monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

US Vice-President Mike Pence has warned Turkey against buying a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system that Washington sees as a threat to US jets.

He said Turkey "must choose" between remaining a key Nato member or risk the security of that partnership "by making such reckless decisions".

Turkey responded that the purchase of the advanced system was a done deal.

Ankara has been establishing closer links with Russia after recent souring of its ties with the US and Europe.

Turkey has the second-largest army in Nato, a 29-member military alliance set up to defend against what was at the time the Soviet Union.

Mr Pence also rebuked Germany - another key Nato member - for not spending enough on its defence.

Moscow has made no public comments on the latest developments.

Relation between Nato and Russia have deteriorated over Moscow's occupation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and its withdrawal from a key missile treaty.

Speaking at a gathering in Washington to mark Nato's 70th anniversary, Mr Pence said: "Turkey must choose.

"Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in history or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making such reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?"

The US believes that Turkey's purchase of the S-400 would be a threat to US F-35 fighter jets.

Washington has already suspended Turkey from its F-35 fighter jet programme.

The US has also been pushing for Turkey to buy America's Patriot missiles instead.

Senior Nato officials have repeatedly stated that the Russian system is not compatible with the alliance's equipment.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu repeated that the deal with Russia - thought to be worth about £2.5bn (£1.9bn) - would not be cancelled.

In a tweet, Turkey's vice-president later wrote: "The United States must choose.

"Does it want to remain Turkey's ally or risk our friendship by joining forces with terrorists to undermine its Nato ally's defence against its enemies?"

The Kremlin press secretary has said he cannot understand a survey that shows that Russians struggle to afford new shoes.

Dmitry Peskov was commenting on a report by state statistics agency Rosstat.

It found that a third of households polled could not afford two pairs of shoes per person, per year.

The data also revealed that 80% of Russian families found it difficult to make ends meet.

The survey actually indicates a slight improvement in some areas of family finances. But its stark headline figures - and Mr Peskov's annoyance - have captured attention, suggesting that officials are out of touch with everyday reality.

Asked to comment on the findings, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman sighed deeply before saying that the Kremlin "struggled" to understand the data.

"Why shoes? Why one third? Where are these figures from?" Mr Peskov asked, adding that he would be "grateful" for an explanation from Rosstat.

The details are clearly available online, alongside the agency's "observation of living standards" survey, conducted every two years. The latest figures are from a poll conducted in September 2018 which covers some 60,000 homes across the Russian Federation.

Amongst its findings, the survey reveals that close to half of all households cannot run to a week's annual holiday, even staying with friends or family. About 10% of those questioned could not afford to eat meat or fish three times a week, and 12.6% of homes either shared a communal toilet or had an outside loo.

In rural Russia, where many village homes still have an outhouse, that figure is above 38%.

The Kremlin's irritation with the statistics partly stems from an awareness that economic difficulties now present a significant challenge to President Putin. After overseeing a period of economic growth during his first terms in office, fuelled by high oil prices, Mr Putin's approval rating has fallen as Russian families live through a fifth straight year of shrinking incomes.

That daily reality lies behind the latest polling data, including the fact that 52.9% households can't cope with unexpected expenses - including house repairs or medical costs. In 2016, when the last survey was conducted, that figure was 44.2%.

Other statistics have improved slightly. Two years ago, 15% of families had no indoor toilet and 54% were unable to afford a holiday.

But the harsh facts still jar with the positive spin pumped into Russian kitchens by state television channels, and with the president's own pledge to slash poverty in half by 2024.

Talk of difficulty buying shoes is also a long way from the designer boots that Mr Putin's spokesman himself has been photographed in; their cost online is close to double the monthly minimum wage.

One of several paid shills who populate these boards.

The obstacles to President Donald Trump's border wall are not confined to the four walls of Congress. As areas are cleared to start building new sections, some landowners, including a butterfly sanctuary, have sued to stop the construction.

Marianna Trevino Wright sits on a bench near a wooded section of the National Butterfly Center and begins identifying animals.

Scissortail flycatchers, green jays, olive sparrows and clay-coloured thrushes swoop by, pecking at oranges set out as a snack and splashing in a bubbling fountain. From the tree branches above, great-tailed grackles screech and whistle like avian car alarms.

Closer to the earth, a menagerie of butterflies flit among the nearby flowering bushes. Zebra Heliconians and large orange sulfurs; queens and red-bordered pixies.

Then there are the other sights and sounds at the centre.

The hum of a US Department of Homeland Security helicopter high overhead. Border Patrol agents buzzing by on motorcycles and ATVs, their faces obscured by masks and goggles, pistols at their side.

The rumble of trucks dragging tyres behind them, smoothing dusty roads so the footprints of interlopers can more easily be spotted.

A government powerboat, with menacing .30-calibre machine guns on its deck, roaring down the river.

The butterfly centre, of which Wright is the director, sits on 110 acres near the southern tip of Texas - an area of low-lying marshes, brush and scrub forests, offering a variety of ecosystems that provide ample habitat for migratory species of all shapes and sizes.

It is also flush along the Rio Grande River, which forms more than 1,260 miles (2027 km) of the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico.

That puts the small, private environmental preserve in the centre of a raging debate over immigration and national security - and whether and where to build Donald Trump's oft-promised border wall.

"It is a war zone," Wright says. "That's what the government wants it to appear to be. It's all theatre. So they've got to have all the actors, all the costumes and all the props."

South Texas is a funnel of all sorts for animals that winter in Mexico and burst into the northern climes as the weather warms.

It's also the closest point in the US geographically to Central America, where a growing number of families have been fleeing poverty and political violence to seek refuge on US soil.

Near where Wright was bird-spotting, a broad levee topped by a gravel road bisects the butterfly centre. This is where the US government wants to build a new section of wall, using its broad powers to confiscate private property for public use.

Wright points out that the Border Patrol has already built a massive gate along the road - made of the same kind of rust-coloured steel it uses elsewhere in its bollard fencing. For now the structure, unconnected to any other barriers, is more symbolic than useful. That may someday change.

Wright steps aside, as yet another Border Patrol truck rolls by. Its occupants, in green uniforms, smile and wave politely.

"They're only doing that because they know you're with the media," she explains.

Her relationship with the government personnel that have turned her little slice of Texas into a quasi-militarised zone is usually less than friendly, she says.

She explains how, on a summer's day in 2017, she discovered five private contractors with chainsaws and heavy equipment, clearing brush and trees along a road that runs the mile and a half from the levee to the banks of the Rio Grande.

They left after a brief confrontation, but a few weeks later a government representative arrived unannounced at her office.

"He came with posters of the border wall design and told me they were building the wall on our property," Wright says.

The plans laid out an 18-foot vertical slab of concrete along the front edge of the levee. An 18-foot-high steel bollard fence rises from there, with accompanying 22-foot-tall "all-night blitzkrieg lighting," as she calls it. The current two-lane road expands to the width of six lanes.

"And when the contractors return," she says the man added, "they would have a green-uniform [Border Patrol] presence. So armed federal agents on private property protecting for-profit contractors."

Wright worries about the impact the planned border wall would have on the species in her sanctuary.

Some birds and butterflies would be able to pass through or over the steel slates, but not all.

And terrestrial wildlife, like armadillos and endangered snakes and lizards, will be trapped behind the wall when the Rio Grande floods. In addition, natural habitat for all the various animals would be cleared as part of the wall's "enforcement zone".

After her meeting with the government agent, Wright began a multi-year series of court battles to block the US government from building its wall on the centre's private property.

It has made her a hero to environmentalists and immigration activists, and the target of obscenity-laden vitriol from some Trump supporters and wall proponents.

Added to the centre's gift shop collection of insect-related knick-knacks and books are displays explaining the ongoing legal battle and "Ay Mariposa" butterfly T-shirts, captioned "Battle for the Borderlands". More than $100,000 has been raised for the centre's legal fees.

"We're suing over the violation of the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and the Endangered Species Act and the de facto seizure of our private property, as well as multiple other egregious acts by Border Patrol," Wright says.

The centre filed intent-to-sue documents. Then the actual lawsuit. Then … nothing. No response from the federal government, and no court hearing for more than a year.

Finally, last month, as contractors moved heavy construction equipment onto the property, the centre filed a temporary restraining order.

The equipment was removed, but on 14 February, a federal judge in Washington dismissed the lawsuit.

The laundry list of environmental and cultural preservation laws that the centre's lawyers say the wall would violate had all been properly waived by the Department of Homeland Security, the judge wrote. Other possible violations could not be litigated until after the government breaks ground on the wall.

Wright and her legal team have appealed, while they wait for the government to make its next move.

Another great piece, hightor.

Quote:

What matters about Trump, from the perspective of a scholar of rhetoric, isn’t actually that he uses demagoguery. What matters is that his rise to power was fueled by a demagoguery that reflected the racist, xenophobic, misogynist, and authoritarian values of the GOP—values that previously had surfaced only in dog whistles. Trump didn’t bother with the dog whistles. He just said it. And the GOP media machine didn’t condemn him for it. They justified it, promoted it, and repeated it.

Precisely.

You are a very silly and ridiculous person. Reality and cold, hard facts remain the same whether you choose to acknowledge them or not.

An unvaccinated Kentucky teenager has lost his legal effort to force health officials to allow him to play basketball amid a disease outbreak.

Jerome Kunkel sued after students without chickenpox immunity were banned from playing sports or attending school, where dozens were sickened.

A Kentucky judge sided with the health department, saying the 18-year-old does not have a right to play sports.

In a statement health officials said the decision is best for the community.

The Northern Kentucky Health Department said in a statement the ruling "underscores the critical need for Public Health Departments to preserve the safety of the entire community, and in particular the safety of those members of our community who are most susceptible to the dire consequences when a serious, infectious disease such as varicella [chickenpox], is left unabated and uncontrolled".

Through a lawyer, Mr Kunkel said he was "devastated" by the ruling.

Mr Kunkel sued after health officials banned unvaccinated students from attending Our Lady of the Sacred Heart/Assumption Academy in Walton, Kentucky after at least 32 pupils were sickened there.

The teen argued that this particular vaccination goes against his religious beliefs, because aborted cells were used to derive the vaccine.

Some viruses used to make vaccines are grown with cells descended from matter that was sourced from two human foetuses electively aborted in the 1960s.

But no new human cells have been used since then to produce vaccines, according to health authorities and drug manufacturers.

The Catholic Church has told its members it is morally justifiable to use these vaccines, though it wants alternative treatments developed without "using cell lines of illicit origin".

At the conclusion of the five-hour trial, the judge cited a document signed by the plaintiff's family when they initially invoked their religious exemption.

The form contained a warning: "This person may be subject to exclusion from school, group facilities or other programmes if the local and/or state public health authority advises exclusion as a disease control measure."

During the case, it was revealed that only about 18% of the student body at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart/Assumption Academy had been vaccinated against childhood illnesses such as chickenpox.

The statewide vaccination rate for chickenpox is 90%, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The ban, which was initiated on 14 March, came just as the school's basketball team was about to play in a statewide basketball playoff tournament.

She's a sadly uneducated fellow.

Referring to the hum from wind turbines, Trump claimed, with a straight face, "They say the noise causes cancer."

Yesterday, reporters asked Mercedes Schlapp, the White House's director of strategic communications, for some clarification.

Quote:

Q: Do wind turbines cause cancer?

SCHLAPP: I don't have an answer to that. I don't, I, I, I don't have an answer to that. Yeah, I really don't have information on that.

Q: American families are concerned today that the president says wind turbines cause cancer.

SCHLAPP: I don't have information on that.

Moments later, she walked away.

I'm sympathetic to Schlapp's predicament. If she told the truth -- which is to say, if she told reporters, "Of course wind turbines don't cause cancer" -- she'd risk being fired. If Schlapp endorsed Trump's rhetoric, she'd look as ridiculous as he did.

Left with limited options, Schlapp had to pretend she didn't know whether her boss' nonsense was fact or fiction.

And to think, the White House has struggled at time to recruit top-tier staffers.