“If only the rocks could talk. If only the sandstones could sing, imagine the stories they’d tell, of dinosaurs, mammoth hunters and the “ancient ones” known as the Anasazi. All roamed southern Utah over the eons, long before Native Americans struggled to hold their land against Mormon settlers, modern life …
Nassau County residents–
Click here for last night’s County Executive Debate between Laura Curran and Jack Martins–this is less than a half hour.
Newsday coverage here.
This version of the travel ban was set to take effect today–it was blocked by a judge in Hawaii yesterday:
“The latest version of the travel ban — version 3.0, if you will — limits travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen. The nations of Chad, North Korea and Venezuela have been added. And Sudan, which was part of the original ban, has been dropped.
‘The new rules take effect Oct. 18. And unlike previous versions, the new ban is not temporary. It will remain in place until the affected nations comply with stringent requirements for vetting their citizens before they can receive visas to enter the U.S.’
That’s the version of the ban that has now been blocked from going into effect, nationwide — at least for now.”
– From NPR (click here to read full story).
From THE NEW YORK TIMES
By DAVID LEONHARDT, IAN PRASAD PHILBRICK and STUART A. THOMPSONOCT. 4, 2017
Most Americans support stronger gun laws — laws that would reduce deaths. But Republicans in Congress stand in the way. They fear alienating their primary voters and the National Rifle Association.
Below are the top 10 career recipients of N.R.A. funding – through donations or spending to benefit the candidate – among both current House and Senate members, along with their statements about the Las Vegas massacre. These representatives have a lot to say about it. All the while, they refuse to do anything to avoid the next massacre.
From THE NEW YORK TIMES
By NADJA POPOVICH and LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA OCT. 5, 2017
Since taking office in January, President Trump has made eliminating federal regulations a priority. His administration — with help from Republicans in Congress — has often targeted environmental rules it sees as overly burdensome to the fossil fuel industry, including major Obama-era policies aimed at fighting climate change.
To date, the the Trump administration has sought to reverse nearly 50 environmental rules, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
1,516 mass shootings in 1,735 days: America’s gun crisis – in one chart
The attack at a country music festival in Las Vegas that left at least 58 people dead is the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history – but there were six other mass shootings in America this past week alone.
No other developed nation comes close to the rate of gun violence in America. Americans own an estimated 265m guns, more than one gun for every adult.
Data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive reveals a shocking human toll: there is a mass shooting – defined as four or more people shot in one incident, not including the shooter – every nine out of 10 days on average.
Click here to read more.
(CNN)It’s beyond debate that the shootings outside the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas late Sunday night will go into the history books as the largest mass shooting in modern US history, with at least 59 dead and more than 500 wounded.
What’s also indisputable is that this shooting — like the Pulse nightclub shooting before it and Newtown before that and Columbine before that — will land in a political culture that is deeply divided on the proper role for guns in society and the need for — or lack of a need for — stricter gun control measures in the country.
When a gun is used to commit an act of mass violence, two schools of thought immediately assert themselves — both of which seek to explain the genesis of these incidents: 1) We need more gun control laws to stop this cycle of violence 2) Bad people will do bad things no matter what the gun laws are.
That’s reflective of a massive culture disconnect between those who grew up with guns and view them as an extension of their fundamental freedoms and those who did not and view guns far more skeptically.
Here are eight charts that tell the story of our divided culture on guns — and the violent acts carried out with them. These numbers were primarily drawn from extensive historical data collected by Gallup and Pew Research Center on cultural attitudes toward guns and gun violence.
The US Senate is furiously whipping votes to pass the Graham-Cassidy bill, the Senate’s latest effort to reform and repeal the Affordable Care Act. Passage of Graham-Cassidy will leave millions of Americans without healthcare coverage and worsen coverage for millions more. The bill will also allow states to opt out of essential health benefits protected by the ACA such as maternity care coverage, mental health benefits, and coverage for people with preexisting conditions.
Click here and here to learn more about this bill and other developments in the healthcare arena.
Raise your voice – make phone calls. – send postcards. Click here and here to find your representatives. Click here to download postcard templates.
“Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled his single-payer health-care proposal, “Medicare for All,” on Wednesday, to a packed room of supporters on Capitol Hill.
The bill already has 16 Democratic co-sponsors, a number that would have been unimaginable just a year ago. The independent senator from Vermont also released a white paper on how the government might finance such a health-care system, which included an income-based tax increase, an expansion of the estate tax, and a new tax on incomes of the 0.1 percent of Americans.”
Click here to read more…
“Senior Democrats stunned Washington on Wednesday by claiming that they had agreed with Donald Trump on a plan to protect so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought illegally to the US as children.
Senator minority leader Chuck Schumer and House counterpart Nancy Pelosi, who dined with the president at the White House, said they had reached an agreement to quickly enshrine into law protections for the nearly 800,000 immigrants who benefited from Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme.
A person briefed on the meeting said Trump agreed with the Democrats to pair the bipartisan Dream Act, which provides a path to permanent residency for undocumented immigrants brought to the US illegally as children, with some form of border security – excluding Trump’s promised border wall.”
Click here to read more…
