US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6890

On February 17 2017 01:51 Doodsmack wrote:
We're in good hands. Thanks Trump voters



CNN

Wind power is the largest source of renewable energy in the United States. But a broad swath of the country has had no large, commercial wind farms — until now. A new one with 104 towers is up and running near Elizabeth City, N.C., where it spans 22,000 acres.

Horace Pritchard is one of about 60 landowners who are leasing property to the project known as the Amazon Wind Farm U.S. East. Developers say it will generate enough power for 61,000 homes per year — power that the Internet retailer Amazon has agreed to buy from the electric grid.

Pritchard's farm is about 30 miles from the Atlantic coast — close enough to be windier than areas farther inland. The project is a good deal for Pritchard, who gets an annual payment for each turbine on his land.

"When corn's down, that you're not making any ends meet, this will help us pull through a bad year or a hurricane or a drought," he says.

The wind farm is considered the first of its kind in the Southeastern United States. But why has the region been so slow to harness its wind?

In the Southeast, the strongest winds tend to be higher up than in places like the Great Plains, with their wide open spaces.

"There are decent and actually quite good wind speeds at very high elevations above the earth's surface in the Southeast," says Michael Goggin, senior director of research at the American Wind Energy Association. "Thus far, we just haven't had turbines that were large enough to get up there to capture those winds."

That's partly a quirk of geography, he says, and partly because the Southeast has a lot of trees and forests.

"That interferes with the flow of wind, you know, just basically friction — the wind is slowing down as it hits those trees," Goggin says.

All of that explains why, aside from a small amount of wind power in Tennessee, the region has lagged far behind the rest of the country in wind energy.

A classified memo instructs intelligence analysts to keep their daily intelligence briefings with President Donald Trump short, according to Mother Jones.

The guidance recommends that analysts limit themselves to three topics, include essential facts that support their findings, and to try to keep their findings to a page. The memo also suggests that conflicting views or information should not be shared with the president in different briefings, according to the report.

It is unclear whether this guidance came from Trump and his administration, or if they were developed by intelligence officials.

Trump has previously claimed in a Fox interview that he does not find daily security briefings necessary. "I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years," Trump said.
Trump has also vocalized his preference for brevity when it comes to reports. "I like bullets or I like as little as possible. I don't need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page,” Trump said in an Axios interview.

These brief briefs are reportedly shorter than for Trump’s predecessors, according to the report. During Obama’s presidency, daily briefings tended to range form 12 to 14 pages.

The report from Mother Jones comes at a time of rising tensions between Trump's White House and the intelligence community.

Trump on Wednesday blasted leaks about the workings of his administration and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, calling them "criminal."

“From intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked, it's criminal action. It's a criminal act, and it's been going on for a long time before me, but now it's really going on,” Trump said.

On February 17 2017 02:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
The pinnacle of Trump's deal-making (and facepalming): "Solving" the Israel/ Palestine situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsJxV94Jg1A

On February 17 2017 03:08 IyMoon wrote:
Biggest EC win since Reagan? 2008 and 2012 might question that.

On February 17 2017 03:14 Plansix wrote:
Doesn't Nixon beat all of those?

http://www.270towin.com/1972_Election/

Yep. Unstoppable.