""The ozone on the West Coastin a few years will be controlled not by
California and Oregon," Schnell (NOAA) says. "It will be controlled by China."The incoming pollution bucks a U.S. trend toward cleaner skies and
water...."There's more mercury deposited in
this country from outside our borders than from inside our borders,"
says Richard Scheffe,U.S. Environmental Protection Agency senior
science adviser."...(subhead, "Impact on cleanup")
"Mercury and other airborne contaminants collect over China during the
winter and spring until Siberian winds arrive bearing dust from
expanding Chinese and Mongolian deserts. Every five or six days, the
winds flush out eastern China, sending dust and pollutants such as ozone
precursors high over the Pacific, says Russ Schnell, observatory and
global network operations director for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.
..............
"The ozone on the West Coast in a few years will be controlled not by
California and Oregon," Schnell says."It will be controlled by China." The incoming pollution bucks a U.S. trend toward cleaner skies and
water.
..............
Mercury is especially suited for long-distance travelbecause at the
smokestack in elemental form, it's insoluble. By the time it reaches the
West Coast, however, some of the mercury has transformed into a
reactive gaseous material that dissolves in Western Oregon's wet
climate. It washes into the river, where microbes convert it into a form
that further concentrates in fish.
...............
Most of the mercury entering the Willamette comes from Oregon's
volcanic soil and from sediment churned up on the river bottom. But
Bruce Hope, senior environmental toxicologist of the Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality,estimates that global sources beyond the
state's control contribute 18 percent --more than four times the share
from local air deposition. "If I made every local source go away, would I be able to eat the fish?" Hope asks. "Right now the answer is maybe."
.......................
Hope was struggling to account for all theWillamette's mercury
sourcesbefore he encountered Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric and
environmental chemistry professor at the University of Washington at
Bothell. Jaffe and other scientists were detecting Asian pollutants in
monitors atop Mount Bachelor and Cheeka Peak, on the Olympic Peninsula. Urban carcinogen levels ............ The monitors regularly record levels of airborne carcinogens
equivalent to those of a major city, says Staci Simonich, an Oregon
State University researcher. In April 2004, instruments mounted atop
Mount Bachelor's Summit Express ski lift intercepted an enormous Asian
plume laced with mercury and ozone. The fine-particle concentration hit
about 20 micrograms per cubic meter, compared with the federal
air-quality standard of an average 65 micrograms during a 24-hour
period. ............. "The air we saw on that day was comparable to a moderately bad day in
Portland," says Jaffe. "When you consider that that air has traveled
thousands and thousands of miles, it's pretty amazing really." Jaffe
calculated that Asia emits 1,460 metric tons of mercury a year, twice as
much as previously thought. ..............
To be sure, concentrations of foreign pollutants in Oregon are
minimal compared with federal air-quality standards. On an average
spring day in the Northwest, the overall sulfate concentration reaches
just 0.72 micrograms per cubic meter, says Colette Heald, a University
of California at Berkeley researcher. About one-quarter of the average
sulfate level comes from Asia, Heald says.
...............
But the DEQ's Hope realized that when fallout occurs across an area
as large as the Willamette's 11,500-square-mile watershed, low
concentrations add up. He identified the river's mercury sources for a
study published in the international journal Science of the Total
Environment."... ...............
"Because local enthropogenic emissions makerelatively smaller contributions to the Basinthan do persisent global sources (sources over which there islittle, if any, possibility of local control),localized environmental management actions alonemay not be adequate to address mercury impacts within the Basin." [last sentence of abstract]
An assessment of anthropogenic source impacts on mercury cycling in the Willamette Basin, Oregon, USA-, Science of the Total Environment, 3/2006 ResearchGate." .................
(continuing):"Especially if China's share increases, Hope says,Oregon can do
little to reduce contamination of the river even by cracking down on
emissions, eliminating mercury from products and segregating waste.
"Because of foreign sources,the kinds of management changes that would
be acceptable wouldprobably not be enough to let us eat the fish." Oregon officials have warned since issuing a 2001 advisory that Willamette bass and pikeminnow bear unsafe mercury levels. ...................... Mercury acts on the central nervous system and can reduce mental
ability, making kids shy, irritable, and slow to learn, and causing
tremors and visual disturbances. Children under 7 should not eat more
than a single 4-ounce portion of nonmigrating fish every seven weeks,
while women of childbearing age should eat no more than one 8-ounce
portion a month.
..............
The DEQ has a mercury cleanup plan for the Willamette that will take
decades. But "you throw in the global contribution," says Dave Stone,
Oregon public health toxicologist, "and it does become that much more
complex." Oregon, which has 14 fish advisories for mercury, has not been
able to lift one. ..........
Impact on cleanup ............... The added mercury from abroad, coupled with Oregon's high natural
levels, could concentrate pressure on local emitters under the DEQ's
cleanup plan. Weyerhaeuser, for example, has more than 15 plants in the
watershed. "We're concerned to the extent that we have to do something
that won't matter," says Marv Lewallen, Weyerhaeuser Oregon
environmental affairs manager.
..............
It's not just the Willamette that will be difficult to clean up
because of mercury beyond local control.Scientists expected to find
patterns of mercury pollution from nearby factorieswhen they took
sediment samples beneath lakes near Bellingham, Wash., that contain fish
unsafe to eat.Instead, most of the industrial mercury came from global
sources. ...................
"Our best estimates indicate that there'smore mercury deposited in
this country from outside our borders than from inside our borders,"
says Richard Scheffe,U.S. Environmental Protection Agency senior
science adviser.
Mercury is just one of the foreign pollutants that scientists are
tracking. At least one-third of California's fine particulate pollution
--known as aerosol --has floated across from Asia, says Steve Cliff, an
atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Davis.
......................
"In May this year, almost all the fine aerosol present at Lake Tahoe
came from China," says Tom Cahill, a UC Davis emeritus professor of
atmospheric sciences. "So the haze that you see in spring at Crater Lake
or other remote areas is in fact Chinese in origin."
.....................
Cliff says China's growing contribution will complicate U.S. efforts
to meet annual average emissions standards. "As you try to reduce
particulate pollution from local and regional sources, you're only
reducing to some background level," Cliff says. "The concern is that as
China continues to expand, that background level will only tend to
increase."
A recent court decision raises the possibility that foreign firms
could be held liable for polluting the United States. A 9th U.S. Court
of Appeals panel ruled that Teck Cominco Ltd., a company that discharged
heavy metals and slag in the upper Columbia River in Canada, must pay
to clean up a downriver stretch in the United States.
.....................
Scientists are frustrated by a lack of data from Asia, where
factories often aren't required to report what they emit, says Richard
"Tony" VanCuren, a UC Davis applied-sciences researcher.
..................
One thing is certain, though, because of geography and wind:
"Mercury,
sulfates, ozone, black carbon, flu-laced desert dust. Even as America
tightens emission standards, the fast-growing economies of Asia are
filling the air with hazardous components that circumnavigate the
globe."
These contaminants are implicated in a
long list of health problems, including neurodegenerative disease,
cancer, emphysema, and perhaps even pandemics like avian flu. And when
wind and weather conditions are right, they reach North America within
days.Dust, ozone, and carbon can accumulate in valleys and basins, and
mercury can be pulled to earth through atmospheric sinks that deposit it
across large swaths of land.
Pollution and production have gone
hand in hand at least since the Industrial Revolution, and it is not
unusual for a developing nation to value economic growth over
environmental regulation.
“Pollute first, clean up later” can be the
general attitude, says Jennifer Turner, director of the China
Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars.The intensity of the current changeis truly new, however.
China
in particular stands out because of its sudden role as the world’s
factory, its enormous population, and the mass migration of that
population to urban centers; 350 million people, equivalent to the
entire U.S. population, will be moving to its cities over the next 10
years. China now emits more mercury than the United States, India, and
Europe combined.
“A tough new Dick Cheney biopic is triggering some conservatives. Have they learned nothing?”
“No matter what your politics, Christian Bale is
easily one of our greatest living actors, along with Daniel Day-Lewis,
Benedict Cumberbatch, and Robert De Niro. And while his stunning performance as Dick Cheney in Vice isn’t
his best performance, it’s certainly his greatest impersonation since
his Sissy-Spacek-as-Carrie/Anthony-Perkins-as-Norman-Bates-level
defining of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. (Like Meryl Streep playing The Iron Lady, Bale will be the mainstream star to watch in this year’s Best Actor race. Vice is already running away with Golden Globe nominations.)
On that note, I had planned to write a straightforward film review, maybe making a crack that it would be up to you to decide whether a film about Dick Cheney qualified as a sort of sequel to American Psycho, and leave it at that. And I would have been happy to have stayed in my lane, except for all the Beltway political pundits who, in Vice’s wake, have taken up the art of film criticism.
(Full disclosure: I interviewed Ben Shapiro years ago for a book
review, and though our outlooks differed, I respected him and liked him
personally. That said, I’m afraid I disagree with him in the extreme here, although Kyle Smith in National Review makes a far more worthwhile case against the movie on its own merits, or lack thereof.)
That’s lower than Richard Nixon when he resigned, lower than
Jimmy Carter when he was replaced by Ronald Reagan. It’s as low as
Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression and as low as Barack Obama amongRepublicans and conservatives.
Even today, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both have triple the approval ratings that Cheney left office with.
How
did Cheney make us more secure, with Iraq and Afghanistan all but
ruined, Iran and Syria feeling stronger every day, and ISIS having
wrought its destruction—and with Osama bin Laden still livin’ large for two-and-a-half years after Cheney retired? How do you defend someone who literally went to the Supreme Court to keep the minutes of his infamous 2001 energy task force meetings secret
(they were co-chaired by Kenny-Boy Lay during the height of Enron’s
rape of California’s power grid), while at the same time suggesting the
outing of a truly top secret CIA agent (Valerie Plame) just to get
revenge on her journalist husband? How did Cheney uphold Ronald Reagan’s
mantra of curbing big government excesses when he justified warrantless
surveillance and straight-up torture?
Still, there are scenes in Vice that come close. For a biopic about a man who defined the adage “personnel is policy,”
it’s fitting that director Adam McKay, who has a strong comedy
background, chose actors who are known for being funny just as much as
for their work in dramas. Those include Sam Rockwell as George W., Tyler
Perry as Colin Powell, and Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld. (Reuniting
Bale and Carell also indicates that McKay rightly sees Vice as an unofficial prequel to his financial meltdown dark farce The Big Short.) Like the aforementioned W., McKay’s Vice is a sometimes frenetic, sometimes eerily calm black comedy satire. And like Josh Brolin in W., Sam Rockwell plays George Jr. as an easily played and comical doofus. There’s no doubt in this film as to who the real president was from December 2000 to the end of 2008.
Watching Bale as a terse, leering, manipulative young reactionary as he grindstones and plays people against each other from the late ‘60s to his Bush-Cheney heyday, one is struck by his shameless entitlement.Cheney uses movement conservatism and old boy connections as his own Uber. If Christian Bale is a slim and athletic man trapped in a fat and ugly body, Cheney sees himself as the Richelieu or Machiavelli of his own real-life movie,
trapped just one step behind the real decision-makers—until he finally
gets that chance to ride his horse from Aqueduct to Santa Anita.
The other key role among these garbage men is Amy Adams’ take-no-prisoners performance as Lynne Cheney. Mrs. Cheney had the straight-A brains
and Ph.D.-level drive to be a powerful judge or executive in her own
right, and was, according to Adams, a better “natural politician” than
her husband. But as a card-carrying member of the Phyllis Schlafly/Anita Bryant/Beverly LaHaye-era Right from rural Wyoming, Lynne had less than zero plans to transform herself into another bra-burning icon. Instead, “she lived her [considerable] ambitions through her husband,”as Adams said. Adams even added that compared to the iron-fisted Lynne, her husband Dick might have been the “velvet glove”!
And as these Cheney-rehabilitating articles prove, Lynne
wasn’t the only one who got off on Dick’s raw exercise of power and
privilege. Watching Dick Cheney at work must have been
intoxicating for a Dwight Schrute or Montgomery Burns in his small pond,
for someone who coveted the kind of vulgar bullying power that Cheney wielded.It
was no accident that Stephen Bannon famously and semi-humorously put
Dick Cheney in his own hall of heroes, behind only Darth Vader and
Satan, citing Cheney’s peerless talent at “disrupting” established
orders.
So if you like where society has gone over the last 10 years—the pink pussy hats and trans bathrooms, the social justice warriors questioning the value of free speech, watching your impressionable high school and college kids devouring Samantha Bee, The Young Turks, and Mr. Robot while flirting with joining the DSA—then you really ought to thank Dick Cheney. And if you don’t like it, then why not finally give him the blame he so richly deserves?
The US said that it was not worried about being left out of the discussion.
A State Department spokesman said it welcomed any solutions that “lead
to a reduction in bloodshed… whether or not we’re at the table”.
The move underlines the growing strength of Moscow’s links with Tehran and Ankara and reflects President Vladimir Putin’s desire to cement his country’s growing influence in the Middle East and more widely.
Added: In 2011 US said Syria President Assad “had to go.” Why?
The US has no business whatsoever meddling in the Middle East. US meddling there has been a complete disaster–unless
the US goal was to clear a path for Islamic terrorists-they've succeeded in that:
CNN alone has 4,000 employees. The New York Times has nearly as many. And when she singlehandedly faces off against 49 people in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room and the less than 30 people on her staff take on a mainstream media machine of tens of thousands, it’s a true underdog story.
For a year and a half, Sanders has been reporting for duty as the White House Press Secretary. She’s
been shouted at, called names, had her appearance demeaned, and was
kicked out of a restaurant. Mainstream media White House
correspondents, invariably male, try to talk over her and shout her
down. But she’s been so effective that there have been calls by the media to boycott her press briefings.
With Sarah’s success has come a high price. Leftist harassment of Sanders has become so severe that she has become the first press secretary to require secret service protection, including at her home.
“The media has attacked me personally, on a number of
occasions, including your own network,” Sanders said, responding to
CNN’s Jim Acosta, who would later get in trouble for manhandling a
female White House intern. “Said I should be harassed as a life
sentence, that I should be choked.”
Neither MSNBC nor the Washington Post imposed any consequences for this violent rhetoric because murderous fantasies aimed at Trump and his people have been normalized by the mainstream media.
“When I was hosted by the Correspondents’ Association, of which
almost all of you are members, you brought a comedian out to attack my
appearance, and called me a traitor to my own gender,” Sarah noted.
But Sanders pushed back and won.
The White House Correspondents’ Association has revamped its lineup
moving away from the Michelle Wolf fiasco to a more civil tone. And
Sanders’ determination and resilience in the face of that ugly episode
of media harassment even won grudging admiration from members of the
media.
“Watching a wife and mother be humiliated on national television for her looks is deplorable,” MSNBC’s Mika Brezinski tweeted.
“That
@PressSec sat and absorbed intense criticism of her physical
appearance, her job performance, and so forth, instead of walking out,
on national television, was impressive,” Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted.
But that’s always been her strength.
No matter what the media throws at her, from insults to death
threats, Sarah Huckabee Sanders stays focused and remains on message. The interruptions, tantrums and yelling by the media mob have yet to rattle her. She may have the Secret Service at home protecting her and her family, as she pointed out, “a Hollywood actor publicly encouraged people to kidnap my children”, but she’s never let it stop her.
Like other members of the Trump administration, there have
been efforts at legal harassment. These attacks also frequently went
into the realm of the unbelievably absurd, such as the time
that Walter Shaub, Obama’s head of the Office of Government Ethics,
suggested that Sanders had violated the Hatch Act when she tweeted about
an Amazon Echo ordering a toy because her son shouted Batman into it.
(Meanwhile Shaub had repeatedly abused the OGE Twitter account to attack Trump, before going to work for a Soros funded organization.)
Then a complaint was filed with the Office of Special Counsel over a photo that Sanders took with Kanye West because no angle of attack is too petty and no effort at intimidating Trump’s people too ugly.
But throughout all the harassment, verbal, physical and legal, Sanders has kept right on going.
The New Yorker called the 5’6 Arkansas native,
“Trump’s battering ram.” That’s how the flacks of the media, the
privileged potentates of the Washington D.C. press corps, see Sarah because she won’t bow to the gargantuan echo chamber of the mainstream media. But Sarah Huckabee Sanders isn’t a battering ram. She’s a fortress. She takes a stand and makes it clear that she won’t be moved. No matter what.
But the Thanksgiving moment defined what made Sanders so different than other press secretaries.
In Washington D.C. politics, it’s all too easy to get caught up in
the spin cycle, to lose sight of basic truths, and to be always reacting
to the news cycle with no sense of higher truth or deeper principles. Press secretaries have to build backdoor relationships with the media,
undermining their employers by trading secrets in order to plant
stories, while thinking about possible media employment down the road. In that environment, it’s easy to forget who you are, what you believe and what you stand for.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has never forgotten that. In a hateful
environment of utter indecency, she stands for the simple decency of
defying the tide of hatred that washes ashore at every
gathering in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. And she does it
with admirable dignity and fortitude.
Media portrayals often depict Sanders as a bully, humiliating and embarrassing the media. The opposite is true. Her stolid dignity and unmovable insistence on telling the truth embarrass the media. Every time Sanders takes on the press corps, they come away looking like deranged, egotistical activists throwing a tantrum.
The media, which is built on spinning reality, has smeared her, but
it’s never been able to change her. That’s why it’s pondering the idea
of just giving up and running away from a 5’6 woman.
In 2005, before the fence, more than 2,700 vehicles crossed
the Colorado River and open deserts, loaded with illegal immigrants and
drugs, according to Border Patrol numbers. Apprehensions steadily increased to more than 138,000 in fiscal 2005.
Border Patrol in Yuma apprehended more than 26,000 illegal aliens in fiscal 2018.
Although the numbers pale in comparison to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas (more than 162,000 apprehensions for the same period), it is still “maddening” to Bratcher that his community suffered due to Obama-era policies.
“When they put their own political agenda above the quality of life of American citizens and Yuma citizens, what is their motivation? It makes you question that,” he said.
During the Obama era, Wilmot was forced to take matters into his own hands.
“The individuals would come across, the U.S. attorney’s office would not charge them…It was a revolving door. They just kept coming back, coming back, coming back.”
Wilmot said he has deputized Border Patrol agents, DEA agents, FBI agents, and Homeland Security Investigations agents.
He said he hasn’t needed to take such extraordinary measures since President Donald Trump took office, as the feds have stepped up again to prosecute criminal aliens and illegal border crossers.
[Image] A
Border Patrol agent drives near the U.S.–Mexico border in the desert
near Yuma, Ariz., on May 25, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times).Wilmot drove us 100 miles south from Yuma along
the Colorado River, which separates Arizona and California, then
southeast, straight along the fenceline that separates Arizona and
Mexico.
Right across the fence on the Mexican side is Highway 2, which provides easy access to the border.
The terrain is bumpy, sandy desert with rocky outcrops and hills
interrupting the horizon. No trees live here, only saguaro cacti, which
look imposing but provide no shade. Summer temperatures are searing. It
gets up to 125 degrees during the day, with ground temperatures of up to
140 degrees. There is no water….
The Sinaloa cartel works the border along here—it is dominant in California and Arizona. Cartels control all the trafficking routes throughout Mexico and the ports of entry, or plazas, into the United States.
“When you’re dealing with drug smugglers and human smugglers, there is always a cost associated,” Wilmot said. “You gotta pay the cartel to utilize their area.”
[Image] Sheriff
Leon Wilmot speaks to a Border Patrol agent in the desert near Yuma,
Ariz., by the U.S.–Mexico border on May 25, 2018. A small section of
border fence can been seen on the left. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch
Times)
He said his department has encountered many creative ways the cartels
try to get illicit goods across the border…more recently, GPS drones….
“I mean, whatever the cartels can use, or their criminal element can
use, to exploit our weaknesses that’s what they’re gonna use to get
their product across.”
The fence abruptly stops at the foot of the rocky ranges, where it’s too steep for a fence but it’s easy to walk between the two countries.
Wilmot said the cartels employ people to sit up in the hills and act as lookouts.
“They keep ledgers and they’ve got radio systems, they’ve got solar panels, batteries, and they communicate back and forth with their partners in crime on the other side of the border. They watch Border Patrol and they watch us … and when the coast is clear, they let them come through,” Wilmot said.
“That’s how they get paid. For every successful load that gets through, that’s what they get paid for.”…
“It’s two separate deals,” he said. “Politics and public safety are not synonymous at all. We need to enforce the laws of this land. If they don’t like it—which you hear all the time—they’re the lawmakers, change it. But until then, let’s do our job.”
Wilmot said most politicians that visit the border, “they’ll do their photo op, they’ll get a 20 minute briefing, and then boom, they’re done, they’re out. And that’s the problem.”
He has a suggestion for politicians in regard to border
security: “Don’t do what the governors say, don’t do what the mayors
say. Get with the local law enforcement leaders and then tailor it to the needs for that area. It’s the boots on the ground that know best.”
Yuma deputies work closely with local Border Patrol agents as part of a Homeland Security program called Operation Stonegarden,
which provides federal funds to enhance cooperation between federal
immigration authorities and local law enforcement along the border….
Other surveys also found roughly one-third of Latinos supporting the GOP.
Data from the Pew Research Center and from exit polls suggests that a
comparable share of about 3 in 10 Latino voters supported Trump in 2016.
That tracks the share of Latinos supporting Republicans for the last decade.
The stability of Republicans’ share of the Latino vote frustrates Democrats,
who say actions like Trump’s [alleged] family separation policy and his
[alleged] demonization of an [illegal] immigrant caravan [seeking a
“better” but in any case US taxpayer funded life] should drive Latinos
out of the GOP.
“The question is not are Democrats winning the Hispanic vote — it’s why aren’t Democrats winning the Hispanic vote 80-20 or 90-10 the way black voters are?” said Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster. He argues Democrats must invest more in winning Latino voters….
Sacramento-based Rev. Sam Rodriguez, one of Trump’s spiritual advisers, said evangelical Latinos have a clear reason to vote Republican. “Why do 30 percent of Latinos still support Trump? Because of the Democratic Party’s obsession with abortion,” Rodriguez said. “It’s life and religious liberty and everything else follows.”
The 2018 election was good to Democrats, but Florida disappointed them. They couldn’t convince enough of the state’s often right-leaning Cuban-American voters to support Sen. Bill Nelson, who was ousted by the GOP’s Spanish-speaking Gov. Rick Scott, or rally behind Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who lost to Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis.
Still, in the rest of the country, there were signs that pleased
Democrats. Latinos voted at high rates in an election that saw
record-setting turnout among all demographic groups. Latinos normally
have among the worst midterm turnout rates, and while official data
won’t be available for months, a number of formerly-Republican
congressional districts in California and New Mexico flipped
Democratic….
Gonzalez’s church is Iglesia Embajada del Reino, or Church of
the Kingdom’s Embassy. On a recent Saturday night, an eight-piece band
played Spanish-language Christian rock before Gonzalez walked
to the podium. Wearing a blue corduroy blazer, blue shirt and grey
slacks, Gonzalez, a onetime member of a Marxist group in Colombia, told
his congregants that they were ambassadors of a higher power — the
kingdom of God.
“It’s important that your political opinions, your social opinions,”
not enter into it, Gonzalez said. “We need to represent the position of
‘The Kingdom.’ ”
Gonzalez did not mention Trump in his sermon….He spoke about the Bible as a book of governance.
Afterward the congregation gathered for bowls of posole, a traditional Mexican soup. When politics came up, church-goers struggled to balance their enthusiasm for some of Trump’s judicial appointments with their distaste at his rhetoric and actions.
“I think the president has good, Christian principles,” said Jose
Larios, a parks worker. “But we feel as Latinos that he doesn’t embrace
our community, and our community is good and hard-working.”
Oscar Murillo, a 37-year-old horse trainer, is not a fan of Trump’s.
But he tries to stay open-minded about Republicans. He voted for the GOP
candidate for state attorney general, who visited the congregation
before the election. “He’s in the same party as Trump, but he seems
different,” Murillo said.” …………………….
