The Daily Moth 11-27-19
Bomb cyclone, winter storms to impact the United States | Top four Dems for 2020 are Biden, Buttigeig, Warren, and Sanders | President Trump wants to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations | Gallaudet men’s basketball to play on ESPN3 tonight vs UVM | Reactions to robot police story
[Transcript] Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Wednesday, November 27. Ready for news?
———
Bomb cyclone, winter storms to impact the United States
Large parts of the United States was hit with winter storms that brought snow, rain, and strong winds today, affecting millions of people’s Thanksgiving travel plans.
The Weather Channel said there is a bomb cyclone on the West coast and said the storm system would slowly spread towards the central and eastern United States into this weekend.
In Northern California, heavy snow and downed trees caused blackouts.
CNN reported that there are over 200,000 people without power in California, Indiana, Michigan (not here, obviously), Wisconsin, and Kentucky.
High-altitude parts of Colorado and Wyoming got up to 30 inches of snow.
The Twin Cities is forecast to get 10 to 15 inches of snow.
The Great Lakes region will get heavy rain, snow, and strong winds.
New England will be impacted by a coastal storm that will bring a wintry mix of rain, wind, and snow.
AAA estimates that 55 million Americans will travel for the holiday, and if you’re one of them, check out the weather forecast and prepare for flight cancellations or heavy traffic.
https://weather.com/storms/winter/news/2019-11-25-snow-rain-wind-california-west-plains-forecast-thanksgiving-week
https://www.axios.com/thanksgiving-storms-travel-c99fe3bc-5f62-4220-bd23-00ef64758fd5.html
https://www.newsweek.com/thanksgiving-travel-update-winter-storms-forecast-california-northeast-midwest-central-1473875
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/thanksgiving-travel-weather-2019/index.html
———
Top four Dems for 2020 are Biden, Buttigeig, Warren, and Sanders
Two polls of Democratic candidates for 2020 showed that the top four are Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The latest Quinnipiac University nationwide poll had Biden at 24%, Buttigieg at 16%, Warren at 14%, and Sanders at 13%.
The second poll is by Emerson Polling of likely voters in New Hampshire. Sanders had 26%, Buttigieg had 22%, Biden had 14%, and Warren had 14%.
So we see that Biden has maintained his frontrunner status, Buttigieg has surged from someone who was unknown to a serious contender, Warren is falling behind, and Sanders is up and down.
Analysts say Warren has fallen behind because of criticism of her “Medicare for All” plan that would do away with private health insurance and cost at least $20 trillion over the next 10 years.
Biden doesn’t seem to be hurt by the attacks from President Trump over his son’s former work in Ukraine that is a part of what sparked the impeachment inquiry.
It is not a surprise that Sanders is strong in New Hampshire as he is from Vermont. His challenge is courting voters nationwide.
Buttigieg seems to appeal to voters because of his moderate political views, his youthfulness, and his military service. He is openly gay. But he has faced criticism from black voters on his leadership as mayor in South Bend and media reports say he has struggled to build trust with African American communities.
The first nominating contest is in 10 weeks — the Iowa caucuses on Monday, February 3. The next contest is the New Hampshire primary on February 11.
President Donald Trump is very popular among Republican voters and is expected to easily defeat former Illinois U.S. representative Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld in Iowa and New Hampshire. At least five states’ Republican parties have decided to not even hold elections and allow Trump to walk.
But, Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry in the House, although it is unlikely the Senate would vote to convict him. His biggest challenge will be the general election in November 2020.
https://www.axios.com/2020-polls-top-democrats-ahead-warren-slips-5affaf00-f88b-478f-9881-ff7af16e7531.html
https://news.yahoo.com/buttigieg-claims-2nd-warren-sinks-us-2020-poll-213929575.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/10/pete-buttigieg-moderate-iowa-caucus
https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2019-11-27/the-troubling-numbers-behind-buttigiegs-bounce
———
President Trump wants to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations
President Trump said in an interview with Bill O’Reilly last night that he plans to designate Mexican drug cartels as a foreign terrorist organizations.
This is after six children and three mothers who were dual American-Mexican citizens who lived in a religious community in northern Mexico were brutally murdered by suspected cartel members who opened fire at their SUVs.
Trump said he’s been working on the designation for the past 90 days and that there is a process. If the cartels are designated as terrorists, it gives the U.S. government and authorities more latitude to levy sanctions against banks or government agencies that are connected to cartels. It could also lead to military intervention.
The Washington Post reported that former presidents Obama and Bush (43) considered doing this, but backed down because of the potential for negative implications on economic and trade relationships with Mexico.
Mexican President Obrador said on Monday that their problems will be solved by Mexicans and that he doesn’t want any interference from any foreign country. This morning, after Trump’s interview last night, Obrador said he wanted to send a hug to the American people for Thanksgiving and said he would only say yes to cooperation but no to interventionism.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said they want to have a high-level meeting with the U.S. to discuss this issue.
https://www.axios.com/trump-mexican-drug-cartels-terror-organizations-45b569fd-0816-40a0-9fb3-f153aaf7e6d1.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trump-plans-to-designate-mexican-cartels-as-terror-groups-stirring-outcry/2019/11/26/8ebaeefa-10b7-11ea-bf62-eadd5d11f559_story.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/27/politics/donald-trump-mexican-cartels-terrorist-organizations/index.html
———
Gallaudet men’s basketball to play on ESPN3 tonight vs UVM
The Gallaudet University men’s basketball team will play against the University of Vermont (UVM) tonight and it will be televised on ESPN3 at 7 pm. If you have ESPN, you can login with your cable provider or watch it on TV if you have it.
UVM is a Division 1 college, while Gallaudet University is in Division III.
UVM coach John Becker’s first collegiate coaching jobs was with Gallaudet when he was an assistant coach and then the head coach from 1995 to 1997.
Gallaudet’s head coach Kevin Kovacs used to be a player under him during the 1994-95 season and worked with him as an assistant coach for two years. He said it would be surreal for him to look across the court and see Becker.
Gallaudet has yet to win this season, losing their first five games. UVM has a 5-2 record. Kovacs tweeted that tonight will be their toughest game so far.
Becker explained in an interview that when he was in the DIII level, any opportunity to play against a DI program was a huge opportunity and that’s why he played against a DIII school the past two years, and decided to play Gallaudet this year.
Good luck to both teams, and again it’ll be on ESPN3 tonight at 7 pm. Gallaudet’s leading scorer is guard Noah Valencia.
https://twitter.com/GallaudetBison/status/1199682213618618368
https://twitter.com/GUCoachKovacs/status/1199714434387730433
https://twitter.com/AEHoopsNews/status/1199456863823089664
https://uvmathletics.com/news/2019/11/26/mens-basketball-mens-hoops-welcomes-gallaudet-in-pre-holiday-contest-wednesday.aspx
———
Reactions to robot police story
Yesterday I did a story about the Mass. State Police using robot dogs and asked what you thought of it. I’ll share some of your reactions.
Several commenters pointed out that they are concerned about deaf people having a disadvantage because we can’t hear audio demands from robots and that it can be dangerous or deadly.
Another commenter on YouTube said robots are okay if they are used to disarm bombs, but that they shouldn’t be used to respond to shooters because he doesn’t want robots to target innocent humans.
Some commenters are concerned that allowing robot dogs would lead to robots eventually taking over the world and kill humans like what happened in movies “I, Robot” or “Terminator.”
Other commenters said robots would be a waste of money as it would be very expensive to fix if someone shot at them or damaged them.
Those are interesting perspectives, especially the ones about how deaf people would be able to respond to robot dogs’ verbal commands. That’s something that our deaf advocacy organizations have to start thinking about.
https://bit.ly/2ONXBYQ
———
That is all for today. There will be no news tomorrow and Friday because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Have a wonderful break and weekend. If there is a major, breaking news, I will make a report on Moth Facebook. Stay with the light!
--------
Supported by:
Convo [https://convo.click/2mVhM8h]
Gallaudet University: [gallaudet.edu]