Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalA Lawsuit Against Jan. 6 Rally Speakers Forces DOJ To Consider Who's Legally Immune
A lawsuit against the men who spoke at a rally before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 is putting the Justice Department in a tricky position.
The department is considering whether those federal officials acted within the scope of their jobs that day, which would trigger a form of legal immunity. Government watchdogs said the case has serious implications for who's held accountable for violence that delayed the election certification and contributed to the deaths of five people.
One of the defendants is Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, who stood before the crowd on Jan. 6 and said:
"Now, our ancestors sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives to give us, their descendants, an America that is the greatest nation in world history. So I have a question for you — are you willing to do the same?"
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California featured those remarks in a lawsuit this year. He's sued Brooks, former President Donald Trump and others over lying about the election, inciting a mob to storm the Capitol, and causing pain and distress to people inside the complex.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/26/1020786560/a-lawsuit-against-jan-6-rally-speakers-forces-doj-to-consider-whos-legally-immun
Sha'Carri Richardson, Alen Hadzic and our unending forgiveness for white male athletes
In seemingly less time than Sha’Carri Richardson’s world-stopping, 100m triumph at the US trials, the matter of her Olympic-disqualifying suspension for a positive marijuana test has transformed routine sports talk fodder into a full-blown ethical debate for a divided nation.
In her defense marijuana is legal in a host of states across America, including Oregon, where Richardson went full That Girl while stamping her ticket to Tokyo. But on the flip side this is still America, the puritanical-feigning, War on Drugs-waging nation that’s been championing for marijuana’s inclusion on Wada’s banned substance list ever since Cheech & Chong started lampooning weed as the palliative of choice for the chronically lazy.
Rather than stoke these flames, Richardson accepted responsibility and didn’t much campaign to run in the Olympic 4x100m. And even though the event postdates her suspension, USA Track & Field argued that placing her on the team anyway would have been unfair to her American rivals who had competed fair and square. While Jenna Prandini and Gabby Thomas replace Richardson in the 100m and 4x100m respectively (that’s right; it takes two), the 21-year-old Dallas native walks the ESPYs red carpet, stars in commercials for Nike and Beats by Dre and otherwise casts an acrylic neon shadow on the Games. No, it wasn’t a perfect resolution. But it seemed like a win-win. Or at least it did until Alen Hadzic entered the chat.
Going into these Games, few figured to be checking for Hadzic, the 29-year-old épée alternate on a US team that was a longshot to win a medal. The notable exception: six female fencers who wrote to the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) in May demanding for an Olympic ban for Hadzic, the prime focus of an investigation into multiple accusations of sexual assault.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/26/shacarri-richardson-alen-hadzic-olympics-suspensions-fencing
How Some Districts Are Trying To Get Anxious Families Back Into School Buildings
Paullette Healy isn't sure yet where her 13-year-old son, Lucas, will go to school this fall.
She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and says New York City school buildings are in "disarray," with overcrowded classrooms and windows that barely open. She worries about classroom ventilation and social distancing.
The city has announced it will not offer a remote learning option in the coming school year. In a statement to NPR, a NYC schools spokesperson said the district's buildings are "some of the safest places to be during the pandemic," adding that classroom ventilation systems are fully operational.
But Healy isn't convinced.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/26/1017864066/how-some-districts-are-trying-to-get-anxious-families-back-into-school-buildings
Amid Massive Hospital Sell-Off, Corporate Giant Continues Suing Patients
Tennova Healthcare-Lebanon doesn't exist anymore as a hospital. But it still sued Hope Cantwell.
A knock came on the door of Cantwell's East Nashville apartment early this year. She hadn't been vaccinated yet and says she wasn't really answering the door to strangers. So she didn't.
But then several more attempts came over the course of a week. Eventually she masked up and opened. A legal assistant served her a lawsuit; she was summoned to appear in court.
"I couldn't believe someone — someone? a corporation? a company? — was doing this during a pandemic," Cantwell says.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/07/26/1019916638/amid-massive-hospital-sell-off-corporate-giant-continues-suing-patients
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Tennova SUCKS. I hate Tennova with every fiber of my being and the fire of a thousand suns. They killed both of the hospitals I worked for in Knoxville (one of which was a Top 100 Heart Hospital) and their main business seems to be buying up and killing hospitals and suing patients. MFA NOW!
The Philippines Wins Its First-Ever Olympic Gold, After Nearly 100 Years Of Trying
Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz made history Monday, winning the Philippines' first-ever gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The country had been trying to reach the podium's top spot for nearly 100 years: it sent its first Olympic delegation to Paris for the 1924 Games.
Diaz won gold in the 55-kilogram category of women's weightlifting — and in the process, she also set an Olympic record with her combined weight total of 224 kilograms across two successful lifts.
After her historic win, a tearful Diaz celebrated with her coaches before taking the top spot on the podium in Tokyo. Standing where no Filipino had stood before, Diaz, who serves in the Philippine Air Force, snapped off a salute and sang along to her country's national anthem.
"I sacrificed a lot. I wasn't able to be with my mother and father for how many months and years and then of course, training was excruciating," Diaz said afterward, according to The Philippine Daily Inquirer. "But God had a plan."
https://www.npr.org/sections/tokyo-olympics-live-updates/2021/07/26/1020710023/the-philippines-wins-its-first-ever-olympic-gold-after-nearly-100-years-of-tryin
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I love it so much when athletes from small or lesser-known countries win gold, or any medals for that matter! They're what the Olympic dream is really about.
Bowman Andros employee dies at Mt. Jackson facility
A 53-year-old employee of Bowman Andros Products died Friday after entering a cold-storage room without the proper equipment, according to the Shenandoah County Fire Marshal’s Office.
Russell Conrad, of Wardensville, West Virginia, was pronounced dead at Shenandoah Memorial Hospital, Fire Marshal David Ferguson said by phone interview.
The report came in at 9:37 a.m., said Shannon Walters, service assistant with the Shenandoah County Fire & Rescue Department.
Another employee entered the cold-storage room after Conrad became unresponsive and attempted to help him but was unable to stay because of the lack of oxygen in the room, Ferguson said.
https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/bowman-andros-employee-dies-at-mt-jackson-facility/article_11cce634-52e0-5025-8395-5f0ce3f8908e.htm
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There is a WHOLE lot more to this than what was reported in this story...which was apparently not even published in the Harrisonburg paper, although I don't subscribe to that rag so I only know what I see online. See my comment below for what else I know.
Perversion of Justice review: how Julie K Brown brought Jeffrey Epstein down
In Perversion of Justice, Julie K Brown recounts the plight of the victims of the deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein and, allegedly, his sometime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and how both avoided life-altering prosecution for a decade and more.
The author is a reporter at the Miami Herald. In November 2018, her three-part series injected Epstein into the public’s conscience, leading to sex-trafficking charges. For her work, Brown won a Polk award.
She tracked down more than 60 women who claimed to be victims of abuse, and delivered the back story on an all-too-cozy relationship between prosecutors and Epstein’s lawyers.
A sample headline: “How a future Trump cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/25/perversion-of-justice-review-julie-k-brown-jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwell
Small farms vanish every day in America's dairyland: 'There ain't no future in dairy'
“Look at that sweet heifer, high, tight udder, in her first lactation, idn’t she sweet?” auctioneer Tom Bidlingmaier shouts as his son Cory plods and slips and pushes the cow around a pen.
Watching it all are about 65 people, mostly men, mostly other small farmers in rubber boots, standing in mud and manure as they murmur their bids. Ron Wallenhorst, the farmer auctioning off his herd of 64 milking cows, is pacing and tapping an empty water bottle against his thigh. He has milked cows in his barn twice a day, every day, after taking over the farm from his father 32 years ago. By the afternoon, all the cows will be gone.
“This is our 401k,” said Ron, 55 years old, his tall frame still hearty though he’s 15 pounds lighter from stress.
The omens before the auction had not been great for Ron and his wife Lori. A couple of weeks before, a few towns over from their own farm in Cuba City, Wisconsin, which is about 70 miles south-west of Madison, they’d watched another complete dairy dispersal of a better herd. That means it produced more milk – 96 pounds (44kg) per cow a day to the Wallenhorsts’ 78 (35kg). The other farmer didn’t make out well financially. “We stood there with tears in our eyes,” Ron said. “Our whole life has been a risk. Deciding to sell was very, very difficult.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/21/small-farms-vanish-every-day-in-americas-dairyland-there-aint-no-future-in-dairy
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This is the other side of the story. Big Ag is ruining America.
'It's five years since a white person applied': the immigrant workforce milking America's cows
Products spring out from the walls of Veracruz Mexican market in Monroe, Wisconsin: packets of cinnamon sticks, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, tiny rainbow-colored sprinkles, chicle; a wall of healthcare like anxiety pills and vitamins for energy, and a shelf devoted entirely to various forms of muscle pain relief. A large meat case full of Mexican specialties, such as longaniza. Piñatas. Maíz. Jarritos. Chicharrones. And rosquillas, a treat in between a cracker and a cookie which is what newly arrived immigrants ask for most often, says Maribel Lobato. She and her husband Santos Tinoco have owned the store for 13 years in Monroe, a small city in Green county about 40 miles south of Madison.
The couple are often first contact for an increasing number of Latinos who immigrate to Monroe – which is 95% white – to work on dairy farms. “We can see the new faces because we know all the Latinos in Monroe,” says Lobato. She offers them donated furniture, clothes, a way to connect to home. An InterCambio Express telephone for sending money sits beneath an advertisement for a $19/hour job at a cheese factory, “but this place requires good papers”, customers in the store say in Spanish.
“I. Am. So. Busy,” says Lobato, who switches between speaking fast English and even faster Spanish.
When a family skidded off the road during their first winter in Monroe and the dad broke his arm in three places, Lobato took care of the kids. The store served as a Covid vaccination center. People bring traffic citations into the store they need help filling out; profiling is so common that after a certain number of tickets, many Latinos here just get a new car. Still, customers will risk the 40-minute drive from Beloit, a city in a neighboring county with a growing Latino population, to get the products they miss. About once a month, someone calls Lobato in the middle of the night to pick them up from the side of the road after their car is confiscated because they don’t have a license.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/its-five-years-since-a-white-worker-applied-the-immigrants-milking-americas-cows
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This is how it is in Wisconsin, Iowa, North Carolina hog farms, Virginia poultry plants, you name it. Corporate agriculture.....
Olympic And Paralympic Moms Face Big Obstacles To Compete. They're Demanding Change
For Mandy Bujold getting to the Tokyo Olympic Games was a fight that had nothing to do with boxing. She was effectively disqualified by the International Olympic Committee for having a baby.
"I have a child. That's a blessing, it's not a hindrance," Bujold said in an interview before her match in Tokyo today.
The Canadian boxer timed the birth around the Olympic cycle. But then the coronavirus pandemic delayed the Games, interrupted training and forced the cancellation of the May boxing qualifier in Buenos Aires for the Americas. She was out.
When she asked the I.O.C to consider her pre-baby ranking — eighth in the world in her weight class — because she was on maternity leave during events the committee used to adjust the ranking system, the I.O.C. said no.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/25/1020354126/olympic-and-paralympic-moms-face-big-obstacles-to-compete-theyre-demanding-chang
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