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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 7:49:48 GMT -8
These are things people actually said in court. ============================================ ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo? WITNESS: We both do. ATTORNEY: Voodoo? WITNESS: We do. ATTORNEY: You do? WITNESS: Yes, voodoo. The QOP's Role Model: AfghanistanJennifer Lawrence Bread and Roses documentary gives Afghan women a voice"You only oppress women," the young woman says to the Taliban fighter. "I told you not to talk," he shouts back, "I will kill you right here!" "Okay, kill me!" she replies, raising her voice to match his. "You closed schools and universities! It's better to kill me!" A camera phone has secretly, and shakily, captured this direct confrontation inside a car between the woman and the militant. She had just been arrested following a protest and was about to be taken to a holding cell in Kabul. It is a scene from the documentary Bread and Roses, which explores the day-to-day lives of three women in the weeks following the takeover. The producer is the Oscar-winning actress, Jennifer Lawrence, who is telling the BBC why this moment in the film is so significant to her. "My heart was beating so fast watching these women defy the Taliban," Lawrence says. "You don't see this side of the story, women fighting back, in the news every day and it's an important part of our film, and the stories of these women." She says it is devastating to think about the sudden loss of control Afghan women have endured. |
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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 7:51:40 GMT -8
Are We Past the Point of No Return?
Even if a deal is struck before the last minute, the long uncertainty could drive up borrowing costs and further destabilize already shaky financial markets. It could lead to a pullback in investment and hiring by businesses when the U.S. economy is already facing elevated risks of a recession, and hamstring the financing of public works projects.
More broadly, the standoff could diminish long-term confidence in the stability of the U.S. financial system, with lasting repercussions.
Currently, investors are showing few signs of alarm. Although markets fell on Friday after Republican leaders in Congress declared a “pause” on negotiations, the declines were modest, suggesting that traders are betting that the parties will come to an agreement in the end — as they always have before.
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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 7:53:58 GMT -8
Raise Your Hand If You Want to Move to a Red State
How far can Republican governors go before corporations and their employees begin to reconsider a red-state migration that has been the dominant American geographic pattern of recent decades? In February, DeSantis wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that standing up to Disney was just part of a larger effort to rein in corporate America’s supposed left-wing politics. “We are making Florida the state where the economy flourishes,” he wrote, “because we are the state where woke goes to die.” At what point do business-friendly policies on pollution, taxation, and worker protection get outweighed by social-justice concerns in the boardroom?
And yet it’s also true that red states have continued to vacuum up jobs and population, with Florida’s total employment surpassing New York’s for the first time in 2022. Just as red states offer an attractive package for bosses, they have begun to lure educated workers for mostly separate reasons: warm weather and cheap homes. This trend seems to have accelerated since the pandemic, as remote work loosens the link between geography and high-paying careers.
Cities like New York, Washington, and San Francisco are shedding college graduates, who are flocking to major Southern cities like Dallas, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Nashville, Orlando, and Jacksonville. Yet even as cities grow more similar to one another, promising similar inclusive cultures, revitalized walkable neighborhoods, and global dining scenes, they are diverging politically as red states adopt ever-more-reactionary policies.
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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 7:57:10 GMT -8
Not Even This Guy Lives in a Red StateAleksey Repik, who is profiting from state contracts to develop the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, which Russia bombed to smithereens during its invasion of Ukraine, prefers to live and operate his business in the USA A recent investigation by the Scanner Project, a Russian volunteer team investigating transnational corruption, has revealed that Russian oligarch Aleksey Repik, ranked #64 on the Russian billionaires list, profits from government contracts in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, all while maintaining a comfortable life in the United States. Ranked 64th on the list of Russian billionaires and 13th on Forbes’ “Kings of Government Contracts” list, Repik owns R-Pharm, a company that manufactures simple drugs in Russia and imports, packs, and sells complex ones. The company’s fortune, reportedly equivalent to the annual budget of the Yaroslavl Oblast, has been linked to overpriced drug sales and accusations of corruption. The investigation also unveiled Repik’s $19.1 million mansion in San Francisco, USA. At least three of his four children were born in the USA, and during the ongoing war, Repik and his family resided in the US. Furthermore, in 2017, he attended the inauguration of former US President Donald Trump, where he was photographed with the future CIA Director Mike Pompeo, describing him as a “good neighbor” and a “charming person.” Home » Latest news Ukraine » Russian oligarch profits from occupation of Ukraine while maintaining US ties – media
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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 7:58:24 GMT -8
Who Won the Week?
The New College of Florida Class of '23, for raising $100k for an alternate commencement with civil rights leader Maya Wiley to protest the regular one where Trump cultists are to speak
Heather Boyd, who handily won her District 163 race Tuesday, ensuring that the Pennsylvania state House will remain under Democratic control
The Minnesota state legislature, for passing a public-safety bill that includes universal gun-buyer background checks, a red flag law, and community violence intervention funding
The Montana Supreme Court, for strengthening freedom of bodily autonomy by allowing nurses with advanced degrees to continue performing abortions
Penguin Random House, PEN, and the authors & parents suing the Escambia County, FL School District for removing 10 LGBTQ/race-based books in violation of the 1st and 14th Amendments
Civil rights lawyer Nancy Abudu, who was confirmed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals---the first Black woman to sit on the Atlanta-based court
Democrat Donna Deegan, for flipping the mayor's office in the longtime GOP stronghold of Jacksonville, and becoming the 1st woman to lead Florida's largest city
Nigerian immigrant Yemi Mobolade (I), who becomes the first Black mayor in the former GOP stronghold of Colorado Springs
53-year-old Kami Rita Sherpa, who scaled 29,032-foot Mount Everest for a record 27th time
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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 7:59:24 GMT -8
The Emperor's New Wall
With Donald Trump’s “finished” wall at the Mexican border, how is it possible that thousands of migrants are illegally crossing into the country, as Republicans and right-wing media point out is happening on a daily basis?
Such is the are-you-going-to-believe-me-or-your-lying-eyes problem for the coup-attempting former president as he simultaneously argues that he kept his 2016 campaign’s signature promise while also claiming that illegal immigration is out of control.
Unlike most of his falsehoods about NATO or trade agreements or the condition of the economy during his tenure that are difficult to fact-check by the average voter, the lack of a “big beautiful wall” along the southern border is constantly proven anew in television footage aired relentlessly on Fox News and other outlets.
“He left hundreds of miles of border without a fence, Mexico paid for nothing, and our military families suffered,” said Jennifer Horn, a former chair of the New Hampshire state GOP. “But it will not impact his standing in the primary unless his opponents grow the courage to call him out on his failures.”
Trump’s campaign did not respond to HuffPost queries on this topic.
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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 8:02:13 GMT -8
Maybe the Snowflakes on College Campuses Are Those Running Them
Shua Wilmot and Raegan Zelaya, two former dorm directors at a small Christian university in western New York, acknowledge their names are unconventional, which explains why they attached gender identities to their work email signatures.
Wilmot uses “he/him.” Zelaya goes by “she/her.”
Their former employer, Houghton University, wanted them to drop the identifiers in line with a new policy for email formats implemented in September. Both refused and were fired.
“My name is Shua. It’s an unusual name. And it ends with a vowel, ‘a,’ that is traditionally feminine in many languages,” Wilmot said in a nearly one-hour video he and Zelaya posted on YouTube shortly after they were let go last month. “If you get an email from me and you don’t know who I am, you might not know how to gender me.”
Ongoing culture wars in the U.S. over sexual preferences, gender IDs and transgender rights have engulfed politics, school campuses and many other facets of public and private life. At least 17 Republican-led states have severely restricted gender affirming care. Debates continue to rage in some communities about school curricula mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity. And pickets have sprung up outside public libraries hosting “drag story hours.”
Meanwhile, controversies swirl at campuses with religious affiliations. The recent firings prompted more than 700 Houghton alumni to sign a petition in protest.
In the Northwest, 16 plaintiffs are suing Seattle Pacific University, a Christian liberal arts college, to challenge the school’s employment policy barring people in same-sex relationships from full-time jobs.
In New York City, LGBTQ students are challenging Yeshiva University's decision to bar their student-run club from campus.
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Post by mhbruin on May 21, 2023 8:04:42 GMT -8
BREXIT: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein is set to take the most seats in Northern Ireland's local elections and repeat its success from last year's assembly elections, when it became the region's largest party for the first time.
With about 400 of 462 local government seats counted Saturday, Sinn Fein, which seeks unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, took 128 seats and made breakthroughs in some areas. It was ahead of its main rival, the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, which secured 111 seats so far.
“We are now on course to have a very momentous election result,” said Michelle O'Neill, Sinn Fein's vice president.
The party said its success was a message from voters that Northern Ireland's power-sharing government, which has been paralyzed for over a year, must get back to business.
“We need to double down in terms of getting an executive restored and getting our councils up and running again,” O'Neill told the BBC.
The semi-autonomous Belfast government has been suspended since the DUP, which wants to keep Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom, walked out more than a year ago to protest a post-Brexit customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
Under power-sharing rules established by the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, the main British unionist and Irish nationalist parties must govern together.
Sinn Fein captured the largest number of seats in Northern Ireland's assembly in May 2022 in a historic victory. It was the first time they beat the DUP, which had dominated the legislature for two decades.
There are Now More Cathoics than Protestants in Northern Ireland
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hasben
Resident Member
Posts: 1,047
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Post by hasben on May 21, 2023 13:26:50 GMT -8
At what point do business-friendly policies on pollution, taxation, and worker protection get outweighed by social-justice concerns in the boardroom?
They won't. The number one priority of all corps is profit. DeFascist knows FL is a fat, wealthy market for business, and a no tax, fabulous weather state to attract people. His draconian social policies really won't dissuade either group unless they are LGBTQ, which is a tiny minority.
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Post by mhbruin on May 22, 2023 7:35:30 GMT -8
At what point do business-friendly policies on pollution, taxation, and worker protection get outweighed by social-justice concerns in the boardroom? They won't. The number one priority of all corps is profit. DeFascist knows FL is a fat, wealthy market for business, and a no tax, fabulous weather state to attract people. His draconian social policies really won't dissuade either group unless they are LGBTQ, which is a tiny minority. You left out some HUGE groups, starting with women. I know neither of my daughters would accept a job in a state with an abortion ban. One of my daughters was offered a lucrative job in Florida and turned it down. My other is dating a guy who wanted to move to Austin, and asked her to move there with her. She told him that was a relationship breaker. I don't know a lot of Hispanics or Blacks, but I suspect a decent portion of them would have qualms about moving south. Then there are doctors, paricularly OB-GYNs. That would give women pause, and that could affect decisions on family moves. If there is a shortage of doctors, that would also make a lot of older folks question moving to the sun belt. Finally, coporations care about profits, but they also care about workers. If you need a bunch of unskilled labor, it doesn't matter, but more and more jobs require education and skills. Will college graduates consider poitics in choosing where to settle. Disney's deicision not to build a $1 Billion facillity in Florida may not be the last. |
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hasben
Resident Member
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Post by hasben on May 23, 2023 12:28:01 GMT -8
HUGE groups, starting with women
You're right. Replying faster than thinking. That said I will be surprised if it has Any effect on FL growth. IMO the state is already grossly overpopulated and I don't see that changing. The northern exodus just won't stop and wealthy retirees is just what the state wants.
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