I’m sorry to say that the heat is returning. Although today’s forecast is only 82°, the sun hit the outside wall at 6:00 AM, and by 8:00, I had to close the windows, lower the blinds, and turn on the AC. It’s another muggy day. Speaking of muggy, I put in the mug order last night. Lona’s is the first I’ve customized, since my eye cancer surgery. I hope I lined everything up right.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:17 (average 4:55). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The Rachel Maddow Show: Scientist says EPA asked her to change testimony to Congress
Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the E.P.A.’s Board of Scientific Counselors, talks with Rachel Maddow about the pressure she received from an EPA official to change her congressional testimony and how the EPA’s outside scientific review board has been "decimated."
Kudos to Deborah Swackhamer. She ought to take that hammer and swack Scott Pruitt upside the head. RESIST!!
From Daily Kos: Foreign-born recruits who signed up for the military with the promise of U.S. citizenship in exchange for their service are finally getting their thanks in the form of deportation. MAGA.
According to a new report, the Pentagon is considering ending the contracts of a large number of foreign-born recruits in the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest program—which puts service members with foreign-language and other speciality [sic] skills on an expedited path to citizenship—due to an “overtasked vetting process and heightened security risk.”
But according to one former official, this can be something as innocuous as having a foreign relative, which would be expected of a foreign-born applicant in the first place. And due to the fact that the federal government already has so much of their personal information on file, many of these recruits would be “prime targets” for immediate deportation.
Basically, “Thank you for your service. Now get out”
These people served our country honorably and in good faith. It’s disgusting that Republican racists don’t consider promises made to folks they call mud-people binding. RESIST!!
From NY Times: President Trump’s nominee for general counsel of the Transportation Department, Steven G. Bradbury [Pig delinked], is coming under fire by Democrats and human rights advocates for his role in providing legal blessing for waterboarding and other torture techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency on terrorism suspects during the administration of George W. Bush.
Amid interruptions by anti-torture protesters at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Democrats grilled Mr. Bradbury about interrogation memos he wrote as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during Mr. Bush’s second term.
“You lacked the judgment to stand up and say what is morally right when pressured by the president of the United States, and I’m afraid you would do so again,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, who wagged her finger at Mr. Bradbury and accused him of having a dangerous “rubber stamp” mentality. “I cannot oppose this nomination strongly enough.”
Like Tammy, I cannot oppose the appointment of a Republican War Criminal strongly enough, RESIST!!
Cartoon:
