Post by mhbruin on May 18, 2022 9:35:04 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 585 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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Alaskan Eye Doctors are Optical Aleutians.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
The QOP Embraces GRT. (Great Replacement Theory.)
The reality is that many are asylum-seekers who are being blocked from their rights under the Stephen Miller-endorsed Title 42 policy. But Cruz would rather have you be afraid of them than the insurrectionists who tried to overthrow our election. He’d also rather have you be afraid of these families when his father, Rafael Cruz, similarly sought asylum, from Cuba. The elder Cruz has previously described how he bribed a Cuban official in order to pursue safety here.
It’s no surprise that Cruz made this racist “invasion” claim. Levin last year claimed that “we're losing red-state America, and they are doing it, they are diabolical, and they are evil, they are doing it through immigration,” Media Matters reported at the time. “People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, by design,” Levin continued. “Most of the media are not there to report it, by design.”
I'm Not Going to Imagine This
Around 30% of Americans Are Certifiably Insane
That the Christian right is intertwined with a Republican candidate is hardly new. Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, the movement has defined GOP politics. What is new, and increasingly perilous, is that over the ensuing years the movement has become more highly radicalized, a trend that was validated and accelerated by Trump’s candidacy and presidency — and especially by his stolen election lie. A movement that elevated Trump to messianic status and shielded him from his 2019 impeachment was able to convince millions that satanic forces had robbed God’s man in the White House of his anointed perch as the restorer of America’s white Christian heritage. Their duty, as patriotic spiritual warriors, was to go to battle on his behalf.
The Last Line is the Scariest
I Wrote He Would Be Re-Elected. I Am Happy To Be Wrong About This Prediction
Will Wynn Be a Loser?
The Justice Department sued longtime Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn on Tuesday to compel him to register as a foreign agent because of lobbying work it says he performed at the behest of the Chinese government during the Trump administration.
The department said it had advised Wynn repeatedly over the last four years to register under the Foreign Agents Registration and is suing now because Wynn refused to do so.
Though the Justice Department has ramped up efforts to criminally prosecute people who don’t register as foreign agents, officials described this case as the first lawsuit of its kind in more than three decades.
The complaint alleges that Wynn, who stepped down from his company, Wynn Resorts, in 2018 after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, lobbied then-President Donald Trump and members of his administration for several months in 2017 to remove from the United States a Chinese national who had been charged with corruption in China and was seeking political asylum in America.
The QOP Is So Thrilled At His Nomination, That They Might Support Him. Or They Might Not.
Is There Hope for the Young, Even in Wyoming?
Yikes!
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Today's Best Dog in the World
A woman who was attacked by a mountain lion in Northern California says her dog jumped to her defense and was badly wounded in protecting her.
“I don't think I will ever be able to live up to how amazing and loyal she is to me,” Erin Wilson told the Sacramento Bee on Tuesday.
Wilson, 24, lives in rural Trinity County, about four hours northwest of Sacramento. On Monday, she drove to the Trinity River near unincorporated Big Bar to take an afternoon stroll with Eva, her 2 1/2-year-old Belgian Malinois.
Wilson was on a path with Eva a few yards ahead when a mountain lion lunged and swiped at her, scratching Wilson’s left shoulder through her jacket, she said.
“I yelled ‘Eva!’ and she came running,” Wilson said. “And she hit that cat really hard.”
The dog weighs 55 pounds and was outclassed by the cougar but battled fiercely.
“They fought for a couple seconds, and then I heard her start crying,” Wilson said.
The cougar bit the dog’s head and wouldn’t let go, even when Wilson attacked the animal with rocks, sticks and her fists, tried to choke it and gouge its eyes.
The cat tried to kick her off, scratching her with its back paws. Wilson said she ran back to her pickup truck, grabbed a tire iron and flagged down a passing car.
That driver, Sharon Houston, told the Bee that she grabbed a long length of PVC pipe and pepper spray. Together, the women began beating the lion, which had dragged the dog off the trail.
Houston finally sprayed the animal with the pepper spray and it fled, Houston said.
Wilson was treated for non-life-threatening scratches, scrapes and bruises.
The dog was in guarded condition, said a statement from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Better Late Than Never. Long Ago Would Have Been Much Better
The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee announced a deal Wednesday that would help military veterans who have been exposed to toxic burn pits.
Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Jerry Moran, R- Kan., said the agreement on the package came after a year of intense negotiations with their House counterparts, the White House and veterans’ groups.
The legislation would also make it easier for veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange, a powerful herbicide used to clear vegetation in military operations, during the Vietnam War to get treatment.
Krugman I
I never thought I’d say this, but I miss voodoo economics.
It was shocking at the time when a crank economic doctrine — the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves — became, in effect, the official Republican party line. It was dismaying to see that doctrine’s hold on the party become ever more entrenched even as the evidence for its falsity (the Clinton economic boom, the lackluster performance of the Bush economy even before the 2008 financial crisis, the tax-cut debacle in Kansas, the failure of the Trump tax cuts to generate an investment boom) kept accumulating.
And voodoo economics continues to do real damage to this day. The Republicans who control Mississippi, a poor state with desperately underfunded educational programs that’s closing hospitals, recently moved to boost the state’s economy by … cutting taxes.
From Voodoo to MAGA to Buffalo
Krugman II
Last week TerraUSD, a stablecoin — a system that was supposed to perform a lot like a conventional bank account but was backed only by a cryptocurrency called Luna — collapsed. Luna lost 97 percent of its value over the course of just 24 hours, apparently destroying some investors’ life savings.
The event shook the crypto world in general, but the truth is that this world was looking pretty shaky even before the Terra disaster. Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, peaked last November and has since declined by more than 50 percent.
Here’s one way to think about that decline. Almost everyone is concerned about the rising cost of living; the Consumer Price Index — the cost of a representative basket of goods and services — has gone up about 4 percent over the past six months. But the cost of the same basket in Bitcoin has risen around 120 percent, which means inflation at an annualized rate of about 380 percent.
And other cryptocurrencies have performed far worse. Two cities — Miami and New York — have introduced their own cryptocurrencies, with enthusiastic support from their mayors. MiamiCoin is down more than 90 percent from its peak, and NewYorkCityCoin is down more than 80 percent.
Crashing Crypto: Is This Time Different?
Today's Best Campaign Add in the World
Debt Free!! Whee!!
Hundreds of graduates at a Los Angeles college walked out of their commencement ceremony debt-free on Sunday thanks to two celebrities’ donation.
Australian model and Kora Organics CEO Miranda Kerr made the massive donation along with her husband, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel, to 285 students at Otis College of Art and Design.
The donation came from the Spiegel Family Fund, a group with a “dedication to the arts, education, housing and human rights,” according to its website.
The donation, the largest in the institution’s history, helped rid the burden of “outstanding student debt” among graduates. It came the same day the institution presented both Kerr and Spiegel with honorary degrees, according to the college.
Charles Hirschhorn, president of Otis College, said the institution was “incredibly grateful” for the gift and the donation will help “empower” the graduating class.
It’s unclear how much the couple gave to Otis College. However, the move has already made a major impact on students’ lives.
A Few Women Get Equal Pay
The United States Soccer Federation has reached milestone agreements to pay its men’s and women’s teams equally, the first of their kind in the sport.
The announcement on Wednesday ended years of acrimonious negotiations with unions for both teams and followed a high-profile push by players on the women’s team, which unlike the men’s team has been dominant in international tournaments, for pay parity.
A $26m settlement in a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by some players in 2019 was contingent on reaching labor contracts that equalised pay and bonuses between the two teams. The new contracts extend through December 2028.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Day 84
Fighting
The fate of Ukrainian fighters evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol remains uncertain after some were transported to the Russian-controlled town of Olenivka near Donetsk, and some were taken to a prison colony. Russia’s defence ministry said more than 950 fighters at Azovstal have surrendered since Monday.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) confirmed that 3,752 civilians have been killed and 4,062 injured in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24.
At least 229 children have died and 424 injured since February, according to Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova.
Ukrainian forces reportedly killed several high-ranking Russian officers in the southern city of Russian-occupied Melitopol, Ukraine’s officials said.
Seven civilians have been killed by Russian attacks in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Ukrainian regional governor said.
Eight people were killed and 12 others wounded in a Russian air attack on the village of Desna in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv, the regional emergency service said.
The war is entering “a protracted phase”, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said, as Russian forces are now seeking full control of the east and south of Ukraine.
Russia has a “significant resourcing problem” and lacks a united command, which continues to hamper Russia’s operations”, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence said.
Diplomacy
The International Criminal Court (ICC) sent its “largest-ever” team of 42 experts to Ukraine to investigate alleged war crimes.
The European Union is ready to approve another 500 million euros ($527m) in military aid for Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
The US State Department reiterated Washington’s support to Kyiv but says it is up to Ukraine to define its own objectives in talks with Russia.
Russia’s foreign ministry announced its withdrawal from the Council of the Baltic Sea States “in response to hostile actions” that have turned it “into an instrument of anti-Russian politics”, the state-owned TASS news agency reported.
Australia sanctioned 12 entities and 11 individuals, including Russian journalists, for being “purveyors of propaganda and disinformation who have sought to legitimise Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
The UK is considering using Russian assets to fund rebuilding in Ukraine, UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss said.
NATO
Finland and Sweden have officially applied to join NATO military alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
US President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Sweden and Finland at the White House on Thursday to discuss their NATO applications, amid pushback from NATO member Turkey.
Finland and Sweden joining NATO would probably make “not much difference” because the two countries had participated in the alliance’s military drills in the past, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said.
Economy
Europe would be committing “economic suicide” by seeking to phase out Russian energy supplies, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will attend a UN meeting with senior officials to discuss global food security.
Ukraine needs large-scale economic assistance, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a speech in Brussels.
Russians lined up at McDonald’s restaurants after the chain announced its closure after more than 30 years of operating in the country.
About 300,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat bought by Egypt for delivery in February and March is yet to be shipped from Black Sea port.
Energy
The European Commission is expected to lay out a plan for how to wean the region off Russian hydrocarbons by 2027, the Reuters news agency reported.
European energy giants continue buying Russian gas as EU guidelines appear to allow them to do so without breaching sanctions.
Sounds Like a Win-Win to Me
The European Union’s executive arm moved Wednesday to jump-start plans for the 27-nation bloc to abandon Russian energy amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, proposing a nearly 300 billion-euro ($315 billion) package that includes more efficient use of fuels and faster rollout of renewable power.
The European Commission’s investment initiative is meant to help the 27 EU countries start weaning themselves off Russian fossil fuels this year. The goal is to deprive Russia, the EU’s main supplier of oil, natural gas and coal, of tens of billions in revenue and strengthen EU climate policies.
One Last Two All-Beef Patties, Special Sauce, Lettuce, Cheese, ...
Russians lined up in a Moscow train station on Tuesday for what may be their last Big Mac from one of the few McDonald’s restaurants still open in the country.
The world’s largest burger chain is rolling down the shutters in Russia after more than 30 years, becoming one of the biggest global brands to leave following Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
Looks Like they Found a Nazi in Ukraine
A 21-year-old Russian soldier facing the first war crimes trial since Moscow invaded Ukraine has pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian.
Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin could face life imprisonment for shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in the northeastern Sumy region in the early days of the invasion.
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Facebook Does Something That Actually Helps People. They Had To.
The benefits of internet privacy laws can sometimes be hard to grasp: With the right regulations, users can sometimes have a vague reassurance that advertisers or the government can’t snoop as easily on their personal information.
But this week, residents of Illinois have been getting a more tangible benefit: $397.
The money has been arriving by check and direct deposit from a settlement fund set up last year after Facebook agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that the social media company had violated the rights of Illinois residents by collecting and storing digital scans of their faces without permission.
The money is headed only to Illinois because of the state’s pioneering Biometric Information Privacy Act, an unusual law passed in 2008 that allows consumers in the state to sue companies for privacy violations involving fingerprints, retina scans, facial geometry and similar data. The state has generally been regarded as among the most aggressive places in the world in terms of regulations on tech.
How's the Surrender or Mariupol Playing at Home?
The surrender agreement generated some outrage and confusion on pro-Russian social media, rather than the celebration of the full capitulation of Mariupol that the Kremlin likely expected—possibly undermining Russian information operations. Some Russian Telegram channels ridiculed the Russian Defense Ministry for negotiating with Ukrainian “terrorists” and “Nazis.”
Some bloggers criticized the Donetsk People’s Republic for organizing the evacuation proceedings and blamed negotiating authorities for creating conditions for Ukrainian martyrdom.
Several Russian bloggers also called for the imprisonment or murder of surrendered Ukrainian servicemen.
Russian audiences are likely dissatisfied with the surrender agreement because they expected Russian forces to destroy Ukrainian defenders at Azovstal. The Kremlin has created large amounts of propaganda that portrayed successful Russian assaults on Azovstal without clearly setting conditions for surrender negotiations. Some Russians may find it difficult to reconcile the triumphant messaging with the abrupt negotiations leading to a negotiated surrender.
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Clearly Mexico Is Not Sending Us Their Best People. They Are Back in Mexico Passing Good Laws.
Lawmakers in Mexico’s southwestern state of Guerrero voted on Tuesday to allow abortions, making it the ninth of the country’s 32 federal entities where women can legally end pregnancies amid a recent wave of loosening restrictions around the procedure.
The approved measure, which strips punishment of one to three years of jail time from the penal code, passed with 30 votes in favor and 13 against.
Legal abortions first became a reality in the capital of Mexico City 15 years ago. Oaxaca state followed in decriminalizing abortion in 2019, with other states following suit in the last two years.
The Supreme Court also showed support for allowing abortions in a September ruling over a case in the northern state of Coahuila, which deemed penalizing abortion unconstitutional nationwide.
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There is No Joy in Po Land. No Fresh Water, Either.
The Italian river Po travels 403 miles from the Alps to the wilds of the Po river delta in the East, where it finally empties into the Adriatic Sea. Along the way, the water nourishes the agricultural fields that Italians have farmed for thousands of years. Today, the agricultural products it grows provides 40% of the nation’s GDP.
Euro News reports that currently, a drought so severe that it threatens the breadbasket of Italy has dried up the Po River so severely that seawater has been able to be ‘sucked back upstream.’ The reason is that the water in the delta is “higher than upstream. This is because the vacuum left by the lack of river water is being filled by seawater,” Giancarlo Mantovani, the Director of a consortium that protects the delta’s biodiversity, which can be seen flowing back upstream in some areas. For farmers in the area, it means saltwater seeping into the earth and poisoning crops, which are blackened and wilting.”
There has been no rain for three months and counting, but the source of the problem starts in the Alps, where snowfall is now at its lowest level in over twenty years, measuring fifty percent lower than average. It is not only reduced snowfall, but the Alp’s glaciers which are the reservoirs for freshwater, have rapidly thinned, enabling permafrost to thaw and massive boulders of rock to break off the towering mountains.
The process is playing out across the world, from the Himalayas to the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras in the United States and Canada. Scientists have warned of this process for decades and are becoming a severe threat from climate shocks that reduce the freshwater supply for billions of people worldwide. A warming planet is turning the agricultural lands of Italy into a ‘salty wasteland while putting hundreds of thousands of livelihoods at risk. “It is a 360-degree disaster,” states Mantovani to Rebecca Ann Hughes of Euro News.
The problem is now even direr as groundwater has begun to be pumped by farmers where they find only saltwater allowing, even more, to move upstream. A feedback loop is now set in motion, The result will be a loss of thirty percent of agricultural production to dead soil.
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Merrick Garland Springs Into Action
Video of Garland in Action
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“Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free”, But Only Temporarily
The United States will grant employers as many as 35,000 further H-2B visas for seasonal guest workers starting jobs between April 1 and Sept. 30, according to a government statement posted online on Wednesday.
The expansion of the H-2B visas, used to employ landscapers, housekeepers, hotel employees and construction and carnival workers, among others, for the busy summer vacation season comes amid record job growth and a U.S. labor crunch despite worries over some economic headwinds.
Businesses have been bracing for summer travelers following two years of the pandemic, with rising demand leading to worries about potentially long lines and other strains.
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The QOP Says More Guns Make Us Safer.
As gun-related deaths in America reach new highs, a new government report shows that the number of firearms made in the U.S. has increased exponentially over the last two decades.
Domestic gun makers produced 11.3 million firearms in 2020 (the latest year for which data is available), roughly triple the 3.9 million that were made in 2000, according to a report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Over that span, a time when the U.S. population increased 18%, the number of firearms churned out every year jumped 250%.
Have You Noticed the Decrease in Gun Violence?
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Arrested For Bearing the Wrong Pall
One of the Palestinian pallbearers attacked by Israeli police while carrying the coffin of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh at her funeral on Friday has been arrested by Israeli authorities.
A lawyer representing the 34-year-old Amro Abu Khudeir said that the Jerusalemite had been arrested at his home in the Shuafat area in the early hours of Monday morning, and had been repeatedly interrogated about events surrounding the funeral.
The lawyer, Khaldoun Najm, added that Abu Khudeir had been held in solitary confinement since his arrest.
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I Guess He Meant Well, But ...
An island nation of 22 million people, Sri Lanka used to be self-sufficient in food.
But President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s drive to make the country the world’s first to fully adopt organic agriculture – by banning all synthetic agrochemicals, including fertilisers and pesticides – has proved disastrous for Sri Lanka’s food security. Sold as a bid to improve soil health and tackle a mysterious kidney disease among farmers that is believed to be linked to excessive nitrate exposure, the ban was imposed overnight in May of last year.
The country’s 2 million farmers, who make up 30 percent of its labour force and who until then were dependent on subsidised chemical fertilisers, suddenly found themselves left to their own devices. They said the government neither increased production of organic fertiliser nor imported sufficient soil nutrients to meet their needs.
The result has been a dramatic fall in agricultural output during the growing season that ended in March, known locally as the Maha season.
Official figures are not yet available for the Maha harvest, but experts estimate a drop of between 20 to 70 percent, depending on the crop.
For rice, a staple of the Sri Lankan diet, output fell by between 40 and 50 percent nationwide during Maha, according to estimates. The drop has resulted in the island nation importing some 300,000 metric tonnes of rice in the first three months of the year – a sharp rise compared with the 14,000 metric tonnes it imported in 2020.
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Are People Waking Up?
A new NBC News poll conducted in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft found support for abortion rights reaching its highest point since 2003, with 60% of Americans saying abortion should either always be legal (37%) or legal most of the time (23%). Meanwhile, 37% said abortion should be illegal in most cases or without exception.
Similarly, 63% of respondents support maintaining the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, while just 30% wanted to see it overturned.
The poll also found Democratic enthusiasm ticking up. The mismatch between enthusiasm among voters on the right and left has become a focus of concern. In the poll, the number of Democrats expressing a high level of interest in the midterms (a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale) jumped 11 points since March to 61%.
Republicans' level of interest got a modest 2-point bump to 69% in the same period of time.
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| May 24 | 104,399 | 288 | |
| May 23 | 104,480 | 279 | 3,604 |
| May 22 | 102,940 | 281 | 3,531 |
| May 21 | 105,198 | 283 | 3,226 |
| May 20 | 105,713 | 284 | 3,369 |
| May 19 | 101,029 | 279 | 3,379 |
| May 18 | 101,130 | 280 | 3,332 |
| May 17 | 99,347 | 273 | 3,250 |
| May 16 | 94,199 | 274 | 3,136 |
| May 15 | 90,337 | 263 | 3,013 |
| May 14 | 88,187 | 265 | 2,698 |
| May 13 | 87,831 | 266 | 2,798 |
| May 12 | 87,382 | 272 | 2,731 |
| May 11 | 84,778 | 272 | 2,652 |
| May 10 | 78,236 | 326 | 2,629 |
| May 9 | 74,712 | 323 | 2,597 |
| May 8 | 66,564 | 323 | 2,510 |
| May 7 | 67,561 | 335 | 2,310 |
| May 6 | 68,807 | 340 | 2,396 |
| May 5 | 67,263 | 341 | 2.363 |
| May 4 | 64,780 | 334 | 2,267 |
| May 3 | 61,712 | 325 | 2,219 |
| May 2 | 60,410 | 318 | 2.214 |
| May 1 | 57,020 | 307 | 2,072 |
| Apr 30 | 56,581 | 310 | 1,882 |
| Apr 29 | 56,166 | 308 | 1,946 |
| Apr 28 | 54,696 | 311 | 1,955 |
| Apr 27 | 53,133 | 334 | 1,941 |
| Apr 26 | 48,692 | 299 | 1,889 |
| Apr 25 | 47,407 | 330 | 1,840 |
| Apr 24 | 44,416 | 314 | 1,779 |
| Apr 23 | 45,413 | 315 | 1,629 |
| Apr 22 | 44,308 | 311 | 1,642 |
| Apr 21 | 40,744 | 346 | 1,647 |
| Apr 20 | 42,604 | 375 | 1,609 |
| Apr 19 | 40,985 | 385 | 1,582 |
| Apr 18 | 37,132 | 380 | 1,564 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.7% | 66.3% | 45.9% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.6% | 70.4% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 87.4% | 74.7% | 47.7% |
| % of Population 18+ | 89.1% | 76.2% | 49.5% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 90.4% | 68.8% |
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Alaskan Eye Doctors are Optical Aleutians.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
The QOP Embraces GRT. (Great Replacement Theory.)
The reality is that many are asylum-seekers who are being blocked from their rights under the Stephen Miller-endorsed Title 42 policy. But Cruz would rather have you be afraid of them than the insurrectionists who tried to overthrow our election. He’d also rather have you be afraid of these families when his father, Rafael Cruz, similarly sought asylum, from Cuba. The elder Cruz has previously described how he bribed a Cuban official in order to pursue safety here.
It’s no surprise that Cruz made this racist “invasion” claim. Levin last year claimed that “we're losing red-state America, and they are doing it, they are diabolical, and they are evil, they are doing it through immigration,” Media Matters reported at the time. “People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, by design,” Levin continued. “Most of the media are not there to report it, by design.”
I'm Not Going to Imagine This
Around 30% of Americans Are Certifiably Insane
That the Christian right is intertwined with a Republican candidate is hardly new. Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, the movement has defined GOP politics. What is new, and increasingly perilous, is that over the ensuing years the movement has become more highly radicalized, a trend that was validated and accelerated by Trump’s candidacy and presidency — and especially by his stolen election lie. A movement that elevated Trump to messianic status and shielded him from his 2019 impeachment was able to convince millions that satanic forces had robbed God’s man in the White House of his anointed perch as the restorer of America’s white Christian heritage. Their duty, as patriotic spiritual warriors, was to go to battle on his behalf.
The Last Line is the Scariest
I Wrote He Would Be Re-Elected. I Am Happy To Be Wrong About This Prediction
Will Wynn Be a Loser?
The Justice Department sued longtime Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn on Tuesday to compel him to register as a foreign agent because of lobbying work it says he performed at the behest of the Chinese government during the Trump administration.
The department said it had advised Wynn repeatedly over the last four years to register under the Foreign Agents Registration and is suing now because Wynn refused to do so.
Though the Justice Department has ramped up efforts to criminally prosecute people who don’t register as foreign agents, officials described this case as the first lawsuit of its kind in more than three decades.
The complaint alleges that Wynn, who stepped down from his company, Wynn Resorts, in 2018 after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, lobbied then-President Donald Trump and members of his administration for several months in 2017 to remove from the United States a Chinese national who had been charged with corruption in China and was seeking political asylum in America.
The QOP Is So Thrilled At His Nomination, That They Might Support Him. Or They Might Not.
Is There Hope for the Young, Even in Wyoming?
Yikes!
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Today's Best Dog in the World
A woman who was attacked by a mountain lion in Northern California says her dog jumped to her defense and was badly wounded in protecting her.
“I don't think I will ever be able to live up to how amazing and loyal she is to me,” Erin Wilson told the Sacramento Bee on Tuesday.
Wilson, 24, lives in rural Trinity County, about four hours northwest of Sacramento. On Monday, she drove to the Trinity River near unincorporated Big Bar to take an afternoon stroll with Eva, her 2 1/2-year-old Belgian Malinois.
Wilson was on a path with Eva a few yards ahead when a mountain lion lunged and swiped at her, scratching Wilson’s left shoulder through her jacket, she said.
“I yelled ‘Eva!’ and she came running,” Wilson said. “And she hit that cat really hard.”
The dog weighs 55 pounds and was outclassed by the cougar but battled fiercely.
“They fought for a couple seconds, and then I heard her start crying,” Wilson said.
The cougar bit the dog’s head and wouldn’t let go, even when Wilson attacked the animal with rocks, sticks and her fists, tried to choke it and gouge its eyes.
The cat tried to kick her off, scratching her with its back paws. Wilson said she ran back to her pickup truck, grabbed a tire iron and flagged down a passing car.
That driver, Sharon Houston, told the Bee that she grabbed a long length of PVC pipe and pepper spray. Together, the women began beating the lion, which had dragged the dog off the trail.
Houston finally sprayed the animal with the pepper spray and it fled, Houston said.
Wilson was treated for non-life-threatening scratches, scrapes and bruises.
The dog was in guarded condition, said a statement from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Better Late Than Never. Long Ago Would Have Been Much Better
The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee announced a deal Wednesday that would help military veterans who have been exposed to toxic burn pits.
Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Jerry Moran, R- Kan., said the agreement on the package came after a year of intense negotiations with their House counterparts, the White House and veterans’ groups.
The legislation would also make it easier for veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange, a powerful herbicide used to clear vegetation in military operations, during the Vietnam War to get treatment.
Krugman I
I never thought I’d say this, but I miss voodoo economics.
It was shocking at the time when a crank economic doctrine — the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves — became, in effect, the official Republican party line. It was dismaying to see that doctrine’s hold on the party become ever more entrenched even as the evidence for its falsity (the Clinton economic boom, the lackluster performance of the Bush economy even before the 2008 financial crisis, the tax-cut debacle in Kansas, the failure of the Trump tax cuts to generate an investment boom) kept accumulating.
And voodoo economics continues to do real damage to this day. The Republicans who control Mississippi, a poor state with desperately underfunded educational programs that’s closing hospitals, recently moved to boost the state’s economy by … cutting taxes.
From Voodoo to MAGA to Buffalo
Krugman II
Last week TerraUSD, a stablecoin — a system that was supposed to perform a lot like a conventional bank account but was backed only by a cryptocurrency called Luna — collapsed. Luna lost 97 percent of its value over the course of just 24 hours, apparently destroying some investors’ life savings.
The event shook the crypto world in general, but the truth is that this world was looking pretty shaky even before the Terra disaster. Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, peaked last November and has since declined by more than 50 percent.
Here’s one way to think about that decline. Almost everyone is concerned about the rising cost of living; the Consumer Price Index — the cost of a representative basket of goods and services — has gone up about 4 percent over the past six months. But the cost of the same basket in Bitcoin has risen around 120 percent, which means inflation at an annualized rate of about 380 percent.
And other cryptocurrencies have performed far worse. Two cities — Miami and New York — have introduced their own cryptocurrencies, with enthusiastic support from their mayors. MiamiCoin is down more than 90 percent from its peak, and NewYorkCityCoin is down more than 80 percent.
Crashing Crypto: Is This Time Different?
Today's Best Campaign Add in the World
Debt Free!! Whee!!
Hundreds of graduates at a Los Angeles college walked out of their commencement ceremony debt-free on Sunday thanks to two celebrities’ donation.
Australian model and Kora Organics CEO Miranda Kerr made the massive donation along with her husband, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel, to 285 students at Otis College of Art and Design.
The donation came from the Spiegel Family Fund, a group with a “dedication to the arts, education, housing and human rights,” according to its website.
The donation, the largest in the institution’s history, helped rid the burden of “outstanding student debt” among graduates. It came the same day the institution presented both Kerr and Spiegel with honorary degrees, according to the college.
Charles Hirschhorn, president of Otis College, said the institution was “incredibly grateful” for the gift and the donation will help “empower” the graduating class.
It’s unclear how much the couple gave to Otis College. However, the move has already made a major impact on students’ lives.
A Few Women Get Equal Pay
The United States Soccer Federation has reached milestone agreements to pay its men’s and women’s teams equally, the first of their kind in the sport.
The announcement on Wednesday ended years of acrimonious negotiations with unions for both teams and followed a high-profile push by players on the women’s team, which unlike the men’s team has been dominant in international tournaments, for pay parity.
A $26m settlement in a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by some players in 2019 was contingent on reaching labor contracts that equalised pay and bonuses between the two teams. The new contracts extend through December 2028.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Day 84
Fighting
The fate of Ukrainian fighters evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol remains uncertain after some were transported to the Russian-controlled town of Olenivka near Donetsk, and some were taken to a prison colony. Russia’s defence ministry said more than 950 fighters at Azovstal have surrendered since Monday.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) confirmed that 3,752 civilians have been killed and 4,062 injured in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24.
At least 229 children have died and 424 injured since February, according to Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova.
Ukrainian forces reportedly killed several high-ranking Russian officers in the southern city of Russian-occupied Melitopol, Ukraine’s officials said.
Seven civilians have been killed by Russian attacks in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Ukrainian regional governor said.
Eight people were killed and 12 others wounded in a Russian air attack on the village of Desna in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv, the regional emergency service said.
The war is entering “a protracted phase”, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said, as Russian forces are now seeking full control of the east and south of Ukraine.
Russia has a “significant resourcing problem” and lacks a united command, which continues to hamper Russia’s operations”, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence said.
Diplomacy
The International Criminal Court (ICC) sent its “largest-ever” team of 42 experts to Ukraine to investigate alleged war crimes.
The European Union is ready to approve another 500 million euros ($527m) in military aid for Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
The US State Department reiterated Washington’s support to Kyiv but says it is up to Ukraine to define its own objectives in talks with Russia.
Russia’s foreign ministry announced its withdrawal from the Council of the Baltic Sea States “in response to hostile actions” that have turned it “into an instrument of anti-Russian politics”, the state-owned TASS news agency reported.
Australia sanctioned 12 entities and 11 individuals, including Russian journalists, for being “purveyors of propaganda and disinformation who have sought to legitimise Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
The UK is considering using Russian assets to fund rebuilding in Ukraine, UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss said.
NATO
Finland and Sweden have officially applied to join NATO military alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
US President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Sweden and Finland at the White House on Thursday to discuss their NATO applications, amid pushback from NATO member Turkey.
Finland and Sweden joining NATO would probably make “not much difference” because the two countries had participated in the alliance’s military drills in the past, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said.
Economy
Europe would be committing “economic suicide” by seeking to phase out Russian energy supplies, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will attend a UN meeting with senior officials to discuss global food security.
Ukraine needs large-scale economic assistance, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a speech in Brussels.
Russians lined up at McDonald’s restaurants after the chain announced its closure after more than 30 years of operating in the country.
About 300,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat bought by Egypt for delivery in February and March is yet to be shipped from Black Sea port.
Energy
The European Commission is expected to lay out a plan for how to wean the region off Russian hydrocarbons by 2027, the Reuters news agency reported.
European energy giants continue buying Russian gas as EU guidelines appear to allow them to do so without breaching sanctions.
Sounds Like a Win-Win to Me
The European Union’s executive arm moved Wednesday to jump-start plans for the 27-nation bloc to abandon Russian energy amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, proposing a nearly 300 billion-euro ($315 billion) package that includes more efficient use of fuels and faster rollout of renewable power.
The European Commission’s investment initiative is meant to help the 27 EU countries start weaning themselves off Russian fossil fuels this year. The goal is to deprive Russia, the EU’s main supplier of oil, natural gas and coal, of tens of billions in revenue and strengthen EU climate policies.
One Last Two All-Beef Patties, Special Sauce, Lettuce, Cheese, ...
Russians lined up in a Moscow train station on Tuesday for what may be their last Big Mac from one of the few McDonald’s restaurants still open in the country.
The world’s largest burger chain is rolling down the shutters in Russia after more than 30 years, becoming one of the biggest global brands to leave following Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
Looks Like they Found a Nazi in Ukraine
A 21-year-old Russian soldier facing the first war crimes trial since Moscow invaded Ukraine has pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian.
Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin could face life imprisonment for shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in the northeastern Sumy region in the early days of the invasion.
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Facebook Does Something That Actually Helps People. They Had To.
The benefits of internet privacy laws can sometimes be hard to grasp: With the right regulations, users can sometimes have a vague reassurance that advertisers or the government can’t snoop as easily on their personal information.
But this week, residents of Illinois have been getting a more tangible benefit: $397.
The money has been arriving by check and direct deposit from a settlement fund set up last year after Facebook agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that the social media company had violated the rights of Illinois residents by collecting and storing digital scans of their faces without permission.
The money is headed only to Illinois because of the state’s pioneering Biometric Information Privacy Act, an unusual law passed in 2008 that allows consumers in the state to sue companies for privacy violations involving fingerprints, retina scans, facial geometry and similar data. The state has generally been regarded as among the most aggressive places in the world in terms of regulations on tech.
How's the Surrender or Mariupol Playing at Home?
The surrender agreement generated some outrage and confusion on pro-Russian social media, rather than the celebration of the full capitulation of Mariupol that the Kremlin likely expected—possibly undermining Russian information operations. Some Russian Telegram channels ridiculed the Russian Defense Ministry for negotiating with Ukrainian “terrorists” and “Nazis.”
Some bloggers criticized the Donetsk People’s Republic for organizing the evacuation proceedings and blamed negotiating authorities for creating conditions for Ukrainian martyrdom.
Several Russian bloggers also called for the imprisonment or murder of surrendered Ukrainian servicemen.
Russian audiences are likely dissatisfied with the surrender agreement because they expected Russian forces to destroy Ukrainian defenders at Azovstal. The Kremlin has created large amounts of propaganda that portrayed successful Russian assaults on Azovstal without clearly setting conditions for surrender negotiations. Some Russians may find it difficult to reconcile the triumphant messaging with the abrupt negotiations leading to a negotiated surrender.
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Clearly Mexico Is Not Sending Us Their Best People. They Are Back in Mexico Passing Good Laws.
Lawmakers in Mexico’s southwestern state of Guerrero voted on Tuesday to allow abortions, making it the ninth of the country’s 32 federal entities where women can legally end pregnancies amid a recent wave of loosening restrictions around the procedure.
The approved measure, which strips punishment of one to three years of jail time from the penal code, passed with 30 votes in favor and 13 against.
Legal abortions first became a reality in the capital of Mexico City 15 years ago. Oaxaca state followed in decriminalizing abortion in 2019, with other states following suit in the last two years.
The Supreme Court also showed support for allowing abortions in a September ruling over a case in the northern state of Coahuila, which deemed penalizing abortion unconstitutional nationwide.
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There is No Joy in Po Land. No Fresh Water, Either.
The Italian river Po travels 403 miles from the Alps to the wilds of the Po river delta in the East, where it finally empties into the Adriatic Sea. Along the way, the water nourishes the agricultural fields that Italians have farmed for thousands of years. Today, the agricultural products it grows provides 40% of the nation’s GDP.
Euro News reports that currently, a drought so severe that it threatens the breadbasket of Italy has dried up the Po River so severely that seawater has been able to be ‘sucked back upstream.’ The reason is that the water in the delta is “higher than upstream. This is because the vacuum left by the lack of river water is being filled by seawater,” Giancarlo Mantovani, the Director of a consortium that protects the delta’s biodiversity, which can be seen flowing back upstream in some areas. For farmers in the area, it means saltwater seeping into the earth and poisoning crops, which are blackened and wilting.”
There has been no rain for three months and counting, but the source of the problem starts in the Alps, where snowfall is now at its lowest level in over twenty years, measuring fifty percent lower than average. It is not only reduced snowfall, but the Alp’s glaciers which are the reservoirs for freshwater, have rapidly thinned, enabling permafrost to thaw and massive boulders of rock to break off the towering mountains.
The process is playing out across the world, from the Himalayas to the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras in the United States and Canada. Scientists have warned of this process for decades and are becoming a severe threat from climate shocks that reduce the freshwater supply for billions of people worldwide. A warming planet is turning the agricultural lands of Italy into a ‘salty wasteland while putting hundreds of thousands of livelihoods at risk. “It is a 360-degree disaster,” states Mantovani to Rebecca Ann Hughes of Euro News.
The problem is now even direr as groundwater has begun to be pumped by farmers where they find only saltwater allowing, even more, to move upstream. A feedback loop is now set in motion, The result will be a loss of thirty percent of agricultural production to dead soil.
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Merrick Garland Springs Into Action
Video of Garland in Action
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“Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free”, But Only Temporarily
The United States will grant employers as many as 35,000 further H-2B visas for seasonal guest workers starting jobs between April 1 and Sept. 30, according to a government statement posted online on Wednesday.
The expansion of the H-2B visas, used to employ landscapers, housekeepers, hotel employees and construction and carnival workers, among others, for the busy summer vacation season comes amid record job growth and a U.S. labor crunch despite worries over some economic headwinds.
Businesses have been bracing for summer travelers following two years of the pandemic, with rising demand leading to worries about potentially long lines and other strains.
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The QOP Says More Guns Make Us Safer.
As gun-related deaths in America reach new highs, a new government report shows that the number of firearms made in the U.S. has increased exponentially over the last two decades.
Domestic gun makers produced 11.3 million firearms in 2020 (the latest year for which data is available), roughly triple the 3.9 million that were made in 2000, according to a report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Over that span, a time when the U.S. population increased 18%, the number of firearms churned out every year jumped 250%.
Have You Noticed the Decrease in Gun Violence?
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Arrested For Bearing the Wrong Pall
One of the Palestinian pallbearers attacked by Israeli police while carrying the coffin of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh at her funeral on Friday has been arrested by Israeli authorities.
A lawyer representing the 34-year-old Amro Abu Khudeir said that the Jerusalemite had been arrested at his home in the Shuafat area in the early hours of Monday morning, and had been repeatedly interrogated about events surrounding the funeral.
The lawyer, Khaldoun Najm, added that Abu Khudeir had been held in solitary confinement since his arrest.
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I Guess He Meant Well, But ...
An island nation of 22 million people, Sri Lanka used to be self-sufficient in food.
But President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s drive to make the country the world’s first to fully adopt organic agriculture – by banning all synthetic agrochemicals, including fertilisers and pesticides – has proved disastrous for Sri Lanka’s food security. Sold as a bid to improve soil health and tackle a mysterious kidney disease among farmers that is believed to be linked to excessive nitrate exposure, the ban was imposed overnight in May of last year.
The country’s 2 million farmers, who make up 30 percent of its labour force and who until then were dependent on subsidised chemical fertilisers, suddenly found themselves left to their own devices. They said the government neither increased production of organic fertiliser nor imported sufficient soil nutrients to meet their needs.
The result has been a dramatic fall in agricultural output during the growing season that ended in March, known locally as the Maha season.
Official figures are not yet available for the Maha harvest, but experts estimate a drop of between 20 to 70 percent, depending on the crop.
For rice, a staple of the Sri Lankan diet, output fell by between 40 and 50 percent nationwide during Maha, according to estimates. The drop has resulted in the island nation importing some 300,000 metric tonnes of rice in the first three months of the year – a sharp rise compared with the 14,000 metric tonnes it imported in 2020.
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Are People Waking Up?
A new NBC News poll conducted in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft found support for abortion rights reaching its highest point since 2003, with 60% of Americans saying abortion should either always be legal (37%) or legal most of the time (23%). Meanwhile, 37% said abortion should be illegal in most cases or without exception.
Similarly, 63% of respondents support maintaining the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, while just 30% wanted to see it overturned.
The poll also found Democratic enthusiasm ticking up. The mismatch between enthusiasm among voters on the right and left has become a focus of concern. In the poll, the number of Democrats expressing a high level of interest in the midterms (a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale) jumped 11 points since March to 61%.
Republicans' level of interest got a modest 2-point bump to 69% in the same period of time.
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