Thursday, September 8, 2022

And another day of most Americans seeing the MAGA threat, DOJ appeals, Bannon charged, Republicans desperately trying to change their tune on abortion, CNN’s future, renaming places, and cancers in those under 50 comes to a close:

“Queen Elizabeth II reigned for more than a quarter of the time the United States has existed.” -- Mrs. Betty Bowers

Deaths

US: 1,074,787 (+616)

World: 6,512,279 (+3003)

Cases

US: 96,959,165 (+88,787)

World: 612,521,932 (+575,376)

Most Americans see Trump's MAGA as threat to democracy. Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll - including one in four Republicans - said Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement is threatening America's democratic foundations. — It’s Americans vs. MAGA in November.

DOJ to appeal special master ruling, arguing classified documents aren't Trump's 'personal records'. The hundreds of pages of classified government records seized from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last month aren't the former president's "personal records," and he has no right to possess them, the Justice Department said in a court filing Thursday as it said the government would appeal a judge's ruling on the matter...The department also asked for a partial stay of Cannon's ruling while the appeal is pending, saying that "the government and the public are irreparably injured when a criminal investigation of matters involving risks to national security is enjoined."

Support of false election claims runs deep in 2022 GOP field. Nearly 1 in 3 Republican candidates for statewide offices that play a role in overseeing, certifying or defending elections supported overturning the results of the 2020 presidential race, according to an Associated Press review. They include contenders from one end of the country to the other, often in pivotal swing states, for positions that are the linchpins of democracy.

Steve Bannon charged with money laundering, conspiracy in ‘We Build the Wall’ fundraising fraud case. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon arrived in court in New York on Thursday to face fresh charges related to a charity that was supposed to use private funds to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Bannon, 68, was indicted on charges including money laundering, scheming to defraud and conspiracy, according to a court filing unsealed Thursday morning.

Republicans' failure to act over Jackson water crisis is down to race and class prejudice. Mississippi’s GOP lawmakers have for years diverted funding away from the majority Black city towards wealthy white communities elsewhere in the state.

Most Americans want maximum age limit for elected officials: poll. When asked if there should be an upper age restriction at which point lawmakers are forced to leave office, 73 percent of poll respondents agreed…Most of those polled (40 percent) said 70 would be an appropriate cut-off age. The other ages offered were age 50 (8 percent), age 60 (26 percent), age 80 (18 percent) and age 90 (2 percent). — There should also be term limits. 

Republicans Are Desperately Trying to Change Their Tune on Abortion. The latest Pew polling shows that 62 percent of Americans think that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances. Gallup polling from May found that 35 percent of Americans supported abortion under any circumstances, and 50 percent supported it only under certain circumstances. Last month’s referendum on abortion rights in Kansas is a strong indicator that restricting abortion access is a losing issue. Predictably, a handful of Republicans running for office are now walking back their anti-abortion stances. Here are a few. — Make every Republican pay for their arrogant patriarchal bullshit. Don’t let them gaslight you. They all wanted Roe overturned. 

South Carolina senators reject a near-total abortion ban. South Carolina senators rejected a ban on almost all abortions Thursday in a special session called in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade after five Republicans, including all the chamber’s women, refused to support it. The 30 Republicans in the 46-member chamber had a majority to pass the ban, but did not have the extra votes to end a threatened filibuster by Republican Sen. Tom Davis.

Michigan Supreme Court rules abortion amendment should go to voters this November. It's up to the Michigan Board of State Canvassers Friday to decide in a final vote whether the measure should go before voters.

Abortion pill startup provides meds to women who aren't pregnant yet. The startup Choix (pronounced "Choice") on Wednesday announced that it will begin providing patients abortion pills before they are needed in states where the procedure is legal and the company is licensed to operate, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine and New Mexico.

“I Really Hope We Don’t Both-Sides Democracy”: Where is CNN Headed? The abrupt exits of Brian Stelter and John Harwood have unnerved staffers, who want clarity from newish CEO Chris Licht, and rattled viewers, who fear CNN is veering right. The network, however, vows to “stand up for democracy and call out lies.” “I really hope that we don’t both-sides democracy. I really hope that we don’t go back to false equivalence,” one of the staffers told me. “But I don’t think being a network that is maybe a bit more like the BBC, where our tone is a little less obnoxious and less emotional and more factual, is necessarily a bad thing.”

US changes names of nearly 650 places with racist Native American women term. Hundreds of peaks, lakes, streams, and other geographical features on federal lands that carry the term “squaw” are now renamed with a descriptor or Indigenous language terms, such as Echo Peak, Texas, and Pannaite Naokwaide, Wyoming. — To oppose this “wokeness,” or any “wokeness,” is to support racism.

Utah rep. told Mormon bishop not to report abuse, docs show. A Utah lawmaker and prominent attorney for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints advised a church bishop not to report a confession of child sex abuse to authorities, a decision that allowed the abuse to continue for years, according to records filed in a lawsuit. -- Leave the pews. Just get out of organized religion.

Cancers in adults below 50 have 'dramatically increased'. Researchers said breast, colon, esophagus, kidney, liver, and pancreas cancers among others have shown a drastic rise beginning in the 1990s. "From our data, we observed something called the birth cohort effect. This effect shows that each successive group of people born at a later time (e.g., decade-later) have a higher risk of developing cancer later in life, likely due to risk factors they were exposed to at a young age.”…According to Brigham and Women's Hospital's report, exposures from conception to when someone's 19 years old play a role in cancer diagnoses before a person turns 50. The study found that rising incidence is partially attributable to early screenings for some of these cancers, however, early life exposures such as people's diet, weight, lifestyle, environmental exposure, and microbiome may factor into what's contributing to early-onset cancer, but more information on individual exposures is needed, according to the report.

RIP Queen Elizabeth II. She was 96.

RIP Bernard Shaw. He was 82.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

And another day of Americans vs. MAGA comes to a close:

“It’s why propaganda is so embraced by so many people… they want to believe that their country is good, not this evil regime that kills people for no reason, because who would want to acknowledge that?” — Matthew Chance

Deaths

US: 1,074,171 (+876)

World: 6,509,276 (+2243)

Cases

US: 96,870,378 (+153,805)

World: 611,946,556 (+613,766)

Flawed special master ruling shows that when you have the courts, you can get away with anything. Lawyerly takedowns of Judge Cannon's opinion overlook that for Trumpers, the law is whatever Trump says it is…However, the focus on good lawyering and technical competence can also be a distraction from the real dangers, and real evil, of the current far right assault on the judiciary. As liberal lawyer Max Kennerly put it on Twitter, “law is fake, it's all just Trumpism now.”…They do not think their movement should be constrained by law…Hitler’s central theory of law was called the Führerprinzip, or leadership principle. Basically it meant that the leader’s word was above the law. The leader shaped the law; the law did not bind the leader, who “was not subject to any constitutional checks and balances.”…The leader’s power in fascism is (like Trump’s mental declassification) virtually mystical. It does not arise from written law or from established institutions. Rather, it comes from the leader’s spiritual connection to the masses…From this perspective, Cannon’s decision is not a failure of reasoning. It’s simply the application of an alternate set of legal principles. Or, as composer Frank Wilhoit put it, “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”…This is only illogical if you think that Trump’s power as president came from the law. If you are operating under Führerprinzip, or something like it, then Trump’s power comes from embodying the spirit of MAGA, and always puts him above the law…This is the actual legal reasoning behind Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results. From the traditional empirical and legal standards, there was no election fraud, and Biden’s victory was valid. But if you hold to Führerprinzip, as Trump does, then any vote cast against the leader is by nature illegitimate and illegal. The law is there to crush those who defy the leader. Trump, from the view of Trumpism, isn’t lying when he says he was the winner. Or his lying is justified because is serves a greater truth. Either way, Trump remains president no matter the law, because the true purpose of the law is to validate his presidency. The conservative legal movement that Trump advanced has been moving more and more towards Führerprinzip and the law of MAGA. The Supreme Court has mostly abandoned any pretense of ruling by precedent, truth, or reason, and has signaled its willingness to abandon voting altogether and simply allow Republican legislatures to choose the next president (presumably, Trump). The courts will not save us — especially after Trump stuffed them with MAGAs…Cannon’s ruling that Trump retains executive power isn’t (just) confused and poorly reasoned. It’s a warning that she, and her movement, believe they retain rightful power regardless of elections or laws. Katyal and other lawyers see the ruling as a contemptible failure of legal reasoning. They’re not wrong. But it’s also a chilling assertion of power.

Elected officials, police chiefs on leaked Oath Keepers list. The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday. The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military. It also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August…The data raises fresh concerns about the presence of extremists in law enforcement and the military who are tasked with enforcing laws and protecting the U.S. It’s especially problematic for public servants to be associated with extremists at a time when lies about the 2020 election are fueling threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions. “Even for those who claimed to have left the organization when it began to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it is important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding, and this fact was not enough to deter these individuals from signing up,” the report says. — Don’t let these people gaslight you. They joined the group and paid membership dues because they believed in the mission, including aggressive tactics.

Pregnant women held for months in one Alabama jail to protect fetuses from drugs. Police arrested Ashley Banks on May 25 with a small amount of marijuana and a pistol without a permit to carry. Under normal circumstances, the 23-year-old from Gadsden would have been able to post bond and leave jail until her criminal trial. But Banks admitted to smoking pot on the same day she found out she was pregnant – two days before her arrest. In Etowah County, that meant she couldn’t leave jail unless she entered drug rehab, leaving her in limbo for three months. She’s not the only one, according to attorneys involved in her case. Several pregnant women and new moms accused of exposing their fetuses to drugs have been held for weeks or months inside the Etowah County Detention Center under special bond conditions that require rehab and $10,000 cash. -- A precursor of things to come. There is no freedom or liberty here.

Michigan GOP leaders encourage rule breaking at poll worker training session. The evening before Michigan’s state primary, Wayne County GOP leaders held a Zoom training session for poll workers and partisan observers – warning them about “bad stuff happening” during the election and encouraging them to ignore local election rules barring cell phones and pens from polling places and vote-counting centers...Some participants raised concerns about being tossed out if they broke the rules. “That’s why you got to do it secretly,” Costantino replied. -- We may be seeing the final free and fair elections over the next few years in this country. No one who votes ever thinks that will be the last time their vote will matter.

Religious employers need not cover PrEP in their health plans, federal judge rules. A federal judge in Fort Worth agreed Wednesday with a group of Christian conservatives that Affordable Care Act requirements to cover HIV prevention drugs violate their religious freedom. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor also agreed that aspects of the federal government’s system for deciding what preventive care is covered by the ACA violates the Constitution. — If your religion requires you to deny healthcare to others, then get a new fucking religion. 

Temperatures smash records in US west as brutal heatwave continues. Records broken in Sacramento and Reno, while California close to ordering rolling blackouts to ease strain on power grid. The extreme temperatures are a result of a “heat dome” bearing over the region – a ridge of high atmospheric pressure that acts as a lid, trapping in heat. Although climate crisis doesn’t cause heat domes, scientists expect it to drive more extreme weather.

Baltimore residents urged to boil water after E. coli bacteria found in samples. Baltimore officials are encouraging residents to boil water used for drinking or cooking after E. coli bacteria was detected in some samples of the water supply in parts of West Baltimore.

Stress, anxiety and depression may increase the risk of long Covid, study finds. People who were experiencing psychological distress before getting Covid were more likely to have long-lasting symptoms than those who were not, according to new research.

Teens were sent to Wyoming ranches for therapy. They say they found a nightmare of hard labor and humiliation. For girls who were depressed, drinking, skipping school or fighting with their families, Trinity Teen Solutions claimed to offer a cure. Desperate parents paid $6,000 a month to send their children to the Christian therapeutic program at a working ranch in a remote area of Wyoming, often without visiting first. What girls encountered once they got there, according to 22 women who spent time at the ranch as teens from 2007 to 2020, was a nightmare of hard labor and humiliating punishments that left some injured and others with post-traumatic stress disorder…If they stepped out of line, girls were forced to run up and down a small mountain, dodging rattlesnakes, or were given only a can of olives and beans for a meal, according to former residents. Three women said that staff members who accused them of being “stubborn” tied them to a goat with a leash for days at a time…Through all of this, Trinity Teen Solutions and Triangle Cross Ranch have remained open for business, taking in children from across the country…The troubled teen industry — a constellation of private boarding schools, boot camps, ranches and wilderness programs — is estimated to serve more than 50,000 children each year. If the programs, like Trinity Teen Solutions and Triangle Cross Ranch, don’t take government funding, they are exempt from federal regulations. While many states, including Wyoming, set their own licensing standards, they vary widely and are not sufficient to protect children, advocates say. — Capitalism is not the answer for everything.

Association of Daily Step Count and Intensity With Incident Dementia. The findings in this study suggest that accumulating more steps per day just under the popular threshold of 10 000 steps per day and performing steps at higher intensity may be associated with lower risk of dementia onset.

Movie chain Cineworld files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Movie theater operator Cineworld Group LLC has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. as it deals with billions of dollars in debt and lower-than-expected attendance at screenings.

RIP Peter Straub. He was 79.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

And another day of supposed to be closely guarded documents, half of Americans will have an election denier on the ballot, Politico embraces the dark side, MT Rs hijacking public health, and why do forests make us happy comes to a close:

"Two of the hallmarks of a fascist political party are, one, they don't accept the results of elections that don't go their way, and two, they embrace political violence. And I think that's why President Biden was right to sound the alarm this week." — Jamie Raskin

Deaths

US: 1,073,295

World: 6,507,033

Cases

US: 96,716,573

World: 611,332,790

Material on foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property. Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs...Documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance. Some special-access programs can have as few as a couple dozen government personnel authorized to know of an operation’s existence. Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location. But such documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, with uncertain security, more than 18 months after Trump left the White House. -- Why is Trump still walking around freely?

More Than 1 In 2 Americans Will Have An Election Denier On The Ballot This Fall. Out of 529 total Republican nominees running for office, we found 195 who FULLY DENIED the legitimacy of the 2020 election. These candidates either clearly stated that the election was stolen from Trump or took legal action to overturn the results, such as voting not to certify election results or joining lawsuits that sought to overturn the election. Moreover, an additional 61 candidates RAISED QUESTIONS around the results of the 2020 election. These candidates haven’t gone so far as to say explicitly that the election was stolen or take legal action to overturn it. However, they haven’t said the election was legitimate either. In fact, they have raised doubts about potential fraud. There were 115 candidates whose position on the 2020 election we could not determine. They either had NO COMMENT on the 2020 election or AVOIDED ANSWERING when asked directly…Indeed, an election denier winning election and taking office is more than a symbolic concern. An election-denying secretary of state could refuse to certify an election that he or she believes was rigged. An election-denying governor could attempt to submit electoral votes that defy the will of the people. And election-denying senators and representatives could vote to count those electoral votes. The 2022 election will determine how many of these candidates get that chance.

Politico’s New Owner Invited Colleagues to ‘Pray’ for Trump’s Re-Election. When asked about the message, Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner initially denied it existed, going so far as to say: “It has never been sent and has never been even imagined.” Then he was confronted with a printout of the email. — Another media source embraces the fascist MAGA Republican Party.

“The Human Psyche Was Not Built for This.” How Republicans in Montana hijacked public health and brought a hospital to the brink. — Trumpies destroy everything that helps the general population.

Canadian police continue to search for mass killing suspect and urge caution. Residents of Canada's Saskatchewan province were urged to stay cautious Tuesday as one of two suspects in Sunday's mass killing remained at large.

Large parts of Amazon may never recover, major study says. Environmental destruction in parts of the Amazon is so complete that swathes of the rainforest have reached tipping point and might never be able to recover, a major study carried out by scientists and Indigenous organisations has found. “The tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,” the report concludes.

Scientists are unlocking secrets of why forests make us happy. Numerous scientific studies reveal the physiological and psychological benefits of time spent among trees, but there is not yet an understanding of how different kinds of treescape affect us. Research has shown that more biodiverse landscapes bring more mental and physical benefits to people and Richardson suspects that well-being will be enhanced more by wildlife-rich ancient woodlands than monocultural plantation forestry.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Friday, September 2, 2022

And another day of a detailed inventory list, snowflake fascists, the violent and dangerous Kiwi Farms, Texas’ war on trans kids, yoga sects, Jane Fonda, and why the return to the office isn’t working comes to a close:

“If you have an issue with Biden calling you a fascist, stop being one.” — The Lincoln Project

“I wonder if test scores went down because of the fucking apocalypse and kids having family members dying while society showed that it could not be bothered to make structural changes to protect people. Just a thought, maybe testing during the apocalypse wasn't, I don't know, a priority for the kids. Maybe they had some other stuff going on.” — Thomas Lecaque

Deaths

US: 1,072,672 (+547)

World: 6,501,243 (+2784)

Cases

US: 96,572,566 (+107,440)

World: 609,431,363 (+730,729)

The detailed inventory list. 48 empty folders labeled “Classified.” Holy shit.

Trump search inventory reveals new details from FBI seizure. Along with highly classified government documents, the FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate found dozens of empty folders marked classified but with nothing inside and no explanation of what might have been there, according to a more detailed inventory of the seized material made public on Friday. The agents also found more than 10,000 other government documents kept by Trump with no classification marked.

Snowflake Fascists and the GOP Politics of Rubber and Glue. During a campaign rally in Maryland, Biden noted that Trump has embraced “political violence” and no longer believes in democracy: “What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the—I’m going to say something—it’s like semi-fascism.” Of course, the right went berserk over this. A Republican National Committee spokesperson howled that Biden’s comment was “despicable.” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu exclaimed that it was “horribly inappropriate” and urged Biden to apologize. Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted that “communists have always called their enemies ‘fascists.’” (Biden is a communist?) But what to call a movement that denies election results, falsely claims an election was stolen, and refuses to admonish or excommunicate a leader who encouraged and used violence in his effort to overturn that election? In a flurry of unhinged tweets this week, Trump demanded his restoration to the presidency (a move impossible under the Constitution) and hinted that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago might spur his supporters to violence. That all sounds a bit fascist-ish. — It is. And the MAGA Republicans are. — For decades, the GOP has depicted Democrats as an anti-American force (commies! radicals! subversives!) actively scheming to wreck the nation. Now they cry foul?…And amid this kerfuffle, Trump posted a photograph of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which their faces were covered by the words “Your enemy is not in Russia.” In other words, they are your enemy. Not mean, right? Such meme-ing could well lead to violence…On Thursday night, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Biden again addressed the issue of MAGA extremism in a formal speech. Noting that not every Republican is a MAGA Republican—which is a charitable position these days—he declared, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He put it simply: “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself….They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence.” Factcheck: True. Biden did not use the F-word, but he fully and passionately explained how Trumpism presents a profound danger to the nation. — If it walks like fascism, and talks like fascism, then…

Kiwi Farms has become synonymous with doxxing (the release of an individual’s identifying information with malicious intent), swatting (a term for when an anonymous person sends an urgent, false tip to the police about a violent crime in a victim’s home in the hopes that law enforcement will raid it and potentially harm the person inside), and archiving controversial materials such as manifestos by mass shooters and recordings of their livestreams. The forum is a massive archive of sensitive information on their targets, which has been used to repeatedly harass them. Kiwi Farms’ most notorious section is titled “lolcows” and targets transgender people. The archive often features social media pictures of their targets’ friends and family, along with contact information of their employers. The information is used in an effort to get their targets fired or socially isolated by spreading rumors that they are pedophiles or criminals. Experts fear Kiwi Farms is starting to target other communities — and that their tactics are being duplicated throughout the political world to intimidate political enemies…Alejandra Carabello, an attorney at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, worries that Kiwi Farms’ typical “playbook” — in which trolls weaponize years of online data against various individuals because of their stances on a constellation of culture war issues — will be opened up to more and more private citizens as political rhetoric heats up before the 2024 election. — This isn’t good. 

Hospitalized, Bullied, and Denied Care: Texas’ War on Trans Kids. The tragic consequences of Gov. Greg Abbott’s anti-trans witch hunts are piling up. “Put simply,” attorneys wrote, Abbott’s order “traumatizes children.” — Trump Republicans relish in cruelty towards others. Abbott is a waste of human flesh.

Yoga sect allegedly exploited women to lure men like Domingo. An Argentina-based yoga group sexually exploited vulnerable women it called “geishas” to get money and influence from wealthy and powerful men around the world, including opera star Placido Domingo, who knew the organization’s leaders for more than two decades, according to interviews with former members and local authorities.

Why the return to the office isn’t working. With 70 percent of office workers globally now back in the office at least one day a week, the excitement many people felt a few months ago is wearing off. For many, that novelty is turning into an existential question: Why are we ever here?…Solving the office conundrum is not easy, and in all likelihood it will be impossible to make everyone happy. But it’s important to remember that going to the office never really worked for everyone, it was just what everyone did. Now, two years after the pandemic sent office workers to their living rooms, their employers may have a chance to make more people happy than before…For many office workers, the current state of affairs just isn’t working out. So they’re doing what they can to make their experience of work better, whether that means renting coworking space or not showing up for arbitrary in-office days. They don’t necessarily hate the office. What they hate is not having a good reason to be there.

Jane Fonda announces she’s been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The acclaimed actor also said she has the better chance of survival based largely on the privilege of having “health insurance and access to the best doctors and treatments.” “Almost every family in America has had to deal with cancer at one time or another and far too many don’t have access to the quality health care I am receiving and this is not right,” she added.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Thursday, September 1, 2022

And another day of menaces to democracy, the big question of “why,” Texans support abortion, cellphone tracking, the heat index, cities in fear of running out of water, tragic outcomes for the mentally ill, and getting $95,000 for being a horrible person comes to a close:

“The rich can literally claim tax deductions for owning a yacht, but conservatives have the nerve to call $10,000 student debt forgiveness a handout?” -- Robert Reich

Deaths

US: 1,072,125 (+705)

World: 6,498,459 (+2569)

Cases

US: 96,465,126 (+117,155)

World: 608,700,634 (+678,100)

Biden sounds newly strong alarm: Trumpism menaces democracy. President Joe Biden charged in a prime-time address Thursday that the “extreme ideology” of Donald Trump and his adherents “threatens the very foundation of our republic,” as he summoned Americans of all stripes to help counter what he sketched as dark forces within the Republican Party trying to subvert democracy. -- Oh they are trying to subvert democracy. There is no doubt about that.

Trump Stole Secret Government Documents. The Big Question Is Why. Though one can never discount incompetence in the course of such matters, the known evidence suggests Trump really, really wanted to keep these papers. In its legal filings following the FBI raid on Trump’s club, though, the Justice Department has not presented its view of Trump’s motives. But that hasn’t stopped a frenzy of speculation on the internet. Nor should it. Given that Trump ran for president in 2016 charging that Hillary Clinton had harmed national security by using a personal server for her email when she was secretary of state and vowing that he would “enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” this scandal is yet the latest sign of the brazen hypocrisy and blatant corruption at the root of his MAGA demagoguery and its embrace by the Republican Party. This affair warrants full examination, and that includes the reasons for Trump’s apparent flouting of the law. So let’s look at a few possible explanations.

Poll: One year after SB 8, Texans express strong support for abortion rights. One year after Texas implemented what was then the most restrictive abortion law in the country, a majority of Texas voters are expressing strong support for abortion rights. In a new survey, six in 10 voters said they support abortion being "available in all or most cases," and many say abortion will be a motivating issue at the ballot box in November. Meanwhile, 11% say they favor a total ban on abortion. -- Let’s hope Texas rights this incredible wrong.

430,000 Britons have long Covid two years after infection. Certain groups are at a higher risk of long Covid than others. These included people aged 35 to 69 years; women; people living in more deprived areas; those working in social care; and those with another activity limiting health condition or disability, who are proportionately more likely to suffer with long Covid than other groups.

Local law enforcement agencies from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina have been using an obscure cellphone tracking tool, at times without search warrants, that gives them the power to follow people’s movements months back in time, according to public records and internal emails obtained by The Associated Press. Police have used “Fog Reveal” to search hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices, and harnessed the data to create location analyses known among law enforcement as “patterns of life,” according to thousands of pages of records about the company.

In video, Afghan woman accuses Taliban official of rape. An Afghan woman accused a senior Taliban official of forcing her into marriage and raping her repeatedly in a video that appeared on social media this week. In the video, the woman, who identified herself only by her first name Elaha, wept as she described being beaten and raped by former Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman Saeed Khosti. She said she was speaking from an apartment in Kabul where the Taliban had confined her after she tried to escape the country, and she pleaded for rescue. “These may be my last words. He will kill me, but it is better to die once than to die every time,” she said in the video, which surfaced on Tuesday. Elaha’s situation since making the video public is not certain.

Russian oil executive dies after falling from Moscow window. A prominent Russian oil executive died on Thursday after reportedly falling out of a hospital window in Moscow, stoking suspicions of foul play, given how frequently vocal critics of the Kremlin have been shot, poisoned or thrown out of windows.

Texas’ heat index could reach 125 degrees over the next 30 years, study finds. The heat index will reach 125 degrees at least once per year within the next 30 years in most Texas counties. Heat index is the temperature felt by the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature. Texas will see more days with a heat index over 100 than 46 other states as more than 13% of Americans are expected to be affected by extreme heat.

DRIED UP: Texas cities in fear of running out of water. But the Texas Water Development Board’s planning process has traditionally looked backward, not forward, in envisioning the worst-case scenario that managers should plan for. “By not considering climate change, we’re counting on water that’s probably not going to be there in the future,” Mace told KXAN said. “And so that increases the risk of reservoirs going dry, and of people losing their water supplies.”

After Sarah Palin's election loss, Sen. Tom Cotton calls ranked-choice voting 'a scam'. — To MAGA Republicans, every election is “rigged” if they lose.

‘Tragic outcomes’: Mentally ill face fatal risk with police. Time and time again across the U.S., people experiencing mental health crises are being killed by police, but the exact number remains unknown because of a yawning governmental information gap…Nearly one in five U.S. adults has a mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Yet people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than other people approached by law enforcement, the Treatment Advocacy Center said in a 2015 report.

Teacher gets $95,000 to settle lawsuit over refusal to use student's preferred name. A Kansas teacher who argued she had a religious belief that prevented her from calling transgender or nonbinary students by their preferred names and pronouns reached a $95,000 settlement with school district officials, according to a release from the teacher's attorneys. -- To be clear: this teacher got $95,000 for saying she was not going to call students by what they preferred to be called. This is total bullshit, and an abuse of claiming religious belief.

‘Historic’ James Webb images show exoplanet in unprecedented detail. The observations, which astronomers said marked a “historic moment for astronomy”, are the first direct images of a planet beyond our solar system by Nasa’s $10bn (£8.65bn) James Webb space telescope. They are also the first images of an exoplanet using infrared light, which gives a far more precise indication of a planet’s mass and temperature and will allow astronomers to detect the movement of clouds drifting across the planet’s sky.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.