Month: August 2023

August 31, 2023

UPS delivery driver dies from possible heat exhaustion. “An autopsy will determine if the summer heat played a role in the death of a North Texas UPS worker. Christopher Begley died Monday. The Collin County Medical Examiner’s Office hasn’t yet determined his official cause of death. This death comes after UPS workers have complained about things like dehydration and exhaustion working in the Texas heat. ….A statement from UPS said he reported feeling sick while on the job on Wednesday, August 23. The temperature reached 103 degrees that day. It was the 43rd day of the year at or above 100 degrees. ….He was offered medical attention but denied it and opted to go home for the day instead. ….Begley requested a few days off, which were granted. UPS said it received word four days later, on Sunday, that he had been hospitalized. He died the next day.”   https://www.fox4news.com/news/ups-driver-dies-after-working-in-north-texas-heat

Colorado Springs charter school reverses ban on Gadsden flag. “Jaiden, the 12-year-old boy who was kicked out of class for wearing a Gadsden flag patch on his backpack, is back in school with his constitutional rights restored. ….In the face of overwhelming criticism—including from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D)—the school district conceded its mistake and reversed course. ….Young people should not automatically lose their free expression rights when they set foot in school…. Hopefully, school officials everywhere are paying attention: Don’t tread on kids.”   https://reason.com/2023/08/30/dont-tread-on-jaiden-school-district-learns-its-lesson/

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell freezes up when asked at press conference if he plans to run for re-election. “At a press event in Covington, Kentucky, the 81-year-old paused for more than 30 seconds when asked whether he would run for-re-election in 2026. Aides attempted to prompt the senator, but it took several more seconds for Mr McConnell to recover. He then answered two more questions, which had to be repeated by staff. ….Mr McConnell’s first verbal lapse occurred during a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington DC on 26 July. There, he paused mid-sentence for approximately 20 seconds, before being ushered away by his fellow Republican senators.”   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66665682

Texas judge rules that new state law limiting authority of local governments is unconstitutional. “The law, which was set to take effect Friday, would limit local regulations to being no more restrictive than what is ‘expressly authorized’ in state codes covering business, labor, property and other wide-ranging areas. ….In court, attorneys for [Houston] cited past Supreme Court cases to argue [that] state pre-emptions must meet two legal standards: a direct and irreconcilable conflict between state law and a local ordinance, and intent to preempt the local law with ‘unmistakable clarity’. They argued the state failed to meet those standards, making the law an unconstitutional affront to Houston’s home-rule status, or its ability to govern itself. ….’The governor and state legislature will undoubtedly continue their attempts to thwart local control, but San Antonio will stay vigilant in its fight to protect the voice and power of our residents,’ [said that city’s mayor, Ron Nirenberg].”   https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/judge-texas-preemption-law-unconstitutional-18338300.php

Federal judge rules in favor of Georgia election workers in lawsuit alleging they were harmed by Rudy Giuliani’s false ballot tampering claims. “A federal judge has determined that Rudy Giuliani has lost a defamation lawsuit from two Georgia election workers against him after he failed to provide information sought in subpoenas. ….[Shaye] Moss and [Ruby] Freeman are asking for unspecified damages after they say they suffered emotional and reputational harm, as well as having their safety put in danger, after Giuliani singled them out when he made false claims of ballot tampering in Georgia after the 2020 election. A trial to determine the amount of damages for which Giuliani will be held liable will be set for later this year or early 2024, [Judge Beryl] Howell said on Wednesday.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/30/politics/rudy-giuliani-georgia-election-workers/index.html

Minnesota sheriffs and police chiefs pull officers from schools over law limiting restraints used on students. “On Tuesday, sheriffs in Clay and Hennepin counties, along with Coon Rapids police, announced that they would pull school resource officers from local schools. And the Champlin Police Department said on Wednesday that it would follow suit. The moves come after Anoka and St. Louis counties, along with Moorhead police, said they would also remove school resource officers due to concerns about the law change. ….State lawmakers this year approved a broad education bill that bans some physical holds, including prone restraints of students. The law says that school employees and school resource officers can’t physically restrain students in a way that impacts their ability to breathe or voice distress — including holds that put students face down on the ground. A similar policy banning prone restraints on students with disabilities has been on the books since 2015. Lawmakers this year expanded the policy to cover all students. …. the state has adopted changes more broadly to its use of force laws in recent years — including banning chokeholds and mandating officers to intervene if they witness another officer using inappropriate use of force — but the law governing student restraints creates different parameters for school resource officers.”   https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/08/30/police-departments-pull-school-officers-due-to-mn-restraint-law   Because you never know when you might have a put your knee on a 12 year-old girl’s neck. “The lawsuit, filed Monday in US District Court, alleges [Shawn] Guetschow used excessive force against the girl – identified only as Jane Doe – while he was trying to arrest her after the fight, and that putting his knee on her neck helped constitute an unlawful chokehold.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/07/us/kenosha-wisconsin-officer-knee-student-lawsuit/index.html

Medicaid officials warn states about dropping kids from health insurance program. “Potentially millions of children have been improperly dropped from Medicaid rolls across many states in recent months, federal authorities said Wednesday as they sounded an alarm and called for reinstating the youngsters’ coverage through the safety-net health insurance. The unwarranted removal of possibly large numbers of children is the most serious problem to materialize since the start this spring of a massive undertaking by every state to figure out who remains eligible for Medicaid. This unwinding, as it is known, was triggered by the end of a pandemic-era promise that everyone in the nation’s largest public insurance program could stay in it. The undertaking is a prime concern of Biden administration health officials, who have been monitoring states closely in hopes of avoiding a surge in the nation’s uninsured as low-income people lose Medicaid coverage for paperwork reasons or because they no longer qualify.”   https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/08/30/medicaid-unwinding-children-dropped/

Marion County Record reporter sues police chief over phone seizure. “One of the reporters who works at the small Kansas newspaper that was raided by authorities earlier this month filed a federal lawsuit against the police chief Wednesday. Deb Gruver believes Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody violated her constitutional rights when he abruptly snatched her personal cellphone out of her hands during a search where officers also seized computers from the Marion County Record’s office, according to the lawsuit. That Aug. 11 search and two others conducted at the homes of the newspaper’s publisher and a City Council member have thrust the town into the center of a debate over the press protections in the First Amendment. ….Gruver said in a statement that by filing her lawsuit, ‘I’m standing up for journalists across the country.'”   https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/kansas-reporter-files-federal-lawsuit-against-police-chief-who-raided-her-newspapers-office

Joe Biden used three email aliases while serving as Vice President. “The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has more than 5,000 potential emails from three aliases President Joe Biden used while serving in the Obama administration, according to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed Monday. The New York Post first reported in 2021 that Biden used at least three pseudonyms—’Robin Ware’, ‘Robert L. Peters’, and ‘JRB Ware’—on emails that mixed family and government business. The aliases were reportedly discovered in emails found on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. ….Whether or not those emails contain government business or evidence of impropriety that Republicans have been searching for, the use of multiple pseudonymous email addresses and aliases, at the very least, creates suspicion for FOIA requesters. How are watchdog groups and records requesters supposed to know the government is performing complete searches if the existence of alternate or private email addresses isn’t revealed? However, despite criticisms from transparency groups, the practice has been fairly widespread for at least the past few administrations. Obama-era EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used the alias ‘Richard Windsor’ and her private email address in messages with lobbyists. Former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch also used alias email addresses. Trump-Era EPA administrator Scott Pruitt had four government email addresses.”   https://reason.com/2023/08/30/joe-bidens-email-aliases-are-a-potentially-serious-transparency-problem/

One signer of ‘classic earmarks of a Russian information operation’ letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Twitter employee. “A former CIA agent who signed the October 2020 open letter that dismissed The [New York] Post’s bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop emails as Russian disinformation worked on policy enforcement at Twitter as recently as last year and did not disclose her role to Congress, new ‘Twitter Files’ reporting shows. Nada Bakos alerted her senior policy team — including now-former Twitter head of trust and safety Yoel Roth — that her photograph was one of 20 on The Post’s March 19, 2022, cover highlighting 51 former intelligence officials who cast doubt on the authenticity of the laptop, according to an email sent the same day and obtained by Substack journalist Texas Lindsay. ….Shortly after, Bakos switched her LinkedIn account to private and locked her profile on Twitter, now known as X. She worked at the social media company from September 2021 to November 2022.”   https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/ex-cia-agent-who-signed-spies-who-lie-letter-never-told-congress-she-worked-at-twitter/

Former CIA agent claims humans sharing Earth with ‘non-human intelligence’. “Jim Semivan, a former Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) officer, has made startling revelations about non-human entities cohabiting with humans on Earth. According to a report by The US Sun on Sunday, Semivan, in a recent interview, disclosed his belief in the existence of a different reality that surrounds us, to which we are oblivious. Jim Semivan, who had a 25-year stint as a C.I.A. agent, is also the co-founder of ‘To The Stars Academy’, a company that investigates various topics related to aliens.”   https://www.benzinga.com/news/23/08/34082411/former-cia-officer-claims-existence-of-non-human-intelligence-living-on-earth

Thousands left homeless after hurricane hits Florida. “Thousands have been left homeless with entire communities underwater after Idalia made landfall on Wednesday. ….Hurricane Idalia tore into Florida, Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday, leaving at least three dead and entire communities underwater in its trail of destruction. ….The Category 3 storm moved onto South Carolina on Wednesday night after leaving 150,000 customers without electricity in Florida and around 149,000 without power in Georgia, according to tracking website poweroutage.us.”   https://www.the-express.com/news/weather/110361/hurricane-idalia-live-homes-underwater-gas-station-roof-ripped-off-storm-latest

More salaried workers would be eligible for overtime pay under Biden administration plan. “The Biden administration proposed a new rule Wednesday that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, the most generous such increase in decades. ….The proposed regulation, unveiled by the Department of Labor, would require employers to pay overtime to salaried workers who are in executive, administrative and professional roles but make less than $1,059 a week, or $55,068 a year for full-time employees. ….Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, almost all U.S. hourly workers are entitled to overtime pay after 40 hours a week, at no less than time-and-half their regular rates. But salaried workers who perform executive, administrative or professional roles are exempt from that requirement unless they earn below a certain level. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has estimated that about 15% of full-time salaried workers are entitled to overtime pay under the Trump-era policy. The new rule would almost double that to nearly 30%, according to Labor Department figures.”   https://apnews.com/article/work-labor-overtime-pay-biden-ba1613a766bd45c4f15650bb7d361063

Guatemala’s legislature forces members of prime minister’s party to serve as ‘independents’. “Guatemala’s Congress, which is controlled by the currently governing party, on Wednesday refused to recognize the seven lawmakers from the Seed Movement party of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo, following the suspension of his party earlier this week. Lawmakers declared their Seed Movement colleagues independents in the latest move against the party since Arévalo’s landslide win Aug. 20. Prosecutors have accused the Seed Movement of wrongdoing in gathering signatures for the party’s registration years earlier.”   https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-election-bernardo-arevalo-1a50f1e5e821c0c228ff6c600fe77843

Jesuits sold their slaves ‘down the river’ to fund Washington D.C.’s Georgetown University. “[Rachel] Swarns documents the [Mahoney] family’s subsequent forced separation as part of the sale of 272 people to plantations in Louisiana in order to fund the expansion of the newly founded Georgetown College. ….Georgetown is America’s oldest Catholic university and one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the US. …. The transaction made the Jesuits and Georgetown about $115,000 in profit ($3.78 million in today’s terms).”   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/31/georgetown-college-slavery-272-book-rachel-swarns

Meta revises its elaborate procedures for blocking users from ‘praising dangerous organizations’. “Meta’s ‘Dangerous Organizations and Individuals’, or DOI, policy is based around a secret blacklist of thousands of people and groups, spanning everything from terrorists and drug cartels to rebel armies and musical acts. For years, the policy prohibited the more than one billion people using Facebook and Instagram from engaging in ‘praise, support or representation’ of anyone on the list. Now, Meta will provide a greater allowance for discussion of these banned people and groups — so long as it takes place in the context of ‘social and political discourse’, according to the updated policy, which also replaces the blanket prohibition against ‘praise’ of blacklisted entities with a new ban on ‘glorification’ of them. ….Observers like [Mona] Shtaya have long objected to how the DOI policy has tended to disproportionately censor political discourse in places like Palestine — where discussing a Meta-banned organization like Hamas is unavoidable — in contrast to how Meta rapidly adjusted its rules to allow praise of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion despite its neo-Nazi sympathies.”   https://theintercept.com/2023/08/30/meta-censorship-policy-dangerous-organizations/

U.S. urged to press U.A.E. to release human rights activists prior to COP28 climate summit. “The U.S. should take every opportunity to press Emirati authorities, in public as well as diplomatically, to end its persecution of rights defenders and free them, starting with Ahmed Mansoor.” Elizabeth Rghebi, [Amnesty International’s] advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) stressed that “as a participant in COP28, the U.S. government can demand the UAE demonstrate through this high-profile release its commitment to the human rights principles required for healthy civic space at this upcoming global gathering.”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/uae-ahmed-mansoor

August 30, 2023

Alabama may be first state to use nitrogen as an execution method since 1999. “Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, who was sentenced to death for a 1988 murder-for-hire killing, has already survived one execution attempt from the state. Last November, he won a court case allowing him to demand to be executed specifically by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that has been approved in Alabama since 2018 but has remained untested. ….Alabama officials attempted to kill him by lethal injection… but they abandoned their attempt after they tried unsuccessfully for several hours to place IV needles in Smith’s arms. While nitrogen hypoxia has been touted as a more humane method for killing death-row inmates—it’s simply unknown how much suffering death by nitrogen hypoxia causes. ‘It’s not humane,’ Joel Zivot, an associate professor of anesthesiology and surgery at Emory University, told the Montgomery Advertiser last year. ‘It’s not going to be euphoric. You know, it may be bloodless, but it won’t be simple.'”   https://reason.com/2023/08/29/alabama-set-to-try-new-untested-execution-method/

12 year-old student removed from class over ‘pro-slavery’ Revolutionary War patch on his backpack. “According to the staffer at the Colorado charter school, the patch was ‘disruptive to the classroom environment’ and that it has ‘origins with slavery’. ….Jaiden’s mother disputed the school staff member throughout the meeting, arguing that the flag originated during the American Revolution as a symbol of the 13 colonies’ fight against the British Crown and did not promote slavery. ….The staff member says, ‘So… the reason we do not want the flag displayed is due to its origins with slavery and slave trade. ….The bag can’t go back if it’s got the patch on it because we can’t have that in and around other kids.’ ….[Jaiden’s mother] asked if maybe the woman was mistaking it for the Confederate flag. The administrator responded, ‘I am here to enforce the policy that was provided by the district, and definitely you have every right not to agree with it.’ ….The mother added that she did not understand the policy that was being enforced. The staff member said she would put Jaiden’s mother in touch with Jeff Yocum, The Vanguard School’s director of operations. ….Yocum said the patch violated the school’s policy against symbols that ‘Refer to drugs, tobacco, alcohol, or weapons’.”   https://www.foxnews.com/media/12-year-old-boy-booted-class-gadsden-flag-patch-backpack-origins-slavery   In case you’re unfamiliar with the flag, there are no weapons on it, just a rattlesnake.

undefined

“… activist group Project Veritas, released a leaked document titled ‘Militia Violent Extremism’ from the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide. The guide, a two-page PDF, is an internal FBI document that lists a series of symbols that can be used to identify militias and violent extremism. These symbols included the Gadsden Flag, the Betsy Ross Flag (with 13 stars), the Punisher logo, and the Spartan helmet among several others.”   https://newanddigital.medium.com/why-historic-symbols-could-also-mean-violence-69d4abc52c58   ‘Violent extremist’ Betsy Ross flag (actually, that’s what the British monarchy considered its American colonists to be):

The "Betsy Ross" flag

U.S. to send an additional $250 million in military assistance to Ukraine. “The latest package includes additional mine clearing equipment, missiles for air defense, ammunition for artillery and HIMAR (High Mobility Artillery Rocket) systems, and over three million rounds of small-arms ammunition, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. ….More than $43 billion in U.S. military aid has been provided to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022. President Joe Biden earlier this month asked Congress to approve an additional $24 billion in assistance.”   https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-announces-new-military-assistance-package-ukraine-valued-250-million-2023-08-29/

Long Beach, CA breaks daily high temperature record. “Long Beach broke a heat record on Monday, with a temperature of 97 degrees registered at Long Beach Airport. The previous high for Aug. 28th was set in 1995 at 96 degrees. This week’s heat wave brought records and triple-digit temperatures to many parts of the Southland, but a cool-down is expected to begin later this week.”   https://lbpost.com/news/long-beach-breaks-heat-record-cooler-temps-on-the-way/

Wildfire in Greece reportedly largest ever in E.U. history. “‘This wildfire is the largest in the EU since 2000, when the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis) began recording data,’ the service said. Greece’s fire service said the blaze was ‘still out of control’ in the north-east region’s Dadia national park, a vital sanctuary for birds of prey. Since it began on 19 August, the blaze has killed 20 people, 18 of them migrants whose bodies were found in a region that is often used as an entry point from neighbouring Turkey.”   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/29/greece-wildfire-declared-largest-ever-recorded-in-eu

Meta claims to have taken down ‘largest known’ network of inauthentic accounts. “Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta on Tuesday said it had disrupted a disinformation campaign linked to Chinese law enforcement that the social media company described as the ‘largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world.’ The company took down more than 7,700 accounts and 930 pages on Facebook. The influence network generated positive posts about China, with a particular focus on positive commentary about China’s Xinjiang province, where the government’s treatment of the Uyghur minority group has prompted international sanctions. The network also attempted to spread negative commentary about the U.S. and disinformation in multiple languages about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, Meta said. The network was or is present on nearly every popular social media platform, including Medium, Reddit, Tumblr, YouTube, and X, formerly known as Twitter, according to the company.”   https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/meta-disrupts-chinese-misinformation-network-linked-to-law-enforcement-.html

Humans have detonated 2,056 nuclear weapons since 1945. “To raise awareness of the effects of nuclear weapons testing and achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world, every year on August 29 the United Nations marks the International Day against Nuclear Tests. ….The United States has conducted just over half of all nuclear tests, with 1,030 tests between 1945 and 1992. The Soviet Union carried out the second highest number of nuclear tests at 715 tests between 1949 and 1990. The USSR’s first nuclear test was on August 29, 1949. ….France has carried out 210 nuclear tests, while the United Kingdom and China have each carried out 45 tests. India has carried out three nuclear tests, while Pakistan has carried out two. North Korea is the most recent nation to carry out a nuclear test. In 2017, its sixth and most powerful bomb was detonated at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. The largest nuclear explosion occurred in 1961, when the Soviet Union exploded the Tsar Bomba on Novaya Zemlya north of the Arctic Circle. The explosion’s yield was 50 megatonnes, 3,300 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/8/29/visualising-the-2056-nuclear-tests-conducted-since-1945

FBI has DNA from 21.7 million people. “In an April 2023 statement submitted to Congress to explain the [the agency’s] budget request, FBI Director Christopher Wray cited several factors that had ‘significantly expanded the DNA processing requirements of the FBI’. He said the FBI collected around 90,000 samples a month — ‘over 10 times the historical sample volume’ — and expected that number to swell to about 120,000 a month, totaling about 1.5 million new DNA samples a year. ….’If you look back at when CODIS was established, it was originally for violent or sexual offenders,’ Anna Lewis, a Harvard researcher who specializes in the ethical implications of genetics research, told The Intercept. ‘The ACLU warned that this was going to be a slippery slope, and that’s indeed what we’ve seen.’ Today, police have the authority to take DNA samples from anyone sentenced for a felony charge. In 28 states, police can take DNA samples from suspects arrested for felonies but who have not been convicted of any crime. In some cases, police offer plea deals to reduce felony charges to misdemeanor offenses in exchange for DNA samples. Police are even acquiring DNA samples from unwitting people, as The Intercept recently reported. ….Until recently, the U.S. DNA database [which currently contains the DNA of about 7% of the U.S. population] surpassed even that of authoritarian China, which launched an ambitious DNA collection program in 2017. That year, the BBC reported, the U.S. had about 4 percent of its population’s DNA, while China had about 3 percent. Since then, China announced a plan aimed at collecting between 5 and 10 percent of its male population’s DNA, according to a 2020 study cited by the New York Times.”   https://theintercept.com/2023/08/29/fbi-dna-collection-surveillance/

Three members of Congress visit area of Syria controlled by al-Qaeda spin-off Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), express their support. “Republican Congressmen Ben Cline, Scott Fitzgerald, and French Hill spent about thirty minutes inside rebel-held Syrian territory on Sunday morning, according to the Washington Post. ….The region is controlled by HTS, which the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says ‘evolved from Jabhat al-Nusra, or ‘Nusra Front’, al-Qeada’s former branch in Syria.’ ….Still, Congressman [French] Hill voiced support for HTS’s desire to overthrow Assad. ….’The Syrian people have endured more than a decade of war, murder, and torture. It is imperative that nations across the globe, including the United States, work together to provide humanitarian aid to the Syrian people and to counter the Assad regime.’ ….During the Obama administration, the CIA armed and funded rebel groups opposing Assad. The program fueled the insurgency and led to the rise of the Islamic State and other jihad groups in Syria, such as HTS and Nusra.”   https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/congressmen-visit-rebel-controlled-syria-meet-with-al-qaeda-linked-group/

Israeli border guards violently break up protest by Palestinian commuters. “Dozens of workers had closed part of Route 55, adjacent to the Eyal crossing, one of the main checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank, after Israeli police prevented buses and other vehicles from transporting them to their places of work inside Israel. Hundreds of Israeli border guards arrived at the scene to suppress the protest, wounding dozens of workers and vehicle owners, who were then transferred to Darwish Nazzal Government Hospital in Qalqilya. Israeli authorities had stopped the buses they claim are operating without a licence or are transporting workers without permits. Without buses and other designated vehicles, Palestinians working in Israel have no other available means to reach their jobs after they cross the checkpoint. ….Abu Taha was first transferred to the government hospital with a laceration to the lower lip, a wide cut to the upper one, a broken jaw and broken teeth. But due to the severity of his injuries, he was then taken to a private hospital in Nablus for urgent surgery.”   https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-police-wound-dozens-palestinians-protesting-crossing

Short-acting insulin included on list of 10 drugs eligible for Medicare price negotiations. “‘This was an unexpected victory in a long fight against an illegal cartel of three corporations who have raised their insulin prices in lockstep,’ said Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, referring to Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi. ‘The inclusion of insulin in the list of negotiated drugs shows that the Biden White House isn’t [messing] around.’ ….Among the 10 drugs are three other treatments for diabetes, including Jardiance, Januvia, and Farxiga. Eliquis and Xarelto, which deal with blood clots, made the list, as did Stelara and Enbrel, which treat psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Entresto, prescribed for heart failure, will also come under the Medicare knife. Imbruvica, a blood cancer medication, will similarly be targeted by the government scalpel…”   https://theintercept.com/2023/08/29/insulin-medicare-drug-price-negotiation/

August 29, 2023

National Guardsman shoots man in Ciudad Juárez, on Mexican side of the river. “According to El Diario, a Spanish language newspaper in Juárez, Darwin José García of the southern Mexican state of Veracruz was practicing a sport on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande around 8:50 p.m. Saturday while a group of migrants were crossing the river. García said he then heard shots and realized he had been shot in the leg, the newspaper reported. The shooting happened near the Bridge of the Americas, which is close to a national park on the Mexican side. The man was treated by paramedics at the scene, transported to a Juárez hospital and was later released, according to La Verdad, a news outlet in the Mexican border city. It’s the second time that a Texas National Guard member has shot a civilian while deployed for Operation Lone Star, and the third known time that a soldier has fired their weapon while on duty at the border.”   https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-national-guard-member-fires-200458168.html   Article doesn’t say what sport he was practicing.

Japan’s climate policy being held hostage by vested interests, claim activists. “When coal-rich regions like West Virginia or fossil-fuel powers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia push to maintain the primacy of fossil fuels, their efforts are often seen as an attempt to keep an industry, and those who benefit from it, alive. But Japan has to import nearly all of its energy. Why, then, is a country with so few energy resources not more willing to embrace renewables and increase its energy independence? In reality, Japanese companies play a central role in fossil fuel extraction and financing around the world. Having built so many coal fired-power plants and LNG terminals both domestically and abroad, opponents of [the Green Transformation Basic Policy, aka] GX argue the reason the legislation is so fossil-fuel friendly is due to lobbying. ‘Ambitious climate policy in Japan continues to be held back by powerful business groups representing heavy industry,’ said Monica Nagashima, Japan country director for the nonprofit InfluenceMap, which this year published a report cataloging ‘intense and negative advocacy‘ over GX by a range of lobby groups including Keidanren, a business federation with over 1,400 corporate members, and trade associations representing high-polluting industries. According to James, the energy analyst, environmental groups and scientific experts were mostly sidelined, a common problem in Japan, which often fails to take on board the recommendations of civil society and the general public in policy-making. Teruyuki Ohno, executive director of the Tokyo-based Renewable Energy Institute, sees an economic risk to the GX, too. Japanese companies — notably Toyota — famously bet on hydrogen fuel-cell technology over battery electric vehicles, and have largely fallen behind competitors in the U.S., Europe, and China on next-generation automotive technology.”   https://www.semafor.com/article/08/25/2023/japans-climate-ira-missed-opportunity

Black college was likely original target of Jacksonville, FL gunman. “A campus security officer tipped off by observant students likely stopped the killer who fatally shot three people at a nearby Dollar General Store from carrying out his racist attack at Edward Waters University, the president of the historically Black institution said Monday. Students reported seeing a young, white man, pull into a campus library parking lot in Jacksonville, Florida, and begin putting on tactical gear Saturday, Edward Waters University President Zachary Faison Jr. said. They immediately flagged down a security officer who was on patrol to tell them what they saw. The officer approached the car on foot when the driver — who would later be identified as the shooter at the store — sped off, hitting a curb and narrowly avoiding a brick column, Faison said. The campus officer, who the campus president called a hero, then called the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and shared the description of the vehicle.”   https://apnews.com/article/jacksonville-shooting-florida-students-edward-waters-university-4a4050c4f607c204be6fe0973954f0a2

American Airlines fined $4.1 million for making passengers wait inside planes. “In the longest of the delays, passengers sat aboard a plane in Texas in August 2020 for six hours and three minutes. The 105-passenger flight had landed after being diverted from the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport due to severe weather, with the DOT alleging that ‘American lacked sufficient resources to appropriately handle several of these flights once they landed.’ Federal rules set the maximum time that passengers can be held without the opportunity to get off prior to takeoff or after landing, at three hours for domestic flights and four hours for international flights. Current rules also require airlines provide passengers water and a snack.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/28/business/american-airlines-largest-dot-fine-delays/index.html

Kroger warehouse worker in Memphis dies of apparent heat stroke. “The worker was identified as Tony Rufus, members from his union announced. Leaders from Teamsters 667, the local labor union, said Rufus was trying to cool off in the produce section after becoming overheated on Friday night. Rufus worked in the salvage department, a part of the facility that did not have air conditioning. The Memphis police department found Rufus dead at 8:13 p.m. ….In June, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed a law that eliminated local rules requiring water breaks for workers. Shortly after the law was passed, a 35-year-old utility lineman in Marshall, Texas, died after experiencing heat illness symptoms.”   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/28/kroger-worker-dies-heat-temperature

White Plains, NY settles lawsuit over fatal, 2011 police shooting during welfare check. “The city of White Plains, New York, has agreed to a $5 million settlement with the family of Kenneth Chamberlain, a Black 68-year-old former Marine shot dead by police in his own apartment. The tragic case occurred early on the morning of November 19th, 2011, when Ken Chamberlain accidentally pressed the button on his medical alert system while sleeping. It was 5:22 in the morning. Responding to the alert, White Plains police arrived at Chamberlain’s apartment in a public housing complex for a wellness check. ….Police gained entry to Ken Chamberlain’s apartment only after they took his front door off its hinges. Officers first shot him with a Taser, then a beanbag shotgun, then with live ammunition. ….After the White Plains police arrived at Ken Chamberlain’s apartment, he told an operator from LifeAid, that made the pendant, that he wasn’t sick and that he didn’t need assistance.”   https://www.democracynow.org/2023/8/28/kenneth_chamberlain_settlement   Chamberlain refused to open the door and told the police repeatedly that he was fine and that they should leave. He allegedly had a knife when the officers entered his apartment.

August 28, 2023

Indigenous ‘land defenders’ trying to stop logging of old growth Vancouver Island forest arrested. “This fight is for the ancient forest of the Fairy Creek Watershed, which is being systematically cut down by the largest privately owned logging company in the province. For over three years, settler activists and Indigenous land defenders have fought to save some of the last and largest old growth trees on the planet. ….Their desperate attempts to stop the harvesting of majestic red and yellow cedars, trees up to 2,000 years old, have been met with force by both the RCMP and the Teal-Jones Group. ….Land defenders are arrested by RCMP CIRG officers enforcing Teal Jones’ injunction at Savage Patch, a camp blockading old growth logging, in Pacheedaht territory near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island on Aug. 15, 2023. At least three people were arrested.”   https://indiginews.com/features/were-not-going-anywhere-inside-the-latest-rcmp-raid-at-fairy-creek

Trump campaign claims fundraising windfall after release of mug shot. “Trump’s campaign says he has raised $7.1 million since Thursday when he was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on charges that he illegally schemed to overturn the 2020 election in the state and became the first former president in U.S. history to ever have a mug shot taken. Spokesman Steven Cheung said that, on Friday alone, the campaign brought in $4.18 million — its highest-grossing day to date. The record haul underscores how Trump’s legal woes have been a fundraising boon for his campaign, even as his political operation has spent tens of millions on his defense. The mounting legal charges have also failed to dent Trump’s standing in the Republican presidential primary, with the former president now routinely beating his rivals by 30 to 50 points in polls.”   https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/08/27/breaking-news/trump-campaign-reports-raising-over-7m-after-georgia-booking/   This is why it was a bad idea to wait almost three years to charge him.

77% of Americans polled say Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president if re-elected. “A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds much of the public oddly united in sizing up the one trait Biden cannot change. ….In the poll, fully 77% said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. Not only do 89% of Republicans say that, so do 69% of Democrats. That view is held across age groups, not just by young people, though older Democrats specifically are more supportive of his 2024 bid. In contrast, about half of U.S. adults say Trump is too old for the office…”   https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-poll-trump-2024-620e0a5cfa0039a6448f607c17c7f23e

Saudi man reportedly sentenced to death over tweets and statements made during his interrogation. “A Saudi court has sentenced the brother of a prominent scholar and government critic to death over his tweets against corruption and for defending imprisoned religious scholars during interrogations, his family and rights groups have reported. In a tweet on Thursday, renowned UK-based religious scholar Saeed al-Ghamdi said the Specialised Criminal Court in Riyadh had handed his brother, Mohammed al-Ghamdi, a death sentence over tweets made from an anonymous account with nine followers. His tweets, seen by Middle East Eye, focused on unemployment, inflation, and government mismanagement of resources and called for the release of political prisoners. ….He added that his brother, a retired teacher, was also sentenced for defending detained Saudi scholars Awad al-Qarni, Salman al-Odeh, Ali al-Omari and Safar al-Hawali during interrogations. Qarni, Odeh and Omari have been imprisoned since 2017 and are all facing the death penalty.”   https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-saeed-ghamdi-brother-scholar-sentenced-death-tweets

‘Cop City’ protesters charged with ‘domestic terrorism’ claim they are receiving enhanced screening when travelling. “Before boarding a flight from San Francisco to New York last month, Luke ‘Lucky’ Harper was pulled aside and subjected to a search of his body and his belongings in front of other passengers waiting to board. ….His name was called out on a loudspeaker; officials swabbed his hands, seeking traces of explosives. ….Although nearly a year has passed since the earliest arrests, no one has been indicted. ….As with Harper, the lives of the arrestees have been upended. Some have lost jobs or been barred from attending school. ….The arrests mark the first time in the US that state domestic terrorism charges have been brought in connection with environmental or other protests.”  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/28/copy-city-atlanta-protesters-lives-domestic-terrorist-label

Biden administration releases two previously classified documents about 1973 coup in Chile. “The newly declassified files are daily briefs President Richard Nixon received on September 11, 1973—the day of the overthrow of Salvador Allende—and three days prior to the coup. ….Led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean military seized control of the government on September 11. What followed was a vicious, decades-long reign of terror and repression during which tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, tortured, or disappeared by the Pinochet regime, which continued to receive support from the CIA. ….’I’m happy that the Freedom of Information Act, together with some positive diplomacy by the Chilean government, broke a secrecy barrier that has kept us from knowing this history for 50 years,’ said [Peter] Kornbluh, [Chile specialist of the non-profit National Security Archive]. ‘I hope the [Biden] administration will reinforce its commitment to transparency by releasing all the documents that, inexplicably, remain secret after all this time.'”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-declassifies-chile-documents

August 27, 2023

Fleeing shoplifting suspect fatally shot by Blendon Township, OH police. “An officer fatally shot a pregnant woman who police suspected of shoplifting Thursday night in an Ohio grocery store parking lot after officials say she accelerated her car toward an officer.  ….the Franklin County Coroner’s Office identified her as 21-year-old Ta’kiya Young and confirmed she was pregnant. ….’The woman put the car in gear and accelerated forward. The officer who was directly in the path of the oncoming car fired one shot through the front windshield. ….The car kept moving and officers ran after it for about 50 feet. It then came to a stop on the sidewalk outside the store.’ ….Nadine Young, 61, of Columbus, Ohio, said Friday that her granddaughter was a mother of two boys, ages 3 and 6, and was expecting a daughter in November. She said the unborn child did not survive.”   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pregnant-woman-suspected-shoplifting-fatally-shot-ohio-officer-grocery-rcna101911   The car kept moving, but never hit the officer ‘directly in the path’ of the car?

One of the objects shot down over Alaska earlier this year was ‘anomalous’. “… on February 10, 2023, a U.S. F-22 fighter jet successfully brought down the object, which was flying at an altitude of approximately 40,000 feet over Alaska. ….U.S. Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, indicated that it was the size of a small car. ….the pilots involved in the sighting gave inconsistent reports. Some stated that the object interfered with their plane’s sensors, while others did not experience this. Some also claimed that they could not discern any recognizable source of propulsion on the object and were unable to explain how it was able to remain afloat while cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet. ‘… even though it was hit with an AIM missile, which is a top of the line air-to-air missile, … the object kept on going. And I’ve put this to different people in defense and intelligence, and I’ve been told yes… the Alaska object was anomalous. And anytime I try to get a response from anybody on an official basis, they run 100 miles an hour,’ [Ross] Coulthart said. ….’But you might notice, that nobody has given a report back to the American public or the world about what it was that the U.S., for the first time in the history of NORAD, they shot down something over North America. That’s a historic event. And yet we haven’t been told, neither has America, the full story of what those shoot downs involved.’ ….the Department of Defense responded to a Freedom of Information Act request for information about the object by referring the request to Advanced Aerial Research Organization [recently set up by the military to investigate unidentified aerial objects].”   https://www.howandwhys.com/journalist-said-2023-alaska-object-was-anomalous-it-looked-like-a-giant-tic-tac/?123abc

Investigators say clues about Nord Stream bombing lead back to Ukraine. “The findings of the investigation thus far, much of them coming from German officials, are strictly confidential. Nothing is to reach the public. On orders from the Chancellery. ….But there are leads. DER SPIEGEL, together with German public broadcaster ZDF, assembled a team of more than two dozen journalists to track them down over a period of six months. ….All the leads point all-too-obviously towards Kyiv, they say, the clues and evidence seem too perfect to be true. The Americans, the Poles and, especially, the Russians, they say, all had much stronger motives to destroy the pipeline than the Ukrainians. ….On September 6, according to reporting by DER SPIEGEL and ZDF, a sailing crew checked in at the Mola shack in the early afternoon to take out the Andromeda. The charter fee had apparently been paid by a Warsaw travel agency called Feeria Lwowa, a company with no website or telephone number. According to the Polish commercial registry, the company is headed by a 54-year-old woman named Nataliia A., who lives in Kyiv. She completed a course of study in early childhood education, but has no recognizable experience in the tourism industry. She has a Ukrainian mobile phone number. If you call it, a woman answers – before immediately hanging up once you identify yourself as a journalist. A few days later, a Ukrainian ‘police officer’ called back, threatening the reporter with charges of ‘stalking’, citing a rather flimsy justification. Feeria Lwowa’s address in Warsaw likewise leads nowhere. There is no office and there are no local employees. It looks as though it is a shell company. ….When the saboteurs showed up at the Mola shack to check in for their rental of the Andromeda, they apparently presented a Romanian passport. It had been issued to a certain Ştefan Marcu, as official documents indicate. ….The photo, though, is not of Ştefan Marcu, the 60-year-old from Moldova, but of a young man in his mid-20s with a penetrating gaze and military haircut. The man in the photo is very likely Valeri K. from the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. He apparently serves in the 93rd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian army.”   https://www.spiegel.de/international/investigating-the-attack-on-nord-stream-all-the-clues-point-toward-kyiv-a-124838c7-992a-4d0e-9894-942d4a665778

Florida gunman kills three in racially-motivated shooting. “The suspect was wearing a tactical vest and mask and was armed with a Glock and an AR-15-style rifle, Waters said. There were also swastikas on the guns, he added.  ….The suspect, who lived in Jacksonville’s Clay County with his parents, ‘authored several manifestos’, [Sheriff T.K.] Waters said…. In them, the gunman also disclosed that the shooting was ‘racially-motivated, and he hated Black people,’ added Waters. ….In 2017, according to Waters, the shooter was also committed under Florida’s Baker Act, which is a law that allows law enforcement officers and certain medical personnel to involuntarily institutionalize people who could be considered a harm to themselves or others for up to 72 hours, per CBS Miami.”   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shooting-multiple-fatalities-dollar-general-store-jacksonville/

Marine Corps plane crashes during military exercise in Australia, 3 dead, 20 injured. “Of the 23 Marines on board the MV-22B Osprey aircraft, three died while five others have been transferred to Royal Darwin Hospital in a serious condition, the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin said in a statement on Sunday. The incident on Melville Island in Australia took place at 9:30 a.m. local time.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/27/asia/aircraft-incident-us-defense-personnel-australia-intl-hnk/index.html

Tens of thousands rally in D.C. to commemorate 60th anniversary of 1963 civil rights March on Washington. “More than 50,000 people from across the country, gathered in front of the Lincoln Monument before marching from Lincoln Circle to the Martin Luther King Memorial. Before the march, speakers drew attention to civil rights legislation, reproductive rights, Black Maternal Health, the student debt crisis, generational wealth, and more. King’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, focused on the failure to get a new Voting Rights Act. ….Sixty years ago, Washington D.C. vibrated with the energy of over 250,000 people from across the globe. Speakers highlighted the pressing social issues at that time, which included unemployment, discrimination, and civil rights abuses.”   https://www.nj.com/news/2023/08/hundreds-of-new-jerseyans-gather-for-the-60th-anniversary-march-on-washington.html

Record high temperatures reported in several U.S. cities. “On Wednesday, record-breaking high temperatures were seen at 24 locations across the U.S., such as Mobile, Alabama, (103 degrees), and Beaumont, Texas, (104 degrees) and Waterloo, Iowa and Baton Rouge, Louisiana (105 degrees).”   https://www.aol.com/news/18-states-under-excessive-heat-115403473.html   “Temperatures in the [Dallas/Ft. Worth] area reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius), breaking by four degrees the previous record for this date that was set in 2011, according to the National Weather Service.”   https://apnews.com/article/heat-record-warning-dallas-dome-278c41cf39dd7a5bfe8916dc0fd03214

Attorney for raided Kansas newspaper notes irregularities in police paperwork. “An attorney for the Kansas paper that was raided by police claimed data was cloned [i.e., copied] from their computers before a court-ordered return of the devices. ….The attorney said he discovered the missing [USB drive] because the inventory list that was filed with the court and the list his forensic expert was given didn’t match. The second list, which was given to the forensic expert after the search warrant was pulled, had the USB drive listed. ….’The fact that we have two different versions of the same inventory, signed apparently by the same officer, on the same date, using the same form, with the same official number on it, it’s garbage.’ ….Newspaper owner Eric Meyer called the raid’s timing ‘suspicious’ as he discovered the probable cause affidavit was filed three days after the searches were conducted.”   https://nypost.com/2023/08/26/marion-county-record-claims-data-was-cloned-from-seized-computers/

Sen. Bernie Sanders calls on voters to ‘reject the corporate wing’ of the Democratic party. “‘Frankly it is absolutely absurd that, given the anti-[worker] ideology and policies of the Republican Party, that that party now has more working class support than Democrats,’ Sanders said. An April poll conducted by HarrisX, commissioned by Utah newspaper Deseret News, found that 40% of working class Americans considered Republicans best represented their interests, compared to 36% who said the same of Democrats. ….Sanders reiterated his support of President Biden’s re-election, and celebrated many of policies of the current administration. But in his abrasive style, Sanders cajoled Democrats to embrace the economic populism he has preached for decades as a self-described democratic socialist. ‘The Democrats, once and for all, must reject the corporate wing of the party and empower those who will create a grassroots, multi-racial, generational, working-class party in every state of this country,’ Sanders said. ‘Democrats, through words and action, must make clear that they stand with a struggling working class, a disappearing middle class, and millions of low-income Americans who today are barely surviving. They must make it clear that they are prepared to boldly take on the powerful corporate interests that have so much power in Washington and in state capitals across the country.'”   https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/bernie-sanders-scolds-dems-losing-working-class-minority-voters-gop-frankly-it-is-absurd   Critics have pointed out the contradiction between endorsing Joe Biden for president and calling for a rejection of corporate Democrats. The Democrats are not going to save the working class. They’ve almost all been bought off by the oligarchy.

United Airlines settles lawsuit brought by family of quadriplegic man injured while being removed from flight. “Mr Foster, from Pleasant Hill, California, went into cardiac arrest and suffered ‘significant’ brain damage, according to Reuters. ….After a one day trial in San Francisco federal court, United agreed to pay $30 million to his family. The settlement needs to be approved by a judge. ….In a statement to Reuters, the airline said: ‘Our top priority is to provide a safe journey for all our customers, especially those who require additional assistance or the use of a wheelchair.'”   https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/united-airlines-payout-quadriplegic-brain-damage-b2400153.html

August 26, 2023

Joe Biden’s attitude towards his son’s drug abuse is very differently from his attitude towards the drug abuse of regular citizens. “Looking at Biden’s record, it’s clear that he has a double standard. For his son, he draws on infinite reservoirs of mercy. For the poor, especially poor people of color, who do the same acts as his son, Biden’s response was to lock them up and throw away the key.”   https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/real-hunter-biden-scandal/

Firm that makes phone hacking software asks law enforcement agencies to keep it a secret. In a leaked training video for law enforcement customers that was obtained by TechCrunch, a senior Cellebrite employee tells customers that ‘ultimately, you’ve extracted the data, it’s the data that solves the crime, how you got in, let’s try to keep that as hush hush as possible. We don’t really want any techniques to leak in court through disclosure practices, or you know, ultimately in testimony, when you are sitting in the stand, producing all this evidence and discussing how you got into the phone,’ the employee, who we are not naming, says in the video. For legal experts, this kind of request is troubling because authorities need to be transparent in order for a judge to authorize searches, or to authorize the use of certain data and evidence in court. Secrecy, the experts argue, hurts the rights of defendants, and ultimately the rights of the public. ….’The accused (whether through their lawyers or through an expert) must have the ability to fully understand how Cellebrite devices work, examine them and determine whether they functioned properly or contained flaws that might have affected the results.'”   https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/19/cellebrite-asks-cops-to-keep-its-phone-hacking-tech-hush-hush/

Journalist sues PA county jail over rule that bans employees from talking to the press. “The Allegheny County Bureau of Corrections, according to the complaint, is responsible for several policies that ‘limit jail employees’ and contractors’ contacts with the media’. In particular, a policy on ‘access to news media’ prohibits personnel from making statements, commenting to the news media, or publishing original printed material that ‘refers to the Bureau by name or inference without appropriate training or prior written approval from the warden’. ….’The gag rules’ content-based prohibitions against unauthorized communications with the press violate the First Amendment rights of jail employees and contractors,’ the complaint argues. They also violate [Brittany Hailer’s] First Amendment right to gather news and receive information from otherwise willing speakers.’ ….Hailer has a particular interest in the deaths of incarcerated individuals. Since April 2020 at least twenty prisoners have died. For several prisoners, the jail has refused to release medical records to family members that would confirm the cause of death.”   https://thedissenter.org/journalist-sues-over-gag-rules-at-county-jail-in-pennsylvania/

Israeli firm sold software to Dept. of Homeland Security for creating Operational Background Reports (‘baseball cards’) for protesters and journalists. “The DHS report offers only a vague reference to Tangles as a ‘social media aggregation tool that compiled information from the subject’s available social media profiles’…. Cobwebs, operating under Cobwebs America, Inc., was awarded a $1.5 million contract with DHS I&A in August 2020, two months after DHS I&A had begun using Tangles to compile social media information for its OBRs. The 2021 DHS report does not state if DHS I&A’s use of Tangles was part of a trial or if there was a pre-existing relationship between Cobwebs and DHS. Shortly after the DHS I&A contract, however, Cobwebs received another federal contract from the Department of the Treasury, for use of a ‘web intelligence investigation platform’ by the Internal Revenue Service. A Freedom of Information act request from Motherboard returned a copy of the contract, which didn’t identify Tangles by name but did contain a quote for a ‘Gold Subscription WEB Intelligence Platform’, dated June 11, 2020—in the midst of the George Floyd protests, when DHS I&A was using Tangles for its OBRs.”   https://unicornriot.ninja/2023/aimed-at-protests-surveillance-contractors-new-owners-expand-spy-tech-portfolio/

Washington Post reporters call for crack down on social media speech. “… Post reporters Naomi Nix and Sarah Ellison never address the question of what counts as ‘misinformation’, a highly contested category. Nor do they grapple with the content moderation problem of how to deal with politicians who say things of public interest that are arguably or demonstrably untrue. And although they allude to a constitutional challenge provoked by the federal government’s efforts to restrict speech on social media platforms, they never mention the First Amendment. That is a pretty striking omission by people whose profession relies on that amendment’s protections and who claim to be worried about the health of our democracy. Nix and Ellison warn that ‘social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.’ Under Musk’s baneful influence, they complain, Facebook and YouTube have ‘backed away from policing misleading claims’ and ‘are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories.’ ….As Nix and Ellison note, most Republican voters—63 percent, according to a CNN poll conducted in May—agree with Trump that Joe Biden ‘did not legitimately win enough votes to win the presidency’. As Nix and Ellison see it, none of those people should be allowed to express that view on social media. ….For the good of democracy, they think, social media platforms should be showing users political content only if it can be certified as accurate. That is, of course, an impossible challenge, one that is magnified by the difficulty of determining when speech, although not demonstrably false, nevertheless qualifies as ‘misinformation’ because it is ‘misleading‘.”   https://reason.com/2023/08/25/the-washington-post-says-democracy-demands-less-freedom-of-speech/   Another issue is why the government is exempt from censorship when it shares false or misleading information, for example claims that only a small number of civilians bystanders have been killed in drone strikes [ https://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes/index.html ], or denials that the U.S. has a warrantless, mass surveillance program targeting the American public [ https://thehill.com/policy/defense/152682-clapper-denied-nsa-surveillance-before-senate-panel-in-march-testimony/ ].

Los Angeles ordered to pay man $3.75 million for assault by police while filming protest. “After deliberating for 13 hours, jurors on Wednesday ruled that the department was negligent when one or more of its officers fired the so-called less-lethal devices at Asim Jamal Shakir Jr. during a protest at a downtown intersection. Shakir had been filming a skirmish line of officers…. An internal affairs investigation found that there were 11 officers within 20 feet of Shakir when he was struck, but every one of them ‘denied knowing or seeing or shooting anyone who was filming, or shooting anyone twice.’ The department’s investigation revealed that the less-lethal force that injured Shakir was never reported, [civil rights attorney Carl] Douglas said, but his defense team sought to reconstruct the events of that day with video from a body camera and an Instagram livestream. Based on their analysis, they concluded that LAPD officer Robert Bechtol fired at least one of the less-lethal rounds that struck Shakir. ‘Regrettably there is still a code of silence that flourishes among most law enforcement agencies including the LAPD, and I say it’s the greatest impediment to justice because police officers are afraid to expose misconduct that they or heir fellow officers commit,’ Douglas said.”   https://www.yahoo.com/news/jury-awards-3-75-million-002950668.html

Firefighters battle blaze at Louisiana oil refinery. “Emergency responders spent the day battling a massive fire at the Marathon Petroleum plant in Garyville about 40 miles upriver from New Orleans. It started shortly before 7 a.m. Friday morning near a pair of tanks that store naphtha which is a component in the production of gasoline. ….from an aerial view, you can see flames leaping in the air high above two storage tanks.”   https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/firefighters-battle-massive-chemical-fire-in-st-john-parish/289-0e76302b-45b5-42be-aecf-d96041d1a755

Nikki Haley wants to make Americans work longer before retiring. “GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she thinks the US’ retirement age is ‘way too low’ and needs to be increased. Asked by [Bloomberg’s] Joe Mathieu what is the ‘right age’ she’d propose, Haley didn’t have an exact answer but said that ’65 is way too low’ and needs to be increased in relation to the average US lifespan. While she mentioned 65 as too low, Congress upped the full retirement age in 1983 to 67 years old for anyone born in 1960 or later. Though Haley argues that the increase is necessary to avoid Medicare and Social Security going bankrupt, she’d likely face massive resistance from constituents if she attempted such a change. According to a Quinnipiac poll from March 2023, nearly 80% of respondents opposed upping the retirement age even three years to 70 years old.”   https://news.yahoo.com/nikki-haley-says-americas-retirement-164334676.html

National Labor Relations Board vote will force employers who try to obstruct unionization to recognize unions. “In a new ruling, the National Labor Relations Board laid out what will now happen if employers trying illegal union-busting activity. If workers want a union, and employers use illegal tactics in the run-up to a union election that could compromise the election — like firing union organizers, or retaliating against workers engaging in protected union activities —  the new rules says workers no longer have to hold a fresh election. Workers will instead automatically get their union and employers will have to bargain with them. ….When workers seek union recognition, there are three paths for employers to take. Firms can voluntarily recognize the union, and start bargaining. They can insist upon an election as a binding way to validate whether or not employers want union representation — or, as Groshen notes, use the period between the request for representation and the actual union election to try and squash campaigns. Or employers can chance it and neither recognize the union nor request an election, an even more aggressive and illegal measure.”   https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-unionize-illegal-union-busting-nlrb-rules-2023-8

flow chart demonstrating new NLRB rules

Maui wildfire list of 388 ‘validated’ missing people doesn’t include hundreds of people without full personal details. “Maui officials revealed on Friday that a list of 388 names of people still missing from the August 8 wildfires published the day before was only a ‘subset’ – and ‘hundreds’ more are still unaccounted for. ….The 388 names were deemed ‘validated’ because they contained a first name, last name, and the details of the person who reported them missing. Yet on Friday, officials admitted that this list was just part of a much larger list, which they were also working from. ….’The 388 names were names that we had more information on,’ revealed Steven Merrill, Honolulu FBI Special Agent in Charge. ‘That’s why we released that first. We still have hundreds of other names where we still need more information.’ ….Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, said on Sunday that more than 1,000 remained unaccounted for. Maui Mayor Richard Bissen then said in a pre-recorded video on Instagram that the number was 850.”   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12447355/maui-wildfires-missing-388-confusion.html

Election observers arrested in Zimbabwe. “The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) cited cancellation of opposition rallies, biased state media and alleged voter intimidation among some of the issues that sullied the election. ….The [election] is being watched across southern Africa as a test of support for 80-year-old President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF party, whose 43-year rule has been battered by a moribund economy and charges of authoritarianism. ….41 local [election] monitors were arrested late at night on election day and had their computers and mobile phones confiscated by police who alleged the equipment was ‘used to unlawfully tabulate’ results from polling. The monitors, mostly women and men in their 20s and early 30s – and who work for local pro-democracy NGOs – arrived Friday at a Harare court crammed into the back of an open white truck to appear before a magistrate. As they waited in the sun, some waved and held back tears as they were greeted by a small group of family and friends. Several  sported blue caps or green t-shirts bearing the words ‘election observer’.”   https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20230824-zimbabwe-arrests-poll-monitors-day-after-election

Violent arrests of climate protesters reported at Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole meeting. “Climate campaigners on Friday condemned the violent takedown of activists during a demonstration at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in Wyoming, an elite gathering where U.S. Federal Reserve officials, central bankers from around the world, economists, and policymakers meet, mingle, and craft financial policies that critics say are exacerbating the planetary emergency. Multiple videos posted on social media by the direct action group Climate Defiance show law enforcement officers slamming a pair of activists on a hard floor as they chant, ‘End fossil finance’ at the conference, which is hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/jackson-hole-economic-policy-symposium

Federal appeals court rules in favor of man who joked about sheriff’s deputies shooting people infected with coronavirus. “Supervising officers at the [Rapides Parish, LA] sheriff’s department saw the post and assigned Detective Randell Iles to investigate. Iles determined [Waylon] Bailey had broken a state statute against ‘terrorizing’ and brought the SWAT team to arrest him. Bailey apologized to Iles during his arrest and told the detective he had ‘no ill will towards the sheriff’s office’ and ‘only meant it as a joke’. A deputy heckled Bailey, telling him his next post ‘should be to not fuck with the police’. They took him to jail and he was charged with a felony. ….U.S. District Judge David Joseph, a Donald Trump appointee, granted the lawmen summary judgment in July 2022, finding they were entitled to qualified immunity, and dismissed Bailey’s claims with prejudice. ….Bailey appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. ….[Judge Dana] Douglas opined that Iles should have known Bailey’s post, with its ‘calls for rescue by Brad Pitt’, was not a serious threat to the public that deputies would shoot them if they were infected with Covid. Nor was it a threat to deputies, she said, though Iles testified in a deposition he thought the post was ‘meant to get police officers hurt’. Qualified immunity is not available to Iles, Douglas wrote, because he should have known that arresting Bailey trampled his First Amendment rights.”   https://www.courthousenews.com/fifth-circuit-sides-with-man-arrested-over-covid-joke-posted-on-facebook/

August 25, 2023

Donald Trump claims he’s being prosecuted in Georgia for questioning the results of the 2020 election, not for trying to change the outcome. “‘… you should be able to challenge an election,’ Trump said. ‘I thought the election was a rigged election, a stolen election and I should have every right to do that.’ He then deflected to [Stacey] Abrams and Hilary Clinton as examples of Democrats who have contested election results without being criminally charged. ‘As you know, you have many people that you’ve been watching over the years doing the same thing, whether it’s Hilary Clinton or Stacey Abrams or many others,’ Trump continued. ‘When you have that great freedom to challenge, you have to be able to. Otherwise, you’re gonna have very dishonest elections.’ ….Trump went on to tell reporters that it was he, not Georgia, who is the true victim of election interference, suggesting his criminal charges are a conspiracy to disrupt his presidential candidacy for the 2024 election.”   https://newsone.com/4687822/trump-stacey-abrams/   Donald ‘Spinmaster’ Trump. It was very hard to find coverage of his comments to the press after he was booked in Atlanta, which seems odd, especially since it was covered live on TV.

Man crashes his motorbike and dies after police officer throws cooler at him. “A scooter-riding suspect trying to flee a Bronx drug bust died when an undercover NYPD sergeant threw a cooler at him – prompting the department to suspend the cop and warn its rank-and-file about possible ‘unrest’ Thursday, police sources said. The sergeant, identified by the NYPD as Erik Duran, was conducting a buy-and-bust operation on Aqueduct Avenue near West 190th Street in Kingsbridge Heights around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday when the suspect, Eric Duprey, 30, took off, the sources said. Duran allegedly chucked what’s believed to be a plastic cooler at the fleeing man — causing him to lose control of his motorized scooter, strike a parked car and fall to the ground, according to the sources. He suffered trauma to his body and was pronounced dead by EMS workers at the site of the crash.”   https://nypost.com/2023/08/24/man-fleeing-drug-bust-on-scooter-dies-when-undercover-nypd-cop-throws-cooler-at-him-sources/

Number of missing in Maui wildfires plunges from 1,100 to 388. “Nearly 400 people are still listed as unaccounted for after this month’s devastating wildfires on Maui – a dramatic drop from the more than 1,000 previously believed missing but still a stark indicator of the disaster’s tragic impact. The ‘validated list’, curated by the FBI, includes 388 names, a Thursday news release from Maui County officials said. It comes as at least 115 people have been confirmed dead in the deadliest wildfire disaster in the US in more than 100 years.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/25/us/maui-wildfires-unaccounted-for-list/index.html   Very strange indeed. If there was going to be a cover-up, the first step would be claiming that the number of victims is much lower than previously estimated.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy tells debate audience his parents came to the U.S. ‘with no money’. “‘My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago. I have gone on to found multibillion dollar companies.’ Later in the debate, while discussing his support for school choice, Ramaswamy said he ‘didn’t grow up in money.’ ….Before the debate Wednesday, Ramaswamy sat down with ABC News and said that unlike Trump, he ‘actually built the companies from scratch’. ….’I built the companies from zero to nothing. My parents came to this country with no money.’ Ramaswamy, 38, was born in 1985 in Cincinnati to V. Ganapathy Ramaswamy and Geetha Ramaswamy, who were upper-caste Tamil Brahmin in India. Both parents were highly educated professionals in India before they moved to the U.S. and started a family. ….Ramaswamy attended an elite private high school in Cincinnati where tuition today costs over $16,000 per year. His parents also apparently established a stock portfolio for him that was bringing in hundreds of dollars in dividends before he graduated high school and thousands by the time he attended Harvard, according to his 2002-2004 tax returns, which he released in June.”   https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ramaswamys-claims-came-no-money-clash-prep-school-upbringing

Ohio’s Republican secretary of state accused of attempting to sabotage abortion rights referendum. “The original summary language seeks to assure access to abortion through what is called viability, when the fetus is able to survive outside the womb. It stated, ‘abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability’, but not in cases where a treating physician deems the procedure necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person. [Frank] LaRose’s summary turned that section on its head. It now says the amendment would ‘always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician’s determination’ the life and health exception applies.”   https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abortion-access-ballot-issue-election-2023-a628e9b323b8544847ace0a0504c5733

August 24, 2023

South Carolina’s Supreme Court approves 6-week limit on abortions. “The 4-1 ruling departs from the court’s own decision months earlier striking down a similar ban that the Republican-led Legislature passed in 2021. The latest ban takes effect immediately. Writing for the new majority, Justice John Kittredge acknowledged that the 2023 law also infringes on ‘a woman’s right of privacy and bodily autonomy’, but said the state Legislature reasonably determined this time around that those interests don’t outweigh ‘the interest of the unborn child to live’. ‘As a Court, unless we can say that the balance struck by the Legislature was unreasonable as a matter of law, we must uphold the Act,’ Kittredge wrote.”   https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/south-carolinas-new-male-highest-court-reverses-abortion-102480714   Story notes that South Carolina has the only all-male Supreme Court in the country.

Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, U.A.E., Iran and Saudi Arabia to join BRICS economic bloc. “BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] was set up in 2009 as a group of emerging market economies and has become one of the leading voices for more representation of the developing world and the Global South in world affairs. It currently represents around 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of the world’s GDP, although that is set to increase with the new members, which include three of the world’s biggest oil producers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran.”   https://apnews.com/article/brics-russia-china-summit-b5900168d165cc78b36d5d5c068b7a50

Greece is on fire too. “Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said 355 wildfires had erupted since Friday, including 209 in the last 48 hours. Firefighting teams were making ‘superhuman efforts’ to contain them, he said. The fire brigade warned that more fires could break out, and spokesman Ioannis Artopios said conditions remained ‘difficult, and in several cases extreme’. About 20 km (12 miles) north of Athens, more than 200 firefighters backed by volunteers – alongside 65 vehicles and 15 aircraft, some sent from Sweden and Germany – battled a blaze that began early on Tuesday near Fyli, a village in the foothills of Mount Parnitha and spread towards the town of Menidi. The capital [Athens] has been smothered in smoke and ash since the blaze broke out on Tuesday.”   https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/wildfire-rages-near-athens-second-day-forcing-more-evacuations-2023-08-23/

Flooding in Pakistan drives an estimated 100,000 people from their homes. “Mohsin Naqvi, the caretaker chief minister of Punjab, said monsoon rains prompted Indian authorities to release excess reservoir water into the Sutlej, causing flooding downstream on the Pakistani side of the border. India has experienced severe monsoon rains this year, with more than 150 killed in rain-related incidents since July. Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, a climate and water expert based in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, said the water levels in the Sutlej had become so high that they were beyond India’s storage capacity. ‘There was no intention or maliciousness on India’s part. The water had to eventually flow downstream to Pakistan,’ he said. ….adding that both countries were facing a climate disaster.”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/floods-force-evacuation-of-almost-100000-in-pakistan

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie says if elected he will be honest with the public about UFOs. “Moderator Martha MacCallum asked Christie what he would do as president to level with Americans on what the government knows about encounters with extraterrestrials. ….’The job of the president of the United States is to level with the American people about everything. The job of the president of the United States is to stand for truth,’ Christie said.”   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/08/24/chris-christie-shocked-by-lone-question-about-ufos-at-republican-presidential-primary-debate/70664825007/

Companies boosting income of stock holders instead of employees. “The median worker at Lowe’s, the home improvement retailer, made just over $29,580 last year—not enough to comfortably afford a modest one-bedroom rental home in the United States. But the company was hardly cash-strapped in 2022. According to a report released Thursday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Lowe’s spent more than $14 billion on stock buybacks that year, providing an artificial boost to the company’s share price and further enriching wealthy investors and executives. If Lowe’s had instead opted to use that cash to the benefit of its employees, every one of the corporation’s U.S. workers could have received a $46,923 bonus, IPS calculated. Lowe’s is part of a group of companies that IPS calls the Low-Wage 100, which includes the S&P 500 businesses with the lowest median worker pay last year. Between January 1, 2020 and May 31, 2023, Lowe’s and other Low-Wage 100 firms spent $341.2 billion on stock buybacks.”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/corporate-stock-buybacks

August 23, 2023

NASA climate scientist warned Congress about danger of global warming in 1988. “[James] Hansen was a NASA climate scientist when he warned lawmakers of growing global heating and has since taken part in protests alongside activists to decry the lack of action to reduce planet-heating emissions in the decades since. He said the record heatwaves that have roiled the US, Europe, China and elsewhere in recent weeks have heightened ‘a sense of disappointment that we scientists did not communicate more clearly and that we did not elect leaders capable of a more intelligent response’. ….Should global temperatures rise by a further 1C or more, which is widely predicted to happen by the end of the century barring a drastic reduction in emissions, [Prof. Matthew] Huber said Hansen was ‘broadly correct’ that the world will be plunged into the sort of warmth not seen since 1 to 3 million years ago, a period of time called the Pliocene. ‘That is a radically different world,’ said Huber of an epoch in which it was warm enough for beech trees to grow near the south pole and sea levels were about 20 meters higher than now, which would today drown most coastal cities.”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/19/climate-crisis-james-hansen-scientist-warning   This is an article from July, but somehow I missed it. So did Yahoo News, which ran it yesterday. Maybe it became ‘hard to find’?

U.N. experts claim China is sending Tibetan children to boarding schools to assimilate them. “… three UN experts… said that around one million Tibetan children have been forcibly removed into boarding schools. The program appears aimed at unwillingly integrating Tibetans into China’s majority Han culture, with compulsory education in Mandarin and no instruction culturally relevant to the Buddhist-majority Himalayan region, the special rapporteurs said. ….A separate report this year from UN experts said that hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have also been forced out of traditional rural life into low-skill ‘vocational training’ as a pretext to undermine their identity.”   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/23/china-forced-assimilation-tibet-us-sanctions-visa

U.N. accuses Taliban of killing and torturing their former adversaries. “Taliban fighters have committed hundreds of extrajudicial killings since taking power in Afghanistan in 2021, despite a ‘general amnesty’ meant to protect the previous government, according to the United Nations. In a reported released Tuesday, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) counted at least 218 extrajudicial killings among more than 800 alleged offenses, including arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and ill-treatment and enforced disappearances.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/23/world/un-taliban-human-rights-violations-afghanistan-intl-hnk/index.html   No mention of at least four CIA trained and directed death squads that assassinated suspected Taliban supporters. “Beginning in December 2018 and continuing for at least a year, Afghan operatives believed to belong to an elite CIA-trained paramilitary unit known as 01, in partnership with U.S. special operations forces and air power, unleashed a campaign of terror against civilians. ….The 10 raids resulted in the deaths of at least 51 civilians, according to The Intercept’s reporting. In most cases, men and boys as young as 8, few of whom appear to have had any formal relationship with the Taliban, were summarily executed.”   https://theintercept.com/2020/12/18/afghanistan-cia-militia-01-strike-force/

Pay of youngest group of baby boomers topped out in their 40s. “By the time young US baby boomers reached age 45, their earnings stopped growing — and even declined for some in the years that followed, according to new government data. Those born from 1957 to 1964 — the youngest contingent of baby boomers — saw hourly earnings surge until age 24 and slow through age 44 before flatlining after that. For people without a college degree, earnings even fell in later years, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report published Tuesday. ….Young baby boomers held an average of 12.7 jobs from ages 18 to 56, with the majority of job switching concentrated in their younger years.  ….They were unemployed — that is, without jobs but seeking work — only 4.4% of the time. And they weren’t in the labor force — not working and not seeking work— almost 18% of the time.”   https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/youngest-baby-boomers-pay-in-the-us-peaked-when-they-hit-45-1.1962417

Mayor of Minneapolis vetoes bill that would have boosted rideshare driver pay. “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has vetoed the ordinance that would set a minimum wage and additional protections for rideshare drivers in the city but announced a pledge from Uber. ….The move means the council will vote at its meeting on Sept. 7 to override his veto, with at least nine votes required to approve the ordinance. If it doesn’t get the required support, it would be dead and the process would have to start over at a later time. ….Supporters of the measure denounced Frey’s veto, with council member Robin Wonsley, one of the authors of the ordinance, saying: ‘This veto is an inexcusable betrayal of Minneapolis workers. The ordinance was developed over eight months of consultation with drivers, city staff, and national experts. As a Council Member, Jacob Frey voted to approve a $15 minimum wage, but evidently he is ready to abandon any commitment to living wages or workers’ rights under the pressure of lobbying by multibillion-dollar out-of-state corporations. This fight is not over.’ ….The mayor’s office added that although he vetoed the measure, Uber has committed to pay drivers in Minneapolis a rate that equates to at least minimum wage, with no driver making less than $5 for any trip in the Minneapolis metro area. That commitment starts immediately.”   https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/frey-vetoes-minneapolis-rideshare-ordinance-setting-up-council-override-vote/

Members of Congress ask intelligence community inspector general for info on UFO crash retrieval program. “The six lawmakers, led by Rep. Tim Burchett, asked the intelligence community inspector general in a letter to provide any and all information about the alleged crash retrieval program by mid-September. The whistleblower, David Grusch, said in an open congressional hearing last month that he’s provided information about the crash retrieval program to the inspector general. Grusch told members of a House Oversight subcommittee during that hearing he could not provide names of people with first-hand knowledge of the crash retrieval in a public setting. Lawmakers investigating the alleged crash retrieval program have said they have been denied access to a secure facility that would allow them to review classified information. Burchett and others are pushing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to establish a select committee on UAPs, which would them subpoena power and access to [a] secure facility to view classified information, Burchett told The Hill at an event last week.”   https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/burchett-uap-demand-intelligence-community-inspector-general/

Director of NASA/CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory claims she’s never seen or been told about alien spacecraft. “‘Have you seen spacecraft made from outside this world?’ a reporter from Phoenix-based broadcaster Fox 10 asked [Laurie] Leshin. ‘Absolutely not,’ Leshin replied, laughing and shaking her head. ‘No.’ ‘Has anyone ever talked about that with you?’ the journalist pressed. ‘No,’ she said.”   https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-jpl-director-ufos

Number of people missing after Maui wildfire jumps back up to 1,110, unclear why. “The number of missing people in Maui has increased by 250 to 1,100 two weeks after deadly fires ravaged the island and left more than 115 people dead. ….As of Tuesday, the FBI had counted 1,100 missing persons and is now working to collate and verify the data with a list to be released later this week, Special Agent Steven Merrill told reporters on Tuesday. ‘We’re cross-referencing all the lists so that we can determine who, in fact, truly is still unaccounted for,’ Merrill said.”   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12435531/Maui-INCREASES-number-missing-people-1-100-following-Lahaina-firestorm-850-says-FBI-release-list-unaccounted-week.html

Deaths from ethnic violence spike in Israel. “More than 200 Palestinians and nearly 30 Israelis have been killed so far this year in the occupied West Bank and Israel – a level of violence surpassing last year’s entire death toll and the highest number of fatalities since 2005, the United Nations Middle East envoy has said. ….’Palestinians and Israelis are killed and injured in near-daily violence – including just hours before this briefing when another fatal shooting attack killed an Israeli in the West Bank,’ [Tor Wennesland] told the Security Council, speaking from Jerusalem. ‘The lack of progress towards a political horizon that addressed the core issues driving the conflict has left a dangerous and volatile vacuum, filled by extremists on all sides,’ Wennesland told the Security Council.”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/22/more-than-200-palestinians-nearly-30-israelis-killed-so-far-this-year-un

Atlanta man fatally tasered by police officer after dispute over traffic citation. “According to an incident report, [Johnny] Hollman was driving his Chevrolet pickup truck north on Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard and went to make a left turn onto Cunningham Place. The other driver involved was turning right onto Joseph E. Lowery at the same time. Hollman is accused of making the turn too sharp and striking the front of the other vehicle, the report states. ….[Officer Kiran] Kimbrough determined that Hollman was at fault, and officials said he became agitated when they tried to issue him a citation. The GBI described him as ‘non-compliant’ and said a physical struggle ensued as the officer tried to take Hollman into custody. Kimbrough then used a Taser on him, and a witness at the scene helped to put him in handcuffs. At that point, Kimbrough noticed Hollman was unresponsive, the GBI said.”   https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/police-report-911-calls-released-in-mans-death-during-arrest-in-atlanta/QFOL433MTVGBHIF7MRLPTFUPSQ/

Democrats request investigation into heat-related deaths of prisoners. “On Monday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee called for a federal investigation into conditions at prisons during this summer’s unprecedented heat wave. In Texas, where most prison cells lack air conditioning, at least 41 prisoners have died of heart-related or undetermined causes so far this year.”   https://www.democracynow.org/2023/8/22/headlines/house_democrats_demand_probe_of_prisoner_deaths_amid_unrelenting_summer_heat

G20 countries spent $1.4 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2022. “‘G20 governments need to shift their financial resources away from fossil fuels to instead provide targeted, sustainable support for social protection and the scaling-up of clean energy. Maintaining fossil fuel prices that reflect the cost these fuels impose on society will be necessary to reduce fossil fuel use.’ The researchers noted that the surge in fossil fuel subsidies—which quadrupled in 2022 compared to the previous year—was ‘largely due to a dramatic expansion in consumer support in response to peaking fossil fuel prices.'”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/fossil-fuel-subsidies

Rep. Ilhan Omar calls for cutting off arms sales to Saudi Arabia after reports of massacres of migrants. “The systematic murder, rape, and torture of migrants is a ghastly violation of international law and a potential crime against humanity,” Omar (D-Minn.) said on the social platform formerly known as Twitter. “If we truly put human rights at the center of our foreign policy, we should be pursuing full accountability and justice for those responsible, and ending all security assistance (including weapons sales) to the Saudi regime.”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/ilhan-omar-saudis

Former Communist Party leader arrested in Ukraine. “On Aug. 16, the SBU announced that they had arrested [Georgi] Buiko, who is accused of participating in ‘anti-Ukrainian activities’ and having communist and ‘pro-Russian’ publications in his home. ….The persecution of Buiko is a continuation of the crackdown unleashed by the post-Euromaidan regime in Ukraine, which has been marked by de-communization [privatization?] attempts and the banning of the communist party and its publication.”   https://consortiumnews.com/2023/08/22/ukrainian-former-communist-leader-arrested/

August 22, 2023

Record high temperatures in Texas. “More than 200 long-period record highs were set since Friday alone, including an all-time high of 112 degrees in College Station, Tex. Another all-time high was reached in Alexandria, La., where it reached 110 on Saturday. August records were set in Abilene, Tex., at 111, and in Stephenville, Tex., at 110.”   https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/08/21/record-heat-wave-midwest-south/

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco files for bankruptcy due to child sexual exploitation lawsuits. “The ‘overwhelming majority’ of more than 500 sex abuse claims occurred 30 or more years ago involving priests no longer active in the ministry or who are deceased, the diocese said. The 88 parishes and schools within the diocese, which serves 442,000 Catholics in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties, will continue to operate as usual. They are independently managed and self-financed and were not included in the court filing. The lawsuits came after a 2019 California law allowing people to bring claims for childhood sexual abuse that would have otherwise been prohibited because of the expiration of the statute of limitations. ….the San Francisco archdiocese has not released the names of abusers, despite requests from survivors.”   https://www.foxnews.com/us/san-francisco-roman-catholic-archdiocese-files-bankruptcy-amid-sex-abuse-lawsuits

Thailand’s former prime minister jailed upon returning from exile. “Mr. Thaksin [Shinawatra], Thailand’s most successful elected leader, has long been feared by conservative royalists, who have backed military coups and contentious court cases to weaken him. But now the brash, politically ambitious telecoms tycoon is back, years after he was deposed by a military coup. He landed in Bangkok’s main airport to cheers from hundreds of loyal supporters who had gathered overnight to see him. Flanked by his two daughters and son, he emerged briefly from the airport terminal and paid his respects to a portrait of the king and queen. The 74-year-old was immediately taken to the Supreme Court where he was sentenced to eight years on three former convictions, and then to Bangkok Remand Prison. ….Hundreds of ‘red shirt’ loyal supporters had gathered at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport on Tuesday morning to welcome the former leader’s return.”   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66577725

Voters ban fossil fuel drilling in section of Ecuadorian national park. “Ecuadorians voted on Sunday to end oil drilling in a protected area of the Amazon, with about 60 percent of voters rejecting a referendum on oil exploration in Block 43, which is part of the Yasuni National Park. ….Rejection of the measure would mean the state oil company, Petroecuador, will be required to dismantle its drilling operations in the next months. ….The vote is also a significant blow to President Guillermo Lasso, who has supported oil drilling efforts, noting that its revenue is important to the country’s economy. ….Oil production [will continue] in other sections of the Yasuni National Park and other indigenous territories.”   https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/4163555-ecuadorians-vote-to-end-oil-drilling-in-parts-of-the-amazon/

Ultra-wealthy buying up high-end Miami real estate. “Since the pandemic sent some of the country’s richest people fleeing to Florida, Miami has seen a series of megadeals, including the city’s first sale over $100 million. Most recently, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in June bought a $68 million Miami home, joining the ranks of other uber-wealthy Miami property owners such as Citadel chief executive Ken Griffin, Kayak co-founder Steve Hafner and private-equity billionaire Orlando Bravo. These sales have propelled the city’s luxury market to new heights, pushing its real-estate market closer to those of New York, Los Angeles and Palm Beach, which have seen nine-figure deals for years.”   https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/billionaire-buyers-like-jeff-bezos-have-supercharged-miamis-high-end-home-market-41d7f819   Which proves there is no correlation between wealth and intelligence. Miami will probably be, literally, underwater in just a few decades.

Atlanta to subject ‘Cop City’ referendum signatures to ‘signature verification’ process. “After organizers in Atlanta collected over 100,000 signatures for a referendum on the construction of a $90 million police training facility, city officials announced an elaborate signature verification process for the effort. ….Once referendum organizers submit their petition to the city, the clerk’s office will take the boxes of signatures to a secure vault, scan every individual page, and conduct a manual, line-by-line review of every page, comparing each signature to those in the state voter registration database…. ‘Signature matching is a Republican-style voter suppression tactic that will disenfranchise thousands of predominantly Black and working class voters,’ said DaMareo Cooper, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. ‘It’s clear that the City of Atlanta knows that they will lose a vote over Cop City, so now they are trying to prevent it. It’s outrageous and shameful.'”   https://theintercept.com/2023/08/21/atlanta-cop-city-referendum-signatures/

Federal judge dismisses ‘fake job interviews’ lawsuit against Wells Fargo. “In a decision on Friday, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco said that while reasonable investors would not expect Wells Fargo to conduct interviews for jobs that had already been filled, shareholders failed to show that fake interviews were widespread or even took place. ….The plaintiffs had claimed that San Francisco-based Wells Fargo inflated its stock price through nine public statements discussing its ‘diverse slates’ guidelines. Adopted in 2020, the policy called for at least 50% of candidates interviewed for jobs paying at least $100,000 to be minorities, women or people in other disadvantaged groups. ….Wells Fargo’s share price fell 10.2% over two days in June 2022, wiping out more than $17 billion of market value, after the New York Times said federal prosecutors in Manhattan had begun a criminal probe into the sham interviews.”   https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/wells-fargo-defeats-shareholder-lawsuit-over-fake-job-interviews-2023-08-21/   So Wells Fargo was accused of interviewing additional ‘diverse’ candidates for jobs that had already been filled, to make it look like they seriously considered hiring them, in order to boost their diversity statistics.

Texas accused of keeping migrants imprisoned beyond their release dates. “Immigrant rights advocates on Monday filed a federal lawsuit against two South Texas sheriffs and two state prison wardens on behalf of four Mexican migrants, claiming they were held in prison for as long as six weeks after they served their sentences or had their trespassing charges dropped. The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Texas by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Fair Defense Project and the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Covington & Burling, claims that thousands of other people were also detained longer than they should have been under Operation Lone Star, the border enforcement program Gov. Greg Abbott launched in 2021. ….’Foreseeably, if not intentionally, the scheme has violated the human and civil rights of hundreds, if not thousands, of people,’ [the lawsuit claims]. ….Once the four men were released, officers turned them over to federal immigration officials.”   https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/21/texas-migrants-lawsuit-aclu-operation-lone-star-detention/