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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:07:15 GMT -8
What did E.T.'s mother say to him when he got home? "Where on Earth have you been?!"
Is a Supreme Court Justice Claiming "Ignorance of the Law" as a Defense?
On Tuesday afternoon, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was gifted op-ed space in The Wall Street Journal, in which he attempted to make a preemptive strike on a ProPublica article reporting on evidence of his accepting gifts from someone with business before the court. Even though the ProPublica article had not appeared at the time the op-ed ran, Alito was shockingly accurate about what it would say.
But then, it’s always easy to predict the evidence of guilt when you’re the one who is guilty. In fact, it’s easy to read Alito’s op-ed for what it really is: a confession.
Alito took a huge gift from someone who has had business before the court not once, but at least 10 times. And all Alito can provide as justification is that he really didn’t remember a once-in-a-lifetime trip with a six-figure price tag, and didn’t manage to put together that the hedge fund he was ruling on was connected to the person who gave him that trip. Who was a hedge fund manager.
In other words, ignorance is his only excuse. According to Alito, that’s just fine.
What the ProPublica article shows is that Alito took a very expensive fishing trip in 2008. That included being flown to a remote location in Alaska on a private jet, and being put up in a room at an exclusive lodge where he was wined, dined, and guided to catch some very large king salmon. His flight, his fishing, his meals, wine, and room were covered by hedge fund manager Paul Singer.
Alito never reported this gift. Because, he says, he only had a “modest room” and “if there was wine it was certainly not wine that costs $1,000.” Which skips right past the fact that the room, no matter if it wasn’t up to Alito’s high standards, cost $1,000 a night all on its own—enough that a single night there should have made the trip subject to reporting.
When it comes to his flight on a private jet, Alito has a Very Good Reason why he didn’t have to report that.
"As for the flight, Mr. Singer and others had already made arrangements to fly to Alaska when I was invited shortly before the event, and I was asked whether I would like to fly there in a seat that, as far as I am aware, would have otherwise been vacant. It was my understanding that this would not impose any extra cost on Mr. Singer. Had I taken commercial flights, that would have imposed a substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals who would have been required for security reasons to assist me."
There’s the minor problem that every seat on a scheduled flight, private or commercial, would be “have otherwise been vacant” if someone didn’t put their butt in it. That doesn’t make the value of these seats in any sense free. He might want to try walking up to the gate at any airline and telling them he wants to use one of those empty seats, just to check.
When it comes to the U.S. Marshals service, deputy marshals do generally provide protection for federal judges, but Alito seems to be saying that he would need their protection if flying with the general public, but not in the company of these wealthy men who he had never met before. It’s almost as if he’s saying that because they were rich, they were treated differently.
Singer’s hedge fund was party to at least 10 cases before the Supreme Court. These aren’t complex relationships, in which Singer contributed to an organization, or was a partial owner of some entity through a nest of overlapping corporations. Singer was a hedge fund manager. That hedge fund was party to a case. But Alito has a firm response to why he couldn’t possibly draw the connection.
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:09:32 GMT -8
If He Looks Like a Partisan Hack, Sounds Like a Partisan Hack ...
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:10:52 GMT -8
This Organization PACs a Whallop!Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing everything in his power to bend and dodge campaign finance laws in his effort to raise enough money to take on former President Donald Trump for the 2024 nomination, wrote Alexander Sammon for Slate. The biggest way he is doing this, Sammon explained, is the laws governing super PACs. "Super PACs, according to campaign finance law, are supposed to operate independently of campaigns and their candidates. That independence is what allows them to raise infinite amounts of money from corporations and the superrich, thanks to the conservative Supreme Court majority ruling in Citizens United," wrote Sammon. "But DeSantis’s super PACs aren’t just working closely with his campaign—they’re taking over entire core campaign functions. The super PAC supporting DeSantis’s national bid for president is the Never Back Down PAC: It is already organizing events for DeSantis on the campaign trail (a tactic favored by Carly Fiorina in the 2016 presidential Republican primary.) And it is structuring, staffing, and building out an entire ground game operation on DeSantis’s behalf, something seemingly unprecedented in a presidential primary." By contrast, most super PACs simply run ad campaigns on behalf of a candidate, not run the candidate's voter outreach operation for them. Ron DeSantis Is Playing Fast and Loose With Campaign Finance Laws
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:15:21 GMT -8
Why Would ANyone Want Voting to Be Easy?
Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded vote-by-mail access for people with disabilities — specifically people who are blind or paralyzed and need assistance marking their ballot.
Advocates say Abbott’s veto of House Bill 3159 is a blow for voters with disabilities who have for years called for the Legislature to grant them a way to mark their mail-in ballots without having to rely on anyone else.
Co-authored by state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, and state Rep. John H. Bucy III, D-Austin, the bill would have allowed voters who need help casting a ballot, such as people who are visually impaired or are paralyzed, to do so “privately and securely” by requesting an electronic ballot and using a computer to mark their choices. The bill still would have required those voters to print out, sign and return their ballots by mail.
In a resolution explaining his veto Saturday, Abbott called the intent of the bill “laudable” but said the bill does not limit the use of an electronic and accessible ballot by mail only to voters with disabilities. He says the bill would allow “any voter who qualifies to vote by mail to receive a ballot electronically.”
But some policy experts and voting rights advocates say Abbott is incorrect.
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:17:15 GMT -8
A New Old CityArchaeologists in Mexico have discovered the remains of an ancient Maya city deep in the jungle of the Yucatán Peninsula. Experts found several pyramid-like structures measuring more than 15m (50ft) in height. Pottery unearthed at the site appears to indicate it was inhabited between 600 and 800 AD, a period known as Late Classic. Archaeologists have named the site Ocomtún (Mayan for stone column). 
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:20:45 GMT -8
They Looked Under the Couch Cushions and Found Two Quarters and This...
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:23:54 GMT -8
Twitter Abandoned the Truth. Should the Truth Abandon Twitter?A feud broke out on Twitter over the weekend between popular podcaster Joe Rogan and prominent vaccine researcher Peter Hotez, with the podcaster challenging the scientist to a debate about vaccines in an online skirmish that drew fire from a few billionaires. Why it matters: The incident — which ultimately resulted in individuals approaching the scientist outside his home — highlighted the potential risks for researchers and medical professionals using the platform, which saw a rise in hate speech after its acquisition by billionaire Elon Musk. - While Twitter was a key source for information during the pandemic — and some scientists have argued the importance of remaining there as a counterbalance to growing misinformation and anti-science rhetoric — others say it's time to head for the doors. - "In light of what's happened over the last several months — and over the weekend — I believe we're at an inflection point where the risk/benefit analysis for folks such as myself is shifting to looking at going somewhere else," said Jorge Caballero, founder of Distal Labs, a non-profit that builds digital tools for grassroots advocacy groups. Scientists on Twitter head for the exit
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:26:55 GMT -8
When Is Five Greater Than Five Hundred?
Billionaires in a submersible versus 500 dead in the Mediterranean-guess which one media covers.
Over 500 people are missing and presumed to have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after the overcrowded fishing boat capsized, spilling 800 people into the sea. Perhaps you missed this story as a submersible ship filled with billionaires is stuck at the wreckage of the Titanic two miles below the surface. Both instances are tragic stories, but American media is fixated on the story of the stranded billionaires.
According to Pakistani officials, the 82-foot fishing trawler left Egypt for Libya, where more passengers were stuffed into the trawler. Eight hundred people paid smugglers $4500 each; the passengers were Egyptians, Syrians, and Pakistani nationals.
Nine Egyptians were arrested and charged with "manslaughter, setting up a criminal organization, migrant smuggling, and causing a shipwreck."
Survivors told of treading water for hours surrounded by hundreds of children's-floating bodies before being rescued.
I Wonder How Many Will Be Arrested in the Submersible Loss
A Greek social worker, who looked after some of the survivors, told us she had heard that water ran out on the boat days before it sank, forcing passengers to drink their own urine and suck water from the melting refrigerators.
Many of them are suffering severe mental trauma.
She recalled one survivor who told her that "for two hours he was swimming surrounded by the bodies of children" and a young man in his 20s who "wanted to commit suicide, wanted to jump into the sea and kill himself because he couldn't take it anymore".
The survivors have been moved to an immigration centre in central Greece.
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:29:44 GMT -8
Why Would Anyone Expect Previous Guy to Know the Consequences of His Actions?
Donald Trump didn’t quite seem to grasp one of his own major policy proposals during a Fox News interview airing on Monday evening.
Trump last year said he would seek the death penalty for drug dealers if he wins next year’s election and returns to the White House.
But during the interview with Bret Baier, Trump boasted of giving a presidential pardon to Alice Johnson, who had been in prison for 21 years after being convicted for her role in a cocaine ring.
Baier stepped in with a fact-check.
“But she’d be killed under your plan,” he interjected.
Trump seemed flustered.
“Huh?” he said.
“As a drug dealer,” Baier began.
“No, no, no,” Trump shot back. “Under my? Oh, under that? Uhhhh... it would depend on the severity.”
But he continued to struggle as he tried to reconcile the pardon with his proposal:
If That Means the Death Penatly for the Sacklers, I Am All In Favor
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:32:03 GMT -8
This Should Be the Opening Argument in Previous Guy's Trial
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:33:44 GMT -8
More Vicitms of the Pandemic
National test scores plummeted for 13-year-olds, according to new data that shows the single largest drop in math in 50 years and no signs of academic recovery following the disruptions of the pandemic.
Student scores plunged nine points in math and four points in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often regarded as the nation’s report card. The release Wednesday reflected testing in fall 2022, comparing it to the same period in 2019, before the pandemic began.
“These results show that there are troubling gaps in the basic skills of these students,” said Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which administers the tests. The new data, she said, “reinforces the fact that recovery is going to take some time.”
The average math score is now the same as it was in 1990, while the average reading score is the same as it was in 2004.
Hardest hit were the lowest-performing students. In math, their scores showed declines of 12 to 14 points, while their highest-performing peers fell just six points. The pattern for reading was similar, with lowest performers seeing twice the decline of the highest ones.
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:37:15 GMT -8
Who Wouldn't Want "Cultured" Meat?For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation's restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves. The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn't come from slaughtered animals — what's now being referred to as “cell-cultivated" or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates. The move launches a new era of meat production aimed at eliminating harm to animals and drastically reducing the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste. “Instead of all of that land and all of that water that's used to feed all of these animals that are slaughtered, we can do it in a different way," said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and chief executive of Eat Just, which operates Good Meat. The companies received approvals for federal inspections required to sell meat and poultry in the U.S. The action came months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed that products from both companies are safe to eat. A manufacturing company called Joinn Biologics, which works with Good Meat, was also cleared to make the products. Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. In Upside's case, it comes out in large sheets that are then formed into shapes like chicken cutlets and sausages. Good Meat, which already sells cultivated meat in Singapore, the first country to allow it, turns masses of chicken cells into cutlets, nuggets, shredded meat and satays. Company officials are quick to note the products are meat, not substitutes like the Impossible Burger or offerings from Beyond Meat, which are made from plant proteins and other ingredients. Globally, more than 150 companies are focusing on meat from cells, not only chicken but pork, lamb, fish and beef, which scientists say has the biggest impact on the environment.
Just Think About All the Cow Farts We Can Get Rid Of.US approves chicken made from cultivated cells, the nation's first "lab-grown" meat
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:40:00 GMT -8
HCA Strikes AgainDoctors say HCA hospitals push patients into hospice care to improve mortality statsAs Marisol Perez fought for her life in a Texas hospital in autumn 2021, her mother, Alma Salas, sat with her every day praying. Perez, then 42, had such a virulent case of Covid and pneumonia that doctors at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center, an HCA Healthcare facility, had put her on a ventilator and into a coma to try to save her. Salas said she believed her daughter would pull through, but doctors and nurses at the hospital kept telling her otherwise. Over 10 days in October, less than a month after Perez entered St. David’s, Salas received repeated visits from a palliative care nurse, her hospital record shows. Every other day, Salas said, the nurse urged her to initiate end-of-life care for her daughter. Several of Perez’s doctors also pressed Salas to remove her daughter from the ventilator, she said, in visits confirmed by details from Perez’s chart. On one occasion, six or seven doctors and nurses gathered around Perez’s bed, Salas said. "We really feel it is in the best interests of your daughter to let her go," she recalled one doctor telling her. Salas held firm. “I don’t have the authority to take anyone’s life,” she said she told them. A month later, St. David’s discharged Perez, her chart shows. She went on to make a full recovery.
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:42:31 GMT -8
Don't Bless This Restaurant, For THey Have Sinned
A California restaurant must pay employees $140,000 in back wages and damages after using an alleged priest to hear worker confessions.
While in court, the U.S. Department of Labor said an employee testified that owner Che Garibaldi, which operates Taqueria Garibaldi restaurants in Northern California, offered employees a person who identified as a priest to hear their confessions during work hours.
"The priest urged workers to 'get their sins out,' and asked employees if they had stolen from the employer, been late for work, had done anything to harm their employer or if they had bad intentions toward their employer," according to a release from the Department of Labor.
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The alleged priest was not identified by the Department of Labor. A spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento told the Catholic News Agency last week that their own investigation "found no evidence of any connection" between the diocese and the alleged priest.
Che Garibaldi operates two Taqueria Garibaldi restaurants in Sacramento and one in Roseville.
The findings follow an investigation that found Taqueria Garibaldi denied employees overtime pay for working over 40 hours in a work week, payed managers from the employee tip pool illegally, threatened employees with retaliation and "adverse immigration consequences" for cooperating with the Department of Labor and fired one worker who they believed had complained to the department, the release states.
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Post by mhbruin on Jun 21, 2023 8:44:48 GMT -8
If We Are the Richest Nation in the World, How Bad Is It For the Rest of Humanity?
An average American income isn’t enough for a comfortable living in 2023, according to two recent reports.
The typical U.S. family earns about $71,000 per year, according to the Census. Yet, the average American believes a family needs at least $85,000 in annual household income to get by, according to a recent Gallup poll.
That finding tracks with a recent study from SmartAsset, a financial technology company, which found the average American worker needs $68,499 in after-tax income to live comfortably. (That works out to around $85,000 in total income, assuming a 20-percent tax hit.)
The two releases point to the same conclusion: Many Americans earn too little in 2023 to attain a decent standard of living in their communities.
American households are feeling the pinch after three years of relentless economic headwinds.
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