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.
Hawaii’s two Democratic senators fired back at Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday for saying that a federal judge who blocked President Donald Trump’s immigration order hailed from “an island in the Pacific.”
Hawaii Lawmakers Fire Back at Sessions for ‘Island in the Pacific’ Comment – NBC News
oy….
He is thought to be the first immigrant protected by the DACA program to be deported under the Trump administration.
A 23-year-old ‘Dreamer’ sues the Trump administration over his deportation to Mexico – LA Times
Figures. Trump doesn’t deliver on his agreements, why should the federal government honor any of their own deals while he is in office?
Then as violent crime rates fell under George W Bush and prisons became clogged, prosecutions eased. The war on drugs fell out of fashion. Barack Obama called it “unproductive” and sent memos guiding prosecutors away from pursuing low-level offenders.
Now a new administration looks set to turn back the clock. Attorney General Jeff Sessions likes to reminisce about the aggressive law enforcement of the 80s and 90s and recently labelled cannabis “only slightly less awful” than heroin.
…Between 1980 and 2015, the number of people in prison for drug offences increased more than 10-fold, from 40,900 to 469,545, and the average sentence more than tripled, according to data compiled by the Sentencing Project. The majority of them were low-level offenders with no criminal record.
…A 2013 study published in the British Medical Journal found that since 1990 US drug prices nationwide had fallen while purity increased. And a 2012 study by the University of Florida found that the threat of severe punishment was “generally weak and insignificant” at deterring drug crime or lowering addiction rates.
Officers rue the return of US ‘war on drugs’ – BBC News
It is beyond hard to belive that Sessions or any of his cronies could possibly be that stupid. They the War on Drugs didn’t do the country any favors but they simply seems not to care. Just another way for the old, rich, white guys to beat down and separate everyone else.
Incompetent, asinine, racist hacks.
At Wednesday’s oral arguments, a clear majority of justices seemed troubled by a Missouri policy that bars state money from going to religious schools for playground improvements.
In Supreme Court Church-State Missouri Playground Case, Justices Lean Toward Church : NPR
hmmmm
A dispute over whether the US government deported an undocumented immigrant with protected status heated up Wednesday, as the Department of Homeland Security released further details about the case.
This man’s deportation is testing Trump’s murky stance on DACA – CNNPolitics.com
sigh….
So now DHS is lying or at least in a pissing he said, she said match with a young person? GRrrrreat. Way to lower the bar to kindergarten tantrum tactics assholes.
“We were worried about everything,” Hickenlooper tells Yahoo News. “We were worried about kid usage going up, people coming into work high, the branding of the state. We haven’t seen anything negative in regard to any of those things.”
…”Reefer Madness and all the hysteria that surrounded marijuana in the 1950s and earlier made us so cynical about the whole thing — and that lesson tempers how we market the risks to teenagers so that they’ll hear it.”
…The attorney general just ordered the Justice Department to review its policy on pot. What are you going to do if Sessions tries to crack down on marijuana in your state?
Well, you know, Amendment 64 passed 55 percent to 45 percent here. Polls show it’s over 60 percent approval now. I took a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution of the state of Colorado. Our voters put marijuana into our Constitution. I don’t really have too much choice, the way I look at it.
Colorado’s Governor John Hickenlooper warily learns to live with pot
hmmm
Ivanka Trump secured three trademarks for her goods in China on the same day she met Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, it has been revealed.
Ivanka Trump ‘won China trademarks as she dined with President Xi Jinping’
hmmmm
But Trump and the firm will have to get through Nebraska farmer Art Tanderup first, along with about 90 other landowners in the path of the pipeline.
They are mostly farmers and ranchers, making a last stand against the pipeline – the fate of which now rests with an obscure state regulatory board, the Nebraska Public Service Commission.
…Backed by conservation groups, the Nebraska opponents plan to cast the project as a threat to prime farming and grazing lands – vital to Nebraska’s economy – and a foreign company’s attempt to seize American private property.
They contend the pipeline will provide mainly temporary jobs that will vanish once construction ends, and limited tax revenues that will decline over time.
Last stand: Nebraska farmers could derail Keystone XL pipeline | Reuters
hmmmm
A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters.
They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election.
…It recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the seven officials said.
A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said.
Exclusive: Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016 U.S. election – documents | Reuters
hmmm, from Reuters, even.
Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged.
Bose headphones spy on listeners: lawsuit | Reuters
hmmmm
A former CIA officer spared jail time in Italy tells Fox News that despite her commutation, she may be forced to testify to Italian lawmakers about the secret post-9/11 “rendition” program – and warns the testimony could be extremely damaging.
Ex-CIA officer says she’s being forced to testify in Italy on ‘rendition’ | Fox News
hmmm
Immigration courts already juggle more than a half-million cases and need to take on thousands more.
Trump’s new rules could swamp already backlogged immigration courts
Of course they do.
Because it would impossible for this pack of idiots to have an actually functioning section of the government on their watch.
Christopher Brown is a researcher, parent, and former kindergarten teacher, and in his view the state of affairs in kindergarten are downright troubling.
Kindergartens fail to let kids play – Business Insider
hmmm
Thompson is the security worker who got into a conflict with protesters as he drove down N.D. Highway 1806 towards the Dakota Access Pipeline protest camps on Oct. 27 to take photos of burning equipment. Thompson was disguised as a protester and carried a loaded assault rifle and handgun in an unmarked truck, Bureau of Criminal Investigations Special Agent Scott Betz testified in court last month.
Two protesters allegedly rammed their cars into Thompson’s to get him off the road, where the protesters said he was endangering people. There was also a confrontation in the water, during which Thompson held an AR-15 rifle and some protesters allegedly threatened him with knives.
The man is a menace. Meth gear???! Screw his PTSD, he belongs in a cage with all of the other animals.
Jon Ossoff harnessed opposition to President Trump to lead an 18-candidate field in the typically conservative district
hmmm
From playing golf to taking taxpayer-funded vacations, it seems Donald Trump has spent the first months of his presidency doing exactly what he pilloried Barack Obama for doing. And his penchant for signing executive orders is no exception. Back in 2012 Trump lambasted Obama for his use of executive actions to push forward his policies.
Donald Trump has overtaken Barack Obama on executive orders | indy100
sigh…
of course!
An elementary school principal in Salt Lake City has been placed on leave after allegedly forcing a young student to strip down as part of a punishment.
Salt Lake elementary school principal allegedly made student sit half-nude as pa
No charges filed? She needs to be in jail.
…convicted of sexual assault against a minor.
The ship that was coming to take on North Korea is making a stopover first.
: Where in the world is the USS Carl Vinson? – CNN.com
Man, are these guys ever incompetent!
This would be the largest dismissal of criminal convictions in U.S. history, according to the ACLU
21,000 drug convictions may be throw out after chemist’s tampering – CBS News
hmmmm
If there’s one thing I have learned over the years, it’s that there are always two sides to every story. On April 9th, a very unfortunate incident played out on United Flight 3411,…
My honest response to this article (addressing the author) :
First off I have to admit I was already turned off by the article before I began to read it. “Pilot wife.” If someone introduces themselves to me and the only way they describe themselves is as an optional appendage to another human being, I tend not to listen. (1. It’s lame and self-degrading AF. 2. OK, if you’re just the wife, why are we listening to you and not your husband who is the actual pilot then, dear?)
But on to the content…
People who justify abuses of authority by saying ‘I would have bowed down to it,’ are making apologies and justifying the abuses of authority. If you start that way, you’ve ruled out being open to the point of view of the victim. And since you are not taking into account the other side of the story, why should I take yours into account?
The “that’s just me,” comment is wholesale obnoxious. It is holier than thou, patronizing, and self-congratulatory. All of which are major turns offs. (“But that’s just me. Obviously.”)
The premise that a paying customer who is forcibly and violently removed from the plane after he simply refused to vacate the seat (a seat that he paid for and was already given) was the one posing a security threat is absolute nonsense. Clearly they only ones on that plane who were in danger were the people who the computer selected to get booted off.
I see your obnoxious and self-satisfied, ” if you choose to take advantage of the service the airport provides, you play by their rules,” with this logic:
The laws you are referring to protected absolutely no one on 9/11. In fact every single passenger on those planes died and whether they were following the strong-armed, self-important rules of the airline or airport was completely irrelevant. They all died either way and “cooperating” wasn’t going to help anyone. Even your precious pilot husband would have died had he been flying the plane.
In fact, the only thing that saved lives on 9/11 was when the passengers of Flight 93 stood up to the authorities they were confronted with, broke the rules, and brought the plane down themselves. …So there’s that.
…And, as things like slavery and women not being able to hold property or vote shows us, just because something is legal DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT.
All airlines might have the ability to do what United did, but do they? Anecdotally it seems they do not.
As for your “you’re going to to have to take this up with the federal government” comment… Actually it wasn’t the federal government that is the issue, or even an active problem in this incident. It was the airline’s actions and policy that are issue here.
The response to the argument that the airline should have planned better, “you obviously have no idea about the complexities of aviation travel and should do some research,” – beyond being childish- doesn’t hold water. Many of us have jobs or work for organizations the complexities of which the public isn’t intimately familiar with but most of society manages to perform these jobs anyway, without putting the responsibility for carrying the weight of mistakes made onto the customers.
United is directly responsible for everything that happens on their planes. I believe that is even part of the argument the author makes (for Pete’s sake!) They didn’t up the offer, they chose to use “random computer selection,” they called security officers, and they provided the authority for the officers to act as they did. Was United responsible for the impact of how their crew acted? Yes.
Is it reasonable to expect that the specific individuals who handled this situation this way (i.e the Captain and crew of this plane) face consequences for the outcome of their actions? In a word? Yes. The employees may not have asked for the situation but they absolutely did create it. If they are upset that their actions upset others? Well, they need to take responsibility for their mistakes instead of blaming others for responding from a viewpoint of empathy and shared humanity.
Rolling my eyes as hard as I did when I read this article made my head hurt.
In summation? No. …And go back to the fifties, you holier than thou, myopic, dinosaur.
A splintered GOP field gives Democrats a chance to pick up a Republican seat on Tuesday.
…The failure of Republicans to pass their plan to overhaul the nation’s health-care system has sown doubts with some suburban GOP voters about Trump’s effectiveness in cutting deals with lawmakers in Washington as well as the party’s promises.
…Trump’s pugilism and lack of a cohesive conservative worldview on fiscal and foreign policy have confounded Republicans here.
…The way Republican contenders are handling Trump and the concurrent rise of populism and moderate angst in the wake of his victory is revealing, even though the names of the near-dozen candidates are unfamiliar. Everyone seems to be laboring, with varying success, to figure out a pitch that pulls together the splintered GOP ranks.
Georgia House race stokes GOP identity crisis — and opportunity for Democrats – The Washington Post
hmmmm
Trump, eager to stop rapid advances in North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, is signaling a break with decades of US policy as he looks to coax China into ramping up the pressure on North Korea.
On North Korea, Trump signals break with US-China policy – CNNPolitics.com
hmmmm
Experts say that the immunity argument, though, will be tough for the Trump administration to justify — and the reference to the Clinton v. Jones case is particularly puzzling.
Two major Supreme Court cases, one under President Andrew Johnson and one with President Richard Nixon, held that presidents have broad immunity when it comes to their actions in office.
…”Generally speaking, things done before the President is president, in the President’s ordinary capacity, there’s no special immunity from suit,” said University of Chicago Law School professor William Baude, who works on immunity. “(The concept is) about preserving your ability to do your job; it doesn’t apply before you had your job”
Trump claims immunity as President in lawsuit – CNNPolitics.com
hmmmm
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