I just mailed my ballot for Mayor Pete!

I love Colorado’s vote by mail system! My ballot arrived today and I promptly marked Buttigieg as my candidate of choice and dropped my ballot right back in the mail. That was so easy, my Iowa friends!

I had been going back and forth over which candidate would have the best chance against twittler until a friend told me that the primary was my chance to vote my heart. Vote my heart? Well then, no problems. Mayor Pete has my heart and then some. Buttigieg for the win in 2020!

Bolivia Is Fighting Major Forest Fires Nearly As Large As In Brazil

U.S. officials knew bomb-sniffing dogs were dying from neglect in Jordan. They sent more.

Source: Washington Post

Mencey, a pointy-eared, caramel-colored Belgian Malinois, was ready to sniff out bombs when he arrived in Jordan in July 2017.

The 3-year-old did not get much of a chance. Mencey was bombarded with ticks and sandflies while under Jordanian care, and he was evacuated back to a facility in Virginia. A vector-borne disease ravaged his body. His kidneys failed. And less than a year after he left, Mencey was euthanized at the same facility where he trained to help secure a country that ultimately killed him.

The State Department sent dozens of highly skilled explosive-detection dogs to Jordan, even after the agency assessed a high degree of mistreatment and failure to care for the animals in 2016, according to an inspector general report concluded last week. It ultimately led to their early deaths and crushed their spirits so brutally that the dogs “lost the will to work,” the report says.

At least 10 dogs provided to Jordan died of “various medical problems” out of at least 100 canines sent there between 2008 and 2016, the report found, and surviving dogs were starved in kennels smeared with feces and dirt. Dogs were overworked in the desert, suffered hip dysplasia and other conditions. Engorged ticks ringed their ears.

Read more: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/09/16/us-officials-knew-bomb-sniffing-dogs-were-dying-neglect-jordan-they-sent-more/

Crazy Like FOX... Dems Should Follow Bernie Across the Cable DMZ

Hickenlooper's March 26 Op-Ed in the WaPo - Great stuff!

I think Hickenlooper brought up some good points. Here are some excerpts from his editorial:

Climate change is a defining challenge of our time, and yet we have a president who is taking us in the wrong direction. He withdrew our country from the Paris climate accords. He is expanding drilling on public lands. He is forfeiting our country’s leadership, changing our national symbol from the eagle to an ostrich, burying our head in the sand in the face of this global threat...

Amid this technological innovation, we need to ensure that energy is not only clean but also affordable. Millions of Americans struggle with “energy poverty.” Too often, low-income Americans must choose between paying for medicine and having their heat shut off. Their situation is all the more urgent given the ongoing attempts by President Trump to cut programs such as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program...

That is why I support the concept of a Green New Deal — the idea that we should launch multiple major federal initiatives to tackle climate change and reorient our economy around clean energy. The idea has been around for at least a decade and will be one of my highest priorities as president.The federal government should also build on what we have done in Colorado. In 2014, we became the first state to impose its own regulation on methane emissions, which are 25 times worse for climate change than carbon dioxide, and we did it by working with both environmentalists and industry. We implemented new standards for low-emission vehicles and expanded Colorado’s renewable energy standard, doubling the goal for rural electric producers. We also built public support for unprecedented expansions of light rail and the retrofitting of buildings to save energy. At the same time, we created more than 10,000 clean-energy jobs — just as we can create millions of clean-energy jobs across the country if we take the right steps.

Trump proposes a $4.7 trillion budget with domestic cuts, billions for wall

Source: Washington Post

President Trump proposed a $4.7 trillion budget plan Monday that stands as a sharp challenge to Congress and the Democrats trying to unseat him, the first act in a multi-front struggle over the role of government that threatens to consume Washington for the next 18 months.

The budget proposal dramatically raises the possibility of another government shutdown in October, with the inclusion of an additional $8.6 billion to build sections of a wall along the U. S.-Mexico border. Trump’s ask for yet more wall money — beyond the spending he is already seeking under a “national emergency” declaration at the border — infuriated Democrats.

The budget also calls for a significant increase in military spending, causing problems with some Republicans who are uneasy about how it is allocated. If lawmakers and Trump don’t reach a spending agreement by the end of September, many government operations will grind to a halt.

Trump’s “Budget for a Better America” also includes dozens of spending cuts and policy overhauls that frame the early stages of the debate for the 2020 election. For example, Trump calls for a series of changes that would reduce total spending on the program by roughly $845 billion over 10 years for Medicare, the popular health care program for the elderly that in the past he had largely said he would protect.

- more

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-proposes-47-trillion-budget-with-domestic-cuts-86-billion-in-wall-funding/2019/03/11/de11cfa4-43fe-11e9-90f0-0ccfeec87a61_story.html?utm_term=.30cb485fd47e

'Unacceptable': Coast Guard's top officer criticizes lack of payment in government shutdown

Source: The Washington Post

The Coast Guard’s top admiral said Tuesday that members of the armed forces should not be expected to shoulder the burden of the partial government shutdown, citing the “anxiety and stress” it is causing military families as their pay is withheld.

Adm. Karl Schultz, the Coast Guard commandant, said that he is heartened by the outpouring of support Coast Guard personnel have received across the country but expects more.

“Ultimately, I find it unacceptable that Coast Guard men and women have to rely on food pantries and donations to get through day-to-day life as service members,” he said, speaking on a video posted to his Twitter account.

The comments marked the admiral’s most forceful remarks about the shutdown since it began 32 days ago amid a dispute over President Trump’s demands for funding for a southern border wall. While the majority of the U.S. military is part of the Defense Department and has funding, the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies, including the Coast Guard, are affected by the shutdown.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/01/23/unacceptable-coast-guards-top-officer-criticizes-lack-payment-government-shutdown/?utm_term=.ae251fdb15b3

800,000 is terrible, but 37,000,000 is catastrophic

I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to be one of the 800,000 government workers who are getting laid off with no pay or forced to work for free. Not all government workers will get back pay either - especially those who are considered "independent contractors." Many of them won't get so much as a dime.

Making America "Great" by turning American workers into slaves for - oh, two or three months, maybe two or three years. But all you Federal workers are just fine with this. We know this because the malignant narcissist in the White House came on TV and told us so. Or maybe he tweeted that one. It's so hard to keep up these days, especially when your mind keeps obsessing about going hungry along with 38 Million other Americans who must depend on food stamps (SNAP) that will lose their funding in 3 weeks when February rolls around.

Me, I'm 67 but I became disabled when I was 51. The catastrophic medical bills cut through my savings like a hot knife through butter. These days I get by on a tiny social security check, a housing voucher and SNAP. There's no margin for error in my monthly budget. I consider it to be a good month when I manage to hit the 30th with my rent and electric bills paid up; my Internet didn't get turned off (not this time, anyhow); and some eggs, bread and coffee to tide me over until there's money on my SNAP card again.

I volunteer as an advocate with the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition when I'm able to. I could tell you all so many heartbreaking stories about low income disabled people around here. There's the woman a judge sent to the county jail for being a schizophrenic. She languished there for months with no evaluation and certainly no treatment. I know of more people than I can count who are disabled and homeless who camp on the public lands.

And I will never forget the woman and her son with Downs Syndrome. She was trying to leave her abusive husband and had managed to finally escape the little fundamentalist Mormon town they had been living in. Mother and son also camped out in a trailer on public land. CCDC had been trying to arrange for housing and medical care for both of them. Then one day the local social services office told the Mom that she and her son did not qualify for food stamps. That poor woman was so beaten down that she went into hysterics at the news and threatened to kill herself. Terrible, terrible situation.

Many people in my small town on Colorado's mostly rural Western Slope aren't doing as well as I am. I am next door neighbors with both the Ute Reservation and the Navajo Nation. The poverty among many of the Utes and Navajo is simply heart breaking. Any time I want to start feeling sorry for myself, all I have to do is walk down the dirt road that leads to the mostly Ute town of Toawoc. It's like stepping into the third world. Folks who live there are largely dependent on programs administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a Federal Agency which is now also going unfunded. Always hit the most vulnerable first, right?

We don't have any of those cool Colorado resort jobs around here. It's mostly low wage agricultural and tourist trade work. Retirees with decent pensions give the local economy a shot in the arm, but we need more than just shots. Sometimes I think we need a war. What will the people who depend on food stamps do come next month? Two of the local churches trade off on running the soup kitchen. What will happen to that soup kitchen when it becomes overwhelmed by the need to help all the people who suddenly no longer have the means to put food on their tables? The Federal commodities program which distributes food boxes to qualifying low income folk will not be funded either.

Then I try to imagine all the other communities both large and small; urban and rural all across the nations that will be experiencing the same frankly impossible situation that we will be here. Worst of all, little kids are going to go hungry. You can't just suddenly throw 38 million people at private charities and community soup kitchens that were already overwhelmed and expect that the hungry will get fed. Some of us won't.

Oh, how I despise Donald Trump.

New Trump campaign ad asks supporters to call 1-800 hotline to thank him

Source: The Hill

President Trump’s reelection campaign released a new TV ad urging his supporters to call a 1-800 hotline to thank him.

In the new ad, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale is seen lauding the president for having “achieved more during his time in office than any president in history.”

"We have a booming economy, historically low unemployment, including the lowest unemployment rate for minorities in history," Parscale said, while also adding that the world is a "safer place" because of the president.

Parscale went on to say this is why Trump’s supporters must "pick up the phone right now and deliver a personal thank you to your president” for all the work he’s achieved.

“We need to let President Trump know that we appreciate what he’s doing for America,” he continues. “I need you to call the number on your screen and deliver a thank you to President Trump.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/421915-new-trump-campaign-ad-asks-supporters-to-call-1-800-hotline-to-thank-him

Stunning Time Magazine cover blends faces of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump

Source: Independent News

Time magazine's latest cover features what some have called an "eerie" blend of the faces of Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin - reflecting the affinity between the two leaders.

The US president's whispy blonde comb-over and distinctive pursed lips and raised eyebrows are melded with Mr Putin's steely blue eyes and cool expression.

Nancy Burson is the visual artist behind the cover and it "is meant to represent this particular moment in US foreign policy, following the pair's recent meeting," the magazine said.

"A year and a half into his presidency, Trump’s puzzling affinity for Putin has yet to be explained," Time said in its cover story. "To represent that conflict, [Ms] Burson merged the faces of Trump and Putin into a still image and video which morphs between the shifting appearances of the two world leaders."

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/time-magazine-cover-donald-trump-vladimir-putin-us-russia-helsinki-a8455261.html