Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Pearl Harbor attacked; FDR tired of Fake News hoaxes saying Japan did it:
• South Carolina legislators upset about state account used to tweet that Trump is a “[expletive] tool” and referencing the Parkland slayings: The tweet originated with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. But a spokesman said he didn’t think a DHEC employee sent out the tweet. Some legislators noted that if it was an employee, firing is in order. Some worried that the account might have been hacked. Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield, said, “If it was hacked, it shows the vulnerability of state government that could allow someone to hack into the system and use a government platform so easily,”
• Elliott Negin at the Union of Concerned Scientists notes that there are better French things for Trump to emulate than military parades: Like their gun laws; sustainable agriculture that helps keep obesity in check; more affordable education, including free, universal pre-school; treatment of workers better with much higher minimum wage and extensive unionization; paid maternity leave of six weeks before birth and 10 weeks after; three years paid medical leave; five weeks vacation plus 11 holidays; 35-hour work-week; better rankings than U.S. on environmental protections; no special interest money in elections, and no paid political ads for three months before an election.
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MIDDAY TWEET
• Study: What we do over the next 30 years will be crucial to sea-level rise for next 300 years: The study published at Nature Communications says each five years of delay in acting now could add eight more inches to sea level by 2100. An extra five feet.
• Hidden Meanings: what white audiences miss in “Black Panther.”
• Trump regime turns away more than 100 Iranian Christians seeking asylum:
[...[ despite White House promises to relieve the plight of religious minorities in the Middle East.
The group of refugees, mostly Christians along with other non-Muslims, have been stranded in the Austrian capital Vienna for more than a year, waiting for final approval to resettle in the United States. Now they face possible deportation back to Iran, where rights advocates say they face potential retaliation or imprisonment by the regime in Tehran for seeking asylum in the United States.
Vice President Mike Pence has vowed action to alleviate the suffering of Christians in the region and the administration has condemned the Iranian regime’s treatment of religious minorities. But critics said the decision on the Iranian Christians shows the administration had failed to live up to its own rhetoric.
• Former judge gets prison term over exchange of dismissals for nude photos:
A former Arkansas judge was sentenced Wednesday to five years in federal prison for dismissing minor criminal cases in exchange for nude photographs or sexual favors from male defendants.
O. Joseph Boeckmann, a former district court judge in Cross County, pleaded guilty in October to wire fraud and witness tampering. He admitted on Wednesday that the seven-year-long scheme defrauded cities and counties of money and property they should have received as fines or fees from the people whose cases were fraudulently dismissed.
• NRC proposes fine over falsified inspection reports for Georgia reactors under construction: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to impose a $145,000 civil penalty on Southern Nuclear for violations at the Vogtle nuclear facility in Georgia in 2016. The commission says employees at the plant failed to undertake required checks of the facility and its equipment on several occasions. But they wrote in their logs that they completed the inspections. The fine isn’t much for a company that own 45.7 percent of the two-reactor project that was supposed to come on line in 2016 for $14 billion. It’s now estimated that the reactors will start up in 2021-22 and cost $25 billion when completed.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin reviews the made-for-TV moments, post-Parkland. Trump retreats to terrible NRA talking points. Why you can expect the "special training" and other requirements for armed teachers to disappear once the NRA has secured its goal.
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