New Product

Dave Smith, Business Insider:

Sam Morrison likes to create thought-provoking art.

In high school, he made silk-screen shirts and decks of cards with secret compartments inside. But over the past several years, most of his projects were digital — that is, until he had the idea last year to make physical flip-flops out of President Donald Trump's tweets.

"Take a scroll through Donald Trump's 40,000 tweets, and you're sure to catch some contradicting opinions," Morrison told Business Insider over email. "I wanted to highlight this hypocrisy."

Morrison had a full-time job in the advertising industry at the time, but he got to work on producing his flip-flops. He sourced his own materials and printed and packaged every flip-flop by hand.

He made 1000 pairs, and they sold out in less than a month.

Today's Tweet

45* is that guy who desperately needs you to think he's got it all dialed in. But then he starts talking and you realize his strangle-hold on the obvious has him mesmerized to the point that he believes that what he's saying is just as amazing to you as it is to him, when it's actually what keeps him from making any cogent connections between his idiotic ideas and whatever normal people might consider reasonable and actionable plans.

“my favorite way to listen to the president is slowed down to 1/2 speed because it reveals how often times his logic is indistinguishable from that of a drunk person” - via @arlenparsa pic.twitter.com/lfGu1FdU2J

— ᴿealfarmacist (@real_farmacist) January 5, 2019

Resources

Water is kinda the main thing we need to be concerned with.

Even the Druids knew that much.

JR Roberts, Daily Camera OpEd:

Next time you lift a glass of water to your lips, take a moment. Please reflect on where it comes from. Most people haven't a clue.

Rivers from snowpack? Only partly. Less understood is that the mountains are not really like steep roofs that shed their meltwater bounty directly to us down surface watersheds. Our mountains are more like deeply-stacked sponges. Their underlying fractured rock substrata hold far more water in their cracks than reservoirs do. Underground water flows into and out of rivers and streams all the way down and out onto the plains.

To have enough clean water, we must maintain the health and volume of our deep, spongy, groundwater exchanges.

Call Gov. Jared Polis. Demand revisions to the Colorado Water Plan that include more attention to our support base of groundwater resources. Stop pollution and protect the vital health of aquifers and wetlands.

You're drinking from a deep, giant sponge. Please, think deep.

John Roberts
Boulder

Tara Lohan, EcoWatch:

In the last few weeks of 2018, the Trump administration set the stage for a big battle over water in the new year. At stake is an important rule that defines which waters are protected under the Clean Water Act. The Trump administration seeks to roll back important protections for wetlands and waterways, which are important to drinking water and wildlife.

This is just one of the upcoming water battles that could serve to define 2019. It's also poised to be a year of reckoning on the Colorado River, which supplies water to 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of farmland. A long-anticipated multi-state agreement is close to completion after an ultimatum from the federal government. And it could also be a landmark year for water management in California, with several key issues coming to a head.

Big things may also happen on the water infrastructure front and in efforts to address clean-water concerns. Of course, underlying many of the water issues is the specter of climate change, which is bringing both severe droughts and floods and exacerbating water-supply problems.

• Clean Water Rule Change
• Colorado River Agreement
• Climate Change
• California's Grand Bargain
• Infrastructure and Clean Water

Public Econ 101

The system of Corporate Welfare because of the revolving multi-dimensional doors between Congress, the Executive, and the Private Sector - all of that has to be squashed.

It's hard not to go along with the "radical left" when they tell me there's only the illusion of choice - a false image of democracy - here in USAmerica Inc.

Do your reading:

We have some real problems, and pushing back against those who want to keep this thing under a Minority Rule regime will take decades - generations prob'ly.

But we know how to start.  Because we have started - we gave ourselves a fair start last November. We know we've finally got the thing going, even as we struggle with fully recognizing that we've actually begun anything.

Yeah, OK, that last bit was a little weird and wishy-washy. The point though is that we've taken the good first step in that Confucius-ey journey of a thousand miles.

• HR1 is a solid message, and a great place to start the 116th Congress.
• AOC's proposal to raise the marginal tax rate is a good one.
• Bernie's ideas on Single Payer Healthcare are good ones.
• Hillary's approach to a graduated minimum Wage Raise is a good one.

We didn't fuck it all up yesterday. We're not going to get all of it unfucked by tomorrow.

And one election don't mean jack shit if we go back to letting the bad guys keep us divided. If we let the Bots and the Trolls convince us that our fellow travelers are the enemy. That it can only be a choice between Perfection and Nothing-At-All.

I'm not against the BernieBros - I'm not fed up with the HillBots - Im not going to shit on Left-Leaning Libertarians - just because I don't align perfectly with everything they say.

I'm even going to work on being more OK with Republicans for that matter - as long they're not completely fuckin' crazed, and there's some common ground that I think I can find.

I'll not be perfect in this quest. It's more than a little likely that I'll be as combative and caustic and asshole-ish as I've always been. I won't be withdrawing from the field and ceding the outcome to anyone. But I'm going to try to be more aware that I need help from as many people as possible to get the things on my agenda done.

A Quick Review

45* knows more about everything than anybody ever.

Today's Tweet

It's not gonna get any better any time soon, Kevin.

Kevin McCarthy’s face when Trump says he can declare martial law to get his wall pic.twitter.com/zzjI6l8epl

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) January 4, 2019

The Wave

...continues.

Dave Weigel, WaPo:

The new Democratic majority in the House will hold the first hearings on Medicare-for-All legislation, a longtime goal of the party’s left, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi lent her support for the process.

“It’s a huge step forward to have the speaker’s support,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who will be the House sponsor of the legislation, usually denoted as HR 676. “We have to push on the inside while continuing to build support for this on the outside.”

Some version of universal health care has been a Democratic goal for decades. The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, first introduced in 2003 by then-Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, has become the vehicle for Democrats who want to bring single-payer, Canada-style health care to the United States.

That legislation was typically sidelined, even when Democrats had power; in 2009 and 2010, when the House passed the Affordable Care Act, the “Medicare-for-All” package was not part of the discussion. But in his 2016 campaign for president, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) championed Medicare for All. The following year, for the first time, a majority of House Democrats co-sponsored HR 676.

Pelosi seems to be taking the FDR approach: "Sounds like a great idea - now get out there and find people who'll help you make me do it."

Like a boss.

Today's Tweet

Take a pill - maybe some dramamine - before you follow the link to the MSNBC video.

Trump sows more shutdown chaos amid growing alarm over Soviet claim@NicolleDWallace w/ @JoyceWhiteVance @McFaul & Chuck Rosenberghttps://t.co/HdehgEPu1e

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) January 4, 2019

Seems this is one those times when running around like your hair's on fire is the only sensible response.

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