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Clinton would veto any attempt to overturn the Clean Power Plan, says her campaign chair.

Ravaging crops, drowning goats, and wrecking fishing boats, the Category 4 storm devastated the financial mainstays of an already impoverished people, the Miami Herald reports.

While experts struggle to calculate Matthew’s long-term economic toll, Haitian farmers can see their losses in front of them, in fields littered with rotting fruit and fallen palms. Half the livestock and almost all crops in the nation’s fertile Grand-Anse region were destroyed. Although vegetables can be replanted, it will take years for new trees to bear fruit again. “This was our livelihood,” Marie-Lucienne Duvert told the Herald, of her coconut and breadfuit plantation. “Now it’s all gone, destroyed.”

The farmers, who have yet to receive any relief, are facing threats from famine and contaminated water. Matthew has already caused at least 200 cases of cholera, which could mark the beginning of an outbreak like the one following 2010’s crippling earthquake that claimed 316,000 lives and left 1.5 million homeless.

The death toll from the storm is over 1,000 in the Caribbean, a number that will likely continue to rise as Haitians struggle to find food.

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Clinton would veto any attempt to overturn the Clean Power Plan, says her campaign chair.

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LAT Poll Finally Makes It Unanimous: Donald Trump Is a Loser

Mother Jones

In the LA Times poll, Donald Trump has been consistently in the lead for the past month, even as other polls show Hillary Clinton ahead. Today, 27 days before November 8, doomsday has finally been postponed:

There is a 19-year-old black man in Illinois who has no idea of the role he is playing in this election. He is sure he is going to vote for Donald J. Trump….He’s a panelist on the U.S.C. Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak poll, which has emerged as the biggest polling outlier of the presidential campaign. Despite falling behind by double digits in some national surveys, Mr. Trump has generally led in the U.S.C./LAT poll.

….Our Trump-supporting friend in Illinois is a surprisingly big part of the reason. In some polls, he’s weighted as much as 30 times more than the average respondent, and as much as 300 times more than the least-weighted respondent. Alone, he has been enough to put Mr. Trump in double digits of support among black voters.

….He is also the reason Mrs. Clinton took the lead in the U.S.C./LAT poll for the first time in a month on Wednesday. The poll includes only the last seven days of respondents, and he hasn’t taken the poll since Oct. 4. Mrs. Clinton surged once he was out of the sample for the first time in several weeks.

In some way, I suppose it was worth experimenting with the unusual, panel-based design of the LA Times poll. However, their decision to weight lots of tiny subgroups separately is harder to defend. It’s the reason that one guy in Illinois can have a significant effect on the entire poll.

Nate Cohn’s piece on the LA Times poll is worth a read. It’s a very good introduction to the whole issue of poll weighting and how it works. There’s as much art as science to this stuff sometimes.

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LAT Poll Finally Makes It Unanimous: Donald Trump Is a Loser

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Hurricane Matthew may be over, but the waters haven’t receded yet in parts of North Carolina.

Al Gore and Hillary Clinton appeared side-by-side in a Miami campaign stop that framed the climate-change challenge in an unusually optimistic light.

“Climate change is real. It’s urgent. And America can take the lead in the world in addressing it,” Clinton said. She focused on the U.S.’s capacity to lead the world in a climate deal and as a clean energy superpower in a speech that mostly rehashed familiar policy territory.

Clinton ran down her existing proposals on infrastructure, rooftop solar, energy efficiency, and more, though she omitted the more controversial subjects, like what to do about pipeline permits, that have dogged her campaign.

Though Clinton and Gore largely framed climate change as a challenge Americans must rise to, they didn’t miss an opportunity to jab at climate deniers.

“Our next president will either step up our efforts … or we will be dragged backwards and our whole future will be put at risk,” Clinton said.

Besides Donald Trump, Florida’s resident climate deniers Marco Rubio and Rick Scott got special shoutouts.

“The world is on the cusp of either building on the progress of solving the climate crisis or stepping back … and letting the big polluters call the shots,” Gore said.

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Hurricane Matthew may be over, but the waters haven’t receded yet in parts of North Carolina.

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Al Gore wants to convince millennials to vote for Hillary Clinton.

The majority of Sunday’s presidential debate involved the candidates trading blows on tax returns, Donald Trump’s so-called “locker room talk” about assaulting women, and Hillary Clinton’s email account. Just when we had given up hope, energy policy got over four minutes of stage time.

Although there was no direct question about climate change, one audience member asked how the candidate’s energy policies would meet the country’s energy needs in a way that doesn’t destroy the environment.

Trump declared affection for “alternative forms of energy, including wind, including solar,” but added “we need much more than wind and solar.” He went on to say: “There is a thing called clean coal … Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country.”

Clinton responded that she has “a comprehensive energy policy, but it really does include fighting climate change, because I do think that’s a serious problem.” She described making the United States a “21st century renewable energy superpower,” while also touting natural gas as a “bridge to alternative fuels.”

This is the third debate in a row (two presidential and one vice presidential) in which environmental issues have been marginalized. The conversation on climate in the first presidential debate amounted to just 82 seconds.

Update: See Grist’s detailed fact check of last night’s energy exchange.

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Al Gore wants to convince millennials to vote for Hillary Clinton.

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Tonight’s debate shouldn’t ignore Hurricane Matthew.

Six of the eight U.S. senators from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are climate deniers, rejecting the consensus of 99.98 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers that human activity is causing global warming. The exceptions are South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Florida’s Bill Nelson — the lone Democrat of the bunch.

Here are some of the lowlights from their comments on the climate change:

-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not understand the difference between climate and weather, arguing against climate action in a presidential debate in March: “As far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there’s no such thing.”

-Back in 2011, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said: “I have no clue [how much of climate change is attributable to human activity], and I don’t think that science can prove it.”

-In 2014, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis claimed that “the liberal agenda, the Obama agenda, the [then Sen.] Kay Hagan agenda, is trying to use [climate change] as a Trojan horse for their energy policy.”

-Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson offered his analysis  last year on whether the Greenland ice sheet is melting (it is): “There are mixed reviews on that, and there’s mixed scientific evidence on that.”

-Georgia Sen. David Perdue told Slate in 2014 that “in science, there’s an active debate going on,” about whether carbon emissions are behind climate change.

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Tonight’s debate shouldn’t ignore Hurricane Matthew.

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A Note to Sunday’s Debate Hosts: Focus on Trump’s Actions, Not His Words

Mother Jones

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Obviously Pussygate has to be addressed at tomorrow’s debate. In theory, all the questions will come from the audience, but I’m assuming the moderators will open things up with a question or two of their own. My recollection—possibly mistaken—is that this is how past town-hall style debates have worked.

I hope so, anyway, because that will give them a chance to ask Trump the right question. They need to ask not about Donald Trump’s lewd comments, but about his actual behavior. On the tape, Trump says “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful â&#128;&#149; I just start kissing them….And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

Forget the “locker room bantering.” The question for Trump needs to be: How many times has this happened? How many times have you grabbed women “by the pussy”?


It’s been obvious for a long time that the Republican Party has a big demographic problem: their core base is white voters, but the country is getting less and less white every year. Republicans are well aware of this, and have worked assiduously to overcome this weakness. In the early 90s, they zealously pursued pack-and-crack gerrymandering to create more majority-white congressional districts. A few years later Fox News came along, dedicated to nurturing the GOP’s white base. George Bush and Karl Rove squeezed the last few drops out of the white evangelical community. Finally, in the late aughts, Republican legislatures passed a raft of voter ID laws in a last ditch attempt to suppress the non-white vote by a point or two.

But that was it. What more could they possibly do? The answer, to my surprise, was to nominate a man who was a straight-up bigot, and then run a campaign that was only a hair’s breadth from being openly white nationalist. But it didn’t work. Even in a Republican year against a flawed opponent, Donald Trump has lost as much as he’s gained from his bald-faced appeal to whites. And now that his defeat is all but certain, the question hanging over the GOP is simple: what’s next?

It’s now plain—beyond any doubt—that Republicans can no longer win the presidency with only their white base. But after Hurricane Donald’s performance this year, they’re even further in the hole with minorities than ever. And there’s really no sense that their white base is ready to accept a more minority-friendly party anyway. Past attempts at “post-mortems” and “autopsies” that recommended even bare minimum amounts of outreach to women and minorities were quickly and thoroughly crushed.

So now what?


I’m kind of curious: how do you think the whole “grab ’em by the pussy” affair would have played out if we’d had a transcript but no tape? The same? Or would it have dropped quickly out of sight without some audio and video to play constantly on cable news? I’d guess the latter. The power of sound and images has always been strong, but in the past couple of decades it’s become simply immense. “Photo or it didn’t happen” is a bit of a Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat joke, but it’s not really much of a joke anymore.


Last month, after Donald Trump Jr. decided to compare refugees to a bowl of Skittles, the Mars Corporation felt obligated to tweet a response. So naturally, now that Tic Tacs are on a 24/7 cable loop as Donald Trump’s favored breath mint before assaulting women, they too feel the need to put out a statement:

Which colorful pellet-shaped food item will be next?


From a purely political perspective, should Democrats root for Trump to drop out of the race? On the one hand, it would throw the Republican Party into total chaos. That has to be good for Team D. On the other hand, it would allow Republicans to start fresh with a new candidate who wasn’t a huge albatross around their necks. On the third hand, it would demoralize Trump’s core supporters, who might stay home entirely and leave the field wide open for downballot Democrats to win a landslide victory. On the fourth hand, Hillary Clinton is none too popular, and a Trumpless GOP might very well re-attract a lot of moderate voters who have steadily defected thanks to Khan-Curiel-Machado-$916-Million-gate

Thoughts?

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A Note to Sunday’s Debate Hosts: Focus on Trump’s Actions, Not His Words

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The rest of the world is practically daring Trump to stop climate action now.

While methane from fracking and other fossil-fuel activity hasn’t increased over the last 10 years, agriculture, landfills, and wetlands are getting gassier, according to a new study in Nature.

From 2007 to 2013, methane emissions rose by about 28 million tons a year. No one knew why. Fires, fossil fuels, and microscopic archaea (which make methane by decomposing things, whether in a trash heap or a cow’s stomach) all release slightly different versions of the gas.

The new study found that around 2007, the mix of methane in the atmosphere suddenly featured a lot more from decomposing archaea — and that, it turns out, could be big.

“If the methane is mainly coming from cows or ag, then we could potentially do something about it,” lead scientist Stefan Schwietzke of NOAA said in a press release. “If it’s coming from decaying vegetation in wetlands or fresh waters, then … it could be part of a self-reinforcing feedback loop leading to more climate change. Those are big ifs.”

The latest findings reflect the most comprehensive information we have, but our understanding is still hazy. Bryan Duncan of NASA, unaffiliated with the study, summed it up: “There are too many [methane] sources and not enough data.”

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The rest of the world is practically daring Trump to stop climate action now.

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It’s official: Hurricane Matthew is a monster.

The U.S. and all of its major allies have now ratified the Paris climate agreement, pushing it over the threshold needed for it to go into effect in 30 days — just before the U.S. presidential election.

Donald Trump has promised to “cancel” Paris if he’s elected — and that may have unintentionally sped things along.

Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, told Grist by email, “the threat of a Trump presidency has pushed countries to go forward with ratification more quickly than anyone had anticipated at the time of Paris.” For historical comparison, ratification of the Kyoto Protocol took five years.

Once the deal is underway, it would be more difficult for Trump to extract the U.S. He’d need to give three years notice and allot an additional year for withdrawal.

Still, Trump could simply decide not to deliver on the U.S.’s pledges, by, say, refusing to implement the Clean Power Plan.

Even then, Stavins argues that progress would continue to be made in energy efficiency and at the state level. “Trump could slow down action on climate change, but not as dramatically as Trump may think he could.”

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It’s official: Hurricane Matthew is a monster.

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Being Reminded of Racism Is Destroying Pro Football for Whites

Mother Jones

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National Review’s Jim Geraghty passes along the news from SI’s Richard Deitsch that ratings for NFL football are down this season. Deitsch suggests several possible explanations: a crazy election season sucking away attention; a smaller group of star quarterbacks (no Peyton Manning or Tom Brady); bad Monday night games; a slowdown in fantasy football; fatigue from too many days of football; and just generally the fact that this season has featured an awful lot of lousy play. However, Geraghty has his own theory:

There’s probably more than one reason, which means it’s oversimplifying it to say Colin Kaepernick and kneeling NFL players are driving way football fans. But it’s a factor, and maybe the biggest factor.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that nearly one-third (32%) of American adults say they are less likely to watch an NFL game because of the growing number of Black Lives Matter protests by players on the field. Only 13% say they are more likely to watch a game because of the protests. Just over half (52%) say the protests have no impact on their viewing decisions.

Looks like I’m not the only one who just wants to enjoy watching the game.

I don’t watch much pro football, so someone help me out: do the TV nets actually show much kneeling at the start of the game? Do they talk about it? Is it something that intrudes on the game, or would you barely even know it’s happening unless you read about it elsewhere? In other words, is there any plausible reason that Geraghty can’t just enjoy the game anymore without having his beautiful mind reminded that racism still exists in the US?

Speaking of which, you will be unsurprised at just who finds all this kneeling so unpleasant: “Whites are twice as likely as blacks — 36% to 18% — to say they are less likely to watch this year.” Surprise!

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Being Reminded of Racism Is Destroying Pro Football for Whites

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Nanotechnology just netted its first Nobel.

It all has to do with “molecular machines” — teeny devices made out of individual atoms — that mark the start of a wave of nano-innovation that could drastically change, well, a LOT. You want transparent solar panels? Tiny, super-efficient supercomputers? Cancer-killing robots that wander your bloodstream like assassin Ms. Frizzles? Nanotechnology could be the way.

The three winners — Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir James Frasier Stoddart, and Bernard L. Feringa — will split the $930,000 prize for their work, including building a “molecular motor,” a light-powered device powerful enough to rotate a glass tube 10,000 times its size.

“The molecular motor is at the same stage as the electric motor was in the 1830s, when scientists displayed various spinning cranks and wheels, unaware that they would lead to electric trains, washing machines, fans, and food processors,” the Nobel committee said in the press release announcing the prize.

Of course, nanomaterials come with some troubling potential side effects, from extra-sharp nanotubes that could act like asbestos in the lungs to teeny tiny pesticide nanodroplets that might never go away. But the Nobel committee, for one, is betting that these technologies, deployed correctly, have a whole lot of good to offer us.

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Nanotechnology just netted its first Nobel.

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