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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:02:04 GMT -8
Last year I had a great joke about inflation. But it's hardly worth it now
The Ohio QOP Continues to Try to Stop Democracy
Supporters of the major upcoming Ohio abortion amendment, which would enshrine a right to the procedure in the state’s constitution, thought they were out of the woods.
Earlier this month, they defeated a state Republican-led attempt to raise the threshold for citizen-initiated ballot proposals to 60 percent — which would have included the abortion one in November — in decisive fashion, despite the election being held in sleepy August.
But Republicans’ efforts to rig the game in their favor continues.
On Thursday, the Ohio Ballot Board approved a summary of the amendment text, which will appear on the ballots, that bears little resemblance to the full amendment. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) — a champion of the unsuccessful 60 percent threshold initiative, opponent of the abortion amendment and 2024 U.S. Senate candidate — provided the swing vote to approve the summary.
He also revealed that he had a hand in crafting the new summary, saying that “having worked extensively on drafting this, I do believe it’s fair and accurate.”
Advocates of the amendment had pushed for having its full text appear on the ballot. LaRose shot that down, responding that the full amendment would be available on posters at voting locations, per the Ohio Capital Journal.
“They know that they have to put their thumb — and all their fingers, and their elbows and knees — on their side of the scale to make it as biased as possible in order to have any chance at winning,” Ohio Rep. Elliot Forhan (D), a member of the ballot board, told TPM.
“It goes to the bigger picture of why are we here at all — because we have a democracy in the state of Ohio that is not reflective of the will of the voters,” he added, pointing to the state’s aggressive gerrymandering, along with a lack of campaign finance regulations and transparency measures.
The new summary sprinkles the anti-abortion phrase “unborn child” throughout, substituting it for “fetus.” It erases all mention of giving people the right to make decisions about their miscarriages, fertility treatments and contraception. Critics have called it “confusing” and “misleading.”
In the original version, the crux of the amendment reads: “The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance this individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.”
In the new version, that section becomes: “Prohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means.”
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:03:48 GMT -8
The QOP Loves to Talk About "Truth" and Then Spout Lies
On Saturday morning the Miami Herald called out Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for a story he told during Wednesday's Republican Party debate about an abortion where he got the facts entirely wrong in order to make his anti-choice point.
At issue was a tale about a woman he called "Penny" who survived an abortion.
The Florida governor told a national TV audience, "I know a lady in Florida named Penny. She survived multiple abortion attempts. She was left discarded in a pan. Fortunately, her grandmother saved her and brought her to another hospital.”
According to the Herald, DeSantis got the story wrong even down to the woman's name.
As the Herald's Julie K. Brown wrote, "Critics of the governor flocked to social media to suggest the “Penny” story was made up or wildly embellished. Supporters countered that liberals were triggered by an ugly truth."
She continued, "Penny is real and her last name is Hopper. But DeSantis failed to note key details from her remarkable story: The person who tried to end Penny’s life in the womb was not a doctor or even an illegal abortion provider — it was her father. And his effort to abort his daughter with a coat hanger took place almost two decades before the Supreme Court’s seismic Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s right to an abortion.
Brown added that her debunking of the DeSantis' story "is based on previous recorded statements made by Hopper, newspaper clippings, public records and an interview with a family member who after speaking to a journalist at length asked not to be identified. She confirmed that Hopper’s version of events has been told in family circles for years."
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:06:14 GMT -8
Ukraine on On the Move. Tokmak is CriticalA Ukrainian commander fighting in the south said he believes Ukrainian forces have broken through the most difficult Russian defensive line and will now be able to advance more quickly. We already knew Ukraine had liberated Robotyne, the small but strategically important settlement on the advance toward the logistical hub city of Tokmak and, beyond that, Melitopol. But Ukraine hasn’t stopped there. With Russia’s first major defensive line breached, Ukraine’s advance is picking up steam. It’s difficult sorting through franting Russian Telegram sources, rumors, and visually confirmed advances, so all the usual “fog of war” caveats apply. But by all indications, Ukraine has advanced south and east from Robotyne, and is either inside Novoprokopivka, or imminently so, while simultaneously threatening Verbove to the east. Some Russian Telegram sources even claim Ukraine has taken Novoprokopivka, having simply walked in as Russian forces fall back to the next defensive line. That means Ukraine breached not only the first major line north of Robotyne but also the line on the road blocking the advance south to Novoprokopivka. The next major Russian defensive line is at Solodka Balka, through the heights east and west of it. 
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:08:22 GMT -8
QANON Folks Are Excited
Supporters quickly claimed there was a secret code within Trump’s tweet, pointing out that the three letters at the beginning of each line spelled out END. This was then linked to a message posted by Q in 2019, that reads: “There is no step five. End.”
For QAnon fans who have been waiting for years for the conclusion of this conspiracy, this claim was too enticing to ignore. “The crime is complete, they have finally arrested the president after they stole the election, now the military can't ignore this anymore,” one user of a QAnon-focused message board wrote. ”Their job is to protect the constitution and not the politicians. Now the crime is complete, the entire bait has been swallowed. Brothers and sisters... Welcome to act III.”
This interpretation ignores the fact that for years, QAnon influencers have been predicting that Trump would signal his return by returning to Twitter and writing: “The storm is upon us.” They have also told their followers that Trump was going to return to the Oval Office. Now, millions of people continue to believe in this conspiracy despite all the evidence to show that it was not orchestrated by a government insider revealing top secret information, but was instead run for the most part by a former pig-farmer in the Philippines and his son.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:10:19 GMT -8
Fox Tried to Tell It to the MarinesThe Marine Corps worked behind the scenes last month in an attempt to convince Fox News to retract its false story claiming a Gold Star family was forced to pay $60,000 to ship the remains of a Marine killed in Afghanistan, according to emails obtained by Military.com. A service spokesman notified the news network that it was pushing an incorrect story and accused it of using the grief of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee's family to draw in readers, the email exchanges, released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request, show. Fox News eventually deleted the story with no correction, and it never reached out to the Gee family with an apology as the Marine Corps requested, the family said. The Fox News story came from Republican Rep. Cory Mills, a freshman congressman from Florida, who claimed Gee's next of kin were strapped with the $60,000 charge after a meeting with the families of Abbey Gate bombing victims, a suicide attack where 13 service members were killed outside of the Kabul airport in 2021.
Inside the Marine Corps' Fight with Fox News over a False Gold Star Family Story
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:13:45 GMT -8
3 Out 5 Americans Agree: Lock Him Up!! (Actually They Just Agree He Should be Tried)New Politico Magazine/Ipsos polling finds that most Americans feel former President Donald Trump should stand trial for the federal 2020 election subversion case before the Republican primaries in early 2024 or before the general election in November 2024, something that has held steady between the sensitive documents case and the 2020 election subversion case. However, compared to Politico Magazine/Ipsos June polling, slightly fewer Americans say they understand the charges against Trump, even as a majority say they understand the various cases. Still, most feel that the Justice Department’s decision to indict Trump in the 2020 election subversion case is rooted in a fair evaluation of the evidence and law. Separately, most Americans think that Hunter Biden is guilty of the alleged crimes in his tax non-payment case.  Three in five Americans say Trump should stand trial before the Republican primaries or 2024 general election
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:15:09 GMT -8
1 Out 2 Americans Agree: Lock Him Up!!  
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:18:42 GMT -8
The QOP Debate Swung Swing Voters ... Away From the QOP.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:20:05 GMT -8
30 Mutations ... No That's Not a Bunch of QOP Candidates
A new strain of COVID-19 that was only identified a week ago in the U.S. has prompted the CDC to take the rare step of issuing a formal message that it could evade vaccines or the protection of natural immunity.
The strain is called BA.2.86 and is of particular concern because of its more than 30 mutations, which means it may behave very differently than previous versions of the virus. That number of mutations is on par with the difference between variants so serious that they were formally named, such as between Delta and Omicron, the CDC explained in the risk assessment issued Wednesday.
Worldwide, health agencies are issuing a flurry of updates on BA.2.86. The strain only recently landed on the World Health Organization's radar when it was named a "variant under monitoring" on Aug. 17. The CDC announced the same day that it had been detected in the U.S….
“BA.2.86 may be more capable of causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received COVID-19 vaccines,” the CDC risk assessment stated. The agency is evaluating how well the forthcoming updated vaccine, due out in September, performs against BA.2.86.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:21:43 GMT -8
ViveKKK Speaks
Vivek Ramaswamy, the multi-millionaire biotech investor seeking the Republican presidential nomination, characterized Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), prominent author Ibram X. Kendi, and other progressive anti-racists as akin to “grand wizards of the modern KKK.”
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:25:21 GMT -8
The US Army Is Officially Over the Hill
Virginia’s Fort A.P. Hill was officially redesignated Fort Walker on Friday morning during a ceremony on base, which took place on the eve of Women’s Equality Day.
According to the media advisory from the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and U.S. Army Military District of Washington, Fort Walker was renamed in honor of Dr. Mary E. Walker, who treated wounded Union soldiers at field hospitals throughout the Civil War.
Fort A.P. Hill, which is located near the town of Bowling Green, Virginia, was originally named after Confederate Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill.
The redesignation is a part of the Department of Defense's recommendations to rename U.S. Army installations to remove the names of Confederate soldiers.
There Is Still No Army Base Named After U.S. Grant
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:27:33 GMT -8
I Am Not a Fan of the Death Penalty, But I Am Not Sure Why It Needs to Be Totally Painless, As Long As You Don't Try to Inflict Pain
Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.
The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 amid a shortage of drugs used to carry out lethal injections, but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia, but have not used it.
The disclosure that Alabama is ready to use nitrogen hypoxia is expected to set off a new round of legal battles over the constitutionality of the method.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 26, 2023 8:30:59 GMT -8
Wild Horses. They Want to Drag Them Away
The beloved wild horses that roam freely in North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park could be removed under a National Park Service proposal that worries advocates who say the horses are a cultural link to the past.
Visitors who drive the scenic park road can often see bands of horses, a symbol of the West and sight that delights tourists. Advocates want to see the horses continue to roam the Badlands, and disagree with park officials who have branded the horses as “livestock.”
The Park Service is revising its livestock plans and writing an environmental assessment to examine the impacts of taking no new action — or to remove the horses altogether.
Removal would entail capturing horses and giving some of them first to tribes, and later auctioning the animals or giving them to other entities. Another approach would include techniques to prevent future reproduction and would allow those horses to live out the rest of their lives in the park.
The horses have allies in government leaders and advocacy groups. One advocate says the horses' popularity won't stop park officials from removing them from the landscape of North Dakota's top tourist attraction.
“At the end of the day, that's our national park paid for by our tax dollars, and those are our horses. We have a right to say what happens in our park and to the animals that live there," Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates President Chris Kman told The Associated Press.
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