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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 7:56:05 GMT -8
What did one eye say to the other eye? Between you and me something smells.
Oy Yey, Maria!!
Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, who infamously peddled false claims about Dominion Voting Systems based on the musings of a woman who claims to have conversations with the wind, started pushing a new conspiracy theory on Wednesday.
During an interview with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Bartiromo complained that House Republicans are getting "stonewalled" in their investigations of President Joe Biden, and suggested that there was something nefarious about the fact that Republicans' purported "whistleblower" had been indicted as an unauthorized agent of the Chinese government.
"Gal Luft was just indicted!" Bartiromo said. "This was one of your key whistleblowers. I want to get your take on what you're going to do about it, because how many more whistleblowers are going to come forward after this guy, who tried telling the FBI and DOJ what he knew the transactions and business deals of the Biden family, now he had to go on the run and now he's getting indicted!"
In fact, Gal Luft was indicted back in November, before Republicans officially took control of Congress and launched their Biden probes.
And as Washington Post reporter Philip Bump notes on Twitter, Bartiromo's description of Luft as "on the run" is highly dubious given the circumstances surrounding his indictment.
"Bartiromo has been completely unmoored for some time, but this is dumb even by that standard," he wrote in reaction to the Fox Business segment. "Why do you think he is on the run, Maria? He skipped bail!"
And the Wind Cries "Crazy"
One of the most stunning revelations from Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against Fox News has been the fact that Trump attorney Sidney Powell got her ideas about fraud in the 2020 election from a woman who believes that the wind sends her messages.
The identity of this mystery woman has remained a mystery -- until now.
The Daily Beast's Will Sommer tracked down Powell's mystery source and found that she is a Minnesota-based "cactus artist" named Marlene Bourne, who thinks that she could potentially be a ghost after seemingly surviving an "internal decapitation."
During the interview, Sommer asked her to elaborate on her claim that "The Wind tells me I'm a ghost," to which Bourne responded by asking Sommer if he believes in telepathy.
Bourne says that she believes she can receive hidden messages embedded in movies, song lyrics, and even conversations from strangers in the supermarket, and that she decided to email Powell one day because she was "on a roll" in using her powers to uncover the purported truth of election fraud in 2020.
“It’s just really interesting where I’ll have the TV on, and I’ll hear a word or a person’s name, and for whatever reason I can’t explain it, it’s going to compel me to look it up online, I’ll do a little digging,” she tells Sommer. “Instead of saying I rely on my intuition, I say ‘the wind’ is talking to me. It’s just a fun way of living my life, don’t you think?”
In addition to her conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, Bourne also thinks that the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered as part of a human hunting expedition carried out by globalist elites at Bohemian Grove.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 7:59:25 GMT -8
Comer Goes From Don't Pass Line on Gambling to Pass Line.
James Comer is heading the House GOP's effort to investigate the Biden administration as the chair of the House Oversight Committee. But according to The Daily Beast, he should face similar ethical questions following an about-face on the expansion of gambling in his state.
Comer has long-represented a conservative Christian swath of Kentucky that has been suspicious of gambling. He voted against the building of nine new casinos in the state back in 2008, rebuking the state's influential horse-racing industry. But when he won the race for Kentucky agriculture commissioner in 2011, it was done with the help of the CEO of the company that owns the legendary Kentucky Derby racetrack – who gave the candidate the maximum $2,000 contribution.
Just a year later Comer, who is trying to tie the Biden family to allegations of bribery, testified in favor of a constitutional amendment to build seven new gambling facilities around Kentucky. Even though the amendment failed, the Kentucky Republican went on to benefit from his new-found ties to the gambling industry.
"In 2013, Comer was still carrying tens of thousands of dollars in debt from his 2011 run, the byproduct of an eleventh-hour $100,000 loan he gave to his own campaign. That spring, one of Kentucky’s most influential men held a fundraiser at his Louisville home to retire Comer’s debt: Brett Hale, then a senior vice president of Churchill Downs," The Beast's Sam Brody reported. "Thanks to maximum-level contributions from Hale and other Churchill Downs brass, the event eliminated Comer’s outstanding debt of roughly $28,000 with a haul of $36,000. Churchill Downs employees accounted for $5,300 of that total."
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:02:04 GMT -8
A Death Sentence for the Flori-dumb Housing Market?
A flood of insurance companies fleeing Florida could cost the GOP the state in the next election, a former Trump official warned Tuesday.
Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs under Trump, was reacting to Farmers Insurance's announcement earlier in the day that it was dropping all home and auto insurance policies in the state and leaving, Newsweek reported.
The decision was driven by business costs that are forced up by hurricane rebuilding and recovery, the company said. It’s the fourth insurance firm to pull out of the Florida market in the past year.
"I keep saying hurricane insurance costs are a vital issue in Florida – a truly fundamental kitchen table concern,” Caputo said in a tweet.
"It changes votes, for real. Florida is a must-win battleground for the GOP nomination – will hurricane insurance decide it?"
Farmers’ decision is expected to affect 100,000 homeowners.
Florida homeowners already pay the highest premiums in the U.S., Newsweek reported.
Another Death Sentence For Flori-Dumb Kids
In May, Gov. Ron DeSantis had this to say, after signing one of the toughest abortion bans in the nation: “One of the things I’m most proud of is that the state of Florida stands unequivocally in defense of the family, and in defense of our children. And we have done more to protect children than any state in the country.”
What DeSantis knew — what most Florida families probably did not know — was that even as he spoke, state officials were rushing to dump hundreds of thousands of Floridians off Medicaid rolls. Roughly one-third of those losing coverage are children. And as the Sentinel’s Caroline Catherman reported last week, some of those children are so sick they’re not supposed to lose coverage at all.
As far as DeSantis’ boast that no state does more, well, he’s a little bit right there. Florida has done more than any other state — to strip families and children of coverage. According to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Florida has dropped twice as many people —more than 300,000 — from the Medicaid rolls as the next most-active state (Arizona, which has dropped 149,000). Even worse, Florida doesn’t appear to be using any of the tools the federal government has made available to keep more residents enrolled.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:03:32 GMT -8
Keeping Social Security From Becoming Social Insecurity
Legislation recently introduced by a pair of Democratic U.S. lawmakers to save Social Security for generations to come would extend the vital social program's lifespan by at least 75 years, according to a federal analysis published Tuesday.
The Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act—introduced in April by Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), with a companion bill put forth Tuesday by Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) in the House—"would extend Social Security solvency indefinitely by making the nation's highest earners contribute their fair share," Boyle's office said in a statement Tuesday.
The bill would require taxpayers making more than $400,000 annually to contribute more to Medicare, while closing legal loopholes and also ensuring "that wealthy owners of pass-through businesses like hedge funds and private equity firms with more than $400,000 in annual income cannot avoid Medicare taxes."
The Democrats say that, if passed, their bill would also "extend Medicare solvency by an estimated 20 years."
According to an analysis by the Social Security Administration's Office of the Chief Actuary, if enacted, the legislation's provisions would be sufficient to "pay scheduled benefits in full and on time throughout the 75-year projection period."
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:05:11 GMT -8
There's a 10-Second Rule in Basketball, But a 10-Second Rule in Sexual Assault?
Does it count as sexual harassment if an assault lasts less than 10 seconds?
Many young people in Italy are expressing outrage on social media, after a judge cleared a school caretaker of groping a teenager, because it did not last long enough.
The case involves a 17-year-old student at a Rome high school.
She described walking up a staircase to class with a friend, when she felt her trousers fall down, a hand touching her buttocks and grabbing her underwear.
"Love, you know I was joking," the man told her when she turned around.
After the incident, which happened in April 2022, the student reported the caretaker, 66-year-old Antonio Avola, to police.
He admitted to groping the student without consent, but said it was a joke.
A Rome public prosecutor asked for a three-and-a-half year prison sentence but this week the caretaker was acquitted of sexual assault charges. According to the judges, what happened "does not constitute a crime" because it lasted less than 10 seconds.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:06:31 GMT -8
We Haven't Had That Sprit Here Since 1969.
Leslie Van Houten, a former follower of notorious cult leader Charles Manson, has been released on parole after serving more than five decades of a life sentence for two brutal murders.
Van Houten, 73, was a 19-year old member of the "Manson family" when she took part in the murder of a Los Angeles grocer and his wife in 1969.
Five previous bids for her parole were blocked by California's governors.
That decision was later reversed by a state appeals court.
A former homecoming queen, Van Houten was the youngest Manson follower to be convicted of murder for her role in the death of a California grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary.
During the killings - which took place just days after the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others - Van Houten held down Rosemary LaBianca while someone else stabbed her. She later also admitted that she stabbed the woman after she was dead.
Van Houten's lawyer, Nancy Tetreault, told the BBC that she left a women's prison in California early on Tuesday morning and was likely to be on parole for three years.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:11:43 GMT -8
What Can We Learn From a Sloth Bone?
New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.
Scientists analyzed triangular and teardrop-shaped pendants made of bony material from the sloths. They concluded that the carved and polished shapes and drilled holes were the work of deliberate craftsmanship.
Dating of the ornaments and sediment at the Brazil site where they were found point to an age of 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, the researchers reported. That’s several thousand years before some earlier theories had suggested the first people arrived in the Americas, after migrating out from Africa and then Eurasia.
“We now have good evidence — together with other sites from South and North America — that we have to rethink our ideas about the migration of humans to the Americas,” said Mirian Liza Alves Forancelli Pacheco, a study co-author and archaeologist at the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil.
In the past decade, other research has challenged the conventional wisdom that people didn’t reach the Americas until a few thousand years before rising sea levels covered the Bering land bridge between Russia and Alaska, perhaps around 15,000 years ago.
The ornaments were discovered about 30 years ago at a rock shelter called Santa Elina in central Brazil. The new study is the first to analyze them extensively and rule out the possibility that humans had found and carved them thousands of years after the animals perished.
The team of researchers from Brazil, France and the United States said their analysis shows this handiwork was done within days to a few years after the animals had died, and before the materials had fossilized. The researchers also ruled out natural abrasion and other things that might explain the shapes and holes. They reported their findings Wednesday in Britain’s Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:12:59 GMT -8
They Can Always Stay Home
GOP confidence in 2024 vote count low after years of false election claims, AP-NORC poll shows
Few Republicans have high confidence that votes will be tallied accurately in next year’s presidential contest, suggesting years of sustained attacks against elections by former President Donald Trump and his allies have taken a toll, according to a new poll.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds that only 22% of Republicans have high confidence that votes in the upcoming presidential election will be counted accurately compared to 71% of Democrats, underscoring a partisan divide fueled by a relentless campaign of lies related to the 2020 presidential election. Even as he runs for the White House a third time, Trump continues to promote the false claim that the election was stolen.
Overall, the survey finds that fewer than half of Americans – 44% — have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the next presidential election will be counted accurately.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:14:40 GMT -8
This Isn't Vlad the Invadoer's Nightmare. It is Really Happening
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:17:37 GMT -8
Didn't They Get the Memo? You Don't Pay Bribes With Venmo
Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.
The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.
Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:21:57 GMT -8
Is DeathSentence Losing Support from the Death Star?
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:23:10 GMT -8
This is About the Only Thing That is Cooling
US inflation cooled in June for the 12th straight month
What a difference a year makes.
US annual inflation slowed to 3% last month, according to the latest Consumer Price Index released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s a sharp cooldown from June of last year, when surging energy costs helped inflation spike to 9.1% — the fastest annual rate since November 1981, when Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” sweated its way to the top of the charts.
Inflation, as measured by the CPI, has now eased for 12 consecutive months and is at its lowest rate since March 2021.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:24:16 GMT -8
A General Strike
A senior Russian general has been killed in occupied Ukraine by a UK-supplied Storm Shadow missile, according to multiple Ukrainian and Russian reports.
Lt. Gen. Oleg Tsokov was reportedly killed in the port city of Berdyansk overnight on Tuesday.
Ukrainian officials Anton Geraschenko and Petr Andryushchenko posted reports of the general's death, later echoed by several Russian pro-war social media accounts.
A Ukrainian member of parliament, Yurii Mysyagin, attributed his death to the Storm Shadow missile, according to CNN.
"The British 'Storm Shadow' came to visit accurately," the outlet reported Mysyagin as saying.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:26:00 GMT -8
Pence's Strategy: Cruelty to Women
In a Republican presidential field full of opponents to abortion rights, Mike Pence stands out in his embrace of the cause.
The former vice president, who is seeking the White House in 2024, is the only major candidate who supports a federal ban on abortion at six weeks, before many women know they’re pregnant. He has advocated pulling from the market a widely used abortion pill that has a better safety record than penicillin and Viagra. And he's implored his Republican rivals to back a 15-week federal ban as a minimum national standard, which several have not done.
In a recent interview, Pence went even further, saying abortion should be banned when a pregnancy isn't viable. Such a standard would force women to carry pregnancies to term even when doctors have determined there is no chance a baby will survive outside the womb.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 12, 2023 8:27:25 GMT -8
The Poster Child For Who Should NOT Have a Gun
Zackey Rahimi's legal troubles began in 2019 when he pulled out a gun and fired at a passerby who witnessed him dragging his girlfriend through a parking lot.
Months later, after getting into an accident, Rahimi repeatedly shot at the other driver, court records show. A year later, he threatened another woman with a gun and was charged with aggravated assault. In 2021, he fired several times into the air after a friend's credit card was declined at a burger joint near Fort Worth, Texas.
Rahimi's case is now before the Supreme Court in a blockbuster Second Amendment challenge that may prove especially thorny for the gun lobby and the court's conservative wing. That's because Rahimi is challenging his conviction under a federal law that bars Americans who are subject to restraining orders from owning guns.
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“The facts of this case make it really unpalatable for them to have to stand up and say, 'No, we believe that domestic abusers have a Second Amendment right to their firearms,'" said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. “Politically speaking, that's deeply unpopular.”
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