It's Sunday Afternoon

Matrix Forests are an effort to protect ecosystems.

Matrix sites (click here) are large contiguous areas whose size and natural condition allow for the maintenance of ecological processes, viable occurrences of matrix forest communities, embedded large and small patch communities, and embedded species populations. The goal of the matrix forest selection was to identify viable examples of the dominant forest types that, if protected and allowed to regain their natural condition, would serve as critical source areas for all species requiring interior forest conditions or associated with the dominant forest types....

Map of New York State Matrix Forests (click here)

Conservation, when minimized by society seeks to impress the importance of maintaining the integrity of native species and their ecosystems. Conservation biologists seek to bring an understanding to groups that uphold the dignity of nature so others can understand the importance a segment of society that values these beautiful natural areas while protecting wildlife as well. Priorities of greed often over ride the best decisions, but, nature is still hanging in there. If there was no other form of life on earth, there would be forests. Chlorophyll, the molecule, is that indomitable. Skyscrapers crumble over time, but, trees live hardily to 300 years or more.

If the High Allegheny Plateau (click here) along the New York-Pennsylvania line were thought of as a giant chocolate chip cookie, then Appalachian oak-hickory forests would be the cookie dough and the chips would be the other embedded communities such as lakes, bogs, and swamps.

Iron & Wine - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

Iron & Wine Hickory (click here for official website - thank you)

"Hickory" by Iron and Wine (click here for album - thank you)

Spanish version found here - page down (click here)

He kissed her once as she leaned on the windowsill
She'll never love him but knows that her father will
Her fallen fruit is all rotten in the middle but her
Breast never dries when he's hungry

The money came and she died in her rocking chair
The window wide and the rain in her braided hair
A letter locked in the pattern of her knuckle
Like a hymn to the house she was making

Blind and whistling just around the corner and there's a
Wind that is whispering something
Strong as hell but not hickory rooted

She kissed him once cause he gave her a cigarette
And turned around but he waits like a turned down bed
And summer left like her walking with another and another and a
And the sound of the church bell ringin'

The money came and he died like a butterfly
A buried star in the haze of the city lights
A gun went off and her mother dropped her baby on a
Blue-feathered wing, we were lucky

Blind and whistlin' just around the corner
And there's a wind that is whisperin' somethin'
Strong as hell but not hickory-rooted
      

The impeachment would have taken place anyway with Trump blaming his underlings.

January 17, 2020
By Ramesh Ponnuru

The Government Accountability Office (click here) issued a short report yesterday concluding that the administration had broken the law in freezing aid to Ukraine last summer. A common response from the president’s defenders has been that the GAO has found such violations of the law on many occasions, and the press did not play it up when it was the Obama administration at fault. That’s true....

Firtash should be grateful for his extradition. It is safer for him in the USA.

Firtash was paying Parnas for undefined services. Basically, Russia was paying Guiliani for his plot against the Bidens.

January 18, 2020

By Franklin Foer

For five years (click here) Chuck Goudie and the ABC7 I-Team have been investigating Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash, who says he has never been in Chicago and shouldn't be charged with crimes here.

Somewhere near the heart of the Ukraine scandal (click here) is the oligarch Dmytro Firtash. Evidence has long suggested this fact. But over the past week, in a televised interview and in documents he supplied to Congress, Rudy Giuliani’s former business partner Lev Parnas pointed his finger at the Ukrainian oligarch. According to Parnas, Giuliani’s team had a deal with Firtash. Giuliani would get the Justice Department to drop its attempt to extradite the oligarch on bribery charges. In return, according to Parnas, the oligarch promised to pass along evidence that would supposedly discredit both Joe Biden and Robert Mueller....

One of the reasons it has been difficult extracting corruption from Ukraine is because of a gangster named Semion Mogilevich. It has nothing to do with the Bidens.

Added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List: 2009 (click here)

The circumstances: In 2011 the FBI apprehended fugitive James “Whitey” Bulger, the alleged Boston mob leader who had been on the bureau’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List for 12 years. At the time an FBI press release touted the capture of “a man notorious in Boston and around the world for the very serious crimes he is alleged to have committed.” But as Bulger was being removed from the list, another gangster remained, a fellow whose alleged crimes made Whitey Bulger look like Ray Bolger. Meet Semion Mogilevich, an obese Ukrainian known as the “Brainy Don” who has been called “the most powerful mobster in the world.”...

January 29, 2018
By Jay McKenzie

...Because Menatep Bank (click here) was involved in a scheme by which the Russian mob’s boss of bosses, Semion Mogilevich laundered tens of billions of dollars through the Bank of New York.

According to a report from The Guardian at the time, “$500m of the assets of Menatep bank passed through Bank of New York accounts belonging to offshore companies connected to Russia’s mafia godfather, Semion Mogilevich.”...

...What’s interesting about Milner’s connection with the natural gas giant Gazprom is the company’s close associations with pro-Kremlin Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash and Semion Mogilevich. According to a Reuters investigation, Dmitry Firtash “said he had needed and received permission from a man named Semion Mogilevich to establish various businesses” in Ukraine. His primary partner in the country was Gazprom....

Germany and Russia have been at loggerheads over Gasprom for some time now. The motto between the two is, "Energy Unites People" (click here) among other ideas. The problem is that each party sees the idea of "uniting" in very different ways. DAMN NATO gets in the way of uniting Europe as a Russian territory all the time. Removing the USA from NATO was a lynchpin Putin valued.

1 December 2010
By Luke Harding

The Ambassador to Kyiv in 2010 was John F. Tefft. He went on to become a Russian Ambassador for the USA.

Moscow, November 19, 2014

It was a privilege (click here) to present my credentials today to President Putin as the new U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation.... 

...Gas supplies to Ukraine and EU (click here) states are linked to the Russian mafia, according to the US ambassador in Kiev.

His cable, released by WikiLeaks, followed statements by the then prime minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, to the BBC that she had "documented proof that some powerful criminal structures are behind the RosUkrEnergo (RUE) company".

Allegations have long swirled that the Russian crime don Semyon Mogilevich had covert interests in Swiss-registered RUE, which distributes gas from central Asia....

From "The Atlantic" article:

...When Putin ascended to power in 2000, he gained control of his country’s natural-gas business. He placed his allies at the helm of the country’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, and he has routinely wielded that company as an instrument of Russian foreign policy. In 2002, Firtash became Gazprom’s most important middleman: He was responsible for selling Russian gas to Ukraine. Thanks to an extraordinary Reuters investigation, which burrowed into Customs documents, contracts, and Cyprus bank accounts, the details of this arrangement are now well known. Gazprom sold Firtash gas at four times below the market price. When Firtash resold the gas to the Ukrainian state, he pocketed a profit of $3 billion. Even as he amassed this fortune, bankers close to Putin extended Firtash an $11 billion line of credit....

Putin wanted global dependence on Russian assets.

Anxiety over the climate is a direct result of Republican cronies.

August 26, 2018

The senator from Arizona (click here) brought climate science into Capitol Hill hearings and cap-and-trade legislation to a vote, but then moderate Republican politics changed.

Among the many battles Sen. John McCain waged in his storied career, it is easy to overlook his fight for U.S. action on climate change.

He wrote legislation that failed. He built a bipartisan coalition that crumbled. And when Congress came closest to passing a bill that embraced his central idea—a market-based cap-and-trade system—McCain turned his back.

And yet, McCain's nearly decade-long drive on global warming had an impact that reverberates in today's efforts to revive the U.S. role in the climate fight. In the Senate chamber and on the campaign trail, the Arizona Republican did more than any other U.S. politician has done before or since to advance the conservative argument for climate action.

Today's efforts to recruit GOP members into the climate movement—appeals to conservative and religious values, the framing of climate change as a national security threat, efforts to stress market-based solutions and the role business leaders can play—all owe a debt to McCain....

October 8, 2018
By Isobel Thompson

I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris (click here) ,” Donald Trump crowed during his announcement, more than a year ago, that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord—a deal that, to his mind, did not “serve America’s interests.” Of course, according to a new report compiled by nearly 100 leading scientists, the Northeastern United States and north-central France will soon face the same fate regardless. According to the report, issued by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (I.P.C.C.), the widely shared goal of keeping a global rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius is firmly off-track, with current levels of emissions set to hike temperatures up to 3 degrees Celsius by 2040. Even if temperatures rose by 2 degrees Celsius—a figure previously deemed acceptable—the results would be dystopian, exacerbating the risk of drought, floods, poverty, and extreme heat. “It’s a line in the sand, and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now,” said Debra Roberts, co-chair of the working group on impacts. “This is the largest clarion bell from the science community, and I hope it mobilizes people and dents the mood of complacency.”...

Those are real jobs in a real factory that produces cars that do not pollute. 

December 20, 2019
By Johnna Crider

We haven’t seen (click here) a new picture of the Tesla Gigafactory 1 in Nevada in about two months and during that time, they have been busy preparing for the production of Model 3 battery packs and drive units.

The entire world gives $400 billion in subsidies to oil companies. (click here) An article by The Atlantic asks this question: Is that bad? The answer, to me, is obvious — yes.

The article, noting that we spend $400 billion on oil subsidies globally, indicates that taxpayers want their governments to stop subsidizing this rich, over-mature industry, yet politicians keep the money funneling toward them. It is estimated that Tesla Gigafactory 4 in Germany will cost approximately $4.4 billion. That means you could build ~91 gigafactories for the cost of one year of global oil subsidies....

"Eco-anxiety" is a word. It is real. Couples are worrying about the kind of world their children will face.

Who are the real adults in the room?

Skolstrejk is School Strike

14 September 2019
By Clare Press

...Fashion (click here) has been reluctant to examine its air-travel footprint, although British designer Katharine Hamnett raised the subject at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit in May 2019. “We shouldn’t be here; these conferences should be happening as webinars,” she said, sending yet more climate panic my way. “We should all be ashamed of our carbon footprint.” I’d jetted in from Australia....

January 13, 2020

As fires continue to burn (click here) along Australia’s south-east, it’s impossible to ignore how climate change can wreak devastation and disrupt lives.

Australia has always experienced bushfires. However, climate change means this year’s bushfires were so extreme in their ferocity and spread they could be seen from space. And this is just a taste of what’s to come.

I’m a marine scientist, and research the effects of climate change on coral reefs. Aside from bushfires, coral bleaching is one of the most severe manifestations of climate change in Australia. Watching corals turn white and die is just another daily reminder of the disasters our children will be up against.

Until now, my partner and I have both wanted to be parents one day. Now I’m not so sure. Here are the things I’m weighing up.

The forces at play

I am not alone in these family planning concerns. In September last year I hosted a Women in STEM seminar and photography exhibit showcasing female scientists at the University of New South Wales. One of the major points of discussion was how to plan for a family, knowing how climate change will affect the quality of life of the next generation.

Cases of “eco-anxiety” when it comes to family planning are on the rise. Many couples in my generation are rethinking what it means to start a family. Even Prince Harry and Meghan Markle said last year they’ll have only two children at most, for the sake of the planet....

April 3, 2017
By Zoe Schlanger

Depression, anxiety, grief, despair, stress—even suicide: (click here) The damage of unfolding climate change isn’t only counted in water shortages and wildfires, it’s likely eroding mental health on a mass scale, too, reports the American Psychological Association, the preeminent organization of American mental health professionals.

Direct, acute experience with a changing climate—the trauma of losing a home or a loved one to a flood or hurricane, for example—can bring mental health consequences that are sudden and severe. After Hurricane Katrina, for example, suicide and suicidal ideation among residents of areas affected by the disaster more than doubled according to a paper led by Harvard Medical School, while one in six met the criteria for PTSD, according to a Columbia University-led paper. Elevated PTSD levels have also been found among people who live through wildfires and extreme storms, sometimes lasting several years....

April 17, 2018

Santa Monica - In an online survey of 2,029 U.S. adults (click here) conducted on behalf of Swell Investing by The Harris Poll from April 5-9, 2018 Swell found that:

- 92% of Americans are worried about the future of our planet

- Nearly three quarters (72%) of millennials 18-34 say that watching, hearing and/or reading negative news stories about the environment sometimes has an impact on their emotional wellbeing (e.g., anxiety, racing thoughts, sleep problems, a feeling of uneasiness)

- Among those who say they are worried about the future of our planet, about two-thirds say they take steps to reduce energy use in their home (68%) or take steps to reduce water waste in their home (64%)

- Only 13% of American adults invest in environmentally responsible companies to address worries about the future of the planet, but millennials are ahead of the curve with 20% investing in companies that prioritize the environment.

While ecoanxiety is high among young people, there's a silver lining. Anxiety, while unpleasant, is an effective motivator. And we have our work cut out for us when it comes to securing the future of the planet. Many people are doing something about the negative emotions they are experiencing, with the majority of people addressing climate change in their day-to-day lives....

I do not like the idea of using the future in relation to the climate crisis as a motivator. It is NOT a sufficient motivator in Washington, DC with the Congress and it should be. The people have enough to worry about and they know consumerism only takes them so far with the climate crisis. It is up to the federal government to act on this emergency.

Anxiety is stress and stress can shorten lives. It is time for the federal government to end the frightening stress that comes with the climate crisis and resolve to end it and reverse it. Water vapor must be returned to the land and air, otherwise what is left is desertification (click here).

August 17, 2018

San Francisco - In the history of California wildfires (click here) there has never been anything like it: A churning tornado filled with fire, the size of three football fields. Recently released video from Cal Fire shows the most intense tornado ever in California history that trapped and killed a firefighter in Redding last month, CBS San Francisco reports.

An official report describes in chilling detail the intensity of the rare fire phenomenon and how quickly it took the life of Redding firefighter Jeremy Stoke, who was enveloped in seconds as he tried to evacuate residents on July 26.

Three videos released with the report late Wednesday show the massive funnel of smoke and flames in a populated area on the edge of Redding, about 250 miles north of San Francisco....

The case failed because the courts do not legislate.

NEGLIGENCE. The people can sue for the neglect of the government to protect them.

...Specifically, the panel held that it was beyond the power of an Article III court to order, design, supervise, or implement the plaintiffs’ requested remedial plan where any effective plan would necessarily require a host of complex policy decisions entrusted to the wisdom and discretion of the executive and legislative branches.

The panel reluctantly concluded that the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large....

The children are absolutely correct in the dangers being cited as real, current and also impending. 

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed (click here) the landmark youth-led climate lawsuit against the United States government on Friday, ruling the young plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.

While the ruling is a victory for the Trump administration, which fought bitterly to have the case, Juliana v. United States, dismissed, the court also wrote the young plaintiffs “have made a compelling case that action is needed.”  The judges, however, said climate change cannot be addressed through the judicial branch of government.

“Reluctantly, we conclude that such relief is beyond our constitutional power. Rather, the plaintiffs’ impressive case for redress must be presented to the political branches of government,” Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz wrote in the three-judge panel’s split decision.

Our Children’s Trust, the legal organization supporting the young plaintiffs, said it would appeal the verdict to the entire Ninth Circuit....  

There needs to be a class action including the children, but, also those that have died because of the climate crisis. The USA has deaths which occurred because of issues such as Superstorm Sandy and tornado outbreaks that are at record number now. Previous to an ever heating climate is the fact THE OCCURRENCES of storms such as Sandy and all too frequent YEAR ROUND tornadoes and tornado outbreaks have killed and are connected to the climate crisis.

No one can state the fires on the West coast of the USA were normal. Three mile high fire tornadoes are not at all normal. 

April 3, 2014

You can’t really sue the government (click here) for property damage or injury due to a common law doctrine known as sovereign immunity. This doctrine came into existence as a way to protect monarchs from being sued, but still holds true since you can’t just sue the U.S. government. However, under the Federal Tort Claims Act, you can file a lawsuit against the government in certain situations.

When does the FTCA Say You can Sue the Government?

The FTCA allows you to file a lawsuit for injury, loss of property, or wrongful death caused by a federal employee only if it was caused by negligence and if you could file a similar lawsuit against a private person and win. So, if state law doesn’t allow you to sue someone in a certain situation, then you can’t sue the government for that same event....

The dead can no longer speak for themselves but friends and/or family or other interested parties such as employers can sue for neglect in protecting them from their losses.

The idea of legislation taking place is realistic when there is currently a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis (click here).  The fact is there is already meetings held  (click here) for fact finding to compel the action of Congress.

I was in this area of Michigan recently. It is really something to see. They are huge, majestic and music to my ears (click here). They are a conquest of modern society that humans can overcome all adversity and benevolence toward Earth's physics.

November 26, 2013
By Mark Brush

The Gratiot County Wind Farm (click here) has 133 wind turbines scattered over more than 30,000 acres. It's the largest wind farm in Michigan. Each 1.6 megawatt wind turbine can generate enough power for 350 homes.

And this is what it sounds like when you stand directly beneath a wind turbine that stretches more than 450 feet into the sky with the wind blowing between 10 to 15 mph....

Wind is very, very green. The footprint of a wind turbine is far less than that of a fracking well. Any citizen can participate in royalties if placed on their property, most likely farmland because it requires no rights to the minerals (oil and gas) under the ground. They are virtually silent, except, when standing under them and even then the sound is well within legal decibel levels.

There are towns in the USA that own windmills on government property. There can be ordinances for allowing property owners to erect wind mills, small and large. The benevolence to this type of energy can only grow, instead of making 30 year investments in public projects such as gas and nuclear plants.

Bird deaths by wind farms is about 0.01 percent over all. Cats, primarily pet cats, are the number one reason for bird deaths. Cats account for 75 percent of bird deaths. Bird migration occurs primarily between 5000 and 20,000 feet altitude.

The meeting being held in Carlsbad, California next month is rather pricey, but, there is special considerations in cost for Regulated Utilities and Government. 

February 4-6, 2020

Omni La Costa Resort & Spa

2100 Costa Del Mar Rd, Carlsbad, CA 92009

For Regulated Utilities and Government pricing, click here.

The Wind Power Finance & Investment Summit is widely recognized as the leading gathering place for wind industry deal makers, or as one past event attendee called it – “the highest quality of industry participants on the conference circuit.” Each year, the industry’s leading developers, investors, lenders, turbine suppliers, EPCs and other players gather to gain valuable insights into industry trends, get the latest market update on the finance and investment landscape, and efficiently schedule rounds of private meetings.

The Summit attracted nearly 800 people in 2019 and, with the PTC driving historic industry activity, the 2020 Summit will again offer up the best available opportunities to stay ahead of the market, meet the industry’s leading players, and get deals done.

This is from a statement of a meeting of the US House Select Committee.

...When we say the states are laboratories of democracy, (click here) we mean that literally here. Colorado is home to some of the leading research in climate change and clean energy. And one of the most important things we can do as policymakers is make sure clean technology can move from the lab to the market – that’s what creates jobs, that’s what cuts pollution, that’s what makes America a leader in the clean energy economy we have to build to solve the climate crisis.

Colorado in particular has been a leader in the clean energy revolution. In the 2019 legislative session, the governor and Colorado legislature have added to Colorado’s clean energy legacy by enacting several bills focused on deploying more energy efficiency, renewable energy and electric vehicles. Equally important, they also created new programs to support the energy workforce. Today we will be learning more about those policies and their benefits from a variety of perspectives to inform the Select Committee’s work.... 

How long has lawlessness been the theme of the Republican Party?

There needs to be people held accountable for deaths, maiming and broken lives that have beset the people of Flint because of wayward leadership during the Snyder administration. There is neglect everywhere, including a storage area (click here) where bottled water never found the people.

The neglect started with Snyder and the new administration should see the end to it. I have a feeling the Snyder administration tied the criminal cases up in knots. The people's that have seen their cases dismissed will receive the jobs back. I think the reason the Whitmer administration dismissed the charges was to prevent double jeopardy when the Michigan Attorney General finally hands down indictments.

The Snyder administration was highly corrupt. The state government saw a management style that consolidated power to one person that wasn't even elected to office. I believe it was David DeVries (click here) that moved offices and personnel around like old furniture. I am sure the remnants of the Snyder administration has resulted in problems for Governor Whitmer, but, it is time to hold people responsible and it needs to happen soon.

I share the sentiment of "The Flint Journal" in their recent editorial. When are the people going to find justice?

The Flint Water Crisis (click here) has no pending criminal cases today. They’ve all been dismissed.

A year ago, there were cases against at least eight state and local officials.

There have been no significant convictions. No real consequences.

It’s a travesty that there’s no justice, no one held to blame for the poisoning of an entire American city.

It’s our society’s moral imperative to hold people accountable for disasters like this. It’s not enough for officials to say, “We all failed,” and move on.

The water crisis was a preventable, manmade catastrophe, the product of budget-slashers trying to save a few bucks.

It’s been 5 years. Flint still doesn’t trust the water

The leaders in charge at the time – Gov. Rick Snyder, his cabinet heads and the emergency managers appointed to run the city – failed the people of Flint.

And yet no one has been held responsible....

...The message is that it’s OK to do it again. The criminal justice system exists not just to punish, but to deter people from committing similar crimes. Government officials across the country – perhaps the world – can now look at Flint and feel emboldened that they will not face any real consequences for committing grave mistakes at the expense of public health.

It sends a message that when government fails, there will be no repercussions.

Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud has promised to refile criminal charges, but it’s been more than 200 days and we’ve not seen anything.

Attorney General Dana Nessel has still promised to deliver justice. We’re hopeful but have grown skeptical....

...The biggest winners in this catastrophe of public health and justice are the attorneys who have reaped, at our last count, more than $30 million of taxpayer money...

...The officials in charge at the time of the water crisis have seemingly moved on. But the people of Flint still don’t trust their water, much less their government anymore.

Something really bad happened to the people of Flint.

Surely someone is to blame.

Attorney general shouldn’t promise justice for Flint if she can’t deliver.

Willie Nash was not properly processed when arrested. He was allowed to have the phone during processing.

If the correctional facility did not remove the cell phone when Mr. Nash was "processed in," then the fault lies with the officers that never did a proper search of his person. In leaving the cell phone in the possession of Mr. Nash it opened him up for more law violations. It is entrapment. Is this a private incarceration facility?

January 17, 2020

By Minyvonne Burke

A Mississippi man (click here) being held at a county jail on a misdemeanor charge asked a guard to charge his cellphone. The phone was confiscated, and the man was slapped with a 12-year prison sentence for possessing a phone in a correctional facility.

The case has drawn strong reactions on social media, with many people urging Gov. Tate Reeves to get involved.

Willie Nash, 39, was booked into the Newton County Jail in 2018. According to court documents, the married father of three handed a guard his phone and asked if it could be charged. The guard took the phone and gave it to a sheriff’s deputy.

When asked about the mobile device, Nash initially denied it belonged to him but eventually gave the deputy the password to unlock it. A court document states that Nash was using the phone to text his wife that he was in jail.

Mississipppi law prohibits inmates in correctional facilities from possessing a cellphone. It is a felony offense with a sentence of 3 to 15 years, according to the court document....

The jail appears to be owned by the county. Someone had their hand in the till.

September 27, 2019

Jackson - State Auditor Shad White (click here) announced Thursday special agents from his office have arrested Newton County Supervisor Glenn Hollingsworth after he was indicted for fraudulently obtaining public funds.

A demand letter worth $7,984.02 was issued to Hollingsworth at the time of his arrest. The total demand amount includes accrued interest and the cost of the investigation.

Hollingsworth is accused of fraudulently obtaining $25,000 by using his position to sell his personally-owned tractor to his beat in the county. He purportedly attempted to conceal the purchase by using family members to complete the transaction.

Since Newton County still uses the beat system, the auditor says Hollingsworth was able to closely manage expenditures like the purchase of the tractor, and his actions were reported when someone noticed purchasing inconsistencies in his beat....

FBI arrests suspected violent white supremacists ahead of rally on firearms charges. (click here for article - thank you)

...People (click here) who identify with the alt right regard mainstream or traditional conservatives as weak and impotent, largely because they do not sufficiently support racism and anti-Semitism....

Sound like Trump's arm of the Republican Party?

This issue is a populous political focus and is another example of overreach by Trump. Will women ever be out from under attack for being a woman.

August 29, 2019

"Views on abortion, 1995-2019" (click here)

As of 2019, public support for legal abortion remains as high as it has been in two decades of polling. Currently, 61% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 38% say it should be illegal in all or most cases....

January 17, 2020

...At issue are Trump administration regulations (click here) allowing employers to claim such exemptions to the contraceptive insurance coverage mandate in the Affordable Care Act, which requires most employer-provided plans to include birth control coverage without a copay. Churches and other religious organizations already can opt out of the requirement, but the Trump administration has sought to expand that exemption to include a wider array of businesses and organizations.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey challenged the Trump administration regulation and won a nationwide injunction temporarily blocking the rules.

Brigitte Amiri, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project, called the Trump administration rules "an attempt to rob people of their contraception coverage." The ACLU filed an amicus brief in the case opposing the Trump rule....

The Electoral College is poison to the USA democracy.

How is this even a question? It will take an amendment to the Constitution to end it. There needs to be collations built in each state to ratify an amendment when it passes Congress.

January 17, 2020
By Pete Williams

Washington - The Supreme Court agreed Friday (click here) to take up an issue that could change a key element of the system America uses to elect its president, with a decision likely in the spring just as the campaign heats up.

The answer to the question could be a decisive one: Are the electors who cast the actual Electoral College ballots for president and vice president required to follow the results of the popular vote in their states? Or are they free to vote as they wish?

A decision that they are free agents could give a single elector, or a small group of them, the power to decide the outcome of a presidential election if the popular vote results in an apparent Electoral College tie or is close....