You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

[Scooter]

Again, if it wasn't on the CBC website I would have thought it was sourced from The Onion:

Trump wildlife protection board stacked with trophy hunters

A new U.S. advisory board created to help rewrite federal rules for importing the heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos is stacked with trophy hunters, including some members with direct ties to President Donald Trump and his family.

A review by The Associated Press of the backgrounds and social media posts of the 16 board members appointed by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke indicates they will agree with his position that the best way to protect critically threatened or endangered species is by encouraging wealthy Americans to shoot some of them.

There's little indication dissenting perspectives will be represented on the Trump administration's conservation council. Appointees include celebrity hunting guides, representatives from rifle and bow manufacturers, and wealthy sportspeople who boast of bagging the coveted "Big Five" — elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and Cape buffalo.

Most are high-profile members of Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association, groups that have sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to expand the list of countries from which trophy kills can be legally imported.

They include the Safari Club's president, Paul Babaz, a Morgan Stanley investment adviser from Atlanta, and Erica Rhoad, a lobbyist and former Republican congressional staffer who is the NRA's director of hunting policy.

Bill Brewster is a retired Oklahoma congressman and lobbyist who served on the boards of the Safari Club and the NRA. An NRA profile lauded Brewster and his wife's five decades of participation and support for hunting, and his purchase of a lifetime NRA membership for his grandson when the boy was three days old.

Also on the board is Gary Kania, vice-president of the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, a group that lobbies Congress and state governments on issues affecting hunters and fishermen.

In its charter, the council's listed duties include "recommending removal of barriers to the importation into the United States of legally hunted wildlife" and "ongoing review of import suspension/bans and providing recommendations that seek to resume the legal trade of those items, where appropriate."

In a letter this week, a coalition of more than 20 environmental and animal welfare groups objected that the one-sided makeup of the council could violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires government boards to be balanced in terms of points of view and not improperly influenced by special interests. The groups said they nominated a qualified representative, but Zinke didn't select him.

"If Trump really wants to stop the slaughter of elephants for trophies, he should shut down this biased, thrill-kill council," said Tanya Sanerib, a spokesperson for the Center for Biological Diversity. "The administration can't make wise decisions on trophy imports if it only listens to gun-makers and people who want to kill wildlife."

Among Zinke's appointees is Steven Chancellor, a longtime Republican fundraiser and chairman of American Patriot Group, an Indiana-based conglomerate that includes a company that supplies Meals Ready to Eat to the U.S. military.

According to Safari Club member hunting records obtained in 2015 by the Humane Society, Chancellor has logged nearly 500 kills — including at least 18 lions, 13 leopards, six elephants and two rhinos.

In early 2016, records show Chancellor filed for a federal permit to bring home the skin, skull teeth and claws from another male lion he intended to kill that year in Zimbabwe, which at the time was subject to an import ban imposed by the Obama administration.

[rubato]

I'm not a hunter but I find nothing wrong with appointing trophy hunters who would have direct experience with the issues of importing animal parts. Ducks unlimited, hunters, have done more for the restoration of migratory game bird species than all others. But I don think they should be leavened by qualified biologists.


http://www.ducks.org/california/massive ... california

Massive Coastal Restoration Project Completed in California
DU restores 960 acres of tidal marsh

For the first time in more than 100 years, tidal waters returned in August to the former Napa Plant Site salt-production facility adjacent to the Napa River on the northern reaches of San Francisco Bay. Ducks Unlimited managed the restoration of 960 acres as part of the 1,400-acre Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area Napa Plant Site Restoration Project.

Historical tidal marsh channels were reestablished, internal earthworks were removed, a salinity reduction breach was created, and two additional breaches were opened to restore full tidal hydrology to the site. This restored tidal system will consist of a variety of coastal habitats including salt marsh, intertidal mudflats, and channel habitat in the floodplain of the Napa River. Congressman Mike Thompson gave the keynote address at a celebration marking this momentous occasion.

Ducks Unlimited was awarded over $8.4 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for this project, which was combined with funding from the Wildlife Conservation Board; the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; the Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation; the David and Lucille Packard Foundation; and Cargill.

The North Bay is one of the most important wintering areas for canvasbacks and scaup in the Pacific Flyway. Restoration of coastal habitats in this area is among DU's highest priorities in California, the Pacific Flyway, and the continent. "

There are hunters who care as much about the natural landscape as non-hunters, sometimes more, because they are actually out in nature on a regular basis.


yrs,
rubato

[ex-khobar Andy]

US customs rightfully take away apples and oranges and raw meat etc from arriving passengers at airports: the rationale being that we don't want Mediterranean Fruit Fly etc arriving. Consignments of foreign fruits are inspected by people who know what they are doing to make sure that they do not contain harmful insects. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem (this is OT) with having a cooked and canned haggis taken away from me on the grounds that sheep's lungs sound yucky. That's a topic for another day.

But how is an elephant's tail or a wildebeest head or lion skin, skull or teeth inspected to make sure that there is nothing there which might harm US agriculture?

[rubato]

...

But how is an elephant's tail or a wildebeest head or lion skin, skull or teeth inspected to make sure that there is nothing there which might harm US agriculture?

NZ which has a much more fragile environment*, being an island nation, requires things like this to be fumigated. Sounds reasonable.


yrs,
rubato

* IIR they have the toughest regulations on bringing in animals or biological materials, food fish plants herbs &c in the world.

[Econoline]

A couple of zingers from Wonkette's story on the trophy hunting issue:

• Inspired by Zinke’s proclamation, The North American Federation of Foxes immediately got to work on a proposal for providing henhouse security.

and

• In accordance with its mandate, the International Wildlife Conservation Council’s eventual written report will be shot, stuffed, and mounted on the wall of a hunting lodge in Montana.

[Econoline]

I'm not a hunter but I find nothing wrong with appointing trophy hunters who would have direct experience with the issues of importing animal parts. Ducks unlimited, hunters, have done more for the restoration of migratory game bird species than all others.

I think there's quite a big difference between those who hunt ducks, geese, pheasants, deer, etc. for both sport and food (as do all the hunters I've known personally), and those who travel thousands of miles and spend tens of thousands of dollars to kill large, relatively rare species just to show off "trophies" and, ultimately, just to boost their own egos.

[Scooter]

A new low, even for Fox: Tucker interviews 'expert' Fabio on California economy

The Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” recently did a segment about California’s economy and the homelessness crisis in the Golden State. To get an inside look on the issues, Carlson brought on a California expert, Fabio Lanzoni.

Wait, what? Carlson thought the best person to tackle the issues of California’s economy was a romance novel cover model?

As you would expect, the interview was a bit bizarre. Fabio did a bit of ranting about how Los Angeles resembled the “wild, wild west” and living there was worse than living in a “third-world country 30 years ago.” The male model also claimed the state’s lawmakers and leaders act like criminals.

Fabio really got going when he moved on to the topic of the downtown LA library, which is apparently just like “Sodom and Gomorrah.” Carlson was looking a little stunned at this point, probably wondering why he invited Fabio on in the first place.

You should watch the video, Carlson gets this look on his face that says, WTF is this guy talking about, and how am I going to be salvage this into something resembling a coherent discussion.

[Joe Guy]

Carlson always looks like he wonders wtf is this guy talking about. It’s a natural look for him.

[RayThom]

Duck...duck...GOOSE!

[BoSoxGal]

Tucker always has that stupid look on his stupid face - but yeah, Fabio’s a joke too.

[Scooter]

TRUMP TAX PLAN: 80 PERCENT OF ECONOMIC GAINS WILL END UP GOING TO FOREIGNERS, CBO SAYS

President Donald Trump touted the economic growth triggered by his tax cuts in a speech Thursday afternoon, pointing out the projected growth of gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 10 years had increased because of the plan.

But 80 percent of the economic growth generated by the Republican tax cuts will eventually go abroad and benefit foreigners, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The report found significant differences between projected GDP, which measures the level of production in the U.S., and gross national product, which measures the income earned by all Americans. If the economic impact from GDP is higher than GNP, the difference between the two is income generated in the United States but going to foreigners. According to the CBO, on average 34 percent of income from the economic activity driven by the tax cuts is flowing out of the country, and in 2028, when the full effects of the tax cuts are in place, that number will increase to 80 percent.

“We heard statement after statement about how this tax plan would be great for American workers but the analysis is clear,” Senator Chris Van Hollen told Newsweek. “When this thing kicks in, 80 cents of every dollar [gained from the tax plan] will go to foreigners and not American workers. That’s a stunning number.”

Nearly one-third of the U.S. stock market is owned by foreign investors, which means they’re benefiting from the $238 billion increase in stock buyback authorizations since the tax law passed. An analysis of Fortune 500 companies found that corporations have spent 37 times more on stock buybacks than on American workers’ bonuses and wages. “Republicans had fair warning that a huge chunk of this economic boost would flow to foreigners,” said Van Hollen. “The bottom line is that foreigners own a large chunk of U.S. corporations and will get a big windfall.”

At the same time, U.S. deficits are projected to balloon because of the decrease in revenue being collected under the tax cuts. The CBO projects that federal spending will exceed revenues by $804 billion in fiscal year 2018, up from $665 billion in 2017. The national debt is now on track to be 100 percent of GDP by 2028. That means the U.S. will have to borrow money to make up for its shortfalls, and much of that money will come from abroad. The small gains to GDP will be offset by increased interest payments abroad.

“That’s the effect of the tax law, it provides some boost to GDP but that boost is financed by a lot of borrowing,” said Chad Stone, chief economist at the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Each year’s borrowing produces more income for foreigners and by the time you get to 2028 there’s a fair amount of income for foreigners being generated.”

Republicans have “clearly abandoned any claims of fiscal responsibility,” said Van Hollen. “You’re borrowing close to $2 trillion from our kids and grandkids and then you’re giving it to corporations and others and at the end of the day 80 percent of the benefits of additional economic activity are going to foreigners.”

[Scooter]

GOP rep connects school shootings, access to pornography

In the aftermath of the deadly school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, opponents of gun reforms came up with quite a few culprits to blame for the bloodshed. None of them, of course, included easy access to firearms.

The public should blame the number of doors at the school, for example. And abortion. And video games. And Ritalin, secularism, Common Core, and trench coats.

And while some of this was expected – the right consistently tries to steer public discussions away from guns after mass shootings – Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) broke new ground when she tried to connect school shootings and porn. The HuffPost reported yesterday:

During a meeting last week with local pastors, Black raised the issue of gun violence in schools and why it keeps happening. “Pornography,” she said.

“It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there,” she continued. “All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause.”

While that quote may seem hard to believe, the report included an audio clip of her comments.

Her argument raised a variety of questions, though I’m inclined to start with this one: where exactly is Diane Black buying her groceries?

All joking aside, there’s no evidence to suggest the massacre in Santa Fe had anything to do with pornography, and social scientists haven’t made any effort to warn policymakers about a correlation between porn and mass shootings in schools.

What’s more, Black, a leading Republican gubernatorial candidate in Tennessee this year, didn’t explain why she thought the two were in any way connected.

In fairness to the congresswoman, she also pointed to a series of other cultural issues – including violence in popular culture and the “deterioration of the family” – when assigning blame for school shootings, so her case was not limited exclusively to pornography.

Black did not, however, blame guns.

[Burning Petard]

We could end all these schools shootings during this summer break. Just close the schools. Send these kids next fall to work in the coal mines that are now so important to POTUS, If not mines, then local factories or even selling papers on the street, they way they used too before all these wimpy laws about 'child labor' were enacted by the Gay/Dems with their agenda to destroy the American family. Let the kids become useful economic resources for the family, they way it was when America was great. Let the kids pick the crops in the field instead of using illegals from some S**t hole country. If the parents want their kids to have an education, they can home school them. If they can't be home schooled then we can depend on faith-based initiatives and just what is wrong with going back to using Sunday Schools to teach reading and writing, they way they used to. We can make America Great Again, the way it used to be.

snailgate

[Big RR]

where exactly is Diane Black buying her groceries?

Yes, I want to go there; of course what she calls "pornography" might be the fashion magazines or anything that shows a woman's knees. That always drove the high school boys wild when I was a kid, leading to shooting sprees. And the sad thing is that someone this clueless got elected to Congress.

BP--and with that home schooling initiative, we'd no longer have to worry about pinko talk of global warming or evolution as science would no longer be taught.

[Scooter]

State Department spokeswoman uses D-Day as an example of long relationship with Germany

A top State Department spokesperson referenced the D-Day invasion during World War II as an example of the United States’ strong ties to Germany.

The department has been under fire since U.S. Ambassador to Germany Rick Grenell told Breitbart News he wants to help empower far-right groups in Europe, sparking anger from the U.S. ally.

"We have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said during a briefing Tuesday. "Looking back in the history books, today is the 71st anniversary of the speech that announced the Marshall Plan. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion.”

Wednesday is the 74th anniversary of the allied invasion of northern France during World War II, a bloody day in which thousands of U.S. and British soldierswere killed while fighting German troops. The massive attack was considered a turning point in the allied effort to push back Nazi forces in Europe.

“We obviously have a very long history with the government of Germany,” Nauert continued. “And we have a strong relationship with the government of Germany."

[Scooter]

Dennis Hof, Nevada's most famous pimp, wins GOP primary

LAS VEGAS — Pimp Dennis Hof, owner of half a dozen legal brothels in Nevada and star of the HBO adult reality series "Cathouse," won a Republican primary for the state Legislature on Tuesday, ousting a three-term lawmaker.

Hof defeated hospital executive James Oscarson. He'll face Democrat Lesia Romanov in November, and will be the favored candidate in the Republican-leaning Assembly district.

Hof celebrated his win at a party in Pahrump, Nevada, with "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss at his side.

"It's all because Donald Trump was the Christopher Columbus for me," Hof told The Associated Press in a phone call. "He found the way and I jumped on it."

Hof, who wrote a book titled "The Art of the Pimp," has dubbed himself "The Trump of Pahrump," and held a rally with longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone. Hof was in the limelight in 2015, when former NBA player Lamar Odom was found unconscious at Hof's Love Ranch brothel in Crystal, Nevada, after a four-day, $75,000 stay.

If Hof wins in November, he wouldn't be the only brothel owner in elected office — Lance Gilman, the owner of the famous Mustang Ranch in northern Nevada, is a Storey County Commissioner.

[Scooter]

PRESIDENT TRUMP HIRED UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS FOR $4 AN HOUR FOR DEMOLITION PROJECT: COURT DOCS

President Donald Trump hired hundreds of undocumented Polish immigrants to demolish a New York City building in 1980 and paid them as little as $4 an hour without providing proper safety equipment to do the job, court documents show.

The workers and their contractor, William Kaszycki of Kaszycki & Sons, sued Trump for unfair labor practices in 1983. After litigation dragged on for 15 years, Trump ultimately paid $1.375 million to settle the case.

“We worked in horrid, terrible conditions,” Wojciech Kozak, one of the undocumented Polish workers at the demolition site, told the Times. “We were frightened illegal immigrants and did not know enough about our rights.”

The settlement was kept under seal for nearly two decades. But last week, in response to a motion filed by Time Inc. and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, U.S. District Court Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered the documents be made public.

“The Trump Parties have failed to identify any interests that can overcome the common law and First Amendment presumptions of access to the four documents at issue,” Preska ruled.

The New York Times first reported on the settlement.

Trump had sought to demolish the famed Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue to make way for his 58-story Trump Tower.

According to court testimonies, Trump took notice of Kaszycki and his crew of 200 undocumented Polish workers when he visited a worksite near Bonwit Teller.

“He liked the way the men were working on 57th Street,” Zbignew Goryn, a foreman at the site, testified. “[Trump] said, ‘Those Polish guys are good, hard workers.’”

Trump eventually hired Kaszycki for the job and the demolition began in January 1980. Many of the laborers later testified that they would often work 12- to 16-hour shifts without gloves, hard hats or masks. The men had to break concrete floors, rip out electrical wires, cut pipes and work in an area filled with dust and asbestos.

Trump also hired a smaller crew of unionized demolition workers who teased their nonunion Polish counterparts. “They told me and my friends that we are stupid Poles and we are working for such low money,” Adam Mrowiec, one of the Polish workers, later testified.

The suit came about after Kaszycki stopped paying the men. The workers eventually took their complaints to an attorney named John Szabo, who brought the issue straight to Thomas Macari, a vice president of the Trump Organization. Macari then began paying the men in cash in order to avoid a shutdown of the worksite, according to the Times.

Trump later testified he did not know “that there were illegal aliens” working at his demolition site, an assertion refuted by Szabo, who said Trump threatened to have the men deported through his lawyer.

Szabo eventually got the Labor Department to open a wages-and-hours case for the workers that ended up winning them a $254,000 judgment against Kaszycki. Another worker, Harry Diduck, later brought a case against Kaszycki in federal court, where a judge ruled that Trump was the legal employer of the undocumented Polish workers.

After years of litigation, three rounds of discovery, extensive motion practice, a 16-day trial and two appeals, Trump decided to settle.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump frequently boasted that, while he had been sued many times, he had “never settled.” (that's a four alarm pants on fire) He also campaigned extensively on calls to hire American workers while cracking down on illegal immigration.

Didn't a potential cabinet secretary in the GWB era disqualify him/herself for having had an undocumented nanny? Was small potatoes by comparison with this.

[Guinevere]

Zoe Baird for AG under Clinton. She failed to pay the proper employment taxes and her Nanny was undocumented. So her nomination was withdrawn and we got Janet Reno instead.

Just another example of how far we have fallen under Republican leadership (and the double standard in place).

[Guinevere]

And under the wiki entry for “Nannygate:”

In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Linda Chavez for Secretary of Labor. She was the first Hispanic woman nominated to a United States cabinet position. However, she withdrew from consideration after it was revealed that she had given money to a one-time illegal immigrant from Guatemala who lived in her home more than a decade earlier.[74] Chavez's claims that she had been engaged in an act of charity and compassion rather than employment, and that she was now the victim of the "politics of personal destruction", were not enough to save her nomination.[62][75] The Chavez case did further illustrate the question of the status of female illegal aliens in households across the nation.[63]

In December 2004, Bernard Kerik was nominated by President Bush to succeed Tom Ridge as United States Secretary of Homeland Security. After a week of press scrutiny, Kerik withdrew his nomination, saying that he had unknowingly hired an undocumented worker and had not paid her taxes.[76] The Times wrote that "the curse of Nannygate" had returned to claim a fourth high-level victim.[76] As Jim Gibbons was campaigning for Governor of Nevada in 2006, it was brought to light that more than ten years earlier, he and his wife Dawn Gibbons had employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper and babysitter.[77] Gibbons went on to win the election anyway. By 2009 and the stepping down of Nancy Killefer as nominee for Chief Performance Officer of the United States at the beginning of the Obama administration, at least ten top-level cabinet or other federal appointees had run into trouble over failure to pay the "Nanny Tax".[78] Despite the possible peril it brought, most Americans were still paying their nannies off the books.[79] The problem recurred in the 2010 California gubernatorial election, where candidate Meg Whitman lost despite spending over $140 million of her own money.[80][81] Her campaign was seriously damaged during its final two months by the revelation that she had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny and housekeeper, and by the alleged manner in which she treated (and fired) the housekeeper.[80][81]

David Blunkett, a British politician, ran into political trouble for fast tracking a visa application for his family's nanny in 2004.[82] In 2006, the Minister affair at the announcement of the Reinfeldt cabinet in Sweden included the quick resignations of Maria Borelius, a Swedish trade minister who had hired a live-in nanny without paying taxes, and Cecilia Stegö Chilò, the Swedish culture minister, who also hired a live-in nanny without paying taxes. The matter was widely reported by the international press, with the Financial Times dubbing it "Nannygate".[83] In 2009, Canadian member of parliament Ruby Dhalla was accused of having employed nannies without proper work permits as required of anyone hiring foreign nationals under the federal caregiver program,[84] and some newspaper headline writers dubbed the resulting controversy as "Nannygate".[85] The 2013 arrest of Devyani Khobragade, Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General of India in New York City, charged with committing visa fraud and providing false statements in order to gain entry to the United States for her nanny, was referred by some in the American press as "Nannygate".[86]

[Guinevere]

US customs rightfully take away apples and oranges and raw meat etc from arriving passengers at airports: the rationale being that we don't want Mediterranean Fruit Fly etc arriving. Consignments of foreign fruits are inspected by people who know what they are doing to make sure that they do not contain harmful insects. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem (this is OT) with having a cooked and canned haggis taken away from me on the grounds that sheep's lungs sound yucky. That's a topic for another day.

But how is an elephant's tail or a wildebeest head or lion skin, skull or teeth inspected to make sure that there is nothing there which might harm US agriculture?

It’s probably because importing those animals or their parts violates CITES - the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. No imports, period.