Monday, March 04, 2019

Rachel Maddow! 

Great show tonight!

Thank you!

There was a break down in communication between the Emergency Warning System and the people of Alabama.

According to local news reports out of Alabama, the people had no warning. There were three warnings issued, one early in the day, the other two was while the storm front was approaching and producing tornadoes.

Reports to the Florida Panhandle were published. What happened in Alabama that the people were obviously compromised and allowed to be in the path of danger?

March 3, 2019

"Tornado Watch Issued for Panhandle" (click here)

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for Escambia, Okaloosa and Santa Rosa counties.
The hazardous weather outlook said scattered thunderstorms could bring the potential for damaging winds and quarter-sized hail.
Davel Johnson, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Mobile, Alabama, said the tornado watch will remain in effect until around 6 p.m.
The problem as I see it is this: 

The tornado warning sirens are used in TESTING of the alerts. The people grow used to the testing which is not necessarily announced. Usually what occurs in conjunction with the tornado sirens when there is a real danger is an announcement stating there is a tornado watch that is in effect and to take shelter, etc.

In one video after the tornado struck and there was heavy damage, the siren was blaring. It is unclear that the siren went off as it was supposed to before the tornado hit. At any rate, if the siren sounded and the people had no other warning besides that many could have dismissed it as a test of the system. 

The other issue is, let's say people took shelter, here again, as in most of the Oklahoma tornadoes the shelter they take is grossly inadequate to the danger. This danger of inadequate shelter from tornadoes is typical throughout the south where basements are not used in the construction of homes.

No matter the issue, there is inadequate protection of the people in this region of the country and now in addition to this, there was a breakdown in communication between the emergency warning system and the people. There needs to be an investigation of the deaths of these people.

At least a dozen tornadoes (click here) are reported across Alabama and Georgia, leading to a number of fatalities and multiple people injured.

Thank you, Congressman Nadler.

Be it the Special Council, SDNY or the US House the questions regarding Trump, Trump Company and Trump charities has always been about the state of the country and the foundation of our laws.

March 4, 2019
By Michael Tomasky

The House Judiciary Committee chairman’s legal reasoning has always been precise and unassailable. With Trump now in his sights, the defense of the Constitution finally begins.


Today, it starts getting serious. (click here) House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is sending out letters to around 60 people in the Trump administration and the president’s general orbit (Don Jr., Allen Weisselberg) seeking documents and other information to “begin investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power,” as he put it on ABC’s This Week.

I’ve known Nadler since 1987, back in my cub reporter days. He was in the New York State Assembly then, and it didn’t take long for me to figure out he was one of the smartest politicians I’d encountered. He knew history, ideas, and the law. I won’t bore you with the details, in part because I’m not sure I remember them all, but there was a little controversy in Greenwich Village politics in those days involving the competition between the two Village Democratic clubs, one pretty left-leaning (and opposed to then-Mayor Ed Koch), the other a pro-Koch club.

Nadler was himself anti-Koch, but he spoke up in defense of the pro-Koch club, which wasn’t sitting very well with me at first, but I remember when I interviewed him about it I put down the phone admitting to myself that his legal reasoning was precise and unassailable. I was impressed with his insistence on due process even when it didn’t lead to the end point that would have been more politically popular with his constituents....

By the way, Whitaker is reported to have left the DOJ. He may have serious legal issues due to deferring his authority to the president.

March 4, 2019
By Alex Henderson

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (click here) has announced that he expects a resolution blocking President Trump’s emergency declaration on the U.S./Mexico border to pass in the United States Senate. The Kentucky Republican told reporters, however, that he doesn’t believe the Senate has enough votes to override a presidential veto.

On Monday, McConnell told reporters, “I think what is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president—and then, in all likelihood, the veto will be upheld in the House.”

The resolution of disapproval is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate before Friday, March 15, when members of Congress will take a week-long recess. And it appears to have at least 51 votes, which is enough to pass in the Senate but not enough to override a presidential veto....

February 15, 2019
By Li Zhou and Emily Stewart

As Vox’s Sean Illing, (click here) who spoke with 11 experts about the legality of Trump’s declaration, laid out, there’s enough ambiguity in the law to let Trump declare an emergency. But the maneuver may not stand up to legal scrutiny once challenged in court. He is effectively trying to circumvent Congress — which is supposed to have the “power of the purse” and has decided against funding his border wall — and it’s not clear whether Trump can actually use the armed forces for the project. And his claim that there’s an emergency at the border that necessitates a border wall is dubious.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Friday that they were prepared to take multiple routes to try to block Trump’s efforts. “The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available,” they said in a statement.

There are several different paths to challenging the declaration. Here are some of the most likely....

l.  A joint Congressional resolution 
2. A lawsuit against the White House due to Executive Branch Overreach
3. Landowners along the border can file a lawsuit against the White House
4. Groups, such as the ACLU, can sue the White House for human rights and civil rights violations
5. Effected states can sue the White House for Executive Overreach and the disregard of States Rights.

There are currently sixteen states that have filed lawsuits against the White House declaring their States Rights are being violated by an incompetent idea that leaves them less safe.

The alternatives include needed deployment of National Guard troops under the direction of the Governor. Texas has used it's National Guard successfully before when 1000 were sent to the Texas border when there was an influx of children a few years ago. I believe it was the city of Houston that extended their hospitality to those children and sponsored them. So the States have alternative methods they prefer.

In the case of California, human rights violations may play a big part in it's decision. The State of California has a long history of receiving the Undocumented at times when asylum was being sought. California has barriers, three of them and they are not necessarily happy with the condition of people as they cross those barriers either to defeat the wire or risking entrance into the ocean to go around the wall.

Other States may have varying reasons to oppose the national emergency declaration and considering these states have coped with border crossers for more than a century, they have very good standing to argue the infringement of federal authority along it's borders when it is not necessary at all.

"Good Night, Moon"

The waning crescent moon

27.3 days old

5.6 percent lit

Is there another planet in our solar system?

February 28, 2019
By Rafi Letzter

There could be a planet hiding (click here) out on the distant frontiers of our solar system. And astronomers have published new details about what it probably looks like, if it really exists.
Planet 9, according to a new paper published online Feb. 10 in the journal Physics Reports, is probably five to 10 times the mass of Earth. And it probably travels along an elongated orbit that peaks at 400 times Earth's distance from the sun. That orbit is also likely 15 to 25 degrees off the main orbital plain of our solar system where most planets orbit.

The existence of Planet Nine, as Live Science sister site Space.com previously reported, is an idea that's become popular among astronomers ever since it was first seriously proposed back in 2014. Researchers suspect the planet's existence because of patterns of objects in the Kuiper Belt, a ring of debris in the outer solar system. Those objects tend to clump together in ways that suggest that gravity from something big out there is tugging on them....