turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalPostal Service 'will not survive the summer' without immediate support, House Dems warn
Published 1 min ago on March 24, 2020
By Common Dreams
Democratic lawmakers said late Monday that the U.S. Postal Service is poised to be a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic and could collapse by summer’s end barring an infusion of billions of dollars in federal aid.
The warning came in a joint statement from House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Government Operations Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) that cited “urgent help” needed by the agency as it faces plummeting mail volume and “imminent bankruptcy.”
Maloney and Connolly pointed to measures intended to help the Postal Service contained within the House’s new coronavirus stimulus package—the Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act—which was unveiled Monday.
The bill (pdf) contains provisions that would cancel the Postal Service’s debt, allow it to borrow up to $15 billion, and inject it with $25 billion in emergency funding “for revenue forgone due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/postal-service-will-not-survive-the-summer-without-immediate-support-house-dems-warn/
And again, what is #Moscow Mitch proposal..........................not anything with the postal system, that's for sure.................its in the Constitution..................oh yeah I forget #Moscow Mitch thinks the Constitution is toilet paper.......................just ask Merrick Garland, and Obama....................
Pelosi says Mnuchin caved on accepting oversight: 'A $500 billion slush fund was really insulting'
Published 5 mins ago on March 24, 2020
By David Edwards
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday revealed that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had agree to oversight of a $500 billion relief “slush fund” for businesses.
During an interview on CNBC, Pelosi suggested that Democrats and the White House could agree to a coronavirus relief bill within hours.
“I can say we’re all receptive to getting something done we all know that everybody doesn’t write their own bill, that it’s a series of compromises, and that we think the bill has moved sufficiently to the side of workers,” she explained to CNBC host Jim Cramer.
“This isn’t a conversation with workers and not with the airlines or other industries, hospitality, parking, you name it, restaurants, you go down the list,” she added. “Trying to address their problem. So it is not a one-sided conversation on our part. However, things like a $500 billion slush fund was really insulting.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/pelosi-says-mnuchin-caved-on-accepting-oversight-a-500-billion-slush-fund-was-really-insulting/
Elizabeth Warren Tears Into Bloomberg Reporter Over Blaming Stimulus Stall On Dems
Media Bites 3/23/20 10:01am Read time: 1 minute
DUDE, you work for Bloomberg. Didn't your boss WARN YOU about messing with Professor Warren?
By David
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was confronted by Bloomberg host Jonathan Ferro on Monday over the stalled coronavirus relief legislation.
“In this bill, there are checks for everyday Americans,” Ferro told the senator. “The reason this bill hasn’t gone through is because of Democratic senators. Do you want to be the person that stopping people from getting their checks to meet their rent at the end of this month?”
“Excuse me,” Warren shot back. “The reason this bill has not gone through is because of Republicans senators and because of Republican leadership that pretended to negotiate for three days with the Democrats and then at the end of that time basically introduced their own bill.”
“We’ve laid out what our principles are,” she continued. “And that is you can’t give a half a billion dollars to giant industry and not help people at the grassroots.”
https://crooksandliars.com/2020/03/reporter-fails-both-sides-elizabeth-warren
That's my former candidate.........................touch'e
For those of us who played and love hockey....................
The forgotten story of ... how Spanish flu tore apart the 1919 Stanley Cup final
The disease known as the “Spanish flu” was first reported in North America in January 1918 in Kansas. By the time owners and organizers began to prepare for the league’s second season, the flu was becoming a specter. Due to the virus, only three delegates were able to attend an October 1918 meeting that was required to transfer team ownership and settle on the final number of teams in the league. That same month, Hamby Shore, a star player for the Ottawa Senators, died from the Spanish flu. The rest of the fall would see deaths across sports in North America: a famous curler in Manitoba, an American League umpire in Boston, the president of the Alberta branch of the AAU, the secretary of the Montreal City Amateur Hockey League and the Eastern Hockey Association.
News about the league planning for its season was printed next to columns advising citizens to wash their hands, keep healthy diets and find cures for the flu in nature. “Evidence seems to prove that this is a germ disease, spread principally by human contact, chiefly through coughing, sneezing or spitting,” the Leader-Telegram in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, wrote. “So avoid persons having colds – which means avoiding crowds – common drinking cups, roller towels, etc.” Bowling alleys, the sites of competitive tournaments, were mandated to close. “I understand that preparations are being made for different rugby and other games this week,” Toronto health officer Dr Charles Hastings said. “These games must be discontinued. They only jeopardize people’s lives. It is inconceivable that the people in charge of them have not more judgment.”
Still, NHL play began on 21 December 1918, in part because of the minimal crowds it drew compared to today. (Attendance numbers from 1918-19 aren’t readily available, but for context, in 1926-27, Ottawa averaged 85 fans per game.) At the time, the NHL season was divided into two 10-game halves, and only three teams would compete: the Senators, the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Arenas. The Canadiens won the season’s first half, finishing with a 7-3 record. The defending Stanley Cup champions, Toronto, struggled, winning three games in the first half. By the time they announced their intention to shutter amid chaos behind the scenes after 17 games, they had logged only two more wins. NHL president Frank Calder convinced the Arenas to hold on for an 18th game, but that was as far as they – or the regular season – would go. The league pivoted, announcing that Montreal would face Ottawa in a seven-game series to determine which team would advance to play the Pacific Coast Hockey Association champions in the Stanley Cup final.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/19/spanish-flu-stanley-cup-2019-nhl-montreal-canadiens
'Remarkably talented': the epic photography of Kenny Rogers
Looming mountains, ghostly presidents, trees that stand like gods … the country star was a trained photographer – and his brooding images caught the sinister side of America
From the fatalistic blues of The Gambler to the mournful lament of Lucille, Kenny Rogers sang songs full of emotion, courage, drama and heartache. Although his cautionary Americana fables didn’t always have a happy ending, the raspy-voiced musician delivered them with more warmth than a shot of bourbon around a campfire, somehow ensuring that you always ended up smiling.
But the celebrated country singer, who has died of natural causes at the age of 81, wasn’t just great at telling stories through song. He also used photography, releasing several books, and receiving an honorary degree from the Professional Photographers of America (PPA). “He’s obviously well-known as an entertainer,” said PPA president Ralph Romaguera when giving Rogers his award in 2014, “but he truly is a remarkably talented photographer, too.”
Covering landscapes and portraits, Rogers’ images shift between giddily capturing the larger-than-life personas of such friends as Ray Charles and Dolly Parton, to documenting the natural beauty of America’s vast countryside. He could make familiar sights look like a fairytale: his glowing night time shot of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, proudly uploaded to his Facebook page in 2017, makes the 16th US president look more like a mystical levitating god than a statue for tourists to mill around.
Armed with a 35mm Brownie Hawkeye, Rogers enjoyed taking long walks on the look-out for unique trees. The camera also became a way to stave off boredom while touring America and bringing his signature brand of accessibly nostalgic country pop to fan-filled arenas. “I only worked an hour a day,” Rogers said of life on the road in 2014. “That meant I had 23 hours with nothing to do.”
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/mar/23/remarkably-talented-the-epic-photography-of-kenny-rogers
I think I will go and see if he published a book on his photography................
'B-U-M-M-E-R': National Spelling Bee called off due to coronavirus outbreak
Ninety-third edition of orthographic competition called off
Last year’s bee finished in an unprecedented eight-way tie
Bee has been held annually since 1925 except during WWII
The Scripps National Spelling Bee won’t be held as scheduled this year because of the coronavirus.
Scripps announced the decision Friday morning, citing recommendations against large gatherings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the ongoing state of emergency in Maryland.
The bee was scheduled to start on 24 May at its longtime venue, a convention center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside Washington.
Scripps said it would try to reschedule the bee for later this year, but it did not commit to a new date. It’s possible the bee, staged annually since 1925 except for a three-year hiatus during the second world war, won’t be held at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/20/national-spelling-bee-called-off-coronavirus
Fossil hunters find evidence of 555m-year-old human relative
Ikaria wariootia is half the size of a grain of rice and an early example of a bilateral organism
It might not show much of a family resemblance but fossil hunters say a newly discovered creature, that looks like a teardrop-shaped jellybean and is about half the size of a grain of rice, is an early relative of humans and a vast array of other animals.
The team discovered the fossils in rocks in the outback of South Australia that are thought to be at least 555m years old.
The researchers say the diminutive creatures are one of the earliest examples of a bilateral organism – animals with features including a front and a back, a plane of symmetry that results in a left and a right side, and often a gut that opens at each end. Humans, pigs, spiders and butterflies are all bilaterians, but creatures such as jellyfish are not.
Dr Scott Evans, of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and a co-author of the research, said: “The major finding of the paper is that this is possibly the oldest bilaterian yet recognised in the fossil record. Because humans are bilaterians, we can say that this was a very early relative and possibly one of the first on the diverse bilaterian tree of life.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/23/fossil-ikaria-wariootia-bilateral-organism-human-relative
This is so cool.........................don't tell the rapture crowd..................
Trump refuses to promise his own company won't get a taxpayer bailout
Written by Igor Derysh / Salon March 24, 2020
President Donald Trump declined to say whether his company would seek federal assistance from a proposed bailout fund, which Democrats decried as a “slush fund.”
“I’ve learned, let’s just see what happens,” Trump told reporters at a Sunday news briefing when asked about the Trump Organization. “Because we have to save some of these great companies.”
The comments came after Democrats balked at a $1.8 trillion stimulus bill to counter the economic calamity sparked by the coronavirus crisis. Senate Democrats blocked the bill from moving forward Sunday after calling for Republicans to guarantee that corporations would retain their workers before dipping into a $500 billion bailout fund, $425 billion of which would be distributed at the discretion of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The bill would also provide direct payments to most Americans and additional funds for states, hospitals, small businesses and unemployment insurance.
“We’re not here to create a slush fund for Donald Trump and his family or a slush fund for the Treasury Department to be able to hand out to their friends,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a statement.
“We’re going to give $500 billion in basically a slush fund to help industries controlled by Mnuchin with very little transparency? Is that what we ought to be doing?” Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/trump-refuses-to-promise-his-own-company-wont-get-a-taxpayer-bailout/
A Republican admits that the 'toxic fantasies' of his party have led us to an unprecedented crisis
Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly March 23, 2020
One of the critiques that is often leveled at the NeverTrumpers is that, even as they reject the current president’s words and deeds, they fail to assume any responsibility for how we got here. That isn’t true of Stuart Stevens, who once served as Mitt Romney’s campaign strategist. He has written a courageous piece titled, “Republicans like me built this moment. Then we looked the other way.”
The failures of the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis can be traced directly to some of the toxic fantasies now dear to the Republican Party. Here are a few: Government is bad. Establishment experts are overrated or just plain wrong. Science is suspect. And we can go it alone, the world be damned.
As the country deals with the fallout of this administration’s failure to respond to a pandemic, it is important to remember that it didn’t all start with Donald Trump.
During his 1981 inaugural address, the patron saint of the Republican Party—Ronald Reagan—famously said that “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” He was articulating a foundational principle of the modern-day GOP, which sees government as the enemy of free-market capitalism.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/a-republican-admits-that-the-toxic-fantasies-of-his-party-have-led-us-to-an-unprecedented-crisis/
And in the header picture I see one Joker and that fucking smile of his.............along with the other two assholes, with there fucking smiles......................................
Now this is what Texas is worried about.......and other Right wing states..........
Texas moves to ban most abortions due to virus outbreak
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The governor and attorney general of Texas are moving to ban most abortions in the state during the coronavirus outbreak, declaring they don’t qualify as essential surgeries.
Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday that the order issued over the weekend by Gov. Greg Abbott barred “any type of abortion that is not medically necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.”
Failure to comply with the order can result in penalties of up to $1,000 or 180 days of jail time, Paxton said.
“No one is exempt from the governor’s executive order on medically unnecessary surgeries and procedures, including abortion providers,” Paxton said. “Those who violate the governor’s order will be met with the full force of the law.”
https://apnews.com/7a7d2702038a08eb57aba1bae88cd48d
And Mark is worried about Created Equal.................what exactly does the definition mean Created Equal................woman that want there right to privacy mean that is they right to have privacy..................
Profile Information
Member since: Fri May 30, 2014, 03:30 PMNumber of posts: 24,695
