Tag Archives: atlantic

The Trump Files: Donald Once Turned Down a Million-Dollar Bet on "Trump: The Game"

by NevaBrowne Posted on August 15, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Until the election, we’re bringing you “The Trump Files,” a daily dose of telling episodes, strange-but-true stories, or curious scenes from the life of GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“It’s a much more sophisticated game than Monopoly,” Donald Trump said when his new board game, “Trump: The Game,” debuted in 1989. (Note: It’s not.) So sophisticated, in fact, that Trump admitted that even he sometimes lost. “I’ve done very well at the game…but on occasion, I got clipped,” he said at the game’s announcement in February.

Bob Stupak, a Las Vegas casino owner, was apparently listening. A month later, he challenged Trump to a head-to-head “Trump: The Game” battle for a $1 million prize, announcing it via a full-page ad he ran in the New York Post and the Press of Atlantic City.

Stupak told his local NBC station, KSNV, that he was generously giving Trump a chance to profit off the Stupak name. Stupak had recently earned fame for winning a $1 million bet on that year’s Super Bowl. “I’m not looking to ride on Donald Trump,” he said. “I’m giving him an opportunity to ride on my reputation. I’m the one who makes the large wagers, or has a history of doing it. And also to give him an opportunity to try to promote his new game.”

Trump, sadly, said no. “It’s always possible to lose, even for someone who’s used to winning,” he told the New York Post.

Read the rest of “The Trump Files”:

Trump Files #1: The Time Andrew Dice Clay Thanked Donald for the Hookers
Trump Files #2: When Donald Tried to Stop Charlie Sheen’s Marriage to Brooke Mueller
Trump Files #3: The Brief Life of the “Trump Chateau for the Indigent”
Trump Files #4: Donald Thinks Asbestos Fears Are a Mob Conspiracy
Trump Files #5: Donald’s Nuclear Negotiating Fantasy
Trump Files #6: Donald Wants a Powerball for Spies
Trump Files #7: Donald Gets An Allowance
Trump Files #8: The Time He Went Bananas on a Water Cooler
Trump Files #9: The Great Geico Boycott
Trump Files #10: Donald Trump, Tax-Hike Crusader
Trump Files #11: Watch Donald Trump Say He Would Have Done Better as a Black Man
Trump Files #12: Donald Can’t Multiply 16 and 7
Trump Files #13: Watch Donald Sing the “Green Acres” Theme Song in Overalls
Trump Files #14: The Time Donald Trump Pulled Over His Limo to Stop a Beating
Trump Files #15: When Donald Wanted to Help the Clintons Buy Their House
Trump Files #16: He Once Forced a Small Business to Pay Him Royalties for Using the Word “Trump”
Trump Files #17: He Dumped Wine on an “Unattractive Reporter”
Trump Files #18: Behold the Hideous Statue He Wanted to Erect In Manhattan
Trump Files #19: When Donald Was “Principal for a Day” and Confronted by a Fifth-Grader
Trump Files #20: In 2012, Trump Begged GOP Presidential Candidates to Be Civil
Trump Files #21: When Donald Couldn’t Tell the Difference Between Gorbachev and an Impersonator
Trump Files #22: His Football Team Treated Its Cheerleaders “Like Hookers”
Trump Files #23: Donald Tried to Shut Down a Bike Race Named “Rump”
Trump Files #24: When Donald Called Out Pat Buchanan for Bigotry
Trump Files #25: Donald’s Most Ridiculous Appearance on Howard Stern’s Show
Trump Files #26: How Donald Tricked New York Into Giving Him His First Huge Deal
Trump Files #27: Donald Told Congress the Reagan Tax Cuts Were Terrible
Trump Files #28: When Donald Destroyed Historic Art to Build Trump Tower
Trump Files #29: Donald Wanted to Build an Insane Castle on Madison Avenue
Trump Files #30: Donald’s Near-Death Experience (That He Invented)
Trump Files #31: When Donald Struck Oil on the Upper West Side
Trump Files #32: When Donald Demanded Other People Pay for His Overpriced Quarterback
Trump Files #33: The Time Donald Sued Someone Who Made Fun of Him for $500 Million
Trump Files #34: Donald Tried to Make His Ghostwriter Pay for His Book Party
Trump Files #35: Watch Donald Shave a Man’s Head on Television
Trump Files #36: How Donald Helped Make It Harder to Get Football Tickets
Trump Files #37: Donald Was Curious About His Baby Daughter’s Breasts
Trump Files #38: When Democrats Courted Donald
Trump Files #39: Watch the Trump Vodka Ad Designed for a Russian Audience
Trump Files #40: Donald’s Cologne Smelled of Jamba Juice and Strip Clubs
Trump Files #41: Donald Sued Other People Named Trump for Using Their Own Name
Trump Files #42: Donald Thinks Asbestos Would Have Saved the Twin Towers
Trump Files #43: Why Donald Threw a Fit Over His “Trump Tree” in Central Park
Trump Files #44: Watch Trump Endorse Slim Shady for President
Trump Files #45: The Easiest 13 Cents He Ever Made
Trump Files #46: The Time Donald Burned a Widow’s Mortgage
Trump Files #47: Donald’s Recurring Sex Dreams
Trump Files #48: Trump’s Epic Insult Fight With Ed Koch
Trump Files #49: Donald Has Some Advice for Citizen Kane

Source: 

The Trump Files: Donald Once Turned Down a Million-Dollar Bet on "Trump: The Game"

Posted in ATTRA, bigo, Casio, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Trump Files: Donald Once Turned Down a Million-Dollar Bet on "Trump: The Game"

How Bernie Sanders made Hillary Clinton into a greener candidate

by CoralMill3 Posted on June 8, 2016

How Bernie Sanders made Hillary Clinton into a greener candidate

By on Jun 8, 2016 6:47 amShare

Hillary Clinton is her party’s presumptive nominee. Whether Sanders drops out tomorrow or the day he loses the roll-call vote at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, his campaign is over.

But if ever there were a losing campaign that achieved some major wins, it’s Sanders’. Not only did he force Clinton to talk more about economic inequality, he pushed her to promise stronger action to fight climate change and rein in fossil fuel companies. If Hillary Clinton becomes president and keeps some of her more recent promises to restrict oil drilling and fracking, Sanders will deserve a share of the credit.

When Sanders first got into the race, it didn’t look like he would adopt climate change as a major issue. He was one of the strongest climate hawks in the U.S. Senate, having sponsored bills to promote clean energy, reduce carbon emissions, and end fossil fuel subsidies. But for the first few months of his presidential campaign, he did little more than make passing mention of climate change and its importance to young voters. In September of last year, I even wrote a post entitled, “Why is Bernie Sanders neglecting climate change?”

Then, gradually, Sanders started to focus on the issue and develop a strong climate agenda. In October, he said at a debate that climate change is the biggest threat to national security. In November, he cosponsored new Senate legislation, the Keep It in the Ground Act, that would have the federal government stop issuing leases for oil, gas, and coal extraction on public lands and in offshore areas. In December, Sanders rolled out a climate action plan that included the “keep it in the ground” proposal as well as a carbon tax, elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, and investments in renewables. He went on to talk more on the campaign trail about climate change and related issues such as reinvesting in mass transit and cities.

By January, the Sanders campaign was using the climate issue to attack Clinton, going after her for the vague and incomplete nature of her climate plan. The two campaigns battled on Twitter over whose climate and clean energy platform was stronger. Clinton clearly felt the need to start competing with Sanders for the votes of climate hawks.

Simultaneously, climate activists from groups such as Greenpeace and 350.org were stalking Clinton on the campaign trail and asking her questions about whether she would restrict fossil fuel extraction. The one-two punch of pressure from the green grassroots and pressure from Sanders pushed Clinton leftward on a number of energy issues.

First, last fall, Clinton finally came out against the Keystone XL pipeline, shortly before Obama rejected it. She also declared that she was opposed to offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean. And she shifted her position on fossil fuel extraction on public land, from saying it was necessary to saying she wanted to move toward an eventual ban.

As Sanders picked up steam, she gave still more ground to climate activists. In February, she voiced her opposition to offshore drilling in the Atlantic. She also moved to assuage concerns that she is pro-fracking, saying in a March debate that she wants more regulation of fracking, and that she opposes the practice in instances when the local community is against it, it causes air or water contamination, or it involves the use of secret chemicals. “By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place,” she said. Clinton had, in fact, started to say some of these things more than a year earlier, but her language has grown stronger and clearer during the primaries. In fact, she’s gotten so forthright about her plans to crack down on fossil fuels that she damaged her standing in coal country when she admitted in March that her administration would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

Clinton even tried to get to Sanders’ left on climate and energy issues. During another debate in March, she accused Sanders of wanting to delay implementation of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which will curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. (Asked afterward to give a source for that odd claim, the Clinton camp pointed to an article I wrote about executive actions the Sanders campaign said he might take to crack down on fracking, which included potentially revising the Clean Power Plan. Some experts argue that such revisions would delay it. The Sanders team responded by saying their candidate would not do anything that would significantly delay the plan.) The Clinton campaign was also critical of Sanders’ proposal to swiftly phase out all nuclear power, noting that it would likely cause an increase in emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants.

Finally, in April, the media recognized the salience of climate change to Democratic voters and let the candidates go at it over climate change in a debate. Thanks to Sanders, there was someone to push Clinton toward stronger stances as the two sparred over who would do a better job of saving the planet.

Last month, in recognition of Sanders’ strong showing in the primaries, the Democratic National Committee allowed him to appoint five members to the party’s Platform Drafting Committee, while Clinton got to appoint six. Among Sanders’ choices was Bill McKibben, the climate activist who founded 350.org, led the charge to block Keystone XL, and calls for dramatically reduced fossil fuel extraction. (McKibben is on Grist’s board of directors.)

It may be hard now to remember how unstoppable Clinton seemed only a year ago, when she was expected to dominate in the Democratic primary race. She had nearly tied Obama in the 2008 primary and then gone on to serve as his secretary of state, enhancing her stature and approval ratings while reaching out to die-hard Obama supporters. Her name recognition and fundraising connections alone put her at an advantage so steep that other nationally known Democrats, even those being drafted to run by supporters such as Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, declined to challenge her. Sanders, though, jumped into the race and showed that there is a real appetite for an agenda that more aggressively tackles inequality and climate change, and stands up to corporate power, especially fossil fuel companies. Clinton has moved in his direction to woo his supporters, and the next Democratic presidential nominee will probably start from an even more progressive place on climate and energy.

As Sanders said at a Monday night rally in San Francisco, “When we began our campaign, our ideas were considered a fringe campaign and fringe ideas. That is not the case today.” Sanders lost the primary race, but he has changed the Democratic Party and the politics of climate change.

Share

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Source: 

How Bernie Sanders made Hillary Clinton into a greener candidate

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Bernie Sanders made Hillary Clinton into a greener candidate

Houston flooding is a perfect storm of climate change and bad urban planning

by KourtneyLeane Posted on May 31, 2016

Houston flooding is a perfect storm of climate change and bad urban planning

By on May 31, 2016 3:54 pmShare

Flooding in Texas killed six over Memorial Day weekend, bringing the death toll from the state’s unprecedented floods this year to at least 14. The area surrounding Houston has been hit especially hard: On Sunday, about 2,600 inmates were evacuated from two southeastern Texas prisons endangered by high water, and evacuation orders were issued Monday for homes along the Brazos River.

Deluges like this aren’t exactly new to the area — downpours at this time last year brought a death toll of at least 30 — but as the climate warms, so does risk of flooding. In the past 30 years, reports the AP, the frequency of extreme downpours in the area has doubled.

“One likely cause,” Texas’ state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon tells Grist, “is the increase in ocean temperatures from the Gulf of Mexico and tropical Atlantic. That determines how much moisture is in the atmosphere.” As temperatures increase, so does rainfall.

But it’s not just the rainfall that is endangering Houston’s citizens — it’s also ecologically irresponsible development.

Houston is the only major American city without formal zoning laws. As a result, developers have been free to pave over huge swaths of valuable wetlands that absorb runoff. Between 1996 and 2011, the amount of the Houston region covered in pavement increased by 25 percent, according to Samuel Brody, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M.

“Houston’s unique in that it’s a low-lying area barely above sea level,” Brody told Marketplace. “It’s originally made up of bayous and soils that don’t drain too well, and it’s a city that’s afflicted by flooding from both the sea, saltwater flooding, and rainfall-based flooding. The problem is not the environmental conditions, the problem is pavement.”

Beyond lives lost, there are financial costs to these disasters as well. Since 1998, FEMA has paid over $3 billion (adjusted for inflation) for flood losses in the area, according to the AP. And as floods worsen and paved areas expand, that’s a cost that promises to get worse.

Share

Get Grist in your inbox

Continue reading – 

Houston flooding is a perfect storm of climate change and bad urban planning

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Houston flooding is a perfect storm of climate change and bad urban planning

A Brief, Checkered History of Prom in America

by DamianDarden950 Posted on May 28, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Do you remember how you were asked to your high school prom? (Or how you asked?) Maybe it was some cheesy romantic gesture. Or maybe it was a very informal conversation that took place near your locker between classes. Either way, it probably wasn’t documented and put online to become a viral hit. America’s prom tradition, instead of fizzling over the years, has only grown more sacred with time. From April to June, prom season reigns in high schools nationwide as juniors and seniors pair up, beautify, and ask older siblings to snag them some bottom-shelf booze to pass around at the after-party. But before party buses, $400 dresses, and hotel ballrooms were a thing, prom was just an annual dance that took place in the school gym under the watchful eye of teacher chaperones. With the season upon us, we decided to take a look back at the history of this peculiar institution.

1920s: The “democratic debutante ball” makes its high school debut. In theory, any student can attend a “promenade”—but teens of color are excluded thanks to Jim Crow and unequal access to education.

1930s: With the Depression in full swing, some Chicago principals cancel prom to ensure poor students aren’t “psychologically wounded.”

1950s: During the postwar boom, one advice book offers a warning: “Girls who try to usurp the right of boys to choose their own dates will ruin a good dating career.”

1960s: Despite the repeal of Jim Crow, white-only proms persist in the South.

1969: Jessica McClintock takes over dressmaker Gunne Sax and becomes America’s prom-dress queen, draping two decades of high school girls in “leg o’ mutton” styles—marked by puffy sleeves and corset bodices.

Sissy Spacek will forever be remembered as the telekinetic teen outcast in the movie Carrie, who gets drenched in pig’s blood at prom. MGM/Red Bank Films

1974: In Stephen King’s Carrie, a telekinetic outcast terrorizes her classmates at the prom. Sissy Spacek stars in the 1976 film.

1975: First daughter Susan Ford hosts prom at the White House. “I was told that we had to choose a band that didn’t have any kind of drug charge,” one organizer recalled later. “It was pretty hard.”

Susan Ford’s White House prom. Joseph H. Bailey/NGS/White House Historical Association

1979: Police in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, show up to protect the first openly gay couple in prom history. “Many students came over and congratulated us,” one of the boys said, despite threats to “tar and chicken feather” the pair.

1980: A Rhode Island senior sues his school after his principal rejects his request to bring a male prom date. A federal judge sides with the boy.

1980s: Hollywood goes gaga for prom flicks, with Valley Girl (1983), Footloose (1984), Back to the Future (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986).

Jon Cryer and Molly Ringwald in 1986’s Pretty In Pink (left). Nicholas Cage and Deborah Foreman in 1983’s Valley Girl (right). Paramount Pictures, Valley 9000/Atlantic Releasing

1994: A biracial student in Wedowee, Alabama, sues her principal and school board after they threatened to cancel prom to keep interracial couples from attending.

1997: Actor Morgan Freeman offers to cover the cost of a prom in Charleston, Mississippi, so long as all races can attend. No such luck. The city’s proms remain segregated for 11 more years.

2009: Students at Fairfax High in Los Angeles pass over eight girls to select a gay senior boy as prom queen. “Tears were almost falling down my face,” a jubilant Sergio Garcia tells ABC News.

Amy Poehler, as the obsessive mother of popular girl Regina George (Rachel McAdams) in the 2004 hit Mean Girls, snaps a shot of her daughter. Paramount

2013: A group of girls from Georgia’s Wilcox County High holds an all-inclusive prom, eschewing the segregated affairs. The school makes it official in 2014. “The adults should have done this many, many moons ago,” notes the mother of one of the girls.

2016: #promposal is the hot Instagram meme: One student gets a cop to pull a girl over and hand her a “ticket”—his prom invite. Another takes his girlfriend to a gun range, with “yes” and “no” targets set to go.

I’ve got good aim

Others are more creative in design:

Thank you for the most legendary promposal in the 607â&#157;¤ï¸&#143;

A photo posted by Shayna Will (@shayna_will) on May 11, 2016 at 4:50pm PDT

I guess being pulled over isn’t always a bad thing

Source: 

A Brief, Checkered History of Prom in America

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Brief, Checkered History of Prom in America

Watch a NASA Scientist and a Yellow Puppet Explore Greenland’s Melting Glaciers

by CerysGollan Posted on April 30, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

For a sign that Josh Willis isn’t your typical NASA scientist, let’s start with the name of his major new climate study: Oceans Melting Greenland. That’s “OMG,” if your mind isn’t the sort to instantly elide everything into texting lingo.

Willis, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, likes to inject a little humor into the science of climate change, taking to the stage and to YouTube in the hopes of spurring his audience to action. On this week’s episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast, he’s joined by special guest “Dick Dangerfield,” the swashbuckling NASA pilot who stars in Willis’ new comedy web series, “The Adventures of Dick Dangerfield.” Oh, and Dick is also a puppet. You can watch the first episode above.

Willis and Dangerfield talk with co-host Kishore Hari about NASA’s mission to study Greenland’s melting ice and its massive climate-altering potential. “Greenland contains enough ice to raise sea levels 20 feet if it all melted,” Willis says. “The big question is how fast it’s going to melt.”

`

Most research takes a top-down approach to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, Willis says, examining the flow of water as it melts off the surface of the glaciers. But due to changing ocean temperatures, the ice around the island’s edges is disappearing even more quickly than it is at the center. That’s partly due to Greenland’s unique geography; the massive glaciers “literally have a toe in the water,” he explains. They flow directly into deep ocean water that is saltier and warmer than the water near the surface. The deeper water, which is typically a few degrees Celsius above the melting point, nibbles away more ice in the warm months than can be replenished over the winter, causing the glaciers to gradually recede.

Greenland’s glaciers run directly into the ocean, plunging into warmer, saltier water beneath the surface that’s melting them from below. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech

But the exact mechanisms for this process remain poorly understood, Willis says. Scientists with the OMG project measure the heights of glaciers each year using airborne radar. They also torpedo sensors into the surrounding ocean to record temperature and salinity. In the interactions between the glacial ice and ocean water, the scientists are looking for signs of a runaway melting process similar to what has been feared in western Antarctica, where climate models suggest rapid melting could contribute to more than three feet of sea level rise by 2100.

Beyond sea level rise, scientists worry that an influx of cold freshwater from Greenland’s melting ice could itself alter the climate, bringing changes to the Atlantic currents that regulate the weather conditions of surrounding landmasses. Some regions could see an uptick in extreme weather, Willis says, while others could see extra sea level rise. But we’re unlikely to know the precise effects until we observe them happening.

But for all the gloomy uncertainty, Willis says he tries to remain optimistic about the future of Greenland’s ice. Though some melting and sea level rise is inevitable, there’s still time to avoid the biggest consequences, he says. “The question is, do you want to get hit in the head with a pingpong ball or a bowling ball?”

Inquiring Minds is a podcast hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and Kishore Hari, the director of the Bay Area Science Festival. To catch future shows right when they are released, subscribe to Inquiring Minds via iTunes or RSS. You can follow the show on Twitter at @inquiringshow, like us on Facebook, and check out show notes and other cool stuff on Tumblr.

Image: Josef Hanus/Shutterstock

See original article here:

Watch a NASA Scientist and a Yellow Puppet Explore Greenland’s Melting Glaciers

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Watch a NASA Scientist and a Yellow Puppet Explore Greenland’s Melting Glaciers

“Keystone-ization” is the fossil fuel industry’s new nightmare

by EdisonWJOkpkr Posted on April 26, 2016

“Keystone-ization” is the fossil fuel industry’s new nightmare

By on Apr 25, 2016commentsShare

“Another Pipeline Rejected” is now the go-to headline for updates on new fossil fuel infrastructure in the United States. Does the growing file of scrapped pipeline plans forecast the “Keystone-ization” of our energy future? Yes — proposals for pipelines to transport oil and natural gas are being brought down by public protest so frequently, we now have a term for it.

A quick review: On Friday, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation announced that it would not grant a necessary permit for the 124-mile Constitution Pipeline proposed to run through the northeastern United States. The Earth Day announcement came after backlash regarding potential safety issues from residents, as well as from Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who said that the plan would be “catastrophic to our air and our climate.” The DEC ultimately refused to grant the permit after concluding that the pipeline would interfere with water resources in its path.

This latest decision follows the rejection, just days prior, of a $3.1 billion natural gas plan proposed by Kinder Morgan. Before that, the 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have run through Virginia and West Virginia, was delayed earlier this year. Georgia’s 360-mile Palmetto Pipeline and Oregon’s 232-mile Pacific Connector Pipeline were both thwarted in March. All that went down in 2016 alone.

The mother of all these killed projects is, of course, the Keystone XL pipeline, a $7 billion undertaking that would have ferried 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada to the Gulf Coast — had President Barack Obama not vetoed it last November. Since that decision, the phrase “Keystone-ization” has come to connote the death of a proposed oil and gas pipeline — often due to public backlash.

“Fifty years ago, people in the U.S. were much more accepting of new pipelines and new infrastructure,” Rob Jackson, a professor at the Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment who studies energy use and climate change, told Grist. “Today, people don’t want new pipelines and nuclear power plants near their homes and schools. The failure of Keystone emboldened people to fight the next project.”

“Keystone-ization” has become a rallying cry for writer and climate activist Bill McKibben, who uses it to encourage activists to protest new fossil fuel infrastructure. (Editor’s note: Bill McKibben is a member of Grist’s board). McKibben, however, repurposed it — how green of him — from Marty Durbin, President and CEO of America’s Natural Gas Alliance. Durbin said last year that the pipeline had become a model for climate activists, noting that it has changed the way fossil fuel companies operate:

“These aren’t new issues. These are things that pipeline developers have had to deal with for a long time. But we’ve seen a change in the debate. I hesitate to put it this way, but call it the Keystone-ization of every pipeline project that’s out there, that if you can stop one permit, you can stop the development of fossil fuels. That’s changing the way we have to manage these projects.”

Killing a pipeline plan, Jackson explained, could prevent fossil fuel extraction on the condition that there is no other way for the resources to reach the market. But in the case of oil, it also could backfire. If no pipeline is available, oil may travel by train. According to Jackson, pipelines look like a safer option when considering the terrible track record of oil train derailments — and therefore, the “Keystone-ization” of proposed pipelines may not be such a good thing after all.

At the same time, if oil prices remain low (as they are now), the cost of rail transport can be prohibitive — and when a pipeline is rejected, extracting the oil it was meant to transport may no longer be a profitable decision. If this is the case, Jackson explains, nixing a pipeline may help keep fossil fuels in the ground.

“Some people fight pipelines because they oppose any fossil fuel use. Viewed through that lens, blocking oil and gas pipelines makes sense,” said Jackson. “You will see a fight for every new pipeline from now on, I guarantee it.”

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Link – 

“Keystone-ization” is the fossil fuel industry’s new nightmare

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Northeastern, ONA, organic, PUR, Radius, Safer, The Atlantic, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on “Keystone-ization” is the fossil fuel industry’s new nightmare

This Is What It’s Like to Try to Sue Donald Trump

by VickiGerard366 Posted on March 28, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Of the many targets of Republican presidential contenders’ attacks on Donald Trump—and there have been plenty to choose from—one of their favorites has been Trump University. The now-shuttered educational enterprise (forced to change its name to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative after the New York education department found its moniker to be misleading) is accused, in three separate lawsuits, of defrauding thousands of students into taking on massive debt they now can’t pay back by falsely marketing itself as a road to Trump-level wealth and business success.

But Trump University isn’t the only Trump endeavor that has landed in court. The tycoon has launched—or lent his name to—a slew of business ventures that have yielded frustrated customers and investors who have sought legal recourse. There are hundreds of lawsuits extending over 43 years that name Trump or one of his businesses. Here’s an incomplete list of some of those legal skirmishes that began when Trump joined his father’s business and continue through his run for the GOP nomination.

Trump Management: In 1973, the Department of Justice brought a lawsuit against Donald Trump and his father’s company, Trump Management, for alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act in connection with 39 buildings it operated. The DOJ alleged that building administrators racially coded apartment applications to secretly ensure that black applicants would be denied. The case was settled in 1975, without an admission of guilt from Trump Management.

Trump Tower: In 1980, Trump hired a contractor to demolish an old building to clear the way for Trump Tower, the midtown Manhattan skyscraper that today houses Trump’s main digs and the headquarters of the Trump Organization. To meet Trump’s deadline, the contractor hired 200 undocumented Polish laborers and kept them off the books, paying them $4 or $5 an hour—the minimum wage in 1980 was $3.10—and often requiring that they work 12-hour days with no overtime. In 1983, members of the local Wreckers Union filed a class action lawsuit against Trump for $4 million in unpaid union pensions and other contributions that would help increase benefits for some of the Polish workers. Many of the workers also alleged that they hadn’t been paid the full wages they were due. Throughout the case and even recently, Trump has insisted that he wasn’t aware his contractor had hired these Polish workers. The courts didn’t buy it. “We find that a conspiracy to deprive the funds of their rightful contributions has been shown,” wrote the district court judge in a 1991 ruling. “There is strong evidence of tacit agreement by the parties…to employ the Polish workers and to deprive them of the benefits ordinarily accorded to non-union workers on a union job, including contributions to the funds based on their wages.” The case was settled in 1999 for an undisclosed amount and sealed, but Rubio brought it up several times during a GOP debate in February.

Trump’s Atlantic City casinos: Between 1991 and 2009, four Trump ventures declared bankruptcy, three of them involving his hotel and casino empire in Atlantic City, New Jersey. These bankruptcies spawned a number of lawsuits. Here are three, including one from his own lawyer:

Trump was sued by a market analyst who predicted the bankruptcy of the Trump Taj Mahal casino years before it opened in 1990: When Trump was planning the Taj Mahal in the late 1980s, a market analyst named Marvin Roffman made it clear that he thought the venture wouldn’t succeed. Two weeks before the casino’s opening, after his dismal prediction about the casino’s future was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, a furious Trump called the Philadelphia brokerage firm where he worked, Janney Montgomery Scott, demanding an apology and threatening to sue. Roffman issued an apology, rescinded it, and was then fired. First Roffman sued his former firm for wrongful termination—settling for $750,000—and then, in July 1990, he sued Trump, later settling for an undisclosed amount.
Trump’s shareholders begged the bankruptcy court to derail Trump’s plan to reorganize his Atlantic City casinos as a “basket of goodies” for himself: In 2004, Trump Hotel & Casino Resorts declared bankruptcy. When the company and the bankruptcy court came up with a plan to reorganize the business, stockholders in the company filed documents with the bankruptcy court asking the judge to cut off Trump’s exclusive right to direct the reorganization of the casinos. They wrote in their filing that the current plan gave a “basket of goodies” to Trump—including a $2 million-a-year salary for his job as chairman—leaving virtually nothing for investors. Ultimately, the shareholders’ appeals were acknowledged and Trump Hotel & Casino Resorts agreed to pay the investors $17.5 million. It is unclear what happened to Trump’s salary.
A law firm won $50 million for Trump Entertainment but then had to sue its former client after Trump Entertainment tried to avoid paying its legal fees by claiming bankruptcy: In 2008, the law firm Levine Staller began filing tax appeals for the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza, and Trump Marina. Its work saved Trump’s company lots of money: In 2012, Levine Staller won a settlement that returned $35 million in overpaid taxes and cut $15 million from the company’s future liabilities, leading to a total savings of $50 million for the corporation. Trump agreed to pay $7.25 million to the law firm in legal fees, but then only paid Levine Staller $6 million before trying to claim the rest as unsecured debt in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. In response, Levine Staller sued its former client, Trump Entertainment, and in 2014, a judge rejected Trump Entertainment’s request to be absolved of this debt and told the company to pay up.
Two Trump casino dealers filed (and later lost) a sex discrimination case after they were fired for wearing ponytails: In 1996, two male casino dealers at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City got fired after repeatedly refusing to comply with a new grooming policy at the casino that required men’s hair to be no longer than “mid-collar.” Both dealers wore ponytails, and received multiple warnings before being terminated. Once officially fired, they filed a case against Trump Plaza alleging that sex-differentiated hair policies are discriminatory, as well as several other charges. Both a lower court and the superior court of New Jersey ruled on behalf of Trump Plaza, saying that the hair length policy did not constitute sex discrimination.

Trump SoHo: In 2010, a group of buyers who had purchased condos at Trump SoHo, a luxury hotel and condo building in lower Manhattan, sued the Trump Organization, which managed the building, and the group of developers who had constructed it. They alleged that they were duped into buying these properties by representatives of Trump SoHo, who had exaggerated the building’s sales and instilled a false sense of confidence in future buyers about the project’s potential for success. The building was planned as a mixed-use condo and hotel project: Buyers could live in their properties only for a designated number of days each year, and the rest of the time their homes would be rented to hotel guests, with the buyer and Trump SoHo sharing rental revenue. In their complaint, the buyers said that they had been misled in the personal pitches and statements to the press made by representatives of Trump SoHo, who said the project was “30, 40, 50, 60 percent or more” sold. In reality, only 16 percent of the building’s units were sold—just 1 percent more than is needed to start an offering plan, a document for buyers that outlines the details of a construction project that is under development. A year later, the buyers settled with the sponsors of Trump SoHo after they promised to refund 90 percent of the apartment deposits. Trump SoHo was completed in 2010 and was purchased by CIM Group in 2014 after going into foreclosure proceedings because it couldn’t find enough buyers. Roughly two-thirds of the units still haven’t been sold.

Trump Tower Tampa: In 2009, a group of at least 20 condo buyers sued Trump for overselling his role in the development of a luxury condo project in Tampa that was ultimately never built and remains an empty lot to this day. Buyers put down 20 percent deposits on 190 units that cost between $700,000 and nearly $6 million, in part because the project’s marketing materials persuaded them that Trump was behind the development of the building. In fact, he had only lent his name to the project through a licensing agreement. The case was ultimately settled, with some buyers getting back as little as $11,115, after investing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Trump Baja: Tampa was not the only place where condo buyers sued Trump for overselling his role in a project. In 2010, over 100 condo buyers sued Trump after they lost millions of dollars in deposits they’d put down on apartments in Trump Ocean Resort Baja, a planned luxury oceanfront hotel and condo building near Tijuana, Mexico, that was never built. The property was foreclosed on in 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, before construction had begun. Buyers had been given the impression that Trump was developing the property—a selling point for many—but when the project was foreclosed on, it turned out that he had merely licensed his name to the venture. The lawsuit accused Trump of fraud and violating federal disclosure laws, among other charges, and a confidential settlement was secured in 2013.

Trump Model Management: In October 2014, Jamaican fashion model Alexia Palmer filed a lawsuit against Trump’s modeling agency. She alleged that Trump Model Management had engaged in “fraudulent misrepresentation” and violated immigration and labor laws when it agreed, as part of her visa application, to pay her a $75,000 annual salary, but then didn’t pay anywhere close to that amount. Palmer says she was paid just $3,880.75 over three years. Trump Model Management filed a motion to dismiss the case, and a New York district judge dismissed the case in March 2016.

The chefs: In June 2015, while announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination, Trump memorably described Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.” On July 8, acclaimed restaurateur José Andrés announced that he was pulling his restaurant from Trump’s planned Washington, DC, hotel due to the candidate’s comments. Shortly after, Geoffrey Zakarian, a second chef with an agreement to open an eatery at the hotel, also withdrew. In July and August, Trump sued Andrés’ company and Zakarian‘s firm for breach of contract, asking each for $10 million in damages and lost rent. About a month later, both chefs counter-sued Trump, alleging that the real breach of contract was on his side. As Andrés explained in his lawsuit, which sought $8 million in damages, Trump’s decision to disparage immigrants made it difficult to run a Spanish restaurant associated with his name. From Andrés’ complaint: “The perception that Mr. Trump’s statements were anti-Hispanic made it very difficult to recruit appropriate staff for a Hispanic restaurant, to attract the requisite number of Hispanic food patrons for a profitable enterprise, and to raise capital for what was now an extraordinarily risky Spanish restaurant.” BLT Prime, a steak restaurant chain, has since agreed to open a location in Trump’s DC hotel.

In February, as proceedings in the Andrés-Trump legal battle moved forward, internal Trump organization emails were submitted as part of court proceedings. After an email from Andrés’ company said the company was getting blow-back over Trump’s statements on immigrants, a Trump Organization vice president sent an email to Ivanka Trump. “Ugh,” the vice president wrote. “This is not surprising and would expect that this will not be the last that we hear of it. At least for formal, prepared speeches, can someone vet going forward? Hopefully the Latino community does not organize against us more broadly in DC/across Trump properties.”

Originally posted here:  

This Is What It’s Like to Try to Sue Donald Trump

Posted in alternative energy, Anchor, ATTRA, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, solar, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Is What It’s Like to Try to Sue Donald Trump

This Genius Babysitter Created a Simple Game That Will Make Every Kid a Feminist

by AndreasLwm Posted on March 27, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

My friend Emily Stout is an actress in New York who baby-sits on the side. She created a game to play with little Sal, age 9, and it is so great that I have to share it with you. (Also what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t use it to point to your friends when they do something cool?)

(function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)0; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

New favorite babysitting game:Every historical woman you can name earns you 10 seconds of Candy Crush. Each round…

Posted by

(if you can’t read that post, here’s what it says:)

New favorite babysitting game:

Every historical woman you can name earns you 10 seconds of Candy Crush. Each round lasts one minute.

Round 1 with Sal Liebman, age 9:

Sal: “Ummmm…..okay okay.

1) Harriet Tubman who invented an underground tunnel to free slaves, okay

2) Amelia Earhart, first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean, ummmm

3) Ann something, Ann something, Annie Mary? The first woman on Ellis island!

4) okay okay, umm, her name is Melba I think? Melba and she was the first African American trombone player in a symphony, like a real symphony, uhhhh

5) ugh this is hard, this is hard, can I do someone I know? Okay, my mom, one of the scientists at Columbia who watches yeast in the nighttime and the daytime…. Does that count?”

Me: “Is she a smart woman changing history?”

Sal: “Yeah…?”

Me: “Yeah, it counts.”

Sal: “Okay, one more and I get a full minute. Ahhh!! This is so hard! It’s hard cause I can only think of men right now!”

Me: “….whose problem is that?”

Sal: “Please can I have a whole minute?? Please?!”

Me: “No way if you can’t name me another lady! There are hundreds!”

Sal: “Uh, uh, okay, um, UM, Emily Stout, the best babysitter in the whole world with the silliest laugh and nicest person with so many fun things and games?!?”

Me: “…………………alright, yeah you got it.”

As one of the commenters put it on her post, “you’re doing the lord’s work.” Amen.

Continue reading here:

This Genius Babysitter Created a Simple Game That Will Make Every Kid a Feminist

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Stout, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Genius Babysitter Created a Simple Game That Will Make Every Kid a Feminist

Donald Trump Can’t Stop Trash-Talking Jeb Bush

by Hildred8078 Posted on February 8, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Has Jeb Bush finally gotten under Donald Trump’s skin? During a town hall this morning in Salem, New Hampshire, the real estate mogul and GOP front-runner spent an unusual amount of time trashing Bush, who is polling near the back of the pack heading into Tuesday’s primary, calling him a “lightweight,” “not a smart man,” “stiff,” and a “spoiled child.”

Throughout the campaign, Trump has relished in needling Bush, portraying him as a weak momma’s boy who would struggle to find a job outside of government. But his Bush-bashing has escalated on the eve of the primary, in which most polls suggest Trump is going to crush his competition by a sizable margin.

Does Trump have reason to think Bush is poised to do better than expected in New Hampshire and perhaps claw his way back into the race? Or does he just take special pleasure in belittling his struggling rival?

Continue Reading »

Source:  

Donald Trump Can’t Stop Trash-Talking Jeb Bush

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump Can’t Stop Trash-Talking Jeb Bush

The Six Best Moments of the GOP Debate

by OliverGarner Posted on February 7, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

With a few days to go before the New Hampshire primary, the seven top Republican contenders—Carly Fiorina and Jim Gilmore didn’t make the cut— met for a debate at St. Anselm College. Donald Trump,who skipped the last debate because Fox wouldn’t remove moderator Megyn Kelly from the lineup, seemed more subdued than in past performances, though he received a loud round of boos when he tried to silence Jeb Bush during an exchange over eminent domain. (More on that below.) Tonight was all about the revenge of the governors—particularly Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, who put in some of their strongest appearances. Things didn’t go so well, however, for Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who received a drubbing from their opponents. Here’s a recap of the debate’s best moments.

Continue Reading »

Continued here: 

The Six Best Moments of the GOP Debate

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Oster, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Six Best Moments of the GOP Debate