Year: 2018

The Real Recycling 101

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After the city’s falsely named “Recycling 101” event turned out to be more of a budget meeting than a presentation on how to recycle, Sustainable Tucson hosted our own program, “Recycling and Beyond.” We stressed to Sherri Ludlam, Environmental Scientist in the Department of Environmental and General Services, that this time we wanted her to concentrate on the rules for recycling. Her chosen topic was “old and new challenges to Tucson’s recycling program.” One of the new challenges was that China wouldn’t be accepting all of our dirty recycling anymore because of the contamination. Contamination is all the trash that doesn’t belong in recycling – including plastic bags that jam up the machines. That same contamination is costing the company contracted to do our recycling truck loads of money. Our bad. Tucsonans put everything from dirty diapers to dead cats to Saguaros in our recycling cans. Sherri reminded us that there are actual people who sort through all that yucky trash. So don’t throw in anything that you wouldn’t want to find in your own recycling can.

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Special Election To Replace AZ Sen. Jon Kyl Next Summer, AZ Law Unconstitutional –New Lawsuit

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The constitutionality of Arizona’s law giving Governor Doug Ducey the right to control the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the passing of John McCain has been challenged in federal court.

A group of plaintiffs led by William Tedards filed the action against Ducey and Senator Jon Kyl yesterday and asks that the Governor be required to call for a special election within six months. Their contention is that the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (text below) which requires that U.S. Senators be elected invalidates the Arizona law (also below) that the special election for a Senate vacancy can only be held at a biennial general election.

17th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

McCain passed away in August, too late for Governor Ducey to add a primary and general election to be held by November 6, 2018. Instead, he appointed former Kyl to the seat, even as Kyl indicated that he might very well only stay in the position through the end of 2018. That would permit the Governor to make a new appointment for another two years, for a total of 28 months.

When asked by Arizona’s Politics about the timing of this action, nearly three months after the Kyl appointment, lead attorney Mike Persoon stated there was

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Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress about being a back channel to Putin’s Russia

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President Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty today to an additional count of making false statements to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow during the 2016 presidential election. Criminal Information (.pdf) and Plea Agreement (.pdf). Cohen now admits that he was a back channel between the Trump organization and Putin’s Russia.

Three quick observations. First, this is Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s counterpunch to President Trump and his his shyster lawyer Rudy Giuliani crowing this week about their criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice through former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort acting as their “mole” to impede the Special Counsel’s investigation. They won’t be so cocky when they face criminal charges.

Second, Cohen’s Criminal Information today is Robert Mueller showing only one of the cards that he is holding, and this card hints that more criminal indictments are in the offing.  Cohen identified Donald Trump as “person 1” in open court, and his felon cohort Felix Sater appears to be “person 2” from the   context of the Criminal Information. Cohen briefed Trump family members about the Trump World Tower Moscow Project, potentially implicating them as well.

Cohen has also been cooperating with the Southern District of New York and the Attorney General of New York regarding the Trump Foundation and Trump business interests. He knows everything, and the Special Counsel has all of his files, phone records, emails and secretly recorded conversations.

Finally, this is a warning shot across the bow to other witnesses who have made false statements to Congress, in particular, that smarmy Donald Trump, Jr., and others who have lied to the FBI or Special Counsel including Jerome Corsi, Randy Credico and Roger Stone. Their “time in the barrel” is coming.

“It’s Mueller Time.”

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Please donate to Bike in a Box for underprivileged children

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Providing Bikes to Under-Privileged Children “Lugo Charities Inc. and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks Lodge 385 is pleased to announce that it will be hosting the 10th Annual “Bike In A Box” Christmas event on Saturday, December 8, 2018 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm at the Elk’s Lodge 385 that is located … Read more

Climate Change Deniers Must heed the Lessons of Noah and the Ark

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In the telling of the later versions of the Genesis tale of Noah and the Ark (those not in the original Biblical accounts), the people are shown mocking Noah and his family for wasting a century in constructing the large vessel that would sustain them and the selected animals during the flood. In other versions, they ignore Noah’s warnings to build arks of their own so they avoid the cataclysm that God intended for Earth. Today, with a significant portion of the Trump (formerly Republican) Party denying the existence of human-made climate change, it is easy now to see the Genesis Flood story as one of climate change with Noah as the protagonist warning people of the natural catastrophe that was about to be unleashed and the rest of the populace denying and ridiculing him until it was too late. Today, it is the scientists warning of the consequences of our actions and inactions on climate change and it is the Trump Administration, in denying its own far-reaching report, that are not heeding the lessons of history and pursuing policies to combat the problem while it still can be.

We need to pay heed to the environmental lessons of Noah and the Ark.

It is ironic that the now Trump Party in its former Republican Party form once embraced and championed science, land conservation, and environmental protection. It was a Republican President Theodore Roosevelt that helped develop the United States Forest and Park Services. It was a Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, following the launch of Sputnik, who oversaw the creation of N.A.S.A. and the start of the space race. It was a Republican President Richard Nixon that signed the legislation that created the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) and Clean Air Act.

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