Saturday, January 25, 2020
Fair Warning Given at January 21st City Council Meeting
Fair Warning Given at January 21st City Council Meeting
"We are not convinced that all of the millions of dollars that have passed from the public to the government and on to various projects and programs have been appropriately spent. Therefore, we will be calling for a complete, independent, forensic audit in the near future with the specific goal of determining if inappropriate handling of public funds - or even illegal activity - has occurred.
We have watched with no actual recourse while millions of our tax dollars and other monies that have passed through the hands of government have been spent on projects and plans that have resulted in no real benefit to us.
We have watched hopefully while projects such as Point Blue, The Porter Project, The Imaginarium, Delta Hawk and the Gold Medal project, to name a few, have come and gone at significant cost but without benefit to the citizens.
We have seen $600,000 spent just on a study to determine the feasibility of "The Arena" project, which only a few supported, and recently $60,000 to determine the wisdom of rehabbing The Uptown Theater, a facility that I personally ...could see was unsalvageable for anything less than a small fortune, and which would almost certainly become a money pit for public dollars.
And who can forget "Machinery Row" which has drained millions and millions of dollars from the public coffers so far, and potentially will require millions more to create closure.
We are all aware that internal audits occur on annual basis, but such audits do little more than confirm that money has been received, and money has been spent on largely unexamined budget line items."
~Ken Yorgan's public comment
Oak Creek Neighbors Renew Coal Dust Concerns After Fence Falls
From Racine County Eye:
The fence, officials said, was put in place to slow winds down. (Scott Anderson, Patch Staff) |
OAK CREEK, WI — Officials with WE Energies says it will only be a matter of days before repairs are complete on several panels of fencing that had fallen last week due to storms and high winds that moved through the area.
The fence, officials said, was put in place to slow winds down, effectively limiting the wind power that could blow coal dust into area neighborhoods.
“The good news is that because of what happened, [there is] zero impact to any of the coal piles there. We obviously understand neighbors’ concerns. We’re incredibly sensitive to them, but the good news is — and everyone should be aware of — there is no evidence at all that any coal dust has left that site since nearly two years ago,” We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway said in a CBS 58 report.
The utility’s position on the presence of coal dust inside and outside neighbors’ homes has been a bone of contention for more than 10 years.
The utility has power washed homes and cars, done coal testing inside and outside homes, and gone as far as buying homes around the plant to create a buffer zone around the plant.
But not curbed production of coal around the plant.
Oak Creek and Caledonia residents who live near, or downwind of the plant, say coal dust is the source of respiratory and other health issues they have suffered over the years.
The utility denies that coal dust is the culprit.
“I’m not aware of anybody in our local that has a chronic respiratory issue that is working at the power plant,” a WE Energies spokesperson said during a 2018 community meeting. “The coal is dirty. Absolutely. It’s hard to get out of your laundry? Absolutely. As far as it being a respiratory issue. I’m not aware of that.”
Still, a number of neighbors have voiced their concerns and a number of them have joined the Clean Power Coalition. And many neighbors still want to move.
The Racine County Eye Contributed To This Report
Racine County Eye and Patch are partnering up to provide readers with more local content and provide local advertisers with a larger audience to connect with.
Foxconn’s 1 Million Square Feet; Of What?
Despite media claims, new facility unlikely to be a Gen 6 manufacturer. So what will it be?
By Bruce Murphy - Jan 23rd, 2020 02:06 pm
This week Foxconn’s founder and retired CEO Terry Gou made a speech in Taiwan predicting that the Foxconn factory in Racine County will be up and running this year, and employees working there “will help America boost manufacturing and build a supply chain.”
This came just a couple weeks after the company issued a press release touting it’s “nearly one-million-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility at the Wisconsin Valley Science and Technology Park” in Mount Pleasant. The early January release let us know that Foxconn “is able to celebrate this significant milestone” of the “Building enclosure being substantially complete for weather protection.”
“Nearly 8,000 tons of American steel was fabricated and installed,” the release went on,” and more than 500 truckloads transporting supplies were used for the roof construction. Full and complete enclosure of the advanced manufacturing facility will continue through the beginning months of 2020.”
Okay, so the building is, gosh, nearly enclosed and will have a very fine roof. But what exactly will be manufactured in it? The media continues to describe this as a Gen 6 LCD manufacturing plant, since Foxconn has generally called it this. So is that what will be building America’s supply chain in Mount Pleasant?
“I don’t think so,” says Harvard Professor Willy Shih, one of the few U.S. experts on LCD fabrication in answer to a query from Urban Milwaukee. “Not for making LCD panels. Assembling products that incorporate LCD panels, maybe.”
The reasons why it couldn’t be a Gen 6 manufacturing plant are many, as I’ve previously reported.\
First, a Gen 6 plant needs “a massive steel infrastructure to support a vibration-free environment for equipment that has to do ultra precision (manufacturing),” as Shih noted. That steel support substructure is no small undertaking and could be up two floors deep in LCD plants — and nothing like that was done for this building.
Second, this plant is just one story tall, and as Shih wrote for Forbes: “LCD fabs (fabrication plants) are multi-story affairs. The main equipment floor is sandwiched between a ground floor that is filled with chemical pipelines, power distribution, and air handling equipment, and a third floor that also has a lot of air handling and other mechanical equipment…. When they bring the manufacturing equipment in, they load it onto a platform and hoist it with a crane on the outside of the building. That’s one way to recognize an LCD fab from the outside – loading docks on high floors that just open to the outdoors.
”
Third, LCD plants are expensive, multi-billion structures. Shih estimated that a real Gen 6 plant, if it was built in Mount Pleasant, would have a price tag of around $5 billion. The spending on this is nowhere near this: the plant is expected to be valued at $400 million.
Meanwhile, company officials have given themselves all kinds of wiggle room, having pushed back the date for Gen 6 manufacturing to 2022. So whatever is going to happen in that nearly weatherized facility, assuming anything does this year, it won’t be Gen 6 fabrication, according to the company.
Pushing back the date to 2022 will give Foxconn plenty of wiggle room as to what it manufactures. And as it happens, 2022 is when Wisconsin’s race for governor will be held. Are company leaders waiting to see if a candidate more sympathetic to them might be elected?
Back in December I wrote a story suggesting the state deal with Foxconn deal looked dead. It still does. So long as state officials insist that Foxconn live up to its contractual promise to build a $9 billion, Gen 10.5 plant employing 13,000 workers, Foxconn can’t get any state subsidies. And while the Evers administration has made clear they will renegotiate the contract based on what Foxconn is actually going to manufacture (assuming that ever becomes clear), the original contract was so lucrative for the company it has no incentive to agree to any changes. Waiting another couple years to see if Tony Evers retires or gets defeated is no big deal for a company that specializes in delaying and backing out of projects it promises.
But my story was wrong in suggesting Foxconn can simply walk away from Wisconsin. And that’s because it has a local deal, which is far from dead. The village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County jointly approved spending at least $764 million (a figure 50 times higher than the village’s budget) for land acquisition, road construction and new sewer and water lines, all for the Foxconn project. In return Foxconn has agreed to pay local property taxes based on an assessed total of at least $1.4 billion in taxable improvements to the land it owns by January 1, 2023, whether or not that amount of improvements has been created.
It’s this contract — and a concern that breaking the much ballyhooed agreement with Wisconsin might leave any other state in America leery of doing a deal with Foxconn — that’s the only thing keeping the company here. The contract created by former Gov. Scott Walker, by contrast, has no way to stop the company — despite all the state and local spending on the project already undertaken — from abandoning the deal.
From: https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/01/23/back-in-the-news-foxconns-1-million-square-feet-of-what/
By Bruce Murphy - Jan 23rd, 2020 02:06 pm
Foxconn. Photo courtesy of Foxconn Technology Group. |
This week Foxconn’s founder and retired CEO Terry Gou made a speech in Taiwan predicting that the Foxconn factory in Racine County will be up and running this year, and employees working there “will help America boost manufacturing and build a supply chain.”
This came just a couple weeks after the company issued a press release touting it’s “nearly one-million-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility at the Wisconsin Valley Science and Technology Park” in Mount Pleasant. The early January release let us know that Foxconn “is able to celebrate this significant milestone” of the “Building enclosure being substantially complete for weather protection.”
“Nearly 8,000 tons of American steel was fabricated and installed,” the release went on,” and more than 500 truckloads transporting supplies were used for the roof construction. Full and complete enclosure of the advanced manufacturing facility will continue through the beginning months of 2020.”
Okay, so the building is, gosh, nearly enclosed and will have a very fine roof. But what exactly will be manufactured in it? The media continues to describe this as a Gen 6 LCD manufacturing plant, since Foxconn has generally called it this. So is that what will be building America’s supply chain in Mount Pleasant?
“I don’t think so,” says Harvard Professor Willy Shih, one of the few U.S. experts on LCD fabrication in answer to a query from Urban Milwaukee. “Not for making LCD panels. Assembling products that incorporate LCD panels, maybe.”
The reasons why it couldn’t be a Gen 6 manufacturing plant are many, as I’ve previously reported.\
First, a Gen 6 plant needs “a massive steel infrastructure to support a vibration-free environment for equipment that has to do ultra precision (manufacturing),” as Shih noted. That steel support substructure is no small undertaking and could be up two floors deep in LCD plants — and nothing like that was done for this building.
Second, this plant is just one story tall, and as Shih wrote for Forbes: “LCD fabs (fabrication plants) are multi-story affairs. The main equipment floor is sandwiched between a ground floor that is filled with chemical pipelines, power distribution, and air handling equipment, and a third floor that also has a lot of air handling and other mechanical equipment…. When they bring the manufacturing equipment in, they load it onto a platform and hoist it with a crane on the outside of the building. That’s one way to recognize an LCD fab from the outside – loading docks on high floors that just open to the outdoors.
”
Third, LCD plants are expensive, multi-billion structures. Shih estimated that a real Gen 6 plant, if it was built in Mount Pleasant, would have a price tag of around $5 billion. The spending on this is nowhere near this: the plant is expected to be valued at $400 million.
Meanwhile, company officials have given themselves all kinds of wiggle room, having pushed back the date for Gen 6 manufacturing to 2022. So whatever is going to happen in that nearly weatherized facility, assuming anything does this year, it won’t be Gen 6 fabrication, according to the company.
Pushing back the date to 2022 will give Foxconn plenty of wiggle room as to what it manufactures. And as it happens, 2022 is when Wisconsin’s race for governor will be held. Are company leaders waiting to see if a candidate more sympathetic to them might be elected?
Back in December I wrote a story suggesting the state deal with Foxconn deal looked dead. It still does. So long as state officials insist that Foxconn live up to its contractual promise to build a $9 billion, Gen 10.5 plant employing 13,000 workers, Foxconn can’t get any state subsidies. And while the Evers administration has made clear they will renegotiate the contract based on what Foxconn is actually going to manufacture (assuming that ever becomes clear), the original contract was so lucrative for the company it has no incentive to agree to any changes. Waiting another couple years to see if Tony Evers retires or gets defeated is no big deal for a company that specializes in delaying and backing out of projects it promises.
But my story was wrong in suggesting Foxconn can simply walk away from Wisconsin. And that’s because it has a local deal, which is far from dead. The village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County jointly approved spending at least $764 million (a figure 50 times higher than the village’s budget) for land acquisition, road construction and new sewer and water lines, all for the Foxconn project. In return Foxconn has agreed to pay local property taxes based on an assessed total of at least $1.4 billion in taxable improvements to the land it owns by January 1, 2023, whether or not that amount of improvements has been created.
It’s this contract — and a concern that breaking the much ballyhooed agreement with Wisconsin might leave any other state in America leery of doing a deal with Foxconn — that’s the only thing keeping the company here. The contract created by former Gov. Scott Walker, by contrast, has no way to stop the company — despite all the state and local spending on the project already undertaken — from abandoning the deal.
From: https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/01/23/back-in-the-news-foxconns-1-million-square-feet-of-what/
Dear Village Board
Dear Village Board,
I note that A Better Mount Pleasant has shared an excellent article
from Reporter Bruce Murphy - over at Urban Milwaukee - concerning the
MTP Foxconn Development:
Foxconn’s 1 Million Square Feet; Of What?
Despite media claims, new facility unlikely to be a Gen 6
manufacturer. So what will it be?
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/01/23/back-in-the-news-foxconns-1-million-square-feet-of-what/
/>
And no doubt - something is happening there - but it is NOT what Scott
Walker, David DeGroot, Jonathon Delagrave or Cory Mason promised.
Well - at least Statewide Wisconsin Taxpayers may save on one end -
while David DeGroot and his Village Board will need to once again
raise taxes to cover the losses from the failed Scottie Walker gamble
- and insistence of TEA - Party Village President David DeGroot and
Racine County Executive Jonathon Delagrave to force forward a Project
that was failed from the inception - and they knew that the failure of
the Scott Walker Administration to secure a required and necessary
Corning Glass works manufacturing facility doomed the Project from the
start.
Good news (?):
"Up to $150 million could be available to the state due to the
downsizing of the Foxconn project, according to a new estimate by the
Legislature's nonpartisan budget office.
The 2019-21 budget included the maximum amount of the cash payments
that Foxconn was eligible for under the enabling legislation and
contract with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. (WEDC).
The original deal called for Foxconn to build what's known as a
"Generation 10.5" liquid crystal display plant, meaning it would have
built some of the largest, most technologically-advanced screens in
the world. When the deal was pitched to the Legislature, it called for
22 million square-foot manufacturing campus.
The company has since backed away from those plans and is currently
building a 1 million square-foot facility that could eventually build
"Generation 6" screens, which are smaller.
A $3 billion incentives package was approved for Foxconn by the
GOP-controlled state Legislature in 2017. Incentives are based on job
creation.
In 2018, Foxconn reported 192 jobs, and WEDC verified 113 jobs as
eligible for the credit. Foxconn’s job goal in 2018 was 260, so the
company didn't qualify for tax credits".https://www.wpr.org/node/1585301
/>
The entire Village Board - with ONE exception needs to hang their
heads in shame, apologize to Residents, and resign!
Criminals! The Lot of you!
Sincerely,
Tim & Cindy
I note that A Better Mount Pleasant has shared an excellent article
from Reporter Bruce Murphy - over at Urban Milwaukee - concerning the
MTP Foxconn Development:
Foxconn’s 1 Million Square Feet; Of What?
Despite media claims, new facility unlikely to be a Gen 6
manufacturer. So what will it be?
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/01/23/back-in-the-news-foxconns-1-million-square-feet-of-what/
/>
And no doubt - something is happening there - but it is NOT what Scott
Walker, David DeGroot, Jonathon Delagrave or Cory Mason promised.
Well - at least Statewide Wisconsin Taxpayers may save on one end -
while David DeGroot and his Village Board will need to once again
raise taxes to cover the losses from the failed Scottie Walker gamble
- and insistence of TEA - Party Village President David DeGroot and
Racine County Executive Jonathon Delagrave to force forward a Project
that was failed from the inception - and they knew that the failure of
the Scott Walker Administration to secure a required and necessary
Corning Glass works manufacturing facility doomed the Project from the
start.
Good news (?):
"Up to $150 million could be available to the state due to the
downsizing of the Foxconn project, according to a new estimate by the
Legislature's nonpartisan budget office.
The 2019-21 budget included the maximum amount of the cash payments
that Foxconn was eligible for under the enabling legislation and
contract with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. (WEDC).
The original deal called for Foxconn to build what's known as a
"Generation 10.5" liquid crystal display plant, meaning it would have
built some of the largest, most technologically-advanced screens in
the world. When the deal was pitched to the Legislature, it called for
22 million square-foot manufacturing campus.
The company has since backed away from those plans and is currently
building a 1 million square-foot facility that could eventually build
"Generation 6" screens, which are smaller.
A $3 billion incentives package was approved for Foxconn by the
GOP-controlled state Legislature in 2017. Incentives are based on job
creation.
In 2018, Foxconn reported 192 jobs, and WEDC verified 113 jobs as
eligible for the credit. Foxconn’s job goal in 2018 was 260, so the
company didn't qualify for tax credits".https://www.wpr.org/node/1585301
/>
The entire Village Board - with ONE exception needs to hang their
heads in shame, apologize to Residents, and resign!
Criminals! The Lot of you!
Sincerely,
Tim & Cindy
Out of Control DPW Snowplow Drivers
Dear City of Racine Alderpersons,
This video - captured by Scott Christopher highlights the outta
control City of Racine DPW Employees who are destroying City property.
The street had already been plowed - and as it was garbage collection
day, Residents wheeled their carts down to the plowed streets - only
to find that a subsequent plowing would not only tip over their carts
- but run them over and damage them.
Link here: https://www.facebook.com/scott.nelson.3998/videos/10218775677441700/?__xts__[0]=68.ARDpoWecS-12cN1w_6z5Koq-KSBLbf3x3d30QFzm6imCtst5MinZt820eRv2NHPcjsRhrk1k7F5bqrWVTOisrGNrCJMTTwchejyU8WHJ7LyeANnzlkJf_YRsaoZZynzJ5kirp4W9BnIQHjcCtSMqLGA7RS3OPoTjpw78yIAGUsvarOvGiR26Kw8oL8Y_mSXOWRrxVuccTuiM5h8npMalEebY6-dmt-ECdHW9gwXkGnGv7qAjNc8RvS4JGBmwN1B6lde84DX-5iOjzjYNow&__tn__=-R
/>
Really?
DPW needs to be questioned as to why this behavior is acceptable.
Sincerely,
Tim & Cindy
This video - captured by Scott Christopher highlights the outta
control City of Racine DPW Employees who are destroying City property.
The street had already been plowed - and as it was garbage collection
day, Residents wheeled their carts down to the plowed streets - only
to find that a subsequent plowing would not only tip over their carts
- but run them over and damage them.
Link here: https://www.facebook.com/scott.nelson.3998/videos/10218775677441700/?__xts__[0]=68.ARDpoWecS-12cN1w_6z5Koq-KSBLbf3x3d30QFzm6imCtst5MinZt820eRv2NHPcjsRhrk1k7F5bqrWVTOisrGNrCJMTTwchejyU8WHJ7LyeANnzlkJf_YRsaoZZynzJ5kirp4W9BnIQHjcCtSMqLGA7RS3OPoTjpw78yIAGUsvarOvGiR26Kw8oL8Y_mSXOWRrxVuccTuiM5h8npMalEebY6-dmt-ECdHW9gwXkGnGv7qAjNc8RvS4JGBmwN1B6lde84DX-5iOjzjYNow&__tn__=-R
/>
Really?
DPW needs to be questioned as to why this behavior is acceptable.
Sincerely,
Tim & Cindy
Road Trip | Planters | 2020 Big Game Commercial
The Estate of Mr. Peanut: https://twitter.com/MrPeanut?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1220030475131150336&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fkstp.com%2Fbusiness%2Fmr-peanut-104-dies-in-planters-commercial-released-ahead-of-super-bowl-%2F5621903%2F
TODAY: Saturday in Clay Workshop for Adults
From The Journal Times.com:
MWagner |
Create your choice of hand-built or wheel thrown keepsake bowl with clay. Each piece will be glazed for you and ready for pick up in a couple weeks. All materials and a glass of wine, too, included. Dress for mess.
Saturday, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
1 Day, January 25
Instructor/Artist: Nathaniel Hunter
$18 Members $23 Non-Members
Online registration closes three days before class begins. You are also welcome to call RAM's Wustum Museum at 262.636.9177 to check for class availability, and to register. Class is held at the Wustum Museum, located at 2519 Northwestern Avenue, Racine.
NYPD cop Michael Valva allegedly taunted son Thomas Valva for being cold before [he] died
Mike ValvaJohn Roca |
A heartless NYPD cop and his wicked fiancée starved and tortured his autistic 8-year-old son, even mocking the child as he collapsed from the hypothermia that would claim his young life, officials said Friday as the Long Island couple was charged in the boy’s murder.
Michael Valva, 40, a 15-year officer assigned to the transit bureau, and fiancée Angela Pollina, 42, tried to make it look like they were as idyllic as the Brady Bunch, living with Valva’s three sons and Pollina’s three girls — each from previous relationships — at the couple’s home in Center Moriches, but their sitcom veneer hid a sinister secret, a former nanny said.
“It’s sad. They wanted to give the impression they were the ‘Brady Bunch’ family when it was more like a home crashing,” Amanda Wildman, who babysat the family from 2017 to 2018, told The Post.
“There was always screaming. The boys were constantly being yelled at. There never was a day where somebody wasn’t screaming and the boys would just sit there quietly and take it.”
On Friday, Valva and Pollina were arrested and charged with second-degree murder for the Jan. 17 death of Valva’s son Thomas, who died of hypothermia after being exiled to a “freezing” unfinished garage at the couple’s home on Bittersweet Lane the night before — when temperatures outside plummeted to a bone-chilling 19 degrees, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart told reporters.
Chicago woman is 2nd US patient with new virus from China
Posted 11:05 p.m. yesterday
Updated 11:06 p.m. yesterday
Updated 11:06 p.m. yesterday
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON — A Chicago woman has become the second U.S. patient diagnosed with the dangerous new virus from China, health officials announced Friday.
The woman in her 60s returned from China on Jan. 13 without showing any signs of illness, but three or four days later she called her doctor to report feeling sick.
The patient is doing well and remains hospitalized “primarily for infection control,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago's public health commissioner.
Earlier this week, a man in his 30s in Washington state became the first U.S. patient, also diagnosed after returning from a trip to the outbreak's epicenter in central China.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expecting more Americans to be diagnosed with the newly discovered virus in coming days, as worldwide the number of confirmed cases has reached about 1,300.
The virus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. It is a member of the coronavirus family that's a close cousin to the deadly SARS and MERS viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past.
Still, “CDC believes that the immediate risk to the American public continues to be low at this time, but the situation continues to evolve rapidly,” said CDC's Dr. Nancy Messonnier.
Saints Lending PR Advice to Local Archdiocese Raises Legal Questions
Saints executives were allegedly doing public relations damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese to help it contain the fallout from a sexual abuse crisis. The MMQB analyzes the situation from all perspectives.
The New Orleans Saints and a group of about two dozen adult men who contend they were victims of sexual abuse as children are at odds in a civil litigation brought against the Archdiocese of New Orleans in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans.
The men accused the Archdiocese of negligence, fraudulent concealment, public nuisance and vicarious liability related to the alleged sexual abuse of children. A central figure in the alleged abuse is George Brignac. Brignac, 85, was ordained as a deacon and employed by the Archdiocese as a teacher for many years.
Saints executives allegedly helped the Archdiocese manage external relations related to the Brignac controversy and related controversies. This assistance included emails that the Saints now refuse to turn over on account of confidentiality. Depending on the trajectory of the litigation, Saints executives could become witnesses in a high-profile clergy abuse case.
The moving around of an accused pedophile
Brignac is accused of being a serial child predator in the New Orleans area for decades. His superiors were repeatedly made aware of accusations and could have, at a minimum, prevented his continued access to children. Instead, they sent away with the knowledge that he could—and almost certainly would—abuse other children.
In 1977, Brignac was a teacher at St. Matthew School. He was arrested that year on three counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile. Brignac was found not guilty in a trial. Following the trial, the Archdiocese transferred Brignac to Holy Rosary School where he was again permitted to be alone with children. Brignac was also named co-director of the altar boy program at Our Lady of Rosary Parish.
Read more: https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/01/25/saints-execs-email-shielding-catholic-sexual-abuse-crisis
Child sex abuse will never end in the Catholic Church. It's ingrained within the religion itself. Men are introduced to pedophilia while they study for the priesthood. It's sad, but true.
Space Force logo tweeted by Trump bears uncanny resemblance to 'Star Trek' insignia
(CNN)President Donald Trump unveiled the new US Space Force logo on Friday -- which seems to boldly go where one logo has gone before.
Trump posted an image on Twitter of the insignia for the newest branch of the US military, drawing immediate comparisons of the new logo to the "Star Trek" Starfleet Starship duty insignia. The logo is also similar to the insignia of the Air Force Space Command, which was the precursor to the Space Force, hosting 16,000 active duty airmen and civilians.
"After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!" the 45th President tweeted.
After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!
69K people are talking about this
A Space Force spokesperson said in a statement that the seal unveiled by Trump is, in fact, the new official logo.
"The US Space Force seal honors the Department of the Air Force's proud history and long-standing record of providing the best space capabilities in the world," the spokesperson said. "The delta symbol, the central design element in the seal, was first used as early as 1942 by the U.S. Army Air Forces; and was used in early Air Force space organization emblems dating back to 1961. Since then, the delta symbol has been a prominent feature in military space community emblems."
Maj. William Russell, a separate Space Force spokesperson, said Trump was the one who chose the new logo from a series of options presented by the Department of the Air Force.
The similarities between the apparent Space Force logo and the "Star Trek" logo were immediately apparent to many Twitter users -- including one who was on the classic science fiction show.
George Takei, an actor who played Hikaru Sulu in the "Star Trek" series and is a vocal opponent of Trump, responded to the tweet by saying, "Ahem. We are expecting some royalties from this..."
In December, when Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, he also created the newest military service and the first new service since the US Air Force came into being in 1947. The Space Force is a branch of the military under the Department of the Air Force -- as noted in the logo tweeted by Trump -- in the same way that the Marines are their own branch of the military but are within the Department of the Navy.
Gen. John Raymond, the previous commander of US Space Command and Air Force Space Command, told reporters at the time of the signing that officials weren't in a "rush" to create the branch's new insignia.
"There are, as you can imagine, thousands and thousands of actions that are going to have to take place, everything from what does the uniform look like, to the logo, all the way up to who's in the Space Force and who's not in the Space Force," Raymond said. "That work is being planned and will continue to be refined."
Raymond added that "it's going to be really important that we get this right. A uniform, a patch, a song, it gets to the culture of a service, and so we're not going to be in a rush to get something and not do that right."
"There's a lot of work going on towards that end -- I don't think it's going to take a long time to get that done -- but that's not something that we're going to roll out on day one," he added.
CNN's Ryan Browne contributed to this report.
Was Bigfoot just spotted roaming the mountains of Washington state?
Bigfoot, Sasquatch or Yeti. Call it what you will, but most agree the furry, cold-weather giant is just folklore — unless you’re the Washington State Department of Transportation.
On Wednesday, the state agency shared images from their traffic cameras showing a snowy landscape alongside State Route 20 in Ferry County. Upon close inspection, the WSDOT points out, there appears to be a dark, bipedal figure in the distance.
“Sasquatch spotted!!!” WSDOT proclaimed on Twitter. “I’m not superstitious… just a little stitious. Have you noticed something strange on our Sherman Pass/SR 20 webcam before? If you look closely by the tree on the left there looks to be something… might be Sasquatch… We will leave that up to you!”
The far-fetched tweet attracted social media’s finest pseudo-scientists who were quick to dismiss the claims, as many noted that the figure seemed more like a man wearing a dark hoodie and a backpack.
“Looks like a guy in all black sweats with hoodie and backpack,” said one skeptic.
Another person assumed a lot about the local government’s Photoshop skills. They wrote, “Why is there is no snow on the all black ‘Sasquatch’? At least sprinkle some fake snow on his black fur next time.”
Then, the Twitter account for Snoqualmie Pass about 250 miles west came to back up WSDOT’s tall tale.
“I think Bigfoot is making the rounds across our mountain passes. @wsdot_east showed him on Sherman Pass the other day and now he is on the wildlife overcrossing on I-90 just east of Snoqualmie Pass. #doyoubelieve,” they tweeted.
I think Bigfoot is making the rounds across our mountain passes. @wsdot_east showed him on Sherman Pass the other day and now he is on the wildlife overcrossing on I-90 just east of Snoqualmie Pass. #doyoubelieve
Soon, even more of Washington’s government agencies joined in on the farce. The Twitter for WSDOT’s Southwest region tweeted a GIF of Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) of “The X-Files” saying, “I want to believe.” Then Washington’s secretary of state added some historical context to the legend. The creature is so tied with the region that Gov. Dan Evans proclaimed “the Great Sasquatch” to be the official state monster in 1970.
The elusive beast has frequently been associated with the mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest, though sightings have been reported across the globe. In Georgia, there’s an entire museum dedicated to the half-man, half-ape, which may have indeed existed some 2 million years ago, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Nature.
Joke or not, one local was not at all amused to see how their tax dollars were being spent.
“WSDOT…we really paying you to waste time on Twitter???” they complained.
From: https://nypost.com/2020/01/24/was-bigfoot-just-spotted-roaming-the-mountains-of-washington-state/
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