Here are my observations on items in the news.
MORE SHAME ON MSNBC – NBC news correspondent Kier Simmons landed a rare interview with a North Korean military official and learned that officials in the communist country watch “Morning Joe,” and that they believe the hosts when they say President Trump is “mentally ill,” and that his country could prevail over the U.S. in a war.
Incredibly, Mika Brzezinski followed the report with, “They (North Korean officials) are saying what a lot of people are thinking, that the president is mentally ill,” while admitting it’s “inappropriate” to say. In support of his fiancé, Joe Scarborough smugly added, “I was going to say, Mika, you’ve got a mind-meld with some people in North Korea.
They are a sick pair; harming our country while trying to bring down the presidency.
THEN THERE’S MSNBC HOST ANDREA MITCHELL, and NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, who hasn’t covered the report that alleges the FBI buried evidence of Russian kickback to the Clinton Foundation as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton approved a uranium deal with a state-owned Russian company. When asked why, she replied that she covered that story “some years ago.” That coverage two years ago, according to Rich Noyes at the Media Research Center, was just 92 seconds long.
CUTTING COSTS EXTENDS TO OFFICE OF FIRST LADY Melania Trump. In previous posts I have reported on swamp draining measures being taken by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at State and Administrator Scott Pruitt at the EPA. This week, Fox’s Alex Pappas reported that the First Lady has significantly reduced the number of assistants on her payroll in comparison to her predecessor, Michelle Obama.
During President Obama’s first year in office, 16 people were listed as working for Michelle, earning a combined $1.24 million a year. Just four people work for Melania with salaries totaling $486,700.
USA TODAY IS AT IT AGAIN with environmental scare tactics. Over a photo of pollution in New Delhi, the left-leaning paper headline Saturday reads, “POLLUTION: World’s No. 1 killer a threat to mankind.” The subhead, “It disproportionately kills the poor and the vulnerable, study finds,” was designed to tug at your hearts.
Once you get into the story, you learn that Somalia leads the list with most pollution-related deaths per 100,000 with 26.5 percent of all deaths in the country. A quarter of all deaths in India, Chad and Madagascar are attributed to pollution. Air pollution from wood and dung stoves is blamed for 2.9 million deaths annually, while 1.8 million deaths were linked to contaminated water.
The study, funded by the United Nations (of course), the European Union and the United States (why?), and reported in The Lancet medical journal, included 40 researchers from universities and governments worldwide. It blames pollution for 9 million premature deaths, about 15 times more than all wars and other forms of violence, “endangering the stability of the Earth’s support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.”
Just 1 to 7 percent of deaths by pollution related diseases were recorded in high -income countries like the United States (155,135) according to the report.
COINCIDENTALLY, a friend in Texas called to my attention to an excellent video produced by a Malcom Roberts, a scientist from down under, who takes just three minutes to explain the effect of C02 on global warming. Click here to be impressed.
