Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is The math of Democracy:
• Conrad Burns, former Montana senator, dead at 81: The three-term Republican raised cattle and built a radio empire (by Montana standards) before winning election to the Yellowstone County Commission in 1986. Then, he defeated two-term Democratic Sen. John Melcher in 1988, calling him "a liberal who is soft on drugs, soft on defense and very high on social programs." His three terms made him the longest serving senators in Montana history. In 2006, however, in part due to a nationwide wave of Democratic victories and in part because of his ties to scammer Jack Abramoff, Burns lost his try for a fourth term to Democrat Jon Tester in 2006. Although he had to surrender 10 years worth of records to the feds looking into the Abramoff affair, Burns said investigators never talked to him and he was never charged. Burns had a reputation for loose lips, making disparaging remarks about women, Arabs and even out-of-state firefighters who came to fight a fire near his property. One friend said of his passing: "That was probably his biggest weakness in the end. He just said what he thought."
• THOMAS to be shut off July 5: This first online database of legislative information from the U.S. Congress was launched in 1995 as a project of the Library of Congress and retired in September 2014. It has been superseded by Congress.gov. A post by Andrew Webber at the Library of Congress blog notes:
There are great Congress.gov features like responsive design (which means it adapts to the device you are using),facets to refine your search results, member and legislation email alerts, status of legislation tracker, and member pages. All of these features were unavailable on THOMAS.
• Bird watchers and cat lovers might want to skip this item: Domestic cats kill huge numbers of birds every year. But a webcam in an eagles nest in Pittsburgh captured a bit of turnabout recently: bald eagle parents feeding the remains of a cat to their young ones. In addition to hosting a video of this repast, the story written by Karin Brulliard at The Washington Post was illustrated with a still shot of a pair of gorgeous bald eagles. The caption writer made sure readers knew that these two were NOT the birds that fed the cat to the eaglets.
• North Korea sentences Korean American to 10 years hard labor: The North Korean Supreme Court found Kim Dong Chul guilty of espionage and stealing state secrets. He was the second American to be locked up in North Korea this year.
• The U.S. burned 29% less coal to generate electricity in 2015 than it did in 2007. That was a drop in coal from 1.039 billion tons to 739 million tons in eight years.
• Paul Manafort has represented oligarchs and tyrants. So it makes sense that now he's representing Donald Trump.
• Havasupai, Navajo and other Indians support Grijalva’s push for national monument around Grand Canyon:
Tribal leaders joined Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, on Tuesday April 28 urging President Barack Obama to designate 1.7 million acres around the Grand Canyon as a national monument, bypassing Congress in the process.
Grijalva said he was calling on the president to invoke the Antiquities Act after becoming convinced thathis billto create the same monument would not get “a real, honest, rational hearing” from a Republican-led House. [...]
The proposed Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument Act would protect 1.7 million acres in the canyon’s watershed, prohibiting mining and other natural resources development. It would make permanent a current 20-year moratorium on uranium mining that was imposed by the Interior Department.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin & Armando ponder the road ahead, both short-term & long, as the primaries come to an end. The #GunFAIL Effect continues changing the way gun violence is reported. GMU gets another chance to name its school Lawy McLawface.
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