"Dolly Parton made a special appearance Tuesday in Washington D.C., not only to celebrate a huge milestone for her book-giving literacy program, but also to launch a new venture with the nation's largest library."
"Humanity’s romantic notion that extraterrestrial life might be lurking just beyond our reach has been dealt a serious blow. A new study published in Astrophysical Journal Letters reveals that Earth’s closest exoplanet neighbor, Proxima B, was recently slammed by a colossal stellar flare that bombarded the planet with radiation. That’s obviously not great news for the possibility of life thriving there, and any organisms that call the planet home would not have had a pleasant few days." No wonder they're not returning calls.
"Today we have Ryan Zinke and Scott Pruitt. Zinke has already slashed the size of two beautiful national monuments and gotten in trouble over his travel habits. Scott Pruitt, meanwhile, has been busy rescinding the Clean Power Plan and getting in trouble over his travel habits—and much more. In fact, Pruitt is so bad that Rebecca Leber’s profile of him, “Making America Toxic Again,” is on the cover of our current issue." (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
"But in interviews, school employees who traveled from across the state to Charleston said the fight was about much more than their paychecks. West Virginia is one of the few U.S. states with a falling population. As the state grapples with a severe teacher shortage, many educators worry their younger peers will continue to flee for greener pastures, with long-term consequences for successive generations of students." Unions are often fighting for more than money. Unions look at the long-term success of the business and employees. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
Late news, strike has been resolved. Teachers are getting the 5% pay raise.
"The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that more than 100 students at Riverview Gardens High School participated in the walkout. However, school officials told students they wouldn’t be allowed to return to campus or ride school buses home if they took part in the protests." Whelp, there's a lawsuit.
Christians love Israel. "The Jerusalem Municipality announced on Tuesday that is will halt its church property tax collection efforts in light of a decision that was made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mayor Nir Barkat to form a commission to find a solution to the issue." The tax was levied against churches that weren't "houses of prayer." Funny thing, the Church of the Holy Sepulture, which encloses Golgotha and "Jesus' Tomb" (which is convenient and is also headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem), is more of a administrative/tourism site. So, yeah, they were going to tax the property which lead to the church closing its doors.
"Ambassador Joseph Yun, the special representative for North Korea Policy, is retiring this week after more than 30 years in the Foreign Service." I'm sure it'll be fine. How hard can talks with North Korea be? I mean, probably anyone could set up back channel communications with the Hermit Kingdom.
"A man… who spent his time trying to improve his neighborhood was shot to death on Monday while streaming on Facebook Live, authorities said."
"Now Alabama and several other states are considering doing away with marriage licenses altogether. Alabama's legislation comes after the state became a flashpoint in the debate over same-sex marriage." Remember when anti-same-sex-marriage people were all about how "civil unions" were the "same thing", except in the eyes of the law they aren't. Apparently that didn't get through. "(Democratic State Rep. Merika Coleman is) concerned the new system might not be recognized by other states or the federal government… 'Specifically on Social Security and with military benefits they ask for a marriage license,' she says. 'They do not ask for a marriage contract.'"
"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that immigrants, even those with permanent legal status and asylum seekers, do not have the right to periodic bond hearings." So what the court is saying is the Constitution is just for "citizens." Note the arguments about how once we start defining who has rights and who doesn't it gets real easy to deny more people their rights. Also note the use of certain political organizations claim on who is a "real American" and who they leave out.
"Top-secret intelligence requested by President Barack Obama in his last weeks in office identified seven states where analysts — synthesizing months of work — had reason to believe Russian operatives had compromised state websites or databases… Three senior intelligence officials told NBC News that the intelligence community believed the states as of January 2017 were Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Wisconsin." The cat is on the roof. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
"President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has lost the top-level security clearance he has been using on an interim basis to do his work inside the White House, according to reports on Tuesday." He still has a lower security clearance that allows him access to some classified information. I wonder how many times that will be violated before he's finally shown the door. (Grokked from Jim Wright)
"President Trump put California on notice in a tweet on Wednesday that he wouldn’t complete his much-promised wall on its border until the entire barrier was erected – even though the state’s attorney general said the 'medieval' structure has no place in the '21st century.'" Lawsuits for everybody. Dear Gen. Kelly, you've got to get a grip on your boy.
"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested more than 150 people since the weekend in the greater San Francisco Bay Area who they say were in violation of federal immigration laws during activity, ICE officials announced Tuesday. The numbers came from a press release issued by officials, CBS San Francisco reports." Just a note that when the ICE press release says, "… about half of the individuals arrested also had past criminal convictions in addition to their immigration violations, including convictions for assault and battery, crimes against children, weapons charges and DUI" a more careful study of ICE's numbers from other press releases show the overall majority of these "convictions" are traffic violations (speeding, failure to come to a complete stop, broken tail lights, driving without a license). Did I ever link to that On The Media segment?
"The Department of Housing and Urban Development spent more than $31,000 on a new table and chairs for the dining room adjacent to Secretary Ben Carson's office — revelations that came just months after an official that warned against high expenses was moved to a new role within the department." Apparently he need a really comfy chair. Who's the elite? Also there's a little bit of a punishment of the whistleblower and some other ethics issues going on.
No comments:
Post a Comment