It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, July 17, 2020
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Racist filmed shouting 'n*****' at BLM protesters dies after stepping into path of truck
Rachel Ruit, 41, died on Tuesday - a day after she was terribly injured after stepping out in front of a fire truck
Racist filmed shouting ‘n*****’ at BLM protesters dies after stepping into path of truck View 48 comments Jimmy McCloskey
Thursday 16 Jul 2020 2:06 pm
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Rachel Ruit, who shot to notoriety after she was filmed screaming racist abuse at Black Lives Matter protesters, has died after stepping out in front of a truck (Pictures: Facebook/Twitter) An infamous racist filmed screaming ‘N*****’ at a group of Black Lives Matter protesters has died after stepping out in front of a truck.
Rachel Ruit, 41, died on Tuesday, a day after she was struck by an Asheville Fire Department Truck in Asheville, North Carolina. Police are investigating Ruit’s death, and say they believe it was accidental.
A powerful photo taken shortly after she was fatally injured showed an unidentified black woman praying over the racist as paramedics tried to save her. Eyewitness Jonathan Rowell captured the photo, and said that Ruit – who was filmed hurling racist abuse last month – did not appear to have stepped out in front of the truck deliberately. Rowell wrote: ‘Some of you probably saw the video of a white lady near the Vance Monument screaming “Ni**er, Ni**er” seeing as how the video went viral on Facebook…
‘I just witnessed the same lady from that video accidentally step out into traffic on Patton Avenue, going towards downtown Asheville, as she was walking with traffic coming from behind her…the Asheville Fire Department truck that you see in the background is the vehicle that she stepped out in front of…
‘There were over a dozen bystanders that had come to see what was going on…and then there was 1 lady who was praying out loud & I mean praying very intensely…begging God to please let this lady survive… ‘And that 1 person was the Black lady standing right in front of me in this picture. Praying & praying & praying and in tears for coincidentally the same woman who was yelling the N word with such hatred in her heart. Just sayin.
’ Ruit shouted ‘Fuck! N*****’ then gave the finger to Aisha Sabur in Asheville, North Carolina, last month. Sabur was filmed remonstrating with Ruit, who then screamed: ‘Touch me n****. Touch me and you go to jail. Touch me bitch!’
Ruit was charged with simple assault over the racist video (Picture: Asheville PD)
A group of white Black Lives Matter activists then stepped in to defend Sabur and her family, only to face the same vile slurs from Ruit.
One woman who walked over to here was told: ‘Touch me bitch. Fuck you n*****.’ Ruit then screeched ‘Touch me n*****’ at that woman’s white friend four times, before storming off.
The video was widely-shared online, with Sabur calling Ruit’s behavior: ‘the most blatant display of racism that I have ever experienced. Speaking to CNN, Sabur added: ‘She wanted me to know that, “If you touch me, I will call the police and you will be held accountable,” and that’s a big part of why I didn’t lose my cool.’
North Carolina does not have hate speech laws, but Ruit was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct over the racist incident. That investigation is now likely to be dropped in the wake of her death.
This deep-sea dragon fish has ultra-black skin capable of absorbing the bioluminescent light that might blow its cover (Credits: SWNS)
Fish living in the ocean’s murky depths have evolved ultra-black skin, making them virtually impossible to pick out from the shadows. At least 16 species – including dragon fish and fangtooth – escape predators using their own natural ‘stealth wear’ to absorb over 99% of the light hitting them.
The dark-as-night camouflage comes from tiny ‘packets of pigments’ on their skin called melanosomes, which are very different to other black coloured animals. Co-author Dr Karen Osborn, of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the United States, said: ‘If you want to blend in with the infinite blackness of your surroundings, sucking up every photon that hits you is a great way to go.
‘Mimicking this strategy could help engineers develop less expensive, flexible and more durable ultra-black materials for use in optical technology, such as telescopes and cameras, and for camouflage.’ Sunlight, under the right conditions, can reach 1000 metres below the ocean, but there is rarely any visible light below 200 metres. Animals living at these depths are forced to make their own light, known as bioluminescence, to spot their prey.
The team ‘scooped up’ nearly 40 black fish swimming up to a mile below the surface in Monterey Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, using a trawl net and unmanned marine vehicle.
They then measured how much light was being reflected off each fish using a spectrometer and found 16 species reflected less than half a per cent of light, making them 20 times darker than everyday black objects like paper and tires. Anglerfish, which are about the size of a ‘golf tee’, were found the darkest species, reflecting just 0.04 per cent of light. Only one other animal in the world is known to be as dark, the birds-of-paradise of Papua New Guinea.
Taking pictures of the fish proved difficult, even with sophisticated equipment, because the cameras could not capture their features.
Dr Osborn said: ‘It didn’t matter how you set up the camera or lighting — they just sucked up all the light.’ Normal black skin and ultra-black skin look very different when magnified thousands of times under an electron microscope, the researchers found. Both have tiny cell-structures called melanosomes, which contain melanin – the same pigment found that determines the colour of human skin.
But melanosomes in the ultra-black fish were a different shape and size, looking more like a tic-tac than tiny pearls and forming a continuous sheet around the body, unlike normal black skin, which contains pigment-less gaps.
Co-author doctoral student Alexander Davis at Duke University said: ‘Melanosomes are packed into the skin cells like a tiny gumball machine, where all of the gumballs are of just the right size and shape to trap light within the machine.
‘Their ultra-black camouflage could be the difference between eating and getting eaten.’ Some birds and butterflies also trap enough light to produce ultra-black surfaces, but not in the same way. These animals combine a layer of melanin with light-capturing structures, shaped like tiny tubes or boxes. Dr Osborn said: ‘This is the only system that we know of that’s using the pigment itself to control any initially unabsorbed light.’
The researchers hope their findings could pave the way toward making new light-capturing materials. Dr Osborn added: ‘Adopting this efficient design strategy could improve the manufacture of ultra-black materials, which currently use an architecture more like what is found in ultra-black birds and butterflies. ‘Instead of building some kind of structure that traps the light, if you were to make the absorbing pigment the right size and shape, you could achieve the same absorption potentially a lot cheaper and [make the material] a lot less fragile.’
Fish living in the ocean's murky depths have evolved ultra-black skin that absorbs 99.5 per cent of light making them invisible to predators even if they have their own 'headlamps'
Anglerfish were the darkest of all species studied and reflect just 0.04% of light
A total of 16 fish species were found with the ultra-black skin
Cellular pockets packed with the dark pigment melanin are present in the skin
This absorbs more than 99% of all light and makes the fish appear almost invisible in the opaque depths of the ocean
Some fish that live in the deepest reaches of the ocean have evolved skin so dark it absorbs more than 99 per cent of all light, rendering the animal almost invisible.
The animals are so efficient at soaking up light that they appear as mere silhouettes, seemingly devoid of any features.
Academics from the US have identified at least 16 species that use the ultra-black form of camouflage to avoid predators, including the dragon fish and fangtooth.
In the ocean's depths, no natural sunlight penetrates and some predators have the ability to glow using bio-luminescence to hunt their prey.
Being able to hide in plain sight and absorb all this light without being spotted is a major survival advantage.
Some of the species with the ultra-black skin also have their own bio-luminescent lures, or headlamps, but their skin is so dark that none of the light bounces off their bodies, allowing them to attract and ensnare their food.
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Pictured, a specimen of the ultra-black fish species Anoplogaster cornuta. This fish was so lively after being sampled and documented that the research team released it back to the deep via submarine the day after being caught in a trawl net
The darkness is created by melanin, a pigment which also gives human skin its colour. More melanin creates a darker skin tone.
In these fish species however, they have evolved to maximise production of melanin and have melanosomes, specific cellular pockets packed with the dark pigment.
They are arranged close to the surface of the skin and lie in such a way as to maximise light absorption.
Co-author Alexander Davis, a co-author of the study and doctoral student in biology at Duke University, says: 'These pigment-containing structures are packed into the skin cells like a tiny gumball machine, where all of the gumballs are of just the right size and shape to trap light within the machine.'
Pictured, the ultra-black ridgehead (Poromitra crassiceps ).These fish are also commonly known as bigscales because of the few giant scales they possess. Their ultra-black skin covers their scales, but the skin and scales detach easily when a predator tries to grab them Pictured, the ultra-black Pacific blackdragon (Idiacanthus antrostomus), the second-blackest fish studied by the research team. These fish have a bioluminescent lure that they use to attract prey, and if not for their ultra-black skin and transparent, anti-reflective teeth, the reflection of their lure would scare prey away The Pacific blackdragon (pictured) has light-producing organs below their eyes that scientists expect might be used as a searchlight to spot prey Dr Karen Osborn, of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the United States, adds: 'Effectively what they've done is make a super-efficient, super-thin light trap.
'Light doesn't bounce back; light doesn't go through. It just goes into this layer, and it's gone.'
Soaking up light, whether from the sun or from bioluminescent creatures, is an effective technique to avoid being eaten in the bleak world of the deepest oceans.
The team caught and analysed 40 black fish swimming up to a mile below the surface in Monterey Bay and the Gulf of Mexico using a trawl net and unmanned marine vehicle.
They measured how much light was being reflected off each fish using a spectrometer.
This revealed 16 species reflected less than half a per cent of light, making them 20 times darker than everyday black objects like paper and tires.
Anglerfish, which are about the size of a 'golf tee', were found the darkest species, reflecting just 0.04 per cent of light.
Only one other animal in the world is known to be as dark, the birds-of-paradise of Papua New Guinea.
Dr Osborn said: 'Mimicking this strategy could help engineers develop less expensive, flexible and more durable ultra-black materials for use in optical technology, such as telescopes and cameras, and for camouflage.'
Pictured, the ultra-black fish species Anoplogaster cornuta being sampled before it was released back into the ocean
Ultra-black nightmare fish reveal secrets of deep ocean camouflage
Goths know black is cool. Some scary-looking fish swimming the ocean depths know this, too.
A team of researchers is unlocking the deep, dark secrets of blacker-than-black fish that have developed special skin characteristics to help them hide from predators that use bioluminescence to hunt.
The researchers, including lead author Alexander Davis, a doctoral student in biology at Duke University, published a study on the ultra-black fish in the journal Current Biology (PDF) on Thursday. They identified at least 16 species of deep-sea-dwelling fish with skin that absorbs over 99.5% percent of light. It's the ultimate camouflage for the inky depths of the ocean.
A deep-sea dragonfish has ultra-black skin capable of absorbing bioluminescent light. It also has great teeth.
As the names suggest, dragonfish and common fangtooth fish aren't the cuddliest looking critters in the sea. They might appear nightmarish to squeamish humans, but they're of great interest to scientists who are looking at ways to develop new ultra-black materials.
Vantablack is the most famous of the ultra-black coatings. It was designed for defense and space sector applications, but has also appeared in architecture and art. It's not the only one of its kind. MIT announced a new "blackest black" material in 2019.
Surrey NanoSystems in the UK announced Vantablack, a nanotech material, in 2014 to much fanfare and many Spinal Tap jokes. It became known as one of the blackest-black materials ever created.At the time, Surrey NanoSystems described Vantablack as "revolutionary in its ability to be applied to lightweight, temperature-sensitive structures such as aluminium whilst absorbing 99.96% of incident radiation, believed to be the highest-ever recorded." None more black. Surrey has continued to refine Vantablack and even figured out how to make the light-absorbing coating work as a spray. It has since graced everything from wristwatch faces to high-end vehicles.
The ocean research team used a spectrometer to measure light reflecting off the skin of fish pulled up from Monterey Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. These denizens of the deep live up to a mile below the ocean surface.
"The darkest species they found, a tiny anglerfish not much longer than a golf tee, soaks up so much light that almost none -- 0.04% -- bounces back to the eye," Duke University said in a release on Thursday.
The scientists discovered differences between black fish and ultra-black fish by focusing on melanosomes, structures within cells that contain the pigment melanin.
According to study co-author Karen Osborn, "Mimicking this strategy could help engineers develop less expensive, flexible and more durable ultra-black materials for use in optical technology, such as telescopes and cameras, and for camouflage." Osborn is a research zoologist with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
The ultra-black fish presented some challenges for the scientists when it came to photos. "It didn't matter how you set up the camera or lighting -- they just sucked up all the light," said Osborn.
Fortunately for your nightmares, Osborn captured startlingly toothy views of an ultra-black deep-sea dragonfish and an Anoplogaster cornuta. Be sure to cue up some Bauhaus music and stare deeply into their milky eyes.
How Deep-Sea, Ultra-Black Fish Disappear – Science Behind Skin That Absorbs More Than 99.5% of Light By SMITHSONIAN JULY 16, 2020 The ultra-black Pacific blackdragon (Idiacanthus antrostomus), the second-blackest fish studied by the research team. These fish have a bioluminescent lure that they use to attract prey, and if not for their ultra-black skin and transparent, anti-reflective teeth, the reflection of their lure would scare prey away. The Pacific blackdragon also has light-producing organs below their eyes that scientists expect might be used as a searchlight to spot prey. In the July 16 issue of the journal Current Biology, a team of scientists led by Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History research zoologist Karen Osborn and Duke University biologist Sönke Johnsen report on how a unique arrangement of pigment-packed granules enables some fish to absorb nearly all of the light that hits their skin, so that as little as 0.05% of that light is reflected back. Credit: Karen Osborn, Smithsonian Ultra-black fish skin absorbs more than 99.5% of light in a new, extremely efficient way, a discovery that may advance high-tech optical and camouflage technology. Deep in the ocean, where sunlight barely reaches, Smithsonian scientists and a team of collaborators have discovered one of the blackest materials known: the skin of certain fish. These ultra-black fish absorb light so efficiently that even in bright light they appear to be silhouettes with no discernible features. In the darkness of the ocean, even surrounded by bioluminescent light, they literally disappear. In the July 16 issue of the journal Current Biology, a team of scientists led by Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History research zoologist Karen Osborn and Duke University biologist Sönke Johnsen report on how a unique arrangement of pigment-packed granules enables some fish to absorb nearly all of the light that hits their skin, so that as little as 0.05% of that light is reflected back. Mimicking this strategy could help engineers develop less expensive, flexible and more durable ultra-black materials for use in optical technology, such as telescopes and cameras, and for camouflage, Osborn said. Osborn first became interested in fish skin when she tried to photograph some striking black fish she and her colleagues caught in trawl nets used to sample the deep sea. Despite sophisticated equipment, she said, she could not capture any detail in the images. “It didn’t matter how you set up the camera or lighting — they just sucked up all the light.” One specimen of the ultra-black fish species Anoplogaster cornuta. This fish was so lively after being sampled and documented that the research team released it back to the deep via submarine the day after being caught in a trawl net. In the July 16 issue of the journal Current Biology, a team of scientists led by Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History research zoologist Karen Osborn and Duke University biologist Sönke Johnsen report on how a unique arrangement of pigment-packed granules enables some fish to absorb nearly all of the light that hits their skin, so that as little as 0.05% of that light is reflected back. Credit: Karen Osborn, Smithsonian Careful measurements in the laboratory confirmed why cameras could not capture their features: Many of the black fish found in the deep sea absorbed more than 99.5% percent of the light that hit their surfaces. That means they are ultra-black — blacker than black paper, blacker than electrical tape, blacker than a brand-new tire. And in the deep, dark sea, where a single photon of light is enough to attract attention, that intense blackness can improve a fish’s odds of survival. Because sunlight does not reach more than a couple hundred meters beneath the ocean’s surface, most deep-sea creatures make their own light, called bioluminescence. Bioluminescent glows are used to attract mates, distract predators and lure prey. They can also expose nearby animals — foiling a predator’s stealthy approach or shining a beacon on potential prey — unless those animals have the right camouflage. “If you want to blend in with the infinite blackness of your surroundings, sucking up every photon that hits you is a great way to go,” Osborn said. One specimen of the ultra-black fish species Anoplogaster cornuta. Credit: Karen Osborn, Smithsonian The near-complete light absorption of ultra-black fish depends on melanin, the same pigment that colors and protects human skin from sunlight. Osborn and her colleagues discovered that this pigment is not just abundant in the skin of ultra-black fish, it is distributed in a unique way. Pigment-filled cellular compartments called melanosomes are densely packed into pigment cells and these pigment cells are arranged very close to the surface of an ultra-black fish’s skin in a continuous layer. The size, shape and arrangement of the melanosomes cause them to direct any light they do not immediately absorb toward neighboring melanosomes within the cell, which then suck up the remaining light. “Effectively what they’ve done is make a super-efficient, super-thin light trap,” Osborn said. “Light doesn’t bounce back; light doesn’t go through. It just goes into this layer, and it’s gone.” “These pigment-containing structures are packed into the skin cells like a tiny gumball machine, where all of the gumballs are of just the right size and shape to trap light within the machine,” said Alexander Davis, a co-author of the study and doctoral student in biology at Duke University. Fish are not the only animals known to trap enough light to produce an ultra-black surface. Ultra-black feathers and scales have been found on a few birds and some butterflies, where they contrast with brightly colored regions, making the colors appear more vibrant. Those animals produce the effect by combining a layer of melanin with light-capturing structures like tiny tubes or boxes. In the resource-limited deep sea, ultra-black fish appear to have evolved a more efficient system, Osborn said. “This is the only system that we know of that’s using the pigment itself to control any initially unabsorbed light.” This melanosome-based ultra-blackness seems to be a common strategy in the deep sea: Osborn and her team found the same distinct patterns of pigment in 16 species of distantly related fish. Adopting this efficient design strategy could improve the manufacture of ultra-black materials, which currently use an architecture more like what is found in ultra-black birds and butterflies, Osborn said. Such materials, sought after for sensitive optical equipment, are currently both extremely delicate and expensive to produce. “Instead of building some kind of structure that traps the light, if you were to make the absorbing pigment the right size and shape, you could achieve the same absorption potentially a lot cheaper and [make the material] a lot less fragile,” she said. ### Reference: “Ultra-black Camouflage in Deep-Sea Fishes” byAlexander L. Davis, Kate N. Thomas, Freya E. Goetz, Bruce H. Robison, Sönke Johnsen and Karen J. Osborn, 16 July 2020, Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.044 Funding and support for this research were provided by the Smithsonian, Duke University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense’s National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
CT Scan of Siberian Mummy Reveals Wounds and Tattoos
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA—The Siberian Times reports that scientists at Russia’s State Hermitage Museum have taken a CT scan of a mummified head dated to between the third and fourth centuries A.D. Discovered in 1969 in a burial house made of larch logs in the Oglakhty burial ground, the masked mummy head belongs to the Tashtyk culture of Siberia’s Yenisei River Valley. “The computer scan allowed us to see, so to say, three layers—the layer of the mask, the layer of the face without the mask, and the layer of the skull,” said museum curator Svetlana Pankova. The scan revealed brown hair and a sutured wound beneath the gypsum death mask, which was painted red with black stripes. The scar, which travels from the left eye to the left ear, is thought to have been sewn after death, perhaps to repair a wound so that the mask would fit properly. Pankova said there is also a hole in the left side of the mummy’s skull, which is also thought to have been made after death in order to remove the brain and prepare the body for burial. “Expert analysis shows the hole was made by a series of blows with a chisel type or hammer type tool,” she explained. The scan also revealed the presence of tattoos on the body, the first to be found on a Tashtyk mummy. To read about tattoos adorning mummified members of the Pazyryk culture uncovered in Siberia, go to "Ancient Tattoos: Iron Age Mummy."
Iron Age Mummy November/December 2013 Culture: Pazyryk Location: Russia Date: Fourth to Third centuries B.C. (The State Hermitage Museum)
Some of the most spectacular tattoos in the ancient world have been found adorning Iron Age mummies unearthed in the Altay Mountains of Siberia. There, a series of tombs dug into permafrost preserved the remains of nobles from a nomadic people today known as the Pazyryk Culture. On the skins of these mummies were intricate tattoos, depicting both mythical and real animals in action: running, stalking victims, or twisting in an S-shape, which scholars call “the pose of agony.”
Archaeologist Sergey Yatsenko of the Russian State University for the Humanities says the animal most commonly found was a monster that took the form of a wild goat with an eagle’s beak and a panther’s tail. This creature appeared on the upper part of the right shoulder of most of the mummies. On the left shoulder, the Pazyryk people sported the depiction of a tiger or a wild ram. A rooster poised for battle was frequently tattooed on noblemen’s forefingers, and a group of goats or rams often marched along their lower legs.
Yatsenko points out that Greek accounts of the period stress that “barbarians” in Eurasia never went nude or even semi-nude in public, so most of these tattoos would probably have never been seen by others. Why endure the long and painful process of getting such dramatic tattoos if they were always covered? “I think they were for magical protection,” says Yatsenko, whose favorite Pazyryk tattoos are abstract designs found on the hands of a man who was probably a shaman. “Those tattoos were probably his spiritual weapons.”
President Donald Trump held a campaign rally-style event at the White House on Thursday to brag about deregulating everything, including dishwashers.
After declaring that various things are “like nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said that before his presidency people had to push the dishwasher button over and over and over again. Now, however, dishwashers have more water in them.
“We made it so dishwashers now have a lot more water, and in many places, in most places of the country, water is not a problem. It’s called rain,” Trump said.
Most of Texas, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, California and half of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Arizona and the Dakotas are in a drought according to the “U.S. Drought Monitor.”
He later revisited his resistance to water conservation by ranting against showerheads.
"Showerheads, you take a shower, the water doesn't come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn't come out. What do you do? Do you stand there longer or take a shower longer?" – the president on deregulation — Katie Rogers (@katierogers) July 16, 2020
In the past, the president has revealed that “people” must flush the toilet as much as ten times Emo Trump vs Toilets
Meanwhile, cases of COVID-19 have expanded and deaths are at nearly 140,000. See the video below: "We made it so dishwashers now have a lot more water, and in many places, in most places of the country, water is not a problem … it's called rain" – Trump is out here doing a "The Price is Right" episode and whining about wimpy lib faucets that don't have enough water pressure pic.twitter.com/3zDoAsKTlq — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 16, 2020
Donald Trump turns the White House into a rally venue again by posing under a Trump-branded crane to boast about 'deregulating' showers, dishwashers and lightbulbs and rant against Joe Biden claiming he will 'abolish the suburbs' Event staged on the South Lawn of the White House included a large crane and two Chevy pickup trucks Trump blasted regulations including those that govern shower-heads and dishwashers Claims people that do dishes run the machine three times 'You take a shower, the water does not come out' Also complained people run dishwashers three consecutive times Says he brought back 'old fashioned incandescent light bulbs' Said his plans will protect suburbs from being 'obliterated by Washington'
President Donald Trump held another campaign-style at the White House Thursday, where he touted efforts to slash regulations in areas ranging from clean water to fair housing – all staged under a crane bearing his name and holding giant weights.
As he extolled the benefits of regulatory cuts, Trump repeatedly attacked rival Joe Biden as he did at an hour-long event in the White House Rose Garden Wednesday, drawing howls from critics for the use of the taxpayer-funded building.
Thursday's event featured two new Chevy pickup trucks – one red, and one blue. A crane with a 'Trump Administration' banner had three weights suspended over the red truck, with three weights stacked in the blue truck in prop meant to illustrate the burden of regulation. President Donald J. Trump speaks during an event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 16 July 2020. It included two large Chevy trucks and a crane that said 'Trump Administration'
As he read through his remarks on a teleprompter, the president delivered one of his trademark riffs about poor water pressure, which he tied to regulatory issues.
He complained about the annoyance of poor water pressure in the home, only this time instead of focusing on toilets, as he has in the past, he spoke about showers and dishwashers.
'We are bringing back consumer choice in home appliances so that you can buy washers and dryers, shower-heads and faucets,' Trump said.
He complained about regulations intended to reduce water consumption.
REGULATED: About 200 attendees were seated in rows. There were two large bottles of hand sanitizer and a military band playing 'Georgia' and 'God Bless America'
Vice President Mike Pence waits of an event on regulatory reform to begin on the South Lawn of the White House, Thursday, July 16, 2020, in Washington IS MIKE PENCE INDICATING THAT HAND SANITIZER IS GOOD LUBE? President Donald Trump walks past weights and a crane after delivering remarks on Rolling Back Regulations to Help All Americans on the South Lawn at the White House on July 16, 2020 in Washington,DC The event featured about 200 people who clapped during the president's remarks
'My hair has to be perfect' says Trump
Trump blames destruction of suburban areas on Democrats
'So shower-heads, you take a shower, the water does not come out. You want to wash your hands, the water does not come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer? Because my hair, I don't know about you, but it has to be perfect,' Trump said, drawing laughs and a smattering of applause.
'Dishwashers, you didn't have any water, so you – the people that do the dishes, you press it and it goes again. And you do it again and again. So you might as well give them the water because you'll end up using less water. So we made it so dishwashers now have a lot more water and in many places, in most places of the country, water is not a problem. They don't know what to do with it. It's called rain.'
Trump also said he brought back 'old fashioned incandescent light bulbs.'
There was a regulatory push beginning in the George W. Bush administration to phase-out the 100-watt bulb and steer Americans toward energy efficient alternatives.
'I brought them back. They have two nice qualities: they're cheaper and they're better. They look better, they make you look so much better. That's important to all of us,' Trump said, blasting regulations that mandated compact fluorescent and LED bulbs.
As at Wednesday's event, Trump delivered slashing attacks on Biden, the 'green new deal,' 'socialist' Sen. Bernie Sanders, and radicals he said wanted to both take down and rename the Washington Monument.
He also delivered a pointed attack on Democrats regarding the suburbs – a political battleground where Trump has been hemorrhaging support among college-educated white women.
'They want to defund and abolish your police and law enforcement while at the same time destroying our great suburbs. The suburb destruction will end with us next week,' Trump claimed, following losses of GOP House seats in 2018 in the suburbs.
'I will be discussing the AFFH rule. The AFFH rule,' Trump stressed, pointing to a fair-housing regulation he called 'a disaster.'
'And our plans to protect the suburbs from being obliterated by Washington Democrats, by people on the far left that want to see the suburbs destroyed, that don’t care.'
'People have worked all their lives to get into a community and now they’re going to watch it go to hell. Not going to happen. Not while I’m here,' Trump said.
Trump said his administration eliminated '25,000 pages of job destroying regulations.'
Trump briefly tied regulations to the coronavirus that is ravaging the world, and is causing a spike in Florida that has his campaign scurrying to re-format his August convention.
'We have taken more than 740 actions to suspend regulations that would have slowed our response to the China virus,' Trump, said, using terminology that some term a slur.
Trump referred to the 'Biden-Bernie plan' to abolish cash bail. 'Think of that. Bail. No problem. They killed somebody - let 'em out,' Trump said, mischaracterizing proposals the two candidates proposed.
Cash bail systems allow some people to pay before trial, while those who can't get the money must remain incarcerated – but people accused of the most violent offenses are in many cases detained.
'They want to get rid of prison. They don't think anybody should go to prison,' Trump said.
Trump regularly tarred his opponents as 'socialists,' and cast them as in league with 'unelected bureaucrats that don't know what they're doing.'
Trump promised a 'very exciting eight weeks' of 'things that nobody has even contemplated, though about, thought possible.’
'Eight weeks, I think Mike we can honestly say nobody's ever going to see eight weeks like we're going to have,' Trump predicted.
Because we really have. We're taking on immigration. We're taking on education. We're taking on so many aspects of things that people were hopelessly tied up in knots in Congress … But you'll see levels of detail and you'll see levels of thought that a lot of people believed very strongly we didn't have in this country.
A New York Times analysis concludes the Trump Administration has reversed or revoked 68 environmental regulations to date.
They include Obama era regulations on emissions from power plants and rollbacks of carbon dioxide emissions from cars trucks.
Parked in front of the White House for the event were the two trucks. One had a banner that said '40 Years of Regulatory Burden.' The other had one saying '4 Years of Regulatory Freedom.'
Trump pledged to 'never return to the days of soul-crushing regulations.'
Trump wasn't shy about delivering direct attacks on Biden from the South Lawn of the White House.
'Our entire economy and our very way of life are threatened by the Biden plan to transform our nation,' he said.
He had an aesthetic complaint about Biden's call for zero-emissions from new homes and buildings.
'Destroying the look of the home, the beauty of the home.'
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany pushed back at complaints about using the White House for politicking when asked about Wednesday's event.
She was asked if there was 'any place in the White House where you think politics is inappropriate.'
'Where do you draw the line?' a reporter asked, pointing to Trump hosting a campaign team meeting in the Cabinet Room last month and then his Tuesday Rose Garden speech.
McEneny said the Hatch Act didn't apply to the president and vice president and then challenged the reporter who said he wasn't specifically asking about the legislation that limits federal employees from participating in political activities.
'What your real problem was was the fact that the president gave a very, good, powerful speech from the Rose Garden,' McEnany said, moving on to another question IF YOU ARE HAVING A MOMENT OF DEJA VU YOU ARE FORGIVEN.
Trump: Energy-efficient light bulbs make me look orange
The Lead 09/13/2019
During a speech in Baltimore, President Donald Trump went after environmental initiatives like eliminating plastic straws and energy-efficient light bulbs. CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports.
Dec 20, 2019 - Consumers have complained about the quality of light from some compact fluorescent bulbs, but the newer generation of “halogen incandescent” ...
Dec 20, 2019 - The Trump administration just overturned a ban on old-fashioned lightbulbs. The move, which could raise U.S. energy costs by $14 billion and ..
Dec 27, 2019 - Trump Administration Rolls Back LED Light Bulb Standards. “The bulbs do not last long enough for the energy savings to surpass the higher ...
Nov 7, 2019 - California and other states take aim at Trump's reversal of light bulb ... The phase-out of ordinary incandescent bulbs — those Edison-style ...
Apr 21, 2019 - President Trump's decision to impose tariffs on imported washing machines has had an odd effect: It raised prices on washing machines, ...
President Donald Trump’s White House tried to hold a rally to denounce regulations, using two large pick-up trucks, one red and one blue. The blue one was “weighed down” by the “regulations,” where the red one was not. The problem, however, is that the trucks looked exactly the same with and without the alleged “weight.”
On South Lawn, WH seeks to make a political point by setting up a crane lifting the weights of regulation from the bed of a "red" truck, while showing the burden of regulations weighing down a "blue" truck. pic.twitter.com/OoWmRPnWum — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) July 16, 2020
The failure by the White House to properly illustrate their point was another point of humor for those watching on Twitter. It served as a metaphor for a president who can’t even tell the difference between a success or a failure.
Meanwhile, the country was reaching 140,000 dead Americans due to the coronavirus.
See the comments below:
And an overview of our PPE shortage — Eric Barnes (@ericcbarnes) July 16, 2020
Not accurate until the red truck burst into flame, spewing toxic smoke into the air while being being towed through the nearest park by Vladimir Putin, running over Americas while Trump and the Republicans rob the corpses of the victims. — Robbie "Always In Quarantine" Wallis (@Robbie_Wallis1) July 16, 202
Not accurate until the red truck burst into flame, spewing toxic smoke into the air while being being towed through the nearest park by Vladimir Putin, running over Americas while Trump and the Republicans rob the corpses of the victims. — Robbie "Always In Quarantine" Wallis (@Robbie_Wallis1) July 16, 202
Because why should we tell companies they can't use lead and arsenic in everything. /s — GeekGirlForever (@scifichick25) July 16, 2020
I’d respect him more if he just said “I like trucks. Here are some trucks I like.” — James Felton (@JimMFelton) July 16, 2020
Trump wanted to play with trucks. This is a shitshow of epic proportions all while ignoring the pandemic that destroyed the economy. Trump's idea of lifting regulations is to shift the burdens of pollution on to those unable to protect themselves so millionaires like Trump profit — lawhawk #maskingforafriend (@lawhawk) July 16, 2020
This addresses the Covid pandemic how exactly? — katieRN (@katieRN) July 16, 2020
(Trump earlier in the day, playing with Tonka Trucks in the Oval Office) "I like Trucks. I want Trucks in the Rose Garden today! Let's say a Red Truck and a Blue Truck. And a Crane! HONK HONK!" — Trumpy Trumpy (parody) (@outofcontroljb) July 16, 2020
There is actually a story about toy trucks in Mary Trumps book. You should give it a read .
Not joking btw. There is actually a story about how Donald used to torment his younger brother by hiding his favorite toy truck. — Cole Neuman
Did my tax dollars pay for this? 'Cause I swear this looks like a campaign ad to me. — Kate Eads (@KateEads) July 16, 2020
WTF??? He can’t even make the point he’s trying to make. Everything about this is absurd. Trucks? Is he selling them too? — Voodoo Trump (@BestTrumpVoodoo) July 16, 2020
For this to be accurate, the crane needs to replace the weights of regulation on the "red" truck with 137,000 dead bodies. #PressBriefing — Social✽Fly (Gov Cuomo's #StayAtHome Girlfriend) (@socflyny) July 16, 2020
Geezus this is embarrassing and unprofessional and insane and just reeks of desperation and ineptitude. — Ashlie Weeks (@ashlie_weeks) July 16, 2020
Wow in the middle of a pandemic. And if it were accurate, the red truck would be Russian, on fire, full of holes, with a cargo of vials of fatal diseases, all about to explode, and the driver would not survive. — Professor Wolfenstein
His base doesn’t understand that the regulations are in place to protect workers and consumers. Deregulation saves corporations money, doesn’t create more jobs or higher pay, just makes the rest of us less safe and less healthy. — Tons of Collusion & Obstruction (@VoteBlue_2020) July 16, 2020
Is this why Trump has been ignoring Russia's bounties on U.S. troops? Because he's playing with trucks outside in the White House sandbox? https://t.co/Gkzyqo8iGL — VoteVets (@votevets) July 16, 2020
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(@SylvrewolfeP)