(no subject)

HR 1229, 1230, and 1231 - introduced by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) are basically about expanding offshore drilling. The health of Americans in coastal regions is linked to oil spills. The economic welfare of coastal regions is threatened by oil spills.

And, although I can't find a name or number for the House measure to strip federal funding for states to provide Obamacare, it passed the House earlier. It's not expected to pass the Senate. Remember, peoples' lives depend on access to health care, and frequently that cannot happen under the current system.

(no subject)

Here's the setup;

It's 1924, and Prohibition doesn't seem to have changed much for a diverse city with riverside docks, warehouses, slums full of immigrants, prize fights, factories and snooty, rich "old Americans." The most flamboyant bootleggers are a Jewish mobster nicknamed "Boo Boo" who sponsors boxing events, an actually Polish mobster who goes through a bewildering variety of faux-Irish names, and a sextet of downright murderous Italian brothers, but for each of these major players, there are dozens of smalltime hoods lurking in the shadows. The police are notoriously corrupt, there's the occasional murder, and so on. The new Mayor decides he's going to do a grandiose public gesture. He'll call in a genuine war hero, a Marine Corps general who's the son of a prominent state representative, and who has a laundry list of achievements, as the Director of Public Safety. The general will "get tough on crime," business will proceed as usual, and the Mayor will come out looking great to locals and to the congressman.

Then things go sideways. The general steps up raids, reorganizes the police force to minimize nepotism, purchases armored cars for the city's police, establishes checkpoints into the city, and the last straw is when he has his men raid not one but four of the favorite drinking establishments of the city's gentry. Rumor has it the guy even uses active-duty Marines to help in the raids when the police aren't trustworthy enough. The Mayor is livid... but it takes basically two years and goodness knows how much pressure to get the general to resign, where he's promptly shipped off to China.

Seriously. Great game setting if some of it is stereotypical. And it's all real actually, I'm not making this up. This fits into my contention that 1918-1930 or so was chock-full of stuff that needs to be in a game somewhere. (The Boston Molasses Flood? Arkansas Andrews' Gobi expeditions? The last cavalry on cavalry battle? A shooting war on a mountain between hired thugs, and even the USAAF, with armed miners? A Russian noble gone rogue from the White Russian forces, hell-bent on ruling Mongolia, convinced that he's the re-incarnation of Genghis Khan? It's all there.)