Tag: cowards

A reminder of picturesque Mississippi

2 Comments


Photograph: Emmett Till Interpretive Center

A sign riddled with bullet holes marks the spot where, in 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till’s mutilated body was pulled from Mississippi’s Tallahatchie River. Two white men lynched Till for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Site markers such as this one were defaced and replaced repeatedly until 2019, when a 500-pound steel sign—bulletproof and indestructible— was installed.

Emmett Till was lynched a few months after I graduated from high school. I remember the news stories – in most of the North – as clearly as anything else about that summer. The so-called trial of the men who murdered that 14-year-old Black youth found them Not Guilty.

US cannabis industry’s big problem: Too much cash

2 Comments


Matthew Hatcher/Reuters

Marijuana can be sold legally in 36 US states and the District of Columbia (DC) for medical use and in 15 of them and in DC for recreational purposes. But it is still illegal on a federal level, meaning most banks refuse to service the industry in case they fall afoul of money laundering laws…

With the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing legalisation driving a surge in cannabis use, the sector’s producers, manufacturers and retailers are awash in cash, adding risk and costs to the most basic business transactions from paying employees and filing taxes to finding somewhere to store their income…

Legal US cannabis sales grew 30 percent to $22bn last year, more than the $17.5bn Americans spent on wine, according to data from Euromonitor. Sales are expected to jump more than 20 percent this year…

The House of Representatives passed a bill in April that would allow cannabis firms to have bank accounts, get loans and accept credit card payments but it may not make it to the Senate because Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wants to work instead towards lifting the federal ban on cannabis.

A full federal green light is the industry’s ultimate goal but it is not counting on Schumer’s pledge to make it happen by next year.

Ah, yes. Several solutions are at hand. All that is needed is decision, a vote, and implementation by Congress. And our politicians are so good at getting that part done, eh?

Mitch McConnell says Trump provoked the Capitol riot!

5 Comments

President Donald Trump helped provoke the swarms of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday…

“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell told the chamber, which two weeks earlier had been evacuated as rioters invaded the building. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”

The GOP leader made the direct link between the Republican president’s rhetoric and the Jan. 6 riot, which left five dead, the day before President-elect Joe Biden was to be sworn in as the 46th president…

McConnell’s remarks also suggested that other leaders bore responsibility for the attack. Critics have called on some lawmakers, especially GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, to resign after they objected to key states’ electoral results.

Gee, do you think our elected officials are ready to stand up all righteous and take responsibility for what they’ve done?

Me, neither.

Trump sics his attack dog flunkies onto John Bolton

9 Comments

The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the possibility that former national security adviser John Bolton “unlawfully disclosed classified information” in a memoir he published earlier this year, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Citing conversations with three people familiar with the matter, the Times said DOJ “has convened a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for communications records from Simon & Schuster, the publisher” of Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” which was released in June…

Bolton, who served for a time as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has said he has complied with all of the revisions requested by the White House.

Someone on staff, no doubt, read the 2-paragraph condensed version to the Fake President.