Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is Algorithm news:
• What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …
- Mothers against gun violence are running for office, by Sher Watts Spooner
- The Puerto Rican island of Vieques: War games, hurricanes and wild horses, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Our democracy does come with an owner’s manual, but it needs an appendix, by Susan Grigsby
- So, Trump wants to talk about fake news, by Laurence Lewis
- ‘Equal sovereignty’ of the states in the age of Trump, by Jon Perr
- Democrats must be prepared for outside forces that could stymie the impending blue wave, by Egberto Willies
- Mapping out the long path of Trump’s money laundering and corruption, by Frank Vyan Walton
- In 2020, no one will be able to call any Democrat ‘the woman’ presidential candidate, by Ian Reifowitz
• Awwww. Chris Christie is one of us mortals again. Did they make him remove his shoes?
The two-term Republican, who left office on Jan. 16, was blocked from a VIP entrance he had used for eight years, and directed to stand in Transportation Security Administration screening lines at Terminal B like anyone else, according to a person familiar with the incident.
The order came from police for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, according to the person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about security matters. The Port Authority also operates the George Washington Bridge, the target of a plot by Christie aides and allies to tie up traffic for political punishment in 2013.
• Case of parents’ 13 chained-up offspring “fits this pattern we’ve been tracking”:
The story of the Turpin family — with siblings, ages 2 to 29, reportedly malnourished and living in conditions authorities called “horrific” — is hardly the first involving the abuse of children kept at home by parents who claim to be home schooling them. And like those earlier episodes, it highlights how parents home schooling their children operate amid scant state regulation, said [Rachel] Coleman, founder of the national nonprofit Coalition for Responsible Home Education.[...]
“We’ve seen so many cases that for us, the Turpin case is not that abnormal,” Coleman said. “It fits this pattern we’ve been tracking for a long time.”
To be sure, she said, the vast majority of home-schooled children have parents who create a warm environment at home and provide a fine education. She was happily home schooled, as were other staff members of her organization. The California case, she said, is “not the norm.”
But, she said, the lack of regulation and enforcement by states allows home-schooling parents who abuse their children to hide them. While children who attend regular schools are abused too, research shows that home schoolers account for a disproportionate number of abused children.
• Eagles settle case against real-live Hotel California:
The Eagles have settled their legal case against a Mexican hotel named Hotel California after the establishment withdrew its application to trademark the name in the US.
The band had claimed that the hotel, located in Todos Santos, “actively encouraged” guests to believe it was affiliated with the band by playing their music in the lobby and selling merchandise related to their 1976 album Hotel California.
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MIDDAY TWEET
• Lots of popular climate change articles aren’t totally credible, scientists say:
A review from Climate Feedback, a group of scientists who survey climate change news to determine whether it’s scientifically sound, looked at the 25 most-shared stories last year that focused on the science of climate change or global warming.
Of those, only 11 were rated as credible, meaning they contained no major inaccuracies. Five were considered borderline inaccurate. The remaining nine, including New York Magazine’s viral “The Uninhabitable Earth,” were found to have low or very low credibility. However, even the top-rated articles were noted as somewhat misleading.
• Prosecutors drop riot charges against 129 Inauguration Day protesters:
Federal prosecutors will drop charges against 129 of 188 people who were accused of felony rioting after President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said Thursday.
Prosecutors will still press cases against 59 defendants they contend were most responsible for the demonstrations, which resulted in smashed windows, property damage and some violent clashes with police. Prosecutors claim protesters used “black bloc” tactics, referring to a group known to show up at peaceful protests wearing all black in hopes of stirring up chaos.
• Approval of work requirements for Medicaid recipients is slap in the face to the poor.
• Miles Davis is not Mozart: The brains of jazz and classical pianists work differently
A musician's brain is different to that of a non-musician. Making music requires an interplay of abilities which are also reflected in more developed brain structures. Scientists have discovered that these capabilities are embedded in a much more finely tuned way than assumed: The brain activity of jazz pianists differs from those of classical pianists, even when playing the same piece of music.
• TransCanada says the Keystone XL has enough oil suppliers and will be built:
TransCanada announced Thursday it has strong commercial support for the Keystone XL pipeline and will move forward with the long-contested tar sands oil project. But the pipeline's opponents say significant hurdles remain that continue to cast doubt on its prospects.
The Canadian pipeline company has secured commitments to ship approximately 500,000 barrels per day for 20 years on the Keystone XL pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska, enough for the project to move forward, company officials said.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, zOMG Stormy Daniels! And much more Wolff and/or Steele dossier-bolstering material! Yet another horrific Trump appointee is rooted out. The shutdown still looms. Armando rants regarding today’s DNC meeting to vote on the Unity Commission report.