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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 7:44:22 GMT -8
Life and beer are similar. Chill for best results. It's Not Like Doug Needed More Bad News. Sabato:Michigan and Pennsylvania to Likely Democratic With just under 6 weeks to go until Election Day 2022, Democrats’ prospects of holding 2 Great Lakes region governorships are improving. We are moving the contests in Michigan and Pennsylvania from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic -- both races feature proven Democratic candidates running against controversial and underfunded Republicans. We’ll start in Pennsylvania, where the gap in candidate quality between the major-party nominees is one of the biggest of any statewide contest this cycle. But He Got It AnywayAsked in 2019 if he was saying women should be charged with murder for violating an abortion ban he proposed, Doug Mastriano, now the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, said: “Yes, I am.” Mastriano was talking to WITF, a radio station, about a bill he sponsored as a state senator. The bill would have barred most abortions when a fetal heartbeat could be detected, which is usually about six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Mastriano was asked: “You can give me a yes or no on this. Would that woman who decided to have an abortion which would be considered an illegal abortion be charged with murder?” Mastriano said: “OK, let’s go back to the basic question there. Is a human being? Is that a little boy or girl? If it is, it deserves equal protection under the law.”
He was asked: “So you’re saying yes?”
Mastriano said: “Yes, I am. If it’s a human being, if it’s an American citizen there, a little baby, I don’t care what nationality it is, it deserves equal rights before the law.”
This Was Before Roe Was Overturned. |
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 7:49:39 GMT -8
The University of Idaho Wants More Pregnant Women.
University of Idaho says staff can offer condoms for STDs – not birth control
Memo warns employees they should not speak in support of abortion following state ban on procedure
Condoms should only be provided to students to prevent sexually transmitted infections, not as birth control, according to a memo sent by the University of Idaho to staff last week.
The memo, first obtained by the Idaho Press and issued to all employees on Friday, laid out the university’s reproductive policies following the enactment of Idaho’s abortion law, which bans the procedure in nearly all cases.
The memo further warned employees that they could not speak in support of abortion and should “proceed cautiously at any time that a discussion moves in the direction of reproductive health”, reported the Hill.
The advice on birth control was included because of the law’s lack of clarity on “prevention of conception”, the university said, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.
Staff have been prohibited from recommending or referring abortion to a student. Employees have also been told not to issue emergency contraception – the so-called morning after pill, also known as Plan B – except in cases of rape.
Standard birth control pills will reportedly still be distributed at student health centers, which are administered by Moscow Family Health, not the university itself. The university does not provide abortion services.
It warned that any staff recommending abortion to students risked a felony conviction and could be banned from any future state employment.
“Since violation is considered a felony, we are advising a conservative approach here,” read the memo.
Which Moscow Are they Located In? (The Pumps Won't Work, Cause the Vandals Took the Handles.)
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 7:50:57 GMT -8
Where Has the Yuan Gone?
China's yuan has hit fresh record lows against the surging US dollar.
The internationally-traded yuan fell to its lowest level since data first became available in 2011.
China's domestic currency also reached its weakest point since the 2008 global financial crisis.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 7:53:22 GMT -8
Putin Can't Get No Respect
The Kazakh president began his speech with a proverb.
“Good ties with neighbours guarantee safety,” Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, a former foreign minister known for his negotiating skills, said on Tuesday.
Tokayev instructed his government to help tens of thousands of Russian men that flooded his nation because of the chaotic and massive partial military mobilisation for the war in Ukraine.
Almost 100,000 Russians have entered Kazakhstan since September 21, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilisation, the Kazakh interior ministry said on Tuesday.
On Monday, Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry said it would not recognise the “referendums” in occupied Ukrainian regions that paved the way for their annexation by Moscow.
And in June, Tokayev nonchalantly told Putin that his government would not follow Moscow in recognising the “independence” of separatist statelets in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk.
Kazakhstan’s interior ministry said that it would only extradite the Russians who have been put on an international wanted list.
“A search for Russians by conscription offices is no ground for extradition,” Minister of Internal Affairs Marat Akhmetzhanov said on Tuesday.
The number of newcomers to Kazakhstan is growing by the minute as rights groups and independent media report that newly mobilised Russians are herded to the front lines without any prior training.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 7:56:28 GMT -8
Liz's Stint As PM Isn't Off to a Rousing Start
As the British pound plummets in value, the United States dollar is flying high.
Against a tumultuous backdrop that includes the Ukraine war, soaring prices and China’s COVID lockdowns, sharp fluctuations of some of the world’s major currencies are injecting new uncertainty into the global economic outlook.
On Monday, the pound sank to a record low against the US dollar as investors rushed to sell the currency and government bonds in a demonstration of scepticism over new Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic plans, which include large tax cuts funded by steep increases in government borrowing.
At one point in Asian trading, the pound sank as low as $1.0327, surpassing the previous record low reached in 1985, before making back some of its value.
The price of 5-year UK bonds – through which investors loan money to the government – recorded the sharpest fall since at least 1991.
Under Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini-budget” announced on Friday, the UK is proposing the biggest tax cuts in 50 years, including abolishing the 45 percent tax rate on incomes over 150,000 pounds ($162,000).
The tax cuts, along with a plan to support households in dealing with their rising energy bills, will require the government to borrow an extra 72 billion pounds ($77.7bn) in the next six months alone.
A Gilt-Free Economy
The Bank of England will suspend the planned start of its gilt selling next week and begin temporarily buying long-dated bonds in order to calm the market chaos unleashed by the new government's so-called "mini-budget."
U.K. gilt yields are on course for their sharpest monthly rise since at least 1957 as investors flee British fixed income markets following the new fiscal policy announcements. The measures included large swathes of unfunded tax cuts that have drawn global criticism, including from the IMF.
In a statement Wednesday, the central bank said it was monitoring the "significant repricing" of U.K. and global assets in recent days, which has hit long-dated U.K. government debt particularly hard.
"Were dysfunction in this market to continue or worsen, there would be a material risk to UK financial stability. This would lead to an unwarranted tightening of financing conditions and a reduction of the flow of credit to the real economy," the Bank of England said.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 7:58:52 GMT -8
The Joy of Private Prisons
A woman who said she was left to give birth to her baby alone on the dirty, concrete floor of her jail cell in Maryland filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging that jail nurses ignored her screams and pleas for help for six hours.
Jazmin Valentine alleges some nurses working for the jail’s contracted medical provider, Pennsylvania-based PrimeCare Medical, Inc., said she was withdrawing from drugs, not in labor, and some jail staffers and medical staff laughed at her, saying she was just trying to get out of her cell late at night in July 2021 at the Washington County jail in Hagerstown.
Valentine claims she punched the walls of her solitary confinement cell, which did not have blankets or sheets, during her most painful contractions and removed what she believed was her baby’s amniotic sac and slid it under her cell door to prove she was about to have a baby.
A fellow inmate, hearing Valentine’s pleas, called Valentine’s boyfriend, who called the jail pleading with staffers to help her, the lawsuit said.
The nurses also ignored a concern raised by a jail deputy about Valentine but he did not contact any superiors, the lawsuit said. He discovered Valentine holding the baby girl in her cell about 15 minutes after she was born just after midnight on July 4, 2021 and an ambulance was called to take them to the hospital, according to the lawsuit.
Because of the unsanitary conditions in the cell, the baby developed a type of staph bacteria infection that is resistant to many antibiotics, the lawsuit said.
Valentine was over eight months pregnant when she was arrested for an alleged probation violation and taken to the jail the day before she went into labor, the lawsuit said. Valentine was released several days later and her baby is doing well, she said Tuesday.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:00:44 GMT -8
Headlines Don't Say "The Benefit is Small"
The Japanese drugmaker Eisai said Tuesday its experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease helped slow cognitive decline in patients in the early stages of the illness.
The company said that in a phase 3 clinical trial, the drug, called lecanemab, slowed cognitive decline by 27% after 18 months. The results were announced in a news release and have not yet been peer-reviewed.
The results may offer renewed hope to Alzheimer’s patients after the U.S. drugmaker Biogen’s botched rollout of its drug, Aduhelm, last year. Biogen partnered with Eisai in the commercialization of the new drug, although Eisai led its development and the phase 3 trial.
Outside experts urged caution in interpreting the results, however.
The results are “a first step in the direction of making a significant impact on the disease,” said Dr. Ronald Petersen, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Dr. Alberto Espay, a neurologist at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, said that the benefit was "small" and that it fell below the threshold of what would be meaningful to a patient. Still, he said, "patients can view this with cautious optimism."
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:02:36 GMT -8
Do You Get Those Desperate E-Mails From Candidates? "OMG. I'm Being Outspent!!!"
NBC reports that Republicans have outspent Democrats $106 million to $93 million over the last three weeks across the nine Senate battlegrounds, but, because so many GOP candidates are relying on super PACs to make up for their underwhelming fundraising, they aren't getting as much "bang for their buck" as their rivals. That's because, as we've written before, FCC regulations give candidates—but not outside groups—discounted rates on TV and radio.
Perhaps no race better demonstrates this in action than the Arizona Senate race. The GOP firm OH Predictive Insights relays that during the week of Sept. 19, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and his allies outspent Republican Blake Masters' side 52-48 in advertising. Anyone just looking at raw dollar amounts would conclude that the two parties aired about the same number of ads during this period, but that's not the case at all. In reality, Kelly's side had a 4-1 advantage in gross ratings points, which measure how many times, on average, members of an ad's target audience have seen it.
Republicans can blame Masters, whom NBC says has spent all of $9,000 on ads during most of September, for much of the imbalance. The Senate Leadership Fund last week canceled all its planned ad time in Arizona while arguing that other super PACs would step in, and this data shows why Masters badly needs this prediction to finally come true.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:05:38 GMT -8
Can We Defund the Supreme Court?
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:06:51 GMT -8
Nobody Loves a Draft
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:09:42 GMT -8
It's All About the Turnout of the Base
In Texas, for instance, the progressive data firm TargetSmart found that before the Dobbs ruling gutting Roe, Republicans held a 5-point advantage in voter registration. But after the ruling, Democrats held a 10-point advantage in new registrations 42% - 32%, as of earlier this month—a net swing of 15 points.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:17:08 GMT -8
Newt Gangreenich Joins the Tattoo Obsessed I Doubt Newt Knows Who Biggie and Tupac AreHe Clearly Doesn't Know What Human Decency Is.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:21:08 GMT -8
TucKGBer Goes Full Treason. He Wants Putin to Attack the US
At some point, the GOP’s mouthpiece crossed right over into traitor territory. He moved from Russian propagandist to outright giving aid to our enemy.
The Nord Stream pipeline connects Russian with Germany, and it suffered from explosions yesterday. Experts suspect sabotage, and some officials think Putin is behind it. Tucker immediately leapt to his defense, saying Putin would have to be a “suicidal moron” to blow up his own pipeline. (I think that was already well established by destroying his own country with his failing war in Ukraine, but I digress.)
Then, without offering any evidence, he falsely suggested that Joe Biden was behind blowing it up.
Even worse, he started listing ways Russia could retaliate against the U.S.
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:24:11 GMT -8
Huh??
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Post by mhbruin on Sept 28, 2022 8:28:13 GMT -8
In Spite of QOP (and Joe Manchin's) Attempts to Starve Children, ...
The White House on Wednesday plans to unveil $8 billion in new private sector spending to combat hunger, including hundreds of millions of dollars for meals after lawmakers failed to further extend pandemic-era nutrition supports like universal school meals and increased aid to food banks.
The pledges will be announced as part of a White House summit on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the first in over 50 years, with participation from President Joe Biden, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, as well as several lawmakers and New York city Mayor Eric Adams.
Biden aims to end U.S. hunger and reduce diet-related diseases in a majority of Americans by 2030, but is turning to the private sector to underwrite some of the spending, after Congress failed to further extend school lunch aid.
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