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| 07-20-22 06:33am - 792 days | #226 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Department of Justice is not the sharpest blade in the drawer. When fake electors tried to push Dongle Trump as the real winner of the 2020 election, the Justice Department is still trying to figure out if they did anything illegal. Why is it so easy for them to make a criminal out of a regular Joe, who has no power? But so hard for them to see Dongle Trump supporters doing crimes? Biden needs to clean house: fire most of the Justice Department, put people in charge who will go after Trump supporters who are doing crimes. -------- -------- Georgia 'fake electors' hit with subpoenas in criminal probe NBC Universal Zoë Richards and Blayne Alexander and Jonathan Allen July 19, 2022, 2:33 PM Nearly a dozen of Georgia’s "fake electors" revealed Tuesday they've been subpoenaed to appear before the Fulton County special grand jury hearing evidence in the criminal investigation into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies. The revelations came in a court filing where attorneys for 11 of the state's 16 false presidential electors attempted to quash the subpoenas, calling them “unreasonable and oppressive." The attorneys also argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office initially said their clients were “witnesses, not subjects or targets” of the investigation, and that the electors had agreed to voluntary interviews with the team investigating election interference beginning in April. NBC News has reached out to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office for comment. After the 2020 election, certificates purporting to be from Trump electors were sent to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., by Republicans in seven battleground states that Joe Biden won — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That effort, which was ultimately unsuccessful, created two sets of electors: an official group selected by the states and the fake ones. During a public hearing last month, the House Jan. 6 committee presented documents and testimony that appeared to show Trump’s team had plotted to overturn the 2020 election by organizing the slates of alternate “fake electors” in those seven states. The fake electors submitted false certifications of Trump victories to the National Archives hoping that then-Vice President Mike Pence would swap them for the legitimate electoral votes that solidified Joe Biden’s victory, the panel alleged. Lawyers for the 11 Georgia electors argued Tuesday that their clients were unaware of any alleged plot by former Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani to use their votes improperly. “[T]he nominee electors did not and could not have had any involvement in or knowledge of any such plan, as it was not even conceived until several weeks after the GOP electors had completed their contingent electoral slates on December 14, 2020,” the attorneys wrote. “And, in any event, it was never disclosed to or discussed with the nominee electors at any time.” “As such, none of the nominee electors could have anticipated on December 14, 2020 that there could or would be any attempt to misuse their lawfully cast contingent electoral slate in such manner, nor did they or could they have participated in the same,” they added. The attorneys further argued that county prosecutors had changed course in the probe despite cooperation from their clients. “The abrupt, unsupportable, and public elevation of all eleven nominee electors’ status wrongfully converted them from witnesses who were cooperating voluntarily and prepared to testify in the Grand Jury to persecuted targets of it,” the attorneys said in the court filing. “The unavoidable conclusion is that the nominee electors’ change of status was not precipitated by new evidence or an honestly-held belief that they have criminal exposure but instead ad improper desire to force them to publicly invoke their rights as, at best, a publicity stunt,” they added. According to the attorneys, the electors had the right to cast "contingent" electoral votes, drawing similarities between the 2020 actions and those made by Democratic electors in the judicially contested 1960 presidential contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. “There, the contingent, provisional electoral ballots cast by the Kennedy presidential elector were ultimately the ones counted by Congress as Hawaii’s electoral votes,” they argued. The effort to quash the subpoenas in Fulton County comes as Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., a Trump ally, is fighting a similar subpoena to testify in the probe. The Justice Department said this year that federal prosecutors were looking into the legal ramifications for those involved in the scheme to push slates of fake Electoral College members declaring Trump the winner of states that Biden won. | |
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| 07-19-22 07:53pm - 793 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Doctor who performed abortion for a 10-year-old rape victim moves to sue Indiana AG for defamation Yahoo News Dylan Stableford July 19, 2022, 11:25 AM Dr. Caitlin Bernard — the Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio after the state outlawed the procedure for pregnancies past six weeks — has filed a notice that she intends to sue Indiana’s attorney general for statements he made about her on Fox News. In a letter to Indiana AG Todd Rokita dated Tuesday, lawyers for Bernard informed Rokita of the filing, which by law triggers a 90-day period for the state to respond to the so-called tort claim seeking damages for reputational harm and emotional distress. At that time, Bernard could file a lawsuit against Rokita for defamation. Three days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which prompted a statewide ban in Ohio on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, Bernard received a phone call from a child-abuse physician in the Buckeye State whose 10-year-old patient was six weeks and three days pregnant. On July 1, the Indianapolis Star reported on the case in a story about the repercussions of the Supreme Court’s decision. It quickly drew national attention — and skepticism from anti-abortion advocates who questioned whether the girl even existed. Todd Rokita and Dr. Caitlin Bernard. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Darron Cummings/AP, iuhealth.org) Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Dr. Caitlin Bernard. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Darron Cummings/AP, iuhealth.org) On July 11, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, said there was “not a damn scintilla of evidence” to corroborate the story. Two days later, the girl’s alleged rapist was arraigned in an Ohio court. At the arraignment, Columbus Police Detective Jeffrey Huhn testified that Gerson Fuentes, who was suspected to be living in the country illegally, had been arrested after he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. Huhn said the girl’s mother had reported the rape to the Franklin County child services agency, which referred a complaint to Columbus police on June 22. In court, officials disclosed that the girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis on June 30. The night of the arraignment, Rokita appeared on Fox News and said his office was investigating whether Bernard was licensed to perform an abortion — and whether she had failed to report it. “We have this abortion activist acting as a doctor with a history of failing to report,” Rokita said. “We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end.” During the interview, a chyron on the screen underneath Rokita and a picture of Bernard read: “Doc Failed to Report Abortion of Abuse Victim.” Rokita issued a subsequent statement through his office, saying: “Aside from the horror caused here by illegal immigration, we are investigating this situation and are waiting for the relevant documents to prove if the abortion and/or the abuse were reported, as Dr. Caitlin Bernard had requirements to do both under Indiana law. The failure to do so constitutes a crime in Indiana, and her behavior could also affect her licensure. Additionally, if a HIPAA violation did occur, that may affect next steps as well.” But Bernard, whose physician license is active, did report it. The Indiana University Health System, where she is employed, issued a statement on Friday saying it had conducted a review into whether she had violated any privacy laws and found her to be in full compliance. “Mr. Rokita’s statements that Dr. Bernard was an ‘abortion activist acting as a doctor’ with a ‘history of failing to report’ were false,” Bernard’s attorneys said in their letter. “Mr. Rokita either knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the statements.” Rokita’s office did not immediately respond to a Yahoo News request for comment. “Mr. Rokita’s comments were intended to heighten public condemnation of Dr. Bernard, who legally provided legitimate medical care,” her attorneys added. “Mr. Rokita’s false and misleading statements about alleged misconduct by Dr. Bernard in her profession constitute defamation.” | |
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| 07-19-22 07:39pm - 793 days | #225 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
ARTICLE CONTINUES: “In particular,” they wrote, “we were skeptical that Trump’s speech would satisfy the stringent requirement of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the landmark case in which the Supreme Court held that the government could only criminalize speech advocating unlawful action if ‘such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.’” However, Hutchinson’s account of Trump’s demand to remove the magnetometers undermines that position, they wrote, serving as “additional proof of intent and context, and — crucially — a material act to increase the likelihood of violence,” which “easily distinguishes Trump’s speech at the rally from other kinds of core political speech that should never be criminalized.” Not only could Hutchinson’s account be used to prosecute Trump for inciting or encouraging a riot under 18 U.S. Code section 2101, but Rozenshtein and Shugerman argued that the former White House aide’s testimony also “bolsters the case” for charging the former president with obstruction of Congress, as well as insurrection and seditious conspiracy. They aren’t the only ones who were influenced by Hutchinson. Solomon Wisenberg, a former deputy independent counsel under Ken Starr during the investigation of President Bill Clinton, called Hutchinson’s testimony “the smoking gun,” making a case for Trump’s “criminal culpability on seditious conspiracy charges.” Meanwhile, John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, appears to have been swayed by the “powerful” testimony of Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, a former Trump supporter who was charged with illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6. Dean, who was a key witness in the Watergate investigation, predicted that “Trump is in trouble” after hearing Van Tatenhove and Ayres testify before the committee last Tuesday. “I think a criminal case is going to come out of it,” Dean said on CNN following the committee’s seventh hearing. “And I don’t see how … prosecutors at the Department of Justice can’t take a lot of this evidence and use it. A lot of these people who are involved in this are going to be in front of a grand jury, if they’re not already.” An image of Jeffrey Clark, labeled: Former Assistant Attorney General . An image of former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark on a screen at a hearing on June 23. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) This week, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported that Garland had issued a memo in May extending a 2020 policy first introduced by former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr, which requires federal investigators to obtain written approval from the attorney general for any investigations into a presidential candidate or their staff. Although Trump has strongly hinted that he intends to run for president again in 2024, he has yet to formally announce his candidacy. A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Garland memo or whether it applies to Trump. Still, since the committee began its latest round of public hearings, there have been some signs that the Justice Department may be expanding the scope of its Jan. 6 inquiry. For example, the department renewed an earlier request for the panel’s interview transcripts, and issued several new subpoenas, apparently in relation to its ongoing inquiry into the potentially fraudulent effort to use fake pro-Trump electors to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Last month, federal agents also searched the home of former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who allegedly tried to help Trump use the department to help subvert the election. Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has empaneled a special grand jury and subpoenaed several Trump advisers, including his attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as well as a number of prominent Georgia Republicans, as part of her fast-moving investigation into Trump’s attempt to meddle with the election in her state. Willis told Yahoo News last week that she is considering calling Trump himself to testify to the special grand jury. Merrick Garland raises his hand in a gesture of exasperation. Attorney General Merrick Garland at a press conference on June 13. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) As the select committee wraps up this series of hearings, Parker argued that the real question is not whether the evidence it has presented is sufficient to indict Trump, but whether it’s enough to merit a criminal investigation of which the former president is the subject. “There’s more than enough evidence” for that, she said. “I think sometimes we get so saturated with the coverage of this that we forget to step back and take note of just how incredible it is that we are hearing and seeing this amount of evidence of potential criminality on the part of the president of the United States that was aimed at overturning the results of an election,” she said. “I mean, criminality aimed at the very heart of our democratic system of government.” Parker noted that one of the factors the Justice Department manual instructs prosecutors to consider when deciding whether to prosecute a criminal case is the seriousness of the offense. “I’m not sure you could find a more serious offense than attempting to destroy American democracy,” she said, adding that federal prosecutors regularly bring charges against everyday Americans for arguably much less serious offenses, such as using or selling drugs or trying to enter the country illegally. Parker suggested that if the Justice Department fails to prosecute Trump, “the most powerful person in the country,” for crimes “aimed at destroying our democratic system of government,” while continuing to bring charges against average citizens for these kinds of lesser offenses, it would send a “terrible and possibly even fatal message.” “The criminal justice system in a democratic system is basically a form of a social contract. We all agree to be bound by the laws on the theory that the laws will be enforced fairly as to everyone,” she said. “That idea is seriously undermined when Joe and Jane Average can be charged with crimes but the president of the United States isn’t charged for the most serious thing you can imagine somebody doing.” The rioters got within two doors of Vice President Mike Pence's office. See how in this 3D explainer from Yahoo Immersive. | |
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| 07-19-22 07:34pm - 793 days | #224 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Jan. 6 committee has presented evidence of Trump's criminal behavior. But does Joe Biden have the balls to push the Justice Department into charging Trump with crimes? Or will he be a pussy, and let Trump get away with crimes against the nation, because Sleepy Joe wants to be fair? Trump was strong, and pushed the government to act against people Trump didn't like. But Biden is trying to take the higher moral position. Which on a practical basis, means Biden is a fucking fool. And doesn't deserve to be president. If the Dems can't put a stronger, abler man in the White House, let the Republicans take it back. And the Republicans will push their political positions with glee. People died from the Jan. 6 riots. Under law, that means everyone involved can be charged with murder. If someone dies during the commission of a crime, all the associates in the crime can be charged with murder, even if the person who died was killed by the police, even if the person who died was a suicide. That's the way the law works. ------ ------ The Jan. 6 committee has made a compelling case against Trump. But will he face criminal charges? Yahoo News Caitlin Dickson July 19, 2022, 12:15 PM Six weeks ago, the House Jan. 6 committee presented the American people with a tantalizing offer. Over the course of several public hearings, committee chairman Bennie Thompson promised, the panel would show evidence that former President Donald Trump was at the center of a “sprawling, multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election” and remaining in power after his term ended. Thompson’s pledge was initially met with a mixture of curiosity and doubt. A year and a half after a violent pro-Trump mob had stormed the U.S. Capitol, delaying the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election results with a riot that left five people dead and more than 150 police officers injured, many wondered what the select committee could possibly reveal about the deadly attack that wasn’t already widely known. Even then, it seemed unlikely that the most damning new evidence would result in consequences for Trump. Not even the members of the Jan. 6 committee, who widely agree that Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election broke the law, have been able reach a consensus on whether to formally refer the former president to the Justice Department for prosecution. And while Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged to hold “all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law,” the only charges that have been brought against Trump associates so far have been for failing to cooperate with the select committee’s probe. Of the more than 800 defendants who have been charged as a result of the Justice Department’s investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, only about 50 have pleaded guilty to felony charges. Legal experts have debated the issue of whether there would be sufficient evidence for the Justice Department to take the unprecedented step of prosecuting a former president. “The likelihood that the president broke laws here is extremely high,” Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor, said after the select committee’s second public hearing last month. Parker, who focused on prosecuting police excessive force and hate crimes cases as a deputy chief of the Criminal Section at the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, now serves as counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonprofit founded after Trump’s election in 2016 whose stated mission is “to prevent American democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.” She spoke to reporters as part of a Protect Democracy press briefing about potential avenues for criminal prosecution stemming from the Jan. 6 committee’s probe. Specifically, Parker listed obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, seditious conspiracy and wire fraud among the federal crimes likely to have been committed by Trump and associates, based on what was known at that point. However, she explained, whether the Justice Department ultimately decides to prosecute will depend not on its ability to prove that a crime took place, but rather if it can obtain sufficient evidence that those involved, including the former president, acted with criminal intent. “For the kinds of charges we’re talking about here, the department would essentially be required to prove that Donald Trump and his associates knew what they were doing was wrong when they acted,” she said. Yahoo News spoke with Parker ahead of this Thursday’s primetime hearing, which the select committee has indicated will be the last in this series. She said she thinks the committee “has done an excellent job of surfacing evidence” linking Trump to the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but cautioned that this still may not be enough for an indictment. “I wouldn't think that they're too far from that,” she said, referring to the Justice Department. “But I think there's still more work they would want to do before they got to that point.” Other legal experts, however, insist that they’ve seen enough. “The evidence is now overwhelming that Donald Trump was the driving force behind a massive criminal conspiracy to interfere with the official January 6 congressional proceeding and to defraud the United States of a fair election outcome,” former federal prosecutors Donald Ayer, Stuart Gerson and Dennis Aftergut wrote in a piece at the Atlantic last week. Ayer, who participated alongside Parker at a Protect Democracy press briefing in June, served as principal deputy solicitor general in the administration of Ronald Reagan and as deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, while Gerson served as assistant attorney general during the first Bush administration. They highlighted their Republican bona fides, as well as their DOJ credentials, writing, “The evidence is clearer and more robust than we as former federal prosecutors — two of us as Department of Justice officials in Republican administrations — thought possible before the hearings began.” Specifically, the three former prosecutors argued that “the committee has demonstrated repeatedly that [Trump] knew beyond all doubt that he had lost fair and square,” putting to rest speculation that his campaign to change the election outcome was based on a genuine belief that he was the rightful winner. Additionally, they wrote, the witness testimony and other evidence presented during the hearings placed Trump solidly at the center of every aspect of his effort to overturn his electoral loss — from his direct calls to state officials to his personal ploy to use the Justice Department to legitimize his bogus voter fraud claims, and his alleged advance knowledge of the danger posed by the crowd on Jan. 6 when he directed it to march on the Capitol. “Any argument that Donald Trump lacked provable criminal intent is contradicted by the facts elicited by the January 6 committee,” they wrote, concluding that “the tradition of not prosecuting a former president must yield to the manifest need to protect our constitutional form of government and to ensure that the violent effort to overthrow it is never repeated.” Rep. Liz Cheney wears a doubtful expression, while Rep. Bennie Thompson looks grave. Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., at a hearing of the committee on June 23. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Other initial skeptics, such as law professors Alan Rozenshtein and Jed Handelsman Shugerman, have reached a similar conclusion. Rozenshtein, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and Shugerman, a professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York, had both previously argued that the Justice Department lacked sufficient evidence to indict Trump for his actions on Jan. 6. But in a July 1 post for Lawfare, they wrote that they had been swayed by the unexpected testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. In particular, they cited Hutchinson’s account of a conversation that took place moments before Trump delivered his Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse, in which she said the former president ordered the removal of magnetometers, or metal detectors, that were being used to keep armed rally-goers away from the stage. “I overheard the president say something to the effect of 'I don’t care that they have weapons, they’re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away, let my people in. … They can march to the Capitol from here,’” Hutchinson recalled, explaining that Trump was frustrated by the empty space in the crowd. “He wanted it full, and he was angry that we weren’t letting people through the mags with weapons.” All three men raise their right hands. From left, former Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel, former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue are sworn in before the committee on June 23. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) Before Hutchinson’s testimony, Rozenshtein and Shugerman had independently argued that Trump’s statements on Jan. 6 urging his supporters to “fight” and telling them to march to the Capitol, while based on a lie, amounted to political speech covered by the First Amendment. | |
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| 07-19-22 03:14am - 793 days | #223 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Shane rises from the grave to say: "Dongle Trump is a low down, Yankee liar." Dongle Trump cries like a baby when he thinks of Sleepy Joe Biden sleeping in the White House. But even though Dongle Trump has raised millions in donations from foolish supporters based on the Great Lie (a tactic he stole from his father, Adolf, Dongle Trump is holding onto the money, in case he needs to buy more houses. Or to pay penalties on his fake income tax filings. | |
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| 07-18-22 08:30pm - 794 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Sylvester Stallone reveals the truth: the producer of the Rocky movie series is a parasite. He stole the rights to the series from me. I'm only worth maybe $400 million, and the producer of the series, Irwin Winkler, is worth maybe $100 million, but Winkler is a parasite, a thief, a low-down dirty Democrat. Why can't he be human, and give me the rights to the Rocky series? I was the star who created the series. Why wasn't I given the rights to the series? Now I have nothing from the Rocky series, to give to my children. That is not right. (But maybe if Sly offers Winkler $100 million for the rights, Sly can buy back the rights, and give them to his children.)  ----- ----- Sylvester Stallone Slams ‘Rocky’ Producer Irwin Winkler Amid Rights Rift: ‘Remarkably Untalented and Parasitical’ ”I wanted to leave something of Rocky for my children,“ Stallone wrote Loree Seitz | July 17, 2022 @ 6:06 PM Sylvester Stallone condemned “Rocky” producer Irwin Winkler for withholding ownership of the franchise in an Instagram post Sunday, calling for a “fair gesture” from Winkler. The post, which features an image of Winkler as a serpent with a knife for a tongue, is paired with Stallone’s caption that calls the image “A very flattering portrait of the great ‘Rocky’/’Creed’ producer, Irwin Winkler, from one of the country’s greatest.” “After Irwin controlling ‘Rocky’ for over 47 years, and now ‘Creed’,” Stallone wrote, “I really would like to have at least a little [of] WHAT’S LEFT of my rights back, before passing it on to ONLY YOUR CHILDREN — I believe that would be a fair gesture from this 93-year-old gentleman?” Winkler, who served as a producer for the “Rocky” films, also holds the title for its sequel series “Creed.” TheWrap has reached out to Winkler’s representative for comment. In recent years, Stallone has revealed his frustration in recent years that he has zero ownership of “Rocky,” a series that he helped create. “This is a painful subject that eats at my soul, because I wanted to leave something of Rocky for my children, but it’s always great hearing from the loyal fans… Keep punching,” Stallone concluded. On Saturday, Stallone posted an image of the book cover of “The Arrangement: A Love Story,” a novel written by Winkler’s son, David, with an inflammatory book review, calling it “by far the worst” book Stallone has read. He continued his caption by explaining that the author is the son of “the remarkably untalented and parasitical Producer of Rocky and Creed.” Centering on the boxing career of Rocky Balboa, the sports drama franchise which began with 1976 film, “Rocky,” has had five sequels, all of which were written and directed by Stallone. The spinoff franchise, “Creed,” which stars Michael B. Jordan, has introduced two films, with a third film slated to be released in Nov. 2022. | |
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| 07-18-22 01:41pm - 794 days | #222 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump says: if he had been in the area, he would have rushed in with his bare hands to take down the shooter (an echo of a statement he made while President of the US). Police and the public vow to disclose all the details of the Texas school shooting in May 24. It might take 100 years, since the police are shielded by many laws, but there will be books and investigations. Support your local cops, even when they are lying. ---- ---- 5 key takeaways from the Texas House report on Uvalde massacre Yahoo News Dylan Stableford July 18, 2022, 9:50 AM The Texas House of Representatives released a preliminary report Sunday outlining a series of failures by multiple law enforcement agencies in their response to the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers were killed by an 18-year-old gunman who was eventually killed at the scene. The 82-page report was released by a special investigative committee of the Republican-controlled Texas state Legislature. Here are five key takeaways. There was a massive law enforcement response, but no one took control Law enforcement officers are seen in a hallway of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. Law enforcement officers are seen in a hallway of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. (Texas House Investigative Committee/Handout via Reuters) According to the report, 376 law enforcement officers from 23 agencies responded to the shooting, ranging from 149 Border Patrol personnel and 91 members of the Texas Department of Public Safety to single officers from neighboring jurisdictions. The Uvalde Police Department had 25 officers present, the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office had 16, and the Uvalde school district had five. While school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo had been cited by state officials as the on-site commander responsible for the failed response, the report said that no one from state and federal law enforcement asked to take control of the situation. Arredondo had told the Texas Tribune in June that he didn’t consider himself in charge of the scene. Earlier this month, Arredondo resigned from his position on the Uvalde City Council, a seat he was elected to prior to the shooting. He had secretly taken the oath of office in June, but had not attended any meetings and has been on administrative leave from his position overseeing the school district’s police force since late June. Parents who attended a Sunday press conference by three committee members expressed anger and frustration, calling for discipline against the officers and saying they didn’t learn anything new from the report. “It’s a joke. They’re a joke. They’ve got no business wearing a badge. None of them do,” Vincent Salazar, grandfather of one of the victims, told the Associated Press. “They should be charged for not going in and for letting that happen to our kids,” Evadulia Orta, whose son was killed, told the Texas Tribune. A false narrative was pushed by authorities Texas Gov. Greg Abbott holds a press conference in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25, the day after the massacre at Robb Elementary. Sen. Ted Cruz stands in the background at right. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott holds a press conference in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25, the day after the massacre at Robb Elementary. Sen. Ted Cruz stands in the background at right. (Photo by Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images) The official story about the shooting began to unravel shortly after the tragedy, as it became clear that law enforcement had botched the response, waiting for more than an hour while the shooter was in a second grade classroom. Responding officers were initially praised for their work, including by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, before officials admitted that a school resource officer who they said engaged the gunman never existed, and a barricaded classroom door supposedly preventing them from engaging hadn’t even been locked. Three days after the shooting, officials conceded that law enforcement had stood in the hallway outside the classroom while students inside called 911 begging them for help. The report said that the initial statements “repeated a false narrative that the entire incident lasted as little as forty minutes thanks to officers who rapidly devised a plan, stacked up, and neutralized the attacker. The general sentiments shared that day were that law enforcement responders were courageous in keeping the attacker pinned down while children were evacuated.” In the aftermath of the shooting, parents spoke to the media about how they were threatened and detained outside the school when they tried to get in to rescue their children and confront the gunman. Angeli Rose Gomez, one of the mothers who was detained outside the school by police before persuading them to release her and run into the school to retrieve her children, has said that law enforcement has been harassing her for speaking out about their failure to act. “A complete and thorough investigation can take months or even years to confirm every detail, especially when this many law enforcement officers are involved,” read the report. “However, one would expect law enforcement during a briefing would be very careful to state what facts are verifiable, and which ones are not.” The report said that Abbott and other officials who weren’t on the scene were delivering “secondhand” information from those who were at the school, and that a Uvalde police lieutenant who was supposed to speak at a press briefing the day after the shooting “literally passed out while waiting in the hallway beforehand.” The report also noted that while officials had initially blamed a teacher for leaving an exterior door open, that teacher had actually slammed the door shut and called 911 when she saw the shooter approaching, although the door did not lock. The committee also criticized the media for repeating the “communication failures of relevant authorities.” Police failed to follow active-shooter protocols Police deploy in a hallway at Robb Elementary on May 24. Police deploy in a hallway at Robb Elementary on May 24. (City of Uvalde Police Department/Handout via Reuters) The report noted that in the wake of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, law enforcement training has emphasized that all officers “must now acknowledge that stopping the killing of innocent lives is the highest priority in active-shooter response, and all officers must be willing to risk their lives without hesitation.” However, the responders at Robb Elementary School “failed to adhere to their active-shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety." This was in line with the criticism leveled by a senior government official who conducts school active-shooter training who told Yahoo News in May that the responding officers broke every protocol put in place in the two decades since Columbine. “What they did was pre-Columbine protocol. After Columbine, all this changed — active shooters, you go in, the first guy goes in and neutralizes the threat,” the official said. “They broke every rule in the book. They did everything wrong.” “Nineteen cops … didn’t breach the door, they waited for [Customs and Border Protection]. Shoot the door, just shoot the door,” the official added. “I don’t know why they waited, they could have gone outside of [the] building and fired into the glass. Saying, ‘Sorry, it’s a bad call’ — well, it’s a bad call with 21 people dead.” The school's safety protocols failed too The memorial outside Robb Elementary School is seen on July 13. The memorial outside Robb Elementary School is seen on July 13. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Reuters) The doors to classrooms at Robb Elementary were supposed to be locked during school hours. But multiple witnesses told House investigators that doors were often left unlocked, and teachers would use rocks, door stops, wedges and magnets to prop them open, in part because of a "shortage" of keys at the school. The door to Room 111, one of the two adjoining classrooms where the shooting took place, was reported by a teacher in March to not always lock. But the head custodian testified he had never heard of any problems with that door, and maintenance records during the school year do not contain any work orders for it. The Uvalde school district used an alert system that allowed anyone in the event of an active shooter to initiate a lockdown, but the committee found that the staff at Robb Elementary did not always receive the alerts due in part to poor Wi-Fi and cellphone service. And employees often "had to log in on a computer to receive" the message. One of the survivors, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, said her teacher received an email alert about an active shooter. When the teacher went to the door, Miah said, the gunman was in the hallway. The report also found that school personnel didn’t always respond to alerts with a sense of urgency because the vast majority of them were issued by police during pursuits of vehicles with undocumented immigrants on highways near the school. Reports of so-called bailouts — incidents in which officers chase a vehicle containing suspected undocumented migrants who then purposely crash and scatter to avoid apprehension — were frequent. Since late February, there had been 47 “secure” or “lockdown” events at Uvalde schools, according to the report. About 90% of them were attributed to bailouts. The gunman was nicknamed 'School Shooter' online The report intentionally does not include the name of the gunman, who the committee said was driven in part by "notoriety and fame." But it does provide some new details about his background, education and childhood — as well as an increasing interest in violent imagery. | |
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| 07-18-22 06:42am - 794 days | #221 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Betsy Devos shows her inner truth: The Department of Education should be abolished. That is why she tried to destroy education in the United States under Trump: There is no truth except for Dongle Trump. Trump uber alles. Under Trump, she enjoyed orgies that lasted all night. And she wants to bring them back. Power to Dongle Trump, the most corrupt President the US has ever had. --- --- Trump Education secretary says ‘Department of Education should not exist’ The Hill Olafimihan Oshin July 17, 2022, 4:24 PM Former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos believes that the department she once led should be abolished. Devos, who spent four years as the Education secretary during the Trump administration, made the remarks at the inaugural Moms for Liberty summit on Saturday, according to the Florida Phoenix. “I personally think the Department of Education should not exist,” Devos told the mostly conservative crowd in Tampa, Fla. Devos was a leading proponent of “education freedom” during her time in office, promoting vouchers to allow families to choose their children’s school. In a speech in 2020, she said, “I fight against anyone who would have government be the parent to everyone.” Moms for Liberty is a conservative group that rose to national prominence for its objection to children wearing face masks at school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The local news outlet also reported that summit attendees were given tips on how to recruit, promote and endorse conservative school board candidates. Devos is not the first conservative figure to suggest nixing the federal agency charged with overseeing schools. A group of GOP House members backed a bill last year sought to abolish the Department of Education. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the bill in February 2021 with co-sponsors including Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). “Schools should be accountable,” Massie said in a statement at the time. “Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school.” Devos’s remarks come as schools have become a battleground for politicized culture wars, with Democrats and Republicans battling over issues such as critical race theory, LGBTQ rights and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) campaigned on a pledge to give parents a louder voice in schools, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) drew national blowback with his signing of a bill barring teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. | |
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| 07-18-22 01:50am - 795 days | #220 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The US Secret Service says it's shocked and does not understand why Congress has doubts about the truthfulness of the Secret Service. The Secret Service says it has fully cooperated with Congress in telling everything that happened around the time of the Jan 6, 2021 riots. Congress asked for the text messages agents sent in that period of time. And the Secret Service gave Congress everything it had. Unfortunately, some text messages were deleted from Jan 5 and Jan 6, after Congress asked for the records. But the deletions were a "normal" part of the Secret Service operations. Why normal? Because the Secret Service was only doing its job. Not trying to hide anything. As the Secret Service keeps explaining. Even though the law states that the records are to be kept intact. And the honorable Secret Service follows the law. Especially since it's hard to charge the Secret Service with breaking the law. Unlike charging a civilian with breaking the law: much easier charging a civilian with breaking the law. Everyone is equal under the law: which is why the laws are written by lawyers, who put loopholes in for protection of the empowered. ------ ----- Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages ABC News MEGHAN MACPHERSON July 17, 2022, 9:51 AM Ahead of Thursday's hearing by the House's Jan. 6 committee, investigators anticipate receiving more information from the Secret Service "to get the full picture" of what occurred before and during the Capitol insurrection last year, including as it related to text messages agents sent in that period of time, Rep. Zoe Lofgren said Sunday. "We expect to get them by this Tuesday," Lofgren, a California Democrat and member of the House committee, told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz. Lofgren was referring to "pertinent texts" the agency said they had in the wake of a complaint last week from an internal watchdog that the Secret Service had deleted texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the watchdog sought those records. "We need all of the texts from the fifth and sixth of January. I was shocked to hear that they didn't back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That's crazy, and I don't know why that would be," Lofgren told Raddatz, "but we need to get this information to get the full picture." In a previous statement, the Secret Service -- which was subpoenaed by the committee on Friday -- said any "insinuation" that they intentionally deleted texts was false and that the committee had their "full and unwavering cooperation." On "This Week," Raddatz asked Lofgren about what evidence the public could expect at Thursday's hearing, which the committee has said will detail the Trump White House's reaction to the unfolding riot. MORE: Jan. 6 committee sets next -- and possibly final -- hearing, to detail riot reaction 'minute by minute' "I'm going to let the hearings speak for itself, but we hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn't happen on that day and people can make their own judgment," Lofgren said. She said the hearing would not touch on the allegation of witness tampering that Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice-chair, raised during the last hearing -- saying that Trump had attempted to contact an unnamed witness who hasn’t appeared publicly. (Trump's spokesman called Cheney a liar.) Raddatz noted that while some in the public have been influenced by the committee's evidence during the hearings, "a recent Monmouth poll [from late June] found less than a quarter of Americans are paying attention and 90% of those say the hearings have not changed their minds." MORE: Jan. 6 committee member previews what's to come in next hearing "I think some people have heard us. More than 55 million people have watched some part of the committee proceedings," Lofgren said. Meanwhile, she said, "This investigation is very much ongoing. The fact that series of hearings is going to be concluded this Thursday doesn't mean that our investigation is over. It's very active, new witnesses are coming forward, additional information is coming forward." The committee is also weighing seeking interviews with Trump and Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, as was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. "Everything is on the table," Lofgren said -- including a possible criminal referral, which committee members have repeatedly said they are considering but which amounts to a symbolic gesture rather than a legal directive. The decision is ultimately up to prosecutors. MORE: Key takeaways from Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony to Jan. 6 committee As for the Department of Justice's cases related to Jan. 6, Lofgren said she believed the wrongdoing went beyond the false electors scheme the committee had detailed -- evidence the committee said the DOJ has now requested. "I do think that there's a much broader plot here. I think that's pretty obvious," Lofgren said. "I would not want to tell the attorney general how to conduct his investigations. But I will say this, they have subpoena power and they have a lot easier way to enforce their subpoenas than the Congress does." Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 07-17-22 11:53am - 795 days | #219 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The only good Indian is a dead Indian. But the IOC has given Jim Thorpe back his victory as the sole winner of 2 gold medals in the 1912 Olympics. Dongle Trump will travel to Washington and complain about this injustice: You are taking medals away from White men and giving it to an Indian? Shame on you. ----- ----- IOC reinstates Jim Thorpe's sole possession of 1912 Olympic gold medals Yahoo Sports Jack Baer July 14, 2022, 7:48 PM For the first time in 110 years, Jim Thorpe stands alone atop the Olympic podium. The International Olympic Committee reinstated Jim Thorpe as the sole winner of the gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics, according to ESPN. The decision fully reverses a controversy that had lingered for more than a century. Thorpe easily won both events, the only athlete to ever win both events, but had his medals stripped a year later after the IOC learned he had been paid to play minor league baseball in 1909 and 1910. As The Oklahoman notes, Thorpe was far from the only Olympic athlete to receive professional money while competing as an "amateur," he was just the only one who didn't use a fake name while doing it. Because he received a reported $2 per game to $35 per week, Thorpe had his amateur status withdrawn by the Amateur Athletic Union and lost his medals in a unanimous IOC vote. As would be later noted, the IOC violated its own rules in doing so, as no protest was made against Thorpe's eligibility in the 30 days after the Games. Thorpe went to his grave in 1953 without getting his medals back, and it was only in 1982, 30 years later, the IOC recognized it had acted improperly in taking the medals. Thorpe's medals were restored, but even then he was only identified as the co-champion alongside Sweden's Hugo Wieslander in the decathlon and Norway's Ferdinand Bie in the pentathlon. View of American football player Jim Thorpe, circa 1910. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images) Jim Thorpe once again stands alone. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images) Thursday's decision restores Thorpe as the sole winner in each event, and no one is happier than the Native American community that has long lamented the decision against one of its greatest heroes. From ESPN: "We are so grateful his nearly 110-year-old injustice has finally been corrected, and there is no confusion about the most remarkable athlete in history," said Nedra Darling, the co-founder of Bright Path Strong, a group created to share Native American voices and a leading organization that fought for Thorpe — who died in 1953 — to regain his medals. She is also a citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. "Jim Thorpe is a hero across Indian Country, and he is an American hero," she said. "He represented this country before it even recognized Native Americans as citizens, and he did so with humility and grace. Even after he was wronged by his coach, the American Athletic Union, and many others, he never gave in to bitterness and led with a spirit of generosity and kindness. I pray that Jim, his family, and our ancestors are celebrating that the truth has been respoken today, on this 110th anniversary of Jim being awarded his Olympic gold medals." Thorpe, of course, enjoyed plenty of other athletic success in his life, between an All-Pro NFL career and a seven-year MLB career, but, like many, hit hard times during the Great Depression. He was named the greatest athlete of the first 50 years of the 20th century by The Associated Press in 1950, and third-greatest of the entire century in 1999, behind only Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. | |
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| 07-17-22 11:45am - 795 days | #218 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The US Secret Service serves Americans. They have the higher, highest honor of protecting the President. Can they lie? Of course not. Unless they are doing it for a reason. Congress wants to investigate what the Secret Service did on Jan 6, during the riots. The Secret Service has said they've cooperated fully with Congress. But Congress has learned that some messages, that were supposed to be kept as records of what the Secret Service did on Jan 6, have been deleted. The Secret Service says the deleted messages were deleted as part of routine maintenance, not to keep the messages from Congress. But Congress has doubts. Is the Secret Service telling Congress everything about Jan 6, or shading the truth? ---- ---- Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages ABC News MEGHAN MACPHERSON July 17, 2022, 9:51 AM Ahead of Thursday's hearing by the House's Jan. 6 committee, investigators anticipate receiving more information from the Secret Service "to get the full picture" of what occurred before and during the Capitol insurrection last year, including as it related to text messages agents sent in that period of time, Rep. Zoe Lofgren said Sunday. "We expect to get them by this Tuesday," Lofgren, a California Democrat and member of the House committee, told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz. Lofgren was referring to "pertinent texts" the agency said they had in the wake of a complaint last week from an internal watchdog that the Secret Service had deleted texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the watchdog sought those records. "We need all of the texts from the fifth and sixth of January. I was shocked to hear that they didn't back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That's crazy, and I don't know why that would be," Lofgren told Raddatz, "but we need to get this information to get the full picture." In a previous statement, the Secret Service -- which was subpoenaed by the committee on Friday -- said any "insinuation" that they intentionally deleted texts was false and that the committee had their "full and unwavering cooperation." On "This Week," Raddatz asked Lofgren about what evidence the public could expect at Thursday's hearing, which the committee has said will detail the Trump White House's reaction to the unfolding riot. MORE: Jan. 6 committee sets next -- and possibly final -- hearing, to detail riot reaction 'minute by minute' "I'm going to let the hearings speak for itself, but we hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn't happen on that day and people can make their own judgment," Lofgren said. She said the hearing would not touch on the allegation of witness tampering that Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice-chair, raised during the last hearing -- saying that Trump had attempted to contact an unnamed witness who hasn’t appeared publicly. (Trump's spokesman called Cheney a liar.) Raddatz noted that while some in the public have been influenced by the committee's evidence during the hearings, "a recent Monmouth poll [from late June] found less than a quarter of Americans are paying attention and 90% of those say the hearings have not changed their minds." MORE: Jan. 6 committee member previews what's to come in next hearing "I think some people have heard us. More than 55 million people have watched some part of the committee proceedings," Lofgren said. Meanwhile, she said, "This investigation is very much ongoing. The fact that series of hearings is going to be concluded this Thursday doesn't mean that our investigation is over. It's very active, new witnesses are coming forward, additional information is coming forward." The committee is also weighing seeking interviews with Trump and Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, as was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. "Everything is on the table," Lofgren said -- including a possible criminal referral, which committee members have repeatedly said they are considering but which amounts to a symbolic gesture rather than a legal directive. The decision is ultimately up to prosecutors. MORE: Key takeaways from Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony to Jan. 6 committee As for the Department of Justice's cases related to Jan. 6, Lofgren said she believed the wrongdoing went beyond the false electors scheme the committee had detailed -- evidence the committee said the DOJ has now requested. "I do think that there's a much broader plot here. I think that's pretty obvious," Lofgren said. "I would not want to tell the attorney general how to conduct his investigations. But I will say this, they have subpoena power and they have a lot easier way to enforce their subpoenas than the Congress does." Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 07-17-22 05:29am - 795 days | #217 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The cover-up continues. A major news organization finds no problems with ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election. This is another blow against President-For-Life Dongle Trump. Dongle Trump wants Sleepy Joe Bidens fake victory stricken from the history books, and to regain his rightful place in the Whitest House, home to Dongle Trump and his lovely children, who have been forced to live elsewhere at tremendous expense. Drop boxes are a hoax set up by scum Democrats from Hell, to steal elections from our God-fearing Republican Overlords. Hail, Dongle Trump, the secret love-child of our beloved Adolf Hitler, and the proud disciple of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Man of Steel. Although Dongle Trump really admires Al Capone, who was shamefully put in prison on a witch hunt for hiring unlicensed tax preparers. ---- ---- No major problems with ballot drop boxes in 2020, AP finds Associated Press ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY July 17, 2022, 5:08 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. ATLANTA (AP) — The expanded use of drop boxes for mailed ballots during the 2020 election did not lead to any widespread problems, according to an Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. that revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results. The findings from both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states run contrary to claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies who have intensely criticized their use and falsely claimed they were a target for fraud. Drop boxes are considered by many election officials to be safe and secure, and have been used to varying degrees by states across the political spectrum. Yet conspiracy theories and efforts by Republicans to eliminate or restrict them since the 2020 election persist. This month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that drop boxes are not allowed under state law and can no longer be widely used. Drop boxes also are a focal point of the film “2,000 Mules,” which used a flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election. In response to the legislation and conspiracy theories surrounding drop boxes, the AP sent a survey in May to the top elections office in each state seeking information about whether the boxes were tied to fraudulent votes or stolen ballots, or whether the boxes and the ballots they contained were damaged. All but five states responded to the questions. None of the election offices in states that allowed the use of drop boxes in 2020 reported any instances in which the boxes were connected to voter fraud or stolen ballots. Likewise, none reported incidents in which the boxes or ballots were damaged to the extent that election results would have been affected. A previous AP investigation found far too few cases of potential voter fraud in the six battleground states where Trump disputed his loss to President Joe Biden to affect the outcome. A number of states — including Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas — said they do not allow the use of drop boxes. Some had not allowed them before the 2020 election, when the coronavirus pandemic prompted wider use of mailed ballots. In states where they are used, secretaries of state or election commissioners may not be aware of every incident involving a drop box if it was not reported to their office by a county or other local jurisdiction. Drop boxes have been a mainstay in states with extensive mail voting for years and had not raised any alarms. They were used widely in 2020 as election officials sought to provide alternative ways to cast ballots with the COVID-19 outbreak creating concerns about in-person voting. The boxes also gave voters a direct method for submitting their ballots, rather than sending them through the U.S. Postal Service and worrying about delivery delays. Starting months before the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his allies have made a series of unfounded claims suggesting that drop boxes open the door to voter fraud. Republican state lawmakers, as part of their push to add new voting restrictions, have in turn placed rules around when and where the boxes could be accessed. Arizona Assistant Secretary of State Allie Bones said drop boxes are “safe and secure” and might even be considered more secure than Postal Service mailboxes. She said bipartisan teams in the state collect ballots from the drop boxes and take them directly to secure election facilities, following so-called chain-of-custody protocols. "Not to say that there’s anything wrong with USPS, and I think they do a great job as well, but the hysteria around ballot drop boxes I think is just a made-up thing to create doubt and fear,” Bones said. Arizona has had robust mail-in voting for years that includes the use of drop boxes, and in the AP survey, the state reported no damage, stolen ballots or fraud associated with them in 2020. Nevertheless, Trump-aligned lawmakers in the state pushed for legislation that would ban drop boxes, but were stymied by Democrats and several Republicans who disagreed with the strategy. Utah is a state controlled by Republicans that also has widespread use of mailed ballots and no limits on the number of drop boxes a county can deploy. The office of Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who is the state’s top election official, said in the AP survey that Henderson encourages counties to make secure drop boxes accessible to voters. Of the states responding to the survey, 15 indicated that drop boxes were in use before 2020 and 22 have no limits on how many can be used in this fall's election. At least five states take the extra step of setting a minimum number of drop boxes required. Republican-led Florida and North Dakota and Democratic-led New York did not respond. Montana and Virginia did, but did not answer the survey questions related to the 2020 election. Last year, five states added new restrictions to ballot drop boxes, according to research by the Voting Rights Lab. That included Georgia, where President Joe Biden won a narrow victory and where drop boxes were allowed under an emergency rule prompted by the pandemic. Georgia Republicans say their changes have resulted in drop boxes being a permanent option for voters, requiring all counties to have at least one. But the legislation, which includes a formula of one box per 100,000 registered voters, means fewer will be available in the state’s most populous communities compared with 2020. Iowa lawmakers last year approved legislation to limit drop boxes to one per county. Previously, state law did not say how many drop boxes counties could use. This year, Louisiana, Missouri and South Carolina have passed laws effectively prohibiting drop boxes, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which researches state election law changes. Along with incidents recorded in news reports, the AP survey found a handful of cases in 2020 in which drop boxes were damaged. Officials in Washington state said there were instances when drop boxes were hit by vehicles, but that no ballot tampering had been reported. Massachusetts election officials said one box was damaged by arson in October 2020 but that most of the ballots inside were still legible enough for voters to be identified, notified and sent replacements. A drop box also was set on fire in Los Angeles County in 2020, but a local election official said the vast majority of the ballots that were damaged were able to be recovered and voters provided new ballots. Another drop box in California was temporarily closed because of a wildfire. “The irony is they were put in place to respond to a problem with the post office and make sure people had a secure way of returning their ballots,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat. “And so there’s no actual legitimate concern except for, again, potential external threats or people who have been radicalized through misinformation to try to tamper with drop boxes to make a point.” North Carolina provides an example of how deep-seated the misinformation has become. The state does not allow drop boxes and did not use them during the 2020 election. “And despite that fact, people are still claiming drop box fraud must have occurred in North Carolina," said Patrick Gannon, public information director for the State Board of Elections. "You can’t make this up. Oh wait. Yes, you can.” In Wisconsin, Republicans had supported the use of drop boxes before Trump seized on mailed ballots as part of his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Some voters said they were frustrated by the recent state Supreme Court ruling, which said no one other than the voter can return their mailed ballot and that those ballots can go only to a local clerk’s office or alternate site. Kelly O’Keefe Boettcher of Milwaukee said she cast her ballot in a drop box in 2020 because of safety concerns during the pandemic and is upset that they’ll no longer be an option for her or for voters who are less able to get to the polls. “Drop boxes are accessible; they are egalitarian,” she said. “To watch them go, I feel, people can say it’s not voter suppression. But it is.” Wisconsin state Rep. Tim Ramthun, a Republican candidate for governor, reintroduced a resolution this past week for the GOP-controlled Legislature to decertify Biden’s victory there, adding the state Supreme Court ruling on drop boxes as one reason to do so. Trump also renewed his calls for decertification in Wisconsin, citing the ruling. According to the AP survey, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said it is not aware of any cases in 2020 in which drop boxes were damaged, had submitted ballots stolen or destroyed, or were used for fraudulent ballots. | |
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| 07-16-22 08:29pm - 796 days | #216 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP politicians want free, honest elections. And if the media report they lost an election, they want to know why. Any GOP candidate deserves the element of doubt. They deserve to be elected. Just like Dongle Trump was elected in 2020, but the scummy Democrats and the Fake News stole the White House from Dongle. ---- ---- Parroting Trump, GOP primary losers cast doubt on elections Associated Press NICHOLAS RICCARDI July 16, 2022, 7:52 AM DENVER (AP) — It was no shock that state Rep. Ron Hanks and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters handily lost their recent Republican primaries in Colorado for U.S. Senate and secretary of state. Hanks was outspent 14-to-1 by his rival. Peters, who was vying to become Colorado's top elections official, had been indicted on seven felony charges alleging she helped orchestrate a breach of her voting system's hard drive. But this past week, both candidates formally requested recounts of their primary elections from June 28, suggesting widespread irregularities seen by no one other than their own campaigns and allies. “I have reasons to believe extensive malfeasance occurred in the June 2022 primary,” Peters wrote in her recount request, “and that the apparent outcome of this election does not reflect the will of Colorado voters not only for myself but also for many other America First statewide and local primary candidates.” America First is a coalition of conservative candidates and officeholders who, among other things, promote the falsehood that Democrat Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election. This idea has seeped deeply into this year's Republican primaries, which have revealed a new political strategy among numerous candidates: running on a platform that denies President Donald Trump's defeat two years ago. As some of those candidates lose their own races, they are reaching new frontiers in election denial by insisting that those primaries, too, were rigged. “There's a clear reason they're doing it, and it's a much broader, coordinated attack on the freedom to vote across the country,” said Joanna Lydgate of States United Action. Her group supports election officials who recognize the validity of the 2020 election. Noting that she coaches youth basketball, Lydgate added another reason: “Really, what this is is people who are sore losers, people who don't want to accept defeat." The primary losers have an obvious role model: Trump himself. After his first election loss during his 2016 run for the White House, in the Iowa caucuses, Trump baselessly claimed fraud and demanded an investigation. When he was elected president later that year, he claimed that fraud was the reason Democrat Hillary Clinton won more votes than he did. Trump set up a commission to try to prove that. That commission was disbanded when it failed to produce any evidence. After his 2020 defeat, Trump and his supporters lost 63 of 64 legal challenges to the election. Trump continued to blame fraud, without evidence, even after his own attorney general and election reviews in the states failed to turn up any widespread wrongdoing that would have any impact on the outcome. This year's post-primary election denial may be a preview for November, when Republicans face Democrats in thousands of races across the country. The GOP is expected to do well — an expectation that could set the stage for more false claims of fraud when some of those candidates lose. Still, some Republicans aren't waiting for Democratic voters to weigh in before making unsubstantiated fraud claims. Some recent candidates who have done that are relatively marginal ones. In Georgia, Trump's two recruits to challenge the state's governor and secretary of state — former Sen. David Perdue and former Rep. Jodi Hice — admitted defeat after they lost the May primaries. But Kandiss Taylor, a fringe candidate who won only 3% of the primary vote for governor, refused to concede, claiming there was widespread cheating. In South Carolina, Republican Harrison Musselwhite — who goes by Trucker Bob — lost his primary against Gov. Henry McMaster by 66 percentage points. Still, he complained of problems with the election to the state party, as did another losing GOP contender, Lauren Martel, who ran for for attorney general. The party rejected their claims. Others who have cried fraud are more prominent. Joey Gilbert, who came in second in the Nevada Republican primary for governor, posted a Facebook video days after the June tally showing him 26,000 votes short. “These elections, the way they’ve been run, it’s like Swiss cheese,” he said. "There’s too many holes.” Gilbert, who attended Trump's rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, demanded a recount. The results appear unlikely to substantially change the final tally. He did not return messages seeking comment. In Arizona, former newscaster Kari Lake won Trump's endorsement in her quest for the party's nomination for governor, insisting that he won the presidency in 2020. This past week, she told supporters that her top opponent in the primary “might be trying to set the stage for another steal” in next month's primary. That earned her a rebuke from Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who has endorsed Lake's chief rival, Karin Taylor Robson. “The 2022 elections haven’t even been held yet, and already we’re seeing speculation doubting the results – especially if certain candidates lose,” Ducey tweeted. “It’s one of the most irresponsible things I can imagine.” Lake's campaign did not return messages seeking comment. In Colorado, county clerk Peters immediately questioned the primary results once the tally showed her losing badly in the secretary of state's race. Claiming fraud as she trailed former county clerk Pam Anderson, a regular debunker of Trump's election lies, Peters said: “Looking at the results, it’s just so obvious it should be flipped.” She and Senate candidate Hanks repeated Trump's election lies, a position that had won them strong support last spring at the 3,000-strong GOP state assembly, a convention attended by the party's strongest activists. Both candidates, in letters to the secretary of state’s office this past week demanding a recount, cited that support in explaining why they could not have lost their primaries. Hanks referred a reporter to an email address for media for the two candidates, though no one responded to questions sent to that address. The activists who attend the GOP gathering are just a small fraction of the 600,000 who voted in the June primary. According to preliminary results, Peters lost by 88,000 votes and Hanks by 56,000 votes. Their recount letters gave reasons why the candidates believed those vote tallies were “being artificially controlled.” The Colorado Secretary of State's office said a recount will cost $236,000 for each candidate. As of Friday night, the deadline set by the office to receive the money, neither candidate had paid, according to spokeswoman Annie Orloff. | |
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| 07-16-22 07:18am - 796 days | #215 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump, the bestest president of the Untied States of Trumperland, is mulling a withdrawal from US politics and setting up his own separate Untied States of Trumperland. What would be the tax advantages of such a move? Would he be exempt from political and legal persecution from the old United States of America, if he creates his own private Untied States of Trumerland? Enquiring minds want to know: do you support a separate nation under God and Dongle Trump? ---- ---- Poll: Many red-state Trump voters say they'd be 'better off' if their state seceded from U.S. Yahoo News Andrew Romano July 15, 2022, 10:04 AM Red-state Donald Trump voters are now more likely to say they’d be personally “better off” (33%) than “worse off” (29%) if their state seceded from the U.S. and “became an independent country,” according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll. It’s a striking rejection of national unity that dramatizes the growing culture war between Democratic- and Republican-controlled states on core issues such as guns, abortion and democracy itself. And an even larger share of red-state Trump voters say their state as a whole would be better off (35%) rather than worse off (30%) if it left the U.S. Donald Trump stands onstage pointing amid throngs of supporters who carry signs that read Save America. The survey of 1,672 U.S. adults, which was conducted from July 8 to 11, comes as a series of hard-line conservative decisions by the Supreme Court — coupled with continued gridlock on Capitol Hill — have shifted America’s center of political gravity back to the states, where the parties in power are increasingly filling the federal void with far-reaching reforms of their own. The further apart they push their states — on voting rights, on misinformation, on post-Roe regulations, on gun-safety measures — the more the country morphs into what one political analyst has described as “a federated republic of two nations: Blue Nation and Red Nation.” “[This] is a defining characteristic of 21st-century America,” the Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein recently argued. “The result through the 2020s could be a dramatic erosion of common national rights and a widening gulf — a ‘great divergence’ — between the liberties of Americans in blue states and those in red states.” Regardless of where they live, most Americans are hardly ready to dissolve the union (even though, in a previous Yahoo News/YouGov poll, a majority of Republicans [52%] did predict that “there will be a civil war in the United States in [their] lifetime”). Overall, just 17% of Americans actually want their state to “leave the U.S. and become an independent country,” a number that is remarkably consistent across party lines. Only slightly more (19%) favor the U.S. eventually becoming “two countries — one consisting of ‘blue states’ run by Democrats and one consisting of ‘red states’ run by Republicans.” But dig a little deeper and it becomes clear that this level of consensus is, in part, an illusion. For the purposes of the survey, Yahoo News defined red states as those with consistent Republican control on the state level in recent years, and blue states as those with consistent Democratic control. Divided states were excluded. Yet despite obvious and expected differences in party composition, neither red nor blue states consist of anywhere near monolithically Republican or Democratic populations. In fact, across all Yahoo News/YouGov polls conducted so far this year, more than a third of red-state respondents (34%) identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents; likewise, more than a quarter of blue-state respondents (26%) identify as Republicans or Republican leaners. In other words, there are a lot of blue-state and red-state residents who have more in common with their political brethren elsewhere than with their governors or state legislatures. To truly gauge the gap between red states and blue states, then, it helps to set aside these mostly powerless political minorities and focus instead on the dominant voters who are actually steering state leaders to the left or the right. Among red-state Trump voters, 92% trust their state government more than the federal government to do “what’s best.” Almost as many (86%) say the federal government is “not working well”; a full two-thirds (67%) insist it’s not working well “at all.” In contrast, nearly 8 in 10 red-state Trump voters (79%) say their state government is working well, with huge majorities approving of how state leaders are handling guns (78%), democracy (73%), COVID-19 (71%), race (69%), the economy (68%), crime (65%) and abortion (63%). People at a rally, many of whom wear American-flag printed hats and jackets, along with a child wearing a Statue of Liberty costume, stand behind a low fence near two American flags against a white sky. Trump supporters at a rally in Commerce, Ga., on March 26. (Megan Varner/Getty Images) As a result, red-state Trump voters are alone in saying that it’s more important for “individual states to make their own laws with minimal interference from the federal government” (56%) than it is for “the federal government to protect people’s constitutional rights when violated by state laws” (33%). And red-state Trump voters divide roughly down the middle on the question of whether things would be better (37%) or worse (40%) if the country as a whole actually split into a Blue Nation and a Red Nation. No other cohort views disunion so favorably. Blue-state Joe Biden voters, for instance, are only slightly more inclined (27%) than Americans as a whole (21%) to say things would be better if America broke in two. Just 14% want their own state to secede, versus 29% of red-state Trump voters. And only slightly more blue-state Biden voters (21%) think they themselves would be better off in such a scenario; a full 47% say they’d be worse off. Given that Democrats generally trust Washington, D.C., more than Republicans do — and currently control it — this may not come as a surprise. But much like red-state Trump voters, blue-state Biden voters also prefer their state government to the federal government by sizable margins. In fact, blue-state Biden voters (75%) are actually more likely than red-state Trump voters (65%) to say America as a whole would be better off if it “did things more like [their] state.” They’re also more likely to say their state government is working well (84%) — and nearly as likely to say they trust their state government (80%) over the federal government (20%) to do “what’s best.” Frustrated by the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster, most Biden voters everywhere (53%) say the U.S. Senate has “too much power”; more than three-quarters (76%) say the same of the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court. Nearly half of Biden voters (48%) say they’ve “considered moving to a different country because of politics.” And nearly 6 in 10 blue-state Trump voters say they’ve considered moving to another state for the same reason. In short, America’s “great divergence” isn’t a one-sided phenomenon. It’s happening in both red America and blue America. Why? The new Yahoo News/YouGov poll hints at two reasons. The first is pervasive — and not particularly partisan — disillusionment with America as a whole. Exactly two years ago, a clear plurality of Americans (46%) told Yahoo News and YouGov that the nation’s “best days are still to come”; at the time, just 25% believed the United States’ best days were “behind us.” Now those numbers are reversed, with 37% saying our best days are behind us and just 31% saying they’re still to come. Similarly, just 19% of Americans predicted two years ago that “their children” would be worse off than they are; today, a full 46% believe the “next generation” will be worse off than their own. That’s a stunning change. Overall, two-thirds of Americans (65%) say the federal government is not working well. Just 23% say the opposite. People stand in front of the White House fence holding American flags and a sign reading: Impeach and removed partisan zealots from the court. Abortion rights activists march to the White House on July 9 to denounce the Supreme Court decision to end federal abortion rights protections. (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) It’s no wonder, then, that blue- and red-state residents who agree with the party in power there are retreating into their respective geographic corners. It’s no wonder, either, that they increasingly see each other as cautionary tales — the second factor that seems to be supercharging the “great divergence.” When asked to compare red states with blue states on a host of issues, red-state Trump voters say by wide margins that blue states have more gun deaths (68%) and discrimination (56%) while red states have more economic growth (75%) and education (55%). Blue-state Biden voters, in contrast, say it is red states that suffer more gun deaths (62%) and discrimination (75%) — and blue states that enjoy more economic growth (65%) and education (77%). Obviously, both sides can’t be right. (According to Brownstein, blue-state Biden voters are closer to the mark; other analystsmight disagree.) But that isn’t stopping either side from thinking the worst of the other. _____________ The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,672 U.S. adults interviewed online from July 8 to 11, 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 2.6%. | |
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| 07-16-22 07:08am - 796 days | #214 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP party using the rape and pregnancy of a 9-year-old girl to say "Vote for Dongle Trump. 9-year-old girls will be safe under Dongle Trump, because he wants his victims to be slightly older." Also, even if conservative media and politicians are narrow minded, they are quick to change sides and attack scummy Democrats with whatever weapons are available. Go, Dongle Trump, he will make America Free, White, and the Land of Opportunity for Brave Men everywhere. ------- ------- Conservative media and politicians doubted the story of a pregnant 10-year-old. Then they pivoted their messaging. NBC Universal Morgan Sung and Jason Abbruzzese July 15, 2022, 8:00 AM In a matter of days, a case described in a news story in Indiana turned into a national flashpoint in the culture wars. An Indy Star story included the case of a pregnant 10-year-old who traveled out of state for an abortion after she was sexually assaulted. The support for the report was the doctor who performed the procedure, quoted by name. The story quickly caught on in national media as an example of the need for accessible abortion care — and was just as quickly seized on by conservative media and Republican politicians who said the doctor’s words were not enough proof, questioning whether the story was even true, and that it was another example of agenda-driven coverage from mainstream news outlets. The outrage churned for a week. Then, on Wednesday, an Ohio man was arrested and charged with the rape of a minor. But rather than putting the issue to rest, the revelation gave a further boost to what has become one of the first major news stories of the post-Roe era. It’s not expected to be the last. “What makes this type of thing so engaging, I think, for conservative news consumers is that it puts all the focus on questioning the motives of liberal media and political figures,” Anthony Nadler, an associate professor of media and communication studies at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, wrote in an email. It’s a dynamic that also points to how the ongoing culture war around abortion can quickly become about anything other than the people at the center of these stories. As Laura Hazard Owen put it in an article for Harvard University’s NiemanLab: Unimaginable abortion stories will become more common. Is American journalism ready?” Such a frenzy can take away from the crux of the story. “This obscures any focus on the actual victim’s experience or what her experience tells us about political choices about abortion rights,” Nadler noted. The news cycle began on July 1, when the Indy Star published an article highlighting how patients from neighboring states seeking abortions in Indiana, where abortion remains legal following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The article mentioned the pregnant child as an example of patients traveling from states like Ohio, where abortion is banned after the sixth week of pregnancy. The case of the 10-year-old girl was widely re-reported across mainstream national outlets in the following days. Abortion rights activists denounced the cruelty of abortion bans, citing the story as a shocking example of the need for accessible abortion care. Questions about the story began gaining attention on July 5, most notably in a Twitter thread from Megan Fox, a writer for conservative media outlet PJ Media. Fox’s questions sparked coverage from some conservative influencers and media, and intensified after President Joe Biden mentioned it during an event last Friday, in which he signed an executive order to safeguard abortion rights. “This isn’t some imagined horror, it’s already happening,” Biden said. “10 years old, raped, six weeks pregnant. Already traumatized, then forced to travel to another state.” That same day, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, tweeted that “it looks like the story was fake to begin with.” Noem’s tweet along with a Washington Post analysis published the day after Biden’s comments about the 10-year-old further galvanized right-wing media. Fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted that Bernard was the sole source cited for the story, and reported that he could not corroborate the story with the several Ohio-based child service agencies he contacted. By Monday, the story had become a hot topic among mainstream conservative media figures from Fox News, The Daily Wire, the New York Post and more. An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal decried the story as a “fanciful tale,” criticizing Biden for repeating an “unlikely story from a biased source that neatly fits the progressive narrative on abortion but can’t be confirmed.” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a now-deleted tweet that the story was “another lie.” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, claimed that there was “not a whisper” of the girl’s case in the state’s centralized law enforcement system. Yost doubled down the next day, telling USA Today’s Ohio network bureau, “Every day that goes by, the more likely that this is a fabrication.” But less than 24 hours after Yost’s comments, 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes was arrested and charged with rape of a minor. Franklin County detective Jeffrey Huhn testified that Fuentes confessed to raping the 10-year-old at least twice. The girl had an abortion in Indianapolis on June 30. Following Fuentes’ arrest, Yost stated, “I am grateful for the diligent work of the Columbus Police Department in securing a confession and getting a rapist off the street.” Wednesday’s news of charges filed in connection to the assault have not marked the end of the story. Zignal Labs, a company that analyzes social media, broadcast, traditional media and online conversation, found that response to news of the arrest surpassed the furor around initial coverage. Some conservative media figures began targeting Bernard, the doctor. Some shifted focus to the immigration status of the man accused of rape. Few of the most outspoken deniers backtracked. Heidi Julien, a professor of information science who specializes in digital literacy at the University of Buffalo, said even though the report was substantiated, there should be little expectations of people changing their minds. “If you construct an identity around a particular political persuasion and a particular set of news sources, and you construct a reality that is an ‘us against them,’ kind of stance, then you can’t make space for any right or any truth on the other side,” she said. She added that “egregious” cases like that of the 10-year-old in Ohio are “very, very challenging” to those vehemently against abortion rights — which is why casting doubt and attacking media reporting on it is such common practice among many conservative pundits. It’s easier to deny that abortion patients like the 10-year-old girl exist, she said, to justify that abortion should be “limited at all costs.” “The bottom line is that all of us tend to operate in our echo chambers,” Julien continued. “And we tend to discount information or news that comes from political perspectives that differ from our own.” Nadler noted that the pivot to focus on the doctor and also the immigration status of the person accused of the assault keep the focus on a conservative trope that liberals are quick to abandon their ideals to make political points. That has coincided with some reticence from conservative media to focus on the issue of abortion. “I think a lot of conservative media, particularly what you might call mainstream conservative media has been a little bit hesitant to dive into a hardcore ‘we need to end abortion’ discourse.” | |
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| 07-16-22 06:56am - 796 days | #213 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP politicians are above the law: they make their own rules. When Dongle Trump lost the election in 2020 for president, Georgia politicians elected themselves as the "true electors" to vote to keep Dongle Trump as president of the United States. Their authority?: The self-confidence and chutzpah of a GOP politician. Which is criminal activity, according to the law. And a Georgia county DA is seeking to hold them accountable. ------- ------- Exclusive: Fulton County DA sends 'target' letters to Trump allies in Georgia investigation Yahoo News Michael Isikoff July 15, 2022, 11:25 AM ATLANTA — In the latest sign that she is moving rapidly in her investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis has sent so-called target letters to prominent Georgia Republicans informing them they could be indicted for their role in a scheme to appoint alternate electors pledged to the former president despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state, according to legal sources familiar with the matter. The move by Willis, a Democrat, could have major political implications in a crucial battleground state with high-profile races for governor and the U.S. Senate this fall. Among the recipients of the target letters, the sources said, are GOP state Sen. Burt Jones, Gov. Brian Kemp’s running mate for lieutenant governor; David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party; and state Sen. Brandon Beach. Jones and Shafer were among those who participated in a closed-door meeting at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in which 16 Georgia Republicans selected themselves as the electors for the state, although they had no legal basis for doing so. Shafer, according to a source who was present, presided over the meeting, conducting it as though it were an official proceeding, in which those present voted themselves as the bona fide electors in Georgia — and then signed their names to a declaration to that effect that was sent to the National Archives. The offices or spokespersons for Jones, Shafer and Beach did not respond to requests for comment. Willis, in an interview, declined any comment on the target letters. But she confirmed she is considering another potentially controversial move: requesting that Trump himself testify under oath to the special grand jury investigating his conduct. “Yes,” said Willis when asked if there was any chance Trump will be called to testify. “I think it's something that we’re still weighing and evaluating.” She also said she had spoken to Dwight Thomas, a veteran local defense lawyer who has been retained to represent Trump, as recently as Thursday. She declined to say what they talked about. Thomas did not respond to requests for comment. Willis also brushed aside the possibility that she will be sharply criticized by state Republicans, and perhaps others, for using her powerful prosecutorial position to target political adversaries. “I don’t make decisions based on what people say about me,” she said. Charlie Bailey is the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor and a close ally of Willis (she recently helped sponsor a fundraiser for him). He has made Jones’s role in the so-called fake elector scheme a major issue in his campaign. “To come in and say: 'No, the voters don’t matter, and I get to decide, the party gets to decide who wins this election,' that is authoritarian,” Bailey said in an interview on the Yahoo News "Skullduggery" podcast this week. “It’s the most un-American thing you can do.” Randy Evans, a Republican lawyer in Georgia who served as Trump’s ambassador to Luxembourg, said the target letters will reinforce GOP efforts to attack the credibility of Willis’s probe. “It drops it right into a characterization of this as a political, partisan witch hunt, as opposed to a legitimate inquiry,” he said in an interview. Evans, who has been briefed about the target letters, added: “It will become a fundraising letter [for the Republican Party]: 'Help us fend off the unfounded legal attacks by the Democratic district attorney for Fulton County.’ You and I know that’s what’s going to happen.” (After this story was published, Jones on Friday filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court to disqualify Willis and her chief prosecutor on the Trump probe, Nathan Wade, for "conflicts of interest" due to their financial support for Bailey, Jones's opponent. "This is a blatant effort to sway the outcome of the election in Mr. Bailey's favor," the motion reads. "Therefore, District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified.") The plan by the Trump campaign to designate alternative electors was not limited to Georgia. Pro-Trump Republicans in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Michigan took similar steps — bolstered by constitutional lawyer John Eastman’s view that alternate electors could provide a basis for then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. But details about the events in Georgia have attracted particular scrutiny, both by Willis’s grand jury and by the U.S. Department of Justice, whose prosecutors in Washington also recently subpoenaed the GOP electors from the state. Among those details was an email from Robert Sinners, who served as the Trump campaign’s Election Day coordinator in Georgia, which was sent to the would-be electors on the day before the Dec. 14 meeting. In the email, Sinners urged them to act with “complete secrecy” and to refuse to speak to any members of the news media about what they were doing. If asked, they were to say they were attending a meeting with Jones and Beach, the two state senators. “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote at the time, according to the Washington Post, which first reported on the email. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.” He also instructed the electors to tell security guards at the Capitol that they had an appointment with one of two state senators. “Please, at no point should you mention anything to do with Presidential Electors or speak to the media,” Sinners wrote in bold. George Chidi, an Atlanta-based independent journalist and political activist, told Yahoo News that he testified Wednesday for about an hour in front of the special grand jury, and was closely questioned by prosecutors about how he was tipped off about the secret meeting of electors at the Capitol that day. He said he attempted to report on it until he was evicted from the room. “They wanted to know how I knew to barge into that meeting,” he told Yahoo News. Chidi said he was informed that the room had been reserved by somebody in the office of Speaker of the House David Ralston. (Ralston testified before the grand jury on Thursday, but declined comment, citing respect for “the privacy of grand jury proceedings,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.) When he tracked down the room and entered, Chidi testified, he was told the assembled group was holding “an education meeting.” “A guy got up and walked me out the door,” he testified, adding that “they posted a guy out front” to keep others out. (An Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter, Greg Bluestein, has written that he, too, was kept from the room.) Prosecutors appear to be focusing on the secrecy of the meeting as evidence of consciousness of guilt on the part of the Trump electors. But defense lawyers will argue that Sinners's email and Chidi’s eviction from the room notwithstanding, the alternative electors did not attempt to keep the secret after their business was over — and that they had a valid reason to act as they did: to preserve the Trump campaign’s legal rights in the event that one of its legal challenges to Biden’s victory in Georgia prevailed. (The theory was that the state Legislature would not have time to formally name new electors before the Jan. 6 deadline, when Congress was due to certify the Electoral College vote.) Shafer gave a number of interviews that day saying as much, although it's not clear whether he did so because he had learned that Chidi and Bluestein had discovered the meeting. It is also not clear how the target letters to Jones and Shafer fit into Willis’s overall strategy in the investigation. She could indict the fake electors on a so-called false writing charge — alleging that they filed a fraudulent document naming themselves electors for the state. Alternatively, or in addition, she could use a false writing charge as a “predicate act” as part of a much broader conspiracy indictment encompassing all the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the election results in the state, including Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to “find” enough votes to flip the electoral result there. | |
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| 07-14-22 03:11pm - 798 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Republicans, the part of Washington, Lincoln, and Dongle Trump, grapple with the idea of the fake news story of a 10-year-old girl getting pregnant. "Show me the scans", cries Dongle Trump, who knows that Fake Media often distorts the truth. "Then, maybe I will believe." "Except, I have to be there for the scans, or this might be another case of a stolen election--err, stolen scan." And many Republicans state that a 10-year-old can't get pregnant, anyway. What was she doing? Was she an illegal immigrant? Stop the press. Dongle Trump wants to make an announcement. Is the girl on welfare? Was she trying to increase her monthly payments? Can we put the girl in jail, where she obviously belongs. If a 10-year-old girl is raped, was it willing? What was she wearing before she had sex? Republicans will hold a hearing about the scummy Democrats that allowed this to happen. ---- ---- Republicans shocked a 10-year-old can get pregnant after Ohio rape victim abortion story proves true NBC Universal Scott Wong and Sahil Kapur July 14, 2022, 2:40 PM WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans who oppose abortion rights are struggling to talk about the horrific case of a 10-year-old rape victim who had to travel across state lines to Indiana to get an abortion due to strict laws in her home state of Ohio. The case made international headlines after President Joe Biden decried Republican policies that forced the "already traumatized" child to have to travel out of state to terminate the pregnancy. Republicans and right-wing media criticized Biden, suggesting the case had been fabricated, only to days later have a suspect arrested. Confronted with the reality of the case, GOP lawmakers interviewed Thursday appeared to be grappling with how to respond — ranging from confusion to blaming the media. Many expressed shock that it was even biologically possible for the 10-year-old child to become pregnant. Some said they were torn “morally” about whether abortions should be allowed in cases of incest or rape, like in the Ohio case. And others tried to turn the conversation to the undocumented immigrant who prosecutors allege raped the girl. “I’m amazed a 10-year-old got pregnant … You really wrestle with that. That’s a tough one,” Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, told NBC News on Thursday. “I can’t imagine being 10 years old” and pregnant, said Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz. “I don’t think I was even able to have children when I was 10 years old. … It’s just awful. It’s awful all the way around.” “I’m pro-life guy, OK? And God’s in charge on this. ... We're all God's children,” said Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas. “This is a tough call, and I don’t know if I know that answer right now, because now you’ve got another baby involved: she’s pregnant … she’s a baby.” Just days earlier several high-profile Republicans said the story was fake, using it to accuse Democrats of overreach in their response to the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost called the story a likely “fabrication.” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tweeted, “Another lie. Anyone surprised?” in response to a Washington Examiner story about Yost saying he had found no evidence of the young rape victim. Jordan quietly deleted the tweet on Wednesday after prosecutors charged a 27-year-old man, Gershon Fuentes, who confessed to the rape, according to court documents. Asked if he regretted calling the story a lie, Jordan blamed the undocumented immigrant and the news media. “We didn’t know that an illegal alien did this heinous act. We never doubted the child,” Jordan told NBC News. The lie was “the news headline … the headline from your profession. We doubted Joe Biden, which is usually a smart thing to do, but we didn’t know that this illegal immigrant had done this terrible thing. He should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Added Williams, who represents the border state of Texas: “Where’s the conversation about an illegal person doing this? How do you defend this? How do you defend this guy who came over illegally and we’ve got 5 million of them over here?” Biden and White House officials had read about the case in the Indianapolis Star, which first reported the girl's story on July 1. That story quoted Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, who said she had received a call from an Ohio doctor specializing in child abuse who had a 10-year-old patient who was six weeks pregnant. Because Ohio made abortions after six weeks illegal in the wake of the Roe decision, the girl had to travel. “She was forced to have to travel out of the state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life,” Biden said during his speech on protecting abortion access last week. “Ten years old — 10 years old — raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized, was forced to travel to another state.” The case touches on several hot-button issues being debated by policymakers in Washington and in state capitals around the country: Abortion rights, immigration and interstate travel. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican and former congressman, said he is now investigating the Indianapolis doctor who performed the abortion. “This is a case that will have to be challenged in court by those who support abortion rights,” said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., one of the leading voices in Congress in favor of abortion rights. “I am looking out for the welfare of this child. No 10-year-old should have to even undergo such a procedure, but then to have to go out of state to do it — is cruel beyond belief.” The House on Friday will vote on Chu’s bill that would restore the right to an abortion, as well as another bill protecting Americans who travel to receive reproductive health care. But neither has enough support in the Senate. Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun, who opposes abortion rights, said the 10-year-old’s situation represents “a high-profile kind of case describing why something might need to be done” on the issue of abortion statewide in Indiana. “I’m going to wait to see what my state actually puts into legislation, probably, before I comment on any of that,” he said. “I’m just glad it’s going back to the states.” Lesko, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and former state legislator, said she backs an exception for abortion in cases where the mother’s life is at risk. But she said she is undecided about whether exceptions should be granted in cases of rape or incest. “This is obviously a very difficult moral question. And so I struggle with it quite frankly,” Lesko said of the Ohio case. “I have a close friend who was raped and had the baby and has told me that she is thankful every day that, she was a minor, and she decided to have the child because it’s a blessing … “Obviously, I feel awful for the 10-year-old … I am more in favor of definitely the life of the mother, and I’m still morally struggling over the other ones.” Gibbs, the Ohio congressman, argued that technological advances since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision show that “a fetus is a human being.” But Gibbs also wondered whether the Ohio girl’s life could have been endangered if she carried out the pregnancy. Like Lesko, he backs exceptions for abortions in cases where the mother’s life is at risk. “First you have to ask the question, since she’s 10 yrs old and be able to go full term with the pregnancy, would her life be in danger? I don’t know. There are medical questions there because of her age — I’m just raising it as a thought,” Gibbs said in an interview. “In this case, if there was going to be an abortion, there would have to be a medical need on behalf of the 10-year-old mother," he added. Fellow Buckeye, moderate GOP Rep. David Joyce, said the case of the 10-year-old girl is tragic but straightforward: She had a right to get an abortion given the horrible circumstances. “It’s always been my position that, as a former prosecutor, in instances of rape, incest or mother’s health, that there should be exceptions to the rule,” Joyce said. “While I’m pro-life, I understand that I couldn’t fathom having to carry a baby to term in which we were the victim of rape.” | |
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| 07-14-22 09:22am - 798 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
https://healthyandhappynewyear.com/sv2-b...MIcjoVRoC7-oQAvD_BwE Ever hear your wife or girlfriend or sex partner complain about your tiny tool? Here the solution: start drinking this African mixture that will make your penis 12 inches or longer. Guaranteed to work, or you can scream for your money back. Disclaimer: † Statements on this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using our products. | |
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| 07-14-22 06:31am - 798 days | #212 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Ryan Gosling confesses he waited to become Ken his entire life. Does this mean he will come out as Trans in the near future? Enquiring minds want to know: how much Trans is there in most Americans? Was Donald Trump not only Hitler's secret love child, but also the inheritor of Joseph Stalin's legacy of mass destruction? ---- ---- Jul 13, 2022 9:01pm PT Ryan Gosling Couldn’t Wait to Become Ken in ‘Barbie’: ‘This Has Been Coming My Whole Life’ By J. Kim Murphy, Marc Malkin ryan gosling the gray man premiere Amy Sussman/Getty Image Ryan Gosling was just as excited as large swaths of the internet were when he was introduced to what he would look like playing Ken in Warner Bros.’ upcoming “Barbie” film. “Finally,” he told Variety’s Marc Malkin at the premiere of his new action film “The Gray Man.” “Finally, it’s happening. This has been coming my whole life.” Gosling’s bare-chested beach blonde design, complete with spray tan and personalized underwear, made waves when it debuted online in June. The film, which is co-written and directed by Greta Gerwig, stars Gosling alongside Margot Robbie, who is portraying the flagship Mattel missie in the film. Beyond Robbie and Gosling, the supporting cast includes a deep bench of talent, with America Ferrera, Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Issa Rae and Michael Cera attached. Sharing the spotlight with so many big names, Gosling jokes that his mission for the project was a matter of on-screen representation. “I felt like I was seeing myself. I felt seen. I think a lot of Kens will feel seen when they see this,” Gosling continued. “Gotta do it for the Kens. Nobody plays with the Kens.” Gosling also took time to divulge his experience making “The Gray Man,” his new Netflix action film that sees the actor wrack up a high body count, leap from buildings and showdown with a mustachioed Chris Evans. Gosling shared that he loved playing a super spy who’s over it in the Russo brothers-directed production. “It’s like he doesn’t even want to be in this movie. He just wants to be home watching Netflix like everyone else,” Gosling said. “He doesn’t want to be a spy and he has to be.” On the matter of a potential sequel, Gosling stated that the film’s reception will determine plans moving forward, but that he wants to see his character exit the espionage game for good. “I want to see him get home. I’d like to see how it ends for him,” Gosling said. “The Gray Man” will begin a limited theatrical engagement on Friday, with a debut on Netflix following on July 22. “Barbie” is set to hit theaters on July 21, 2023. | |
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| 07-14-22 05:14am - 798 days | #2 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The majesty of the Law. The law grinds slowly but surely. If you get ground down, that's way the system works. A woman requested a protection order against her husband, who she said had bought a gun and repeatedly threatened suicide and refused to leave the woman's home. A judge, because of his superior knowledge of the law, refused the woman's request. The judge found insufficient evidence of immediate or irreparable injury, and denied the woman's request. However, the judge said the woman could request a protection order in divorce court. So was the judge lenient? Probably not: the woman, her son, her husband, and the woman's mother were all found dead in the woman's home. The sheriff's office said that the family appeared to have suffered gunshot wounds and that the incident is being investigated as a murder-suicide. Can the judge apologize for not issuing a protection order? Or is this just another one of life's trials? And what about the dead husband? Can he be charged with murder? ----- ----- Weeks after she was denied a protection order, a Michigan woman and her family are dead NBC Universal Tim Stelloh July 13, 2022, 7:54 PM Bo Eugene Savage had repeatedly threatened suicide and refused to leave the family’s home. (WPBN) A Michigan woman was denied a protection order against her husband two weeks before she and her family were found dead Sunday in an apparent murder-suicide, court documents show. Tirany Savage, 35, filed for the order June 24 in Michigan’s 34th Circuit Court, claiming her husband, Bo Eugene Savage, had recently bought a gun, repeatedly threatened suicide and refused to leave the family’s home, according to documents published by NBC affiliate WPBN of Traverse City. “I do not want my safety or my son’s safety in jeopardy,” she wrote, according to the order. The order was denied three days later by a judge who found insufficient evidence of immediate or irreparable injury, according to documents obtained by the station. The judge, Troy Daniel, wrote that Savage could request the order in divorce court, the documents show. Tirany Savage filed for divorce last Thursday, the station reported. Family appeared to have suffered gunshot wounds Three days later, deputies in Roscommon Township, roughly 115 miles north of Lansing, were dispatched to a home around 3:30 a.m. and found the bodies of Tirany Savage; her husband; her son, Dayton Cowdrey, 13; and her mother, Kim Lynette Ebright, 58, the Roscommon County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. The sheriff's office said that the family appeared to have suffered gunshot wounds and that the incident is being investigated as a murder-suicide. The sheriff's office did not say who appears to have fired the gun. Undersheriff Ben Lowe did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Daniel could not immediately be reached at a number listed for him on the court website, and his election campaign did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources. | |
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| 07-13-22 03:26pm - 799 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Fairy tale of pregnant 10-year-old girl. The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial Tuesday with the headline "An Abortion Story Too Good to Confirm," stating "there's no evidence the girl exists." Multiple news outlets and officials questioned the account. Saying it was a made-up story to bolster the case for abortion rights. Unfortunately, a man was charged with impregnating the girl, who was 9 years old at the time she got pregnant. Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment in Columbus, was arrested Tuesday after police said he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He's charged with rape – a felony of the first degree in Ohio – and is held in the Franklin County jail on a $2 million bond. However, even if the girl is real, and was pregnant, that doesn't mean that abortion is legal. The girl had to leave her home state and travel to another state, to seek an abortion. Since most abortions are illegal in Ohio. Power to the people. ---- ---- Arrest made in rape of Ohio girl that led to Indiana abortion and international attention USA TODAY Bethany Bruner, Monroe Trombly and Tony Cook, USA TODAY NETWORK July 13, 2022, 2:25 PM Arrest made in rape of Ohio girl that led to Indiana abortion and international attention COLUMBUS, Ohio – A man was charged with impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl whose travel to Indiana to seek an abortion led to international attention and became a flashpoint in the national furor over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Nearly all abortions after the detection of fetal cardiac activity became illegal in Ohio last month after the high court's ruling. The story of a young girl traveling across state lines to receive an abortion – first reported by the Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network – quickly went viral. The account became a talking point for abortion rights supporters, including President Joe Biden, and some opponents and news outlets criticized the story as unproven. The criminal charges and testimony Wednesday confirm the disturbing story. Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartmentin Columbus, was arrested Tuesday after police said he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He's charged with rape – a felony of the first degree in Ohio – and is held in the Franklin County jail on a $2 million bond. The child's mother reported the girl's pregnancy to Franklin County Children Services on June 22, which informed Columbus police, Detective Jeffrey Huhn said Wednesday at Fuentes' arraignment. The girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis on June 30, Huhn said. BACKGROUND: An Ohio 10-year-old crossed state lines for abortion care in Indiana. She isn't alone. The girl told police Fuentes was responsible for her pregnancy, Huhn testified. Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Daniel Meyer said she had recently turned 10, meaning she was probably impregnated at 9 years old. Huhn testified that DNA from the clinic in Indianapolis is being tested against samples from Fuentes. Before being arrested, Huhn and Columbus police Detective David Phillips collected a saliva sample from Fuentes, according to a probable cause statement. Last month, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the decision in 1973 that established a constitutional right to abortion. The ruling triggered a cascade of state-level prohibitions, including in Ohio, where a "heartbeat" bill became law hours after the opinion was released. The law prohibits abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, including in cases of rape or incest. Fetal cardiac activity is typically detected around six weeks of gestation, when most people usually do not know they are pregnant. The only exception to Ohio's law is if the life of the mother is in jeopardy. Charges confirm story that has been questioned by officials, media The Indianapolis Star reported the story this month, attributing the account to Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis physician who provides abortion services. "Imagine being that little girl," Biden said Friday as he decried the high court’s decision. "I’m serious. Just imagine being that little girl." 'This is a moment – the moment': Biden announces steps to protect abortion access, but advocates urge him to do more Multiple news outlets and officials questioned the account. The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial Tuesday with the headline "An Abortion Story Too Good to Confirm," stating "there's no evidence the girl exists." "What we seem to have here is a presidential seal of approval on an unlikely story from a biased source that neatly fits the progressive narrative but can’t be confirmed," the editorial read. A Washington Post fact check published Saturday referred to the account as a "one-source story that quickly went viral around the world – and into the talking points of the president." Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, penned an op-ed in the New York Post calling for more information about the account. "We have little proof that the story is true despite some significant legal and factual questions," Turley wrote Tuesday. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost questioned the validity of the account during an appearance on Fox News this week. Yost, a Republican, told host Jesse Watters that his office had not heard "a whisper" of a report being filed for the 10-year-old victim. "We have regular contact with prosecutors and local police and sheriffs – not a whisper anywhere," Yost said. Yost said Tuesday in an interview with the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau that the more time passed without confirmation, the more likely "that this is a fabrication." "I know the cops and prosecutors in this state," Yost said Tuesday. "There's not one of them that wouldn't be turning over every rock, looking for this guy, and they would have charged him. They wouldn't leave him loose on the streets. ... I'm not saying it could not have happened. What I'm saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence." Wednesday, once news of the arraignment came, Yost issued a single-sentence statement: "We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets." He later added that he's "absolutely delighted that this monster has been taken off the street. If convicted, he should spend the rest of his life in prison." More on Ohio's Dave Yost: He cast doubt on 10-year-old rape victim case, now 'rejoices' at arrest Turley said Wednesday that his column noted that the case "could be real but that there were glaring legal and factual questions raised." The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Data shows frequency of reports of sexual abuse of children Since May 9, there have been at least 50 police reports of rape or sexual abuse involving a girl 15 years or younger in Columbus, according to an IndyStar analysis. The number is probably an underestimate due to restrictions on public records related to allegations initiated by mandated reporters. The report involving the 10-year-old girl falls into that category. Dr. Erika Werner, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said there are children who start their first menstrual cycle as early as 8 years old and could get pregnant. In 2020, there were 52 abortions among children 15 or younger in Ohio, accounting for .3% of the 20,605 abortions performed that year, according to the Ohio Department of Health. In Indiana, 67 of the 8,414 people who obtained abortions in 2021 were 16 or younger, according to the state Department of Health's annual report. Meanwhile, Ohio's GOP-controlled General Assembly is likely to make its abortion ban even earlier than six weeks, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. Lawmakers are crafting language on when abortions would be banned, but past proposals barred the procedure after fertilization, which could prohibit some birth control. More: Abortion opponents less accepting of rape and incest as 'exceptions.' What changed? The ability of Ohio residents to seek abortion services in Indiana could soon be curtailed. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, called a special legislative session scheduled to convene July 25. Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both chambers of the state General Assembly, pledged to enact new abortion restrictions. Legislative leaders haven't said whether their abortion proposal would allow exemptions for rape, incest or the life of the pregnant person, or at what point in a pregnancy they would ban abortion. Tuesday, Holcomb called the case of the 10-year-old rape survivor a "horrific example" but declined to say whether he was comfortable banning abortions in cases involving young rape victims. "I am reserving comment until we see a bill," he said. Contributing: Grace Hauck and Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY; Laura Bischoff and Eric Lagatta, The Columbus Dispatch; Dayeon Eom, The Indianapolis Star. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Gershon Fuentes arrested in case of pregnant 10-year-old Ohio girl | |
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| 07-13-22 12:31am - 800 days | #211 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
It's dangerous to use a cell phone or camera around a cop. He can shoot you, and claim self-defense, because he thought the cell phone or camera was a weapon. Better to be safe than sorry when pulling out a camera or cell phone around a cop. You have the right to film. But cops have the right to kill you, if they are threatened. --------- --------- New Arizona law places limits on filming police amid growing calls for transparency Yahoo News Marquise Francis July 11, 2022, 10:49 AM A new state law in Arizona will soon make it illegal for people to film a police officer from 8 feet or closer without the officer’s permission, placing greater limits on how people can video police officers at a time when calls are growing louder for increased law enforcement transparency. Supporters of the legislation, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday, say it protects officers from people who have poor judgment or ulterior motives. “I’m pleased that a very reasonable law that promotes the safety of police officers and those involved in police stops and bystanders has been signed into law,” Republican state Rep. John Kavanagh, the bill’s sponsor, told the Associated Press Friday. “It promotes everybody’s safety yet still allows people to reasonably videotape police activity as is their right.” As part of the law, an officer can also stop someone from filming on private property, even if the person has the owner’s consent. The law makes exceptions for people who are the direct subject of a police interaction. Those people are allowed to film as long as they are not being searched or arrested. The penalty for breaking this law is a misdemeanor that would likely result in a fine without jail time. Critics of the law contend that filming police is an American right upheld by the federal appellate courts and the First Amendment of the Constitution. “A blanket restriction is a violation of the First Amendment,” Stephen Solomon, a constitutional expert and director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, told the Washington Post. More than 60% of Americans — including residents of Arizona — live in states where federal appeals courts have recognized a First Amendment right to record police officers as of 2019, according to a citizen’s guide to recording police from NYU’s First Amendment Watch. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has not ruled on the issue. In February, 26 media groups, including the AP, were signatories to a letter from the National Press Photographers Association, or NPPA, in opposition to the bill. “We are extremely concerned that this language violates not only the free speech and press clauses of the First Amendment, but also runs counter to the ‘clearly established right’ to photograph and record police officers performing their official duties in a public place, cited by all the odd-numbered U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, including the Ninth Circuit,” the letter read. “While such rights are not absolute and subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, we believe that requiring the ‘permission of a law enforcement officer’ ... would not survive a constitutional challenge and is completely unworkable in situations (such as demonstrations and protests) where there are multiple officers and people recording.” Arizona state police Arizona state police stand between supporters and opponents of Arizona's immigration enforcement law during a 2010 demonstration in Phoenix. (John Moore/Getty Images) Video captured on cellphones has significantly affected policing in the last few years, especially after the the 2020 police murder of George Floyd. In that instance, police initially said Floyd died “after a medical incident during police interaction,” but cellphone video captured by a teenage bystander proved this wasn’t true. Floyd was murdered after Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck and back for more than nine minutes. More recent video capturing an arrest on Saturday in Fairfax, Va., appeared to show two officers pointing their guns at a man filming the arrest of another person. Critics online have slammed the officers for overreacting and possibly escalating an already tense situation. However, in a statement to Yahoo News, Fairfax police said a group of juveniles had threatened a hostess, allegedly brandishing a weapon. Police were able to arrest two of the juveniles when they said a third “approached with something in his hands” and given the nature of the arrest, police drew their guns until they realized it was a cellphone. No guns were found on the juveniles and they were reportedly released to their parents. As support grows for Arizona’s law, civil rights advocates are wary that it will have a chilling effect on people wanting to film encounters at all. Others question how the law will be enforced, particularly if the officer moves closer to the person filming. “It might deter them from actually recording or might make them back up even further than the eight feet that the law requires,” Alan Chen, a law professor at the University of Denver, told the New York Times. “There’s certainly some First Amendment concerns here.” The law goes into effect Sept. 24. _____ | |
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| 07-12-22 04:36am - 800 days | #210 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Chuck Norris will come out of retirement to arrest his own grandson. The grandson was a contestant on a new reality show. And he was cheating. So the grandson was kicked off the show. Chuck Norris, when contacted, said he was personally disappointed and furious his grandson didn't do better on the series. But the grandson grew up in a culture where the hero is always known for breaing the rules. That's why the grandson cheated. And it's not fair if the grandson is penalized for trying to follow in the footsteps of his famous grandparent. ------ ------ Chuck Norris's grandson kicked off Jonas brothers’ new reality show for cheating Yahoo TV George Back July 11, 2022, 11:51 PM The series premiere of Claim to Fame ended in a scandalous fashion on Monday. The series challenges mystery contestants to guess the famous relatives of the other contestants. And right out the gate, there was an unexpected twist at the end of the episode. Contestants are not allowed to have personal phones, because it would make it much too easy to cheat. During the first elimination, Kevin Jonas and Frankie Jonas revealed that one of the contestants cheated by using their phone. The guilty party was Maxwell Norris, the grandson of legendary martial arts actor Chuck Norris. Norris can be seen using a smuggled phone while his upper body is hidden under a comforter. “As you know, when you came to the house, we took all your devices to protect your identities, keep away information, to make sure the game was fair to everyone,” said Kevin Jonas. “And one of you has broken that rule. As you guys know, we take this very seriously. We want you to take the game seriously. This is truly a competition.” After revealing to the cast and viewers that Norris was related to the former star of Walker Texas Ranger, everyone was shocked. They were equally shocked to learn that Norris had used his phone to cheat. While Maxwell’s new found fans were disappointed in him for getting disqualified, his new found castmates were worried about what will happen when his law abiding grandfather finds out he cheated. “Why the hell would you cheat?” asked contestant Logan. “I'd be nervous to go home to my grandfather, and my grandfather ain't even Chuck Norris. So good luck. Have fun, Max.” Claim to Fame airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on ABC. | |
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| 07-12-22 04:28am - 800 days | #209 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Are Dongle Trump and Elong Musk still bestest buddies? Maybe not. Dongle Trump says Elong Musk is a bullshit artist. And that's probably true: who better to recognize a bullshit artist than another bullshit artist? And Elong Musk returns the compliment, saying he doesn't hate Dongle Trump, but it's time Dongle "hang up his hat and sail into the sunset." So there is real affection between the two world-class leaders. Maybe they can get together in Florida and watch the next launch of a spaceship going into outer space? Better yet, would be if both geniuses were on board the spaceship, so they would have time to talk over their future plans for world domination. ----- ----- It's time for Trump to 'sail into the sunset,' says Musk Reuters July 12, 2022, 1:59 AM (Reuters) - Elon Musk said on Monday it was time for Donald Trump to "hang up his hat and sail into the sunset," days after the former U.S. President mocked the billionaire at a political rally and called him a "Bull***t artist." Writing on Twitter, Musk said, "I don't hate the man, but it's time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset." "Dems should also call off the attack – don't make it so that Trump's only way to survive is to regain the Presidency," he added without explanation. Musk's remarks were in response to comments Trump made at a rally in Anchorage, Alaska on Saturday, where he was speaking in support of U.S. House of Representatives candidate Sarah Palin and U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka. The former president said at the rally that Musk was not going to buy Twitter Inc and that the Tesla Inc chief executive had got himself a mess. "(Musk) said the other day, I've never voted for a Republican. I said I didn't know that; he told me he voted for me. He's another bull***t artist, but he is not going to be buying it (Twitter)," Trump said. Last month, Musk said at the Qatar Economic Forum that he had not decided whom he would support in the next presidential election, a week after saying on Twitter that he was leaning towards supporting Florida governor Ron DeSantis for president in 2024. On Monday, Musk added that if DeSantis ran against Biden in 2024, "then DeSantis will easily win" and that "Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America." | |
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| 07-10-22 09:59pm - 802 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The woman is pregnant, and she was driving a car in an HOV lane. Texas law requires at least 2 people to be in a car to legally drive in an HOV lane. The woman says her unborn child is a second person. But Texas cops say the unborn baby does not count as a passenger. Texas says an unborn child is a living person. Should Texas allow the pregnant woman the right to drive in an HOV lane? Enquiring minds want to know: Did the Texas cop who gave the woman a ticket, realize the pregnant woman was carrying a living person in her belly? Do Texas cops believe unborn children are not people? ----- ----- Pregnant Texas woman says unborn baby should count as car passenger after receiving HOV ticket NBC Universal Kalhan Rosenblatt July 10, 2022, 11:30 AM KXAS A pregnant Texas woman said her unborn baby should count as a second passenger in her vehicle after she received a ticket, citing Texas' penal code in the wake of Roe v. Wade's being overturned. Brandy Bottone, 32, of Plano, was pulled over June 29 after she drove in an HOV lane, or high-occupancy vehicle land, NBC-Dallas Fort Worth reported. Bottone was stopped by the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, which was looking for drivers violating the HOV lane rules. The HOV lane requires drivers to have at least one passenger in their cars when they use the lane. When a sheriff's deputy told Bottone about the rule, she said she did, in fact, have a second occupant in her car — her unborn baby. "I pointed to my stomach and said, ‘My baby girl is right here. She is a person,'" Bottone told The Dallas Morning News, which first reported the story. The officer responded that the rule applies to "two people outside of the body." Bottone, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, told the officers that with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, her unborn child now was recognized as a living person. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24. 'And then I said, ‘Well [I’m] not trying to throw a political mix here, but with everything going on, this counts as a baby,'" Bottone told NBC-Dallas-Fort Worth. Bottone told The Morning News that the officer told her he didn't "want to deal with this" and insisted that the law for HOV lanes required there to be "two persons outside of the body." Although the penal code in Texas recognizes a fetus as a person, it appears there's no language in the state Transportation Department's code that recognizes a fetus as a person or a passenger. Representatives for sheriff’s department and the state Transportation Department didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Deputies told Bottone that if she fought the ticket, it would likely be dismissed. She plans to fight the $215 ticket with the argument that her in-utero baby should count as another occupant of her vehicle. "This has my blood boiling. How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life," Bottone told The Morning News. "I know this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking." | |
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| 07-08-22 07:17pm - 804 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Tony Sirico, the actor known for playing mobster Peter Paul “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri on “The Sopranos,” died Friday, Variety confirmed with his manager. He was 79. Virico’s Paulie Walnuts, a bombastic and ferociously funny foot soldier to James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano with one-liners like no one else, was a “Sopranos” scene-stealer from the start. Sirico balanced Paulie’s menace with his deadpan humor, and his penchant for malapropisms, once calling Sun Tzu “Sun Tuh-Zoo,” later referring to the philosopher as the “Chinese Prince Matchabelli.” Sirico appeared on all six seasons of “The Sopranos,” after he initially auditioned for the role of Uncle Junior. Dominic Chianese ultimately landed that part. Born Gennaro Anthony Sirico Jr. on July 24, 1942 to an Italian family in New York City, Sirico spent much of his early life getting into trouble with the law, and has been associated with the real-life Colombo crime family. He was arrested 28 times — first as a 7-year-old after he stole nickels from a newsstand — before getting into acting. He went to prison twice, once after being charged for possessing an illegal weapon, and again for armed robbery. “I was very unstable,” Sirico told the LA Times in 1990 about that time in his life. “I wasn’t thinking right. So I hooked up with these guys and all of a sudden I’m a stick-up artist. I stuck up every nightclub in New York.” “I gotta admit I feel funny when somebody will spot me and ask for an autograph,” he continued. “I think it’s that old guilt. Maybe I feel like I don’t deserve the attention.” He made his acting debut as an extra in the 1974 mobster drama “Crazy Joe” alongside Henry Winkler. That film preceded Sirico’s countless later roles as gangsters and criminals, from Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” in 1990 to Woody Allen’s “Bullets Over Broadway” in 1994. Sirico appeared in a number of Allen’s films, including “Café Society” in 2016 and “Mighty Aphrodite” in 1995. In 1989, Sirico appeared in the documentary “The Big Bang,” in which he discussed his criminal past and how it affected his philosophy on life. In 2013, he appeared in a few episodes of “Family Guy” as the voice of Vinny Griffin, the family dog. His most recent acting appearance was on two episodes of “American Dad” as a mobster named Enzo Perotti. Sirico’s manager, Bob McGowan called him “a very loyal and great client” who “would always help people in need. He was member of the wounded warriors.” In an Instagram post, Sirico’s “Sopranos” co-star Michael Imperioli wrote, “It pains me to say that my dear friend, colleague and partner in crime, the great TONY SIRICO has passed away today. Tony was like no one else: he was as tough, as loyal and as big hearted as anyone i’ve ever known. I was at his side through so much: through good times and bad. But mostly good. And we had a lot of laughs. He continued, “We found a groove as Christopher and Paulie and I am proud to say I did a lot of my best and most fun work with my dear pal Tony. I will miss him forever. He is truly irreplaceable. I send love to his family, friends and his many many fans. He was beloved and will never be forgotten. Heartbroken today.” On Facebook, Sirico’s family wrote that they are “deeply grateful for the many expressions of love, prayer and condolences and requests that the public respect its privacy in this time of bereavement.” According to his family’s post, Sirico is survived by his two children, Joanne Sirico Bello and Richard Sirico, as well as grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews and other relatives. | |
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| 07-08-22 09:23am - 804 days | #208 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Boris Johnson is the step-brother Dongle Trump wishes he always had. ----- ----- The New York Times Johnson's Lies Worked for Years, Until They Didn't Sarah Lyall Fri, July 8, 2022 at 5:03 AM After a lifetime of swaggering and dissembling his way through one scandal after another on the strength of his prodigious political skills — a potent mix of charm, guile, ruthlessness, hubris, oratorical dexterity and rumpled Wodehousian bluster — Boris Johnson has finally reached the end. It seems that the laws of gravity apply to him after all. It’s not that he ever fooled anyone about who he really was. Over the years, he has routinely been described as mendacious, irresponsible, reckless and lacking any coherent philosophy other than wanting to seize and hold on to power. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times “People have known that Boris Johnson lies for 30 years,” writer and academic Rory Stewart, a former Conservative member of Parliament, said recently. “He’s probably the best liar we’ve ever had as a prime minister. He knows a hundred different ways to lie.” In contrast to former President Donald Trump, another politician with an improvisational and often distant relationship to the truth, Johnson’s approach has rarely been to double down on his lies or to delude himself for consistency’s sake into acting as if they were true. Rather, he recasts them to fit new information that comes to light, as if the truth were a fungible concept, no more solid than quicksand. Mislead, omit, obfuscate, bluster, deny, deflect, attack, apologize while implying that he has done nothing wrong — the British prime minister’s blueprint for dealing with a crisis, his critics say, almost never begins, and rarely ends, with simply telling the truth. That approach worked for him for years — until finally it didn't. His government weathered scandal after scandal, much of it centered on Johnson’s behavior. He was rebuked by the government’s ethics adviser after a wealthy Conservative donor contributed tens of thousands of pounds to help him refurbish his apartment. (Johnson repaid the money.) There were the private text messages he exchanged with a wealthy British businessman over his plan to manufacture ventilators in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, which raised questions of impropriety. There was an almost farcical accrual of embarrassing disclosures about how often Johnson’s aides (and sometimes Johnson) attended boozy parties during the worst days of the COVID lockdown, flagrantly violating rules the country had set for itself. In the end, the prime minister’s different explanations for what he knew, and when, about Chris Pincher, a Conservative legislator accused of sexual impropriety, finally tipped the scales against him. It was clear that he had once again failed to tell the truth. “He’s been found out,” said Anthony Sargeant, 44, a software developer who lives in the northern city of Wakefield. “The annoying thing about it is that the signs were there.” “He’s been sacked from previous journalism roles for lying,” Sargeant went on, pointing to the time Johnson, then a young reporter, was fired from The Times of London for making up a quote. “Yet there he was, the leader of the Conservative Party becoming the prime minister.” After helping engineer the downfall of his competent but lackluster predecessor, Theresa May, in 2019, Johnson entered office with an energetic mandate for change. His populist message, buoyant personality and easy promises to cut taxes and red tape, free Britain from the burdens of belonging to the European Union and restore the country’s pride in itself appealed to a public weary of the brutal fight over the Brexit referendum and eager to embrace someone who appeared to be expressing what they themselves felt. But like Trump, who put a more sinister cast on his own populist message, Johnson has always behaved as if he were bigger than the office that he held, as if the damage he caused was inconsequential as long as he could remain in power. His resignation speech, in which he vowed to remain in office until the Conservatives could choose a new leader, was notable for its lack of self-awareness and its misreading of the curdled mood of his former supporters. Born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson — he began using “Boris” in a sort of rebranding exercise in high school — the soon-to-be-ex prime minister has a long and well-documented history both of evading the truth and of acting as if he believes himself to be exempt from the normal rules of behavior. His many years in public life — as a newspaper reporter and columnist, as the editor of an influential London political magazine, as a politician — have left a trail of witnesses to, and victims of, his slippery nature. When he was editor of the Spectator magazine, he lied to the editor, Conrad Black, promising not to serve in Parliament while working at the magazine. (He did.) When he was first elected to Parliament, he lied to his constituents when he promised to quit his Spectator job. (He didn’t.) As a legislator, he lied to the party leader, Michael Howard, and to the news media when he publicly declared that he had not had an affair with a writer for the magazine, nor gotten her pregnant and paid for her abortion. (He had done all of that.) In a strange incident that he found hilarious but that epitomized his general lack of seriousness, in 2002 he ordered an employee at The Spectator to impersonate him when a photographer for The New York Times arrived to take his picture, fully expecting The Times to embarrass itself by publishing a photograph of the wrong person. (The ruse was discovered only toward the end of the photo shoot, when the magazine’s publisher found out what was happening.) When he was the Brussels correspondent for the right-leaning Daily Telegraph in the late 1980s, Johnson wrote highly entertaining but blatantly inaccurate articles designed to paint the European Union as a factory of petty regulation intent on stamping out British individuality — articles that helped establish an anti-Europe narrative for a generation of Conservatives and pave the way for Brexit, two decades later. Johnson himself described the experience years later to the BBC as akin to “chucking rocks over the garden wall” and then realizing that “everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing, explosive effect on the Tory party.” “And it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power,” he said. In 2016, serving simultaneously as mayor of London and a member of Parliament, Johnson betrayed the Conservative Party leader, Prime Minister David Cameron, when he led the pro-leave side of the Brexit debate, contrary to the party’s position. Serving as foreign secretary under Cameron’s successor, May, he stabbed her in the back — and set the stage for his own accession to the job — by resigning from the government and denouncing the Brexit agreement she had spent months negotiating. His womanizing and affairs were an open secret during his marriage to his second wife, Marina Wheeler, the mother of four of his (at least) seven children. They separated when his affair with a Conservative official, Carrie Symonds, now the mother of two of the seven, came to light. He has at least one other child, a daughter born during a liaison with a married adviser when he was the (still-married) mayor of London, in the 2010s. “I would not take Boris’ word about whether it is Monday or Tuesday,” Max Hastings, the Telegraph editor who hired Johnson as his Brussels correspondent, once said. In 2019, when Johnson was poised to become prime minister, Hastings wrote an article titled “I was Boris Johnson’s Boss: He is Utterly Unfit to be Prime Minister.” In it, he called Johnson a “cavorting charlatan” who suffered from “moral bankruptcy” and exhibited “a contempt for the truth.” Hastings, who employed Johnson when the future prime minister was in his 20s, was not the first to raise questions about his seriousness of purpose and inflated sense of self. When Johnson was 17 and a student at Eton College, the all-boys boarding school that caters to the country’s elites, his classics teacher sent a letter home to Johnson’s father, Stanley. “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies,” the teacher, Martin Hammond, wrote, and “sometimes seems affronted when criticized for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility.” He added, speaking of the teenager who would grow up to be a prime minister: “I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone else.”  2022 The New York Times Company | |
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| 07-07-22 07:41pm - 805 days | #207 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Although it was revealed that Dongle Trump was Hitler's secret love child, people I respect have been wondering whether Hitler and Dongle Trump are also aliens sent to earth as part of a pre-invasion force. This would explain why Dongle Trump is a Master of Violence and Illusion. He was able to hypnotize the American people into making Dongle Trump the firstest President-For-Life of the Untied States of Trumperland. Hail, Dongle Trump, the most glorious President we've ever known. Greater than Washington. Greater than Lincoln. Bow your heads, and raise your AK-47s and hypersonic nuclear fired missiles in defense of Dongle Trump and his return to the White House. | |
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| 07-07-22 06:25pm - 805 days | #5 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Boy, that was fast. The Wow network special is now over. I guess it lasted a few days. Prices are now listed as $30 for 2 months $90/year. | |
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| 07-06-22 09:49pm - 806 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Wow network is having a July 4 special. It's still going on. This is the cheapest I've ever seen it at. $12.95/month $59.95/year This membership includes full access (unlimited streaming and unlimited downloads, as far as I can tell) to all 4 sites: All Fine Girls Wow Girls Wow Porn Ultra Films Technically, you are only a member of one of the 4 sites, but you have access to all 4 sites. The small network (4 sites) is one of the finest hardcore teen networks on the internet. Mainly because of the attractive teen models. But also for the outstanding clarity of the videos and photosets. | |
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| 07-06-22 06:57am - 806 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
July 4 specials are still around. I just saw an offer of $60/year for Metart. That's the lowest price for the site I've ever seen. Works out to $5/month for a year. And Metart is big enough to be worth a year-long membership. | |
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| 07-05-22 09:56am - 807 days | #206 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Man running as GOP candidate for governor of Illinois says, "Let's move on" after Highland Park shooting. Yeah, people died. And people were hurt by gunfire. But let's be tough and admit that life sometimes throws a lemon in your way. So man up and get past that. Look at Dongle Trump. He lost the White House, and he's still going strong. It was stolen from Dongle. But he's tough. We need to be tough. So move on. Forget the dead. They're dead. We still have a life to lead. What'll you have, whiskey, bourbon, vodka? What's the best choice? He added: “We have got to get corruption and evil out of our government.” And bring back the Dongle. He will make America great again. ------ ------ Illinois GOP candidate for governor apologizes for saying 'let's move on' after Highland Park shooting Yahoo News Dylan Stableford July 5, 2022, 8:39 AM “If you’re angry today, I’m here to tell you: Be angry. I’m furious.” That was Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker at a press conference in Highland Park on Monday, hours after a gunman on a rooftop opened fire on an Independence Day parade there, killing at least six people and leaving at least 30 others wounded. Authorities named a person of interest, 22-year-old Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, who was taken into custody after an hours-long manhunt on Monday evening. Illinois state Sen. Darren Bailey, the Republican candidate for governor who is running to unseat Pritzker, was in nearby Skokie, Ill., one of several surrounding communities forced to cancel their Independence Day parades in the wake of the mass shooting in Highland Park. “The shooter is still at large, so let’s pray for justice to prevail,” Bailey said while leading a group prayer that was broadcast live on his Facebook page. “And then let’s move on and let’s celebrate the independence of this nation.” He added: “We have got to get corruption and evil out of our government.” Bailey later apologized for suggesting the community quickly “move on” and “celebrate” Independence Day. “I apologize if in any way we diminished the pain being felt across our state today,” he said in a statement. “I hope we can all come together in prayer and action to address rampant crime and mental health issues to make sure these horrific tragedies don’t happen again.” At the press conference Monday, Pritzker was joined by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Iraq War veteran, who said she listened to the sounds of the gunfire on a video captured by one of the bystanders at the parade. “The last time I heard a weapon with that capacity firing that rapidly on a Fourth of July was Iraq,” Duckworth said. “It was not the United States of America.” She added: “We can and we should and we will do better.” Pritzker said he had spoken to President Biden, who said in a statement that he was “shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day.” “I recently signed the first major bipartisan gun reform legislation in almost 30 years into law, which includes actions that will save lives,” Biden said. “But there is much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence.” | |
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| 07-04-22 11:57am - 808 days | #205 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Deadly outbreak of Listeria infections, CDD says. Dongle Trump offers the best solution: drink a quart of bleach a day: that will clean out your insides. Note: consult with your medical doctor before drinking bleach. Although Dongle Trump is the most genius President of Trumperland we've ever seen, Dongle Trump has not yet gotten his Medical Certificate to practice Medicine. So drinking bleach might have serious side effects: such as killing you. ----- ----- Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream tied to deadly outbreak of Listeria infections, CDC says USA TODAY Camille Fine July 3, 2022, 9:12 AM Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream is behind a deadly Listeria monocytogenes breakout impacting 10 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One person from Illinois died, one pregnant woman lost her fetus and 22 people have been hospitalized as a result of the outbreak, the CDC said Friday. “As a result of this investigation, Big Olaf Creamery in Sarasota, FL, is voluntarily contacting retail locations to recommend against selling their ice cream products. Consumers who have Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream at home should throw away any remaining product,” according to the CDC. USA TODAY has reached out to Big Olaf Creamery for comment. No updates have been posted on the company's website or social media. Of the 17 people interviewed by public health officials, 14 reported eating ice cream. Six of the 13 people who remembered details about the type of ice cream they ate reported eating Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream or eating ice cream at locations that might have been supplied by Big Olaf Creamery, the CDC said. Video: Doctors concerned about crowds on Calif. beaches Previously: Outbreak of listeria, a dangerous form of food poisoning, tied to 23 illnesses and 1 death, CDC says Big Olaf Creamery's web site calls the ice cream "A Florida Tradition Since 1982," saying it "has been family owned and operated for 25 Years." "All of our ice cream is handmade in batch freezers just like the good old days!" the web site says. "Creamery direct delivery to most of Florida. Our primary focus is to serve ice cream parlors, senior homes, restaurants, fairs, and supermarkets with a full range of premium frozen products." Consumers and businesses should immediately dispose of any remaining Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream and clean surfaces that may have had contact with it. Listeria, one of the most dangerous forms of food poisoning, can be treated with antibiotics, but pregnant women, newborns, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems are at high risk of severe illness. Symptoms usually start one to four weeks after eating contaminated food, but can start as soon as the same day. More: About 400,000 outdoor umbrellas sold at Costco recalled for overheating, fire risk Signs of illness include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea, headaches, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions. When severe, Listeria can spread from the gut to other parts of the body. CDC officials said late last week that nearly all the people known to have been infected in the outbreak either live in, or traveled to, Florida about a month before they got sick. The first cases occurred in January of this year, but have continued through this month, when two of the people got sick, CDC officials said. Contributing: The Associated Press and The Sarasota (Florida) Herald-Tribune This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CDC says ice cream behind deadly outbreak of Listeria infections | |
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| 07-04-22 11:47am - 808 days | #204 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Ohio city mayor declares the city will not tolerate property damage. An unarmed black man was killed by police. With around 60 bullet wounds in his body. That's not the problem: the problem is, people need to accept that the police have the right to defend themselves. That is a basic right police have. And the dead black man? Well, he's dead. Who cares about him? Bring back the Dongle Trump: he will fix America. ---- ---- Ohio city imposes curfew after protests over Black man killed by police Reuters Daniel Trotta July 4, 2022, 10:13 AM By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) - The Ohio city of Akron declared a state of emergency on Monday, setting a curfew and canceling Independence Day fireworks, after protests over the police killing of an unarmed Black man turned unruly on Sunday night. The protests broke out after police released body camera video that showed eight officers shooting at Jayland Walker, 25, as he fled a traffic stop last week. Walker's body was found to have some 60 gunshot wounds. Daytime protests on Sunday were peaceful but, despite pleas from the Walker family that demonstrations remain peaceful, Akron police declared an unlawful assembly once property was damaged. Officers in riot gear fired about a dozen canisters of tear gas to scatter protesters, WKYC-TV said. Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan said a curfew for downtown Akron was in effect from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice, and a pair of Fourth of July fireworks displays also were canceled. "There was significant property damage done to downtown Akron. Small businesses up and down Main Street have had their windows broken. We cannot and will not tolerate the destruction of property or violence," Horrigan said in a statement. The Jayland Walker shooting marks the latest in a series of police killings of unarmed Black men, raising questions about police use of force and equal justice for African Americans, and contributing to increased polarization in the United States. Police said Walker had a gun in his car but left it on the front seat as he fled on foot. Officers believed he fired a round from inside the car before fleeing, police said, and that Walker was "moving into firing position" when he got out of his car, prompting them to react to him as a potential threat, Akron Police Chief Stephen Mylett said. VOW OF 'FAIR' INVESTIGATION The mayor praised the peaceful protests, which were led by the Akron chapter of the NAACP. Hundreds of demonstrators marched in the streets of the city of about 200,000 people, waving "Black Lives Matter" flags and chanting, "We are done dying," and "Justice for Jayland." Horrigan said the trouble began after nightfall, a pattern that was seen in the turbulent summer of 2020 when protests spread across the United States over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died when a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Officers were later convicted of various charges including murder and civil rights violations in the Floyd case. On Sunday, the attorney for the Walker family, Bobby DiCello, told reporters he was "very concerned" about the police accusation that Walker had fired at officers from his car, adding that there was no justification for his violent death. "I ask you, as he's running away, what is reasonable? To gun him down? No, that's not reasonable," DiCello said. The Ohio attorney general and Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation are investigating, and the file will be made public at the conclusion of the case, Attorney General Dave Yost said on Sunday. "People want and deserve answers, and they shall have them. BCI will conduct a complete, fair and expert investigation," Yost said in a statement The eight officers directly involved in the shooting have been placed on paid administrative leave, the Akron police chief said. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Mary Milliken and Bill Berkrot) | |
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| 07-03-22 09:59am - 809 days | #203 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Amber Heard says she wants the defamation verdict to be tossed. Says there is no evidence to support the verdict. Amber also says she is considering an offer by Dongle Trump of marriage. This would give her sufficient funds to pay for better lawyers. If Dongle is willing to fork over the money without a pre-nup. Dongle is famous for offering to pay, without ever paying himself. Dongle has raised many millions of dollars in his fight to overturn the election loss to Sleepy Joe Biden, most of which he has kept safely in banks in case he might really need some cash. Enquiring minds want to know: what do the stars reveal about the Amber-Dongle romance? During the trial, Amber said, under oath, that she still loves Johnny Depp. And that she wants him to stop fighting with her. So why does she, after the trial is over, still continue to claim that Johnny Depp brutalized her? It ain't over till the fat lady sings. And Amber Heard is still singing. ---- ---- Amber Heard Amber Heard’s attorneys request defamation verdict be tossed Actor says in 43-page memorandum that the jury’s verdict should be set aside on the grounds that it was unsupported by evidence Amber Heard at the courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, in May. Amber Heard at the courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, in May. Photograph: Steve Helber/AFP/Getty Images Edward Helmore Sun 3 Jul 2022 09.37 EDT Last modified on Sun 3 Jul 2022 10.30 EDT Attorneys for actor Amber Heard have requested that the judgment against her in the dueling defamation case with ex-husband Johnny Depp be entirely set aside. Heard, who was found liable on three claims of defamation in June, said in a 43-page memorandum that the jury’s verdict should tossed – and with it a more than $10m award – on the grounds that it was unsupported by evidence. Amber Heard Amber Heard calls out ‘unfair’ role of social media in Johnny Depp case Read more Represented by attorney Elaine Bredehoft at trial, Heard argued – among other things – that it was false for Depp to claim that he lost his role in Pirates of the Caribbean because of statements made by Heard in a Washington Post op-ed. Depp “proceeded solely on a defamation by implication theory, abandoning any claims that Ms. Heard’s statements were actually false”, her attorney argued in a motion filed on Friday. Heard also claims that the jurors’ award against her was excessive, having been handed down after a split verdict that found she and Depp had defamed one another. In an email to Courthouse News, Depp’s lead attorney, Ben Chew, dismissed the motion to dismiss as “what we expected, just longer, no more substantive”. Heard also claims that one juror who served during the seven-week trial was not properly vetted by court officials because their listed birth year was 1945. The juror, identified in the filing as Juror 15, “was clearly born later than 1945. Publicly available information demonstrates that he appears to have been born in 1970,” the motion said. “This discrepancy raises the question whether Juror 15 actually received a summons for jury duty and was properly vetted by the court to serve on the jury.” The court clerk’s office is obligated to verify the identity of the jurors, but in this case, “it appears his identity could not have been verified”, the motion added. Judge Penney Azcarate has indicated that she is not inclined to schedule more hearings in the case. In the last legal encounter, on 24 June, Azcarate put the final judgment in the court record after Bredehoft argued for further hearings. Azcarate bluntly told Heard’s attorney that if she wanted to appeal the verdict from the seven-person jury, she would have to file motions with the court. Azcarate also informed Bredehoft that the Aquaman star will have to put up an $8.35m bond with an annual 6% interest before any appeal would move forward. Representatives for Heard have said she does not have the money to pay Depp or meet the bond. With the $10m judgment against Heard – and a $2m judgment against Depp on a single count of defamation – now registered with the court, there appears little opportunity left for the parties to reach an out-of-court settlement. After the verdict, Depp’s lawyers hinted that the Pirates star might be willing to forgo his share of the award. But Heard has since repeated many of her claims against him, including during an interview on NBC, suggesting that the matter, at least for Heard, is far from resolved. | |
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| 07-03-22 09:26am - 809 days | #202 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dondle Trump, the Fightenest President of the Untied States of Trumperland, cries tears of rage that people of the Untied States have abandoned him. Not only has Sleepy Joe Biden stolen the Whitest House away from Dondle, but some American people no longer support Dondle in his efforts to make America great again. Dondle rallied the troops on Jan 6, 2021. Some of them carried weapons. But Dondle was not worried. Trump was aware that members of the crowd at his rally at the Ellipse had weapons preceding the riot but said he did not care because they were “not here to hurt me.” In fact, Dondle was encouraging people to carry weapons, because the Constitution shows the right to bear arms. And it's been said that Dondle wanted to eliminate magnetometer screening because it affected crowd size. Of course, Dondle says it's all lies and smears. Something he is a master at detecting, since he's used those tactics since childhood. Enquiring minds want to know: Can Sleepy Joe put Dondle Trump in prison, for crimes he committed? Or is Sleepy Joe going to snooze through the rest of his stolen Presidency? Republicans, on the other hand, are awake, and denying all sorts of stories about Dondle Trump, saying he is the man to lead the Untied States of Trumperland back to a nation of Free, White, 1%ers. ------ ------ The Hill Jan. 6 panel member ‘surprised’ by prosecutors’ reaction to Hutchinson testimony Caroline Vakil Sun, July 3, 2022 at 6:00 AM Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who sits on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, said she is “surprised” by federal prosecutors’ reactions to testimony given before the panel this week by Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously served as an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that was aired on Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Lofgren to react to a story published last week in The New York Times that reported federal prosecutors working on the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation felt blindsided after watching Hutchinson’s testimony and were as surprised by her remarks as those watching it. Several officials who spoke to the newspaper said that prior to her testimony, prosecutors had not been given transcripts or videos of her past interviews with the committee. Hutchinson spoke to panel investigators behind closed doors four times before testifying in Tuesday’s public hearing. “You know, I was surprised that the prosecutors were surprised. What are they doing over there? They have a much greater opportunity to enforce their subpoenas than our legislative committee does,” Lofgren told Todd. Asked if she thought it was a fair characterization that the House panel had blindsided the Justice Department, she said she did not think so. “We’re not an arm of the Department of Justice. We’re a legislative committee. They have subpoena power. They could subpoena Ms. Hutchinson. I’m surprised they had not done so. We interviewed her four times. I think that’s publicly known at this point. And the fourth interview was very compelling,” she added. Lofgren’s comments come after Hutchinson gave explosive testimony during a last-minute hearing held by the panel on Tuesday. Among the most significant pieces of her testimony, she said that both Meadows and Rudy Giuliani sought pardons from former President Trump, that Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the car he was in on Jan. 6 in an attempt to get to the Capitol after being informed he could not be taken there and that Meadows told her on Jan. 2 that things could “get real, real bad” on the day the riot ultimately occurred. Tensions have arisen between the House select committee and the Justice Department, the latter of which has complained its investigation has been hampered by the panel refusing to provide transcripts of witness interviews. Sunday shows preview: Cassidy Hutchinson gives bombshell testimony before Jan. 6 panel Jared Gans Sat, July 2, 2022 at 1:00 PM Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is expected to dominate this week’s Sunday show circuit. Hutchinson, who served as a special assistant to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House Jan. 6 Select Committee on Tuesday in a surprise hearing that the committee scheduled the day before. The panel had previously announced that it would not hold further public hearings until July. Hutchinson shared several significant pieces of information about former President Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 and his reactions to the mob that gathered at the Capitol. She testified that Trump was aware that members of the crowd at his rally at the Ellipse had weapons preceding the riot but said he did not care because they were “not here to hurt me.” She recounted a tense moment she said then-deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato described to her in which Trump allegedly insisted that he be taken to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse and tried to grab the steering wheel of a presidential vehicle after being told he could not go. She also said that former White House counsel Pat Cipollone was concerned about violence happening on Jan. 6 in advance and was angry during the attack that Trump and Meadows did not try to do anything to control the mob even as it called to hang former Vice President Mike Pence. The committee has subsequently issued Cipollone a subpoena to testify. Multiple members of the House Jan. 6 panel will appear on Sunday shows following the most recent hearing. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chairwoman of the committee, backed Hutchinson’s testimony in an interview that will air in full on ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday after attacks were made over the former aide’s credibility. Trump denied lunging at his Secret Service detail in the car after they refused to take him to the Capitol. Speaking to the conservative news outlet Newsmax, Trump also said that White House staff were not aware members of the crowd at Trump’s rally were armed and repudiated Hutchinson’s testimony that he wanted to eliminate magnetometer screening because it affected crowd size. Hutchinson’s lawyers have said she is standing by her testimony, in which she said Robert Engel, the special agent in charge for the Secret Service on Jan. 6, was present when Ornato told her of the incident in the presidential vehicle and did not counter any of the details of the account. Multiple news outlets have reported that Ornato and Engel are prepared to testify that Trump did not try to grab the steering wheel. The Secret Service said in a statement on Tuesday that it will provide more information about the allegations. “She’s an incredibly brave young woman,” Cheney said. “The committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources and by men who are claiming executive privilege.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the other Republican member of the panel, similarly defended Hutchinson, saying on CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that Hutchinson had “far more courage” than almost all the Republican members of Congress. “I want to again say, Cassidy Hutchinson is a hero and a real patriot (not a faux “patriot” that hates America so much they would attempt a coup.),” he tweeted on Thursday. Kinzinger will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Democratic panel members Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) also defended Hutchinson and emphasized the importance of her testimony. Schiff will appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation” while Lofgren will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Other Jan. 6 testimony has faced some pushback as well. The committee revealed last month that in testimony former Trump aides said Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.) sought presidential pardons over their votes to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) said on Thursday that he was not aware of any of his Republican colleagues requesting pardons related to the attack, according to Spectrum News’s NY1 in New York. Hutchinson testified that Meadows and Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani also sought pardons. Zeldin will appear on “Sunday Morning Futures.” | |
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| 07-02-22 08:22pm - 810 days | #201 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Texas, the land of freedom, the land of "Give me liberty or give me death", now says that slavery has been mis-identified in the past. Black people from Africa were brought to America to build better lives. So everyone could be content. And happy. And enjoy the beauty of America. That's why Texans can now say, "Give me liberty or give me death. But first, let me enjoy my re-location." ------ ------ Some Texas schools may call slavery 'involuntary relocation' Some Texas schools may call slavery 'involuntary relocation' Associated Press July 2, 2022, 9:05 AM AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Public schools in Texas would describe slavery to second graders as “involuntary relocation” under new social studies standards proposed to the state's education board. A group of nine educators submitted the idea to the State Board of Education as part of Texas' efforts to develop new social studies curriculum, according to the Texas Tribune. The once-a-decade process updates what children learn in the state's nearly 8,900 public schools. The board is considering curriculum changes one year after Texas passed a law to eliminate topics from schools that make students “feel discomfort.” Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, raised concerns during a June 15 meeting that the term wasn't a fair representation of the slave trade. The board sent the draft back for revision, urging the educator group to “carefully examine the language used to describe events.” “I can’t say what their intention was, but that’s not going to be acceptable,” Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday. Part of the proposed draft standards obtained by The Texas Tribune say students should “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.” Texas' public education system has become heavily politicized in recent years, with lawmakers passing legislation to dictate how race and slavery should be taught in schools and conservative groups pouring large amounts of money into school board races. Texas drew attention for a similar situation in 2015, when a student noticed wording in a textbook that referred to slaves who were brought to America as “ workers.” The book's publisher apologized and promised to increase the number of textbook reviewers is uses. | |
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| 07-01-22 08:42pm - 811 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
I've seen a few discounted memberships for around $5. Which is a low price. The catch is that the memberships are for 2 weeks, instead of the normal 30-day membership offer. Ha-ha. Guess porn sites are copying the food manufacturers who are downsizing the box contents while keeping prices the same. So it's like hidden inflation, if you don't realize you're getting less content for your money. Maybe I should add, that for at least some of these $5 for 14 day specials, if you look around, you can find an ad of $5 for 30 days for the same site. But Rabbits Reviews Newsletter came out Friday, with some discounts. https://www.rabbitsreviews.com/tag/affordable-30-day-deals Edited on Jul 01, 2022, 09:20pm | |
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| 06-30-22 05:26pm - 812 days | #200 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The real truth is being exposed. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, has been telling stories about Donald Trump, our beloved President of the Untied States of Trumperland. Now Trump and his allies are saying that Cassidy is a liar, FAKE NEWS, and don't believe the lying bitch. President Trump is a man of steel. Just like his heroes, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Would Trump lunge at a secret service agent because Trump was angry they wouldn't drive Trump to the Capital to lead the riots? Would Trump reach for the streering wheel and try to drive himself, when they wouldn't take him to the Capital so he could lead his followers in taking Congress and his traitorous Vice President Mike Pence hostage? Did Trump really want his followers to hang Mike Pence? Maybe Trump was just fooling, and was playing a practical joke on Congress and Mike Pence. Enquiring minds want to know: Can you really put an ex-president in jail for treason? Maybe it wasn't treason, for Trump to want to change the vote, and remain in power. Maybe he was doing it for the best: to make America great again. ---- ---- The campaign to discredit Cassidy Hutchinson has begun LA Times Nolan D. McCaskill June 29, 2022, 2:16 PM Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is sworn-in during a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 28, 2022. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, before her testimony Tuesday to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) In the hours after Cassidy Hutchinson delivered bombshell testimony to the Jan. 6 committee Tuesday, former President Trump and his allies rushed to attack the former White House staffer. Hutchinson, who served as an aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, told the panel that Trump was aware that some of his supporters were armed when he urged them to march to the Capitol. She also testified that Anthony Ornato, then the deputy White House chief of staff, told her the president was so “irate” that the Secret Service would not drive him to the Capitol that he reached for the steering wheel and lunged at an agent. Trump and his allies have seized on media reports of unnamed Secret Service sources rejecting those statements to paint Hutchinson’s sworn testimony as unreliable. So far, though, none of the people who have disputed Hutchinson’s story have done so under oath. Now members of the Jan. 6 committee, Hutchinson’s lawyer and several of Hutchinson’s former Trump administration colleagues are challenging her critics to follow the 25-year-old’s lead and testify before Congress under penalty of perjury. “The lies and fabricated stories being told to the partisan Highly Unselect Committee, not only by the phony social climber who got caught yesterday, but by many others, are a disgrace to our, in serious decline, Nation,” Trump wrote Wednesday morning on his social media platform, Truth Social. “No cross examination, no real Republicans, no lawyers, NO NOTHING. Fake stories and an all Fake Narrative being produced, with ZERO pushback allowed. Unselects should be forced to disband. WITCH HUNT!” An anonymous Secret Service official told CNN that Ornato denies telling Hutchinson that Trump grabbed the steering wheel or an agent. “The agents are prepared to say under oath that the incident itself did not occur,” the official told the network. CNN’s anonymous source did not dispute that Trump was furious that he was not being driven to the Capitol. Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, would not confirm the CNN report to The Times, saying only that the federal law enforcement agency “has been cooperating fully with the select committee since its inception in spring of 2021 and we will continue to do so including by responding formally and on the record to the committee regarding new allegations that surfaced in [Tuesday’s] testimony.” Trump’s backers have also spread inaccurate claims about the plausibility of the steering wheel story. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) retweeted a graphic of the “Beast,” the presidential limousine, which appeared to illustrate how passengers are separated from the driver. “Cassidy Hutchinson lied and the @January6thCmte held a special hearing [Tuesday] to broadcast her lies,” Greene wrote. “In ’23, every single one of them need to be held accountable for what they are putting Pres Trump, his admin, & Republicans through on the people’s dime. Enough of this.” Trump was actually transported in an SUV, not the Beast, on the morning of Jan. 6, a video played by the committee shows. Jody Hunt, a former assistant attorney general under Trump who’s now working as Hutchinson’s legal counsel, called on others with knowledge of her testimony to come forward and testify under oath. “Ms. Hutchinson testified, under oath, and recounted what she was told,” Hunt tweeted. “Those with knowledge of the episode also should testify under oath.” Other Trump White House officials who leaped to Hutchinson’s defense also challenged her critics to come testify under oath. Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary and White House strategic communications director, described Hutchinson as a “friend.” “To anyone who would try to impugn her character, I’d be glad to put you in touch w/ @January6thCmte to appear UNDER OATH,” she said, highlighting the fact that skeptics of Hutchinson’s testimony have been able to dispute it publicly without penalty of perjury. “Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is,” added Sarah Matthews, a former deputy press secretary. “For those complaining of ‘hearsay,’ I imagine the Jan. 6 committee would welcome any of those involved to deny these allegations under oath.” Former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Meadows, Ornato and Robert Engel, the head of Trump’s Secret Service detail and the agent Trump reportedly lunged toward, should be prepared to testify as well. “This is explosive stuff,” Mulvaney tweeted. “If Cassidy is making this up, they will need to say that. If she isn’t they will have to corroborate. I know her. I don’t think she is lying.” Committee members also stood by Hutchinson. “I found Cassidy Hutchinson to be a thoroughly credible witness, telling us what she saw, what she heard,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) told MSNBC. “She was very careful to differentiate when she was a participant in the conversation or actions were related to her by others.” “Cassidy Hutchinson is one of the most brave and honorable people I know,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) wrote in one tweet. He added in another: “Watching the desperation of Trump world to discredit the brave Cassidy Hutchinson reminds me of…. Everything trump does when he is busted and cornered.” Punchbowl News reported Wednesday that Hutchinson was a target of alleged witness intimidation from Trump world. At Tuesday’s hearing, Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) displayed two examples of what she described as attempts to influence what witnesses told the committee. One statement said that “they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind.” In another statement, a person was told, “He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.” This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | |
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| 06-29-22 11:49pm - 813 days | #199 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The lawyer for Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wants to know what a congressional committee wants from Ginni Thomas. Ginni had previously said she "can't wait to clear up misconceptions," and wanted to speak with the committee. But her lawyer says: Not so fast. What do you want to know? And maybe we don't want to tell you. Lawyers are smart and tricky people. They know how to show the truth. And maybe to hide the truth. Watch Brett Kavanaugh hearings to see what I mean. Did Ginni Thomas commit treason by trying to change the legal results of the 2020 presidental election to favor Donald Trump? Was that legal? If not treason, was it criminal behavior? If it was criminal behavior, she has the right to be represented by a lawyer, and to claim her innocence, until proven guilty. And Ginni's lawyer says Ginni is innocent. Anything she might have done was "simply much ado about nothing". ---- ---- Ginni Thomas' lawyer wants to know what Jan. 6 probe wants from his client Reuters Doina Chiacu June 29, 2022, 10:17 AM By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A lawyer for Virginia "Ginni" Thomas has dimmed prospects for a quick appearance before congressional investigators probing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, asking what they want from his client, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Ginni Thomas on June 16 expressed eagerness to speak with the House of Representatives panel investigating the 2021 assault, telling the Daily Caller she "can't wait to clear up misconceptions." The committee sent an invitation that day. In a letter on Tuesday, lawyer Mark R. Paoletta curbed that enthusiasm, telling the committee: "I do not understand the need to speak with Mrs. Thomas." "Before I can recommend that she meet with you, I am asking the Committee to provide a better justification for why Mrs. Thomas’s testimony is relevant to the Committee’s legislative purpose." The justice's wife is active in conservative political circles and said she attended a rally by then-President Donald Trump outside the White House before his supporters marched on the Capitol to try to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden's defeat of Trump, a Republican, in the 2020 election. At the rally, Trump made a fiery speech repeating his false claims his election defeat was due to widespread fraud. The Washington Post had reported earlier that the committee obtained emails between Ginni Thomas and attorney John Eastman, who advised Trump that then-Vice President Mike Pence could thwart formal congressional certification of Trump's loss. Her political activity has raised questions about whether her husband should recuse himself from cases involving Trump and the Capitol riot. In January, Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenting voice when the court rejected Trump's request to block release of White House records sought by the committee. Paoletta said Ginni Thomas had no role in the Jan. 6 attack and never discussed election litigation strategy with Eastman. He also dismissed the committee's interest in text messages following the election between her and Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows. "These texts are simply much ado about nothing," he wrote in the letter to the committee seen by Reuters. The committee did not answer a query on its response to the letter on Wednesday. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller) | |
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| 06-29-22 11:36pm - 813 days | #198 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The truth exposed: British filmmaker says Trump is dangerous and living in cloud cuckoo land. The British filmmaker should be arrested for treason and put in front of a firing squad: you can't talk about a current President of the Untied States of Trumperland without showing respect for the flag of the Untied States. The filmmaker does admit one thing about Donald Trump, our most glorious President we've ever had: "I mean, this is a guy who literally has paintings of himself in his house. I mean, he’s just not a normal guy. I mean, you know?" I knew that Donald Trump is not a normal guy. He is the President. ------ ------ Filmmaker who gave footage to Jan. 6 committee: Trump is 'dangerous,' living in 'cloud cuckoo land' Yahoo News Michael Isikoff June 29, 2022, 4:56 PM A British documentary filmmaker who recently testified behind closed doors to the House Jan. 6 select committee said that former President Donald Trump is living in “cloud cuckoo land,” and is incapable of ever acknowledging that his claims about voter fraud are “delusional.” “Donald Trump is not a rational player. I mean, he just isn’t,” Alex Holder said in an interview with the Yahoo News podcast, “Skullduggery.” “You can't have a conversation with him in the same way that you can have a conversation with most other people. He is somebody that lives in a different reality.” Holder was granted exclusive access to Trump and his family in the months before and after the 2020 election, giving him the opportunity to compile over 100 hours of footage of the former president, his two eldest sons and eldest daughter talking in interviews and among themselves. When the Jan. 6 select committee learned of the project — which will be aired by Discovery+ in the coming months — they subpoenaed him hoping to find footage of the Trumps speaking candidly about events that are the subject of the investigation. Holder says his footage, and his own interviews with Trump, show the former president actually believes his assertions about voter fraud affecting the outcome of the election even though there is no evidence to back up his claims. And, he added, in the days before Jan. 6, 2021, the then president was “absolutely” convinced there was going to be violence that day. “It was so obvious. This was his last hurrah,” Holder said. “He had this — obviously had this — ridiculous idea that intervening in this ceremonial process of certifying these results could somehow prevent President Biden being inaugurated.” What follows are edited excerpts from Holder’s interview with “Skullduggery” hosts Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman and Victoria Bassetti. Isikoff: Please walk us through how you got into this in the first place. How did you get access to the Trumps? Holder: I had sort of been building this, this documentary about the Middle East, and I met this individual who introduced me to the [Trump] family. But ultimately, [they agreed to participate] I think the key thing here is they were very, very confident they were going to win the election. I mean, the hubris was just absolutely remarkable. I mean, they were convinced it would be a repeat of 2016. The pollsters were all wrong — it would be a massive surprise. One of the big lines that was used by Don Jr. throughout the campaign was, “Let’s make liberals cry again.” Isikoff: What was your pitch to Trump? Holder: I mean, the pitch was I wanted to understand who they were as people. They had always complained about the coverage that they were getting in the U.S. They were always complaining about the “fake news media” and all that. So, let’s try and understand who they are as people. And I’m speaking specifically about Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, and then the president himself, and the interactions they have with each other, and the interaction they have with their father. And it’s sort of got this, like, “Succession”-type vibe in the project ... but also, you know, it is a real life — it is a real-life succession drama. Bassetti: Did you see their answers change over time? You began filming in September 2020 and you filmed all the way up and past January 2021. Did their answers change? Holder: No, they didn’t. And that’s what was quite shocking. The fact that the events that took place just before they left office — they didn’t give any indication to me that it registered. Other than Eric saying when I asked him about talking about January 6th, he goes, “I don't want to talk about it.” And he goes, “Let's skip this shit.” Isikoff: What about Trump? In a clip from the film, he tells you the supporters of his who came to Washington [on] January 6 were “smart people” who were “angry with an election that they think was rigged.” Holder: I probably heard that clip 400 times, right? And every single time I hear it, it gives me goosebumps, right? I think what he said was just absolutely horrific. I mean, at the end of the day, he said the reason why those people went into the Capitol was because they think, he actually says, “I think that they think” because the election was stolen, right? But who told them that the election was stolen? Klaidman: Why has Trump been so stubborn about his claims about the election? Holder: Donald Trump is not a rational player. I mean, he just isn’t. You can’t have a conversation with him in the same way that you can have a conversation with most other people. He is somebody that lives in a different reality. He had started the lie about the election back in 2016. What I saw after the first interview with him in the White House was that he now became someone who believed in his own lie, and that is a person who is delusional. That is a person who is incredibly dangerous, because you can't debate with that person. There is no way that anybody can persuade Donald Trump that he’s wrong. And this is something that’s characteristic of him all the way through his life, and the series goes into this in the sense that he will never accept that he had done anything wrong. He will always double back. He’s always right, and it’s always somebody else’s fault. I mean, he lives in cloud cuckoo land. He’s sitting in an interview in Mar-a-Lago saying that in front of a portrait, an actual oil painting of himself painted 25 to 30 years ago in a golf outfit. I mean, I actually asked about that at the end of the interview. I was like, “You’ve got to tell me about this painting.” I mean, this is a guy who literally has paintings of himself in his house. I mean, he’s just not a normal guy. I mean, you know? | |
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| 06-29-22 07:09pm - 813 days | #197 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
President Trump, the fightenest and most honestest president the US has ever had, mourns that he has supported traitors. Barr, Ivanka and other people have deserted Trump after he left the White House. Trump has a warm heart and harbors no ill will towards these traitors. Instead, he is a living saint, who wants to move back into the White House and make America great again. Vote for Trump, the bestest president of the Untied States of Trumperland we've ever had. Note: Only because Trump must speak the truth, he revealed that Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are scummy Democrats in disguise. Also, that people may speak evil of Donald Trump, but he closes his mind to negative thoughts. ----- ----- Barr a 'RINO,' Ivanka 'checked out': Trump tries to explain the Jan. 6 testimony against him Yahoo News David Knowles June 29, 2022, 1:41 PM Throughout the testimony presented in the Jan. 6 select committee hearings, former President Donald Trump, who may yet face criminal charges stemming from the emerging evidence, has sought to shape public perceptions about the Republican witnesses who have appeared. During some of the testimony, such as Tuesday’s blockbuster appearance by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Trump offered real-time responses on social media. During other parts, such as last Thursday’s appearance by former Justice Department officials who testified that Trump had asked them to “just say the election was corrupt,” the former president issued a series of statements attacking what he calls “the UNSELECT committee” itself. Despite polls showing that a majority of Americans now believe Trump should be prosecuted by the Justice Department for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the former president continues to assert that he did nothing wrong in regard to the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “This is merely an attempt to stop a man that is leading in every poll, against both Republicans and Democrats by wide margins, from running again for the Presidency,” Trump said in a falsehood-laden, 12-page statement issued after the second day of testimony earlier this month. In fundraising emails, Trump has also repeatedly attacked the two Republican representatives on the committee as “Crazy Liz Cheney” and “Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger.” As he did during the two impeachment hearings that took place during his presidency, Trump has gone after those who have offered testimony against him. In doing so, he has sometimes drastically revised his own past statements on those individuals, some of whom he had lavishly praised when they worked for him. William Barr William Barr Video images of former Attorney General William Barr are shown during the House select committee hearing on June 23. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) During his testimony to the select committee that was played during the first hearing on June 9, former Trump Attorney General William Barr testified that his department had investigated the former president's claims of voter fraud and told him there was no evidence supporting Trump's assertions. Barr then described how Trump had “become detached from reality” about his election loss and had no “interest in what the actual facts were.” The idea that fraud had cost Trump the election was “bullshit” and “complete nonsense,” Barr testified. Before the 2020 election, Trump lavished praise on Barr, calling him “a very straight shooter” and “a man with incredible integrity.” Quickly responding to the June 9 hearing, during which portions of Barr’s testimony were shown, Trump called him “a coward” and a “weak and frightened Attorney General.” Three days later, with Barr’s comments dominating news coverage, Trump used a different phrase to describe his former AG, referring to him as a RINO, which stands for "Republican in name only." “Former A.G. Bill Barr, a RINO if there ever was one, didn’t have the courage or stamina to go after voter fraud — Was afraid he was going to be impeached,” Trump wrote in a statement posted to his social media platform, Truth Social. “NO GUTS, NO GLORY!!!” Video testimony from former White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump is played for the House select committee on June 13. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka, also made a taped appearance during the first select committee hearing. As with Barr, her testimony to the committee was played for the country to see. The portion of her testimony that struck a nerve came when she was asked for her response to Barr’s Dec. 1, 2020, statement that there was no evidence of significant election fraud. “It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying,” she said to the committee. Trump has long praised Ivanka, who was the only child of his to formally join his administration. In a 2019 interview with the Atlantic, Trump gushed over his daughter, saying he had considered her for the role of president of the World Bank. “She would’ve been great at that because she’s very good with numbers,” he said. After seeing her during the select committee hearing, he quickly sought to downplay his daughter's remarks. “Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!),” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Rusty Bowers Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testified in person before the select committee on June 21, recounting how Trump and his allies waged a pressure campaign to convince him to replace Arizona’s electors even though there was no evidence that voter fraud resulted in Joe Biden’s win there. In anticipation of Bowers’s testimony that Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani called Bowers to try to convince him to overturn Arizona’s election results, the former president released a statement attacking him. “Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers is the latest RINO to play along with the Unselect Committee,” Trumpsaid in a statement. Bowers testified that he told the then president and Giuliani, “You're asking me to do something that is counter to my oath,” and said he refused to go along with the plot because he “didn’t want to be used as a pawn.” However, he later told the Associated Press that if Trump was the Republican nominee in 2024, he’d likely vote for him again. Cassidy Hutchinson Cassidy Hutchinson Cassidy Hutchinson testifying before the select committee on Tuesday. (Andrew Harnik/Pool via Reuters) A former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified under oath and in person Tuesday that Trump knew some of his supporters were armed before he directed them to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6; that she was told about Trump wrestling with his Secret Service detail for control of his limousine; that the former president threw dishes at the wall after learning Barr would not back his conspiracy theories about a stolen election; and that Meadows and Giuliani had inquired about presidential pardons. As her testimony unfolded, Trump sought to downplay Hutchinson’s role in his administration despite the fact that her office was just steps away from his. “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’), and when she requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down,” Trump wrote in a statement. “Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible? I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn’t want her to go, or be a member of the team. She is bad news,” he wrote. | |
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| 06-29-22 09:53am - 813 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Lots of discounted specials now showing up for July 4th holiday. Rabbits Review (and/or the PU site) should have a listing of some of them. But it doesn't hurt to look around the internet, you might find some specials you're interested in. Prices start at $5 for the first month at some name-brand sites. Evil Angel, Wicked, Metart, Sexart, are a few of the sites I've seen advertised at $5 for the first month. | |
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| 06-29-22 07:22am - 813 days | #196 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The truth revealed: Trump vowed to drain the swamp in Washington. Instead, he filled Washington with criminals who broke the law. And these criminals hid behind the badge of public office, saying, "I'm the law. So fuck off." Joe Biden needs to show tough love and put these Republicans in jail, where they belong. Can he drain the swamp in Washington, where you have hypocritical Republicans in office? Stay tuned for updates. ------ ------ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls out Mark Meadows for allegedly seeking pardon: 'He knew that he was breaking the law' Yahoo TV Stephen Proctor June 29, 2022, 12:41 AM Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, where she spoke about the Jan. 6 committee hearing earlier in the day. Testifying at the hearing was Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. In a hearing that shed light on what went on behind the scenes on the day of the insurrection, it was also revealed that Meadows, along with Rudy Giuliani, allegedly sought pardons from former President Donald Trump. Ocasio-Cortez believes simply asking for a pardon is a pretty strong implication of guilt. “It was just stunning to understand and see the detail and the depth through which there was also just a consciousness of guilt. They knew that what they were doing was wrong," Ocasio-Cortez said. "When at the very end of this hearing you hear that Mark Meadows, the chief of staff to the president himself, asked for a pardon because he knew that he was breaking the law in order to seize power and undermine democracy in the United States of America, it is stunning. It is absolutely stunning." You are admitting to a crimeAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez It came out last week that several House Republicans also allegedly asked Trump for a pardon, and Ocasio-Cortez believes they should face consequences. "Those who specifically sought pardons for themselves should be expelled from the House of Representatives," Ocasio-Cortez said. "If you are a duly elected official and, in seeking a pardon, as you mentioned, you are consciously admitting a — you are admitting to committing a crime." She later added, "That’s just the bare minimum. I do believe that many of these individuals need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in order to establish and to prove to ourselves and to the world that there is rule of law in the United States of America." One of those alleged to have asked for a pardon is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once confronted Ocasio-Cortez and accused her of backing terrorists. Speaking about what it's been like to see colleagues she's been working with being implicated in the Jan. 6 investigation, Ocasio-Cortez took a not-so-veiled shot at some Republican members of Congress. "To work with people over the last year, to see them, to have to have them sometimes confront you, knowing that they did what they did has been quite surreal," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Especially when they're not very intelligent." The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on CBS. | |
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| 06-29-22 07:12am - 813 days | #195 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
California follows Texas in letting people sue people when you don't like them. This is true freedom. And it should help make lawyers rich, by allowing lawyers more legal work. We live in a world where people can sue for just about anything. Why can't we sue the Supreme Court, and put those assholes in jail, where they belong? ----- ----- California advances Texas-style lawsuits over illegal guns Associated Press DON THOMPSON June 28, 2022, 12:18 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California legislators on Monday approved Texas-style lawsuits over illegal guns, mimicking the Lone Star State's law aimed at deterring abortions and obliquely linking the two most controversial U.S. Supreme Court decisions from last week. The California bill would allow anyone to sue people who sell illegal firearms. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom sought the measure in part to tweak the conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court, which gave preliminary approval to the Texas law allowing citizens to sue anyone who provides or assists in providing an abortion. The California bill would automatically be invalidated if the Texas law is eventually ruled unconstitutional. Legislators acted days after the nation's high court allowed states to ban abortions, and separately expanded gun rights in states including California. “What Texas did on abortion was dangerous, and we already know how disgusting the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court has been,” said Democratic Assemblyman Mike Gipson. “But California stands to lead the way in this space in a very powerful and dynamic way. This is about empowering everyday people who are at the blunt of gun violence.” The California Assembly approved the bill Monday, 50-19, sending it back to the Senate for a final vote. Senators already passed a version in May on a 24-10 roll call. Newsom has said he expects lawmakers to send the bill to him as early as this week, before they leave for a monthlong summer recess. “This puts power back in the people’s hands,” said Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting. “This creates a private right of action that allows almost anyone to bring a lawsuit against those who manufacture, distribute, transport, import or sell illegal assault weapons, rifles, ghost guns or ghost gun kits.” No legislators spoke against the measure. But the bill faces unusual combined opposition from both gun owners' rights organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union, which separately have criticized creating a bounty to encourage people to bring civil actions to punish crimes. The California bill would allow people to sue anyone who distributes illegal assault weapons, parts that can be used to build weapons, guns without serial numbers, or .50 caliber rifles. They would be awarded at least $10,000 in civil damages for each weapon, plus attorneys fees. “We cannot stand silently by while California leaders escalate an ‘arms race’ ... by setting up bounty-hunting schemes on politically sensitive issues,” the ACLU said in an opposition letter. It also opposes the Texas law, in part because both “would set a dangerous legal precedent," since both are designed to skirt judicial review by empowering citizens to act in place of government officials. The bill is one of four that Newsom asked lawmakers to fast-track in response to recent mass shootings, including one that killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas in May. The other three bills all previously cleared the state Assembly and two of the three passed the Senate on Monday along with several other firearms bills. The second bill similarly empowers private citizens to take action, this time by suing gun makers or dealers who fail to follow precautions under a “firearm industry standard of conduct.” Violators could be sued by the attorney general, city or county attorneys, or anyone who suffered harm. “Financial repercussions may finally push the firearms industry and dealers to be more responsible in improving their practices and obeying the series of gun laws that we have here in California,” said Democratic Sen. Robert Hertzberg, who carried the bill in the Senate. Republican Sen. Shannon Grove objected that lawmakers should instead concentrate on those who obtain weapons illegally. “I mean, we have car accidents," Grove said. "That’s not the car dealer or the car manufacturer’s fault, it’s the guy driving the car’s fault.” The bill passed the Senate, 25-9, sending it to Newsom. The third is aimed at untraceable “ghost guns” by requiring precursor firearms parts to have serial numbers. It passed the Assembly 63-0 and is awaiting a Senate vote. It would give Californians who have weapons without serial numbers six months to register them and add the numbers. “Almost anyone can order these kits, “said Democratic Sen. Anthony Portantino. “We must now eradicate the deadly untraceable weapons currently wreaking havoc in our communities.” The measure passed the Senate, 30-0, and returns to the Assembly for a final vote on amendments. The fourth bill restricts advertising of firearms to minors. It, too, would allow people harmed by violations to sue for damages. | |
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| 06-27-22 04:49pm - 815 days | #194 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Feds took down Al Capone for failing to file income tax returns. Donald Trump has filed income tax returns, but how many lies and omissions are in his returns? Enquiring minds want to know: how long will Donald Trump evade the law, while hiding millions of dollars in cash that should have been paid to the US government? Maybe Putin will kick in to help pay for Trump's legal defense. ----- ----- Federal probe sets back Trump’s social media deal Reuters June 27, 2022, 12:44 PM (Reuters) -Blank-check firm Digital World Acquisition Corp said on Monday each of its board directors had received subpoenas from federal prosecutors over the company's merger plans with former U.S President Donald Trump's social media firm. The federal probe is the latest setback to Trump's efforts to take Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (TMTG), the creator of social media platform Truth Social, public. TMTG in October agreed to merge with Digital World and was expecting the deal to close by the second half of this year. Shares of Digital World fell 6% in premarket trading after the company said in a regulatory filing that it became aware that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York had issued subpoenas to its directors. The company had seven directors on its board, as of April 13, including Chief Executive Officer Patrick Orlando and Chief Financial Officer Luis Orleans-Braganza. On June 24, a grand jury subpoena was also sent to the company, the filing by Digital World showed. Earlier this month, the company reported that the U.S Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which have been probing its deal with TMTG since late last year, had also sought more information. The latest subpoenas to Digital World sought the same documents as the SEC probe as well as requests relating to the company's S-1 filings. Digital World also said Bruce Garelick, chief strategy officer of Rocket One Capital, a Miami-based investment firm, was resigning from the board. Some of the information requested by the grand jury was about communications with Rocket One. Michael Shvartsman, founder and CEO of Rocket One Capital, did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment. "Will cooperate with oversight that supports the SEC's important mission of protecting retail investors," TMTG said. (Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) | |
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| 06-27-22 09:41am - 815 days | #193 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
AOC says Supreme Court justices who lied under oath must face consequences for 'impeachable offense' Yelena Dzhanova Sun, June 26, 2022 at 8:57 AM Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday called for consequences for justices who "lie under oath." Ocasio-Cortez was referring to SCOTUS Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Two senators said the justices assured them they believed Roe v. Wade is law, but both voted to overturn it. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday said she believes it's an "impeachable offense" for a Supreme Court justice to lie under oath. Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Sens. Susan Collins and Joe Manchin said they felt misled by Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch during their individual confirmation hearings. The two senators, both pro-choice, voted to confirm Kavanaugh and Gorsuch because they assured them that they believed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right nationwide, was law. Both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, however, voted to strike down Roe earlier this week. Ocasio-Cortez, speaking in an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press," said she believes the court is facing a "crisis of legitimacy" and justices must face consequences if they lie under oath. "If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath and secure lifetime appointments to the highest court of the land and then issue, without basis," she said, "we must see that through. There must be consequences for such a deeply destabilizing action and a hostile takeover of our democratic institutions." "To allow that to stand is to allow it to happen," she continued. "And what makes it particularly dangerous is that it sends a blaring signal to all future nominees that they can now lie to duly elected members of the United States Senate in order to secure Supreme Court confirmations and seats on the Supreme Court." Ocasio-Cortez added that she believes that lying under oath is an impeachable offense. "I believe that this is something that should be very seriously considered, including by senators like Joe Manchin and Susan Collins," she said. The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade sparked protests nationwide. Since the decision was made public, a slew of prominent individuals from musician Jack White to lawmakers such as Ocasio-Cortez have blasted the ruling. Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the court's decision, saying on Friday that it's a "devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States." | |
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| 06-27-22 09:05am - 815 days | #192 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russia defaults for the first time in over 100 years. But not to worry. Russia has hired Donald Trump, the man who invented the Art of the Deal, to satisfy unhappy bond holders. ---- ---- Russia pitches into first major external bond default in century Reuters Karin Strohecker June 27, 2022, 3:31 AM LONDON (Reuters) - Russia defaulted on its foreign sovereign bonds for the first time since the Bolshevik revolution, as sweeping sanctions effectively cut the country off from the global financial system and rendered its assets untouchable to many investors. A U.S. official said on Monday the default showed how dramatically the sanctions were impacting Russia's economy. The official was speaking to reporters as the White House released a fact sheet detailing potential G7 actions to support Ukraine and further stem Moscow's oil revenues. "This morning's news around the finding of Russia's default, for the first time in more than a century, situates just how strong the actions are that the U.S, along with allies and partners have taken, as well as how dramatic the impact has been on Russia's economy," the U.S. official added in a briefing on the sidelines of a G7 summit in Germany. Earlier, some bondholders said they had not received overdue interest on Monday following the expiry of a key payment deadline a day earlier. Russia has struggled to keep up payments on $40 billion of outstanding bonds since its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, as sweeping sanctions have effectively cut the country off from the global financial system and rendered its assets untouchable to many investors. The Kremlin has repeatedly said there are no grounds for Russia to default but it is unable to send money to bondholders because of sanctions, accusing the West of trying to drive it into an artificial default. Russia's efforts to avoid what would be its first major default on international bonds since the Bolshevik revolution more than a century ago hit a insurmountable roadblock in late May when the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) effectively blocked Moscow from making payments. "Since March we thought that a Russian default is probably inevitable, and the question was just when," Dennis Hranitzky, head of sovereign litigation at law firm Quinn Emanuel, told Reuters. "OFAC has intervened to answer that question for us, and the default is now upon us." A formal default would be largely symbolic given Russia cannot borrow internationally at the moment and doesn't need to thanks to plentiful oil and gas export revenues. But the stigma would probably raise its borrowing costs in future. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last Wednesday to launch temporary procedures and give the government 10 days to choose banks to handle payments under a new scheme. (Kremlin via Reuters) The payments in question are $100 million in interest on two bonds, one denominated in U.S. dollars and another in euros, Russia was due to pay on May 27. The payments had a grace period of 30 days, which expired on Sunday. Russia's finance ministry said it made the payments to its onshore National Settlement Depository (NSD) in euros and dollars, adding it has fulfilled obligations. Some Taiwanese holders of the bonds had not received payments on Monday, sources told Reuters. With no exact deadline specified in the prospectus, lawyers say Russia might have until the end of the following business day to pay the bondholders. While ratings agencies usually formally downgrade a country's credit rating to reflect default, this does not apply in case of Russia as most agencies no longer rate it The legal situation surrounding the bonds looks complex. Russia's bonds have been issued with an unusual variety of terms, and an increasing level of ambiguities for those sold more recently, when Moscow was already facing sanctions over its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and a poisoning incident in Britain in 2018. Rodrigo Olivares-Caminal, chair in banking and finance law at Queen Mary University in London, said clarity was needed on what constituted a discharge for Russia on its obligation, or the difference between receiving and recovering payments. "All these issues are subject to interpretation by a court of law, but Russia has not waived any of its sovereign immunity and has not submitted to the jurisdiction of any court in any of the two prospectuses," Olivares-Caminal told Reuters. In some ways, Russia has been in default already. A committee on derivatives has ruled a "credit event" had occurred on some of its securities, which triggered a payout on some of Russia's credit default swaps - instruments used by investors to insure exposure to debt against default. A sovereign default had seemed unthinkable This was triggered by Russia failing to make a $1.9 million payment in accrued interest on a payment that had been due in early April. Until the Ukraine invasion, a sovereign default had seemed unthinkable, with Russia being rated investment grade up to shortly before that point. A default would also be unusual as Moscow has the funds to service its debt. The OFAC had issued a temporary waiver, known as a general licence 9A, in early March to allow Moscow to keep paying investors. It let it expire on May 25 as Washington tightened sanctions on Russia, effectively cutting off payments to U.S. investors and entities. The lapsed OFAC licence is not the only obstacle Russia faces as in early June the European Union imposed sanctions on the NSD, Russia's appointed agent for its Eurobonds. Moscow has scrambled in recent days to find ways of dealing with upcoming payments and avoid a default. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last Wednesday to launch temporary procedures and give the government 10 days to choose banks to handle payments under a new scheme, suggesting Russia will consider its debt obligations fulfilled when it pays bondholders in roubles. "Russia saying it's complying with obligations under the terms of the bond is not the whole story," Zia Ullah, partner and head of corporate crime and investigations at law firm Eversheds Sutherland told Reuters. "If you as an investor are not satisfied, for instance, if you know the money is stuck in an escrow account, which effectively would be the practical impact of what Russia is saying, the answer would be, until you discharge the obligation, you have not satisfied the conditions of the bond." | |
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| 06-27-22 08:58am - 815 days | #191 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Conservative Supreme Court is full of lies and bullshit. But what can you expect when you have Brett Kavanaugh as one of the justices? Justices? More like con men. ------- ------- Supreme Court rules for former coach in public school prayer case NBC Universal Pete Williams and Dareh Gregorian June 27, 2022, 10:12 AM The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a former Washington state high school football coach had a right to pray on the field immediately after games. The 6-3 ruling was a victory for Joseph Kennedy, who claimed that the Bremerton School District violated his religious freedom by telling him he couldn’t pray so publicly after the games. The district said it was trying to avoid the appearance that the school was endorsing a religious point of view. "Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. "Nor does a proper understanding of the Amendment’s Establishment Clause require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor. The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike." In recent years, a more conservative Supreme Court has been inclined to view government actions it once considered to be neutral and necessary to maintain separation of church and state as hostile to religious expression. One issue in the case was whether the coach’s decision to pray in such a prominent place, on the 50-yard line, amounted to a private moment of giving thanks or a public demonstration of his religious faith that his players may have felt compelled to join. Kennedy urged the Supreme Court to find that he was acting on his own behalf, expressing his own religious views, not speaking as a mouthpiece for the school. But the school district said the students on the football team looked up to their coach and felt coerced into doing as he did. In a dissent joined by the two other liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court "consistently has recognized that school officials leading prayer is constitutionally impermissible" and said the ruling did a "disservice" to schools, students and "the nation's longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state.” "Today’s decision is particularly misguided because it elevates the religious rights of a school official, who voluntarily accepted public employment and the limits that public employment entails, over those of his students, who are required to attend school and who this Court has long recognized are particularly vulnerable and deserving of protection," Sotomayor wrote. "In doing so, the Court sets us further down a perilous path in forcing States to entangle themselves with religion, with all of our rights hanging in the balance." Further, the majority misrepresented some key points in the case, she wrote. In the majority opinion, Gorsuch wrote that “Kennedy lost his job” “after he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet personal prayer. But Sotomayor wrote, "To the degree the Court portrays petitioner Joseph Kennedy’s prayers as private and quiet, it misconstrues the facts. The record reveals that Kennedy had a longstanding practice of conducting demonstrative prayers on the 50- yard line of the football field. Kennedy consistently invited others to join his prayers and for years led student athletes in prayer at the same time and location. The Court ignores this history. The Court also ignores the severe disruption to school events caused by Kennedy’s conduct," she wrote. Kennedy became an assistant coach of the varsity football team at Bremerton High School in 2008 and later began offering a brief prayer on the field after games ended and the players and coaches met midfield to shake hands. The school district eventually told him he should find a private location to pray. But he declined and continued his practice of dropping to one knee and praying on the 50-yard line. He later invited journalists and a state legislator to watch. The district gave him a poor performance evaluation, and he did not apply to renew his contract after the 2015 football season. Kennedy sued, claiming violations of his right to free expression and religious freedom. Lower federal courts said that because he chose to say his prayers in such a prominent place, he was acting as a public employee and his conduct was therefore not protected by the First Amendment. Those rulings cited past Supreme Court decisions that said when public employees act in their official capacities, they are speaking more for the government than for themselves. Former Vice President Mike Pence praised Monday's ruling in a statement, saying, “Americans of faith do not turn their devotion off and on like a light switch, and we must reject any attempt by the government to control private religious expression — especially those who call on their faith when answering the call to participate in public service.” The nonprofit conservative advocacy group he founded, Advancing American Freedom, filed a friend of the court brief in the case. Katy Joseph, the director of policy and advocacy at the advocacy group Interfaith Alliance, said the decision "dismantles decades of progress." “Exploiting his position of authority, coach Joseph Kennedy pushed players to participate in prayer in the middle of the field immediately after games," Joseph said. "This was no private expression of devotion, as he and his lawyers claim. Instead, Mr. Kennedy forced students to choose between their religious freedom and being part of the team — an agonizing decision that no student should ever be forced to confront." Kennedy now lives in Florida but has said that if the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, he would return to Bremerton and seek to regain his job as a part-time football coach. | |
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| 06-24-22 04:29pm - 818 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Clarence Thomas calls for Supreme Court to 'reconsider' gay marriage, contraception after Roe v. Wade falls USA TODAY John Fritze and Marina Pitofsky, USA TODAY June 24, 2022, 3:33 PM WASHINGTON – Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday that the Supreme Court should "reconsider" other rights established by the high court in the wake of its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, including access to contraception and gay marriage. Thomas' concurring opinion – which no other member of the court joined – tracks with an argument abortion rights groups had made for months leading up to the court's blockbuster abortion decision: a ruling that the Constitution doesn't protect a right to an abortion would jeopardize other rights the court established under the 14th Amendment. "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell," Thomas wrote, referring to landmark opinions that blocked states from banning contraception, sex by same-sex couples and gay marriage. "After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated." Background: Could rights to same-sex marriage, contraception be next? Explainer: What is the 14th Amendment, and what does it have to do with Roe? Thomas: Justice Thomas celebrates 30 years on a court moving in his direction The Constitution doesn’t explicitly guarantee a right to abortion, but a 7-2 majority in Roe v. Wade held that the 14th Amendment’s protection of "liberty" includes the right to terminate a pregnancy. Several of the justices in Roe drew on another landmark opinion decided eight years earlier that legalized contraception for married couples. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas Associate Justice Clarence Thomas The court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, a major decision that will allow individual states to decide whether to ban the procedure. The court ruled that abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution. Abortion rights advocates have noted that the same is true for many other rights that millions of Americans take for granted today. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court invalidated a law that forbid contraception, finding the Bill of Rights created "zones of privacy" for married couples. Decades later, in 2015, the court relied on a similar theory in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage nationally and a 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas that invalidated state prohibitions on sodomy. Those rights were based on a similar approach to the Constitution, that the 14th Amendment provides for some rights – such as privacy – that are not explicitly stated in the founding document. What about Loving v. Virginia? Thomas didn't mention another major decision based on the same approach, a landmark civil rights ruling in 1967 that invalidated laws banning interracial marriage. Though Thomas didn't cite that case, several others did. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the majority's opinion, listed it among the precedents he said were not jeopardized by the court's abortion decision. "I emphasize what the court today states: Overruling Roe does not mean the overruling of those precedents, and does not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents," Kavanaugh wrote. But the court's liberals drew attention to that decision in a dissent, noting that the Fourteenth Amendment's drafters did not likely think it would give "Black and white people a right to marry each other. To the contrary, contemporaneous practice deemed that act quite as unprotected as abortion." The Constitution, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court's liberal wing, "does not freeze for all time the original view of what those rights guarantee, or how they apply." Obergefell: 'Our right to privacy' Jim Obergefell, who was a plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges and is running for the Ohio House, told the Cincinnati Enquirer, part of the USA TODAY Network, that the ruling calls on opponents of same-sex marriage to "start their engines and to come after those rights." "This very clearly paints a target on our right to privacy, our right to commit to the person we love and to form our families," he said. It's notable that Thomas, perhaps the court's most conservative justice, wrote alone to argue for revisiting other rights. The court's majority opinion, written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, another conservative, also shot down the idea. Alito draws a distinction between abortion and other rights because, he says, abortion involves the life or potential life of a fetus or embryo. "And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right," Alito wrote. "Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion." Contraception at risk? Still, advocates say such challenges are likely to arrive in federal courts in the coming years. The Supreme Court often tries to limit the impact of its decisions with such language, but that rarely prevents lawyers from trying to test those limits. The potential for a legal fight over contraception in a post-Roe world may be particularly high, experts have said. That’s because contraception was at the heart of the 2014 Hobby Lobby case in which the court ruled companies with religious objections cannot be forced to offer insurance for certain birth control methods they equate with abortion. The Human Rights Campaign said Thomas "had some alarming things to say about Obergefell v. Hodges and Lawrence v. Texas," but the LGBTQ civil rights organization acknowledged that the justice spoke only for himself." "Our fight right now is centered on ensuring people still have access to the abortion and reproductive services they need, but make no mistake: We will not back down from defending the progress we have made and keeping the fight for full LGBTQ+ equality going," the group posted on Twitter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Clarence Thomas: Gay marriage should be revisited as Roe v. Wade falls | |
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