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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:07:32 GMT -8
The book on chronology I ordered has finally arrived. It's about time...
The "I'm a Moron" Defense Won't Work
A legal expert on Wednesday suggested that one of the federal statutes under which Donald Trump is expected to be indicted would effectively shut down a potential legal argument from the former president.
Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said that one of the three statutes Jack Smith is likely to use to indict Trump includes obstruction, which in her view would eliminate the possibility that the former president could avoid a conviction by claiming he believed the election was stolen.
Trump learned that he’s likely to be indicted in a target letter he said he received from the special counsel’s office on Sunday night.
Other statutes under which Trump is likely to be indicted according to the target letter include conspiracy and civil rights violations.
“With obstruction of an official proceeding, I don't think you have to know that you actually lost the election there, it’s just anything that you do to disrupt that proceeding is sufficient, maybe even the civil rights claim, the deprivation of rights, it's enough that you tried to subvert the process,” McQuade during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight.”
“And so maybe that is the workaround that if they failed to prove that Donald Trump actually knew that he had lost the election, there may be a way for a jury to reach a verdict of guilty on those other two counts without even finding that's the case.
“It happens all the time in obstruction of justice charges. A person might say, ‘but I'm innocent, so I told the person to lie for me.’”
McQuade suggested that would be an ineffective argument.
“The fact that you're innocent is great, but the part where you told them to lie for you is still a crime. So it may be that this is a strategic call by Jack Smith, to avoid having to prove that Trump actually knew he had lost the election.”
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:09:26 GMT -8
Uncle Thomas Needs His Ego Stroked
Conservative legal activist Leonard Leo coordinated a public relations campaign celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The years-long campaign cost at least $1.8 million and included advertising intended to boost flattering content in online searches, promotion for a laudatory film, and websites and Twitter accounts celebrating his career and attacking onetime accuser Anita Hill to counter a 2016 HBO film that recounted her sexual harassment allegations, reported the Washington Post.
“Justice Thomas: The most open & personable of Justices, intimate in sharing his feelings, easily moved to laughter,” read one tweet on the "Justice Thomas Fan Account."
Leo, the longtime Federalist Society executive, used a network of closely related nonprofits that he controls to fund the campaign, which was set in motion seven years ago by attorney Mark Paoletta, who later served as a White House aide to Donald Trump.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:12:01 GMT -8
Being Previous Guy's Buddy is ExpensiveIt’s not just Donald Trump who keeps losing his legal battles. One by one, the former president’s associates are getting shot down in court and being ordered to pay up for their misbehavior. The latest is the former Trump adviser and current government-hating podcaster Steve Bannon. He was convicted for ignoring a congressional subpoena to testify about his role in Trump’s Jan. 6 insurrection. Bannon never did testify, and then he stiffed his lawyer for years of research and courtroom work. The same lawyer who helped Bannon land a Trump presidential pardon that spared him a conviction for defrauding nonprofit donors eventually took him to court over unpaid legal bills. And last week, a New York judge ordered Bannon to pay up the missing $480,000, brushing aside his excuses—namely, that the attorney, Bob Costello, did bad lawyering without permission. Bannon Is Being Forced to Pay $500K to Lawyers He Stiffed But Bannon’s hole is on track to get even deeper, now that the attorney at Costello’s firm who had to claw back those missing dollars says he’s now owed money for his time as well. Joseph N. Polito, a professional colleague of Costello’s, has filed an itemized hourly bill that shows his firm spent $66,896 on the five-month case—including settlement talks that went nowhere. If that’s approved by Justice Arlene Bluth, Bannon’s bill will break the half-million dollar mark. Trump’s Sideshow Characters Keep Racking up Huge Legal Bills
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:14:50 GMT -8
A Fake Elector Turns on Previous Guy, But Not For the Reasons You Might ExpectAformer Arizona state senate hopeful, who was part of a group of fake electors that signed papers falsely declaring Donald Trump had won the state in 2020, has been found to be bankrolling a Political Action Committee (PAC) which attacks the former president. Jim Lamon, who lost the Arizona Senate primary in August 2022 to the Trump-endorsed candidate, Blake Masters, is the sole donor behind the Actions Speak Louder Than Tweets PAC, according to an expert's report. The commitee has aired adverts in recent months attacking the former president for his previous endorsement of moderate Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, as well as his support for a national red flag, gun-confiscation scheme in 2018. Campaign finance expert Rob Pyers said that Lamon has been the sole donor for the entire $24,0000 in funds in the PAC's account, to which he has deposited money over a three-month period. The committee's website endorses Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination and describes itself as "committed to winning in 2024." Pyers is the research director for the non-partisan election guide California Target Book. In 2017, The Los Angeles Times described the subscription site as "one of the most trusted compendiums on state politics." He also frequently posts information about political funding via social media. Arizona Republican Jim Lamon Turns on Trump, Bankrolls Campaign to Stop Him
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:15:56 GMT -8
His HIV is MIA
A man dubbed the "Geneva patient" is the latest person with HIV to be declared in long-term remission -- however he did not receive a transplant with a virus-blocking gene mutation like previous cases, researchers said Thursday.
Five people have previously been considered "cured" of HIV: the Berlin, London, Duesseldorf, New York and City of Hope, California patients.
All had bone marrow transplants to treat serious cases of cancer, receiving stem cells from a donor with a mutation of the CCR5 gene. This mutation is known to block HIV from entering the body's cells.
In 2018, the Geneva patient similarly received a stem cell transplant to treat a particularly aggressive form of leukaemia.
But this time the transplant came from a donor who did not carry the CCR5 mutation, French and Swiss researchers told a press conference in the Australian city of Brisbane as part of an AIDS conference that begins at the weekend.
This means that the virus is still able to enter the patient's cells.
However, 20 months after the man stopped taking antiretroviral treatment -- which reduces the amount of HIV in the blood -- doctors at Geneva University Hospitals have not found a trace of the virus in his system, the researchers said.
While they cannot rule out that the man's HIV will return, the researchers said they consider him to be in long-term remission.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:17:50 GMT -8
India Stink
A viral video from the Indian state of Manipur, showing dozens of men parading and assaulting two women who have been stripped naked, has triggered outrage in the country.
The 26-second video shows the group of men – some appearing to be as young as 15 – groping and sexually attacking the women belonging to the ethnic Kuki-Zo tribe, and escorting them towards an empty field.
At least one of the women, aged 21, was gang raped, according to the first information report (FIR) filed by the survivors. The police complaint says the other woman was 42.
The incident happened on May 4, a day after deadly ethnic riots broke out between the mainly Hindu Meitei and predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribes in the remote state in India’s northeast, governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Meiteis, who constitute more than half of Manipur’s 3.5 million population, mainly live in capital Imphal and the prosperous valley around it, while the Kuki-Zo and Naga tribes live in the surrounding hill districts.
At least 130 people – most of them Kuki-Zo – have been killed and more than 50,000 displaced since clashes between the two communities broke out over a proposal to extend reservation in government jobs and education to the Meiteis.
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It's well known that women's bodies often become a battleground during riots and conflicts, and rape and sexual assault are used as instruments of violence to punish them.
The sexual assault of the Kuki women in Manipur is the latest example. The footage showing the women weeping, wincing in pain and begging their attackers to show some mercy is disturbing to watch.
The fact that the first arrest has been made only now, more than two months after the attack was reported to police, does not inspire confidence in the authorities - all the more so since many of the men are clearly identifiable in the footage.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:22:41 GMT -8
The QOP's Plans to Ban Abortion in Ohio Don't Seem to Be Going Very Well
Nearly 60% of Ohio voters oppose an August ballot measure that would make it harder to change the constitution, according to a new poll.
A USA TODAY Network/Suffolk University poll released Thursday found 57% of likely voters are against Issue 1, including some Republicans and opponents of abortion. Twenty-six percent back the issue, while 17% are undecided with just weeks to go before the Aug. 8 election.
Issue 1, if passed, would require 60% of the vote to enact proposed constitutional amendments instead of a simple majority of 50% plus one. It also would require citizens to get signatures from all 88 counties to place something on the ballot, instead of 44, and remove a 10-day period that allows petitioners to replace bad signatures.
The results indicate voters also have complicated views about the relationship between Issue 1 and abortion. Ohio Republicans pushed for the August election to get ahead of a potential November ballot issue that would enshrine abortion and other reproductive rights in the constitution.
According to the poll:
Nearly two-thirds of those who support the proposed abortion amendment are against Issue 1.
Twenty-two percent of abortion-rights backers support Issue 1.
Nearly half of voters who oppose the abortion amendment also oppose Issue 1.
One-third of abortion opponents are in favor of Issue 1.
University of Cincinnati political scientist David Niven said the findings − particularly the division among anti-abortion Ohioans − show Issue 1 supporters are struggling to sell the measure to their base.
"The Republicans who are backing this issue are forced into selling an 'eat your peas' message," Niven said. "There’s nothing exciting about it. There’s nothing people want. They’re grasping at something and trying to tell you it's for your own good."
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:24:02 GMT -8
Bidenomics at Work
In the coming months, there may well be more positive news for the White House. A slowdown in housing costs and the price of used cars should get reflected in the official inflation data, including the core Consumer Price Index, or C.P.I., which the Federal Reserve monitors closely because it excludes volatile energy and food prices. “We appreciate that much can go wrong with inflation forecasts, even just a couple months ahead, but you don’t need to make any wild assumptions and cross your fingers in order to generate startlingly low core CPI prints over the summer and into the early fall,” Ian Shepherdson, the chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a client circular last week. In July and August, the core C.P.I. could increase by as little as 0.1 per cent each month, Shepherdson told me, and if this were to happen, he added, the core rate of annual inflation would fall from 4.8 per cent in June to 4.1 per cent in August.
With the inflation outlook improving more rapidly than many economists expected, the White House is increasingly sure it can avoid something that all Presidents seeking reëlection fear: an election-year recession. On Monday, the economics team at Goldman Sachs put the probability of a recession in the next twelve months—that is, a broad-based slump in spending, employment, and G.D.P.—at just twenty per cent. “The recent data have reinforced our confidence that bringing inflation down to an acceptable level will not require a recession,” Jan Hatzius, the chief economist at Goldman, said.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:27:34 GMT -8
The QOP Introduces a Plan Designed to Turn Off Young People
House Republicans on Wednesday advanced an appropriations bill for federal environmental agencies that would boost development of the same fossil fuels driving the myriad disasters that have ravaged the Northern Hemisphere this year.
The legislation includes sweeping funding cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and the White House’s Council of Environmental Quality. It would mandate numerous additional oil and gas lease sales, both on- and offshore, and would advance mining development, including in an area near Minnesota’s iconic Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness where the Biden administration has banned such extraction.
The legislation would also torpedo and stonewall protections for wild animals, and would rescind more than $9 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate law that Democrats passed last year.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:29:57 GMT -8
Flori-Dumb Wants Kids to See the Benefits of Slavery
The Florida Board of Education has approved a controversial set of academic standards for African American social studies classes in K-12 schools.
The standards, which are being released as Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida Republicans have continued a crusade against public education, include language that states “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:31:54 GMT -8
Banking Is About to Enter the 21st Century
The Federal Reserve launched a new instant payment service Thursday. FedNow allows banks and credit unions to sign up to send real-time payments so they can offer customers a quicker way to send money between banks.
FedNow, which was first announced in 2019, published a list of banks and credit unions that are already signed up to the service. However, it might take longer for customers to be able to use the service with their bank.
Here's what you need to know about FedNow.
FedNow offers instant payment services for banks and credit unions to transfer money for their customers. Unlike other private money-transferring services like PayPal or Venmo, FedNow services are not offered to customers directly through a third-party app or website. The services will only be available through banks or credit unions. However, once banks have adopted FedNow, they're expected to make it available on their websites and apps.
Once a bank offers the FedNow services, customers will be able to send money instantly. The service is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Among the banks that will offer the FedNow services soon are Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:34:38 GMT -8
Quick! Start New Investigations into Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden. It's the Emails!!!
A small spelling error has resulted in thousands of emails intended for the U.S. military being sent instead to Mali, an issue that Pentagon officials said they've taken steps to mitigate. (Hellos Mali)
The suffix used for U.S. military emails is .mil, but leaving the "i" out by mistake would result in the email being redirected to .ml -- the domain used by government of the West African nation Mali.
"Since 2015, the Department of Defense has been aware that typographical errors could result in the misdirection of unclassified emails intended for a '.mil' recipient to the '.ml' domain," Lt. Commander Tim Gorman, a U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson, told ABC News.
Some of the emails sent to Mali reportedly reportedly contained sensitive Pentagon information such as diplomatic documents, passwords and the travel itinerary of top defense officers.
U.S. officials are "aware of these unauthorized disclosures of controlled national security information," Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson, said on Monday.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch internet entrepreneur who has a contract to manage Mali's county domain, said he identified the problem almost a decade ago. Zuurbier, who said has been collecting misdirected emails since January in effort to flag the issue to U.S. authorities, said he has close to 117,000 misdirected messages.
In one day, Zuurbier receiving 1,000 misdirected emails arrived as a result of the typo, he told the newspaper.
None of the redirected emails were marked as "classified," however some are reported to have contained "highly sensitive" data including information on serving U.S. military personnel, official itineraries, contracts, maps and images of bases, he said.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:42:30 GMT -8
Think PinkPink sauce on that Burger King burger? What about “Barbie-fying" your pet with sweaters and beds with Barbie motifs? If that's too low-brow, perhaps you'd be interested in hot pink Barbie monogrammed knit leggings by luxury designer Balmain instead, selling at Neiman Marcus for a cool $2,150. Welcome to the wonderful and weird world of “Barbie” movie marketing. Ahead of Friday's U.S. release of the “Barbie" movie, parent company Mattel has created a product marketing blitz with more than 100 brands plastering pink everywhere. There are pink benches at bus stops and pink clothing displayed in store windows. Microsoft's XBox has come up with a Barbie console series and HGTV is hosting a four-part Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge. And then there are all the unofficial collaborators trying to grab a piece of the Barbie craze. Restaurants across the country are offering special pink cocktails, while interior decorators are showing options like vibrant pink backsplashes to “Barbiefy” your kitchen. Even the organization I Support the Girls — a nonprofit that has provided 22 million bras and menstrual hygiene products to homeless people, refugees and immigrants — is creating a social media campaign around menstrual periods using Barbie and having volunteers create miniature packages of Barbie-sized menstrual pads and tampons as teaching tools. Ted Cruz Has Moved on From Big BirdTed Cruz is accusing the highly anticipated Barbie film of “pushing Chinese propaganda,” after a trailer for the Warner Bros release appeared to show a map referencing China’s disputed claims to the South China Sea. “Senator Cruz has been fighting for years to prevent American companies, especially Hollywood studios, from altering and censoring their content to appease the Chinese Communist Party,’ a spokesperson for the Texas Republican told The Daily Mail. The issue stems back to the so-called “nine-dash line” used on Chinese maps, illustrating what it claims are its posessions within the South China Sea. The line, first published on Chinese maps in the 1940s, demarks an area 1,200 miles from the Chinese mainlaind comprised more than 80 per cent of the South China Sea, according to The Los Angeles Times. Parts of the territory within the line, a busy fishing and trade corridor with valuable oil and gas deposits as well as strategic importance, are claimed by nations including Vietnam and the Philippines. About a minute into the Barbie film’s main trailer, a map of the world can be seen with a line of eigh dots jutting off a cartoonish drawing of Asia. Only Previous Guy Can Fix It
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:45:48 GMT -8
Baked Alaska is Hurting the Military
Temperatures in the Arctic, which encompasses large parts of Alaska, have risen at two to four times the rate of the rest of the world.
Rising seas on Alaska's shoreline have forced the Pentagon to fortify radar sites, covering the kind of sensors that picked up the Chinese spy balloon in January. High temperatures and spikes in summer rains are melting permafrost at places like Eielson Air Force Base near here, requiring millions of dollars in fixes for buildings sinking into sodden ground. Summer wildfires burning Canadian forests have closed vital training ranges and warplanes in Alaska.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 20, 2023 9:47:48 GMT -8
Here is a REAL Immigration Problem. The Crisis at the NORTHERN Border
When Leon Yang was 16, he moved by himself from Xi'An, China to the US, to study in a country where he believed that, if he worked hard every day, he could get where he wanted.
Fascinated by airplanes and everything else that flies in the air, he developed a passion for aerospace that took him from high school in Greenville, South Carolina to New York University (NYU).
With a mechanical engineering degree under his belt, he is now responsible for the soil compactor line at a construction equipment company in Atlanta, Georgia.
But nine years on from his life-altering decision, he has lost faith that he is still competing on a level playing field.
"For the past three years, I've had recruiters from major companies reach out to me, 10 to 20 a week," he claims.
As soon as they find out he is on a visa in the H1-B specialty occupation category, however, "most of them walk away", he said.
The H1-B allows foreign-born, US-educated individuals to work in the country for three to six years, but requires sponsorship by an employer and often provides no meaningful path to permanent residency.
This week, Mr Yang, now 25, submitted his application for a new Canadian programme that offers open work permits, for up to three years, to H1-B visa holders and their immediate family members.
The measure, a temporary effort to attract skilled and high-tech US workers to the country, only opened on Monday morning. By Tuesday, it had already reached its initial cap of 10,000 applicants.
The burst of applications is a sign of mounting frustrations among skilled workers in the US who feel trapped in the limbo of a legal immigration system that they see as outdated and unfriendly.
When his visa expires, Mr Yang says he will have few options. He fully intends to move to Canada if he is accepted by the programme.
"I will be treated not equal, but fair compared to other competitors in the job market and that's one of the things I've missed so much in the past three years," he told the BBC.
Mr Yang is hardly alone in feeling that way. Thousands of skilled foreign nationals either fail to make the cut for the H1-B visa or, when chosen, spend years waiting for a chance at the permanent residency green card.
Demand for the visa category "massively" outstrips supply, said Madeline Zavodny, a University of North Florida economics professor who studies immigration and the future of the US labour market.
When it was established by the US Congress in the year 1990, only 65,000 foreign nationals could apply for the visa each year.
That limit has since been raised only once - to 85,000 - which Ms Zavodny says is "way too small".
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