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usaf-vet's JournalHigh water wreaks havoc on Great Lakes, swamping communities
Source: AP
MANISTEE, Mich. (AP) — Rita Alton has an unusual morning routine these days: Wake up. Get dressed. Go outside to see if her house is closer to tumbling down an 80-foot (24.4-meter) cliff into Lake Michigan.
When her father built the 1,000-square-foot (93-square-meter), brick bungalow in the early 1950s near Manistee, Michigan, more than acre of land lay between it and the drop-off overlooking the giant freshwater sea. But erosion has accelerated dramatically as the lake approaches its highest levels in recorded history, hurling powerful waves into the mostly clay bluff.
Now, the jagged clifftop is about eight feet from Alton’s back deck.
“It’s never been like this, never,” she said on a recent morning, peering down the snow-dusted hillside as bitter gusts churned surf along the shoreline below. “The destruction is just incredible.”
On New Year’s Eve, an unoccupied cottage near Muskegon, Michigan, plunged from an embankment to the water’s edge. Another down the coast was dismantled a month earlier to prevent the same fate.
High water is wreaking havoc across the Great Lakes, which are bursting at the seams less than a decade after bottoming out. The sharp turnabout is fueled by the region’s wettest period in more than a century that scientists say is likely connected to the warming climate. No relief is in sight, as forecasters expect the lakes to remain high well into 2020 and perhaps longer.
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Jared Kushner appeared ignorant of what Nato actually does, book claims
Source: The Guardian
Thu 6 Feb 2020 01.30 EST
Though Jared Kushner was a “lead point of contact” for US allies worried about Donald Trump’s threats to Nato, the president’s son-in-law did not “seem to know what Nato actually did”, a new book claims.
Kushner even appeared to be ignorant of article 5, the treaty clause which stipulates that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
The claim is contained in Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington, by Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng, two reporters for the Daily Beast. The Guardian obtained a copy of the book, which has been excerpted elsewhere and will be published on 11 February.
Markay and Suebsaeng write that Kushner’s ignorance of the founding principles of Nato was exposed in May 2017, as Trump was about to travel to Nato headquarters in Brussels to address allies worried by his attacks on the organization and claims that other countries were not paying their way.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/06/jared-kushner-nato-sinking-in-the-swamp
Trump unleashes fury at impeachment enemies at prayer event
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump unleashed his fury against those who tried to remove him from office at a prayer breakfast Thursday, a day after his acquittal by the Senate in his impeachment trial.
Speaking from a stage where he was joined by congressional leaders, including Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who led the impeachment charge against him, Trump shattered the usual veneer of bipartisanship at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
“As everybody knows, my family, our great country and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people,” Trump said at the annual event. His airing of grievances came hours before he was to deliver a formal response to the impeachment vote at the White House.
“They have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing very badly hurt our nation,” said Trump, who triumphantly held up copies of two newspapers with banner “ACQUITTED” headlines as he took the stage.
Read more: https://apnews.com/504e331eeec5107afbe757e8d241a16d
Morning Mix Rep. Matt Gaetz demands criminal probe of Pelosi for mutilating Trump speech. 'This is c
Source: Washington Post
Morning Mix
Rep. Matt Gaetz demands criminal probe of Pelosi for mutilating Trump speech. ‘This is cute,’ responds Laura Ingraham.
It fell to a Fox News host on Wednesday to inform an excited Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that no, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) can’t be prosecuted and sent to prison or fined for ripping up a copy of President Trump’s State of the Union address.
This, after Gaetz called for a House Ethics Committee investigation of Pelosi and a referral of her action to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. Gaetz cited a law that makes it a crime for anyone having custody of certain federal records to mutilate, obliterate or destroy them.
“There is no question that Speaker Pelosi ‘mutilated, obliterated, or destroyed’ the copy of the President’s address provided to her,” said a letter to the House Ethics Committee signed by Gaetz, a staunch and sometimes boisterous defender of Trump.
“The video evidence is clear and abundant, and the Speaker herself told reporters that she tore up the document,” the letter said. “Nobody is above the law,” Gaetz declared in a tweet accompanying the letter.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/06/gaetz-complaint-pelosi-speech/?itid=hp_hp-morning-mix-for-right-rail_mm-gaetz%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
Article II of the Impeachment Vote -- Guilty 47 Not Guilty 53
Article I of Impeachment -- Guilty 48 Not Guilty 52 found NOT GUILTY
Article II of the Impeachment Vote -- Guilty 47 Not Guilty 53 found NOT GUILTY
Article I of the Impeachment Vote -- Guilty 48 Not Guilty 52
Senator Romney voted GUILTY on Article I ----- NOT GUILTY on Article II
Freedom unifies the soul': Trump's State of the Union speechwriters have thrown in the towel
Source: The Guardian
The US reality-TV president has shown a stubborn resistance to playing the role of a normal commander-in-chief
There’s only one political body that is more incompetent than the Iowa Democratic party. That body was delivering what could be its last State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
For the fourth year, Donald Trump pretended to address Congress like his presidential predecessors, with some kind of legislative agenda worthy of the chief executive of the most powerful country on the planet.
But our reality-TV president has shown a stubborn resistance to playing anything like the normal role of a commander-in-chief. This time last year, he threatened war if Congress continued to investigate his many varied scandals, crimes and impeachable abuses.
“If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation,” he said in a nonsense rhyme that sounded like the vaguely ominous threats of a childish bully armed with nuclear weapons. “It just doesn’t work that way!”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/04/freedom-unifies-the-soul-trumps-state-of-the-union-speechwriters-have-thrown-in-the-towel
Biden's poor showing in Iowa shakes establishment support
Source: AP
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Joe Biden’s third presidential bid enters a critical stretch after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses sent the former vice president on to New Hampshire with a skittish donor base, low cash reserves and the looming threat of billionaire rival Michael Bloomberg and his unlimited personal wealth.
In New Hampshire on Tuesday, Biden insisted he had a “good night” in Iowa even as he trailed the top moderate candidate, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and the leading progressive, Bernie Sanders, according to initial returns from 71% of precincts. Biden was running fourth, close to Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who just days ago polled in single digits.
That leaves some establishment Democrats, including some Biden supporters, questioning his contention that he’ll reclaim clear front-runner status in the race against President Donald Trump once the primary fight moves beyond overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire to more racially diverse electorates. And it’s a reminder of how Biden’s previous presidential campaigns never advanced beyond Iowa.
“If he came in fourth, yeah, that could hurt,” said Bill Freeman, a Biden donor from Nashville, Tennessee, who added that he hadn’t even considered such a possibility heading into Monday’s caucuses. “That’s a bad night, no matter how you spin it.”
Read more: https://apnews.com/8a6ea236b5abcb43b40f79cfbf3f8c20
Alabama Democrat Doug Jones will vote to convict
Source: The Guardian
Alabama senator Doug Jones, one of the few Democrats who may have voted to acquit the president, just released a statement to say after “many sleepless nights” he has “reluctantly” decided to vote to convict on both articles of impeachment.
“I did not run for Senate hoping to participate in the impeachment trial of a duly-elected President, but I cannot and will not shrink from my duty to defend the Constitution and to do impartial justice,” Jones said in a lengthy statement.
Senators are elected to make tough choices. We are required to study the facts of each issue before us and exercise our independent judgement in keeping with the oaths we take. The gravity of this moment, the seriousness of the charges, and the implications for future presidencies and Congresses all contributed to the difficult with which I have arrive at my decision.
Meanwhile, another Democrat who could go either way, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, has told reporters the public will learn how he is voting when it is time to vote.
Read more: Link to source
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Freedom unifies the soul': Trump's State of the Union speechwriters have thrown in the towel
Source: The Guardian
The US reality-TV president has shown a stubborn resistance to playing the role of a normal commander-in-chief
There’s only one political body that is more incompetent than the Iowa Democratic party. That body was delivering what could be its last State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
For the fourth year, Donald Trump pretended to address Congress like his presidential predecessors, with some kind of legislative agenda worthy of the chief executive of the most powerful country on the planet.
But our reality-TV president has shown a stubborn resistance to playing anything like the normal role of a commander-in-chief. This time last year, he threatened war if Congress continued to investigate his many varied scandals, crimes and impeachable abuses.
“If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation,” he said in a nonsense rhyme that sounded like the vaguely ominous threats of a childish bully armed with nuclear weapons. “It just doesn’t work that way!”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/04/freedom-unifies-the-soul-trumps-state-of-the-union-speechwriters-have-thrown-in-the-towel
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