And another day of SCOTUS issues, life in post-Roe America, ‘white-nationalists,’ NATO, heat domes, Americans struggling to pay rent, AI threatening skilled jobs, kidney stones, epochs, and fragments of alien technology comes to a close:
“People who tell me I'm going to hell while they are going to heaven somehow make me very glad that we're going to separate destinations.” — Annie C
Supreme Court justices and donors mingle at campus visits. These documents show the ethical dilemmas. The Associated Press obtained tens of thousands of pages of emails and other documents that reveal the extent to which public colleges and universities have seen visits by justices as opportunities to generate donations -– regularly putting justices in the room with influential donors, including some whose industries have had interests before the court. The documents also reveal that justices spanning the court’s ideological divide have lent the prestige of their positions to partisan activity, headlining speaking events with prominent politicians, or advanced their own personal interests, such as sales of their books, through college visits. The conduct would likely be prohibited if done by lower court federal judges. But the Supreme Court’s definition of banned fundraising is so narrow -– simply an event that raises more than it costs or where guests are asked for donations -– that it does not account for soliciting contributors later while reminding them of the special access they were afforded. “The justices should be aware that people are selling access to them,” said University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, an ethics expert. “I don’t think they are naive, but they certainly have been putting themselves in situations where people can credibly claim, ’I’m giving you access,’ or ‘I’m going to fundraise off my claimed closeness or access.’ And that is a problem.” -- Is the Supreme Court broken, or is it functioning as designed?
Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books. In her case, the documents reveal repeated examples of taxpayer-funded court staff performing tasks for the justice’s book ventures, which workers in other branches of government are barred from doing. But when it comes to promoting her literary career, Sotomayor is free to do what other government officials cannot because the Supreme Court does not have a formal code of conduct, leaving the nine justices to largely write and enforce their own rules. -- Again. Broken? Or by design?
GOP confidence in 2024 vote count low after years of false election claims. Few Republicans have high confidence that votes will be tallied accurately in next year’s presidential contest, suggesting years of sustained attacks against elections by former President Donald Trump and his allies have taken a toll. -- And that was the plan by Trump and the GOP. It’s a fascist move to weaken confidence in elections.
Forced Parenthood and Failing Safety Nets: This Is Life in Post-Roe America. The troubling irony is that Georgia and the 14 other states that have imposed the harshest abortion restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision are the most ill-equipped to handle the consequences of forcing women to give birth. These states—all of which are controlled by Republican legislatures and most of which also have Republican governors—tend to rank among the lowest in the nation when it comes to maternal mortality, child wellness, food security, and access to affordable health care. Some of the states actively redistribute federal aid away from low-income parents—for which the aid was designed—and towards crisis pregnancy centers, which are organized by the anti-abortion movement to dissuade pregnant people from having abortions, often through misinformation. Of the 15 states that have fully banned abortion or restricted it beyond six weeks gestation, none have paid parental leave policies. Seven have opted against accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid eligibility. Seven rank in the lowest quartile for child wellness. Seven appear on the top-ten list of US states with the highest food insecurity frequency. Eight provide Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), the nation’s largest direct cash assistance program intended to help low-income families, to fewer than 10 percent of their impoverished residents, which is less than half the national average…By heavily restricting abortions, conservative-led states also pose risks to their budgets by driving people into worse health and deeper debt, leaving more parents increasingly dependent on the social welfare benefits that they loathe to fund…women who were turned away from abortions were nearly four times as likely to fall below the federal poverty line than the women who received the procedures, while significant income differences between the two groups persisted at least four years after birth…“In the next six to nine months, as we start to see the children who are born due to the changes in abortion access,” she says, “these families are going to be falling deeper into poverty, deeper into debt.” — It has never been about “life” or “protecting the unborn child.” It’s always been about keeping poor people from climbing out of poverty. Particularly people of color.
A Nebraska Mom Helped Her Daughter Get an Abortion. They Are Both Facing Prison Time. The events at the heart of the Burgesses’ case took place in spring 2022, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Yet the charges against the mother-daughter pair drew national attention by showing how prosecutors could and would go after abortion seekers and those who support them. And the story also helped spread alarm about digital privacy when it was revealed that Facebook had turned over the teenager’s private chats to law enforcement in response to a search warrant.
Top Democratic-Run Firms Won’t Discuss Their Work for No Labels. Democratic strategists and anti-Trump Republican operatives have concluded that its effort could siphon more votes from President Joe Biden than Donald Trump, the leading candidates, respectively, in the Democratic and GOP presidential nomination contests. And they have begun to brainstorm how to thwart a potential No Labels ticket. Meanwhile, No Labels, a nonprofit, refuses to disclose the source of its funding, though media reports have identified several major donors with GOP ties.
Justice Department reverses course on defending Trump in E. Jean Carroll case. The Justice Department has abandoned plans to defend Donald Trump in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, saying in a court filing Tuesday that it no longer believes he was acting within the scope of his presidential duties in 2019 when he allegedly defamed the writer while denying her rape accusation.
Trump Will Take His First Step to Renomination on the Only Federal Holiday Honoring a Black Man. The Republican Party of Iowa announced on Saturday that they had landed on January 15, 2024 for its first-in-the-nation presidential caucus. That happens to be Martin Luther King Jr. Day: the sole federal holiday honoring the legacy of a Black individual.
Tuberville’s hold leaves Marines leaderless for first time in 164 years. The blockade from Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) on about 250 of the Pentagon’s general and flag officers has left the Marine Corps without a confirmed leader for the first time in 164 years...Tuberville is protesting the Pentagon’s abortion policy because it provides paid leave and reimbursement costs for travel for service members who cross state lines to get an abortion. The senator says it violates the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from paying for abortions. -- Tuberville is dick.
GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville disputes defining white nationalists as racist. Asked whether people are haggling over definitions, Tuberville said, "There’s nobody less racist in this building than me." -- Senator Tommy Tuberville is, indeed, a racist...by any definition.
Nato summit: Allies refuse to give Ukraine timeframe on joining. Nato states have said Ukraine can join the military alliance "when allies agree and conditions are met" after President Volodymyr Zelensky criticised the "absurd" delay to accession.
‘Historic day’: Turkey’s Erdogan agrees to back Sweden’s NATO bid. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to back Sweden’s bid to join NATO after a year of blocking the move, citing Turkish security concerns.
Latvia becomes 7th nation to be led by an openly gay head of state. Edgars Rinkēvičs, who since 2011 served as the country’s foreign minister, was elected by parliament in May after the incumbent president, Egils Levits, did not seek re-election.
Triple-digit temperatures persist across Southwest as heat dome expands. Climate change is expected to make bouts of unrelenting heat more common in the future. Studies have shown that global warming is increasing the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme heat events. Forecasts show that the ongoing heat wave will continue to scorch the Southwest this week and into next week, and will expand across the southern portion of the United States.
A record 87 out LGBTQ athletes will compete in the 2023 Women's World Cup. At least 87 out athletes will compete this year — more than double the 38 out players who competed in the last Women’s World Cup, in 2019, according to the LGBTQ sports website Outsports. Outsports noted that the number of teams has grown by a third, from 24 to 32, but that the jump in the number of out competitors “reflects the growth of acceptance.”
Videos of unconscious boys' rapes found on phone left at restaurant, police say. Videos of the rapes of 10 unconscious boys were found on the cellphone of a Tennessee soccer coach after he left it behind at a restaurant, police said Sunday...There are hundreds of videos and photos on the device, however, and it's feared there are additional victims, police said. So far, the victims are described as appearing to be between the ages of 9 and 17, the department said. "Detectives say that the children in these videos were in such an unconscious state, that they might not even realize that they are victims," police said.
Why a record number of Americans are struggling to pay rent. A total of 21.6 million households now spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on rent. Some households are even paying even up to 50% of earnings on apartments…Why? In large part due to the growth of so-called "luxury" buildings that have replaced less expensive options.
Twitter traffic plunges after Musk takeover, Threads debut. Twitter’s traffic has plunged since billionaire Elon Musk took control of the social media platform last fall, as longtime tweeters are migrating to alternative platforms such as Meta’s Threads. -- Musk is not a genius.
As Threads app thrives, experts warn of Meta’s string of privacy violations. That rapid growth has concerned privacy experts, who warn that few users realize just how much information the app collects. They point out that Meta has put the launch of Threads in the European Union on hold because it’s unclear whether the way the company handles user data and shares it across different platforms, including Threads, will run afoul of impending privacy regulations...“I haven’t seen any evidence that Meta is being transparent about what it will do with sensitive personal data or is clearly establishing why it is collecting that data other than ‘because we want to’.” The list of past practices that give experts like Schroeder cause for concern is long.
AI revolution puts skilled jobs at highest risk, OECD says. “Occupations in finance, medicine and legal activities which often require many years of education, and whose core functions rely on accumulated experience to reach decisions, may suddenly find themselves at risk of automation from AI,” said the OECD. It added that highly skilled occupations were most exposed to AI-powered automation, such as workers in the fields of law, culture, science, engineering and business.
Discord bans AI-generated child sex abuse material and teen dating on platform. The company said in a blog post announcing the changes that the updated child sexual abuse material policy would include “any text or media content that sexualizes children, including drawn, photorealistic, and AI-generated photorealistic child sexual abuse material. The goal of this update is to ensure that the sexualization of children in any context is not normalized by bad actors.” Redgrave also said that the company was instituting policy changes and clarifications to explicitly ban teen dating, which experts previously told NBC News posed a significant opportunity for adults looking to exploit or groom children.
Kidney stones are rising among children and teens, especially girls, research shows. Thirty years ago, kidney stones were considered a disease of the middle-aged white man. Now doctors are increasingly seeing a different kind of patient suffering from the extremely painful condition, especially during summer...Experts aren’t sure why more children and teens are developing the condition, but they speculate that a combination of factors are to blame, including diets high in ultraprocessed foods, increased use of antibiotics early in life and climate change causing more cases of dehydration.
Evidence in Canada lake indicates start of new Anthropocene epoch. Scientists say human activity has so fundamentally altered the geology, atmosphere and biology of the earth that it has entered a new geologic epoch known as the Anthropocene...He explained that human activity is “no longer just influencing Earth’s sphere, it’s actually controlling” it...Scientists were therefore able to document a “golden spike” among its layers of sediment: a dramatic and, at least in geological terms, sudden change in the conditions of the earth. Part of that “spike” was evidenced by the presence of plutonium in the lake sediment. Plutonium rarely occurs naturally, leading scientists to conclude it came from nuclear testing in the 1950s.
Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes he's found fragments of alien technology. "We found ten spherules. These are almost perfect spheres, or metallic marbles. When you look at them through a microscope, they look very distinct from the background," explained Loeb, "They have colors of gold, blue, brown and some of them resemble a miniature of the Earth." Their composition analysis showed that the spherules are made of 84% iron, 8% silicon, 4% magnesium and 2% titanium, plus trace elements. They are sub-millimeter in size. The crew found 50 of them in total…The fact that it was made of materials tougher than even iron meteorites, and moving faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun, suggested potentially it could be a spacecraft from another civilization, or some technological gadget."
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment