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LKLK (0)
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| 05-10-22 04:32pm - 863 days | #63 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Confidence in the Supreme Court is going down. Republicans are outraged. Say that the leak of the Supreme Court's business is a major disaster, that the persons responsible should be horsewhipped and then shot. The Court has the right and duty to define the law: if the Court says women should not have abortions, then God Himself must stand aside and let the law stand. Especially since Roe vs Wade was only settled law, and not written into the US Constitution. And the US Supreme Court played tricks on the American public. Before they were put on the Supreme Court, several justices said that Roe vs Wade was settled law. Only years later, did they explain that settled law is not the law, but only a temporary law, that could be changed at any time, when the Supreme Court decided that the law was unfair, or not proper, or not something that was God-fearing. ------- ------- Poll: Confidence in Supreme Court has collapsed since conservatives took control Yahoo News Andrew Romano May 10, 2022, 5:24 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that Americans’ confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court has collapsed over the last 20 months — a period that began with former President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans installing a 6-3 conservative majority ahead of the 2020 election and culminated last week with the leak of a draft opinion signaling that five GOP-appointed justices plan to overturn Roe v. Wade. The last time Yahoo News/YouGov asked about confidence in the court was in September 2020, a few days after liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and a few days before Trump nominated conservative jurist Amy Coney Barrett to replace her. Back then, 70% of registered voters said they had either “some” (50%) or “a lot” (20%) of confidence in the court, and 30% said they had either “a little” (23%) or “none” (7%). A pro-abortion-rights activist holds up a sign during a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. A pro-abortion-rights activist holds up a sign during a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on May 3 in response to the leaked draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) But the new survey of 1,577 U.S. adults, which was conducted immediately after the leak, found that registered voters have swung from mostly having confidence in the Supreme Court — by a colossal 40-point margin — to being evenly split on the question. Today, just half of voters still express some (37%) or a lot (14%) of confidence in the court, while the other half now expresses either a little (24%) or none (26%). And among all Americans — as opposed to just registered voters — most (53%) now say they have either no confidence in the Supreme Court (28%) or only a little (25%). Views on key aspects of American life rarely shift that suddenly. The question is why. On May 5, Chief Justice John Roberts blasted the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion, calling it “absolutely appalling” and saying he hopes “one bad apple” will not change “people’s perception” of the nation’s highest court. Many Republican politicians have also framed the breach of protocol — rather than the momentous opinion it revealed, or the overall direction of the court — as a threat that could “severely damage” the institution. Roberts has ordered the court’s marshal, Col. Gail A. Curley, to investigate what happened. Judge Samuel Alito in 2006. Judge Samuel Alito in 2006 before he was confirmed to the Supreme Court. (Susan Walsh/AP) But the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests that the leak itself may not be the Supreme Court’s main problem. For starters, Americans are divided over whether the leak is a “good thing” (30%), a “bad thing” (37%) or something they’re not sure about (33%). Second, politics is clearly playing a part here. Driven by an assumption that the leaker was “pro-choice” (38%) rather than “pro-life” (20%) — an assumption that has yet to be confirmed — far more Republicans consider the leak bad (59%) than good (19%), and far more Democrats consider it good (50%) than bad (20%). The ideological shift of the Supreme Court may be the bigger issue. In September 2020, 29% of registered voters saw the court as either “conservative” (25%) or “very conservative” (4%). Today, that combined number is 44%, with nearly six times as many voters as before saying “very conservative” (22%). Among registered voters who are Democrats, the share who say “conservative” or “very conservative” has shot up from 42% to 58%; among independents, it has jumped from 29% to 41%; and even among Republicans it has risen from 16% to 31%. The overall share of registered voters who describe the court as “moderate” has fallen nearly 10 points over the same period, to 30%. Abortion rights advocates outside the Supreme Court hold signs, one of which reads: This court does not care about your rights. Abortion rights advocates outside the Supreme Court on Sunday. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP) At the same time, confidence in the Supreme Court has taken a hit across the board, declining 25 points among Democrats (to 39%), 20 points among independents (to 48%) and 11 points among Republicans (to 71%). A full three-quarters of registered voters (74%) now think the court has become “too politicized” (up from 67% in September 2020), with roughly equal increases in perceptions of politicization among Democrats (up from 69% to 75%), independents (up from 70% to 76%) and Republicans (up from 65% to 73%). It isn’t hard to explain why Democrats (78% of whom believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases) and independents (54% of whom believe the same) have turned against the court; they are by and large less conservative than the justices who now control it. That also explains why the number of Democrats (65%) and independents (49%) who disapprove of the job the court is doing has doubled since September 2020. But here’s the thing: The number of Republicans who disapprove of the job the Supreme Court is doing has jumped as well, from just 17% then to 29% today. Incidentally, 31% of Republicans also believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases — suggesting that the current majority of justices may be too conservative for them too. Protesters outside the Supreme Court after the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked. Protesters outside the Supreme Court on May 2. (Anna Johnson/AP) Likewise, more Americans say they view the four justices who have reportedly voted against overturning Roe v. Wade favorably than unfavorably: Justice Sonia Sotomayor (37% favorable vs. 27% favorable); Justice Elena Kagan (32% favorable vs. 23% unfavorable); Justice Stephen Breyer (33% favorable vs. 22% unfavorable); and Chief Justice Roberts (32% favorable to 28% unfavorable). In contrast, all five of the conservative justices who have reportedly voted to overturn Roe are viewed more unfavorably than favorably. So while politicization is a problem that everyone seems to recognize, and bemoan, declining confidence in the court probably has less to do with protocol than policy. A growing number of Americans — Democrats, independents and even some Republicans — disapprove of the Supreme Court for the simple reason that they disagree with its new direction. ______________ The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,577 U.S. adults interviewed online from May 3 to 6, 2022. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as well as 2020 presidential vote (or nonvote) and voter registration status. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.7%. | |
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| 05-10-22 04:19pm - 863 days | #62 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Prince Charles takes over for his mother, Queen Elizabeth. Did Charles grow tired of waiting to take the throne? Did he throw his mother under the bus, the same way he threw Diana? Enquiring minds want to know: Has Charles been taking lessons from Donald Trump in inciting the troops to claim the throne? ---- ---- Prince Charles delivers Queen's Speech for the first time Reuters Kate Holton and Paul Sandle May 10, 2022, 8:46 AM By Kate Holton and Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and Prince William took centre stage amid the pomp and pageantry of the opening of parliament on Tuesday, replacing the 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth who missed the grand set-piece event with health issues. With the queen forced to withdraw for the first time in almost 60 years, Charles stepped in to read out the government's legislative agenda at the Palace of Westminster, the first time he has taken on such a major constitutional duty. The queen, the world's oldest and longest-reigning monarch, has been absent from nearly all high-profile public events in recent months. She was forced to miss the speech due to a recurrence of mobility issues. Charles, who had attended the opening of parliament alongside his mother in recent years, wore an admiral's uniform to read out the agenda from a throne. While the queen would announce "My Government will," Prince Charles said "Her majesty's government will...". The State Opening of Parliament is an event of huge pomp and pageantry which traditionally sees the queen travelling to the assembly in a State Coach, escorted by mounted soldiers in ceremonial uniform, while the Imperial State Crown and other regalia travel ahead in a carriage of their own. The ceremony, which occurs in spring or after a national election, embodies the centuries-old separation of power between the Crown, the elected House of Commons, the House of Lords and the judiciary. The monarch dons the Robe of State before leading a procession to the upper chamber where she formally opens a new session of parliament, reading a speech written by the government outlining its legislative plans. She reads the document in a formal and neutral tone to avoid any sense of approval or disapproval of the policies, an approach also taken by her son on Tuesday. Charles, seated beside the queen's crown and flanked by his eldest son William and his wife Camilla, delivered the speech to lawmakers and lords dressed in red ceremonial robes. The queen has only missed the occasion twice during her 70-year reign - in 1959, and 1963, when she was pregnant with sons Andrew and Edward. In order to authorise Charles and William to carry out the role on her behalf, the queen had to issue a 'Letters Patent'. A palace source said no other functions had been delegated by Elizabeth. The queen is next expected to be seen in public during four days of celebration in June to mark her Platinum Jubilee. Buckingham Palace said last week she was planning to attend most major events during the celebrations but her presence would not be confirmed until on the day. (Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Paul Sandle, Alexandra Hudson) | |
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| 05-10-22 09:51am - 863 days | #61 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Cops admit they can't help a women's lacrosse team if they don't admit they are guilty of crimes. Why can't the cops tell the girls that they (the girls) can plead guilty to serious crimes, before the cops find evidence of their guilt? Innocent until proven guilty is the law, but cops don't realize this. Instead, cops are told to treat suspects with suspicion, until the suspects lawyers arrive to protect the suspects. The women were from a different state. That was suspicious. And the women were travelling in a bus, which was also suspicious. Never trust a bus rider, they can be armed and dangerous. However, many of the girls on the bus were of the black race. This made them suspects who might have been smuggling drugs. Thanks to the efforts of the police, the suspects were cleared of suspicion of drug smuggling. We can be grateful to the cops for clearing up the drug-related search, without killing any of the women bus-riders. Power to the people. ------- ------- Delaware State University 'incensed' after lacrosse team's bus stopped, searched in Georgia USA TODAY Kevin Tresolini May 10, 2022, 6:54 AM A college women's lacrosse team feels traumatized after its charter bus was stopped by police while traveling through Georgia, an incident that has left the school's president "incensed." The Delaware State University women’s lacrosse team was traveling north on I-95 in Liberty County, Georgia, southwest of Savannah, on April 20. The Hornets were returning home after playing their final game of the season at Stetson University in Deland, Florida, on April 19. Bus driver Tim Jones was initially told he was improperly traveling in the left lane when the bus was pulled over, according to DSU’s student publication The Hornet Newspaper and its website thehornetonline.com. The incident was first detailed there in a story that published Friday written by Sydney Anderson, a sophomore lacrosse player who was on the bus. Liberty County , Georgia, deputies search the Delaware State women's lacrosse team's luggage in a photo taken by a player from the bus. Liberty County , Georgia, deputies search the Delaware State women's lacrosse team's luggage in a photo taken by a player from the bus. Video accompanying the story taken by DSU player Saniya Craft shows an officer saying, "If there is anything in y’all’s luggage, we’re probably gonna find it, OK? I’m not looking for a little bit of marijuana but I’m pretty sure you guys’ chaperones are probably gonna be disappointed in you if we find any." By that time, Liberty County Sheriff’s Office deputies had begun removing players’ bags from the vehicle’s cargo bay to search after asking Jones to open it. Police had a drug-sniffing dog at the scene. Deputies knew those on board were on a lacrosse team. "If there is something in there that’s questionable," the deputy speaking on the bus said, "please tell me now, because if we find it, guess what? We’re not gonna be able to help you." The law enforcement personnel on and outside the bus were white in photos and video accompanying thehornetonline.com’s account. Most, but not all, of the players and coaches on the bus were Black. DSU president Tony Allen informed the university community about the incident in a letter early Monday. In it, Allen said DSU has informed Delaware Gov. John Carney, the state Attorney General’s office, Delaware’s congressional delegation and the Congressional Black Caucus about the incident. "They, like me, are incensed," Allen wrote. "We have also reached out to Georgia Law Enforcement and are exploring options for recourse – legal and otherwise – available to our student-athletes, our coaches, and the university." Delaware State women's lacrosse coach Pamella Jenkins. Delaware State women's lacrosse coach Pamella Jenkins. Delaware State coach Pamella Jenkins called the incident "very traumatizing" on Monday and credited team members for staying "composed." When team members saw their luggage being removed before a deputy had begun his explanation, they were stunned, Jenkins said. "The infuriating thing was the assumption of guilt on their (deputies'  behalf," Jenkins said. "That was what made me so upset because I trust my girls.""One of my student-athletes asked them ‘How did we go from a routine traffic stop to narcotics-sniffing dogs going through our belongings?’ " Jenkins said. "The police officer said that on this stretch of highway there are a lot of buses that are smuggling people and narcotics and they have to be diligent.’ " Gov. Carney released a statement Monday calling the video "upsetting, concerning and disappointing." "Moments like these should be relegated to part of our country’s complicated history," Carney said, "but they continue to occur with sad regularity in communities across our country. It’s especially hard when it impacts our own community." When contacted Monday morning, the Liberty County Sheriff's Office said it would have a statement by the end of the day but nothing was provided. In bold type, Allen also wrote in his email to the DSU community: "We do not intend to let this or any other incident like it pass idly by. We are prepared to go wherever the evidence leads us. We have video. We have allies. Perhaps more significantly, we have the courage of our convictions." The Atlantic Sun Conference member Hornets had also played at Kennesaw State in Georgia on April 16 and Jacksonville University in Florida on April 18. During the stop, the officer told those on the bus that "marijuana is still illegal in the state of Georgia." He then mentioned, "anything you can put marijuana in" to smoke it or devices used to weigh it "like a set of scales," suggesting they are also unlawful without actually saying so. Tony Allen Tony Allen The bus was stopped for 30 to 45 minutes, Jenkins said. At one point, a deputy stepped onto the bus holding a gift-wrapped box and summoned the person whose name was on it – senior Aniya Aiken, who happens to be from Decatur, Georgia. Aiken was asked where she received the package, Jenkins said. It was from family members who’d seen the team play at Kennesaw State. Asked what was inside, Aiken said she was told by her aunt not to open the gift until she got back to campus. "He said ‘You accepted something and you don’t know what it is?’ " Jenkins said, and the deputy was told again it was a gift to be opened later. The deputy returned to the cargo bay with the gift, which was then opened. "Maybe another 10 minutes after that they come on the bus and they say ‘You’re free to leave, have a safe trip," Jenkins said. The driver was not issued a citation. When Aiken retrieved her gift later she found a jewelry box that was a graduation present. Brianne Johanson in action for Delaware State in lacrosse. Brianne Johanson in action for Delaware State in lacrosse. "To be clear," Allen wrote, "nothing illegal was discovered in this search, and all of our coaches and student-athletes comported themselves with dignity throughout a trying and humiliating process." In a joint statement, Delaware U.S. Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons and U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester termed the situation "deeply disturbing." "No one should be made to feel unsafe or humiliated by law enforcement or any entity who has sworn to protect and serve them," the statement read. "That’s especially true for students who have sought out HBCUs like Delaware State University with a long history of empowering communities of color that have far too often faced discrimination and other barriers to opportunity." Delaware State’s commencement exercises are Saturday morning at Alumni Stadium. Among the speakers is former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is expected to address the incident. The episode took place during a year in which Delaware State and other Historically Black Colleges and Universities have repeatedly been the victims of bomb threats. "It should not be lost on any of us," Allen wrote, "how thin any day’s line is between customary and extraordinary, between humdrum and exceptional, between safe and victimized. That is true for us all but particularly so for communities of color and the institutions who serve them. The resultant feelings of disempowerment are always the aggressors’ object." Follow Kevin Tresolini on Twitter @kevintresolini. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware State lacrosse team's bus stopped and searched in Georgia | |
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| 05-10-22 05:51am - 863 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
What is Amber Heard sniffing as she testifies on the trial vs Johnny Depp? Nevertheless, fans around the world found a video of Hears sniffing a tissue in a non-conventional way. Social media users started making their own wild assumptions and creating theories as the video went viral. Many social media users believe Amber Hears is sniffing cocaine during the trial. What was Amber Heard sniffing? Amber Heard sniffs something from the tissue. The zoom image makes it obvious. Nevertheless, it is not probable that she was sniffing cocaine as rabid Twitter users point out. There are harsh penalties for consuming or carrying drugs in a courthouse. And the security teams make sure you don't carry any illegal substances. What is it then? In the second video, we can see Amber Heard doesn't take any tissue. It seems Amber Heard takes the tissue from her sleeve. She rolls her left sleeve with so much caution compared to the right one. Menthol is the secret weapon to cry on TV When Anna Faris visited The Late Show with James Corden, she said "crying sucks." For actors and actresses, crying represents a real challenge. Sometimes it is not natural to cry on set and in front of the cameras. Farris showed there's a "crying stick" that helps her cry when she has a sad scene. "This is like a menthol crystal," she described while holding the object. "It is kind of Vick's Vapor Rub." There's an interesting chance that Amber Heard was sniffing menthol during the trial. In such a dramatic episode, tears always help convince the jury. | |
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| 05-09-22 10:29am - 864 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
mommysboy.com Part of Adult Time network. Milf, faux incest, lots of models with boob jobs. | |
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| 05-09-22 09:26am - 864 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Joe Manchin is supposed to be a Democrat. But he's really a secret Republican, who votes with his Republican colleagues more often than he votes with Democrats. As a politician, Manchin must vote with his heart. And if his heart is Republican, that's the way he will vote. ------- ------- Joe Manchin becomes a villain in the 2022 Democratic primaries NBC Universal Sahil Kapur and Garrett Haake and Haley Talbot May 9, 2022, 1:30 AM WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Manchin has been labeled the most powerful man in Washington for his willingness to single-handedly tank President Joe Biden’s agenda. But on the Democratic campaign trail in 2022, Manchin, the centrist from West Virginia, is a target of derision. Democrats with some conservative policy positions are being scornfully compared to him by rivals appealing to primary voters to carry the party’s torch. Manchin has become a one-man power center in the 50-50 Senate, flexing his muscles for and against his party as he represents a ruby-red state Biden lost by 39 points. Jessica Cisneros, who is seeking to unseat Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas in a competitive primary runoff May 24, likened Cuellar to Manchin for his willingness to be the only House Democrat to vote against legislation to codify abortion rights. “There’s so many key issues where he’s always siding with Republicans, and he could become the Joe Manchin of the House,” Cisneros said Thursday on MSNBC. “We don’t want Henry Cuellar to be the deciding vote on the future of our fundamental freedoms and rights in this country. We can’t risk that.” For Democrats like Cisneros, Manchin serves as a foil to paint moderate rivals as stymieing Biden's agenda, which could be a way not only to attract progressive votes but also send a signal to moderate pro-Biden Democrats in primaries. It remains to be seen whether the tactic will be successful. And for a Democrat hanging on in a Republican state, the criticisms from within his party may only burnish his image as a maverick. Cuellar, in an interview, defended his stance on abortion and said he supports funding for Planned Parenthood. “The Democratic Party was set up to be a big-tent party where you allow different people from different ideas, philosophies,” he said. “We should not purify people and say you have to be 100 percent like me.” In a competitive primary in Oregon, Rep. Kurt Schrader, an elusive vote for Biden’s priorities, is being compared to Manchin by Democratic rival Jamie McLeod-Skinner. “He’s like the Joe Manchin of the House,” McLeod-Skinner said in an interview. “Just like Joe Manchin right now is blocking our country moving forward on some really important recovery legislation and agenda, Kurt has blocked and stripped things out and watered things down in the House.” McLeod-Skinner cited Schrader’s vote in committee to reject the party's prescription drug savings policy in the Build Back Better Act, which forced Democrats to curtail it. She also noted his calls to break off infrastructure into a separate bill and his initial vote against the American Rescue Plan before he supported it in the end. Campaign spokeswoman Deb Barnes defended Schrader's "record of delivering results for Oregon," saying he has "been a partner to the Biden administration, helping to build the Build Back Better Act that allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and cap the cost of insulin." In a testy Pennsylvania Senate primary, Democratic front-runner John Fetterman has promised voters that he won’t be a “Joe Manchin Democrat,” criticizing Manchin's opposition to a $15-an-hour minimum wage and resistance to Biden’s economic agenda. When his chief rival, Rep. Conor Lamb, sought to tie Fetterman to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a recent debate, Fetterman reminded voters that Lamb has been endorsed by Manchin. “Say what you will about Bernie Sanders — at least he supported and voted for Joe Biden’s agenda, as opposed to Joe Manchin, your mentor and someone that’s endorsed you in this 2022 race,” Fetterman told Lamb onstage. Lamb responded, “First of all, I’m just not sure who John thinks he’s sharing the stage with.” He noted his strong support in the House for the elements of Biden’s agenda. Asked about the campaign trail criticisms of him from Fetterman and others, Manchin said in an interview: “I don’t know John and them. “I would like to think there’s responsible Democrats like me. And I would like to work with all of them. I would like to think that, you know, we’re all in this together. I don’t know these people who are talking about me. But I’m happy to sit down and talk to them.” It's not clear how successful the tactic will be. Nina Turner, a progressive Democrat and frequent Manchin critic who took on Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, in a primary, was defeated by a wide margin Tuesday in a rematch of a special election last year. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., asked about the criticisms of his colleagues, said only that some Democrats, including him, are “frustrated that we’re not doing more with the majority that the voters gave us.” “We got the majority, and under unusual circumstances, we got it on Jan. 6, when the Capitol was under attack. I think people expected us to act with a sense of urgency because of the circumstances under which we got it,” Kaine said. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who has worked with Manchin on various bipartisan projects, said only, “Joe Manchin is a friend of mine.” He paused, then added: “A good friend of mine. Just went out with him the other night.” Republicans, who have cheered on Manchin’s willingness to scale back or kill elements of Biden’s agenda, are full of praise for him. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, hailed Manchin as “the one Democrat” who understands that “inflation is a real problem,” that “American energy is important for our national security” and that the U.S. needs “a secure border.” “I work closely with him on the Energy Committee, and I think he is focused on the right issues,” Barrasso said. “And the Democrats — as well as the president, the other Joe — is refusing to face the reality that the American people are facing.” More recently, Manchin has weighed in on a Republican House primary, cutting a TV ad backing one GOP candidate over another. Asked whether Manchin has influence over Republican-leaning voters, Barrasso responded: “It’s West Virginia. It’s his home state. He seems to be popular.” | |
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| 05-09-22 04:58am - 864 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
White House says 20 internet companies will provide effectively free internet to millions of Americans Yahoo Finance Ben Werschkul May 9, 2022, 2:48 AM The Biden administration announced Monday that 20 leading internet service providers have agreed to offer basic low cost plans that will be free for millions of Americans after a refund. The 20 companies, including AT&T (T), Comcast (CMCSA), and Verizon (VZ), cover more than 80% of the U.S. population. They will immediately provide at least one plan that costs no more than $30 a month and provides download speeds of at least 100 mbps. The White House says that 40% of the U.S. population, about 48 million households, will be eligible to sign up through an existing program called the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). The program is aimed at lower income Americans and offers participants a discount of up to $30/month on their internet bill, meaning they’ll effectively get free service if they can get online with one of these participating companies. AT&T CEO John Stankey said his company's new plan “when combined with federal ACP benefits, provides up to 100 Mbps of free internet service." “Internet for all requires the partnership of business and government, and we are pleased to be working with the Administration, Congress and FCC to ensure everyone has accessible, affordable and sustainable broadband service,” he said. 'High speed internet at home is no longer a luxury' Monday's news come largely thanks to $65 billion set aside for high speed internet in the Bipartisan Infrastructure law. That money has helped fund the ACP and is also being directed towards parallel efforts to increase coverage areas and speeds. “High speed internet at home is no longer a luxury: it's a necessity for children to learn, workers to do their job, seniors and others to access health care through telemedicine, and for all of us to stay connected in this digital world,” a senior administration official told reporters in previewing the announcement. ‘A historic opportunity’ Families are eligible for the ACP mostly based on income level. Any household making less than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level — $55,500 for a family of four in the continental U.S. — is eligible. Households can also qualify if they participate in certain government programs like Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income. “The Affordable Connectivity Program is a historic opportunity to close the digital divide by empowering more Americans to get online and connect to our increasingly digital world, “ said David N. Watson, the CEO and president of Comcast. The full list of participating companies includes Allo Communications, AltaFiber, Altice USA, Astound, AT&T, Breezeline, Comcast, Comporium, Frontier, IdeaTek, Cox Communications, Jackson Energy Authority, MediaCom, MLGC, Spectrum, Verizon, Vermont Telephone Company, Vexus Fiber, and Wow! Internet, Cable, and TV. Verizon, as an example, will now offer its existing Fios service for $30/month to program participants. Other companies, like Spectrum, say they will increase the speeds of an existing $30/month plan to reach the 100 mbps standard set by the White House, where their infrastructure allows it. Pushing more companies to 'make the same commitments' Notably missing from Monday's announcement are many smaller and rural internet service providers that would have a challenge meeting the White House's pricing or speed requirements. “I think that there are roughly 1,300 participating internet providers in the ACP right now and we would obviously love for each and every one of them to make the same commitments that these 20 companies are doing,” said a senior administration official. WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 14: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks on the Biden administration’s Affordable Connectivity Program at the South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Office Building on February 14, 2022 in Washington, DC. During the event Harris announced that 10 million households had enrolled in the program which helps families access high-speed, affordable internet. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Vice President Kamala Harris discusses the Affordable Connectivity Program in February. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) These companies cover 50% of the rural population. Those Americans are still eligible to sign up for the ACP, but they may continue to face slower speed or plans that aren't fully covered by the $30 refund. So far, 11.5 million households have signed up to receive ACP benefits. The program was first created as a relief measure in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, and Biden officials have moved to make it a permanent as a way to lessen the digital divide. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will speak at the White House Monday alongside internet company CEOs as the first part of a multi-pronged effort to drive signups. That effort includes a new website, GetInternet.gov, and direct outreach from federal agencies like the Social Security Administration as well as states. Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC. | |
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| 05-09-22 04:52am - 865 days | #60 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald Trump will be starring in a new TV series called "House of the Dragon". This will also have Vlad Putin and be set in Mother Russia. Trump is leaving Florida to move to Russia, where the US can't extradite Trump for any criminal acts he might have done before, during and after he was President of the Untied States of Trumperland. Also, Putin has said that Russia will back Trump's claims against the US for illegal asset forfeiture, a scheme devised by Democrats to seize the property of upstanding Republicans who are fighting to make America great again. Never before has the US acted so brazenly in taking away properties from citizens fighting for the values that make Mother Russia and the Untied States of Trumperland fill our hearts with pride and admiration for God and Country. | |
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| 05-09-22 03:19am - 865 days | #59 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Putin cries over the death of Russian soldiers. Says they are dying to protect Mother Russia from Nazis in Ukraine. Says Donald Trump will soon visit Russia where the Untied States of Trumperland and Mother Russia will join together to put down Nazis. But is Putin aware that Donald Trump is Hitler's secret love child? Or that Putin and Trump are related by blood, that Hitler's blood runs in Putin's veins? What is the secret history of Trump and Putin, where they share a common ancestry? Enquiring minds want to know: have Trump and Putin shared the same women? Only by exposing the truth can we be free. ---- ---- Putin channels memory of Hitler's defeat to urge victory in Ukraine Reuters Mark Trevelyan May 9, 2022, 2:08 AM LONDON (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin evoked the memory of Soviet heroism in World War 2 on Monday to urge his army towards victory in Ukraine but acknowledged the cost in Russian lives as he pledged to help the families of fallen soldiers. Addressing massed ranks of service personnel on Red Square on the 77th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, Putin condemned what he called external threats to weaken and split Russia, and repeated familiar arguments that he had used to justify Russia's invasion - that NATO was creating threats right next to its borders. He directly addressed soldiers fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which Russia has pledged to "liberate" from Kyiv's control. "You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War Two. So that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers and Nazis," he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Victory Day Parade in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Victory Day Parade in Moscow. His speech included a minute of silence. "The death of each one of our soldiers and officers is our shared grief and an irreparable loss for their friends and relatives," said Putin, promising that the state would look after their children and families. But his 11-minute speech, on day 75 of the invasion, was largely notable for what he did not say. He did not mention Ukraine by name, gave no assessment of progress in the war and offered no indication of how long it might continue. There was no mention of the bloody battle for Mariupol, where Ukrainian defenders holed up in the ruins of the Azovstal steel works are still defying Russia's assault. Putin has repeatedly likened the war - which he casts as a battle against dangerous "Nazi"-inspired nationalists in Ukraine - to the challenge the Soviet Union faced when Adolf Hitler invaded in 1941. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said it is Russia that is staging a "bloody re-enactment of Nazism" in Ukraine. | |
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| 05-08-22 06:36am - 865 days | #58 | |
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Donald Trump vows to visit Afghanistan, and bring women into the 21st Century. He will allow women to dress in miniskirts, to better allow men to grab them by their pussies. Trump advises sexual freedom for everyone. As part of the Untied States of Trumperland. Vote for Trump, and you too will gain greater freedom. ------ ------ Afghanistan's Taliban order women to cover up head to toe Associated Press May 7, 2022, 2:06 PM KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Saturday ordered all Afghan women to wear head-to-toe clothing in public — a sharp, hard-line pivot that confirmed the worst fears of rights activists and was bound to further complicate Taliban dealings with an already distrustful international community. The decree says that women should leave the home only when necessary, and that male relatives would face punishment — starting with a summons and escalating up to court hearings and jail time — for women's dress code violations. It was the latest in a series of repressive edicts issued by the Taliban leadership, not all of which have been implemented. Last month for example the Taliban forbade women to travel alone, but after a day of opposition, that has since been silently ignored. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it was deeply concerned with what appeared to be a formal directive that would be implemented and enforced, adding that it would seek clarifications from the Taliban about the decision. “This decision contradicts numerous assurances regarding respect for and protection of all Afghans’ human rights, including those of women and girls, that had been provided to the international community by Taliban representatives during discussions and negotiations over the past decade,” it said in a statement. The decree, which calls for women to only show their eyes and recommends they wear the head-to-toe burqa, evoked similar restrictions on women during the Taliban's previous rule between 1996 and 2001. “We want our sisters to live with dignity and safety,” said Khalid Hanafi, acting minister for the Taliban’s vice and virtue ministry. The Taliban previously decided against reopening schools to girls above grade 6, reneging on an earlier promise and opting to appease their hard-line base at the expense of further alienating the international community. But this decree does not have widespread support among a leadership that's divided between pragmatists and the hardliners. That decision disrupted efforts by the Taliban to win recognition from potential international donors at a time when the country is mired in a worsening humanitarian crisis. “For all dignified Afghan women wearing Hijab is necessary and the best Hijab is chadori (the head-to-toe burqa) which is part of our tradition and is respectful,” said Shir Mohammad, an official from the vice and virtue ministry in a statement. “Those women who are not too old or young must cover their face, except the eyes,” he said. “Islamic principles and Islamic ideology are more important to us than anything else,” Hanafi said. Senior Afghanistan researcher Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch urged the international community to put coordinated pressure on the Taliban. “(It is) far past time for a serious and strategic response to the Taliban’s escalating assault on women’s rights," she wrote on Twitter. The Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and returned to power after America’s chaotic departure last year. The White National Security Council condemned the Taliban's Saturday decree and urged them to immediately reverse it. "We are discussing this with other countries and partners. The legitimacy and support that the Taliban seeks from the international community depend entirely on their conduct, specifically their ability to back stated commitments with actions,” it said in a statement. Since taking power last August, the Taliban leadership has been squabbling among themselves as they struggle to transition from war to governing. It has pit hard-liners against the more pragmatic among them. A spokeswoman from Pangea, an Italian non-governmental organization that has assisted women for years in Afghanistan, said the new decree would be particularly difficult for them to swallow since they had lived in relative freedom until the Taliban takeover. “In the last 20 years, they have had the awareness of human rights, and in the span of a few months have lost them," Silvia Redigolo said by telephone. "It’s dramatic to (now) have a life that doesn’t exist,’’ she said. Infuriating many Afghans is the knowledge that many of the Taliban of the younger generation, like Sirajuddin Haqqani, are educating their girls in Pakistan, while in Afghanistan women and girls have been targeted by their repressive edicts since taking power. Girls have been banned from school beyond grade 6 in most of the country since the Taliban’s return. Universities opened earlier this year in much of the country, but since taking power the Taliban edicts have been erratic. While a handful of provinces continued to provide education to all, most provinces closed educational institutions for girls and women. The religiously driven Taliban administration fears that going forward with enrolling girls beyond the the sixth grade could alienate their rural base, Hashmi said. In the capital, Kabul, private schools and universities have operated uninterrupted. | |
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| 05-08-22 05:33am - 865 days | #57 | |
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President Trump comes out swinging. Everyone knows that President Trump is one big swinging dick. He has boasted that as a celebrity, he's got the right to grab women by their pussies. Now he is standing behind his friends, saying they also have the right to grab women's pussies. As a President, and even more as a celebrity, Trump stands up for the rights of men to fondle women. Vote for Trump, and he will work to make America and the Untied States of Trumperland Free, White, and Home to Nubile Teens. ---- ---- At least 9 midterm candidates face misconduct or abuse allegations. Will voters care? USA TODAY Phillip M. Bailey and Dylan Wells May 7, 2022, 2:01 AM Eric Greitens looks on before speaking at an event near the capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. on May 17, 2018. WASHINGTON – When former President Donald Trump trekked to Nebraska this month he didn't avoid the controversy orbiting Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles W. Herbster, who has been accused of groping by eight women. Herbster is a “very good man” who was "the most innocent human" the former president told Cornhusker State voters during the May 1 rally. "He's been badly maligned and it's a shame," Trump said. "That's why I came out here. I defend people when I know they're good... I defend my friends." The agribusiness executive has denied the allegations, but a bipartisan group of Nebraska state senators put have slammed Herbster's behavior as "disqualifying." Trump himself is no stranger to allegations of sexual misconduct, having been accused by multiple women over the course of his career. The former president also has denied the allegations against him. Yet Herbster is not the only candidate in the 2022 midterm elections who is being accused of sexual misconduct or domestic abuse. USA TODAY identified at least nine candidates, mostly Republican men, running for Congress or governor who have been stung with a range of accusations that could plague their campaign, from sexual harassment to stalking and domestic abuse. Mirya Homan, an associate professor at Tulane University, said signals from leadership help shape how partisan voters view the significance of such allegations. Trump campaigning and endorsing candidates facing allegations, like Herbster, "sends a signal to Republican voters that it's something that doesn't matter to the party." And part of the reason those issues haven't been brought to the forefront in the primary season, according to Kelly Dittmar, a professor at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, is because of how different electorates respond to those claims. "Unfortunately, it has become partisan in some ways, because the perceptions of even what sexual harassment is and also perceptions of sexism, and what that entails, vary by ideology and party," she said. Polling suggests large swaths of American voters do care about such accusations when hurled against political candidates. A survey conducted by Morning Consult/Politico last month, for instance, found 75% of registered voters saying it would be a "major problem" for them to support a candidate accused of sexual misconduct or abuse. That compares to 14% who said it would be a minor problem and 4% who said it wouldn't be one at all. Another 74% said the same thing about a candidate who is accused of domestic violence versus 17% who called it a minor problem and 3% who said it wasn't one. Eighty-three percent of Democrats, for instance, expressed how a sexual misconduct or abuse allegation would be a serious problem compared to 66% of GOP respondents. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who is now an independent, said the poll's findings could play a role later in the 2022 election cycle. "It seems to me the Democrats have so many opportunities to show just how out of the mainstream Republicans are," Scarborough said during his TV program, "Morning Joe" on Wednesday. Holman tied the partisan divide on sexual misconduct to the Trump administration. "Until the #Metoo movement and Trump, I wouldn't say allegations mattered to voters of either party," said Holman. Then, she said, following allegations against Trump and his appointment of Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who faced allegations of sexual misconduct – Democrats began to care more about such accusations. "All of a sudden Democrats care about whether or not their candidates are accused," Horman said. In Georgia, Trump has endorsed former NFL running back Herschel Walker, a top GOP recruit. Walker's ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, said Walker threatened to kill her during their marriage. Grossman said Walker held a razor to her throat, and in another instance held a gun to her head and said "he was going to blow my brains out," per CNN. Another woman said Walker threatened and stalked her, according to a police report obtained by CNN. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, another woman, Myka Dean, said Walker threatened to "blow her head off" and then kill himself when she attempted to end their relationship. Walker has blamed his threats to his wife on dissociative identity disorder. The Walker campaign did not respond to an interview request. Trump has yet to endorse in Missouri, where former Gov. Eric Greitens is running for the GOP nomination for Senate. Greitens resigned in 2018 amid allegations he sexually assaulted and blackmailed his mistress and stole donor data from a charity he founded. A special investigative report from the Missouri legislature found that a women felt coerced into performing oral sex on Greitens, who the woman said claimed to have taken a compromising photo of her which he threatened to release if she told anyone. Last month, court records revealed that Greitens' ex-wife said the former governor was physically abusive and exhibited "unstable and coercive behavior" that led to steps being taken to limit his access to guns. Greitens did not respond to an interview request. Endorsements: Jayapal issues midterm endorsements in effort to boost progressives Candidates facing allegations At leave five Republicans running for the House of Representatives have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, ranging from showing coworkers photos of a male genitals without their consent to sex trafficking and physical abuse. Federal authorities are investigating whether GOP Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is running for reelection, obstructed justice in a sex crimes inquiry. Gaetz is also under investigation to determine if he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him across state lines. Gaetz case: DOJ examining whether Rep. Matt Gaetz obstructed justice in sex crimes inquiry In Ohio, former Trump aide Max Miller is seeking election in the 7th Congressional District. Politico reported that after former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham accused Miller of cheating on her, he pushed her against the wall and slapped her. The Times Leader reports that Pennsylvania GOP candidate Mike Marsicano's ex-wife said that he threatened to kill her and physically abused her, including choking her, throwing her across the room and busting her lip with a shoe. She said Marsicano said she could do nothing about the abuse because he, as mayor of Hazleton, had "control of the law." Marsicano is running in Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District. Derrick Van Orden, who is running in Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District, wrote in his 2015 book “Book of Man: A Navy Seal’s Guide to the Lost Art of Manhood" that he exposed a man's genitals to two female officers. According to the Huffington Post, Van Orden described the unsuspecting officers as "cute girls." Van Orden has been named a "Young Gun" candidate by the National Republican Campaign Committee, a program that requires candidates to meet a series of NRCC benchmarks to establish a clear path to victory that has helped elect more than 150 members of Congress. In North Carolina, Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn is seeking reelection. BuzzFeed News reported that four women said Cawthorn was "aggressive, misogynistic, or predatory toward them." The allegations ranged from Cawthorn using derogatory language toward them to nonconsensual kissing and touching. While most candidates have either denied or declined to address allegations of domestic abuse, sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior, Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez took a different approach. In a 2018 YouTube video, Lopez, admitted to a domestic violence incident with his wife almost three decades ago. He was accused of pushing his wife, who was six months pregnant, to the floor and kicking her after she struck him. Lopez and his wife pleaded guilty to a single charge of harassment, according to reports. "It happened one time, and this is a very traumatic event for anyone to go through," said Lopez, who was joined by his wife in the YouTube video. "But really, the test of love, the test of character, is how you come out of it. And we are united. We are a team." Democrats face accusations, too Republicans might make up the bulk of 2022 contenders who’ve seen their campaigns stained by domestic or sexual misconduct allegations, but Democrats aren’t without blemish. When former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was first accused of sexual harassment by multiple women in his office, other Democrats spoke out before he ultimately resigned in late 2021. Among those critics was New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who sided with the women staffers against Cuomo. “We have to take seriously all these allegations, and I’m frankly in that group of elected leaders that you believe the individual,” Grisham said during a March 2021 interview with The Washington Post. But Grisham has been stung by her own controversy: a former campaign staffer came forward with claims of mistreatment. | |
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| 05-07-22 04:34pm - 866 days | #56 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump is rallying the troops to vote for Oz. Oz is the greatest emperor of the Fabled City that Dorothy visited when sick. Vote for Oz, and he will make you well again. ----- ----- Trump avoids talking abortion ruling, pitches Oz endorsement at Pennsylvania rally Yahoo News Christopher Wilson May 7, 2022, 7:17 AM GREENSBURG, Pa. — Former President Donald Trump spent a soggy Friday evening rally avoiding mentioning the topic of abortion, and instead promoting election conspiracy theories and pitching a skeptical crowd on his pick for Pennsylvania’s Senate race. A consistent, all-day rain turned the Westmoreland Fairgrounds outside Pittsburgh into a muddy pit, but many braved the weather for the event with Trump and Dr. Mehmet Oz, whom he has endorsed in a competitive Senate primary to fill the seat of Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring. “Dr. Oz, I’ve known him a long time,” Trump said of the cardiothoracic surgeon and former daytime TV host. “His show is great. He’s on that screen, he’s in the bedrooms of all those women telling them good and bad, and they love him. He came into a place where we had a lot of women sitting there waiting for something unrelated, they started going crazy, ‘Is that Dr. Oz?’” The crowd gave Oz a mixed reaction when Trump mentioned him during his remarks, but the Senate candidate had received an even cooler reception earlier in the day. Hours before Trump took the stage, the attendees waiting in line at security booed an Oz video package, with some breaking into a “McCormick” chant, a reference to David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO who is Oz’s chief competitor for the GOP nomination. Donald Trump, in red MAGA baseball cap, speaks at a rally Former President Donald Trump speaking at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds in Greensburg, Pa., on Friday night. (Hannah Beier/Reuters) A number of Trump supporters said they were still deciding whom to vote for in the May 17 primary and questioning why Trump had gone with Oz. They also said they were wondering why he hadn’t made an endorsement in the crowded field for Pennsylvania's gubernatorial race. Nearly all of the merchandise available outside the gates was for Trump, with one tent offering Oz yard signs. A running theme of the evening from Trump and from many of the speakers who preceded him was falsely stating that the 2020 presidential election was stolen in Pennsylvania, a state that Joe Biden won by 80,000 votes. Those who arrived early in the afternoon were able to watch a screening of the new movie by the conservative Dinesh D’Souza, which claims to prove there was election fraud in the 2020 election based on what the Associated Press called a “flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage.” Both D’Souza and Mike Lindell,CEO of MyPillow, who is facing lawsuits for defamation associated with his efforts to overturn the election results, spoke at the rally. Dr. Mehmet Oz takes the microphone behind a placard saying: Save America, President Donald J. Trump, Text Pennsylvania to 88022, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican candidate in Pennsylvania's Senate primary election May 17, speaks at the rally. (Hannah Beier/Reuters) Oz has raised concerns about the 2020 results since he earned Trump’s endorsement, saying last week, “I have discussed it with President Trump, and we cannot move on. … We have to be serious about what happened in 2020, and we won’t be able to address that until we can really look under the hood.” While Trump told stories about the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer, mused on Oscar ratings and inspired a “Lock Her Up” chant as he took credit for coining the moniker “Crooked Hillary,” he did not mention the leaking of a draft ruling this week, which made it seem likely that the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v. Wade and cut off abortion access for millions. His only allusion to the subject was in saying that the three justices he nominated to the bench had a big decision pending. In the leaked draft, those three justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, all voted to roll back abortion access. A Trump supporter poses for a photo with a placard saying: Trump Won. The fairgrounds were filled with Trump supporters, but some attendees booed when Oz was mentioned. (Hannah Beier/Reuters) Trump had originally endorsed Sean Parnell in the race, but Parnell dropped out last year after allegations of domestic abuse against him by his wife arose in a custody case. Among the speakers at Friday’s rally was J.D. Vance, the venture capitalist and author who won the Republican Senate primary in Ohio earlier this week. Securing Trump’s endorsement is considered a key reason why Vance emerged from a crowded field in a hotly contested race. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a choice. Are we going to have a Republican Party for the donors, for the special interests, or are we going to have a Republican Party for the people?” said Vance, in his remarks urging the crowd to support Oz. Vance's own campaign received over $10 million in support from the tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Oz’s main rival in polling and fundraising thus far is McCormick, who moved to Pennsylvania to run for the seat. (Oz moved across the border from New Jersey, and has been accused of carpetbagging by other Republicans in the race.) McCormick also courted Trump’s endorsement and was backed by Parnell. Trump’s decision to go with Oz did not sit well with some of the former president’s supporters. In his remarks, Trump described McCormick as a “liberal Wall Street Republican” and said, “He fought hard for [the endorsement], he wanted it, he hired almost every person that worked — if anyone was within 200 miles of me, he hired them. But he did want my endorsement very badly, but I just couldn’t do it.” Three women with OZ T-shirts and red plastic head coverings wait for Trump to speak. Supporters wait for Trump to speak at the rally on Friday night. (Hannah Beier/Reuters) Oz and McCormick have met in a formal debate setting twice since Trump endorsed him. At their first matchup last week, Oz touted the endorsement as a defense against every attack his opponent leveled against him. He used it more sparingly earlier this week in the second forum, eventually raising it when discussing a series of ads that McCormick has been running calling him a fake conservative, or a RINO — “Republican In Name Only.” Both men have spent millions of their own money on the race. “Trump endorsed me because he knew that these ads were as vicious towards me and untrue, as they were against him, because they were delivered by people who are scared of what we represent, which is telling the truth and pushing back hard,” Oz said, calling McCormick “Desperate Dave,” in an attempt at a Trumpian nickname. A beaming Oz shakes hands with his patron, Trump. Oz and Trump shake hands at the rainy rally in Greensburg. (Hannah Beier/Reuters) Oz and the other candidates on the stage — commentator Kathy Barnette, real estate investor and GOP fundraiser Jeff Bartos and Carla Sands, a Trump-appointed former ambassador to Denmark — attacked McCormick on his company’s ties to China. Oz has been criticized for changing his position on abortion, his opponents pointing to remarks he made in 2019 saying that he had “big-time concern” about strict laws limiting when women can receive the procedure. McCormick has also focused on Oz’s dual citizenship with Turkey and the military service he served in Turkey, calling him “compromised” at Wednesday’s debate. In March, Oz told Yahoo News that he maintained the dual citizenship in order to care for his mother and would renounce it if he were to be elected to the Senate. Oz has said that he has never been involved in Turkish politics, but ABC News published a report earlier this week that included a photo of him casting a ballot in the 2018 Turkish presidential election. On Friday morning, hours before Oz took the stage with the former president, McCormick’s campaign held a call with Mike Pompeo, who served as Trump’s CIA director and secretary of state. Pompeo, who endorsed McCormick in February, laid out his “significant national security concerns” about Oz and called for further information about his ties to the country. Oz’s campaign has called the attacks “pathetic and xenophobic.” Whoever prevails in the Republican primary is likely to face Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who has consistently maintained a double-digit lead in the Democratic primary. The race is considered a toss-up and the Democrats’ best chance at picking up a Republican seat in the 50-50 Senate this fall. | |
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| 05-07-22 11:33am - 866 days | #55 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP rage over the Supreme Court leak shows that the Supreme Court, the highest court in the Untied States of Trumperland, is corrupt and full of moles. Never before, in our history, has the Supreme Court allowed moles to disclose what is happening behind closed doors. The Supreme Court justices must be allowed to speak in private, or else common people without money or power will know what is happening in the Court. Stand behind Donald Trump, who placed conservative judges on the Court, to make sure women will be forced to have their babies without the choice of abortion. Down with Sleepy Joe Biden, the criminal who stole the White House away from Donald Trump, the man who was leading us to a Free, White, Greater Trumperland. Let us have a moment of silence and respect. Then stand together with our AK47s, 357 Magnums, and our ballistic missiles to wipe out the Democratic Party!!! | |
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| 05-07-22 09:47am - 866 days | #54 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Texas AG says bar is suing him over 2020 election challenge. Says this is not right. Says he has the right to drink and drive and to sue the federal government when the federal government is not acting properly. Says that Trump is the bestest president of the Untied States of Trumperland we've ever seen. Says that Sleepy Joe Biden is a thief and a coward, not fit to lick Mr. Trump's cowboy boots. The Texas AG also revealed that he is fighting with George P. Bush, a member of the illustrious Bush family of Texas, that has given us two presidents of the United States, the predecessor of the Untied States of Trumperland. ----- ----- Texas AG says bar is suing him over 2020 election challenge Associated Press JAKE BLEIBERG May 6, 2022, 3:17 PM DALLAS (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday that the state bar association plans to sue him over his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election based on bogus claims of fraud, raising yet another legal danger as the embattled Republican is locked in a primary runoff. Since last summer, the State Bar of Texas has been investigating complaints over Paxton's petitioning of the U.S. Supreme Court to block President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. The group has not publicly filed a suit against Paxton, but it asked an Austin-area court Friday to impose unspecified discipline on a member of his staff for alleged professional misconduct in the election suit. Paxton's top deputy, Brent Webster, was “dishonest” and made “false statements” in petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn the election, according to the bar's complaint to a Williamson County court. Webster did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Paxton said he stood behind his challenge to the “unconstitutional 2020 presidential election,” as he blasted the bar and announced an investigation into a charitable group associated with it. “I am certain that the bar will not only lose but be fully exposed for what they are: a liberal activist group masquerading as a neutral professional association,” Paxton said on Twitter. The bar, which is a branch of the Texas Supreme Court, said in a statement that “partisan political considerations play no role” in its actions. State law prohibits it from discussing investigations unless a public complaint is filed and a spokesman declined to comment. In bringing a court action against an attorney, the bar can seek punishment ranging from a written admonition to suspension or disbarment. The discipline process resembles a trial and could include both sides taking testimony and obtaining records through discovery. The bar complaints against Paxton alleged that his petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election was frivolous and unethical. The high court threw out the case and Trump’s own Justice Department found no evidence of fraud that could have changed the election’s outcome. Paxton forecast the legal action against him during the final weeks of his Republican primary runoff against state Land Commissioner George P. Bush. A two-term incumbent, Paxton drew an unusual number of primary challenges after eight of his top deputies told the FBI in 2020 that the attorney general had been using his office to benefit a wealthy donor. They accused him of bribery, abuse of office and other crimes prompting an ongoing federal investigation. Paxton has denied wrongdoing and separately pleaded not guilty in a state securities fraud case that has languished since 2015. His defense lawyer, Philip Hilder, declined to comment. Shortly after saying the bar plans to sue him, Paxton's office announced that it will be investigating the Texas Bar Foundation for “its possibly aiding and abetting the mass influx of illegal aliens.” The charitable group's board is partially appointed by the bar president. In a one-page letter the attorney general's office said the foundation has been “knowingly giving donations to entities that encourage, participate in, and fund illegal immigration at the Texas-Mexico border." The letter does not name the entities. The Texas Bar Foundation chair-elect, Alistair Dawson, said in a statement that said she was “extremely disappointed” to learn of Paxton's investigation but will nonetheless cooperate. “Had AG Paxton taken the time to come and speak with us rather than issue a press release, I am confident that he would have found no wrongdoing on the part of the foundation,” Dawson said. Gary Ratner, an attorney with Lawyers Defending American Democracy, which brought one of the complaints against Paxton, declined to comment. Kevin Moran, a Democratic Party activist in Galveston, who brought another, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment. | |
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| 05-07-22 09:35am - 866 days | #53 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump stands firm with Putin. Says if Russian soldiers were having fun with Ukraine women, it was all in good taste. Trump says, as soon as Twitter lets him back on, he will send out tweets showing people how Russia saved Ukraine from dangerous criminals. Trump is being cautious about reports that Russian soldiers are raping man and boys. Trump says women are fair game. But men and boys and tiny children should probably be left alone. Trump does admit that when missiles and other weapons of mass destruction explode, there is often collateral damage, so Ukraine should bow down and submit to Mother Russia. ------ ------ Russian soldiers accused of raping women, men and children in Ukraine Yahoo News Garin Flowers May 6, 2022, 3:40 PM Amid the devastation wrought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, accusations are emerging that Russian soldiers are raping and sexually assaulting women and girls, according to multiple authorities. This week Ukraine and United Nations officials addressed new information that men and boys are also reporting rape by Russian soldiers. “I have received reports, not yet verified ... about sexual violence cases [involving] men and boys in Ukraine,” said Pramila Patten, United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict, at a press conference Tuesday in Kyiv. She continued: “It’s hard for women and girls to report [rape] because of stigma amongst other reasons, but it’s often even harder for men and boys to report ... we have to create that safe space for all victims to report cases of sexual violence.” U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten and Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna stand together at a podium. Pramila Patten, U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, and Olha Stefanishyna, deputy Ukrainian prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, at a joint briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday. (Ukrinform/Shutterstock) In some grim testimonies, victims have reported being assaulted at gunpoint, gang-raped or forced to be watched by their loved ones as the assault occurred. Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based human rights lawyer and head of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, spoke to Yahoo News about the allegations of rampant sexual violence, including rape, inflicted upon Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces. She said she’s heard stories of rape from Ukrainian officials and from her own sources with the Euromaidan SOS civic initiative, which was created following the 2013 peaceful demonstrations and violent crackdown that eventually led to the ouster of former Russian-backed Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych. “Three days ago, one of our lawyers contacted me and [asked me] whether we have some special instruction for how to take testimonies from a man who was raped because he faced with this in his practice, and he wants to be prepared how to speak with people who suffered from sexual violence, and I provide these guidelines,” she told Yahoo News in a Zoom interview on Thursday. Oleksandra Matviichuk in a Zoom call. Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based human rights lawyer and head of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. (Yahoo News) Mounting evidence is supporting reports of horrible crimes allegedly being committed by Russian soldiers. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsman for human rights, said she has documented around two dozen cases of women and teens raped in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb that Russian troops withdrew from. “About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha. Nine of them are pregnant,” she said, according to a BBC report. Noting that they receive reports on support help lines and on the Telegram app, she added: “A 25-year-old woman called to tell us her 16-year-old sister was raped in the street in front of her. She said they were screaming ‘This will happen to every Nazi prostitute’ as they raped her sister.” Several tanks travel along a road. Pro-Russian troops drive tanks near the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 17. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters) Denisova told another terrifying story out of Bucha on her Facebook page. On April 8 she posted, “A boy, 11, raped in front of his mom’s eyes - she was tied to a chair to watch.” This is one of many updates she gives daily about children raped, stripped from their parents or killed. Russia has denied the allegations of rape by its soldiers. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “it’s a lie” when asked about sexual crimes in Bucha. Matviichuk described the difficulty of investigating this “very specific crime” of rape due to the ongoing conflict, lack of proper infrastructure, victims being stuck in occupied territories, and a reluctance on the part of victims to share their stories. She said they work with and refer sexual violence victims to the right organizations and try to supply them with the best information possible. “Sexual violence is the most hidden crime ... and survivors from sexual violence very often [don’t] report to police, even after liberation of territory, and don’t want to speak with human rights defenders about this horrible experience,” she said. “In this memo, we put the contact of medical and psychological assist initiatives who can provide assistance in [a] confidential way,” without having to report to the authorities, Matviichuk said, “which is extremely important and has to be a priority first to provide assistance.” She added that if victims do want to provide testimony, it’s best for them to have all of this information. Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, flanked by several men, speaks at a news briefing. Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova at a news briefing in Irpin, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) In Ukraine, some authorities and experts allege Russian soldiers are using rape in a number of ways — as a scare tactic, as a way to occupy an area and as an act of genocide. As much as rape is an atrocity at the hands of an individual, it could have a different impact in times of war. Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said authorities are collecting information on war crimes, including rape and torture, by Russian forces. According to Reuters, when asked about rape as a Russian strategy in the war, she said, “I am sure actually that it was a strategy. “This is, of course, to scare civil society ... to do everything to capitulate.” Matviichuk added: “My estimation, as a human rights lawyer, sexual violence is used by Russian soldiers as a part of terror in order to quickly obtain and save the control over their occupied area.” | |
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| 05-07-22 09:25am - 866 days | #52 | |
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Russia holds dress rehearsals for Victory Day parade. Offers President Trump the medal of Lenin's Honor in gratitude of Donald Trump's support in the Ukraine War ridding Ukraine of Nazi threat. Also offers Trump sanctuary, in case Sleepy Joe Biden wakes up and realizes that Trump tried to have Biden arrested and shot for trying to take the White House away from Trump. Putin and Trump will hold a meeting to discuss the best way to put Trump back in the White House and make Donald the true dictator of the Untied States of Trumperland. Putin and Trump negotiating for Trump to have his own private arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles based in Florida, which would act as a deterrent against any forces Joe Biden might send against Trump. ----- ----- Russia holds dress rehearsal for Victory Day parade Associated Press May 7, 2022, 5:33 AM MOSCOW (AP) — Russia held a dress rehearsal on Saturday for the military parade to commemorate Victory Day on May 9, when the country marks the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II. This year’s Victory Day, which falls on Monday, won’t just honor a conflict that ended 77 years ago. Many Russians will be thinking about the thousands of troops in neighboring Ukraine. Signs of support for the military have grown across the country since Feb. 24, with the letter “Z” appearing on billboards and signs in the streets and subways, and on television and social media. On Saturday, an RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile rolled through Red Square as part of the rehearsal in Moscow, with warplanes and helicopters flying overhead, troops marching in formation and self-propelled artillery vehicles rumbling past. | |
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| 05-06-22 08:57am - 867 days | #3 | |
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ARTICLE CONTINUES: Heard testified about an alleged brutal fight in Dec. 2015 where she said she passed out in the middle of Depp's attack. She claimed he even broke the bed while he was on top of her. Several photos were shown of the actress's apparent injuries. Heard said she ultimately reconciled with Depp and even went on a trip to the Bahamas with him and his kids two weeks later. While on the island, she alleged she was abused and sexually assaulted after she upset the actor. "He grabbed me... shoved his fingers inside me, but through my bathing suit," Heard testified, adding that Depp "just kind of held me there." Depp purportedly yelled, "You think you're so f****** tough, now what?" A spokesperson for Heard issued the following statement on Thursday evening: As evidenced by the statement just released, Mr. Depp's defamation claim is falling apart so rapidly that his counsel are turning from prosecutor to persecutor. They boast that Mr. Depp's story has not changed. If so, since he lost the Domestic Violence Restraining Order and he resoundingly lost the libel case in the UK, perhaps he should consider a new strategy rather than the recycled approach of attacking the victim, and refusing to take responsibility for his own conduct. If Mr. Depp was truly innocent, why has he repeatedly apologized to Ms. Heard and promised to put the 'monster away for good.' One of Ms. Heard's disappointments is Mr. Depp's inability to distinguish fact from fiction — a malady which appears to have spread to his legal team. That same team is so panicked they are fighting tooth and nail to prevent compelling evidence and photos from being introduced. Small wonder Mr. Depp does not have the fortitude or courage to even look at Ms. Heard at all throughout the proceedings — as he could not in the UK trial - and, instead he doodles and snickers. Mr. Depp's behavior in this trial has been as pitiful as it was in their marriage. Apparently, they feel they must double-down on their demonstrably losing two-part strategy: distract the jury and demonize the victim. Throughout Heard's testimony on Wednesday, Depp kept his head down and made it a point never to look at his ex-wife. Midway through the day on Thursday, it appears the two finally locked eyes. Court is adjourned until Monday, May 16 where Heard is expected to finish testifying and face cross-examination from Depp's legal team. | |
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| 05-06-22 08:54am - 867 days | #2 | |
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Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are back together again. Amber was breaking down on the witness box, in tears. Johnny was grief-stricken. He says Amber is the finest actress he's ever known. Says he wants to nominate her for an Oscar for her performance. ---- ---- Amber Heard breaks down on the stand, claims Johnny Depp penetrated her with liquor bottle Yahoo Celebrity Taryn Ryder May 5, 2022, 4:24 PM WARNING: This story includes details that are graphic in nature about sexual violence and may be disturbing to some readers. Amber Heard testified for a second day telling the jury in graphic detail how she was allegedly beaten by Johnny Depp and sexually assaulted with a liquor bottle. The 36-year-old actress spoke about multiple alleged incidents of abuse on Thursday, but the most disturbing story was from the pair's Australia trip in March 2015. The Aquaman star was emotional all day, but broke down on the stand when she was asked to tell the jury about Depp allegedly penetrating her with a bottle during a drug-fueled rampage. "I can't believe I have to," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry," Heard's attorney, Elaine Bredehof, replied. "Johnny had the bottle inside of me and was shoving it inside of me over, and over again," Heard told the court. Depp has vehemently denied Heard's claims of domestic violence and sexual assault. His spokesperson issued a statement after court about her "convoluted testimony." "As Mr. Depp's counsel correctly predicted in their opening statements last month, Ms. Heard did indeed deliver 'the performance of her life' in her direct examination. While Ms. Heard's stories have continued to grow new and convenient details, Mr. Depp's recollections have remained exactly the same throughout the six painful years since her first allegations were made," Depp's spokesperson tells Yahoo Entertainment. "His truth — the truth — is the same no matter the environment in which it is has been presented. The upcoming cross examination from Mr. Depp’s team will be most telling, and will certainly highlight the many fallacies Ms. Heard has now attempted to pass off as fact throughout her convoluted testimony." Amber Heard gets emotional on the stand testifying about Johnny Depp's alleged abuse and sexual assault. Amber Heard gets emotional on the stand testifying about Johnny Depp's alleged abuse and sexual assault. (Photo: Reuters) On Thursday, Heard testified that while in Australia where Depp was filming the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, she was abused for days. The actress said that before she arrived, she and Depp fought as he accused her of having an affair with actor Eddie Redmayne. (Heard and Redmayne were filming The Danish Girl.) "All I wanted to do was see my new husband," she said. When she arrived, she knew something was wrong. "He'd lost a ton of weight so I just knew something was up." Heard said Depp did MDMA the first night, denying his claim that he secured the drugs at her request. A fight broke out about his supposed substance use. "He shoves me up against the fridge. He has me by the throat and he just was holding me there by my throat and I wondered if it was the drugs, I wondered if it was him," she said, claiming he was "bashing me against the wall next to the fridge." Heard admitted to "screaming at" Depp and that she "slapped him across the face" before barricading herself upstairs. She eventually took medication and went to bed. The next morning, Heard said she walked downstairs and Depp "was still up." "He had not slept, he had not eaten. I tried to get him to eat. We get in an argument," she recalled, claiming Depp accused her of having an affair with Redmayne and her former co-stars, Billy Bob Thornton and Jim Sturgess. She testified Depp took "either 8 or 10 pills of MDMA." "He was just belligerent, throwing things, screaming at me," Heard explained. She told the jury she couldn't recall how "the next part of the violence" was "even initiated." "Again he has me up against the wall... I hit my head hard," Heard testified. "I remember pushing him off of me. I remember the name calling — 'whore, slut, fat ass.'" Heard claimed Depp was "squeezing my neck, it got really nasty." "At some point I shoved him hard to get him off me," she recalled. "He said, 'You wanna go little girl?'" Heard said Depp was "taunting" her with a liquor bottle. She finally got ahold of it and "slammed it down right on the ground." "That really set him off. So stupid," Heard emotionally recounted. "It was like a lightbulb switch went off. He starts screaming. I don't know if he backhanded me or hit me normally." Heard said she flew to the ground and Depp started smashing liquor bottles all over the place. "At some point he had a broken bottle up against my face," she said. "He told me he'd carve up my face... it was terrifying." Heard, who was in a nightgown, said she was trapped and Depp grabbed her "slamming me from the wall to the countertop." "I remember at one point he's teasing me, taunting me he has my breast in his hand. My nightgown came completely off, it was ripped off of me. I was naked and slipping around on this tile and trying to get my footing," Heard testified. "He's flinging me around, at some point I'm up against the wall, he's screaming at me that he f****** hates me, that I ruined his life... he starts punching the wall next to my head, holding me by the neck... I have never been so scared in my life." Heard said she "couldn't get through" to Depp and that his eyes were "black." What happened next, according to the actress, is disturbing. "The next thing I remember, I was bent over backwards on the bar meaning my chest was up," she said through tears. "I could feel this pressure on my pubic bone." Heard remembered "being really still, not wanting to move." "I remember looking around the room, I remember looking at all the broken bottles, broken glass... I didn't know if the bottle he had inside me was broken, I couldn't feel it, I couldn't feel pain," she emotionally declared. "I looked around and I saw so much broken glass that I didn't know if he would know if it was broken or not, and I just remember thinking, 'Please God please, I hope it's not broken.'" Heard said she can't remember how the assault ended. "I don't know how I got off the countertop. I just remember being in the bathroom. I remember retching, I remember the sound my voice was making, I remember I lost control of my bladder, I remember just retching. I remember there was some blood on the floor. I got up at some point," she testified. "I don't know how that night ended. I don't remember what happened." During the alleged sexual assault, Heard claimed Depp said, "I'll f****** kill you." "He said it to me over and over again," she testified, saying she bled. Heard told the court she "wasn't thinking about" the pain at the time. "I was heartbroken. Eventually I realized I could be hurt because I was bleeding, but I convinced myself... the bottle wasn't broken and the discomfort I was feeling afterwards just paled in comparison to how scared, shocked I was," Heard explained. "I just married this man." Heard said she took two sleeping pills and when she awoke on day three, she found Depp still awake, blaring Marilyn Manson music. He was injured. "I saw this brown on the walls going down the stairs... it was obvious it was dried blood," she said. "There was blood on the carpet, I could see blood drips. I thought it was from my arms or feet." When Heard located Depp, his hand was wrapped in rags. She claimed he said something like "Look what you made me do, I did this for you." Depp testified his finger was severed when Heard threw liquor bottles at him. Photos of the Australia house were shown in court and while some of the destruction is visible, it's not as demolished as one might expect. The actress said she thinks rooms were cleaned up before the pictures were taken. The bar area where #JohnnyDepp says #AmberHeard threw a vodka bottle and severed his finger and the same bar area where #AmberHeard says he sexually assualted her with a bottle. @LawCrimeNetworkpic.twitter.com/lDOPA1jrDi — Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) May 5, 2022 Heard left Australia, but not Depp. They reconciled and the actress recounted three more allegations of very violent abuse. One was two weeks later, where she said a fight ensued when she discovered he cheated on her after finding texts on his iPad. "He was texting this woman that he had a [sexual] relationship with on and off kind of at the beginning of our relationship, so I recognized the name, but the date was right after the wedding. I saw he had gone to her house after we got married," Heard said. "I freaked out. I immediately confronted him about it. I didn't care in that moment if he did kill me, which was likely confronting him at that stage of our lives. I didn't even care anymore," Heard claimed. "He had already ripped my heart out." Amid the fighting, Heard said her sister Whitney "put herself between Johnny and I." "I see my little sister with her back to the staircase... I don't hesitate, I don't wait, I just instantly think of Kate Moss and stairs and I swung at him," Heard said, referring to a rumor that there was violence in Depp and Moss's relationship. Heard admitted to punching Depp. "I hadn't landed a blow and for the first time I hit him, like actually hit him, square in the face. He didn't push my sister down the stairs," she told the jury. Whitney is expected to testify later in the trial. Depp's bodyguard who witnessed the altercation previously testified that the actor never shoved Whitney as Heard has suggested. He spoke about Heard giving Depp a "nice little shiner" and that the Depp never physically attacked Heard during the incident. | |
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| 05-06-22 08:46am - 867 days | #51 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
People are saying there are moles in Washinton. What is the best way to get rid of them? ---- ---- How to Get Rid of Moles and Keep Them From Coming Back Put down the Whack-A-Mole mallet. There’s a much easier (and more humane) way to eradicate garden moles. Country Living Jill Gleeson Are parts of your yard sinking due to what look like shallow tunnels? Have you spotted circular piles of dirt sprouting up on your otherwise flawless lawn? You might have moles, making those mounds molehills. But before you start thinking about how you're going to eject those dastardly critters that have been burrowing through your backyard, you might want to be sure they’re actually moles. Vole vs. Mole Moles, voles, and groundhogs are often confused with one another, because they all burrow beneath the ground. However, while moles tend to make large holes like groundhogs do because they excavate soil, they often don't leave the lawn. If something has been dining on your garden goodies, chances are it isn't a mole. “Moles only eat three things,” Mike McGrath, host of the nationally syndicated radio program, You Bet Your Garden, explains. “They eat earthworms, they eat beetle grubs of the scarab beetle family, and they eat cicada larvae. So it’s really easy to remember: Moles are teenage boys. They wouldn't eat a vegetable if you paid them. Voles are strictly vegetarian.” How to Get Rid of Moles Since they don’t chow down on homegrown produce, many gardeners don’t mind moles; their tunneling can actually aerate the soil. However, these creatures can still cause plenty of damage. Those tunnels they dig aren’t just eyesores: They can also disrupt the roots of your plants—and provide routes for other rodents. Once you’ve determined moles are indeed the problem, McGrath advises buying a product with castor oil as the active ingredient, like Mole Scram. “You spread this material on the lawn and you water it in,” McGrath says. “The theory is that it makes the ground smell so bad that the moles would rather live in the neighbor’s lawn. If that doesn’t work, however, there are natural ways to kill the beetle grubs in your lawn. One of the newest products, GrubHALT, uses a naturally-occurring soil organism. If you put this into the soil, it kills Japanese beetle grubs and other grubs of the scarab beetle family, so you're eliminating at least one-third of the food source for moles. Should those methods fail, planting daffodils, alliums, and marigolds may help, according to Nikki Tilley, senior editor of Gardening Know How. “Moles tend to avoid these,” she notes. “I don't like advocating the use of traps or poisons—killing these animals should only be your last resort.” How was it? Save stories you love and never lose them. Logo for Country Living This post originally appeared on Country Living and was published April 22, 2021. This article is republished here with permission. | |
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| 05-06-22 08:42am - 867 days | #50 | |
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Texas governor thinking about suing the federal government about free public education. Says public education is expensive, not free. The Texas governor sent a busload of immigrants to Washington, D.C., last month, in what the White House called a publicity stunt. Doesn't the governor of Texas have a right to publicity? Especially when he did not vote for Joe Biden? ----- ----- Abbott says Texas could challenge Supreme Court ruling that states educate all, including undocumented The Hill Monique Beals May 6, 2022, 7:24 AM Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Wednesday said his administration may challenge a Supreme Court ruling that states must provide free public education to all children, including undocumented immigrants. “Texas already long ago sued the federal government about having to incur the costs of the education program, in a case called Plyler versus Doe,” the governor said on “The Joe Pags Show.” He added that “the Supreme Court ruled against us on the issue about denying, or let’s say Texas having to bear that burden.” Plyler v. Doe is a 1982 Supreme Court case that rejected the denial of public education funding for children who are undocumented. “I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler versus Doe was issued many decades ago,” Abbott said. The Hill has reached out to Abbott for comment. Abbott has also been a leading opponent of the Biden administration’s decision to lift Title 42, a Trump-era public health rule that prevented migrants from seeking asylum to stem the spread of COVID-19. Abbott sent a bus full of immigrants to Washington, D.C., last month, in what the White House called a publicity stunt. The Texas governor, who is running for reelection this year, also temporarily ramped up border inspections for trucks crossing into Texas, creating logjams that cleared only when Mexican governors pledged to increase security measures on their side of the border. Abbott’s remarks follow the Monday night leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that established the right to an abortion in the U.S. That report has prompted some activists and advocates to question what other Supreme Court precedents on basic rights could be overruled in the future. | |
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| 05-06-22 05:32am - 867 days | #49 | |
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Politics has elements of show business. The House of Representatives would transcribe an interview of Rudy Giuliani. But it denied him the right to record the interview. So Rudy Giuliani cancelled the interview. I'm not sure what is happening, or why? Why is the committee saying Rudy Giuliani can't record the interview? Are they afraid that Giuliani will edit the record, as many politicians do, and make it appear favorable to Giuliani? --- --- Rudy Giuliani cancels scheduled appearance before Jan. 6 panel NBC Universal Tom Winter and Garrett Haake and Zoë Richards May 5, 2022, 7:24 PM WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani will no longer meet Friday with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, his lawyer confirmed. The last-minute change, attorney Robert Costello said, came after the House committee denied a request to record the scheduled interview. Costello said he made the request in advance so there would be no allegation of covertly recording Giuliani's testimony. Costello said it's now up to the committee how to proceed. Giuliani’s canceled appearance was previously reported by CNN. In a statement Thursday, committee spokesperson Tim Mulvey said Giuliani had agreed to participate in a transcribed interview but “informed committee investigators that he wouldn’t show up unless he was permitted to record the interview, which was never an agreed-upon condition.” “Mr. Giuliani is an important witness to the conspiracy to overthrow the government and he remains under subpoena,” Mulvey said. “If he refuses to comply the committee will consider all enforcement options.” The committee subpoenaed Giuliani and three other allies of former President Donald Trump in January over efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The panel identified Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Boris Epshteyn as among the most ardent promoters of Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. The committee said its interest in Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer, stemmed from his efforts to, among other things, “convince state legislators to take steps to overturn the election results.” Giuliani was in contact with Trump and members of Congress “regarding strategies for delaying or overturning the results of the 2020 election,” the subpoena states. Failing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee could prompt the panel to recommend that Giuliani face a contempt charge, a process that would involve a House vote. The committee took similar steps with former White House strategist Steve Bannon and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. | |
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| 05-06-22 04:40am - 868 days | #48 | |
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HuffPost Stephen Colbert Pokes Trump Right In His Sorest Of All Sore Spots Entertainment Stephen Colbert Pokes Trump Right In His Sorest Of All Sore Spots There's one insult the former guy doesn't like at all. By Ed Mazza May. 6, 2022, 01:09 AM EDT Stephen Colbert spotted a moment in a new interview where Donald Trump admitted that there’s an insult he really doesn’t like. The former president told the Christian Broadcasting Network that he took a cognitive test because he didn’t like being called “stupid.” As Colbert noted, the exam does not measure intelligence but looks for signs of cognitive impairment. Trump, however, crowed about passing. “It was an amazing thing,” he said, suggesting it forced his critics to admit to his intelligence. “They now call me a dictator and other things, but they don’t call you stupid.” Colbert was stunned into silence for about 8 seconds. “He thinks we don’t call him stupid?” he finally said, then dramatically turned to another camera for a closeup. “What a moron!” | |
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| 05-06-22 03:34am - 868 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Mothers Day is this coming Sunday, and porn sites are having sales to honor our mothers. Mommy MILFs, mommy anal, mommies bang teens, think of all the nice things we can do to make our mommys happy and satisfied. PU and Rabbits should have some listing of these sales soon. But if you look around, you might snag a sale on a site you've been looking at. I've seen some offers of $5 for the first month for some Metart sites, that are normally $15 to $30 per month. Plus other Metart sites for $10 for the first month. That's much cheaper than the discount Metart offers to its regular subscribers. | |
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| 05-05-22 03:52am - 869 days | #3 | |
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Publicity is good. It's a major boost to ticket sales. And the geeks and fans can go wild over Hayden Christensen. I'm not a Star Wars fan. I saw the first Star Wars movie when it came out in the movies. Waited in line for hours to see it. I thought it was over-rated. Thought 2001 was better. Even if Star Wars was much more popular and made more money. | |
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| 05-05-22 12:26am - 869 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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After three weeks of testimony from Johnny Depp's side, including the actor's memorable four days on the stand, it's Amber Heard's turn to tell her story. The Aquaman star, 36, sat before a jury on Wednesday afternoon and accused her ex-husband of physical abuse and sexual assault. Throughout her three-hour testimony, Depp, 58, kept his head down and never looked at her on the witness stand. "I am here because my ex-husband is suing me for an op-ed I wrote," Heard began. "I struggle to find the words to describe how painful this is. This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything ... this is the most painful and difficult think I have ever gone through." Heard is being sued for $50 million as Depp claims she defamed him in a 2018 op-ed published in The Washington Post. The actor's legal team presented its case that he lost at least $40 million in earnings and that the article was "catastrophic" for his career. The Pirates of the Caribbean star testified that he "never" abused Heard, or any woman, and that she was the violent aggressor in their relationship. According to Heard, that's not the case. She testified that Depp was volatile after they started dating. "It started with throwing things, destroying the property and screaming at me," she claimed. It turned physical in 2013. "It's seemingly so stupid, so insignificant. I will never forget it. It changed my life," Heard told the jury about the first time she was hit. "I was sitting on the couch and we were talking, we were having like a normal conversation. There was no fighting, no argument, nothing. He was drinking and I didn't realize it at the time, but I think he was using cocaine. ... I asked him about the tattoo he has on his arm." Depp's tattoo read "Wino Forever," which he changed from "Winona Forever." (The actor previously dated Winona Ryder.) When Depp told Heard what it said, she laughed. "He slapped me across the face — and I laughed. I laughed because I didn't know what else to do. I thought this must be a joke. This must be a joke because I didn't know what was going on. I just stared at him kind of laughing still, thinking that he was going to start laughing too ... but he didn't," Heard declaraed. Depp purportedly yelled at her "You think you're funny, bitch?" "He slapped me again. It was clear it wasn't a joke anymore. I stopped laughing but I didn't know what else to do. ... He slapped me for no reason it seemed like," Heard continued, adding that Depp slapped her a third time "hard." She remembered how "dirty" the carpet was as she was laying there face down. Heard became emotional on the stand, claiming Depp told her he'd "done it before" and "thought I put the monster away." The actress left the house, but not the relationship. She said Depp later begged for forgiveness and told her, "I'll never lay a hand on you again." When Depp testified two weeks ago, he claimed this whole incident never happened. In fact, there's practically nothing the actors agree on except that when they kissed filming The Rum Diary in 2009, their chemistry was "remarkable." "It didn't feel like a normal scene anymore, it felt more real," Heard recalled. That's where the similarities end. Heard told the jury about how on movie sets, "you don't use your tongue" as to keep things professional. "Those lines were blurred. He grabbed my face and pulled me into him and really kissed me. But we were filming a scene," she said, confirming that Depp slipped her his tongue. Alluding to more unprofessional behavior, Heard claimed that one time when she was wearing a bathrobe on set "he kind of picked up the back of my robe with his boot." "I didn't know what to make of it at the time, I just kind of giggled and batted it away playfully," she explained. Depp testified that he and Heard kissed one time off-camera in his trailer, and that while she wanted to stay, he knew it was a bad idea as they were in other relationships. Heard had a different story. She said Depp "playfully" pushed her on a bed in his trailer in a "flirtatious" way. "I giggled, laughed it off and batted him away," she claimed. Heard and Depp didn't see each other for almost two years, although she says he sent her lavish gifts in the interim. When they reunited for the film's press tour in 2011 they were both single. Heard said Depp invited her up to his hotel room under the guise of having a drink with the director, but when she arrived, the director wasn't there. They drank wine and hung out for hours on the couch. "As I went to leave he grabbed both sides of my face, similar to what he did [during filming]," She said. "He kissed me and I kissed him back ... then we fell in love." By March 2013, according to Heard, violence was becoming routine in their relationship. She claimed in one instance, Depp hit her and "my lip went into my teeth and it got a little blood on the wall." Heard said she was attacked on another occasion that month: "He grabbed me by the arm and he kind of just held me on the floor screaming at me. I don't know how many times he hit me in the face, but I remember being on the floor of my apartment and I remember thinking, 'How could this happen to me again?'" Heard claims she wasn't just physically assaulted, but that she experienced sexual violence, too. (Depp testified he never sexually assaulted any woman.) The alleged incident happened in May 2013 when they were doing drugs with a group of friends in Joshua Tree, Calif. (It's been dubbed the "Hicksville" incident during trial.) In the trailer where they were staying, the actress testified that she was digitally penetrated by Depp when he was searching for cocaine. "He ripped my dress ... he's grabbing my breast, he's touching my thighs, he rips my underwear off and then he proceeds to do a cavity search," Heard emotionally recounted. "He said he was looking for his drugs, his cocaine." Heard told the jury she "didn't do cocaine and was against it." "Why would I hide his drugs from him?" she continued, claiming Depp "shoved his fingers inside me." Heard said she "just stood there staring at this stupid light." "I didn't know what to do. I just stood there while he did that. He twisted his fingers around. I didn't say stop or anything I just," Heard added, becoming emotional. "I froze." Heard still didn't leave Depp after the alleged incident calling him the "love of my life" at the time. "I had so much hope," she explained. The relationship didn't improve that summer as Heard testified about two more alleged abuse incidents. After a flight where they supposedly both took MDMA, and fed a pill to a flight attendant, he gave her a bloody nose. While in the Bahamas with his children, Heard claims Depp slammed "me up by my neck and holds me there for a second and tells me that he could f****** kill me and that I was an embarrassment." Heard's testimony has wrapped for the day. She will be back on the stand on Thursday. MORE: Johnny Depp's testimony concludes, says "The only person I've abused in my life is myself" | |
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| 05-04-22 02:04pm - 869 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Hayden Christensen returns as Darth Vader in new 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' trailer: 'I'm emotional' Yahoo Movies Ethan Alter May 4, 2022, 8:42 AM May the Darth be with you. To celebrate Star Wars Day, Lucasfilm dropped a teasing glimpse of Hayden Christensen's return as Jedi warrior-turned-Sith Lord in the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series. Premiering May 27 on Disney+, the six-episode serial reunites Christensen's Anakin Skywalker with his former teacher, Ewan McGregror's General Kenobi, for the first time since their epic battle on Mustafar in the climax of 2005's Revenge of the Sith. And unlike their last encounter, Vader appears to have the high ground. (Watch the new trailer above.) Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) returns in Obi-Wan Kenobi (Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd.) Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) returns in the Disney+ limited series, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd.) The previously released first trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi clearly laid out the stakes for the show: picking up a decade after the events of George Lucas's prequel trilogy, Obi-Wan is hiding out in the Tatooine desert, observing Anakin's son, Luke, from afar. But his whereabouts won't stay secret for long. The Jedi-hunter Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram) — who has a personal connection to Vader — is on his trail, and won't rest until she orchestrates a reunion between the former allies. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Christensen said it was "amazing" to step back into Vader's frosty armor. "It was mostly a lot of excitement because I had spent enough time with this character and felt like I knew him, and coming back to it felt very natural in a lot of ways. And I was just really excited to get to come in and play Darth Vader at this point in the timeline because it did feel like a natural continuation of your journey with the character. And that was very meaningful for me." Hayden Christensen crosses over to the Dark Side in Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (Photo: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection) Hayden Christensen crosses over to the Dark Side in Revenge of the Sith. (Photo:  20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection)Besides featuring our first look at Christensen in his Darth Vader get-up (at least the chest plate anyway), the latest teaser also provides a glimpse of Kumail Nanjiani's franchise debut and a dramatic encounter between Obi-Wan and Luke's uncle Owen Lars, played by returning prequel player, Joel Edgerton. "When the time comes, he must be trained," Kenobi insists to Lars. "Like you trained his father?" Owen shoots back. Ouch ... that burn will leave a mark. While Christensen's performance in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sithmay have made like sand and irritated moviegoers at the time, his absence from the galaxy has clearly made the heart grow fonder. The Star Wars Twitter timeline is filled with fans praising Lord Vader like they should. Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres May 27 on Disney+ | |
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| 05-04-22 02:00pm - 869 days | #47 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The truth revealed: Russia says Jews were responsible for the dead Jews in WW2. The Jews worked with the Nazis to kill other Jews. And now Israel and Jews are working to help Ukraine, which is led by a Jewish Nazi. Russia, to defend Russians and Jews, must invade Ukraine and put down the Nazis. And maybe Russia will have to invade the Untied States of Trumperland, to teach Sleepy Joe Biden a lesson: never argue with a Russian! ---- ---- Russia lashes out at Israel as rift over Holocaust and Ukraine widens Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan May 3, 2022, 6:32 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. The Kremlin escalated its rhetorical dispute with Israel over World War II history on Tuesday morning by reiterating and expanding on the falsehood-riddled comments made by Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, about the supposed collaboration of Jews during the Holocaust with their own Nazi killers. In a post titled “On Antisemitism,” published on the Telegram social media network, Russia’s foreign ministry tried to equate Israel's support for Ukraine with Jews whom it alleged collaborated with Nazis in World War II, arguing (incorrectly) that history “is unfortunately familiar with tragic examples of Jewish-Nazi collaboration.” It went on to accuse the current regime in Kyiv — headed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish — of precisely such complicity, while insisting to Israel that it was the Red Army “that stopped the Holocaust and the destruction of the Jewish world.” The post went so far as to suggest that Israel, which has not played a prominent role in supporting Ukraine in its war effort, may be too naive to realize that after “canceling” Russians, the Ukrainian leadership will inevitably move against the nation’s Jewish population. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in front of the miscrophone, stares fixedly at an interlocutor (not seen) at a conference table. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in Moscow on April 27. (Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) It was a remarkable turn of events, considering that when the war began, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett sought to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Slow to help at first, Israel offered Ukraine material support late last month. If that support has been more limited than that of European nations and the United States, that is largely because Israel’s precarious geopolitical status leaves it little room to maneuver between allies and foes. Still, it is not entirely clear why the Kremlin has decided to invoke one of the most controversial and misunderstood aspects of World War II history as a means of persuading Israel — and, presumably, other nations — that it was right to invade Ukraine. Such an attempt may have been inevitable, given that Russia’s initial rationale for attacking its much smaller neighbor was a need to “de-Nazify” Ukrainian leadership. Lavrov offered his own thoughts on the matter on Sunday, telling an Italian outlet,“Wise Jewish people say that the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.” He also repeated the debunked claim that the Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, was partly Jewish. Having just commemorated the Holocaust the previous week, Israeli leadership vigorously denounced Lavrov’s remarks. “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error,” Lavrov’s counterpart, Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid, wrote on Twitter. “Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid at a podium beside the Israeli flag, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs printed on the wall behind him. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid holds a press conference on the question of Ukraine at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem on April 24, 2022. (Israeli Gov't Press Office (GPO/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Despite the fact that there is little evidence that Lavrov’s argument — or any other Russian justification for the Ukraine invasion — has gained any traction, Russia’s foreign ministry decided to post a lengthy exposition on Telegram that called Lapid’s statement “anti-historical” and repeated Lavrov’s claim that European Jews were responsible for their own destruction. The Russian foreign ministry charged Zelensky with “consciously” abetting Ukrainian neo-Nazis, comparing him to Jewish leaders during World War II who may have been aware of some aspects of the Holocaust but who chose to say nothing. Zelensky, on the other hand, is helping neo-Nazis “quite voluntarily,” the Telegram post said. Russia's claims about complicity with the Nazis fail to reflect what the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum calls “impossible moral dilemmas” faced by Jewish leaders in Eastern European ghettos, from which hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to the death camps of Poland. The Nazis kept secret their plans for the Holocaust, telling Jews that they were merely being “resettled” in Poland. Rumors of the death camps did reach the ghettos, where Jews were housed in inhumane conditions, but many refused to believe them. Even as the Russian foreign ministry proffered its arguments about Jewish-Nazi collaboration, it acknowledged — in the same Telegram post — that any such collaboration on the part of Jewish leaders was, in the words of three leading Israeli historians, a “marginal phenomenon.” | |
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| 05-03-22 06:33pm - 870 days | #46 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who voted to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, says she supports Roe vs Wade. But Brett Kavanaugh, an expert in law, says Roe vs Wade is only settled law, and the Supreme Court can change the law. Joe Biden says he's against busting the filibuster. So Sleepy Joe Biden is secretly supporting the Supreme Court in overturning Roe vs Wade, since Joe Biden is a Catholic, and the Pope says abortions are wrong. Biden and Trump, working together in secret, have done the impossible: overturned Roe vs Wade. And anti-abortionists throughout Trumperland can now claim victory. Joe Biden is now a demonstated liar. He says you need a majority of Democrats in the House to pass legislation to make Roe vs Wade the law. That is a lie. The US Senate filibuster means 60 votes are needed to stop debate on a bill. That a simple majority is not enough. We must rise up and dump Joe Biden, and put Donald Trump, a man of truth and honor, back in the White House. He will calm the masses, and make America Free, White, and the Land of Honor. ----- ----- 'I am angry': Warren blasts 'extremist' Supreme Court after Roe opinion leaks Yahoo News Nicole Darrah May 3, 2022, 11:14 AM Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., appeared shaken up as she talked to members of the press on Tuesday about the Supreme Court’s leaked draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “I am angry,” she said as she marched to a protest. “Angry and upset and determined.” “I am angry,” she repeated once she made it to a rally outside the Supreme Court. “I am here because I am angry, and I am here because the United States Congress can change all of this! Angry, but committed.” On Monday night, the political news outlet Politico sent shock waves across Washington and the nation when it published a leaked draft of the Supreme Court overturning the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Elizabeth Warren Sen. Elizabeth Warren at a demonstration outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) The draft, from February, could still change before the expected ruling in June. But the conservative majority on the court appears ready to dismantle Roe, a long-held policy aim in Republican circles. Such a decision would send abortion laws to the states, and many GOP-led states have already passed laws to outlaw abortion the moment the high court acts. “They have been out there plotting, carefully cultivating these Supreme Court justices so they could have a majority on the bench who would accomplish something that the majority of Americans do not want,” Warren said, blasting the “extremist” majority on the court. Warren said her anger was driven by concern for the poor women in Republican-controlled states who lack the resources to travel to Democratic states that maintain legal abortion rights. “I am angry because of who will pay the price for this. It will not be wealthy women. Wealthy women can get on an airplane, they can fly to another state, they can fly to another country, they can get the protection they need,” she told the rally before the court building. “This will fall on the poorest women in our country. This will fall on the young women who have been abused, who are victims of incest. This will fall on those who have been raped. This will fall on mothers who are already struggling to work three jobs, to be able to support their children they have.” Warren, who ran for president in 2020, argued that Congress should pass a federal law protecting abortion rights. That effort faces an uphill battle, as Republicans would be sure to filibuster the measure in the Senate, and moderate Democrats in the chamber are unlikely to buck the filibuster. “The United States Congress can keep Roe v. Wade the law of the land — they just need to do it,” Warren said, also endorsing expanding the number of Supreme Court justices. Several other liberal lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, also called for the filibuster to end and for Roe v. Wade to be codified. “Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW,” Sanders tweeted. “And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.” President Biden on Tuesday told reporters he would work to codify the decision into law, saying it “makes a lot of sense.” He also looked ahead to this year’s midterm elections. “If the court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose,” Biden said in a statement. “And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.” | |
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| 05-03-22 05:32pm - 870 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Maybe they could get Will Smith to play Black Adam. He's played action heroes before. | |
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| 05-03-22 05:30pm - 870 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
This is not right. Is The Rock black? Why couldn't they get a black man to play a black man? We need to hold a protest before movie is released, to show our support for Black Lives Matter. Dwayne Johnson's father was a Black Nova Scotian, with a small amount of Irish ancestry. His mother is Samoan. Support your local black actors, and have the Black Adam movie re-cast. | |
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| 05-03-22 04:36am - 871 days | #45 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The truth revealed. Many Democrats and Republicans know that Sleepy Joe Biden is a Catholic. What they didn't know is that Joe Biden worked tirelessly to ensure that Brett Kavanaugh, the beer-drinking man who might have enjoyed sex while younger, made it to the Supreme Court, where Kavanaugh could help to overturn Roe vs Wade and other cases of settled law that Catholics and anti-union forces oppose. Even Donald Trump, the finest President of the Untied States of Trumperland we've ever known, has worked in secret to help Sleepy Joe. Let us vote for Donald Trump to become our next President, and to help make America great again. Only by working together can we make sure Russia does not invade the good old Untied States of Trumperland. Putin, and Russia, have vowed to defeat the Untied States if we invade Russia. So we need Trump's support to stop WWIII, which could mean the loss of hundreds of innocent lives. Trump uber alles. ---------------- Russia warns WWIII risk ‘very significant’ Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (en.Kremlin.ru/Released/TNS) April 26, 2022 Ryan Morgan Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Monday that the risk of a third world war “cannot be underestimated,” and said the U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are adding to that risk by supplying weapons to Ukraine. In a Monday interview with the “Big Game” program on Russian state-run television Channel One, Lavrov said Russia agreed on the “inadmissibility of nuclear war” and said avoiding such conflict is “our principled position.” However, Lavrov warned that “now the risks are very significant.” “The danger is serious, real. It cannot be underestimated,” Lavrov said. Throughout the interview, Lavrov criticized the U.S. for the collapse of various nuclear arms control agreements and for building alliances like NATO and AUKUS that could challenge Russia. Lavrov also criticized the U.S. and NATO for supplying arms to Ukraine. Lavrov said the U.S. and other western nations often speak of trying to avoid World War III, but said they undermine these efforts by arming Ukraine and bolstering its defenses against the ongoing Russian invasion. “Everyone says that in no case should a third world war be allowed,” Lavrov said. “It is in this context that the constant provocations of the President of Ukraine V.A. Zelensky and his team should be considered. They demand almost the introduction of NATO troops in order to protect the Ukrainian government. But everyone always says that they will give Kyiv weapons. This also adds fuel to the fire. They want to force the Ukrainians to fight with Russia to the last soldier with these arms deliveries, if only this conflict dragged on longer, so that Russia, they hope, would suffer more and more from it.” Later on in the interview, Lavrov said, “NATO is, in essence, going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy.” Lavrov raised further concerns that the U.S. is not keeping track of the military equipment it has supplied to Ukraine. “I have read several anonymous statements by the active US military to the question of what happens to these weapons when they cross the Ukrainian border, where they will find their final destination. They said: “We have no information about where all these weapons go,” Lavrov said. Lavrov particularly criticized the U.S. for supplying man-portable anti-aircraft missile launchers and anti-tank Javelin missiles, which he said could be used for “terrorist attacks.” Lavrov said western-supplied weapons are making their way into the hands of “neo-Nazi” paramilitary groups like the Azov and Aidar Battalions and other militia groups that are fighting to defend Ukraine but which are not under the full control of the Ukrainian military. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba appeared to respond to Lavrov’s comments on Monday by tweeting, “Russia loses last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine. Thus the talk of a ‘real’ danger of WWIII. This only means Moscow senses defeat in Ukraine. Therefore, the world must double down on supporting Ukraine so that we prevail and safeguard European and global security.” During his interview, Lavrov accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of contradicting himself throughout negotiations with Russia. Lavrov predicted the ongoing fighting between Russia and Ukraine “will end with a treaty” but said how that treaty looks will “be determined by the stage of hostilities at which this treaty becomes a reality.” A senior U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal on Monday the U.S. is working to give Ukraine “the strongest possible hand” in peace negotiations going forward. US Reps. McGovern, Keating visit Kyiv with Pelosi, blast Putin: ‘He has committed war crimes’ Ukrainian forces track down, arrest citizens for pro-Russian views online Edited on May 03, 2022, 05:12am | |
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| 05-02-22 09:50pm - 871 days | #44 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
During his confirmation hearings, Brett Kavanaugh was asked about his position on Roe vs Wade. Kavanaugh said that Roe vs Wade was settled as precedent. The simple meaning would appear to be that Roe vs Wade was the law, and would remain the law. However, lawyers (and judges) can be tricky. Now that Kavanaugh is on the US Supreme Court, he now believes that "settled law" can, and sometimes should, be overturned. That is why Kavanaugh appears to be helping to overturn Roe vs Wade. ------ ------ Leaked U.S. Supreme Court decision suggests majority set to overturn Roe v. Wade, Politico reports Reuters May 2, 2022, 6:32 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests the U.S. Supreme Court has voted to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, Politico reported on Monday. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the draft independently. The Supreme Court and the White House declined to comment. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the draft opinion which is dated Feb. 10, according to Politico. Four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett - voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices, the report added. "It is possible there have been some changes since then (Feb 10)," Politico reporter Josh Gerstein, who broke the story, said on MSNBC late on Monday. After an initial vote among the justices following the oral argument, one is assigned the majority opinion and writes a draft. It is then circulated among the justices. At times, in between the initial vote and the ruling being released, the vote alignment can change. A ruling is only final when it is published by the court. In a post on Twitter, Neal Katyal, a lawyer who regularly argues before the court, said if the report was accurate it would be "the first major leak from the Supreme Court ever." (Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Kim Coghill and Michael Perry) | |
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| 05-02-22 11:51am - 871 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Article above continued: There’s plenty of damning evidence against Sirhan. He confessed to the killing at trial, although he claims this was done on his attorney’s instruction. He took hours of target practice with his pistol earlier in the day, and he took the gun into the Ambassador Hotel that night. He had been seen at a Kennedy speech at the Ambassador two days earlier. He had a newspaper clipping critical of Kennedy in his pocket and had written “RFK must die” in notebooks at home, although he said he didn’t remember doing that. And he waited in the pantry for about 30 minutes, according to witnesses who said he asked if Kennedy would be coming through there. Lee Harvey Oswald’s chilling final hours before killing JFK But questions about the case arose almost immediately in Los Angeles, resulting in hearings and reinvestigations as early as 1971 by the district attorney, the police chief, the county board of supervisors and the county superior court. Many of them focused on the ballistics of the case, starting with Noguchi’s finding that Kennedy had been shot from behind, which Sirhan’s lawyer didn’t raise in his defense. In addition, lead crime scene investigator DeWayne Wolfer testified at trial that a bullet taken from Kennedy’s body and bullets from two of the wounded victims all matched Sirhan’s gun. But other experts who examined the three bullets said they had markings from different guns and different bullet manufacturers. An internal police document concluded that “Kennedy and Weisel bullets not fired from same gun” — Weisel was the wounded ABC News producer — and “Kennedy bullet not fired from Sirhan’s revolver.” This prompted a Los Angeles judge in 1975 to convene a panel of seven forensic experts, who examined the three bullets and refired Sirhan’s gun. The panel said no match could be made between the three bullets, which appeared to be fired from the same gun, and Sirhan’s revolver. They found Wolfer had done a sloppy job with the ballistics evidence and urged further investigation. In addition, witnesses said bullet holes were found in the door frames of the Ambassador’s pantry, and photos showed investigators examining the holes in the hours after the shooting. Between the three bullets that hit Kennedy and the bullets that hit the five wounded victims, Wolfer had accounted for all eight of Sirhan’s shots. Bullets in the doors would indicate a second gun. Wolfer later said the holes and the metal inside were not bullets, and the door frames were destroyed after the trial. Though Los Angeles authorities had promised transparency in the case, the police and prosecutors refused to release their files until 1988, when they produced a flood of new evidence for researchers. Among the material was an audiotape, first unearthed by CNN journalist Brad Johnson, which had been inadvertently made by Polish journalist Stanislaw Pruszynski in the Ambassador Hotel’s ballroom, and turned over to police in 1969. Pruszynski’s microphone had been on the podium where Kennedy spoke, and TV footage shows him detaching it and moving toward the pantry as the shooting happens. In 2005, audio engineer Philip Van Praag said the tape revealed that about 13 shots had been fired. He said he used technology similar to that of the ShotSpotter used by police to alert them to gunshots, and which differentiates gunshots from firecrackers or other loud bangs. Van Praag said recently that different guns create different resonances and that he was able to establish that two guns were fired, that they fired in different directions, and that some of the shot “impulses” were so close together they couldn’t have been fired by the same gun. He said he could not say “precisely” 13 shots but certainly more than the eight contained by Sirhan’s gun. “There were too many bullets,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. “You can’t fire 13 shots out of an eight-shot gun.” British author Mel Ayton wrote “The Forgotten Terrorist,” which posits that Sirhan killed Kennedy because he supported sending military firepower to Israel — the Sirhans were Christian Palestinians forced from their Jerusalem home by the Arab-Israeli War in 1948. He said Van Praag had misinterpreted the Pruszynski tape and that other experts who examined it show only eight “spikes,” one for each gunshot. Ayton also cited numerous eyewitnesses who said they heard at most eight shots. Ayton and investigative reporter Dan Moldea, who also wrote a book about the assassination, argue that Sirhan’s gun could have reached Kennedy’s back. No witnesses saw the actual shots fired in the chaos of the pantry, and Moldea noted that Kennedy almost certainly turned and tried to protect himself after the first shot, which some said was preceded by Sirhan yelling, “Kennedy, you son of a bitch!” “What were Kennedy’s last words?” Moldea asked during an interview. “‘How’s Paul?’ How would Kennedy know Paul had been injured if he had not been turned around. He turned around when Sirhan rushes towards him, yelling ‘you son of a bitch Kennedy.’ Kennedy’s not going to just stand there. He turns his back defensively.” Moldea theorized that Schrade fell forward into Kennedy, pinning him against a table and pushing him into the muzzle of Sirhan’s gun, enabling him to fire four contact shots into Kennedy. One shot went through his jacket without hitting Kennedy, one went into his back and stopped below his neck, one went through his armpit and one went into his brain. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t find those theories persuasive. “It’s not only that nobody saw that,” he said. “The people that were closest to [Sirhan], the people that disarmed him all said he never got near my father.” Schrade used an expletive to describe Moldea’s explanation and said he fell backward when he was shot above his forehead. Both Ayton and Moldea assisted the California attorney general’s office in contesting Sirhan’s final appeal, and the government’s legal briefs cited the investigative work of both men. Moldea had initially been a believer in the second-gunman theory, but after interviewing numerous police officers, witnesses and Sirhan, he concluded in his 1995 book, “The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy,” that Sirhan acted alone. He cited as additional proof a comment Sirhan reportedly made to a defense investigator about Kennedy turning his head before Sirhan shot him, a comment Sirhan strongly denied making. More recently, Sirhan’s lawyers have explored whether he was hypnotized to begin shooting his gun when given a certain cue, even hiring a renowned expert in hypnosis from Harvard University to meet with Sirhan. Wistrich, the judge, was completely dismissive of any suggestion of hypnosis. Schrade said the various theories of conspiracy and hypnotic programming are of little interest to him. “I’m interested in finding out how the prosecutor convicted Sirhan with no evidence, knowing there was a second gunman,” Schrade said. It was Schrade who persuaded Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to examine the evidence. “Once Schrade showed me the autopsy report,” Kennedy said, “then I didn’t feel like it was something I could just dismiss. Which is what I wanted to do.” Kennedy called Sirhan’s trial “really a penalty hearing. It wasn’t a real trial. At a full trial, they would have litigated his guilt or innocence. I think it’s unfortunate that the case never went to a full trial because that would have compelled the press and prosecutors to focus on the glaring discrepancies in the narrative that Sirhan fired the shots that killed my father.” Kennedy is not afraid to express controversial views. Last year, he and actor Robert De Niro held a news conference to argue that certain vaccines containing mercury are unsafe for some children. He said he is not opposed to all vaccines, but wants to make them safer. Two of his other siblings — human rights activist Kerry Kennedy and filmmaker Rory Kennedy — declined to discuss the assassination or the case against Sirhan. Kennedy understands why. “I think that, for most of my family members,” he said, “this is an issue that is still too painful to even talk about.” It’s painful for him, too. Kennedy was asleep in his dorm at Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Md., on June 5, 1968, when a priest woke him and told there was a car waiting outside to take him to the family home, Hickory Hill, in McLean, Va. The priest didn’t say why. In his new memoir, “American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family,” Kennedy said his mother’s secretary was waiting for him. “Jinx Hack told me my father had been shot, but I was still thinking he’d be okay. He was, after all, indestructible.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his older sister Kathleen and brother Joe flew to Los Angeles on Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey’s plane, Air Force Two. At Good Samaritan Hospital, Kennedy wrote, his father’s head was bandaged and his face was bruised. A priest had already delivered last rites. His mother was there. “I sat down across the bed from her and took hold of his big wrestler’s hand,” he wrote. “I prayed and said goodbye to him, listening to the pumps that kept him breathing. Each of us children took turns sitting with him and praying opposite my mom. “My dad died at 1:44 a.m., a few minutes after doctors removed his life support. My brother Joe came into the ward where all the children were lying down and told us, ‘He’s gone.’ ” | |
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| 05-02-22 11:48am - 871 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Coverup, or bungled investigation into the death of Robert Kennedy? -------- -------- Retropolis Who killed Bobby Kennedy? His son RFK Jr. doesn’t believe it was Sirhan Sir... This article was published more than 4 years ago Retropolis Who killed Bobby Kennedy? His son RFK Jr. doesn’t believe it was Sirhan Sirhan. By Tom Jackman June 5, 2018 Sen. Robert F. Kennedy lies wounded on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. His wife, Ethel, is at lower left. (Bettman Archive/Getty Images) LOS ANGELES — Just before Christmas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled up to the massive Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, a California state prison complex in the desert outside San Diego that holds nearly 4,000 inmates. Kennedy was there to visit Sirhan B. Sirhan, the man convicted of killing his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, nearly 50 years ago. While his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines, waited in the car, Kennedy met with Sirhan for three hours, he revealed to The Washington Post last week. It was the culmination of months of research by Kennedy into the assassination, including speaking with witnesses and reading the autopsy and police reports. “I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan,” Kennedy said. He would not discuss the specifics of their conversation. But when it was over, Kennedy had joined those who believe there was a second gunman, and that it was not Sirhan who killed his father. “I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence,” said Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and the third oldest of his father’s 11 children. “I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father. My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.” Kennedy, 64, said he doesn’t know if his involvement in the case will change anything. But he now supports the call for a reinvestigation of the assassination — which is led by Paul Schrade, who also was shot in the head as he walked behind Kennedy in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles but survived. Did L.A. police and prosecutors bungle the Bobby Kennedy assassination? His sister. former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, is now expressing doubts, too. “Bobby makes a compelling case,” she told The Post. “I think [the investigation] should be reopened.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in New York in 2017. (Evan Vucci/AP) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was just 14 when he lost his father. Even now, people tell him how much Bobby Kennedy meant to them. RFK’s death — five years after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was gunned down in Dallas and two months after civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis — devastated a country already beset by chaos. In 1968, the Vietnam War raged, American cities had erupted in riots after MLK’s assassination and tensions between war protesters and supporters were growing uglier. Robert F. Kennedy’s newly launched presidential bid had raised hopes that the New York Democrat and former attorney general could somehow unite a divided nation. The gunshots fired that June night changed all that. Though Sirhan admitted at his trial in 1969 that he shot Kennedy, he claimed from the start that he had no memory of doing so. And midway through Sirhan’s trial, prosecutors provided his lawyers with an autopsy report that launched five decades of controversy: Kennedy was shot at point-blank range from behind, including a fatal shot behind his ear. But Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, was standing in front of him. Was there a second gunman? The debate rages to this day. The moments surrounding RFK's assassination Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.) was shot and killed in 1968, while running for President, but 50 years later, doubts linger on who pulled the trigger. (Video: Joyce Koh/The Washington Post) But the legal system has not entertained doubts. A jury convicted Sirhan of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death in 1969, which was commuted to a life term in 1972. Sirhan’s appeals have been rejected at every level, as recently as 2016, even with the courts considering new evidence that has emerged over the years that as many as 13 shots were fired — Sirhan’s gun held only eight bullets — and that Sirhan may have been subjected to coercive hypnosis, in a real-life version of “The Manchurian Candidate.” His case is closed. His lawyers are now launching a long-shot bid to have the Inter-American Court of Human Rights hold an evidentiary hearing, while Schrade is hoping for a group such as the Innocence Project to take on the case. A spokesman for the Innocence Project said that the organization does not discuss cases at the consideration stage. In the final court rejection of Sirhan’s appeals, U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Wistrich ruled, “Even if the second shooter’s bullet was the one that killed Senator Kennedy, [Sirhan] would be liable [for murder] as an aider and abettor.” And if Sirhan was unaware of the second shooter, Wistrich wrote that the scenario of a second gunman who shot Kennedy “at close range with the same type of gun and ammunition as [Sirhan] was using, but managed to escape the crowded room without notice of almost any of the roomful of witnesses, lacks any evidentiary support.” ‘Is everybody okay?’ On June 5, 1968, Kennedy had just won the California Democratic presidential primary and delivered a victory speech to a delirious crowd. At 12:15 a.m., the 42-year-old candidate and Schrade left the celebration, walking through the hotel pantry en route to a news conference. Schrade was a regional director of the United Auto Workers who had helped Kennedy round up labor support, and Kennedy had singled him out for thanks in his victory speech moments earlier. Advertisement Schrade, now 93, still recalls the scene in the pantry vividly. “He immediately started shaking hands” with kitchen workers, Schrade said of Kennedy. “The TV lights went on. I got hit. I didn’t know I was hit. I was shaking violently, and I fell. Then Bob fell. I saw flashes and heard crackling. The crackling actually was all the other bullets being fired.” Witnesses reported that Kennedy said, “Is everybody okay? Is Paul all right?” Kennedy was still conscious as his wife, Ethel, pregnant with their 11th child, rushed to his side. He lived for another day and died at 1:44 a.m. June 6, 1968. JFK assassination conspiracy theories: The grassy knoll, Umbrella Man, LBJ and Ted Cruz’s dad Schrade was shot above the forehead but the bullet bounced off his skull. Four other people, including ABC News producer William Weisel, were also wounded. All survived. Sirhan was captured immediately; he had a .22-caliber revolver in his hand. Karl Uecker, an Ambassador Hotel maitre d’ who was escorting Kennedy through the pantry, testified that he grabbed Sirhan’s wrist and pinned it down after two shots and that Sirhan continued to fire wildly while being held down, never getting close to Kennedy. An Ambassador waiter and a Kennedy aide also said they tackled Sirhan after two or three shots. Advertisement Several other witnesses also said he was not close enough to place the gun against Kennedy’s back, where famed Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi found powder burns on the senator’s jacket and on his hair, indicating shots fired at close contact. These witnesses provided more proof for those who insist a second gunman was involved. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Police Department declined interviews on what both consider a closed case. Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.? His family believes James Earl Ray was framed. Schrade believes that Sirhan shot him and the others who were wounded but that he did not kill Kennedy. Since 1974, Schrade has led the crusade to try to persuade authorities — the police, prosecutors, the feds, anyone — to reinvestigate the case and identify the second gunman. “Yes, he did shoot me. Yes, he shot four other people and aimed at Kennedy,” Schrade said in an interview at his Laurel Canyon home. “The important thing is he did not shoot Robert Kennedy. Why didn’t they go after the second gunman? They knew about him right away. They didn’t want to know who it was. They wanted a quickie.” Advertisement ‘He never got near my father’ At trial, defense lawyer Grant Cooper made the decision not to contest the charge that Sirhan fired the fatal shot and instead tried to persuade the jury not to impose the death penalty by arguing Sirhan had “diminished capacity” and didn’t know what he was doing. It is a standard tactic by attorneys in death-penalty cases, but Cooper, who died in 1990, was widely criticized for not investigating the case before conceding guilt. Sirhan is now 74 and approaching 50 years behind bars. After California’s courts abolished the death penalty in 1972, he was first made eligible for parole in 1986 but has been rejected repeatedly. In 2016, Schrade spoke on Sirhan’s behalf at his parole hearing and apologized for not coming forward sooner to advocate for Sirhan’s release and exoneration. California inmates are not permitted to give media interviews, and Sirhan did not respond to a letter from The Post. But his brother, Munir Sirhan, said Sirhan still hopes to be released and that his defense team probably hurt his case more than helped it. | |
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| 05-02-22 11:21am - 871 days | #43 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The truth comes out: Russia says if you are killed, you are responsible. Self-defense is the only viable option. So if the US wants to smash Russia with nuclear bombs, the US has the right of self-defense. Go, Trump, you genius, and may the US send nuclear bombs to your house to clean the area. Remember, you wanted to clean the swamp in Washington. What better way to clean the swamp than to clean the criminals? Some people say Russia is spreading lies. But what if Russia believes what it's saying? Then is it still a lie? ---- ---- Israel lashes out at Russia over Lavrov's Nazism remarks Associated Press TIA GOLDENBERG May 2, 2022, 10:57 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel on Monday lashed out at Russia over “unforgivable” comments by its foreign minister about Nazism and antisemitism — including claims that Adolf Hitler was Jewish. Israel, which summoned the Russian ambassador in response, said the remarks blamed Jews for their own murder in the Holocaust. It was a steep decline in the ties between the two countries at a time when Israel has sought to stake out a cautious position between Russia and Ukraine and remain in Russia’s good stead for its security needs in the Middle East. Asked in an interview with an Italian news channel about Russian claims that it invaded Ukraine to “denazify” the country, Sergey Lavrov said that Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even if some figures, including the country’s president, were Jewish. “So when they say ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish," he said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translation. In some of the harshest remarks since the start of the war in Ukraine, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Lavrov's statement “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error.” “The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” said Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism.” Later, Lapid said Israel makes “every effort” to have good relations with Russia. "But there's a limit and this limit has been crossed this time. The government of Russia needs to apologize to us and to the Jewish people,” he said. An Israeli official confirmed late Monday that Russia's ambassador, Anatoly Viktorov, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter, said that Israel “stated its position” and that the sides agreed not to elaborate. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has been more measured in his criticism of Russia's invasion, also condemned Lavrov's comments. “His words are untrue and their intentions are wrong,” he said. “Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately." Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem called the remarks “absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving of condemnation.” “Lavrov is propagating the inversion of the Holocaust — turning the victims into the criminals on the basis of promoting a completely unfounded claim that Hitler was of Jewish descent,” it said in a statement. “Equally serious is calling the Ukrainians in general, and President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy in particular, Nazis. This, among other things, is a complete distortion of the history and an affront to the victims of Nazism.” In Germany, government spokesman Steffen Hebstreit said the Russian government’s “propaganda” efforts weren’t worthy of comment, calling them “absurd.” Nazism has featured prominently in Russia’s war aims and narrative as it fights in Ukraine. In his bid to legitimize the war to Russian citizens, President Vladimir Putin has portrayed the battle as a struggle against Nazis in Ukraine, even though the country has a democratically elected government and a Jewish president whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Ukraine also condemned Lavrov's remarks. “By trying to rewrite history, Moscow is simply looking for arguments to justify the mass murders of Ukrainians,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Lavrov's remarks exposed the “deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.” World War II, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people and helped defeat Nazi Germany, is a linchpin of Russia’s national identity. Repeatedly reaching for the historical narrative that places Russia as a savior against evil forces has helped the Kremlin rally Russians around the war. Israel gained independence in the wake of the Holocaust and has served as a refuge for the world's Jews. Over 70 years later, the Holocaust remains central to its national ethos and it has positioned itself at the center of global efforts to remember the Holocaust and combat antisemitism. Israel is home to a shrinking population of 165,000 Holocaust survivors, most in their 80s and 90s, and last week the country marked its annual Holocaust memorial day. But those aims sometimes clash with its other national interests. Russia has a military presence in neighboring Syria, and Israel, which carries out frequent strikes on enemy targets in the country, relies on Russia for security coordination to prevent their forces from coming into conflict with one another. That has forced Israel to tread lightly in its criticism of the war in Ukraine. While it has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and expressed support for its people, Israel has been measured in its criticism of Russia. It has not joined international sanctions against Russia or provided military aid to Ukraine. That paved the way for Bennett to be able to try to mediate between the sides, an effort which appears to have stalled as Israel deals with its own internal unrest. The Holocaust and the constant manipulation of its history during the conflict has sparked outrage in Israel before. In a speech to Israeli legislators in March, Zelenskyy compared Russia’s invasion of his country to the actions of Nazi Germany, accusing Putin of trying to carry out a “final solution” against Ukraine. The comparisons drew an angry condemnation from Yad Vashem, which said Zelenskyy was trivializing the Holocaust. ___ Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Rome and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report. | |
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| 05-02-22 03:58am - 872 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
But it is majestic. Its will be done. Never question the power and force of the law. ------ ------ The Tragic Case of the Wrong Thomas James Is Finally Righted After 32 years, a Florida man sentenced to life in prison for murder because he had the same name as another suspect is finally free. By Tristram Korten April 28, 2022 Thomas James walked into Miami’s Richard E. Gerstein Justice building shortly after 11 o'clock in the morning yesterday wearing a red inmate uniform, his head shaved smooth. Within the hour he was putting on street clothes for the first time in 32 years and walking out into the bright afternoon. Prosecutors had moved to vacate Thomas's 1991 murder conviction following a year-long review of his case. That review followed a GQ story I published last July that uncovered evidence showing James was the victim of mistaken identity. James’s journey to this point had been incredible. Even though police never talked to him, he was charged with murder in a 1990 apartment robbery in Miami, because, as he later found out, he had the same name as the suspect they were looking for. It was a simple and cruel error with devastating consequences. James was sentenced to life in prison, where he began to investigate his case, and then exhausted his appeals trying to point out the mistake that had landed him there. From behind bars, he improbably located the namesake suspect the police never found — an extraordinary discovery that helped set into motion the events that would culminate in his release. Yet the end to James’ confinement came abruptly and almost anti-climatically. After months and months of investigation, the State Attorney's Office suddenly notified James's lawyer, Natlie Figgers, on Tuesday that they would announce their decision in the case the next day. On Wednesday, after stating “we have determined that Thomas Raynard James is actually innocent,” Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney Christine Zahralban asked Miami Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel de la O to “vacate the judgment and allow him to be freed.” The judge talked a little about how “bittersweet” the moment was for both James, who lost so much of his life, and for the family of the victim, who now don't have justice. Then he granted the state’s motion. “Mr. James, at this time you have no further business in front of this court,” he said. It was over. James's long journey to prove his innocence, which would have broken lesser men, had ended. He was a free man. He stood up to start another journey into a world very different from the one he left. James would not be going back to prison to collect any of his belongings. Everything important to him he took to court that morning: pictures, notes on a book he wants to write, notes on businesses he wants to start, some legal documents. Three decades stuffed in a blue mesh bag. As he changed out of his jail clothes for the last time at the State Attorney's Office across the street from the courthouse, he was briefly and literally emerging naked into a new world. His family had brought new threads for him to wear. A gray sweatshirt, a t-shirt with “Versace” on it, dark slacks, new leather tennis shoes. It must have felt good. Back in the day, when James was awaiting trial in a Miami jail, families were allowed to drop off street clothes for inmates to wear. Sammy Wilson, who served time with James, remembers a young man who kept up appearances. James “always dressed fresh,” Wilson told me. “His pants, his shirt, his shoes always matched. He liked that Yankees blue. He was GQ.” Wilson, a gravel-voiced cynic, played an integral part in helping James, speaking to him regularly throughout his incarceration. He's the one who told me about the case and put me in touch with James, who had been reaching out to media for years with no luck. Wilson was in the courtroom Wednesday for the hearing. “Damndest thing,” he recalled. “When they announce he free, tears came out of my eyes. I didn't even cry when I went to prison. Man, I must be getting soft.” James didn't cry. After suffering for so long, he is careful not to let his emotions overwhelm him. I know because I've been talking to him for two years now as we shepherded his story into the light, then waited to see if anything would happen. I was not in Miami for the hearing, but I made him tell me in detail his movements that day. Some of that was cover. Given the magnitude of his injustice, the emotionally safe spot for both of us has always been digging for facts. Now was no different, except instead of witnesses, it was about the weather. James stepped from the State Attorney's Office into a bright, sunny Miami afternoon, with a cooling breeze. What were those first moments of freedom like? “It was myriad emotions all at one time,” he said. Was there an overriding one? “Joy, it gotta be joy. A sigh of relief,” he said. “Everything hasn't sunk in yet, it's been a long time.” It has. A very long time. The road to James’ unjust incarceration is complicated … and not. It boils down to a 1990 apartment robbery that left 57-year-old Francis McKinnon dead from a gunshot wound to the head. From there, a Metro-Dade Police detective named Kevin Conley heard from witnesses and the tip line that “Thomas James” was involved. So he went to the records department at headquarters and pulled up a mug shot of a Thomas James. (He later said he didn't remember if there were any other mug shots with the same name.) One witness, who had never met James before, identified him as the shooter. There was no other evidence against him, no fingerprints, footprints, DNA, or ballistics. He met his public defender about three times before trial. I started looking into the case in March of 2020 after speaking with Wilson, who had been a prior street source. I talked to James, who guided me through his version of events; to witnesses; and eventually to the neighborhood man he was confused with, the other Thomas “Tommy” James, who had a history of robbery. The other James admitted to me that he was the one police were actually looking for, even though he couldn't have committed the crime because he was in jail at the time, which I confirmed. (Another suspect, who is already in prison on unrelated charges, has been identified by the State’s Attorneys office.) I went over statements and depositions to identify all the moments in which it was clear witnesses were talking about a different Thomas James. All the moments police, prosecutors and even the defense attorney missed. All of those moments that conspired to put a poor black man represented by a harried public defender in prison for life after a trial that lasted two and a half days, with no evidence other than an eyewitness who didn't know Jay but picked him out of a police lineup. In March of 2021 I contacted prosecutors and alerted them to what was in the story. In June they opened their investigation. It was a long wait from there. Key to keeping attention on the case was Al Singleton, a retired homicide detective with the Miami-Dade Police Department who read my story. Singleton was in homicide when McKinnon was killed, but he didn't remember the case, let alone work it. A few years ago he had “reluctantly and recently come to the conclusion that we convict a lot more innocent people than we ever imagined,” and he started talking to prosecutors at the State’s Attorney’s Office, only to find they knew nothing about the case or the story. His outrage grew as he began contacting county officials, police and prosecutors, and found no sense of urgency. His masterstroke of disruption was contacting Melba Pearson, a civil rights attorney and prosecutor who ran (and lost) on a justice reform platform in the last State’s Attorney election. She was as alarmed as he was and contacted James's attorney about organizing a press conference to put pressure on the prosecutors (Figgers withdrew support for it at the last minute). Pearson rolled on, holding a symposium on the case at Florida International University, generating coverage and a “day of action,” and eventually cooperating with Figgers’ on a streetside rally for James. The State Attorney's Office seemed to take offense that civil rights advocates might not trust their institution, and pushed back against the perception they were dragging things out. Prosecutors released their report the day of James's hearing. But to their credit, they did a thorough job. They confirmed the suspect's death, and interviewed the other Thomas “Tommy” James, leading to identification of the last suspect. (Tommy told me he didn't know who the shooter was, but I suspected differently). There currently is not enough evidence to charge that man in McKinnon's death. The final piece of the puzzle came when the main witness recanted her testimony. She no longer believed it was Thomas James she saw in the apartment that night. In the end, Pearson and Singleton believe their pressure campaign worked, while State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle maintains her office held its ground against outside pressure, and took the time needed to do a thorough investigation. At this point, it's hard to argue with the results. James is free. Justice of sorts is served. And although this is beyond bittersweet for James, a terrible wrong has been made right. On that sunny afternoon of freedom, James's family, his mother Doris, his cousins Santay, Charles and Sankavia, and his legal team whisked him over the causeway straddling Biscayne Bay to the Miami Beach restaurant Yardbird. There, surrounded by those who have stayed with him through a terrible journey, he ordered his first meal as a free man – country fried chicken with mashed potatoes and sweet corn. | |
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| 05-01-22 12:49pm - 872 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Some of the older members, if they are still around, have the computer expertise that might help. But they mainly seem to be inactive, or lurking. My own knowledge of computers is very limited. Sorry I can't be more helpful. | |
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| 05-01-22 12:41pm - 872 days | #42 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Evidence mounts that the GOP tried to keep Sleepy Joe Biden out of the White House. But that's normal for politics. Fight the enemy. Sleepy Joe Biden is a Democrat, so he didn't deserve to win the election. And we should have stuck with Donald Trump, who was making America great again. Take up your 454 Casulls, your Russian Kalashnikovs (it's OK if they are Russian, since Trump is besties with Putin), and start shooting all treasonous Democrats on sight. Let's join together to make America free. Trump uber alles!!! ------ ------ Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes Associated Press FARNOUSH AMIRI May 1, 2022, 8:05 AM WASHINGTON (AP) — Rioters who smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, succeeded — at least temporarily — in delaying the certification of Joe Biden’s election to the White House. Hours before, Rep. Jim Jordan had been trying to achieve the same thing. Texting with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a close ally and friend, at nearly midnight on Jan. 5, Jordan offered a legal rationale for what President Donald Trump was publicly demanding — that Vice President Mike Pence, in his ceremonial role presiding over the electoral count, somehow assert the authority to reject electors from Biden-won states. Pence “should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all,” Jordan wrote. "I have pushed for this," Meadows replied. “Not sure it is going to happen.” The text exchange, in an April 22 court filing from the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot, is in a batch of startling evidence that shows the deep involvement of some House Republicans in Trump’s desperate attempt to stay in power. A review of the evidence finds new details about how, long before the attack on the Capitol unfolded, several GOP lawmakers were participating directly in Trump's campaign to reverse the results of a free and fair election. It's a connection that members of the House Jan. 6 committee are making explicit as they prepare to launch public hearings in June. The Republicans plotting with Trump and the rioters who attacked the Capitol were aligned in their goals, if not the mob's violent tactics, creating a convergence that nearly upended the nation's peaceful transfer of power. “It appears that a significant number of House members and a few senators had more than just a passing role in what went on," Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, told The Associated Press last week. Since launching its investigation last summer, the Jan. 6 panel has been slowly gaining new details about what lawmakers said and did in the weeks before the insurrection. Members have asked three GOP lawmakers — Jordan of Ohio, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California — to testify voluntarily. All have refused. Other lawmakers could be called in the coming days. So far, the Jan. 6 committee has refrained from issuing subpoenas to lawmakers, fearing the repercussions of such an extraordinary step. But the lack of cooperation from lawmakers hasn't prevented the panel from obtaining new information about their actions. The latest court document, submitted in response to a lawsuit from Meadows, contained excerpts from just a handful of the more than 930 interviews the Jan. 6 panel has conducted. It includes information on several high-level meetings nearly a dozen House Republicans attended where Trump's allies flirted with ways to give him another term. Among the ideas: naming fake slates of electors in seven swing states, declaring martial law and seizing voting machines. The efforts started in the weeks after The Associated Press declared Biden president-elect. In early December 2020, several lawmakers attended a meeting in the White House counsel's office where attorneys for the president advised them that a plan to put up an alternate slate of electors declaring Trump the winner was not “legally sound.” One lawmaker, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, pushed back on that position. So did GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Louie Gohmert of Texas, according to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant in the Trump White House. Despite the warning from the counsel's office, Trump's allies moved forward. On Dec. 14, 2020, as rightly chosen Democratic electors in seven states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — met at their seat of state government to cast their votes, the fake electors gathered as well. They declared themselves the rightful electors and submitted false Electoral College certificates declaring Trump the true winner of the presidential election in their states. Those certificates from the “alternate electors” were then sent to Congress, where they were ignored. The majority of the lawmakers have since denied their involvement in these efforts. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia testified in a hearing in April that she does not recall conversations she had with the White House or the texts she sent to Meadows about Trump invoking martial law. Gohmert told AP he also does not recall being involved and that he is not sure he could be helpful to the committee’s investigation. Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia played down his actions, saying it is routine for members of the president’s party to be going in and out of the White House to speak about a number of topics. Hice is now running for secretary of state in Georgia, a position responsible for the state's elections. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona didn’t deny his public efforts to challenge the election results but called recent reports about his deep involvement untrue. In a statement Saturday, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona reiterated his “serious” concerns about the 2020 election. “Discussions about the Electoral Count Act were appropriate, necessary and warranted,” he added. Requests for comment from the other lawmakers were not immediately returned. Less than a week later after the early December meeting at the White House, another plan emerged. In a meeting with House Freedom Caucus members and Trump White House officials, the discussion turned to the decisive action they believed that Pence could take on Jan. 6. Those in attendance virtually and in-person, according to committee testimony, were Hice, Biggs, Gosar, Reps. Perry, Gaetz, Jordan, Gohmert, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Debbie Lesko of Arizona, and Greene, then a congresswoman-elect. "What was the conversation like?” the committee asked Hutchinson, who was a frequent presence in the meetings that took place in December 2020 and January 2021. “They felt that he had the authority to, pardon me if my phrasing isn’t correct on this, but — send votes back to the States or the electors back to the states," Hutchinson said, referring to Pence. When asked if any of the lawmakers disagreed with the idea that the vice president had such authority, Hutchinson said there was no objection from any of the Republican lawmakers. In another meeting about Pence's potential role, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis were joined again by Perry and Jordan as well as Greene and Lauren Boebert, a Republican who had also just been elected to the House from Colorado. Communication between lawmakers and the White House didn't let up as Jan. 6 drew closer. The day after Christmas — more than two months after the election was called for Biden — Perry texted Meadows with a countdown. “11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration," the text read. "We gotta get going!” Perry urged Meadows to call Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general who championed Trump's efforts to challenge the election results. Perry has acknowledged introducing Clark to Trump. Clark clashed with Justice Department superiors over his plan to send a letter to Georgia and other battleground states questioning the election results and urging their state legislatures to investigate. It all culminated in a dramatic White House meeting at which Trump considered elevating Clark to attorney general, only to back down after top Justice Department officials made clear they would resign. Pressure from lawmakers and the White House on the Justice Department is among several areas of inquiry in the Jan. 6 investigation. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the panel from Maryland, has hinted there are more revelations to come. “As the mob smashed our windows, bloodied our police and stormed the Capitol, Trump and his accomplices plotted to destroy Biden’s majority in the electoral college and overthrow our constitutional order,” Raskin tweeted last week. When the results of the panel's investigation come out, Raskin predicted, “America will see how the coup and insurrection converged.” | |
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| 05-01-22 12:28am - 873 days | #41 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says Democrats are using politics to paint him with a black bush. Meadows gave the Democrats text messages that he did not want to turn over. And after turning over the messages, some of the Democrats leaked the messages to the press. So just anyone could now read the messages. The messages were private, so the public does not have the right to read them, Meadows believes. And Meadows' lawyers back up this claim: No judge ruled that the messages were public information. We need to clean house. To clean the swamp in Washington. That's what Trump promised. Let's follow through on Trump's promises, and clean the swamp in Washington. If need be, put Trump and all his cronies in jail, if they belong there. ------ ------ Meadows says 1/6 panel has sought to publicly 'vilify' him Associated Press ERIC TUCKER April 30, 2022, 11:51 AM FILE - Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows listens during an announcement of the creation of a new South Carolina Freedom Caucus based on a similar national group at a news conference on April 20, 2022 in Columbia, S.C. Meadows accused the congressional committee investigating last year's attack on the U.S. Capitol of leaking all of the text messages he provided to the panel in what he says was an effort to vilify him publicly. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows accused the congressional committee investigating last year's attack on the U.S. Capitol of leaking all of the text messages he provided to the panel in what he says was an effort to vilify him publicly. The argument was made in a filing Friday in Washington's federal court, where Meadows sued in December to invalidate subpoenas issued to him for his testimony and to Verizon for his cell phone records. In the latest filing, lawyers for Meadows asked a judge to reject the committee's request for an expedited ruling in its favor that would force Meadows to comply with the subpoenas. The committee requested an expedited briefing schedule Wednesday after filing its motion the previous week. The lawyers say Meadows deserves a chance through the fact-gathering process known as discovery to take depositions and gather other information relevant to questions that are in dispute, such as the committee's claims that former President Donald Trump did not actually invoke executive privilege over the items subpoenaed by the panel. Related video: New trove of Mark Meadows texts released The House voted in December to hold Meadows in criminal contempt after he ceased cooperating, referring the matter to the Justice Department, which has not said whether it will take action. His motion also accuses the committee of waging a “sustained media campaign" against Meadows. Though it does not provide evidence, it says the committee has leaked all of the text messages Meadows has produced to the committee. “The Congressional Defendants, under the auspices of a legitimate subpoena, induced Mr. Meadows to produce thousands of his private communications only to use them in a concerted and ongoing effort to vilify him publicly through the media,” Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, wrote in the motion. Court filings by the committee have shown how Meadows was in regular contact before Jan. 6, 2021, with Republican allies who advanced false claims of election fraud and supported overturning the results of the race won by President Joe Biden. A filing a week ago cited testimony from a White House aide who said Meadows had been advised beforehand that there could be violence on Jan. 6. The committee declined through a spokesperson to comment Saturday about Meadows' accusations against the panel. | |
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| 05-01-22 12:08am - 873 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
A deputy has gone missing after not returning with a murder suspect. The female deputy did not have permission to leave the jail with the suspect. The reason for leaving the jail was for a fake court appointment. So the cops are looking for the deputy and the suspect. Not sure if they deputy helped the suspect escape, or if she was taken against her will. Except the deputy was not following procedure by escorting a murder suspect by herself. To escort a murder suspect, the rules state the deputy is supposed to be escorted by two other deputies. Also, the deputy told a fib before leaving the jail. She told the cops she was going to a doctor after dropping off the suspect. But apparently she didn't have a doctor's appointment. It's not clear from the article exactly what happened before and while the suspect/inmate went missing with the deputy. But not to worry: Cops are trained to deal with emergencies: That's why they carry guns. The deputy was armed with a 9mm handgun. At least she was supposed to be. It's now possible the suspect has the 9mm handgun. ----- ----- Deputy, murder suspect missing after leaving jail against protocol: Authorities ABC News April 30, 2022, 10:11 AM An Alabama corrections deputy and suspect charged with capital murder have been missing since Friday morning after leaving the jail for a court appointment that did not exist, said authorities, who warned the suspect should be considered armed and "extremely dangerous." Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office employee Vicky White was last seen escorting inmate Casey White to the local courthouse on Friday around 9:40 a.m. for an "alleged mental health evaluation," Sheriff Rick Singleton told reporters. "We have confirmed that there was no mental health evaluation scheduled," Singleton said. Vicky White was also alone with the inmate, which is a "strict violation of policy," he said, noting that Casey White should have been escorted by two deputies given his charges. The two are not related, the sheriff said. As the assistant director of corrections, Vicky White is in charge of coordinating transportation between the detention center and the court, and the breach of protocol wasn't flagged by her employees, the sheriff said. Vicky White told a booking officer that she was going to the doctor after dropping off the inmate, but she never made that appointment either, authorities said. The sheriff's office did not realize the two were missing until 3:30 p.m. Friday, when the booking officer reported he was unable to get ahold of Vicky White and her phone was going to voicemail. They then realized that the inmate was not back at the detention center, either, Singleton said. The patrol vehicle the two took from the detention center was located in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center, authorities said. The car was spotted in the parking lot as early as 11 a.m. Friday, authorities said. PHOTO: The Lauderdale County Detention Center in Florence, Alabama. (WAAY) PHOTO: The Lauderdale County Detention Center in Florence, Alabama. (WAAY) Investigators are searching for any footage that can shed light on what happened, going off the inmate's phone logs to determine if his escape was premeditated and looking into the previous interactions between the deputy and inmate. Authorities are considering all angles, Singleton said. "Did she assist him in escaping? That's obviously a possibility," Singleton said. "We're assuming at this point that she was taken against her will unless we can absolutely prove otherwise." Vicky White has been an employee of the sheriff's office for 25 years. The office is "shocked" that she is missing, Singleton said, describing her as an "exemplary employee." The deputy was armed with a 9 mm pistol, authorities said. "Casey White should be considered armed and extremely dangerous," Singleton said. "Right now we hope and pray we get him before somebody gets hurt." The FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and Alabama Law Enforcement Agency are assisting in the search, according to Huntsville ABC affiliate WAAY. MORE: 4 Florida correctional officers charged with murder in alleged beating of inmate The state has issued a "blue alert," which is activated when an Alabama officer has been killed or seriously injured and the perpetrator is at large. Casey White, 38, is described by authorities as 6 feet, 6 inches tall and 252 pounds, with salt and pepper hair, hazel eyes and tattoos on both arms. Vicky White, 56, is described as 5 foot, 5 inches tall and 160 pounds, with blonde hair and brown eyes. "Casey White is believed to be a serious threat to the corrections officer and the public," the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said in its alert. The suspect was arrested in 2020 and charged with two counts of capital murder in a nearly 5-year-old cold case that authorities said was a murder for hire, AL.com reported at the time. He was in the Lauderdale County jail awaiting trial, set to begin on June 13, according to WAAY. | |
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| 04-30-22 04:10am - 874 days | #40 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald Trump is fighting to preserve the rights of past presidents. Trump does not want to pay fines. Says he doesn't know what papers might have been held by his company. Says he doesn't want to testify under oath, because he was the president, and people should believe what he says, without having to swear under oath. He is and was a politician, remember, and politicians have the right of free speech. And if he can't remember where some papers are, maybe those papers never existed. Or maybe he gave them away. Or maybe they are stored in some place he doesn't remember. Or maybe a lot of other things. So stop bothering him. It's a witch hunt. Not only is it a witch hunt, but also there's something funny going on: the judge did not use a court stenographer at the hearing. And the judge said, according to a reporter: that Trump needs to provide the “who, when, where, what” of his search. The judge also asked “Where did he (Trump) keep files? I assume it wasn’t all in his head." This is obvious evidence of bias: Everyone knows that Trump is the most genius president of the Untied States we've ever had. If Trump needed to keep files, the bestest place to keep them was in his head. And the bestest way of knowing if anything happened during Trump's administration, would be to just ask Trump. ---- ---- Trump, fighting contempt fines, says he doesn't have records Associated Press MICHAEL R. SISAK April 29, 2022, 12:34 PM NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's lawyers, seeking to reverse their client's $10,000-per-day contempt fine, provided a New York judge Friday with an affidavit in which the former president claims he didn't turn over subpoenaed documents to the state attorney general’s office because he doesn't have them. The judge, though, was unmoved and refused to lift sanctions he imposed on Trump on Monday. Judge Arthur Engoron criticized the lack of detail in Trump affidavit, which amounted to two paragraphs, saying that he should have explained the methods he uses to stores his records and efforts he made to locate the subpoenaed files. In the affidavit, which bore Trump's signature and Wednesday's date, the former president said that documents sought in Attorney General Letitia James' civil investigation into his business dealings weren't in his personal possession. Trump, who is appealing the contempt ruling, said he believed any documents would be in the possession of his company, the Trump Organization. In other affidavits, Trump lawyers Alina Habba and Michael Madaio detailed steps they took to locate documents in the Dec. 1 subpoena, including meeting with Trump last month at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and reviewing prior searches of his company's files. Andrew Amer, a lawyer for the attorney general's office, said in a court filing that while the affidavits “provide some additional information” about Trump's efforts to comply with the subpoena, more extensive searches were needed — including of Trump Tower, his residences and electronic devices — before the judge should consider reversing the contempt finding. Frank Runyeon, a reporter for the legal publication Law360, said that Engoron held an impromptu hearing Friday, without a court stenographer, in which he addressed the affidavits from Trump and his lawyers and ruled to keep the contempt fine in place. Runyeon, one of the few members of the news media to attend the unadvertised hearing, reported that Engoron was insistent that Trump provide the “who, when, where, what” of his search, with the judge asking at one point: “Where did he keep files? I assume it wasn’t all in his head." Habba filed a notice of appeal Wednesday with the appellate division of the state’s trial court seeking to overturn Engoron’s contempt ruling. Trump is also challenging Engoron’s Feb. 17 ruling requiring that he answer questions under oath. Oral arguments in that appeal are scheduled for May 11. James, a Democrat, has said that her investigation has uncovered evidence that Trump may have misstated the value of assets like skyscrapers and golf courses on his financial statements for more than a decade. Her Dec. 1 subpoena sought numerous documents, including paperwork and communications pertaining to his financial statements and various development projects. James asked Engoron to hold Trump in contempt after he failed to produce any documents by a March 31 court deadline. In his ruling, Engoron said that Trump and his lawyers not only failed to meet the deadline, but also failed to document the steps they had taken to search for the documents, as required under case law. Trump, a Republican, is suing James in federal court in an effort to stop her investigation. Oral arguments in that matter are scheduled for May 13. Trump recently labeled her an “operative for the Democrat Party” and has said in written statements that her investigation and a parallel criminal probe overseen by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, another Democrat, are “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt of all time.” Bragg said this month that the 3-year-old criminal investigation he inherited in January from his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., is continuing “without fear or favor” despite a recent shakeup in the probe’s leadership. Trump’s lawyers contend that James is using her civil investigation to gain access to information that could then be used against him in the criminal probe. So far, the district attorney’s investigation has resulted only in tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and its longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, relating to lucrative fringe benefits such as rent, car payments and school tuition. The company and Weisselberg have pleaded not guilty. | |
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| 04-28-22 12:04pm - 875 days | #39 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Biden tells Russia: You will not conquer Ukraine. Donald Trump comes out swinging: I will raise millions to donate to Russia to keep Putin in power. Putin is a genius. He deserves to conquer Ukraine. Once I am elected President of the Untied States of Trumperland, I will send US military forces to help Putin conquer the world. Together, Putin and I will be world conquerors. We can exist in peace. And put Sleepy Joe Biden in prison, or in his grave, whichever makes more sense. Vote for Donald Trump, the fightenest President we've ever known. Greater than Washington and Lincoln, who might have been good, but not as good or great as Donald Trump, leader of the Free World, dictator of tomorrow. ------ ------ 'Aggression will not win,' Biden tells Russia as he announces new military aid, sanctions Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan April 28, 2022, 9:55 AM WASHINGTON – With the war in Ukraine entering its third month, President Biden announced new sanctions on Russian oligarchs, as well as a new military aid package to Ukraine, measures intended to convince the Kremlin that it has little to gain from continuing the occupation of its sovereign neighbor. “Aggression will not win. Threats will not win,” Biden said Thursday at the White House. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has stepped up its rhetoric against Ukraine’s allies in the West. Earlier this week, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, described the threat of nuclear war as “serious.” The new, $33 billion aid package includes “ammunition, armored vehicles, small arms, de-mining assistance, and unmanned aircraft systems,” as well as humanitarian aid, according to a White House letter sent to Congress. The Biden administration hopes to bolster Ukrainian forces as they face the Russian offense in the Donbas region. President Biden, index finger raised, forcefully makes his point at the microphone. President Biden discusses the war in Ukraine at the White House on Thursday. (Andrew Harnik/AP) So far, the offensive has not amounted to the shattering blow the Kremlin hoped to land, but a protracted conflict is likely to present its own challenges, not only on the battlefields of Ukraine but in Washington, where Biden has had to justify the military expenditures as a necessary bulwark against authoritarianism. “The cost of this fight is not cheap,” the president acknowledged, “but caving to aggression is going to be more costly, if we allow it to happen.” The Biden administration also unveiled new sanctions Thursday against the billionaires whose fortunes are closely tied to Putin's. A White House brief on the new measures said the administration would make it “unlawful for any person to knowingly or intentionally possess proceeds directly obtained from corrupt dealings with the Russian government,” while also making the process of seizing the oligarchs’ assets easier. “We are going to seize their yachts, their luxury homes,” Biden said. “These are bad guys.” A member of the Spanish Civil Guard stands by a huge white yacht. A Civil Guard next to the yacht Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on April 4, as U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard search the vessel, an asset linked to Russian billionaire and Putin ally Viktor Vekselberg. (Francisco Ubilla/AP) The Department of Justice will also update the definition of “racketeering” to stymie the oligarchs' attempts to evade the sanctions imposed on them by the U.S. and Western allies. Any assets seized, according to the White House fact sheet, will be used to “remediate harms of Russian aggression toward Ukraine,” which has included the killing of civilians, the devastation of cities and the destruction of infrastructure. Biden had a blunt message for Putin. “You will never succeed in dominating Ukraine,” he said. | |
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| 04-28-22 10:23am - 875 days | #38 | |
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Article continues: What might all of this portend for Americans today, as President Biden follows in FDR’s New Deal footsteps while democratic socialist Bernie Sanders also rises in popularity and influence? In 1933, rather than inflame a quavering nation, FDR calmly urged Americans to unite to overcome fear, banish apathy and restore their confidence in the country’s future. Now, 90 years later, a year on from Trump’s own coup attempt, Biden’s tone was more alarming, sounding a clarion call for Americans to save democracy itself, to make sure such an attack “never, never happens again”. If the plotters had been held accountable in the 1930s, the forces behind the 6 January coup attempt might never have flourished into the next century. Sally Denton is the author of The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right. Her forthcoming book is The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land. This post originally appeared on The Guardian and was published January 11, 2022. This article is republished here with permission. | |
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| 04-28-22 10:22am - 875 days | #37 | |
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Why Is So Little Known About the 1930s Coup Attempt Against FDR? Business leaders like JP Morgan and Irénée du Pont were accused by a retired major general of plotting to install a fascist dictator. The Guardian Sally Denton ‘The planned coup was thwarted when Butler reported it to J Edgar Hoover at the FBI, who reported it to FDR.’ Photograph: FPG / Staff / Getty Images Donald Trump’s elaborate plot to overthrow the democratically elected president was neither impulsive nor uncoordinated, but straight out of the playbook of another American coup attempt – the 1933 “Wall Street putsch” against newly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt. America had hit rock bottom, beginning with the stock market crash three years earlier. Unemployment was at 16 million and rising. Farm foreclosures exceeded half a million. More than five thousand banks had failed, and hundreds of thousands of families had lost their homes. Financial capitalists had bilked millions of customers and rigged the market. There were no government safety nets – no unemployment insurance, minimum wage, social security or Medicare. Economic despair gave rise to panic and unrest, and political firebrands and white supremacists eagerly fanned the paranoia of socialism, global conspiracies and threats from within the country. Populists Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin attacked FDR, spewing vitriolic anti-Jewish, pro-fascist refrains and brandishing the “America first” slogan coined by media magnate William Randolph Hearst. On 4 March 1933, more than 100,000 people had gathered on the east side of the US Capitol for Roosevelt’s inauguration. The atmosphere was slate gray and ominous, the sky suggesting a calm before the storm. That morning, rioting was expected in cities throughout the nation, prompting predictions of a violent revolution. Army machine guns and sharpshooters were placed at strategic locations along the route. Not since the civil war had Washington been so fortified, with armed police guarding federal buildings. FDR thought government in a civilized society had an obligation to abolish poverty, reduce unemployment, and redistribute wealth. Roosevelt’s bold New Deal experiments inflamed the upper class, provoking a backlash from the nation’s most powerful bankers, industrialists and Wall Street brokers, who thought the policy was not only radical but revolutionary. Worried about losing their personal fortunes to runaway government spending, this fertile field of loathing led to the “traitor to his class” epithet for FDR. “What that fellow Roosevelt needs is a 38-caliber revolver right at the back of his head,” a respectable citizen said at a Washington dinner party. In a climate of conspiracies and intrigues, and against the backdrop of charismatic dictators in the world such as Hitler and Mussolini, the sparks of anti-Rooseveltism ignited into full-fledged hatred. Many American intellectuals and business leaders saw nazism and fascism as viable models for the US. The rise of Hitler and the explosion of the Nazi revolution, which frightened many European nations, struck a chord with prominent American elites and antisemites such as Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford. Hitler’s elite Brownshirts – a mass body of party storm troopers separate from the 100,000-man German army – was a stark symbol to the powerless American masses. Mussolini’s Blackshirts – the military arm of his organization made up of 200,000 soldiers – were a potent image of strength to a nation that felt emasculated. A divided country and FDR’s emboldened powerful enemies made the plot to overthrow him seem plausible. With restless uncertainty, volatile protests and ominous threats, America’s right wing was inspired to form its own paramilitary organizations. Militias sprung up throughout the land, their self-described “patriots” chanting: “This is despotism! This is tyranny!” Today’s Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have nothing on their extremist forbears. In 1933, a diehard core of conservative veterans formed the Khaki Shirts in Philadelphia and recruited pro-Mussolini immigrants. The Silver Shirts was an apocalyptic Christian militia patterned on the notoriously racist Texas Rangers that operated in 46 states and stockpiled weapons. The Gray Shirts of New York organized to remove “Communist college professors” from the nation’s education system, and the Tennessee-based White Shirts wore a Crusader cross and agitated for the takeover of Washington. JP Morgan Jr, one of the nation’s richest men, had secured a $100m loan to Mussolini’s government. He defiantly refused to pay income tax and implored his peers to join him in undermining FDR. So, when retired US Marine Corps Maj Gen Smedley Darlington Butler claimed he was recruited by a group of Wall Street financiers to lead a fascist coup against FDR and the US government in the summer of 1933, Washington took him seriously. Butler, a Quaker, and first world war hero dubbed the Maverick Marine, was a soldier’s soldier who was idolized by veterans – which represented a huge and powerful voting bloc in America. Famous for his daring exploits in China and Central America, Butler’s reputation was impeccable. He got rousing ovations when he claimed that during his 33 years in the marines: “I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.” Butler later testified before Congress that a bond-broker and American Legion member named Gerald MacGuire approached him with the plan. MacGuire told him the coup was backed by a group called the American Liberty League, a group of business leaders which formed in response to FDR’s victory, and whose mission it was to teach government “the necessity of respect for the rights of persons and property”. Members included JP Morgan, Jr, Irénée du Pont, Robert Sterling Clark of the Singer sewing machine fortune, and the chief executives of General Motors, Birds Eye and General Foods. The putsch called for him to lead a massive army of veterans – funded by $30m from Wall Street titans and with weapons supplied by Remington Arms – to march on Washington, oust Roosevelt and the entire line of succession, and establish a fascist dictatorship backed by a private army of 500,000 former soldiers. As MacGuire laid it out to Butler, the coup was instigated after FDR eliminated the gold standard in April 1933, which threatened the country’s wealthiest men who thought if American currency wasn’t backed by gold, rising inflation would diminish their fortunes. He claimed the coup was sponsored by a group who controlled $40bn in assets – about $800bn today – and who had $300m available to support the coup and pay the veterans. The plotters had men, guns and money – the three elements that make for successful wars and revolutions. Butler referred to them as “the royal family of financiers” that had controlled the American Legion since its formation in 1919. He felt the Legion was a militaristic political force, notorious for its antisemitism and reactionary policies against labor unions and civil rights, that manipulated veterans. The planned coup was thwarted when Butler reported it to J Edgar Hoover at the FBI, who reported it to FDR. How seriously the “Wall Street putsch” endangered the Roosevelt presidency remains unknown, with the national press at the time mocking it as a “gigantic hoax” and historians like Arthur M Schlesinger Jr surmising “the gap between contemplation and execution was considerable” and that democracy was not in real danger. Still, there is much evidence that the nation’s wealthiest men – Republicans and Democrats alike – were so threatened by FDR’s policies that they conspired with antigovernment paramilitarism to stage a coup. The final report by the congressional committee tasked with investigating the allegations, delivered in February 1935, concluded: “[The committee] received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country”, adding “There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.” As Congressman John McCormack who headed the congressional investigation put it: “If General Butler had not been the patriot he was, and if they had been able to maintain secrecy, the plot certainly might very well have succeeded … When times are desperate and people are frustrated, anything could happen.” There is still much that is not known about the coup attempt. Butler demanded to know why the names of the country’s richest men were removed from the final version of the committee’s report. “Like most committees, it has slaughtered the little and allowed the big to escape,” Butler said in a Philadelphia radio interview in 1935. “The big shots weren’t even called to testify. They were all mentioned in the testimony. Why was all mention of these names suppressed from this testimony?” While details of the conspiracy are still matters of historical debate, journalists and historians, including the BBC’s Mike Thomson and John Buchanan of the US, later concluded that FDR struck a deal with the plotters, allowing them to avoid treason charges – and possible execution – if Wall Street backed off its opposition to the New Deal. The presidential biographer Sidney Blumenthal recently said that Roosevelt should have pushed it all through, then reneged on his agreement and prosecuted them. | |
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| 04-28-22 07:40am - 875 days | #36 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Is Trump guilty of a murder for hire scheme? An informant who helped federal authorities investigate former President Trump's relationship with Duetsche Bank was found dead. Did Trump order the man killed? Is Trump above the law? How dangerous is Trump? Trump boasted that he could shoot a man in broad daylight, and he could get away with it. Has Trump now gone on to become a secret crime boss, which was what he was aiming for since he entered politics? Enquiring minds want to know: does Donald Trump belong in prison, where other criminals are put, for the safety of the public? Why wasn't Trump's connections to Russia made public? Why have people who've known about Trump's dealings with Deutsche Bank died? How many people has Trump ruined? And driven to death by dirty dealings? Did Trump drain the swamp in Washington, like he promised? Or did he pollute Washington even more, with bribery, corruption, graft, and dirty deals that benefitted Trump? ----- ----- A year after disappearing, federal informant in Trump probe found dead at L.A. high school LA Times April 27, 2022, 12:34 PM Valentin Broeksmit, an informant who worked with federal authorities investigating former President Trump's relationship with the German financial giant Deutsche Bank, was found dead Monday on a high school campus in the El Sereno neighborhood. Broeksmit, 46, was reported missing by friends and family a year ago, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. He was last seen driving a red 2020 Mini Cooper around 4 p.m. on April 6, 2021, on Riverside Drive at Griffith Park. His car was found, but Broeksmit remained missing — until Monday, when the L.A. County coroner's office identified his body. Cleaning crews at Woodrow Wilson High School found Broeksmit's body just before 7 a.m., according to Sgt. Rudy Perez with the Los Angeles School Police Department. Perez said classes resumed while investigators isolated the scene. Broeksmit appeared to be homeless, according to Perez. The coroner's office did not reveal a cause of death pending an investigation. There was no evidence of foul play or unusual circumstances, according to Capt. Kenneth Cabrera with the Los Angeles Police Department. Broeksmit, the son of Deutsche Bank executive Bill Broeksmit, handed off a trove of confidential documents to federal authorities who were investigating the troubled financial institution, according to a 2019 profile in the New York Times. His father had killed himself in 2014, and Valentin Broeksmit went on to share his father's files with numerous journalists and government investigators, including a trip to an FBI office in Los Angeles, the newspaper reported. Forensic News Network journalist Scott Stedman said he was one of the journalists who received documents from Broeksmit, which highlighted the bank's "deep Russia connections." Broeksmit was reported missing in 2021, but Stedman said they talked in January. "It is very sad," Stedman wrote on Twitter. "I don’t suspect foul play. Val struggled with drugs on and off." Broeksmit was born in Ukraine and adopted by Bill Broeksmit, his mother's second husband, according to the New York Times. As an adult, Valentin had a history of opioid abuse and was a member of an unsuccessful rock band. He referred to himself on Twitter as a "comically terrible spy." The U.S. House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed him numerous times during its examination of Deutsche Bank and its relationship with Trump. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | |
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| 04-28-22 01:46am - 876 days | #35 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Clarence Thomas Should Recuse Himself From Jan. 6 Cases, Senate Judiciary Chair Says News By BET Staff March 29, 2022 1:06 PM Illinois Senator and chairman of the Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin, says Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the U.S. Capitol. Durbin said Ginni Thomas's involvement " creates an obvious conflict" for her husband on Jan. 6-related cases. "For the good of the court I think he should recuse himself from those cases," Durbin added. Durbin isn’t alone. Several Democrats are calling for the longest-service Justice to recuse himself from any cases related to Jan. 6. Other Democrats have urged that he recuse himself from cases involving the 2024 election should former President Donald Trump run again. Congressional Democrats have also suggested instituting a code of ethics for the Supreme Court or launching a congressional committee investigation. The reporting on Ginni Thomas's contact with Meadows has invited scrutiny of Thomas’ handling of cases tied to Jan. 6 and the 2020 presidential election. RELATED: Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas’ Wife, Says She Was At January 6 Capitol Insurrection In January, Thomas was the sole justice to vote in opposition to the rest of the Court deciding to block Trump's bid to keep administration records from being given to the Jan. 6 House committee. It's unclear if Ginni Thomas's messages would have been included among the White House records being disputed in court. Thomas, who had been hospitalized with an infection and missed a number of appearances at the court, has made it known that he is now joining court proceedings remotely. | |
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| 04-28-22 01:31am - 876 days | #34 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Ex-cop who swung a flagpole against a cop and tackled that cop is claiming self-defense. As an ex-cop, he is an expert in how to claim self-defense. Ex-cops know how police can be brutal. Can even kill unarmed innocents. So the ex-cop was only defending himself when he tried to disarm the cop. And the cop was resisting. If the ex-cop had been carrying a 44 Magnum, he could have shot the cop. But the ex-cop was only trying to defend himself. So he didn't shoot the cop. He only hit him with a flag pole (flags are the symbol of patriotism), and was only trying to show that Donald J. Trump was the rightful President of the Untied States of Trumperland. Not Evil Sleepy Joe Biden, who stole the election from Honest Don (the real name of Donald J. Trump). ---- ---- Ex-cop who swung flagpole, tackled officer on Jan. 6 claims he showed 'restraint' NBC Universal Ryan J. Reilly April 26, 2022, 10:15 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. WASHINGTON — A former New York City police officer who swung a flagpole at and tackled an officer protecting the U.S. Capitol is claiming self-defense, with his lawyer telling jurors that his actions on Jan. 6 were "really a show of restraint." Thomas Webster, a Donald Trump supporter who was in D.C. on Jan. 6 in support of Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, is facing six counts, including a charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers using a dangerous weapon. Webster is the fourth Capitol defendant to face a jury trial. The first three— Dustin Thompson, Thomas Robertson and Guy Reffitt — were each found guilty on all counts. Thomas Webster at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (via FBI) Thomas Webster at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (via FBI) Video played during opening arguments on Tuesday shows Webster pushing a barricade and swinging a metal flagpole at an officer before tackling him to the ground, choking the officer with his gas mask. But James E. Monroe, Webster's attorney, told jurors that the officer struck Webster and “started this whole thing.” Monroe claimed that the officer’s use of force as a mob pushed against the barricades was inappropriate, and said his client was upset by the force used against members of the mob of thousands who had already passed a barricade and were unlawfully present on the restricted grounds of the U.S. Capitol during a riot. “This case is built on the lies of a young officer from the Metropolitan Police Department,” Monroe alleged. Noah Rathbun, the officer who was tackled by Webster, is expected to testify. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hava Arin Levenson Mirell told jurors on Tuesday that Jan. 6 "was a day unlike any day this country has ever seen," adding that thousands of rioters had overwhelmed officers. "Our democracy came grinding to a halt," Mirell said. Webster, she said, "came ready for battle" with a bulletproof vest issued to him by the NYPD. Mirell called Webster "rage-filled" and said Rathbun tried to disarm Webster after he swung the metal flagpole at him, sending part of the pole flying. Finding Webster guilty was the "only reasonable and logical verdict," Mirell said. In an unrelated incident months after the Jan. 6 attack, on May 24, 2021, Rathbun fatally shot an armed man who had allegedly held his ex-girlfriend against her will. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Rathbun shot the 26-year-old when the man “took up a shooting stance and pointed his rifle” at him. Rathbun, who has been on the force since 2015, was not charged in the incident. | |
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| 04-28-22 01:17am - 876 days | #33 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Political problems in the Republican party. Trump is considering asking Vlad Putin to appear in Ohio in support of the Republican party. "Putin is a genius in politics. He can sway US voters to support Trump's picks in the upcoming primary." And help calm the waters, so people can focus on sending Trump back to the White House, where he can stablilize world support behind Russia and end the war in Urkraine. Vote for Trump, the most successful businessman to ever become President of the Untied States of Trumperland. ---- ---- Top conservative group fires back at Trump as Ohio Senate primary escalates into GOP civil war Yahoo News Christopher Wilson April 27, 2022, 10:48 AM Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance shakes hands with former President Donald Trump. Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in the upcoming primary, with Trump during an event in Delaware, Ohio. (Gaelen Morse/Reuters) The Club for Growth, long seen as one of the most powerful groups in Republican politics, is sticking with its pick in Ohio’s messy GOP Senate primary despite attacks from top Trump allies backing a rival candidate. The anti-tax organization, which is supporting former state treasurer Josh Mandel in the contest, has begun airing a new ad taking direct aim at the former president’s endorsement of venture capitalist J.D. Vance. Trump backed Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” despite Vance’s previous criticism of him. In the new ad, actors portraying Ohio voters are shown old footage of Vance knocking Trump. In one clip, Vance is shown declaring himself “a Never Trump guy” — a label used by Republicans who refused to support Trump in 2016 and 2020. In another clip, Vance suggests he might vote for Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in 2016. “Has Trump seen this?” asks one actor in the ad after viewing the footage, later saying of Vance, “Where does he get off saying that?” Another actor says, “We’ve got our own eyes and our own ears.” The ad also includes a reference to Trump’s support of Mitt Romney, with an actress disdainfully noting, “How’d that turn out?” Romney, now a Republican senator from Utah, has since emerged as a leading Trump critic within the GOP and voted twice for Trump's impeachment. “Look, I love Trump, but he’s getting it wrong with J.D. Vance too,” says another actor. It is not the first Club for Growth ad highlighting Vance’s past statements. Late last year, Trump reportedly asked the group to stop airing its ads — which featured Vance calling him “idiot,” “noxious” and “offensive” — worrying that they would hurt Trump’s popularity in the state. The Club for Growth spent $71 million supporting Republican candidates in the 2020 election and has so far raised $38 million for the 2022 midterms, spending $13 million. For his part, Vance has become a stalwart Trump supporter in recent years and is a regular guest on Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News program. According to the New York Times, Trump expected the club’s media campaign to stop once he endorsed Vance, but when the attacks continued, he had an assistant send the group’s president, David McIntosh, an angry and expletive-laden text message. In response, a spokesperson for the group told Politico that the group was buying more ad time in support of Mandel. The president’s eldest son, Donald Jr., has since attacked both Mandel and the Club for Growth numerous times on Twitter. Although the Club for Growth opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, it quickly fell in line behind him once he won the presidency and supported his reelection effort in 2020. Trump and the club are backing many of the same candidates in Republican primaries this year, a fact that McIntosh attempted to emphasize to the New York Times. “I very much view this as one race where we’re not aligned, we’re on opposite sides, which doesn’t happen very often,” he told the newspaper. Trump’s endorsement appears to be paying off in the crowded Ohio primary, which includes a number of other candidates in addition to Vance and Mandel. A Fox News poll released Tuesday showed Vance taking the lead in the race, with 23% support compared with Mandel’s 18%. Republican senate candidate Josh Mandel, with a painting of Trump behind him, speaks at a campaign event. Republican senate candidate Josh Mandel at a campaign event in Cortland, Ohio, ahead of next month's primary election. (Gaelen Morse/Reuters) The primary will be held May 3. The winner is expected to face Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in November’s general election. Trump won Ohio in both 2016 and 2020 by 8 points. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report currently predicts that the Republican nominee will have the edge in the general election. Trump’s April 15 endorsement of Vance roiled many Republicans in Ohio who are supporting other candidates in the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman. The former president held a rally with Vance on Saturday night where he explained the endorsement. “He’s a guy that said some bad shit about me,” Trump said of Vance. “If I went by that standard, I don’t think I would have ever endorsed anybody in the country.” | |
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| 04-28-22 12:51am - 876 days | #32 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, Putin is considering hiring Donald J. Trump, the famous Commander-In-Chief of the Untied States of Trumperland, as Chief Battle Engineer to overcome Ukraine resistance. Trump is a fan of Putin's genius. Putin is a fan of Donald J. Trump's military career. Trump was awarded the Bonespur Medal of Honor during the Vietnam conflict. After these two geniuses form an alliance, Russia and the Untied States of Trumperland will stand tall. And Sleepy Joe Biden will tremble in his shoes as he waits for the revolution that will put Trump back in the White House. | |
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| 04-27-22 11:07am - 876 days | #31 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
“The family just wants accountability,” Larry Handfield, attorney for the Obumseli family, told Yahoo News. “That’s all the family wants.” Has Donald Trump read about this black man who died? Donald Trump has a heart of gold. He is brave. And honest. He can lend his support to the Florida police, since he is now a resident of Florida (but I'm not sure what state Trump is registered to vote in). But Trump can now investigate whether this white woman was justified in stabbing the dead black man. Everyone knows that people are equal under the law. So if the dead man's family wants accountability, Trump can ensure that people will be treated fairly, under the law. Especially since the Florida state governor is also a Republican. ------- ------- Obumseli family demands answers in stabbing by OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney Yahoo News Marquise Francis April 27, 2022, 3:49 AM Courtney Clenney and Christian “Toby” Obumseli. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: via Instagram, family handout) On April 3, one week before what would have been his 28th birthday, Christian “Toby” Obumseli was stabbed to death by his girlfriend, Courtney Clenney, in a luxury Miami high-rise apartment after what police say was a domestic dispute. Clenney, a white social media influencer and OnlyFans model who also goes by the name Courtney Tailor on social media sites and has millions of followers, called 911 after stabbing Obumseli, a cryptocurrency investor who was Black. When police arrived at the couple’s apartment, Obumseli was taken to a local hospital, where he died from a stab wound to the chest, the Miami Herald reported. Clenney was handcuffed in the apartment and told police that she had feared for her life and acted in self-defense. She was eventually hospitalized for a psychiatric evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act, which provides emergency mental health services and temporary detention for people at risk of suicide or a mental health crisis, but she was soon released and was spotted at a hotel bar five days after the stabbing and has yet to be charged. Miami Police declined to comment to Yahoo News on the decision not to charge Clenney, instead emailing an official statement about the incident. “The preliminary investigation determined that both Mr. Obumseli and the female had been involved in a physical altercation,” the statement reads, adding, “Homicide detectives, in conjunction with Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and Medical Examiner Department, continue to investigate the incident.” Clenney and Obumseli, who had recently moved together from Austin, Texas, to Miami, were known to police prior to the fatal stabbing. Department sources told the Miami Herald that officers had been called to their apartment at least four times over the last few months in response to disturbances, but no arrests were ever made. Now that three weeks have passed and charges against Clenney have still not been filed, Obumseli’s family is demanding answers. “The family just wants accountability,” Larry Handfield, attorney for the Obumseli family, told Yahoo News. “That’s all the family wants. The family’s frustrations with police began right from the start. In fact, Handfield said, Miami police did not notify them about Obumseli’s death. Instead, they say they learned about it when the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine called them two days after the killing and asked if they would like to donate his organs. The family initially thought it was a prank call. (The medical school did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Yahoo News.) The family flew to Miami from Texas to meet with detectives the following day and were frustrated that the police seemed to have already made up their minds about the events surrounding Obumseli’s death. Moreover, Handfield said, they felt dismissed and disrespected by the police. “They were told that Courtney claimed self-defense and they believed her and there was no need for an investigation,” he said. “The detective reached his conclusion in less than 24 hours from reporting to the scene. That is totally inappropriate and something that should never happen.” “We have no cause to believe that this was a case of self-defense,” Obumseli’s cousin Karen Egbuna said at a press conference five days after the killing. Handfield said he thinks Clenney received preferential treatment from police because she is white. “I believe that if she was Black, she would have been arrested and [police would have] let the process play itself out,” he said. “But since she was treated with privilege, she has not been arrested.” Clenney’s lawyer, Frank Prieto, refuted this notion, telling Yahoo News that if Clenney’s statement had not held up, she would have been arrested. “I don’t believe privilege plays a role,” he said. “The crime scene had been thoroughly evaluated. … If her statement was inconsistent with what the scene looked like, there would have been an arrest.” Prieto added that there is evidence of domestic violence that proves the couple had a “tumultuous relationship.” The night of the incident, Prieto said, he saw bruises on Clenney’s body at the police station. “They both have a history of being physical with each other,” he said. “The Friday before [Obumseli was killed], police were called to the apartment because of a domestic dispute, and only because Clenney did not want to press charges was Obumseli not arrested.” Clenney is now in therapy from the incident, Prieto said. “She’s grieving and completely devastated,” he said. “It’s a tragedy that a young man lost his life, but … this was self-defense, and it’s impacted her life as well.” Prieto and Handfield note that Clenney has pending cases in other states, including a 2020 arrest in Texas for driving under the influence and an outstanding 2015 bench warrant for public intoxication in California. Friends and acquaintances of Obumseli and Clenney said the couple had broken up last month, according to CBS Miami, and Obumseli was reportedly sleeping in common areas of their Miami apartment in the days leading up to the stabbing. Ashley Vaughn, a close friend of the couple, told Local 10 News that prior to the evening of April 3, she and her friends had seen Clenney hit Obumseli, but not the other way around. “From what we’ve personally experienced between the both of them, we believe that Christian wouldn’t put her in a position where she would need to stab him to protect herself,” she said. A neighbor with a direct view of the couple’s apartment, however, said he had witnessed Obumseli appearing to throw a punch at Clenney a week prior to the fatal stabbing. Because of their lack of faith in the Miami Police Department, the Obumselis are conducting their own investigation and passing along additional character witnesses together with names, numbers and addresses to the state’s attorney office. “We are providing the information that the police should have done,” Handfield said. “There are a lot of witnesses who can put context and that will show that throughout their relationship, the person that was aggressive throughout was the suspect Miss Courtney.” Obumseli’s brother, Jeffrey, created a GoFundMe page to raise money for a funeral, litigation and counseling, among other fees. As of Wednesday morning, the effort had raised more than $81,000. | |
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