Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 5-23-19 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, May 23,, 2019
In My Opinion
'Talk about a circular ring squad'
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
Commit a crime and the world is made of glass. Commit a crime and it seems
a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall (take back) the spoken word. You cannot wipe out a foot track. You cannot draw up the ladder so as to leave no inlet or clue. Some damning circumstance always transpires.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Today we dedicate that bit of poetic prescience to Messrs. James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr, and James Baker. In an effort to negate the appearance of being sexist and in an attempt to be all inclusive, we must also include Lisa Paige, Nellie Ohr, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Sally Yates, Fusion GPS, Loretta Lynch, most members of the “main stream” media and any other ancillary associates of this gang.
Turns out that bearing false witness may indeed carry the possibility of legal repercussions and all of these characters are scurrying about pointing their fingers at each other. Talk about a circular firing squad! What appears to have been a really ugly game these players have been playing for about three years in an effort of overturn a legitimate election suddenly has the possibility of sunshine being shined upon it! Who would have ever imagined that this country would ever witness a bloodless coup by the “deep state? Obviously those who practice professional politics—probably begun during the Clinton era—felt they could get away with it.
Attorney General William Barr has begun an examination of the questionable methods and sources, which were used to figuratively begin an anal exam of a man who was new to the ways of Washington and the political machinations which are practiced there.
A Democratic controlled house continues to rehash the Mueller investigation, which after all this time with a staff of attorneys which seem to have been selected for anti-Trump, was able to find nothing of consequence in their mission. After all this time of being promised that evidence was plain to see by people like California’s Adam Schiff there is nothing, period. Yet, Democrats want to look at his taxes, his family and probably even his school years. In the meantime, all the nation’s problems are effectively being
Guest Column
McDonald's is taking more T than just your order
he great thing about claims will provide corporate giants is that “the rapid and they’re such amazing scalable creation
Fred Hall
ignored by this bunch of Sherlock Holmes wannabes.
Obviously they continue the witch- hunt as long as they the support of sycophantic allies in the media, especially The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and
MSNBC. Thesearewillingmembersof the media who eagerly spread the trash in the Steele dossier and breathlessly reported it as truth.
It’s indeed a black eye for America that many of the top tier bureaucrats working for various agencies became “weaponized” during the tenure of Barack Obama. Early on in that administration, it became readily apparent that the appointment of Eric Holder as Attorney General was the genesis of such a movement. One of his earliest acts was the dropping of charges against three Philadelphia men for racketeering actions during an election. He quickly followed that with a really dumb “fast and furious” action, which had ultimately aimed at establishing greater control of guns.
Not far behind that, we discovered
that Lois Lerner of the Internal Revenue
Service had targeted Conservative non-
profits for further investigation. The
applications were slow walked which
directly impacted monies which might Y have been available for the promotion
of conservative Republican candidates during an election. Ms. Lerner was allowed to retire with no repercussions and apparently is now enjoying the largesse earned from her government employment.
It appears that William Barr is a trained, seasoned prosecutor and has busied himself cleaning up a corrupt Department of Justice. For the first time in a very long time the average citizen can hold out hope of at least part of the swamp that is Washington will be drained.
One has to ask themselves, if you had busy lying and leaking confidential information for the past three years, would you not be worried. It is our hope and belief that over the coming months these folks will find no place to hide and Barr and his team of trained investigators will have the wolves turning on their own. After all, that is the very nature of the beast.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel
ears ago, tobacco companies discovered the link between their products and lung cancer. Did they warn their customers? No — they denied
somewhere attempting to publish a study asserting that Bigfoot exists — or that climate change isn’t happening.
Science is a community endeavor in which we try to collectively discover and advance the truth. The goal is that the community as a whole achieves a consensus or near-consensus that is as accurate as possible.
If 97 out of 100 scientists agree that humans are causing catastrophic climate change, that’s a consensus.
Guest Column
Reminder: climate change was no accident
the link entirely, misleading the public for decades while killing their customers.
Similarly, ExxonMobil scientists made startlingly accurate predictions about climate change as early as 1982 — and then spent millions of dollars on a misinformation campaign to sow public doubt about climate change.
They didn’t need to convince the public that the climate crisis wasn’t happening. They just had to muddy the waters enough to prevent us from doing anything.
They provoked uncertainty: Maybe the climate crisis isn’t happening. And even if it is, maybe it’s not caused by humans burning fossil fuels. (Of course, it is happening and it is caused by humans.)
The result was inaction.
If we aren’t even sure that a human-caused climate crisis is afoot, why should we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels? It would be highly inconvenient and very expensive to go to all of that trouble unless we’re absolutely certain that we need to.
After all, the argument went, “only” 97 percent of scientists believe that human are causing a climate crisis.
I’m a scientist. Let me tell you, when 97 percent of scientists agree on anything, the evidence must be overwhelming.
Scientists are trained to critique and argue with one another. We make our careers by pulling apart other scientists’ theories and exposing the flaws in them and then supplanting them with better theories of our own.
You couldn’t get 97 percent of scientists to agree that puppies are cute or chocolate is delicious.
What about other 3 percent? You can always find one or two nutty so-called scientists with inaccurate, fringy theories out there. There’s probably a scientist
Jill Richardson
The difference between lying about the deadliness of tobacco and lying about the deadliness of fossil fuels is who gets harmed by those lies.
Tobacco is deadly — I’ve lost two grandparents to its ill effects — but tobacco is most harmful to those who use it. The climate crisis is deadly to everyone, whether they are responsible for causing it or not. It will continue to hurt people for generations, even after humans stop polluting at such alarming levels as they do now.
The Exxon Mobil executives who’ve profited from fossil fuels did so while knowing that they were trading a few decades of profits for the entire future of the planet and all of the species on it.
We’re beyond the point where we tell ourselves that changing our light bulbs can help. The fix for the climate crisis must come from the highest levels. It requires large-scale systemic changes and not a few insufficient individual actions.
And it could start with consequences for the industry that caused the crisis on purpose.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She lives in San Diego. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
business innovators. For example,
in the category of “wheel-spinning” innovation — i.e., trying to change a corporation’s course without actually changing anything — it’s hard to top McDonald’s.
For several years, the fast-food chain has been losing customers
to younger chains with healthier, more stylish offerings. So CEO Steve Easterbrook has tried to recoup the losses with PR tricks, such as calling the menu “healthy” and “fresh.” But McNuggets and fries are still what they are, so people haven’t bitten the PR bait.
Now, though, he’s hit on an innovation that’ll surely cause hungry eaters to flock to the Golden Arches: artificial intelligence.
Yes, exclaimed Steve the Innovator, consumers need a robotic order-taker to advise them on what to order — based on AI’s ability
to digest unlimited data about the weather, traffic, time of day, and what other people are ordering.
“Decision technology” it’s called, and the CEO spent 300 million McDollars to buy these so-called thinking machines, which the maker
Jim Hightower
of highly-targeted digital interactions.” Now, what could be more inviting than that?
Easterbrook adds excitedly that his innovative deployment of this
artificial intelligence network will provide an “even more personalized customer experience.” Sure, Steve, nothing like more computers to add a warm, personal touch to make a meal more appealing.
Far from helping customers, McDonald’s snazzy new AI ordering system will be helping the corporation by silently compiling personal information on you, ranging from your “movement patterns” to your license plate number. As Easterbrook admits, McDonald’s will use the technology to “make the most” of the data collected.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
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