turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalAs close as the US gets to Egypts pyramids': how Chaco Canyon is endangered by drilling
In Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, it is still possible to wander the maze of rooms of an ancestral Puebloan village erected roughly 1,000 years ago.
Visitors use the same staircases and duck through the same T-shaped doorways as residents did at the time. A jigsaw puzzle of rocks form walls that stand several feet thick and multiple stories tall. Where rooftops are gone, windows now let in glimpses of sky. It’s a simultaneous experience of vast space and marvelous connection.
Hundreds of such dwellings sprawl over the south-west, from New Mexico to Colorado, Utah and Arizona. Each is a testament to the determined faith of their inhabitants, who aligned the walls of structures with the axis of the rising sun on an equinox, and etched petroglyphs the sunlight bisects only on solstices.
Chaco Culture national historical park, created in 1907, contains a concentration of these ancestral Puebloan structures abandoned around 1200 AD. Unesco recognized it as a world heritage site in 1987 for its “monumental public and ceremonial buildings and its distinctive architecture – it has an ancient urban ceremonial centre that is unlike anything constructed before or since”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/08/chaco-canyon-national-park-new-mexico-drilling
FUCK YOU TRUMP
FUCK YOU RYAN ZINKE
The talking heads in the media are just all over themselves on the elections
that just happened, across the country.
The one thing of importance that they missed is that woman of all color stayed in line to vote and have been involved since day one.
It started last year right before the fiasco going into the white house, who has no business being in that institution, and the woman in this country have been resolved to take this person down for not only for what he is but as to an insult to their dignity, that they so rightly deserve.
More woman have been running in local and state elections this year than ever, and next year is going to be bigger, the giant as awoken
I watched some, not all of the news programs before the election,and what was really disgusting, was the way the media tried in earnest in some cases, to make the election a close call in Virginia my home state. It appeared in my mind, that every news segment had some commercial explanation of the no chin right wing hypocrite, who undoubtedly saw the internal polls showing that he was losing the contest, so he decided to go rouge, I like to say, to try the road map of hate and divisiveness, that failed.
The media tried with all of there might prior to the elections to try and divide a party because of a book, to try and inflame the situation, and in some cases for ratings, and only for ratings, without looking at the underling issue, they were in most cases treated like an object.
One organization was speaking about the situation of a movie mogul, they had no coverage of the election, so to speak.
These are my observations, I portend that in the 2018 cycle of the House and Senate elections, the republicans are not going to be able to hide, 14 seats in Virginia flipped, and if that is any indications, the right wing republicans are going to start throwing each other under the bus........................my answer, good.
Everyone is going around saying that there is no message from the party.
I don't know what I am missing but the message that I as a democrat have been supporting and hearings is heath care, child care, the environment, wages
The media says that we are not connecting to the workers , they are wrong, we have always tried to connect................
So in closing on this rant, I would like to say:
THANK YOU to all of you that were in the precincts, all of you that ran and won, and those that did not, we still support you, and will again.
To all of the tireless campaign staffers, and to the people that donated to win this and other races and others.................in 2018.
We are coming, the job is not quite done, but we are coming, and we are going to take this country back, because this country belongs to the people
Ryan sets record for closing down debate in House: report
Source: The Hill
House Speaker Paul Ryan has reportedly set a record for closing down floor debate in the House.
Politico reported the House Rules Committee, controlled by Ryan, has not allowed lawmakers to give amendments on a bill for the 49th time — breaking a record for the most closed rules in a session.
“The Republican Majority has now made history for all the wrong reasons,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) in a statement.
“Under Speaker Ryan’s leadership, this session of Congress has now become the most closed Congress in history.”
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said when lawmakers offer amendments, they "have to be approved by leadership before we get a vote on them."
"And that's not how our system is supposed to work," he said.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/359329-ryan-sets-record-for-closing-down-debate-in-house-report
Anyone heard of or seen any hearings on the "budget".....................not me, its just like the McConnell crew everything is behind closed doors, after all those chambers are "our" chambers
To solve this problem, I think I have one.......................
https://randybryceforcongress.com/
White House admits Trump climate policies will destroy all U.S. coastal property
The massive climate report released by the Trump administration on Friday makes clear that the President’s climate policies will destroy every last bit of U.S. (and global) coastal property in the decades to come.
That means more than $1 trillion in U.S. coastal property will eventually be valueless. So the only question is “when” and not “if” that trillion-dollar housing bubble will burst.
The answer appears to be sooner, rather than later, for two reasons. First, the administration’s policies — to abandon the Paris climate deal while working to gut both domestic climate action and coastal adaptation programs — make the worst-case scenarios for climate change more likely while undermining any efforts to prepare for what’s coming. Second, the GOP tax reform bill will directly deflate coastal property values because it targets the tax breaks for the most expensive properties.
https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-admits-trump-climate-policies-will-destroy-all-u-s-coastal-property-313b74aa2ce9/
Your $20 Million Loan Went Bust? The Trump Team Has a Job For You
As a deputy assistant secretary for policy and economic development in the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, Gavin Clarkson oversees a small program that guarantees loans for Indian businesses. His “expertise in the areas of law, finance and economic development are a valuable asset,” noted Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke in a statement announcing the appointment, which took effect on June 11 and didn’t require Senate confirmation.
Zinke didn’t mention it, but Clarkson is particularly well acquainted with the loan guarantee program he now supervises: He played a key role in a convoluted transaction that flopped and left the Interior Department fending off a $20 million liability that is still in litigation years later. That sum represents about 25 percent of the amount the program can guarantee in a year, and until the case is resolved, that money cannot be used to guarantee new loans.
Clarkson, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is a former law professor who has taught at the University of Michigan and New Mexico State, and been involved in several businesses. He referred questions to a department spokeswoman, who did not respond to questions sent by email.
The story begins with what sounds like an improbable idea: In 2008, the Lower Brule Sioux tribe in South Dakota decided to buy a nearly insolvent Wall Street financial services company. The tribe, which was receiving federal aid to reduce poverty, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, turned to Clarkson to obtain a loan, and a loan guarantee from the Interior Department. (The guarantees are intended to encourage banks and other entities to lend to Indian businesses that might not otherwise find funding. The government agrees to reimburse any covered debt that the borrower fails to pay off.)
https://www.propublica.org/article/your-20-million-loan-went-bust-the-trump-team-has-a-job-for-you
This is just outrageous....................when is the senate going to hold an public hearing
Former felons head to the polls in Virginia with the future of rights restoration on the line
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA — Driving through the rain from his office to the polls on Tuesday, 66-year-old Wali Bahar couldn’t help but reflect on the significance of the occasion — and not just because he was being trailed by an entourage of voting advocates and their cameras.
Bahar’s mother, born a slave in 1912 in Clarksville, Virginia, never learned to read or write. She never voted, Bahar said, because she was never educated.
In 2016, after serving more than three decades in prison, Bahar regained his voting rights and cast his first ballot. This would be his second time voting.
“I’m not nervous like I was the first time,” Bahar said from the passenger seat. “I’m ready to cast my vote in there, that’s for sure… I’m taking my place in society. I feel like I’m in this fight that other people put forth and died for many years ago.”
Last year, Bahar was one of tens of thousands of former felons who benefited from Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s (D) executive order restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions who completed their sentences. Though the state supreme court invalidated McAuliffe’s attempt to restore rights en masse, the governor decided to grant individual clemency to each person who qualified. Bahar was one of those people.
https://thinkprogress.org/virginia-former-felons-vote-a3d9318a7945/
Trumps HHS Unveils Medicaid Overhaul That Will Mean Fewer People Covered
Source: Talking Points Memo
By ALICE OLLSTEIN Published NOVEMBER 7, 2017 10:27 AM
On Tuesday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled new criteria for evaluating pitches from states to tweak their Medicaid programs, a significant departure from the Obama administration’s approach to such requests.
Whereas in the past states had to prove that proposed changes would “increase and strengthen” health coverage of their low-income population, that requirement is gone, replaced with language that welcomes proposals for work requirements, drug tests and other hurdles that experts predict would reduce the Medicaid rolls by hundreds of thousands of people.
In a statement distributed to reporters Tuesday morning, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma called the goal of covering more people a “hollow victory of numbers,” and instead called for changes that “reduce federal regulatory burdens, increase efficiency, and promote transparency and accountability.”
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/medicaid-work-verma-cms-hhs
While her boss is running around the Far East making himself look like an ass, back in this country, a lobbyists overriding or trying to override doctors that have determined that someone should be on Medicaid......................
So this HHS lobbyist running CMS basically treats Medicaid as some form of welfare
Offshore cash helped fund Steve Bannon's attacks on Hillary Clinton,
Eighteen months before guiding Donald Trump to election victory, Steve Bannon delivered the opening shot in the ruthless Republican campaign to paint their Democratic opponent as corrupt.
The future White House chief strategist produced a book in May 2015 accusing Hillary Clinton of trading favours for donations to her charitable foundation. Its questionable central charge, on the sale of a uranium company to Russia, recently became the subject of a House inquiry and feverish talk on conservative media.
But the financial arrangements of another foundation, which bankrolled Bannon’s creation of the book, Clinton Cash, have received less scrutiny.
Leaked documents and newly obtained public filings show how the billionaire Mercer family built a $60m war chest for conservative causes inside their family foundation by using an offshore investment vehicle to avoid US tax.
The offshore vehicle was part of a network of companies in the Atlantic tax haven of Bermuda led by Robert Mercer, the wealthy hedge-fund executive and Bannon patron whose spending helped put Trump in the White House and aided a resurgence of the Republican right.
Mercer, 71, appears as a director of eight Bermuda companies in the Paradise Papers, a trove of millions of leaked documents on offshore finance reviewed by the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other partners. The files include a copy of Mercer’s US passport and other private data.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/07/steve-bannon-bermuda-robert-mercer
What Working People Face
Paul Ryan certainly doesn’t understand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck. So I’m running to replace him.
11/05/2017 02:57 pm ET
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I’ve been asked why I’m running for Congress several times on the campaign trail. The truth is, moving to Washington and becoming “Congressman Bryce” wasn’t something on my bucket list. But I kept hearing stories from friends and neighbors about the pain and hardship that people were facing ― and these stories hit home because they were often circumstances I’ve experienced myself and have worked to overcome.
When people asked me to run against Paul Ryan, it was clear that those folks were looking for someone who understood what it was like to be a working person trying to make ends meet.
It’s fair to say that working people are underrepresented in Congress ― Paul Ryan certainly doesn’t understand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck, to have to choose between food and paying your bills, or to literally be faced with life and death decisions with no health insurance.
But I do understand. I’ve survived some really awful times and it’s time there’s someone in Congress who knows what everyday people are going through.
I know what it’s like to work 100 hours a week, doing hard, manual labor ― because I’ve done it.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-working-people-face_us_59ff49bfe4b0baea26325eb1?gb9
Paul Ryan says that Randy Bryce isn't rich enough.....................
https://randybryceforcongress.com/
Why Did Media Overlook September Shooting in Plano, Texas, When Estranged Husband Killed Wife and
Seven Others?
While Sunday's shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, has received wall-to-wall media coverage, there was another mass shooting in Texas in September that received far less attention. In Plano, Texas, a man allegedly killed his estranged wife and her friends in what appears to be the deadliest incident of domestic violence in the town's history. Twenty-seven-year-old Meredith Hight was watching the Cowboys football game with a group of friends and family when her estranged husband reportedly entered her house and opened fire, killing her and seven other adults. The shooter was killed by police. Local news reports Hight had filed for divorce in July. Hight's mother said her daughter "loved hosting friends and families. This was her first opportunity to do it after the divorce, and he didn't take it well." For more, we speak with Ed Scruggs, vice chair and spokesperson for Texas Gun Sense, and Sarah Tofte, research director at Everytown for Gun Safety. Her team has just published a new report on the links between domestic violence and mass
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42508-why-did-media-overlook-september-shooting-in-plano-texas-when-estranged-husband-killed-wife-and-seven-others
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