Today’s comic by Matt Bors is Trumpcare—who benefits?
• Sarah Palin sues NYT for defamation: The former governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate is suing the Times because of an editorial that she says falsely depicted as being responsible for the shooting of Gabby Giffords, the representative of Arizona’s 8th Congressional District until she was shot and severely wounded in 2011. The editorial labeled her part of a “sickeningly familiar pattern” sparking political violence. Palin is seeking $75,000 in damages.
• ACLU plans lawsuit against granite monument of Ten Commandments in Arkansas but vandals smashed it: The three-ton privately funded monument had been placed on the state capitol grounds Tuesday morning. A state law passed in 2015 required that such a monument be allowed. Early Wednesday morning, a driver rammed it, and it broke into pieces as it was toppled. The driver was arrested and charged with defacing objects of public interest, criminal trespass, and first-degree criminal mischief. It seems likely, based on his name and address, that this is the same guy who was committed to a mental hospital three years ago for driving into and smashing a Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma capitol. He was never charged in that case.
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• Michael Bond, creator of Paddington Bear, dead at 91. The author said he created the marmalade-obsessed Paddington as a last-minute Christmas gift for his wife. The first appearance of the iconic character came in 1958 with “A Bear Called Paddington.” Since then, the Paddington books have sold 35 million copies in numerous languages, including Latin:
In creating the initially homeless Paddington, Bond drew on memories of the refugees and evacuees who streamed through British train stations before and after World War II, seeking security in safer places. Many of the children had name tags hung around their necks.
Bond said a sense of vulnerability “was an important part of Paddington’s persona” and a reason why children were drawn to him.
• On this date in 1914, an assassin murdered the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg,
• Green groups oppose installation of small nukes by Tennessee Valley Authority:
Several conservation groups led by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy are sounding the alarm over TVA's plans to site small reactors at the Clinch River site, allowing the utility to reduce the size of the emergency planning zone around the proposed reactors.
• Security firm hired by Dakota Access Pipeline builder was denied N.D. license but kept working anyway: North Dakota's Private Investigative and Security Board is suing to prevent TigerSwan, a North Carolina-based operation from continuing to monitor the pipeline that carries fracked oil from the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana to refineries and other pipelines in Illinois:
TigerSwan was denied a license in November in part due to “positive criminal history,“ according to the paper.James Patrick Reese, the firm's president and chairman, pushed back but was denied a license again in January, the paper reported.
Yet as far back as September, TigerSwan was engaging in surveillance activities of opponents to the controversial pipeline, the North Dakota Private Investigative and Security Board said in a complaint filed in state court, the paper reported. The firm also has been providing security at construction sites in the state.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin & Joan McCarter are on hand to bring us up to date with the latest developments on the Republican Medicaid repeal bill, what happened to it and what’s next for it. If only we could get Donald Trump to listen in, maybe he’d understand it at last.
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