Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalRepublicans Get Desperate for a Wisconsin Senate Candidate
Wisconsin Republicans need someone to run against Sen. Tammy Baldwin: a two-term incumbent who’s up for re-election in the swing-state of Wisconsin next year.
But, for now, they’re getting crickets.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), the top pick of Republican Senate recruiters and leadership, said no in June. He recently nabbed the chairman spot on a new Select Committee on China—one of his legislative priorities—and says he wants to stick with it.
Then, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) weighed the option. Reporters earlier this year flocked in interest as newly created “Tom Tiffany for Senate” websites were flagged by web crawlers—a typical indicator that a candidate is reserving URLs because they are at least considering a bid.
But earlier this month, Tiffany passed on running too.
“While Tammy Baldwin is vulnerable due to her record as a rubber stamp for President Biden, I can make the greatest impact continuing to serve the great people of Wisconsin in the House of Representatives,” Tiffany told The Northwoods River News.
The remaining four Republican Wisconsin Reps.—Bryan Steil, Derrick Van Orden, Scott Fitzgerald, and Glenn Grotham—have all also said no for their own variety of reasons. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan has also passed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-get-desperate-for-a-senate-candidate-in-wisconsin?ref=home
What a sad list! And I think Van Orden DQ'd himself earlier this month by screaming at interns.
Dancing in the Light of O'Shae Sibley
In the world of senseless crimes, I never thought I’d see the day when someone would be murdered for dancing. But here we are, living in a world without O’Shae Sibley. As more details develop about how Sibley was killed and who his killer was, it becomes clear that Black, queer people are still enemy No. 1 even when we are minding our own business and simply existing in a bubble of joy and self-expression.
We are the boys who played with dolls that were taken from us and replaced with trucks and tools to project masculinity. It didn’t work. Our innate beings fought against the notion that we needed to present a certain way to be worthy of love. As children, we chipped away at the internalized homophobia that forced us into shadows and closets and boxes. We now live in the light despite the world’s attempts to extinguish us. And we will stay in the light.
We are the boys who wore our mothers’ heels until what was once seen as “cute” became a threat to the notion of how boys are supposed to act and be. But that desire to live vibrantly never left us. We have become the ultimate arbiters of fashion and style.
We are the boys who spoke like lightning and rainbows, exchanging words of energy and freedom. Our language has been stolen, sold and commodified for commercial use while we are still vilified despite being the originators of it. It has never stopped us from continuing to live in our truth.
“To be visibly queer is to choose your happiness over your safety,” author Da’Shaun Harrison has aptly noted in their work. We are the boys whose spirit and well-being have been dismissed. And yet we refuse to be defined by outdated societal norms that stubbornly persist. We are living our unapologetic truths despite the hatred and harm inflicted upon us. Our Black queer heroes were stolen from us, stories erased or never told, and yet we get to be the heroes to future generations of Black queer children.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oshae-sibley-black-queer-grief_n_64d0fa7ae4b01638f324b7db
When a job raises red flags immediately, should workers cut and run?
Nicole noticed a red flag within hours of starting her new job at a Miami-based boutique PR firm in 2022. The CEO didn’t bother introducing her to clients on her first-ever company Zoom call; he dominated the conversation, leaving no room for other employees to speak. Nicole tried to carry on but was shocked on her second day when the CEO swore at a colleague in the middle of a team meeting.
On day three, Nicole worked up the courage to ask that colleague if outbursts like that were normal. “She said, ‘That’s just how he is’,” recalls Nicole, who is in her mid-20s. “Everyone’s scared of him.”
On her fourth day, Nicole wrote her resignation letter. She was gone by the end of the week and never looked back.
At a time when many people are reassessing their personal and professional priorities, and swaths of workers still hold power in the labour market, some people are choosing to cut and run – leaving jobs that they’re unhappy in, after mere weeks or even days in the role.
There are any number of reasons people ditch jobs after such a short period of time: the role was oversold; the leadership was micromanaging; the culture was toxic; or the company's values seemed suspect. In some cases, say experts, these swift departures are due to reckless, fickle decisions. But other times, they're the result of carefully considered choices – and the right options for workers.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230808-when-a-job-raises-red-flags-immediately-should-workers-cut-and-run
I almost wish I'd quit my last one like that. My manager was SO toxic. I could have gone back on the road or found another quickly enough, nurses being always in demand.
'Stressed beyond her limits': co-owner of Kansas newspaper dies after police raid
The co-owner of a small Kansas newspaper whose offices and staff were raided by local police officers conducting a leak investigation has died after the situation left her “stressed beyond her limits”, according to the publication.
Joan Meyer, 98, collapsed on Saturday afternoon and died at her home a day after she tearfully watched officers who showed up at her home with a search warrant cart away her computer as well as an internet router, reported the Marion County Record, which she co-owned. After officers also photographed the bank statements of her son, Record publisher Eric Meyer, and left her house in mess, Meyer had been unable to eat or sleep, her newspaper said.
Meyer was “in good health for her age”, the weekly newspaper asserted. And the headline of its report on her death said the police’s decision to raid the Marion Record’s offices along with the homes of its reporters and publishers was not only illegal – but had also contributed to bringing on the end of Meyer’s life.
Attempts to contact both Marion’s police chief – Gideon Cody – and the judge who authorized his agency to conduct the raids aimed at the Record, Laura Viar, for comment on Meyer’s sudden death were not immediately successful.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/13/marion-county-record-co-owner-joan-meyer-dies-kansas-police-raid
Sne may have been 98, but this raid was blatantly illegal and unconstitutional!
Drugs and prostitution in the office: 'Telemarketers' doc illuminates world you don't know
The mere thought of telemarketers might make your chest tighten or eyes roll. Annoyance might wash over you because of intrusive strangers interrupting your day. But when Sam Lipman-Stern thinks of his time as a caller at a fundraising center in New Jersey, he envisions utter chaos.
Lipman-Stern started at Civic Development Group in 2001, as a 14-year-old high school dropout. His parents urged him to get a job, and when McDonald's and Burger King said he was too young to flip burgers, he landed at CDG in New Brunswick. That business is at the center of Lipman-Stern’s three-part docuseries “Telemarketers” premiering Sunday (HBO, 10 EDT/PDT and streaming on Max).
There were a few employees his age, says Lipman-Stern, but the majority were former convicts. “I'd have a murderer sitting to my right, a bank robber sitting to my left,” Lipman-Stern says. “They were selling massive amounts of drugs out of the office. There was a heroin kingpin that was working there. … There was prostitution in the office.”
Physical fights broke out between callers and managers, Lipman-Stern says. Employees would get high at work. “I was told by owners of other fundraising companies, and then also managers at CDG, that drug addicts make the best salespeople,” Lipman-Stern says. “They know how to get whatever they want out of people.”
Audiences are introduced to Lipman-Stern’s co-workers and CDG's shady practices in Sunday’s premiere. Then the docuseries filmed over two decades shifts to the telemarketing industry at large. “They didn't care what we would do as long as we got those donations,” Lipman-Stern says, adding that his former employer set donation goals of approximately $200 per hour.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2023/08/13/hbo-telemarketers-doc-exposes-lawless-office-and-industry-scams/70566161007/
Texas teen was told girls of color couldn't do well. She's graduating college at 14.
Alena McQuarter isn’t like other teenagers.
She graduated from high school at 12 years old, made national headlines as the youngest person to intern at NASA and is the youngest Black person to get accepted to medical school.
Now, she's just a few months away from graduating from college at the age of 14.
And somehow, the native Texan and teenage prodigy had time to start the Brown STEMGirl, an organization for girls of color who want to study science, technology, engineering and math.
“I’ve always tried to prove that girls of color … they can do what they put their minds to," she told USA TODAY last week. "Being able to graduate at the age of 12 from high school and going into college, I just want to inspire other girls to follow their dreams.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/08/13/texas-teenager-science-graduating-college/70565236007/
Kenosha police to investigate after forceful arrest of wrongfully suspected father holding baby
Police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, say they've launched an internal investigation into the forceful arrest of a man wrongfully suspected of fleeing a crash. The incident was caught on cell phone video inside an Applebee's restaurant.
According to a criminal complaint filed against the man for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News affiliate WISN, Kenosha police officers were responding to reports of a rollover crash nearby where multiple people fled the scene. The officer was looking for "an African American male and African American female" with a baby who had "run toward Kohl's or Menards," the complaint says. The woman was described as wearing a red shirt with a bun on top of her head.
Jennifer Harris, the manager at a nearby Applebee's who was on duty at the time, says the police initially went into the restaurant asking employees if they had seen any individuals that matched that description, but an employee said they hadn't. Minutes later, another employee spotted two individuals with a baby that seemed to match the description and she called the police, Harris told ABC News.
The complaint states that an officer looking for the suspects from the crash went back to the restaurant and identified a man and a woman who had a baby and matched the description of the suspects.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/kenosha-police-investigate-after-forceful-arrest-wrongfully-suspected/story?id=102196591
Kenosha kops AGAIN. And pepper spraying a BABY! Shameful!
Massachusetts Adopts Universal Free Meals For All Public School Kids
Massachusetts has joined a growing number of states in passing legislation to grant free meals to all public school kids.
The new program was signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Maura Healey (D) as part of an overdue budget of nearly $56 billion, which also included spending on child care, workforce development, housing, public transit and other areas.
From that budget, approximately $172 million in permanent funding will be put toward free school meals for students in kindergarten through high school.
Rebecca Wood, who has an 11-year-old, told WBZ-TV in Boston that there were times in the past when she wasn’t sure if she could afford school lunch for her kid.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/massachusetts-adopts-universal-free-meals-for-all-public-school-kids_n_64d7b821e4b0ca95058905b9
Blue states will feed kids free. Red states continue to be s-hole states that let kids go hungry.
Insight: What happens when a $2 million gene therapy is not enough
Baby Ben Kutschke was diagnosed at three months with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare inherited disorder which is the leading genetic cause of death in infancy globally. It leaves children too weak to walk, talk, swallow or even breathe.
So when in 2021 his parents heard about Zolgensma – a one-time therapy costing millions of dollars that promises to replace genes needed for the body to control muscles – they had high hopes.
They were disappointed.
After treatment with the $2.25 million therapy at almost eight months old, Ben was able to hold his head up for a few seconds – a significant milestone, his mother Elizabeth Kutschke told Reuters. But he did not advance to rolling over or sitting up, and after a few weeks doctors recommended the family add another drug to help him.
"I just started to worry," she said from their home in Berwyn, Illinois. "He wasn't getting worse, but the gradual progress we had seen ... was no longer happening."
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/what-happens-when-2-million-gene-therapy-is-not-enough-2023-08-12/
So then what?
Three-year-old asylum seeker dies after being bussed from Texas to Chicago
A three-year-old girl from Venezuela being transported to Chicago from Texas by bus with other migrants died at a local Illinois hospital after showing signs of illness, the Texas department of emergency management said on Friday.
“Once the child presented with health concerns, the bus pulled over and security personnel on board called 9-1-1 for emergency attention,” the TDEM said in a written statement.
“After the ambulance arrived, the bilingual security personnel translated for the parents and the paramedics who were providing care for the child,” the statement said. “The child was then taken to a local hospital to receive additional medical attention and was later pronounced deceased.”
Because the girl died in the Chicago area, the Illinois department of public health was investigating her death, a spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune.
“IDPH is working with local health officials, state police and federal authorities to the fullest extent possible to get answers in this tragic situation,” IDPH spokeswoman Lauri Sanders told the Tribune.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/11/venezuela-child-dies-bussed-texas-chicago
Since this bus crossed state lines, this should be investigated by the feds---and ABBUTT should be charged with felony murder, or at least manslaughter.
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Virginia
Member since: Wed Jun 1, 2011, 07:34 PM
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