No Denial: The first climate change report issued under the Trump administration says undeniable effects of global warming present a threat to human health and the economy while feeding the power of natural disasters. It says the economy could shrink 10 percent by the year 2100 as a result of dealing with climate change.

President Trump denies climate change and global warming exist. Only three days ago he made fun of it because there was a cold snap in the East. As if that proves there’s no global warming.

The National Climate Assessment says humans must act “to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades.” The report is required by Congress.

In the West, the mountains are receiving and holding less snow, threatening water supplies. Coral reefs in the Caribbean, Hawaii, Florida and the Pacific are dying. Wildfires are burning more acreage in what has become a year-round fire season. In Alaska, coastal ice is melting and so is the permafrost.  The report’s authors say they considered releasing it in December, but the Trump administration insisted that it be yesterday, burying it on the busiest shopping day of the year going into a Saturday. That’s what’s called a “news dump.”

The Trumpster Fire: A New York judge has ruled that a corruption lawsuit against the Trump charitable foundation may proceed. The suit brought by the state attorney general’s office accuses the Trumps of misusing charity money, self-dealing, and violating campaign finance laws during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s lawyers had argued bias and lack of jurisdiction because he’s President. — The administration has asked to be allowed to skip over federal appeals courts that would deal with the President’s ban on transgender people serving in the military and go straight to the Supreme Court. The Supremes don’t usually allow a plaintiff to jump direct from the circuit court level to appear before them. It has to be pretty pressing. — Jerome Corsi, a conspiracy theorist who is an associate of the dapper Roger Stone, who in turn has been an associate of President Trump, is reported to be negotiating a plea deal with the Special Counsel in the Russia investigation. Couldit be a conspiracy against Corsi?

Unkindest Cut: A federal judge in Michigan ruled yesterday that the federal law banning the ancient practice of female genital mutilation is not constitutional.

Judge Bernard Friedman ruled that “As laudable as the prohibition of a particular type of abuse of girls may be,” there is no federal jurisdiction over the practice. He said, “FGM is a ‘local criminal activity’ which, in keeping with longstanding tradition and our federal system of government, is for the states to regulate, not Congress.”

Female genital mutilation is a performed in some cultures to deny women sexual pleasure. As many as 200 million women around the world may have undergone the procedure when they were just children.  The case was the first brought under a 1996 law. Defense lawyers argued on behalf of two doctors and their assistants who performed the procedure that it was a protected religious practice.

Trading Down: Despite President Trump’s trade war to protect American business and industry, the imbalance with China is getting worse. The trade deficit for the first nine months of the year was $274.2 billion in 2017 and $301.4 billion in 2018.

The Obit Page: Wolfgang Zuckermann, a piano technician and self-taught harpsichord builder who went into the business of selling harpsichord kits, has died at age 96.  In the years after world War II Zuckerman found that musicians were so intimidated by maintaining their own harpsichords — and he was so tired of doing it for them — that he thought the solution was for people to build their own so they would understand the instrument.

Zuckermann wrote in his book 1969 book, “The Modern Harpsichord,” that, “Realizing that most people approach a harpsichord with caution, the way they do a vicious dog, I decided that the only way they might lose their fear of harpsichord maintenance was to go through the process of building the instrument for themselves.” He and his partner ended up selling thousands of the 35-pound harpsichord kits.

Out of Line: The mobs of shoppers waiting for the so-called “Black Friday” shopping deals sometimes line up a day in advance, skipping Thanksgiving for discounts. It has resulted in smashed doors, fistfights, and also a new industry — line waiting.  The CEO of a new company called Skip the Line told Time magazine that you can pay up to $30 an hour for someone to wait on line for you before you get that deal on a flat screen television. Sooo … we’re wondering how the math makes sense. You’d have to buy several flat screens to amortize the cost of your line waiter. But hey, they’re on sale!

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