Day: January 3, 2024

Dems Are Just As Corrupt

I have read many articles telling us all about the corruption within the GOP…..the stocks thing, the bribes, the under the table payments…..all maybe true but to leave the Dems out of the equation is a disservice to the readers.

I have said a few times that I had no faith in the Dems basically because they are deep down no better than those slugs in the GOP….and here is just another example of how deep it goes.

A second superseding indictment against Sen. Bob Menendez was unsealed Tuesday, accusing the New Jersey Democrat of using his political power to aid the Qatari government in return for tens of thousands of dollars in bribes. Federal prosecutors say Menendez helped to arrange a deal between a Jersey developer, Fred Daibes, and a Qatari sheikh investor, the New York Times reports. In return, prosecutors say, Menendez was paid off with cash, gold bars, Formula 1 tickets, and more. The Washington Post explains that the indictment does not add charges, but makes public for the first time new allegations of corruption against Menendez. Daibes is also charged in the case, NBC News reports.

Menendez, who is scheduled to go on trial in May and has also been accused of aiding Egypt, has so far pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him and may still run for reelection (he did, however, step down from leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee). A spokesperson calls the latest allegations “a string of baseless assumptions and bizarre conjectures based on routine, lawful contacts between a Senator and his constituents.” Menendez is accused of making public statements praising Qatar and of giving them to Daibes so that Daibes could share them with the Qatari investor (a member of the royal family) as well as a Qatari government official during the time Daibes’ deal was in talks. Menendez also allegedly talked to the investor directly, using an encrypted messaging app, to express his support for the deal.

In case you are unaware of his other legal problems…..

More trouble for Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey: Federal prosecutors have rewritten their indictment against the senator to accuse him of acting as a foreign agent on behalf of Egypt. The superseding indictment, filed in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, accuses Menendez of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people to register with the US government if they are acting as “an agent of a foreign principal.” His wife, Nadine Menendez, is similarly charged, as is a third defendant, Wael Hana, per the New York Times. As a member of Congress, Menendez would have been prohibited from being an agent of a foreign government, even if he did register as one. The indictment says the conspiracy occurred from January 2018 to June 2022.

The Guardian previously detailed some of the allegations specific to Egypt: Menendez allegedly obtained details from the State Department about people working at the US embassy in Cairo, then turned over the information to Egyptian officials. The original indictment stated that “although this information was not classified, it was deemed highly sensitive because it could pose significant operational security concerns if disclosed to a foreign government or if made public.” The allegations also accuse Menendez of using his clout to try to increase military sales to Egypt in exchange for bribes, per the Times.

Let’s not forget all the cash stashed in his home……

Sen. Bob Menendez says he’s not stepping down from the Senate after being indicted on bribery charges—and he’s got an explanation for the cash investigators say they found stashed around his home. The New Jersey Democrat said Monday that the money found in clothes and closets was his from his own savings accounts, the Guardian reports. He said that over the last 30 years, he has withdrawn thousands of dollars of legitimately earned income from his accounts, “which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”

Menendez, who was born in the US a few months after his parents left Cuba, didn’t comment on the gold bars also mentioned in the indictment. Investigators say they found $480,000 in cash in Menendez’s home and another $70,000 in his wife’s safety deposit box. Menendez and his wife are accused of taking bribes in exchange for political favors to the government of Egypt and business associates in New Jersey, the New York Times reports. The senator said Monday that he is facing his “biggest fight yet,” but predicted that “not only will I be exonerated, I will still be New Jersey’s senior senator.”

There you go….I am not picking on one person just trying to point out that our 2 party system is so corrupt that it is destroying itself from the inside.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Climate Change Myths Debunked

2024 will be the telling year!

In less than one year we will be running to the polls to vote this way or that…..we have a year of rhetoric, lies, myths and manure to endure until the day we vote. Some will buy into the BS spread while others will be deciding for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.

One of the big issues, besides the economy, will most likely be that of climate change…so I would like to pass on the debunking of most of the rhetoric against climate change.

Climate change refers to long-term changes in precipitation, temperature, and other atmospheric conditions on Earth. It is primarily driven by natural factors such as variations in the sun’s intensity, volcanic activity, and internal processes within the Earth’s climate system.

However, human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation, have significantly contributed to the rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions, including gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).

These gases trap heat, leading to a warming effect known as the greenhouse effect. The enhanced greenhouse effect intensifies the Earth’s natural warming processes, contributing to the observed rise in temperatures over the years.

he average global temperatures have risen by approximately 0.08 degrees Celsius (or 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since 1880, and this rate has more than doubled, to a rise of 0.18 degrees Celsius (or 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit), per decade since 1981.

However, the increase in temperatures has come with a rise in skepticism and doubts surrounding climate change. This skepticism, fueled by misconceptions and selective interpretations, weaves a narrative that questions the urgency of addressing our planet’s warming climate.

In this article, we shed light on some of the most common myths and arguments around climate change and provide a counterpoint rooted in scientific evidence.

https://interestingengineering.com/lists/climate-change-global-warming-co2

Our climate is a real and pressing problem…..something has to be done other than what the governments have been doing for decades….kicking the can down the road so as not to upset the corporations that contribute to our governments corruption.

As the world puts to bed the hottest year on record, the Washington Post calls attention to a study suggesting we haven’t seen anything yet. The paper by renowned climate scientist James Hansen—the New York Times notes that it was Hansen’s testimony before Congress 35 years ago that helped put the topic on the nation’s radar—warns that the pace of warming has already begun accelerating at a rate scientists have long warned about. Specifically, the study in Oxford Open Climate Change predicts that global warming is on track to spike 50% in the coming decades, with effects that could be catastrophic, per the Post. However, the above coverage, as well as a story in E&E News, make clear that other scientists disagree.

“That is very much on the high end of the range of estimates that are in the academic literature today,” Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth tells the Times. Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania wrote a detailed blog post in rebuttal to Hansen, asserting that “the claim that warming is somehow accelerating now is no more accurate than the false claim, advanced by climate change deniers at the time, that global warming had ‘stopped’ in the first decade of the 21st century.” And Michael Oppenheimer of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton sees Hansen’s warning as useful mainly as a “worst-worst-case scenario,” per E&E.

Hansen predicted as much: “I expect the response to be characterized by scientific reticence,” he tells E&E. The former NASA scientist calls the much-touted goal of keeping warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius “deader than a doornail,” per the Times. While many other scientists agree with that, Hansen differs in warning further that the world is poised to warm by 2 degrees Celsius by 2050. (He does offer more hope on this target, saying that a global push to reduce the use of fossil fuels could keep warming under 2 degrees.) The Times adds context, pointing out that the planet has warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius so far and is already seeing worsening heat waves and storms.

When you vote and if the climate is high on your want list then vote to a person that will try to do something constructive….god knows they have done very little in 50 years.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”