Fri - Aussie Woman Asked About Abortion and Deported

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Today's Worst Joke in the World

Lego store reopens after lockdown.  People lined up for blocks!
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A Million Cases a Day
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

What Does Previous Guy Do When the Mother of His Children Dies?  He Tries to Raise Money



Bannon Revealed the Plan Before the Election

[Steve Bannon]: “What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”

[Excerpt 1, Steve Bannon]: “The Democrats — more of our people vote early that count — their vote is in the mail. And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage, and Trump’s going to take advantage of it — that’s our strategy. Trump’s gonna declare himself a winner.“

“So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm. You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy. and Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting shit out, ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.’” [Audience laughter.]

“Then it doesn’t matter. Here’s the thing: After then, Trump never has to go to a voter again.”

“He’s going to fire Wray, the FBI director, fire [garbled]. He's gonna say 'Fuck you. How about that?'

“Because he's never going to — he's done his last election. Oh, he's going to be off the chain — he's gonna be crazy.” [Audience laughter.]

[Excerpt 2, Steve Bannon]: "Also if Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o’clock, it's going to be even crazier.” [cross-talk] “No, because he's gonna sit right there and say 'They stole it. I'm directing the Attorney General, to shut down all ballot places in all 50 states.'"

“It's going to be no, he's not going out easy. If Biden's winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.”



Full Story

This Year's Winner of the Rosemary Woods "Destroy the Evidence" Award is the US Secret Service.  What's in Your Wallet Cell Phone?

Secret Service agents deleted text messages sent and received around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol even after an inspector general requested them as part of an investigation into the insurrection, the government watchdog has found.

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, said the messages between Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, were erased “as part of a device-replacement program.” The erasure came after the watchdog office requested records of electronic communications between the agents as part of its probe into events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack.

Additionally, Homeland Security personnel were told they couldn’t provide records to the inspector general and any such records would first have to be reviewed by DHS attorneys.

Apparently, MTG Wants Jerks to Start Verbally Assaulting Her

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) recently shared footage of a right-wing heckler sexually harassing her outside the Capitol. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) thinks she should be grateful for it.

In the clip, the white man, Alex Stein, yelled lewd and racially-charged comments at Ocasio-Cortez as she walked up the steps to the Capitol.

But Greene called his actions “quite the compliment.” She even had Stein on her podcast.

“I think women should be confident,” Greene said. “And if a man gives you a compliment, a woman can say ‘thank you.’”



Every Single Day, Every Word You Say, He'll be Watching You

Elon Musk is doing his best to walk away from the acquisition deal he imposed on Twitter, but not before he takes a good long look at some of the company’s confidential user data first.

A lawsuit Twitter filed against Musk in Delaware earlier this week revealed that the billionaire and his team have had access to at least 49 tebibytes of internal data since June 15.

The so-called “firehose” data consists of a real-time record of the more than 500 million tweets posted each day, including information about the device used to send a tweet and the account that authored it. (It reportedly does not, however, include personally identifiable information like users’ IP addresses, phone numbers and other private data.)

And Musk’s team has been busy analyzing this newly-acquired info. Within two weeks of gaining access to the “firehose,” Twitter says Musk’s reviewers exceeded Twitter’s default 100,000-per-month limit on the number of queries that could be run on the data. At Musk’s request, the company says it then raised the limit a hundredfold to 10 million, “more than 100 times what most paying Twitter customers would get.”

The eccentric billionaire has previously said that anyone reviewing the data would be bound by a nondisclosure agreement and that Twitter’s information wouldn’t be retained or shared if the deal fell apart.

But given Musk’s record of allegedly ignoring these legal agreements in the past and his explicitly stated intent of launching a competitor service if the acquisition deal falls through, Twitter has good reason to be nervous.

Jersey Loves You!



Good Luck With This.  Ted is Probably on Vacation Somewhere Getting Away from the Heat

A bus convoy representing the amount of children killed by gun violence made its way to the home of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) on Thursday.

The convoy, a mile-long featuring 52 yellow buses with 4,368 empty seats, is the work of the “NRA Children’s Museum,” a project organized by the gun control advocacy non-profit Change the Ref, mySanAntonio reported.

The number of empty seats on the bus represents the number of children who died from gun violence in the last two years, according to the non-profit.

The line of buses will also feature a bus at the front that contains clips, photos and other “personal memories” of the children who died by gun violence, according to the news site.

Some of those memories included a medal that Sandy Hook shooting victim Chase Kowalski received in school along with a pair of Vans sneakers worn by Santa Clarita shooting victim Gracie Muehlberger.

The NRA Children’s Museum indicated there would be more stops for the bus tour in the future, according to mySanAntonio.

http://instagr.am/p/CgALg-ouy5J

MAGA's Will Kill Children

About 25 million children worldwide have missed out on routine immunizations against common diseases like diptheria, largely because the coronavirus pandemic disrupted regular health services or triggered misinformation about vaccines, according to the U.N.

In a new report published Friday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said their figures show 25 million children last year failed to get vaccinated against diptheria, tetanus and pertussis, a marker for childhood immunization coverage, continuing a downward trend that began in 2019.

“This is a red alert for child health,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s Executive Director.

“We are witnessing the largest sustained drop in childhood immunization in a generation,” she said, adding that the consequences would be measured in lives lost.

We All Knew Coal Joe Was Just Pretending to Negotiate

Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, pulled the plug on Thursday on negotiations to salvage key pieces of President Biden’s agenda, informing his party’s leaders that he would not support funding for climate or energy programs or raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.

Huh?

An exchange between Rep. Eric Swalwell and "Americans United for Life" head Catherine Foster today was so surreal as to border on farce. Faced with the now provably true case of a 10-year-old child having to travel out of Republican-held Ohio to receive an abortion after she was raped, Foster simply lied her faux-Christian ass off rather than acknowledging the plain facts of the case.

SWALWELL: Do you think a 10-year-old should choose to carry a baby?

FOSTER: I believe it would probably impact her, her life, and so therefore it would fall under any exception and would not be an abortion.

SWALWELL: Wait. It would not be an abortion if a 10-year-old, with her parents, made the decision not to have a baby that was a result of a rape?

FOSTER: If a 10-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape, and it was threatening her life (Huh?), then that's not an abortion. So it would not fall under any abortion restriction in our nation.

Does an Abortion Disqualify You From House-Sitting?

An Australian woman who planned to house-sit in Canada during a holiday has said she was detained, fingerprinted, interrogated about her abortion history and quickly deported during a stopover in the US.

Madolline Gourley, a Brisbane resident, says she was treated like a criminal during her transit through Los Angeles on 30 June, where she was detained at the border due to suspicions about her intention to house- and cat-sit in exchange for accommodation while holidaying in Canada.

Gourley was held in a detention room, interrogated twice, patted down, fingerprinted and photographed.

At one point a US border official asked Gourley, who was wearing a loose-fitting dress, whether she was pregnant. The same question was repeated as she was moved between rooms. When she again told the US officials she was not pregnant, Gourley was asked whether she had had an abortion.

‘Have you recently had an abortion?’ Australian transiting through US questioned then deported
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees

Fighting Back in Arizona

Three initiative petitions filed in Arizona will protect voting rights, force disclosure of political contributions and protect against abusive debt collection, but to a large number of Arizonans the overturning of Roe is the only issue.

Last week, supporters of the Arizona Fair Elections Act filed more than 475,000 petition signatures to put the proposed law on the November ballot. Immediately on filing of the petitions, members of the Stop the Steal coalition, who also led the Cyber Ninja audit, showed up in the Secretary of State’s office to watch her staff separate the petitions from the attached copies of the new law. There were no reports of irregularities in the staple removal.

If legal challenges come, one thing the opposition can do, and it has happened on past initiatives, is subpoena paid circulators. This subpoena serves no real legal purpose as they don’t really have any questions for the circulators - instead current law states that if a paid circulator misses their court date all signatures they collected will be thrown out. Ironically, the Fair Elections initiative will outlaw this abusive process, but we have to go through it one more time.

Also in the signature certification process are the Stop Dark Money petitions and the Healthcare Rising petitions, which support laws to disclose all political contributions and stop abusive debt collection processes. I’m not an expert on this, but money that moves through 501c4 “social welfare” organizations arrives at its destination without the original donor’s name attached. The Initiative will fix that. On debt collection, if you get sick in Arizona, you currently get to keep a junker car, a tumbled down house and maybe a few hundred bucks in the bank. The Initiative does a lot to fix these things.

Though people worked very hard on a petition to codify Roe in Arizona law, they had very little time to get the huge number of signatures for a state Constitutional amendment and fell short. I’m hoping that some of the reforms in the Arizona Fair Elections Act can help them get the needed signatures in the next election cycle.

Today's Best Forecaster In the World


Speaking the Truth:  Mandated Pregnancies for 4th Graders



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Invasions Have Consequences

Day 142

Fighting

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admonished Moscow for carrying out a missile attack in the central city of Vinnytsia, calling it an “act of terrorism” and saying no other country in the world represents a greater “terrorist” threat than Russia.

Authorities said at least 23 people have been killed, including three children under 10, while about 100 more were wounded in the attack. There was no immediate comment by Russia.

In Ukraine’s east, Russian forces continue to slowly advance westwards from the town of Lysychansk in the Luhansk region towards Siversk in Donetsk, the United Kingdom’s defence ministry said.

Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region suffered a “tense night of alarms and shelling”, Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.



Diplomacy

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen condemned Russia’s “brutal and unjust war” in Ukraine and said Russian finance officials taking part in the G20 meeting in Bali shared responsibility for its “horrific consequences”.

Canada’s finance minister told Russian officials at the G20 meeting that she held them personally responsible for “war crimes” committed during Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Western official told Reuters news agency.

More than 40 countries agreed to work together to investigate suspected war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine during a conference at the headquarters of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

A top Russian official said Moscow would respond positively should Kyiv be ready to resume peace negotiations, but that Ukraine must accept the “territorial realities” of the situation, the Interfax news agency reported.

Economy

The International Monetary Fund expects Ukraine to continue to service its foreign debt, a spokesperson said, as speculation grows that Ukraine could default on its debt as the battle against Russia’s invasion rages on.

Germany is earmarking an additional 2.4 billion euros ($2.4bn) this year to cover the financial expenses of caring for Ukrainian refugees in the country, labour minister Hubertus Heil said, adding approximately 800,000 people from Ukraine have sought refuge in Germany so far, of which 30 percent are under the age of 14.

France must quickly learn to do without Russian gas, as Moscow is using cuts in supplies to Europe as a weapon in its war with Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron said, urging everyone to rein in their energy consumption.

The US sought to facilitate Russian food and fertiliser exports by reassuring banks, shipping and insurance companies that such transactions would not breach sanctions. This is part of attempts by United Nations and Turkish officials to broker a package deal that would also allow for shipments of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea port of Odesa to resume.

Yes, That's a Winning Team!

Ukraine, in fact, took more territory in that one week in April than Russia has in the last three months and then some. This means that Ukraine has been for months and is currently more on the offensive than Russia is, never a good sign when you are the supposed invader, as Russia is.

Ukraine is winning handily—though not without tragic cost—and Russia is losing resoundingly when this larger picture is considered, its mighty army incapable of doing more than killing defenseless civilians or picking away small bits and pieces of Ukrainian territory over the course of more than three months at very high cost (adding to its horrendous, historic casualties from earlier in the war) and hardly any guarantee it can hold such territory over time, even as a massive Ukrainian counteroffensive now looms in the south (one that could lead to Ukraine retaking Kherson and even open the path to retaking Crimea, as I noted back in April).

THE THREE MAPS SHOWING WHY UKRAINE IS WINNING AND RUSSIA IS LOSING (and why is isn’t even close)

The Author:  Brian Frydenborg has spent two decades studying, writing about, or working in the fields of conflict analysis, counterterrorism, international affairs, public policy, politics, history, and humanitarian aid and international development. His work has been featured in Newsweek, Jerusalem Post, Modern War Institute at West Point, London School of Economics and Political Science Middle East Centre, Jordan Times, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Real Clear Defense/History, among others. 



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Yesterday I Opined That We Might Be Headed for Stagflation.  Here's An Opposing View From a Guy I Respect a Lot.

Why Jeremy Siegel Doesn’t Think We’re in for a Rerun of ’70s Stagflation
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Influencing for Fun and Profit ... Or ??

A 2019 poll found that children would rather be YouTubers than astronauts. It made headlines and led to plenty of grumbling about “kids these days”. But it’s not surprising that young people – up to 1.3m in the UK – want to make their income by creating social media content.

The global influencer market was estimated to be worth $13.8b (£11.2b) in 2021. Individual influencers such as Zoella and Deliciously Ella are worth around £4.7m and £2.5m, respectively. Some 300,000 people aged 18 to 26 are already using content creation as their sole income source.

The lifestyles we see advertised on social media are enticing, but is influencing a viable career path? Underneath the glossy exterior lies precarious income, pay inequality based on sex, race and disability and mental health issues.

Social media economy expert Brooke Erin Duffy researches the careers of fashion bloggers, beauty vloggers and designers. In her book (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, she uncovered a huge gap between those who find lucrative careers as influencers and everyone else. For most people trying to become an influencer, their passion projects of content creation often become free work for corporate brands.

Social media economy expert Brooke Erin Duffy researches the careers of fashion bloggers, beauty vloggers and designers. In her book (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, she uncovered a huge gap between those who find lucrative careers as influencers and everyone else. For most people trying to become an influencer, their passion projects of content creation often become free work for corporate brands.

Influencers are also often at the mercy of algorithms – the behind-the-scenes computer programs that determine which posts are shown, in which order, to users. Platforms share little detail about their algorithms, yet they ultimately determine who and what gains visibility (and influence) on social media.

In her work with Instagram influencers, algorithms expert Kelley Cotter highlights how the pursuit of influence becomes “a game of visibility”. Influencers interact with the platform (and its algorithm) in ways which they hope will be rewarded with visibility. In my research, I found that influencers shared increasingly intimate and personal moments of their lives, posting relentlessly in a bid to stay relevant.

The threat of invisibility is a constant source of insecurity for influencers, who are under constant pressure to feed platforms with content. If they don’t, they may be “punished” by the algorithm – having posts hidden or displayed lower down on search results.

There is a Whole Industry Based on How to Game the Algorithms.
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I Don't Think Time Crystals Power the Tardis

Physicists in Finland are the latest scientists to create “time crystals,” a newly discovered phase of matter that exists only at tiny atomic scales and extremely low temperatures but also seems to challenge a fundamental law of nature: the prohibition against perpetual motion.

The effect is only seen under quantum mechanical conditions (which is how atoms and their particles interact) and any attempt to extract work from such a system will destroy it. But the research reveals more of the counterintuitive nature of the quantum realm — the very smallest scale of the universe that ultimately influences everything else.

Time crystals have no practical use, and they don’t look anything like natural crystals. In fact, they don’t look like much at all. Instead, the name “time crystal” — one any marketing executive would be proud of — describes their regular changes in quantum states over a period of time, rather than their regular shapes in physical space, like ice, quartz or diamond.

Some scientists suggest time crystals might one day make memory for quantum computers. But the more immediate goal of such work is to learn more about quantum mechanics, said physicist Samuli Autti, a lecturer and research fellow at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom.

And just as the modern world relies on quantum mechanical effects inside transistors, there’s a possibility that these new quantum artifacts could one day prove useful.

“Maybe time crystals will eventually power some quantum features in your smartphone,” Autti said. 
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About the Great US Health Care System.  Women Are Being Denied Care.  Now, this ...

Men in the United States are sicker and more likely to die early from preventable causes compared with their peers in other similarly high-income countries, a new study has found.

Released on Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit organization focused on public health issues, the report compared "health care accessibility, affordability and health status" for adult men across 11 high-income countries, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand and Australia.

The study used data from the organization's International Health Policy Survey and from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Across the 11 countries included in the study, rates of chronic conditions, avoidable deaths and mental health needs for U.S. men were among the highest.

Men in the U.S. and Australia were found to be most likely to report having multiple chronic conditions at 29% and 25% respectively. Meanwhile, France and Norway were the lowest at 17%.

Across the 11 countries included in the study, U.S. men were also found to have the highest rate of avoidable deaths, or deaths before 75 years old, with 337 avoidable deaths per 100,000 males, compared with the U.K., which had the second highest rate at 233 avoidable deaths per 100,000 males. Switzerland had the lowest rate at 156 avoidable deaths per 100,000.

The study focused largely on the impact that financial barriers have on the "health care habits" of American men. It found that men in the U.S. with lower incomes had higher rates of multiple chronic conditions.

It also found that men in the U.S. and Switzerland said they skipped needed care due to costs and incur medical bills at the highest rates.

Overall, men in the U.S. with lower income or frequent financial stress were found to be "less likely to get preventive care, more likely to have problems affording their care, and more likely to have physical and mental health conditions."
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Another Link in the Supply Chain Could be Breaking

Nearly 100% of Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen members have voted in support of a nationwide strike, which BLET National President Dennis R. Pierce is calling “a showing of solidarity and unity.”

The National Mediation Board (NMB) on June 14 set in motion a 90-day-maximum time clock toward a national railroad shutdown. It released BLET and 11 other rail craft unions (bargaining in two coalitions collectively representing some 115,000 rail workers) from NMB-guided mediation with most Class I freight railroads and many smaller ones, ending attempts to negotiate, voluntarily, amendments to existing wage, benefits and work rules agreements.

This triggered a “cooling off period,” which is set to expire at 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 18, 2022. At that point, self-help is available to the parties, unless President Joe Biden appoints a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act. A PEB would halt any strike or lockout by the parties, and would investigate and issue a report and recommendations concerning the dispute.
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