Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalTrump demands return of seized documents - by order of social media
Donald Trump has demanded the return of some documents seized by the US justice department in an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida last week – apparently under the impression that posts on his Truth Social platform carry legal weight.
In a post on Sunday, the former president wrote: “By copy of this Truth, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!”
It is generally held that social media posts are not legal documents.
According to an actual legal document, a search warrant unsealed on Friday, records concerning top secret national security matters were among those seized by the FBI. It has been reported that some such documents concerned nuclear weapons.
Trump has called the nuclear weapons report a “hoax” and claimed to have had authority to declassify top secret records while in office. No evidence has been produced that he did declassify the records in question.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/15/trump-demands-return-documents-fbi-truth-social
I'm dying here.....
A Florida Teacher's Poster of Black Historical Figures Was Taken Down, So He Resigned
A Florida elementary school teacher resigned from his job this week after a co-worker removed a bulletin board he made featuring prominent Black Americans like Martin Luther King Jr. and Colin Powell alongside the Pledge of Allegiance—because it was allegedly deemed “not age-appropriate” for students.
Special education teacher Michael James, 61, sent his resignation notice to the superintendent of Escambia County Tim Smith and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Tuesday explaining his reason for leaving O.J. Semmes Elementary School in Pensacola. James, who’s white, criticized them for creating and allowing an environment in school where the celebration of Black figures in the classroom is grounds for conflict.
“Am I to believe Escambia County Schools employs those that dislike African Americans?” James wrote in his letter, according to the Pensacola News Journal, which first reported the story. “Is there a dislike in anything that states 'One Nation Under God' in it?”
A spokesman for the school district told VICE News that the incident was already under investigation.
While decorating his classroom in preparation for his first academic year at the school Monday, James told the outlet he put up a display showing at least five Black American heroes, including Harriet Tubman and George Washington Carver. Just a week into the job, the teacher said that he spent about $58 of his own money and hours of his time creating the board because O.J. Semmes is located in a predominantly Black part of the county with a predominantly Black student body, and wanted students to see important historical figures who looked like them.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ax3qp/florida-teacher-black-historical-figure-poster-removal
Flori-fucking-DUH!
How the search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago revealed a secret Twitter account for GOP Senator Mike Lee
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is the more Donald Trump-like of the two senators in the state, the other being Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT). But it's Lee who is up for reelection this year against former Republican Evan McMullin, who previously ran for president in Utah to try and deny Trump the electoral votes in 2016.
Behind the scenes, however, Lee has been using an unofficial Twitter account that has gone unnoticed by the public, but appears to have been promoted by some far-right activists. The Star Tribune outed the senator with details on some of his more catty tweets.
It was something noticed after Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort was searched by the FBI for classified information. Lee's social media accounts were dead silent. Noting that it's rare for a politician to be quiet about anything unless they're pleading their Fifth Amendment rights, reporters started searching.
"Lee’s personal Facebook page links to a Twitter thread from a Twitter account — 'Based Mike Lee' — that was created in July," the report said. "The account, full of attempted snark and sarcasm, at one point had a profile picture of a young Mike Lee with digital sunglasses superimposed on his face — a reference to the 'Deal with it' meme that was popular in the early 2010s. A source close to Lee says the account is Lee’s personal Twitter which he manages by himself."
So, it appears Lee has made a statement about the search warrant, through his private Twitter account. He asked if the attorney general personally approved the search warrant and then rants about Hillary Clinton, protests at the homes of the Supreme Court justices and Hunter Biden.
https://www.rawstory.com/mike-lee-secret-twitter-account/
Paunchy Parcheesi, trying to be one of the "cool kids" ("Paunchy Parcheesi" is a reference to Mormon's Monday night "home evenings" which often feature board games. DM me if you want to know where the nickname originally came from.)
Don't go Greyhound
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — On Friday, Greyhound said Bus 1511 experienced an "unexpected cancellation." It was expected to arrive at the Marathon Gas Station bus stop on Cherry Street, but travelers said it never showed up.
"They would say it's going to be there soon, 'It's going to be there soon,'" said Emie Hinojosa, who has been sitting outside the gas station since Friday. "They said it was going to be there around 10:30, and it never showed up."
They said they were stranded there for days and were taken to a Red Roof Inn on the third night they spent waiting. But during those days, some storms passed through the Knoxville area. The group also said they couldn't charge their phones and at several points, people would approach them asking for money.
"Greyhound should have some kind of protocol that fell into place, and they didn't do it," said Dajuan Ward, a former bus driver from Ohio. "How would you feel if it was your mother out here?"
There was a similar incident in April when a bus never arrived and travelers were brought to a hotel to wait for a ride. Some of the people waiting at the gas station on Monday said they couldn't afford a hotel though, and had no choice but to wait where they were. Another group of travelers said they were stranded in July too.
https://www.wbir.com/article/news/local/greyhound-bus-never-shows-up-group-stranded/51-862b19f8-c294-4043-a85e-3e5140ad6b65
And Knoxville has still not negotiated with Greyhound for a better stop. This one is dangerous.
How Coal Mining Contributed to Deadly Kentucky Floods
Appalachian states like Kentucky have a long, turbulent history with coal and mountaintop removal—an extractive mining process that uses explosives to clear forests and scrape soil in order to access underlying coal seams. For years, researchers have warned that land warped by mountaintop removal may be more prone to flooding due to the resulting lack of vegetation to prevent increased runoff. Without trees to buffer the rain and soil to soak it up, water pools together and heads for the least resistant path—downhill.
In 2019, a pair of Duke University scientists conducted an analysis of floodprone communities throughout the region for Inside Climate News that identified the most “mining damaged areas.” These included many of the same Eastern Kentucky communities that saw river levels rise by 25 feet in just 24 hours this past week.
“The findings suggest that long after the coal mining stops, its legacy of mining could continue to exact a price on residents who live downstream from the hundreds of mountains that have been leveled in Appalachia to produce electricity,” wrote Inside Climate News’ James Bruggers.
Now those findings feel tragically prescient. From July 25 to 30, Eastern Kentucky saw a mixture of flash floods and thunderstorms bringing upwards of four inches of rain per hour, swelling local rivers to historic levels. To date, the flooding has claimed at least 37 lives.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/08/kentucky-flooding-coal-mining-climate/
Not just mountaintop removal, either. Read Night Comes to the Cumberlands, by Henry Caudill.
She Never Hurt Her Kids. So Why Is a Mother Serving More Time Than the Man Who Abused Her Daughter?
BY SAMANTHA MICHAELS
A week before Christmas last year, Kerry King helped three of her children build gingerbread houses in a prison visitation room in Oklahoma. King wanted to make the holiday special for the kids, even under the circumstances. But as the Black 35-year-old spread frosting on a graham cracker while dressed in her orange jumpsuit, her hair braided for the occasion, the mood still felt bittersweet. Since she was incarcerated six years earlier, her kids could only visit once a month, and soon it would be time to say goodbye.
“Do you love me?” Lilah, 10, the most outgoing of King’s children, asked her mother as the visit was ending.
“Of course I do,” King answered.
Lilah thought a moment, her brown eyes serious, and then said something that caught King off guard. “Do you still love him?” she asked. “Because if you still love him, I’ll never forgive you.”
King’s heart dropped. Her ex-boyfriend had abused them both, years ago. He was the reason King was in prison now. But her daughter had never said anything like that to her before. And there wasn’t enough time to have the long conversation they both craved.
Back in her cell, King agonized over whether a letter to Lilah would suffice. She had been mothering her children over letters and phone calls for too long. No matter what, King wanted to tell her daughter, I love you more than I could have loved anyone else, any man. And you should never, ever have to even consider whether I do.
“I am not guilty,” King had said to me over the phone, months before the Christmas visit. “I just wanna go home. I wanna see my kids so bad. It kind of eats you up.”
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/08/failure-to-protect-domestic-abuse-child-oklahoma-women-inequality-prison/
Oklahoma, you are fucking NOT OK!
N.J. hospital marketing director arrested after cache of 39 guns, ammo found in office closet
A New Jersey hospital marketing director was arrested this week after a bomb threat at the facility led police to discover a cache of weapons and ammunition stashed in an unlocked office closet.
Reuven Alonalayoff, who worked at Hudson Regional Hospital, was taken into custody Sunday at Newark Liberty International Airport with assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations.
Alonalayoff, 46, of Elmwood Park, was charged with possession of an assault firearm and two counts of possession of a high capacity magazine.
Lawyer information for him was not immediately available.
His arrest comes weeks after the hospital received a phone call on July 18 that a bomb was in the facility, the Secaucus Police Department said in a news release.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nj-hospital-employee-arrested-cache-39-guns-ammo-found-office-closet-rcna42179
Missouri family says racism led to pool party cancellation
A Black family says racism prompted officials at a suburban Kansas City water park to cancel a private pool party for their 17-year-old son’s birthday during the weekend.
Chris Evans said he signed a contract with Summit Waves Aquatic Facility in Lee’s Summit to host 250 people for the party on Saturday. But when his sons arrived at the park they were told the reservation was canceled and were not given a reason, Evans said at a news conference Tuesday.
Evans said he and his wife learned while they were on the way to the water park that “this event doesn’t represent Lee’s Summit Waves and that my reservation was canceled because (a park official) was uncomfortable,” The Kansas City Star reported.
That official, flanked by police officers, met the parents when they arrived and reiterated that the party would not be held.
“What are you scared of, Lee’s Summit?” Evans asked at the news conference. “Why are you uncomfortable?”
https://apnews.com/article/travel-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-parks-4b8fbb7e877bd6355d0cc7ba90bd00c8
Sure sounds like it.
The One Critical Mistake Alien Hunters Keep Making
Our search for alien life is getting serious. With better telescopes and a growing scientific consensus that we’re probably not alone in the universe, we’re beginning to look farther and wider across the vastness of space for evidence of extraterrestrials.
But it’s possible we’re looking for too few signs in too few places. Having evolved on Earth, surrounded by Earth life, we assume alien life would look and behave like terrestrial life.
What if we’re wrong? What if E.T. is out there waiting to be discovered by the first astronomer willing to open their mind to the possibility that, to us, alien life might seem really weird?
Some scientists are trying to fix our Earth bias. In a new study that was made available to read on July 27, a team led by Arwen Nicholson, an astrophysicist at the University of Exeter, attacked one assumption that’s widespread in astronomy. There’s a common line of thought that a distant “exoplanet”—a planet outside the solar system—would need a certain amount of oxygen and hydrogen to support life. And those lifeforms, as they lived and died and evolved, would excrete methane gas that would build up in the atmosphere.
Methane is one of the big things astronomers look for when it comes to evidence of alien life. They call it a “biosignature.” But with over 5,000 thousand confirmed exoplanets on the official roster and only so many telescopes that are powerful enough to survey them, astronomers tend to exclude planets that appear to be nutrient-poor—lacking, say, the concentration of hydrogen that we have here on Earth.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alien-hunters-need-to-start-rethinking-the-definition-of-life?ref=home
I once read a SF series called Starbridge, by A.C. Crispin, which assumed otherwise in some cases. It was...interesting.
A challenge for antiabortion states: Doctors reluctant to work there
In a few years, Olgert Bardhi’s skills will be in high demand. A first-year resident in internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, he’ll be a full-fledged physician by 2025 in a nation facing a shortage of primary care doctors.
The trouble for Texas: Because of the state’s strict antiabortion laws, Bardhi’s not sure he will remain there.
Although he doesn’t provide abortion care right now, laws limiting the procedure have created confusion and uncertainty over what treatments are legal for miscarriage and keep him from even advising pregnant patients on the option of abortion, he said. Aiding and abetting an abortion in Texas also exposes doctors to civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.
“It definitely does bother me,” Bardhi said. “If a patient comes in, and you can’t provide them the care that you are supposed to for their well-being, maybe I shouldn’t practice here. The thought has crossed my mind.”
He is balancing his concern with his sense that he can do more good by staying, including counseling patients on obtaining contraception.
Bardhi’s uncertainty reflects a broader hesitancy among some doctors and medical students who are reconsidering career prospects in red states where laws governing abortion have changed rapidly since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, according to interviews with health-care professionals and reproductive health advocates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/06/abortion-maternity-health-obgyn/?itid=hp-top-table-main
Red states, you have shot yourselves in the lower abdomen. Now deal with the bleeding.
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