Senators call on National Science Foundation to investigate climate change grants

Source: CNN

(CNN)Four Republican senators have called on National Science Foundation Inspector General Allison Lerner to investigate the foundation's grant-making process, citing a grant charged with enabling television meteorologists to provide viewers with climate change education.
In the June 18 letter, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and James Lankford and Jim Inhofe, both of Oklahoma, express their concern that the National Science Foundation has "issued several grants which seek to influence political and social debate rather than conduct scientific research."


Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/politics/climate-change-grants-inspection/index.html

Opinions Michael Cohen is getting desperate. President Trump should be worried.

Source: msn.com

Michael Cohen has hired New York lawyer Guy Petrillo to represent him in a federal investigation into his business dealings, and has told associates he wants President Donald Trump, his former boss, to pay his legal fees, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Cohen has frequently told associates in recent months he is frustrated that the president hasn’t offered to pay his legal fees, which he has said are “bankrupting” him, according to one of the people. He has said he feels that Mr. Trump owes him after his years of loyalty to the former real-estate developer, whom he served for nearly a decade at the Trump Organization.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/opinions-michael-cohen-is-getting-desperate-president-trump-should-be-worried/ar-AAyV1TA

So is Democratic Underground

ACLU sues Kobach again, this time over Crosscheck security breach

Who knows where kohack is send this personal information..Worthless handjob
exemplifies conservatives main vote getter...spreading lies and disinformation.
Squirrelly looking dickhead too.

The American Civil Liberties Union is staking out a new battleground in a war of voter rights with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, filing a class action lawsuit Tuesday to challenge his use of a multistate data comparison program.

Kobach’s maintenance of the Crosscheck system recklessly exposes private voter data, the ACLU argues, pointing to the 945 Kansans whose partial Social Security numbers were transferred in an unsecured email to Florida officials. The lawsuit asks for unspecified civil penalties, plus attorney fees and court costs.

“Kobach is so obsessed with ways to prop up his failed experiment in reducing citizen participation in elections that he’s chosen not to follow the most basic procedures for protecting the privacy of Kansas citizens,” said Micah Kubic, executive director for ACLU of Kansas. “So much of Kobach’s agenda, from voting to immigration to education funding, is based on false narratives and threats that do not really exist. What does really exist is the horrifying invasion of privacy that Kobach has unnecessarily created.”

The lawsuit follows Monday’s ruling by a federal court judge in a fight between the ACLU and Kobach over the state’s proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson rejected Kobach’s claims of widespread voter fraud, determining the testimony of his witnesses to be unreliable, flawed and invalid.

Although there are only 11 instances since 1999 of noncitizens voting in Kansas, Kobach appeals to constituents by championing his efforts to secure elections. He is seeking the Republican nomination in this year’s race for governor, telling his base he knows he is doing the right thing if the ACLU is opposed.

“You have to be a U.S. citizen to vote, and you have to be who you say you are,” Kobach said during a recent podcast with The Topeka Capital-Journal. “One way to put it concisely is in Kansas we’ve made it easy to vote but hard to cheat.”

Kansas has used the Crosscheck system since 2005 to analyze the first name, surname and date of birth for voters in multiple states. Before Kobach took office in 2011, only Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska joined Kansas in using the program.

Kobach followed through on his pledge to expand Crosscheck, adding 26 states with 100 million voter records by 2016. However, eight states stopped using the program over concerns sensitive information could be exposed.

Additionally, researchers discovered the system produced false positives 99 percent of the time. The lead plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit, Scott Moore, had the same name and age as a man in Naples, Fla.

“Simply being born on the wrong day could land you in Kobach’s crosshairs,” said Lauren Bonds, legal director for ACLU of Kansas. “Our plaintiffs shared a name and birth date with people in Florida, and that was enough for Kobach to place them on a list suspected double registrants.”

Efforts to determine if people like the two Moores were really the same person led to the security breach of 945 Kansas voters. The state informed those affected by sending them a postcard and offering a year of service through an identity theft protection company.

Rightwingers are protected in kansaas by other rightwingers...

Wichita ranks in the bottom 20 percent in the country in net domestic migration this decade, losing more than 18,000 people. The two largest groups leaving are college-educated women under the age of 45 and minorities with an associate's degree or higher, he said.

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article212946659.html#storylink=cpy

TOPEKA

A Wichita Republican House candidate whose Democratic opponent accused him of listing a foreclosed house as his residence will remain on the ballot after a panel led by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach voted unanimously to dismiss a complaint against him.

Republican candidate Michael Capps sat quietly Monday as Vic Miller, an attorney for Democratic candidate Monica Marks, called him a liar again and again during a hearing of the State Objections Board.

Capps listed 3103 N. Governeour as his residence when he filed to run for office on June 1. But Marks alleged he actually lived at 2832 S. Chase Avenue.

During the hearing, Capps said he began living in the Governeour location on May 5, which he has owned for several years. He said he had previously moved to the South Chase Avenue location because the home needed extensive repairs.

But a form filed with the Secretary of State’s office on May 16, and bearing Capps’ electronic signature, listed his address on South Chase.

“At this point, I can’t speak to it since it wasn’t a transaction I had done myself. I’ll have to look into it with my campaign folks to find out if somebody made an error somewhere,” Capps said.

Miller also focused on a stone that says “Capps” that was sitting in front of the South Chase property but was later moved to Governeour after Marks filed her objection.

“Lo and behold, after it is pointed out that it was at one address, it floats from that address to his supposed, his alleged, his lied about vacant property that’s been foreclosed on, on Governeour,” Miller said.

Capps acknowledged he moved the stone after Marks complained because the “optics” of it sitting in front of the other location were bad.

Court records show that the Governeour house, which belonged to Capps, was foreclosed in January and granted to the bank that holds the mortgage.

But Capps said he has always maintained ownership of the home, according to records with the register of deeds. He said a bankruptcy filing related to the sale of his business had affected his mortgage but that the property has always been deeded to him.

Attempts to contact Capps last week when Marks filed her complaint were unsuccessful. But Capps said Monday he was in the Dominican Republican June 1 through June 7.

Capps had previously filed to run in House District 97 using the South Chase address, but filed on June 1 in District 85 using the Governeour address after Rep. Chuck Weber withdrew his re-election bid there.

Capps acknowledged that it took him about two weeks after moving into the Governeour home on May 5 before he dropped out of the District 97 race.

The State Objections Board has typically defined residency as someone living on the property claimed, or if absent, intending to return and reside there indefinitely. The board, which includes Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Tracey Mann, invoked that standard in voting on the Capps case (Schmidt and Mann sent proxies, while Kobach appeared in person).

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article212954804.html#storylink=cpy

Dennis Rodman may attend Trump-Kim summit

Source: Cnn

"Former NBA star Dennis Rodman's agent says he's "considering going to Singapore" for the historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. CNN's Brian Todd reports. "

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/06/dennis-rodman-singapore-summit-todd-dnt-tsr.cnn

Chelsea Clinton: Trump Degrades 'What It Means To Be An American'

Source: Huuffpost

Chelsea Clinton skewered President Donald Trump’s character in a recent interview, accusing him of degrading “what it means to be an American.”

Clinton, a philanthropist and the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, tore into Trump when asked about his planned July visit to Britain during an interview published Saturday in The Guardian.

“If I lived in Britain I would show up to protest, because I don’t agree with what he’s doing to degrade what it means to be an American,” Clinton said.

Clinton, 38, also told the newspaper that she’s been the target of “vitriol” for as long as she could remember and credited Trump for prompting her decision to start firing back at people who say “hateful” things to her.

“The reason, now, I no longer ignore it when people say hateful things to me on the street or on social media is, I think we have to shine a light,” Clinton said.

“I think those of us who have platforms to do that have to say this is wrong and unacceptable, so we don’t normalize it but try to detoxify what has been unleashed,” she said. “Because if we don’t, we leave a vacuum. And I think the darkness fills that vacuum.”

Trump has continued to call for Hillary Clinton, his 2016 election opponent, to be jailed for her e-mail practices as secretary of state, even though the FBI almost two years ago concluded no charges were warranted. The president has also mocked women’s appearances and promoted bigoted views.

“I think that the way that our president and many people around him have not only mainstreamed hate, but mainlined it, is so deeply dangerous,” Clinton said.

“I think the wreckage that we’re seeing at this moment is one that will, I hope, be repaired on the policy standpoint when we elect Democrats,” she continued. “But I think we will still then have work to do on repairing the tone in our country, the exposure of the real racist and sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic feeling which is on the rise in our country ― a rot that has been exposed.”

Clinton praised the “hugely important” First Amendment, but said “freedom of speech” doesn’t mean there should be a “freedom of consequences.”

“Sure, you should not be in prison because you said something racist,” Clinton said. “But you also shouldn’t be able to run for president. And yet here we are.

Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chelsea-clinton-trump-degreades_us_5b0a9e10e4b0fdb2aa547d4e

Steve Kerr: NFL Is Using The Anthem As Fake Patriotism, Nationalism, Scaring People

Source: S.I.


Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr called the NFL's new national anthem policy "idiotic" while talking with reporters ahead of Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals.

Under the new NFL policy, NFL owners voted to allow NFL comissioner Roger Goodell to discipline any league personnel who does not stand and show respect for the flag and national anthem before games. Players are given the option to remain in the locker room if they prefer not to be on the field for the anthem. Teams will have the option to fine any team personnel or players that attempt to sit, kneel or protest during the anthem.

Kerr is no stranger to speaking out against President Donald Trump and has supported NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to kneel during the national anthem. In October 2017, Kerr told the Pod Save America podcast that he believes Kaepernick is being blackballed by NFL teams.

"It's just typical of the NFL," Kerr said, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. "They're just playing to their fanbase. Basically just trying to use the anthem as fake patriotism, nationalism, scaring people. It's idiotic. But thats how the NFL has conducted their business. I'm proud to be in a league that understands patriotism in America is about free speech and peacfully protesting. Our leadership in the NBA understands when the NFL players were kneeling, they were kneeling to protest police brutality, to protest racial inequality. They weren't disrespecting the flag or military. But our president decided to make it about that and the NFL followed suit, pandered to their fanbase, created this hysteria. It's kind of what's wrong with our country right now – people in high places are trying to divide us, divide loyalties, make this about the flag as if the flag is something other than it really is – which is a representation of what we're about, which is diversity, peaceful protests, right to free speech. It's ironic actually."

Read more: https://www.si.com/nba/2018/05/24/steve-kerr-nfl-national-anthem-policy-idiotic

What a freak show...

First the energy czars were going to raise rates...


May 18, 2018 06:02 PM
Updated May 21, 2018 11:59 AM

Fair haired jerk gets some brownsmelly in his face..

When I am governor..blah blah blah...
Sanctuary cities? In kansaas?