KS congressman: Farmers are 'such great patriots' they'll ride out Trump trade woes

Source: KansasCityStar

Despite the “short-term pain” they’re experiencing because of President Donald Trump’s efforts to renegotiate trade deals and add tariffs to some imports, farmers are still supportive, U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall said Thursday.

Marshall, a Republican representing Kansas’ 1st District, was in Kansas City on Thursday and offered his support to Trump despite concerns that the president’s trade policy has had an adverse effect on farmers. The issue is something Marshall said he hears about constantly when he’s in his district.

“It’s been a long summer, I’ve got to tell you,” Marshall said. “And this has really impacted not just my agriculture producers but a lot of people in manufacturing. It’s impacting every consumer for many reasons.”

Despite that, Marshall said, farmers in his district haven’t abandoned Trump. He said they understand Trump’s perspective when Marshall talks about problems the U.S. has with trading partners’ respect for intellectual property and tariff imbalances.

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article217580620.html#storylink=cpy

Read more: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article217580620.html

EPA is now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

Source: The Architect's Newspaper

One of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On June 1, the EPA authorized a “SNUR” (Significant New Use Rule) which allows new products containing asbestos to be created on a case-by-case basis.

According to environmental advocates, this new rule gives chemical companies the upper hand in creating new uses for such harmful products in the United States. In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.

This news comes after the EPA reviewed its first batch of 10 chemicals under the 2016 amendment to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which required the agency to continually reevaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals to see whether they should face new restrictions or be removed from the market. The SNUR greenlights companies to use toxic chemicals like asbestos without thinking about how it will endanger people who are indirectly in contact with it.

Asbestos, once seen as a magical mineral, was widely used in building insulation up until it was banned in most countries in the 1970s. The U.S. is one of the only developed nations in the world that has placed significant restrictions on the substance without banning it completely. New data revealed that asbestos-related deaths now total nearly 40,000 annually, with lung cancer and mesothelioma being the most common illnesses in association with the toxin. That number could rise if new asbestos-containing products make their way into brand new buildings.


Read more: https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/

Hackers break into voting machines within 2 hours at Defcon

Source: CBS News

Hackers from around the world had the rare opportunity to crack election-style voting machines this weekend in Las Vegas -- and they didn't disappoint.

After nearly an hour and a half, Carsten Schürmann, an associate professor with IT-University of Copenhagen, successfully cracked into a voting machine at Las Vegas' Defcon convention on Friday night, CNET reports.

Schürmann penetrated Advanced Voting Solutions' 2000 WinVote machine through its Wi-Fi system. Using a Windows XP exploit from 2003, he was able to remotely access the machine, CNET reports.

Voting technology was thrust into the political spotlight when election systems in several states were targeted by Russian cyber attacks. The convention purchased more than 30 voting machines for the event, although, organizers didn't specify how many models those units represented.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hackers-break-into-voting-machines-defcon-las-vegas/

Trump Just Made It Legal to Bring Back the Heads of Slaughtered Lions

Source: MotherJones

The federal government has issued more than three dozen permits allowing hunters to import lion trophies from two African nations since 2016, according to copies of the applications obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The documents, obtained by the group Friends of Animals, provide insight into the often secretive permitting process to import threatened or endangered species killed abroad during luxury hunting trips. Thirty-three Americans were issued permits to import 38 lion trophies between 2016 and 2018, at least half of whom have donated to Republican lawmakers or are affiliated with the hunting lobby Safari Club International.

It’s unclear how many permit applications are currently before the agency or how many were issued in past years. In a statement, the Fish and Wildlife Service said that all permit applications are carefully reviewed and granted only if they meet several legal standards in accordance with international treaties and other requirements of the country in which the animal was hunted.


Read more: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/07/trump-just-made-it-legal-to-bring-back-the-heads-of-slaughtered-lions/

RNC Chair complains about internet bias on Fox News after Republicans killed net neutrality

Source: Thinkprogress

The chair of the Republican National Committee complained on Friday morning that conservatives are being censored by Silicon Valley, citing the debunked conspiracy theory that Twitter and other net platforms are intentionally targeting voices on the right. But even if the problem were real, her party has done everything in its power to make that sort of Internet censorship possible.

Back in the Obama years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforced a 2015 regulatory policy called “net neutrality,” aimed at protecting an open Internet. Under those rules, service providers were prohibited from throttling or blocking Internet sites. “We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas,” then-President Barack Obama explained as his administration implemented the protections.

McDaniel’s party was outraged. In their 2016 Republican National Committee platform, they vowed to repeal the protections and to allow companies to censor content as they saw fit. In an Orwellian “Protecting Internet Freedom” section of the platform, they wrote “The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk. Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government. The President ordered the chair of the supposedly independent Federal Communications Commission to impose upon the internet rules devised in the 1930s for the telephone monopoly.”

When Donald Trump came in and appointed a new majority on the FCC, it moved quickly to kill net neutrality, calling the deregulation a return to “the light-touch regulatory scheme that fostered the internet’s growth, openness and freedom.” Freedom, in this case, meant freedom for companies to decide what Internet content users can access and what content they cannot.




Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/gop-killed-net-neutrality-rnc-chair-complains-internet-bias-against-conservatives-e20d70680d03/

A Russian newspaper editor explains how Putin made Trump his puppet

Source: Vox

“They consider him a stupid, unstrategic politician.”

Mikhail Fishman is the editor-in-chief of the Moscow Times, an English-language weekly newspaper published in Moscow. The paper is well-known for its criticisms of Russian President Vladimir Putin; indeed, it was targeted twice in 2015 by Russian hackers and has been attacked repeatedly by pro-Kremlin pundits.

A Russian citizen and an outspoken critic of Putin, Fishman has covered Russian politics for more than 15 years. For the last couple of years, he has monitored the increasingly bizarre relationship between Putin and Trump, with a particular focus on Putin’s strategic aims.

In this interview, originally conducted in February, I ask Fishman how Trump is perceived in Russia, why Putin is actively undermining global democracy, and what Russia hopes to gain from the political disorder in America.

Read more: https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/2/22/14697718/trump-putin-helsinki-meeting-hillary-clinton

Employee at shelter housing migrant children faced sexual misconduct allegations

Source: The Kansas City Star

A man with a history of sexual misconduct allegations is employed at the Topeka nonprofit that is housing nearly four dozen migrant children, including some separated from their parents at the border.

Jeff Montague, human resources manager for The Villages Inc., was arrested in Topeka in 2007 for solicitation of sodomy in Gage Park, records show. And in 1989, the Boy Scouts of America severed ties with Montague after being told that he’d been suspended from his teaching position at Seaman High School in Topeka because of allegations of sexual advances toward a male foreign exchange student.

Sylvia Crawford, executive director of The Villages, said in an email that a former employee raised concerns about Montague's past about a year ago.

At that time, Crawford said, "both DCF and the Inspector General’s office completed an investigation with no corrective action required on our part."



Read more: https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/kansas/article214458119.html

Wow! Absolutely Stunning!

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What is the point of pardoning Scooter Libby now?

Zuckerburg in 2006 saying user information will never be used or sold unless users ask for it