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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:24:49 GMT -8
“Why should we hire you as a waiter?”
“I’d bring a lot to the table.”
Not Even the QOP Likes the QOP Position on Abortion
Jaymie Carter is a registered Republican.
She has been named by two Republican governors — first Rick Scott, then Ron DeSantis — to sit on the Board of Trustees for the State College of Florida, and she says she voted for DeSantis in his 2022 campaign for governor.
But when it comes to the issue of abortion, she’s breaking with her party.
“Women are concerned about what’s happening with our bodies and our right to choose. And there’s a lot of people that you wouldn’t think would be the pro-choice advocates, but they are,” she said. “And the government overreach, it’s huge right now.”
Carter is one of more than 150,000 registered Republican voters who have signed a petition in support of a ballot amendment that would bar the state from restricting abortion “before viability” — which is usually at 24 weeks — or “when necessary to protect the patient’s health.”
That total comes from the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition, one of several groups working to gather the 891,523 signatures necessary to get the measure on the ballot, working with Floridians Protecting Freedom, the campaign leading the ballot initiative. The group says it has gathered and submitted more than 1.3 million signatures so far. The website of the Florida Division of Elections says it has validated 687,699 signatures as of mid-December.
Florida is one of nine states where groups are pushing to get measures on the ballot that would bar restrictions on abortion rights, following a streak of wins for similar measures in Kansas and Ohio.
And as the Feb. 1 deadline to get the petitions submitted and verified approaches in Florida, some Republican voters are coming out publicly to support and even advocate for it.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:28:01 GMT -8
Where There is No Water, There is No LifeThe IDF has for a month been flooding Hamass’ network of tunnels with seawater in an apparent effort to flush out and drown terrorists while hoping no hostages will be harmed in the process. The story was reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal - behind a paywall. Experts had warned the Israeli government that flooding Gaza with seawater could make life in Gaza impossible for generations by eliminating freshwater availability and likely threatening agricultural land by poisoning the soil where nothing will be able to grow. Desertification in Gaza is widespread as a result of Israeli water policies toward Gaza. The only freshwater available in Gaza is from an aquifer parallel to the Mediterranean Sea. The aquifer was already stressed due to overpumping, which allowed saltwater, agricultural runoff, and sewage to seep in and mix with the freshwater. The shallow aquifer is at severe risk of being unusable for drinking water. Environmental experts asked that the IDF carefully weigh the consequences of pumping vast amounts of seawater into the Gaza Strip. The portion of the aquifer in Isreal is upstream and would not become poisoned, though Southern Israel’s portion of the Aquifer could be contaminated if enough seawater is pumped in from the sea. This may be necessary due to the sandstone that would require multiple flooding efforts to have an impact on killing the occupants in the tunnel network. In an ideal world, rainfall percolates through the soil, and the sandstone bed replenishes the aquifer. People across the planet pump that water into wells where it is used as drinking water and growing crops. Freshwater access has been denied to Gaza for generations. Palestinians on the strip need to have water delivered by truck or rely on small desalination plants (which no longer operate due to the bombing of water infrastructure and lack of fuel to power the pumps) for drinking water. Flooding Hamas tunnels could harm Gaza’s freshwater for generations, warns academic
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:29:19 GMT -8
What Kind of Sane Democracy Lets the Politicians Pick Their Voters?
Top Court Clears Path for Democrats to Redraw House Map in New York
The ruling could allow Democrats to tilt anywhere from two to six G.O.P.-held seats leftward. Republicans vowed to challenge any gerrymandered map.
The case in New York was one of the final disputes outstanding across the country in an unusually active round of legal challenges stemming from last year’s decennial redistricting cycle. Based on past voter trends, the outcome now appears likely to give Democrats a slight national advantage over Republicans.
The Supreme Court and other federal judges had already ordered several Republican-led states to redraw maps that had diluted the power of Black voters. The changes could net Democrats two to three seats in the Deep South.
But Tuesday’s ruling could also offset recent Republican redistricting gains in North Carolina, where a new conservative majority on the state Supreme Court cleared the way for an aggressive gerrymander that could net Republicans three to four seats.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:31:06 GMT -8
The Truth
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:34:05 GMT -8
WHO Said This?
Right-wing demagogue Ann Coulter joined the chorus of voices condemning the state of Texas’ response to a Dallas woman’s request to end her pregnancy after a diagnosis that her fetus would not survive and her own health was at risk.
“The prolife movement has gone from compassion for the child to cruelty to the mother (and child),” Coulter wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:36:15 GMT -8
Democrats Want to Save an Endangered Species
Congressional Democrats want to pump $50 billion into the training and hiring of more public health nurses ― a cash infusion they say would improve both working conditions for nurses and health outcomes for underserved communities.
Lawmakers planned to introduce bills in both the House and Senate on Wednesday to establish a grant program for nurse jobs through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The legislation calls for funding of $5 billion a year for the next decade.
The money would be doled out to state, tribal and local health departments to recruit and pay registered nurses, prioritizing areas with high rates of chronic disease and mortality or poor access to health care.
The effort is being led by Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) in the House and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in the Senate.
“Part of why people are leaving the workforce is they’re burned out. In many instances they feel like they’re not being valued.”
Stansbury said in an interview that the legislation could “transform nursing” at a time when many nurses have felt overworked, burned out, and underpaid since the COVID-19 pandemic began. She noted that rural areas of New Mexico, particularly, have struggled to attract and retain enough health care workers.
“You hear it everywhere you go… The wait times in some cases are months or even into the next year,” she said. “It truly is in a crisis.”
Stansbury said she saw the understaffing problem up close last year when her mother was waiting to have heart surgery done at an Albuquerque area hospital. The procedure was delayed 72 hours as they waited for a bed.
“It was no fault of the hospital or the wonderful nurses and doctors who did care for her,” she said. “It was the actual shortage of staff that led to the delay and a really traumatic experience we had.”
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:38:15 GMT -8
Anyone Else Smell ChatGPT Involvement?
A lawyer for Michael Cohen cited cases that don’t exist in a motion calling for the early termination of his client’s supervised release, a judge said Tuesday.
Cohen received a three-year prison sentence in 2018 after pleading guilty to lying to Congress and campaign finance charges over his role in facilitating hush money payments from his former boss Donald Trump to porn star Stormy Daniels. He spent a little over a year behind bars and served the remainder of his sentence in home confinement before being released in November 2021. Cohen, however, still faced three years of supervised release.
Attorney David Schwartz wrote in a motion letter dated Nov. 29 that since 2022, “there have been District Court decisions, affirmed by the Second Circuit Court, granting early termination of supervised release,” listing three cases: United States v. Figueroa-Florez, United States v. Ortiz and United States v. Amato.
However, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman identified an issue with those examples.
“As far as the Court can tell, none of these cases exist,” Furman wrote.
Furman added that they also reached out to the clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, “who found no record of any of the three decisions” and said one of the three docket numbers was invalid.
Furman ordered Schwartz to submit copies of the three cases by Dec. 19, noting that if he cannot do so, he should explain why he shouldn’t be sanctioned. The judge also wants to know whether Cohen, a lawyer himself, took part in preparing the motion.
Why Shouldn't He Make Up Case? SCOTUS Makes Up Fake Legal Principles All the Time.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:39:31 GMT -8
Hunter Isn't Content Being the Hunted
Hunter Biden spoke out against House Republicans' request for closed-door testimony on Wednesday as lawmakers ready for an impeachment inquiry vote targeting his father, President Joe Biden.
Addressing reporters outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Hunter Biden said he's prepared to answer questions from House Republicans -- but reiterated that he would only do so in public.
Chairman James Comer of the House Oversight Committee last month subpoenaed Hunter Biden to sit for a closed-door deposition Wednesday as part of the committee's impeachment probe into President Biden.
MORE: Special counsel files 9 tax-related charges against Hunter Biden
In response, Hunter Biden said he was willing to testify before the panel -- but only in a public forum.
"I am here to testify at a public hearing today, to answer the committee's questions," Hunter Biden said Wednesday.
"What are they afraid of? I'm here, I'm ready," he said.
He spoke for less than 10 minutes, but packed plenty of punches for House Republicans, saying, "They have no shame."
"There is no fairness or decency" in their probe, he said. "They've lied over and over again."
"They've invaded my privacy, attacked my wife and children ... tried to dehumanize me and embarrass and damage my father."
Hunter Biden acknowledged that he's made mistakes in his personal life, "but to suggest it's grounds for an impeachment inquiry is absurd."
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:41:47 GMT -8
The “photo-op … gone south,”Before a group of supportive lawyers entered the Oval Office for a photo-op with then-President Donald Trump in December 2020, they were given a clear instruction, according to one attendee: Don’t get Trump’s hopes up about overturning the election. One attorney, Jim Troupis, toed the line. He’d just finished leading Trump’s failed election challenge in Wisconsin, and bluntly told the president it was over in that state. But when the conversation shifted to Arizona, attorney Kenneth Chesebro deviated from the plan. He told Trump he could still win – and explained how the “alternate electors” he helped assemble in Arizona and six other states gave Trump an opening to continue contesting the election until Congress certified the results on January 6, 2021. Chesebro’s optimistic comments immediately created problems by apparently giving Trump renewed hope that he could still somehow stay in office. Former RNC chairman Reince Priebus left the meeting “extremely concerned” about the January 6 conversation. Priebus, a Wisconsin native who served as Trump’s first chief of staff, later warned Troupis and Chesebro not to tell anyone about what happened. This dramatic account comes from Chesebro, who sat for an interview last week with Michigan state prosecutors investigating the fake electors plot. CNN has exclusively obtained audio of that interview, which includes previously unreported details about the pivotal Oval Office meeting. The Michigan attorney general already charged the 16 Republican electors who cast sham ballots in Lansing, and CNN recently reported that the investigation is still ongoing. Fifteen of the electors pleaded not guilty; one got his charges dropped in a cooperation deal. The “photo-op … gone south,” as Chesebro called the December 16, 2020, meeting, reveals a previously unknown instance of Trump hearing directly that he lost – which could factor into his federal election subversion trial. But it also highlights how others in Trump’s orbit leaned into his delusions and aided his quixotic effort to cling onto power. As often happened, Trump heard what he wanted to, ignoring Troupis and embracing Chesebro’s theories. Trump continued to falsely claim victory in Wisconsin and elsewhere, including on January 6, when he tried to weaponize the illegitimate GOP electors to “disenfranchise millions of voters,” according to his federal indictment. Exclusive: Recordings describe 2020 Oval Office photo-op where Trump was briefed on fake electors and January 6
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:44:47 GMT -8
Who Puts Fentayl into Candy?
Several Virginia elementary school students needed medical attention Tuesday after eating gummy bears laced with what authorities said was fentanyl.
The Amherst County Sheriff's Office said seven children at Central Elementary School in Amherst, Virginia, "experienced a reaction to ingesting gummy bears" while at school.
School administrators immediately notified emergency services of the incident, according to Amherst County Public Schools.
The Amherst County Sheriff's Office later tested the gummy bears, and the results came back positive for fentanyl.
Five of the students had to receive medical attention. EMS transported two students for medical attention, and three students were driven by their parents, the sheriff’s office said.
According to the Amherst County Public Schools superintendent’s office, they “confirmed that the bag was brought from home by a student.”
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:48:10 GMT -8
Welcome to Charles Koch's Idea of Heaven. It's Called Texas.For nearly 20 years, Texas environmental regulators have kept a disturbing secret. People living in a small, unincorporated community east of Houston are routinely breathing dangerous levels of benzene, a chemical linked to leukemia and other blood cancers. Emerging research also connects it to diabetes and reproductive problems. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, has not told residents about the health risks they face. And it has done little to rein in the facility that the agency knew was releasing large amounts of benzene. Instead, the TCEQ has allowed K-Solv, a chemical distribution company nestled in Channelview's Jacintoport neighborhood, to expand its operations four times since the problem was discovered in 2005. Today K-Solv is legally allowed to release almost 20 times more volatile organic compounds — a class of chemicals that includes benzene — into the air each year than it did back then. TCEQ documents obtained by Public Health Watch show that some of those early readings were double the level Texas considered safe at the time. Public Health Watch also analyzed more recent TCEQ pollution data and found that Channelview's benzene problem has only worsened over the years. Benzene is a colorless, sweet-smelling chemical found in crude oil and products including gasoline, solvents, plastics, paints, adhesives, and detergents. Although it has been linked to leukemia since the late 1920s, it is unevenly regulated because of relentless opposition from industry groups. When the federal government tried in 1978 to enhance safeguards for workers exposed to benzene, the American Petroleum Institute fought the effort all the way to the Supreme Court, delaying new regulations for almost 10 years. A Place Where Government Lets Corporations Do Anything They WantTexas found startling amounts of a cancer-causing chemical in the air outside Houston. Nobody told the residents.
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:51:22 GMT -8
Alabama Prisoners Sue State Over 'Modern-Day Slavery’ Work ProgramsCurrent and former prisoners in Alabama filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday arguing that the state’s prison labor system amounts to a “modern-day form of slavery” that violates the U.S. and Alabama constitutions. The complaint, brought with the support of labor unions, alleges that Alabama profits to the tune of more than $450 million a year through coerced work, and that fast food companies and other private corporations benefit from an unlawful “labor trafficking scheme.” The proposed class action lawsuit seeks to abolish a “captive labor source” for the state and award current and past prisoners with damages. The defendants include the state’s Republican governor, Kay Ivey, and its Republican attorney general, Steve Marshall, along with Alabama corrections and parole officials. Janet Herold, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a press conference Tuesday that the prison work programs are “the modern reincarnation of the notorious convict-leasing system that replaced slavery after the Civil War.”
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Post by mhbruin on Dec 13, 2023 9:53:13 GMT -8
Welcome to Wacko World
So Comer's first response is to note that he has been too afraid of being interviewed on CNN for the past three months. Then he praises Tapper, but insults the IQ of his audience. Never mind that the IQ of the Newsmax audience has be be considerably lower considering they have fully adopted the crackpot conspiracy theories of QAnon and still support Donald Trump, the twice-impeached, pathological liar, who is facing 91 felony charges, and has been adjudicated as a financial fraudster and rapist.
Furthermore, while CNN's audience has declined, so has almost every other cable news network in the era of cord-cutting and streaming. And Newsmax trails Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, by significant margins. That may have something to do with the fact that it is a "wholly owned unprofitable subsidiary" of the Trump Cult, aka the Republican National Committee.
Perhaps the most striking thing about Comer's response to being made to look like a joke, is that in his entire reply he never disagreed with it. He admitted his fear of CNN, his low opinion of their audience, and his ignorance of the cable news business. But he didn't bother to dispute the contention that he and his probe of Biden looked like a joke. Because... how could he? What with all the laughter.
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