Friday, September 16, 2022

And another day of appeals, Reverse Freedom Rides, Trump embracing and amplifying QAnon conspiracies, Ukrainian torture victims, Iranian morality police and a dead woman, birth certificates with two mothers, and ‘sharenting’ comes to a close:

“It’s absolutely amazing how public DeSantis and Abbott are about their racism.” — Thom Hartmann

"This idea of a country for the people by the people — it's really a country for a particular people by a particular people." — Andrew Whitehead

Deaths

US: 1,078,457 (+439)

World: 6,529,144 (+3750)

Cases

US: 97,481,146 (+50,735)

World: 616,537,103 (+556,710)

US asks appeals court to lift judge’s Mar-a-Lago probe hold. The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court Friday to lift a judge’s order that temporarily barred it from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home last month.

The Martha's Vineyard migrant flight has echoes of a dark past: Reverse Freedom Rides. Fuming over the civil rights movement, Southern segregationists had concocted a way to retaliate against Northern liberals. In 1962, they tricked about 200 people from the South into moving north. The idea was simple: When large numbers of Black people showed up on Northern doorsteps, Northerners would not be able to accommodate them. They would not want them, and their hypocrisy would be exposed. The Reverse Freedom Rides have largely disappeared from the country's collective memory. The scheme almost never appears in history books and is little-known even in Hyannis, the primary target of the ploy. But for the families who came to the North 60 years ago, based on a lie, the journey has cast an enduring shadow on their lives. And the Reverse Freedom Rides have dark echoes in the campaign this summer by Republican governors to send migrants north to cities like Washington, D.C., New York, and Chicago to make a political point. This week, it was Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida who paid to send 50 migrants by plane to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. This followed earlier efforts by Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona that have sent thousands of migrants north by the busload. Many of them, like the families 60 years ago, said they had traveled on false promises of help finding jobs and housing. — Read it all. The whole scheme. Everything Republicans do is based, in some fashion, on racism. Republicans are inhumane.

Trump openly embraces, amplifies QAnon conspiracy theories. After winking at QAnon for years, Donald Trump is overtly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory, even as the number of frightening real-world events linked to it grows.

Ukrainian president: Burial site contains torture victims. Investigators searching through a mass burial site in Ukraine have found evidence that some of the dead were tortured, including bodies with broken limbs and ropes around their necks, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said Friday. The site near the northeastern city of Izium, recently recaptured from Russian forces, appears to be one of the largest discovered in Ukraine. Zelenskyy spoke in a video he rushed out just hours after the exhumations began, apparently to underscore the gravity of the discovery. He said more than 440 graves have been found at the site but that the number of victims was not yet known.

Iranian woman dies after being arrested by morality police, sparking protests. A young Iranian woman has died after falling into a coma following her detention by morality police enforcing Iran’s strict hijab rules, sparking protests by Iranians on social media and on the streets on Friday. In the past few months, Iranian rights activists have urged women to publicly remove their veils, a gesture that would risk their arrest for defying the Islamic dress code as the country’s hardline rulers crack down harder on “immoral behavior.” Videos posted on social media have shown cases of what appeared to be heavy-handed action by morality police units against women who had removed their hijab.

Nebraska judge: Birth certificates can’t name 2 mothers. A Nebraska judge has rejected a lawsuit filed by two Omaha women who sought to have both their names listed as parents on their children’s birth certificates, saying the request conflicts with state law.

Why ‘sharenting’ is sparking real fears about children’s privacy. “Sharenting,” or parents sharing their child’s likeness or personal information on the internet, has grown in popularity alongside the advent of smartphones and social media. And this practice shines a light on the murky realm of children’s consent, digital data collection, targeted advertising, and real-world dangers resulting from parents’ online activities…In an interview with Changing America, Cook stressed the intention of her work is not to shame parents about their online behaviors, but to better inform them of what the true online landscape is. “It’s a lot more nefarious than I think [parents] realize and they are putting out this information that I would encourage them to consider to keep more private,” she said.

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

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

Thursday, September 15, 2022

And another day of judges, spreading incitement, replacing all generals, FL and TX trafficking humans, Ds punting on same-sex marriage vote, the future of religion in America, and SNL hiring it’s first non-binary cast member comes to a close:

“So to be clear, going into the midterms, the GOP see migrants as political props, children killed from guns as collateral damage, women as chattel, and Trump as a King? I just want to get all this straight before I mount my surfboard, for that massive blue wave coming.” — Jeremy Newberger

“A vote for the Republican Party is a vote not only for racism, homophobia and misogyny - it is also a vote for cruelty and heartlessness. That is what you are supporting if you still vote for this party. That’s what it boils down to.” -- Amy Siskind

Deaths

US: 1,078,018 (+541)

World: 6,525,394 (+2387)

Cases

US: 97,430,411 (+90,395)

World: 615,980,393 (+580,715)

Veteran NY judge named as arbiter in Trump Mar-a-Lago probe. A federal judge on Thursday appointed a veteran New York jurist to serve as an independent arbiter in the criminal investigation into the presence of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, and refused to permit the Justice Department to resume its use of the highly sensitive records seized in an FBI search last month.

How Trump Spread Incitement of Violence Throughout the GOP. Violent threats have surged since Trump and his allies blasted the court-approved Mar-a-Lago search as a partisan conspiracy. The Justice Department filed charges against a Pennsylvania man who had allegedly posted threats online, including, “I sincerely believe that if you work for the FBI, then you deserve to DIE.” A Republican candidate for the Florida House announced he had a plan for federal agents to be shot “on sight.” Even the previously low-profile National Archives and Rec­ords Administration became a target.

Blake Masters Wants to Fire All Generals and Replace Them With Conservatives. Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, has repeatedly said the U.S. should clean house on the senior ranks of the military, pushing the claim that all the generals and admirals are “woke” and “left-wing” losers who’ve never won a war. His solution? Fire them all, and promote “the most conservative colonels.” — The GOP are openly embracing fascism. They are telling you they have openly embraced d fascism. This is not hyperbole, and this is not a drill. Vote to keep all Republicans out of office.

Florida, Texas escalate flights, buses to move migrants. Republican governors are escalating their practice of sending migrants without advance warning to Democratic strongholds, including a wealthy summer enclave in Massachusetts and the home of Vice President Kamala Harris, to taunt leaders of immigrant-friendly “sanctuary” cities and highlight their opposition to Biden administration border policies. The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent thousands of migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., in recent months, but the latest surprise moves - which included two flights to Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday paid for by Florida - were derided by critics as inhumane political theater.

Migrants on Martha's Vineyard flight say they were told they were going to Boston. About 50 migrants arrived by plane in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., Wednesday on a flight paid for by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and that originated in San Antonio, Texas…The migrants said a woman they identified as "Perla" approached them outside the shelter and lured them into boarding the plane, saying they would be flown to Boston where they could get expedited work papers. She provided them with food. The migrants said Perla was still trying to recruit more passengers just hours before their flight. — This sure sounds like human trafficking by Republican governors. Republicans are inhumane.

“Hopefully, enough Floridians are getting sick and tired of the daily drama created by an insanely ambitious man who needs to constantly create a new contrived controversy to feed a MAGA base with an insatiable appetite for cruelty and political theater.” — Ron Filipkowski 

“I’m old enough to remember when Republicans controlled all three branches of government and the only thing they did on immigration is decide to start tearing kids apart from their parents at the border.” — M N

Democrats punt same-sex marriage vote until after election. Democrats are punting a vote to protect same-sex and interracial marriages until after the November midterm elections, pulling back just days after Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to put the Senate on the record on the issue “in the coming weeks.” The delay was requested by key senators who have been negotiating changes to the legislation and comes at a time when many Republicans have been signaling opposition.

Modeling the Future of Religion in America. If recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades. The Center estimates that in 2020, about 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian. People who are religiously unaffiliated, sometimes called religious “nones,” accounted for 30% of the U.S. population. Adherents of all other religions – including Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – totaled about 6%. Depending on whether religious switching continues at recent rates, speeds up or stops entirely, the projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, “nones” would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population. -- God, let’s hope so. Religion is neither necessary nor sufficient to be a good person.

'Saturday Night Live' announces its first nonbinary cast member. Actor and comedian Molly Kearney will become the first nonbinary cast member on “Saturday Night Live” in its upcoming 48th season.

Roger Federer, a 20-time Grand Slam singles champion, will retire from top-level tennis after the Laver Cup in London later this month.

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

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

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

And another day of the GOP backing a national abortion ban, subpoenas, Senate Rs out of step with their base on gay marriage, Covid’s end ‘in sight,’ TikTok misinformation, and Brett Favre’s welfare money scandal comes to a close:

“Is there anyway the media can find out” — Brett Favre

Deaths

US: 1,077,477 (+1134)

World: 6,523,007 (+2501)

Cases

US: 97,340,016 (+139,310)

World: 615,399,678 (+685,097)

The first abortion ban passed after Roe takes effect Thursday in Indiana. Indiana lawmakers passed legislation banning most abortions in a special session in early August. It includes narrow exceptions for rape, incest, and certain serious medical complications and emergencies. — And yet Republicans are always fighting to keep government out of their personal lives. Vote all Republicans out of office.

Pence says "whoever" is next GOP president will back national abortion ban. “I welcome any and all efforts to advance the cause of life in state capitals or in the nation’s capital,” Pence said in an interview with RealClearPolitics published Wednesday. “And I have every confidence that the next Republican president, whoever that may be, will stand for the right to life.” -- Never vote Republican.

The stigma of “late-term abortions” is the point. Dannenfelser’s choice to invoke “late-term abortions” was pointed. Typically, the phrase refers to abortions performed after 21 weeks, but I’ve seen anti-abortion advocates in particular use “late term” in reference to abortions anywhere after 15 weeks. Crucially, there is no real definition or medical designation for what constitutes a late-term abortion, so it’s used somewhat haphazardly. Medical experts also criticize the term for implying that abortions are taking place after a pregnancy reaches “term” at 37 weeks—which does not happen—or a point in pregnancy referred to by obstetricians as “late term,” up to 41 weeks—which also does not happen.

Mark Meadows complied with DOJ subpoena in January 6 probe. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has complied with a subpoena from the Justice Department’s investigation into events surrounding January 6, 2021, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, making him the highest-ranking Trump official known to have responded to a subpoena in the federal investigation.

On Gay Marriage, Senate Republicans Are Out of Step With the Republican Base. Getting those 10 votes may be difficult, because today’s Republican senators grew up in a party that opposed same-sex marriage. These senators may believe, as Sen. Ted Cruz apparently does, that by blocking the bill, they’re representing the party. But that assumption is no longer true. Over the past two decades, among rank-and-file Republicans, opposition to gay marriage has plummeted. If today’s 50 Republican senators truly represented their voters, they wouldn’t just be supplying 10 votes for the Respect for Marriage Act. They’d be supplying 20 or 25…What’s even more striking in NBC/Journal polls is the collapse of opposition to same-sex marriage. In 2004, 84 percent of Republicans said they were against allowing such marriages. By 2015, that number had plunged to 49 percent. In the latest NBC News poll, taken in May, it’s down to 31 percent. Which means that for every two self-identified Republicans who oppose allowing gay marriage, there are now three who support it.

WHO: COVID end ‘in sight,’ deaths at lowest since March 2020. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight,” he said, comparing the effort to that made by a marathon runner nearing the finish line. “Now is the worst time to stop running,” he said. “Now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap all the rewards of our hard work.”

Poverty and uninsured rates drop, thanks to pandemic-era policies. Child poverty is at a historic low, according to the bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance. And the rate of Americans without health insurance also dropped in 2021 compared to the previous year. But the good news may be short lived. Both gains were driven by temporary pandemic-related policies, and without action by policymakers, they could quickly unravel. — Which is what Republicans want.

Saudi Arabia is razing whole neighborhoods to make way for tourism and wealth. Early in the year, the Saudi government announced a $20 billion project to redevelop old areas in the south of Jeddah, the second-largest city in the kingdom, to attract tourists and wealthy foreigners. But hundreds of thousands of people will be displaced in the process, many of them from working-class immigrant communities. Even though dissent in Saudi Arabia is risky, some of those being affected recently spoke to NPR about it.

R. Kelly convicted of child porn, enticing girls for sex. A federal jury in Chicago convicted R. Kelly on Wednesday of producing child pornography and enticing girls for sex after a monthlong trial in his hometown, delivering another legal blow to the Grammy Award singer who was once one of the world’s biggest R&B stars.

Texts: Mississippi ex-governor knew of Favre welfare money. Newly revealed text messages show how deeply involved a Mississippi governor was in directing more than $1 million in welfare money to Brett Favre to help pay for one of the retired NFL quarterback’s pet projects. Instead of the money going to help low-income families in one of the nation’s poorest states, as intended, it was funneled through a nonprofit group and was spent on a new $5 million volleyball facility at a university that the football star and the governor both attended.

Santa came today': Brett Favre texts show his role in Mississippi welfare scandal. Newly released text messages from NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre show he was much more involved than previously known in pushing for millions of federal welfare dollars to be diverted from helping poor families to instead pay for a new volleyball facility at the school where his daughter played the sport. The messages, released in a court filing this week, also reveal that Favre sought reassurances from a nonprofit executive that the public would never learn he was seeking millions of dollars in grants that ultimately came from the Mississippi welfare agency. — What a dick. 

TikTok search results riddled with misinformation: Report. TikTok may be the platform of choice for catchy videos, but anyone using it to learn about COVID-19, climate change or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to encounter misleading information, according to a research report published Wednesday. -- And that’s why you’re here instead to get your news.

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

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

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

And another day of a nationwide abortion ban, ‘irreparable harm,’ disinformation via text messages, superdodgers, the world heading in wrong direction on climate, neighborhood private police forces, and skirts-only schools comes to a close:

“The little piece of shit that hangs off your dog’s ass does more for society than Lindsey Graham.” — David Leavitt

Deaths

US: 1,076,343

World: 6,520,506

Cases

US: 97,200,706

World: 614,714,581

GOP’s Graham unveils nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks. Upending the political debate, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a nationwide abortion ban Tuesday, sending shockwaves through both parties and igniting fresh debate on a fraught issue weeks before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. Graham’s own Republican Party leaders did not immediately embrace his abortion ban bill, which would prohibit the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy with rare exceptions, and has almost no chance of becoming law in the Democratic-held Congress. Democrats torched it as an alarming signal of where “MAGA” Republicans are headed if they win control of the House and Senate in November. “America’s got to make some decisions,” Graham said at a news conference at the Capitol. -- Yep. And the decision is to get rid of you and your ilk.

Gavin Newsom launches tool connecting women with abortion services in California. As part of his effort to make California a safe harbor for women seeking abortions, Newsom, a Democrat, launched a new state website on Tuesday aimed at connecting women who live out of state with reproductive health care, including a tool that would help them find a provider and how to seek financial assistance for those services.

Panel: Archives still not certain it has all Trump records. The National Archives is still not certain that it has custody of all Donald Trump’s presidential records even after the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago club, a congressional committee said in a letter Tuesday. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform revealed that staff at the Archives on an Aug. 24 call could not provide assurances that they have all of Trump’s presidential records. The committee in the letter asked the Archives to conduct an assessment of whether any Trump records remain unaccounted for and potentially in his possession.

'Irreparable harm': Justice Department warns against further delay in Trump documents probe. "Plaintiff (Trump) has characterized the government’s criminal investigation as a 'document storage dispute' or an 'overdue library book scenario.' In doing so, Plaintiff has not addressed the potential harms that could result from mishandling classified information or the strict requirements imposed by law for handling such materials," DOJ said in a court filing urging Judge Aileen Cannon to allow its criminal investigation into the over 100 classified documents the department says it took from Trump's Florida home to proceed for the time being. The filing noted that the documents had "markings signifying that their unauthorized disclosure 'reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security,' including 'exceptionally grave damage,'" and said any delay is causing "irreparable harm" to the government and the public.

Justice Dept. OK with 1 Trump pick for Mar-a-Lago arbiter. Department lawyers said in a filing Monday night that, in addition to the two retired judges whom they earlier recommended, they would also be satisfied with one of the Trump team selections — Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court in the Eastern District of New York. He is currently on senior active status, and the department said he had indicated he was available and “could perform the work expeditiously” if appointed.

Disinformation via text message is a problem with few answers. The biggest election disinformation event of the 2022 midterm primaries was not an elaborate Russian troll scheme that played out on Twitter or Facebook. It was some text messages. The night before Kansans were set to vote on a historic statewide referendum last month, voters saw a lie about how to vote pop up on their phone. A blast of old-fashioned text messages falsely told them that a “yes” vote protected abortion access in their state, when the opposite was true — a yes vote would cut abortion protections from the state’s constitution. The messaging effort and referendum both failed. But the campaign shows how easily a bad actor can leverage text messages — which still rely on the same basic technology from when they were developed in the 1990s — to spread disinformation with few consequences. And while there’s now a cottage industry and federal agencies that target election disinformation when it’s on social media, there’s no comparable effort for texts.

So you haven't caught COVID yet. Does that mean you're a superdodger? By this point in the pandemic, most Americans have had at least one bout of COVID. For children under age 18, more than 80% of them have been infected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. But just as with HIV, some people have been exposed multiple times but never had symptoms and never tested positive.

UN sums up climate science: world heading in wrong direction. With weather disasters costing $200 million a day and irreversible climate catastrophe looming, the world is “heading in the wrong direction,” the United Nations says in a new report that pulls together the latest science on climate change. The World Meteorological Organization, in the latest stark warning about global warming, said weather-related disasters have increased fivefold over the last 50 years and are killing 115 per day on average – and the fallout is poised to worsen.

Sexual assault victim who alleges her DNA was used to arrest her sues San Francisco Police. The woman, identified only as “Jane Doe,” alleges that law enforcement officers took her DNA in November 2016 as part of an investigation into her sexual assault. The San Francisco Police Department then, without her consent, put that DNA into a database and has for years tested it against crime scene DNA, according to the lawsuit.

The child poverty rate fell by nearly half in 2021 as enhanced child tax credit sent billions of dollars to families. Some 5.2% of children were in poverty last year, down from 9.7% the year before, based on a broader alternative measure developed by the Census Bureau...The supplemental poverty rate for children was the lowest on record since the measure began. Without the enhanced child tax credit, the rate would have only fallen to 9.2%. Some 5.3 million people were lifted out of poverty because of the credit. -- And Republicans hate it because their mission is to keep people in poverty. The inequality in this country is not an accident or because of people “not working hard enough.” The inequality is by design.

St. Louis’ Private Police Forces Make Security a Luxury of the Rich. Wealthier neighborhoods in St. Louis have armed themselves with private police, giving them a level of service poor areas can’t afford and fueling racial and economic disparities. These neighborhoods buy patrols from Betts’ firm and other private police companies because, they say, they do not get enough from a city police department that struggles to provide basic services…The result is two unequal levels of policing for St. Louis residents and businesses. Low-income and minority residents do not have the resources to hire police through a private company, and the department has struggled to provide patrols in parts of the city that suffer high rates of violent crime. Meanwhile, the more affluent neighborhoods, which are less affected by violent crime, have raised millions of dollars to pay companies like The City’s Finest for granular attention from the same officers the police department has said it doesn’t have enough of. — America’s future looks bleak.

In a nod to JFK, Biden pushing ‘moonshot’ to fight cancer. His speech at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum comes as Biden seeks to rally the nation around developing treatments and therapeutics for the pervasive diseases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rank as the second-highest killer of people in the U.S. after heart disease. Biden hopes to move the U.S. closer to the goal he set in February of cutting U.S. cancer fatalities by 50% over the next 25 years and to dramatically improve the lives of caregivers and those suffering from cancer.

Skirts-only charter school seeks Supreme Court review in latest SCOTUS culture war. A publicly chartered North Carolina school that prohibits girls from wearing pants or shorts because they are "fragile vessels" told the U.S. Supreme Court in a newly filed petition that the entire charter school movement is now endangered by an appellate ruling that found its dress code is unconstitutional.

Former Gov. Phil Bryant helped Brett Favre secure welfare funding for USM volleyball stadium, texts reveal. Never-before-seen text messages show former Gov. Phil Bryant tried to shepherd a proposal to use welfare funds on the construction of a new volleyball stadium for retired NFL player Brett Favre – a project prosecutors have called a scheme to defraud the government. Bryant has previously denied any involvement with the project, which has emerged as the centerpiece of a massive criminal scandal in which prominent officials misspent or stole millions in welfare funds intended for the nation’s poorest residents.

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

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

Sunday, September 11, 2022

And another day of Ginni Thomas’s links, not being able to ‘mourn,’ stunning Ukrainian successes, how air pollution causes lung cancer, TX might tie community college funding to student outcomes, and male birth control comes to a close:

“I'm pondering the problem that our relentless "STEM, STEM, STEM!!!" educational drumbeat has created a new class of engineers who can solve any technical problem but also can't explain why Naziism is bad. This is adjacent to the problem that people in this country see no merit in studying any subject that cannot go on a resumé and be instantly monetized.” — David Bowman

Deaths

US: 1,075,668

World: 6,516,333

Cases

US: 97,095,092

World: 613,737,706

Ginni Thomas’s links to anti-abortion groups who lobbied to overturn Roe. Ginni Thomas, the self-styled “culture warrior” and extreme rightwing activist, has links to more than half of the anti-abortion groups and individuals who lobbied her husband Clarence Thomas and his fellow US supreme court justices ahead of their historic decision to eradicate a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy…“The Thomases are normalizing the prospect of too close an association between the supreme court and those who litigate before it,” said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University and co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast. “This isn’t the first time that Mrs Thomas has had dealings with those who come before the court and seek her husband’s vote.” The revelation that there is substantial overlap between Ginni Thomas and the anti-abortion lobbying effort focused on her husband and the other conservative justices will intensify the growing sense of unease surrounding her hyper-energetic conservative activism.

‘I cannot mourn’: Former colonies conflicted over the queen. Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empire’s former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger. Beyond official condolences praising the queen’s longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

Queen Elizabeth II had many subjects. They will not all mourn her death equally. But Britain was not the only nation to lose its ruler — the queen was the head of state of 14 other countries across the globe when she died, from New Zealand to my family’s Jamaica. You would be right to question why the queen remained the figure head for a former slave colony 60 years after it declared its independence, but this is just one of the many uncomfortable legacies of colonialism…Earlier this year, some Caribbean nations turned heads by publicly opposing the transfer of Commonwealth leadership to King Charles upon his succession. India is now the largest economy in the group, which has expanded to include Rwanda, Mozambique, Gabon and Togo — none of which were formerly British colonies. A changing of the guard is long overdue. By removing the centrality of the British crown, perhaps the group can focus on how to actually overcome the legacies of colonialism, rather than symbolically perpetuating British imperialism. And this, ultimately, is what royalists — and Fox News pundits — fail to grasp. Millions of people are mourning Queen Elizabeth II this weekend, as is their right. But millions more are hoping her death marks the end of the monarchy — and you need only to open a history book to understand why.

On the eastern front, a stunning week of Ukrainian success and Russian failures. The last week has seen a stunning transformation of the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, as a swift armored offensive by Ukrainian forces rolled through lines of Russian defenses and recaptured more than 3,000 square kilometers of territory. That is more territory than Russian forces have captured in all their operations in Ukraine since April.

Russia hits power stations after Ukraine counteroffensive. Russia attacked power stations and other infrastructure Sunday, causing widespread outages across Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces pressed a swift counteroffensive that has driven Moscow’s troops from swaths of territory it had occupied in the northeast. The bombardment ignited a massive fire at a power station on Kharkiv’s western outskirts and killed at least one person. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the “deliberate and cynical missile strikes” against civilian targets as acts of terrorism.

Scientists discover how air pollution causes lung cancer. Scientists say they have identified the mechanism through which air pollution triggers lung cancer in non-smokers, a discovery one expert hailed as “an important step for science – and for society”. The research illustrated the health risk posed by the tiny particles produced by burning fossil fuels, sparking calls for more urgent action to combat climate change.

Texas could tie community college funding to student outcomes. A commission tasked by the Texas Legislature to recommend new ways to fund community colleges is suggesting the state fund schools based on how successful students are at completing programs in high-demand fields and transferring to universities to continue their education.

Male birth control? UW seeking couples for study. Men apply the gel to both shoulders once a day. The hormones in it gradually lower sperm production to a level where a pregnancy would be unlikely. It does not reduce sex drive. The clear gel, which looks and feels like hand sanitizer, contains testosterone and progestin. The combination of hormones suppresses sperm concentrations.

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

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

Friday, September 9, 2022

And another day of the decades-long saga of how the GOP went crazy, proposed names for the arbiter, WA state’s conversion therapy ban, the reason why there is a student-loan debt crisis, and why American lives are getting shorter comes to a close:

“The Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history.” — Noam Chomsky 

Deaths

US: 1,075,338 (+551)

World: 6,514,558 (+2279)

Cases

US: 97,026,001 (+66,836)

World: 613,032,223 (+510,291)

It Didn’t Start with Trump: The Decades-Long Saga of How the GOP Went Crazy. Since the 1950s, the GOP has repeatedly mined fear, resentment, prejudice, and grievance and played to extremist forces so the party could win elections. -- Stop voting for Republicans. They are using you.

US, Trump team propose names for arbiter in Mar-a-Lago probe. The Justice Department and Donald Trump’s legal team proposed candidates Friday for the role of an independent arbiter in the investigation into top-secret documents found at the former president’s Florida home, but the two sides differed on the scope of duties the person would have.

U.S. appeals court upholds Washington state's conversion therapy ban. A U.S. federal appeals court on Tuesday unanimously upheld Washington state’s ban on conversion therapy for children, rejecting a therapist’s claim that it undermined his free speech and targeted him because he is Christian. — Once again, trying to use “Christianity” to do irreparable harm to others. Leave the pews.

What the Student-Loan Debate Overlooks. President Biden’s loan-forgiveness plan offers younger Americans the same benefits that Boomers have been afforded all along. Many factors have contributed to the explosion in student debt, but one dynamic is almost always overlooked: the erosion of the commitment to affordable public higher education as an engine for upward mobility that benefits the entire community. Contrary to the stereotype conjured by critics, the number of debtors from public colleges today (about 22 million) exceeds the number from private and for-profit colleges combined (about 21 million), according to federal data. One reason so many of those students from public schools are in debt is that they have graduated in an era when states have shifted more of the burden for funding higher education from taxpayers to students—precisely as more of those students are minorities reared in families on the short side of the nation’s enormous racial wealth gap…Older generations of college students didn’t have as much debt not because they were more individually virtuous but because they benefited from a collective social investment in their education. Many of those arguing against debt forgiveness, Siqueiros told me, seem to be conveniently forgetting all of the ways the government provided “benefits to Baby Boomers.” — There’s a reason why we’re in a student debt crisis. It was all by design.

Supreme Court temporarily blocks ruling that required Jewish university to recognize LGBTQ group. Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a brief order granted an emergency request made by Yeshiva University, which claims that recognizing the group would be contrary to its sincere religious beliefs. Sotomayor has responsibility for emergency applications arising from New York.

New York declares a state of emergency over polio. State health officials hope the declaration will help boost vaccination rates in counties where poliovirus has been detected in wastewater.

Why are American lives getting shorter? The average life expectancy for all groups has gone down since 2019, from 79 years to about 76. For white and Black Americans, it’s the lowest it has been in over 25 years. And the preprint’s authors found that while other rich countries began to recover from the pandemic last year, the US has continued to decline…All estimates show that life expectancy in the US has continued to decline, even as almost all rich countries have bounced back from lower life expectancies in the first year of Covid. “[The US] is one of the richest countries on the face of the planet,” said Laudan Aron, a senior fellow in the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute and one of the co-authors of the June paper. “The fact we cannot translate our economic wealth into protecting our population and ensuring that everybody has a fair chance to live a long and healthy and productive life is a real failure.”

Washington Supreme Court OKs virtual life term for teen. One year after saying virtual life sentences are unconstitutional for teenage killers, the Washington Supreme Court changed course Thursday in a split ruling that drew irate dissents from four justices. The 5-4 decision was a striking departure for a court that in recent years has steadily embraced research showing that juveniles’ brain development typically makes them less culpable than adults, and which has made significant efforts to undo the impact of racial bias in the criminal justice system.

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

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