World Climate Backlash, Flat Joke

Political Climate: The fallout from President Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Accord has been worldwide.

The Washington Post reports that, “An international realignment was already taking shape on Friday, as European and Chinese officials signed a raft of agreements to bind themselves tightly together.”

President Trump’s “America First” pledge is quickly becoming “America Alone.” The Post says, “The pullout left the United States a global outlier and, many European leaders and experts said, a severely diminished force in the world. And it gave China fresh weight in a newly unbalanced landscape where longtime U.S. allies are searching for stability.”

Here in the US, an unnamed group of political, education, and business leaders is organizing to live up to the Paris Accord. The group including 30 mayors, three governors, 80 university presidents and more than 100 businesses, — is negotiating with the United Nations to have its submission accepted alongside contributions to the Paris climate deal by other nations.

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s leading the effort, told the NY Times, “We’re going to do everything America would have done if it had stayed committed.”

Democratic leaders see Trump’s move as an opportunity to paint him as an idiot. But if jobs and economic output grow, no matter the reason, he’s going to look like a genius.

Denial Ain’t a River:  A day after Trump’s decision, the question remains whether the President believes in manmade climate change. His aides, appointees, and official mouthpieces are unable to say.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he doesn’t know what the president thinks and Kellyanne Conway said you’d have to ask the president, who’s generally reluctant to answer questions from the press.

Earlier in the week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he doesn’t know, but he told a reporter, “I can get back to you.”

Yesterday when Spicer was asked again he said, “I have not had the opportunity to specifically talk to the President about that.”

Andy Borowitz writes for The New Yorker, “In a dramatic announcement from the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, Donald J. Trump pronounced the planet Earth a ‘loser’ and vowed to make a better deal with a new planet.”

Nation: Three former Penn State officials have been given jail time for covering up the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.

Former university President Graham Spanier, 68, got 4 to 12 months, with the first two to be spent in jail and the rest under house arrest. Former athletic director Tim Curley, 63, received 7 to 23 months, with three in jail. Former vice president Gary Schultz, 67, was sentenced to 6 to 23 months, with two months locked up.

The Obit Page: Jack O’Neill, the surfer who made the neoprene wetsuit a common item for cold water surfers, has died at age 94 in Santa Cruz, Calif. O’Neill opened a surf shop in San Francisco in 1952 and became a worldwide brand name. O’Neill once said, “All I wanted to do was surf, and when I opened that shop in my garage, I thought I would have a few guys there to sell suits and have guys to surf with. One of the guys up there told me: ‘O’Neill, you are going to sell to the five guys on the beach and you are going to be out of business.’”

O’Neill lost his left eye testing a surfboard leash in the 1970s and wore a pirate patch for the rest of his life.

Dying in Comedy: Comedian Kathy Griffin is so not funny that she managed to make a victim out of President Trump. Now the Secret Service is investigating her for posting a picture of herself holding a mock severed head of the President.

Griffin’s lawyer said at a press conference, “She basically exercised her First Amendment rights to tell a joke.” He said. “When you look at everything in the media, all the times entertainers make videos or express themselves in other ways, you’ve never seen an entertainer, let alone a comedian, be subject to a criminal investigation.” Griffin told reporters, “I don’t think I will have a career after this. I’m going to be honest, he broke me.”

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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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