March 10, 2022

Madison Cawthorn Calls Ukrainian President Zelenskyy A 'Thug'

Rep. Madison Cawthron (R-N.C.) broke from his party’s support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and told supporters the embattled leader is a “thug,” newly released footage of the remarks shows.

“Remember that Zelenskyy is a thug,” Cawthorn, 26, says in the clip obtained by North Carolina TV station WRAL on Thursday. “Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies.”

Cawthorn, who is running for reelection in November’s election, made the comments while speaking with supporters in Asheville over the weekend, according to commentary in The Wall Street Journal by Karl Rove, who served as former President George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff.

The extremist lawmaker said on Twitter after the video of his comments surfaced that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions are disgusting. Still, he took another dig at the Ukrainian president, saying he “should NOT push misinformation on America.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/madison-cawthorn-zelenskyy-thug_n_622a3c6de4b029615838316a
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Drunk driver/seditionist calls hero president a thug. Funny not funny

March 10, 2022

Police Bodycam Footage Shows "Black Panther" Director Ryan Coogler Being Mistakenly Detained

Police Bodycam Footage Shows "Black Panther" Director Ryan Coogler Being Mistakenly Detained As A Bank Robber

The Atlanta Police Department released bodycam footage Wednesday that showed them detaining Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther, after they mistook him for a bank robber in January.

Police showed up to a branch of Bank of America after Coogler requested to withdraw $12,000 from his bank account on Jan. 7, according to an incident report also released Wednesday.

The 35-year-old director showed his California ID, his bank card, and gave his PIN number, but the bank teller became suspicious when Coogler wrote on the back of the deposit slip to be discreet with the money.

"My stomach started turning," the bank teller, who was pregnant, told police in the bodycam footage. “I have to protect myself. I have to protect my child," she added.

Coogler was wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a COVID-19 face mask. Both Coogler and the bank teller are Black.

The bank teller told police on the video that Coogler's account showed an alert indicating it was a "high-risk transaction." That's when she told her manager that she was uncomfortable. She called 911.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paigeskinner/ryan-coogler-detained-bodycam

March 10, 2022

After weeks in Russian custody, questions remain on Brittney Griner's whereabouts

The American basketball star who was arrested in Russia on allegations of drug smuggling was detained February 17, a US congressman's office said Thursday, providing the most detailed public account yet of how long Brittney Griner has been in custody.

And US efforts to get Griner out of Russia are complicated by strained relations between the two countries -- a deterioration exacerbated by Russia's war with Ukraine, the lawmaker, US Rep. Colin Allred, told ESPN a day earlier.

"I do think that it's really unusual that we've not been granted access to her from our embassy and our consular services," Allred, D-Texas, told ESPN on Wednesday.

"The Russian criminal justice system is very different than ours, very opaque. We don't have a lot of insight into where she is in that process right now, but she's been held for three weeks now, and that's extremely concerning," Allred said.

News of Griner's arrest broke in the US last weekend, with Russian media reporting she was detained at a Moscow airport on some unspecified day in February. Allred's office has been working with the US State Department and learned she was detained February 17, he told ESPN. His office confirmed that date to CNN on Thursday.
Many details still are in question, including precisely where Griner is now.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/10/world/brittney-griner-arrest-russia-thursday/index.html
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Please lay off "She shouldn't have been" etc. and focus on what Russia is doing to a Black gay American woman. They are using her as a political hostage and won't even say where she is.

March 10, 2022

Judge orders Speaker Robin Vos to produce deleted emails

A Wisconsin judge on Thursday ordered Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to produce deleted emails in response to an open records request filed by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight seeking documents related to an investigation into the 2020 election.

Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn also ordered Vos to search his private email accounts and text messages for any relevant deleted messages.

“If there is a reason why they can’t be produced, I want to know,” she said.

The case is one of three seeking records from Vos and the investigator he hired, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who is leading a probe into the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden. Gableman released his most recent report last week, and this week Vos extended his contract through the end of April.

Vos signed that contract the same day that a different judge released more than 700 pages of emails and documents Gableman produced in response to another American Oversight lawsuit.

Vos and American Oversight have been fighting for five months over what records he has in response to numerous open records requests filed by American Oversight. The group wants to ask questions of a former Vos employee who was in charge of his email accounts, but who has since left the office.

https://www.channel3000.com/i/judge-orders-speaker-robin-vos-to-produce-deleted-emails/

March 10, 2022

Disney censors same-sex affection in Pixar films, according to letter from employees

In a statement attributed to “the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar, and their allies” obtained by Variety, employees of the animation studio allege that Disney corporate executives have demanded cuts from “nearly every moment of overtly gay affection… regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar.”

The stunning claim is part of a wider reaction to the company-wide memo sent to Disney employees by CEO Bob Chapek on Monday regarding its response to the recently passed legislation in Florida known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. In the memo, Chapek states that the “biggest impact” the company can make “in creating a more inclusive world is through the inspiring content we produce.”

According to the Pixar letter, that claim is at odds with employees’ experience of trying to create content with same-sex affection approved by Disney executives.

“We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were,” the letter states. “Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”

To date, Pixar has only included a tiny handful of LGBTQ characters in its feature films, most prominently in the 2020 fantasy film “Onward,” which features a cyclops police officer named Specter, voiced by Lena Waithe. The character’s sexuality is only acknowledged in passing, when Specter says, “It’s not easy being a new parent — my girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out, okay?” But the movie was still banned in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia due to the scene, and in the version released in Russia, the word “girlfriend” was changed to “partner.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-pop-culture/disney-censors-sex-affection-pixar-films-according-letter-employees-rcna19505

March 10, 2022

Officials say a new juvenile lockup was 'born of necessity.' Experts call it 'child abuse.'

Lawyers and a judge gathered in an East Baton Rouge juvenile courtroom last October for an update on a teenager detained after joyriding in a stolen car. The teen appeared on a screen, alongside a caseworker who stunned everyone by describing conditions in the lockup where he was held.

The 15-year-old was being kept in round-the-clock solitary confinement. He was getting no education, in violation of state and federal law, nor was he getting court-ordered substance abuse counseling, according to two defense attorneys present. And no one in the room that day — not the judge, not the prosecutor, not the defense lawyers — appeared to have heard of the facility where Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice was holding him, the Acadiana Center for Youth at St. Martinville.

“It was as if a secret prison had been opened up,” one of the attorneys, Jack Harrison, said. “I could see on the judge’s face both shock and real anger — visceral anger.”

They had no idea how bad it was.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/louisiana-juvenile-detention-st-martinvillle-rcna19227
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Lousyanna scores--er, strikes out--again

March 10, 2022

Nurses are waiting months for licenses as hospital staffing shortages spread

Three hours spent on hold. That's how long Courtney Gramm waited one day, all so that she might get her license from the state of California to work as a nurse.

That morning was just a snapshot from a long ordeal. "Panicked, anxious, frustrated, mad even," Gramm describes how she felt as she called over and over. "I just couldn't get any information out of them."

Gramm waited seven months for her nurse practitioner license at a time when COVID-19 cases were skyrocketing across the U.S. and hospitals were desperate to keep nurses on staff.

Her story is a familiar one for nurses throughout the country. Nursing boards, meant as a safeguard, have become an obstacle, preventing qualified nurses from getting into the workforce for months when basic vetting should take only weeks.

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1084897499/nurses-are-waiting-months-for-licenses-as-hospital-staffing-shortages-spread
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Who has a story? Please share.

March 10, 2022

A mom who invited Texas AG Ken Paxton to meet her transgender son is being investigated

Amber Briggle says her long fight over gender-affirming care wasn’t a choice but her duty. Her Texas family is under investigation after state Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a legal opinion this year saying gender-affirming treatments for transgender children constitutes child abuse. Later, Gov. Greg Abbott instructed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate any reported instances of such treatments.

The Briggles are now the target of such an investigation.

“I’m really not great,” Amber Briggle said. “Actually, my hair is falling out, I can’t sleep. It’s not – we’re not good.”

Briggle’s son is transgender. Back in 2016, she told Texas Standard she invited Paxton over to dinner to “put a human face” to the struggle for transgender rights that Paxton was challenging at the time via opposition to public school bathroom guidelines outlined by the Obama administration.

Today, Briggle tells the Standard that the open investigation by Child Protective Services, or CPS, is causing an immense amount of stress, but she and her husband are trying to shield their kids from the details.

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-mom-who-invited-ken-paxton-for-dinner-to-meet-transgender-son-says-shes-now-losing-her-hair-over-an-investigation-prompted-by-his-opinion/
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C'mon, FBI, when are you gonna drop the hammer on Paxton?

March 10, 2022

Ukrainians deliver message to Russia with submission in stamp design contest

Less than a week after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the country’s post office, Ukrposhta, announced plans to issue a stamp to illustrate “Ukrainians’ determination to defend their land,” and asked the public to send in their designs.

The public responded with almost 500 designs before the March 4 deadline.

According to the March 1 press release announcing the contest, Ukrposhta originally planned to show all of the submissions on its Facebook page. However, because of the overwhelming response, selected what it considered to be the top 20 instead.

Voting was to be open from March 8 until March 11 and the winner announced March 12, according to a March 8 press release from Ukrposhta.

The design with the most votes is to appear on an upcoming stamp.

While the issue date was not announced, Ukrposhta said it would be the first Ukrainian postage stamp under martial law. According to earlier information from Ukrposhta CEO Igor Smilyansky, the stamp will be valid for international mail.

https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/ukrainians-deliver-a-message-to-russia-with-submission-in-stamp-design-contest
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Follow the link to see it. It's brilliant!

March 10, 2022

The FlyLady cleaning method is huge on TikTok. What is it?

TikTok is embracing a new way to tidy our homes, just in time for spring cleaning: The FlyLady cleaning method.

Though the method was created by Marla Cilley in the 1990s, according to the FlyLady website, it has reached new audiences on the video-sharing app, with the hashtag #flyladymethod amassing more than 64 million views.

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"All I ask is 15 minutes a day. Set a timer and just do a little every day," Cilley writes on the FlyLady website. "You will see a difference in a week’s time... It didn’t get dirty in a day and it is not going to get clean overnight."

The zones are as follows:

Zone 1: Clean entrance, front porch and dining room during the first week of the month, which may only be a few days.
Zone 2: Clean kitchen during the first full week of the month.
Zone 3: Main bathroom and one other room in the house (such as a child's room, extra room, office, craft room or utility room) during the second full week of the month.
Zone 4: Master bedroom (including closets and bathroom) during the third full week of the month.
Zone 5: Living room is the fifth week of the month and usually lasts only a few days/rolls into zone 1 time frame.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/03/10/spring-cleaning-tiktok-flylady-cleaning-method-explained/9408493002/
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As much as I hate cleaning, this might just work