In a wide ranging interview on 60 Minutes, President Trump finally admitted that climate change is real, not, as he claimed in his 2016 campaign, that it was a “Chinese hoax”. He went on to claim, without offering any proof that climate scientists “have an big political agenda” yet he didn’t even know who the scientists issuing the warnings were. Just what a ‘political agenda’ for a scientist might be is undefined. He also went on to state, again without offering any proof, that “it will change back again.” This president, who routinely lies, makes up supposed ‘facts’ and changes his points of view seemingly daily on many issues, (or is it that he can’t remember what he said the day before?),and no longer has a scientist advising him, is now confronted with twin hurricanes that have cost lives and billions of dollars of damage, including the apparent destruction of 22 Stealth fighters which cost the taxpayers $339 Million dollars each. Reports state that Tyndall Air Force base was a complete loss. In addition to the loss of the air force base, (his own military advisors have told him that climate change and global warming are a threat to the nation’s national security, which he apparently ignored) towns along the Gulf coast have been wiped off the face of the earth, and over 200 people who had told police that they were staying in their homes during the storm are unaccounted for and their homes were entirely washed out to sea leaving only the footprint of where they stood. Police are attempting to determine whether these people managed to flee or are gone. One of the only homes left standing in Mexico Beach was one that was built last year far beyond the already stringent “government standards” that Florida have in place and Trump loves to talk about getting rid of on our behalf.
Now that he “thinks” that global warming is happening, he isn’t clear if it’s man-made. And he is certainly clear on one thing, he doesn’t want to spend money to fight it. “I will say this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs.”
I don’t know what kind of base he is talking to here, maybe the freebase,but let’s be clear one thing. His base, as well as many others who didn’t vote for him, is suffering from climate change. Areas around the Southeast and the Panhandle, along with Redding California and other rural western forest fire zones were heavily supporting Trump in the last election, according to a map of voting in each county in the US created for the NY Times. Panama City, which sustained horrendous damage, voted over 80% for Trump in 2016. Trump may not want to tell them, but he (through their taxes) already is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on climate change, by running behind it and cleaning up after it. They and us will be paying for supporting these people in their hours of need. And we are paying ever increasing amounts to fight forest fires in the west. He’s losing tens of thousands of jobs by the destruction of places that were pummeled in both hurricanes this year, in Puerto Rico, Texas and other American controlled islands last year, and other locations around the country that are being severely impacted by drought and forest fires. Many of those small businesses lost may never reopen. The thousands of people who lost their homes around Santa Rosa and Redding California in the last two years will never recover what they lost, and many of them are likely to not be able to afford a home of their own again. We are losing jobs to climate change yearly, yet this President and Congress’ lack of action on it are making the problem worse, not better.
Obviously I am not saying that if Hilary Clinton was elected President, rather than simply winning the popular vote, that she would have stopped this from happening. But she would not have been hosting a seemingly mentally impaired Kanye West in the Oval Office allowing him to utter profanities to further degrade the highest office in this country while children watched on television. She likely would have been helping get people motivated to get out of the way of the storm, along with working together with other countries to do what we can to lessen this problem moving forward. She would have led, not sat back and diverted attention to bizarre rapper entertainment in the White House and election campaigning to adoring fans that still scream, “lock her up” though they don’t know which woman Trump wants locked up this week. She would have, in effect, acted Presidential.
This ‘no nothing’ President at least is coming around that somethings happening. Just like the proverbial frog in the pot of water, he can feel the heat but doesn’t understand he’s about to be boiled. He’s saying to his adorning followers, “Hey, smart people tell me the stove is on and we are all about to be cooked. I don’t believe them! It will get cooler soon.”
Let’s hope the elections in November turn up the heat on him even more.
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound |
Considering the innuendos and misinformation in this article, the author has very little credibility! So Trump caused 2 hurricanes and didn’t micromanage the Air Force, so planes were damaged – interesting to see how many may still be operational. Also, very interesting that Hillary still has some “me2” supporters after excusing Bill’s rape victim’s verifiable claim. (Think of the time he could have had as the presidents husband in the White house.
Jim I always know that I can expect you to misinterpret what is a very clear commentary. A few points to your comments: I never stated that Trump “caused hurricanes”. Many climate and hurricane scientists have been on the news lately talking about how climate change is creating more powerful hurricanes. Trump denies this with nothing to back up his claims other than his own belief. I pointed out the damage to the airplanes as a counterpoint to Trump’s claim to 60 minutes that he wasn’t going to ‘spend trillions’ to try and fix climate change. The more we don’t try to fix it, the more we will spend to react to it. We are going to be spending some hundreds of millions or more to replace those destroyed planes (if the reports coming in are accurate about their total damage). The rest of the points about Hilary (never mentioned Bill, you did and anyone knowing me knows I am don’t apologize for any of her faults), are clearly there for anyone to understand. You seem like a smart guy, but your purposeful twisting of my commentary which is clearly discussing the President’s own words, seems so malicious. I don’t know why you even waste your time going out of the way to do this kind of purposeful miscommunication. You should really reread the piece before going off like that. Thanks anyway.
Might want to fact check that “22 fighters” That’s the fighter designation number. What I found was an unknown number of F22s destroyed/damaged. Could be more that 22 however we may never know. Unbelievable they did not fly them out.
Joel, if you follow the link about that it goes to the NY Times article. It states, “Tyndall is home to 55 F-22 stealth fighters, which cost a dizzying $339 million each. Before the storm, the Air Force sent at least 33 of the fighters to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.” The article is unclear how many might have been there, but aerial shots show many damaged planes.