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Friday, April 05, 2019

Trump Says Solar Power Causes Skin Cancer

AP -- After being ridiculed for claiming that wind turbines causes cancer, President Donald Trump doubled down on his campaign against renewable energy. In Florida for the 165th golf trip of his presidency, the president sported a red MAGA golf hat while doing doughnuts on the greens in his souped-up golf cart.

While the president stopped to rest during the 20-foot walk from his golf cart across the sand hazard at the 13th tee, where his gold-plated golf ball rolled after a bad toss by his caddie, who had fished it out of the water hazard, he took questions from reporters.

"There's no question about it, solar power is very, very, very dangerous," Mr. Trump said, panting from exertion. "I can tell you from very, very personal experience how very, very dangerous the sun is. Just look at my skin. Look how very, very orange the sun has made it. I've been hearing that the sun emits very, very dangerous ultra-violent radiation that causes cancer. So that proves that solar power causes skin cancer.

"My very, very intelligent uncle was a physi-, fizzle- -- very, very smart man with great -- great! genes -- Einstein level genius -- you know, he invented X rays! -- told me if that socialist Green New Deal went through 400 million Americans will die every year from skin cancer.

"He told me that carbon dioxide and soot and ozone and sulfur dioxide from burning coal and gasoline forms a very, very protective layer in the atmosphere that prevents all that ultra-violent radiation from giving us skin cancer.

"The smartest people are saying that if climate change is real -- which it isn't, it's all a hoax that AOC -- who sucks very, very hard -- I should know how hard she sucks, I'm from New York too -- it's a hoax she started in 1985, the same year my genius uncle died -- he was born in Germany in the same town as Einstein, on the same, in the same hospital -- if climate change is real, then we'll have to use geoengineering and put more of that stuff in the air. So burning coal will stop climate change -- which isn't happening! -- and prevent skin cancer!"

In non-fake news, a judge in Arizona ruled that the Central Arizona Project (which buys millions of megawatt hours of electricity to power irrigation pumps) could stop buying power from a coal-fired power plant, which the owners had decided to close because natural gas and renewable energy were far cheaper.

To wit: Idaho Power announced that it would be buying power from a solar farm for 2.2 cents a kilowatt hour. This was part of Idaho Power's announcement that they would switch to 100 percent clean energy within 25 years, relying totally on wind, solar and hydro power.

Note that Trump won the popular vote in Idaho by 59% to Clinton's 27%. Conservative Idaho, often associated with white separatists and survivalists, is not buying Trump's campaign against renewables. Also note that the four of the top five states in wind power production voted for Trump in 2016: Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas.

I don't get it. Most conservatives don't buy Trump's lies on energy production. Most don't buy his lies on closing the Mexican border. Conservative business owners need more workers than they can find, especially in construction and farming. There are thousands of workers eager to come here from Mexico and Central America. Most conservatives don't like his trade policies, with all the punitive tariffs that Americans are paying -- not China, and the retributive tariffs that are literally driving American farmers into bankruptcy.

Why does anyone like this guy?

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