Post by mhbruin on Jan 27, 2022 10:01:26 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 537 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday Jan 25)
We had a great December, but January has been pretty terrible. We have 3-4 months to get some significant rain.
There are no big storms in the 10-day forecast.
Reservoirs are still low, but they are filling up a bit.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Fat Leonard? Should We Say "Heavy Leonard"? "Full-Figured Leonard"?
A US Navy Commander has pleaded guilty to receiving $250,000 in cash and prostitution services from a foreign defence contractor in exchange for state secrets.
Information Commander Stephen Shedd provided to the firm helped it defraud the navy of $35 billion (£26.1bn).
The plea is the latest in the 'Fat Leonard' case, considered one of the worst corruption scandals faced by the navy.
Dozens of officials have been ensnared.
Next He Will Compare it To the Holocaust
Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said last year that not receiving an offer to teach at Duke University upon leaving the governorship was "blacklisting" and comparable to the refusal to serve Black Americans at lunch counters in the 1960s during segregation.
McCrory, who is now running for US Senate in a Republican primary, instead took a job as a local radio host where he made the comments, which were reviewed by CNN's KFile as part of a look at the rhetoric he used after leaving office in 2017. McCrory was the governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017.
"The head of the policy school called me up and said, 'Governor, we've got some problems. We've got some alumni and big donors that don't want you to come back to Duke to be a part of this public policy school,'" said McCrory in January 2021, referring to a job at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy.
"You know what I said to him, I said, 'If I come back to the, if I come back to the campus, will you serve me at the lunch counter?' And I meant it."
Assault With a Deadly Palin
A Manhattan restaurant where Sarah Palin was spotted dining indoors while unvaccinated over the weekend confirmed that the former Alaska governor returned to dine outdoors on Wednesday, just a few days after testing positive for Covid.
This Should Win Him the Animal Vote
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's credibility was once again thrown into doubt on Wednesday, after leaked emails appeared to contradict his claim of having no involvement in the evacuation of animals from a British charity in Afghanistan as the country fell to the Taliban and people were scrambling to find a way out.
The release of emails by a cross-party parliamentary committee on Foreign Affairs prompted claims that Britain's embattled leader had lied, at a time when he is already facing accusations of misleading Parliament over Covid-19 possibly rule-busting parties at Downing Street, which are now the subject of a police investigation.
Suggestions that vital resources were used to rescue animals instead of people at Johnson's request have been circulating for months, after tweets on the issue from the UK Defense Secretary in August and then in written testimony from an ex-UK Foreign Office staffer, who detailed the UK's "dysfunctional" and "chaotic" evacuation effort. In December, the Prime Minister dismissed the allegation as "complete nonsense."
But emails published by Parliament on Wednesday, supplied by the whistleblower Raphael Marshall as evidence in an ongoing inquiry into the UK's messy
One email, sent by a Foreign Office official on August 25 at 12:20 p.m. local time, states that "The PM" had just "authorized" the evacuation of staff and animals from Nowzad, a charity run by former British Royal Marines Cmdr. Pen Farthing, while lobbying a colleague to help with evacuations for another animal charity.
Ban the Bong
Fox News Channel host Dan Bongino on Wednesday became among the most-followed conservative personalities to be permanently banned from YouTube, a week after the Google-owned video service said he had posted Covid-19 misinformation.
YouTube suspended one of Bongino’s YouTube channels on Jan. 20 after he posted a video where he questioned the effectiveness of using masks against the coronavirus, a violation of the company’s pandemic-related misinformation policy. His later attempt to circumvent that one-week suspension by posting from another channel triggered a permanent ban, YouTube said.
Oh My, Amy!
A factory worker at Amy’s Kitchen who previously spoke out about working conditions has filed a formal complaint with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health on behalf of all workers at the company’s Santa Rosa plant.
The Santa Rosa plant was the subject of an NBC News report about what workers described as an unforgiving environment that pushed them past the point of injury. The complaint to Cal/OSHA was filed on Jan. 20 by Cecilia Luna Ojeda, who previously spoke to NBC News along with one former and three current workers.
Amy’s Kitchen is one of the country’s top producers of vegetarian canned and frozen food, with about $600 million in sales in 2020, and has a reputation as a socially responsible company. In March, Amy’s Kitchen received certification as a B Corp, a designation given by a nonprofit network that recognizes what it describes as workplaces that promote positive social change.
The complaint alleged that workers are not able to use the restroom or access clean drinking water in the course of their fast-paced shifts because of pressure to maintain line speeds. The complaint also described locked fire exits, worn-out floor mats and a lack of proper training for tasks like heavy lifting and operating heavy machinery. The complaint said workers experience hostility when they bring up safety concerns.
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Today's Best Person in the World
Roman Haller owes his life to a 20-year-old housekeeper.
He was conceived in the basement of a home in Poland where his parents and 10 other Jews hid out during World War II. It wasn’t just any house. It belonged to a Nazi officer, and it was his housekeeper who smuggled the Jews to the basement and took care of them in secret.
Over two years, the young woman, Irena Gut, went to extraordinary lengths to keep the 12 people safe and ensure that Haller would get a chance at life.
After finding out about the pregnancy, his parents asked Gut to help them perform an abortion because a crying baby would endanger all of their lives. But she insisted they have the baby.
When the Nazi officer discovered the Jews in his basement sometime later, Gut made a harrowing bargain: She agreed to become his mistress in exchange for his silence.
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Blinken Ain't Blinkin'
The U.S. has made no concessions to the main Russian demands over Ukraine and NATO in a long-awaited written response delivered to Russia on Wednesday in Moscow, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Blinken said the U.S. response, delivered to the Russian Foreign Ministry by U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, gave up no ground on "core principles" such as NATO’s open-door membership policy and the alliance’s military presence in Eastern Europe.
Blinken said the document made clear that the U.S. is standing by its oft-stated positions. "There is no change, there will be no change," he said. But, he said the written response to Russia also contains "serious" offers for a diplomatic path to de-escalate soaring tensions over Ukraine by addressing Russian concerns on other matters.
..............
The US has threatened to halt the opening of a key pipeline that would link Russian gas with Western Europe, if Russia invades Ukraine.
Nord Stream 2 would run from Russia to Germany, and on Thursday officials in Berlin said the project could face sanctions if Russia attacks.
Western allies say they will target Russia's economy if it invades, and the latest comments signal a hardening of their stance on the lucrative pipeline.
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For a Change, Iran May Have Got Something One Right
Police in Iran have arrested 17 people over a series of viral street prank videos posted on Instagram.
The pranksters recorded themselves faking murders and throwing cake at escalator riders, all in front of shocked members of the public.
Police said the influencers "sowed panic" to boost their follower counts.
Iranian authorities maintain tight control over the internet and the arrests come as part of a wider police crackdown on social media use.
One secretly filmed video showed a prankster chastising his wife for texting a heart emoji to someone before he pretended to decapitate her, all while a horrified taxi passenger watched on.
The victim of another recorded stunt was riding on an escalator when he was smeared in the face with a cream pie, before chasing the pranksters and angrily flinging his backpack and shoes after them.
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It Only Took Them 700 Years
The Catalan regional parliament has formally pardoned hundreds of women executed for witchcraft between the 15th and 18th centuries.
MPs passed a resolution by a large majority to rehabilitate the memory of more than 700 women who were tortured and put to death.
Spanish historians have discovered that Catalonia was one of the first regions in Europe to carry out witch hunts.
It was also considered one of the worst areas for executions.
"We have recently discovered the names of more than 700 women who were persecuted, tortured and executed between the 15th and 18th centuries," said the groups behind the resolution.
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In Case You Are Looking For Something to Worry About Today, There is Always the Quantum Apocalypse - My Friends Who Know this Stuff Say This is FAR Away.
Imagine a world where encrypted, secret files are suddenly cracked open - something known as "the quantum apocalypse".
Put very simply, quantum computers work completely differently from the computers developed over the past century. In theory, they could eventually become many, many times faster than today's machines.
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It's a Glass of Coke, Milk, or It Could Be Something Else Entirely. Drink Up. Why Not Just Say "We Don't Know What It is"?
While mapping radio waves across the universe, astronomers happened upon a celestial object releasing giant bursts of energy -- and it's unlike anything they've ever seen before.
The spinning space object, spotted in March 2018, beamed out radiation three times per hour. In those moments, it became the brightest source of radio waves viewable from Earth, acting like a celestial lighthouse.
Astronomers think it might be a remnant of a collapsed star, either a dense neutron star or a dead white dwarf star, with a strong magnetic field -- or it could be something else entirely.
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This Didn't Take 700 Years. Only 75 Years. I'm Ver-Klimt!
Several Nazi-pillaged artworks held in France's national collections could soon to be reunited with the families of their previous Jewish owners.
The French National Assembly passed a law on Tuesday to return 15 artworks looted by authorities during the Nazi period.
"It's a bill that we can describe as historic," French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said to the French Parliament ahead of the vote.
"It's the first time since the post-war period that the government is showing a legal commitment towards the restitution of pieces from public collections."
Painting found hidden in Italian gallery wall confirmed as long-lost Klimt
The bill was adopted with unanimous support at the National Assembly and is set to be reviewed by the Senate.
Gustav Klimt's oil painting "Rosebushes Under Trees" features among the 15 pieces to be returned by Paris.
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They Can't Make Enough Vehicles To Keep Up With Demand. I'm Not Sure I Buy This
The prospect of rising interest rates has the automotive industry on edge.
If the Federal Reserve decides to increase interest rates, as it suggested it would soon this week, automotive experts say the industry could lose $22 billion in sales.
Consumers could also purchase 150,000 fewer new vehicles and 500,000 fewer used ones, experts said.
Those expected rate hikes are likely to happen at the end of the central bank's next policymaking meeting — and almost exactly two years after it slashed rates to zero in response to the emergence of a fast-spreading coronavirus that threatened to destabilize the entire financial system.
J.D. Power estimates spiking interest rates would lead to a $15 billion loss in used vehicle sales and another $7 billion in losses on new vehicles.
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If You Believe Risky Business, This Should Earn Him a Scholarship
A college student originally from New York City has been indicted on over 300 gun-related charges, accused of trafficking firearms into the Big Apple and illegally selling dozens of weapons to an undercover officer, according to prosecutors.
Shakor Rodriguez, a 23-year-old Bronx native studying at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, was hit with 304 counts in two indictments, including charges of criminal sale of a firearm and criminal possession of a firearm, the Bronx District Attorney’s office announced Wednesday.
Rodriguez allegedly brought the weapons and high-capacity magazines to New York from the South, stuffing the guns in duffle bags and sometimes traveling by bus from Tennessee with them, Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said.
Rodriguez also allegedly sold an undercover officer 73 firearms, 59 of which were loaded, and over 40 high-capacity magazines from July 17, 2020, to December 22, 2021, according to a news release.
The undercover officer paid between $1,000 and $1,5000 per gun.
Rodriguez allegedly sold most of the weapons near his former home in the Bronx as well as multiple sales on Allen Street in Manhattan, prosecutors said.
According to school records, Rodriguez made the Dean’s List for the fall 2020 semester at Austin Peay State University, meaning he had a GPA of 3.5 of higher.
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That Boom You Heard is the US Economy, Not a New UCLA Commit
The U.S. economy grew last year at its fastest pace since 1984, rebounding from a sharp but brief coronavirus-induced recession in March 2020.
The nation's gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced, expanded by 5.7 percent in 2021, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Growth accelerated even faster during the period from October to December, rising to 6.9 percent on annualized basis.
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He's Ready to Tackle Herschel Walker
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock has proved once again that his reputation is warranted. He’s a fundraising giant. He has outraised his GOP opponent, Herschel Walker, by almost double in the last quarter of 2021, with donations averaging at $43.
According to Warnock’s campaign, the senator raked in $9.8 million to the retired NFL star’s $54.4 million in the same three-month period ending on Dec. 31.
Warnock’s latest haul will give him a hefty $23 million cash on hand for a reelection battle that could decide control the U.S. Senate. His campaign says he acquired the contributions from 130,000 donors from October to December.
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Now He Just Needs to Recruit Oprah
By this summer, a solid majority of voters must once again have the sense that Biden has a steady hand on the pandemic and that vaccines/tests/masks and other tools to manage COVID-19 have become easily accessible to anyone who wants them.
Two new Biden administration initiatives could help nudge voters back in that direction: mailing free at-home COVID-19 tests to households that want them and making free N95 masks available to everyone.
A new Axios/Ipsos poll found that both initiatives had the support of 84% of Americans, with just 14% opposition. Even 65% of the unvaccinated favored the administration mailing free at-home tests to those who want them. The survey also showed that 44% of Americans have already ordered a free test despite the policy being implemented just over a week ago.
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The Ozark Rule
"Democrats have been relentlessly pestering Breyer to step down so that they can replace him before Mitch McConnell comes back into power and makes a rule that all Supreme Court justices have to have been platinum QAnon members in the past," Trevor Noah said on The Tonight Show. And "maybe I'm just scarred, because even though the Republicans don't control the Senate, don't be shocked when Mitch still makes it happen. He's just going to come out like, 'It's a longstanding Senate tradition that we cannot confirm a Supreme Court justice in a year where there's a new season of Ozark on Netflix.'"
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There HAVE To Be Consequences
Dozens of local and state Republican leaders who showed their loyalty to Donald Trump by casting fake electoral votes for him a year ago may now face prison time in return for that devotion.
Because as the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, starts to look into the origins of the scheme to send “alternate” ballots to Congress from states narrowly won by Joe Biden, the 59 ersatz Trump electors who claimed to be “duly elected and qualified” could face federal charges ranging from election fraud to mail fraud, in addition to a range of state-level charges.
And in two of the states, the Democratic attorneys general are openly calling on the Department of Justice to act.
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14.5 Million People Should Thank John McCain and Barak Obama
Back in 2010, when the Affordable Care Act became law, then-Vice President Joe Biden famously called it a big f**king deal.
Now Biden has been president for a year, and, based on new enrollment figures, the law seems to be an even bigger f**king deal than it was before.
Approximately 14.5 million people signed up for private coverage through HealthCare.gov or one of 18 state-run marketplaces during this year’s open enrollment period, the Biden administration announced Thursday.
That is the highest number ever.
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Today's Luckiest Chippewas in the World
Dozens of prospective Central Michigan University students who were mistakenly told they had won full-ride scholarships that include room and board have received an apology from the school — and offers of the equivalent of full-tuition scholarships “to make it right."
School officials said 58 youths received messages last weekend while accessing the university portal telling them they had won a Centralis Scholars Award, which includes full tuition, room and board, money toward books and supplies, and a $5,000 “study away award."
But the university said Wednesday that those contacted hadn’t won the prestigious award and the message had gone out “inadvertently” as school staffers were testing new messaging technology.
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Has the Equal Rights Amendment Been Passed?
The Equal Rights Amendment, an addition to the U.S. Constitution that would ensure women have equal protections under the law, was first conceived nearly a century ago. It wasn’t until 1972 that Congress finally passed it, allowing states to ratify the amendment one by one. The country needed 38 states to ratify the ERA and ― even though it took nearly 50 years ― Virginia became the 38th state to approve the amendment in 2020. After the final state’s ratification, the ERA should go into effect two years later.
Thursday marks the second anniversary of Virginia’s ratification, meaning the ERA should become the 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
But a memo from the Trump administration’s Department of Justice stands in the way.
“Today is the two-year anniversary of Virginia becoming the 38th and final state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, making it the law of the land. We’re not going to let a Trump-era memo stand in the way of the 28th amendment to the Constitution, which finally guarantees protections against sex discrimination in our foundational document,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told HuffPost in a statement Wednesday evening.
The 2020 Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel released a memo weeks before Virginia ratified the amendment, stating that the ERA resolution expired after its 1982 deadline and that any state ratification that happened after 1982 was null.
“We conclude that the ERA Resolution has expired and is no longer pending before the States,” the memo says. “Even if one or more state legislatures were to ratify the 1972 proposal, that action would not complete the ratification of the amendment, and the ERA’s adoption could not be certified under 1 U.S.C.”
Under instruction from the Trump administration’s Justice Department, the National Archives and Records Administration declined to publish the ERA to the Constitution despite it achieving the necessary steps. The Trump administration effectively killed the ERA and told advocates to start the entire process from scratch after decades of work.
Speier and fellow Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced a House Resolution on Thursday urging Congress to acknowledge that the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment is valid.
“It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the article of amendment to the Constitution relating to the equality of rights (commonly known as the ‘Equal Rights Amendment’), duly proposed by 2/3 of each House of the Congress and ratified by more than 3/4 of the several States, has met the requirements of the Constitution and become valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution, and shall be known as the ‘Twenty-Eight Amendment to the Constitution,’” reads the resolution, which is shown in full at the end of this article.
On Thursday morning, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass Speier’s resolution.
“I once again want to express my support for the ERA loudly and clearly,” Biden said in a statement. “I have been a strong supporter of the ERA ever since I first ran for the Senate as a 29-year-old. We must recognize the clear will of the American people and definitively enshrine the principle of gender equality in the Constitution. It is long past time that we put all doubt to rest.”
“It is inexcusable that in the year 2022, women and girls still cannot find a guarantee of equality under the law reflected in their Constitution.”
- Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Rep. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)
The Biden administration’s Office of Legal Counsel published a new opinion Wednesday night in response to arguments that the Trump-era memo is holding back the ERA from ratification. The new memo did not withdraw the Trump OLC’s previous opinion, but did admit that the issue is more complicated than the Trump-era opinion stated.
The new OLC effectively deferred the issue to Congress and the courts, adding that the 2020 opinion “is not an obstacle either to Congress’ ability to act with respect to ratification of the ERA or to judicial consideration of the pertinent questions.”
Although the deadline for ratification did pass in 1982, supporters of the resolution argue that the expiration is arbitrary because Congress has the power to extend or remove deadlines. The new OLC opinion signals that the Biden Administration’s DOJ seems to agree.
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CDC doesn't do a good job of reporting around holidays.
Doses Administered 7-Day Average | Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses | Number of People 2 or More Doses | New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Jan 27 | |||||
| Jan 26 | 962,958 | 251,518,114 | 210,850,212 | ||
| Jan 25 | 1,011,603 | 251,289,667 | 210,682,471 | 627,294 | 2,246 |
| Jan 24 | 1,201,186 | 250,964,433 | 210,459,963 | 692,359 | 2,166 |
| Jan 23 | 1,101,405 | 250,763,600 | 210,358,008 | 663,908 | 1,936 |
| Jan 22 | 1,002,322 | 250,568,431 | 210,229,586 | 686,715 | 1,939 |
| Jan 21 | 1,035,111 | 250,262,153 | 210,021,766 | 716,829 | 1,974 |
| Jan 20 | 1,094,988 | 250,028,635 | 209,842,610 | 726,870 | 1,843 |
| Jan 19 | 1,135,453 | 249,702,939 | 209,509,297 | 744,615 | 1,749 |
| Jan 18 | 1,158,537 | 249,393,487 | 209,312,770 | 755,095 | 1,669 |
| Jan 17 | No Data | 736,350 | 1,746 | ||
| Jan 16 | No Data | 771,131 | 1,851 | ||
| Jan 15 | 1,268,202 | 248,707,432 | 208,995,438 | 788,628 | 1,858 |
| Jan 14 | 1,286,773 | 248,338,448 | 208,791,862 | 798,335 | 1,784 |
| Jan 13 | 1,291,013 | 247,987,225 | 208,564,894 | 794,587 | 1,730 |
| Jan 12 | 1,234,672 | 247,695,845 | 208,182,657 | 782,765 | 1,729 |
| Jan 11 | 1,213,113 | 247,321,023 | 207,954,605 | 761,535 | 1,656 |
| Jan 10 | 1,307,445 | 247,051,363 | 207,796,335 | 750,996 | 1,633 |
| Jan 9 | 1,331,635 | 246,812,939 | 207,662,071 | 674,406 | 1,552 |
| Jan 8 | 1,286,783 | 246,447,823 | 207,452,448 | 680,330 | 1,544 |
| Jan 7 | 1,226,151 | 246,050,320 | 207,229,983 | 668,497 | 1,513 |
| Jan 6 | 1,164,127 | 245,653,518 | 207,016,514 | 614,552 | 1,350 |
| Jan 5 | 1,117,999 | 245,278,020 | 206,797,799 | 586,391 | 1,245 |
| Jan 4 | 1,093,005 | 244,947,293 | 206,581,659 | 554,328 | 1,238 |
| Jan 3 | No Data | 491,652 | 1,165 | ||
| Jan 2 | No Data | 438,082 | 1,174 | ||
| Jan 1 | No Data | 411,871 | 1,151 | ||
| Dec 31 | No Data | 391,098 | 1,135 | ||
| Dec 30 | 1,234,917 | 243,527,564 | 205,811,394 | 360,276 | 1,144 |
| Dec 29 | 1,042,911 | 243,182,423 | 205,638,307 | 316,277 | 1,100 |
| Dec 28 | 1,091,279 | 242,813,374 | 205,420,745 | 277,241 | 1,085 |
| Dec 27 | 1,034,442 | 242,433,620 | 205,196,973 | 240,408 | 1,096 |
| Dec 26 | No Data | 206,577 | 1,041 | ||
| Dec 25 | No Data | 196,511 | 1,053 | ||
| Feb 16, 2021 | 1,716,311 | 39,670,551 | 15,015,434 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 75.8% | 64.5% | 40.4% |
| % of Population 5+ | 80.5% | 67.5% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 85.7% | 72.3% | 43.5% |
| % of Population 18+ | 87.6% | 73.9% | 54.9% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 88.2% | 63.3% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday Jan 25)
We had a great December, but January has been pretty terrible. We have 3-4 months to get some significant rain.
There are no big storms in the 10-day forecast.
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | 2 Weeks ago | 3 Weeks ago | 4 Weeks ago | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 124% | 134% | 149% | 158% | 170% |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 110% | 121% | 138% | 156% | 170% |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 101% | 112% | 127% | 145% | 151% |
| Snow Water Content - North | 117% | 128% | 135% | 134% | |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 114% | 129% | 148% | 148% | |
| Snow Water Content - South | 121% | 135% | 160% | 158% |
Reservoirs are still low, but they are filling up a bit.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Fat Leonard? Should We Say "Heavy Leonard"? "Full-Figured Leonard"?
A US Navy Commander has pleaded guilty to receiving $250,000 in cash and prostitution services from a foreign defence contractor in exchange for state secrets.
Information Commander Stephen Shedd provided to the firm helped it defraud the navy of $35 billion (£26.1bn).
The plea is the latest in the 'Fat Leonard' case, considered one of the worst corruption scandals faced by the navy.
Dozens of officials have been ensnared.
Next He Will Compare it To the Holocaust
Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said last year that not receiving an offer to teach at Duke University upon leaving the governorship was "blacklisting" and comparable to the refusal to serve Black Americans at lunch counters in the 1960s during segregation.
McCrory, who is now running for US Senate in a Republican primary, instead took a job as a local radio host where he made the comments, which were reviewed by CNN's KFile as part of a look at the rhetoric he used after leaving office in 2017. McCrory was the governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017.
"The head of the policy school called me up and said, 'Governor, we've got some problems. We've got some alumni and big donors that don't want you to come back to Duke to be a part of this public policy school,'" said McCrory in January 2021, referring to a job at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy.
"You know what I said to him, I said, 'If I come back to the, if I come back to the campus, will you serve me at the lunch counter?' And I meant it."
Assault With a Deadly Palin
A Manhattan restaurant where Sarah Palin was spotted dining indoors while unvaccinated over the weekend confirmed that the former Alaska governor returned to dine outdoors on Wednesday, just a few days after testing positive for Covid.
This Should Win Him the Animal Vote
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's credibility was once again thrown into doubt on Wednesday, after leaked emails appeared to contradict his claim of having no involvement in the evacuation of animals from a British charity in Afghanistan as the country fell to the Taliban and people were scrambling to find a way out.
The release of emails by a cross-party parliamentary committee on Foreign Affairs prompted claims that Britain's embattled leader had lied, at a time when he is already facing accusations of misleading Parliament over Covid-19 possibly rule-busting parties at Downing Street, which are now the subject of a police investigation.
Suggestions that vital resources were used to rescue animals instead of people at Johnson's request have been circulating for months, after tweets on the issue from the UK Defense Secretary in August and then in written testimony from an ex-UK Foreign Office staffer, who detailed the UK's "dysfunctional" and "chaotic" evacuation effort. In December, the Prime Minister dismissed the allegation as "complete nonsense."
But emails published by Parliament on Wednesday, supplied by the whistleblower Raphael Marshall as evidence in an ongoing inquiry into the UK's messy
One email, sent by a Foreign Office official on August 25 at 12:20 p.m. local time, states that "The PM" had just "authorized" the evacuation of staff and animals from Nowzad, a charity run by former British Royal Marines Cmdr. Pen Farthing, while lobbying a colleague to help with evacuations for another animal charity.
Ban the Bong
Fox News Channel host Dan Bongino on Wednesday became among the most-followed conservative personalities to be permanently banned from YouTube, a week after the Google-owned video service said he had posted Covid-19 misinformation.
YouTube suspended one of Bongino’s YouTube channels on Jan. 20 after he posted a video where he questioned the effectiveness of using masks against the coronavirus, a violation of the company’s pandemic-related misinformation policy. His later attempt to circumvent that one-week suspension by posting from another channel triggered a permanent ban, YouTube said.
Oh My, Amy!
A factory worker at Amy’s Kitchen who previously spoke out about working conditions has filed a formal complaint with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health on behalf of all workers at the company’s Santa Rosa plant.
The Santa Rosa plant was the subject of an NBC News report about what workers described as an unforgiving environment that pushed them past the point of injury. The complaint to Cal/OSHA was filed on Jan. 20 by Cecilia Luna Ojeda, who previously spoke to NBC News along with one former and three current workers.
Amy’s Kitchen is one of the country’s top producers of vegetarian canned and frozen food, with about $600 million in sales in 2020, and has a reputation as a socially responsible company. In March, Amy’s Kitchen received certification as a B Corp, a designation given by a nonprofit network that recognizes what it describes as workplaces that promote positive social change.
The complaint alleged that workers are not able to use the restroom or access clean drinking water in the course of their fast-paced shifts because of pressure to maintain line speeds. The complaint also described locked fire exits, worn-out floor mats and a lack of proper training for tasks like heavy lifting and operating heavy machinery. The complaint said workers experience hostility when they bring up safety concerns.
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Today's Best Person in the World
Roman Haller owes his life to a 20-year-old housekeeper.
He was conceived in the basement of a home in Poland where his parents and 10 other Jews hid out during World War II. It wasn’t just any house. It belonged to a Nazi officer, and it was his housekeeper who smuggled the Jews to the basement and took care of them in secret.
Over two years, the young woman, Irena Gut, went to extraordinary lengths to keep the 12 people safe and ensure that Haller would get a chance at life.
After finding out about the pregnancy, his parents asked Gut to help them perform an abortion because a crying baby would endanger all of their lives. But she insisted they have the baby.
When the Nazi officer discovered the Jews in his basement sometime later, Gut made a harrowing bargain: She agreed to become his mistress in exchange for his silence.
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Blinken Ain't Blinkin'
The U.S. has made no concessions to the main Russian demands over Ukraine and NATO in a long-awaited written response delivered to Russia on Wednesday in Moscow, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Blinken said the U.S. response, delivered to the Russian Foreign Ministry by U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, gave up no ground on "core principles" such as NATO’s open-door membership policy and the alliance’s military presence in Eastern Europe.
Blinken said the document made clear that the U.S. is standing by its oft-stated positions. "There is no change, there will be no change," he said. But, he said the written response to Russia also contains "serious" offers for a diplomatic path to de-escalate soaring tensions over Ukraine by addressing Russian concerns on other matters.
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The US has threatened to halt the opening of a key pipeline that would link Russian gas with Western Europe, if Russia invades Ukraine.
Nord Stream 2 would run from Russia to Germany, and on Thursday officials in Berlin said the project could face sanctions if Russia attacks.
Western allies say they will target Russia's economy if it invades, and the latest comments signal a hardening of their stance on the lucrative pipeline.
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For a Change, Iran May Have Got Something One Right
Police in Iran have arrested 17 people over a series of viral street prank videos posted on Instagram.
The pranksters recorded themselves faking murders and throwing cake at escalator riders, all in front of shocked members of the public.
Police said the influencers "sowed panic" to boost their follower counts.
Iranian authorities maintain tight control over the internet and the arrests come as part of a wider police crackdown on social media use.
One secretly filmed video showed a prankster chastising his wife for texting a heart emoji to someone before he pretended to decapitate her, all while a horrified taxi passenger watched on.
The victim of another recorded stunt was riding on an escalator when he was smeared in the face with a cream pie, before chasing the pranksters and angrily flinging his backpack and shoes after them.
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It Only Took Them 700 Years
The Catalan regional parliament has formally pardoned hundreds of women executed for witchcraft between the 15th and 18th centuries.
MPs passed a resolution by a large majority to rehabilitate the memory of more than 700 women who were tortured and put to death.
Spanish historians have discovered that Catalonia was one of the first regions in Europe to carry out witch hunts.
It was also considered one of the worst areas for executions.
"We have recently discovered the names of more than 700 women who were persecuted, tortured and executed between the 15th and 18th centuries," said the groups behind the resolution.
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In Case You Are Looking For Something to Worry About Today, There is Always the Quantum Apocalypse - My Friends Who Know this Stuff Say This is FAR Away.
Imagine a world where encrypted, secret files are suddenly cracked open - something known as "the quantum apocalypse".
Put very simply, quantum computers work completely differently from the computers developed over the past century. In theory, they could eventually become many, many times faster than today's machines.
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It's a Glass of Coke, Milk, or It Could Be Something Else Entirely. Drink Up. Why Not Just Say "We Don't Know What It is"?
While mapping radio waves across the universe, astronomers happened upon a celestial object releasing giant bursts of energy -- and it's unlike anything they've ever seen before.
The spinning space object, spotted in March 2018, beamed out radiation three times per hour. In those moments, it became the brightest source of radio waves viewable from Earth, acting like a celestial lighthouse.
Astronomers think it might be a remnant of a collapsed star, either a dense neutron star or a dead white dwarf star, with a strong magnetic field -- or it could be something else entirely.
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This Didn't Take 700 Years. Only 75 Years. I'm Ver-Klimt!
Several Nazi-pillaged artworks held in France's national collections could soon to be reunited with the families of their previous Jewish owners.
The French National Assembly passed a law on Tuesday to return 15 artworks looted by authorities during the Nazi period.
"It's a bill that we can describe as historic," French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said to the French Parliament ahead of the vote.
"It's the first time since the post-war period that the government is showing a legal commitment towards the restitution of pieces from public collections."
Painting found hidden in Italian gallery wall confirmed as long-lost Klimt
The bill was adopted with unanimous support at the National Assembly and is set to be reviewed by the Senate.
Gustav Klimt's oil painting "Rosebushes Under Trees" features among the 15 pieces to be returned by Paris.
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They Can't Make Enough Vehicles To Keep Up With Demand. I'm Not Sure I Buy This
The prospect of rising interest rates has the automotive industry on edge.
If the Federal Reserve decides to increase interest rates, as it suggested it would soon this week, automotive experts say the industry could lose $22 billion in sales.
Consumers could also purchase 150,000 fewer new vehicles and 500,000 fewer used ones, experts said.
Those expected rate hikes are likely to happen at the end of the central bank's next policymaking meeting — and almost exactly two years after it slashed rates to zero in response to the emergence of a fast-spreading coronavirus that threatened to destabilize the entire financial system.
J.D. Power estimates spiking interest rates would lead to a $15 billion loss in used vehicle sales and another $7 billion in losses on new vehicles.
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If You Believe Risky Business, This Should Earn Him a Scholarship
A college student originally from New York City has been indicted on over 300 gun-related charges, accused of trafficking firearms into the Big Apple and illegally selling dozens of weapons to an undercover officer, according to prosecutors.
Shakor Rodriguez, a 23-year-old Bronx native studying at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, was hit with 304 counts in two indictments, including charges of criminal sale of a firearm and criminal possession of a firearm, the Bronx District Attorney’s office announced Wednesday.
Rodriguez allegedly brought the weapons and high-capacity magazines to New York from the South, stuffing the guns in duffle bags and sometimes traveling by bus from Tennessee with them, Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said.
Rodriguez also allegedly sold an undercover officer 73 firearms, 59 of which were loaded, and over 40 high-capacity magazines from July 17, 2020, to December 22, 2021, according to a news release.
The undercover officer paid between $1,000 and $1,5000 per gun.
Rodriguez allegedly sold most of the weapons near his former home in the Bronx as well as multiple sales on Allen Street in Manhattan, prosecutors said.
According to school records, Rodriguez made the Dean’s List for the fall 2020 semester at Austin Peay State University, meaning he had a GPA of 3.5 of higher.
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That Boom You Heard is the US Economy, Not a New UCLA Commit
The U.S. economy grew last year at its fastest pace since 1984, rebounding from a sharp but brief coronavirus-induced recession in March 2020.
The nation's gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced, expanded by 5.7 percent in 2021, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Growth accelerated even faster during the period from October to December, rising to 6.9 percent on annualized basis.
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He's Ready to Tackle Herschel Walker
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock has proved once again that his reputation is warranted. He’s a fundraising giant. He has outraised his GOP opponent, Herschel Walker, by almost double in the last quarter of 2021, with donations averaging at $43.
According to Warnock’s campaign, the senator raked in $9.8 million to the retired NFL star’s $54.4 million in the same three-month period ending on Dec. 31.
Warnock’s latest haul will give him a hefty $23 million cash on hand for a reelection battle that could decide control the U.S. Senate. His campaign says he acquired the contributions from 130,000 donors from October to December.
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Now He Just Needs to Recruit Oprah
By this summer, a solid majority of voters must once again have the sense that Biden has a steady hand on the pandemic and that vaccines/tests/masks and other tools to manage COVID-19 have become easily accessible to anyone who wants them.
Two new Biden administration initiatives could help nudge voters back in that direction: mailing free at-home COVID-19 tests to households that want them and making free N95 masks available to everyone.
A new Axios/Ipsos poll found that both initiatives had the support of 84% of Americans, with just 14% opposition. Even 65% of the unvaccinated favored the administration mailing free at-home tests to those who want them. The survey also showed that 44% of Americans have already ordered a free test despite the policy being implemented just over a week ago.
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The Ozark Rule
"Democrats have been relentlessly pestering Breyer to step down so that they can replace him before Mitch McConnell comes back into power and makes a rule that all Supreme Court justices have to have been platinum QAnon members in the past," Trevor Noah said on The Tonight Show. And "maybe I'm just scarred, because even though the Republicans don't control the Senate, don't be shocked when Mitch still makes it happen. He's just going to come out like, 'It's a longstanding Senate tradition that we cannot confirm a Supreme Court justice in a year where there's a new season of Ozark on Netflix.'"
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There HAVE To Be Consequences
Dozens of local and state Republican leaders who showed their loyalty to Donald Trump by casting fake electoral votes for him a year ago may now face prison time in return for that devotion.
Because as the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, starts to look into the origins of the scheme to send “alternate” ballots to Congress from states narrowly won by Joe Biden, the 59 ersatz Trump electors who claimed to be “duly elected and qualified” could face federal charges ranging from election fraud to mail fraud, in addition to a range of state-level charges.
And in two of the states, the Democratic attorneys general are openly calling on the Department of Justice to act.
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14.5 Million People Should Thank John McCain and Barak Obama
Back in 2010, when the Affordable Care Act became law, then-Vice President Joe Biden famously called it a big f**king deal.
Now Biden has been president for a year, and, based on new enrollment figures, the law seems to be an even bigger f**king deal than it was before.
Approximately 14.5 million people signed up for private coverage through HealthCare.gov or one of 18 state-run marketplaces during this year’s open enrollment period, the Biden administration announced Thursday.
That is the highest number ever.
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Today's Luckiest Chippewas in the World
Dozens of prospective Central Michigan University students who were mistakenly told they had won full-ride scholarships that include room and board have received an apology from the school — and offers of the equivalent of full-tuition scholarships “to make it right."
School officials said 58 youths received messages last weekend while accessing the university portal telling them they had won a Centralis Scholars Award, which includes full tuition, room and board, money toward books and supplies, and a $5,000 “study away award."
But the university said Wednesday that those contacted hadn’t won the prestigious award and the message had gone out “inadvertently” as school staffers were testing new messaging technology.
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Has the Equal Rights Amendment Been Passed?
The Equal Rights Amendment, an addition to the U.S. Constitution that would ensure women have equal protections under the law, was first conceived nearly a century ago. It wasn’t until 1972 that Congress finally passed it, allowing states to ratify the amendment one by one. The country needed 38 states to ratify the ERA and ― even though it took nearly 50 years ― Virginia became the 38th state to approve the amendment in 2020. After the final state’s ratification, the ERA should go into effect two years later.
Thursday marks the second anniversary of Virginia’s ratification, meaning the ERA should become the 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
But a memo from the Trump administration’s Department of Justice stands in the way.
“Today is the two-year anniversary of Virginia becoming the 38th and final state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, making it the law of the land. We’re not going to let a Trump-era memo stand in the way of the 28th amendment to the Constitution, which finally guarantees protections against sex discrimination in our foundational document,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told HuffPost in a statement Wednesday evening.
The 2020 Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel released a memo weeks before Virginia ratified the amendment, stating that the ERA resolution expired after its 1982 deadline and that any state ratification that happened after 1982 was null.
“We conclude that the ERA Resolution has expired and is no longer pending before the States,” the memo says. “Even if one or more state legislatures were to ratify the 1972 proposal, that action would not complete the ratification of the amendment, and the ERA’s adoption could not be certified under 1 U.S.C.”
Under instruction from the Trump administration’s Justice Department, the National Archives and Records Administration declined to publish the ERA to the Constitution despite it achieving the necessary steps. The Trump administration effectively killed the ERA and told advocates to start the entire process from scratch after decades of work.
Speier and fellow Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced a House Resolution on Thursday urging Congress to acknowledge that the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment is valid.
“It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the article of amendment to the Constitution relating to the equality of rights (commonly known as the ‘Equal Rights Amendment’), duly proposed by 2/3 of each House of the Congress and ratified by more than 3/4 of the several States, has met the requirements of the Constitution and become valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution, and shall be known as the ‘Twenty-Eight Amendment to the Constitution,’” reads the resolution, which is shown in full at the end of this article.
On Thursday morning, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass Speier’s resolution.
“I once again want to express my support for the ERA loudly and clearly,” Biden said in a statement. “I have been a strong supporter of the ERA ever since I first ran for the Senate as a 29-year-old. We must recognize the clear will of the American people and definitively enshrine the principle of gender equality in the Constitution. It is long past time that we put all doubt to rest.”
“It is inexcusable that in the year 2022, women and girls still cannot find a guarantee of equality under the law reflected in their Constitution.”
- Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Rep. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)
The Biden administration’s Office of Legal Counsel published a new opinion Wednesday night in response to arguments that the Trump-era memo is holding back the ERA from ratification. The new memo did not withdraw the Trump OLC’s previous opinion, but did admit that the issue is more complicated than the Trump-era opinion stated.
The new OLC effectively deferred the issue to Congress and the courts, adding that the 2020 opinion “is not an obstacle either to Congress’ ability to act with respect to ratification of the ERA or to judicial consideration of the pertinent questions.”
Although the deadline for ratification did pass in 1982, supporters of the resolution argue that the expiration is arbitrary because Congress has the power to extend or remove deadlines. The new OLC opinion signals that the Biden Administration’s DOJ seems to agree.
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