There are more climate deaths in California as well as the deaths in Alabama.

Landslides are a guarantee tragedy after sustained drought. That is not a flood, it is a torrent. 

16 January 2023

By Dani Auguiano and Gabrielle Canon

The Los Angeles River flows at a powerful rate as a huge storm brings flooding and landslides to the west coast.

As more dangerous storms bear down on California, (click here) the state is only just beginning to grapple with the destruction and death left by weeks of extreme weather that wreaked havoc in nearly every region from the northern coast to Los Angeles.

The series of storms that have pummeled California since late December have killed at least 19 people, brought hurricane force winds that toppled trees and power lines, cutting energy to thousands, and flooded roads and rivers, covering swaths of land in dense mud and debris that stretches for miles. Entire communities have been forced to evacuate while road closures and power disruptions left some rural regions isolated and almost cut off from the outside world.

Authorities are still documenting the toll of the disaster, an effort that’s been hampered by a fresh onslaught of more storms. Joe Biden has approved emergency declarations from 41 of California’s 58 counties.

“These storms are among the most deadly natural disasters in the modern history of our state,” Nancy Ward, the director of the governor’s office of emergency services said at a briefing on Friday.

After a grueling drought and California’s driest years on record, the latest turn of extreme weather, which some experts have called hydrological “whiplash”, has highlighted the challenges that come with such a rapid deluge, particularly in a state more accustomed in recent years to disasters related to heat and wildfire....

This has been a sustaining pattern for some time now. Severe storms in California while at the same time the south is receiving a lashing from tornadoes with people dying. That is not a normal pattern of weather, especially for winter months.

January 14, 2023

Montgomery - The National Weather Service has confirmed (click here) that the deadly tornado that swept across Autauga County on Jan. 12 was of EF3 strength, having peak winds of 150 mph. NWS says the tornado was on the ground for 76 miles and was more than three-quarters of a mile wide at its peak as it tore through parts of Autauga, Elmore, Tallapoosa and Chambers counties before lifting.

Storm surveys are ongoing. Hundreds of homes in the areas of Old Kingston, Posey’s Crossroads, White City, and Marbury have been damaged or destroyed from this tornado.

The tornado claimed the lives of seven people. The Autauga County Sheriff’s Office shared the victims’ names on Saturday and said their deaths happened in Old Kingston, one of the hardest hit communities of the county.

Four of the victims were related, though the sheriff’s office did not provide details on how....

Taking a cue from Elon Musk.

There should be removal of any and all that accepted monies from Russian oligarchs. It is a threat to national security. It is an automatic ethics referral at the very least. The State Attorney Generals might have to be involved.

January 13, 2023
By Evan Simko-Bednarski

The rep, who defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman (click here) by almost 22,000 votes in the race to represent the Nassau County- and Queens-based Third District, has a history of blaming his misstatements on listeners’ ears.

When criticized for claiming Jewish heritage by referencing his grandparents’ purported escape from the Nazis during World War II — for which genealogical records show no evidence — Santos took a similar tack....

..“I was elected by 142,000 people — until those same 142,000 people tell me they don’t want me … we’ll find out in two years,” he said...

New York had a bill to recall elected officials, but, it may not apply to statewide federal seats or House district seats. The guy is a problem. He is affiliated with Russia. He will bring problems to the USA legislature. Those Russians helped elect him and he has divided loyalties. 

Zimmerman (click here) received a bachelor's degree from Brandeis University and a master's in business administration for Fordham University. In 1988, Zimmerman co-founded a marketing communications company. He served on the John F. Kennedy Center's Presidential Commission on the Arts and the National Council on the Humanities, nominated by Presidents Bill Clinton (D) and Barack Obama (D), respectively. As of 2022, Zimmerman was a Democratic National Committee member.

Zimmerman sounds like a New York Congressman, not this sleaze bag. Zimmerman lost by 12,000 votes, now 142,000.

There needs to be an investigation. New York State federal elections did not turn out as expected. It is why the US House turned red. Something isn't right. I stinks as a matter of fact.

December 3, 2022
By Brian Mann

When Republicans take control of the U.S. House (click here) next month, they'll have voters in New York to thank for roughly a third of their national gains.

In the midterm elections, one of the bluest states in the country saw a relative red wave that led to a net gain of three seats, helping give the GOP its razor-thin majority.

But many of these Republican victories were by narrow margins and came in moderate suburban districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.

And the centrist candidates who won have signaled they have little interest in the partisan clashes favored by the GOP's far-right MAGA wing....

One other thing, Michigan is showing up as a concern at the county level. The county authorities supervise voting in the state and that is true of any state. My understanding is that this is a countrywide phenomena. Someone is not paying attention to the decision makers where voting will be most threatened.

January 6, 2023

Last November, Michigan Democrats (click here) scored huge victories as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer easily won reelection and her party took control of the Senate and House.

But while Whitmer and fellow Democrats scored big in state-level races, that didn’t happen at the county level, where local politicians still redraw political boundaries.

Of the 619 county commissioners elected in Michigan last year, 444 (72 percent) were Republicans — an increase of five from 2020, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis of county commissioner lists compiled by the Michigan Association of Counties....

January 15, 2022

Martin Luther King Jr. (click here) often spoke about institutional and systemic racism, saying that true racial equality cannot be reached without “radical” structural changes in society, says a Texas A&M University sociology professor.

“Justice for black people will not flow into this society merely from court decisions nor from fountains of political oratory…White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society,” King wrote in an essay published in 1969 titled “A Testament of Hope.” In his 1958 book Stride Toward Freedom, he wrote, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

Joe Feagin, the Ella C. McFadden Professor in Sociology and Distinguished Professor, said those are just two of the many times King spoke of structural changes needed to achieve equality, but first and foremost of the need for white and Black people to agree on what “equality” actually means.

Feagin said King noted in a speech not long before his 1968 assassination that a major problem was getting white people to understand the meaning of the civil rights movement because there isn’t even a common language when the term “equality” is used.

King said that many white people, even well-meaning people, think that equality means Black people have to improve.

Feagin said King’s commentary on what equality means to many white people, and how some do not want to face that, is as accurate now as then.

“We whites created slavery, Jim Crow segregation and contemporary racial discrimination over 400-plus years now,” Feagin said. “Whites are the main racial villains in this story and have most of the political and social power to change that racial discrimination and inequality now. We cannot have a truly free and democratic society, with ‘liberty and justice for all’ until we do that.”

“The first step to do that is for whites of all ages to learn an honest history of this country’s systemic racism and the Black movements against it—something many whites today are not even willing to begin doing.”...

Example of racism. The minority populations always have to accept watered down meanings of justice. The same is true of confederate flags and statutes. Somehow that is okay. The injustice is that when minority members of the USA have to face objects of hate from the civil war, that it hurts them and the legitimacy of our country's leveraging of equality in all that is the USA. The symbols of hate must be removed forever for the sake of young minority people. The biggest injustice right now that lingers in the USA is segregation and it is not even discussed in a way that allows resolve in political dialogue.

Steph Sommer, Feature's Editor
February 2, 2017

Every third Monday in January, (click here) Americans celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights activist who was shot in 1968. In 49 states, this federal holiday is explicitly referred to as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but here in Wyoming the holiday is called Equality Day.

It took 10 years for Wyoming to originally accept Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday, but with the help of Wyoming Senator Harriet Elizabeth (Liz) Byrd- the first African-American woman to serve in both houses of government they eventually accepted it as a holiday. Wyoming accepted it on one condition-

It had to be called Equality Day....

IT IS NOT EQUALITY DAY!