249 days remain until the November election
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Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Trump's proposal to protect schools - arm the crisis actors:
• In two-hour speech, Putin announces that Russia has weapons that cannot be intercepted:
Putin presented the new weapons, in his annual address to the Federal Assembly, which includes both houses of Russia's parliament. As Putin stood at the podium, animated videos and graphics projected on the large screen behind him. The visuals were meant to illustrate the might of the new weapons which included a cruise missile, underwater drone and a hypersonic missile, all nuclear-powered.
The new weapons would make NATO's U.S.-led missile defense system "useless," Putin said as a video behind him showed a graphic of a missile weaving around supposed missile defense systems on a spinning model of the Earth.
• Two nominations of Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize were forged: There are 329 candidates for the award this year, which will be announced in October. The Norwegian Nobel Committee keeps its deliberations secret and forbids committee members from divulging information about them for 50 years:
But a wrinkle in this time-honored process — the peace prize was first awarded in 1901 — emerged on Tuesday, when the committee announced that it had uncovered what appeared to be a forged nomination of President Trump for the prize. The matter has been referred to the Oslo police for investigation.
Moreover, the forgery appears to have occurred twice: Olav Njolstad, the secretary of the five-member committee, said it appeared that a forged nomination of Mr. Trump for the prize was also submitted last year — and was also referred to the police. (The earlier forgery was not disclosed to the public at the time.)
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MIDDAY TWEET
Next Week: Department of Defense puts Erwin Rommel on its Honor Roll.
• Nearly frozen bald eagles, locked in combat, rescued by firefighters: Their talons entangled, the two males were found by a woman and her 11-year-old daughter floating along the banks of the Susquehanna River near Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. A game warden said they had likely been fighting in the sky, fell to the ground, and wound up in the water. He estimated they had been in the cold river for a couple of hours when found. Their muscles had locked up, and they could not release their hold on each other. After an hour of warming up at a fire station, they let go of each other and flew away.
• Feds sue Houston over harassment of women firefighters:
Hell-bent on keeping women out of their station, Houston firefighters urinated all over their female colleagues’ dorm and wrote death threats on the walls, the Justice Department claims in a lawsuit seeking to strengthen the city’s anti-harassment policies.
The Houston Fire Department’s Station 54 – one of more than 100 fire stations in the sprawling city – is located at Bush Intercontinental Airport and staffed with firefighters who have been trained how to respond to airplane crashes.
Though the station has separate quarters for male and female firefighters, the federal government says that going back to the early 2000s, men regularly watched television in the women’s dorm and used their bathroom, getting urine all over the toilet seats and leaving tobacco spit cups and trash everywhere, to signal that women were not welcome at the station.
• Emails show Trump regime considering Big Oil effort to transfer public land to the states:
During its first year under Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Interior has coordinated closely with the oil and gas industry to accomplish its priorities on the nation's expansive federal lands. Among them: considering a plan to transfer control of oil and gas development on public lands to the states. This revelation comes from emails and documents obtained by the Western Values Project through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). [...]
The emails display that, on a regular basis, the oil and gas industry notifies senior-ranking Interior Department officials when submitting regulatory comments. Usually, those types of comments are sent to a general email account or via online submissions.
“These emails show the level of influence by oil and gas industry trade groups and lobbyists being granted by Interior political appointees on critical public land decisions. Across the board, it appears no request will go unanswered and will likely end up being fulfilled by Interior,” said Jayson O’Neill, deputy director of the [Western Values Project], in a press release. “We already knew Secretary Zinke was beholden to oil and gas lobbyists and special interests, but the extent to which it has permeated across Interior should concern everyone that values public lands.”
• Indian Country Today back in business: The news and opinion operation, which began publication in 1981, looked as if it was gone for good last October, when its Oneida owners of 20 years put it on hiatus. But it’s been revived under new ownership with a Native journalist, Mark Trahant, in charge, just as when it was founded. Trahant, a citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, has a reputation as a strong journalist inside and outside Indian country. He is the former president of the Native American Journalists Association and publishes a blog called TrahantReports.Com. The National Congress of American Indians now owns the the publication, which will only put out an on-line edition, nothing in hard copy. “We are excited to have Mark Trahant on board to help us lead this next chapter of Indian Country Today,” said NCAI President Jefferson Keel in a statement. “Mark is respected in and beyond Indian Country for his professionalism, journalistic skills and keen insight into issues and developments impacting tribal nations.”
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: What a day! Hope Hicks no longer does it. Trump gets loose on guns. The NRA's name is mud. Greg Dworkin introduces us to a theory linking gun love and "alternative medicine." And Armando has plenty to say on Kushner's outrageous grifting.
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