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Russian trans politician forced to detransition or get sent to psychiatric hospital
  • Title addendum: Or fall off a window from a dangerous height or drink toxic tea, etc

  • Larry Finger made Linux wireless work and brought others along to learn
  • I am truly grateful for this man. Rest in Power, noble sir.

  • Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else”
  • In addition to other successes observed in media outlets, I wonder if this helps to further demonstrate the power of unions (despite there not having been such a thing in this case) in a subtle manner:

    When people act together, they are likely to get positive results.

    A different observation:

    Not only are they helping themselves and improving Dell's culture, but they are also helping the environment and inspiring others. (And preserving needless burning of person hours.)

    Way to go!

  • Wealthy Canadians announce BMW X3 convoy to protest capital gains tax hike
  • The Beaverton rocks. This is great!

  • White House perplexed by Netanyahu claims that U.S. is withholding weapons
  • I was not aware of this app! Thank you for sharing this!

  • Youth activists win ‘unprecedented’ climate settlement in Hawaii
  • This is beautiful news for a Friday morning - or any morning, for that matter.

    The youth activists should be so proud of themselves. Way to go!

  • Election Updates: A Trump whistle-blower wins his House primary in Virginia.
  • A whistle-blower central to Trump’s first impeachment wins a House primary in Virginia. Image

    Yevgeny Vindman, wearing a dark suit and dark-red tie, sits during a House hearing, looking straight ahead. Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times Yevgeny Vindman, who along with his twin brother helped expose then-President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to strong-arm Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joseph R. Biden Jr., won his Democratic primary on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. He will run in the fall to represent the Virginia district of Representative Abigail Spanberger, who is retiring.

    Mr. Vindman, who goes by Eugene, had no governing experience, a point his Democratic competitors made in the primary for Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District. But his name recognition, along with that of his identical twin, Alexander Vindman, helped him raise over $5 million, more than the rest of the field combined.

    Nice!

  • Roger Stone Caught on Tape Discussing Trump’s Plan to Challenge 2024 Election
  • Stone: The lights are on, but no one's home.

  • German interior minister warns of destabilization
  • far-right elements in German society and increasing espionage activities on the part of Russia and China.

    We've seen this recipe before, haven't we?

    It's noteworthy that local right-wing extremism garners Russian and Chinese support.

  • Trial opens of ‘esoteric’ wing of alleged German coup plotters
  • It will be interesting to see how they deal with their fascist terrorists.

  • Trump Targets J.B. Pritzker: ‘Presided Over The Destruction And Disintegration Of Illinois’
  • This rebuke from Trump is the best possible endorsement.

    President Drink Bleach: the gift that keeps on giving.

  • Uber and Lyft are fighting minimum wage laws. But in Minnesota, the drivers won
  • Does Minnesota have to be so awesome, I ask rhetorically?

    Thank you, and thank you Minnesota - leading by example.

  • The IRS wants to end another major tax loophole for the wealthy and raise $50 billion in the process
  • The officials said the additional IRS funding provided through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act had enabled increased oversight and greater awareness of the practice.

    Thank goodness for that!

    And, yes, do it!

    This is the way.

  • Men-Only, Christian-Only Secret Society Gets More Secret
  • Word.

    Thank you for sharing this, because this is spot-on.

    Mr. Pratchett was an amazingly insightful human being.

  • Protesters all around Brazil call against the 'Child Pregnancy Bill'
  • It provides for 20 years of incarceration for people that make abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy, a situation mainly seen among girls who were sexually abused.

    If we could pull back the curtain to see what entities are responsible for such vile bills of law, we might not be surprised. But developments like this remain shocking nonetheless.

    I applaud the protesters for standing up for women's rights. And I support the continued dismantling of the patriarchy. We need to keep at it.

  • Finland: Man with 'far-right ties' arrested for child knife attacks
  • Noteworthy:

    12-year-old Finnish victim with a foreign background sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries

    and:

    stabbed the 12-year-old victim from behind several times. After that he tried to go after a minor who was in the company of the other victim of stabbing

    Far-right ties, violence, cowardice and racism go together really well.

    I'm truly sorry for the child and their friend - and their respective families. I hope they recover from this - and that the fascist terrorist gets what he deserves.

  • Atlanta police surveil people opposing ‘Cop City’: ‘There’s this constant stalking feeling’
    www.theguardian.com Atlanta police surveil people opposing ‘Cop City’: ‘There’s this constant stalking feeling’

    Residents wonder what legal protections are available as police monitor them at all hours, blaring sirens and shining lights

    Atlanta police surveil people opposing ‘Cop City’: ‘There’s this constant stalking feeling’

    >Atlanta police have been carrying out around-the-clock surveillance in several neighborhoods for months, on people and houses linked to opposition against the police training center colloquially known as “Cop City”. > >The surveillance in Georgia has included following people in cars, blasting sirens outside bedroom windows and shining headlights into houses at night, the Guardian has learned. > >While no arrests have been made, residents said they’re at a loss as to what legal protections of privacy and freedom from harassment are available to them. Chata Spikes, the Atlanta police spokesperson, did not respond to requests for comment.

    12
    Summer Lee of the ‘Squad’ beats back primary challenge

    >Although it was not the only factor in the race, the Israel-Hamas war undoubtedly hovered over the contest. > >Democratic Rep. Summer Lee, the first member of the progressive “Squad” to face a primary challenger this cycle, successfully fended off her opponent in her Pittsburgh-based district on Tuesday. > >Although it was not the only factor in the race, the Israel-Hamas war undoubtedly hovered over the contest. Lee has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in its war with Hamas and was among the first lawmakers to call for a cease-fire. She was seen as potentially vulnerable to a primary challenge when pro-Israel groups began to threaten heavy outside spending.

    1
    Trio found guilty of mischief for roles in 2022 Coutts border blockade

    >Three men accused by the Crown of helping lead and coordinate the COVID-19 protest blockade at Coutts, Alta., in 2022 have been found guilty of mischief. > >Jurors deliberated for three hours Tuesday night before finding Alex Van Herk, Marco Van Huigenbos, and Gerhard (George) Janzen guilty of one count each of mischief over $5,000. > >Gasps of surprise were heard in a courtroom packed with supporters of the trio when the verdict was announced.

    2
    Canadian students hunger-strike for college to divest from Israel-linked firms
    www.theguardian.com Canadian students hunger-strike for college to divest from Israel-linked firms

    Several McGill University students have spent more than three weeks demanding it divest $20m from various companies

    Canadian students hunger-strike for college to divest from Israel-linked firms

    This is a noteworthy article. Here follow a few select paragraphs:

    >A group of students at McGill University have spent more than three weeks on hunger strike in an effort to force the Canadian college to divest from “companies supporting the Israeli military”. > >The move follows months of protests and sit-ins at McGill and at universities around the world, as students and faculty members have protested against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

    Then there's this paragraph that might beg the question why an academic institution would invest in the military industrial-complex:

    >Documents on McGill’s website show that it held investments in companies including Lockheed Martin, a defense contractor which has sold fighter jets to Israel, and Safran, a French air and defense company.

    It would appear McGill University initially agreed to a public forum - and the reneged on that agreement:

    >Amine said the McGill administration had acknowledged the strike, and agreed to a public forum on the issue, before cancelling the meeting. The school proposed a private meeting in early March, the students said, which was turned down.

    2
    ‘Man-made famine’ charge against Israel is backed by mounting body of evidence
    www.theguardian.com ‘Man-made famine’ charge against Israel is backed by mounting body of evidence

    Prospect of Israel facing war crimes charges has moved closer after UN condemnation of Gaza aid restrictions

    ‘Man-made famine’ charge against Israel is backed by mounting body of evidence

    A few initial paragraphs follow:

    >The accusation by the UN and other humanitarians that Israel may be committing a war crime by deliberately starving Gaza’s population is likely to significantly increase the prospect of legal culpability for the country, including at the international court of justice. > >Amid reports that the Israel Defense Forces are hiring dozens of lawyers to defend against anticipated cases and legal challenges, the charge that Israel has triggered a “man-made famine” by deliberately obstructing the entry of aid into Gaza is backed by an increasing body of evidence. > >Already facing a complaint of genocide from South Africa at the ICJ, the UN’s top court – including an allegation that senior Israeli political officials have incited genocide in public statements – Israel is also the subject of a provisional emergency ruling by the court ordering it to admit life-saving aid to Gaza. > >On Wednesday, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, underlined the growing sense of crisis as he warned that all of Gaza’s 2 million people were experiencing “severe levels of acute food insecurity” – the first time an entire population of Gaza has been so classified. > >Unlike other issues related to Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives and displaced more than 85% of the population amid widespread destruction, the human-made famine occurring in the Palestinian territory appears more straightforward.

    14
    MyPillow CEO Loses It After Realizing the Courts Won’t Save Him | The New Republic

    From the top of the article, we come to discover that the MyPillow person is asking us all to foot his legal bill:

    >MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell doesn’t seem to be so confident in his election conspiracies these days. > >The floundering businessman took to Steve Bannon’s podcast on Monday to push his latest theory that the U.S. needs to outlaw electronic voting machines. The current suit, led by failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, is being underwritten by the pillow salesman. After admitting the effort is a total longshot and his evidence did not “shock the world,” as he had promised, Lindell decided to ask supporters if they could foot his legal bill.

    The article closes with these further challenges that this MyPillow individual has had to face:

    >The former millionaire spent months using every platform at his disposal to seed conspiracy theories following the 2020 presidential election, including against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, claiming the electronic voting companies were complicit in a scheme to keep Donald Trump from retaking the White House. That, however, cost Lindell $5 million, and put him on the line in a $1.3 billion defamation suit brought by Dominion, in which he’s being sued not just for spreading the lies but also attempting to profit off of it. Lindell, of course, has a plan for that—he’s going to use the Supreme Court to defend himself with his new crowdfunded legal fund. > >“But Steve, all this evidence, this new evidence is gonna be used far and wide,” he told the far-right host. “There’s cases out there, as you know, Mike Lindell and MyPillow getting sued for billions of dollars.”

    23
    Missouri man fatally shoots his mother at home after mistaking her for intruder
    www.theguardian.com Missouri man fatally shoots his mother at home after mistaking her for intruder

    Jaylen Johnson charged with manslaughter after shooting death of his mother at their home’s back door in St Louis suburb

    Missouri man fatally shoots his mother at home after mistaking her for intruder

    > > > A 25-year-old Missouri man says he mistook his mother for an intruder before shooting her to death at their home’s back door. > > > > Prosecutors have charged Jaylen Johnson with manslaughter and armed criminal action in connection with the shooting death on Thursday of his mother, Monica McNichols-Johnson. > > > > McNichols-Johnson’s shooting death came less than a year after another shooting in Missouri saw Ralph Yarl, then 16, get shot on 13 April by 84-year-old Andrew Lester after ringing the wrong doorbell while picking up his siblings. > >

    156
    Palestinian town of Jericho names street after US soldier who set himself on fire
    www.theguardian.com Palestinian town of Jericho names street after US soldier who set himself on fire

    Aaron Bushnell, who died last month, ‘sacrificed everything’ for Palestinians, says mayor of Jericho

    Palestinian town of Jericho names street after US soldier who set himself on fire

    Aaron Bushnell, who died last month, ‘sacrificed everything’ for Palestinians, says mayor of Jericho

    A few of the initial paragraphs for context follow - but the article is worth reading fully:

    >The Palestinian town of Jericho has named a street after Aaron Bushnell, the US air force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest against the war in Gaza. > >The 25-year-old, who died on 25 February, “sacrificed everything” for Palestinians, said the mayor of Jericho, Abdul Karim Sidr, as the street sign was unveiled on Sunday. > >“We didn’t know him, and he didn’t know us. There were no social, economic or political ties between us. What we share is a love for freedom and a desire to stand against these attacks [on Gaza],” the mayor told a small crowd gathered on the new Aaron Bushnell Road. > >Bushnell livestreamed his self-immolation on the social media platform Twitch, declaring he would “no longer be complicit in genocide” and shouting “free Palestine” as he started the fire. Law enforcement officials put out the flames, but he died in hospital several hours later. > >Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 31,000 people, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The war was triggered by the cross border attack on 7 October when Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 250 people. > >Even as governments in Europe and the US have largely continued to back Israel’s campaign in Gaza as part of the country’s right to self-defence, Palestinians have taken heart from popular protests held from Michigan to Madrid.

    89
    Liberty University fined $14m over ‘culture of silence’ around sexual assault
    www.theguardian.com Liberty University fined $14m over ‘culture of silence’ around sexual assault

    Christian evangelical institution punished victims ‘for violating the student code of conduct’ as ‘assailants were left unpunished’

    Liberty University fined $14m over ‘culture of silence’ around sexual assault

    Christian evangelical institution punished victims ‘for violating the student code of conduct’ as ‘assailants were left unpunished’

    Some of the initial content - the article is well written:

    > > > Liberty University fined $14m over ‘culture of silence’ around sexual assault > > > > Liberty University has been hit with a $14m Department of Education federal fine for creating “a culture of silence” around sexual assault, failing to support victims of violence and then failing to properly report them correctly under the law. > > > > Announcing the fine on Tuesday, the department said in a statement that the Christian evangelical institution had punished sexual assault victims “for violating the student code of conduct”, while “their assailants were left unpunished” – a violation of federal law. > > > > Liberty was founded in 1971 by the television preacher Jerry Falwell Sr, the Baptist minister who, eight years later, created the Moral Majority movement that mobilized the Christian right to the cause of the Republican party. The university was notified two years ago by the department that it would be conducting a review of the institution under the Clery Act, which requires the disclosure of campus security information. > > > > Students of the university, which is located near Lynchburg, Virginia, are required to follow The Liberty Way, a student honor code that prohibits sexual relations outside of “a biblically-ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman”. > > > > But signs that aspects of the code – and law – were failing came in 2021 when Liberty spokesperson Scott Lamb was fired for standing up for 22 female students represented in a lawsuit that claimed the university “enabled on-campus rapes” and suppressed complaints of sexual assault and rape, a violation of federal Title IX statutes, in what it said was “the weaponization of the ‘Liberty Way’”. > >

    3
    Linux 6.8-rc7 Released With The Stable Kernel Potentially Coming Next Week

    >Linus Torvalds just issued Linux 6.8-rc7 as we close in on the Linux 6.8 stable release in the next week or two. > >With prior weekly release candidates there were concerns raised by Torvalds that this might be a cycle needing to go with an extra "-rc8" candidate before declaring the stable kernel. But this week Linux 6.8-rc7 did tick on the smaller side and in turn Linus expressed the possibility of not needing 6.8-rc8, in which case the Linux 6.8 stable release would happen next Sunday on 10 March. But if things don't go smoothly, Linux 6.8-rc8 would come then and then v6.8 the following Sunday.

    2
    Linux for desktop market share surpasses 4% for the first time, says Statcounter
    www.neowin.net Linux for desktop market share surpasses 4% for the first time, says Statcounter

    Statcounter is reporting that Linux on the desktop has surpassed 4% of market share compared to just 1.53% in October 2020. The reasons for the increase aren't known but we speculate about the cause.

    Linux for desktop market share surpasses 4% for the first time, says Statcounter

    >Statcounter, a website that tracks the market share of web browsers, operating systems, and search engines, is reporting that Linux on the desktop has over 4% market share for the very first time (Statcounter records ChromeOS as a separate operating system despite being based on Linux). Statcounter doesn’t provide any explanation about why the market share has increased but we can speculate what’s going on. > >Linux’s march to its 4.03% market share has been a steady process ever since the final months of 2020 when Linux held just 1.53% of desktop market share. One of the biggest contributors to the growth of Linux is likely the stringent hardware requirements of Windows 11.

    74
    RTO doesn’t improve company value, but does make employees miserable: Study
    arstechnica.com RTO doesn’t improve company value, but does make employees miserable: Study

    Data is consistent with bosses using RTO to reassert control and scapegoat workers.

    RTO doesn’t improve company value, but does make employees miserable: Study

    > Overall, the analysis, released as a pre-print, found that RTO mandates did not improve a firm's financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction. > > Drilling down, the data indicated that RTO mandates were linked to firms with male CEOs who had greater power in the company. Here, power is measured as the CEO’s total compensation divided by the average total compensation paid to the four highest-paid executives in the firm.

    This is an interesting metric. And the research outcome makes a lot of sense.

    Also, RTO policies are garbage - but I'm stating the obvious.

    27
    Indigenous reporter's charge must be dropped: Amnesty International, press freedom organizations
    edmontonjournal.com Indigenous reporter's charge must be dropped: Amnesty International, press freedom organizations

    Journalism and human rights organizations are calling for criminal charges against an Indigenous reporter arrested in Edmonton to be dropped

    Indigenous reporter's charge must be dropped: Amnesty International, press freedom organizations

    Some context from the top of the article:

    > Journalism and human rights organizations are calling for police to drop criminal charges against a reporter arrested in Edmonton this month. > > On Jan. 10, award-winning Indigenous journalist and author Brandi Morin was arrested and charged with obstructing a peace officer during the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) clearing of an Indigenous encampment at Rowland Road and 95 Street. The criminal charge carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison upon conviction.

    0
    'No one looks at me': 12-year-old amputee in Gaza on what the war cost him

    Desperate state of health system means unnecessary amputations being done on kids as young as 1, surgeon says

    Before the war started in Gaza, Moustafa Ahmed Shehda would run around and play with his friends. Now, the 12-year-old is one of a growing number of Palestinians in the territory who've lost a limb in a bombing.

    Moustafa is from Jabalia in northern Gaza, which has been hit particularly hard in the fighting. Early on in the war between Israel and Hamas, he was visiting his uncle when the apartment building was bombed.

    "I was under the rubble. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't breathe," Moustafa told Mohamed El Saife, a freelance journalist in Gaza working for CBC News.

    His uncle was killed, and Moustafa was pulled from the rubble. Because of the extent of his injuries, his right leg had to later be amputated below the knee.

    "Before the war, I used to play with my friends," he said. "I can't play because of my injury. I can't play, and I don't have friends, and I don't have anything."

    Palestinian health officials said on Saturday that 26,257 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombing the small enclave of 2.3 million people in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas-led militants while nearly 65,000 have been wounded.

    5
    Boeing Lays Off Only Guy Who Knows How To Keep Wings On Plane
    www.theonion.com Boeing Lays Off Only Guy Who Knows How To Keep Wings On Plane

    CHICAGO—With the airline industry continuing to suffer under the ongoing recession, the Boeing Company was forced Monday to lay off Al Freedman, the only guy left at the corporation who knows how to keep wings from falling off planes. "We used to have a whole team of engineers who knew how to make t...

    Boeing Lays Off Only Guy Who Knows How To Keep Wings On Plane

    An oldie, but a goodie - in honor of the news with that Max model losing its Window at high altitudes.

    It turns out engineering is important. Who could have known? /s

    12
    Latin America remembers Kissinger’s ‘profound moral wretchedness’
    www.theguardian.com Latin America remembers Kissinger’s ‘profound moral wretchedness’

    US statesman’s encouragement of Pinochet’s coup in Chile and his backing for Argentina’s military dictatorship left lasting stain

    Latin America remembers Kissinger’s ‘profound moral wretchedness’

    Henry Kissinger’s death has brought out some bitter epitaphs from Latin America where the legacy of US intervention helped saddle the region with some of the most brutal military regimes of the 20th century.

    Nowhere has been the reaction been more damning than in Chile, where Kissinger was instrumental in the 1973 coup that led to the death of a democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende and the installation of a dictator, Gen Augusto Pinochet, and his military junta.

    Kissinger was a man “whose historical brilliance was never able to conceal his profound moral wretchedness”, wrote Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador in the US, on X, formerly Twitter.

    The coup was seen a major victory by Richard Nixon’s White House, but it marked the start of 17 years of autocracy in Chile.

    “Henry Kissinger was an incredibly important figure in the breakdown of Chile’s constitutional order,” said the historian Gabriel Salazar. “He provoked the downfall of [Allende’s] developmental policies, and then the installation of the neoliberal economic model which is still in place today – that’s why we associate Kissinger with Pinochet here in Chile.”

    Kissinger’s influence in Latin America spread far beyond Chile. He played a role in Operation Condor, which linked the military regimes in an intelligence-sharing network to hunt down leftwing dissidents.

    “Henry Kissinger did not believe in the sanctity of self-determination. He didn’t believe in the sanctity of sovereignty for Latin American nations or the smaller nations of the third world. He believed in superpower might makes right – realpolitik,” said Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive (NSA) in Washington DC, which pressured the US government into declassifying Kissinger’s voluminous records. The veteran statesman did not want them made public until five years after his death.

    “He didn’t believe in the sanctity of human rights either, which led him to embrace repressive authoritarian regimes as strategic chess pieces in the global chessboard of the cold war,” Kornbluh added.

    “Latin America was – for the arrogant policymakers of whom Kissinger was the top dog – our backyard. If we did not have control of what happened in our sphere of influence, Kissinger’s argument went, the rest of the world would not take our exercise of power seriously further away.”

    Myriam Bregman, a lawyer in Argentina’s ongoing human rights trials and a candidate for the leftwing FIT party (Leftist and Workers Front) during Argentina’s presidential elections this year, described Kissinger’s legacy as “tragic”.

    “Encouraging coups d’état in the region, justifying them, being aware that these coups implied a genocide against workers and students,” she said.

    “His trip to Argentina during the 1978 World Cup leaves no doubt regarding his support for these dictatorships,” said Miriam Lewin, a survivor of the ESMA death camp that was close by the River stadium where Kissinger attended matches. “I could hear the cheering when goals were scored, from inside the concentration camp.”

    Kissinger even boycotted efforts during Jimmy Carter’s 1977-81 pro-human rights presidency to stop the killing in Argentina. In secret meetings with the dictator Jorge Videla and top Argentinian diplomats during the 1978 World Cup games in Buenos Aires, Kissinger said that “in his opinion the government of Argentina had done an outstanding job in wiping out terrorist forces”.

    In answer to a question about Videla during one of the World Cup matches, Kissinger said: “He’s a very intelligent, very dedicated man who is doing what is best for his country.”

    The files published by the NSA make clear Kissinger’s central role in the Chilean coup. In 1970, he warned Nixon that Chile could become the “worst failure” of his administration, and that it might develop into “our Cuba” without US intervention. He chaired the committee that oversaw CIA operations to undermine the Allende government.

    “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people,” he said. “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

    Having failed to prevent his election, Kissinger became desperate to avoid Allende’s ratification of his presidential win. Days before the vote, President Nixon met with a rightwing Chilean media mogul, Agustín Edwards, owner of the conservative El Mercurio media group, to discuss blocking Allende’s path to the presidency.

    They hatched a plan that involved the kidnap of Gen René Schneider, the then head of the Chilean armed forces, who was considered loyal to the constitution. The attempt was botched and Gen Schneider died three days later of the gunshot wounds he sustained when his car was ambushed on 22 October 1970.

    The following day Kissinger dismissed the Chilean armed forces as a “pretty incompetent bunch”. Eventually however, the military did step in, using jets to bombard the presidential residence, where Allende died, apparently by suicide. Many of the soldiers involved in the putsch had been paid by the CIA.

    El Mercurio, Edwards’s conservative daily which was closely linked to Kissinger in that period, announced the death on Thursday of a “key figure in 20th-century global diplomacy” on its front page. It did not mention his legacy in Chile.

    2
    Signs touting ‘auto workers for Trump’ at Michigan rally found to be fake – report
    www.theguardian.com Signs touting ‘auto workers for Trump’ at Michigan rally found to be fake – report

    At least two crowd members holding signs saying ‘union members for Trump’ and ‘auto workers for Trump’ turned out to be neither

    Signs touting ‘auto workers for Trump’ at Michigan rally found to be fake – report

    Signs touting ‘auto workers for Trump’ at Michigan rally found to be fake – report At least two people holding signs saying ‘union members for Trump’ and ‘auto workers for Trump’ turned out to be neither

    Martin Pengelly in Washington @MartinPengelly Thu 28 Sep 2023 10.48 EDT When Donald Trump gave a speech in Michigan on Wednesday, seeking to capitalise on the United Auto Workers strike, at least two crowd members holding signs saying “union members for Trump” and “auto workers for Trump” turned out to be neither.

    The Detroit News reported: “One individual in the crowd who held a sign that said ‘union members for Trump’ acknowledged that she wasn’t a union member when approached by a reporter after the event.

    “Another person with a sign that read ‘auto workers for Trump’ said he wasn’t an auto worker when asked for an interview. Both people didn’t provide their names.”

    The paper said between 400 and 500 people attended the event, at a non-unionised automotive parts supplier in Clinton Township.

    Trump skipped a Republican debate in California to visit Macomb county. Politico pointed out why, saying Macomb “occupies a unique role on the political map.

    “Of the more than 3,000 counties in the US, it’s hard to find one that’s a better barometer of the atmospheric conditions affecting the 2024 election [than] Macomb county, with its high percentage of UAW workers.

    “… The blue-collar suburb is often referred to as a bellwether, though … it’s more like an indicator species in biology, offering important clues on the environmental health of an ecosystem.”

    One attendee at Trump’s speech who was an auto worker, Doug King, 55, told the Detroit News: “The four years under Trump were the best years that we had in the auto industry.”

    Trump told workers negotiations between the UAW and Ford, General Motors and Stellantis “don’t mean as much as you think”.

    Railing against the shift to electric vehicles, he added: “You can be loyal to American labour or you can be loyal to the environmental lunatics. But you can’t really be loyal to both. It’s one or the other.”

    A spokesperson for Joe Biden, Kevin Munoz, called Trump’s speech “incoherent”, “pathetic” and “recycled”.

    Trump went to Michigan a day after Biden. On Tuesday, in a historic moment in neighbouring Wayne county, Biden joined a UAW picket line and expressed support for striking workers.

    The president did so at the invitation of the union president, Shawn Fain. Fain did not meet Trump, telling CNN the former president, the Republican presidential frontrunner, “serves the billionaire class”.

    “I see no point in meeting with him because I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for,” Fain said. “He serves the billionaire class and that’s what’s wrong with this country.”

    18
    "I call for help from the highest courts": Trump cries out in fear of “Trump-hating" prosecutor
    www.salon.com Trump cries out: "I call for help"

    The former president wants the “highest courts in New York State” to help him: “I have been unfairly sued"

    Trump cries out: "I call for help"

    Donald Trump has been on a prolific Truth Social tear, calling for the execution of a top US military general, vowing revenge on NBC Networks and demanding that Republican leaders take action against automatic voter registration to protect him from once again losing the popular vote. All of that was over the weekend. On Monday, the former picked up apace with attacks on New York Attorney General Letitia James.

    "I have been unfairly sued by the Trump Hating Democrat Attorney General of New York State, Letitia James," he cried on his social media site.

    James' office has claimed that Trump has represented his worth as being $2.2 billion greater than it really is. Trump called that a "false fact."

    He then called the judge in the case a "Trump Hater" and cried out for help.

    "It is very unfair, and I call for help from the highest Courts in New York State, or the Federal System, to intercede."

    I am not even allowed a Jury!"

    20
    President Drink Bleach says he beat George W. Bush and Barack Obama
    www.salon.com President Drink Bleach says he beat George W. Bush and Barack Obama

    Trump was already dumb, but he's getting worse — MAGA doesn't care, but the press should cover his decline anyway

    President Drink Bleach says he beat George W. Bush and Barack Obama

    Trump was already dumb, but he's getting worse — yet MAGA doesn't care. The press should cover his decline anyway

    Donald Trump is skipping another GOP primary debate this week and the theories abound as to why. Some paint it as a smart strategy, setting his opponents to take each other apart while he sails into the presidential nomination. Others, including the right-wing editorial board at the Wall Street Journal, have accused Trump of being afraid to debate. But watching clips of some recent Trump speeches, I have a different theory: His team is worried Trump will start talking about how he bested Teddy Roosevelt in a bear-hunting competition, before trouncing the 26th president in the 1904 presidential election.

    To be sure, Trump was never playing with a full deck. Never forget when he recommended bleach injections for "cleaning" COVID-19 from lungs. Lately, however, his brain functioning, as impossible as it may be to believe, seems even worse. He appears to believe he's won every presidential election in the last two decades, instead of that one electoral college-based win against Hillary Clinton in 2016. During a campaign stop in South Carolina, Trump spun out a whole story about defeating a famous military leader named "Bush."

    "When I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win," he rambled, saying it was "because Bush supposedly was a military person." Then he added, "He got us into the, uh, he got us into the Middle East. How did that work out, right?"

    Trump did prevail over Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida in the 2016 GOP primary. But he appears to believe he defeated President George W. Bush, Jeb's older brother, who is actually the guy who "got us into the Middle East," when he invaded Iraq.

    Before bragging about besting two-term winner George W. Bush, Trump gave another speech boasting about his imaginary win against another two-termer, President Barack Obama. "With Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn't be won," he prattled on in a speech in Washington, D.C. last week. In the same speech, he confused Obama with President Joe Biden, and warned that, if he didn't win in 2024, we would enter "World War II," which famously ended the year before Trump himself was born.

    While Trump, who likes to call Biden "cognitively impaired," got widely mocked on social media for this, the audience he's speaking to doesn't seem to notice their god is brain-farting. That's because Trump fans, as I've written about before, don't actually listen when Dear Leader is talking. Instead, they wait for him to say buzzwords they can cheer, like "lock her up," but otherwise they tune him out. After all, MAGA is an authoritarian movement based on tribalist politics. Merit-based systems allow women and people of color to rise up, which is intolerable to the GOP base. What Trump says is not imporant. What they like about him is he's rich, white, male and a bully.

    There's no way to know from afar what's going on with Trump. On one hand, he's 77 years old, and his own father died of Alzheimer's. On the other hand, Trump's narcissism has long fueled a willingness to lie shamelessly about his own supposed accomplishments, from making up golf scores even pros can't achieve to pretending he had a chance with women who hated him to falsifying charitable donations to claiming his inauguration drew crowds it didn't.

    But claiming to have won elections he didn't run in would be next-level lying, even by Trump standards. Plus, it doesn't explain really his confusing Biden with Obama, or confusing the two Bush brothers. The likelier explanation is he's confusing his fantasies with memories. Nor does it explain how his social media presence, which was always ungrammatical and silly, has become even more unhinged and incoherent. Perhaps we've all become numb to it, but stepping back, it's really remarkable that he regularly issues violent threats on Truth Social that get ignored mainly because they're as incomprehensible as they are terrible.

    That the press understands Trump isn't doing well is evident in the way they all politely ignore him screaming for the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, much like one would smile patiently at a dementia patient yelling invective about long-dead relatives. But of course, this is unbelievably unfair, because the very same press is in an endless hype cycle about "concerns" that Biden, who does not issue grammar-challenged murder threats regularly, is slowing down from age.

    "Biden is old" is swiftly turning into one of those self-perpetuating B.S. media cycles that only end up seeming to smear Democrats unfairly, such as "Hillary Clinton's emails." First, the press runs a million pieces on this non-story, creating the illusion of controversy where none exists. Then voters start to parrot the "concerns" back in polls, concerns they only have because they're being told by a 24/7 news cycle to worry about this. Then those polls are used to justify even more coverage of a non-controversy, making sure a candidate is defined by something that was never a real problem.

    With Biden, the rejoinder is "but he actually is old!" But of course, so is Trump. Worse, Trump, who is only 3 years younger, is clearly feeling his age a lot more than Biden, who does not forget what elections he ran in or how many world wars there were. Crucially, Biden isn't displaying the loss of impulse control we see with Trump, whose baseline of self-control was not good to begin with. Trump struggles to get through interviews without confessing to his crimes. Good for prosecutors, but also a reminder that a man who can't be a passable steward of his own freedom has no business running the country.

    As Salon's Heather "Digby" Parton pointed out on Twitter, the press actually knows they're treating Biden and Trump very differently, even though the latter is way worse.

    A lot of the double standard is driven by perceptions of what the two voting bases care about. Mainstream journalists believe, with good reason, that Democratic voters care about qualities like intelligence, competence, and mental fitness. They also believe, with good reason, that Republican voters don't care if their candidates are babbling morons, so long as they a rich, white men. Indeed, being seen as "too" smart can hurt you with the GOP base, which suspiciously eyes intelligence as a gateway drug to rationality. So the Beltway press, in an attempt to be "objective," ends up covering candidates through these perceived partisan biases. A Democrat saying something wrong or off is "news" because his own party members won't like it, even if the mistake is inconsequential. Meanwhile, flat-out dumbassery or overt bigotry from Republicans is shrugged off, because of the belief that their base voters don't care anyway.

    And it's true enough that most Democratic voters care about competence and most Republican voters do not. But that doesn't excuse the press's wild double standard on this. For one thing, it's basic journalistic ethics to report the truth without worrying whether their most loyal voters care. But also, it's foolish to think that giving audiences greater context doesn't matter. There are a lot of swing voters, independents, and people who haven't decided if they're going to vote yet. Those folks can actually have their opinion shaped by the information they're taking in. If the media focuses on Biden's age while ignoring that Trump is worse, a lot of those fairweather citizens may vote in ways they come to regret — or not vote at all.

    That's bad news in any environment, but especially bad considering how much of a threat Trump is to our democracy and the nation's future. He was bad enough in his first term where he, as much as the media might often forget, attempted a coup. If, as all public signs indicate, his already fragile mental state is getting more disjointed and reckless, that's terrifying. What may be more dangerous than Trump's idiocy is that, while he's always been sociopathically impulsive and evil, he seems to be getting worse in his late 70s. If he gets power again, there's little that could contain him.

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    Lauren Boebert Offers To Personally Jerk Off Any Constituents She Offended
    www.theonion.com Lauren Boebert Offers To Personally Jerk Off Any Constituents She Offended

    WASHINGTON—In an effort to address voters hurt by recent actions that resulted in her being thrown out of a theatrical performance, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) announced Friday that she would personally jerk off any constituents she offended. “In the past week, I’ve heard from many supporters who...

    Lauren Boebert Offers To Personally Jerk Off Any Constituents She Offended

    WASHINGTON—In an effort to address voters hurt by recent actions that resulted in her being thrown out of a theatrical performance, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) announced Friday that she would personally jerk off any constituents she offended. “In the past week, I’ve heard from many supporters who were concerned by my behavior in recently released footage, which is why I’m offering to make things good between us by jacking you off,” said Boebert, instructing supporters to contact her office with proof of Colorado residency and she would personally travel to their home to deliver an on-the-house tugjob. “As a disclaimer, I will be wearing a latex glove and you need to wipe yourself off afterwards. I’m not going to do that. I’m serious about making amends, however, so feel free to rest your hand on my breasts, if necessary. Just know that this a one week only deal. So get in touch soon.” At press time, Boebert also warned her constituents that she planned to vape the entire time.

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    nkat2112 nkat2112 @sh.itjust.works
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