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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:29:31 GMT -8
A teacher asks a student, "Are you ignorant or just apathetic?" The kid answers, "I don't know and I don't care."
Previous Guy's Supporters are a Confused and Hostile Bunch
California Republicans overhauled their delegate selection process today in a manner expected to help Donald Trump in 2024, the Los Angeles Times reported.
But the most interesting part of the story was what happened between two separate groups of pro-Trump protesters outside the event. Apparently confused by social media posts, they were denouncing the very action that the Trump campaign wanted.
And the best part is that they ended up trying to physically attack one another – outside a California Republican Party meeting at an Irvine hotel – until police intervened to cool them off.
Here’s how the Times reported the protest piece of the story.
“Tensions flared…with pro-Trump protesters denouncing the move (to change the delegate-selection process), police getting called and two factions nearly coming to fisticuffs,” the report said.
“Protesters wearing red 'Make America Great Again' caps and carrying American, Trump and 'Don’t Tread on Me' Gadsden flags gathered outside of the committee meeting, chanting Trump’s name and 'America First!' After they tried to enter the meeting and were blocked by security guards, Irvine police officers showed up and tried to cool emotions."
“Later, two pro-Trump factions began screaming at each other, with one accusing the other of being white nationalists and the other responding that their foes supported open borders... They started jostling with one another and nearly came to blows until other protesters stepped between the two groups.”
Apparently, the Trump backers outside the meeting were no angrier than were the supporters of his rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, inside the room.
The state party changed its rules to provide that any candidate receiving more than 50 percent of its primary votes would win the entire 169-vote delegation. But if no single candidate met the 50% threshold, those 169 delegates are divided proportionally, which is closer to the past format.
Trump’s campaign, confident of hitting the 50 percent threshold, supported the move. Unsurprisingly, the change was blasted by Ken Cuccinelli, founder of the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC, according to the Times.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:33:14 GMT -8
This Is More Than They Are Spending on Supporting Previous Guy's CandidacyTrump PAC has spent more than $40 million on legal costs this year for himself, othersDonald Trump’s political group is financing legal work that has prompted questions from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest Former president Donald Trump’s political group spent more than $40 million on legal costs in the first half of 2023 to defend Trump, his advisers and others, according to people familiar with the matter, financing legal work that has drawn scrutiny from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest between Trump and witnesses. Save America, the former president’s PAC, is expected to disclose about $40.2 million in legal spending in a filing expected Monday, said the people familiar with the filing, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been made public. That total is more than any other expense the PAC has incurred during Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and, according to federal filings from earlier this month, more than Trump’s campaign raised in the second quarter of 2023. It will bring the PAC’s post-presidential legal spending to about $56 million, as Trump faces a federal indictment in Florida, state charges in New York, and the prospect of additional criminal indictments in Washington and Fulton County, Ga. Trump’s advisers say the costs of providing lawyers for dozens of people are necessary and will continue mushrooming as investigations continue, trials are scheduled and the possibility of more charges looms.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:39:02 GMT -8
The Alabama Democratic Party Drives a Stake Through Their Own Heart.The leadership of the Alabama Democratic Party (ADP) Saturday kicked members of the public out of a meeting without starting it. ADP chair Randy Kelley said in an interview Saturday afternoon that they had to conduct the meeting in an executive session because members of the public were being disruptive. “They weren’t on the committee,” he said. “They were a guest. And we didn’t know who those people were.” The motion at the first meeting since the party leaders passed new by-laws and eliminated diversity caucuses in May, came amid a protest from about 15 members of the eliminated groups and supporters. As a result of eliminating diversity caucuses, 53 members lost a seat on the party’s State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC). The state Democratic Party faces an investigation by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over the bylaw changes and elimination of caucuses. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Tabitha Isner, the vice chair of the state party, objected to Reed’s request, stating that Alabama’s law allows recording when at least one party – the person recording – knows about it. Reed interrupted her and shouted, “You be quiet, girl. ................. James Ward, the vice chair of the Hispanic caucus that was abolished in May and elected member of the SDEC, objected to the request, saying that allowing recording would help restore trust in the state party. At a May 6 meeting, the SDEC voted to abolish the youth, LGBTQ+ and disabled caucuses, while reducing the power of other minority caucuses. ‘You be quiet, girl:’ Alabama Democrats’ board meeting made private after members protest
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:42:01 GMT -8
What Could Be Worse Than Our Gun-Violence Problem? Bombs.
At least 35 people have been killed after a powerful bomb ripped through a political rally in northwestern Pakistan, local officials said.
The blast took place on Sunday at a gathering of the conservative Jamiat Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) party on the outskirts of Khar in Pakistan’s northwestern Bajur district, which borders Afghanistan.
Azam Khan, head of the emergency room at Khar’s main hospital, said 35 bodies were brought to the hospital and more than 100 others were wounded.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:44:01 GMT -8
Cheer Up Texans! Iraq's Power Grid Is Worse Than Yours.
Power was cut off in large swaths of southern and central Iraq for much of Saturday during scorching summer heat and observances of the Shiite holy day of Ashoura after a fire broke out at a power station in the southern city of Basra.
The fire at the Al-Bkir substation in Basra resulted in the separation of transmission lines linking the southern and central regions, leading to a complete shutdown of the electrical system in the area, Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity said in a statement. It said the fire was accidental.
The power outage came as the electrical system faces other challenges, including fuel shortages and surging demands for electricity during a major heat wave. On Saturday, temperatures reached 116.6 degrees Farenheit.
Also on Saturday, the company that handles electricity transmission in the north reported that the northern transmission line in a remote area outside the city of Haditha in western Iraq had been sabotaged. Three towers were hit by improvised explosive devices, putting the line out of service, the statement said.
It did not say who was responsible for the attack.
Staff were not initially able to repair the damage on Friday due to security issues, the statement said. Islamic State cells and other armed groups are active in the remote desert area. On Saturday, workers were able to access the site with the help of security forces and begin repair work.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:47:39 GMT -8
Cheer Up America. The QOP Has a Great Plan to Make the Summer of 2025 Even Hotter.Conservative groups have crafted a plan for demolishing the federal government’s efforts to counter climate change — and it wouldn’t stop with President Joe Biden’s policies. The 920-page blueprint, whose hundreds of authors include former Trump administration officials, would go far beyond past GOP efforts to slash environmental agencies’ budgets or oust “deep state” employees. Called Project 2025, it would block the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy; slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office; shutter the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting California’s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials. If enacted, it could decimate the federal government’s climate work, stymie the transition to clean energy and shift agencies toward nurturing the fossil fuel industry rather than regulating it. It’s designed to be implemented on the first day of a Republican presidency. “Project 2025 is not a white paper. We are not tinkering at the edges. We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,” said Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, which compiled the plan as a road map for the first 180 days of the next GOP administration. “Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power day one and deconstruct the administrative state.” Conservatives have already written a climate plan for Trump’s second term
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:48:21 GMT -8
Who Won the Week?
The Idaho jury that ordered right-wing "sovereign citizen" freak Ammon Bundy pay over $50 million in damages for accusing a hospital of child trafficking and harassing its medical staff
President Biden: designates national monument honoring Emmett Till and mom Mamie Till-Mobley; Q2 2.4% economic growth confounds his critics; announces initiative to expand mental health coverage
The Teamsters Union, for negotiating a deal with UPS to avert a strike by over 340,000 employees
Barbie, for owning the MAGA cult with a record-breaking box office weekend despite their best efforts to cancel it
Spain, where an expected far-right takeover of the government failed as voters refused to give them a majority in parliament, a victory for Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his PSOE party
The group of teachers in Tennessee who are suing to overturn the 2021 state law that violates the 14th Amendment by limiting the teaching of race and gender
Special counsel Jack Smith, for dropping a new "superseding" indictment on Trump, including an attempt to delete surveillance camera footage to hide his classified-document crimey business
Michigan's estimated 373,000 LGBTQ residents, as the state becomes the 22nd in the country to ban the practice of "conversion therapy"
Mick Jagger: 80 years old as of this week and still rockin'
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:49:46 GMT -8
Who Lost the Week?
Calvin McGee, an Idaho church missionary who was previously caught soliciting sexual images & videos from who he thought was an 11 year-old girl, now arrested for the rape of a minor
Ilya Lichtenstein & Heather Morgan, who were charged with laundering $4.5b in hacked Bitcoin (and nicknamed “Bitcoin Bonnie & Clyde”), reportedly preparing to plead guilty ahead of their next scheduled court appearance on August 3rd
Ron DeSantis, as his flagging presidential campaign has had to lay-off 1/3 of his staff
Daryl Johnson, who previously served 30 days for his role in January 6, now sentenced to 6-mo for invasion-of-privacy for filming women (in various states of undress without their knowledge) at his tanning salon in Clear Lake, Iowa
Peter Stager, sentenced to four years for repeatedly striking a police officer with a flag pole as the officer was being dragged down the steps of the Capitol on January 6
Ammon Bundy, as an Idaho jury recently awarded the state’s largest hospital (St. Luke’s) $52.5 million in damages owing to Bundy and his crew forcing them to shut down (and hire guards) over a forced hospitalization
Robert Hadden, a Columbia University OB/GYN convicted of luring four women across state lines and abusing them, sentenced to 20 years in prison, with many more afterwards revealing he abused them as well
Carlee Russell, an Alabama nursing student who went missing for two days (after telling 911 she found a stranded toddler) leading to a statewide search and making national news, charged with a fraudulent kidnapping claim
William and Joseph Bierbrodt, military veteran brothers, arrested after online sleuths ID’d them as January 6 rioters: William using a cane to break-open a Senate door, Joseph shoving a guard up against a door and threatening officers
Kevin Harris, a US Marines major, arrested on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charges for threatening a vacationing family in Key West (on bicycles) in an apparent road rage incident (after he was unable to pass them)
Dame Alison Rose, forced to resign as CEO of the UK bank NatWest, after admitting that she was the source of an incorrect BBC story about the closure of a bank account held by Brexit leader Nigel Farage
Elon Musk, whose re-naming his Twitter building X ran afoul of the San Francisco police, as he neither sought a permit to close-off traffic, nor had his crew tape-off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell from the new sign
North Carolina pastor Ivan Peden, arrested for peeping at a child through a farmer’s market bathroom stall & trying to get into the stall while the child kept the door closed
Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn, forced to pay a $10mil fine and ordered to cut virtually all ties with industry over claims of sexual misconduct
Matt Hancock, whose appeal to Britain’s press regulator that the Daily Mirror’s describing him as "a failed former Tory health secretary and cheating husband who broke the lockdown rules he wrote” was rejected … as not inaccurate
Ryan Kelley, a former gubernatorial candidate (R-MI), leading guilty for his January 6 breaching of the Capitol after previously describing his arrest as that of a ‘political prisoner’
Peaches Stergo, a 36 y/o Florida woman, sentenced to 4 years for wire fraud by exploiting an 87 y/o Holocaust survivor (by posing as a suitor) to the tune of $3 million
Jason Servis, the trainer of 2019 three year-old champion horse Maximum Security, sentenced to 4 years for misbranding and adulterating medications, the final chapter to a wide-ranging investigation into drug abuse at racetracks
Duke and Harvard professors Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino, two of the biggest stars in behavioral science, having their works (on dishonesty) under scrutiny for allegedly … fabricating data in at least four studies
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:54:48 GMT -8
If the Swastika Fits, Wear It.
Afederal judge has dismissed a lawsuit Donald Trump filed against CNN in which the former U.S. president claimed that references in news articles or by the network's hosts to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election as “the Big Lie” was tantamount to comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
Trump had been seeking punitive damages of $475 million in the federal lawsuit filed last October in South Florida, claiming the references hurt his reputation and political career. Trump is a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination in what is his third run for the presidency.
U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, who was appointed by Trump, said Friday in his ruling that the former president's defamation claims failed because the references were opinions and not factual statements. Moreover, it was a stretch to believe that, in viewers' minds, that phrase would connect Trump's efforts challenging the 2020 election results to Nazi propaganda or Hitler's genocidal and authoritarian regime, the judge said.
“CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie' in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people,” the judge wrote in his decision.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 8:58:27 GMT -8
Marian Won't Be Going to Jail --- For Now
Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year, was set to take effect Aug. 1.
A coalition that included the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock had challenged the law, saying fear of prosecution under the measure could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged.
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Post by mhbruin on Jul 30, 2023 9:02:03 GMT -8
This Joker Tried to Mess With Wild Cardi
One of the more mind-blowingly idiotic trends in an era full of them is the recent spate of audience members throwing things at performers during concerts. In the past few weeks alone, Bebe Rexha was almost knocked out cold by a fan throwing a cellphone at her head in New York, Harry Styles was hit with an unidentified object in Vienna, and Latto responded to a similar projectile in Germany by saying “Want your ass beat?”
Saturday in Las Vegas, Cardi B proved yet again that she is not someone to trifle with: During a performance at Drai’s Beachclub in Las Vegas, an audience member threw a drink at the rapper while she performed her breakthrough hit, “Bodak Yellow.” A second later Cardi — who is apparently a lefty — instantly retaliated by hurling her microphone back at the offending “fan.” The video shows the person being escorted out by security; after hurling some doubtless colorful words at the offender, Cardi apparently left the stage after the incident.
This is not a new trend: back in the ‘70s audience members often set off firecrackers and M-80s at concerts — one seriously injured Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page’s right hand — and back in 2004, the stick of a lollipop some fan threw at David Bowie lodged in his eye, prompting a colorful and outraged reaction from the ordinarily cool performer.
But the trend these days seems to be more about people wanting to call attention to themselves, although to what end is unclear: Nicolas Malvagna, the 27-year-old grown man who threw his phone at Bebe Rexha, apparently thought “it would be funny,” according to a criminal complaint that followed his arrest on misdemeanor charges of harassment and assault — which is nowhere near sufficient punishment for someone who does something that dangerously stupid.
The Future of Concerts
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