Some interesting numbers

Americas Wars by TBP_Think_Tank on Scribd

Hitching a ride

Trump and the Media

The media reporting of Trump surpasses its reporting of any other president I can recall. Most days the Times front page has about 25% devoted to Donald. Now, the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard has published a report on the first 100 days of Trump as seen by the media. Here are their findings:

President Trump dominated media coverage in the outlets and programs analyzed, with Trump being the topic of 41 percent of all news stories—three times the amount of coverage received by previous presidents. He was also the featured speaker in nearly two-thirds of his coverage.

Republican voices accounted for 80 percent of what newsmakers said about the Trump presidency, compared to only 6 percent for Democrats and 3 percent for those involved in anti-Trump protests.

European reporters were more likely than American journalists to directly question Trump’s fitness for office.

Trump has received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where Trump’s coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president.

Fox was the only news outlet in the study that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall, however, there was variation in the tone of Fox’s coverage depending on the topic.

Hearing Aids and Guns

The Senate wants to change the law so that people can buy hearing aids over the counter. The sponsors of the change believe it will lower prices, spur innovation, and help millions of people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss obtain devices and improve their lives. Naturally, hearing aid manufacturers oppose the proposed change. After all, they charge at least $3,000 for their devices, some cost as much as $10,000. Over-the-counter aids, which would be the purview of the FDA, would be a lot cheaper. 

Okay, I can understand why the manufacturers would oppose the law. But, Gun Owners of America also oppose the change because they claim it would impact hunters who purchase hearing enhancement devices as a way of better hearing their quarry. This, they say, is an infringement on their constitutional rights. Perhaps, the Gun Owners oppose the change because Elizabeth Warren is a sponsor along with Republican senators. The Senate version was recently approved in committee with bipartisan support. The House bill has been approved by a key subcommittee, winning praise from the panel’s staunchly conservative chairman, Texas Representative Michael Burgess. 

Why a Bar & Grill in Kansas is closed on Memorial Day

She is running for re-election

But, has she lost some faith in the US and UK? Two quotes from Angela Merkel:

"The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. I've experienced that in the last few days.

"We Europeans have to take our destiny into our own hands."

Stop the media furor over Trump

Child Marriages in America

Would you believe that 27 states have no minimum age for getting married? Girls as young as 12 have gotten married in Alaska, Louisiana and South Carolina. More than 167,000 young people age 17 and under married in 38 states between 2000 and 2010. Among the states with the highest rates of child marriages were Arkansas, Idaho and Kentucky.

Theories of Smiling

One View of Trump's Budget

Excerpts from a phone call

The following is from an article in the NY Times. 

Mr. Trump placed the call and began it by congratulating Mr. Duterte for the government-sanctioned attacks on drug suspects. The program has been widely condemned by human rights groups around the world because extrajudicial killings have taken thousands of lives without arrest or trial. In March, the program was criticized in the State Department’s annual human rights report, which referred to “apparent governmental disregard for human rights and due process.”

Mr. Trump had no such reservations. “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” he said. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

Mr. Duterte responded that drugs were “the scourge of my nation now, and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation.”

Mr. Trump responded that “we had a previous president who did not understand that,” an apparent reference to President Barack Obama, “but I understand that.”

Note that the article vouched for its accuracy as follows:

The comments were part of a Philippine transcript of the April 29 call that was circulated on Tuesday, under a “confidential” cover sheet, by the Americas division of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. In Washington, a senior administration official confirmed that the transcript was an accurate representation of the call between the two iconoclastic leaders. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the call and confirmed it on the condition of anonymity.

A Good Way to start the Day

The Global Terrorism Database

In 2005 the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (known as START) was started at the University of Maryland, which is also the home of a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence. The current Director of the Consortium, Gary LaFree, summarizes some of the conclusions that have been reached from an analysis of their  Global Terrorism Database:

#1: Terrorism is rare

#2: Mass attacks are rarer still

#3. Prevention is improving

#4. Terrorist groups are not all alike
2,300 unique terrorist organizations identified in the GTD since 1970, nearly 70 percent had a life span of less than a year.

#5. Assigning responsibility is tough
Data from the GTD shows that no terrorist group can be assigned responsibility in nearly 60 percent of the thousands of attacks that occurred worldwide since 1970.

#6: We’re still developing strategy

An evil landlord?

ProPublica decimates Jared Kushner's real estate companies. In a lengthy article Alec MacGillis documents the problems of tenants in more than a dozen Baltimore-area rental complexes run by Kushner companies. Tenants complain that the company leaves their homes in disrepair, humiliates late-paying renters and often sues them when they try to move out. He makes a strong case that their complaints are valid.

Helping their team win

Moving West

I'm talking about trees. Tree scientists tell us that over the past 30 years, three-quarters of eastern US tree species have been shifting to the west. And they are doing so at what the scientists consider a fast rate - 9.5 miles per decade. No, trees don't migrate by hitching up their roots and trudging through the forest; they gradually shift their population centers over many years to places that offer better conditions. But the scientists don't quite know exactly why this happening. Some of the factors causing the migration are: changes in how we're using the land, new pest infestations, and conservation and planting projects.

Learn about the Great Barrier Reef

The Global Seed Vault

Did you know about it? It's a storage facility, deep inside a mountain in the Arctic, designed to preserve the world's crops from future disasters. It stores seeds from 5,000 crop species from around the world. Dried and frozen, it is believed they can be preserved for hundreds of years. If a nation's seeds are lost as a result of a natural disaster or a man-made catastrophe, the specimens stored in the Arctic could be used to regenerate them. It is run by Norway.

Global warming has affected the vault.  Last year  unseasonably high temperatures caused the permafrost to melt, sending water into the access tunnel. No seeds were damaged but the facility is to have new waterproof walls in the tunnel and drainage ditches outside. 

More on Household Debt

He flunks as a business man

Barry Ritholz has a summary of a strong article in Business Week entitled "Would You Let Trump Run Your Company?" Here is a summary of his summary:

To be fair, he is running the country in the same style and manner as he ran his Casinos, Trump University, Trump Steaks, etc. His portfolio began with inherited money that he arguably mishandled; ha he merely put it into the market and sat tight for a few years, he would be worth 10X his current holdings. His real wealth all came about post 2012 election. His “business acumen” if we can call it that was using the 2012 run for president as a cynical branding exercise, which led to huge licensing dollars afterwards. Call it what you will: contemptible, vulgar, even unAmerican — all of that wildly understate how utterly damaging his flavor of cynical selfishness has been to the country.