On break, no break by Trump in twisting facts
WASHINGTON >> Displaying a thin grasp of science, President Donald Trump questioned the reality of global warming because it was cold outside. Then came a federal report laying out the severe consequences of climate change and rebutting the notion that a frigid snap means it isn’t happening.
Sizing up the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump declared he had closed it this past week and mandated that “no one’s coming in.” Actually, one crossing from Mexico, among dozens that stayed open, was partially closed before rush hour and pedestrians still had access to the U.S. during that time.
Before and throughout his Thanksgiving vacation in Florida, Trump took no holiday from twisting facts across a broad front — on Saudi Arabia, the recent election and the 2001 terrorist attacks among the topics.
A look at some of his rhetoric: In this photo, President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at his Mara-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
how global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas is hurting each region of U.S. and different sectors of the economy. The report also projects increased deaths and disease.
The White House report swept aside the idea, already discredited, that a particular plunge in temperatures can cast uncertainty on whether Earth is warming. It says more than 90 percent of current warming is caused by humans: “There are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.”
“Over shorter timescales and smaller geographic regions, the influence of natural variability can be larger than the influence of human activity,” the report says. “Over climate timescales of multiple decades, however, global temperature continues to steadily increase.”
In other words, there are cold days in a warming climate.
The federal climate assessment is mandated by law every few years.
On Monday, the U.S. closed northbound traffic lanes for a few hours at the San Ysidro, California, crossing to install new barriers. It’s the busiest of more than 40 U.S.-Mexico crossings. That work was completed and the lanes reopened before the morning rush of commerce and commuters who work legally in the U.S. Officials also closed one pedestrian crossing facility at San Ysidro and left the other open, so it’s not true that everyone was blocked from coming in, even at that one crossing. U.S. authorities acted out of concern that migrants gathered on the Mexican side might bolt for the U.S.
Trump is threatening to seal the border if Mexico doesn’t properly “control” people trying to get into the U.S. He claimed “I’ve already shut it down, for short periods.” When pressed about whether he meant only that one border crossing, he said: “No, no. Yeah. I’ve already shut down parts of the border.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents stand on a roof during operational readiness exercises at the San Ysidro port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border, seen from Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday.
9th Circuit was indeed an “independent judiciary,” but if it is why ... are so are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking.” — tweets Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Trump is wrong in suggesting that rulings by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco are reversed by the Supreme Court more frequently than those of any other federal appeals court. His description of the “shocking” number of overturned cases in the 9th Circuit belies the nature of the appeals system.
When the Supreme Court hears a case, it is more likely to overturn it than not. It does so about twothirds of the time.
In the last term, the Supreme Court overturned 100 percent of the decisions of the 1st Circuit in Boston, the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia and the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. For the 9th Circuit, 86 percent were overturned.
Over the past five years, the Supreme Court overturned a greater percentage of rulings from the 3rd Circuit (92.3 percent), the 6th Circuit (85.1 percent) and the Atlantabased 11th Circuit (81.8 percent) than from the 9th (77.4 percent), according to The Associated Press’ analysis of statistics from the legal website Scotusblog.
The 9th is by far the largest of
the 13 federal courts of appeals, covering Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. That means that in raw numbers, more cases are heard and reversed from the 9th year in and year out. But that does not make it the most frequently overturned.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, who’d been nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, temporarily barred the Trump administration from refusing asylum to immigrants who cross the southern border illegally. That set off Trump’s ire. Any appeal is likely to go to the 9th Circuit.
Trump’s tweets took issue with an unusual rebuke from the U.S. chief justice, John Roberts. Roberts spoke up for the independence of the judiciary after Trump branded Tigar an “Obama judge” and said “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”