Thursday TOON Roundup 2 - The new face of America is Orange

Thursday Toon Roundup 1- Closing the Door

Tom The Dancing Bug Toon - The Donald Trump Mysteries

Russia military acknowledges new branch: info warfare troops

MOSCOW (AP) — Along with a steady flow of new missiles, planes and tanks, Russia's defense minister said Wednesday his nation also has built up its muscle by forming a new branch of the military — information warfare troops.

Sergei Shoigu's statement — which came amid Western allegations of Russian hacking — marked the first official acknowledgement of the existence of such forces.

Speaking to parliament, Shoigu said that the military received a sweeping array of new weapons last year, including 41 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

He added that the wide-ranging military modernization will continue this year, with the air force set to receive 170 new aircraft. The army will receive 905 tanks and other armored vehicles, and the navy will receive 17 new ships.

more
https://www.apnews.com/8b7532462dd0495d9f756c9ae7d2ff3c/Russia-military-acknowledges-new-branch:-info-warfare-troops

The Troll Division

Mexico says will 'not accept' unilateral U.S. immigration policies

Mexico will not accept new "unilateral" U.S. immigration proposals, and will not hesitate in approaching the United Nations to defend immigrants, the country's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Wednesday, ahead of a meeting with senior U.S. officials.

Videgaray said the new U.S. proposals would be the main point of discussion for upcoming meetings, which will take place between Mexican officials, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Wednesday and Thursday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mexico-idUSKBN16127O?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Astronomers discover 7 Earth-like planets orbiting nearby star

(CNN)Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-like planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, NASA announced at news conference Wednesday.

This discovery outside of our solar system is rare because the planets have the winning combination of being similar in size to Earth and temperate, meaning they could have water on their surfaces and potentially support life.

all for now
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/22/world/new-exoplanets-discovery-nasa/index.html

Want to live longer? Move to a country with universal health care, study finds

LONDON — While most people born in rich countries will live longer by 2030 — with women in South Korea projected to reach nearly 91 — Americans will continue to have one of the lowest life expectancies of any developed country, a new study predicts.

Scientists once thought an average life expectancy beyond 90 was impossible but medical advances combined with improved social programs are continuing to break barriers, including in countries where many people already live well into old age, according to the study’s lead researcher, Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London.

“I can imagine that there is a limit, but we are still very far from it,” he said.

Ezzati estimated that people would eventually survive on average to at least 110 or 120 years. The longevity of South Korean women estimated in 2030 is due largely to investments in universal health care, he said. South Korea also led the list for men.

“It’s basically the opposite of what we’re doing in the West, where there’s a lot of austerity and inequality,” he said.

more
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/21/want-to-live-longer-move-to-a-country-with-universal-health-care-report-finds/

The Worst and the Dimmest

BY MAX BOOT

Back in 2001, during the “end of history” interregnum between the Cold War and 9/11, Henry Kissinger published a book called Does America Need a Foreign Policy? It was obviously a rhetorical question coming from a master of diplomacy. But now it is a very real issue, because the United States under President Donald Trump does not actually seem to have a foreign policy. Or, to be exact, it has several foreign policies — and it is not obvious whether anyone, including the president himself, speaks for the entire administration.

On Feb. 15, for example, Trump was asked, during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whether he still supported a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. His insouciant reply? “So I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one.” This immediately prompted news coverage that, as a New York Times article had it, “President Trump jettisoned two decades of diplomatic orthodoxy on Wednesday by declaring that the United States would no longer insist on the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.”

But had Trump meant to do that? His remarks sounded as if they were being improvised off the top of his head. Did they actually denote a change of policy? Sure enough, 24 hours later, Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, told reporters that “the two-state solution is what we support. Anybody that wants to say the United States does not support the two-state solution — that would be an error,” thus suggesting that the president was mistaken about his own administration’s policies. It soon emerged, thanks to Politico’s reporting, that the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, had not been consulted or even informed beforehand about what was, in theory at least, a momentous policy shift: “At the White House, there was little thought about notifying the nation’s top diplomat because, as one senior staffer put it, ‘everyone knows Jared [Kushner] is running point on the Israel stuff.’”

more

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/21/the-worst-and-the-dimmest/

Assault weapons are not protected by Second Amendment, US appeals court rules

Assault weapons are not protected under the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth circuit ruled 10-4 to uphold Maryland's ban on assault weapons, a law made in response to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

"Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war," Judge Robert King wrote, referring to the "military-style rifles" that were also used during mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, San Bernardino, California, and Orlando, Florida.

These are "places whose names have become synonymous with the slaughters that occurred there," he added, noting the Supreme Court's decision in the 2008 District of Columbia v Heller case excluded coverage of assault weapons.

more
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/assault-weapons-second-amendment-not-protected-us-appeals-court-fourth-circuit-richmond-virginia-a7592986.html

Wednesday Toon Roundup 3 - The Rest

Immigration








Deregulation


Milo









Sessions



Press



Lies




The Issue


Trumpers



Equal rights


Michigan


Climate







Genes



Soon