Category: Health – Happiness

Locked and Loaded: What Fresh Pretext Will Trigger US in Syria?

MintPress News

Locked and Loaded: What Fresh Pretext Will Trigger US in Syria?

Between the imminent arrival of thousands of U.S. troops, Israel’s continued military action against Syria, and the Syrian rebel’s poised to stage a false-flag attack, it seems that last weekend’s strikes were only the kickoff for an expanding U.S.-led military operation targeting the Syrian government.

By  Whitney Webb       April 18, 2018

A U.S. Marine fires a howitzer in the early morning in Syria in support of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), June 3, 2017. (Marines Corps Photo)

DAMASCUS, SYRIA – Though U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis called the recent strikes targeting Syria a “one-time shot,” recent evidence suggests that the U.S. will likely strike Syria again in the coming weeks and months. Indeed, after the U.S. — along with the U.K. and France – chose to attack Syria based on “evidence” from social media and YouTube purporting to show a chemical weapons attack, U.S. officials warned that the U.S. would not hesitate to attack Syria again if similar evidence suggesting Syrian government use of chemical weapons were to emerge, regardless of how flimsy or controversial such evidence might be.

“I spoke to President Trump this morning and he said if the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United States is locked and loaded,” stated U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley this past Sunday.

As several analysts have noted, this essentially flings open the door for rebel groups throughout Syria to stage chemical-weapons attacks, knowing that even a single YouTube video will be enough to trigger a military response from the United States that would benefit the rebels’ bid to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In the wake of the recent strikes, rebel groups chided the U.S. for doing insufficient damage to the Assad-led government, calling the strikes a “farce.” Surely, the rebels would consider staging a chemical-weapons attack if it would result in a much more significant strike targeting the Syrian military and government.

Such actions on the part of the rebels would not be unprecedented. For instance, recently released information – as well as the testimony of Western journalists on the ground in Douma – suggest that the chemical attack in Douma was staged.

Less than a month prior to the alleged attack in Douma, Russian officials warned that Syrian rebel factions were planning to stage a chemical attack in order to push the U.S. and its allies to attack the Syrian government. “New provocations with the use of chemical weapons are being prepared — performances will be organized in Eastern Ghouta, among others,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on March 14th to a group of reporters.

U.S. troop movements belie Mattis’ “one-time shot” line

In addition to the high likelihood that Syrian rebels will attempt to bring about further U.S. military action in Syria, the U.S. military already seems to be preparing for that eventuality. Prior to the strikes, but after the U.S. announced that it was considering military action against Syria, the U.S. Navy stated that the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (HSTCSG) would leave the U.S. and be deployed to the Middle East, focusing particularly on Syria.

Charles Lister: In addition to USS Donald Cook, the U.S has now dispatched USN Carrier Strike Group 8 to the Mediterranean/# Syria:

– USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier
– Carrier Air Wing VII
– USS Hué City missile cruiser
– x6 Arleigh Burke-class Destroyers
– x1 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate

The strike group, which consists of 6,500 sailors, is still traveling to Syria and is expected to arrive within the next week. According to the Navy, the group’s mission is set to include “maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts alongside allies and partners” and the group will “provide crisis response capability and increase theater security cooperation and forward naval presence.” Even though Mattis has claimed that U.S. military action targeting Syria was a one-time event, the HSTCSG’s deployment to Syria has not been canceled, suggesting that the U.S. is anticipating more strikes against Syria in the near future.

Beyond the imminent arrival of the Truman Strike Group, the U.S. is also amassing thousands of troops along the Syrian-Jordan border. An estimated 4,000 U.S. troops are set to arrive in Jordan for a military exercise called “Eager Lion,” which will last for 12 days – coinciding with the arrival of the USS Truman. The exercise will take place around Jordan’s capital of Amman, which lies 62 miles (100 km) from the Syrian border. Among the war scenarios to be included in the drill is a simulated attack with chemical weapons.

US Army Central: Senior military leaders from @ArmedForcesJO and @CENTCOM announced the beginning of Exercise Eager Lion 2018 on Sunday.

Israel wastes no time

Furthermore, along with apparent U.S. preparations for war, the U.S.’ staunchest ally in the region seems already to be involved in a hot war with Syria. The day after the strikes launched by the U.S., U.K. and France, Israel bombed the T4 airbase near the Syrian city of Homs — killing 14, including Iranian soldiers. Since then, Israel has continued to bomb Syria, with the latest taking place on Monday when the Shayrat airbase – also near Homs – was bombed.

Israel’s latest bombings seem to be aimed at provoking a wider conflict, given that they have targeted both Iranian and Syrian assets located within Syria. Israel, whose influence over U.S. foreign policy has arguably reached unprecedented levels under Trump, has also been actively pushing for a wider war in Syria over the past year – with Israeli officials calling for the murder of Assad and bombing of the Presidential Palace in Damascus.

Between the imminent arrival of 6,500 Navy sailors and 4,000 U.S. army ground troops around Syria, Israel’s continued military action against Syria, and the Syrian rebels poised to stage a false-flag chemical weapons attack, it seems that last weekend’s strikes against Syria were only the foundation for a more significant U.S.-led military operation targeting the Syrian government.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

 Stories published in our Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

New Zealand PM Jacinda Arden first national leader in history to take maternity leave, while in office

Daily Kos

PM Jacinda Arden first national leader in history to take maternity leave, while in office

Leslie Salzillo      April 18, 2018

With an intentional positive diversion from the negative media about Trump’s sex scandals and corruption, we journey to New Zealand where things are quite different—especially for women.

New Zealand, much known for its breathtakingly scenic beauty, is on its third female prime minister. The current PM, Jacinda Arden, is 37, unmarried and about to give birth.

NBC reports:

In June, Ardern, the world’s youngest female leader, will become just the second woman in history to give birth while an elected head of state. She’ll become the first elected leader ever to take maternity leave.

Arden will be getting help from the baby’s father and partner of four years, Clarke Gayford. He’s planning to be a stay-at-home dad.

The Prime Minister is currently very popular with the people, even those who did not vote for her. Like the United States, New Zealand is a country divided politically, but unlike the U.S. their nation is not polarized.

After the Wall Street Journal tweeted a comparison of Arden’s immigration policies to Trump’s, she was “infuriated.”

“We’re campaigning to double our refugee quota,” said Ardern. “We are a nation built on immigration. The suggestion that I was leading something that was counter to that value made me extremely angry.”

Currently Arden is concentrating  on child poverty and climate change (how refreshing). She was critical of the recent U.S., French and British strike on Syria. Another mission of Arden’s is to see New Zealand become a its own republic. Currently, Queen Elizabeth is the Head of State.

You can read much more about Jacinda Arden and watch her in an NBC video, click here—it rates as some of the most jaunty news I’ve come across since the U.S. Election Day, November 8, 2016. Cheers to Prime Minister Arden and to New Zealand citizens for voting her in.

H/T Robin Romans

This once a year clinic is the only health care for many Virginians.

NowThis Politics

April 18, 2018

There is no excuse for this in 2018

Once-A-Year Clinic Is Only Affordable Health Care Option For S…

There is no excuse for this in 2018

Posted by NowThis Politics on Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Homebuilders paid for Pruitt’s Colorado hotel stay

Politico

Homebuilders paid for Pruitt’s Colorado hotel stay

By Lorraine Woellert          April 17, 2018

During his visit to Colorado Springs, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt gave a speech to the builders and invited them to EPA headquarters in Washington, where he later told his staff to regard them as the agency’s “customers.” Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

A group of Colorado home-builders paid for a luxury hotel stay last fall for EPA chief Scott Pruitt, eight months after the Trump administration began work on a major priority for their industry by unwinding an Obama-era wetlands regulation.

During his visit to Colorado Springs, Pruitt gave a speech to the builders and invited them to EPA headquarters in Washington, where he later told his staff to regard them as the agency’s “customers,” the head of the group told POLITICO.

The $409.12 hotel stay may have met federal legal requirements if EPA’s ethics officers had approved it ahead of time. But it’s likely to add to the storm of ethics controversies surrounding Pruitt, who faces scrutiny from EPA’s inspector general, the White House and members of Congress for his travel and security spending and a $50-a-night Capitol Hill rental he accepted from the wife of an energy lobbyist.

The $409 hotel room “might be the least of his problems, but it’s emblematic of all his problems,” said Virginia Canter, an ethics lawyer for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit watchdog group.

“It’s one thing when a head of an agency or senior official is engaged in legitimate outreach,” Canter added. “But to give a speech, accept a benefit of overnight lodging, then a few weeks later instruct your staff that these are your clients strikes me as inappropriate. At a minimum it raises an appearance issue.”

Pruitt is known to actively seek speaking slots at events with key groups with a stake in the agency’s actions. A former staffer, Kevin Chmielewski, has told lawmakers that Pruitt directed his staff to find places he could visit, congressional Democrats wrote in a letter last week. A former lobbyist also recalled Pruitt and his staff persistently asking for an invite to a conservative event that fundraisers frequently attend.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the travel arrangements.

Pruitt agreed to speak to the Housing and Building Association of Colorado Springs after it offered to cover his expenses, including his flights and $409.12 to put him up at The Broadmoor, a lakeside golf resort, on Oct. 4, according to the builder group’s chief executive officer, Renee Zentz. The hotel advertises itself as “a legendary Forbes Five-Star and AAA Five-Diamond resort with impeccable service and distinctive amenities.”

EPA never billed the trade group for his flights, Zentz said in an interview. And while Pruitt stayed at The Broadmoor as the group had agreed, his entourage spent the night at a different hotel, Zentz said.

“We didn’t pay for his team but we paid for him. That was the agreement when we talked to him,” Zentz said. “We just wanted to get him here, we were just so excited to have him.”

The trip’s headline event was a Pruitt speech to a lunch gathering of about 150 people on Oct. 5, Zentz said. In a stroke of good timing, board members from the National Association of Home Builders were meeting in nearby Santa Fe, N.M., and flew up for the event. NAHB President Jerry Howard hustled in from Washington to moderate Pruitt’s remarks.

The group’s invitation describes the event as “a rare opportunity to hear directly from the EPA administration” and “our chance to make sure the concerns of our industry are being listened to.”

“It just was an awesome opportunity,” Zentz said. “It was a pretty big feather in our cap locally.”

Builders rank among Pruitt’s biggest supporters, even amid his recent spate of negative headlines. They also have lauded the administration’s efforts to roll back regulations on clean water and storm runoff, including a sweeping Obama-era EPA regulation called Waters of the United States that several industries have denounced as a multibillion-dollar drag on the economy. Granger MacDonald, then-chairman of the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, was at the White House in February 2017 when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that took the first step toward undoing that rule, one of his first acts in office.

Pruitt, who attended the signing ceremony, has since set about crafting a much more limited regulation to protect waterways and wetlands. Environmental groups have said the move could leave 60 percent of U.S. stream miles and 20 million acres of wetlands unprotected and vulnerable to development or pollution.

Before the October lunch in Colorado Springs, Pruitt sat down to an invitation-only coffee with about 20 business owners and builders, who complained about EPA’s approach to stormwater controls and other regulations. At the end of that meeting, Pruitt instructed staff to arrange a meeting in Washington with industry representatives, Zentz said.

That meeting took place at EPA headquarters on Oct. 24, when Pruitt and his staff met with eight to 10 industry representatives, including a Colorado builder from Zentz’s group.

Pruitt “wanted to hear from our districts. He called a representative from every single district,” Zentz said. “He put his staff in the room and said, ‘This is our customer, this is who we’re going to listen to.’

“He told his staff, ‘These are our customers,’” Zentz said. “He listened.”

Federal law allows government officials to accept travel reimbursement, including hotel stays, with prior approval from agency officers. But even if the agency had approved the room, it was inappropriate, CREW’s Canter said.

“It appears to be abuse of the travel approval,” she said. “It’s not intended to be used to provide luxury accommodations to the head of the agency so he can turn around two weeks later and say we give these guys favorable treatment.”

Emily Holden and Annie Snider contributed to this report.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is pictured. | Getty Images

Zinke failed to disclose campaign ties to speech host, IG says. By 

Donald Trump is pictured. | Getty Images

Watchdog reports provide new ammo for Pruitt’s critics. By  and 

Why would an EPA chief need a car with ‘Kevlar-like seat covers’?

MSNBC – The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog

Why would an EPA chief need a car with ‘Kevlar-like seat covers’?

By Steve Benen     April 17, 2018

In this March 10, 2016 photo, Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma Attorney General, gestures as he speaks during an interview in Oklahoma City, Okla. Photo by Sue Ogrocki/AP

Pruitt waste of taxpayer money on soundproof booth broke law: GAO

Yesterday was not a good day for embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. We’ve known for a while that the Oklahoma Republican spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a soundproof phone booth for reasons that have never made any sense, but we learned yesterday that as far as the Government Accountability Office is concerned, the purchase violated federal spending laws.

But that doesn’t mean things can’t get worse for the far-right EPA chief. Take this new Washington Post report, for example:

“Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt upgraded his official car last year to a costlier, larger vehicle with bullet-resistant covers over bucket seats, according to federal records and interviews with current and former agency officials.

Recent EPA administrators have traveled in a Chevrolet Tahoe, and agency officials had arranged for Pruitt to use the same vehicle when he joined the administration in February. But he switched to a larger, newer and more high-end Chevy Suburban last June.”

The article added that the head of Pruitt’s security detail “subsequently approved the addition of Kevlar-like seat covers to the vehicle at a cost of hundreds of dollars.”

That’s the same security official, Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, who’s reportedly “clashed – at least once physically – with top E.P.A. officials who challenged Mr. Pruitt’s spending, and has steered at least one E.P.A. security contract to a business associate.”

This is what’s become of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Donald Trump era.

For what it’s worth, it would be easier to justify “bullet-resistant covers” for Scott Pruitt’s seats if there were evidence of expansive security threats against the EPA chief, but there aren’t. The latest documents from the agency show those security threats don’t really exist. (The career EPA staffer who approved this evidence was removed from his post.)

And, of course, Pruitt’s “Kevlar-like seat covers” are also emblematic of Pruitt’s paranoia. As we discussed just yesterday, for example, the EPA chief also explored the possibility of getting a bullet-proof desk.

This fit into an amazing pattern. Pruitt, for example, has a massive, around-the-clock security detail. He’s spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on a professional sweep of his office searching for possible surveillance devices. And thousand more on a sound-proof phone booth. And thousands more on first-class air travel, apparently afraid of the riff raff who fly coach.

CNN reported that the EPA’s custodial staff is not allowed to enter Pruitt’s office on their own, and in the hallway around Pruitt’s office, “security employees check government IDs against a list of employees who are approved for access.”

And before you think Trump keeps this guy around because he’s ruthlessly effective at gutting environmental safeguards, let’s also not forget that reports on Pruitt’s competence have been greatly exaggerated.

Explore: The MaddowBlog and EPA

Republicans Are Scrambling To Save An Arizona House Seat In GOP Territory

HuffPost

Republicans Are Scrambling To Save An Arizona House Seat In GOP Territory

Daniel Marans, HuffPost            April 17, 2018 

Democrats have launched a serious bid to win an April 24 special election for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, scaring national GOP groups into spending major money on a seat that was once considered safely Republican.

Democrat Hiral Tipirneni, 50, a physician and an advocate for cancer research, is taking on Republican Debbie Lesko, 59, a conservative state senator, to fill a suburban Phoenix seat vacated by Rep. Trent Franks (R). Franks resigned in December after it emerged that he had offered a female aide $5 million to serve as a surrogate mother for his children.

Although the odds of Tipirneni flipping the seat are not in her favor, her candidacy has excited the Democratic base, enabling the party to improve its chances in other races. In November, Arizona Democrats hope to take control of the state Senate and plan to mount serious bids for the governorship and an open U.S. Senate seat.

“The party is confident that 2018 could be a big year for Arizona,” said Drew Anderson, spokesman for the Arizona Democratic Party.

Arizona’s 8th Congressional District is composed of suburbs north and west of Phoenix. The district is home to a large number of retirees: More than one-fifth of residents are 65 or older.

In 2016, President Donald Trump defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the district by 21 percentage points. That same year, the district re-elected Franks by an even wider margin, but his main opponent was from the Green Party, not the Democratic Party.

Other parts of Arizona, including adjacent areas of the Phoenix metropolitan area, have been trending more Democratic. Clinton lost the state by just 3.5 percentage points, and in Maricopa County, which encompasses greater Phoenix, voters ousted Joe Arpaio, the notoriously anti-immigrant sheriff.

Now, in a reflection of this year’s higher-than-usual Democratic enthusiasm, public polling indicates that the race for Arizona’s 8th is competitive. Tipirneni even leads Lesko by 1 percentage point in an Emerson College poll released Monday, although political strategists still see her as an underdog.

National Republican groups have responded in force, hoping to avoid another embarrassing defeat in solid-red territory. Three groups ― the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC ― have together spent nearly $1 million boosting Lesko’s bid.

The outside airpower aims to narrow the damage of Tipirneni’s fundraising lead over Lesko. Tipirneni has raised $740,000 compared with Lesko’s $564,000 haul. (Former Rep. Franks is among Lesko’s high-dollar donors, contributing the maximum of $2,700 allowed from an individual.)

And while the Arizona Democratic Party has pitched in for Tipirneni with a field office, staff and get-out-the-vote resources, national Democratic groups, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee, have not given her any cash directly.

The DNC has, however, used its email list to fundraise for Tipirneni. It also contributed a five-figure grant to the Arizona Democratic Party for voter outreach and registration through its State Party Innovation Fund, though the grant is not earmarked for use in the special election for Arizona’s 8th District.

Tipirneni’s biggest individual national booster may be Ady Barkan, an ALS-stricken activist who leads the progressive Center for Popular Democracy Action. Barkan, who played a lead role in Capitol Hill protests against the GOP tax cuts, traveled to the district to campaign for Tipirneni ― and press Lesko about her stances on cutting major social insurance programs.

Asked whether she was disappointed that the national party had not provided more support for her bid, Tipirneni responded indirectly.

“We have learned very clearly that every state is worth contesting and every race is worth investing in,” Tipirneni told HuffPost in an interview. “We’ve learned that repeatedly, so I don’t know why we’re even addressing it.”

An aide to Lesko said he would respond later this week to detailed questions about her policy stances and campaign. HuffPost will update this article accordingly.

It is hard not to see in the race for Arizona’s 8th some of the same elements that propelled Democrats to an upset victory in the March 14 special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District.

Tipirneni is benefiting from the enthusiasm and mobilization of the district’s Democratic voters, particularly suburban women, in the wake of Trump’s election.

Recent policy battles in Arizona, one of several GOP-controlled states experiencing a backlash, including threatened teacher strikes, after years of fiscal austerity, have created a ready-made corps of activists primed to canvass for Tipirneni. Many of the same women knocking on doors for Tipirneni now had already mobilized against a bill in the state Legislature expanding private school vouchers. Lesko was a sponsor of the school voucher bill, which has since become a law that’s being challenged on the November ballot.

At the same time, Tipernini is keenly aware that she needs the support of independents and Republicans to win. To this end, she has not made Trump a focus of her run ― or really spoken much about him at all.

“When people ask, I speak about him,” Tipirneni told HuffPost. Even then, Tipirneni does not dwell much on Trump as a person. She criticizes the president in the context of his work with congressional Republicans to pass policies Tipirneni opposes, such as the tax cut legislation, which she calls “atrocious.”

It’s just unconscionable that on the backs of seniors they would pay for this huge corporate tax cut. Hiral Tipirneni, Democratic candidate for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District seat

Indeed, Tipirneni has focused on the kitchen-table issues of health care, education and retirement security.

She supports creating a Medicare-like public option to compete with private plans that would be accessible to all Americans.

The proposal has prompted charges from Lesko that Tipirneni is too liberal for the district. “She’s for this socialized, Bernie Sanders, Medicare for all. And that’s not what our constituents want,” Lesko said in a televised debate with Tipirneni in late March.

In fact, while Sen. Sanders proposes replacing private insurance with Medicare, Tipirneni would simply permit people to buy into the program.

And she laments the pressure to cut Social Security and Medicare as the GOP tax cuts add $1.5 trillion to the national debt. (In an interview discussing his decision not to seek re-election, House Speaker Paul Ryan expressed regret that he had not accomplished “entitlement reform,” a euphemism for scaling back major social insurance programs.)

“A lot of my community are elderly folks, retirees. For them, Medicare and Social Security are their lifelines,” Tipirneni said. “These are earned benefits that they have paid into through decades of hard work.”

“It’s just unconscionable that on the backs of seniors they would pay for this huge corporate tax cut that puts billions of dollars into the pockets of companies like Exxon and Walmart, as opposed to folks who could really use that help,” she added.

In lieu of the current tax revision, Tipirneni proposes making the middle-class tax cuts in the law permanent and expanding them so they reach more people.

Although Tipirneni’s progressive policy stances put her comfortably in the Democratic mainstream, she identifies as a “moderate Democrat” and emphasizes her “data-driven approach” to policy.

“Show me the facts, show me the research. That’s what my science background brings to the table,” Tipirneni said.

For her part, Lesko has touted her conservative bona fides and devotion to Trump’s agenda, not least on the hot-button issue of immigration.

In a 30-second TV ad, “Built the Wall” Lesko declares her support for Trump’s plan to build a wall on the southern U.S. border but also says it’s “not enough.”

“We need more Border Patrol agents and the best technology to stop this invasion,” she says.

Republicans have also accused Tipirneni of financially benefiting from the ACA. Her firm, CSRA, received a contract to assist with Obamacare enrollment. But Tipirneni said her research work is completely separate and that she has not profited from the landmark health care law in any way.

Tipirneni remains optimistic about her bid, but she also acknowledged the importance of her bid in increasing the Democratic Party’s reach in the state ahead of the November elections. The party’s biggest pickup opportunity is likely in the state Senate, where Republicans currently have a four-seat majority.

“Whatever happens on April 24, we have definitely laid the groundwork to continue the momentum forward,” Tipirneni said.

More News in Arizona: Teachers to Get a 20 Percent Pay Raise

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.

Arid West Invading Fertile Eastern U.S.

EcoWatch

Arid West Invading Fertile Eastern U.S.

Climate News Network   April 16, 2018

The 100th meridian (solid line) dividing the moister eastern U.S. from the dryer west. Climate change may already be moving the divide eastward (dotted line). Image modified from Seager et al, Earth Interactions 2018

There’s an invasion going on down the middle of the U.S., as America’s arid West advances eastwards. Imperceptibly, decades of climate change have shifted the natural boundary between the dry west and the fertile farmlands of the eastern states by more than 225 kilometers (approximately 140 miles), according to a new study by U.S. scientists.

In effect, what was once marked by the 100th meridian is now at 98 degrees of longitude.

The 100th meridian is one of those astronomically-determined lines that emerge from what the researchers call “psychogeography.” Just as the historic 38th parallel separates the hostile states of North and South Korea, the Mason-Dixon line marks a notional but blood-stained boundary between the northern states and the American South, and the Greenwich meridian formally replaced the Paris meridian as the notional ground zero for the measure of universal time, so the 100th meridian has entered U.S. consciousness.

It was first cited 140 years ago when a pioneer geologist and surveyor identified a divide running from north to south between land that received ample rainfall, and soils in the so-called rain-shadow of the Rockies that could be classed as arid.

And, conveniently, it could be measured as 100 degrees west of Greenwich in the UK, the starting point for lines of longitude. In two papers in the journal Earth Interactions, researchers have taken a closer look at the reality of this historic divide and the changing nature of the U.S. landscape as a consequence of climate change driven by ever-greater ratios of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, in response to ever-more profligate human use of fossil fuels.

They confirm that in the 140 years since the first observation of that divide, the line through North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas has shifted eastwards by 140 miles, or 225 km: in the state of Texas, this is a shift from Abilene to Fort Worth.

In 1878, the geologist John Wesley Powell noted the transformation observed as he crossed a north-south band of terrain in the U.S. “On the east, luxuriant growth of grass is seen, and the gaudy flowers of the order Compositae make the prairie landscape beautiful.

“Passing westward, species after species of luxuriant grass and brilliant flowering plants disappear; the ground gradually becomes naked, with ‘bunch’ grasses here and there; now and then a thorny cactus is seen, and the yucca plant thrusts out its sharp bayonets,” he later wrote.

Big Change Ahead

Today, west of the line, population drops away sharply and farms are fewer but bigger. To the east, most of the crop is maize, a plant greedy for water. To the west, the dominant harvest is wheat, which is more resistant to aridity.

The researchers predict that dry-lands will continue to move eastward with the century, as global temperatures continue to rise, and eventually trigger large-scale changes.

Such research is simply another way of identifying the impacts of climate change. None of it should be a surprise. Researchers have repeatedly warned that the U.S. climate is changing with ever-greater risks of climate extremes, including ever-more devastating droughts, and with increasing risks of forest fire.

So the 100th meridian study is another way of telling the story again. “Powell talked eloquently about the 100th meridian, and this concept of a boundary line has stayed with us down to the current day,” said Richard Seager of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who led the study “We wanted to ask whether there really is such a divide, and whether it’s influenced human settlement.”

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Trees in eastern US head west as climate changes : Nature News

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Franklin County studying ways to solve ‘alarming’ poverty.

The Columbus Dispatch

Franklin County studying ways to solve ‘alarming’ poverty.

 By Kimball Perry, The Columbus Dispatch    April 16, 2018
Christine Bennett discusses homework with her granddaughters, from left Linh Hustead 12, Geneva Hustead 9, and Asia Hustead 11, in their two-bedroom apartment in Columbus. Bennett is caring for the girls, whose mother is in prison. Eric Albrecht/Dispatch

Concerned because so many in Franklin County live in poverty — one in four children, and one in six residents — despite a strong regional economy, the county’s commissioners are investing in a yearlong study to find solutions for the most vulnerable.

“There’s a lot of people out here (who) need help,” said Christine Bennett, 52, of the West Side.

Bennett is among them.

With a daughter in prison, she cares for three grandchildren who are 12 or younger. They have to move because officials discovered there is too much lead in their home. The family gets public medical benefits and cash assistance but doesn’t qualify for food assistance because Bennett’s income is just over the limit.

“It’s very difficult. I lost my husband five years ago,” she said.

For some time, county leaders have considered what can be done to improve what Commissioner John O’Grady calls “alarming” poverty statistics in a generally economically successful population. He and fellow commissioners Marilyn Brown and Kevin Boyce decided to make it their top priority.

The commissioners now have asked companies to submit proposals on how to identify and recommend solutions for Franklin County’s poverty issues.

“We’re not just providing checks and a subsidy. We’re providing a pathway to prosperity,” Boyce said. “The best social service agency is a good-paying job.”

He knows.

His father was killed when Boyce was 7. His family lived in poverty, moving 11 times before he graduated from high school. Their big break came when his mother got a job at the Postal Service. “You’d have thought we hit the lottery,” Boyce said.

As a state representative, Boyce saw the flip side of the prosperity and economic success driving central Ohio. His district included pockets — often several generations — of families affected by poverty.

“Some neighborhoods and communities have upwards of 50 percent poverty,” Boyce said.

A 2015 Redfin study deemed Columbus the nation’s least economically diverse large city. A 2015 University of Toronto study found that Columbus was the second-most economically segregated American city, behind Austin, Texas.

“Your destiny should not be determined by your ZIP code,” county Administrator Kenneth Wilson said.

The economic disparity exists despite the Franklin County Department of Job and Family Services’ $86 million budget this year and the tens of millions more spent by other government entities and nonprofit, faith-based and other agencies that provide food, health and other social services to the needy. The federal poverty level in the 48 lower states is set at an annual income of $25,100 for a family of four.

“It’s never been just about handouts,” O’Grady said. “We want to give people an opportunity to help themselves. We can’t just go throwing money at it.”

Already, Franklin County provides job training, has developed an internship program for construction trades to fill jobs in a field desperate for workers, and provides subsidies for companies such as Fortuity, a call center seeking to hire and train workers living in poverty. The county also upped its employees’ minimum hourly wage to $13.69.

The area’s unemployment rate is low, fluctuating around 4 percent, but large pockets of poverty remain.

Brown said that’s because so many of the needy work two or more low-paying jobs and sometimes still need food or medical assistance to survive.

“This is the issue of the community, and it’s the community’s responsibility — employers, employees, everybody,” Brown said. “The real goal is not to keep them on public assistance, but to help them” become employed and paying taxes.

The contract for the report, which probably will cost more than $100,000, is expected to be awarded in June, with the report presented to commissioners a year after that.

Boyce acknowledges that the process to obtain social services is complicated and bureaucratic and doesn’t provide the best services.

“We are addressing the symptoms instead of the causes,” Boyce said.

All three commissioners expect that the report will show overlaps and gaps in social service systems. They want to know where and how that can be fixed.

The commissioners suspect that the finished report will suggest a temporary steering committee to help collaboration of all social services. It will look at what is working or not working in other governments and whether their best practices can be applied here.

“There’s many facets to poverty. That’s why we need experts to look at it,” Wilson said.

Now is the time, officials insist, to make a hard push to address local poverty because the region is predicted to have up to 1 million more residents by 2050.

“As we continue to grow,” Wilson said, “we’re going to suffer if we don’t solve this.”

The Hypocrisy of Trump’s “Mission Accomplished” Boast About Syria

The New Yorker

The Hypocrisy of Trump’s “Mission Accomplished” Boast About Syria

By Robin Wright         April 14, 2018

President Trump’s strike on Syria was a tactical response that lacks a long-term strategy. Photograph by Susan Walsh / AP

On Saturday, President Trump revelled in the military efficiency of the joint strike by the United States, Britain, and France on three chemical-weapons facilities in Syria. The tightly choreographed multinational operation—involving aircraft and ships in the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf—took less than two hours. More than a hundred missiles—nearly double the size of the 2017 U.S. strike on Syria—hit their targets. A production site, command post, and storage facilities were obliterated. Neither the Russians nor Iranians tried to stop the strike or intervene militarily. Syria’s air defenses failed miserably. All allied aircraft and personnel returned safely to their bases. “A perfectly executed strike last night,” Trump tweeted, on Saturday morning. “Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”

Technically, that’s true. The limited military operation—far smaller than the advance hype suggested—did degrade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ability to use weaponized toxins against civilians. But it did not eliminate Syria’s entire stock, the Pentagon acknowledged, in a press briefing on Saturday. “The program is larger than what we struck,” Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie told reporters. “We could have gone to other places and done other things.” The six-day run-up to the strike may also have allowed sufficient time for Syria to relocate equipment and personnel, the Pentagon said.

More fundamentally, however, Trump’s strike was a tactical response that lacks a long-term strategy to help restore stability to turbulent Syria. A country that is the geostrategic center of the Middle East, Syria has been ravaged by seven years of a war that has killed an estimated half million people and displaced more than half of its twenty-three million citizens. The U.S.-led military operation did nothing to change those realities—or even challenge Assad’s brutal rule or his growing military grip on the country.

“So you strike. Then what?” Ryan Crocker, a former Ambassador to Syria (as well as Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Kuwait), told me. “If the rockets hit the targets they intended, you could say the mission was accomplished in a narrow sense. But, in reality, it accomplished nothing. It might have been better if we’d not struck at all. It’s sending a message that killing is O.K. any way but one way—with chemical weapons. How many have been killed in Eastern Ghouta during this whole Syrian campaign? Far more by non-chemical means. It’s obscene.”

The strike, Crocker said, demonstrated the limits of the West’s power rather than its commitment to ending the murderous reign of the Assad family, which has ruled Syria for nearly half a century. The operation could even produce the “appearance of impotence” among Western nations. “What damage did we really do?” Crocker, now a fellow at Princeton University, asked. “You can strike once, which we did. The second time around is less meaningful. The Syrians keep using“—chemical weapons—“and we say, ‘Naughty, naughty.’ It tees up a great opportunity for Assad to show how impotent and irrelevant we are.”

Like many U.S. diplomats who have served in the region, Crocker said that he is still waiting for a diplomatic vision to end the war, not simply a military plan to deal with one repugnant tactic. “It seems like the policy right now is not to have a policy. Syria is not a military problem. It is a political problem.”

Diplomacy on Syria has stalled badly and, over the past year, bifurcated. Since 2012, the U.N. has convened a series of peace initiatives in Geneva. But the Assad government and various opposition groups (far from fully representative of the country’s deeply fractured militias and political factions) have balked on basics. Among the biggest issues are whether Assad can stay in power through a transition or even run in a future election. The rival sides have often refused even to sit in the same room. At a White House briefing on Saturday, a senior Administration official faulted the Assad government for refusing to participate, “aided and abetted by the Russians, who have been unwilling to exert the pressures to bring them to Geneva.”

In 2017, a second process was launched, by a troika—Russia, Iran, and Turkey. But several meetings also failed to produce anything tangible. The Trump Administration said it hopes that the strike will, as a byproduct, add more steam to diplomacy. At the White House briefing on Saturday, however, senior officials offered no new ideas about how that might happen.

“In all fairness, the attacks were not to change the basic order of battle on the ground or decapitate regime leaders,” Fred Hof, a former military officer and an ambassador who worked on Middle East issues for the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Obama Administrations, told me. “But it’s the follow-up that is everything. And, unless there is a strong diplomatic follow-up to this strike, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. It’ll just be an empty gesture, as it was a year ago.”

Hof warned that the Assad regime may interpret the strike as a license to be even more brutal. “The focus is entirely on the weapon rather than the crime,” he said. “When Assad sees a bright red line being drawn against one particular compound, this man’s cynicism makes him believe he has a green light for every other damn thing.”

Given the tensions among the major powers following the strike, diplomacy seems ever further away. In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin called the U.S.-led strike an “act of aggression.” The Russian foreign ministry charged that it was designed to derail an investigation into the chemical-weapons attack in Douma a week ago. Moscow has alleged that videos and photos of convulsing toddlers were a plot by foreign powers. Russia introduced a resolution in an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday condemning the strikes. It failed. But the comments during the debate reflected the depth of divisions.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said that President Trump informed her that “the United States is locked and loaded” and ready to strike again if Syria resumes its use of chemical weapons. “When our President draws a red line, our President enforces the red line,” she said. Haley also charged that Russia was complicit in Syria’s use of chemical weapons because it failed to insure that Damascus had destroyed its stockpile, as it promised, in 2013, in an international agreement brokered by the Obama Administration. The consequences of the second U.S. strike on Syria have yet to play out. As the Pentagon noted, U.S. forces deployed there are still trying to mop up the remnants of isis, which has a few thousand fighters in the eastern Euphrates Valley. Over the past week, the U.S. and its allies conducted air strikes against fifteen isis targets in Syria.

So “Mission Accomplished” is a dangerous boast, as President George W. Bush learned after declaring, in 2003, under a banner on a U.S. aircraft carrier, that all combat operations had concluded in Iraq. American forces remained in Iraq another eight years, more than four thousand Americans died, and, even after its withdrawal, in 2011, the United States had to return, in 2014, to help confront isis. Today we’re still there.

Robin Wright has been a contributing writer to The New Yorker since 1988. She is the author of “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World.”

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