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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:10:54 GMT -8
Church Bulletin Bloopers
Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.
The QOP Still Loves Democracy As Long As the Voters Don't Decide Anything
Just months away from a potential rematch between Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump, democracy defenders are sounding the alarm about an Arizona bill recently introduced by a GOP state legislator.
State Sen. Anthony Kern (R-27) is spearheading Senate Concurrent Resolution 1014, which says that "the Legislature, and no other official, shall appoint presidential electors." If it passes both chambers, the measure could appear on the November ballot.
As Arizona Republic columnist EJ Montini wrote earlier this month, "In other words, if such a law had existed when Biden beat Trump, the majority MAGA Legislature could have ignored the will of Arizona voters and appointed like-minded electors of their choosing who, in turn, could have installed Dear Leader as the victor."
"Arizona Republicans are attacking the most essential tenet of our elections: that the people decide their representatives."
"I would hope there isn't any need to actually to discuss why this is a horrible idea. Undemocratic. Un-American. Idiotic. It is not surprising, however, that it comes from someone like Kern," Montini added.
Kern was photographed outside of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, is under investigation for falsely certifying that Arizona's 2020 Electoral College votes should go to Trump, and has set his sights on Congress.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:14:03 GMT -8
Is Previous Guy the Biggest Loser? It's Not Even Close. To Lose Billions You Have to Be a Real Billionaire
A judge in the US state of Delaware has annulled a $55.8bn (£44bn) pay deal awarded to Elon Musk in 2018 by the electric car company Tesla.
The lawsuit was filed by a shareholder who argued that it was an overpayment.
Judge Kathaleen McCormick found Tesla directors, who negotiated the pay package, were "perhaps starry eyed" due to Mr Musk's "superstar appeal" and did not fully inform shareholders.
She said the deal was "unfathomable" and ruled it should be cancelled.
The pay deal was the biggest ever in US corporate history, helping to make Mr Musk the richest person in the world. Bloomberg and Forbes estimated his net worth to be between $198bn (£162bn) and $220bn (£180bn), in November 2023.
Tesla's package tied Mr Musk's compensation to performance targets, such as Tesla's share price and profitability, but he does not receive a salary.
Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta felt the tycoon was being overpaid. Despite owning just nine Tesla shares he launched legal action calling for the award to be rescinded. He said shareholders were not given enough information about how easily Mr Musk's performance goals would be achieved.
Previous Guy Just Loses All the Time.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:15:24 GMT -8
Too Little. Too Late
An Iran-backed Iraqi militia suspected of a drone strike in Jordan that killed three US soldiers says it has suspended operations against US forces.
Kataib Hezbollah, which is part of an umbrella group that claimed Sunday's attack, said this was "to prevent embarrassment of the Iraqi government".
The US defence department said: "Actions speak louder than words."
US President Joe Biden meanwhile said he had decided how to respond to the attack but did not elaborate.
Iran warned it would retaliate against any attack on its "interests".
Earlier, it denied US and British accusations that it was involved in the attack.
The US has hinted at an armed response that might come in several waves.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:17:16 GMT -8
Next He'll Take Credit for Discovering Penillicin and Inventing the Internet
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:20:12 GMT -8
Greece is the Word
David Axe writes in Forbes that according to Greek media, Dark Brandon has finalized a deal with Greece to send military surplus to Greece who will send its old stuff to Ukraine. Greece has Tor and S300 systems and ammunition for example.
Biden plans to use the authority of Excess Defense Articles (EDA) to declare items military surplus, assign them a value, and send them off to allies. This authority is capped at $500 million however there is discretion in the value he assigns to the gear.
Axe notes that historically when the the US gives Greece something they give Turkey something and connects the F16 deal for new planes + upgrade kits to this revelation.
This isn't a cure all but it is definitely something.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:22:17 GMT -8
5 Taylor Swift Songs of Football. 32 Seconds of Taylor. The MAGA Losers who Love the Big Loser.
They Can't Handle Strong Successful Women
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:25:50 GMT -8
Shoveling Shit and Calling it Sugar for Previous Guy
Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday approved two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — an entirely baseless effort aimed at helping Donald Trump look tough on border issues ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The committee voted 18 to 15, along party lines, to approve the GOP’s impeachment resolution, which accuses Mayorkas of “willful” refusal to comply with immigration laws and breaching public trust. The full House could vote as soon as next week to impeach him.
The hearing, which dragged on for 15 hours, was a political stunt. The standard for impeachment, per the Constitution, is committing “high crimes and misdemeanors” like treason or bribery. Mayorkas, a cabinet secretary charged with carrying out current immigration policy, has not been accused of any such crimes.
“The Constitution is very specific,” said Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.). “The grounds for impeachment are treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors. There is no treason alleged or mentioned in these articles. There is no bribery alleged or mentioned in these articles. And no high crimes or misdemeanors, either.”
So what did lawmakers do for hours? Democrats mocked the hearing as “a sham” and laid out why there is no legal basis for impeaching Mayorkas. Republicans responded by highlighting problems at the border, quoting Thomas Jefferson and Supreme Court justices from the 1800s, and somehow concluding that Mayorkas deserves to be impeached.
“We’re here today not because we want to be, but because we have exhausted all other options,” Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said solemnly at the start of the hearing.
“There’s another saying that appropriately describes what’s going on here: Just shoveling the same old s**t and calling it sugar,” Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) later countered. “That’s not what the American people want us to do.”
The GOP’s effort to impeach Mayorkas isn’t even about him. For months, Republicans have been screaming about border security and trying to blame President Joe Biden for a surge in migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. Unauthorized border crossings have hit historic highs in recent months. Last month, in the span of five days, U.S. Border Patrol agents processed nearly 50,000 migrants who entered the U.S. illegally, per a CBS report.
Republicans seemed to settle months ago on immigration as a top talking point for the 2024 election, viewing it as an issue they can regularly use to hurt Biden and help Trump, their party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:34:52 GMT -8
The Myth of Syphilis Is That It Isn't a Problem
The U.S. syphilis epidemic isn't abating, with the rate of infectious cases rising 9% in 2022, according to a new federal government report on sexually transmitted diseases in adults.
But there's some unexpected good news: The rate of new gonorrhea cases fell for the first time in a decade.
It's not clear why infectious cases of syphilis rose 9% while gonorrhea dropped 9%, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that it's too soon to know whether a new downward trend is emerging for the latter.
They are most focused on syphilis, which is less common than gonorrhea or chlamydia but considered more dangerous. And while it continues to have a disproportionate impact on gay and bisexual men, it is expanding in heterosexual men and women, and increasingly affecting newborns, too, CDC officials said.
Total cases surpassed 207,000 in 2022, a 17% increase and the highest count in the United States since 1950, according to data released Tuesday. The count includes not only the most infectious stages of the disease but also latent cases and cases in which pregnant women passed syphilis on to their babies.
Syphilis is a bacterial disease that can surface as painless genital sores but can ultimately lead to paralysis, hearing loss, dementia and even death if left untreated.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:35:50 GMT -8
We Have Found the Real Mr. Beast
APennsylvania man has been arrested after allegedly killing his father, before displaying his decapitated head in a gruesome YouTube video while spouting right-wing conspiracy theories.
Justin Mohn, 32, is accused of killing his father, Michael Mohn, Capt. Pete Feeney of the Middletown Township Police Department told NBC News.
Mohn was taken into custody on suspicion of first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and possessing an instrument of crime with intent, according to a court docket released early Wednesday. He was arraigned at 4 a.m. and denied bail, Feeney said.
In the YouTube video, Mohn is seen wearing gloves and holding his father's head in a plastic bag. Later, the head can be seen in a cooking pot.
Mohn says his father was a federal employee for 20 years and refers to him as a traitor, calling for the death of all federal officials, attacking President Joe Biden's administration, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community and antifa activists. YouTube removed the video, which is more than 14 minutes long, hours after it was posted.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:39:42 GMT -8
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:41:22 GMT -8
Why Do Lawyers Work For Previous Guy?
Former President Donald Trump spent around $50 million of donor funds on legal bills and expenses last year, a staggering sum following his indictment in four separate cases, according to The New York Times.
Multiple Trump super PACs have been paying the expenses after securing an initial firehouse of donations to the former president after his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Trump pushed unfounded and false claims of voter fraud to stoke his supporters to donate after his defeat, efforts that have since become key to two of the indictments filed against him.
Save America, a Trump PAC that at one point had more than $100 million in the bank, nearly went broke last year amid the crush in legal fees. The super PACs paid for attorneys for both the former president and some of his aides that have been named in the indictments, including Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira. The pair were both charged in the case surrounding Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left the White House.
The bills are still biting at Trump’s heels: The Times added that 10% of every dollar the former president raises from supporters is being directed to Save America, which mainly pays the legal fees.
The exact figures the political groups paid out to attorneys last year will be reported on Wednesday as part of legally required filings to the Federal Election Commission.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:42:34 GMT -8
Pouring SALT into the Wounds of Poor Kids
After long negotiations, the House is set to vote Wednesday on a bipartisan tax bill that would enhance the popular Child Tax Credit to benefit millions of American families.
The $78 billion tax package called the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 would increase the child tax credit and restore critical research and development deductions. It includes new low-income housing tax credits and disaster tax relief and tax benefits for Taiwan. If passed, the changes would be in effect through 2025 when previous Republican tax cuts expire.
Despite overwhelming support for the bipartisan bill in the House, there are still several issues lawmakers have with the legislation, including the child tax credit and state and local tax deductions.
Several New York Republicans (Reps. Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Anthony D'Esposito and Andrew Garbarino) were angered that the tax bill does not have state and local tax deduction limits -- also known as SALT provisions. This is a top priority for New York lawmakers. Speaker Mike Johnson met with this group late Tuesday to discuss SALT provisions.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:43:50 GMT -8
About as Effective as Ivermectin
Biogen will stop developing its Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm, a drug once seen as a potential blockbuster before stumbling soon after its launch a couple years ago.
The drugmaker said Wednesday that it will end a study of the drug needed for full approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and it will stop sales of Aduhelm.
Patients taking doses of Aduhelm available through the commercial market can continue until November. A company representative said there are about 2,500 people worldwide taking Aduhelm.
Biogen said it will turn its focus more to other treatments for Alzheimer’s, a fatal, mind-robbing disease. The company also is helping Japanese drugmaker Eisai sell another Alzheimer’s treatment, Leqembi, which already has full FDA approval.
Leqembi is the first medicine that’s been convincingly shown to slow the cognitive decline caused by Alzheimer’s disease, though only modestly. Regulators have approved it for patients with mild dementia and other symptoms caused by early Alzheimer’s.
Aduhelm was the first new Alzheimer’s disease drug introduced in nearly two decades. The FDA granted accelerated approval for it in 2021. But regulators required an additional study before they would consider full approval.
Initially priced at $56,000 a year, analysts predicted it would quickly become a blockbuster drug that would generate billions for Biogen.
But doctors were hesitant to prescribe the intravenous drug, given weak evidence that the drug slows Alzheimer’s. Insurers have blocked or restricted coverage, and the federal government’s Medicare program imposed strict limits on who could get it.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:45:10 GMT -8
The Old "My Twin Did It" Defense
ACalifornia man who attempted to blame his identical twin brother for rapes he committed in the 1990s has been sentenced to 140 years in prison.
Kevin Konther, 58, of Highland, California, was sentenced after being convicted of the rapes of a girl in 1995 and a woman in 1998, the Orange county district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Judge Richard M King imposed the maximum sentence against Konther.
In 1995, Konther raped a nine-year old girl at knifepoint while she was walking home from a store in Lake Forest, a city in Orange county.
Three years later in 1998, Konther attacked and raped a 32-year old woman who was jogging in Mission Viejo.
Konther and his twin brother were arrested in 2019 after genealogy technology connected the pair to the crimes.
Conversations secretly recorded between Konther and his brother after their arrests further incriminated Konther. But while Konther’s brother was confused by the arrests, the Orange County Register reported, Konther admitted he had committed the crimes.
The twin brother was not charged.
The district attorney’s office said in a press release in February: “Identical twins share the same DNA, but conversations covertly recorded between the two brothers following their arrests revealed multiple incriminating statements made by Kevin Konther, including admissions that he carried out the crimes.”
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 31, 2024 9:51:26 GMT -8
Clouds of Mystery Pouring Confusion on the Ground
Over the next several days, a pair of storms is set to blast California with a nasty, disruptive mix of rain, snow and wind, with the first one arriving on Wednesday and the second likely by Sunday.
Both will be fueled by atmospheric rivers, plumes of tropical moisture that can bring a "firehose" of rain to the state. This type of atmospheric river is sometimes called the "Pineapple Express," since it originates near Hawaii, according to Weather.com.
The National Weather Service warns that the moisture "will create heavy rain over California." In fact, rain from the storm is forecast to be heavy enough to trigger flooding, mudslides and cause major travel disruptions across the state, AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.
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Some higher elevations in the mountains could see up to four feet of snow, the weather service says.
The storm will create significant disruptions for travel across much of the state from Wednesday through Thursday as the rain spreads south, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Heather Zehr said.
San Francisco and Sacramento will see downpours on Wednesday, while Los Angeles and San Diego will see the heaviest rain on Thursday.
Strong winds and rough surf will also batter the state, forecasters said.
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