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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:21:36 GMT -8
If you get locked out, talk to the lock calmly. Communication is the key.
Great News About Airport Security Checks!!! Unfortunately, It Applies to the UK.
Some security rules on liquids and items such as laptops in airport hand luggage will be scrapped in 2024.
The government has set a deadline of June 2024 for most UK airports to install new high-tech 3D scanners, that show more detailed images of baggage.
The changes will see the 100ml liquid rule increased to two litres and mean passengers won't need to remove electrical items from bags at security.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:38:33 GMT -8
The QOP Has No Interest in Helping DACA Kids
The immigration framework proposed by two bipartisan lawmakers that would have passed permanent relief for young undocumented immigrants in exchange for harsh border measures has reportedly failed.
Thom Tillis and Kyrsten Sinema “did not strike a deal that would have been able to secure the necessary 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate during the lame-duck session,” congressional officials told CBS News. John Cornyn “and other members of GOP leadership said there was scant Republican support for the plan,” CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez tweeted Wednesday.
The termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program through right-wing courts is not a matter of if, its a matter of when, and passage of a deal during the lame duck represented the last chance to pass some sort of relief before an anti-immigrant Texas judge issues his decision. Kevin McCarthy has already promised he’ll pass no humane relief, as part of his campaigning to become speaker. That includes a corrupt bargain targeting Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas for impeachment.
Cruelty is Not a Bug for the QOP. It's a Feature.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:40:05 GMT -8
Note to the Democrats: Rural People Are Not All Yahoos.
The moderate think tank Third Way looked at 10 states and categorized counties there as urban, rural or suburban. It found that a flock of Democratic candidates outperformed President Biden’s results from 2020 in rural counties, including Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro (who improved upon Biden’s 2020 showing by 15.2 points), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (10.4 points), Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (8.8 points), Pennsylvania Sen.-elect John Fetterman (7.2 points), and Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Mark Kelly (Ariz.), both of whom beat Biden’s showing by more than 6 points.
In the Kansas gubernatorial race, Third Way reported: “[Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly] outperformed Biden in every Kansas county. Kelly saw an average 22.7-point leftward swing from Biden in 2020 in rural counties, and she had similarly strong swings in urban, suburban, and exurban counties compared to 2020.”[...]
It’s an uphill fight for Democrats in some rural areas, but not impossible. “If they don’t think you care, and you don’t show up, you’re just affirming their view,” Ryan said. He added, “People may disagree with you on certain issues, whether it’s being pro-choice or antiabortion or pro-death penalty or whatever your views are on immigration, but if they feel you’re genuinely concerned about how they’re doing economically, they’ll still consider voting for you.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:44:11 GMT -8
QOP In Chaos
Like other political analysts, I have come to believe over the past few years that a large chunk of the GOP — maybe a third or even more — retains its allegiance to Trump, and that will not change.
But over the past two midterms (2018 and 2022), the last presidential election and a handful of other events (including an abortion referendum in Kansas and special elections), signs of Trump’s growing weakness are undeniable.
That doesn’t mean that Trump’s hold on the GOP has disappeared or that he can’t win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. A crowded Republican contest would improve Trump’s prospects, and he has demonstrated that he can create an “us versus them” message that resonates in conservative and Republican circles.
A substantial chunk of Republican voters still believe that the party’s establishment is as bad, if not worse, than liberals and Democrats. They believe the Mitch McConnells (sic) of the world feign support for the MAGA movement but only care about protecting their positions of power.
And More Chaos
Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Bob Good of Virginia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Matt Rosendale of Montana and Ralph Norman of South Carolina have all broadcast plans to vote against McCarthy.
Leaving the rules discussion, where no final decisions were made, Biggs and Norman said they remained unmoved in their resolve to oppose McCarthy and expect their bloc of five will remain united in the Jan. 3 floor election and likely expand before then.
“It will grow,” Norman said.
Biggs has stepped up as an alternative candidate and is planning to vote for himself. He said he expects the other four to vote for him too, which Norman confirmed is his plan.
“I trust all four of the bloc,” Biggs said.
Yet More Chaos
Congressional Republicans on both sides of the Capitol are quarreling over federal spending and long-term strategy as Congress rushes to pass a massive government funding bill before leaving town for the holidays.
The last-minute legislative frenzy, driven by a bipartisan failure to pass budget bills on time, is flaring tensions between the GOP’s centrist and conservative wings as lawmakers work to draft a huge package to fund the government for fiscal year 2023.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the top House Republican, is taking a hard line against the bill and urging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) not to make a deal with Democrats.
McCarthy said Wednesday that Congress should continue current funding levels into the new year so that a Republican-led House of Representatives gets a chance to weigh in on the big omnibus bill.
“We’re 20 days before the new members are being sworn in. We’ve got two members leading appropriations in the Senate who will no longer be here or be able to be held accountable to the constituents,” McCarthy said at a press conference. “They should not jam us now.”
McCarthy is likely trying to look tough so his colleagues elect him speaker next month, but he would probably rather avoid a spending fight in January since a sizable number of far-right House Republicans would oppose any government funding bill. And unless McCarthy actually wants the government to shut down, he would have to pass the measure with Democratic votes ― which would enrage the right-wingers and imperil his speakership.
In the Senate, McConnell is facing resistance from his own right flank over the massive spending bill. The legislation, which he has called “broadly appealing,” is likely to include many GOP priorities, including a boost to defense spending and additional aid to Ukraine.
A small group of conservatives is railing against the size of the bill and the way it is being advanced in Congress ― in secrecy, with little input from rank-and-file members, and just days before a Christmas deadline to fund the government. The agreed price tag of the bill hasn’t yet been made public, though it is expected to total over $1.5 trillion.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:44:56 GMT -8
A Prison Sentence Should Not Be a Death Sentence
For more than two years, STAT endeavored to document the number of incarcerated people who died due to complications from hepatitis C, part of a broad investigation into prisons’ failures to prevent avoidable death and suffering related to the condition.
Prison systems fought our attempts at every turn.
This undertaking underscores how easy it is for prisons to hide the true reason why people die behind bars, and how useless the existing data is for determining whether people in prison are dying from preventable conditions. The overwhelming difficulty of the task raises questions about whether and how family members or community advocates could ever use the information to sound the alarm about especially dangerous facilities, help families and friends figure out if a death was preventable, or pinpoint inadequate care for certain diseases. [...]
In fact, STAT was only able to document the number of people who died of hepatitis C after crafting an agreement with the federal government to analyze the death data submitted by state prisons pursuant to the federal Death In Custody Reporting Act. That data is housed at the University of Michigan and is typically only available to Ph.D. researchers who are approved by the Department of Justice — an option unavailable to the average American. For our research, the DOJ withheld names and other demographic information.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:47:34 GMT -8
Mark Meadows Has Been Looking for Evidence of Voter Fraud
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had submitted to state prosecutors the findings of its voter fraud probe into Mark Meadows, who was simultaneously registered to vote in North Carolina and two other states earlier this year.
The AP reported:
The State Bureau of Investigation announced Tuesday that it has turned over the case file detailing its investigation into Meadows’ North Carolina voter registration and listed residence to Attorney General Josh Stein’s office. Prosecutors with the attorney general’s office will determine whether criminal charges are appropriate, the bureau said in a statement.
Meadows, a former Republican North Carolina congressman, was removed from the state’s voter rolls in April after Stein’s office asked the bureau to examine his voter registration records. He had listed a mobile home Scaly Mountain, North Carolina, that he never owned as his physical address weeks before casting an absentee by-mail ballot in the state for the 2020 presidential election. Trump won the Southern swing state that year by just over 1 percentage point. …
Public records indicate Meadows registered to vote in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2021, a year after he registered in North Carolina and just weeks before Virginia’s pivotal gubernatorial election in which Gov. Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to win statewide office in a dozen years.
An outspoken proponent of Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, Meadows also registered to vote in South Carolina in March 2022 after he and his wife purchased a $1.6 million home on Lake Keowee, according to records for the address listed on their South Carolina voter registration forms.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:51:15 GMT -8
Even If You Are Boosted, You Might Consider ThisA somewhat recent journal article presents the results of a study performed in the latter half of 2020, thus before vaccines were available, showing that twice daily sinus rinses were highly effective in reducing hospitalization from COVID-19 and also was effective in more rapidly resolving the symptoms of the illness. Toward the end of the paper, (Rapid initiation of nasal saline irrigation to reduce severity in high-risk COVID+ outpatients) the authors cite another paper (ref 43 in above citation) that hospital workers who performed regular oral and sinus rinses were nearly 10 times less likely to catch COVID-19 when compared to the control group. Twice-daily nasal irrigation reduces COVID-related illness, deathThis Might Be Helpful, Too.The Biden administration is again making some free COVID-19 tests available to all U.S. households as it unveils its contingency plans for potential coronavirus surges this winter. After a three-month hiatus, the administration is making four rapid virus tests available through covidtests.gov starting Thursday, a senior administration official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the program. COVID-19 cases have shown a marked increase after the Thanksgiving holiday, and further increases are projected from indoor gathering and travel around Christmas and New Year’s.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:56:39 GMT -8
Previous Guy Is Filing Even Dumber Lawsuits
"Former President Trump filed a defamation lawsuit on Tuesday against the Pulitzer Prize Board over the 2018 National Reporting prizes given to The New York Times and Washington Post for coverage of 'now-debunked theory' of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia."
Of course, the allegations of Trump's unsavory connections to Russia were not only never "debunked," they have been affirmed repeatedly. Fox went on to quote from Trump's filing saying that...
"The complaint made a series of points indicating why it feels the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories are unworthy of the honor, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller failing to find evidence of collusion." [and that] At the time of publication, nearly every branch and agency of the federal government had examined this issue and reached the same conclusion: there was no conspiracy or cooperation between President Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia."
Where Does He Get the Money For All the Legal Bills?
Trump Hoarded Most Of The $147 Million In Small-Donor Money He Raised For Himself
The much-touted super PAC he created spent only $15 million on GOP candidates in key Senate races, and nothing at all on Herschel Walker’s runoff.
Just weeks after touting a new super PAC to help Republican candidates in the November midterms, Donald Trump wound up spending just a fraction of the $100 million he had available ― and hoarded the rest for his own 2024 presidential run.
The coup-attempting former president in October transferred $60 million from his Save America “leadership” PAC to his Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC, which was ostensibly created to boost GOP candidates in tight races. It collected another $9 million from an existing pro-Trump super PAC and $4 million from new contributions.
Of that $73 million total, though, only $15 million went toward electing Republicans in five Senate races, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, with not a dime spent helping Herschel Walker in Georgia for his Dec. 6 runoff. A full $54 million remains available for the super PAC’s new stated goal, helping Trump win back the White House.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:58:04 GMT -8
My Daughters Are the Product of IVF
Democratic senators are trying to legally protect the right to use in vitro fertilization after the fall of Roe v. Wade not only ended the constitutional right to abortion but also threw into question the fate of IVF.
Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Patty Murray, along with Rep. Susan Wild, are introducing the new legislation, called the Right to Build Families Act of 2022.
Murray told USA TODAY she hopes the legislation "absolutely makes it clear in this country that IVF is protected so everyone is able to have their family."
IVF has become a commonly-used process by which people get pregnant, and about 2% of all babies born in the US are conceived through IVF or another form of assisted reproductive therapy.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 9:59:26 GMT -8
Congratulations, Elon! You Bought a Money Pit.
Elon Musk has sold a further $3.6bn worth of shares in Tesla, in the same week that he lost the title of world’s richest man to France’s Bernard Arnault.
The disposal, revealed in a regulatory filing, takes the total amount raised by Musk from sales of his stock in the electric carmaker this year to more than $20bn.
The Tesla CEO has been raising funds to pay for his $44bn acquisition of Twitter, although the filing did not give a purpose for the sale of 22m shares between Monday and Wednesday this week.
Or More Accurately, You Turned It Into a Money Pit.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 10:01:21 GMT -8
Could the Tridemic Become a Quadrademic?
Several children's hospitals in the U.S. have detected increases in invasive group A strep infections, a severe and sometimes life-threatening illness that occurs when bacteria spread to areas of the body that are normally germ-free, such as the bloodstream.
Dr. James Versalovic, the pathologist-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, said his facility — the largest pediatric hospital in the U.S. — has seen "a greater than fourfold increase" in potentially invasive infections in the last two months compared to the same period last year.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2022 10:06:27 GMT -8
WTF Would He Have Done With the Data?
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton is one of the (many) Republican officials who has overstepped in his abuses of power so often and egregiously that it’s a wonder he is still allowed to hold any job—let alone an important one. He has been able to skate past securities fraud charges and retain his job as the state’s attorney general, even though he is so transparently corrupt.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post reports that employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety got some pretty intense requests earlier this past summer from the Texas attorney general’s office. Paxton and his crew wanted them to collect a full list of Texans who had changed their gender on their Texas driver’s licenses and other department records. The request wanted that information to cover the past two years.
Why? Paxton, a coward by nature, is not saying. In fact, his office says it doesn’t know anything about anything.
According to the report, an email was sent to the head of the DPS’ driver's license division asking for the number of gender changes on licenses “broken down by month.” But no worries, invading Texans’ privacy rights is an incremental process: “We won’t need DL/ID numbers at first but may need to have them later if we are required to manually look up documents,” the request read.
Unfortunately for Paxton and his anti-LGBTQ+ fishing expedition, when more than 16,000 hits came back that matched the attorney general’s request, it became apparent that the job wasn’t as simple as maybe he and his lazy bigotry had hoped. The DPS emailed the Post, saying that, “Ultimately, our team advised the AG’s office the data requested neither exists nor could be accurately produced. Thus, no data of any kind was provided.” Who had asked? They “cannot say.”
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