Month: June 2023

The Cost Of Bravado: Why Trump Defense To The Audiotape Could Come At A Cost

The Cost Of Bravado: Why Trump Defense To The Audiotape Could Come At A Cost

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Since the arraignment, much of the talk about the federal indictment of Donald Trump has focused on the audiotape on which the former president refers to what he said were classified plans to attack Iran. When it was first reported, I noted that the only cognizable defense would be “bravado,” an admission that Trump was exaggerating but that the document was not what he claimed.

Trump has now adopted that defense in an interview with Semafor and with ABC News. The problem is that bravado can come at a cost.

On the audiotape, Trump is apparently motioning to material on his desk and tells two interviewers:

“I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this. This is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some. This wasn’t done by me. All sorts of stuff, pages long, look. Let’s see here. It’s that amazing. This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is, like, highly confidential, secret. This is secret information. But look, look at this. You attack.”

When asked about the audiotape by Fox News’ Bret Baier, Trump insisted that “there was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else, talking about Iran and other things.”

He has now admitted that he was engaging in “bravado,” declaring:

“I would say it was bravado, if you want to know the truth, it was bravado. I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents. I didn’t have any documents.”

The admission was notable, given what Trump once wrote about in his book The Art of the Deal:

“The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest and the most spectacular.”

Trump’s past embrace of bravado as a signature style will help him in arguing that, while he may have been braggadocious, he was not careless with a document that did not exist.

Notably, Merriam-Webster defines “bravado” as both “blustering, swaggering conduct” (as Trump described in his book) but also “the quality or state of being foolhardy.”

The Justice Department, in its case against the former president, is likely to focus on the second meaning. Even if the Justice Department cannot establish that the Iran attack plans were actually on Trump’s desk, it can use the audiotape against him.

The most immediate impact is that any possibility that Trump might take the stand likely just vanished. In a case about the mishandling of classified material, “bravado” is hardly a positive defense. It is perfectly believable that there was no classified document being waived around — but it also shows a “foolhardy” attitude that could further taint the defense over the pictures of boxes stored in a bathroom and ballroom. Waiving around documents while bragging that you kept classified material undermines claims that you took such documents seriously.

The greatest impact, however, is that it demolishes Trump’s defense that he declassified all of the documents. At the end of the audiotape, Trump states: “When I was president, I could have declassified it, now I can’t.”

That also could be bravado — but it is clearly baffling for a president who insisted that he could declassify material with a thought.

It effectively means that Trump is left with threshold challenges against the use of the Espionage Act, arguing that fights over presidential papers are supposed to be addressed under the civil provisions of the Presidential Records Act. Trump repeated that defense this week.

The odds are against Trump on ultimately prevailing with that argument in the courts. However, even if he did, it still could leave false-statement and obstruction charges on the table. And, at age 77, Trump cannot leave one count remaining if he wants to avoid the threat of a potentially terminal prison sentence.

Trump, however, is not without a strategy, albeit a high-risk one. The bravado defense is likely to play better with the public than a court. According to one recent poll, a majority of the public views the indictment as politically motivated or even as election interference. Some Republican presidential candidates have stated already that they will (or would consider) pardons for Trump if they are elected in 2024. As I have previously argued, Trump could give himself a self-pardon, too — including a prospective pardon before any conviction. Thus, if Trump can delay the trial until after the election, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith may never see a jury in the case.

Trump also knows that while he cannot afford to lose one felony count, Smith cannot afford to lose one juror. With the trial’s transfer to Fort Pierce, Fla., Trump will have a far better jury pool than he would face in New York or, potentially, Atlanta. If the jury hangs, Smith would have to retry the case — a very uncertain prospect with a public losing its patience for the prosecution.

So, “a little hyperbole,” to quote The Art of the Deal, could go a long way where bravado works the best: in the court of public opinion.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/30/2023 – 15:00

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Round Two Of Severe Storms Expected After Derecho Wallops Midwest

Round Two Of Severe Storms Expected After Derecho Wallops Midwest

A derecho event on Thursday damaged buildings and vehicles, flattened corn fields, and left hundreds of thousands without power across more than 500 miles from Omaha, Nebraska, to the Ohio River. Weather reports show another round of storms could pound the same area on Friday. 

FOX Forecast Center said severe storms are expected to develop over the Plains and move eastward through the morning and afternoon. Lincoln, Nebraska; St. Louis, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; Cincinnati; Nashville; and Knoxville, Tennessee, have an elevated risk of severe strong and damaging straight-line winds today. 

Meteorologists at Fox explained that the weather phenomenon sparking these storms is called a “ring of fire” due to a “ridge parked over the central U.S., forcing storms to move along its northern periphery.” 

The severe thunderstorms on Thursday that met the criteria for a derecho have left nearly 300,000 people without power across Indiana and Illinois on Friday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.

Footage of notable damage was posted on Twitter. 

Fox said some weather observers compared “Thursday’s event to a historic derecho that moved through the Midwest in 2020, which caused an estimated $11 billion in damage.” 

All eyes are on the Midwest today for the possibility of a second round of storms. 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/30/2023 – 14:40

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Pentagon Belatedly Claims Chinese Balloon Did Not Collect Data In US

Pentagon Belatedly Claims Chinese Balloon Did Not Collect Data In US

The Chinese ‘spy balloon’ narrative continues to unravel – or is at least full of holes and contradictions – and all the Biden administration has to show for it is continually spiraling US-China relations, despite recent attempts to rescue diplomacy. After the high altitude balloon was first spotted January 28 flying over North American airspace, it was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet on February 4, with the debris subsequently recovered off the North Carolina coast.

The Pentagon has now asserted that the Chinese balloon likely did not collect data while it traversed US airspace. “We believe that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States, and certainly the efforts that we made contributed, I’m sure,” said Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder on Thursday.

Gen. Ryder said this after being asked by journalists about a fresh Wall Street Journal report which alleged US-manufactured equipment was found in the data collection undercarriage of the balloon, which Beijing has insisted all along was just a ‘weather balloon’. 

US officials cited preliminary findings from the debris examination to say the US equipment was used to collect photos, videos and other data. They described that what’s essentially American-made eavesdropping equipment has been identified. 

The WSJ report described: 

Several defense and intelligence agencies, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have analyzed the debris retrieved after the U.S. military detected and shot down the balloon nearly five months ago in an event that added fresh, unexpected volatility to the already fraught U.S.-China relationship. 

That analysis found the balloon was crammed with commercially available U.S. gear, some of it for sale online, and interspersed with more specialized Chinese sensors and other equipment to collect photos, video and other information to transmit to China, the officials said. Those findings, they said, support a conclusion that the craft was intended for spying, not weather monitoring as Beijing has said.

This may have included easily available off-the-shelf US-made components, which even hobbyists and researchers make common use of.

According to more from the exchange at the Pentagon press briefing: 

Question: General Ryder, can you respond to reports that suggest that, onboard the Chinese spy balloon, were found off the shelf American equipment? Were there — was there any sensitive American equipment onboard? How do you think that American equipment was obtained? Did — were there any laws broken? And what was it capable of doing? What can you tell us?

GEN. RYDER: Sure. Thanks, Jennifer. So — so look, I don’t have any specifics to provide as it pertains to the PRC high altitude balloon and any potential U.S. components. That said, I will say that, you know, we are aware, in previous cases, for example, things like drones and — and other capabilities, what have you, where off-the-shelf, commercial U.S. components have been used in capabilities. So that, in and of itself, is not surprising.

Following the balloon shootdown incident the Pentagon had tracked multiple other small balloons, with US jets having downed no less than three unidentified objects in the days that followed, some over far northern Canada.

But the White House in follow-up had admitted the three objects could have been “totally benign.” President Biden in mid-February acknowledged that they were likely “balloons tied to private companies, recreational or research institutions, studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/30/2023 – 14:00

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Colorado Can’t Force a Graphic Designer To Create Same-Sex Wedding Websites Supreme Court Rules

The government may not compel someone to “create speech she does not believe,” the Supreme Court ruled this morning. In a 6–3 opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Court sided with a graphic designer, Lorie Smith, who wanted to expand into the wedding-website business without being forced by Colorado law to create products celebrating same-sex marriages.

Back in 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit found that the planned websites would each constitute “an original, customized creation,” designed by Smith “using text, graphics, and in some cases videos” with a goal of celebrating the couple’s “unique love story.” As such, it said they “qualify as ‘pure speech’ protected by the First Amendment.” The lower court admitted that Smith was willing to provide her services to anyone, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation, so long as the substance of the project did not contradict her values. It also recognized that “Colorado’s ‘very purpose’ in seeking to apply its law to Ms. Smith” was to stamp out dissenting ideas about marriage. Despite all of that, incredibly, the 10th Circuit held that the state government was within its authority to compel her to create such websites against her will.

Lamenting “an unfortunate tendency by some to defend First Amendment values only when they find the speaker’s message sympathetic,” Gorsuch—joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett—concluded otherwise.

The ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis is neither as narrow nor as broad as it (theoretically) could have been. The Court didn’t do away with public accommodations, or businesses prohibited from discriminating against customers on the basis of characteristics such as skin color or national origin. It did note that “no public accommodations law is immune from the demands of the Constitution” and that “public accommodations statutes can sweep too broadly when deployed to compel speech.” (The Colorado law was guilty in this instance.) 

The high court also didn’t establish a right for any and every business owner to decline to provide services for same-sex weddings—only those whose services involve expressive activity. Whether a particular service (say, cake baking) is expressive will have to be litigated case by case.

But the majority did decide Smith’s case by appealing to free-expression precedents rather than religious-liberty ones. In other words, the justices didn’t say that the faith-based nature of Smith’s beliefs about marriage entitled her to an exemption. Presumably, a secular person with moral or factual objections to expressing a particular message would receive all the same protections as a Christian or Muslim objecting on religious grounds. As it should be.

“The opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong,” Gorsuch wrote in his majority opinion. “Of course, abiding the Constitution’s commitment to the freedom of speech means all of us will encounter ideas we consider…’misguided, or even hurtful’….But tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer.”

The post Colorado Can’t Force a Graphic Designer To Create Same-Sex Wedding Websites, Supreme Court Rules appeared first on Reason.com.

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Government Ruins Yet Another Holiday Travel Weekend

The weather in New York City was sunny and humid when JetBlue informed me via a terse email Tuesday morning that my Wednesday afternoon flight back home from California had been unceremoniously nuked.

“We’ve made some changes to our schedule resulting in the cancellation of your upcoming flight,” Customer Experience Operations Director Kate Hart wrote.

Puzzled, I made a rare vacation toe-dip into the horrors of Google News and saw through Gothamist that “NYC airports cancel, delay hundreds of flights during third day of storms.”

“Thunderstorms?!” my wife texted back. “They’ve been telling us about storms for 5 days now and when it rains, it barely rains.” I looked at the weather forecast, and sure enough, it showed “partly cloudy” in New York for most of the next 48 hours, with a five-hour window on Wednesday between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. during which there would be a chance of thunderstorms between 33 percent and 49 percent. My flight had been scheduled to arrive in Newark just before 10 p.m.

Let us grant that weather forecasting is not an exact science. Surely, modern air travel can nevertheless cope with a five-hour window of even severe thunderstorms without wiping out hundreds of flights and stranding passengers for days?

Since the JetBlue website has roughly the same functionality as a GeoCities page, it took most of an estimated 129-minute hold time with the airline’s call center before the mystery was solved. There would be no available flights from Southern California to the East Coast for the next five days, I was told. Seems a bit extreme for a brief weather event, I countered.

“It’s not the weather,” my designated human reported back. “It’s the FAA.”

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has an operational monopoly on America’s technologically antiquated flight-control system, does not have enough air traffic controllers to meet consumer air travel demand, particularly in the New York City area. It’s the old, you-had-one-job meme, only this time ruining thousands of holiday plans, business trips, and family reunions.

“The FAA frankly failed us this weekend,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby wrote in an internal email this week, after the agency limited flights to United’s hub in Newark by 75 percent outbound and 40 percent inbound. “[Weather] is something that the FAA has historically been able to manage without a severe impact on our operation and customers.”

A Department of Transportation Inspector General report released just last week found that the FAA “continues to face staffing challenges and lacks a plan to address them, which in turn poses a risk to the continuity of air traffic operations.” And the numbers are brutal: “We determined that 20 of 26 (77 percent) critical facilities are staffed below the Agency’s 85-percent threshold, with New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) and Miami Tower at 54 percent and 66 percent, respectively.”

Translation: If it rains in Miami and New York, bring your sleeping bag to LAX.

As ever, the federal government should be listening to American hero Robert Poole—the transportation policy director of the Reason Foundation, which publishes this site—who wrote in yesterday’s New York Post, “These problems have been festering for years, but neither Congress nor the FAA have addressed them.” What should we be doing differently?

The problem is that the air-traffic control system is the wrong kind of organization to be housed in a federal bureaucracy.

In reality, it is a high-tech service business, best described as a public utility.

Nearly all such utilities charge their customers for the services they use; FAA doesn’t. […]

Over the past 35 years, country after country has converted its air-traffic department into a public utility.

Today, air-traffic control is provided by ATC utilities in 83 countries, including Canada, whose system has newer and better technology than FAA.

So will the FAA’s staffing shortages turn around any time soon? Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sure doesn’t think so: “I think it’ll be a while before we’re at levels we’d like to see,” he said last month.

Until further notice, here is the reality about air travel within the United States: If it’s a busy holiday weekend, and the tri-state area is even remotely involved, expect thousands of cancellations and even more splutterings of social media rage. And as ever, blame the feds.

The post Government Ruins Yet Another Holiday Travel Weekend appeared first on Reason.com.

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Chicago Police Raided at Least 21 Wrong Houses

Chicago police raided the wrong house at least 21 times between 2017 and 2020, according to an inspector general report released this week, but shoddy record keeping means the true number is unknown.

The Chicago Office of Inspector General released its final report Wednesday on the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) search warrant policies, concluding that CPD’s inadequate record keeping made it impossible to count or fully analyze wrong-door raids. The records the inspector general did get, however, showed that inexperience and failures to do basic investigative work contributed to botched raids.

The CPD’s search warrant policies have been under scrutiny since 2020, when body camera footage was published showing officers humiliating a naked woman during a wrong-door raid in 2019. Chicago police burst into the apartment of Anjanette Young based on a faulty tip and handcuffed her while she was naked, forcing her to stand in full view of male officers as they searched her home.

Responding to the furor over Young’s case, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a new search warrant policy for the CPD. The city eventually settled a lawsuit filed by Young for $2.9 million.

“Chicago has learned painful lessons over the last several years about what happens when the search warrants go wrong,” Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said in a press release. “The raid on the home of Anjanette Young laid bare deep deficits in CPD’s policies and practices around the service of residential search warrants.”

But Young was far from the only victim. Chicago-area lawyer Al Hofeld Jr. has represented 11 families in separate lawsuits who all say CPD pointed guns at their children during botched SWAT raids.

A yearslong investigation by the local news outlet CBS 2 repeatedly uncovered Chicago SWAT teams relying on unverified search warrants to ransack houses; hold families, including children, at gunpoint; and, in one case, handcuff an 8-year-old child. In another case, 17 Chicago police officers burst into a family’s house with their guns drawn during a 4-year-old’s birthday party. The members of one Chicago family say officers raided their house three times in four months looking for someone the residents say they don’t know.

In 2018, Chicago settled another civil lawsuit by a family who claimed CPD officers stormed their house and pointed a gun at a 3-year-old girl for $2.5 million.

“The IG’s findings are entirely consistent with what our office has discovered in our clients’ lawsuits against the City of Chicago: sloppy, unsupervised investigations of uncorroborated tips from informants that then led to rubberstamped, search warrants for the wrong homes and resulted in serious emotional trauma to innocent families of color, including literally thousands of children over the years,” Hofeld tells Reason [OK?]. “And this description does not even address the way in which officers have treated and ‘policed’ people once they enter their homes to execute the warrant. With this kind of police work, it’s no surprise at all that community trust has been and remains CPD’s biggest challenge.”

In one lawsuit filed by Jasmine Vale and her family in 2020, Vale claimed that CPD trained their guns on a grandmother and child, screamed obscenities at them, and ransacked their house, causing thousands of dollars in damage. The lawsuit said the search warrant was based on a tip from an anonymous informant that the grandmother’s son possessed an unlicensed handgun. Chicago police never bothered to learn that the son had moved to California several years ago.

The number of residential search warrants executed by CPD has dropped sharply since 2019. In years prior, CPD was serving more than 1,000 search warrants a year. In both 2020 and 2021 [Right?], it served fewer than 200.

However, the report praises CPD for taking “encouraging steps toward increased accountability” by drafting revisions this January to its search warrant policies, including a newly proposed electronic data application that could significantly improve record keeping.

In a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times, the CPD noted that the inspector general report only studied residential search warrants until 2021. “Since that time, CPD has made numerous revisions to policy and training, including greater supervision and accountability within the process of search warrant development and service,” CPD said. “Following search warrants that are identified as wrong raids, the department conducts critical incident after-action reviews.”

The post Chicago Police Raided at Least 21 Wrong Houses appeared first on Reason.com.

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Study Finds Texas’ 6-Week Abortion Ban Resulted in 10000 Additional Babies

A new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found that Texas’ controversial new abortion restrictions resulted in an additional 10,000 babies being born in the state.

The Texas law—S.B. 8 or the Texas Heartbeat Act—bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity (a heartbeat) can be detected, which is typically within the first six weeks of pregnancy.

S.B. 8 went into effect in September 2021. The John Hopkins study, published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), looked at the number of babies born in the state from April 2022 (the first birth cohort affected by the policy) to December 2022.

The researchers then used statistical modeling of live births observed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 2016 and 2022 to create a “synthetic Texas” that didn’t adopt S.B. 8. They found that an additional 9,799 babies were born in actual Texas.

“Although our study doesn’t detail why these extra births occurred, our findings strongly suggest that a considerable number of pregnant individuals in Texas were unable to overcome barriers to abortion access,” said study author Alison Gemmill.

The Hopkins study is the first to look at the effects of the Texas law on live births specifically. A previous 2022 study published in JAMA found that the law reduced in-state abortions and increased by a smaller number the number of Texans receiving abortions out of state.

Another 2022 JAMA-published study found that Texans’ requests for mailed abortion pills increased dramatically after the passage of S.B. 8.

The results of the latest study “suggest not everyone who might have received an abortion in the absence of [S.B. 8] was able to obtain one,” write Hopkins researchers.

Abortion advocates, supported by research from pro-choice think tanks, have argued that abortion restrictions won’t necessarily reduce abortion, they’ll merely increase the number of unsafe abortions performed. The Hopkins study contradicts the former half of that narrative.

The Hopkins study’s authors frame their findings in exclusively negative terms.

“The study’s findings highlight how abortion bans have real implications for birthing people, thousands of whom may have had no choice but to continue an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy to term,” says Suzanne Bell, another one of the study’s authors. “The majority of people who seek abortions live below or close to the poverty line. So many of these birthing people and their families were likely struggling financially even before the recent birth.”

Their research nevertheless suggests that legal restrictions on abortion are, in fact, stopping abortions and ensuring more children are born. Pro-life supporters can therefore view the Hopkins study as vindication of their stance that abortion restrictions are saving the lives of unborn children.

Pro-choice advocates who have no moral qualms about abortion can also find a confirmation of their worldview in the Hopkins study. By preventing abortions that women would have otherwise chosen to have, the Texas law is resulting in a curtailing of women’s reproductive autonomy.

The Hopkins study presents complications for more moderate pro-choice advocates who might view abortion negatively but are skeptical of state restrictions on the practice. It more clearly illuminates the direct tradeoff between legal protections for abortion access and the lives of the unborn.

The post Study Finds Texas’ 6-Week Abortion Ban Resulted in 10,000 Additional Babies appeared first on Reason.com.

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University Creates Language Guide That Erases ‘Man’ And ‘Mother’ From Existence

University Creates Language Guide That Erases ‘Man’ And ‘Mother’ From Existence

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

The University of North Carolina (UNC) has shared an ‘inclusive’ language guide, laying out guidelines for what students and staff are and are not allowed to say.

The guide essentially wipes the word ‘man’ out of existence, and discourages the use of the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’.

A statement from the university claims “Carolina is committed to creating an inclusive and equitable learning environment for every Tar Heel. To fully represent the diversity of our students, faculty, staff and everyone in our community, it is important to use language that supports these values.”

It continues, “This inclusive language guide can act as a starting point for communicating in a way that supports a diverse and welcoming community.”

Here’s what’s not allowed:

Any word with ‘man’ in it is consigned to the dustbin.

Furthermore… Don’t say ‘mom’, say ‘guardian’.

And don’t say ‘poor’, say “people whose incomes are below the federal poverty threshold.”

There are a lot of rules here…

Remember that there is also romantic orientation as well, except is you’re ‘aromantic’:

This lunacy is gong on all over the country and it’s spilling out of woke education into the real world.

Video: Stanford University Wants The Word ‘American’ Added To A ‘Harmful Language’ List

Report: Biden Admin Funds AI To Police Online Language

Woke Tech Company Seeks To “Replace” ‘Violent’ Language

Report: Google Rolls Out Feature That Corrects You With Woke ‘Inclusive’ Language

“Harmful Language” Trigger Warning Added to US Constitution on National Archives Website

University Bans The Phrase “Trigger Warning” Because It Might Be… Triggering

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Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/30/2023 – 13:40

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Outrage As Planned Parenthood Declares Virginity “A Social Construct”

Outrage As Planned Parenthood Declares Virginity “A Social Construct”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Planned Parenthood has received backlash after posting a tweet declaring that virginity is “outdated” and “hurts everyone.”

The post featured a billboard with a further declaration “Virginity is a social construct,” and claiming that the concept of virginity is a “patriarchal’ way of thinking:

The organisation has pushed this idea for a while now…

Twitter, do your thing…

Same people

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Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/30/2023 – 13:00

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Toxic Wildfire Smoke Blankets Ten States As Independence Day Weekend Begins

Toxic Wildfire Smoke Blankets Ten States As Independence Day Weekend Begins

As the Fourth of July weekend approaches, tens of millions of Americans are heading off today to either sandy beaches or resort communities in the mountains. Some folks are staying home or traveling short distances because ‘Bidenomics’ has miserably failed and bankrupted mid/low-tier households who can no longer afford an Airbnb or hotel in a resort area. But the one thing in common that millions across the Mid-Atlantic and up and down the Northeast regions are all experiencing into the holiday weekend is the lingering wildfire smoke from Canada. 

The National Weather Service issued air quality alerts over parts of the Midwest, Great Lakes, central Appalachians, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic through the weekend. 

“Canadian wildfire smoke is expected to continue impacting portions of the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. over the next few days,” NWS wrote in a Friday morning update. 

NWS had some good news: “However, air quality is expected to slowly improve due to a combination of thunderstorm activity and dispersion of the smoke as we head into the weekend.” 

Still, toxic air quality alerts stretch from Michigan to Ohio, West Virginia to Pennsvyina to Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and into the lower New England area. 

The unhealthy air is terrible for people with heart or lung disease, older adults, children, and teens. Pittsburgh had the worst air quality this morning. 

Instead of blaming ‘climate change’ for everything… Maybe Canada’s 500 raging wildfires have resulted from bad fire management over the last few decades. Plus, it’s an El Nino year… 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/30/2023 – 12:40

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