Tornado Alley Is MOVING and That's a HUGE Problem

[Uncle Joe]

The United States is the tornado capital of the world, but the "Tornado Alley" we all grew up learning about is changing. While frequency is dropping in the Great Plains, a new, much deadlier threat is rising somewhere else...

In this episode, we travel to Wingo, Kentucky, to meet a survivor of the deadliest December tornado on record in the US and speak with atmospheric scientists Victor Gensini and Stephen Strader. We explore why America’s unique geography creates these storms, the atmospheric "cap" that is shifting the risk, and why this new "Tornado Alley" is significantly more dangerous than the original.

[Bluestocking]

1. Not a problem if you live in the Great Plains

[Uncle Joe]

2. I hear you, but I'm also thinking those same changing climate dynamics

mentioned in the OP will likely increase drought throughout the Great Plains states.

[Bluestocking]

3. Since the Great Plains are red States

they don’t need to worry since they don’t believe climate change is real.

Sorry but I can’t feel sorry for these people. Al Gore would have set us on the right track and Hilary and Kamala would have continued it. Think about it, We would all be driving electric cars, have solar panels on our houses. We would have national health care. There would be no debt crisis. No 911. No wars in the Middle East and we no longer would be dependent on middle eastern oil. COVID would not have killed a million Americans. The CDC had scientists in Wuhan 6 months before COVID started but Trump removed them before COVID hit.

Dumb red Americans did this to us.

[Uncle Joe]

4. There is only the United States. I don't view states as red or blue

that's just succumbing to oligarch divide and conquer marketing strategy as hundreds of thousands if not millions of the opposing political view live in the same state.

Above that my empathy for anyone isn't based on when or if they become aware, we all learn at different stages.

I also don't think anyone is immune to being brainwashed given the right circumstances.

[HighFired49]

5. Thank you, Uncle Joe

from a true blue voter in Oklahoma! It's rather small minded to think that everyone in the red states are Republicans, especially in looking at their percentages of votes by party. Gets a bit old being lumped in with people for which I have very little affinity.

[DemocracyForever]

6. So did the GOP controlled SCOTUS

The GOP controlled SCOTUS's unconstitutional Bush vs Gore ruling in 2000 started this nightmare.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. The climate crisis did not start in 2000

https://lsupress.org/9780807181904/the-presidents-and-the-planet/

The Presidents and the Planet
Climate Change Science and Politics from Eisenhower to Bush
by Jay Hakes

…

Winner of the PROSE Award for Physical Sciences and Mathematics: Environmental Science

The Presidents and the Planet recounts the story of the world’s greatest environmental dilemma through the eyes of early climate change pioneers. It begins in the 1950s, when American scientists first warned about the risks of pollution altering the natural climate in dramatic ways, the national media began covering the matter, and experts first offered testimony to congressional committees on the topic. The story ends in the early 1990s, by which time global efforts to confront the challenge were advancing, while political turmoil had begun to undermine U.S. leadership’s ability to address current and future environmental threats.

While some early proponents endorsing climate action are well known, many of the major players have gone largely unrecognized. The oceanographer Roger Revelle exerted influence on eight White Houses during his life and even one after his death, when his former student Al Gore assumed the office of vice president. William Nordhaus had already written seminal studies on climate change when President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the Council of Economic Advisors. Four decades later, the Yale professor won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on the subject. John Chafee, a Republican from Rhode Island, chaired the Senate’s first committee on the problem and provided concrete solutions to face the dangers of a warming planet during the Reagan administration. The drama reached a full pitch during the George H. W. Bush years, as vocal advocates for climate action and staunch foes of government regulation wrestled over the direction of U.S. energy and environmental policy.

To better trace the evolving climate debate in America, author Jay Hakes inspected the archives and writings of prominent scientists and the pivotal reports of the National Academy of Sciences, and traveled to presidential libraries to discover how commanders-in-chief and their science, economic, and political advisors addressed the issue. The Presidents and the Planet affords fresh perspectives that will alter the public’s understanding of when officials first grasped the dire consequences of climate change.

…

[DemocracyForever]

8. I wasn't referring to the climate crisis

I was referring to the dictatorship trajectory the Bush vs Gore ruling put our country on with one of the tragic consequences being the failure of our country to address the great threat of human caused climate change. My father was an engineer who well understood the threat of human caused climate change and the need to stop burning the planet killing fossil fuel. This issue was part of my childhood. Tornado Alley moving eastward into more heavily populated areas is another of the tragic consequences of our country failing to address human caused climate change. We now have a climate change denying dictator lunatic in the White House who was bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry .and whose rise and election stealing roadmap was created by the Bush vs Gore ruling in 2000.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Regarding Bush -v- Gore

The first point to keep in mind is that were it not for such a close election, it would not have come down to looking for a few more votes in Florida. I backed Gore (over Clinton) in 1992. Gore lost in the primaries. (He wasn’t a strong candidate.)

Florida was so close, the “Butterfly Ballot” (designed by a Democrat) and used in just one county, probably was responsible for tipping the scales.

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/butterfly-did-it-aberrant-vote-buchanan-palm-beach-county-florida

We show that the butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the 2000 presidential election caused more than 2,000 Democratic voters to vote by mistake for Reform candidate Pat Buchanan, a number larger than George W. Bush’s certified margin of victory in Florida. …

When (thanks to the “Butterfly Ballot”) Florida was too close to call, the idea came up of recounting votes. However, rather than recount the entire state, Gore’s advisors suggested recounting just a few, heavily Democratic counties (thinking that “extra” votes might be easiest to pick up there.) The Bush team cried “foul!” (I can’t blame them.)

The Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether it was acceptable to count just a few counties. There weren’t even uniform standards for the recounts. (I remember watching the coverage of the recounts, with reporters explaining how the various counties were doing the recount.) While I didn’t like the end result of the Supreme Court's ruling, It’s difficult for me to take issue with it. They said (in essence) all votes are equal, and (here’s the kicker) there isn’t enough time to do a proper recount of the whole state. (Which, I’m afraid, was true.)

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/531/98/

…

Held: Because it is evident that any recount seeking to meet 3 U. S. C. § 5's December 12 "safe-harbor" date would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause, the Florida Supreme Court's judgment ordering manual recounts is reversed. The Clause's requirements apply to the manner in which the voting franchise is exercised. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, Florida may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another. See, e. g., Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U. S. 663, 665. The recount mechanisms implemented in response to the state court's decision do not satisfy the minimum requirement for nonarbitrary treatment of voters. The record shows that the standards for accepting or rejecting contested ballots might vary not only from county to county but indeed within a single county from one recount team to another. In addition, the recounts in three counties were not limited to so-called undervotes but extended to all of the ballots. Furthermore, the actual process by which the votes were to be counted raises further concerns because the court's order did not specify who would recount the ballots. Where, as here, a court orders a statewide remedy, there must be at least some assurance that the rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied. The State has not shown that its procedures include the necessary safeguards. Upon due consideration of the difficulties identified to this point, it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance

…

Ironically, had they not ruled as they did, allowing the recounts to proceed as the Gore team wanted, Gore likely would have lost. On the other hand, had the Bush request for a uniform recount of the entire state proceeded Gore may have won.

https://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000/

…

According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida’s highest court.

Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Al Gore asked for, the study found.

On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide. However, Gore never asked for such a recount. The Florida Supreme Court ordered only a recount of so-called "undervotes," about 62,000 ballots where voting machines didn’t detect any vote for a presidential candidate.

…

[DemocracyForever]

10. I spent years in Florida working on election campaigns there

and working under the election laws that were actually on the books in Florida in 2000. For starters, Al Gore did not run in the Presidential primaries in1992. 2ndly, Palm Beach County election supervisor Theresa LaPore only ran as a democrat because Palm Beach County so overwhelmingly voted for democrats. BTW, her father was a republican and she had a 2nd job as a flight attendant while she was the Palm Beach County election supervisor working for Adnan Khashoggi, a long time and very large campaign donor to the Bush family. Beyond this is the fact that the "butterfly ballot" violated Florida ballot design law at every turn. You would think that someone who'd worked for the Palm Beach county elections department for 25 years would've known what Florida ballot design law actually was but the illegal ballot design she used clearly proved that she had no idea what Florida ballot design law actually was. Lets set the butterfly ballot issue aside.
"The Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether it was acceptable to count just a few counties. There weren’t even uniform standards for the recounts. (I remember watching the coverage of the recounts, with reporters explaining how the various counties were doing the recount.) While I didn’t like the end result of the Supreme Court's ruling, It’s difficult for me to take issue with it. They said (in essence) all votes are equal, and (here’s the kicker) there isn’t enough time to do a proper recount of the whole state. (Which, I’m afraid, was true.)" There are numerous factual problems with your claims in this paragraph. For starters it was Bush who ran to his father's cronies on the SCOTUS because he was a coward who could not accept the Florida Supreme Court's ruling to count the uncounted Florida votes. In addition, the U.S. constitution gives the elected U.S. House of Representatives the authority to settle a disputed Presidential election, not 5 highly partisan, unelected Republican SCOTUS judges. In addition, the U.S. constitution gives the states the authority to run elections which is what the state of Florida was doing in 2000, not 5 unelected highly partisan SCOTUS judges. These 2 po0ints alone make the Bush vs Gore ruling unconstitutional.
It's clear to me that the 5 GOP SCOTUS judges who stopped the legal Florida vote count had no idea what Florida election law in 2000 actually was. For starters, the election laws on the books in Florida in 2000 were passed in the aftermath of the 1876 Presidential election that Florida was also at the center of. In 1876 the Florida statewide canvassing board was controlled by the GOP as it was in 2000. Unlike 2000, in 1876 the votes were counted in Tallahassee. The GOP canvassing board had a very wide latitude for throwing out votes and this GOP controlled canvassing board threw out the votes of 1,800 democrats which was enough votes to change the outcome of the 1876 election. In the aftermath of the 1876 election, the Florida legislature passed laws requiring that all votes where the intent of the voter is clear be counted so that never again would such votes be thrown outon a partisan basis as they were in 1876.. This is a very clear standard and it was the same standard signed into law by Bush when he was Governor of Texas a few years before 2000. BTW, the intent of the voter is the standard that most states use to count the votes. Talk about hypocrisy by Bush and the GOP controlled SCOTUS! In its book "Democracy held hostage", the Miami Herald showed a picture of dimpled chad and finally admitted that the voter's intent was clear. The media was absolutely clueless about actual Florida election law and it showed throughout the coverage. BTW, during the legal proceedings in Palm Beach County, a Palm Beach county punch card voting machine was opened and it was clearly plugged up with chad because it had not been properly cleaned out as required by Florida law before the election. This happened in all of the counties that used the punch card voting machines. They were also the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties in Florida, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. The new law further required that the counties would now count the votes instead of the votes being counted in Tallahassee. Under the new law, candidates running statewide would have the right to challenge vote counts that they disagreed with at the county level. There was no more statewide counting of votes. The Gore campaign followed this actual Florida election law to the letter. and filed vote count challenges in the counties with the most uncounted votes. It turned out that these counties were the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties in Florida. The Bush campaign had the same right to file vote count challenges in any Florida counties where they disagreed with the vote counts. The Bush campaign chose not to file any county vote count challenges because they knew that the uncounted votes were located in the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties in Florida. The Bush campaign knew that counting the uncounted votes in these heavily democratic voting counties meant victory for Al Gore ., This is why Jeb and Harris refused to count the votes that the law required be counted by trying to run out the clock and then they went running to the GOP SCOTUS majority to seal their election theft. The Florida Supreme Court correctly called this out and added back the time that Jeb and Harris had wasted. The GOP controlled SCOTUS ruling to stop the legal vote count showed that they had no idea what Florida 2000 election law actually was or why it existed in the form that it did.
The Bush vs Gore ruling shredded the 14th amendment's equal protection clause because the votes not counted were the votes of democrats. Further proof of this is the fact that there were 10,000 absentee ballots located in the most heavily republican voting counties in Florida that the counting machines could not read that were in fact hand duplicated and counted. These ballots favored Bush by more than 2 to 1.The only media reporting of this fact can be found in a 5/7/2001 article by the Orlando Sentinel, "Mangled ballots resurrected". These GOP ballots are in the Jeb/Harris bogus vote total and are what made it possible for Bush to steal the election. Florida election law in 2000 allowed for the hand duplication and counting of ballots that the counting machines couldn't read but that showed voter intent when the ballot was examined by people. The counties were required to keep strict logs of every ballot that was counted in this way. This law applied to all ballots that the counting machines couldn't read and not just absentee ballots in heavily republican voting counties.
It's also important to remember that the media lied about the outcome of the 2000 election with their alleged vote count in 2001.They did so by inventing vote counting scenarios that did not actually exist in Florida election law. This was done so they could write a headline that invented a Bush win. Buried deep within the actual articles was the fact that when all of the votes are counted, Al Gore got the most votes. It's also important to remember that the uncounted votes are located in the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties in Florida. I used to live in south Florida so I know this area well. Bush's odds in this part of Florida were nil at best. By stopping the legal Florida vote count the GOP controlled SCOTUS insured that all GOP votes were counted while blocking the counting of 160,000 votes located in the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties. That's a blatant violation of the equal protection clause. The GOP controlled SCOTUS also let Jeb and Harris get away with running out the clock despite the fact that Hawaii did not submit it's electors slate until January 1961 which was well past the SCOTUS artificial 'safe harbor" deadline.
In conclusion, please don't think that you know more about the 2000 election in Florida. I actually lived there. What the GOP controlled SCOTUS did was to issue an unconstitutional ruling that robbed our country of having a President who well understood the threat of climate change and put our country on the path to dictatorship. There would be no Trump today withought the unconstitutional Bush vs Gore ruling. Our country will never be the same.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. 50 States voted in 2000

If Gore had taken enough other states, the SNAFU in Florida would have been a footnote. The Supreme Court of the US would have played no role in the election.



Something like this:

[DemocracyForever]

12. You sound like a Nader apologist

You've made no mention of the crucial role Nader played in 2000 with his big "no differences" lie and the $5million GOP financed tv ad campaign that Nader ran in crucial battleground states like Florida that siphoned off enough votes from Al Gore for Bush to be able to get close enough in Florida for the Jeb/Harris/GOP controlled SCOTUS cabal to steal the election.. You also don't understand that the U.S. constitution does not give the SCOTUS role in Presidential elections. You also did not acknowledge all of the points in my previous post that exposed your lack of knowledge about Florida election law. In conclusion, you don't understand that had the U.S. constitution and Florida election law been followed as required, Bush would not have been able to steal the election in Florida. The Bush election theft roadmap is now the election theft roadmap that Trump is now following. The bottom line is that you've never worked on a Florida election campaign so you have no idea what happened there. In contrast, I spent years working on Florida election campaigns so I know exactly what happened there in 2000. Please don't think you know more about what happened in Florida in 2000 than I do. You don't and you never will. Our country has suffered terribly because of the Bush campaign's all-out assault on American democracy in Florida in 2000. It's time for you to come to grips with this ugly truth. Our country would've taken important steps towards dealing with the threat of human caused climate change had the will of the people been allowed to prevail in 2000.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. I'm no Nader apologist

My brother voted for Nader (his vote did not give New York to Bush) but I told him that a vote for Nader was essentially a vote for Bush, but you see, that was an indicator of Gore’s weakness as a candidate (there’s no way my brother would have ever voted for either Bush and yet he voted for Nader, and blamed the Supreme Court for “electing Bush.”)

These are the simple facts. 50 States voted, Gore did not carry enough of them. One of the states he lost, by a very narrow margin was Florida. We can point to several different factors which may have contributed to his loss nationwide (like him "running away from Clinton.”) Personally, I think his advisers should have “Let Gore be Gore.” (After the election, when he spoke out against the actions of the Bush administration, he showed more “fire in the belly” than he ever had during the campaign.)

Eight years earlier, Bill Clinton also lost in Florida, and yet, still beat the incumbent President (who, in my estimation was a stronger candidate than his son.) That year, Ross Perot was a much more successful candidate than Nader was in 2000, taking almost 20% of the vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot_1992_presidential_campaign#Analysis

A 1999 study in the American Journal of Political Science estimated that Perot's candidacy hurt the Clinton campaign, reducing "Clinton's margin of victory over Bush by seven percentage points." In 2016, FiveThirtyEight described the speculation that Perot was a spoiler as "unlikely".

[DemocracyForever]

14. Stop blaming Gore for Bush 2000 election theft!

Your continued blaming of Al Gore for the Bush campaign's all-out assault on American democracy in Florida and theft of the 2000 Presidential election that was rubberstamped by the anti-democracy GOP controlled SCOTUS with its unconstitutional ruling is unacceptable. The actual facts are not on your side. Despite the fact that you've never lived in Florida and worked on election campaigns in Florida you continue to think that you know more about Florida than people like me who actually lived in Florida and worked on campaigns there. Your posts continue to indicate to me that you have no idea about what happened in Florida or Florida election law in 2000.

You seem to be perfectly fine with 160,000 legal votes located in the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties in Florida not being counted. Your latest post again makes only the vaguest mention of 2000 because you really have no clue to what actually happened there. You also continue to fail to mention that Al Gore got the most votes nationally so he was in fact the choice of the people. The electoral college is clearly an anti-democracy relic that helped to thwart the will of the people. You think it's perfectly ok for 5 unelected, highly partisan GOP SCOTUS judges to shred the U.S. constitution and Florida election law in order to install their personally preferred candidate in the White House. Your attitude is why our country is now on the verge of becoming a Nazi dictatorship.

Unlike you, in 1992, I was actually living in Florida and worked on the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign in Florida. It was very close. I think the difference was that south of Miami had been seriously damaged by hurricane Andrew and the Clinton/Gore campaign did not want to campaign in south Florida because of the extensive hurricane damage. South Florida was the democratic stronghold. Had there been no hurricane Andrew south of Miami, I think the result would've been different. Florida in 1992 also forced Bush Sr to spend way more money trying to hold on to Florida which prevented him from having a larger presence on other battleground states and that gave the Clinton/Gore ticket a big advantage.

BTW, In 1996 the Clinton/Gore ticket did win Florida. Because of this in 1999 and 2000, the Jeb/Harris cabal illegally removed more than 50,000 legally registered mostly African American democrats from Florida's voting roles by wrongly identifying them as felons with their now infamous "felon purge". Jeb/Harris did this in order to reduce the number of democrats eligible to vote on election day 2000. Jeb/Harris did this knowing full well that African Americans vote overwhelmingly for democrats. In addition, Jeb Bush made numerous very public threats that he would carry Florida for his brother and that's exactly what he did using illegal means.

In conclusion, it's beyond all reasonable doubt that Al Gore did in fact get the most votes in Florida and is the rightful winner of the 2000 election. It took 5 unelected, highly partisan GOP SCOTUS judges in an anti-democracy, unconstitutional power grab to thwart the will of the people to keep Al Gore out of the White House. Because of it, our country is now failing miserably to address the serious threat of human caused climate change. It's time for you to take your head out of the sand and face the ugly truth of what happened in Florida in 2000 and the catastrophic consequences of what the anti-democracy Bush campaign and the anti-democracy GOP controlled SCOTUS has done to our country.

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. I give up. We was robbed!

(Just like our current president swears the 2020 election was stolen by Biden.)

Regardless, the road to climate ruin started far earlier than 2000.

[DemocracyForever]

16. You think not counting 160,000 votes is ok?

Can you explain to me in what universe it's ok to not count 160,000 votes? Your claim that 2000 is like Trump's false claim about 2020 puts on full display that you have no idea what happened in Florida in 2000. I've provided you with solid facts about the illegal behavior of both the Bush campaign and the GOP controlled SCOTUS and you still don't get it.

Can you please explain to me how it's possible for someone like you who's clearly never worked on an election campaign in Florida can possibly know more about Florida election campaigns than someone like me who spent years working on election campaigns in Florida?

You also don't understand that the political will to address the threat of human caused climate change was destroyed in 2000. BTW, my engineer father was warning about the threat of human caused climate change in the 1970s. Where were you?

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. We wuz Robbed!

One wonders how the forces of darkness who successfully prevented Gore from taking office allowed a black man to be elected just eight years later, and how they failed to get his orange faced successor re-elected in 2020. I suppose it is because, unlike Bush, he did not have a sympathetic supreme court.


As for whether there was a wind shift against the climate starting in 2,000: Even with Al Gore as his VP, Clinton was no climate champion. ‘W’ actually appointed a Cabinet Committee on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration. They brought in the National Academy of Sciences to advise them. On June 11, 2001, he gave an address, based (in large part) on the report from the National Academy of Sciences, where he made it clear that Climate Change was a global threat, that needed a global response.

❝The issue of climate change respects no border. Its effects cannot be reined in by an army nor advanced by any ideology. Climate change, with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world.❞

He also maintained his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, and did his best to emphasize any and all uncertainties in the science, but, for a man who ran as a climate skeptic, that was quite a statement. His eight years in office were (at best) a “mixed bag," certainly not good for the climate, but compared to the current administration… or (God Forbid) the Reagan administration well… Let’s just say, “It could have been much worse."

Had Gore been elected in 2,000, he likely wouldn’t have made An Inconvenient Truth, which, to me was one of the most successful efforts made to educate people and shift their thinking about the climate (short lived a shift as it was.)


So, did Tornado Alley up and move in response to the election of George W. Bush? No. The shift was already in motion by the mid-80’s.

Coleman, T. A., R. L. Thompson, and G. S. Forbes, 2024: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Spatial and Seasonal Shifts in Tornado Activity in the United States. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 63, 717–730, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-23-0143.1.

[DemocracyForever]

18. You can't handle the truth

You don't answer my questions because you don't have an answer. Once again you refuse to answer my question of whether or not you approve of 160,000 legal Florida votes not being counted in 2000. I'm still waiting for your answer. Obama was elected because the GOP controlled SCOTUS appointed Bush was such an epic disaster as in ignoring 9/11 attack warnings, Iraq disaster, big tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, the epic economic meltdown of 2008 that nearly collapsed our country's economy, letting the majority black population city of New Orleans drown in hurricane Katrina, appointment of anti-democracy, anti-women, anti-environment extremist GOP SCOTUS judges Roberts who btw was a Brooks Brothers rioter and Alito, waged war against women's rights and did pretty much nothing on the threat of climate change. In contrast, you attack both Clinton and Gore. Their administration was the 1st administration to really begin to raise the awareness of the general public about the threat of human caused climate change. They actually did a lot. I suggest you read President Clinton's autobiography "My Life" to read about it.

Your efforts to wrongly portray the GOP controlled SCOTUS appointed Bush as pro environment falls flat. The fossil fuel industry contributed large amounts of money to Bush and he certainly rewarded them for their efforts. Al Gore repeatedly and very publicly criticized Bush on the environment during Bush's anti-democracy, unconstitutional occupation of the White House. You're clueless about this as well.

Your attacks on both Clinton and Gore are nothing but an effort by you to distract from the ugly truth about the 2000 Presidential election in Florida. Your posts make it obvious that you have no experience working on election campaigns in Florida. You also make it clear that you have no interest in facing the ugly truth about the Bush campaign's all-out assault on American democracy in Florida in 2000 that was then rubberstamped by the GOP controlled SCOTUS. You also fail to understand that the Bush 2000 Presidential election theft provided the roadmap for Trump's election stealing efforts. It's time you wake up to this.

You again fail to understand what a watershed moment Bush's theft of the 2000 election in Florida was in preventing our country from beginning to seriously address the threat of human caused climate change. You also have no Florida election campaign experience but you think you know more about what happened there than the people in Florida like me who actually worked on Florida election campaigns. You also seem to be trying to pass yourself off as some kind of climate change expert. You'll never know more about the threat of human caused climate change than my engineer father knew about it. One of the biggest reasons I so strongly supported Al Gore in 2000 was because of this issue of human caused climate change. It's time for you to come in from your alternate universe and face the ugly truth that you're no expert on Florida elections or the threat of human caused climate change.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. I'm sorry, I've dealt with "conspiracy theories" most of my life

There are complex conspiracies (take “The Manhattan Project” for example) however, for the most part, “Occam's razor” wins out.

[DemocracyForever]

20. You've never worked on a Florida election campaign

which you make obvious with your lack of knowledge of the facts about what actually happened in Florida in 2000. Your disrespect for anyone who actually worked on Florida election campaigns like I have is highly offensive.

For the record, these are the following well documented facts about Bush/Florida 2000;

1. 160,000 legally cast ballots located in the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties in Florida not counted.

2. More than 50,000 legally registered mostly African-American democrats illegally removed from Florida's voting rolls before election day 2000 by the illegal Jeb/Harris "felon purge" that wrongly identified these voters as felons when thy in fact were not felons. This story was first broken a couple of days after election day 2000 by well respected investigative reporter Greg Palast.

3. on 5/7/2001, the Orlando Sentinel reports the fact that 10,000 absentee ballots that the counting machines could not read that are located in the most heavily republican voting counties in Florida were in fact hand duplicated and counted as allowed by Florida election law which allowed for the hand duplication and counting of any ballots regardless of political party that the counting machines could not read. These mostly republican absentee ballots favored Bush by more than 2 to 1 and are what made it possible for Bush to steal the election.

4. The GOP controlled SCOTUS Bush vs Gore ruling is unconstitutional because the U.S. constitution gives the elected U.S. House of Representatives the authority to settle a disputed Presidential election, not 5 highly partisan and unelected GOP SCOTUS judges. The U.S. constitution gives the states the authority to conduct the elections which is what the state of Florida was doing in 2000. Furthermore, the GOP controlled SCOTUS shredded the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment by stopping the legal Florida vote count because the uncounted votes were located in the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties. The counting of republican votes while not counting enough votes of democrats to change the outcome of the election which is what the Bush vs Gore ruling actually did, blatantly violates the 14th amendments equal protection clause. I suggest you review the U.S. constitution to understand these actual facts.

5. it's also a fact that many of the GOP SCOTUS judges who stopped the legal Florida vote count had significant conflicts of interest that destroyed their impartiality to the point that had they been lower court judges, they would've been forced to recuse themselves. Specifically, Judge Scalia's son worked for 1 of the law firms that Bush had hired to help him stop the legal Florida vote count. Judge Thomas's wife Ginny worked on the Bush campaign, Judge Rehnquist had a bias against Al Gore because when Rehnquist worked in the Nixon administration, his job was to get Nixon SCOTUS nominees confirmed by the U.S. Senate which brought .him into direct conflict with Senator Al Gore Sr. who strongly opposed Nixon SCOTUS appointees. Let's also not forget the very well documented election night comments of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor who was widely reported by many witnesses to have said, "that's terrible" when the networks first called Florida for Al Gore an it looked then like he would be the next President.

In conclusion, this is only a fraction of what the Bush campaign and it's GOP controlled SCOTUS actually did in Florida in 2000 to kill American democracy. Everything I've written are all well documented facts. It's long past time for you to take you head out of the sand and face the ugly truth about what happened in Florida in 2000. Our country suffers so terribly today and will likely not address the threat of human caused climate change in time because of it. You also need to learn to respect people who have years of election campaign experience in Florida where you've never lived or worked on an election campaign in.