After Trump's Malfeasance, Biden Must Show He Can Do Better

Joe Biden in Philadelphia on March 10. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

With Donald Trump having failed the test of protecting America from a pandemic through both his disbanding of the national security pandemic team and slashing positions and funding for the CDC on top of his gutting of many other agencies now needed to stem the Covid-19 economic downturn, Joe Biden's mission is to make the case that he would (i) put together a first class administration with competent individuals rather than grifters and sycophants, and (ii) would better manage future threats.    A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican and Never Trumper lays out this situation while taking shots at both Trump but also those in the right and GOP who seemingly have had lobotomies or suffered from a brain deadening illness as they pander and suck up to Trump while downplaying the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Here are column excerpts:

As yet, it is a disease without a name. But the symptoms are obvious. The patient begins by playing down a gathering national disaster — say a pandemic. . . . . The patient then takes this as an opportunity to complain that the threat was exaggerated all along. . . . Success in opposing a challenge is thus interpreted as evidence the challenge never existed.

Perhaps this should be known as the Ingraham illness — as in Laura Ingraham, who recently demanded “we want answers” because the casualty count from covid-19 is lower than initially predicted. I’m more inclined to diagnose bubonic Bennettism — for William Bennett, who has likened covid-19 to the flu, grumbled about national overreaction and claimed the global outbreak “is not a pandemic.” . . . .As education secretary and as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bennett often reminded us that liberals of great learning could be guilty of destructive silliness. Now he is demonstrating that the same is true of cerebral conservatives.
 In reality, there is a series of asymmetrical threats that the United States needs to prepare against. They include terrorism and pandemic disease. They also include cyberaggression against U.S. democracy, criminal gangs of international reach, climate disruption and refugee flows that foster despair and radicalism. And there is the threat of nuclear proliferation. And the threat from an increasingly belligerent China. We need U.S. leaders who can prevent mass casualties from deadly pathogens and chew gum at the same time. In the last presidential election, Americans chose a leader who has problems even with the second half of that challenge.

President Trump only inhabits the performative present. He neither learns from the past nor anticipates the future. He values blind loyalty above foresight or expertise. He was unprepared for the coronavirus and will leave the country less prepared for every gathering threat that does not arrive on his watch.

We need U.S. leaders who won’t minimize dangers that don’t neatly fit their preconceptions. Leaders who take the world as it is, and plan for a world that could go wrong in a hundred horrible but predictable ways.

More than any other value or talent, Joe Biden must show preemptive competence on American security. I understand his current need to solidify support from his party’s left. I appreciate the appeal of his empathy and decency. But in light of the coronavirus, this is his one thing needful: to assure Americans that he and his White House team would protect the country from the full range of global dangers. Now or soon, Biden should further reveal the depth and range of his defense and foreign policy advisers, chosen from both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. (Of all the elements of the Bush administration, defense and foreign policy staffers are most likely to join a national unity team.) Biden should put them to work on a series of brilliantly boring policy addresses and white papers on emerging threats. And Biden should be actively persuading, through intermediaries, respected military and intelligence figures who served in the Trump administration to publicly support him. These endorsements could be announced to great effect around convention time, when the task turns to persuading independents and suburban Republicans. When the accretions of the presidency are removed, national security, broadly defined, is the job. Trump has made a mess of it. Biden would do better. His task is to demonstrate it.

In reality, almost anyone who bothered to listen to experts, pick appointees based on competence, not ideology of the size of campaign contributions, and educate themselves on issues and policy could do a better job than Trump.  With Biden's experience he has the ability to do far better than Trump.  He needs to package this message and begin its dissemination now.  

Richard Grenell’s Frightening Appointment as DNI

Trump's new toady who will subvert
America's intelligence agencies.

Many homocons - gays who loyally support the GOP despite its virulent anti-gay agenda and harm that it does to the larger LBGT community - are likely applauding the appointment of Richard Grenell who is gay and a homocon if there ever was one  to the position of acting Director of National Intelligence.  Never mind that Grenell has zero experience in the field of intelligence.  His appointment bf Trump stems from two things: his ultra-right wing ideology, and his willingness to do whatever Trump tells him to do.  In some old movies gays were depicted as scary and dangerous characters or those willing to betray their country.  Grenell frighteningly fits that mold and will likely work to turn America's intelligence agencies into Trump's personal tools to further enrich himself while blocking any investigations into Trump's betrayal of the national interest.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at this very disturbing appointment while the Washington Post slams Grenell's appointment here.  Here are highlights from the NYM article: 

After 9/11, reformers created the position of director of National Intelligence to improve coordination between America’s sprawling intelligence bureaucracies, and prevent the kinds of oversights that allowed U.S. spies to miss an imminent terror attack.

It’s fair to say they weren’t thinking that the person who held the job should also be coordinating the embassy in Berlin and American efforts to help keep the peace between Serbia and Kosovo — while simultaneously aiding a sitting president’s efforts to squeeze foreign governments to investigate his rivals. But, like the product of some late-night infomercial, Ambassador Richard Grenell now seems poised to do all that and more for the Trump White House.

Grenell’s tenure as ambassador to Germany has been rocky, at least from Berlin’s perspective. He has palled around with far-right groups, spoken openly of a desire to change Angela Merkel’s government, and made statements about U.S. views that sounded like direct orders to sensitive German ears. Last spring, leaders of two German political parties called him a “brat” and a “failure” and urged his ouster. Even in the annals of awkward things done by Trump appointees overseas, this was unprecedented. But if anything, those controversies have only helped Grenell’s reputation in the eyes of President Trump.

He popped up in all kinds of places you wouldn’t expect for someone in his position. . . . . He also made appearances in the scheming of Rudy Giuliani and his allies, according to now-indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas. Parnas told the Daily Beast that he was told to ask Grenell for advance notice if the Department of Justice were to move to extradite an indicted Ukrainian oligarch, Dmytro Firtash, from whom Giuliani hoped to get compromising information. Parnas also claims Grenell said he would comply. It would, to put it mildly, not be normal or legal for an ambassador to tip off a private citizen to a law-enforcement move. It would also be odd, because Firtash was not in Germany, and so one wouldn’t have expected the U.S. ambassador there to know anything about criminal procedures involving him.

Media coverage so far has focused on the concerns of intelligence professionals, allied countries, and Democrats that Grenell lacks intelligence qualifications. But that line of critique misses the point. One might argue that Grenell has been serving, unrecognized, as Trump’s high commissioner to Europe, and this Cabinet-level appointment gives him more authority in that role. But it also places an absolute loyalist in a position to, from Trump’s perspective, manage the intelligence community so that it cannot do him harm.

[Trump] The president has made it clear, again and again, that he seeks to remake the national security infrastructure so that it does his bidding and promotes his ends. He does not recognize the idea — sacred to national security professionals — of a higher national interest to which even a president must subordinate her or himself.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Joseph Maguire, a previous favorite for the job, was dropped by Trump because of his perceived personal disloyalty. It has been reported that Grenell will hold the job only in an acting role because he is too controversial to be confirmed.

But in fact, the Senate has already given its advice and consent to this future for our security bureaucracy, by voting to acquit Trump of charges stemming from his misuse of U.S. power in Ukraine.

Apparently the many Republican senators who created the director of National Intelligence position in order to have a senior, impartial leader enabling U.S. intelligence agencies to speak with one, non-politicized voice, also think it is fine to have a president who openly and repeatedly turns the tools of intelligence, law enforcement, and national security to his personal ends.

John Bolton: Proof That Prostituting Oneself to a Narcissistic is a Bad Idea

I have never been a fan of now former National Security Adviser John Bolton.   I have always seen him as dangerous and a threat to the international alliances that has served the USA well. Indeed, I'd even call Bolton a war monger.  But compared to Donald Trump, Bolton is sane and rational and my have restrained some of Trump's more insane and dangerous impulses. With Bolton gone, many worry who will replace him and what further damage can Trump inflict on the nation and world given his disturbing mental state. Meanwhile, the lesson to be learned from Bolton's demise is that endeavoring to prostitute oneself to a malignant narcissist is a dangerous game and the likely loser will be one's reputation and place in history.  A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican looks at the troubling situation we face.  Here are excerpts:

John Bolton should never have joined an administration in which the president was overtly corrupt, sympathetic to dictators, weirdly beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin and a pathological liar. Like so many others, Bolton will go down as someone driven by unquenchable thirst for relevance and power with the hubris to think he could bend President Trump to his will. Instead, Bolton became an enabler for a president who allowed himself to be snowed by North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and revealed he never had a game plan for Iran . . . .
 Rather than quit on principle at dozens of junctures, Bolton clung to his job, only to be rudely fired. Bolton, to put it mildly, never played well with others and therefore was uniquely unqualified for the job of national security adviser, who is supposed to be the honest broker in government. It would be an understatement to say both anti-Trump conservatives and Democrats are positively giddy seeing the blusterous, aggressive adviser end his career in semi-disgrace. Quite apart from the double scoop of schadenfreude, many in the foreign policy community are genuinely relieved. “I’m just thankful we got through Bolton’s tenure without him starting a war,” said Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress and a former State Department official. “He no doubt tried, but was boxed in by the administration’s own incompetence and his inability to convince others to go along.” Others, however, are more worried now. Former ambassador to Turkey, Eric S. Edelman, told me, “For his flaws, I think John was one of the few forces really holding Trump back from doing some crazy things. This is is just one more indication that we are now facing Trump unplugged. He is really thrashing around. It is very worrisome.” Veteran diplomat Aaron David Miller notes, “You can only play Dr. No so many times. Bolton was out of sync with Trump on Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan and Venezuela." He added, “[Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo played the game of Trump whisperer better than Bolton.” Precisely because Bolton differed with Trump on all these topics, sycophantic Sens. Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and other uber-hawks who thought they, too, could bend Trump toward their view should wise up. Trump is not a valiant defender of the West and protector of our allies. He’s a dangerous and corrupt patsy in the hands of strongmen. Likewise, Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who served in the Obama administration, said, “No glee [here]. I’ve obviously never been a Bolton fan, . . . . However, he said, Bolton “was fired for something he was right about — his opposition to capitulating to the Taliban — and because Trump doesn’t like being laughed at and needed to lash out at someone. I worry about who and what comes next.” This is also a dicey move for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sacrificed bipartisan friendship with the United States to gain favor in the eyes of Trump. Netanyahu kids himself if he thinks Trump would let Israel stand in the way of the historic deal he is itching to sign. Former Israeli ambassador Daniel Shapiro tells me, “Trump fired Bolton over disagreements they had. Chief among them was Bolton’s support for ever-escalating pressure on Iran versus Trump’s desire for talks on a new nuclear deal.” He adds, "Israel and the Gulf states have to wonder if this move presages not just a meeting between Trump and [Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani, but a real move by Trump toward a modestly upgraded Iran nuclear deal. It sure looks like it.” In fact any deal is likely to be worse, given that the Iranians know Trump is the worst negotiator on the planet. Other allies should be equally nervous since when unrestrained, even from questionable advice, Trump does things such as invite the Taliban to Camp David, side with Putin over our intelligence community, try to pullout abruptly from Syria, attack allies (even Denmark), involve us in a no-win trade war and make the United States a laughingstock on the international stage. If Bolton wants to save his reputation, he can render one final service: Collect up all the former national security officials and tell the American people just how unfit is this president. It’s time for the sycophancy and careerism to end and the patriotism to start.

Trump Is the Result of White Rage, Not Economic Anxiety

One of the myths promoted by the much of the mainstream media throughout the just past election is that whites rallied to Donald Trump due to economic anxiety and frustration.  Any, apparently, was more palatable to "journalists" than admitting that a majority of whites who voted for Trump and Republican candidates were motivated by racial hatred and resentment.  Pretending that something isn't so and lacking the spine to call out ugliness in the populace is one of the great betrayals of the media and is yet another example of how the media has enabled bad things to happen to this country, the unchallenged lies that took the nation into the Iraq War being another example.  An article in Time looks at the real reason we are now facing four years of the least competent and most reactionary (to the delight of the Christofascists) administration in the nation's history.  Here are excerpts:

White rage got us here. While the economic anxiety of Trump supporters is often touted as the driving force behind the mogul’s electoral college victory, that rationale is just a ruse, a clever red herring. The median income of a Trump supporter is more than $70,000 per year, which is well above the national average, and a 2016 study noted that it would take African Americans 228 years to equal the wealth of whites in the U.S. Clearly, Trump’s pathway into the Oval Office is not really about white economic angst. Rather, Barack Obama’s election — and its powerful symbolism of black advancement — was the major trigger for the policy backlash that led to Donald Trump, and which has now put America’s national security at risk.

Republicans carved out this trench shortly after Obama’s 2008 victory. The GOP pushed through a number of laws at the state level to block as many of his voters, primarily African Americans, from the polls as possible. North Carolina targeted black voters with nearly “surgical precision.” Wisconsin Republicans were “giddy” about disfranchising African Americans, especially in Milwaukee. Florida’s GOP cut particular days of early voting to nullify the political participation of black churchgoers. Texas required certain types of government-issued photo IDs to vote and then ensured that nearly 1.6 million black and Latino citizens would have very limited access. Ohio skewed its early voting laws to diminish the turnout in the cities while also implementing a literacy test that officials applied only to those in urban counties.

The end result was that the Republicans had effectively shattered the black and Latino demographic firewall that could have prevented a Trump presidency. A Trump presidency, to be clear, that many in the Republican establishment rightfully feared because of the mogul’s demonstrated unfitness for office.

But they didn’t fear it enough. Because even in the wake of federal court orders striking down many of the most odious, discriminatory features of voter suppression, the GOP resisted, stalled and defied the judiciary until confusion and resignation reigned at the polls. It was too late.

In a horrific Faustian calculation, these Republican patriots put the nation at risk so that Trump could fulfill his dominant campaign promise. And, to be clear, it was not to make America great again, but to make access to America’s resources “whites only” again. The Klan recognized it, as did the white nationalists who gave Trump their full-throttled support. But, this wasn’t just a fantasy of the far right. The allure of a revived Jim Crow nation that proudly, willfully excludes and debases millions of nonwhites was so reaffirming and reassuring that everything else became secondary or tertiary. Everything else, including national security.

Patriots cheered on as Trump asked the Russian government to hack an American citizen who had led a national-security agency. Patriots acquiesced to a foreign policy that encouraged nuclear proliferation, oozed profound ignoranceabout the basic fundamentals of U.S. nuclear capability, and kept in play use of the ultimate weapon by a man who has difficulty even maintaining control on Twitter.

In other words, in January 2017, a man will be at the helm of the U.S. military, intelligence and foreign policy bureaucracies, who actually encouraged foreign intervention in an American election and advocated for dismantling the alliances that will aid Russian expansionism and weaken U.S. influence and power. Yet, the patriots bet that the trade-off will be well worth it.  Clearly, white rage has brought us here.

The take away?  The next time some "friend" or acquaintance begins to give some bull shit excuse for their vote for Trump, call them out and let them know that they are a racist, homophobe, anti-immigrant zealot or other form of bigot.  Tell them that there is no need for pretense on their part. Tell them that you see them for who and what they really are and that you will guide your future interactions with them accordingly.  They may want to avoid looking in the mirror, but we will hold it up to their faces nonetheless.

Republicans Seek Distance From Trump's Fondness for "Murderer and Thug" Putin

Many in the Republican Party have either (i) held their noses and supported Donald Trump out of (A) fear of retribution from Trump's deranged supporters or (b) shameless self-promotion, and (ii) put their loyalty to the GOP ahead of the best interests of the country.   Now, many are finding out that self-prostitution for whatever motivation can indeed carry a cost as many in the GOP seek ways to try to explain away Trump's bizarre fondness for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin or put distance between themselves and Trump's praise of Putin.  A piece in The Guardian looks at the GOP tap dance to move away from Putin who is suspected of having had political opponents murdered and consorted with Russian Mafia types.  Here are highlights:

One day after Donald Trump reiterated his admiration for Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian president was a better leader than Barack Obama, Republicans on Capitol Hill struggled to explain why their party’s presidential nominee was enamored with a man they have long cast as one of America’s primary foes.

Many Republicans who returned to Washington this week after the summer recess expressed confidence that Trump was improving as a candidate in both tone and message. But on Thursday, they found themselves in the familiar routine of distancing themselves from Trump’s comments – the latest being his praise for Putin in an NBC News national security forum held on Wednesday.

“If you’re running for leader of the free world and you’re expressing admiration for Putin, well then you’re losing me,” Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina and former Republican presidential candidate, told reporters.

“I think Vladimir Putin is a thug, a dictator, an autocratic ruler who has his opposition killed in the streets of Russia. He has dismembered his neighbor.”

“This whole idea of admiring Putin is the biggest misunderstanding of a relationship in a person since Munich,” Graham said.

Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida who made his opposition to Putin a central tenet of his own presidential campaign, similarly disagreed with Trump’s assertion that the Russian president was a better leader than Obama.

“Look, I have tremendous policy disagreements with President Obama, but Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian thug who is accountable to no one,” Rubio told the Guardian.

“I don’t think what Vladimir Putin exhibits is leadership. I think what he exhibits is thuggery … and we should be clear-eyed about that,” he added, noting that Putin controlled the media, the military and often his political opponents were either imprisoned or found dead.

While Trump’s habit of making pro-Russia statements is not new, his refusal to adopt the GOP’s hard line against Putin has become a source of discomfort for Republicans.

But Trump, since becoming the nominee, has both continued to extol Putin’s leadership and even called on the Russian government in July to hack Clinton’s emails. While drafting the GOP platform at the Republican national convention in Cleveland, the Trump campaign also fought to eliminate language around arming Ukraine in its fight with Russia – bringing further scrutiny to the ties between Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager at the time, and pro-Russian interests. (Manafort was let go from the campaign last month.)

The paradox was palpable as many Republicans approached in the hallways of the Senate declined to address Trump’s latest string of pro-Putin comments.

Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, faced several questions pertaining to Trump’s appearance at the foreign policy town hall. The nation’s top Republican dubbed Putin as “an aggressor who does not share our interests” and suggested Russia was behind state-sponsored cyber-attacks “on what appears to be [the US] political system”.  But Ryan, too, reached his limit while fielding repeated queries about Trump. “I’m not going to stand up here and do a tit-for-tat on what Donald said last night,” he said.

 When looks at those like Paul Ryan and others in the GOP endorsing Trump, the take away is that the nastiest whore has more integrity and moral backbone than most of today's GOP.  If nothing else, the whore is honest in comparison. 

Trump Praises Putin at National Security Forum

Last night's National Security Forum seems to have revealed little new other than a re-enforcing of the Trump-Putin bromance and that Trump wants to sharply increase military spending - at the unspoken expense of social and infrastructure spending.  Trump again lied about his support for the Iraq War notwithstanding recorded evidence to the contrast.    With respect to Putin, I suspect Trump would love to emulate Russia's corrupt and oppressive regime, particularly Putin's control of the press and airwaves, the murder of Putin's political opponents and the manner in which Putin cronies rape and pillage Russia to enrich themselves at the expense of the Russian people. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the events at the forum.  Here are highlights:

Donald Trump defended his admiration for Russian President Vladi­mir Putin at a forum here Wednesday focused on national security issues, even suggesting that Putin is more worthy of his praise than President Obama.

The Republican presidential nominee said that an alliance with Russia would help defeat the Islamic State, and when asked to defend some of Putin’s aggressions on the world stage, he asked, “Do you want me to start naming some of the things Obama does at the same time?”

Trump also said he appreciated some of the kind words Putin has had for him. “Well, I think when he calls me brilliant, I think I’ll take the compliment, okay?”

Clinton offered herself as a model of “absolute rock steadiness” on foreign policy, and Trump promised to be a disruptive force for improvement, saying that under Obama even the military’s generals have been “reduced to rubble.”

He reaffirmed his view that having men and women serve alongside one another is the root of the military’s sexual-assault problem. He said recent intelligence briefings have convinced him that Clinton and other Obama administration officials did not heed the advice of experts. And he praised Putin, noting among other things the Russian president’s “82 percent approval rating.”

Ahead of Wednesday’s forum, Trump delivered a speech in Philadelphia in which he called for a robust expansion of U.S. military capabilities and an end to budget sequestration on defense spending.

Trump said he was not a fan of the Russian system of government but predicted continued good relations with Putin, saying: “I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Putin, and I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Russia.”

Trump denied that mutual admiration between him and the Russian leader would benefit Russia in its dealings with the United States. 

Trump leads Clinton by 19 points — 55 percent to 36 percent — among voters who are serving or have served in the U.S. military, according to the NBC News/SurveyMonkey tracking poll.

The demographics of military veterans align closely with Trump’s strongest sources of support. More than 9 in 10 are men, and about 8 in 10 are white. In 2012, among military veterans, Republican Mitt Romney bested Obama by about 20 points, according to exit polls.

On Tuesday, Trump announced that he has been endorsed by 88 retired senior military officials. Not to be outdone, Clinton released a list Wednesday showing the support of 95 retired generals and admirals, more than any recent nonincumbent Democrat, her campaign said. Meanwhile, Clinton noted that Trump’s endorsement figure was more than 400 shy of the last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney.

Global Warming is Already Flooding America's Coasts

Click image to enlarge

click image to enlarge

UPDATED 9-6-2016:  For more images of just how much of a reality global warming and rising sea levels are for the Hampton Roads area, check out the photos at AltDaily here.  As I said before, if you care about global warming and climate change, the ONLY option on election day is to vote a straight Democrat ticket. 

Having just dodged a bullet with Tropical Storm Hermine - the photo above shows Robinson Creek close to flooding into our back yard shown in the background - many of us in Hampton Roads know and understand that global warming's impact on sea levels is real and that it is happening now.  The second photo was taken by a friend in the Ocean View section of Norfolk from her home more than an hour before high tide.  Many other areas of Norfolk and even our neighborhood flooded and as of this morning, my sister in Virginia Beach is still without power.  What's really frightening is that Hermine was not even a major storm.  Sea levels ARE rising - at the Norfolk Naval Base, the level is a foot and a half higher than less than 100 years ago.  Yet despite this, we see Republicans ranging from Donald Trump on down saying that global warming and its impacts is a "hoax."  Here in Virginia, GOP legislators will not even allow the use of the term even as the economic powerhouse of the Virginia Port Authority and numerous military bases are threatened.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the reality that is already happening while the GOP remains in denial.  Here are highlights:

NORFOLK, Va. — Huge vertical rulers are sprouting beside low spots in the streets here, so people can judge if the tidal floods that increasingly inundate their roads are too deep to drive through.

Five hundred miles down the Atlantic Coast, the only road to Tybee Island, Ga., is disappearing beneath the sea several times a year, cutting the town off from the mainland.

And another 500 miles on, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., increased tidal flooding is forcing the city to spend millions fixing battered roads and drains — and, at times, to send out giant vacuum trucks to suck saltwater off the streets.

For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline.

Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding — often called “sunny-day flooding” — along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too.

These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water.

In coastal regions, that compounds the damage from the increasingly heavy rains plaguing the country, like those that recently caused extensive flooding in Louisiana. Scientists say these rains are also a consequence of human greenhouse emissions.

“Once impacts become noticeable, they’re going to be upon you quickly,” said William V. Sweet, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Md., who is among the leaders in research on coastal inundation. “It’s not a hundred years off — it’s now.”

[L]ocal leaders say they cannot tackle this problem alone. They are pleading with state and federal governments for guidance and help, including billions to pay for flood walls, pumps and road improvements that would buy them time.

Yet Congress has largely ignored these pleas, and has even tried to block plans by the military to head off future problems at the numerous bases imperiled by a rising sea. A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a “radical climate change agenda.”

As the problem worsens, experts are warning that national security is on the line. Naval bases, in particular, are threatened; they can hardly be moved away from the ocean, yet much of their land is at risk of disappearing within this century.

Because the land is sinking as the ocean rises, Norfolk and the metropolitan region surrounding it, known as Hampton Roads, are among the worst-hit parts of the United States. That local factor means, in essence, that the region is a few decades ahead in feeling the effects of sea-level rise, and illustrates what people along the rest of the American coast can expect.

The biggest problems involve frequent flooding of homes and roads. As the sea rises, hundreds of tidal creeks and marshes that thread through the region are bringing saltwater to people’s doorsteps.

As the national response lags, experts warn that the flooding is putting the country’s defense at risk.

Several studies have concluded that Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval base, is profoundly threatened by rising seas, as are other coastal bases. The Pentagon has managed to build floodgates and other protective measures at some facilities. But attempts by the military to develop broader climate change plans have met fierce resistance in Congress.

That was the case this summer, when an effort by the Pentagon to appoint officers to take charge of climate resilience led to a House vote prohibiting taxpayer money from being spent on the plan.

Many people in Congress, almost all of them Republicans, express doubt about climate science, with some of them promulgating conspiracy theories claiming that researchers have invented the issue to justify greater governmental control over people’s lives. So far, this ideological position has been immune to the rising evidence of harm from human-induced climate change.

Scientists had long hoped that any disintegration of the ice sheets would take thousands of years, but recent research suggests the breakup of West Antarctica could occur much faster. In the worst-case scenario, this research suggests, the rate of sea-level rise could reach a foot per decade by the 22nd century, about 10 times faster than today.

In 2013, scientists reached a consensus that three feet was the highest plausible rise by the year 2100. But now some of them are starting to say that six or seven feet may be possible. A rise that large over a span of decades would be an unparalleled national catastrophe, driving millions of people from their homes and most likely requiring the abandonment of entire cities.

Along those parts of the United States coast that are sinking at a brisk clip, including southern Louisiana and the entire Chesapeake Bay region, including Norfolk, the situation will be worse than average. On the Pacific Coast, a climate pattern that had pushed billions of gallons of water toward Asia is now ending, so that in coming decades the sea is likely to rise quickly off states like Oregon and California.

Read the entire article.  What can one do?  For starters, vote ignorance embracing Republicans out of office. For local homeowners, start water proofing your homes and make them flood resistant.  Personally, our next step will probably be to build a high berm around the perimeter of the backyard and then landscape it so that it's real purpose is camouflaged.  That, of course, will take time and money that many people simply do not have.

Water coming up the storm drain in front of the house (last October, water came half way up the driveway) 

Former CIA Director Endorses Hillary Clinton

While much of the GOP base is about as sane as a dog with rabies, more and more rational people of all political affiliations are coming to the conclusion that Donald Trump in the White House constitute a serious danger to the nation.  A case  in point is former CIA Director Michael J. Morell who endorsed Hillary Clinton in an op-ed in the New York Times.  In it, Morell states "Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security."  Personally, I agree with that assessment 100%.  Note that Morell has worked under 6 presidents, three Democrat and three Republican,  Here are op-ed excerpts:

During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties. As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president.

No longer. On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.

I spent four years working with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room. In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.

I also saw the secretary’s commitment to our nation’s security; her belief that America is an exceptional nation that must lead in the world for the country to remain secure and prosperous; her understanding that diplomacy can be effective only if the country is perceived as willing and able to use force if necessary; and, most important, her capacity to make the most difficult decision of all — whether to put young American women and men in harm’s way.

I never saw her bring politics into the Situation Room. In fact, I saw the opposite. When some wanted to delay the Bin Laden raid by one day because the White House Correspondents Dinner might be disrupted, she said, “Screw the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has no experience on national security. Even more important, the character traits he has exhibited during the primary season suggest he would be a poor, even dangerous, commander in chief.

These traits include his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law.

The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump’s character are not just risks that would emerge if he became president. It is already damaging our national security.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.

Mr. Putin is a great leader, Mr. Trump says, ignoring that he has killed and jailed journalists and political opponents, has invaded two of his neighbors and is driving his economy to ruin. Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests — endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States.

My training as an intelligence officer taught me to call it as I see it. This is what I did for the C.I.A. This is what I am doing now. Our nation will be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president.