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dixiegrrrrl

dixiegrrrrl's Journal
dixiegrrrrl's Journal
March 2, 2016

Ben Carson "sorta/kinda" dropping out

GOP candidate Ben Carson says in statement that he does not see 'a political path forward' after Super Tuesday results but his 'grassroots movement' will continue; Carson will discuss campaign future on Friday at CPAC in Washington, DC
Breaking News site

and


But Carson did not formally suspend his campaign. Instead, he said in the statement that he has decided to make a speech about his political future on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, just outside Washington.

“I do not see a political path forward in light of last evening’s Super Tuesday primary results,” the statement said. “However, this grassroots movement on behalf of ‘We the People’ will continue. Along with millions of patriots who have supported my campaign for President, I remain committed to Saving America for Future Generations.”
The announcement served as an acknowledgment that Carson’s candidacy is all but over following a disappointing showing in the 11 states that held contests on Tuesday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ben-carson-to-tell-supporters-he-sees-no-path-forward-for-campaign/2016/03/02/d6bef352-d9b3-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8_story.html
March 2, 2016

Recently indicted ex-CEO of Chesapeake Energy dies in high speed crash, possible suicide.


Aubrey McClendon, a founder and former chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, died in a car crash Wednesday at age 56, a day after he was charged with conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases.

McClendon crashed into an embankment while traveling at a "high rate of speed" in Oklahoma City on Wednesday morning, said Capt. Paco Balderrama of the Oklahoma City Police Department. McClendon's vehicle was engulfed in flame, he said.

"He pretty much drove straight into the wall," Balderrama said.

Snip
The alleged conspiracy took place between December 2007 and March 2012, the indictment said. The companies are accused of deciding who would win the bids, then giving an interest in the leases to the other company. The Justice Department did not say which other company it believes was involved in the alleged scheme.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/02/ex-chesapeake-ceo-mcclendon-dies-in-car-wreck-day-after-indictment.html

see pic at link
March 2, 2016

The Mosul Dam Is Getting Ready to Kill a Million Iraqis

The Mosul dam in Iraq was apparently flawed from the first day it was built. The only thing that kept it standing was maintenance performed literally continuously:

“We used to have 300 people working 24 hours in three shifts but very few of these workers have come back. There are perhaps 30 people there now,” [Nasrat] Adamo said in a telephone interview from Sweden, where he works as a consultant. “The machines for grouting have been looted. There is no cement supply. They can do nothing. It is going from bad to worse, and it is urgent. All we can do is hold our hearts.”

At the same time as the bedrock is getting weaker and more porous, the water pressure on the dam is building as spring meltwater flows into the reservoir behind it. Giant gates that would normally be used to ease the pressure by allowing water to run through are stuck.

....“The fact that the bottom outlets are jammed is the thing that really worries us,” said [Nadhir] Ansari, now an engineering professor at the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. “In April and May, there will be a lot more snow melting and it will bring plenty of water into the reservoir. The water level is now 308 metres but it will go up to over 330 metres. And the dam is not as before. The caverns underneath have increased. I don’t think the dam will withstand that pressure.

“If the dam fails, the water will arrive in Mosul in four hours. It will arrive in Baghdad in 45 hours. Some people say there could be half a million people killed, some say a million. I imagine it will be more in the absence of a good evacuation plan.”
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/mosul-dam-getting-ready-kill-million-iraqis
March 2, 2016

Recent Drought in Eastern Mediterranean Was the Worst in 900 Years

A new NASA study found that a drought that ended in 2012 was the worst in nearly a millennium for a huge swath of the planet.

That sobering stat comes from a new NASA study that was released yesterday, which focused on the eastern Mediterranean Levant region: Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey. The agency found that the drought that lasted from 1998 to 2012 was the region’s driest drought in 900 years. And its cause is likely linked to human-fueled climate change.


Snip:

“The Mediterranean is one of the areas that is unanimously projected [in climate models] as going to dry in the future [due to man-made climate change]. This paper shows that the behavior during this recent drought period is different than what we see in the rest of the record.”

The fact that the huge region’s worst drought happened in a very tiny window of just 14 years out of a possible 900 is extremely worrying. Even more disturbing is that those 14 years ended just four years ago. And the scariest thing of all, the study suggests? Harsh weather due to climate change isn’t a way’s off—it’s already happening.
http://tinyurl.com/hfllxdm

March 2, 2016

Georgia police chief, officer arrested on false imprisonment charges

The City of White police chief and a 26-year-old officer were arrested and charged with false imprisonment, extortion and violating oaths of public office Wednesday, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent said.

Police Chief David King, 58, and Officer Blake Scheff, 26, are accused of arresting individuals on fabricated charges and reducing the criminal charges to a citation to collect fines between December 2011 and April 2015, GBI spokesman Charge Greg Ramey said in a statement.

They were arrested after the FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation executed search warrants at the White Police Department and White City Hall on January 21.

King and Scheff were booked into the Bartow County Jail and will be released on bond, Ramey said.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/crime-law/georgia-police-chief-officer-arrested-on-false-imp/nqb6J/




For the record, that town has a population of 670.

I am pretty confident that this is not the only town that does this kind of thing.
March 2, 2016

Intelligence community e-mail reveals "a new Pearl Harbor" type of thinking

Just as the PNAC report is now infamous for suggesting 9-11 was a desired "new Pearl Harbor" attack,
an email from the intelligence community has suggested the Apple/FBI Iphone case might prove to be advantageous to increased surveillance.



Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said it was troubling “that in the middle of an ongoing congressional debate on this subject, the FBI would ask a federal magistrate to give them the special access to secure products that this committee, this Congress, and the administration have so far refused to provide.” He spoke at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, of which he is the ranking Democratic member.

“Why has the government taken this step and forced this issue?” he asked.
“I suspect that part of the answer lies in an email obtained by the Washington Post and reported to the public last September,” Conyers said.

“In it, a senior lawyer in the intelligence community writes that ‘although the legislative environment towards encryption is very hostile today … it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.’”
The congressman was referring to a leaked letter authored by the intelligence community’s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt. In the letter, Litt advised “keeping our options open for such a situation.”
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/01/congressman-suggests-fbi-is-taking-advantage-of-san-bernardino-tragedy-to-push-agenda/

edited to add link to the original letter story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tech-trade-agencies-push-to-disavow-law-requiring-decryption-of-phones/2015/09/16/1fca5f72-5adf-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html
March 2, 2016

Everyone who thought Trump could not get the nomination was vastly undercounting nation's idiots

Borowitz line, but not off target at all.

trump carried Alabama.....and Georgia.....Arkansas....Tenn...Virginia


March 1, 2016

Medicaid is not free, it is a hidden loan, when you die the Gov't will come for your assets.

The expanded Medicaid rules, under Obamacare, are this:

Estate Recovery
Excerpt: "... a state may recover any assets of the deceased recipient" (to help recover costs
for medical assistance provided by the government)

Overview of what estate recovery is:

a federal law imposed on anyone who enrolls into Medicaid in any state
a way for the government to recover some or all of the money that it pays for health care to those on Medicaid


When a person is found to be eligible for Medicaid, they will be automatically enrolled into their state's Medicaid program. Those forced into Medicaid will, due to the federal law, also be forced into estate recovery. Their estates will be partly or fully taken over by the federal or state government when they die.

Estate Recovery is a Federal Requirement

Highlights of the 1993 Estate Recovery Mandate: from www.hhs.gov

States must pursue recovering costs for medical assistance consisting of:
Nursing home or other long-term institutional services;
Home- and community-based services;
Hospital and prescription drug services provided while the recipient was receiving nursing facility or home- and community-based services;
At State option, any other items covered by the Medicaid State Plan.

At a minimum, states must recover from assets that pass through probate (which is governed by state law).
At a maximum, states may recover any assets of the deceased recipient.

When people sign up for Medicaid, they usually do not read the very very fine print that says the above.

Happened to the family of my next door neighbor when she had to be placed in nursing home.
The son thought he was gonna get the family house, but the state made him sell it to pay for her Medicaid bills when she died.

March 1, 2016

Cruz sez..... 'Any candidate that cannot win his home state has a real problem' -

Let's watch Texas real closely today, shall we?

Profile Information

Gender: Female
Hometown: Washington state, for half my life
Home country: USA
Current location: SW Alabama. for the rest of my life
Member since: Wed Feb 27, 2008, 02:09 PM
Number of posts: 60,010

About dixiegrrrrl

Long time political activist, working to tint my lil "Mayberry" more blue. Collector of strays of various species and minds.
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