StrangeSox

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 24, 2017 -> 08:55 AM) Whitefish, one of America’s smallest electric companies, landed Puerto Rico’s biggest contract to get power back on. This two-person company just got a $300M contract to restore power in Puerto Rico. They just happen to know Sec. of Interior Zinke pretty well and are from his hometown. They're charging $300+ per hour for linemen where other utilities were offering them in mutual aid. They're taking a page out of Trump's playbook and attacking the mayor of San Juan on twitter now, threatening to pull out resources because she called for transparency. https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/the-mont...PKMz#.krG4DYJnb

It's not just disrespectful people, though. More foot traffic on trails means more erosion, more wildlife disturbance, more chances for negative wild life encounters, more resources needed for increased demand on garbage, rest room, ranger services, etc. Even if everyone is staying on marked trails, packing everything out, and doing their best to leave no trace, they're still going to have an impact.

You could limit attendance in ways other than "how much can you afford to pay to access public lands." Our public parks were an explicit rejection of the for-the-wealthy-only natural spaces that were prevalent in Europe.

We were there last weekend! edit: crosspost, we were at the IDNL hiking around last weekend, not Colorado. I definitely get the "ugh, crowds" aspect from both a too-crowded-to-enjoy and a preservation/restoration aspect. Starved Rock and Matthiessen SP here in Illinois have seen huge increases in visitors over the last several years to the point that they get completely full on weekends like Memorial Day. It's a balancing act that NPS (and USFS and state agencies) needs to perform. At the same time, the whole idea of the parks was that they're public spaces of importance and beauty for all Americans to enjoy. Putting a price as high as $70 is going to freeze out a lot of people from being able to enjoy their parks. This proposed fee hike is coming at the same time as the administration is proposing massive funding cuts and ending voluntary programs to limit the waste stream at parks.

You may have to pay $70 to visit the Grand Canyon and 16 other national parks

Fats Domino, 89

Inside Trump’s meeting with Senate GOP

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 25, 2017 -> 07:41 AM) This was literally written in 2016. Didn’t we all already know this? Is this to smokescreen the fact that Trump outsourced his research to Russia? We knew that the dossier started its life with the Jeb and Cruz campaigns and after the primaries was then funded by "Democrat-associated people" but the DNC and Clinton camp denied direct involvement IIRC. Either way though, there's nothing unusual about conducting opposition research. The work appears to have been legit, and Mueller and Co. will investigate and substantiate what claims, if any, are true. And yeah it's still a couple of steps removed from receiving emails saying "would you like to collude with the Russian government's efforts to help you win" "yes!!!!" https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...bbb9_story.html

Jeff Flake taking to the floor of the Senate to denounce Trump and what he represents and denounce the complicity of "all of us" in his behavior, but especially his fellow Republicans, for abandoning their principles. He's also announced that he won't be seeking re-election. You can watch the whole speech here starting at about 49 minutes. https://www.c-span.org/video/?436237-2/ariz...mp;live&vod Full transcript here: http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/24/politics/jef...text/index.html

Congrats to WaPo for shaming Trump into fulfilling his promise of sending that gold star family the $25k check. They just received it, and, shockingly, it's dated the day the WaPo story was published. https://twitter.com/KaplanABC11/status/922603452487946241

Whitefish, one of America’s smallest electric companies, landed Puerto Rico’s biggest contract to get power back on. This two-person company just got a $300M contract to restore power in Puerto Rico. They just happen to know Sec. of Interior Zinke pretty well and are from his hometown. They're charging $300+ per hour for linemen where other utilities were offering them in mutual aid.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 23, 2017 -> 05:28 PM) How can anyone read excerpts from this softball Trump interview and not want to cry themselves to sleep? I swear, we could replace him with the mentally ill homeless guy at the intersection I cross on my way to work and no one could tell the difference. Every interview of his for years has been the same.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 23, 2017 -> 04:32 PM) Only people who bring it up are people who werent voting for Sanders/Clinton in the first place. Its purely political noise to try and hurt their political opponent. Why do you think Trump wanted Bernie to run as an independent? Because he liked Bernie? Or maybe it was because he thought it would hurt Clinton's chances? Hmm hard question. "Bernie woulda won" is still a big deal on the left fwiw. There's still plenty of fighting between the more centrist and more left wing factions.

The Democratic establishment didn't treat the outsider running against the establishment very friendly. I don't know why anyone was ever shocked about this. But ultimately the primary wasn't all that close and Clinton won by a comfortable margin. The RNC tried stacking the deck in favor of a couple of specific candidates, too, but that didn't work out for them. One unfortunate side affect of Bernie's run was a lot of people thinking the DNC is a lot more powerful and important than it really is.

There's still a lot of bad blood but I don't know why "Sanders who has always run as an independent may continue to run as an independent" is news or a sign of anything. QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 23, 2017 -> 04:24 PM) Cool. But frankly this is Bernie's party now: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpo...m=.e07bbeb85fb5 hahaha they seriously considered that?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2017 -> 03:19 PM) He probably got sick of being demonized by the party of acceptance as if he was responsible for what happened in 2016. Sanders has run as an independent for years and only briefly joined the Democratic Party for his presidential run. He still hold his Senate seat as an Independent.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 23, 2017 -> 08:38 AM) They won't. If we survive this nightmare, they will all become TV contributors for their "political insight" or become Harvard fellows I guess. Former GOP Speaker of the House and child rapist Dennis Hastert still gets to write opinion pieces for Newsweek. Nobody will suffer any consequences. Trump will be given the Reagan treatment by the GOP base. In 8-12 years, his image will be "rehabilitated" just like we're seeing with Bush. Heck, like you pointed out, Spicer's already been embraced by the media and elite academic institutions for his role in this administration.

there is always a Trump tweet for whatever is happening today. someone could probably come up with a slick algorithm to predict the future based solely on Trump's past tweets Meanwhile, Many Trump voters who got hurricane relief in Texas aren’t sure Puerto Ricans should probably just economic anxiety

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 19, 2017 -> 09:34 PM) WSJ reported earlier today that the FBI has been brought into the investigation. Something doesn't seem right here. https://www.wsj.com/articles/death-of-u-s-s...cism-1508457444 LA Times with more Pentagon investigating troubling questions after deadly Niger ambush I eagerly await the 12 different congressional investigations Republicans are sure to convene on this matter.

QUOTE (Tony @ Oct 20, 2017 -> 05:00 PM) You say so many here engage in “group think” and you are only interested in posting links that are of interest to you or not being discussed. Maybe it’s “group think” because more people want to talk about General Kelly getting caught up in a fairly blatant lie, the media calling him out on it, then the White House calling the media “Highly Innaproproate”. Or the events surrounding Niger. Listen, buddy, the White House made it very clear today that you can never question somebody who is a four star general, or used to be one anyway, even if they're blatantly lying. And I promise you there's not multiple Trump tweets doing exactly that in the past, either, because this White House would never just straight-up lie constantly. More seriously, I hope Kelly thinks it was worth it to drag his son's memory through the mud to defend Donald J. Trump. And they've now moved on to blaming the family of a fallen soldier for being offended by Trump's words.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2017 -> 04:06 PM) They're not. These are Public Universities. Therefore, they are run by the government and the government is not in the business of regulating free speech based on the content. If he follows the rules to book facilities as an outside group and the college allows outside groups to use their facilities, or someone affiliated with the campus is allowed to book facilities, then they have to follow the rules regardless of the group. He has won and will continue winning those lawsuits and the ACLU will be on his side. The University cannot say that they will not host him because of what he might say. Some of them have snuck around based on security exemptions, but you can't invent that rule when the College Republicans want to book him. He was here at A&M last fall and the university held an opposing event. He was invited by a former student who arranged the event. The university didn't host him, but because they provide facilties for any valid group, they had to accept him. The best sign I saw was "Texas Aggies: fighting Nazis since 1941 (It's taking a little longer than we thought)". I'm not sure what you can do to fix the issue of these speakers costing universities hundreds of thousands of dollars while bringing nothing of value, which is one is the reasons they go.

Cable news is bad, folks (except for CNN chyron person)