Report: Nearly $1 billion gulf between two leading school-funding bills
A report being released Monday that sheds light on the immense challenges lawmakers face in trying to reach a compromise.
How about the city?
"At a time when the City Council has been its most aggressive in recent history, Walsh has played catch-up in policy areas ranging from the environment to transportation and education. Amid a booming economy, the administration has the day-to-day operations of city government in check: Crime is historically low, parks are clean....."
Yeah, he's doing a great job and the problems are housing, protecting immigrants, environment, the marijuana industry, and transportation, while mayor’s top policy initiative, funding universal high-quality pre-kindergarten, was announced in early April — six years after Walsh named it a priority in his first mayoral campaign -- and it will take up to five years before the program goes into full effect.
As Red Line repairs continue, plan for another longer commute Monday
Went right past me.
Related:
Will MBTA fare hike prod Beacon Hill to take action?
No, but the crashes will.
MBTA and universities should create a ‘free’ college student pass program
Who is going to pay for it?
Also see
A decade later, University Station’s train is finally pulling in
The “Arriving Right on Time”train is finally pulling into the station. At long last, Westwood town officials have persuaded a marquee office tenant to move to town: Citizens Financial Group. To pull it off, they offered the Providence-based bank $2.5 million in tax breaks. Town Administrator Michael Jaillet says the tax breaks were necessary to keep Westwood in the game. Plus, the town still gets $5 million in additional property taxes over the 15-year life of the agreement, after the breaks are factored in. Although not everyone was a fan, Town Meeting voters approved the tax incentives in May.
Related: Grant will help Amtrak and R.I. plan for stop at T.F. Green
Rhode Island received a $2.8 million federal grant for it.
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"A new migrant surge at the border, this one from central Africa" by Manny Fernandez New York Times, June 16, 2019
SAN ANTONIO — For months, a migrant-services center blocks from the Alamo in downtown San Antonio has been packed with Central American families who have crossed the border in record numbers, but in recent days, hundreds of migrants from another part of the world have caused city officials already busy with one immigrant surge to scramble on a new and unexpected one. Men, women, and children from central Africa — mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola — are showing up at the United States’ southwest border after embarking on a dangerous, monthslong journey.
Their arrival at the border and at two cities more than 2,100 miles apart — San Antonio and Portland, Maine — has surprised and puzzled immigration authorities and overwhelmed local officials and nonprofit groups. The surge has prompted Portland to turn its basketball arena into an emergency shelter and depleted assistance funds meant for other groups. Officials in both cities have had to reassure the public that fears of an Ebola outbreak were unfounded while also pleading for volunteer interpreters who speak French and Portuguese.
This looks like a direct reaction to what the blogs (like mine, sheepish grin) and an attempt to regain control of the narrative with this public relations damage control.
With any luck, we will avert whatever agenda had been prepared to be foisted upon us this summer.
Migrants from around the world have been known to cross the Southwest border, but the vast majority are those from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. African migrants have shown up at the border in the past, but only in small numbers, making the sudden arrival of more than 700 all the more surprising to Border Patrol officials. Many come with horrific stories of government-sanctioned violence at home and treacherous conditions on their long journeys through South and Central America.
See: "Guatemalans voted for a new president Sunday following an electoral process that generated disillusion and distrust, as tens of thousands were fleeing poverty and gang violence to seek a new life in the United States....."
An August runoff is likely.
“It’s definitely an anomaly that we have not experienced before,” said Raul L. Ortiz, the Border Patrol’s chief patrol agent for the Del Rio sector. “We do know there are some more in the pipeline. We’re going to prepare as if we should expect more.”
In both San Antonio and Portland, elected officials, volunteers, and nonprofit and religious leaders have rallied to assist the African migrants, donating money, serving free meals and operating overnight shelters, but their resources were already being stretched thin, and there was frustration among local officials about the federal government’s handling of the African migrant surge.
Many of the Central American asylum-seekers apprehended at the border have solidified their travel plans by the time they are released by Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The migrants arrange to travel by plane or bus to join relatives already living in the United States, but many of the recent African migrants do not have relatives in the country, so they are being released with no travel arrangements, a problem that local officials and nonprofit groups are forced to sort out. Some of the Congolese migrants in San Antonio said Border Patrol agents had chosen their destination cities for them, or encouraged them to select one of two cities, New York and Portland.
Who is funding their journeys to the border?
The "fact check" pretty much confirms it.
A Border Patrol spokesman denied those claims, saying the agency is not directing migrants toward any particular destination.
In Portland — the largest city in Maine, with a population of 66,417 — about 200 African migrants were sleeping on cots Friday night in a temporary emergency shelter set up in the Portland Expo Center. The city has a large Congolese community and has built a reputation as a place friendly to asylum-seekers. It created the government-financed Portland Community Support Fund to provide rental payments to landlords and other forms of assistance for asylum-seekers, the only fund of its kind in the country, Portland officials said.
Related:
"Former Republican governor Paul LePage’s wife won’t be the only one in their family spending the summer working at a restaurant. LePage will be joining her as a bartender. McSeagulls Restaurant owner Jeff Stoddard said he hasn’t finalized the former governor’s schedule but expects him to be tending bar for the entire summer in Boothbay Harbor. The governor’s wife, Ann, will be working there again as a server. The restaurant posted photos on social media showing the former governor and first lady wearing McSeagulls T-shirts that proclaimed, ‘‘Eat, Drink & Flounder, Just for the Halibut.’’ The LePages spent the winter at their home in Florida. It’s unclear where they’re staying this summer. They sold their Boothbay home last summer."
They are now living in a lighthouse.
The mayor of Portland, Ethan K. Strimling, said they welcomed African migrants, and a donation campaign for them had raised more than $20,000 in its first 36 hours.
“I don’t consider it a crisis, in the sense that it is going to be detrimental to our city,” Strimling said. “We’re not building walls. We’re not trying to stop people. In Maine, and Portland in particular, we’ve been built on the backs of immigrants for 200 years, and this is just the current wave that’s arriving.”
Dr. Colleen Bridger, the interim assistant city manager of San Antonio, said the city would figure out a way to get the Africans the services and transportation they needed. The city and nonprofit groups have already spent more than $600,000 in direct expenditures in recent months on Central American and African migrant assistance.
Government officials care more about them than they do you!
“It’s not an option for us to say to people newly arrived in the United States that they’re not our problem and that they’re welcome to sleep on the park bench until they find enough money to buy food and bus tickets for their children,” Bridger said. “That’s just not who San Antonio is.”
It is an option if you are a citizen who has been here all your life, though!
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Related:
"Half of American voters say the Trump administration has gone too far on immigration enforcement, and optimism about the US economy, while still high, has slipped over the past quarter as trade tensions ramp up, a Fox News poll shows. The 50 percent who say enforcement of immigration laws has ‘‘gone too far’’ is more than double, 24 percent, those who say actions haven’t gone far enough. About one in five say the measures are about right. By a wide majority — 73 percent to 24 percent — Americans favor giving legal status to young people brought to the United States illegally as children, so-called Dreamers....."
"Visa applications from hundreds of international students seeking to work in the United States this summer are languishing at Citizenship and Immigration Services, where increased processing times have left students stranded. Students have written panicked letters to leaders of top universities as their internship start dates have come and gone with no word from the government......"
They are all recent graduates of Ivy League schools with internships in journalism!
Supreme Court and its chief justice face a couple of key tests
They are the citizenship question in the 2020 Census and the partisan gerrymandering techniques that were essential to Republican dominance at the state and congressional level over the past decade.
Time for another poll check:
"President Trump’s campaign has decided to purge some of its pollsters after a leak of dismal internal polls for the president that he denied existed. Just two days before the president is set to kick off his bid for reelection, a top adviser said on Sunday that the campaign was cutting ties with three of its five pollsters to prevent further disclosure of survey data. The polling showed Trump behind former Vice President Joe Biden in several key battleground states, including by double digits in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The results were confirmed to The New York Times by advisers to Trump, but when they became public, he called them “fake polls.” For days, aides to Trump have tried to figure out whom to point the finger at over the leak of the data, which jolted and infuriated the president. The resulting furor led to an effort by the campaign manager, Brad Parscale, to tighten control. The rupture of the team came even as the president and his advisers were preparing for a large and elaborate rally in Orlando Tuesday night to formally open his campaign for a second term. Trump was hoping for a show of strength as Democrats had drawn increasing attention before their first debates on June 26 and 27."
I guess they better not nominate a woman.
"Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham on Sunday pushed back against White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s recent downplaying of Russian interference in the 2016 election, calling Moscow’s meddling a ‘‘big deal’’ deserving of new sanctions immediately. Still, the South Carolina Republican insisted that President Trump had done nothing wrong, citing special counsel Robert Mueller’s refusal to charge Trump with either conspiracy or obstruction of justice in the Russia probe. ‘‘I think the idea that this president obstructed justice is absurd,’’ Graham, a fierce Trump ally, said on CBS News’s ‘‘Face the Nation.’’ ‘‘I can’t think of one thing that President Trump did to stop Mueller from doing his job . . . I’ve heard all I need to really know.’’ During the interview, however, Graham challenged the assertion by Trump’s son-in-law in a Time magazine interview on Tuesday that Russia’s bid to sway the 2016 election in Trump’s favor amounted to a ‘‘couple of Facebook ads’’ — and that Mueller’s investigation was more damaging to the country than the Russian effort. Graham said Sunday that although ‘‘I like Jared a lot,’’ he’s ‘‘leaving out a big detail’’ — namely that the Russians hacked e-mails of the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign manager and the Democratic National Committee. ‘‘Can you imagine what we would be saying if the Russians or the Iranians hacked into the presidential team of the Republican Party?’’ Graham asked. ‘‘So, no — this is a big deal. It’s not just a few Facebook ads. They were very successful in pitting one American against the other during the 2016 campaign.’’ Graham also argued that ‘‘an attack on one party should be an attack on all’’ and said he has spoken to Trump about imposing more sanctions on Moscow."
He has done better than that!
"A former computer systems administrator for Senator Maggie Hassan’s office pleaded guilty to computer fraud and four other counts Friday, according to the US District Court in Washington, D.C. Jackson Alexander Cosko, 27, pleaded guilty to superseding information, including two counts of making public restricted documents, one count of computer fraud, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction of justice, court documents show. Cosko allegedly obtained keys from another Senate staffer. He entered the office alone at night to install “keylogger” devices, which record keystrokes, on six staff computers, according to the document. Officials say Cosko was caught by a staffer on one occasion and fled, then sent the staffer an e-mail stating, “If you tell anyone I will leak it all.” Using information gathered by these devices, Cosko allegedly copied dozens of gigabytes of data, including credit card information and social security numbers belonging to Senate employees, personal information from hundreds of other people, and tens of thousands of e-mails, according to officials. Hassan is a Democrat from New Hampshire. Cosko is also accused of “maliciously” publishing the personal home addresses and phone numbers of Senators Lindsay Graham, Orrin Hatch, and Mike Lee while watching the Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh hearing, according to the document. Cosko also allegedly published the personal home addresses and telephone numbers of Senator Rand Paul and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Cosko could face 30 to 57 months in prison, according to the document."
He's the mirror image of Seth Rich, and Democrats only get a tap on the wrist for this malfeasance.
Funny how their is no follow-up flogging in the pre$$, huh?
"President Trump on Sunday floated the possibility of staying in office longer than two terms, suggesting in a morning tweet that his supporters might ‘‘demand that I stay longer.’’ The president has previously joked about serving more than two terms as president, including at an event in April where he told a crowd that he might remain in the Oval Office ‘‘at least for 10 or 14 years.’’ The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution limits the presidency to two terms. In tweets Sunday morning, Trump also voiced dissatisfaction with recent news coverage of his administration, calling both The Washington Post and The New York Times ‘‘the Enemy of the People.’’ Last year, Trump also joked about doing away with term limits in a speech to Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate in which he praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for doing so in China. ‘‘Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day,’’ Trump said, according to CNN....."
I don't think so, and right now anybody would be better than this cuckold of Israel.
Btw, I'm tired of the wrestling match between him and the pre$$. It's a phony baloney fake food fight for distraction and diversionary purposes.
Related: R.I. diocese won’t let magazine hold event at auditorium after it criticized bishop
Sorry, I couldn't read it because I'm late for church:
"A former Southern Baptist pastor who supported legislation in Texas that would have criminalized abortions has been arrested on charges of child sex abuse, accused of repeatedly molesting a teenage relative over the course of two years....."
I'm going to reserve judgement on that due to the possible motivations regarding false charges, something that is apparently common in Texas.
Alabama orders ‘chemical castration’ of some child molesters
That pastor is lucky he lives in Texas.
Schumer urges FAA to require data recorders in helicopters
A Utah veteran turning 101 gets over 5,000 birthday cards
Yeah, Happy Birthday:
"The Trump name is now the namesake of a tiny Israeli settlement in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet convened in this hamlet Sunday to inaugurate a new settlement named after President Trump in a gesture of appreciation for his recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the territory. The settlement isn’t exactly new. Currently known as Bruchim, it is more than 30 years old and has a population of 10 people. Israel is hoping the rebranded ‘‘Ramat Trump,’’ Hebrew for ‘‘Trump Heights,’’ will encourage a wave of residents to vastly expand it. ‘‘It’s absolutely beautiful,’’ said US Ambassador David Friedman, who attended Sunday’s ceremony. Noting that Trump celebrated his birthday on Friday, he said: ‘‘I can’t think of a more appropriate and a more beautiful birthday present.’’ Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in 1981. Most of the international community considers the move illegal under international law."
UN-FLIPPING-REAL!
Btw, the Golan wasn't his to give away!
Related:
"A court on Sunday fined Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, more than $15,000 for misusing state funds. She agreed to a plea bargain that ended a years-long corruption case. It settled allegations Sara Netanyahu misused $100,000 on lavish meals. Last year, prosecutors accused her of running up large tabs at luxury restaurants; the official residence employed a full-time chef. She agreed to pay $2,800 in fines and return $12,500 to the state. The settlement also reduced the overspending charge to $50,000. The prime minister remains the focus of the family’s legal troubles. He is facing an indictment on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, pending a hearing in October. He is accused of accepting lavish gifts from billionaires and promising to promote legislation for a newspaper in exchange for favorable coverage."
Looks like a conspiracy, and I'm tired of waiting for him to leave.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Protesters return to Hong Kong’s streets, rejecting leader’s apology
By Daniel Victor and Keith Bradsher New York Times
Sorry for cutting the power on that:
"Power cut hits Argentina and Uruguay, affecting tens of millions" by Daniel Politi New York Times, June 16, 2019
BUENOS AIRES — A widespread power failure Sunday morning left all of mainland Argentina and Uruguay without power, a blackout that an energy company official called “unprecedented.”
The blackout’s cause remained unclear, but much of Argentina was hit by heavy rainfall this weekend, and Uruguay’s state-owned utility, UTE, said some systems were damaged by the recent rain and still needed to be repaired.....
I'm later told an electrical grid that serves both nations “collapsed” at 7:07 a.m., and it sure smells like SABOTAGE, especially when “this is the first time something like this has happened across the entire country,’’ and voters had to cast ballots by the light of cellphones -- although by midday, power was slowly returning to parts of both countries.
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Related:
"Maduro critics hope Venezuela’s economic ruin will be his undoing" by Anatoly Kurmanaev and Maria Ramírez New York Times, March 30, 2019
PUERTO ORDAZ, Venezuela — President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela drove himself to an ailing iron plant this month to tout its export capacity amid tightening US sanctions.
“No one is going to stop us,” he said with his wife by his side as they watched a conveyor belt of iron briquettes at the Guayana Steel Complex. “These are the days of victory!”
Two days later, the plant was out of business. It was paralyzed by the crippling national blackout that lasted almost five days and wiped out what little was left of Venezuela’s heavy industry. The blackout, coupled with new US sanctions on Venezuela’s critical oil sector, have pushed the country even closer to total economic collapse.
Venezuela’s better-off citizens have tucked into dollar savings to buy portable power generators, imported canned foods, and taken respite in hotels and steakhouses. The less fortunate saw a signal of possible respite on Friday with word that the Red Cross would soon undertake an emergency relief campaign in Venezuela.
For many people, however, the only palliative to the ever-growing hardships is the hope that the worsening conditions will topple Maduro.
The blackout drained about $1 billion from Venezuela’s gross domestic product, or about 1 percent, according to investment bank Torino Capital. It left a wake of more than 500 looted businesses, at least 40 hospital patients who died, and at least a half dozen shuttered factories.
Sure looks like sabotage, and people died because of it!
Oil production equivalent to the entire output of a small petrostate like Brunei was irretrievably lost to the damage caused to oil fields by the sudden loss of power, according to IPD Latin America, a consultancy.
The blackout followed the US ban in January on any purchases of Venezuelan oil, which only compounded years of mismanagement and corruption under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
Many opposition supporters see the economic pain as a bitter medicine required to get rid of Maduro, but to the president’s supporters, the sanctions provide a much-needed foil to deflect blame for the economic ills. Still, few Venezuelans say they are prepared for the collapse of already dire living conditions if Maduro survives the onslaught from the new US sanctions, which are just beginning to filter through to the Venezuelan streets.
“The crisis will get worse,” said Maria Altagracia Perozo, a pensioner from the working class neighborhood of Caucagüita in Caracas, the capital. “We are told to search for candles, matches, and kerosene because there won’t be light.”
Faced with shrinking oil revenue and an exodus of technicians, Maduro has struggled to reestablish basic services since the March 7 blackout, the worst ever. Water supply has been intermittent in most cities, and students and state workers have stayed home this week after a fire at an electrical substation led to another blackout.
Less than half of Venezuelans said they were against President Trump’s sanctions against the Venezuelan oil industry, according to a survey by the country’s leading pollster, Datanalisis, in early March. It was a surprisingly low share given the direct impact of the sanctions on living standards.
“If I have to sacrifice a month to live without power or water, I will do it because I know it’s the only way of improving this country,” said Valdemar Álvarez, a lab analyst at the Sidor steel plant in Puerto Ordaz, who opposes Maduro.
Venezuela’s economy is set to lose more than a quarter of its size this year, according to Rodriguez, one of the few Wall Street economists who still tries to forecast the scale of the country’s decline. Inflation is on track to reach 51 million percent by year’s end, rendering the national currency virtually worthless.
The magnitude of the country’s collapse has been surpassed only by Zimbabwe in modern history, according to the Institute of International Finance.
The United States, once PDVSA’s biggest customer, bought no Venezuelan oil in March for the first time since the 1970s, according to the Department of Energy, and India, which PDVSA had counted on as a substitute buyer, reduced its Venezuelan oil purchases in March under US pressure.....
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Related:
"To maintain their hold over Venezuela, Maduro and his supporters have often used the nation's economic collapse to their advantage, dangling food before hungry voters, promising extra subsidies if he won, and demanding that people present identification cards tied to government rations when they came to the polls, but participants in the schemes say Maduro and his supporters have deployed another tool as well: Cuba's international medical corps....."
Yeah, blame the Cubans, and the distorted hyperbole regarding the "dangling of food before hungry voters" is enough to make one sick of American "journali$m."
Also see:
Puerto Ricans decry austerity, hurricane help at hearing
Never mind the hypocrisy, either.
Pompeo confirms US has plans to intervene with Venezuelan regime
It will come during summer when Americans aren't paying attention, and the Globe is hopeful!
Related: Footage Contradicts U.S Claim that Maduro Burned Aid Convoy
Keep that in mind for this:
"Pompeo says there is more evidence that Iran attacked tankers" by Carol Morello and Kareem Fahim Washington Post, June 16, 2019
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that more evidence will be released soon to prove the administration’s assertion that Iran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week.
They will get it out to you as soon as they are done creating it!
GOOD CHRIST!
It's IRAQ ALL OVER AGAIN!
Despite some skepticism from US allies and Democrats, Pompeo said on ‘‘Fox News Sunday’’ that US intelligence provided ‘‘unmistakable’’ evidence of Iranian culpability. He said ‘‘the world will come to see’’ much of the intelligence and data that led the administration to that conclusion.
‘‘The American people should rest assured, we have high confidence with respect to who conducted these attacks, as well as half-dozen other attacks throughout the world over the past 40 days,’’ he said, but questions have swirled in recent days around the evidence and the interpretation of it, in part because allies and some members of Congress question the administration’s credibility.
No, you war-mongering, false-flagging liars have lost that!
Though Pompeo called the evidence ‘‘unmistakable,’’ many countries are asking for more proof.
The owner of the Japanese tanker has said the crew believes the vessel was hit by a flying object, not a mine, as the United States has asserted, and Sunday, Japan’s Kyodo News Agency said ‘‘a source close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’’ told the agency that Pompeo’s evidence did not amount to ‘‘definite proof’’ that Iran carried out the attack.
These guys are obsessed with Iran.
That's what happens when you are Israel's bitch.
Germany’s foreign minister has also questioned the utility of a video released by the Pentagon purporting to show Iranians in a small patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from one of the tankers, saying it is insufficient as evidence.
Pompeo brushed the skepticism aside.
‘‘We don’t just purport,’’ he said on CBS News’ ‘‘Face the Nation.’’ ‘‘That’s what that video is. This was taken from an American camera. . . . The world needs to unite against this threat from this Islamic Republic of Iran.’’
So what?
You guys could have faked it, even dressing people up, etc. It's happened before.
Pompeo also defended his statement last week that Iran was behind a May 31 car bomb in Kabul as a US military convoy was passing by, injuring four US service members slightly and killing several Afghan civilians. Pompeo characterized the Taliban claim of responsibility as not credible.
‘‘We have confidence that Iran instigated this attack,’’ he said. ‘‘I can’t share any more of the intelligence. But I wouldn’t have said it if the intelligence community hadn’t become convinced that this was the case.’’
Who does he think he is fooling, or is it just throw shit against the wall to provide the narrative that the pre$$ will then run with?
The rising tensions are feeding fears of a wider conflict.
Some are looking forward to it with anticipation, and I don't mean Iran!
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned of the dangers of stumbling into war.
‘‘We have absolutely no appetite for going to war, or to be provocative to create situations that might evoke responses, where mistakes could be made,’’ she said on CNN.
Yeah, right, we stumbling into war again (pffft) like she stumbles (hiccup) around!
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg called for leaders to focus on de-escalating tensions and said the Trump administration’s ‘‘low’’ credibility has added to confusion about what happened.
‘‘It’s a little distressing to think that because this administration’s credibility is so low in general, I think a lot of people are thinking twice at a moment when America’s word should be decisive,’’ the South Bend, Ind., mayor said Sunday on NBC’s ‘‘Meet the Press.’’
‘‘That being said, this is not inconsistent with Iranian behavior that has been aggressive and often malignant in the region. The real question is what can we do, given the facts on the ground, to ensure a measured response that will de-escalate, rather than inflame, tensions in the region,’’ but Representative Adam Schiff of California, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and one of the administration’s sharpest critics, called the US evidence ‘‘strong and compelling,’’ saying on CBS’ ‘‘Face the Nation’’ that there’s ‘‘no question that Iran’s behind the attacks.”
Yeah, when it comes to wars for the Jews, they are all in lock step and all the animosity goes away!
That is where my print copy calmed down, but the web version added more waves:
‘‘I think this is a Class A screw-up by Iran,’’ Schiff said. “I can imagine there’re some Iranian heads rolling from that botched operation.’’
I'm sorry, but they are the last country that would do such a thing. They are a measured and patient people who are doing all they can to avoid conflict, so f*** this!!
Pompeo bristled at the suggestion a credibility gap might make it more difficult to ‘‘sell’’ Americans into supporting a military confrontation.
‘‘We’re not selling anything,’’ he said on ‘‘Face the Nation.’’ ‘‘These are simple facts. I’ve had many conversations over the past, frankly weeks, talking about Iran’s activity. No one doubts the data set.’’
Just because he says it doesn't mean its true!
Pompeo said he United States will guarantee the safe transit of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. ‘‘We’re going to guarantee the freedom of navigation through the straits,’’ Pompeo said on ‘‘Fox News Sunday.’’ ‘‘This is an international challenge. This is important to the entire globe. The United States is going to make sure that we take all actions necessary, diplomatic and otherwise, to achieve that outcome.’’
Iran has denied any responsibility for the suspicious explosions on the tankers. Pompeo has said that Iran is conducting a number of attacks on US allies and interests in an attempt to reverse the administration’s strategy of imposing an escalating series of sanctions to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero. That campaign will continue on the diplomatic and economic front, he said Sunday.
Boy who cried wolf!
‘‘President Trump has done everything he can to avoid war,’’ he said. ‘‘We don’t want war. We’ve done what we can to deter this. The Iranians should understand very clearly that we will continue to take actions to deter Iran from engaging in this kind of behavior.’’
That I believe, but he is being pushed and blackmailed into it!
Pompeo said he telephoned his counterparts around the world to stress the risk to the world’s oil supplies, but he sidestepped questions about sending more troops, ships, planes, and submarines to the region.
6,000 more are being sent in addition to the 2,000 Trump sent last month -- if we are to believe the reporting, that is.
‘‘We’ve taken a handful of those actions to increase the opportunity to convince Iran that these actions aren’t in their best interest,’’ he said. ‘‘And it appears to be Iran that wants to escalate this conflict.’’
Pompeo’s statements seem to echo the sentiments of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who in a story published Sunday called on the international community to take a ‘‘decisive stance’’ against what he called Iranian expansionism.
The head-chopper and butcher of Yemen got a story published where?
Saudi Arabia ‘‘does not want a war in the region, but we will not hesitate to deal with any threat to our people, our sovereignty, and our vital interests,’’ the crown prince said in an interview published Sunday by the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
Fine.
He is your parachute, rifle, and orange detainee outfit (we ran out of camouflage gear).
Go get 'em!
The crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler, did not offer new evidence of Iran’s culpability in the tanker attacks, according to a transcript of his interview. Saudi Arabia views Iran as its principal adversary in the Middle East, and the Saudis, along with the United Arab Emirates and Israel, have been key supporters of the Trump administration’s ‘‘maximum pressure’’ strategy against the Iranian government.
In the interview, Mohammed noted that the attack on the tankers on Thursday came on the same day that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was visiting Tehran in an effort to ease tensions. Iran ‘‘did not respect the prime minister as a guest during his visit, and in effect responded to his efforts by attacking the two oil tankers,’’ the crown prince said.
All the more reason NOT to suspect them, and now I'm wondering if Saudi had a hand in it (before it was cut off!).
After Pompeo accused Iran of orchestrating Thursday’s attacks, the Department of Defense later released a video showing what it said was an Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded limpet mine — a naval mine that attaches to a target by magnet — from the side of the Kokuka Courageous, a Japanese-owned tanker, but Japanese officials were unconvinced, Kyodo News said.
Only problem is, the holes in the hull were above the water line!
‘‘The U.S. explanation has not helped us go beyond speculation,’’ one unnamed senior government official was reported as saying. Japan has sought more concrete evidence through various channels, Kyodo reported.
Some would not be so polite and would call it a LIE!
The Japanese shipping company that owns the vessel cast doubt on the US version of events on Friday, with the president of Kokuka Sangyo saying that the Filipino crew thought the ship had been attacked by ‘‘flying objects’’ rather than a mine.
The attack was an embarrassment to Abe, the Japanese prime minister, who was meeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the same day. Afterward he described his meeting as ‘‘a major step forward toward securing peace and stability’’ in the region, but specialists say he appeared to come away empty-handed.
Which "specialists?"
The attacks have severely affected the prime minister’s reputation as he was trying to be a mediator between the United States and Iran, and the rhetoric out of Washington puts him in an awkward position.
Nothing personal. They do that to everybody.
‘‘Even if it’s the United States that makes the assertion, we cannot simply say we believe it,’’ a source close to the prime minister told the Kyodo news agency about Pompeo’s previous statements.
President Trump and Abe spoke by phone Friday about the attacks and his trip, with the president thanking the Japanese leader ‘‘for his effort to facilitate communication with Iran,’’ the White House said.
After the call, Abe told reporters that Japan urged ‘‘all related countries’’ to avoid an accidental confrontation or doing anything that would raise tensions.
‘‘Japan adamantly condemns the act that threatened a Japanese ship, no matter who attacked,’’ he said.
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I wonder what the Arab League has to say about all this:
"Arab League rejects Trump’s Israel policies at annual summit" by Bouazza Bin Bouazza and Samy Magdy Associated Press, March 31, 2019
TUNIS — The Arab League rejected the US recognition of Israeli control over the Golan Heights and other Trump administration policies seen as biased toward Israel at an annual summit on Sunday, showcasing unity on one of the few issues that unites the regional bloc.
Arab leaders also reiterated their commitment to resolving the conflict based on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, in which they would recognize Israel in return for a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, lands occupied since the 1967 war.
No, they will be annexing it all instead, for it is "the peace camp that is now out of step with the majority of society."
This year’s Arab League summit comes against a grim backdrop of ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen, rival authorities in Libya, and a lingering boycott of Qatar by four fellow League members.
Related: U.S. Military Pulls Out of Libyan Capital as Rival Militias Battle
Also see:
"There are fears the two-month battle to take the capital, Tripoli, could ignite a civil war on the scale of the violence after the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Libya is divided between the weak government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in the west and Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, whose self-styled Libyan National Army holds the east and much of the south. Hifter opened a military offensive on the capital in April. Hifter has presented himself as a strong hand who can restore stability. In recent years, his campaign against Islamic militants has won him growing international support from world leaders who say they are concerned the country has turned into a haven for armed groups, and a major conduit for migrants bound for Europe. His opponents view him as an aspiring autocrat and fear a return to one-man rule....."
Good thing he is the CIA's boy!
Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir skipped the meeting as they contended with mass protests against their long reigns. Syria, a founding member, was expelled in 2011 during the early days of the uprising against President Bashar Assad.
Just keeping the pressure on the military by screaming war crimes.
Trump Administration Steps Up Air War in Somalia
“People need to pay attention to the fact that there is this massive war going on,” said Brittany Brown, who worked on Somalia policy at the National Security Council in the Obama and Trump administrations and is now chief of staff of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization focused on deadly conflicts. The war in Somalia appears to be “on autopilot,” she added, and one that is drawing the United States significantly deeper into an armed conflict without much public debate.
Also see: Extremists attack government office in Somalia; minister among 5 dead
Representatives of the 22-member league, minus Syria, jointly condemned President Trump’s recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and his decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In their final statement after the daylong summit, the leaders affirmed that the Golan, a strategic plateau once used to shell northern Israel, is ‘‘Syria’s occupied territory.’’
At the opening of the summit, King Salman said Saudi Arabia ‘‘absolutely rejects any measures undermining Syria’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights’’ and supports the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
He blamed Iran’s meddling for instability in the region. Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in proxy wars in Yemen and Syria and back opposing groups in Lebanon, Bahrain, and Iraq.
This is getting us nowhere.
Calling the meeting ‘‘the summit of resolve and solidarity,’’ Host-country Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi decried ‘‘regional and international interventions’’ in Arab affairs.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said Iran and Turkey have ‘‘worsened some crises and created new problems,’’ calling on Arab leaders to ‘‘unite as one force under one umbrella against the regional interventions.’’
One of the few things that have united the Arab League over the last 50 years is the rejection of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, territories the Palestinians want for their future state.
The international community, including the United States, largely shared that position until Trump upended decades of US policy by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem last year and recognizing Israel’s 1981 annexation of the Golan earlier this month. US officials say both moves recognize reality and contribute to Israel’s security. Arab leaders condemned those policies; still, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have cultivated close ties with the Trump administration, viewing it as a key ally against their main rival, Iran.
That's when my printed paper left the meeting.
Both face Western pressure over their devastating three-year war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and Riyadh is still grappling with fallout from the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents last year.
In Syria, small protests against Trump’s Golan move were held and state media criticized the Arab summit. ‘‘The Golan is not awaiting support from the Arabs, and not a statement to condemn what Trump has done,’’ the Thawra newspaper said in an editorial that accused Arab leaders of taking their orders from the United States and Israel.
The Arab League had been expected to consider readmitting Syria, but there was no reference to the subject in the final statement.
How can you have an Arab League without Syria?
Please!
The United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus last year, and other Arab states have voiced support for restoring relations, but Saudi Arabia and Qatar have actively supported the rebels trying to overthrow Assad, and other states view his government as an Iranian proxy that should continue to be shunned.
This has reached the level of sheer insult.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the meeting, along with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and African Union Commission chair Moussa Faki.
Guterres reiterated international support for an Israeli and a Palestinian state ‘‘living side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders, and with Jerusalem as capital of both states.’’
Maybe Israel will declare some borders, but until then it is stealing land hand over fist.
Btw, did you see the map?
‘‘There is no Plan B: without two states, there is no solution,’’ he said.
In a rare sign of easing tensions, King Salman and Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, sat at the same sprawling table at Sunday’s opening session. It was the first time the two leaders have appeared in the same room since Saudi Arabia led the boycott of Qatar nearly two years ago over Doha’s ties to Iran and its support for regional Islamist groups, but Qatar’s emir left after the opening session and did not address the summit or attend the closed-door meeting later in the day, according to Qatar’s state-run news agency. It did not give a reason.
Notice how that Kushner idea has been banished form the news pages?
Made Tillerson quit.
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If only they were a democracy:
"India’s recent election delivered a historic victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party but exposed the influence of money, power, and questionable morality on the world’s largest democracy. Nearly 43 percent of new members of the lower house of Parliament, which convenes Monday for the first time since the election, won despite facing criminal charges. More than a quarter of those relate to rape, murder, or attempted murder, according to the group Association of Democratic Reforms. What allows them to take office is that they have not been convicted — in part because the Indian legal system has a backlog of an estimated 30 million cases. Trials often last decades. Asked about the charges, they invariably accuse a political rival of framing them. Despite Modi’s campaign vow in 2014 to clean up corruption, the problem appears to be growing worse. In the 1960s and ’70s, some Indian politicians began turning to the criminal underworld for cash to win votes....."
Yeah, that's what it looks like, and the smell:
"G-20 urges ‘voluntary action’ on marine plastic crisis but fails to agree on common approach" by Simon Denyer Washington Post, June 16, 2019
KARIUZAWA, Japan — Environment ministers from the Group of 20 on Sunday recognized an urgent need to tackle the marine plastic litter that is choking the world’s oceans, but failed Sunday to agree on concrete measures or targets to phase out single-use plastics.
More than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans every year, equivalent to a garbage truck’s worth every minute, and by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans by weight than fish, scientists predict, but agreeing on a common approach to the problem has proved problematic, with the United States blocking demands to set a global target to significantly reduce or phase out single-use plastics.
Most of the stuff dumped is by the US military, the war machine enforcer of empire.
The issue of marine plastic pollution has become an increasing hot diplomatic topic over the past year, and there have been calls for collective action at G-20, Group of Seven, and United Nations forums.....
It wasn't even on the radar until Asia refused to be a landfill any longer and sent the stuff back.
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Related:
"Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross downplayed the prospect of a major trade deal emerging from a possible meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, this month. “I think the most that will come out of the G-20 might be an agreement to actively resume talks,” Ross said in an interview Sunday with The Wall Street Journal from Paris, where he was attending the Paris Air Show. Talks with China broke off in early May."
Also see:
"A proposed ban on public employees wearing religious symbols on the job, introduced by Quebec’s new center-right government and expected to take effect in June, would apply to a range of public employees and religious practices. Police officers, prosecutors, and teachers hold positions of authority in their communities, provincial Premier François Legault says, and shouldn’t be wearing symbols that might promote their faith while they serve the public, but the reality is that not many police officers or prosecutors here wear yarmulkes or turbans. The ban would likely fall most heavily on the province’s hijab-wearing teachers — of which there are believed to be hundreds. Which means that the latest battle in Quebec’s long-running culture wars is being fought in front of children....."
Canada needs to chillax, and I'm so sick of the Jewish agenda wherever you look.
Cambridge mosque welcomes visitors on Open Mosque Day
With heightened security, of course:
They “want to play lockdown,” and it will help when the next staged and scripted mass casualty event "goes live!"
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Abolish the religious exemption to vaccination
Getting that pharmaceutical needle into you is of Globe concern, obviously.
Some would even say it is Murder, She Wrote (or is it?).
Memories of Martin Feldstein in Paris
He's now six feet under.
Ensuring secure retirement for all Americans
That's one thing $cumbag Dickie Neal won't have to worry about.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
JFK Library launches Moonshot app to inspire ‘the next generation’
How much carbon those rockets blasting into the atmosphere anyway?
Father’s Day walkers hope to be ‘an inspiration’ to their children
Tiffany Ortiz pays Father’s Day tribute to ‘Big Papi’
So did Tom Brady, and I'm starting to wonder what happened down there, because the video was grainy and I didn't see a muzzle blast.
Investigators seek cause of 9-alarm Dorchester blaze
Maybe they can build a casino in its place, and isn't it weird how the MFA’s woes came just in time for Juneteenth?
"Northeastern University student finds questionnaires with fascist references in library" by Amanda Kaufman Globe Correspondent, June 15, 2019
Northeastern University officials will meet Monday with a student after he reported finding paper questionnaires inside a campus library book that included references to Hitler, had a link to an alt-right blog, and asked readers to indicate their areas of interest in fascist topics.
Matt Bowser, 28, who is pursuing a doctorate in history, said he was researching fascist movements of the 1930s for his dissertation at the university’s Snell Library when he discovered 10 questionnaires inside Robert Paxton’s “The Anatomy of Fascism.”
I wonder jwho could have placed them there.
I mean, it's a small price to pay to keep the narrative of the under threat, victimized Jew.
He had checked out the book a couple of months ago but didn’t get around to reading it until Thursday afternoon, when he found the questionnaires, he said in a phone interview on Saturday.
The whole chain of evidence has been compromised, and I suspect he put them there!
He shared photos of the forms with other graduate students, who alerted the university via Twitter on Friday.
Oh, we got photos, woo!
Bowser said he received an e-mail Saturday from Dan Cohen, Northeastern’s dean of libraries, to schedule Monday’s meeting, and the two spoke again over the phone on Sunday morning.
C'mon!
What were they doing, coordinating how they were going to do this?
Cohen advised him that university officials had gone through the library’s literature on fascism and “didn’t find anything else,” he said in a phone call with the Globe Sunday afternoon.
During the meeting, Bowser will provide the university with the questionnaires and “a detective from Northeastern’s public safety will be present to gather the facts,” Nyul said in an e-mail sent to the Globe Sunday.
“The review of this incident is ongoing,” she added.
The cover of the questionnaire was titled Northeastern University European Resistance and bore an image that resembled the Nazi eagle symbol.
Oddly enough, that is AmeriKa's national bird.
One page had a series of questions, one of which invited participants to indicate their “areas of interest,” including “Alt-Right,” “Fascism,” “Trump,” “White Genocide,” “Immigration,” and “International Jewry,” among others.
The opposite page had phrases written in German.
Yeah, that ought to convince them.
On the back of the questionnaire was a link to the website therightstuff.biz, an alt-right blog run by Mike Peinovich, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as a white nationalist, Bowser said.
PFFFFT!
So how is Dees doing these days anyway?
Deanna Schwartz, 18, a rising sophomore at Northeastern, reached out to the Globe after photos of the fliers circulated online.
“As a Jewish student, I’m absolutely terrified,” Schwartz wrote in an e-mail. “I didn’t think I would have to deal with this on my college campus.”
Mission accomplished, because that is part of this. Big Jewry needs to keep the next generation on board with the victimhood and fear.
--more--"
Sure smells like more self-inflicted antisemitism for the usual reasons. Someone left papers in a book and it's one Jew after another in the article, and the fascists tried to “infiltrate” NUPride, an organization for LQBTQ students and their allies on campus, and the Progressive Student Alliance -- which would make sense since Rohm was a flamer (as they try to denigrate the great man with charges of homosexuality) and Goehring was a transvestite.
Related:
Holocaust survivor shares her experience at Boston remembrance event
Natalie Adelman Taub, pioneering woman in Boston’s construction industry, dies at 89
Also see:
Police investigate fatal shooting overnight near Franklin Park in Dorchester
Man seriously injured in Tewksbury crash
Man killed in New Hampshire police-involved shooting
He was white so no one cares.
Man charged with carrying woman into traffic indicted
Worcester woman who crashed car IDs herself as Hello Kitty
She flipped her car onto its roof after striking a home, and 25-year-old Karina Dominguez Martinez, of Worcester, Massachusetts was driving erratically with her lights off just before the crash. She also had opened bottles of sangria in her car, and was charged with driving under the influence and resisting arrest. She was released on her own recognizance pending arraignment.
What I have noticed is that the Globe has stopped focusing on drunk driving or student drinking now that Total Wines pays for a full-page advertisement five times a week and they have begun drinking during the day.
So you wanna beer?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Boston company says agriculture might hold one solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions" by Andy Rosen Globe Staff, June 12, 2019
Agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock management, deforestation, and other common practices releasing heat-trapping compounds that would otherwise be trapped underground, but agriculture could also help mitigate the problem: By reducing plowing, rotating crops, and planting cover crops on empty fields, farmers can help bury millions of tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activity.
Shutting down the war machine would do more.
Now, a well-funded Boston agricultural technology startup is looking to build a business around “regenerative” farming practices, using arable soil as a sink for greenhouse gas emissions.
Oh, no, more $elf-$erving $h!t disgui$ed as altrui$m!
Indigo Agriculture says it will pay farmers $15 for every metric ton of carbon that they can demonstrably capture in their soil, perhaps beginning to make a dent in the huge concentration of greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the atmosphere since the industrial era began.
It's a wonder we are not all dead yet.
“Nature provided us with the technology to remove the carbon dioxide from the air, and plants conveniently use the energy of the sun to do it,” said David Perry, the company’s chief executive. “This is what nature wants to do. We just have to harness it.”
Why do you want to take the plant's food away?
Indigo, which employs about 400 people at Charlestown’s former Hood Milk plant, is best known for its development of seed coatings that use microbial treatments to help plants weather difficult conditions, but the company has set its sights on a broader reform of the agricultural industry, and it has raised a total of $650 million in venture capital.
So when are they going after GMOs and Monsanto's Round-Up?
Indigo calls this new venture the Terraton Initiative, a reference to the trillion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere as a result of human activity. The company hopes to work with more than 3,000 farmers through the program this year, sequestering as many as 3 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Indigo hopes it can entice other companies and industries to eventually purchase the credits it buys from farmers.
Businesses or individuals might buy them to demonstrate their commitment to the environment, the company said. Or, if Indigo can secure regulatory approval, the credits could potentially be purchased by energy and transportation companies. The program also could boost sales of Indigo’s core products.
Oh,m so this is all about them making a buck by trading carbon credits!
The idea of sequestering carbon in soil is not new. Many of the practices Indigo has promoted are part of a movement toward “carbon farming,” and farmers have long known that increased carbon content means better soil quality, drainage, and water retention.
The practices can cost more than conventional farming, however, and require different equipment. Though some organic farmers have undertaken these efforts independently, on the grounds that they produce stronger crops and better environmental outcomes, the price of entry has limited their spread.
Federal initiatives and programs in some states have offered limited support for soil strengthening programs, and the issue has begun to come up in the 2020 presidential campaign, with Democratic candidates including South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg touting such programs as potential greenhouse gas solutions.
Pamela Templer, a Boston University professor who studies climate change, said the potential of capturing carbon in soil is just beginning to gain traction.
Indigo believes incentivizing farmers to capture carbon could mean substantial improvement, though it will have to overcome some obstacles along the way.
Indigo’s program is focused on soil concentrations, though it said it will also grant credits for other emissions reduction efforts, such as reduced use of fossil fuels for heavy equipment. The credits will take into account activity dating back three years.
Caro Roszell, who runs a Massachusetts soil carbon training program for the Northeast Organic Farming Association and operates a small farm, said another challenge Indigo could face is making sure that the carbon it pays farmers to trap remains in the ground. Disturbing the soil, she said, can release it back into the atmosphere.
Some farmers, she said, could “get their payment in the mail, and then they could go back out and plow, and oxidize a lot of that carbon.”
The deep-pocketed Indigo, founded in 2014 by the biotech-focused venture firm Flagship Pioneering, has a roster of scientific researchers and a global workforce of around 950. It says it will at first rely on “rigorous soil sampling” and analysis, and aim to develop more advanced technologies. Indigo plans to award $1 million contracts for inventions or strategies to help the company reach its goals.
Others in the environmental world said they were skeptical that the company’s $15 per ton price would be high enough to entice farmers.
Torri Estrada, executive director of the California-based Carbon Cycle Institute, which encourages carbon capture in farming, said many of the methods his group has used are much more expensive. Though he said he is interested to see what Indigo has planned, he cautioned that lower-priced efforts risk paying farmers for doing things they would have done anyway, or that are subsidized by government programs.
Josh Heinrich, who grows corn and soy on about 2,500 acres near Jamestown, N.D., and is in talks to join Indigo’s program, said he has tried some carbon capture strategies over the past several years. He gradually implemented “no-till” practices to reduce plowing because he was looking for ways to increase the fertility of his soil while reducing fertilizer and labor.
Chuck Currie, who manages the 88-acre organic Freedom Food Farm in Raynham, said he’d be skeptical about joining a program that uses carbon credits because he would not want his activities to justify emissions elsewhere.
“I’d feel better if [the money] was coming directly from our customers, with more education, and them being willing to pay for better-quality food,” he said.....
What if you are poor?
--more--"
Never mind the couple of dead birds, God rest their souls.
Related:
Deadly fungal infection that doctors have been fearing now reported in US
What You Need to Know About Candida Auris
A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy
Some scientists cite evidence that rampant use of fungicides on crops is contributing to the surge in drug-resistant fungi infecting humans, yet as the problem grows, it is little understood by the public -- in part because the very existence of resistant infections is often cloaked in secrecy. With bacteria and fungi alike, hospitals and local governments are reluctant to disclose outbreaks for fear of being seen as infection hubs, and it is a threat that is virtually unknown to the public. "It is a creature from the black lagoon," Tom Chiller, the head of the fungal branch at the CDC, told the Times. "It bubbled up and now it is everywhere."
It's all about image and reputation, and the truth be damned!
Maple syrup production rises, despite shorter season
Time for me to fly:
"Boeing’s CEO said the company made a ‘‘mistake’’ in handling a problematic cockpit warning system in its 737 Max jets before two crashes killed 346 people, and he promised transparency as the company works to get the grounded planes in the air again. Speaking before the Paris Air Show, Dennis Muilenburg told reporters Boeing’s communication with regulators, customers, and the public ‘‘was not consistent. And that’s unacceptable.’’ The Federal Aviation Administration has faulted Boeing for not telling regulators for more than a year that a safety indicator in the cockpit didn’t work as intended. Boeing and the FAA have said the warning light wasn’t critical for flight safety. But the botched communication has eroded trust in Boeing as it struggles to rebound from crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. ‘‘We clearly had a mistake in the implementation of the alert,’’ Muilenburg said. Pilots have expressed anger that Boeing did not inform them about new software implicated in the crashes."
"Dennis Muilenburg is used to presiding over sleepy annual meetings as Boeing Co.’s CEO, basking in the glow of a soaring share price. This year, he can expect a grilling. Outside the Chicago gathering, protesters are expected to rebuke the company for a safety crisis. Until an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 crashed after takeoff March 10, Boeing had dominated the Dow Jones average, containing risk and returning cash to investors. The questions may sharpen following a report about four calls to a whistle-blower hot line at the Federal Aviation Administration the day after the Ethiopia crash. The calls, CNN reported, were from current and former Boeing employees concerned about the sensor that measures the plane’s angle while flying. A malfunction has been cited in a preliminary report on the crash by Ethiopian investigators. Executives are struggling to salvage Boeing’s reputation and public confidence in the 737 program, the company’s main source of profit. But looming is a tough task: convincing regulators the jet is safe. Boeing redesigned software linked to the Ethiopia disaster as well as an October accident in Indonesia. The crashes killed 346 people in total."
Makes you start wondering about the Russian plane crash, doesn't it?
Somehow the passports didn't burn up.
