Big Coal Fights Back, Crowd Control
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Vol. 4, No. 216
Regulation: A coalition of states, coal producers, and power companies immediately announced plans to fight President Obama’s new greenhouse gas regulations. A lawyer for the coalition said at the announcement, “Our coalition, in short order, will comprise of many states, consumers, mine workers, coal operators, utilities and businesses who are united in opposition to this radical and illegal policy.”
The President’s proposed regulations, based on the Clean Air Act, are the first attempt to regulate emissions from coal-fire power plants. One of the primary rules would require that, by the year 2025, existing power plants must reduce overall greenhouse emissions to 32 percent of their 2005 levels.
Nation: A 29-year-old ex convict turned himself in for the murder of a Memphis police officer. Police say off. Sean Bolton interrupted a drug deal in an illegally parked car car Saturday night and Tremaine Wilbourn shot him several times.
>After national outrage over two Americans accused of illegally killing African lions, Delta Airlines announced it will no longer ship home big game hunting trophies. The airline said it will not ship ship lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo trophies.
Politics: Senate Democrats blocked an effort by the Republicans to take $500 million in federal funding away from Planned Parenthood after the release of videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood employees discussing illegal sales of aborted fetal tissue. The Republicans are likely to keep trying, but they have failed before.
Planned Parenthood has long been a target of Republicans because it offers abortions, but by law no federal money can be used for that purpose. Congress would be cutting money that goes for birth control and women’s health. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the Republican move “just one more piece of a deliberate, methodical, orchestrated, right-wing attack on women’s rights.”
The Obit Page: One of the smart guys who created the automatic-drip coffee maker and introduced “Mr. Coffee” to America, has died in Ohio at age 91. Vincent Marotta Sr. and his partner Samuel Glazer made the automatic drip machine to replace the messy and hard to clean electric percolator. Mr. Coffee was introduced in 1972 and almost immediately changed how coffee was made in America. Marotta was a former baseball player who enlisted the legendary Joe Dimaggio to be the company’s pitchman and some people ended up thinking he was famous for coffee, not baseball.
Mugged in Philly: A hitchhiking robot that had safely hitched its way across Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands ended its American journey beaten and dismembered in a Philadelphia alley. The cylindrical child-sized robot named hitchBot was the invention of two Canadian college professors. Its body had operating instructions and a hitch list of desired destinations. HitchBot made it from Boston to New York and then to Philadelphia, where it was last seen in one piece sitting on a bench in The City of Brotherly Love.
Crowd Control: Fox News will announce later today which Republican candidates have the polling numbers to make the final cut for Thursday’s 10-candidate debate.
Political junkies got a preview last night with a candidate forum at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, which Donald Trump skipped because he said it was a waste of time. Some highlights ….
-Carly Fiorina: “I started out as a secretary.”
-Rick Perry: “Mr. President, if you don’t secure the border, Texas will.”
-Chris Christie: “Are you saying I’m washed up?”
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