U.S. (And Others) Are Failing To Meet Climate Change Goals

The chart above is from a new report by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the United Nations Environment Programme. It shows a very disturbing fact -- that the nations of the world (including the United States) are not doing enough to curb the disaster of global climate change that is looming.

The dark blue line at the bottom of the chart reflects the global fossil fuel emissions that would be necessary to keep global climate change down to 1.5 degrees Celsius (about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). That is what would be needed to keep global climate change in check.

The green line right above it is what would be needed to keep the climate change to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. This would minimize the climate damage -- and it is what the Paris Accords agreed was necessary.

The nations of the world are failing to meet either level. The brown line is what fossil fuel emissions will be if the nations all meet the goals they have said they would do. Note that it's far above the emissions level needed to meet either goal.

But it gets even worse. The red line at the top shows the emissions that will happen because many nations have actually increased their production of fossil fuels. One of the worst offenders is the United States. It has actually increased production -- even though it was already second in coal production and first in production of oil/gas (and is on pace to produce 60% of newly-tapped oil and gas).

But the U.S. is not the only nation that will not meet the emission goals they agreed to meet. Also projected to exceed their goals are China, Russia, India, Australia, Indonesia, Canada, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

The United States may be the worst offender. Donald Trump withdrew it from the Paris Accords, and it no longer even makes a pretense of meeting the goals it had set while in the Paris Accord. But other nations are failing also.

It has become obvious that politicians are not going to do what's necessary to control climate change. It is up to the citizens of the world to demand the change that is needed. And it must start with the defeat of Donald Trump (and other climate change deniers) in the United States in the 2020 election.

If the United States refuses to do what is necessary to control global climate change, it just gives other nations an excuse to also fail.

And It Continues

Political Cartoon is by Kevin Siers in The Charlotte Observer.

Most In U.S. Support Life In Prison Over The Death Penalty

Most of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty as a punishment for crime. Out of the more than 180 countries in the world, only 20 executed at least one person in 2018.

The worst offenders were China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia -- all of whom executed at least a triple-digit number of people.

The United States was seventh in the world in the number of people they executed -- 25 people in 2018. That number is not as high as it has been in many past years. It's still too many.

Do we really want to be included in the nations that support the death penalty -- nations like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Iraq, and Egypt? Shouldn't we be joining other developed nations that have abolished the death penalty -- like our friends and allies in Europe?

I think we should. In the 21st Century, state-sanctioned killing should not happen. There are better alternatives for a civilized nation.

Now there is a glimmer of hope for abolishing the death penalty in the United States. It comes in a new Gallup Poll -- done between October 14th and 31st of a national sample of 1,506 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

The poll found that a majority of Americans still support the death penalty (56% support to 42% oppose). But the poll also had a hopeful sign.

As the chart below shows, an even larger majority (60% to 38%) say that life without parole is a better punishment than the death penalty for those who commit murder. This is the first time that life in prison has outpolled the death penalty in the United States. Maybe that is a sign that Americans are moving toward joining the rest of the civilized world.

Russian Kool-Aid

Political Cartoon is by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News.

Trump's Foreign Policy Is As Bad As His Impeachment Crimes

(This cartoon image is by David Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star.)

Donald Trump has committed impeachable crimes. That is just a fact. But the media concern over his possible impeachment is driving another story off the front pages. I'm talking about his horrendous foreign policy.

Trump has embraced many of the world's worst dictators, while snubbing our best allies. His foreign policy seems to be fulfilling the fondest wishes of Russia's Vladimir Putin. It's making the world a much more dangerous place for the United States and other democracies.

Here's how Fareed Zakaria (pictured) describes Trump's atrocious and dangerous foreign policy in The Washington Post:

While impeachment has been dominating the headlines, we are missing a set of stories about U.S. foreign policy that might prove equally consequential. The Trump administration has been doubling down on a policy of unilateralism and isolationism — a combination that is furthering the abdication of American leadership and the creation of a much more unstable world.

This week, talks between Washington and Seoul broke down after the Trump administration demanded a 400 percent increase in what South Korea pays for the stationing of U.S. troops in that country. The annual operating cost of the U.S. military presence there is approximately $2 billion. Seoul pays a little less than half that. Trump is asking for $4.7 billion.

Meanwhile, as the American president ruptures the relationship with one of our closest allies, Trump’s bizarre infatuation with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un continues. Trump has once again called off joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, even as North Korea has launched 24 missiles this year, all in violation of U.N. resolutions. Last Sunday, Trump asked for another date with the North Korean dictator, tweeting, “See you soon!” The response from North Korea: yet another dis. A North Korean official said that the country is not interested in having “useless” meetings with Washington.

The frictions with South Korea will likely be replicated with America’s staunchest ally in the Pacific, Japan. Trump has also reportedly asked Japan for a significant hike in its payments to the United States. These demands are not simply damaging to the ties between key allies, they are also based on bad economics. If American troops were withdrawn from South Korea and Japan, they would have to be housed in the United States — where there would be no burden sharing and no contributions from Seoul and Tokyo. Unless Trump were planning to demobilize these troops and shrink the military — he is actually trying to expand it — forward deployment in the Asia-Pacific region makes both strategic and economic sense.

Trump’s impulse everywhere is to quit the field. He has done so in the Middle East, ceding U.S. foreign policy to his favorite strongmen, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The American withdrawal from northern Syria has handed over a large swath of the country to Turkey and bolstered Russia, Iran and the Bashar al-Assad regime. When Republican senators complained about the abandonment of the Syrian Kurds, who lost 10,000 troops supporting the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State, Trump’s response was to let Erdogan show them a propaganda video claiming that our allies were actually terrorists.

The Trump administration has also given up on support for broad-based norms and values. It withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council, ceding the field to countries such as China and Saudi Arabia. The American Civil Liberties Union has charged that the Trump administration has ended all cooperation with international human rights monitors in the United States. Trump’s tariffs have rocked the free-trade system, perhaps irretrievably. This week, the administration reversed the long-standing U.S. position that Israeli settlements violate international law.

French President Emmanuel Macron was criticized for his recent statement that NATO is experiencing “brain death.” But in a thoughtful interview with the Economist, he pointed out that Trump’s policy on Syria was undertaken with no coordination with fellow NATO members. Europe’s interests in the Middle East are potentially greater than Washington’s — refugees flood into Europe, not the United States — and yet the Trump administration blindsided its allies across the Atlantic.

Macron believes that Europe faces an unprecedented challenge in Trump: “We find ourselves for the first time with an American president who doesn’t share our idea of the European project.” He noted that Trump often distances himself from Europe’s defense even against Islamist terrorism: “When he says, ‘It’s their problem, not mine’ — we must hear what he’s saying. . . . I am no longer prepared to pay for and guarantee a security system for them, and so just ‘wake up.’ ” It is ironic and tragic that Europeans believe they are alone in their fight against Islamist terrorism, given that the only time in history that NATO invoked Article 5 — an attack on one is an attack on all — was in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

It’s often said that Iran, Russia and China are rogue regimes whose actions are destroying the rules-based international system the United States built and maintained over the past 75 years. And those countries have certainly engaged in actions that are illiberal and irresponsible. But the greatest threat to the liberal international order right now is surely the Trump administration, which is systematically weakening the alliances that have maintained peace and stability and rejecting the rules and norms that have helped set some standards in international life.

The Only Thing He Cares About

Political Cartoon is by Gary Huck at huckkonopackicartoons.com.

An Epic Failure

An Excellent Suggestion

Trump And Congressional GOP Are Doing Putin's Bidding

Putin has to be a very happy man these days. He has convinced Donald Trump that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And Trump is now repeating that Russian propaganda to his base.

In the past, the Republicans would have been horrified by any president, especially a Gap one, doing the bidding of Russia. But Republicans have changed. They have decided that Donald Trump can do no wrong, even if he is spreading Russian propaganda -- and they are destroying their party's future and reputation to protect him.

Here is how Jennifer Rubin describes this GOP treachery in The Washington Post:

Republicans are not “merely” violating their oaths of office for failing to support impeachment of a president who arguably has committed more serious “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” and acts of bribery than all his predecessors combined. None of them sacrificed national security to obtain a political advantage. President Trump has been disloyal to the United States, not only in giving Russia a leg up in its war against Ukraine, but also in broadcasting his propaganda. And for that, Republicans are just as guilty.

The New York Times reports that “Fiona Hill, a respected Russia scholar and former senior White House official, added a harsh critique during testimony on Thursday. She told some of Mr. Trump’s fiercest defenders in Congress that they were repeating ‘a fictional narrative.’ She said that it likely came from a disinformation campaign by Russian security services, which also propagated it.” While that did not slow Republicans one bit, we now know that they are neither dupes nor Fox News pawns; they are deliberately assisting in a Russian propaganda operation.

If congressional Republicans have evidence our intelligence community is wrong, they need to present it. Otherwise, they need to be called out for deliberately assisting a hostile foreign power. It is up to mainstream media interviewers and every Democrat on the ballot in 2020 to directly challenge Republicans who, yes, engage in un-American activity.

In the case of Trump, he not only picks up the propaganda from domestic sources carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s water, which “worked its way into American information ecosystems, sloshing around until parts of it reached Mr. Trump”; he was duped right from the source speaking “with Mr. Putin about allegations of Ukrainian interference.” Whether the president is being blackmailed is unknown; what we do know is that he is a malleable puppet whose strings are pulled in the Kremlin.

Ironically, it was Republicans during the Cold War who routinely and falsely accused every liberal of aiding communists. Now, we have a case in which the “useful idiots” are in the White House and Congress, spreading Putin’s lies far more effectively than the Russian leader could do on his own. . . .

Republicans must bear full responsibility for raising a specious defense of Trump that aids Russia, and the president should be held responsible for his inability to defend our national security by virtue of his susceptibility to Russian propaganda. The former, presumably, have not lost their powers of reason, and therefore, must be denounced and voted out of office for perpetuating known propaganda from a hostile power. As for Trump, there are plenty of grounds for impeachment, but let’s not forget a big one: He is intellectually incapable of recognizing reality. He cannot carry out the responsibilities of commander in chief.

I Hardly Know The Guy

Political Cartoon is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.

And Maybe Not Even Then

Truth Or Religion?

Georgia Is In Play For The 2020 Presidential Election

These charts reflect the results of the latest SurveyUSA Poll -- done between November 15th and 18th of 1,538 registered voters in Georgia, with a 2 point margin of error.

The top chart shows Georgia could actually vote blue in the 2020 election. Biden leads Trump by 4 points. Sanders leads him by 3 points, and Warren leads by 1 point. Trump is leading Buttigieg, Harris, and Bloomberg by small margins. That's very good news for Democrats. It won't be easy, but they could win Georgia with a lot of work and a big turnout.

The bottom chart shows Biden is the favorite candidate of Democratic voters in Georgia -- with more than double the support of Sanders in second place.

The poll surveyed 536 likely Democratic primary voters in Georgia, and the survey had a 5.2 point margin of error.

A Quid Pro Quo For The Turkey

Political Cartoon is by John Deering in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.