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Friday, May 31, 2024

Numbers Behind The Narrative: What Climate Science Actually Says

 by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

Most people by now are familiar with the narrative that our planet faces a dire crisis due to rising temperatures.

In January 2023, former Vice President Al Gore provided a graphic depiction during a World Economic Forum summit, informing attendees that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are “now trapping as much extra heat as would be released by 600,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every single day on the Earth.

“That’s what’s boiling the oceans, creating these atmospheric rivers, and the rain bombs, and sucking the moisture out of the land, and creating the droughts, and melting the ice, and raising the sea level, and causing these waves of climate refugees,” he stated.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed these remarks at the U.N. Environment Assembly in February of this year, warning: “Our planet is on the brink.

“Ecosystems are collapsing,” he stated. “Our climate is imploding, and humanity is to blame.”

Despite ubiquitous reports that there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists in support of this narrative, many scientists, like John Clauser, a 2022 Nobel Prize recipient in physics, see it differently.

Mr. Clauser stated in 2023 that “the popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.

“Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience,” Mr. Clauser stated. “In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.”

How can there be such a vast discrepancy on such an extensively researched topic?

Having studied the production of climate data for decades, physicist Steven Koonin said he has “watched a growing chasm between what the politicians, the media, and the NGOs were saying, and what the science actually said.”

“Nobody has an incentive to portray scientific truth and facts,” he told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Koonin was the undersecretary for science in the U.S. Department of Energy, under President Barack Obama. He is a former physics professor at Caltech and is currently on faculty at New York University.

He also has expertise in the development of analytical models.

In 2021, Mr. Koonin published a best-selling book titled “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn’t and Why It Matters.” The book analyzes where climate data comes from and how it makes its way from dense, thousand-page scientific reports into headline news for public consumption.

The United Nations’ IPCC

One of the most often cited sources of climate information is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a collection of scientists and government appointees that, according to its website, is dedicated to “assessing the science on climate change.”

The United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization established the IPCC in 1988.

The IPCC is both a scientific and a political body. It doesn’t conduct its own research but rather assembles teams of hundreds of scientists in working groups that collect reports from scientific journals regarding climate change, its effects, and what should be done about it.

About every seven years, an IPCC Working Group called Working Group I synthesizes the latest reports into Assessment Reports (ARs), often several thousand pages thick, which are then reviewed and edited by government appointees from the 195 member nations.

In 2023, the IPCC released its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

The information on which the ARs is based often has a bias from the start, critics say, because research grants typically fund studies that support the prevailing narrative on climate change, and because scientific journals often avoid publishing studies that suggest climate change is not dire.

“Any literature that supports alarmism is promoted and any that does not is rejected,” William Happer, professor emeritus in physics at Princeton University, told The Epoch Times.

According to Mr. Happer, the source of much of today’s climate data comes from “centers whose generous funding would cease if climate hysteria were to abate.”

In addition, according to Richard Lindzen, emeritus professor of meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who served as one of the scientists on Working Group I in the past, “the IPCC itself is only studying anthropogenic [man-made] climate change.

“It doesn’t do anything regarding natural climate change,” Mr. Lindzen said, “and that’s a severe technical shortcoming because you can’t do things like attribution unless you know what natural variability is.”

Despite that, “when you read the [Assessment] Reports, focusing mostly on the science, they’re actually pretty good,” Mr. Koonin said.

The data presented in the ARs is a relatively sober analysis. However, it provides little support for the narrative of climate catastrophe—at least as far as what has been observed to date.

Trends in Extreme Weather Events

Chapter 12 of the AR6 details the IPCC’s assessment of the impact of extreme weather events. The tables provided in this chapter show that extreme weather events that have “already emerged” are limited.

The report states a “high confidence” of temperature increases in average air and ocean temperatures and incidences of extreme heat in tropical and mid-latitudes.

It also indicates high confidence in a decrease in arctic sea ice.

However, it states “low confidence” for any increase in floods, rainstorms, landslides, drought, “fire weather,” cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, sand and dust storms, hail, sea level rise, coastal flooding, and erosion.

It also indicates low confidence regarding a decrease in snow, glaciers, ice sheets, or lake, river, and sea ice, beyond the Arctic region.

The IPCC’s assessment that such extreme weather events don’t appear to be escalating is supported by the findings of other scientific organizations.

A 30-year analysis of “tornado trends” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that “the number of strong and violent tornadoes hasn’t varied much since 1970.

“While the peak in tornado frequency in the early to middle 1970s included the 1974 Super Outbreak, the year with the most tornadoes during that span was 1973!” the NOAA report states.

It attributed an increase in tornadoes reported in the 1990s to the newly implemented Doppler weather radars, the development of spotter networks, population shifts, the proliferation of cell phone cameras, and “the growing ‘hobby’ of tornado chasing.”

Likewise, a 2022 report in Nature, found a “declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming.

“On average, the global annual number of TCs [tropical cyclones] has decreased by 13 percent in the 20th century compared with the pre-industrial baseline 1850–1900.” the report stated.

In addition, the Drought Severity Index published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showed no material increase in droughts in the United States between 1895 and 2020.

From Data to Narratives

How do such mundane assessments of the impact of climate change evolve into the narrative that “our climate is imploding” and “oceans are boiling”?

In two ways: first, the public statements from the IPCC and the U.N. often diverge from what their own ARs actually say; and second, the predictions of a dire future are based on models rather than observations.

Alongside each new AR, the IPCC also writes condensed Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) to “inform policymakers what scientists know about climate change.”

The SPMs distill the voluminous ARs down to a short list of bullet points.

In addition, the IPCC produces Headline Statements and Press Releases to “provide a concise narrative” on climate change.

“[The AR] gets boiled down to the Summary for Policymakers, and while it’s drafted by scientists—a small number of them—the governments have to approve the SPM line by line,” Mr Koonin said.

“And so you already have the potential for, let’s say, non-scientific factors entering.”

“The SPM itself is 20–30 pages, and the media have to cover that,” he said. “And they typically will cherry pick the most extreme parts of it, so that’s how we get the distortions, and then that is exacerbated by the politicians, seeing opportunity in distortion, and the NGOs,”

Despite observing no increase in the tornadoes, cyclones, droughts, wildfires, or floods that have been attributed to climate change, the IPCC’s 2023 Headline Statement warns: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all [very high confidence].”

“This problem [climate alarmism] is especially severe in the summaries for policymakers, which are mostly written by government bureaucrats,” Mr. Happer said.

“Some of the scientific reviews in the voluminous background material are sound and dispassionate,” he said. “But it is not easy for honest scientists to buck the pressures for alarmism from the political leadership.”

Rise of Computer Models

Much of the basis for climate catastrophism comes not from observation but from computer models.

study of climate models between 1970 and 2020 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that “observed changes in temperature and precipitation have generally been consistent with the changes projected by earlier models.

“The accurate projections of future climate and hindcasting of past climate makes us confident that models can reliably project changes in the climate,” the USDA report states.

However, taking a closer look at the climate modeling industry raises questions about how reliable those projections are.

The IPCC draws up its predictions based on averaged results from dozens of models, which Mr. Koonin says “disagree wildly with one another.”

In his book, Mr. Koonin notes that the average surface temperatures generated by the models in IPCC reports vary among themselves by around 3 degrees Celsius or three times the amount of warming observed throughout the 20th century.

The ARs “downplay this embarrassment” by focusing not on the actual temperature predictions, where models diverge, but rather on the predicted change in temperatures, where models are more likely to coincide.

And then there is the process of “tuning” the models.

The models typically divide the Earth up into “grid cells,” each a few tens of square miles.

These grid cells are “tuned” in a process of hard-wiring the results from the cells to manually account for more random elements like cloud formations, storms, or humidity, which the models can’t predict but are material to temperature changes.

“There are hundreds of such parameters because the climate system is complicated and has many different dimensions,” Mr. Koonin said.

“And so, as people tune the parameters differently, they get different results.”

Tuning also helps the models show results closer to observed data, but this highlights another shortcoming of the models—while purporting to predict the future, they often fail to reproduce historical temperatures.

They also struggle to separate human influence from natural phenomena, all of which elevates the uncertainty of modeled predictions regarding human behavior.

“If you’re trying—as a politician or NGO or company—to promote a narrative, you don’t want to talk about the uncertainties,” Mr. Koonin said.

“You just want to say it’s going to be five degrees warmer and the world is going to hell.”

Living In Denial

Those who question the narrative of climate catastrophism are often attacked as climate “deniers.”

“Anyone who willfully denies the impact of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future,” President Joe Biden stated in November 2023.

“The impacts we’re seeing are only going to get worse, more frequent, more ferocious, and more costly.”

Absent the hyperbole, however, what do the numbers indicate about our future?

“Modest warming since the 1900s; 1.3 degrees [Celsius] at the global level,” Mr. Koonin said.

“Despite that, by whatever measure you want to use—lifespan, nutrition, GDP, death rates from extreme events—it’s all going in a positive direction.”

“Sea level rise is continuing at just about a foot a century,” he said. “But the actual and projected economic impacts of warming are in the noise … even the IPCC says it’s small compared to many other things that determine human wellbeing.”

2022 report by the Heritage Foundation, modeling the costs and benefits to the United States of complying with the Paris Agreement and meeting the Biden administration’s goal of reducing GHG emissions to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, predicts these policies would reduce global temperatures by 0.5 degrees at the end of this century.

“Even with theoretical efficiency, we find the costs of the policy to be staggering,” the report states.

“The economy would, in aggregate, lose $7.7 trillion of gross domestic product (GDP) through 2040, which is $87,000 per family of four.”

If the developing world is deprived of the use of fossil fuels, the impact there could be even more severe.

“The billions of people who don’t have energy, who don’t have modern conveniences, they will be condemned to perpetual poverty,” Mr. Lindzen said.

“CO2 has played an important role in increasing agricultural productivity, so we’ll see everyone paying more for food and more people starving.”

“You are already seeing tragic consequences even in the United States, where a whole generation of kids has been told that they have no future,” he said.

“They’re not having children themselves, because what’s the point of having children in a world that’s going to self-destruct?”

The Epoch Times contacted the IPCC for comment but didn’t receive a response.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/numbers-behind-narrative-what-climate-science-actually-says

'Susan Collins criticizes New York’s prosecution of Trump'

 Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), called 'one of the Senate’s most prominent and respected moderate Republicans', came to former President Trump’s defense Thursday by criticizing the “political underpinnings” of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) decision to prosecute Trump.

Collins was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting insurrection in 2021 and said earlier this year she would not endorse Trump, even if he won the GOP nominee for president.

But Collins argued that Trump’s conviction by a Manhattan jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records raises serious concerns.

“It is fundamental to our American system of justice that the government prosecutes cases because of alleged criminal conduct regardless of who the defendant happens to be. In this case the opposite has happened. The district attorney, who campaigned on a promise to prosecute Donald Trump, brought these charges precisely because of who the defendant was rather than because of any specified criminal conduct,” she said in a statement.

“The political underpinnings of this case further blur the lines between the judicial system and the electoral system, and this verdict likely will be the subject of a protracted appeals process,” she warned.

During a 2018 interview, Collins said she didn’t know much about the circumstances of the hush money payments Trump paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels through his lawyer Michael Cohen.

“Well, I don’t know the circumstances of it,” she said when asked about Trump’s affair with Daniels told CNN at the time. “In some ways this sounds like an issue that’s between the president and Mrs. Trump. It doesn’t seem to be a workplace issue, as far as I know.”

Collins is one of many Senate Republicans who have a lot riding on the outcome of the 2024 election with Trump atop the GOP ticket.

If Republicans regain the Senate majority, she would be in line to chair the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

The senior senator from Maine is seen as highly respected by colleagues on both sides of the aisle for her thorough study and careful deliberation of weighty issues. She was the pivotal vote in deciding whether to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court after he was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of committing sexual assault decades earlier.

Other members of Maine’s delegation defended the jury’s guilty verdict against Trump.

“Today in New York City an event took place that was historic: a former President found guilty on felony charges – an incredibly consequential decision after weeks of evidence and testimony. However, the event was also a typical day in courthouses across the country —12 men and women, from all walks of life, coming together to do their civic duty. As we face a world of uncertainties and conflict, the infrastructure of our shared American identity remains sturdy so long as we are vigilant in remembering our founding principles, including equal justice under the law,” Independent Sen. Angus King (Maine) said in a statement Thursday.

Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree (Maine) called for colleagues and constituents to have “faith” in what she called an “important exercise in the rule of law.”

“I am grateful for the fortitude and courage of the jurors who spent many long days fulfilling their civic duty. While our country is facing many challenges, now is a moment to have some faith in our democracy and this important exercise of the rule of law,” she said in a statement.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4695886-susan-collins-criticizes-new-yorks-prosecution-of-trump/

Smith makes new plea for gag order in classified docs case day after Trump conviction

 Special counsel Jack Smith filed a new motion Friday asking the judge overseeing former President Trump’s classified documents case to block him from making public statements that could put law enforcement in danger.

His latest request mirrors his first, filed last week, pressing Judge Aileen Cannon to issue a narrow gag order based on the former president’s false claims that the Biden administration was prepared to use deadly force on him when searching for classified records at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022

It also comes just a day after Trump was convicted in his New York hush money trial, making him the first former president with a felony.

“Trump’s repeated mischaracterization of these facts in widely distributed messages as an
attempt to kill him, his family, and Secret Service agents has endangered law enforcement officers involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case and threatened the integrity of these proceedings,” the filing states. “A restriction prohibiting future similar statements does not restrict legitimate speech. Trump’s conditions of release should therefore be modified to prohibit similar communications going forward.”

In a fundraising email earlier this month, Trump claimed President Biden was “locked & loaded and ready to take me out.” The remarks were a twist on standard language in documents prepared as the FBI agents were readying to search the Florida resort.

In reality, it only allows for deadly force “when necessary,” like if someone were to pose an imminent danger to the officer. And, as Smith’s filing points out, the search was purposefully completed while Trump and his family were out of town.

“The FBI followed these entirely standard and appropriate practices here,” Smith wrote. “Trump, however, has grossly distorted these standard practices by mischaracterizing them as a plan to kill him, his family, and U.S. Secret Service agents.”

“Those deceptive and inflammatory assertions irresponsibly put a target on the backs of the FBI agents involved in this case, as Trump well knows,” he added.

Cannon, who has indefinitely postponed a trial in the case citing logistical reasons, denied Smith’s first request earlier this week. She chastised the prosecutors in the case for failing to reach out to former President Trump’s attorneys on the motion to limit his speech.

She likewise denied a motion from Trump’s legal team seeking to censure the prosecutors over the matter.

In Friday’s filing, Smith included certification that prosecutors had spoken with the defense.

“Government counsel have conferred in a good faith effort to resolve the issues raised in the motion, but were unable to do so. Counsel for defendant Trump agreed that no further conferral was necessary,” he wrote.

The court documents include a statement from the former president’s legal team saying they reject the motion, calling it a “blatant violation of the First Amendment rights.”


Russia, Ukraine Swap 150 POWs In First Exchange In Months

 Zelensky and his Western backers, especially the US and UK, have long claimed that it's 'impossible' to sit down with Russia at the negotiating table. Zelensky even just six months into the war had vowed not to re-enter negotiations with Moscow until Putin is no longer in power.

But as if inadvertently illustrating that negotiations are actually very possible and within reach, Ukraine has announced a successful major prisoner swap, which is a first in nearly four months.

The Friday swap involved each side sending back 75 POWs. A representative for the Ukrainian side, Vitalii Matviienko, said that "Ukraine is always ready" in response to the question of why these swaps had stalled in the last months. But ultimately each side has blamed the other for lack of more rapid progress.

Like with prior swaps, it was reportedly accomplished with the mediation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 150 total from both sides were freed in the rare successful deal.

According to an Associated Press description of the returned Ukrainians:

The Ukrainian POWs, including four civilians, were returned on several buses that drove into the northern Sumy region. As they disembarked, they shouted joyfully and called their families to tell them they were home. Some knelt and kissed the ground, while many wrapped themselves in yellow-blue flags.

They hugged one another, breaking into tears. Many appeared emaciated and poorly dressed.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for Treatment of POWs has said that Friday's swap brings to the total number of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians freed since the war began to 3,210.

"Throughout all of this time, we have not stopped working for a single day to bring everyone home from Russian captivity," Ukraine's President Zelensky stated in the aftermath.  

His office further described "These are privates, sergeants and officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," and posted images of the newly freed Ukrainians on state social media channels.

But about one-third of the former prisoners weren't in good shape, as international media reports documented that many were injured and disabled, or else seriously ill. However, many also looked fit and well-groomed despite their lengthy captivity.

The Russian side has also confirmed in a Kremlin statement: "On May 31, 2024, as a result of the negotiation process, 75 Russian servicemen, who were in mortal danger in captivity, were returned from the territory controlled by the Kiev regime. In return, 75 prisoners of war of the Ukrainian armed forces were handed over."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-ukraine-swap-150-pows-first-exchange-months

Felon? Trump is in good company

 Up until now, Democrats have loved felons. The advent of Soros district attorneys and the criminal justice "reform" movement has turned felons into Democrat heroes. Just ask George Floyd.

But they've done a 180 now, screaming from every mountaintop that President Trump is a 'felon,' which is highly questionable given that the case they hit him with stands a good chance of being thrown out on appeal.

But they're happy enough about it, given that they achieved their political aim, which was to be able to call Trump a 'felon' and peel off a few GOP votes from him ahead of Election Day. That might be all they want from this ridiculous and patently illegal political prosecution. "Felon!" "Felon!" "Felon!" Out they shout it, as if they hadn't been lionizing real felons for the past decade or more as their role models.

The 'felon' appellation is an interesting one because President Trump is in good company.

Crummy dictatorships the world over have been felon-izing their political opponents, in what's a perfected art.

Start with Alexei Navalny, who recently died in a Russian Gulag in the country's far north for ... making fun of Russia's dictator, Vladimir Putin, and exposing his corruption. Navalny was convicted of "fraud," same as Trump was, and later, "extremism."  His real crime was challenging the establishment and becoming popular with the people as a result. Trump is in his company and God forbid he suffer the same fate, which is entirely possible if he's jailed. By the wildest of coincidences, the Russians actually adopted the New York technique of claiming "the cameras were off" when high profile Jeffrey Epstein turned up dead in prison, calling it a suicide.

Trump also joins Lech Walesa of Poland for the 'felon' title. Walesa was arrested and jailed in Poland in 1981, shortly after dicator Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law on the entire country based on his protests for free trade unions. Dictators declare national emergencies based on "threats to democracy" and it doesn't take long for them to just round their political opponents up.

Trump also joins Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, back when it was Czechoslovakia for the title of "felon." Havel had been banned, blacklisted and gagged for years for speaking and writing about the ruling communists' corruption of language, and finally, was imprisoned four times by the communist Soviet puppet regime for challenging the regime. Sound like anyone you know in the states? Certainly the dynamic of harassment and then imprisonment suggests a parallel.

There are also a lot of figures in Cuba President Trump joins with as a "felon," all good company. Oswaldo Paya was thrown into hard-labor prison to cut sugar cane for speaking out in support of Prague Spring of 1968. After that, they circled him, throwing his associates in prison in the "Black Spring" of 2012, and tailing him wherever he went, until finally,  Cuban agents rammed his car into a tree, killing him and calling it "an accident." Huber Matos a longtime guerrilla comrade of Fidel Castro's who was imprisoned for two decades for "treason and sedition" for calling on Castro to live up to his promise of "democracy." Dr. Oscar Biscet was imprisoned for 25 years for organizing a petition drive to call for democracy in that hellhole, with additional time for talking to someone at the U.S. embassy. Cuban punk rocker Gorky was imprisoned for "dangerousness." Two Cuban rap artists, Maykel Castillo “El Osorbo” and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, were thrown into prison for five- and nine-year terms recently for composing a popular song that very obliquely challenged the government called "Patria y Vida." The regime called it “contempt, public disorder, and defamation of institutions and organizations, heroes and martyrs,” and gave Castillo extra time for draping a Cuban flag around his back during a song. The general gist of this is clear as regards President Trump. They like to get them on technicalities and throw out long prison sentences as punishment.

Closer to home, Trump joins Martin Luther King, Jr., who was another "felon" who drew draconian sentences for challenging the establishment on civil rights for black people. They got him 29 times, sometimes for protesting, but also on technicalities such as driving 30 miles an hour in a 25 mph zone in Alabama, and driving in Georgia without a valid license which had been held up only because Georgia officials hadn't bothered to issue him the one he applied for, while his valid Alabama license was ignored. He got "probation" for that except his lawyer didn't tell him, so then for organizing a sit-in in Georgia he got four months' hard labor as a probation violator. Sound draconian? Sound a little over the top? Sounds a lot like the kinds of treatment President Trump has garnered at the hands of Democrats, who also did this to King.

And let's not forget Dinesh D'Souza, the popular conservative filmmaker who effectively lampooned President Obama in various projects. He was imprisoned with a long term on a minor campaign donation to a schoolmate violation, in a civil offense that has rarely or never been prosecuted as a crime, just a civil offense meriting a fine. But since D'Souza was "special," he got a prison sentence. Let's just say the Democrats have had practice.

And speaking of D'Souza and several of the others listed, does anyone notice that they all like to target artists? Trump is an effective performing artist with a long history of television acting, so there's a pattern here among the world's dictators -- to put the artists first as these hacks' cast 'felons.'

Trump once again is in good company.

The other thing we notice is that some of the worst court cases where the dissident is imprisoned in a draconian way on a seemingly unrelated technicality are the American ones -- that of D'Souza and King. There's been a lot of practice on this front to achieve that ever-coveted 'felon' label for dissidents who challenge the establishment. Democrats in this regard are honing to an old tradition.

There are also arguable comparisons to Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi of India, Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi of Burma, that poor guy they stuck on an amusement park island off Singapore for ridicule purposes, the seven dissidents who ran against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua who ended up in prison on tax, fraud and dangerousness-type charges for having the temerity to run for president against him, Nicolas Sarkozy of France who was jailed on some technicality they normally don't jail people for, and Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva of Brazil who was also imprisoned on graft charges that all of them are doing, by his political opponents. Venezuela has imprisoned presidential candidates on technicalities, too, if not driven them into exile.

Two others are also worth comparisons -- Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela, who challenged the regime and was disqualified from running for president, as well as Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil who got the same treatment.  Both are just upstream of prison terms as "felons," which will also likely happen, same as it's happened to Trump.

Felon? They are all felons, too. Maybe Democrats should pull back from that term, given the kinds of political leaders this name has been hung on in just the recent past.

Lastly, let's not forget whose feast day this was when this happened -- St. Joan of Arc of France, whose "crime" was standing up for France and leading it to victory, taking instructions from a Heavenly source as she heard it. She was convicted in a rigged kangaroo courtroom of "heresy" and wearing men's clothes (to prevent being raped for being around soldiers). They burned her at the stake on the 593 years ago, the same day Trump's rigged kangaroo trial ended.

Trump is not the same as St. Joan of Arc, but as Democrats bellow 'felon,' from their kangaroo court, we can only recall that Trump, once again, is in good company.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/felon_trump_is_in_good_company.html

So what happened to Joe Biden's vaunted 'address to the nation' on President Trump's trial outcome?

 By Monica Showalter

After the trial verdict against President Trump yesterday, Joe Biden is hunkering down.

This comes after much noise was made about Joe Biden planning a "presidential address to the nation" on President Trump's Stormy Daniels hush-money trial outcome, which seemed pretty Hugo Chavez-ish. A national address for something that skeevy? And not done as candidate Joe Biden, which would be about par, but as President Joe Biden, seated from behind the presidential desk? Chavez used to break into all national television sets to address the nation on how he got diarrhea in the bathroom.

 

 

What Biden would have said is anyone's guess, other than he would have been gloating, which Chavez liked to do to his political opponents, too.

Yet somehow, Biden has gone dead on this. He's "mum," as the TODAY Show reported.

Here is the White House statement, announced through a spokesman so low-level I've never heard of him:


 

And that wasn't some mistake, there also was this this morning:

 

 

There were scattered reports that the White House was celebrating the verdict last night, but no giggling for the public this morning.

If anything, they are trying to sweep this verdict under the rug and change the subject to the Middle East and other matters far from the kangaroo court verdict the public is talking about.

Which suggests that maybe they realize that their own role in coordinating the prosecutions of their political opponent might just become an issue in the campaign. After all, if you've rigged the trial, rigged the jury, gotten your man in there to orchestrate events, as Molly Hemingway noted here, maybe you don't want the public waking up and paying attention to how corrupt it all is and how despicable you really are.

Or maybe they're getting really bad internal polls about Biden's election prospects now that this travesty of justice has happened. More gloating about this makes Biden even more unpopular than he already is. He may even be hearing from voters calling up the White House comment line.

Or maybe he's getting word about President Trump's fundraising success, raising some $34 million overnight from smalltime donors, and doesn't want Trump's name anywhere in front of the public to be thinking about him.

Whatever it is, Biden's joy at the conviction in private is being paired with Biden's desperate bid to change the subject in public, not wanting to comment at all on the matter.

That sounds desperate. When you don't dare comment on the top story of the day, the one you orchestrated yourself, it's pretty obvious you're a candidate in trouble.

Let's hope that Biden keeps going downhill with voters.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/so_what_happened_to_joe_biden_s_vaunted_address_to_the_nation_on_president_trump_s_trial_outcome.html

Daily Cannabis Use Linked to Increased Risk for Asthma and COPD

 Daily cannabis use may raise the risk of developing chronic diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to the research presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) 2024 Annual Meeting.

The abstract adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that smoking cannabis, much like tobacco, poses significant risks to respiratory health, according to Alison Rustagi, MD, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and a primary care physician in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, who presented the research at SGIM.

"Our research indicates that cannabis use is not benign," Rustagi said. "It's crucial for both the public and healthcare providers to recognize cannabis use as a potential risk factor for chronic lung diseases."

Rustagi and her team analyzed cross-sectional data from over 434,000 adults who completed surveys on risk-taking behaviors from 2016 to 2020. They sought to investigate the relationship between cannabis use and the diagnosis of asthma and COPD.

The preliminary findings showed that people who smoke cannabis daily are at a higher risk of developing respiratory conditions than nonusers. Among adults between ages 18 and 34 years, daily cannabis use was associated with a 34% increased odds of developing asthma in their lifetime (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.34; 95% CI, 1.15-1.55), a 39% increased odds of currently having asthma (aOR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.14-1.69), and a 56% higher odds of developing COPD (aOR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.13-2.14). Similar associations were observed in adults over the age of 35 years.

"People should be empowered to make informed decisions with relation to their health; they need to know that consumption of cannabis may carry risk," said Daniel Levey, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, who was not involved in the current study.

Previous studies suggest that marijuana smoke contains toxins and carcinogens similar to those in tobacco smoke and has been linked to lung cancer in individuals independent of their tobacco use.

The study also highlighted a dose-response relationship, in which even people who smoked cannabis less frequently had an increased risk for respiratory issues, although lower than daily users. This pattern was consistent even among individuals who had never smoked cigarettes.

Cannabis is the second most commonly smoked substance after tobacco in the United States, according to the American Thoracic Society. Cannabis is smoked using pipes, bongs, paper-wrapped joints, blunts, and other devices including those that vaporize marijuana such as e-cigarettes.

Levy said the findings serve as a warning for clinicians and public health officials that cannabis consumption, especially as legalization and social acceptance spreads, comes with health risks.

"We exist in polarizing times, and people who seek data confirming their expectations will find plenty of evidence in support of possible positive effects of cannabis; potential for harm from use is very real and should be weighed against any perceived benefits," Levey said.

Levey, who studies cannabis use disorder, said while research is pointing toward marijuana smoking-related harms, more studies are needed on the health outcomes of ingesting cannabis via products like gummies.

Rustagi and Levey reported no relevant disclosures.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/daily-cannabis-use-linked-increased-risk-asthma-and-copd-2024a1000a7s