turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalAmerica's bump stock capital: can this tiny Texas town survive Trump's ban?
When Don Boyett was asked if he believes that bump stocks should be banned, he gestured to the moss green SUV in his driveway.
“Let’s take my Ford Expedition here. Let’s say I get drunk and I run over 30 people out in the middle of the road. Are we going to sue Ford and get rid of Ford Expeditions? It’s the person behind the wheel. The same thing with a gun. To me, it’s the person behind that gun that’s at fault. It’s not the gun’s fault,” he said.
Amid the renewed push for gun control after the deaths of 17 students and teachers in a Florida school shooting 11 days ago, Donald Trump last Tuesday told the justice department to issue a ban on bump stocks – attachments that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at greatly increased rates akin to fully automatic firearms.
The obscure accessory was not a feature of the Florida shooting, but its profile was raised after it was used in the Las Vegas mass shooting last October, which killed 58. Even the National Rifle Association contemplated supporting some restrictions on their use after that, although it opposes an outright ban.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/25/americas-bump-stock-capital-can-this-tiny-texas-town-survive-trumps-ban
Blood money and the supporters of Blood money are losing, we will not stand by anymore, and let greed and a minority, 3 million run around with this tired old blood money bullshit basically attacking 240 million that want:..........................
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It does not say anything about a fucking gun
The terrifying phenomenon that is pushing species towards extinction
There was almost something biblical about the scene of devastation that lay before Richard Kock as he stood in the wilderness of the Kazakhstan steppe. Dotted across the grassy plain, as far as the eye could see, were the corpses of thousands upon thousands of saiga antelopes. All appeared to have fallen where they were feeding.
Some were mothers that had travelled to this remote wilderness for the annual calving season, while others were their offspring, just a few days old. Each had died in just a few hours from blood poisoning. In the 30C heat of a May day, the air around each of the rotting hulks was thick with flies.
The same grisly story has been replayed throughout Kazakhstan. In this springtime massacre, an estimated 200,000 critically endangered saiga – around 60% of the world’s population – died. “All the carcasses in this one of many killing zones were spread evenly over 20 sq km,” says Kock, professor of wildlife health and emerging diseases at the Royal Veterinary College in London. “The pattern was strange. They were either grazing normally with their newborn calves or dying where they stood, as if a switch had been turned on. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/25/mass-mortality-events-animal-conservation-climate-change
Anyone not thinking that climate change is fake fucking news....................
Your fucked up in the head.............Pruitt, sexual predator, Zinke, Carson, ect.......................
Tech billionaire, ordered to reopen public beach, appeals to supreme court
A Silicon Valley billionaire who was ordered by California courts to restore public access to a popular surfing beach is seeking to take his case to the US supreme court.
The case could entirely upend public access to beaches in a state with more than 1,000 miles of shoreline.
Vinod Khosla, the influential technology investor and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, has been battling California regulators and environmental advocates for years over access to Martin’s Beach, a picturesque cove about 30 miles south of San Francisco that can only be reached by a private road across Khosla’s property.
Khosla has consistently lost his legal fight, thanks to California state law that regulates access to the coastline – and prioritizes public access to beaches. In August 2017, a California appeals court ordered him to restore access by unlocking the gate to the road, an order with which he has only intermittently complied.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/23/martins-beach-california-vinod-khosla
Poverty Pay and Food Stamps at American Airlines
Envoy Air is a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Airlines, the largest passenger airline in the United States. Envoy employs more
than 3,800 passenger service agents whose responsibilities range from guiding planes on the tarmac to de-escalating tense situations
among customers. Envoy agents work at some of the nation’s biggest and busiest airports as well as smaller regional airports that
connect flyers to travel destinations around the country.
Wages for Envoy agents are among the lowest in the airline industry and start as low as $9.48 an hour. Many agents say they must rely
on public assistance programs because of the low pay. This report explores the use of public assistance and the effects of low wages
among Envoy passenger service agents, drawing on data from a survey of 900 employees across the country, as well as first-hand
accounts of their experiences. The online survey was conducted by the agents’ union, the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Approximately one quarter of all Envoy agents participated. The survey’s major findings include:
https://www.cwa-union.org/sites/default/files/20180221-report-poverty-pay-and-food-statmps-at-american-airlines.pdf
This is disgusting.............and other multi-billion monopolies have the same issue, and the right wing Supreme Court is getting ready to fuck union members, sitting on bench with Samuel Alito, who has ruled against unions , right along with that appointed and anointed Gorsuch.............................
5 Places Where GOP Hypocrites Ban Guns (For Their Own Safety)
Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.
After every mass shooting, a portion of this country insists the real problem is that there aren’t enough guns. The group that pushes this absurd lie includes Republican politicians, many of whom fear that admitting otherwise would drive away NRA donor funds. There’s been a lot of recent discussion about how GOP legislators do nothing in response to gun massacres, but a 2016 Harvard Business School study proves that’s not quite true. In states with overwhelmingly Republican legislative bodies, after mass shootings, “the number of laws passed to loosen gun restrictions [increases] by 75 percent.” Despite being counterintuitive and demonstrably dangerous, more firepower is the GOP’s go-to solution because “something something don’t tread on me.”
It’s a bad-faith proposition. A party that truly believes guns are the way out of this thing, and that an even more heavily armed populace will ensure American safety, would make different personal choices. In fact, we can gauge GOP disingenuousness on the gun issue just by noting all the places Republican politicians frequent where weapons are banned. Pointing out their hypocrisy has never helped to shame the GOP into decency, but it’s worth a review nonetheless.
Here are five places hypocritical Republicans ban guns in order to ensure their own personal safety.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/5-places-gop-hypocrites-ban-guns/
A Stanford professor drops his ridiculous defamation lawsuit against his scientific critics
Stanford environmental professor Mark Z. Jacobson made a big splash in 2015 with a paper predicting that renewable sources could provide 100% of the energy needed in the 48 contiguous states by 2050.
But he made an even bigger splash last September, when he responded to a critique of his claim published in a leading scientific journal by filing a $10-million defamation lawsuit.
After taking months of flak for what seemed to be an effort to stifle legitimate scientific debate by bringing it into the courtroom, Jacobson withdrew the lawsuit Thursday.
A quick primer on the case: After Jacobson's paper appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and got taken up as a rallying cry by climate activists such as Bernie Sanders, the journal published a lengthy critique by environmental scientist Christopher Clack and 20 co-authors. Their paper, which questioned Jacobson's assumptions and methodology, appeared Feb. 24, 2017. PNAS gave Jacobson and his own co-authors space in the very same issue to rebut the criticism.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-jacobson-lawsuit-20180223-story.html
The right wing's 40-year attack on unions is coming to the Supreme Court, and this time it could win
For 40 years, right-wing activists and fronts for the 1% have had their knives out for a Supreme Court precedent that protects the ability of public employee unions to represent their members and even nonmembers, and to speak out on matters of public interest.
That precedent faces a mortal threat in a case scheduled for oral argument at the Supreme Court on Monday. Indications are that a conservative majority of justices is poised to overturn it. That would have implications for worker rights, principles of fair compensation and income inequality, none of them good — unless you're a millionaire.
The case is Janus vs. AFSCME. The issue in the case is the "agency fee," which public employee unions in 22 states, including California, charge workers who are represented by those unions. The fee is a subset of union dues, which are paid by members. It's supposed to cover only contract-related union functions such as contract negotiations and enforcement, including grievance procedures.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-janus-20180223-story.html
He voted to enable the "Dark Money" backing this case...............
Justice Samual Alito should be Impeached.....................
Actress Nanette Fabray, who won Tony and Emmy awards, dies at 97
Source: LA Times
Nanette Fabray, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical comedy star whose work with Sid Caesar on the classic 1950s TV comedy-variety show "Caesar's Hour" earned her three Emmy Awards and a lifetime of television work, has died. She was 97.
Fabray, whose early hearing problem spurred her to become a high-profile advocate for the hearing impaired, died Thursday of natural causes in Palos Verdes, her son, Jamie MacDougall, said.
Fabray had won a Tony for best actress in the 1949 musical "Love Life" and appeared in the 1953 MGM musical "The Band Wagon" — in which she, Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan performed the famous "Triplets" number as "three little unexpected children" — before becoming the female lead on "Caesar's Hour" in 1954.
The live, hour long NBC show was the successor to Caesar's popular "Your Show of Shows," whose female lead in comedy sketches was Imogene Coca.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-nanette-fabray-20180223-story.html
Showing my age I use to watch the shows all the time
To the family..................
What Will the Trump Mob Kill Next?
Jim Hightower
February 23, 2018 2:56 am
Reprinted with permission from Creators.
Breaking news: Trump & Company are a murderous mob!
From the start of his White House tenure, the Trumpsters have plotted, stalked and serially killed vibrant members of the English Language.
The word “Fact” was the first to go. Robust and universally respected, Fact was assassinated last year when one of Trump’s hired killers poisoned it with an unknown substance nicknamed: “Alternative Fact.”
Their latest victim was a much-honored word that has produced a whole family of world literature: “Satire.” This powerful noun embodied the use of sarcasm and ridicule to expose the vanity and vice of public figures, but Trump himself killed satire by starving it of any meaning. How can anyone satirize a presidency that is, in reality, nothing but a fully-staged satire of vanity and vice? Satire involves exaggerating the flaws, mannerisms, oddities, etc. of various characters to convey how corrupt and contemptible they are — but it’s impossible to exaggerate the awfulness of an administration that gleefully flaunts its awfulness every day.
Take Trump’s proposed budget… please! Delivered just in time for Valentine’s Day, it’s a nasty piece of work. For example, it would intentionally increase poverty and hunger across our country. It would slash programs providing essential food, housing, and even heating assistance for about 50 million Americans — mostly children, old folks, poverty-wage worker, and disabled people.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/will-trump-mob-kill-next/
November 2018 cannot get here fast enough
Panthers to honor Parkland, Fla. shooting victims before Thursdays game vs. Capitals
SUNRISE, Fla. — It’s expected to be an emotional night at BB&T Center on Thursday before the puck even drops for the Florida Panthers-Washington Capitals game. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 students and faculty were fatally shot last week, is just 13 miles from the arena, and before the Panthers’ first game back at their home rink since the tragedy, there will be a moment of silence and a ceremony in remembrance of the victims.
Florida players will have “MSD” arm patches on their jerseys and Stoneman Douglas logo stickers on their helmets for the remainder of the season. Both teams will also wear Stoneman Douglas hats in warmups.
“It’s our first chance to sort of see the reality of it all,” Panthers Coach Bob Boughner said. “Obviously, when you hear that kind of news on the road and you see from a distance what everybody is dealing with in the community, you follow it as best as you can, but until you get home and see it up close, obviously it’s going to be an emotional night. I know a lot of our guys, everybody seems to know somebody who was affected by the tragedy. Just being a part of the community and a sense of pride for our community, I think that we have a role to play in this. Hopefully we can get through this and honor it appropriately and never forget what happened.”
Boughner said half the team was at lunch in Vancouver when news broke that there was a shooting back home, and players immediately checked on their loved ones back in Florida. Panthers captain Derek MacKenzie and goaltender Roberto Luongo are both Parkland residents, and MacKenzie said his children go to school “up the street.” Luongo said his nephew played basketball with one of the victims.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capitals-insider/wp/2018/02/22/panthers-to-honor-parkland-fla-shooting-victims-before-thursdays-game-vs-capitals/?utm_term=.f1b37336ec42
Please note that "all" MLB teams will wear hats on opening day for spring training games this Friday, and those not scheduled to play tomorrow will wear the hats on Saturday
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