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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 6:19:00 GMT -8
What did our parents do to kill boredom before the internet? I asked my 16 brothers and sisters and they didn't know either.
The More You Know About DJT, the Worse It Gets.
Donald Trump’s social-media company just became the most valuable publicly traded client of an accounting firm that has more experience auditing companies traded over-the-counter and has had a string of regulatory issues, including a 100% deficiency rate on audits reviewed by a US watchdog. (Emphasis added)
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. said in recent regulatory filings that it will keep BF Borgers, a Lakewood, Colorado-based accounting firm, as its auditor after starting to trade publicly late last month. A Canadian regulator said last year that BF Borgers violated its rules for auditors, while the US’s Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found multiple deficiencies in every audit it reviewed from the firm over the past two annual checks.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 7:58:27 GMT -8
How Many Babies Did Previous Guy Kill with His Botched COVID Response?
Donald Trump is doubling down on his claim that babies are executed "after the ninth month" as part of his argument against abortion rights.
Trump released a video Monday declining to outline a national abortion policy, and instead saying he believed it should be decided at the state level. In that video, he said that people are aborting babies after the ninth month — a claim that has been dismissed by experts.
A few hours later, when the Biden campaign singled out pieces of Trump's video, he began to panic on Truth Social.
On Monday afternoon, he returned to his personal social media account and posted an edited video of Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam talking about a bill that would ease restrictions on third-trimester abortions. Third-trimester procedures are incredibly rare and almost exclusively deal with medical emergencies.
Trump twists Northam's words, claiming: "The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated IF that’s what the mother and the family desired. AND THEN A DISCUSSION WOULD ENSUE between the physicians and the mother. In other words, the Baby would be executed after birth!"
What Northam actually said is quite the opposite, a Reuters fact check found.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:00:02 GMT -8
The March to Oblivion
Europe's climate monitor said Tuesday that March was the hottest on record and the tenth straight month of historic heat, with sea surface temperatures also hitting a "shocking" new high.
It is the latest red flag in a year already marked by climate extremes and rising greenhouse gas emissions, spurring fresh calls for more rapid action to limit global warming.
Every month since June 2023 has beaten its own "hottest ever" tag -- and March 2024 was no exception.
The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that March globally was 1.68 degrees Celsius hotter than an average March between the years 1850-1900, the reference period for the pre-industrial era.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:02:21 GMT -8
French Workers Go for the Gold
Already set with a piece of the Eiffel Tower, the medals for this summer’s Paris Olympics will now be infused with another quintessential feature of French life: strike action.
Dozens of workers at the French national mint, which is making the medals, are demanding the same “Olympics bonus” being paid to police officers and other government employees.
On Monday, around 50 workers demonstrated outside the mint and claimed that they had been able to disrupt medal production ahead of the Games, which start July 26.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:04:33 GMT -8
There is No Safe Middle for Prevous Guy on the Abortion Issue
Under pressure to clarify his position on abortion, Donald Trump released a video explanation on Monday that, quite effectively, pissed everyone off and made no one happy. And when called on it, he lost his mind, crapping on key allies.
Given Trump is who he is, expect this to get worse over the coming weeks and months.
To recap, Trump:
-Took credit for ending Roe v. Wade, claiming that “all legal scholars” demanded it.
-Said that his “view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” even though 21 states ban or severely restrict it.
-Claimed, “Now it’s up to the states to do the right thing,” without saying what the right thing is.
-Compared himself to Ronald Reagan, saying, “I am strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.” Exceptions to what, Donnie? He couldn’t bring himself to say the word “ban,” but that’s the only thing that requires exceptions.
-Admitted that the abortion issue is crushing him, ending his video with this declaration: “We must win. We have to win.”
In short, Trump both advocated for a ban, fueling the very pro-abortion energy that has electorally cost Republicans so dearly over the past two cycles, while also refusing to outright call for a ban, claiming that his own political exigencies were more important. Yet conservatives have backed themselves into a corner—if abortion is murder, then any compromise is an obscenity. That’s why these same zealots are going after IVF and contraceptives.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:06:39 GMT -8
Vibes v Facts
More often than not, anyone who argues that we’re in a “vibecession,” in which public perceptions are at odds with economic reality, gets tagged as an elitist, out of touch with people’s real-life experience. And there’s a whole genre of commentary to the effect that if you squint at the data hard enough, it shows that the economy really is bad, after all.
But such commentary is an attempt to explain something that isn’t happening. Without question, there are Americans who are hurting financially — sadly, this is always true to some extent, especially given the weakness of America’s social safety net. But in general, Americans are relatively optimistic about their own finances.
Americans are upbeat not just about their own circumstances; they’re also upbeat about their local economies. A recent Wall Street Journal poll of swing state voters found that voters have negative views of the national economy but significantly more positive views about the economy in their state. This is consistent with the Federal Reserve’s report on economic well-being for 2022 (published in 2023), which shows a much higher percentage of Americans assessed their local economy as good or excellent than the percentage who said the same about the national economy.
Basically, Americans are saying, “I’m doing OK, people I know are doing OK, but bad things are happening somewhere out there.” As The Journal’s Greg Ip wrote, “When it comes to the economy, the vibes are at war with the facts.”
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:09:26 GMT -8
Previous Guy's Argument Has No Appeal for this Court
A New York appeals court judge on Monday swiftly rejected a last-ditch bid by Donald Trump to delay his upcoming criminal hush money trial while he seeks to move the case to another court.
Judge Lizbeth Gonzalez denied Trump’s request on the same day his attorneys filed it, and less than two hours (actually 45 mionutes) after a hearing where his attorneys argued that the former president cannot get a fair jury in New York, NBC News reported.
Steven Wu, arguing for the D.A., countered that the judge should deny Trump’s eleventh-hour request. The news about Trump’s legal struggles is being read worldwide, and Manhattan jurors are not uniquely incapable of acting as fair and impartial jurors, Wu said, according to NBC.
Wu added that Trump, who regularly rails against the case on social media and the campaign trail, is responsible for the media frenzy. He cannot drum up a media circus and then use that publicity to seek a change of trial venue, Wu told Gonzalez.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:13:30 GMT -8
Want to Be Treated in a QANON Hospital?
Mike Flynn and friends are trying to gain control of the Sarasota Memorial Hospital via an election to gain seats on its board of directors.
According to The Daily Beast, the group involved in the scheme "includes Mary Flynn O’Neill, who directs her brother’s nonprofit and routinely appears on right-wing shows with QAnon conspiracy theorists; Tanya Parus, the president of Moms For America’s Sarasota chapter and co-owner of a 'freedom-based' health clinic, and Tamzin Rosenwasser, a dermatologist who once railed against the Federation of State Medical Boards’ warning to doctors who spread COVID vaccine misinformation, comparing the organization to Stalin’s secret police."
Also among their number is Dr. Stephen Guffanti, who has previously accused the hospital of battery and false imprisonment and has proclaimed COVID a "bioweapon."
They are standing in an election to fill positions on the Sarasota Memorial Hospital's board. If they win, "Health Freedom Candidates" will control a majority on the nine-person panel.
SMHl is renowned as one of the most prestigious medical centers in Florida, and experts warn that if this group, which also has ties to the Proud Boys, successfully elects representation to the board, it could damage the administration and messaging of the institution.
According to one retired doctor, their takeover would mean that “what is considered a very good hospital will be guided by a bunch of conspiracy theorists who do not believe that COVID-19 was dangerous.”
Here's a Q Tip: Don't Go to a Hospital Run By These Loons
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:15:32 GMT -8
Silver Suggests So-Long to SotomayorIf you’re someone who even vaguely cares about progressive political outcomes — someone who would rather not see a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court even if you don’t agree with liberals on every issue— you should want Sotomayor to retire and be replaced by a younger liberal justice. And — here’s the mean part — if you don’t want that, you deserve what you get. Sonia Sotomayor's retirement is a political IQ test
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2024 8:16:26 GMT -8
The Date From Hell
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said a date has been set for the invasion of the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, despite the opposition of many of the country’s allies, including the U.S.
“Victory requires entering Rafah and eliminating the terrorist battalions there,” Netanyahu said in a video posted on social media, according to The Times of Israel. “This will happen. There is a date.”
The Israeli leader provided no further details and did not disclose when the offensive would take place.
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