'Toontime: Saving Mr. Yuge for Last

credit: Jim Darkow, Columbia Missourian
Wackydoodle sez:  An' better knots too!

We learned this week from a sentencing of Russian-American lawyer Alex van der Zwann that Trump's former campaign official Rick Gates had ties to a known Russian agent while he worked on the political campaign. Gates worked for Paul Manafort who had a contract to lobby for the Ukrainian government. The allegation was made in a the government's brief supporting sentencing of van der Zwann, formerly a young attorney at prominent DC law firm, Skadden Arps, who pleaded guilty to lying to government investigators. {21.02.18}

van der Zwann faces possible incarceration up to a maximum of five years for his felony offense.  His attorneys asked that Zwann, who is married to the daughter of a Russian oligarch, German Khan, who co-founded the financial group Alpha Bank, only be fined $250,000. Whether he goes to jail or not, he almost certainly will loose his license to practice law, and his former life as a high-powered DC attorney is practically over.  His wife is in London where she is expecting to give birth to their first child.

Like any good prosecutor Mueller is taking down the small fry first to get "just the facts" before he interviews the man at the center of the Russian Connection. If Hair Further is egomaniac enough to answer questions under oath, he better be very, very careful.

credit: Bill Shorr

The End of Tabasco Sauce?

If you are like US Person, when you eat at an appropriate restaurant, you look for the iconic little bottle full of red sauce that is one of the most flavorful pepper sauces around.   You should be interested in this story.  As connoisseurs of hot sauces know, Tabasco sauce is made on Avery Island, Louisiana by the seventh generation of McIlhennys.  Edmund McIlhenny discovered a wild pepper plant growing by a chicken coop 150 years ago on the salt dome island.  Hot peppers grew extensively on Avery until the 60's when Tabasco turned from cultivation to importation from Mexico and South America.

Avery towers over the flat marshes of the Louisiana coast, 163 feet above sea level, but rising sea levels threaten the island's perimeter. The salt dome is surrounded by marshes, a couple of miles from Vermilion Bay, the site of extensive oil and gas operations.  Every year salt water from the bay intrudes 30 feet into the marsh, killing it and turning what was once marshland into open tidal flats.  Storms also grind away at the island, as it sinks a third of an inch a year.  Two more feet of sea level rise according to NOAA will leave only the highest elevations of the island above water.  All of this concerns the family making Tabasco, who are taking action to stop further erosion of their idyllic island home. [photo credit: Tabasco].  A family member said, "we could make Tabasco somewhere else. But this is more than a business: this is our home.”

the 'great wall' of LA built to protect New Orleans

Avery Island's predicament is not unique.  Louisiana looses a football field of land every 100 minutes.  Since the 1930s the state has lost land the size of Delaware stemming from over-development of the Mississippi river, an unquestioning embrace of extensive drilling, and now the wrenching global consequences of climate change. Wetlands have disappeared as extensive channelization and levee building in the Mississippi Delta has drastically curtailed sediment deposition. Western Louisiana where Avery Island is located faces the most dire consequences of sea rise.  Almost all of its barrier wetlands are gone, a consequence of oil and gas infrastructure building, which allows hurricanes to plow ashore unobstructed.    Consequently, the state has decided to put all of its funds into restoring natural land barriers in the eastern part of the state.  Most residents of the Louisiana coast do not have the means to construct extensive flood protection, unlike the Tabasco company which wrapped its building in a 17 ft high dike after a hurricane flooded the island's interior.  To its credit, the company is working hard to restore wetlands and provide habitat for the wild creatures such as black bears, snowy egrets, and alligators that still live there.  The drowning of coastal Louisiana is a reality that cannot be denied.

But here is the intersection of reality and politics motivated by greed: more Repugnants are now skeptical of the human cause of global warming than before.  A poll released by Gallup shows that people who identify themselves as Democrats overwhelmingly think that global warming is happening now and it is caused by humans. (89%).  Only 40% of people who consider themselves Repugnant think global warming is anthropogenic, down from 35% a year ago.  What is astounding about these figures is the capacity of the human animal to deceive itself for the sake of Mammon.

COTW: Legal Gun Sales Drop

Since most guns sold in the US do not require registration with a law enforcement agency, state or federal, alike some European nations do, the number of background checks conducted serves as a proxy statistic.  This chart show that the number of checks related to legal sales has dropped:

Firearm manufacturers have been report declining sales and profits for the past several years.The big news is that one of America's oldest gun manufacturers, Remington, famous for its rifles and shotguns, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday.  The gun maker is buried under a reported $1 billion in debt, and hopes to reduce its burden by $700 million through the court supervised reorganization process.  The company, founded in 1816, said it plans to continue making firearms.  Remington produces the "Bushmaster" an AR-15 style assault rife which was used in the Sandy Hook, CT school massacre.  The company is being sued by survivors for deliberately marketing a military weapon to civilians.  The Chapter 11 filing gives the company added bargaining power with plaintiffs, as their suits will probably not go forward pending reorganization.  In June 2015, arms manufacturer Colt filed for bankruptcy protection. Six months later, in January 2016, it emerged from Chapter 11 with a new government contract to produce M4 and M4A1 rifles for the military and a focus on expanding business and selling more guns than ever.  Remington Arms hopes to follow the same course.

'Toontime: Last Pol Standing

credit: Jim Morin

Wackydoodle sez: Biggest bully in DC!

US Person has a suggestion: instead of an expensive presidential campaign funded by corporations and plutocrats, decided by political insiders, and that makes a joke out of majority rule, let us stage a cage match between the two party candidates in which the last man, or woman, standing wins. Hair Further likes his chances against "Crazy" Joe Biden.  A brawl would be a lot less hypocritical than the current system, and more entertaining too.  We could even ask President Putin to referee the match, and get a Playboy bunny to hold up the round cards!  What's more 'Merican than that?

Belize Creates Wildlife Corridor

Recently the Central American country Belize voted to protect one of the world's largest barrier reefs off its Caribbean coast.  But last month the former British colony also established one of the region's largest land corridors to allow wildlife, such as the iconic jaguar and tapir, to move freely between two nature reserves.  Private landowners in the corridor have agreed to establish a perpetual trust into which their lands will be placed for conservation management.  Approved by the government on February 13th, the 42 square mile corridor will connect the dry forest of the Shipstern Nature Reserve and the tropical forest of the Freshwater Creek Protected Area.  Corridors are highly important for the dispersal of genetically endangered animals.

two pumas in the Shipstern Reserve

The effort to establish wildlife corridors in Central America began with a consortium of conservation organizations proposing the "paseo pantera" or path of the panther.  The concept was broadened two decades ago by the Mesoamerica Biological Corridor Project, a visionary plan to connect forest remnants from Mexico to Columbia in recognition of the region's significant biodiversity.  Belize's new corridor is an important link in that project.  Although the paperwork for the corridor has been completed, the government must purchase 15 square miles of land at a cost of about $1 million.  Two major landowners must also sign agreements to place their land into trust.  Once again, Belize proves itself to be in the forefront of wild conservation.

Budget Busters

Not since the United States fought a world war on two fronts, has the federal deficit consumed a larger share of GDP.  Congressional negotiators are close to closing a spending budget of $1.3 trillion that includes $1.6 billion for Trumpty's ridiculous wall.  Democrats have their own pet projects in the bill including $900 million for Senator Schumer's Hudson River Gateway project.  The question is: who cares?

Attack of the Twit

Humpty Trumpty is attempting to push back against the Russian Connection investigation.  The twitter-in-chief uses social media for his modus operandi for deriding Special Counsel Mueller and his office as overtly partisan, once again referring to his investigation as a "political witch hunt" by "hardened Democrats" and "crooked Hillary supporters".  His personal lawyer, John Dowd, urged the Justice Department to end an investigation "manufactured by McCabe's boss James Comey".  The unprecedented media offensive comes on the heels of the dismissal of the second in command at the FBI and a Mueller witness, one day before he was eligible to retire with twenty years service. Hair Further campaigned for months against Andrew McCabe for his role in allowing FBI agents to talk to the press about the on-going investigation.Trump was fully aware of McCabe's eligibility and even counted the days to his eligibility in a twit. When the Attorney General finally approved the firing recommended by the agency's inspectator general, Der Leader wrote it was a "a great day for democracy". If that is not partisan vindictiveness, US Person is confused as well as obscure.

Trump's pushback against the FBI and the Special Counsel's Office is receiving its flack from congressional Republicans.Trump was warned today by Senator Lindsey Graham (R) that attempting to fire Mueller, a Republican, "would be the beginning of the end of his presidency."mA spokesperson for the Speaker of the House said Speaker Paul Ryan has always believed that Mueller and his team should be allowed to do their job.