255 days remain until the November election
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Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is Electoral gunsights:
• What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …
° Black History Month: AfroLatina Pura Belpré gave children the precious love of books and stories, by Denise Oliver Velez
° Watch out, NRA: there’s new momentum in gun control fight, by Sher Watts Spooner
° Your right to own a gun is not more important then the life of a child, by Mark E Andersen
° Showing its love of coal miners, Trump regime seeks rule change to kill more of them from black lung, by Meteor Blades
° Because Trump is too stupid to know just how stupid he is, by Susan Grigsby
° #NeverAgain movement drives us around a new corner on the issues of guns, schools and mental health, by Frank Vyan Walton
° ‘No one ever asked to see my birth certificate’: The Mitt Romney story, by Jon Perr
° We need an economic system where a Bill Gates or Koch brothers is impossible, by Egberto Willies
° Book review: ‘Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South,’ by Ian Reifowitz
• A nation of immigrants no longer:
The federal agency that issues green cards and grants citizenship to people from foreign countries has stopped characterizing the United States as “a nation of immigrants.”
The director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services informed employees in a letter on Thursday that its mission statement had been revised to “guide us in the years ahead.” Gone was the phrase that described the agency as securing “America’s promise as a nation of immigrants.”
• Statue depicting subjugated Indian at San Francisco Civic Center one step closer to removal:
Civic Center statue that depicts a conquering vaquero and a missionary standing over a fallen and nearly naked American Indian man is a step closer to being removed, after a unanimous decision Wednesday by the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission.
The city Arts Commission had already agreed, also unanimously, to remove the “Early Days” sculpture from its pedestal at the base of the Pioneer Monument just east of City Hall. But the plan needed the preservation commission’s sign-off because it’s located in a historic district. The Arts Commission is expected to make a final decision in March or April.
• Company that bought company that secretly supplied lethal drug so Missouri could execute prisoners says it will no longer provide that drug:
After a local pharmacy tied to Centene Corp. was identified on Tuesday as the supplier of drugs used for executions in Missouri, Centene said the pharmacy would no longer provide the drugs used for executions.
“Under Centene’s ownership, Foundation Care has never supplied, and will never supply any pharmaceutical product to any state for the purpose of effectuating executions,” according to an emailed statement from Centene.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Figuring out which land will be underwater in 20 or 30 years could be lucrative.
• Oglala-Lakota Henry Red Cloud goes all in solar: After working construction off the reservation, Red Cloud came home in 2002 and attended a solar energy workshop. Today he runs Lakota Solar and the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center. These have catalyzed an innovative new economic network that that employs locals, connects tribes, and builds greater energy independence among First Nations. The company builds and installs alternative energy systems, and is training others to do the same in remote areas of U.S. Indian reservations. Red Cloud’s company is part of the resistance at another level, too: It helps provide energy to remote Water Protector camps, like the one at Standing Rock protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Solar power and other alternative energy sources are vital at such remote sites, as they power up cellphones, connecting resistors to the media and outside world.
• Internet service providers systematically favor white communities over communities of color:
A 2016 report from Free Press, an open internet advocacy group, found that 81 percent of white Americans have access to home internet, compared to 70 percent of Hispanic Americans and 68 percent of African Americans. This gap is most severe at the lowest income level, according to the report, but that’s not the whole story.
“Even if you account for people’s income, there’s still a disparity in black and brown communities that can’t be explained by financial difference,” said Brandi Collins-Dexter, the senior campaign director for media, democracy and economic justice at Color of Change, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group.
• Saturday, Feb. 24, is a Working Day of Action. Find actions in your area here: The action in dozens of cities will call for a new era of shared prosperity and the end of an economic and political system rigged to benefit the super-rich and the powerful corporations at the expense of everyone else. Participants in the action will demand the same freedoms that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched and died for 50 years ago: freedom from want, freedom from hate, freedom to vote and freedom to join together in strong unions.
• Texas state senator found guilty in Ponzi scheme:
A federal jury in San Antonio found Texas [Democratic] State Senator Carlos Uresti guilty Thursday on all 11 felony charges he faced for running a Ponzi scheme that took millions of dollars from unsuspecting investors. [...]
Uresti faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the fraud-related charges, and up to 10 years for each money-laundering charge. A personal injury attorney, Uresti is in jeopardy of losing his law license as a convicted felon, and will have to forfeit his Texas Senate seat if he is unsuccessful on any possible appeal.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Behold Trump's "job creation," as he cheats contractors on his DC hotel, until Big Government steps in and forces him to settle liens & pay fines. Want to predict the future of armed teachers? Look to its past. Is Qatar the next Trump gang corruption nexus?
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