Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is Meanwhile, besides Russia:
• What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …
- The state of my dangerous liberal rhetoric will remain strong and loud, by Frank Vyan Walton
- Call out bad reporting but ultimately act to stop the Trumpcare train, by Egberto Willies
- Trump’s poll numbers don’t make me happy, they make me mad, by Ian Reifowitz
- 33 Republicans (and only Republicans) have done to blaze new trails of corruption, by David Akadjian
- Commander in Chief Trump goes AWOL, by Jon Perr
- The end of the family farm, by Mark E Andersen
- The narcissist who cried wolf, by Propane Jane
- Juneteenth and the memorial to Texas black history, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Why Europeans can’t stand Donald Trump, by Sher Watts Spooner
• At National Congress of American Indians, Zinke says he didn’t ignore tribes’ concerns about Bears Ears National Monument. The Secretary of Interior claimed he kept the tribes in the loop during his review of the decision to make Bears Ears a national monument. But he didn’t explain what he plans to recommend shrinking the 1.35 million-acre monument site in Utah. “I went out there,” Zinke said of his four-day trip to the state last month. “I talked to the tribes.” The usual problem for the past 400 years. Zinke talked and expected Indians just to listen.
• A bullet to the pelvic region as struck Rep. Scalise can easily be life-threatening: Many organs and important blood vessels are packed into that area of the body:
Bullets can ricochet off bone and change direction inside the abdomen, but it's not just the missile itself that causes trauma, said Faran Bokhari, chairman of the department of trauma and burn surgery at Cook County Health and Hospital System in Chicago, which sees 1,000 gunshot victims a year.
“There is a shock wave that accompanies that metal fragment,” Bokhari said. “It makes a track where it cuts through. … Everything above or below it is destroyed.” That track can be five to 10 times wider than the bullet, he added. High-powered rifles put vastly more energy behind a bullet than handguns do, increasing the damage, he said.
• $100 million project blocked as Tennessee Republicans impose a year-long moratorium on all new wind turbine projects: The project was suspended by developer Apex Clean Energy after the moratorium was put in place. Called the Crab Orchard wind farm 100 miles east of Nashville, the project of 23 turbines built on private land was meant to power 20,000 homes. Republican Rep. Cameron Sexton, who represents the district in the state legislature said residents in a retirement community nearby the planned wind farm fear losing value in their homes and that the turbines would be noisy and harm wildlife, a viewpoint disputed by Apex.
• U.N. Investigator: U.S. airstrikes targeting ISIS in Syria cause “staggering loss of civilian life”
The northern Syrian city, the so-called capital of the Islamic State (ISIS), is where U.S.-backed forces, including Syrian Kurdish and Arab U.S.-backed rebel groups, last week began an offensive. That effort to retake the city from ISIS, also referred to as ISIL, was aided by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
But these increased strikes were in the crosshairs of Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry for Syria, who gave the U.N. Human Rights Council his dire assessment of the situation for Syrian civilians, who “are in the unenviable role of being the target of most warring parties” and face “disastrous consequences.”
• Wired roads could power electric vehicles as you drive.
• While the economy may still look superficially strong, storm clouds are gathering: In the first quarter of 2017, retail spending (the economy’s biggest driver) was exceedingly weak. It doesn’t appear to be any better in the second quarter. Retail sales for May fell 0.3 percent vs. an Econoday prediction of a 0.1 percent rise. That weakness includes a 1 percent drop for department stores, a 0.2 percent drop for autos, and a 0.1 percent drop for restaurants.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: A long look at the Senate Republicans’ secret Trumpcare “process,” what it means & how ridiculous their answers to simple questions about it are. Trump’s cronyism continues. More procedural damage to come in the Senate. Plus your weekend reading.
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