AKSARBENT humbly suggests a solution to Nebraska's state flag problem

Today the New York Times looked at efforts to replace Nebraska's flag, so lackluster that it flew for several days outside the state Capitol in Lincoln upside down (while the Unicameral was in session) before anyone noticed. Like many state flags, it has a terrible design:

     Mr. Hartvigsen’s organization suggests principles for successful flag design: simple concepts, a distinct look, bold colors and no words.

     Nebraska’s banner violates nearly all of them.

     “It’s a flag that would be easy to fly upside down with nobody noticing,” Mr. Hartvigsen said.

     Redesigning state logos is fraught with danger:

Last year, a new license plate design was tweaked after critics said it was historically inaccurate and sexually suggestive.

     AKSARBENT covered that imbroglio here and OmahaLive! mocked it twice:





     Nebraska's flag, created in 1925, is simply the state seal superimposed on a blue banner, and therein lies the problem.
     You can't have an improved state flag without an improved state seal!
      AKSARBENT sensibly suggests a state seal that is more like one of the following, although our ideal state flag would feature two baked cowboys bathing in a stock tank from which a cow and horse were drinking, with a whooping crane perched on the cow, and a windmill pump in the background on one side with a wind turbine on the other (old and new, get it?) and the Nebraska state Capitol in the background, tilting slightly to the right like on that painting which used to hang in P.O. Pears in Lincoln.

Donald Trump is still driving his golf cart on the greens

The last time evidence of Trump's lack of golf etiquette surfaced on social media, it was in the form of a twitter video showing him driving his cart off a green. His idiotically indulgent supporters excused their buffoon with variations of "It's his course, he can do what he wants."
     Um, no. Not when he's charging members hefty club dues and guests similarly hefty greens fees and they expect not to have to put past turf tire tracks.

Inspector Clouseau, Walmart is on line 3

The picture is not photoshopped, as what it depicts in Walmart's Evansville, Indiana store has already brought a twitter apology from the big box chain. We think it's a brilliant inside job by a PR saboteur who is way smarter than you would expect most Walmart employees to be.

Holy shit, WalMart. pic.twitter.com/FiMdAms0c3

— jordan 🌹🌹 (@JordanUhl) August 9, 2017

IA GOP hits Dem with nasty anti-trans ads, then loses by 10 points in House district Trump won by 22

In a Southeast Iowa special House election to replace Curt Hanson, who died in office, the IA GOP targeted  Democratic veterinarian Phil Miller of Fairfield with nasty attack ads scapegoating transgender kids.
     Result: Miller beat Republican farmer Travis Harri, of Davis County, by ten points (55-45%), in a swing district that Donald Trump won in November by 22 points.

     From Iowa Starting Line:
     Republicans ran an intensely negative campaign on TV, attacking Miller for his vote on the Fairfield School Board to keep a policy on transgender bathrooms in place. The ordeal was a huge local controversy in Fairfield for most of 2016, and Republicans whipped up the anti-transgender sentiment despite a recent transgender teen’s suicide in June.
     ...Miller won a massive victory in Jefferson County, where the controversy burned the hottest, racking up a margin far larger than Hanson’s there in 2009.

The results by county:

	Miller	Harris
Jefferson	2,792	1,200
Davis	617	1,093
Van Buren	612	1,031
	4,021	3,324

Omaha accident of the week: Ferrari 458

A 2015 Ferrari 458 cost $298,000 new, although the one pictured in this post is undoubtedly worth considerably less than that due to wear and, especially, tear. A neighbor says the driver also has a black-on-black Lamborghini, so apparently he is not without wheels.

What Glen Campbell said when Frank Sinatra called him a fag guitarist

Here's how Campbell recalled their first meeting at Sinatra's Strangers in the Night session

     Despite this, Campbell thought Sinatra was friendly; when they were playing golf at a Bob Hope Classic, Old Blue Eyes offered to let Campbell stay at one of the houses he wasn't currently using.
     Campbell liked session playing better than being a star:



     Here's Campbell talking to the booth during his session work on the Beach Boys hit, Dance, Dance, Dance:



     And if the above didn't impress you with Campbell's guitar wizardry, try this:

That Luvs gay dads haircut ad

Protor and Gamble does it again. What do they care? Fundamentalists already hate the company.(Via Queerty.)

Reviewer: Lumix GH5 autofocus is like a Tesla autopilot that drives you off a cliff

"This camera has more than autofocus problems. It has ADD."
(Unless you have 20 minutes, skip to 9:49 in the video below.)



The GH5 is a fabulous camera, (this from a Nikon and Sony owner) and the autofocus problem can probably be fixed with a software update. Panasonic is well aware of the problem.



Here's a workaround until Panasonic remedies the situation:



IphoneDo reluctantly sent his GH5 back and bought a Sony a6500, which he even more hilariously reviewed below:

NU has designed a free, prosthetic, 3d-printed hand for kids who need one. 52,000 downloads. Cost to print: about $50

From KIOS's Deborah (Van Fleet) Newcombe:

    A group of researchers from four University of Nebraska campuses has received a two-year grant to collaborate on the Next Generation 3D printer prostheses for children.
     ...The grant’s lead investigator, Dr. Jorge Zuniga, an assistant professor of biomechanics at UNO, says up to 58% of children missing a hand or upper limb are not fitted for a prosthetic device, or they get one and reject it.
     In response to this need, Zuniga developed the Cyborg Beast, an open-source 3D prosthetic hand, which can be constructed for about $50.00 and has been downloaded over 52,000 times.
     ...These devices are made out of plastic, so they are very light. So they don’t require -- like a prosthetic arm -- doesn’t require a harness. We figured out if you make a device that they can put on themselves, they will be more likely to use it.”
     Zuniga says one of the goals for this grant is to develop electronic, switch-activated versions of their prostheses...

Twitter verdict on "sublime" green Ram 1500 truck

New gay feature Call Me By Your Name getting stellar reviews

Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name is getting buzz and reviews as enthusiastic before its release as last year's Best Picture, Moonlight, did before its release. The film wowed viewers at Sundance last winter. Professional critics whose reviews have been posted on Rotten Tomatoes have been rhapsodic. The film is adapted from André Aciman's acclaimed 2007 novel. From USA Today:

     ...The '80s-set drama chronicles the passionate, secret romance between 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) —  son of a celebrated professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) — and 24-year-old scholar Oliver (Armie Hammer), who comes to study Greco-Roman culture and live with Elio's family for the summer.

     Sundance: Kumail Nanjiani on his breakout 'Big Sick' and Trump-era comedy

Call Me is the final chapter of Guadagnino's so-called "Desire" trilogy, after 2009's Oscar-nominated I Am Love and last year's A Bigger Splash (both of which starred Tilda Swinton).

Bonus: LA-based comedian Brian Jordan Alvarez, whose web series, The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo was as hilarious as it was well-acted, finally got his feature, Everything is Free made. Trailer below.

50 employees of WI firm agree to chip implants by employer

Maybe they should read the American Veterinary Medical Association's survey of alleged links between cancer and RFID chips in pets.

R.I.P. Costco cofounder and Chairman Jeff Brotman

In Nebraska, not everyone is enthralled with Costco.

Omaha Police Dept. helicopter cop warns "foreign" car owners to buy American, then admits he drives a VW

After unambiguously admitting that OPD profiles drivers of foreign cars (How dumb is that, ACLU?) the cop backpedaled and said it was all satire and irony.
     Coulda fooled us.
     Also, Officer Friendly actually drives a VW himself. Hope it's a model made in Chattanooga...
     Recently the Omaha Police Department found itself in hot water for raising $5,000 for a Catholic High School by letting it raffle off a ride in the police helicopter, a stunt that didn't sit well with Common Cause.
     AKSARBENT, for its part, has some advice, too. Don't go on ridealongs with the Omaha Police Department if you know what's good for you. 
    

Millions of "foreign" cars sold by Honda, Nissan, VW and Toyota are built in U.S. factories and plenty of "American" cars are not made in this country.

Two clever videos, from Apple and Alan

The World-Herald visits Glur's Tavern, oldest continuously-run U.S. bar west of the Missouri, and its tiara-wearing buck

Supposedly, no western bar has been serving drinks longer than Glur's Tavern in Columbus, named after its second owner and open since 1876.
     Sarah Baker Hansen, wife of fellow World-Herald writer Matthew Hansen, profiled the place. There's a video at the link above, too.
     By means of comparison, the legendary cowboy bar, The Mint, in Sheridan, Wyoming, only dates back to 1907. And the Mint doesn't have a stuffed buck wearing a tiara, although it is the bar that inspired Annie Prouxl to write her short story, Brokeback Mountain.

Nebraska Lottery: 8th in administrative costs, 27th in payouts

According to 2015 U.S. Census figures (the latest available) Nebraska ranks eighth in administrative costs among the 43 states which run lotteries : 12% of players' money ($18 million).
     In payouts, Nebraska was 27th, paying out 63% of player's money (nearly 150 million) in prizes (almost $95 million.)

Rockey

     Jill Marshall was acting Nebraska Lottery Director during 2015. Brian Rockey was appointed Director as of July 1, 2016 after having worked for International Game Technology (IGT, formerly known as GTECH), the primary contractor for the Nebraska Lottery.
     Although Nebraska, unlike neighboring Kansas, does not allow prizes to be claimed "anonymously" (meaning the lottery will not release the winner's name), they can be claimed by a trust or LLC designed to hide the identity of the beneficiary. This happened in 2014.
     The rule: 602.03 A prize claim shall be entered in the name of an individual person or legal entity. If the prize claimed exceeds five hundred dollars ($500) the person or entity shall also furnish a tax identification number, a social security number for individuals and a federal employer identification number (FEIN) for all other persons.

Cockeyed: The Onion hilariously reviews Spider-Man: Homecoming

After AKSARBENT saw the first Spider-Man, we couldn't figure out why, after outfitting Toby Maguire with a spandex suit, the film's producers then squandered tens of millions more on special effects.  But we probably weren't the target demographic for the film.

Voter Supression: Top NE Republicans mute on law broken by Trump Commission seeking NE voter data

Article here

     So far, John Gale, Nebraska's lame duck Secretary of State, Nebraska's Attorney General, Doug Peterson and Gale's would-be successor, Bob Evnen, all Republicans, have been uniformly mute on the fact that Kris Kobach, the principal architect of voter suppression in the USA, apparently broke federal law in requesting details on every Nebraska registered voter (the same kind of data Russia tried to hack last year) on behalf of Donald Trump's so-called "Voter Integrity Commission" chaired by Mike Pence and run by Kobach.
     From The Hill:

     Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, information requests from agencies and other federal entities are supposed to first be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
     This 1980 law requires federal agencies to seek public input, including through a comment period, before a request for information. A 1995 amendment extended OIRA’s authority to include not only requests for information for the government, but also requests for information to the public.

Via CNN

     The law also requires that agencies justify their requests for public information, specify how it will be used and provide assurances that data will be protected. The law also obliges the agencies to estimate how many hours it will take entities to respond.
     It does not appear that the commission submitted its request to OIRA before sending a letter to states asking for voter information.
     Experts say the failure to do so would be significant, since states would be under no obligation to respond to requests that violate federal law.
     “If the commission gets heavy-handed with them, it seems to me that the states are within their right to say, 'No, we don’t have to respond because you didn’t go through [OIRA],'” said Susan Dudley, a former OIRA administrator who is now director of the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University.
     The commission did not immediately respond to questions about whether it had submitted its request through OIRA.

     And that's not all. Yesterday, according to CNN, "The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law called on the Justice Department to investigate whether Kobach violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law intended to keep federal employees from directly supporting candidates, accusing him of using his role on the presidential commission to promote his campaign and solicit contributions."
     Kobach's voter supression machinations have resulted in four ACLU lawsuits, so far, and he has lost every one.

Blind, deaf and mute on vote suppression masquerading as "ballot integrity": GOP Secretary of State
candidate Bob Evnen, GOP Secretary of State John Gale and Attorney General Doug Peterson

     The Washington Post has reported that  "Kobach was fined $1,000 on Friday by a federal magistrate judge for “patently misleading representations” he made to the court about the contents of a document he was photographed taking into a November meeting with then President-elect Donald Trump."
     Six Nebraska state senators have written a letter to John Gale requesting that he reject the "request." They are Sens. Kate Bolz, Adam Morfeld, Matt Hansen and Anna Wishart of Lincoln; and Sens. Sara Howard and John McCollister of Omaha.
     Even though the Secretaries of State of 45 states have weighed in on Trump, Nebraska's GOP Secretary of State (John Gale) has said, nothing, the GOP candidate running to replace him (Bob Evnen) has been mute, and Nebraska's GOP Attorney General (Doug Peterson) is similarly paralyzed.
     Tweets about this issue have accused the office of Nebraska's Secretary of State of demanding names and phone numbers of callers before addressing (or, more specifically, not answering) their questions. We called, and found this to be true.

@janekleeb @ketv @WOWT6News @3NewsNowOmaha @nebraskadems @Adam_Morfeld @aclu #ComradeTrump@NESecJGale is taking names and phone numbers... pic.twitter.com/NIcaGmhkUe

— AKSARBENT blog (@aksarbent) July 5, 2017

Gay Nebraska TV weatherman gets fed up with a Facebook troll

KETV, the Omaha ABC affiliate with the highest rated newscasts, has its heavy weather lifting done by Chief Meteorologist Bill Randby, the subject of a minor personality cult led by @MeanStreetsOMA, which mostly tweets transcripts of police scanner calls, but sends out special tweets every time Bill Ramby rolls up his sleeves on air (meaning the weather is getting complicated.)
     Mean Streets has 113,000+ followers(!) (There's a big local audience for online gawking, folks.)
     But it wasn't Ramby who was getting the attention in the aftermath of yesterday's hailstorm, it was Meteorologist Matt Serwe, who has had it with a particular Facebook detractor and who tweeted out a screencap of said critic's FB mini-rants (at right.) That tweet got a lot of sympathetic replies.
     It turns out that the aggressively dissatisfied Mr. Kraci, of Schuyler, is not currently employed at Central Valley Ag.

     Schuyler, the seat of Colfax County, is about 67 miles from Omaha, has about 6,211 people, and is named after an amiable, but hapless former Vice President, Schuyler Colfax. As it happens, Serwe's boyfriend has family there, and has assured his other half that the natives are generally friendly.

NE's GOP gov. fires State Patrol Supe 2 years after appointing him; 6 troopers placed on leave

In 2015, Gov. Pete Ricketts had this to say about Brad Rice, his pick to head Nebraska's State Patrol:

“Bradley’s prior service in a variety of ranks within the Nebraska State Patrol’s chain of command will guide his leadership as Superintendent,” said Governor Ricketts. “I know his integrity will direct his decisions as he works with patrol members across the state to protect public safety.”

     During Rice's confirmation hearing, accusations of sexism and proselytizing were raised.

     As for the prayers, Hanlin said because the agency lacked space for meetings with all troop area staff members, the meetings often were held in a school gymnasium on the campus of a Norfolk church. Rice frequently began such meetings with a prayer, Hanlin added.

     Hanlin said he was aware a complaint had been filed by another trooper over the prayers. After the complaint, the troop area meetings were no longer held at the church property.

     Former Patrol Col. Tom Nesbitt, commander of the patrol from 1999 to 2005, said he recalled that a complaint had been filed against Rice. Based on his recollection, however, the complaint involved Rice putting religious information in the office mailboxes of patrol employees.

     Nesbitt said he assigned a major to investigate the issue, although he could not recall the outcome.

  Gov. Ricketts relieved Rice of his duties Friday:

     The initial findings of an internal review of State Patrol policies, procedures and leadership conduct suggested "interference in internal investigations at the highest level," the governor said.

     ...Ricketts said he met with Rice early Friday morning and "relieved him of his duties."

Six State Patrol officers were placed on administrative leave pending an ongoing investigation by State Human Resources Director Jason Jackson.

     ...Initial findings of the continuing investigation have been turned over to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office for further investigation, the governor said.

     The governor's investigation was probably prompted by the latest Nebraska State Patrol controversy, following the death of a convicted felon who tried to outrun a state trooper near Gordon.
     Shortly after the crash, trooper Tim Flick said thrice that he performed a TVI ("tactical vehicle intervention"), also known as bumping or ramming a suspect's vehicle.
     Then Flick's commander got involved:

     In an email and a memo, the trooper’s commander, Capt. Jamey Balthazor, who heads the Panhandle troop of the patrol, said Flick had told him in a roadside meeting a couple of hours after the crash that LaDeaux had caused it by steering into his cruiser.
     When Flick was asked by grand jurors why his story had changed, the trooper said he didn’t realize until later that he had not used a TVI.

Facebook CEO and his new, heavily tattooed friend Joe, wish world a Happy LGBTQ Pride from Nebraska

Zuckerberg with the awesomely tatted Joe Desanti

     Continuing his I'm-not-planning-to-run-for-office-I-just-like-to-hang-out-in-truckstops-in-rural-America tour, Mark Zuckerberg wished the world a happy Pride from Nebraska. The Facebook founder and CEO turned up in Stinson park in Aksarben Village. (Aksarben is Nebraska spelled backwards, and now you now why this quasi-gay Omaha blog is called AKSARBENT.)
     Facebook is building a huge data center, its ninth, in Papillion, an Omaha suburb. Yahoo is expanding its data center in LaVista, another Omaha suburb, and Google's $2.5 billion data center in neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa is its largest in the world.
     We hope they're all tornado-proof, because last week a tornado hopscotched across Offutt AFB in Bellevue, another Omaha suburb, taking out two of the four "doomsday" converted 747 command planes that supposedly would direct America's response to a nuclear attack. But we digress...
     On Saturday, Zuckerberg posted this on his Facebook page:

     Happy Pride from Omaha, Nebraska to everyone celebrating this weekend across the world!
     I'm at the Heartland Pride Festival. Until recently, the Nebraska constitution banned gay marriage. Omaha is more welcoming, but we still have a long way to go.

     Zuckerberg spent 10 minutes amiably chatting with Mayor Jean Stothert, who twice opposed Omaha's ordinance banning workplace discrimination against LGBTs while she was on the city council (see video below).
     Stothert also excluded legally married spouses of gay city employees from city benefits long after virtually every other jurisdiction in the metro area had stopped doing so, and in her recent reelection campaign she blatantly lied about housing discrimination against LGBTs, telling a television audience that adding housing to the city's LGBT antibias ordinance provisions was unnecessary because LGBTs are covered under federal law, when they aren't.

    

Andy from Arkansas — People are saying: NO RUSSIAN COLLUSION!

From WhiteHouse.org (not Whitehouse.gov, obviously) via @BettyBowers, America's Best Christian.

NE Sen. Sasse retweets N. Korea charge that Iowans sacrifice kids to "barbaric corn gods"

Early this morning, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse trolled Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley (and Twitter) by retweeting a bizarre North Korea tweet about Iowa alcoholism, sexual frustration and child sacrifice to barbaric corn gods. (Yeah, that looks like something from The Onion, but what agitprop from Asia's biggest open-air prison camp doesn't?)

To read tweet, enlarge graphic by clicking on it.

     Though this was doubtless a publicity stunt joke, Sasse does have issues with Iowa's GOP, as well as Nebraska's. Earlier this week, Iowa's GOP chair, Jeff Kaufman, blasted Sasse twice, first in a warm-up for Donald Trump's appearance Wednesday in eastern Iowa and later in a follow-up inerview.

     “We had Sen. Ben Sasse from Nebraska, he crosses the Missouri River, and in that sanctimonious tone talks about what he doesn’t like about Donald Trump,” Kaufmann said. “You know what, Sen. Sasse? I really don’t care what you like. We love Donald Trump. And if you don’t love him, I suggest you stay on your side of the Missouri River.”
     ...“He’s an arrogant academic,” Kaufmann said of Sasse, a former college president. “He’s sanctimonious. His statements are geared toward what can help him. He’s arrogant. And he’s not a team player, when in reality the only reason he’s got any clout at all in the Senate is because the Republican Party has the majority.”

     Sasse (yes, there's a youtube video ridiculing his name) has reputedly hired a social media consultant to raise his profile, although Bill Maher probably did that better during their recent exchange on HBO's Real Time, when Maher made his infamous "house nigga" crack. Sasse claims he winced. If he did, it wasn't visible in the recording.

   Sasse is also hawking his new book of Captain Obvious advice about parenting, replete with some alarming observations, like the upside of having polio:

"No one should regard the eradication of polio as anything but a glorious blessing, but we should also be able to recall that many older folks we know grew their character by fighting through their polio."

     (Yeah, the way Mitch McConnell grew his character by overcoming polio and then becoming the Darth Vader of the Senate and defunder of Medicaid.)

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, in shorts, trolling twitter, reputedly with the
help of a media consultant.

     Sasse votes with Donald Trump about 97% of the time and has fallen in line to rubber stamp all his abysmal Cabinet nominees, but he poses as a rebellious independent, critical of Trump.
     Those of us who have lived in Nebraska awhile can see through his efforts to become the reverse image of former Nebraska Democratic Senator and Governor, Teflon Bob Kerrey.
     Unlike Sasse, Kerrey, who lost a limb in Vietnam, was as close to the real deal as you will find in politics. (Kerrey was reputed to have studied the rise of California Gov. Jerry Brown, Jr., who supposedly studied Robert Redford's character in The Candidate.)
    Kerrey is a lot funnier than Sasse. When reporters asked the then-governor what sparked his romance with actress Debra Winger when she was filming Terms of Endearment in Lincoln, he deadpanned: "She swept me off my foot."
    What does AKSARBENT think about Sasse's tweet? This, friends:

P.S. The fake Twitter account started by a Nebraska expat football fan (now a Chicago lawyer) back when Bo Pelini coached Nebraska, weighed in too, and again proved why @FauxPelini has over half a million twitter followers:

Tough but fair https://t.co/9RbbNgMIez

— Fake Bo Pelini (@FauxPelini) June 24, 2017

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 film modes compared

Left to right, top to bottom:

VIBRANT      DYNAMIC
STANDARD   NATURAL
SMOOTH      NOSTALGIC

Click to enlarge

Frantic Oklahoma mom warned Omaha police that her son, kicked off bus, was mentally ill. So they tasered him to death

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine has "serious concerns" about whether excessive force was used on Zachary Bearheels, who was pronounced dead on arrival at the Nebraska Medical Center after being tasered by officers of the Omaha Police Department. His desperate mother had warned Omaha police and begged them to take him to the bus station or a crisis center: Kleine wants to know how many tasers were used on Bearheels at once at Bucky's, where he was surrounded by up to 20(!) cop cars.



From the Omaha World-Herald:

     Henry Barstow, 36, was among those at the Bucky’s at 60th and Center Streets.

     The hour that elapsed between officers first encountering Bearheels and when he was stunned left “plenty of time” for the police to call a mental health professional to the gas station for guidance, Barstow said.

     Bearheels’ mother, Renita Chalepah of Oklahoma, has raised questions about how police handled her son, whom she said suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He was in Omaha after being kicked off a bus. He was traveling from his father’s home in South Dakota to his mother’s in Oklahoma. Chalepah said she had been in contact with Omaha police and her son during the day Sunday and had asked police to take him to the bus station or a crisis center. She said police told her they couldn’t place him under emergency care because he wasn’t a threat to himself or others.

Later, on that very day, OPD shocked him to death because he was "acting erratically." 

Who voted to gut Dodd-Frank?

Nebraska's entire House delegation (all Republicans) voted to gut Dodd-Frank financial protections,
enacted after the 2008 financial meltdown, and to eviscerate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Below is the name of every Representative who voted to drastically weaken the Dodd-Frank Act provisions enacted after the financial crisis of 2008. The vote was almost completely along party lines; only one Republican voted "Nay" and only one Democrat voted "Yea." The bill is said to have almost no chance of Senate passage. From MSNBC:

     Among the most significant provisions are measures that allow banks to escape heightened regulatory requirements and cut stress tests back from their current annual schedule, while the bill also eviscerates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
     In all, the measure takes aim at the Dodd-Frank reforms, which sought less risk and higher capital levels from an industry linked to the crisis and the accompanying Great Recession. Lenders got in trouble after mass defaults of risky mortgages, then required a government bailout when they didn't have the capital to cover their losses.

Note: an earlier version of this post showed the June 7th vote on agreeing to the resolution, not the June 8 vote on passage.

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 299
(Republicans in roman; Democrats in italic; Independents underlined)
      H R 10      YEA-AND-NAY      8-Jun-2017      4:38 PM
      QUESTION:  On Passage
      BILL TITLE: Financial CHOICE Act of 2017

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Republican	233	1		3
Democratic		185		8
Independent
TOTALS	233	186		11

---- YEAS    233 ---

Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Arrington Babin Bacon Banks (IN) Barletta Barr Barton Bergman Biggs Bilirakis Bishop (MI) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blum Bost Brady (TX) Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Buchanan Buck Bucshon Budd Burgess Byrne Calvert Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Chabot Chaffetz Cheney Coffman Cole Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Comer Comstock Conaway Cook Costello (PA) Cramer Crawford Culberson Curbelo (FL) Davidson Davis, Rodney Denham Dent DeSantis DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Donovan Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Dunn Emmer Estes (KS) Farenthold Faso Ferguson Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Flores Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Gaetz Gallagher Garrett

Gibbs Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Granger Graves (GA) Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Griffith Grothman Guthrie Harper Harris Hartzler Hensarling Herrera Beutler Hice, Jody B. Higgins (LA) Hill Holding Hollingsworth Hudson Huizenga Hultgren Hunter Hurd Issa Jenkins (KS) Jenkins (WV) Johnson (LA) Johnson (OH) Jordan Joyce (OH) Katko Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger Knight Kustoff (TN) Labrador LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Lance Latta Lewis (MN) LoBiondo Long Loudermilk Love Lucas Luetkemeyer MacArthur Marchant Marshall Massie Mast McCarthy McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley McMorris Rodgers McSally Meadows Meehan Messer Mitchell Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mullin Murphy (PA) Newhouse Noem Nunes

Olson Palazzo Palmer Paulsen Pearce Perry Pittenger Poe (TX) Poliquin Posey Ratcliffe Reed Renacci Rice (SC) Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney, Francis Rooney, Thomas J. Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Rothfus Rouzer Royce (CA) Russell Rutherford Sanford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Sessions Shimkus Shuster Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Smucker Stefanik Stewart Stivers Taylor Tenney Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Tipton Trott Turner Upton Valadao Wagner Walberg Walden Walker Walorski Walters, Mimi Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Woodall Yoder Yoho Young (AK) Young (IA) Zeldin

---- NAYS    186 ---

Adams Barragán Bass Beatty Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Blunt Rochester Bonamici Boyle, Brendan F. Brady (PA) Brown (MD) Brownley (CA) Bustos Butterfield Capuano Carbajal Cárdenas Carson (IN) Cartwright Castor (FL) Castro (TX) Chu, Judy Cicilline Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Clay Cleaver Cohen Connolly Conyers Cooper Correa Courtney Crist Crowley Cuellar Davis (CA) Davis, Danny DeGette Delaney DeLauro DelBene Demings DeSaulnier Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Ellison Eshoo Espaillat Esty (CT) Evans Foster Frankel (FL) Fudge Gabbard Gallego Garamendi Gonzalez (TX)

Gottheimer Green, Al Green, Gene Grijalva Gutiérrez Hanabusa Hastings Heck Higgins (NY) Himes Hoyer Huffman Jackson Lee Jayapal Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson, E. B. Jones Kaptur Keating Kelly (IL) Kennedy Khanna Kihuen Kildee Kilmer Kind Krishnamoorthi Kuster (NH) Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lawson (FL) Lee Levin Lewis (GA) Lieu, Ted Lipinski Loebsack Lofgren Lowenthal Lowey Lujan Grisham, M. Luján, Ben Ray Lynch Maloney, Sean Matsui McCollum McEachin McGovern McNerney Meeks Meng Moore Moulton Murphy (FL) Nadler Neal Nolan Norcross O'Halleran

O'Rourke Pallone Panetta Pascrell Payne Pelosi Perlmutter Peters Peterson Pingree Pocan Polis Price (NC) Quigley Raskin Rice (NY) Richmond Rosen Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (OH) Sánchez Sarbanes Schakowsky Schiff Schneider Schrader Scott (VA) Scott, David Serrano Sewell (AL) Shea-Porter Sherman Sinema Sires Slaughter Smith (WA) Soto Speier Suozzi Swalwell (CA) Takano Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tonko Torres Tsongas Vargas Veasey Vela Velázquez Visclosky Walz Wasserman Schultz Waters, Maxine Watson Coleman Welch Wilson (FL) Yarmuth

---- NOT VOTING    11 ---

Aguilar Clyburn Costa Cummings

DeFazio Engel Johnson, Sam Maloney, Carolyn B.

Marino Napolitano Reichert

Nebraska's entire house delegation votes to imprison sexting teens for 15 years

  Forget climate change! Jeff Fortenberry, Adrian Smith and Don Bacon, creatures all of the Nebraska GOP, voted for the House version of Sharia Law (H R 1761) to wreck the lives of stupid teenagers with even greater finality than their peers ever could. The ACLU is appalled.

House Overwhelmingly Supports Bill Subjecting Teen Sexters to 15-Years in Federal Prison https://t.co/sMSTvU3MFC

— reason (@reason) May 31, 2017

Bill Gates vs. Nebraska's Platte Institute

Above: Nebraska Democratic Party "liked" this tweet by
Michael Knebel,self-described Libertarian nerd
seeming to agree with the Platte Institute on cutting taxes
on "tangible property used for the production of income,"
which certainly describes job-killing robots to a tee.

Strong Roots Nebraska is an initiative by the Platte Institute, a right-wing Nebraska tax policy think tank financed by undisclosed donors to at least two dark money slush funds.
     The Platte Institute doesn't like taxes on tangible property used for the production of income.
     The Institute says tangible property "typically includes machinery, equipment, pivots, irrigation systems, and motors."
     Conspicuously omitted: robots, expected to kill 6 million jobs in the next 10 years in retailing alone. (This doesn't count truck and taxi drivers about to lose their jobs to self-driving vehicles or the robotic AI arms that may soon be flying planes. (These are not autopilots; they're robots that can land a passenger jet on the same simulator human pilots train on, though they can't yet take off, which for some reason is harder for a robot than landing.)

Quick question, Platte Institute: when was the last time factory robots
grew wages for their human coworkers instead of taking their jobs?

     One of the Platte Insitute's statements really jumped off the page for us:*

Taxing machinery and equipment decreases the value of labor

     SERIOUSLY? This is the most idiotic policy pronouncement we're seen so far this year. Exactly how would taxing human-replacing machines decrease the value of labor?
     No matter. The whole idea of replacing tax-paying humans with robots who don't any taxes, and THEN getting rid of property taxes on the robots to boot, is pretty whacked, even for the Platte Institute.
     Bill Gates, who knows more about software, robots and artificial intelligence than anyone at the Platte Institute, has thought about this in, shall we say, a less superficial and less partisan way:



*From the12/9/15 Platte Chat piece by Jessica Herrmann, a former legislative aide to Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)

Click to enlarge

New boxed set 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper stereo mix isn't just a way to get more of your money: it's stunning

When the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper in 1967 on four-track machines at EMI in London, they were working in a technological slum compared to the equipment the Beach Boys had at their disposal. But George Martin's technical savvy, inventiveness, musical knowledge and impeccable taste put the Beatles' genius front and center (and left and right) in one of the best pop albums ever made.
     Martin's son, Giles, remixed the original four-track mono tapes (some of which had never been played) and the result — from the 50th anniversary boxed set, which includes original mono, 1967 stereo and 2017 stereo versions, isn't just a marketing money grab, it really is stunning. Here Giles Martin is, interviewed by Terri Gross.


Want more? Here's Martin, interviewed by Bob Boilen, on All Songs Considered: