” Matt Angle, a veteran Democratic operative in the state, said of the prospect a Democratic majority in the lower chamber.
Under that scenario, Angle predicted Democrats could protect their incumbents and add three new seats "that would elect the candidate of choice of people of color."
The country’s population growth is at a historic low of just 0.48 percent, with much of that loss stemming from the Midwest and East Coast. Delegations in those states are likely to take a hit. The possibilities, while purely speculative, could create uncomfortable match-ups, particularly for newly elected freshmen.
If Minnesota dissolves the GOP-leaning seat held by Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, reelection could become tough for two first-term Democrats, Dean Phillips and Angie Craig, as the seats outside the Twin Cities pick up more Republican voters.
In Michigan, freshman Democratic Reps. Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens both hold Trump-won districts. If they win reelection in 2020, their districts could become even less friendly in 2022. Mapmakers, who likely will be forced to eliminate one district, are required to protect minority-majority districts, such as those held by Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Brenda Lawrence. That could deprive Slotkin and Stevens of much-needed Democratic votes.
Democrats will likely have total control over Illinois’ map as it drops to 17 seats. But the party could struggle to find enough Democratic voters to shore up its seats in the north of the state outside Chicago held by DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos and freshman Rep. Lauren Underwood, both of whom hold districts Trump carried narrowly in 2016.
Texas and Florida could each gain multiple seats next decade, according to projections based on new Census data.
By ALLY MUTNICK
The U.S. population continues to shift south and west, according to new Census Bureau data that offers the clearest picture yet of how the 435 congressional seats will be distributed among the 50 states.
The latest numbers, released Monday, represent the final estimates from the government before next year's decennial Census, which will determine how many House seats and Electoral College votes each state will have for the next decade. That reapportionment, expected in December 2020, will kick off the year-and-a-half-long process of redrawing congressional-district maps — still in many states a brazen partisan battle that makes strange bedfellows, unplanned retirements and intense member-versus-member races, especially in states poised to lose seats.
“The first two years of any decade when districts are drawn produce the whitest knuckles in Congress,” said former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who led House Democrats’ campaign arm in the 2012 cycle. “People are trying to hold onto their seats at all costs.”
According to projections from Election Data Services, a political consulting firm that specializes in redistricting, 17 states are slated to see changes to the sizes of their delegations, including 10 that are forecast to lose a seat beginning in 2022.
The biggest winners appear to be Texas and Florida, which are on track to gain three seats and two seats, respectively, according to the projections. Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and North Carolina are estimated to add one seat, as is Montana, which currently has just one at-large seat.
Meanwhile, 10 states are on track to lose one seat: Rhode Island, West Virginia, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Alabama, Illinois and California, which would drop a House seat for the first time in its 169-year history.
“I think it’s really a continuation of what we’ve seen since 1930,” said Kimball Brace, the president of Election Data Services. "It is a movement away from the Northeast and the Upper Midwest to the South and to the West."
For members in states that lose seats, the redistricting cycle beginning in 2021 will be a political version of musical chairs. The process is felt most acutely in the smaller states where delegations are projected to dwindle.
West Virginia, which has three congressional districts stacked vertically, is likely to drop down to two in 2022. The most vulnerable member of the all-Republican delegation is Rep. Alex Mooney, whose seat is sandwiched between Reps. David McKinley and Carol Miller.
“Well, I’m in the north, and Carol’s on the bottom. So I think it has to be in the middle,” McKinley said when asked which of them was the most at risk in the redraw.
A former Maryland state senator who moved to West Virginia to run for Congress, Mooney said in an interview earlier this month that he plans on running even if it means challenging a colleague in a primary. “I would have to see how it was drawn," he said. "But, yeah, sure, I would anticipate staying in.”
McKinley, first elected in 2010, said the delegation hadn’t discussed the prospect of losing a seat, but he didn’t anticipate any awkwardness between the three. “It will work itself out. But, yeah, what a shame. Now we have 925,000 people per representative. That will be the largest in the country.”
Rhode Island is slated to lose one of its two seats, which could pit Rep. David Cicilline, a rising star in Democratic leadership, against fellow Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin, the first quadriplegic to serve in the House.
“Haven’t thought about it. It’s a long way away,” Cicilline said when asked about the prospect of a primary with Langevin.
If the state does lose a seat, Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo is also term-limited in 2022, opening an enticing statewide option for one of the Democrats. And in interviews, both members expressed hope that a robust Census effort could prevent a hit to the delegation.
“The governor put together a complete count committee to make certain that we count every Rhode Islander, and we hope if we do that we will retain two seats,” said Cicilline, chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.
The looming reapportionment brings into sharper focus the high stakes surrounding the partisan battle for control of state legislatures and the fight to ensure an accurate Census count.
Some states, such as Rhode Island and California, are actively working to avoid an undercount. Other state governments, such as Texas, have not made similar investments.
In his projections, Brace is using the estimates released Monday by the Census Bureau to predict what the states' populations will be next year, when the Census is taken. Other estimates, which simply apportion House seats according to the 2019 estimates, show smaller gains for Texas and Florida, where the population has been booming year-over-year this decade.
Brace also noted he’s unable to take into account the accuracy of the Census, which will be a major factor in determining the final reapportionment. “We’ve seen it over the decades: Less and less people are likely to participate in the Census,” he said. “That participation rate has gone down each 10 years.”
Moreover, unsuccessful attempts by President Donald Trump and his administration to include a citizenship question on next year's Census have advocates worried that millions of residents, especially nonwhites, won't fill out the Census. That could negatively impact the count in heavily Latino states like Texas, where Democrats are plotting a political comeback — if they can get a seat at the table in redistricting.
Democratic groups are plowing money into the battle for control of the state legislature in the hopes of crafting a more favorable map for the next decade. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting several seats in the state in 2020, but some operatives in the party concede the fight for the state House in Austin may be a greater prize.
The number of Democrats in the congressional delegation would be very likely to increase if the party flips the nine seats needed to take the state House. Republicans hold 23 of the state's 36 congressional seats; Democrats hold just 13.
“There’s no question that you’d see a map that elected more Democratic members,” Matt Angle, a veteran Democratic operative in the state, said of the prospect a Democratic majority in the lower chamber.
Under that scenario, Angle predicted Democrats could protect their incumbents and add three new seats "that would elect the candidate of choice of people of color."
The country’s population growth is at a historic low of just 0.48 percent, with much of that loss stemming from the Midwest and East Coast. Delegations in those states are likely to take a hit. The possibilities, while purely speculative, could create uncomfortable match-ups, particularly for newly elected freshmen.
If Minnesota dissolves the GOP-leaning seat held by Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, reelection could become tough for two first-term Democrats, Dean Phillips and Angie Craig, as the seats outside the Twin Cities pick up more Republican voters.
In Michigan, freshman Democratic Reps. Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens both hold Trump-won districts. If they win reelection in 2020, their districts could become even less friendly in 2022. Mapmakers, who likely will be forced to eliminate one district, are required to protect minority-majority districts, such as those held by Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Brenda Lawrence. That could deprive Slotkin and Stevens of much-needed Democratic votes.
Democrats will likely have total control over Illinois’ map as it drops to 17 seats. But the party could struggle to find enough Democratic voters to shore up its seats in the north of the state outside Chicago held by DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos and freshman Rep. Lauren Underwood, both of whom hold districts Trump carried narrowly in 2016.
Blames Iran
Trump blames Iran for attack on U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad
The president tweets that the Islamic Republic "will be held fully responsible" for the siege.
By QUINT FORGEY
President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed Iran for a breach of the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad, asserting that the Islamic Republic “will be held fully responsible” for the siege on the heavily guarded American facility.
The words of warning from the president came after U.S. forces launched a series of airstrikes over the weekend targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, which the administration claims perpetrated a rocket barrage that killed an American defense contractor at a military compound in northern Iraq.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have continued to play out in Iraq this week, reaching a boiling point in Baghdad on Tuesday as dozens of Iraqi Shiite militiamen and their supporters broke into the American embassy compound.
“Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will,” Trump wrote in an early morning tweet. “Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”
The mass of protesters in Baghdad, inflamed by the recent U.S. airstrikes, shouted “Death to America” and other chants outside the embassy, and Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop their march to the compound, according to the Associated Press. No one was immediately reported hurt in the violence.
Iraq's apparent reluctance to quash the demonstrations followed a statement by the government Monday condemning the Trump administration's retaliatory airstrikes, which it charged were "in violation of the sovereignty of Iraq."
The State Department has already faulted the Iraqi government for allowing the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia to attack American outposts, and Iraq's response to the ongoing crisis in Baghdad is likely to worsen the diplomatic relationship between the two nations as the U.S. continues to move to counter alleged aggression by Tehran.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke separately by phone Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and President Barham Salih, a State Department spokesperson said in a statement, and "made clear the United States will protect and defend its people, who are there to support a sovereign and independent Iraq."
The two Iraqi leaders "assured the Secretary that they took seriously their responsibility for and would guarantee the safety and security of U.S. personnel and property," the spokesperson said.
Sens. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, both congressional defenders of the White House and Republican lawmakers outspoken on issues of foreign policy, defended the president's posture toward Iran and Iraq in tweets Tuesday.
"Argument from #Iraq govt (& some in U.S.)that we brought embassy attack on ourselves by striking #Iran’s proxies is garbage," Rubio wrote. "They’ve been firing at us for weeks & killed an American ... We should just let them continue without responding in only language these people understand?"
Less than ten minutes later, Graham posted: "Very proud of President @realDonaldTrump acting decisively in the face of threats to our embassy in Baghdad."
Graham wrote that Trump has "put the world on notice - there will be no Benghazis on his watch" — referring to the Obama administration's handling of the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
The senator also cautioned officials in Tehran to "Choose your battles wisely," and advised the Iraqi government: "This is your moment to convince the American people the US-Iraq relationship is meaningful to you and worth protecting. Protect our American personnel. You will not regret it."
The president tweets that the Islamic Republic "will be held fully responsible" for the siege.
By QUINT FORGEY
President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed Iran for a breach of the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad, asserting that the Islamic Republic “will be held fully responsible” for the siege on the heavily guarded American facility.
The words of warning from the president came after U.S. forces launched a series of airstrikes over the weekend targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, which the administration claims perpetrated a rocket barrage that killed an American defense contractor at a military compound in northern Iraq.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have continued to play out in Iraq this week, reaching a boiling point in Baghdad on Tuesday as dozens of Iraqi Shiite militiamen and their supporters broke into the American embassy compound.
“Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will,” Trump wrote in an early morning tweet. “Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”
The mass of protesters in Baghdad, inflamed by the recent U.S. airstrikes, shouted “Death to America” and other chants outside the embassy, and Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop their march to the compound, according to the Associated Press. No one was immediately reported hurt in the violence.
Iraq's apparent reluctance to quash the demonstrations followed a statement by the government Monday condemning the Trump administration's retaliatory airstrikes, which it charged were "in violation of the sovereignty of Iraq."
The State Department has already faulted the Iraqi government for allowing the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia to attack American outposts, and Iraq's response to the ongoing crisis in Baghdad is likely to worsen the diplomatic relationship between the two nations as the U.S. continues to move to counter alleged aggression by Tehran.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke separately by phone Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and President Barham Salih, a State Department spokesperson said in a statement, and "made clear the United States will protect and defend its people, who are there to support a sovereign and independent Iraq."
The two Iraqi leaders "assured the Secretary that they took seriously their responsibility for and would guarantee the safety and security of U.S. personnel and property," the spokesperson said.
Sens. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, both congressional defenders of the White House and Republican lawmakers outspoken on issues of foreign policy, defended the president's posture toward Iran and Iraq in tweets Tuesday.
"Argument from #Iraq govt (& some in U.S.)that we brought embassy attack on ourselves by striking #Iran’s proxies is garbage," Rubio wrote. "They’ve been firing at us for weeks & killed an American ... We should just let them continue without responding in only language these people understand?"
Less than ten minutes later, Graham posted: "Very proud of President @realDonaldTrump acting decisively in the face of threats to our embassy in Baghdad."
Graham wrote that Trump has "put the world on notice - there will be no Benghazis on his watch" — referring to the Obama administration's handling of the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
The senator also cautioned officials in Tehran to "Choose your battles wisely," and advised the Iraqi government: "This is your moment to convince the American people the US-Iraq relationship is meaningful to you and worth protecting. Protect our American personnel. You will not regret it."
Most-read stories
POLITICO’s most-read stories of 2019
Collapsing governments, a drama-filled European election and never-ending Brexit all make the list.
By ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH
Sum up 2019 in three words? Easy: Elections, Brexit, Trump.
Hundreds of millions of voters trekked to the polls around the EU for the European parliamentary ballot, setting the Continent's course for the next five years. And Finns, Brits, Austrians, Spaniards, Estonians, Maltese, Slovaks, Dutch, Czechs, Lithuanians, Irish, Belgians, Greeks, Latvians, Danes, Germans, Norwegians, Portuguese, Poles, Bulgarians, Romanians and Croats — did I miss anyone?! — voted in their own elections.
Meanwhile, the Brexit dance continued, with first Theresa May, then Boris Johnson sparring with the EU and their own parliament in an attempt to finally deliver on the U.K.'s 2016 EU referendum. Spoiler alert: No one has managed to tick that off their to-do list just yet.
And as all that was happening, U.S. President Donald Trump kept things interesting, lobbing hand grenades across the Atlantic.
POLITICO revisits the events that shaped — and intrigued — the Continent through our most popular stories of the year.
20. Finland’s grand AI experiment
What's a country to do when its pride and joy — a national mobile phone champion, say — falls on hard times, and its finances face pressure from China, the United States and beyond? Finland’s answer: to repurpose its economy toward high-end applications of artificial intelligence.
19. Von der Leyen reveals picks for European Commission
It's no surprise that the 2019 European election was a hot topic for POLITICO readers. The first (but certainly not the last) election-related story to make our list was a rundown of incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's proposed new team. Of course, not all the would-be commissioners ended up making the European Parliament's cut, but as some wise dudes once said, you don't always get what you want — but maybe you get what you need.
18. Theresa May’s passive-aggressive parting gift for Trump
In the dying days of her prime ministership, Theresa May welcomed Donald Trump to Downing Street on his state visit to the U.K. — and used the opportunity to present him with a gift laden with symbolism (and snark): Winston Churchill’s own draft of the Atlantic Charter of 1941, a foundational text of the United Nations. Who said the Maybot has no sense of humor?
17. The Notre Dame wildfire that can't be put out
The haunting image of Paris' famed Notre Dame cathedral going up in flames, its narrow spire collapsing into the blazing inferno below it, shook the world. In the wake of the disaster, as France was grappling with the aftermath, we explored how conspiracy theorists were rushing in to widen the country's cultural divides.
16. London mayor mocks Trump for dealing with hurricane 'out on the golf course'
There's no love lost between Donald Trump and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. In September, after Trump pulled out of a trip to Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II to concentrate on the devastating Hurricane Dorian, but was then pictured playing golf at his private club in Virginia, Khan didn't miss an opportunity to get in a dig, telling London Playbook's Jack Blanchard: “He’s clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course."
15. Pass the Duchy: Luxembourg's grand plan to legalize cannabis
Luxembourg's ambition to legalize recreational cannabis — and to convince others to do the same — caught readers' interest this year. With the country pushing to become the first in the EU to make cannabis completely legal, we interviewed Health Minister (and deputy PM) Etienne Schneider, one of the main advocates of the move. Alas, the plan could now be in jeopardy, with Schneider announcing he would be stepping down from the government early next year.
14. Pompeo is dead to Berlin
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 11th-hour decision to cancel a trip to Germany, jilting Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, had Germans up in arms in May — and saw POLITICO’s Matthew Karnitschnig proclaim that "Pompeo is dead to Berlin."
13. Meet Boris Johnson's new Cabinet
Newly crowned U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson oversaw the most brutal government reshuffle in decades when he took over the reins in the middle of a heatwave in July. We gave Johnson's new Cabinet the pen portrait treatment.
12. The people who hold UK's Brexit destiny in their hands
Before he got the chance to convince his country to get on board with his vision for Brexit Britain, Boris Johnson had to win round 160,000 grassroots Conservative Party members. We took a deep dive into the Tory psyche for a long read on the people who held the U.K.'s Brexit destiny in their hands.
11. The inconvenient truth about Ursula von der Leyen
The von der Leyen Commission is now in full swing, but way back in July, when she was still the German defense minister and the surprise candidate for the EU's top job, Matthew Karnitschnig asked whether the polyglot who raised seven children and earned a medical degree on the side was too good to be true.
10. In graphics: How Europe voted
The European election resulted in a fragmented European Parliament, with the traditional two big groups — the center-right European People's Party and the center-left Socialists & Democrats — losing ground while Euroskeptics made gains. We broke down the results in graphs and charts.
9. Why Europe can't stop laughing at Boris Johnson
It was the Dawn of the Age of Boris Johnson — and Europe had the giggles. In the early days of his premiership, with the triumphant December election still but a twinkle in Dominic Cummings' eye, Johnson's biggest challenge in dealing with the EU was to prove there was more to him than gaffes and bloopers.
8. Ivanka Trump congratulates Boris Johnson on becoming PM ... of Jamaica!
And speaking of gaffes ... first daughter Ivanka Trump tweeted her congratulations to Johnson on "becoming the next Prime Minister of the United Kingston." Says it all, really.
7. The Brexit deal explained
Remember the time before Boris Johnson's roaring election victory, back when he had to wrangle a minority government and the rabble-rousers in the Democratic Unionist Party, plus a House of Commons that had become used to throwing its weight around? This was the Brexit deal that that Johnson struck with Brussels, explained.
6. Finland's government collapses over failed health care reform
Who knew POLITICO readers were so interested in the most sparsely populated country in the European Union (h/t REPOPA)? Finland's Prime Minister Juha Sipilä announced his resignation over failed health care reforms in March, one month ahead of an election — paving the way for Sanna Marin to become the world’s youngest prime minister in December.
5. Austrian government collapses over Russia scandal
A day after the release of a bombshell video showing Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the junior party in Austria's ruling coalition, trying to trade public contracts for party donations from a woman he believed to be the wealthy niece of a Russian oligarch, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz pulled the plug on his big experiment: attempting to tame the far right by welcoming it into government.
4. French far right beats Macron in EU election
Emmanuel Macron may have beaten her in the French presidential election, but Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally pipped him to the post on the EU ballot.
3. EU Election: Live Blog
As millions of people across the EU went to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, we covered the blow-by-blow via our essential live blog.
2. How the UK lost the Brexit battle
Whoever said people no longer read long-form journalism clearly hadn't counted on Brexit. In this 7,000-word opus, POLITICO dissected how the course of Brexit was set in the hours and days after the 2016 referendum. The story, which details how the EU managed to implement a better strategy than the U.K. from Day 1 after the Brexit vote, explains that London’s crucial strategic mistake was to allow itself to be pushed into triggering Article 50, which set the Brexit clock ticking all those years go.
1. June EU Summit: Live Blog
It was the monster three-day EU summit to discuss the bloc's top jobs. Hearts were broken (oeps, Frans), legacies tainted (auf wiedersehen, Mutti), democracy damaged (h/t Manfred) ... and the EU's course for the next five years was set.
Collapsing governments, a drama-filled European election and never-ending Brexit all make the list.
By ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH
Sum up 2019 in three words? Easy: Elections, Brexit, Trump.
Hundreds of millions of voters trekked to the polls around the EU for the European parliamentary ballot, setting the Continent's course for the next five years. And Finns, Brits, Austrians, Spaniards, Estonians, Maltese, Slovaks, Dutch, Czechs, Lithuanians, Irish, Belgians, Greeks, Latvians, Danes, Germans, Norwegians, Portuguese, Poles, Bulgarians, Romanians and Croats — did I miss anyone?! — voted in their own elections.
Meanwhile, the Brexit dance continued, with first Theresa May, then Boris Johnson sparring with the EU and their own parliament in an attempt to finally deliver on the U.K.'s 2016 EU referendum. Spoiler alert: No one has managed to tick that off their to-do list just yet.
And as all that was happening, U.S. President Donald Trump kept things interesting, lobbing hand grenades across the Atlantic.
POLITICO revisits the events that shaped — and intrigued — the Continent through our most popular stories of the year.
20. Finland’s grand AI experiment
What's a country to do when its pride and joy — a national mobile phone champion, say — falls on hard times, and its finances face pressure from China, the United States and beyond? Finland’s answer: to repurpose its economy toward high-end applications of artificial intelligence.
19. Von der Leyen reveals picks for European Commission
It's no surprise that the 2019 European election was a hot topic for POLITICO readers. The first (but certainly not the last) election-related story to make our list was a rundown of incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's proposed new team. Of course, not all the would-be commissioners ended up making the European Parliament's cut, but as some wise dudes once said, you don't always get what you want — but maybe you get what you need.
18. Theresa May’s passive-aggressive parting gift for Trump
In the dying days of her prime ministership, Theresa May welcomed Donald Trump to Downing Street on his state visit to the U.K. — and used the opportunity to present him with a gift laden with symbolism (and snark): Winston Churchill’s own draft of the Atlantic Charter of 1941, a foundational text of the United Nations. Who said the Maybot has no sense of humor?
17. The Notre Dame wildfire that can't be put out
The haunting image of Paris' famed Notre Dame cathedral going up in flames, its narrow spire collapsing into the blazing inferno below it, shook the world. In the wake of the disaster, as France was grappling with the aftermath, we explored how conspiracy theorists were rushing in to widen the country's cultural divides.
16. London mayor mocks Trump for dealing with hurricane 'out on the golf course'
There's no love lost between Donald Trump and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. In September, after Trump pulled out of a trip to Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II to concentrate on the devastating Hurricane Dorian, but was then pictured playing golf at his private club in Virginia, Khan didn't miss an opportunity to get in a dig, telling London Playbook's Jack Blanchard: “He’s clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course."
15. Pass the Duchy: Luxembourg's grand plan to legalize cannabis
Luxembourg's ambition to legalize recreational cannabis — and to convince others to do the same — caught readers' interest this year. With the country pushing to become the first in the EU to make cannabis completely legal, we interviewed Health Minister (and deputy PM) Etienne Schneider, one of the main advocates of the move. Alas, the plan could now be in jeopardy, with Schneider announcing he would be stepping down from the government early next year.
14. Pompeo is dead to Berlin
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 11th-hour decision to cancel a trip to Germany, jilting Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, had Germans up in arms in May — and saw POLITICO’s Matthew Karnitschnig proclaim that "Pompeo is dead to Berlin."
13. Meet Boris Johnson's new Cabinet
Newly crowned U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson oversaw the most brutal government reshuffle in decades when he took over the reins in the middle of a heatwave in July. We gave Johnson's new Cabinet the pen portrait treatment.
12. The people who hold UK's Brexit destiny in their hands
Before he got the chance to convince his country to get on board with his vision for Brexit Britain, Boris Johnson had to win round 160,000 grassroots Conservative Party members. We took a deep dive into the Tory psyche for a long read on the people who held the U.K.'s Brexit destiny in their hands.
11. The inconvenient truth about Ursula von der Leyen
The von der Leyen Commission is now in full swing, but way back in July, when she was still the German defense minister and the surprise candidate for the EU's top job, Matthew Karnitschnig asked whether the polyglot who raised seven children and earned a medical degree on the side was too good to be true.
10. In graphics: How Europe voted
The European election resulted in a fragmented European Parliament, with the traditional two big groups — the center-right European People's Party and the center-left Socialists & Democrats — losing ground while Euroskeptics made gains. We broke down the results in graphs and charts.
9. Why Europe can't stop laughing at Boris Johnson
It was the Dawn of the Age of Boris Johnson — and Europe had the giggles. In the early days of his premiership, with the triumphant December election still but a twinkle in Dominic Cummings' eye, Johnson's biggest challenge in dealing with the EU was to prove there was more to him than gaffes and bloopers.
8. Ivanka Trump congratulates Boris Johnson on becoming PM ... of Jamaica!
And speaking of gaffes ... first daughter Ivanka Trump tweeted her congratulations to Johnson on "becoming the next Prime Minister of the United Kingston." Says it all, really.
7. The Brexit deal explained
Remember the time before Boris Johnson's roaring election victory, back when he had to wrangle a minority government and the rabble-rousers in the Democratic Unionist Party, plus a House of Commons that had become used to throwing its weight around? This was the Brexit deal that that Johnson struck with Brussels, explained.
6. Finland's government collapses over failed health care reform
Who knew POLITICO readers were so interested in the most sparsely populated country in the European Union (h/t REPOPA)? Finland's Prime Minister Juha Sipilä announced his resignation over failed health care reforms in March, one month ahead of an election — paving the way for Sanna Marin to become the world’s youngest prime minister in December.
5. Austrian government collapses over Russia scandal
A day after the release of a bombshell video showing Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the junior party in Austria's ruling coalition, trying to trade public contracts for party donations from a woman he believed to be the wealthy niece of a Russian oligarch, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz pulled the plug on his big experiment: attempting to tame the far right by welcoming it into government.
4. French far right beats Macron in EU election
Emmanuel Macron may have beaten her in the French presidential election, but Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally pipped him to the post on the EU ballot.
3. EU Election: Live Blog
As millions of people across the EU went to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, we covered the blow-by-blow via our essential live blog.
2. How the UK lost the Brexit battle
Whoever said people no longer read long-form journalism clearly hadn't counted on Brexit. In this 7,000-word opus, POLITICO dissected how the course of Brexit was set in the hours and days after the 2016 referendum. The story, which details how the EU managed to implement a better strategy than the U.K. from Day 1 after the Brexit vote, explains that London’s crucial strategic mistake was to allow itself to be pushed into triggering Article 50, which set the Brexit clock ticking all those years go.
1. June EU Summit: Live Blog
It was the monster three-day EU summit to discuss the bloc's top jobs. Hearts were broken (oeps, Frans), legacies tainted (auf wiedersehen, Mutti), democracy damaged (h/t Manfred) ... and the EU's course for the next five years was set.
Slowest growth
With births down, U.S. had slowest growth rate in a century
The U.S. grew from 2018 to 2019 by almost a half percent, or about 1.5 million people, with the population standing at 328 million this year, according to population estimates.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
The past year’s population growth rate in the United States was the slowest in a century due to declining births, increasing deaths and the slowdown of international migration, according to figures released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. grew from 2018 to 2019 by almost a half percent, or about 1.5 million people, with the population standing at 328 million this year, according to population estimates.
That's the slowest growth rate in the U.S. since 1917 to 1918, when the nation was involved in World War I, said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.
For the first time in decades, natural increase — the number of births minus the number of deaths — was less than 1 million in the U.S. due to an aging population of Baby Boomers, whose oldest members entered their 70s within the past several years. As the large Boomer population continues to age, this trend is going to continue.
“Some of these things are locked into place. With the aging of the population, as the Baby Boomers move into their 70s and 80s, there are going to be higher numbers of deaths,” Frey said. “That means proportionately fewer women of child bearing age, so even if they have children, it’s still going to be less.”
Four states had a natural decrease, where deaths outnumbered births: West Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
International migration decreased to 595,000 people from 2018 to 2019, dropping from as many as 1 million international migrants in 2016, according to the population estimates. Immigration restrictions by the Trump administration combined with a perception that the U.S. has fewer economic opportunities than it did before the recession a decade ago contributed to the decline, Frey said.
“Immigration is a wildcard in that it is something we can do something about,” Frey said. “Immigrants tend to be younger and have children, and they can make a population younger.”
Ten states had population declines in the past year. They included New York, which lost almost 77,000 people; Illinois, which lost almost 51,000 residents; West Virginia, which lost more than 12,000 people; Louisiana, which lost almost 11,000 residents; and Connecticut, which lost 6,200 people. Mississippi, Hawaii, New Jersey, Alaska and Vermont each lost less than 5,000 residents.
The U.S. grew from 2018 to 2019 by almost a half percent, or about 1.5 million people, with the population standing at 328 million this year, according to population estimates.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
The past year’s population growth rate in the United States was the slowest in a century due to declining births, increasing deaths and the slowdown of international migration, according to figures released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. grew from 2018 to 2019 by almost a half percent, or about 1.5 million people, with the population standing at 328 million this year, according to population estimates.
That's the slowest growth rate in the U.S. since 1917 to 1918, when the nation was involved in World War I, said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.
For the first time in decades, natural increase — the number of births minus the number of deaths — was less than 1 million in the U.S. due to an aging population of Baby Boomers, whose oldest members entered their 70s within the past several years. As the large Boomer population continues to age, this trend is going to continue.
“Some of these things are locked into place. With the aging of the population, as the Baby Boomers move into their 70s and 80s, there are going to be higher numbers of deaths,” Frey said. “That means proportionately fewer women of child bearing age, so even if they have children, it’s still going to be less.”
Four states had a natural decrease, where deaths outnumbered births: West Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
International migration decreased to 595,000 people from 2018 to 2019, dropping from as many as 1 million international migrants in 2016, according to the population estimates. Immigration restrictions by the Trump administration combined with a perception that the U.S. has fewer economic opportunities than it did before the recession a decade ago contributed to the decline, Frey said.
“Immigration is a wildcard in that it is something we can do something about,” Frey said. “Immigrants tend to be younger and have children, and they can make a population younger.”
Ten states had population declines in the past year. They included New York, which lost almost 77,000 people; Illinois, which lost almost 51,000 residents; West Virginia, which lost more than 12,000 people; Louisiana, which lost almost 11,000 residents; and Connecticut, which lost 6,200 people. Mississippi, Hawaii, New Jersey, Alaska and Vermont each lost less than 5,000 residents.
Just funny...
Greta Thunberg calls Trump criticism ‘just funny’
Climate activist says critics ‘see us as some kind of threat.’
By PAUL DALLISON
Climate activist Greta Thunberg said those who attack her, including U.S. President Donald Trump, are "terrified of young people bringing change, which they don't want."
On BBC Radio 4's Today program, which she was guest editing on Monday, Thunberg was asked what she makes of the criticism of her by Trump and others.
"Those attacks are just funny," she said. "Because I mean they obviously don't mean anything. Well I guess of course it means something. It means that they are terrified of young people bringing change, which they don't want. But that is just a proof that we are actually doing something. And that they see us as some kind of threat."
Earlier this month, after Time magazine named Thunberg its person of the year, Trump tweeted: "Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!"
The BBC show also featured a discussion between Thunberg and David Attenborough, in which the naturalist praised the teenager for raising awareness of the climate crisis.
He said she had “achieved things that many of us who have been working on it for 20-odd years have failed to achieve — that is you have aroused the world.”
Climate activist says critics ‘see us as some kind of threat.’
By PAUL DALLISON
Climate activist Greta Thunberg said those who attack her, including U.S. President Donald Trump, are "terrified of young people bringing change, which they don't want."
On BBC Radio 4's Today program, which she was guest editing on Monday, Thunberg was asked what she makes of the criticism of her by Trump and others.
"Those attacks are just funny," she said. "Because I mean they obviously don't mean anything. Well I guess of course it means something. It means that they are terrified of young people bringing change, which they don't want. But that is just a proof that we are actually doing something. And that they see us as some kind of threat."
Earlier this month, after Time magazine named Thunberg its person of the year, Trump tweeted: "Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!"
The BBC show also featured a discussion between Thunberg and David Attenborough, in which the naturalist praised the teenager for raising awareness of the climate crisis.
He said she had “achieved things that many of us who have been working on it for 20-odd years have failed to achieve — that is you have aroused the world.”
Military countermeasures?
North Korean leader calls for ‘military countermeasures’
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for active “diplomatic and military countermeasures” to preserve the country’s security in a lengthy speech at a key political conference possibly meant to legitimize major changes to his nuclear diplomacy with the United States.
Kim spoke for seven hours during the ruling Workers’ Party meeting that continued for the third day on Monday. He issued national goals for rebuilding the North’s economy and preparing active and “offensive political, diplomatic and military countermeasures for firmly preserving the sovereignty and security of the country,” according to state media on Tuesday.
The Korean Central News Agency said the plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee will extend to the fourth day on Tuesday, a day before Kim is expected to use his annual New Year’s address to announce major changes to his economic and security policies.
Some experts believe Kim could use the speech to declare he is suspending his nuclear negotiations with Washington, which have stalemated over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament, and he could possibly revive confrontation by lifting a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.
KCNA did not report any decisions made at the party meeting or mention any specific comment by Kim toward the United States.
But it said Kim noted that the Workers’ Party is determined to enter “another arduous and protracted struggle,” possibly referring to efforts to overcome U.S.-led sanctions and pressure, before concluding his speech with calls for “dynamically opening the road” toward building a powerful socialist nation.
KCNA said the party is working to draft a resolution based on the agenda laid out by Kim and plans to discuss an unspecified “important document.”
In his New Year’s speech to begin 2019, Kim said his country would pursue an unspecified “new path” if the administration of President Donald Trump persists with sanctions and pressure on North Korea.
Negotiations faltered following the collapse of his second summit with Trump in February, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for the dismantling of an aging nuclear facility in Yongbyon, which would only represent a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
The North said earlier this month it conducted two “crucial” tests at its long-range rocket launch facility, raising speculation it has been developing a new long-range missile or preparing a satellite launch.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration still believes it “can find a path forward to convince the leadership in North Korea that their best course of action is to create a better opportunity for their people by getting rid of their nuclear weapons.”
“We’re watching what they’re doing here in the closing days of this year, and we hope that they’ll make a decision that will lead to a path of peace and not one towards confrontation,” Pompeo said in an interview Monday morning with “Fox and Friends.”
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for active “diplomatic and military countermeasures” to preserve the country’s security in a lengthy speech at a key political conference possibly meant to legitimize major changes to his nuclear diplomacy with the United States.
Kim spoke for seven hours during the ruling Workers’ Party meeting that continued for the third day on Monday. He issued national goals for rebuilding the North’s economy and preparing active and “offensive political, diplomatic and military countermeasures for firmly preserving the sovereignty and security of the country,” according to state media on Tuesday.
The Korean Central News Agency said the plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee will extend to the fourth day on Tuesday, a day before Kim is expected to use his annual New Year’s address to announce major changes to his economic and security policies.
Some experts believe Kim could use the speech to declare he is suspending his nuclear negotiations with Washington, which have stalemated over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament, and he could possibly revive confrontation by lifting a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.
KCNA did not report any decisions made at the party meeting or mention any specific comment by Kim toward the United States.
But it said Kim noted that the Workers’ Party is determined to enter “another arduous and protracted struggle,” possibly referring to efforts to overcome U.S.-led sanctions and pressure, before concluding his speech with calls for “dynamically opening the road” toward building a powerful socialist nation.
KCNA said the party is working to draft a resolution based on the agenda laid out by Kim and plans to discuss an unspecified “important document.”
In his New Year’s speech to begin 2019, Kim said his country would pursue an unspecified “new path” if the administration of President Donald Trump persists with sanctions and pressure on North Korea.
Negotiations faltered following the collapse of his second summit with Trump in February, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for the dismantling of an aging nuclear facility in Yongbyon, which would only represent a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
The North said earlier this month it conducted two “crucial” tests at its long-range rocket launch facility, raising speculation it has been developing a new long-range missile or preparing a satellite launch.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration still believes it “can find a path forward to convince the leadership in North Korea that their best course of action is to create a better opportunity for their people by getting rid of their nuclear weapons.”
“We’re watching what they’re doing here in the closing days of this year, and we hope that they’ll make a decision that will lead to a path of peace and not one towards confrontation,” Pompeo said in an interview Monday morning with “Fox and Friends.”
Has edge.
Poll: Biden has edge over Trump in Florida
By MATT DIXON
Joe Biden is the only Democrat who presents “serious competition” to President Donald Trump in Florida, according to a poll released Tuesday.
The Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey of registered Florida voters showed Biden with a narrow 47-45 lead over the president, within the 4 percentage-point margin of error.
Biden was the only candidate from either political party with a positive approval rating in the crucial battleground state. Forty-five percent of respondents had a favorable view of the former vice president; 41 percent had a negative view.
Trump had a 46 percent approval rating. Forty-seven percent of respondents disapproved of the president’s job performance, the poll found.
Among registered voters surveyed, Trump easily bested Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren 51-42 and held comfortable leads over Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (49-44) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (49-45).
Sanders was the least popular candidate among those surveyed. Just 35 percent of registered voters said they had a favorable opinion of him, while 52 percent had a negative opinion. Warren was also viewed unfavorably (37-48), as was Buttigieg (32-38).
Pollsters conducted interviews with 625 registered voters in the state between Dec. 11-16.
The poll did not include Democratic candidates Mike Bloomberg, hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar or Andrew Yang.
To date, only Warren and Biden have meaningful campaign footprints in Florida. Biden vacuumed up early legislative endorsements and Warren has been staffing up in the Sunshine State.
Bloomberg this month made his first round of Florida hires, naming Brandon Davis his Florida state director. Davis is a former chief of staff at the Democratic National Committee and led Democrat Andrew Gillum’s failed 2018 bid for Florida governor.
Bloomberg and Steyer have been running early ads in Florida.
By MATT DIXON
Joe Biden is the only Democrat who presents “serious competition” to President Donald Trump in Florida, according to a poll released Tuesday.
The Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey of registered Florida voters showed Biden with a narrow 47-45 lead over the president, within the 4 percentage-point margin of error.
Biden was the only candidate from either political party with a positive approval rating in the crucial battleground state. Forty-five percent of respondents had a favorable view of the former vice president; 41 percent had a negative view.
Trump had a 46 percent approval rating. Forty-seven percent of respondents disapproved of the president’s job performance, the poll found.
Among registered voters surveyed, Trump easily bested Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren 51-42 and held comfortable leads over Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (49-44) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (49-45).
Sanders was the least popular candidate among those surveyed. Just 35 percent of registered voters said they had a favorable opinion of him, while 52 percent had a negative opinion. Warren was also viewed unfavorably (37-48), as was Buttigieg (32-38).
Pollsters conducted interviews with 625 registered voters in the state between Dec. 11-16.
The poll did not include Democratic candidates Mike Bloomberg, hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar or Andrew Yang.
To date, only Warren and Biden have meaningful campaign footprints in Florida. Biden vacuumed up early legislative endorsements and Warren has been staffing up in the Sunshine State.
Bloomberg this month made his first round of Florida hires, naming Brandon Davis his Florida state director. Davis is a former chief of staff at the Democratic National Committee and led Democrat Andrew Gillum’s failed 2018 bid for Florida governor.
Bloomberg and Steyer have been running early ads in Florida.
December 30, 2019
Go Supernova?
Is Earth’s Neighboring Star Betelgeuse About To Go Supernova?
By Inigo Monzon
One of the brightest stars in the sky has been behaving strangely, suggesting that it might go supernova soon. Astronomers and science experts believe this cosmic event could have an effect on Earth.
The cosmic object has been identified as Betelgeuse, which is known as the 11th brightest star in the night sky. It is located in the Orion constellation and is the 2nd brightest star in the region. According to astronomers, although Betelgeuse is only less than 10 million years old, it has evolved rapidly due to its large mass.
As a result, many astronomers believe that the star might reach the end of its life cycle soon and cause a massive supernova event.
Recently, researchers from the Villanova University in Pennsylvania noticed that Betelgeuse is becoming fainter than usual. According to their study, which was published in The Astronomer’s Telegram, the star has faded about one magnitude.
Some astronomers believe that Betelgeuse’s fading brightness could be a sign that it might go supernova soon. Once this happens, it could result in a Type II supernova, which occurs when a red giant star runs out of its hydrogen fuel, causing it to implode and collapse.
According to science and space writer Robert Walker, Betelgeuse’s explosion will probably be visible from Earth. It would produce a flash almost as bright as a full moon that could last from weeks. Walker noted that this would most likely be the only effect of the supernova on Earth.
Since Betelgeuse is almost 643 light-years away from Earth, it is too far for its explosion to trigger catastrophic events on the planet.
“None - at least - no harmful effects, just a very bright star,” Walker explained on Quora. “To have any noticeable effect at all it would need to be within 50 - 100 light-years. At 642.5 light-years it is more than five times too far away.”
Adam Pilant, a physics and mathematics graduate, noted that the only way the supernova event could affect Earth is if Betelgeuse is massive enough to emit a powerful gamma-ray burst once it exploded.
“Now if Betelgeuse was large enough to produce a gamma-ray burst, which I don't believe it is, that thing could fry our little rock from well over 1000 light-years, probably farther,” he stated.
By Inigo Monzon
 |
| Image of Betelgeuse |
The cosmic object has been identified as Betelgeuse, which is known as the 11th brightest star in the night sky. It is located in the Orion constellation and is the 2nd brightest star in the region. According to astronomers, although Betelgeuse is only less than 10 million years old, it has evolved rapidly due to its large mass.
As a result, many astronomers believe that the star might reach the end of its life cycle soon and cause a massive supernova event.
Recently, researchers from the Villanova University in Pennsylvania noticed that Betelgeuse is becoming fainter than usual. According to their study, which was published in The Astronomer’s Telegram, the star has faded about one magnitude.
Some astronomers believe that Betelgeuse’s fading brightness could be a sign that it might go supernova soon. Once this happens, it could result in a Type II supernova, which occurs when a red giant star runs out of its hydrogen fuel, causing it to implode and collapse.
According to science and space writer Robert Walker, Betelgeuse’s explosion will probably be visible from Earth. It would produce a flash almost as bright as a full moon that could last from weeks. Walker noted that this would most likely be the only effect of the supernova on Earth.
Since Betelgeuse is almost 643 light-years away from Earth, it is too far for its explosion to trigger catastrophic events on the planet.
“None - at least - no harmful effects, just a very bright star,” Walker explained on Quora. “To have any noticeable effect at all it would need to be within 50 - 100 light-years. At 642.5 light-years it is more than five times too far away.”
Adam Pilant, a physics and mathematics graduate, noted that the only way the supernova event could affect Earth is if Betelgeuse is massive enough to emit a powerful gamma-ray burst once it exploded.
“Now if Betelgeuse was large enough to produce a gamma-ray burst, which I don't believe it is, that thing could fry our little rock from well over 1000 light-years, probably farther,” he stated.
Uphill battle...
Amy McGrath Is Now Officially Challenging Mitch McConnell
McGrath, a former Marine pilot, is already out-fundraising the Senate Republican leader.
NOAH LANARD
Amy McGrath, a Democrat and former Marine fighter pilot, has officially filed to challenge Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky’s 2020 US Senate election.
In the 2018 midterm elections, McGrath narrowly lost to Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) to represent the state’s 6th Congressional District. During her first months on the campaign trail before officially establishing her candidacy, McGrath outraised McConnell and other Democrats by bringing in nearly $11 million.
In 2016, Trump carried Kentucky by nearly 30 points. But last month, Gov. Matt Bevin, the nation’s “Trumpiest governor,” lost his reelection bid to Democrat Andy Beshear, after President Donald Trump campaigned for Bevin and said a loss for the unpopular incumbent would send “a really bad message.” The president pleaded, “You can’t let that happen to me!”
McGrath believes Beshear’s win helps her chances in 2020. “It absolutely gives us momentum,” she told the Associated Press, “because it shows that against an unpopular Republican incumbent, a Democrat can win.” McConnell is the country’s most unpopular senator in his home state, with 50 percent disapproval, although he’s still the heavy favorite in deep-red Kentucky.
McGrath, a former Marine pilot, is already out-fundraising the Senate Republican leader.
NOAH LANARD
Amy McGrath, a Democrat and former Marine fighter pilot, has officially filed to challenge Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky’s 2020 US Senate election.
In the 2018 midterm elections, McGrath narrowly lost to Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) to represent the state’s 6th Congressional District. During her first months on the campaign trail before officially establishing her candidacy, McGrath outraised McConnell and other Democrats by bringing in nearly $11 million.
In 2016, Trump carried Kentucky by nearly 30 points. But last month, Gov. Matt Bevin, the nation’s “Trumpiest governor,” lost his reelection bid to Democrat Andy Beshear, after President Donald Trump campaigned for Bevin and said a loss for the unpopular incumbent would send “a really bad message.” The president pleaded, “You can’t let that happen to me!”
McGrath believes Beshear’s win helps her chances in 2020. “It absolutely gives us momentum,” she told the Associated Press, “because it shows that against an unpopular Republican incumbent, a Democrat can win.” McConnell is the country’s most unpopular senator in his home state, with 50 percent disapproval, although he’s still the heavy favorite in deep-red Kentucky.
Nasty name-calling..
Trump will sink to new depths
Opinion by Michael D'Antonio
While millions of Americans have been enjoying the holiday season, President Donald Trump has indulged in nasty name-calling aimed at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and has been whining like a 4-year-old who didn't get the toy he wanted.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted, "Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States?"
On Wednesday, the President retweeted a link to an article that includes a name for the purported whistleblower, whose identity has not been confirmed.
The whistleblower filed an anonymous complaint alleging the White House tried to cover up the President's effort to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on his rival Joe Biden. Trump soliciting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the July 25 phone call is what set Pelosi down the road to impeachment, but like so many rule breakers, Trump blames the guy who turned him in, instead of examining his own behavior.
A more reasonable commander-in-chief, one worthy of the title, would absorb the lesson in the humiliation of impeachment, realize "I am still President of the United States" and seek stability, if not redemption.
Donald Trump, however, has shown himself to be energetically defiant and incapable of reform. Faced with the Senate impeachment trial in the upcoming year, Trump is likely to become more destructive. His victims will include us all.
The future will also be determined by whatever devious plots Trump may set in motion with his chief enabler, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. As Trump's personal lawyer and international wrecking ball, Giuliani shows no sign of ending his mischief-making in Ukraine or dialing back his bizarre behavior.
He recently directed several anti-Semitic tropes at billionaire philanthropist George Soros -- who has long been a target of right-wing conspiracy theories. Giuliani, a lifelong Catholic, claimed he's "more of a Jew" than Soros, who is a Holocaust survivor. He also made unfounded claims that Soros controls former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, FBI agents and district attorneys, which perpetuates anti-Semitic tropes that powerful Jews control the government.
It seems safe to assume the President is willing to do whatever it takes to influence the 2020 election in his favor. He is remarkably vigorous and forward looking when it comes to rigging the games he plays and he must be committed to reelection in a way he's never been committed to anything before.
This is likely a matter of pride, since showing the world it is wrong about him is his reason for being. It may also be a legal strategy. Reelection would guarantee his presidential powers, including the ability to grant pardons to those who know things he'd rather keep secret.
What might Trump have in mind as he approaches the 2020 elections? Trump could use his executive authority, including the direction of law enforcement agencies, or the use of executive orders to try to go after his rivals or gain an advantage. Since he tends to accuse others of the very misdeeds he commits himself, Trump's discredited claims of being spied on by the FBI or the previous administration may indicate that such surveillance may be on his mind.
The good news is that Trump has lost the services of some of the minions who once helped stir things up for him. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the two Soviet-born businessman who were Giuliani's allies, are cases in point. They face their own legal peril -- both have pleaded not guilty to campaign finance charges -- and at least one of them, Parnas, is cooperating with authorities.
Further cause for optimism lies in the positive response received by those who came forward to testify during the House impeachment investigation. Public servants and political figures who helped establish the record that led to impeachment have earned wide appreciation. Surely other government officials lie in wait, ready to come forward.
Finally, the House of Representatives and the speaker have established themselves as a bulwark for democracy and the American system of checks and balances. In less than a year they have proven themselves capable of organizing, investigating and prosecuting a most difficult case.
Consider the President's capacity for stonewalling -- he blocked many of the witnesses Congress subpoenaed and refused to turn over documents -- and their accomplishment looms even larger. In his long career of chaos, no opposing force has ever brought Trump under control so effectively.
The impeachment of Donald Trump was a demonstration of congressional power that should reassure us. Yes, he will continue his campaign of chaos and make the coming election year more disturbing than 2016 but there is now an opposing force. Conflict lies ahead, but so does hope.
Opinion by Michael D'Antonio
While millions of Americans have been enjoying the holiday season, President Donald Trump has indulged in nasty name-calling aimed at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and has been whining like a 4-year-old who didn't get the toy he wanted.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted, "Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States?"
On Wednesday, the President retweeted a link to an article that includes a name for the purported whistleblower, whose identity has not been confirmed.
The whistleblower filed an anonymous complaint alleging the White House tried to cover up the President's effort to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on his rival Joe Biden. Trump soliciting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the July 25 phone call is what set Pelosi down the road to impeachment, but like so many rule breakers, Trump blames the guy who turned him in, instead of examining his own behavior.
A more reasonable commander-in-chief, one worthy of the title, would absorb the lesson in the humiliation of impeachment, realize "I am still President of the United States" and seek stability, if not redemption.
Donald Trump, however, has shown himself to be energetically defiant and incapable of reform. Faced with the Senate impeachment trial in the upcoming year, Trump is likely to become more destructive. His victims will include us all.
The future will also be determined by whatever devious plots Trump may set in motion with his chief enabler, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. As Trump's personal lawyer and international wrecking ball, Giuliani shows no sign of ending his mischief-making in Ukraine or dialing back his bizarre behavior.
He recently directed several anti-Semitic tropes at billionaire philanthropist George Soros -- who has long been a target of right-wing conspiracy theories. Giuliani, a lifelong Catholic, claimed he's "more of a Jew" than Soros, who is a Holocaust survivor. He also made unfounded claims that Soros controls former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, FBI agents and district attorneys, which perpetuates anti-Semitic tropes that powerful Jews control the government.
It seems safe to assume the President is willing to do whatever it takes to influence the 2020 election in his favor. He is remarkably vigorous and forward looking when it comes to rigging the games he plays and he must be committed to reelection in a way he's never been committed to anything before.
This is likely a matter of pride, since showing the world it is wrong about him is his reason for being. It may also be a legal strategy. Reelection would guarantee his presidential powers, including the ability to grant pardons to those who know things he'd rather keep secret.
What might Trump have in mind as he approaches the 2020 elections? Trump could use his executive authority, including the direction of law enforcement agencies, or the use of executive orders to try to go after his rivals or gain an advantage. Since he tends to accuse others of the very misdeeds he commits himself, Trump's discredited claims of being spied on by the FBI or the previous administration may indicate that such surveillance may be on his mind.
The good news is that Trump has lost the services of some of the minions who once helped stir things up for him. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the two Soviet-born businessman who were Giuliani's allies, are cases in point. They face their own legal peril -- both have pleaded not guilty to campaign finance charges -- and at least one of them, Parnas, is cooperating with authorities.
Further cause for optimism lies in the positive response received by those who came forward to testify during the House impeachment investigation. Public servants and political figures who helped establish the record that led to impeachment have earned wide appreciation. Surely other government officials lie in wait, ready to come forward.
Finally, the House of Representatives and the speaker have established themselves as a bulwark for democracy and the American system of checks and balances. In less than a year they have proven themselves capable of organizing, investigating and prosecuting a most difficult case.
Consider the President's capacity for stonewalling -- he blocked many of the witnesses Congress subpoenaed and refused to turn over documents -- and their accomplishment looms even larger. In his long career of chaos, no opposing force has ever brought Trump under control so effectively.
The impeachment of Donald Trump was a demonstration of congressional power that should reassure us. Yes, he will continue his campaign of chaos and make the coming election year more disturbing than 2016 but there is now an opposing force. Conflict lies ahead, but so does hope.
Consequences
Iran warns of 'consequences' after US strikes in Iraq and Syria
By Jack Guy
Iran has warned the US of "consequences" after Washington carried out airstrikes against an Iran-backed militia group in Iraq.
The US has "openly shown its support to terrorism and shown its negligence to the independence and national sovereignty of countries," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mosavi , according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
"It must accept responsibility of the consequences of the illegal attacks," added Mosavi.
At least 25 people were killed and 51 wounded in the airstrikes that targeted five facilities controlled by Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria on Sunday.
Kataib Hezbollah is a militia group that falls under the Iran-backed Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
The strikes represent the first significant US military response in retaliation for attacks by the militia group that have injured numerous American military personnel, according to US officials.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant and political group with links to Iran, also condemned the US airstrikes.
Lebanon's Hezbollah called the attack "a blatant violation on the sovereignty, security and stability of Iraq and the Iraqi people," in a statement released on the group's al-Manar TV Monday.
"This aggression reaffirms that the American administration wants to strike the underlying potential powers of the Iraqi people which is capable to confront ISIS and the powers of extremism and crime," the statement read.
"The American administration reveals its true face as an enemy to Iraq and the interest of the Iraqi people and their aspiration for freedom, true sovereignty and a secured future," it continued.
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman described the strikes against the group as "precision defensive strikes" that "will degrade" the group's ability to conduct future attacks against coalition forces.
Tensions between the US and Iran have increased over 2019 as Washington tightened the economic squeeze on Tehran through its "maximum pressure" campaign and Iran responded with what it calls for "maximum resistance."
Tehran's resistance has taken the form of gradually reduced compliance to the international nuclear deal that the US left in May 2018 and a campaign of regional provocation that began escalating in May.
By Jack Guy
Iran has warned the US of "consequences" after Washington carried out airstrikes against an Iran-backed militia group in Iraq.
The US has "openly shown its support to terrorism and shown its negligence to the independence and national sovereignty of countries," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mosavi , according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
"It must accept responsibility of the consequences of the illegal attacks," added Mosavi.
At least 25 people were killed and 51 wounded in the airstrikes that targeted five facilities controlled by Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria on Sunday.
Kataib Hezbollah is a militia group that falls under the Iran-backed Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
The strikes represent the first significant US military response in retaliation for attacks by the militia group that have injured numerous American military personnel, according to US officials.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant and political group with links to Iran, also condemned the US airstrikes.
Lebanon's Hezbollah called the attack "a blatant violation on the sovereignty, security and stability of Iraq and the Iraqi people," in a statement released on the group's al-Manar TV Monday.
"This aggression reaffirms that the American administration wants to strike the underlying potential powers of the Iraqi people which is capable to confront ISIS and the powers of extremism and crime," the statement read.
"The American administration reveals its true face as an enemy to Iraq and the interest of the Iraqi people and their aspiration for freedom, true sovereignty and a secured future," it continued.
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman described the strikes against the group as "precision defensive strikes" that "will degrade" the group's ability to conduct future attacks against coalition forces.
Tensions between the US and Iran have increased over 2019 as Washington tightened the economic squeeze on Tehran through its "maximum pressure" campaign and Iran responded with what it calls for "maximum resistance."
Tehran's resistance has taken the form of gradually reduced compliance to the international nuclear deal that the US left in May 2018 and a campaign of regional provocation that began escalating in May.
Unhappy?
California Is Booming. Why Are So Many Californians Unhappy?
Conor Dougherty
Christine Johnson, a public-finance consultant with an engineering degree, was running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She crisscrossed her downtown district talking about her plans to stimulate housing construction, improve public transit and deal with the litter of “needles and poop” that have become a common sight on the city’s sidewalks.
Today, a year after losing the race, Johnson, who had been in the Bay Area since 2004, lives in Denver with her husband and 4-year-old son. In a recent interview, she spoke for millions of Californians past and present when she described the cloud that high rent and child-care costs had cast over her family’s savings and future.
“I fully intended San Francisco to be my home and wanted to make the neighborhoods better,” she said. “But after the election we started tallying up what life could look like elsewhere, and we didn’t see friends in other parts of the country experiencing challenges the same way.”
California is at a crossroads. The state has a thriving $3 trillion economy with record low unemployment, a surplus of well-paying jobs, and several of the world’s most valuable corporations, including Apple, Google and Facebook. Its median household income has grown about 17% since 2011, compared with about 10% nationally, adjusted for inflation.
But California also has a pernicious housing and homeless problem and an increasingly destructive fire season that is merely a preview of climate change’s potential effects. Corporations like Charles Schwab are moving their headquarters elsewhere, while Oracle announced that it would no longer stage its annual software conference in San Francisco, in part because of the city’s dirty streets. “Shining example or third-world state?” a recent headline on a local news website asked.
“You get depressed if you listen to everything going on, but you can’t find a contractor and the state continues to create jobs,” said Ed Del Beccaro, an executive vice president with TRI Commercial Real Estate Services, a brokerage and property management company in the Bay Area.
Whether it’s by taming bays and mountains with roads, bridges and power lines or grappling with a lack of water and crippling earthquakes, California is perennially testing the limits of growth. Its population has swelled to 40 million and the state’s economy has grown more than previous generations had thought possible, cramming more cars and more people into cities that were supposed to be tapped out, while seeding new companies and new industries as old ones died or moved elsewhere.
But today it has a new problem. For all its forward-thinking companies and liberal social and environmental policies, the state has mostly put higher-value jobs and industries in expensive coastal enclaves, while pushing lower-paid workers and lower-cost housing to inland areas like the Central Valley.
This has made California the most expensive state — with a median home value of $550,000, about double that of the nation — and created a growing supply of three-hour “super commuters.” And while it has some of the highest wages in the country, it also has the highest poverty rate based on its cost of living, an average of 18.1% from 2016 to 2018.
That helps explain why the state has lost more than 1 million residents to other states since 2006, and why the population growth rate for the year that ended July 1 was the lowest since 1900.
“What’s happening in California right now is a warning shot to the rest of the country,” said Jim Newton, a journalist, historian and lecturer on public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s a warning about income inequality and suburban sprawl, and how those intersect with quality of life and climate change.”
You can see this in California economic forecasts for 2020, which play down the threat of a global trade war and play up the challenge of continuing to add jobs without affordable places for middle- and lower-income workers to live. You can see it in the Legislature, which has raised the minimum wage, and next year is poised to debate a bill that could reshape the state by essentially forcing cities to allow multistory buildings near transit stops. You also can see it in the stories of people like Johnson and other highly educated workers who have gone elsewhere.
For Bryan Diffenderfer, leaving was about acquiring financial breathing room. Diffenderfer is a 36-year-old native Californian who until recently worked in sales and lived in a 1,200-square-foot townhouse in a Bay Area suburb with his wife and 2-year-old daughter. They had the means to buy a bigger home, but the mortgage payment would have been overwhelming. They bought a five-bedroom house outside Indianapolis for about $500,000, and Diffenderfer quit his job to work for his wife, who runs an ad-supported fashion blog and social media business.
“I love California, but you hear about people who are cash-poor because they have to invest so much in their house,” he said. “Moving gave me the flexibility to leave my job and go into our family’s business.”
The Tech Crunch
A decade ago, California was mired in the Great Recession along with the rest of the nation. Unemployment was 12%, the state had a yawning budget gap and foreclosures were bad enough that skateboarders were rejoicing at the surplus of empty swimming pools. Far from lamenting the influence of tech companies, San Francisco extended tax breaks to get them to stay.
When growth picked up, driven by a once-in-a-generation tech boom that accompanied the proliferation of social media and the widespread adoption of smartphones, California became the foremost example of an innovation economy. Startups pitched themselves as the Uber of X, while cities promoted themselves as the Silicon Valley of Y.
But the underlying fault lines were still there. Rents and home prices stayed high, especially in the coastal areas where job and income growth was strongest. As the economy picked up and housing costs resumed their rise, lower-paid service and professional workers moved to distant exurbs, while homelessness spiraled to the point that local political leaders are all but declaring they are out of solutions.
Elected officials in Los Angeles have urged the governor, Gavin Newsom, to declare a state of emergency over homelessness, while the governor is in turn telling the federal government that a state with a $215 billion annual budget cannot solve this on its own. But President Donald Trump has belittled California’s homelessness problem and repeatedly sought to punish the state, whose 55 electoral votes went to Hillary Clinton in 2016. With their traffic and trash, California’s biggest cities have gone from the places other regions tried to emulate to the places they’re terrified of becoming.
There are increasing complaints in Oregon, Nevada and Idaho that rents and home prices there are being pushed up by new arrivals fleeing California. A recent election in Boise, Idaho, was seen as a referendum on California-style growth. And Oregon’s decision to essentially ban single-family house neighborhoods has been billed by lawmakers as a bold intervention to pull the state away from a California-like trajectory.
People have short memories, of course, and as soon as there is another recession, the focus of Californians and their leaders is bound to turn from the strains of growth to creating jobs. From 2009 to 2011, in the aftermath of the last recession, the poverty rate reached 23.5%.
“A decade ago they were cutting school funding and social services,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “There are people injured by prosperity, but obviously a recession is more damaging to most people.”
Embrace of the Robot Arms
For now, voters and businesses are less concerned about where growth will come from and more concerned with figuring out how to address its discontents. In a recent poll, by the Public Policy Institute of California, homelessness was tied with the economy as voters’ top concern, the first time it has been a top issue in the 20-year life of the survey. Another survey by the institute showed that almost half of Californians have considered leaving because of high housing costs.
Restaurants and other businesses are hiring fewer workers than they might because they cannot find enough people who can afford local housing costs. It’s also an issue for giant technology companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, which have pledged a total of $4.5 billion to build subsidized housing.
Greg Biggs is adding more machines and moving jobs to cheaper locations. Biggs is the chief executive of Vander-Bend Manufacturing, a company in San Jose that makes metal products including surgical components and racks where data centers store computer servers. Vander-Bend has doubled its head count over the past five years, to about 900 employees, and pays $17 to $40 an hour for skilled technicians who need training but not a college degree.
This is precisely the sort of middle-income job needed in the Bay Area, which like many urban areas is bifurcating into an economy of high-wage knowledge jobs and low-wage service jobs.
The problem is he cannot find enough workers. The unemployment rate in San Jose is around 2%, and many of Vander-Bend’s employees already commute two or more hours to work. To compensate, Biggs has bought several van-size robot arms that pull metal panels from a pile then stamp them flush, bend their edges and assemble them into racks. He has opened a second location 75 miles away in Stockton, where labor and housing costs are a lot lower.
This is in most ways a success story. Vander-Bend is raising wages and training workers. The machines are not replacing jobs but instead make them more efficient, and the company is bringing higher-wage positions to a region that needs more of them. But for workers, even substantial income gains are being offset by rising costs.
A decade ago Manuel Curiel made $22 an hour as a production worker at Vander-Bend. Today he is 37 and, after several promotions, makes a six-figure salary. Almost anywhere else, that would be a shining example of how the longest economic expansion on record is reaching more workers, including those, like Curiel, who dropped out of high school.
But this good-news story comes with a catch. In the decade that Curiel’s salary tripled, the rent on his family’s small two-bedroom apartment in Santa Clara more than tripled, from a little over $600 to more than $2,200, including a 35% increase one year. He has since joined Vander-Bend in moving about 80 miles east to Manteca, near the factory in Stockton, where he lives in a house offering more space for about the same rent.
Conor Dougherty
Christine Johnson, a public-finance consultant with an engineering degree, was running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She crisscrossed her downtown district talking about her plans to stimulate housing construction, improve public transit and deal with the litter of “needles and poop” that have become a common sight on the city’s sidewalks.
Today, a year after losing the race, Johnson, who had been in the Bay Area since 2004, lives in Denver with her husband and 4-year-old son. In a recent interview, she spoke for millions of Californians past and present when she described the cloud that high rent and child-care costs had cast over her family’s savings and future.
“I fully intended San Francisco to be my home and wanted to make the neighborhoods better,” she said. “But after the election we started tallying up what life could look like elsewhere, and we didn’t see friends in other parts of the country experiencing challenges the same way.”
California is at a crossroads. The state has a thriving $3 trillion economy with record low unemployment, a surplus of well-paying jobs, and several of the world’s most valuable corporations, including Apple, Google and Facebook. Its median household income has grown about 17% since 2011, compared with about 10% nationally, adjusted for inflation.
But California also has a pernicious housing and homeless problem and an increasingly destructive fire season that is merely a preview of climate change’s potential effects. Corporations like Charles Schwab are moving their headquarters elsewhere, while Oracle announced that it would no longer stage its annual software conference in San Francisco, in part because of the city’s dirty streets. “Shining example or third-world state?” a recent headline on a local news website asked.
“You get depressed if you listen to everything going on, but you can’t find a contractor and the state continues to create jobs,” said Ed Del Beccaro, an executive vice president with TRI Commercial Real Estate Services, a brokerage and property management company in the Bay Area.
Whether it’s by taming bays and mountains with roads, bridges and power lines or grappling with a lack of water and crippling earthquakes, California is perennially testing the limits of growth. Its population has swelled to 40 million and the state’s economy has grown more than previous generations had thought possible, cramming more cars and more people into cities that were supposed to be tapped out, while seeding new companies and new industries as old ones died or moved elsewhere.
But today it has a new problem. For all its forward-thinking companies and liberal social and environmental policies, the state has mostly put higher-value jobs and industries in expensive coastal enclaves, while pushing lower-paid workers and lower-cost housing to inland areas like the Central Valley.
This has made California the most expensive state — with a median home value of $550,000, about double that of the nation — and created a growing supply of three-hour “super commuters.” And while it has some of the highest wages in the country, it also has the highest poverty rate based on its cost of living, an average of 18.1% from 2016 to 2018.
That helps explain why the state has lost more than 1 million residents to other states since 2006, and why the population growth rate for the year that ended July 1 was the lowest since 1900.
“What’s happening in California right now is a warning shot to the rest of the country,” said Jim Newton, a journalist, historian and lecturer on public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s a warning about income inequality and suburban sprawl, and how those intersect with quality of life and climate change.”
You can see this in California economic forecasts for 2020, which play down the threat of a global trade war and play up the challenge of continuing to add jobs without affordable places for middle- and lower-income workers to live. You can see it in the Legislature, which has raised the minimum wage, and next year is poised to debate a bill that could reshape the state by essentially forcing cities to allow multistory buildings near transit stops. You also can see it in the stories of people like Johnson and other highly educated workers who have gone elsewhere.
For Bryan Diffenderfer, leaving was about acquiring financial breathing room. Diffenderfer is a 36-year-old native Californian who until recently worked in sales and lived in a 1,200-square-foot townhouse in a Bay Area suburb with his wife and 2-year-old daughter. They had the means to buy a bigger home, but the mortgage payment would have been overwhelming. They bought a five-bedroom house outside Indianapolis for about $500,000, and Diffenderfer quit his job to work for his wife, who runs an ad-supported fashion blog and social media business.
“I love California, but you hear about people who are cash-poor because they have to invest so much in their house,” he said. “Moving gave me the flexibility to leave my job and go into our family’s business.”
The Tech Crunch
A decade ago, California was mired in the Great Recession along with the rest of the nation. Unemployment was 12%, the state had a yawning budget gap and foreclosures were bad enough that skateboarders were rejoicing at the surplus of empty swimming pools. Far from lamenting the influence of tech companies, San Francisco extended tax breaks to get them to stay.
When growth picked up, driven by a once-in-a-generation tech boom that accompanied the proliferation of social media and the widespread adoption of smartphones, California became the foremost example of an innovation economy. Startups pitched themselves as the Uber of X, while cities promoted themselves as the Silicon Valley of Y.
But the underlying fault lines were still there. Rents and home prices stayed high, especially in the coastal areas where job and income growth was strongest. As the economy picked up and housing costs resumed their rise, lower-paid service and professional workers moved to distant exurbs, while homelessness spiraled to the point that local political leaders are all but declaring they are out of solutions.
Elected officials in Los Angeles have urged the governor, Gavin Newsom, to declare a state of emergency over homelessness, while the governor is in turn telling the federal government that a state with a $215 billion annual budget cannot solve this on its own. But President Donald Trump has belittled California’s homelessness problem and repeatedly sought to punish the state, whose 55 electoral votes went to Hillary Clinton in 2016. With their traffic and trash, California’s biggest cities have gone from the places other regions tried to emulate to the places they’re terrified of becoming.
There are increasing complaints in Oregon, Nevada and Idaho that rents and home prices there are being pushed up by new arrivals fleeing California. A recent election in Boise, Idaho, was seen as a referendum on California-style growth. And Oregon’s decision to essentially ban single-family house neighborhoods has been billed by lawmakers as a bold intervention to pull the state away from a California-like trajectory.
People have short memories, of course, and as soon as there is another recession, the focus of Californians and their leaders is bound to turn from the strains of growth to creating jobs. From 2009 to 2011, in the aftermath of the last recession, the poverty rate reached 23.5%.
“A decade ago they were cutting school funding and social services,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “There are people injured by prosperity, but obviously a recession is more damaging to most people.”
Embrace of the Robot Arms
For now, voters and businesses are less concerned about where growth will come from and more concerned with figuring out how to address its discontents. In a recent poll, by the Public Policy Institute of California, homelessness was tied with the economy as voters’ top concern, the first time it has been a top issue in the 20-year life of the survey. Another survey by the institute showed that almost half of Californians have considered leaving because of high housing costs.
Restaurants and other businesses are hiring fewer workers than they might because they cannot find enough people who can afford local housing costs. It’s also an issue for giant technology companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, which have pledged a total of $4.5 billion to build subsidized housing.
Greg Biggs is adding more machines and moving jobs to cheaper locations. Biggs is the chief executive of Vander-Bend Manufacturing, a company in San Jose that makes metal products including surgical components and racks where data centers store computer servers. Vander-Bend has doubled its head count over the past five years, to about 900 employees, and pays $17 to $40 an hour for skilled technicians who need training but not a college degree.
This is precisely the sort of middle-income job needed in the Bay Area, which like many urban areas is bifurcating into an economy of high-wage knowledge jobs and low-wage service jobs.
The problem is he cannot find enough workers. The unemployment rate in San Jose is around 2%, and many of Vander-Bend’s employees already commute two or more hours to work. To compensate, Biggs has bought several van-size robot arms that pull metal panels from a pile then stamp them flush, bend their edges and assemble them into racks. He has opened a second location 75 miles away in Stockton, where labor and housing costs are a lot lower.
This is in most ways a success story. Vander-Bend is raising wages and training workers. The machines are not replacing jobs but instead make them more efficient, and the company is bringing higher-wage positions to a region that needs more of them. But for workers, even substantial income gains are being offset by rising costs.
A decade ago Manuel Curiel made $22 an hour as a production worker at Vander-Bend. Today he is 37 and, after several promotions, makes a six-figure salary. Almost anywhere else, that would be a shining example of how the longest economic expansion on record is reaching more workers, including those, like Curiel, who dropped out of high school.
But this good-news story comes with a catch. In the decade that Curiel’s salary tripled, the rent on his family’s small two-bedroom apartment in Santa Clara more than tripled, from a little over $600 to more than $2,200, including a 35% increase one year. He has since joined Vander-Bend in moving about 80 miles east to Manteca, near the factory in Stockton, where he lives in a house offering more space for about the same rent.
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