Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is In line at the ladies' room:
• Daily Kos is 14 years old today:
“Remember when in the darkest hours following 9-11, Bush hid in the cornfields of Nebraska? Well, as our fearless leader now admits, "I was trying to get out of harm's way."
Um. Okay. Maybe not so fearless.”
• Catholic Bishops make anti-gay video because...freedom:
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) are now equating one-man, one-woman marriage with freedom, and claiming the government is "penalizing Catholic institutions because of their faith." In "Made for Freedom," a video released Tuesday as part of the USCCB's "Marriage: Unique for a Reason" campaign, the Catholic Bishops depict wistful and beleaguered Catholics lamenting the public and governmental acceptance of same-sex marriage, and voicing fears that expressing anti-gay beliefs will see them branded as hateful and prejudiced. [...]
But much of the video features anti-gay attorney Kellie Fiedorek with the Christian legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom. The ADF is one of two faith-based groups responsible for many of the anti-LGBT bills currently flooding state legislatures.
• Wind, solar power expected to grow fast for next four years, but then a slowdown: The reason for that slowdown is the termination of federal tax credits in 2020 at the end of a five-year phase-out. Utilities will buy lots of renewables to take advantage of tax credits. Unless there is a change in government policy, however, the market for new renewables will likely shrink significantly in 2021.
• Neanderthals built a structure deep in a cave 145,000 years ago:
Some 336 meters into the cave, the caver stumbled across something extraordinary—a vast chamber where several stalagmites had been deliberatelybroken. Most of the 400 pieces had been arranged into two rings—a large one between 4 and 7 metres across, and a smaller one just 2 metres wide. Others had been propped up against these donuts. Yet others had been stacked into four piles. Traces of fire were everywhere, and there was a mass of burnt bones. [...]
Recognizing the site’s value, the caver brought in archaeologist Francois Rouzaud. Using carbon-dating, Rouzaud estimated that a burnt bear bone found within the chamber was 47,600 years old, which meant that the stalagmite rings were older than any known cave painting. It also meant that they couldn’t have been the work of Homo sapiens. Their builders must have been the only early humans in the south of France at the time: Neanderthals.
• Study: Higher taxes don’t make millionaires run away:
… a study based on 13 years of tax data finds that most millionaires don’t move cross-country just to avoid a tax bill. It turns out that the rich, while perhaps different from us, aren’t all that mobile. When they do move, it’s often for reasons that have nothing to do with taxes. For one thing, they appear to like the beach.
The study, published in the June issue of the American Sociological Review, suggests that states—and countries—may have some leeway to raise taxes on the wealthy without scaring away their tax base. It has obvious political implications, possibly serving as ammunition for those who favor taxing the rich. It could help advance the arguments of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, for example, who have both proposed higher taxes on upper-income Americans.
• Probable arson shutters Modesto, California, Planned Parenthood clinic.
• U-Turn Utah campaign gears up to blast state politicians’ attempts to sell public lands:
The quixotic efforts of Utah politicians to seize and sell national forests and other public lands poses a dire risk to tourism and visitor spending in the state, according to a new public awareness campaign that launched this week.
The campaign, called “U-turn Utah,” notes that the Utah Office of Tourism is spending millions of dollars on a national television ads that call Utah’s five National Parks and other public lands an American “birthright.” Yet the state’s elected officials are also planning to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in an attempt to seize many of those same lands from federal agencies so they can be sold and privatized.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: The debate that was debatable. Priebusin’ is hard! Turmoil in Trumpland. That alt-right frog thing. Portland’s top cop shows how to flush public trust in gun safety down the toilet. A conservative law firm sells small school systems bathroom panic snake oil.
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