Thursday TOON Roundup 4- The Rest

War


Keating


GM





CNN


Noah


ACA


Markets



Shootings






Uganda

Thursday TOON Roundup 3- Rethugs

Thursday TOON Roundup 2- Sold out by the court

Thursday Toon Roundup 1- Bought and Paid For

NASA Suspends Contact With Russia's Space Agency Over Ukraine

NASA has ceased working with the Russian government over the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and Crimea.

The Verge reports that NASA is suspending all contact with Russian government officials. This ban extends to teleconferences, visits by Russian government officials to NASA facilities, email exchanges with Russian officials, and travel to Russia.


NASA's communications with Russia about their support for the two American astronauts currently on the International Space Station are exempt. That includes organization and completion of a scheduled Soyuz capsule launch on April 9.

Astronaut Reid Wiseman is scheduled to head to the ISS on the Russian Soyuz capsule, which is planned to launch on May 28. He's traveling with Russian Cosmonaut Maksim Viktorovich Surayev and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst.

A NASA scientist who spoke to The Verge on the condition of anonymity, slammed the move: "NASA's goals aren't political. This is one of the first major actions I have heard of from the US government and it is to stop Science and Technology collaboration. ... You're telling me there is nothing better?"



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-bans-contact-with-russias-space-agency-2014-4

An Open Letter To Florida Democratic Party- Where Are The Policy Ideas?

The Pulp: An Open Letter To Florida Democratic Party- Where Are The Policy Ideas? Where Is The Grassroots Organization?

JUSTIN SNYDER ? APRIL 2, 2014
Dear Florida Democratic Party,

I really can’t anymore. Day after day, my twitter feed, email inbox, and facebook newsfeed are covered with constant attacks from you against our Republican Governor Rick Scott. Whether its bashing him for a weak economic recovery in Florida spearheaded by the creation of minimum wage jobs, his lengthy list of administration officials that have resigned, been fired, or left the administration, to bashing his well known fraud filled corporate career before he became governor, every day seems to bring forth another attack. Yes Florida Democratic Party, we get it. Our governor is arguably the worst and least popular in the country and an even worse human being with a track record marked with failure after failure, embarrassment after embarrassment, and top down economic policies that leave middle and working class Floridians in the dark.

Throughout this entire election cycle thus far, specifically since former Republican and self proclaimed pro-life, anti-tax, pro gun Reagan Conservative and Jeb Bush Republican, Charlie Crist got into this race, the FDP’s entire strategy has been to remind Floridians of the reasons why Rick Scott and his Republican minions are the wrong choice for Florida. The problem is that strategy hasn’t worked in the past (see: Alex Sink 2010) and isn’t working now, as the latest polls tell us. As we’ve reported at The Florida Squeeze, Charlie Crist’s numbers have been cratering ever since his announcement. The latest poll out of St. Leo University has Crist’s lead down to just four points, while back in December it was up to twelve. While Crist has at times tried to talk about issues, the party simply has not.

We’ve already had a failed gubernatorial candidate attempt to focus their statewide campaign on negative campaigning in Florida. In 2010, Alex Sink ran from her base, attempting to capture the middle and moderate voters in Florida. She focused her campaign on lecturing Floridians why Rick Scott was the wrong choice, instead of telling us why she was the right one. In 2012, Governor Mitt Romney ran a presidential campaign devoted to telling America and the world that President Obama was the wrong choice for America- that his socialist policies were going to ruin the country, hurt the economy, and bring down the republic without explaining to the American people what exactly he would do differently or in the least, what policy ideas he would bring to the table to spur job growth and restore our economy. The American people resoundingly rejected Mitt Romney, and Floridians elected Rick Scott, a corporate criminal, whose company received the largest fine for medicare fraud in American history.

I have a simple request FDP. Would you please do us a favor, that is if winning the Governor’s mansion is your actual goal rather taking any and all sorts of corporate dollars (Disney, Sugar, Gambling) and start talking about SOLUTIONS, IDEAS and POLICIES that separate us from the Republican overlord and his minions that have had a stranglehold over the Sunshine State? Issues like, holding the line against school vouchers, fighting for a living wage, paid sick leave, HSR, medicaid expansion and repealing Stand Your Ground. Or might you be afraid to travel down that road because, at the this point, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Governor, was a once a Republican, who was then funded by the same corporate interests that you decry daily? In fairness, Crist is trying to re-position himself as a “populist” but his prior record doesn’t match his rhetoric and the party itself doesn’t have any positive rhetoric of the sort. The FDP is rapidly becoming the party of no ideas, just empty rhetoric telling us how awful the other side is without attempting to present any evidence that shows we are better.

more

http://thefloridasqueeze.com/2014/04/02/the-pulp-an-open-letter-to-florida-democratic-party-where-are-the-policy-ideas-where-is-the-grassroots-organization/

note- I am not the author, just posting it.

Tom THE DANCING BUG: Hobby Lobby Religion

Paul Ryan- Same as he ever was

Paul Krugman- The latest Paul Ryan budget is getting a lot of well-deserved flak, and so is Ryan himself. The combination of cruelty and raw dishonesty is so obvious, it’s hard to see how anyone can fail to see what’s going on.

But Ryan hasn’t changed; his budgets have always been like this, and so has he. Yet for years he was the darling of centrist pundits, who proclaimed him an “honest, open-minded, solution-oriented fiscal conservative.” What were they thinking?

The answer was that they wanted someone to fill that role; they knew, just knew, that there had to be people like that — because if there weren’t, if there weren’t any serious, honest conservatives with real influence, shrill people like me were actually right. And that couldn’t be true. So they invented a character called “Paul Ryan” who was what they wanted to see, but bore no resemblance to the real character with that name.

And while Ryan himself may have been devalued — although I’m not even sure of that — there will be others. Remember all the praise lavished on Chris Christie until Bridgegate broke? Again, it was easy to see what Christie was — but only, apparently, for those of us not committed to the belief that sensible moderates must exist in the GOP.

more

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/same-as-he-ever-was-3/

Reports of a Shooting on Fort Hood

Source: KCEN

(KCEN) -- We have reports of an active shooter on Fort Hood.

We have reports that there are several injuries from this shooting. There is at least one patient being transported to the hospital.

We are also getting reports of victims in the Battle Simulation Center on 65th and Warehouse.

The suspect is still at large. The shooter was said to be in building 33026 which is the Medical Brigade Building.

Read more: http://www.kcentv.com/story/25146842/reports-of-shooting-on-fort-hood

Teacher keeps promise to mail thousands of former students letters written by their past selves

For the past 20 years, DJ Anardi and his high school buddies often wondered when a certain blast from the past would land in their mailboxes.

About a month ago, just around his 36th birthday, Mr. Anardi’s arrived.

“Hey you good-looking guy, how is your life?” read the wobbly printed letters scrawled on three-hole punched lined paper, written by a 15-year-old to his much-older self.

He wanted to go to college and play football, it read. Instead, he built a career at a steel mill. He wanted three or four children. He now has two boys. He was dating another girl when he put pen to paper back in the early 1990s, but harboured a crush on a girl named Erin.

Today, Erin is his wife and the mother of his children.

For the past four decades, a Saskatchewan high school English teacher has kept his commitment to thousands of former students by mailing them all a handwritten letter they had written to themselves as high school freshmen, to be read by their eyes only when they reached adulthood.

more

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/01/teacher-keeps-promise-to-mail-thousands-of-former-students-letters-written-by-their-past-selves/



cool guy.