Good Morning Good Newsies.
*That title post is credited to the late great Molly Ivans from her final column. I ran across this review of the documentary Raise Hell. The Life and Times of Molly Ivans at The Guardian. Anytime I read about her I am always left with a tear rolling down my cheek. A gone much too soon champion for progressive values, holding politicians pants to the fire and encouraging people to vote for their best interests. She accomplished this with subtle yet at times bold sarcasm and snark, how can it be both, well she had that lovely southern charm mixed with the bite of an intelligent and outspoken woman. When I ran across this article it touched me not only because of what she left us but what I think she may be saying if she were alive today. Oh, she would be pretty ticked off about now. But the qoute I chose for the title is still so true today. I sometimes wonder how much more ridiculous this can get. On the other hand can we drown that out. And according to Molly, with this telling line, the answer is to vote. Vote we will.
I have been suffering through a miserable cold the last several days, things are looking up and the congestion is slowly leaving. But it is still winter here and spring cannot be sprung fast enough for me. Of course today is the spring equinox so here are some cool facts from Vox:
1) Why do we have an equinox?
The equinox, the seasons, and the changing length of daylight hours throughout the year are all due to one fact: The Earth spins on a tilted axis.
The tilt — possibly caused by a massive object hitting Earth billions of years ago — means that for half the year, the North Pole is pointed toward the sun (as in the picture below). For the other half of the year, the South Pole gets more light. It’s what gives us seasons.
2) How many hours of daylight will I get Wednesday?
Equinox literally means “equal night.” And during the equinox, most places on Earth will see approximately 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night.
3) Over the course of the entire year, does every spot on Earth get an equal number of daylight hours?
In the summer months, the northernmost latitudes get a lot of daylight. Above the Arctic Circle, during the summer, there’s 24 hours of daylight. In the winter, the Arctic Circle is plunged into constant darkness.
So does this mean the number of daylight hours — in total, over the course of the year — equal out to places where the seasonal difference is less extreme?
The answer to this question is somewhat surprising: Roughly speaking, everywhere on Earth sees a similar number of daylight hours every year. But the equator actually gets slightly fewer daylight hours than the poles.
4) Can I really only balance an egg on its tip during on the equinox?
This is a myth. The amount of sunlight we get during the day has no power over the gravitational pull of the Earth or our abilities to balance things upon it. You can balance an egg on its end any day of the year (if you’re good at balancing things).
5) Is there an ancient monument that does something cool during the equinox?
During the winter and summer solstices, crowds flock to Stonehenge in the United Kingdom. During the solstices, the sun either rises or sets in line with the layout of the 5,000-year-old-monument. And while some visit Stonehenge for the spring equinox too, the real place to be is in Mexico.
6) Are there equinoxes on other planets?
Yes! All the planets in the solar system rotate on a tilted axis and therefore have seasons. Some of these tilts are minor (like Mercury, which is tilted at 2.11 degrees). But others are more like the Earth (tilted at 23.5 degrees) or are even more extreme (Uranus is tilted 98 degrees!).
Cool right?
Onward to the news!
I have to start off with this, although I am sure you are all aware, I find this to be the funniest thing I have seen in a while and after this weekend we all needed it. Plus it fits right in with dear Molly’s quote.
Goats, cows and Devin Nunes' mom: how a Republican's Twitter lawsuit backfired
Okay we all know what the blowhard has done, boohoo twitter hurt me fee fee’s but this is the best part.
But in filing the lawsuit, Nunes ultimately fell victim to the Streisand effect: when an attempt to censor something ends up bringing more attention to it.
In suing these Twitter users, Nunes listed some of their tweets, thus ensuring thousands, if not millions, more people saw what the lawsuit characterized as “defamation”. By the time Nunes filed the lawsuit, Twitter had already suspended Devin Nunes’ Mom. Devin Nunes’ Cow had more than 1,200 followers.
Devin Nunes’ Cow now has 107,000 followers. “Devin Nunes’ Alt-Mom”, a new user purporting to be the same account as Devin Nunes’ Mom, was created and now has more than 8,000 followers. Other accounts include Devin Nunes’ Goat, with 240 followers, Devin Nunes’ Lawyer, with 1,120 followers, Devin Nunes’ Grandma with 1,160 followers, and Devin Nunes’ Cock – a rooster with 590 followers.
It didn’t help Nunes’ case that his attorneys never found the true identities behind “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow”, so pieces of the complaint read as if Nunes’ actual mother and his cow were the perpetrators, turning the lawsuit into a parody of itself.
Bahahaha! Go cry in your soup Nunes.
5 things to know about the Michael Cohen search warrant documents
■ Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference with the election and whether Russians coordinated with the Trump campaign, had placed Cohen under the microscope early on.
On July 18, 2017, just six months into Trump’s presidency, the FBI obtained a search warrant for Cohen’s Gmail account for e-mails sent and received between Jan. 1, 2016, and that date. Mueller had only been appointed in May 2017.
Prosecutors later got permission to look back further, to Cohen’s e-mails from mid-2015, according to the affidavits. (Mueller’s office referred a part of its Cohen probe to federal prosecutors in New York in early 2018.)
■ Investigators looked closely at Cohen’s campaign finance violations, and details of what they found are still being withheld.
Several of the affidavits included a section called “The Illegal Campaign Contribution Scheme,” in each case followed by more than 18 pages blocked out in gray. Cohen has since pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, among other crimes. And he has said that Trump directed hush money payments, in violation of campaign finance laws, to women who claimed they had affairs with him.
A judge allowed the redaction of sections in the documents dealing with campaign finance violations after prosecutors told the judge they were still investigating.
■ A major focus of the investigation was Cohen’s taxi businesses and misrepresentations he made to banks as part of a scheme to relieve himself of some $22 million in debt he owed on taxi medallion loans.
■ Prosecutors were also interested in money that was flowing into Cohen’s bank accounts from consulting contracts he signed after Trump won office — and whether he had acted as an unregistered foreign agent.
Don’t worry I can count, felt I posted enough and anyhoo see way below. I know math.
Then there is this, ready twitter for the orange outrage:
New report implicates Trump in same crime that’s sending Michael Cohen to jail
President Donald Trump repeatedly committed one of the same crimes that is about to land his former lawyer Michael Cohen in jail, The New York Times reported Monday.
The Times report on Trump’s long, troubled history with Deutsche Bank includes allegations that he repeatedly overstated his wealth to obtain favorable loans from the bank. The reporting confirms some of Cohen’s sworn testimony that Trump misrepresented his assets when it suited him.
Come on is anyone shocked. I sometimes wonder how this is news. On the other hand is it is more ammunition to take down the giant baby, so be it.
Trump reportedly lied to Deutsche Bank again in 2014 as part of his bid to buy the Buffalo Bills football team, according to The Times and to congressional testimony Cohen gave last month.
“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” Cohen said.
I don’t think we need anymore reasons to vote and get this scum and his ilk the heck out of the White House and into the big house.
Everyday I am thankful we won the House:
House Judiciary Committee Planning Hearing on the Rise of White Nationalism
The House Judiciary Committee is planning on hosting a hearing in the coming weeks addressing the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. and the hate crime and hate speech surrounding the movement, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the committee’s schedule.
The hearing comes on the heels of two mass shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed 50 people. According to local law enforcement, the man charged with those attacks wrote a manifesto outlining his white nationalistic ideology as well as his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim views.
Though plans are still being finalized, the committee expects to bring in officials from within DHS and the FBI for questioning on the rise of white nationalism in the U.S and the efforts the agencies are currently adopting to combat it. One lawmaker said the goal is to “have a hearing in early April.”
Imagine coming up with the idea to actually do something about RW violence, who would have thought?
Staying on this subject for a moment, who is not jealous New Zealand has Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister:
New Zealand prime minister’s brave lesson on how to deny terrorists fame
New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern scored a powerful victory against terror simply by refusing to say the Christchurch attacker’s name.
In a speech before parliament on Tuesday (Mar. 19), she said she would never speak the name of the 28-year-old Australian man charged with opening fire at a two mosques and killing 50 people last week. She asked others to follow her example.
“We, in New Zealand, will give him nothing. Not even his name,” Ardern added.
One thing that irks me, and has for many years not just during these times of violence due to tRump and those like him, is we seem to give these aholes the fame they seek by constantly naming them and examining them. Good on her.
I read tonight that the one who needs his self esteem pumped up every minute has lost in court 63 times. I know there has been some “wins” for the thing too and there will probably continue to be but he ain’t gonna pull the wool over all the courts eyes:
A federal judge on Tuesday said her injunction preventing President Trump’s transgender military policy from taking effect remains in place days after the Pentagon released a memo to implement the policy.
In a three-page order, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that “defendants were incorrect in claiming that there was no longer an impediment to the military’s implementation of the [transgender policy] in this case.”
“The Trump administration cannot circumvent the judicial process just to fast track its baseless, unfair ban on transgender service members,” Jennifer Levi, the director of the Transgender Rights Project of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said in a statement. “The dedicated transgender troops who show up every day to do their duty and serve their country deserve justice, and that includes requiring this administration to follow the ordinary rules of judicial process.”
Nanny Nanny doo doo. Hey it is the only language this administration understands.
This is pretty dang amazing:
For the first time, mathematics' most prestigious prize has been awarded to a woman, Karen Uhlenbeck
Karen Uhlenbeck, a mathematician and professor at the University of Texas, has been awarded this year's Abel Prize, a mathematics prize modeled after the Nobels. It's the first time the prize has gone to a woman.
Uhlenbeck, 76, is known for her work with partial differential equations. However, her decades-long career spans multiple disciplines, including physics, geometry and quantum theory.
"Uhlenbeck's research has led to revolutionary advances at the intersection of mathematics and physics," Paul Goldbart, dean of the University of Texas' College of Natural Sciences said in a release. "Her pioneering insights have applications across a range of fascinating subjects, from string theory, which may help explain the nature of reality, to the geometry of space-time."
Kind of sounds like The Big Bang Theory to me. Just kidding I get science. I mean math. Whatever. So happy for her, an accomplishment all women can be proud of.
So, I am sure I have said before that I work at a senior center, although we do not have that connotation in our name. We have some amazing older adults who do great things and at times most of them have more energy, are in better shape, take initiative and have more fun than I do. I ran into this and could not resist.
Makes me proud of the field I am in. Never underestimate the power of our senior population. And just a note they are not all donnie diaper fans.
From Indivisible:
Your 5 weekly to-dos
- It’s not too late to find a recess event near you. Your MoCs have only been home for a day or two, so there’s still time for you to check out our event map here to find events near you. Don’t forget to brush up on the issues and tips for making the most of recess at springoffense.indivisible.org.
- Can’t find an event near you? No problem! There’s still time to quickly register a recess event. Whether it’s to attend a town hall, plan a district office visit, or bring a group of constituents to a MoC’s scheduled public event -- it’s never too late to show up. Register your last-minute events here so other folks can join!
- Keep us in the (recess) loop. Don’t forget to tag us on social media -- @IndivisibleGuide on Facebook and @IndivisibleTeam on Twitter -- so that we can share all of your hard work and our favorite recess events!
- Brush up on motions to recommit (MTRs). Here’s our explainer -- you’ll need it when your Democratic Representative gets back from recess and must stand strong and vote against another MTR from Republicans on the Yemen resolution (get up-to-speed and use our call script here).
- Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6) is on the way to committee markup. The House will soon markup the Dream and Promise Act. This means that we need to make sure that our MoCs keep this bill strong and pass it as a whole package. Read more and find our call script here.
Follow Yosef52, as he shares his ideas for winning in 2020 and beyond.
Well folks, this cold virus is kicking my butt. I see the light at the end of the tunnel but my eyes are ready for bed.
Share all your good news in the comments. Not sure what time I will be around yet. Cold be damned I have to work, but I will see you when I get here.
Peace!