Demonstrators in Colorado cities protest white supremacists

Ft. Collins Coloradoan

Demonstrators marched and waved signs in at least four Colorado cities after a white supremacist rally in Virginia turned deadly.

Rallies were held Sunday in Denver, Durango, Fort Collins and Lafayette.

In Fort Collins, marchers chanted “Everyone is welcome here. No hate, no fear.” One demonstrator’s sign said, “Make racists ashamed again.”

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While I applaud the fact that they are doing what they think they should to fight hate, I question their perception on the reasons they felt they had to. Are there signs in that crowd that decry the actions of the BLM along with those that decry the actions of the KKK? If not, isn't that being racist?

Opinion: Trump’s weak statement failed the people of Charlottesville and the rest of us

Fresno Bee

Words matter, but so does policy. Graham and Cruz called for investigations into such groups. They should make sure the U.S. Justice Department follows through.

Trump, for his part, needs to take a stand. He goes out of his way to denounce terrorists who claim to be followers of Islam, no matter where they strike. It should not be difficult to call white terrorists what they are, especially because they are responsible for so many more acts of domestic terrorism.

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This is all well and good, AS LONG AS while we are investigating the KKK and other groups like it, we don't forget to also investigate the BLM and the ANTIFA group that instigated the violence in the first place. It was, however, not a BLM or ANTIFA person driving the car. When a black man commits an atrocity like this, he is usually not on psychotropic drugs, either. Perhaps we need to investigate that, as well. As a matter of fact, it's just come out recently that all of the suicides of military men and women have been by our finest who are on psychotropic drugs. Is anyone getting this?

Crash suspect’s ex-teacher says he idolized Hitler, Nazism

Fairfield Republic

The young man accused of plowing a car into a crowd of people protesting a white supremacist rally was fascinated with Nazism, idolized Adolf Hitler, and had been singled out by school officials in the 9th grade for his “deeply held, radical” convictions on race, a former high school teacher said Sunday.

James Alex Fields Jr. also confided that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger and had been prescribed an anti-psychotic medication, Derek Weimer said in an interview with The Associated Press.

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Schizophrenia. Anti-psychotic medication. Go Figure. Also, just because the KKK was there does not make it a
"white supremacist rally". When are people going to stand up and tell the main stream media to either do proper research before publicizing trash or suffer the consequences, including but not limited to the dollars people spend on them.

Local residents protest Virginia violence

Fort Smith Southwest Times Record

A group of local residents came together to make protest the violence that horrified the country this weekend.

More than a dozen demonstrators gathered in front of the U.S. Post Office at 3318 S. 74th St. in Fort Smith on Sunday in response to the death and injuries that took place in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday. A car plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally, killing one person and injuring at least two dozen more. The white nationalists gathered to protest plans to remove a statue of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

A helicopter crash that killed the pilot and a passenger later Saturday afternoon outside the town was also linked by Virginia State Police to the rally.

Sunday’s event, which began at 3 p.m., was organized by Indivisible Fort Smith & Western Arkansas. Those involved held up signs with phrases that spoke out against racism and hatred as people drove by on South 74th Street, some of whom honked their horns in approval. Other demonstrators took to chanting, shouting slogans such as “No more hate,” “No more Charlottesville,” and “Let’s make a difference” to all who passed by.

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NY Times gets VERY bad news on Palin’s defamation lawsuit

Allen B. West

Bad news for the New York Times, but former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin just got some excellent news concerning her defamation lawsuit against the rag paper. The suit was filed after the NYT posted an editorial piece that accused Palin of playing a role in instigating the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

Now the authors of the piece are being ordered to testify in court.

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ABOR: No plan to raise Dreamer tuition

Flagstaff: Arizona Daily Sun

Saying they're comfortable with their decision, members of the Board of Regents told Attorney General Mark Brnovich Thursday they have no plans to hike tuition for dreamers — at least not until the Supreme Court orders them to do it.

In a letter to Michael Bailey, Brnovich's chief deputy, regents President Eileen Klein urged him not to pursue legal action against the board over the policy to allow those in the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to pay in-state tuition if they meet other residency requirements.

She acknowledged that the Court of Appeals ruled just last month that an identical policy by the Maricopa County Community College District governing board is illegal. In that lawsuit brought by the attorney general's office, the judges said that policy violates both state and federal law.

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Alaska governor, senators respond to Korean missile threat

Fairbanks News Miner

Tension between the U.S. and North Korea after bold statements from leaders of both nations has raised concern among Alaska’s top civilian officials.

Gov. Bill Walker said he was “concerned” about a missile potentially hitting the state.

Given Alaska’s strategic location as the second-closest state to North Korea, behind Hawaii, these recent developments underscore the need to expand military presence in the state, Walker said.

“No one’s hiding under the desk that I know of at this point,” Walker said in an interview for Politico’s “Off Message” podcast that was released Tuesday. “But we do have to make sure we have the technology and awareness of what could happen.”

Alaska is in the trajectory zone from North Korea, Walker said.

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Strange: I'm frustrated with Washington

Florence Times Daily

U.S. Sen. Luther Strange said Washington is a frustrating place, and the behavior of some of his colleagues only makes matters worse.

Strange, a Republican, is only a few months into the job, and faces challenges to hold onto the position in Tuesday's primary election.

He spoke Thursday during a lunch meeting of the Shoals Chamber of Commerce, where one of his rivals, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, spoke the day before.

"I'm just as frustrated as I can be," he said. "We've spun our wheels and accomplished nothing."

Strange, who was endorsed this week by President Donald Trump via Twitter, said the only hope of addressing health care and the Affordable Care Act is for Republicans and Democrats to come together and hash out their differences.

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Sens. Franken, Wyden Lead Push to Stop Trump Administration From Ending Protections for Nursing Home Residents

Washington, D.C. - August 11, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Sens. Al Franken and Ron Wyden are leading a major effort to push the Trump Administration's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to abandon a proposal to scrap protections that prevent nursing homes and long-term care facilities from locking residents into forced arbitration agreements.

"Forced arbitration clauses in nursing home agreements stack the deck against residents and their families who face a wide range of potential harms, including physical abuse and neglect, sexual assault, and even wrongful death at the hands of those working in and managing long-term care facilities," the Senators wrote in a letter Monday to CMS Administrator Seema Verma. "These clauses prevent many of our country's most vulnerable individuals from seeking justice in a court of law, and instead funnel all types of legal claims, no matter how egregious, into a privatized dispute resolution system that is often biased toward the nursing home."

The Senators, joined on the letter by 29 of their colleagues, went on to write, "Therefore, we strongly urge CMS to fully protect many of our nation's most vulnerable individuals by withdrawing this proposal and sustaining and fully enforcing the existing restrictions on pre-dispute arbitration clauses in long-term care facility contracts."

You can read the full letter by clicking HERE

Senators to Treasury: Crack Down on Corporate Inversions

Washington, D.C. - August 11, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) joined with Senate Democrats to call on the Treasury Department to strengthen efforts to prevent corporate inversions, which occur when companies move overseas on paper in order to avoid paying taxes in the United States. It is estimated that inversions cost the federal government more than $100 billion in lost tax revenue each year.

“These schemes are deeply unfair to American taxpayers who fund the programs and protections that many of these corporations use to grow and thrive as they make significant profits,” the senators wrote. “In return, these corporations choose to desert their tax responsibility here at home, further eroding the U.S. tax base.”