What goes through my my mind when I read the news with my morning coffee. …Or for the Simon's Rockers in the group, this is my response journal.
The discovery suggests that future lunar expeditions might have a readily available source of water that would make it easier “to explore and even stay on the moon,” officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement Tuesday about the discovery.
Scientists discover water ice on moon’s surface. Here’s why that’s big news.
Wild.
Michael Cohen said in a plea deal that “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” he kept information that would have been harmful to the candidate and the campaign from becoming public.
…As part of the plea deal with federal prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Cohen is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud, according to three sources. The deal would include jail time and a substantial monetary fine.
…Prosecutors said in court their investigation is into Cohen’s personal financial dealings. The search warrant authorizing the FBI raid referenced Cohen’s taxi medallion business, the identity of banks that loaned him money and payments made to suppress negative information during the presidential campaign.
Michael Cohen plea deal – CNNPolitics
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Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on eight counts of financial crimes, a major victory for special counsel Robert Mueller.
But jurors were unable to reach a verdict on 10 charges, and Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on those counts.
Manafort was found guilty of five tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts and two counts of bank fraud.
…He still faces a second set of criminal charges in a Washington, DC, federal court, of failure to register his foreign lobbying and of money laundering conspiracy related to the same Ukrainian political work that was central to the Virginia case.
Paul Manafort found guilty on eight counts – CNNPolitics
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Voters in Louisiana will be asked in November if they want to amend the state’s constitution to remove the clause that allows non-unanimous jury decisions.
“During Louisiana’s all-white constitutional convention in 1898, delegates passed a series of measures specifically designed to ‘perpetuate the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race in Louisiana,'” the piece states. “Non-unanimous juries were one of those measures, and the intent was clear: If the federal Constitution required that African Americans be allowed to serve on juries, the state constitution would make sure that minority votes could be discounted.”
John Legend wants Louisiana to remove ‘white supremacy’ from its constitution
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Trump can’t outlaw the press from doing its job here, of course. But the model of inciting his supporters in this regard is how 21st-century authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan operate; you don’t need formal censorship to strangle a supply of information.
Trump’s apologists feebly insist that he is referring only to biased coverage, rather than the entire fourth estate. But the president’s own words and long track record show again and again just how deeply cynical and dishonest this argument is.
The nation’s Founding Fathers took for granted that the press would be biased and yet they still explicitly enshrined the freedom of journalists and publishers in the Constitution. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” wrote Thomas Jefferson.
A Boston Globe editorial: Journalists are not the enemy – The Boston Globe
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“Congressman Mike Capuano has been a fine, progressive member of Congress, but having an experienced progressive like Ayanna Pressley on the ballot is an unmissable opportunity for Massachusetts to both ensure a leading woman of color represents its only majority-minority district and add the voice of just one person of color to New England’s currently all-white congressional delegation,” said Jim Dean, chair for Democracy for America, in a statement.
…Capuano suggested in a one debate that his identity was less important than his track record of working on behalf of a diverse community. “There is a majority of no one in this district,” said Capuano. “No race, no ethnicity, no religion, nothing. So anybody who sits in this seat has to be able to work with people that don’t look like them, people that don’t think like them, people that don’t worship like them — and has to be able to bring people together.”
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Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven’t seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War.
…Nearly 20,000 people have participated in 20 rounds of face-to-face reunions since 2000. Another 3,700 exchanged video messages with their North Korean relatives under a short-lived communication program from 2005 to 2007.
…The temporary reunions are highly emotional because most participants are elderly people eager to see their loved ones once more before they die. Most of their families were driven apart during the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still in a technical state of war.
…No one has had a second chance to see their relatives.
…South Korea sees the separated families as the largest humanitarian issue created by the war, which killed and injured millions and cemented the division of the Korean Peninsula into the North and South. The ministry estimates about 600,000 to 700,000 South Koreans have immediate or extended relatives in North Korea.
…The limited number of reunions cannot meet the demands of divided family members, who are now mostly in their 80s and 90s, South Korean officials say. More than 75,000 of the 132,000 South Koreans who have applied to participate in reunions have died, according to the Seoul ministry.
South Koreans enter North to meet relatives separated decades ago by war | CBC News
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The real news of the past few weeks isn’t that Trump is a wannabe Mussolini who can’t even make the trains run on time. It’s the absence of any meaningful pushback from Congressional Republicans. Indeed, not only are they acquiescing in Trump’s corruption, his incitements to violence, and his abuse of power, up to and including using the power of office to punish critics, they’re increasingly vocal in cheering him on.
Make no mistake: if Republicans hold both houses of Congress this November, Trump will go full authoritarian, abusing institutions like the I.R.S., trying to jail opponents and journalists on, er, trumped-up charges, and more — and he’ll do it with full support from his party.
…The party has long been in the habit of rejecting awkward facts and attributing them to conspiracies: it’s not a big jump from claiming that climate change is a giant hoax perpetrated by the entire scientific community to asserting that Trump is the blameless target of a vast deep state conspiracy.
…Republicans who defended Trump over the Muslim ban, his early attacks on the press, the initial evidence of collusion with Russia, have in effect burned their bridges. It would be deeply embarrassing to admit that the elitist liberals they mocked were right when they were wrong; also, nobody who doesn’t support Trump will ever trust their judgment or patriotism again.
Opinion | The Slippery Slope of Complicity – The New York Times
Trump claims he has “eradicated,” “wiped out” and even “absolutely obliterated” ISIS, there is one group that has ignored the president’s words: the terrorists themselves.
According to recent estimates by the United Nations and the U.S. Defense Department’s inspector general, the self-described Islamic State has between 20,000 and 31,100 fighters ― figures nearly identical to CIA estimates of the terror group’s strength in 2014 when it was near its zenith.
What’s more, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ― or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as it is also known ― actually regrouped somewhat earlier this year. Foreign affairs experts suggest it will concentrate on overseas attacks now that it has lost most of the territory it used to control in Iraq and Syria.
Trump Says He Has ‘Obliterated’ ISIS. The Terror Group Seems Not To Have Noticed. | HuffPost
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The future of the Concord gasholder building is still up in the air despite its listing this week on the National Register of Historic Places.
The new listing makes the building eligible for certain grants and tax breaks, but does not offer legal protection: Privately owned buildings on the register can still be torn down and replaced.
…Gasholder buildings existing in most American cities before natural gas become popular and while many still exist, Concord’s may be the only one in the country that still holds the huge machinery that was used to contain the gas. This is why it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Liberty has said that it could cost $500,000 to stabilize the building, which has suffered some damage over the years, and perhaps a million dollars to make it usable.
Liberty Utilities still looking to sell Concord gasholder building
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According to the latest drought map, 48 percent of New Hampshire is abnormally dry, meaning there’s a fine line between being in the clear and a drought.
“We’re predicted to get more rain all the way through August, without getting dry hot conditions, which the big issue there is people using a lot of water when it’s dry and hot,” said Stacey Herbold, of the NH Drought Management Team.
Despite rain, nearly half of New Hampshire is abnormally dry
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Quarterly financial reports are a staple of U.S. corporate practice. The SEC requires public companies to report profit, revenue and other figures publicly every three months. The requirement dates to the establishment of the agency in the 1930s Great Depression, as a way to give investors confidence in company information.
Experts have long asserted that the practice of companies publicly forecasting every quarter how they expect earnings to shake out puts too much stress on short-term performance and stock price gains. That can pressure executives to engage in reckless practices to hit quarterly targets or even to manipulate earnings reports. But quarterly reports on results are distinct from the so-called earnings guidance that company executives provide as a forecast.
The SEC in 2016 considered the idea of cutting the quarterly requirement, and signaled that it might do so.
SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in a statement Friday that the agency “continues to study” the reporting requirement as well as other rules for public companies.
Trump asks SEC to consider ending required quarterly reports – ABC News
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