Florida Building Collapse

Just a word about the Florida Building Collapse. My deepest sympathies for the families and friends that lost people. This is a prime example of the government not doing it's job.

This building should have been condemned by the people that inspected it in 2018. Those inspectors that wrote up that report should have been empowered to condemn that building until further notice.

Yes, there would be a lot of families displaced and homeless, but, they would still be alive today, and if all those families were displaced the community would respond. If the community could not respond then the state would have to. This is a complete failure of the government. There need to be laws that empower building inspectors to shut it down.

If a building were shut down there would be repairs and/or a complete demolition to building a new one. But, this is not the way people should be living. The entire issue is more than dead citizens it is the complete failure of the government to protect the innocent from the powerful.

There was more than one building involved. Once the first building tumbled, it fell into the one right next to it, like Dominos. There is a whole lot wrong with this incident and it needs to be addressed. The parking garage at the basement of the building was falling apart and succumbing to the unstable ground under it. There is nothing here that was deterioration due to age alone, it was the ground under the building that was shifting and causing cracks in the very foundation that the building sat on.

I guarantee you this isn't the only one in the same condition. What happened to the authority of the people that are educated to know when a building is unsound to act on what they know. This is a crime. Plan and simple. 

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Very troubling. It is almost as though the Robert's Court is bothered by the past or better said resents the past and it's permanence.

Looks like Kavanaugh is going to pull one-off for the Federalist Society and it's path to a Christian Theocracy.

This is definitely the time to take a sincere look at adding more justices to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh was one of the children raised in the USA by ideological parents, just like Josh Hawley (click here), and destined for a place like the Supreme Court. Why? To effect change in the character of the USA to satisfy the outcomes of Evangelical Christians. We do not want nuclear weapons in their hands.

June 26, 2021
By Mark Joseph Stern

Justice Clarence Thomas arrives for the ceremonial swearing in of Justice Brett Kavanaugh at the White House in 2018.

On Friday, (click here) the Supreme Court pulled off a heist decades in the making. In TransUnion v. Ramirez, five conservative justices seized Congress’ power to create new individual rights and protect victims by authorizing lawsuits when those rights are violated. Instead, the court awarded itself the power to decide which rights may be vindicated in federal court, overturning Congress’ own decisions about which harms deserve redress. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion for the court was so extreme it prompted Justice Clarence Thomas to write a furious dissent, joined by the liberals, that accused the majority of infidelity to the Constitution. But because of the court’s 6–3 conservative supermajority, Thomas’ defection from the conservative bloc did not change the outcome. And now, thanks to Friday’s decision, a huge number of Americans harmed by a flagrant violation of the law will be locked out of the federal judiciary altogether....

First up on the chopping block is the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) (click here) is a federal law that regulates the collection of consumers' credit information and access to their credit reports. It was passed in 1970 to address the fairness, accuracy, and privacy of the personal information contained in the files of the credit reporting agencies....

• ...The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) governs how credit bureaus can collect and share information about individual consumers.
• Businesses check credit reports for many purposes, such as deciding whether to make a loan or sell insurance to a consumer.
• FCRA also gives consumers certain rights, including free access to their own credit reports....

What my first impression was that Ginni Thomas would be thrown out of her right-wing clubs for the rest of her life. But, Ginni hasn't been herself recently (click here). It would appear as though since this little falling out by Ginni Thomas, the Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has been interesting, to say the least. He has been taking up the side of women in a few of his recent decisions.

But, this is far more troubling a decision than just losing the Fair Credit Reporting Act, this is about whether or not the Second Branch of Government, the Legislative Branch can expand citizens' rights. The law regarding the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 expanded the right of Americans to know what is going on with a commodity called CREDIT. Allowing average Americans the brevity of knowing their credit reporting is viewed as a right and not a privilege. Owning and using a state drivers' license is viewed as a privilege, it is revokable.

Interesting, isn't it, that a privileged document, a State driver's license, is the backbone of the Republican demands at the ballot box as the true identity of a person.

But, this whole mess the Supreme Court conservative majority is spewing is more than concerning. The Supreme Court with this decision is nullifying the Legislative Branch back to the beginning of time.

Justice Thomas was one of the justices that nearly 100 percent of the time would side with the Late Justice Scalia. I find it more than alarming that he should be standing out as a symbol of warning to this majority of 5 conservative justices to remove the purpose of the legislative branch of the government. That five majority includes the latest Justice Coney Barrett who clerked for the Late Justice Scalia and claims her views were somewhat hammered out by the late justice. Yet, here they are, the two Justices most affiliated with the Late Justice Scalia, in complete opposition to her vote.

The Legislative Branch of the USA Constitution carries out votes for Amendments to add to the rights of American citizens. Does this decision mean the Legislature no longer has the right to pass Amendments to the USA Constitution? Surely not. The Amendment process is clearly written into the USA Constitution. But, then so are the rights and responsibilities of the Legislature. It would seem as though with this decision the five court conservative majority wants to remove the legislative branch and quite possibly the right to pass Amendments that start in the Legislative authority.

This decision can't stand and I would like to know what Attorney General Merrick Garland thinks of all this. I can't help but believe the AG will be in President Biden's office first thing Monday morning to talk about this very concerning decision by the Supreme Court.

I think this decision explains a lot about an agenda within the political right-wing including Moscow Mitch's obstructionist plan the entire time he has been Majority Leader of the US Senate. In circles of my friends, we would call this "a trend." Even more than a trend, a planned assault against the USA Constitution. I am confident members of the US House can think of many recent decisions by the Supreme Court including the right of subpoena, which is rather remarkable from the extremist point of view.

Right now, with this decision by the Supreme Court, the working branches of government are the Executive Branch and the Judicial Branch. The Robert's Court would have the appearance of negating many of the roles of the Supreme Court by sending decisions back to the lower courts and taking apart the previously held responsibilities of the US Legislature. This isn't the first assault, it is however the most damaging.

Given that the Robert's Court is dismantling the Legislative Branch, that leaves the Executive Branch which is supposed to uphold the laws passed by the legislature. With the legislature nullified by this decision, the Executive Branch is now the King the Founding Fathers warned against. Be grateful the King is still elected and the current King is President Biden.

This decision clearly puts the Supreme Court on the road to additional justices and the elimination of the filibuster.

The USA Constitution was never supposed to be immobile to society's changing content. The USA Constitution is designed to bring about change as time passes and the country has grown and changed with time. The idea that The Fair Reporting Act of 1970 is dismantled and discarded puts citizens back in time to before the USA Constitution was written. Isn't that why King Trump hoped to take us with his Insurrection of January 6, 2021?

The Kyiv Post picked seven top destinations in southern Ukraine — from the wild desert island of Dzharylhach to the noisy yet comfortable Zaliznyi Port.

Arabat Spit, (click here) the longest sand spit in Europe, is a popular tourist destination, known for shallow sea, large comfortable beaches, recreation centers, salt lakes and thermal springs. The most popular resorts on the spit are the villages of Genichenskaya Gorka, Strilkove and Shchaslyvtseve. The spit separates lagoons named Syvash from the Azov Sea.

Tour De France has started ahead of the 2021 Olympics

Tour De France 2021 (click here)

June 26, 2021

By Chris Cwik

The Tour de France (click here) descended into chaos Saturday after a careless fan caused a massive crash at the event when their sign hit one of the riders.

The fan was posing for the camera with the sign, and not watching the race when a rider collided with the sign....

26/06/2021

Alaphilippe (click here for video - thank you) won the crash-marred opening stage of the Tour de France to snatch the race leader's yellow jersey on Saturday. FRANCE 24's Jean-Emile Jammine tells us more.

Snyder's lawyers (who are paid by the state) will try anything to see if it will stick to the wall.

An emergency manager (click here) said no to the river after speaking to environmental regulators. An ex-Flint official said the governor’s office reversed that decision.

There is one many guilty of the tragedy of poisoning an entire city and that is Rick Snyder.

These are public entities involved in bankruptcy. There are absolutely no private interests in any of these proceedings. While the State of Michigan obtained the documents legally, they should have been able to get it with nothing more than a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.

Additionally, the state is a party in these proceedings. And the state isn't allowed to have it's own records for prosecution according to Snyder. That is about as backward an idea as it comes.

The people of the State of Michigan have a right to not only prosecute wrongdoing where people have died at the hand of the state government but, to CONSERVER the amount of money these lawyers spend. So, far in Snyder's case alone, the defense attorneys have failed at every motion. They should not be entitled to money if they are carrying out motion after motion in order to add hours to their invoice to the state and make Rick Snyder feel better that there is something that can stop this prosecution. 

July 16, 2021

Detroit - The Flint water criminal case (click here) involving former Gov. Rick Snyder took a strange side trip Wednesday into bankruptcy court where his lawyers asked a judge to penalize state attorneys for distributing confidential documents from Detroit's historic financial restructuring.

The documents were related to private talks between Detroit, the state and creditors while the city was trying to emerge from bankruptcy in 2014. Snyder's administration played a key role in groundbreaking deals.

Armed with a search warrant in 2019, prosecutors in the attorney general's office obtained documents from computer servers controlled by other state attorneys who had represented Snyder in matters related to Flint's lead-contaminated water.

The search apparently swept up sensitive documents from the Detroit bankruptcy as well as attorney-client communications of other state officials, Snyder attorney Charles Ash said....

25 years to life is the usual sentence for someone that murders for the first time.

According to the judge, there is ten years more added to his sentence due to the "character" of the death. The death was particularly heinous and committed by someone in the profession of law enforcement.

Some day in this country we will RETURN to the place where police officers will be able to safely patrol with a six bullet revolver or no gun at all. But, in order to achieve that goal, we all have to work at ridding the USA of the gun lobby and a gun industry that doesn't know it's a place in any society, including the USA.

  

Pass city ordinances that demand regular inspections when temperatures vary widely in short periods of time and/or with chronic winds and/or flooding.

 While on the topic of Belgium, there was a building collapse in Antwerp, Belgium a couple of days ago.

I am no engineer or architect, but, it seems to me there were wide swings in temperature just before the school building under construction collapsed killing five and hospitalizing 9. 

The building collapse in Miami was not of a building under construction. I don't know how old that building was, but, it was built on land that is bordered on two sides by water.

Cities need to assess their buildings to understand their age, their composition and resiliency to weather and varying temperatures in a short period of time.

Some cities that experience severe weather on a regular basis this may not seem as much a threat. But, cities here chronic high winds and widely swinging temperatures in a matter of a couple days need to be aware of the problems that can arise.

In the past few years there have been some alarming problems due to weather, including exploding sidewalks when summer temperatures reach into the 100 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit range.

Cities should consider ordinances that require regular inspect of buildings both under construction and those already built when temperatures and wind pose a challege to stability.

June 24, 2021

Surfside, Florida - At least one person (click here) is dead and as many as 99 people unaccounted for following the collapse of a residential building in Surfside, a town near Miami.

The incident happened at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday.

According to officials, 102 people are accounted for, but 99 are still unaccounted for. 35 victims were pulled from the structure and two were pulled from the rubble, including a boy. 11 patients are being treated for their injuries.

Fire rescue officials said they have to be careful when searching because the part of the building that is still standing is also shifting.

"We're still waiting and unfortunately the hope is still there, but it is weaning," Miami-Dade Commissioner Sally Heyman said to CNN. "The rest of the search and rescue efforts has been done by man power on the outside, search on the barrier quarters, also with drones and with dogs. It has shifted now or started to shift to recovery."...

The USA needs to bring all those in Afghanistan that worked for the USA military to asylum.

NATO allies are already bringing Afghans to their countries for asylum who have assisted the NATO's military with their missions. There is no excuse for the USA. Those Afghans need to be on transport planes to come to the USA for asylum. They have intelligence about the USA and will be tortured and killed when the troops leave for home. it is vital to bring Afghans who have assisted the USA military to our country to settle along with their families.

Anyone complaining about immigration and/or asylum should be fully ashamed of themselves.

10 June 2021
By Alan Hope

The Belgian government (click here) could offer asylum to up to 30 translators who worked for Belgian troops in Afghanistan, defence minister Ludivine Dedonder (PS) has suggested.

The offer would include the Afghans’ families, and potentially remove them from the risk of suffering reprisals at the hands of a resurgent Taliban.

Dedonder was speaking at a press conference to mark the 19th anniversary of the Belgian presence in Afghanistan.

Translators – more accurately translators and fixers, as they do much more than translate from local languages into languages the troops will understand, most commonly English – are of supreme importance to foreign forces in a country like Afghanistan, where everything from the culture to the languages to the society to the landscape is utterly foreign.

Now, however, after US President Joe Biden announced a US troop withdrawal from the country, the Taliban is making a move. According to De Volkskrant in the Netherlands, the Taliban has claimed 150 victims in one day, mainly among army and police.

American troops are due to leave by the symbolic date of 11 September, exactly 20 years after the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that trigged the invasion....

Afghanistan

Bring these people at the very least to Guam. They assisted the USA military during a very long war and they need protection. We have lost interpreters in Afghanistan and other people who assisted our soldiers through violence. They will face tragedy if they are left behind.

There is going to be a lot of change in Afghanistan after the USA is gone. There are local militias currently acting to establish their own protections. That is the way Afghanistan operated before the war and it will operate that way after the USA leaves.

The USA has tried and tried to engage the people in a way that would bring about a stable democracy. That has worked to a certain extent, but, it is up to the people of that country now. If after twenty years there is no success in Afghanistan it is time to let the people sort everything out and live according to their means and abilities.

The USA was never successful in ending the corruption in Afghanistan and that is the peril the country still faces. With the USA gone, the commerce this country brought will end and perhaps Afghanistan will have to make hard choices that brings them to value democracy and a centralized government.

I am quite sure any rights women and girls have achieved could be lost, but, here again it will be according to how these talented ladies are valued. If the local militias appreciate their knowledge and innate abilities to achieve learning and add to the country's brain trust, then they have a chance at being part of government and the sciences that can advance Afghanistan.

Geologically, it is a difficult country for one military to protect. The mountains and mountain passes are extreme and dangerous. For that reason, the country brakes down into local authorities that have the ability to be the military and police for areas of the country. 

China and Russia may try to bring about an economy based in mining, but, without the USA to stabilize the country in a real way, the attempts to grow an economy will fail.

So, to that end, these people that have helped the USA all these years, they must be given at the very least refugee status to prepare them for life out of Afghanistan. There are many countries that were involved in that country and perhaps they can offer to give refugee families a homeland once again. But, right now, they need evacuation.

June 23, 2021
By Julia Watson and Ben Fox

San Diego - In the chaotic, final hours of the Vietnam War,(click here) the U.S. evacuated thousands of South Vietnamese who supported the American mission and were at risk under the communist government.

With U.S. and NATO forces facing a Sept. 11 deadline to leave Afghanistan, many are recalling that desperate, hasty exodus as they urge the Biden administration to evacuate thousands of Afghans who worked as interpreters or otherwise helped U.S. military operations there in the past two decades.

Despite unusual bipartisan support in Congress, the administration hasn’t agreed to such a move, declining to publicly support something that could undermine security in the country as it unwinds a war that started after the 9/11 attacks.

“We have a moral obligation to protect our brave allies who put their lives on the line for us, and we’ve been working for months to engage the administration and make sure there’s a plan, with few concrete results,” Republican Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan said during a House hearing last week....

SARS-CoV-2

The understanding I have about the current status of the virus is the vaccines are working. Today, those hospitalized are not vaccineated. The vaccines are even effective against the variants. Other Western countries are finding the same conclusions. 

The USA must lead in vaccinating other countries to end the death tolls and protect the people that can be protected. It is interesting how other countries are complaining about not having vaccine or enough of it to protect the people and here in the USA where vaccines are more or less abundant there are people that refuse the vaccines and die because of it.

There must be an investigation into the CULTURE that was propagated last year and continues to be propagated by the Republican Party. There are people that are dead because they believed the propaganda to protect an economy rather than their lives. Like the poisoned water in Flint, the glib attitude faciliated by the Republican Party must come to an end. This is an outrage and the people of this country have a right to understand what occurred. I suppose this death toll can be called, "The Second Big Lie." 

An investigation must be conducted and conclusions reached.

Oh, as far as the idea that China's lab was the original place of the virus. No one will ever know for sure. If the WHO can't get to the truth, I sincerely believe nothing else will.

The Republicans are still trying to blame "The Chinese Virus" as if it were germ warfare. That is nonsense. Even if this was biological warfare, the CULTURE and presidential incompetence that came out of the Republican Party is responsible for such horrid outcomes in the USA.

Let's get this straight. A United States of America President should know how to protect the people from biological warfare. President George Walker Bush knew exactly what to do and harnessed the country's capacity to produce treatments for the virus he was fighting.

There is no excuse for what occurred in the USA. 

The Democrats, especially minority candidates, need to take more of the state legislative seats.

June 22, 2021

By Marie Albiges

Harrisburg - The Pennsylvania House (click here) passed an election overhaul bill Tuesday that creates stricter voter ID requirements and early voting in 2025, despite opposition from most Democrats and a promised veto from Gov. Tom Wolf.

The state Senate is poised to take up the measure in the coming days, but Republican lawmakers in the chamber are charting a separate path that would advance the priorities of county election officials while putting stricter voter ID requirements on a future ballot.

The topic has emerged as a partisan sticking point in Harrisburg. Currently, only first-time voters and those casting ballots at a new polling precinct are required to show ID. Roughly three-quarters of respondents to a recent Franklin & Marshall College poll of Pennsylvania voters said they favor requiring all voters to show photo ID....

A rather interesting poll that finds far less confidence in state government post pandemic. There is more to a state government than just the Governor. I strongly suggest the Democrats take a close look at the moarning the American people are doing and who they believe is most responsible for it.

The poll finds that President Biden is doing a great job for the people. I believe he is liked and respected by the people of the country. He takes his responsibilities seriously, doesn't worry about the impression he makes on the press or those who would have him be deemed incompetent and gets it done. He is doing work the people have wanted for a long time, which only proves there are reasons people were unhappy with the government and it would seem not just the fedreal government.

The pandemic hurt the USA deeply. The death rate, the loss of jobs and income. They will remember who stood at their side and fought the losy virus and who didn't. There are a lot of people dead and they shouldn't be.

...Despite the lessening concerns about COVID (click here) and the increased vaccination rates, Pennsylvania’s voters remain pessimistic. Only two in five (35%) state voters believes the state is “headed in the right direction,” which is significantly lower than the recent, pre-pandemic high of 57 percent reported in October 2019 and essentially unchanged since the March F&M Poll. There is also no notable improvement in voters’ assessments of their personal finances.

These negative assessments about the direction of the state and personal finances likely translate to lower job approval ratings for Governor Wolf. In July 2020, more than half (52%) of the state’s registered voters rated the governor as doing an “excellent” or “good” job; today, his positive job approval rating is at 39 percent. President Biden’s approval ratings have fared better than Governor Wolf’s in Pennsylvania. About two in five (44%) voters in Pennsylvania believe President Biden is doing an “excellent” or “good” job as president and his approval rating for managing the coronavirus outbreak is higher (49%) than his overall job approval rating. Both of these numbers are consistent with his March approval ratings....

Is the American Philosophical Society protected from losing it's importance. It is history itself.

There are no plans to display the Declaration anytime soon. Dare I say it should never be on display so much as a copy.

American Philosophical Society (click here)

June 23, 2021
By Stephen Salisbury

American Philosophical Society's head of conservation Anne Downey (left) and Patrick Spero, director of the library, open their copy of the original Declaration of Independence ordered up by President John Quincy Adams in 1820, but not completed until 1823.

The archive of the American Philosophical Society, (click here) consisting of an ever-expanding universe of 13 million manuscripts and 350,000 bound volumes and periodicals, with images and audiotapes proliferating on a daily basis, has reached the point where it is its own universe.

So it should be no surprise that APS, founded in 1743, has discovered that it possesses an exceedingly rare engraved copy of the Declaration of Independence ordered up by John Quincy Adams two centuries ago, and given to the society in 1842 by Daniel Webster. The society has just announced the discovery.

The unearthed document now ascends to APS’s pantheon of Declarations consisting of rare drafts and early printed copies from newspapers, broadsides, and pamphlets held....

West Humbolt Park is getting new jobs.

West Humbolt Park, Chicago (click here)  It looks as though Amazon has made a wise decision in building a facility in West Humblodt Park, Chicago. The area has many young people and a comparible low income to Chicago. Perhaps these jobs will be good paying jobs with good benefits that will enhance the community. I congratulate Amazon for taking impoverishment in it's decisions. The company still needs to organize to protect the people that work very hard to make the company a success.

The West Humboldt Park neighborhood, (click here) canopied between Garfield and Humboldt Parks, is a place for new beginnings amidst authentic architecture located just minutes west of downtown. The neighborhood is home to a diverse population of long-time neighbors including African American and Latino residents, particularly a vibrant Puerto Rican community.

June 22, 2021

By Lauren Zumbach and Ryan Ori

Amazon (click here) is planning to build a facility in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood that could employ hundreds of people.

Construction has not yet started on the 140,000-square-foot delivery station, which is expected to open in late 2022, Amazon said Tuesday. A delivery station is a package’s last stop before it is delivered to a customer....

Proof. The Republicans are NOT the government of the people.

Greg Abbot, the current governor of Texas, is calling a special session of the state legislature to pass oppressive voting laws. He did that the minute it was known the US Senate was going to defeat the voting rights bill.

The Republicans are playing a dangerous game with voting rights as if the people voting are the problem and not them. To the Republicans, including Moscow Mitch, this is politics. There is no such thing as governing with the Republicans.

June 22, 2021
By Mike DeBonis

Senate Republicans (click here) banded together Tuesday to block a sweeping Democratic bill that would revamp the architecture of American democracy, dealing a grave blow to efforts to federally override dozens of GOP-passed state voting laws.

The test vote, which would have cleared the way to start debate on voting legislation, failed 50-50 on straight party lines — 10 votes short of the supermajority needed to advance legislation in the Senate.

It came after Democrat after Democrat delivered warnings about the dire state of American democracy, blaming former president Donald Trump for undermining its foundations by challenging the 2020 election results, which, in turn, prompted his supporters in numerous state legislatures to pass new laws rolling back ballot access.

“Are we going to let reactionary state legislatures drag us back into the muck of voter suppression? Are we going to let the most dishonest president in history continue to poison our democracy from the inside?” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the vote. “Or will we stand up to defend what generations of Americans have organized, marched, fought and died for — the sacred, sacred right to vote?”...

Abbot signed into law a bill that changes the history of racism in the state of Texas. The Republicans are introducing confusion to USA history. That is exactly what they want. What kind of power is this? What gives anyone the idea that history is supposed to reflect a political ideology? I tell you who does these things. An incompetent dictator does things like this. There is no benevolence left to the Republicans, only a desire to rewrite history and destroy the USA Constitution.

There is every reason to impeach Greg Abbot, but, that won't happen because the majority of the Texas legislature passed the bill in the first place. There would not be enough votes to impeach.

June 22, 2021

By Isabella Zou

Gov. Greg Abbott (click here) signed into law a bill last week that restricts how current events and America’s history of racism can be taught in Texas schools. It’s been commonly referred to as the “critical race theory” bill, though the term “critical race theory” never appears in it.

But in signing the bill, Abbott said “more must be done” to “abolish critical race theory in Texas,” and announced that he would ask the Legislature to address the issue during a special session this summer....

Don't believe that this ruling means the perpetrators cited as defendants are correct in their actions.

These decisions by the judiciary are about the office and the USA Constitution. The actions by officers were not incorrect. They acted according to the orders they received from the highest members of the chain of command. The idea this was an illegal act is incorrect on it's face.

The issue that CONTINUES TO GO UNADDRESSED is the corruption and abuse of power by Trump and his minions in the Republican Party, legislature, and the administration. The people elected a crook to the Oval Office. What transpired after receiving the oath of office was an enormous amount of corruption that even sought to undermine the USA's national security by providing highly classified material to Russia.

The only reason Trump maintained his office is that the Republican Party, especially in the US Senate is corrupt to the core, with perhaps the exception of Senators Mitt Romney and Cornyn. Senator Cornyn is still conducting investigations by his committee assignments and acting in the best interest of the people of Texas. I disagree with most of his world views, but, I believe him to be honest and loyal to the USA Constitution.

While I understand the need for democratic organizations and governments to take action to bring about justice, the fact of the matter is this is not a Rule of Law issue so much as it is an issue of deep-seated corruption and abuse of power.

Rep. Liz Cheney prefers to see it as a lack of real competency/education. That is primarily true of the Republican House members and voters that treat politics as popular and are FANS of WWF and all that mess that propels Republicans to vote for figures such as Trump and his "You're Fired" POWER.

However, this particular issue is not about the Rule of Law. Should a legitimate reason be needed to 'send in the police,' that must be kept intact. It isn't the Rule of Law on trial in Lafayette Square. The police acted as they were ordered and it was a much-practiced drill. The problem is the UNDERLYING corruption of the government that ordered the attack on demonstrators while clearing the streets for Trump's photo-op.

These attempts at bringing about justice through the backdoor continue because Trump was not impeached and the right-wing extremism seen in characters such as Josh Hawley continues to be touted as correct and best. I find the insight of Rep. Liz Cheney regarding the personal safety of Congress members and their families paramount to overcoming the continued attempts to overthrow the USA Constitution.

The threats of members of Congress are somewhat expected as realized by attacks on the homes of Speaker Pelosi and then-Majority Leader Moscow Mitch. But, if there are constituents and/or other Congressional members that are actively threatening members of Congress in either house, there need to be investigations by the FBI and arrests to those seeking to harm their representatives and their families. This is a major problem and the investigative agencies, even at the local level, need to investigate and act to prosecute. This return of the strength of the USA Constitution is not over.

June 21, 2021

By Spencer H. Hsu

A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed most claims (click here) filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., Black Lives Matter and others in lawsuits that accused the Trump administration of authorizing an unprovoked attack on demonstrators in Lafayette Square last year.

The plaintiffs asserted the government used unnecessary force to enable a photo op of President Donald Trump holding a Bible outside of the historical St. John’s Church. But U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of Washington called allegations that federal officials conspired to make way for the photo too speculative.

The judge’s decision came in a 51-page opinion after the Justice Department requested she toss four overlapping lawsuits naming dozens of federal individual and agency defendants, as well as D.C. and Arlington police, in the June 2020 incident....

Anyone that has watched ignorance take over our elections know she is right.

The USA Constitution is not about consumerism, but, today's GOP seeks to support populism and Wall Street pandering. We don't have a country if this ignorance by the electorate continues.

Rep. Liz Cheney is a hero among the few to be found in the GOP. I am sure her father has plenty of ideas to nurture the GOP back to health.

Rep. Liz Cheney deserves the respect the people of the USA can afford her because she does see the USA Constitution as under attack. She needs to correct the path of the two party system.

June 21, 2021
By Jennifer Rubin

Representative Liz Cheney, R-Wyo awaits...in the Roosevelt Room for bill signing.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) (click here) has refused to allow her party the luxury of uncontested lying. A party that still wallows in the “big lie” of a stolen election, offers outlandish and Putin-like conspiracy theories (e.g., blaming the police and not the mob for the results of the Jan. 6 insurrection) and conducts a campaign of slander against the nation’s most esteemed immunologist should not be able to rely on the right-wing echo chamber to blot out inconvenient facts.

But while intentional misrepresentation is now rampant and widely accepted in the GOP, there is also a problem of abject ignorance, as Cheney told the New York Times’s Mark Leibovich in an interview:

“We’ve got people we’ve entrusted with the perpetuation of the Republic who don’t know what the rule of law is,” she said. “We probably need to do Constitution boot camps for newly sworn-in members of Congress. Clearly.”

She said her main pursuit now involved teaching basic civics to voters who had been misinformed by Mr. Trump and other Republicans who should know better. “I’m not naïve about the education that has to go on here,” Ms. Cheney said. “This is dangerous. It’s not complicated. I think Trump has a plan.”

Representatives such as Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) serve as a reminder that a working knowledge of the Constitution (let alone emotional stability) is not a requirement for members of Congress. It is tempting to say that members of Congress in the MAGA cult must be lying because no one could possibly be so uninformed, but both are likely at play. If Cheney is right about the ignorance of her colleagues (they seem daily to prove her point) and the Republican base, we should think seriously about the remedy....

She is absolutely correct in that January 6, 2021, is an existential threat to the USA Consitution. The astounding truth of the current Republican Party is that they are serving under duress. They are serving with a threat to their lives and families. That has to be addressed.

June 7, 2021

By Carolina Kelly

Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (click here) accused former President Donald Trump of having committed the worst violation of a president's oath of office by inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection -- and taking a jab at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy over his subsequent visit to Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

"I was stunned. I could not imagine any justification for doing that," Cheney said of McCarthy's visit to Trump during an episode of David Axelrod's "The Axe Files" podcast, which was taped Saturday afternoon as part of a University of Chicago alumni weekend event. "And I asked him why he had done it, and he said, well, he had just been in the neighborhood, essentially."

House Republicans ousted Cheney from her leadership position last month over her public rejection of Trump's lie that he won the election -- an ouster that McCarthy supported. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has repeatedly clashed with McCarthy, who has tried to align himself with Trump, and subsequently the Republican base, going into the 2022 midterms....

DeJoy is a threat to democracy and the USA Constitution.

June 21, 2021

By Charles Davis

Twenty-one state attorneys general (click here) argued in a joint statement on Monday that delaying first-class mail delivery by as many as two days would harm rural communities and could disenfranchise those who cast absentee ballots.

In March, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, unveiled a plan to raise prices and slash services at the US Postal Service, citing a need to address a revenue shortfall, The Washington Post reported.

In particular, DeJoy outlined a proposal to slow down the delivery of first-class mail. Instead of two to three days, nonlocal mail could take as many as five days to reach its destination.

The attorneys general say that reflects a "flawed philosophy that would prioritize the services it offers in competitive markets," such as package delivery, "over those that it alone provides and on which countless Americans depend." The comments come in a letter addressing the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent agency responsible for ensuring that USPS abides by the law....

DeJoy is wasting taxpayer's money by refusing to purchase electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles are going to look different because they are not burdened with room for an internal combustion engine. There will be more room for any cargo because the electric motor does not require all the appliances attached to an internal combustion engine such as the carburetor and/or fuel injectors, huge radiators, fuel pumps, air filters, etc.

June 19, 2021

Spurned bidder (click here) for the right to make the new postal trucks claims it wasn't given due consideration—and also accuses the feds of being lukewarm on electric trucks.

In February, the U.S. Postal Service awarded a deal for up to 165,000 new mail trucks worth up to $6 billion to defense contractor Oshkosh. The search for new delivery vehicles took the USPS around seven years, and once the Internet learned what the quirky new van would look like, much merriment ensued. Not everyone was happy, though.

Workhorse, formerly known as Amp Electric Vehicles, was one of two other contractors bidding for the USPS contract (the other was Karsan). This week, Workhorse sued the postal service over the terms of the deal, especially whether or not the mail carrier ever seriously considered Workhorse's electric vehicles as suitable replacements for the Grumman "Long Life Vehicles" that are commonly seen delivering mail today.

Workhorse's lawsuit—the version that the public can see, anyway—is vague, as the company said the revealing all of the contract information would release details about its bid for the contract and the company's EVs that would be helpful to competitors. Alongside the court filing, Workhorse issued a media statement that said Workhorse representatives met with the USPS in early March to "discuss the award and further specifics of the USPS selection process," but that the details of the meeting "cannot be disclosed at this time."...
 

People are dying due to a hot climate. End the use of fossil fuels including slash and burn and peat burning in Africa.

This image is from the same article as below. It is OBVIOUS that methane is anthropogenic. The densest concentration is the northern hemisphere where the majority of the population of people live.

KNOCK IT OFF.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGIES ARE THE ONLY WAY FORWARD!

Methane leaks must be controlled and drilling ended.

The line (click here) of the graph on the left all the way to the right is going straight up. That is anthropogenic methane. The Earth is not leaking methane, humans are.

17 June 2021
By Victoria Bekiempis

The Earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, (click here) according to new research, described as an “unprecedented” increase amid the climate crisis.

Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), reported in a new study that Earth’s “energy imbalance approximately doubled” from 2005 to 2019. The increase was described as “alarming”.

“Energy imbalance” refers to the difference between how much of the Sun’s “radiative energy” is absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere and surface, compared to how much “thermal infrared radiation” bounces back into space.

“A positive energy imbalance means the Earth system is gaining energy, causing the planet to heat up,” Nasa said in a statement about this study.

Scientists determined there was an energy imbalance by comparing data from satellite sensors – which track how much energy enters and exits Earth’s system – and data from ocean floats....

From the same article as above, this graph clearly shows civilization was on the road to minimizing methane use and leaks. Then after the Cheney Energy Report came out in 2005, fracking became fashionable and the amount of leaks and use returned to pre-precaution levels.