|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:04:33 GMT -8
Why does "slow down" mean the same thing as "slow up"? Why do "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing? In Today's Epsiode of Obrrious ScienceA neuroscientist explains why stupidity is an existential threat to America
In Exhibit OneDonald Trump insisted that he made the decision to continue his 2020 election challenges, and MSNBC's Chuck Rosenberg said that would undercut one of his best legal defenses. The former president told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he relied on his own "instincts" to conclude the election had been "rigged" against him, and Rosenberg told "Morning Joe" that prosecutors would likely cite those claims when his Jan. 6 case goes to trial. "Well, no, [it's] certainly not against the law to believe something, but if what you want to do is use an advice of counsel defense at your criminal trial, then you have to have relied on that advice in good faith," Rosenberg said. "So, again, two problems here. One is it doesn't seem to be good faith reliance. Two, at least with respect to Mr. Trump's answers to Kristin Welker, it doesn't seem to be reliance at all. In other words, 'I trust my own instincts, I do what I think is right, I'm always the smartest guy in the room. If that's the case, I don't need lawyers, I made the decisions here.'" "If that's true, it really isn't an advice of counsel defense," Rosenberg added. "I think it's not dispositive on the issue, but it undercuts the notion he has a valid defense here." Trump said he dismissed lawyers who told him he had lost the election because he didn't "respect" them, and he instead relied on outside legal advisers who helped him push baseless claims of election fraud. "He's taking advice from people that aren't his lawyers," Rosenberg said. "The fact that you meet someone in a Walmart parking lot and they tell you [that] you can trade on inside information doesn't mean they're your lawyer and you can rely on that advice. Even if you get over that hurdle, you'd have to be listening to the advice and hear what Mr. Trump said to Kristen Welker. He wasn't listening to the advice, he was relying on his own judgment -- that's the narcissist in him. He could never admit anything people tell him. That undercuts the advice of counsel defense." "If you get past that hurdle you have to rely on the advice in good faith," he added. "Even if you got past that hurdle, the way you do all those things, is by getting on the stand and testifying to who told you about the things you could do or couldn't do. Getting on the stand for Mr. Trump is a very, very difficult proposition. I just don't see how, if we get to that, that could possibly go well for him." No More News |
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:06:44 GMT -8
The Young People Respect Their Elders. At Least Some of their Elders
A new CBS News poll is another to contribute to the narrative that there is something wrong with President Joe Biden's age while Donald Trump's age and mental fitness are going unquestioned.
But as a young voter and host of "iGen Politics," Victor Shi observed, the same poll shows a record 65 percent support for Biden among voters under 30. For voters between 30 and 44, Biden enjoys 56 percent support. The lowest amount of support for Biden comes from those over 65.
The official question read: "If next year's 2024 presidential election is between Joe Biden, the Democrat, and Donald Trump, the Republican, who would you vote for?"
Comparing it to Donald Trump, who had 35 percent for those under 30, 44 percent for those ages 30 to 44.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:07:42 GMT -8
Today's Big Sports News That No One Understands
India crush Sri Lanka by 10 wickets to win eighth Asia Cup cricket crown
Sri Lanka were bowled all-out for just 50 runs, as India’s Mohammed Siraj claiming a career-best 6-21 – including four wickets in one over.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:14:43 GMT -8
The QOP Hates Hoodies
Republicans are upset about a new dress code policy from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that will allow senators to wear whatever they choose on the Senate floor.
The new policy is set to go into effect this week, according to Axios, and will no longer require members to wear coats or business attire in the upper chamber, an informal rule that is enforced by the Senate Sergeant at Arms.
“Senators are able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor. I will continue to wear a suit,” Schumer said in a statement.
The policy will allow Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who often wears a hoodie or a short-sleeve shirt along with shorts around the Capitol, to enter the Senate chamber and vote in the well alongside other senators. The Pennsylvania Democrat, who suffered a stroke in 2022, casts his votes by ducking his head through the Senate doors.
The new rules will not apply to staff or outside visitors, however.
Several GOP senators complained about the change on X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter.
“It’s just not that hard to wear a jacket and tie,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote. “Pants are also a must — not optional.”
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:18:09 GMT -8
Were They Playing "I Shot the Sheriff"?
An Alabama high school band director was shocked with a stun gun and arrested after Birmingham police said he wouldn’t tell his band to stop playing.
Local news outlets report that Minor High School’s band director was arrested Thursday night after a football game between Minor and Jackson-Olin High School. He’s charged with disorderly conduct, harassment and resisting arrest.
Birmingham Police Officer Truman Fitzgerald, a department spokesperson, said police were trying to clear the stadium at Jackson-Olin after the game and asked both bands to stop playing so people wouldn’t linger.
Police say the Jackson-Olin band stopped performing, but that the director disregarded officers and told his students to keep playing.
Police officers accompanied by school security guards went to arrest him for disorderly conduct but he got into a scuffle with them, Fitzgerald said. He said the band director refused to place his hands behind his back and shoved an officer. One of the officers shocked the band director with a stun gun.
I Think Anyone Who Plays the USC Fight Song Should Be Tased.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:20:28 GMT -8
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.
A Black high school student in Texas who served an in-school suspension over his hairstyle received the same punishment again when he arrived Monday wearing his hair in twisted dreadlocks tied on top of his head, his mother said. Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, was initially suspended the same week his state outlawed racial discrimination based on hairstyles. School officials said his dreadlocks fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violated the district’s dress code. George, 17, served the first suspension last week at the Houston-area school. He was in tears when he was sent back to in-school suspension Monday, his mother Darresha George said. “ He has to sit on a stool for eight hours in a cubicle," she said. “That’s very uncomfortable. Every day he’d come home, he’d say his back hurts because he has to sit on a stool.” The incident recalls debates over hair discrimination in schools and the workplace and is already testing the state's newly enacted CROWN Act, which took effect Sept. 1. The law, an acronym for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is intended to prohibit race-based hair discrimination and bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, dreadlocks, twists or Bantu knots. Texas is one of 24 states that have enacted a version of the CROWN Act. 
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:22:00 GMT -8
In Today's Episode of Senseless Murders
A 78-year-old Florida man allegedly shot and killed his neighbor who was trimming trees along their property lines, authorities said.
The shooting was reported around 7:13 p.m. Sunday in DeLeon Springs, about 45 miles north of Orlando, the Volusia Sheriff's Office said.
The victim, 42-year-old Brian Ford, was trimming tree limbs along the fence line between two properties when his neighbor, 78-year-old Edward Druzolowski, "confronted him about being on his property," according to the sheriff's office.
Druzolowski later told police that "he threatened to shoot Ford, and when Ford didn’t leave, he shot him," the sheriff's office said in a statement.
Druzolowski was arrested for second-degree murder, authorities said.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:23:34 GMT -8
Students Denouncing Their Teacher. Sounds Like Nazi Germany
As gold sunlight filtered into her kitchen, English teacher Mary Wood shouldered a worn leather bag packed with first-day-of-school items: Three lesson-planning notebooks. Two peanut butter granola bars. An extra pair of socks, just in case.
Everything was ready, but Wood didn’t leave. For the first time since she started teaching 14 years ago, she was scared to go back to school.
Six months earlier, two of Wood’s Advanced Placement English Language and Composition students had reported her to the school board for teaching about race. Wood had assigned her all-White class readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me,” a book that dissects what it means to be Black in America.
The students wrote in emails that the book — and accompanying videos that Wood, 47, played about systemic racism — made them ashamed to be White, violating a South Carolina proviso that forbids teachers from making students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” on account of their race.
Reading Coates’s book felt like “reading hate propaganda towards white people,” one student wrote.
At least two parents complained, too. Within days, school administrators ordered Wood to stop teaching the lesson. They placed a formal letter of reprimand in her file. It instructed her to keep teaching “without discussing this issue with your students.”
Wood finished out the spring semester feeling defeated and betrayed — not only by her students, but by the school system that raised her. The high school Wood teaches at is the same one she attended.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Sept 18, 2023 9:24:37 GMT -8
If Other States Do This, Will It be a Carbon Copy?
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Sunday he would sign legislation that would require large companies to disclose their carbon footprints, potentially putting the state ahead of federal regulators on managing corporate climate risks.
The State senate approved the bill mandating greenhouse gas emissions disclosure last week, leaving Newsom with the final say.
Asked at the start of "Climate Week" in New York, a week of events coinciding with the U.N. General Assembly, whether he would sign the bill, Newsom replied: "Of course I will sign that bill."
|
|
