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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:03:52 GMT -8
Cinco de Mayo WHO Says COVID-19 Is No Longer A Global Emergency? WHO Says COVID-19 Is No Longer A Global Emergency.It may not be an emergency, but 150 Americans are dying every day from COVID. That's comparable to the flu. 
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:05:24 GMT -8
The Latest in the Saga of Corrupt Clarence
Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:08:57 GMT -8
I Can't Think of Anything Clever to Say About This
Jesse McFadden, the convicted rapist who is believed to have killed his wife and five teenagers on his rural Oklahoma property before dying by suicide, was already in state prison in 2017 when he was charged with new sex crimes stemming from his alleged use of a contraband cellphone. But he was released in 2020, and his case languished in the court system for 2½ years.
On Monday, on the same day he was scheduled to appear in a Muskogee County court for the start of a jury trial, investigators looking for two missing teenagers who were last known to be with him executed a search warrant on his property. A local police chief said they made a grim discovery: Each of the seven bodies were shot in the head with a 9 mm pistol.
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:11:58 GMT -8
"I Have Had It With These Motherf*cking Bees On This Motherf*cking Plane!"Passengers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston were ready to board Delta flight 1682 on Wednesday afternoon when they were informed the airplane already had a buzzy group of passengers. A swarm of bees had latched onto the winglet of the A320 aircraft meant to take them to Atlanta. Passenger Robert Earl Glenn II shared a picture of the congregation of bees, showing almost the entire winglet covered in the insects. Glenn and other travelers were not allowed to board the plane while the bees were onboard. 
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:17:28 GMT -8
Prigozhin Should Stay Away From Tall Buildings. Vlad Doesn't Like Criticism.
WARNING: The Video is Disturbing.
"
The translation:
Here are the guys from PMC Wagner who died today. Still fresh blood. Get them all on video. Now listen to me, b*tches, damn, these are someone's fathers, and someone's sons. And those scum who do not give us ammunition will be in hell, there they will eat their remains, motherf*ckers! We're out of ammo, 70%! Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where the f*ck is the ammo? Look at them, b*tches! You sit, motherf*ckers, in expensive clubs! Your children enjoy life making videos on YouTube! You think that you are the masters of this life and that you have the right to dispose of the lives of these guys! You give us five times less ammo! They came here as volunteers and they are dying for you to feast in your mahogany cabinets!
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:21:19 GMT -8
Maybe Rupert Murdoch Should Stay Away From Tall Buildings, Too.
"Good riddance": GOP lawmakers' private glee at Tucker Carlson firing
What they’re saying: Multiple House Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, slammed the former Fox News host’s rhetoric on Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression, and said his inflammatory remarks on an array of issues often put them in a tough spot.
“Tucker being gone makes my life easier with many things including Ukraine,” one GOP lawmaker said. “Though I think that somebody will own that space in a couple of weeks anyway.”
“Well no one is more unhappy about Tucker’s departure than the Russians," another House Republican added.
A third lawmaker argued that Carlson “thrived on destroying Republicans ... I say good riddance.”
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:24:03 GMT -8
How Low Our Standards Have Become
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:26:38 GMT -8
Here Comes El Niño. He Is Not Seeking Asylum. The "Wall" Won't Keep Him Out.
This will change the weather and climate patterns worldwide,” Wilfran Moufouma Okia, the head of the WMO’s regional climate prediction services division, told reporters in Geneva.
La Niña, which cools the earth’s temperature, has been present since 2020, despite the fact that the past global temperatures have risen steadily over the past eight years.
“We just had the eight warmest years on record, even though we had a cooling La Niña for the past three years and this acted as a temporary brake on global temperature increase. The development of an El Niño will most likely lead to a new spike in global heating and increase the chance of breaking temperature records,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.
Warmer sea temperatures associated with El Niño can result in an acceleration in extreme weather events.
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:30:29 GMT -8
Over Half the Americans Alive Have Never Seen An Unemployment Rate This Low.
America’s employers added a robust 253,000 jobs in April, evidence of a labor market that still shows surprising strength despite rising interest rates, chronically high inflation and a banking crisis that could weaken the economy.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.4%, matching a 54-year low. Last month’s hiring gain compared with 165,000 in March and 248,000 in February, and is at a level considered vigorous by historical standards.
The job market has remained strong despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes over the past year to fight inflation. Layoffs are still relatively low, job openings comparatively high. Still, the ever-higher borrowing costs the Fed has engineered have weakened some key sectors of the economy, notably the housing market.
Since hitting a four-decade high last year, inflation has steadily eased yet is still well above the Fed’s 2% target level.
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:31:55 GMT -8
Who's Default Is It?
A Washington Post-ABC News poll finds Americans divided on who they would blame if the nation’s debt ceiling is not raised and the government goes into default, a potentially devastating outcome that could happen as soon as June 1.
The poll finds 39 percent of Americans say they would blame Republicans in Congress if the government goes into default, while 36 percent say they would blame President Biden and 16 percent volunteer that they would blame both equally. (That dynamic is similar to the 2011 debt limit showdown, when 42 percent said they would blame congressional Republicans and 36 percent said they would blame President Obama. Lawmakers averted a default that year.)
Read Post-ABC poll results
Opinions fall sharply along party lines, with Republicans just as likely to blame Biden (78 percent) as Democrats are to blame congressional Republicans (78 percent). A 37 percent plurality of independents say they would blame Republicans, with the remainder divided between Biden (29 percent) and blaming both equally (24 percent).
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:33:24 GMT -8
The Case of the Missing Workers Has Been Solved
Around the country, millions of Americans are weighing rising costs against an incredibly strong labor market, and arriving at the same conclusion: They have to go back to work.
In March 2021, more than 4 million workers were “missing” from the job market as a result of early retirements, a lack of child care, covid illness and death, and slowdowns in immigration. More than 75 percent of that shortfall has been filled, according to a Washington Post analysis, as new and returning workers help boost labor-force participation back to pre-pandemic levels. The share of adults who have a job or are looking for one is back to where it was in March 2020.
U.S. economy added 253,000 jobs in April, powering economy through turmoil
“A lot of the concerns about the pandemic rebound have abated,” said Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab. “Unemployment is basically back to where we were pre-pandemic, and adjusting for the aging population, so is labor-force participation.”
Although workers have returned, they’ve switched industries and taken on new types of jobs, reshaping the contours of the economy. Sectors such as finance and professional services — which are more likely to offer remote and flexible opportunities — have hundreds of thousands of more workers than they did before the pandemic. But others, including education, health care and leisure and hospitality, continue to report massive shortfalls.
We Still Need More Immigrants
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:35:26 GMT -8
Will the QOP Oppose This?
The Food and Drug Administration is on the cusp of deciding whether at least one type of hormonal birth control -- a progestin-only drug called "Opill" by French drugmaker HRA Pharma -- is safe enough to be sold over the counter without a prescription and without age restrictions.
First approved by the FDA in 1973, Opill is type of hormonal birth control pill known as the "minipill," which poses fewer risks than combination pills that rely on estrogen. Still, buyers would have to screen themselves for any health risk factors, much as they would other over-the-counter medications.
FDA's panel of scientific advisers are expected to meet next week to discuss the application, and if the agency signs off the drug in coming weeks, the product could be on shelves this summer.
"It is just super exciting that we've gotten here at this moment. It's really historic," said Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, an advocacy organization that has long called for over-the-counter birth control pills.
Blanchard said she hopes other types of birth control pills will follow suit and that states embrace laws requiring insurance companies to cover the costs. Currently, federal law requires free contraception "as prescribed" by a health care provider, although some states have pushed their own mandates for insurance to cover over-the-counter options as well.
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Post by mhbruin on May 5, 2023 8:37:31 GMT -8
I'm Blue Over BLue Slips
Members of the House Congressional Black Caucus met face-to-face with Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin last week to give him this message: The archaic blue slip tradition he’s following is harming Black people. Senate Republicans are blocking district court nominations in their states, and the vacancies on those courts means justice is delayed.
“I don’t know why anyone, let alone Senate Democrats, would hold up a Jim Crow practice,” Black Caucus Chair Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada told Politico in an interview this week about the meeting he and the CBC had last week. “It is literally about the fundamental survival of the people we represent,” Horsford added. That’s not hyperbole. Many of the CBC members represent blue districts, often with Black majorities, in red states. They and their constituents are being ignored and thwarted by their Republican senators.
Blue slips are an old Senate practice that the minority uses to block the Senate action. The practice isn’t even a rule; it’s a courtesy the majority extends to the minority. Home state senators recommend judge nominees to the president and then approve them—turning in their approval on a blue piece of paper—or veto those nominations by withholding the blue slip. Durbin is honoring them for district court judges, but he chose not to for appeals court nominees.
A coalition of progressive groups joined the CBC in approaching Durbin about the issue. They wrote to him this week, detailing the problem: “41 of the 45 district court vacancies subject to Republican blue slips—91%—still do not have nominees.” They wrote that Durbin’s decision to continue to honor blue slips “is contributing to this obstruction by giving home state senators more power than they have had through much of modern history, and if unchanged, it will prevent President Biden from filling dozens of judicial vacancies.”
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