Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalKatie Britt Blames Everyone but Herself in Fundraising Plea
After a State of the Union rebuttal that even some in her own party felt embarrassed by, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) is trying to use that backlash to her advantage, writing in a fundraising email Tuesday that her “heart is broken” for those she said she was speaking on behalf of.
“Following my speech, the far-left media didn’t waste a second flooding the airwaves with despicable, disgusting messages about me,” the email read. “They attacked my character.
They attacked my faith. They attacked my identity as a mother and a wife.”
Britt’s stunted delivery earned mockery from The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, and even Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel. On Fox News, one host took a different view, insisting Britt did a “great job” and was “natural.” But that wasn’t enough to prevent her from writing that her “heart is broken.”
“Not for myself, but for my children, your children and the ENTIRE next generation of Americans. Why? Because I didn’t prepare a 20 minute speech and stand up to Biden in front of millions of Americans for ME. I did it for them, for YOU and for your children, Friend!” she wrote.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/katie-britt-blames-everyone-but-herself-in-shameless-fundraising-plea
NAACP calls on Black student-athletes to boycott Florida public colleges over anti-DEI policy
The head of the NAACP is calling on Black student-athletes to reconsider their decisions to attend public colleges and universities in Florida, challenging a new state policy that bars those institutions from using government funds on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
In a letter sent Monday to current and future student-athletes of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NAACP leader Derrick Johnson implored college-bound Black athletes to “choose wisely.”
“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are paramount to ensuring equitable and effective educational outcomes,” Johnson said in a statement accompanying the letter, which was first reported by NBC News. “The value Black and other college athletes bring to large universities is unmatched.”
“If these institutions are unable to completely invest in those athletes, it’s time they take their talents elsewhere,” said Johnson, the civil rights organization’s president and chief executive.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/naacp-boycott-florida-colleges-black-athletes-dei-policy-rcna142549
There's a whole lot of schools down there besides Florida and Florida State, too......
Girl Scouts were told to stop bracelet-making fundraiser for kids in Gaza. Now they can't keep up
Missouri Girl Scout leaders threatened legal action against a troop that made bracelets to raise funds for starving children in Gaza, provoking outrage and ridicule from the girls’ supporters and advocates for people trapped in the Palestinian territory by the latest humanitarian crisis.
Girl Scouts of the USA said its eastern Missouri chapter had only been following fundraising rules, but that it was “disappointed and disheartened by the tone” of the communication with the troop in St. Louis.
“We felt like we were targeted, unfairly belittled and unheard,” said Nawal Abuhamdeh, a first generation Palestinian Muslim American and the leader of Troop 149 in St. Louis, which has since disbanded from the Girl Scouts.
Tasneem Manjra, a troop leader in California, said it looks like the Girl Scouts are backtracking because they were called out.
“I think that’s a load of Thin Mints,” said Manjra. “They were way too heavy-handed in their response to Nawal and her troop.”
Abuhamdeh said the fundraising effort began because the girls in her troop were uncomfortable selling Girl Scout Cookies while people are starving in Gaza. During one meeting, the girls — who are of Pakistani, Indian, Somali, Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian heritage — cried and said they felt hopeless.
https://apnews.com/article/girl-scouts-gaza-bracelets-ae0d36cf651a0e995243a85084fbd016
Organizations run by adults getting in the way of kids again....
No Labels considering Geoff Duncan as candidate
No Labels may finally have a candidate in consideration for its third-party "unity ticket" in the 2024 presidential election.
Sources familiar with the group's efforts to field a third-party ticket tell ABC News that No Labels representatives have had meetings with former Georgia GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan about running as the group's presidential candidate.
Duncan wouldn't comment on this report, but isn't shutting down speculation.
On Friday, No Labels voted to move forward with the effort to field a bi-partisan challenge to the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/former-georgia-gop-lt-gov-geoff-duncan-consideration/story?id=107940453
Just another RepubliKKKan...so we know who they are. They might as well run Nomrata Randhawa.
Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans, studies find
The murder of Laken Riley took center stage during Thursday night's State of the Union address. Riley was a 22-year-old student who was killed last month at the University of Georgia. The suspect in her murder is a Venezuelan migrant whom officials say was illegally in the U.S.
During the Republican rebuttal, Riley's murder was brought up by Alabama Sen. Katie Britt. "She was brutally murdered by one of the millions of illegal border crossers President Biden chose to release into our homeland. Y'all ... as a mom, I can't quit thinking about this. I mean, this could have been my daughter. This could have been yours."
The claim that immigration brings on a crime wave can be traced back to the first immigrants who arrived in the U.S. Ever since the 1980s and '90s, this false narrative saw a resurgence.
During the current presidential campaign, the vitriol has been intense. Just in the last few months, former President Donald Trump has spoken of immigrants as criminals and mentally ill people who are "poisoning the blood of our country." Florida Gov. (and former presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis suggested migrants crossing the border be shot.
However, research indicates that immigrants commit less crimes than U.S.-born people.
Much of the available data focuses on incarceration rates because that's where immigration status is recorded.
Some of the most extensive research comes from Stanford University. Economist Ran Abramitzky found that since the 1960s, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born peopl
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1237103158/immigrants-are-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-us-born-americans-studies-find
STFU, Katie Britt!
Xcel Energy admits it was 'involved in ignition' of Texas's Smokehouse Creek fire
The electric utility company Xcel Energy admitted on Thursday that it appeared to have played a role in Texas’s Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest wildfire in modern US history.
“Based on currently available information, Xcel Energy acknowledges that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire,” it said in a statement on Thursday.
Xcel said it has been cooperating with investigations into the wildfires and conducting its own review of the incident.
It also encouraged people who have lost livestock or had property damaged in the fire to submit a claim to the company through its claims process.
But Xcel rejected claims that it was negligent in maintaining and operating its infrastructure, contradicting a lawsuit against it by a homeowner near Canadian, Texas, whose house was destroyed in the fire. In the lawsuit, Melanie McQuiddy claimed the fire was started by one of Xcel’s fallen utility poles.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/texas-wildfire-cause-xcel-energy
Xcel is talking out of both sides of its corporate mouth. Because of course.....
What happens
if the Slobfather is nominated, but becomes thoroughly incapacitated (strokes out or whatever) or even dies before the election? Will the RepubliKKKans have to hold another convention, go with the incapacitatied candidate, the Veep candidate, or what? This has never happened, but in view of his continued deterioration, anything could.
A plastic fork, a phone, a car part: why does the LAPD keep shooting people holding harmless objects?
The first report from the Los Angeles police department about the killing of Jason Maccani on 3 February immediately drew scrutiny: an officer had fatally shot a man who had been “armed with a stick” and threatening people in a building on Skid Row, the department said.
LAPD’s update a day later raised new concerns: the 36-year-old Maccani hadn’t been holding any weapon, but rather a “white plastic fork”.
Body-camera footage released two weeks later raised even further questions about LAPD’s shifting narrative. The footage showed Maccani alone walking out of a unit into the building hallway, not threatening anyone, when seven officers approached with weapons drawn. The officer who fired the fatal shot opened fire within roughly 15 seconds of seeing him.
The killing of Maccani has sparked national consternation, but the circumstances are not unique. In recent years, LAPD has repeatedly shot individuals holding ordinary objects that police either mistook for weapons or claimed could be dangerous. That includes two shootings of people carrying cellphones; two cases where men had lighters; and shootings of people holding, alternatively, a bike part, a car part and a wooden board.
The shootings, which have cost taxpayers millions in settlements, lay bare continued flaws in how LAPD responds to calls for help, civil rights advocates and policing experts say.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/04/los-angeles-police-jason-maccani-death
Trigger-happy bastards, and no Crisis Response Team?
Taylor Swift is related to Emily Dickinson, genealogy company reveals
Taylor Swift is related to poet Emily Dickinson, according to Ancestry.com, who shared the news in an exclusive report with NBC’s Today.
On Monday, the genealogy company divulged that “Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th-century English immigrant (Swift’s ninth great-grandfather and Dickinson’s sixth great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut)”.
Swift’s ancestors apparently “remained in Connecticut for six generations until her part of the family eventually settled in north-western Pennsylvania, where they married into the Swift family line”.
Dickinson and Swift are sixth cousins, three times removed. Dickinson, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, is regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson lived as a recluse in her family’s home and only published anonymously while she was alive.
Notably, Swift has referenced the poet previously in public comments on her songwriting. In 2022, while accepting the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade award from the Nashville Songwriters Association International, she said: “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the quill genre.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/04/taylor-swift-emily-dickinson
As an aide, my maternal line in this country also begins in Windsor, CT.
Married Christian School Coaches Accused of Abusing Player
The former principal of a religious school in Oregon and his teacher wife have been charged with sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl on the basketball team they coached.
Now police say they believe there may be other victims, and are asking anyone with information to come forward.
David Alan Wakefield, 60, and Rachel Jean Wakefield, 54, were co-coaches at Damascus Christian School when the girl was allegedly abused between 2013 and 2017.
They were arrested after a grand jury indicted David on 20 counts of sex abuse and his wife on 11 counts—with the pair later being released on $100,000 bail. Their attorneys said in a statement that the Wakefields “have been valued members of the Clackamas County Community for their entire lives. They deny the charges and look forward to the day when the truth comes out.”
Founded in 1975, Damascus Christian has about 365 students in grades kindergarten through 12th and uses a Bible-based curriculum.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/david-and-rachel-wakefield-accused-of-abusing-damascus-christian-school-teen
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