Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is Intelligence tests of our times:
• 880 immigrants traveling from Libya to Italy drowned last week: It was the worst known tally for a single week in a year. A spokesman for the United Nation Human Commission for Refugees, William Spindler, said some 2,510 lives have been lost in the first five months of 2016 compared to 1,855 in the same span a year ago. In those five months, according to the UNHCR, 203,981 people have made the journey to Europe. About 75 percent of these traveled from Turkey to Greece prior to the end of March. The North Africa-Italy route is much more dangerous: 2,119 of the deaths reported to far this year have been among people making this journey, making for odds of dying as high as one in 23.
• Joe Biden honored late son Beau on Memorial Day. The vice president unveiled the new Delaware National Guard HQ name: the Major Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III National Guard/ Reserve Center. Beau Biden died of brain cancer a year ago at the age of 46. The vice president said his son “devoted his whole life to his family and to other people.”
• Hacked road signs greet Dallas motorists Memorial Day weekend: One sign displayed "Bernie for president" instead of the usual warnings about lane closures or closed exits. Hackers replaced the usual message on another sign with: "Donald Trump is a shape-shifting lizard!!' The Department of Transportation turned off the signs about 6 a.m. Tuesday.
• Libertarian candidate for party chairman does striptease at convention, then drops out of contention.
• Alan Grayson gives girlfriend election boost by marrying her: The Democratic Congressman, who is giving up his seat to run for Senate in Florida, married Dena Minning over the Memorial Day weekend. Minning changed her name immediately to Dena Grayson on Twitter and Facebook. She is an unknown outsider beyond the Orlando-area district race. The name-change is viewed as giivng her an advantage in the crowded Democratic primary.
• Stephen Hawking’s most important comments are ignored to focus on what he said about Trump: Asked if could explain the rise of Donald Trump, Hawking, widely viewed as one of the world’s smartest people, told British news station ITV News: “I can’t. He is a demagogue, who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.” But, as Emily Atkin points out, the media didn’t pay attention to a more important comment of Hawking’s. Trump, he said, isn’t the worst threat facing the U.S. or the world. “A more immediate danger is runaway climate change. A rise in ocean temperature would melt the ice-caps, and cause a release of large amounts of carbon dioxide from the ocean floor. Both effects could make our climate like that of Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees.” Trump, who does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change, said last week that he would undo every major climate change policy enacted in the past 10 years.
• American Indian activist Ruth Hopkins blasts Trump over calling Warren “Pocahontas”:
Let’s be clear: Donald Trump isn’t calling Senator Warren “Pocahontas” to honor her. He is using it in a derogatory manner, to belittle and insult her. This is what he thinks of Native people and women in general. Such statements are not only arrogant, they’re misogynistic and racially charged.
Contrary to Hollywood lore and textbook mythology, Pocahontas wasn’t a buxom NDN Princess built for sex who couldn’t wait to help the white man defeat her brutish Tribesmen. Pocahontas was a little girl who first met John Smith around age 11. She was kidnapped, held hostage, imprisoned, and raped by European invaders who only released her when she agreed to marry one of her English captors. She was then promptly carted off to Europe as an example of what successful colonization could look like. She fell ill soon after and died far from her traditional homelands at the age of 21. Pocahontas is not a stripper name or a Halloween costume. She is Exhibit A in the case that would hold the United States and its founders guilty of Indigenous genocide.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin rounds up weekend news. Gop eats their Trump sandwiches, even as his insanity mounts. Has he destroyed the interview as a journalistic tool? ICYMI: another mass shooting. How have Dem contests actually ended in the superdelegate era?
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