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The U.S. government has now generated numerous news stories and released multiple "reports" aimed at persuading us that Vladimir Putin is to blame for Donald Trump becoming president. U.S. media has dutifully informed us that the case has been made. What has been made is the case for writing your own news coverage. The "reports" from the "intelligence community" are no lengthier than the New York Times and Washington Post articles about them. Why not just read the reports and cut out the middle-person?
Wall Against Mexico discussions might be over soon; it won't be built, but we will see changes and perhaps improvements in US immigration policies. Throughout history, walls have ugly histories. Congress won't allocate monies to build the Wall Against Mexico, and nor will Mexico. Mexicans supply a large part of the labor in jobs that Americans don't want to do. WHY SHOULD THEY PAY FOR ANYTHING like a wall between our nations?President Trump, Please Tear Down that Wall Against Mexico Before You Build It!
President Ronald Reagan "Tear Down This Wall" Speech at Berlin Wall President Ronald Reagan delivers this memorable speech at the Brandenburg Gate.
What would revered Republican Ronald Reagan have to say about the Trump Mexican Border Wall? After all, Reagan's most famous utterance was his command and plea in a speech in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate, directed to Mr. Gorbachev:
On November 15, 2016, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Heath Hazard Assessment’s (OEHHA), Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC) met to decide whether to list aspartame as a carcinogen. Just to be clear, no listing decisions are made at meetings such as this one; instead, the CIC members “prioritize” the substance and that then determines whether or not the substance at issue has a chance at being put on California’s “Prop 65” list of known carcinogens.
Remember, Proposition 65 (or “Prop 65” as it is now popularly called) was the referendum measure passed into law by California voters in November 1986, thirty years ago. Prop 65 requires, among other things, that all known carcinogens be declared (usually on food and drink labels) to consumers. It is so pervasive that even residents in other States will often see Prop-65 warnings about carcinogenicity on food and drink labels or on websites when ordering.
The CIC Voting Process
The US Court of Appeals ruled back in mid December that federal laws
cannot be used to prohibit states and counties from creating laws
regulating, labeling, and even banning genetically modified crops.
This monumental decision by the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals was a
ruling regarding whether federal and Hawaii state laws supersede the
authority of individual counties to regulate the use of genetically
modified crops and pesticide use.
Because of its almost limitless growing season and its being a testing
ground for all kinds of Monsanto genetic experimentation and
modifications, Hawaii has been in the middle of the debates over Genetic
Modification for decades as Monsanto and others have used the islands for
many kinds of agricultural research and local farmers have vigorously
resisted them. This is a victory for Hawaii's farmers and for the 7000
year old history of agriculture itself.
Many of these same companies have abused the very concept of research by
spraying 20 times more insecticides and pesticides than is permitted in
the mainland of the United States.
A young man was tortured in Chicago this week. It wasn't an act of the Chicago police. It was live streamed on Facebook. And the President of the United States declared it an horrific hate crime.
The President did not advise "looking forward" rather than enforcing the law. Nor did he hold open the possibility that the crime might have served some higher purpose. In fact, he didn't excuse the crime in any way that might help recommend it for imitation by others.
Yet this same president has forbidden the prosecution of U.S. government torturers for the past 8 years and has now seen fit to keep a four-year-old Senate report on their torture secret for at least 12 years more.
Some people in the United States would maintain that environmental and climate policy should be based on facts. Some other people (there is very little overlap between the two groups) would tell you that U.S. policy toward Russia should be based on proven facts. Yet, here we are readily accepting that U.S. torture policy will be based on burying the facts.
It’s too easy simply to blame Donald Trump for the void that’s suddenly apparent at the center of American government — or will be on Jan. 20.
In fact, I’m utterly sick of hearing his name, let alone accounts of his latest outrage or trivial impertinence, which is the equivalent of crack cocaine in the news cycle: all Trump, all the time. It’s been that way for a year.
Trump is a symptom. But, come on, far less of a symptom — of a deep, raw social and cultural wrongness — than, for instance, the global war and terror, environmental exploitation, climate chaos, poverty, racism (old and new), infrastructure collapse, the commonness of mass murder, the limitless expansion of the security state, or the congealing of a one-party status quo that ignores all of the above.
We are a group of independent election forensic investigators, election monitors, data analysts, and election integrity advocates who have been examining and analyzing the 2016 election. We are writing to you to share our views regarding the importance of including certain systemic vulnerabilities in the scope of your investigation, and to offer our resources to assist with your investigative work.
The year that seemed determined to crush hopes and smother dreams did have a few bright spots. For instance, the biggest competitive video game of 2016 also happens to be impressively diverse.
Created from the ashes (and creative assets) of a canceled MMO game known as Titan, Overwatch was almost an afterthought, an attempt to scrape something useful out of seven years of work. Now the competitive shooter is so popular that publisher Activision Blizzard is creating its own official esports league for it.
One of the biggest draws of the game, even for people who don’t actually play it (but are more than happy to spread its name and buy its merchandise), is the diversity of its characters. And though Overwatch has been out for months now, something that adds to that was just recently revealed: Tracer, the cheery young woman on the cover, the character whose likeness is incorporated into the Overwatch League logo, is officially a lesbian.
Many top Democrats are stoking a political firestorm. We keep hearing that Russia attacked democracy by hacking into Democratic officials’ emails and undermining Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Instead of candidly assessing key factors such as longtime fealty to Wall Street that made it impossible for her to ride a populist wave, the party line has increasingly circled around blaming Vladimir Putin for her defeat.
Of course partisan spinners aren’t big on self-examination, especially if they’re aligned with the Democratic Party’s dominant corporate wing. And the option of continually fingering the Kremlin as the main villain of a 2016 morality play is clearly too juicy for functionary Democrats to pass up -- even if that means scorching civil liberties and escalating a new cold war that could turn radioactively hot.
Much of the current fuel for the blame-Russia blaze has to do with the horrifying reality that Donald Trump will soon become president. Big media outlets are blowing oxygen into the inferno. But the flames are also being fanned by people who should know better.