July 31, 2018

Cruise ship guards' killing of polar bear sparks international outrage

Source: CBS News


Norwegian authorities on Monday defended the actions of guards from a German cruise ship that killed a polar bear that had attacked and injured a crew member, saying they at first tried to scare it away. Police spokesman Ole Jakob Malmo said two members of the 12-man crew that set foot on the most northern island of the Svalbard archipelago ahead of tourists on Saturday first tried to ward off the bear "by shouting and making loud noises as well as firing a signal pistol, but to no effect."

A 42-year-old German man who was not identified sustained minor head injuries from the attack, Malmo said.

British comedian Ricky Gervais took to Twitter to call the tourists "morons," while another user, Jane Roberts, said that if such tourism was banned, guards "wouldn't be needed to protect gawking tourists & polar bears would be left in peace & not shot dead merely to satisfy a photo op."

"Let's get too close to a polar bear in its natural environment and then kill it if it gets too close". Morons. https://t.co/FEPt0sYOtF

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) July 29, 2018



Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/polar-bear-killed-cruise-ship-guards-norway-outrage-authorities-respond-today-2018-07-30/

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The poor polar bear looks emaciated, with its hip bone protruding from its carcass. It no doubt was starving, which is why it attacked that idiot.

July 30, 2018

Study: 'Medicare for all' projected to cost $32.6 trillion

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/study-medicare-bill-estimated-326-trillion-56906940

So under this worst case scenario study, if we cut out the middle man (insurance companies), it amounts to $3T/year to cover everyone for everything. That equates to $10k per person. Right now I pay $16k per year for a family of 3. But on top of that I pay thousands in copays and deductibles and even then it does not cover everything. Paying $10k per person to me means instead of paying $16k in premiums, plus thousands more in copays and deductibles, and arguing with my insurance every time I need referrals to specialists or coverage "out of network," I will now just pay $14k more for the three of us pand never stress about any of that. Sounds like a deal to me.

And this study assumed doctors and hospitals won't take less than they are getting now, which seems highly unlikely. If there are no more uninsured, hospitals won't have to jack up the rest of our costs to cover them. If we want European style single payer health insurance, we must pay European style taxes. I'm fine with that. People would still save money in the long run, and most important, we would finally end the uninsured/underinsured crisis and the horrific human death and misery caused by it.

We have to be real about what the tax increases will be and be prepared to justify them. I am convinced we can justify the increases. Sadly, must politicians aren't. When it came time to finance Vermont's single payer law with tax increases, ALL of Vermont's politicians ran for cover, and VT single payer died. Same thing will happen with national single payer unless we get real about the tax numbers and get a backbone to argue for them.

July 12, 2018

Officer resigns amid probe over lack of response to man harassing woman for wearing Puerto Rico shir

An Illinois police officer being investigated for his inaction as an intoxicated man berated a woman wearing a shirt with the Puerto Rican flag has resigned, the Forest Preserves of Cook County said Wednesday.

The man who was tormenting Irizarry, identified by police as Timothy Trybus, 62, has been charged with assault and disorderly conduct. He was intoxicated at the time, the Forest Preserves of Cook County has said.

In the video, Irizarry, who rented space in the park for a birthday party, is heard telling the man who is yelling at her and coming closer, to get away from her. She tells a police officer who is watching the scene "Officer, I feel highly uncomfortable, can you please grab him?" but the officer turns and walks away.https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/officer-resigns-amid-probe-over-lack-response-man-harassing-woman-n890781

July 11, 2018

Politician Goes Into A Diner, Is Confronted With Free Baklava

Things aren’t fraught for all politicians in the restaurants of America. Take Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). He bought takeout recently at a Greek diner and the friendly owner added a free baklava — “one of my favorite desserts,” Lieu said.

The owner thanked him for what he was doing in Congress. “I guess that’s what happens when one opposes ripping kids away from parents,” he tweeted. 

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b441af6e4b0c523e261ee76


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Love me some Ted Lieu!! How could you not? I wish Ted Lieu was my Representive, but I have that traitorous sack of poo, Dana Rohrabacher. Hopefully not for long, once Democrat Harley Rouda boots "Putin's favorite Congressman" out of the 48th Distict of CA!

July 8, 2018

The 'civility debate' isn't about manners. It's an old-school power play.

The so-called "civility debate" is the newest front in a wider conflict that has less to do with manners, or ensuring a polite discourse, than in protecting the powerful from being forced to engage with politics on someone else's terms.
...
At its heart is a unique form of cultural illiteracy and status anxiety. The ability to hand-pick when and in what context to face the consequences of your work is a privilege, deep-seated and treasured by those who possess it. Dinnertime interlopers who challenge this expectation are protesting more than a government official or policy -- they are fundamentally rejecting it.

Simply put, the most powerful among us -- elected officials, their benefactors and high-ranking staffers, allied consultants, and some heavyweight analysts -- have traditionally enjoyed a certain self-enforced privilege: the freedom to actively seek out and in most cases find a break from politics.
...
Lately, though, these usually unmarked boundaries are being defied more often -- and increasingly by people, unlike Dershowitz and his island frenemies, who are never invited into the conversation, even when their fate is the subject. Now, with cell phones to record the confrontations and a few easy channels to make them go viral, there is an easy way in.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/politics/no-escape-from-politics-civility-debate/index.html

July 6, 2018

Is this the US president most like Trump?

Mr Trump has likened himself to Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president. It's difficult to imagine Old Hickory, as he was known, excusing himself from military duty on the grounds that he could not march long distances, as Mr Trump did during the Vietnam War, citing bone spurs.

The parallels between the 45th president and the 13th - unlucky for some - are arguably more compelling.

Fillmore launched his career in the 1820s with the Anti-Masonic Party, hawking a paranoid rumour that ruling Freemasons were murdering whistleblowers.

Mr Trump paved the way for his White House bid by peddling a conspiracy theory, too - that President Barack Obama was not a US citizen.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44688337

July 2, 2018

Anthony Kennedy, You Are a Total Disgrace to America

The worst part is that by retiring in the middle of the Robert Mueller investigation, Kennedy is letting Trump pick one of his own jurors. He obviously had to know he was doing this. And what are we to do if the Supreme Court holds sometime in the near future by 5-4, with Kennedy’s successor in the majority, that the president is indeed above the law?

And now we learn that on top of everything else, Kennedy may just be corrupt. So his son Justin, if last week’s New York Times account is correct, in essence kept Donald Trump in business for the better part of a decade, overseeing $1 billion worth of loans to the Trump Organization via Deutsche Bank, where he worked. Justin and the Trump kids are buddies, it seems. Justin and Trump himself are palsy-walsy.

This is grotesque. There was once a time in this country, 40 and 50 years ago, when a connection like this might have led an honorable associate justice to recuse himself from every case involving the administration that came before him. Or if not that, at the very least a justice would have cared enough about appearances that he would have tried to stay on until 2021 to see if the country elected a new president, someone who wasn’t arguably saved from bankruptcy and humiliation by his own flesh and blood.

But not only did Kennedy not do that—he chose not to risk the possibility of the Democrats winning the Senate this fall and pulling a Mitch and doing to his successor what McConnell did to Merrick Garland. A jurist who cared more about his legacy would have waited--indeed would have hoped that the Democrats took the Senate, perhaps forcing President Trump to put forward a nominee who was more moderate and who would follow Kennedy's own example on abortion rights and gay rights. But no.


https://www.thedailybeast.com/anthony-kennedy-you-are-a-total-disgrace-to-america?ref=scroll


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Maybe Kennedy wants Trump to appoint a scumbag like Cavanaugh who will hold a President can pardon anyone, including himself. That way his son Justin, who works for a notorious money laundering bank and who personally resided over giving Trump $1 Billion, will be protected from going to jail with Trump.

Even if that is not Kennedy's motivation, a judge is ethically bound to avoid all appearances of impropriety. Kennedy has disregarded these ethical norms. He is indeed a disgrace.