Wed: Let's All Take a Moment to Honor Harry Truman

Unbreaking Un-News:  Santos Tied a Scam

Rep. George Santos (R-NY) pitched a bizarre get-rich-quick scheme to a Republican donor a year before his election, according to a New York Timesreport detailing all the ways the indicted congressman has tried to leverage politics to make money.

The Times reports that the scheme involved "a wealthy Polish citizen wanted to buy cryptocurrency... but for reasons unclear, his fortune was frozen in a bank account."

Santos and his associates were asked by the donor for the Polish man's name and they did not give it to him. What's more, the men's plan to access the Polish man's funds by setting up a limited liability corporation "made no sense" to the donor, reports the Times.

Santos was working with former GOP state Assemblyman Michael LiPetri and Bryant Park Associates, a company held by another GOP donor, Dominick Sartorio.

Per the report, the donor suspected this was a scam, because it took the form of the "the classic Nigerian prince email scheme, in which a rich, potentially fictitious, foreigner asks an outsider to help free up frozen assets," reported the Times.

What?  No Guiness Record?

Shallow waters off south Florida topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8C) for several hours on Monday, potentially setting a new world record with temperatures more commonly associated with hot tubs.

The readings were taken from a single buoy in Manatee Bay, about 38 miles (60 kilometers) southwest of Miami, at a depth of five feet (1.5 meters).

A peak temperature of 101.1F was recorded at 6:00 pm, but it remained above 100F for about four hours, official data showed.

Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and former government scientist, tweeted that while there was no official world record for sea surface temperature, a 2020 scientific paper found that the previous high might have been 99.7F recorded in Kuwait Bay.

But, added Masters, since the new measurement was taken near land, "contamination of the measurement by land effects and organic matter in the water might...invalidate the record."

"Unless there is photographic proof that debris was not present, it would be difficult to (verify) the 101.F record as valid," he added on social media.

One Buoy, One Special Buoy.

Even the Canal is Running Dry

The Panama Canal will extend restrictions on ships' maximum depth, it said on Tuesday, and it has limited average crossings at one of the world's busiest trade passages to just 32 ships a day as a prolonged drought continues.

The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) will maintain a depth limit of 44 feet, or 13.41 meters, for neo-Panamax container ships.

In June, the authority put off further restrictions that would have brought depth limits up half a foot, meaning ships would have needed to lighten their loads to float higher.

During Panama's rainy season, an average of 35-36 ships typically cross the canal each day, the authority has said. Each crossing uses some 51 million gallons of water.

About 3.5% of the world's maritime trade passes through the 80-kilometer inter-oceanic waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The depth limit will remain at the current level as long as weather conditions do not drastically change, the ACP said in a statement.

"As part of a worldwide phenomenon, in the last six months, the Canal has experienced an extended dry season with high levels of evaporation, with a high probability of an El Nino condition before the end of this calendar year," the canal authority said.

Panama typically sees heavy rains in July, and the canal authority called the current lack of precipitation "historically unprecedented."

The QOP Hates Budweisser, Barbie, Disney, and the US Women's Soccer Team. Also Walmart, Pepsi,Oreos, Gillette, Nike,  and the NFL. Why Do They Hate America So Much?

Here’s an evergreen opening for you: Right-wing media is outraged that [people they perceive to be “woke”] are [doing … something]. In this case, members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team stood silently when the national anthem was played at the World Cup in Auckland, New Zealand. They didn’t take a knee, they didn’t raise a fist in protest, they didn’t grimace, and they didn’t shout. They stood silently and what you might call respectfully, if you weren’t dedicated to being outraged.

Commence the social media screaming. “The most shameful conduct.” “An insult to every American.” “An attack on our country, our flag, and those who fought and died for our nation.” Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, looking for traction in the Republican presidential primary, tweeted reproachfully about it. Many commentators took Haley’s approach, lecturing these women at the pinnacle of their sport, women who waged and won a years-long fight for equal pay, as if they were insufficiently grateful children.

But many who’ve served in the military noted that in that setting, they were taught to stand silently—just like the soccer players did. “I guess Marines are unpatriotic when we don’t sing the anthem,” Ron Filipkowski tweeted. Military.com says nothing about singing along with the anthem.

I am Doing Everyong Around Me a Service by Not Singing the National Anthem

Did Karma Ever Catch the Emmett Till Killers?

Less than a month after their trial, Look magazine paid Bryant and Milan $4,000 for their murder stories, published in its January 1956 edition. In “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi,” the men explained in graphic detail how they kidnapped, beat, and killed Emmett Till, before dumping his body. Why? Because local Black residents had already forced the families into unsustainable poverty since Till’s death.

Despite reopening the family business immediately after their verdicts, Bryant and Milan could not even make $100 after as long as three weeks. That is because Black residents refused to frequent their store, choking off almost all of their income.

The local white community also financially starved Milan and Bryant, almost before the end of their trial. Friends who had contributed to their defense funds financially cut off both men. Banks also refused to grant loans to the Bryants to seed and manage key crops.

Look interviewed Milam and Bryant again in 1957. Though they smiled for photos, Look said both men clearly suffered from “disillusionment, ingratitude, resentment, misfortune.”

‌‌Despite no outward collusion, the combined rejection of the families by the Black and white communities delivered Bryant and Milam their ousters. They forced the families into bankruptcy, into shuttering their businesses, and ultimately out of the state.

After Till, the Milam family received little pity. J. W. owned no land. He had no support among his former backers. No one would rent to him. It took a year for the Milam family to find a new farm and for J. W. to secure a loan. He did so only after getting help from one of his former defense attorneys—John Whitten—who sat on a loan committee.

That was not enough to save the Milam family. Local Black labor still refused to work for J. W. He had to then turn to white laborers, who did the same work, but for higher pay.

Milam’s bottom eventually fell out. Quite deliciously, Milam finally was reduced to working for three years effectively as an enslaved laborer doing menial jobs on local plantations. He eventually got heavy equipment work but that, too, was short-lived.

Milam remained intimately connected to the court, going from conviction to conviction for writing bad checks, committing assault and battery, and using stolen credit cards.

Milam never recovered from his Till haunting. When doctors diagnosed Milam with spinal cancer, he was forced into early retirement. Spine cancer is a rare, aggressive, painful, and severely debilitating disease, and it lived up to all of that for Milam. He suffered that way until he finally fell to his disease at the close of 1981.

Let's All Take a Moment to Honor Harry Truman

When President Harry S. Truman addressed the NAACP in June 1947, becoming the first United States president to address a civil rights organization, he said he believed the country had reached a turning point: It was time to grant freedom and equality to all citizens.

“All Americans enjoy these rights,” he told the group. “And when I say ‘all’ Americans, I mean all Americans.”

A year later, on July 26, 1948, Truman issued an executive order calling for the desegregation of America’s armed forces, a historic gesture that, while putting Truman’s political future at risk, would set the stage for civil rights advances of the 1950s and 1960s and alter the nation’s political landscape.

“There shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion and national origin,” Executive Order 9981 declared.

The order marked not only a watershed moment for the military but a sea change in the 20th century Civil Rights Movement, said Robert Jefferson, an assistant professor of history at the University of New Mexico.