Demovictory9

Demovictory9's Journal

February 19, 2021

Leaked texts contradict senator's claim he was indulging his daughters with vacation

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9277097/Leaked-texts-contradict-Ted-Cruzs-claim-indulging-daughters-Mexico-trip.html

Ted Cruz's wife Heidi planned family Cancun trip to escape 'FREEZING' Houston: Leaked texts contradict senator's claim he was indulging his daughters with vacation as he returns to find protesters outside his home

Texts sent by Heidi Cruz were published on Thursday showing her complaining about her 'FREEZING' home

Ted Cruz's wife shared the family's flight details with friends and urged them to join them for the four nights

The Texas senator has said his daughters begged him to take them out of the cold on Wednesday

His wife's texts seem to suggest that it was she, rather than the children, determined to escape

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'Anyone can or want to leave for the week? she asked her friends, in text messages obtained by American Bridge.

'We may go to Cancun there is a direct flight at 445pm and hotels w capacity.'

We lost power for two days, we lost power, we had no heat.

We were huddled around the fireplace behind me because it was the only heat in the house.

After a couple of days, with it being really cold and the teens outside, my girls said school's been cancelled, can we take a trip and go somewhere warm.

February 18, 2021

Promotions for Female Generals Were Delayed Over Fears of Trump's Reaction

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Promotions-for-Female-Generals-Were-Delayed-Over-15957217.php

Last fall, the Pentagon’s most senior leaders agreed that two top generals should be promoted to elite, four-star commands.

For then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the tricky part was that both of the accomplished officers were women. In 2020 America under President Donald Trump, the two Pentagon leaders feared that any candidates other than white men for jobs mostly held by white men might run into turmoil once their nominations got to the White House.

Esper and Milley worried that if they even raised their names — Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost of the Air Force and Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson of the Army — the Trump White House would replace them with their own candidates before leaving office.

So the Pentagon officials agreed on an unusual strategy: They held back their recommendations until after the November elections, betting that if Joe Biden won, he and his aides would be more supportive of the Pentagon picks than Trump, who had feuded with Esper and has a history of disparaging women. They stuck to the plan even after Trump fired Esper six days after the election.

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The strategy may soon pay off. In the next few weeks, Esper’s successor, Lloyd Austin, and Milley are expected to send the delayed recommendations to the White House, where officials are expected to endorse the nominations and formally submit them to the Senate for approval.

February 18, 2021

Bar Cancels Woman's 'Off to Prison' Party, Plans Fundraiser for Victims

Bar Cancels Woman's 'Off to Prison' Party, Plans Fundraiser for Victims
Ohio woman seriously injured two teenagers in drug-driving crash

A bar in Fairfield, Ohio, has canceled an "off to prison" party for a woman convicted of operating a vehicle under the influence of marijuana—and it's looking into holding a fundraiser for the two teenage girls she almost killed. Samantha Harvey, 51, also was convicted of aggravated vehicular assault after the two-vehicle crash in May last year. Mother Candy Schleuter tells Fox 19 that her heart sank when she found out about the event that Harvey and friends had organized. She says daughter Savannah suffered two collapsed lungs, multiple broken ribs, a lacerated kidney, spinal fractures, torn rotator cuffs, and a traumatic brain injury in the crash. The other girl, Caila Nagel, had similar injuries and is still in a wheelchair, Schlueter says. Word of the party spread on Facebook via a "Sending Samantha off to Prison Party" event page.

"It really just broke my heart, because I just feel like this is nothing to joke about," Schlueter says. Rick's Tavern and Grille said that it hadn't known what the party scheduled for this Sunday was for, WKRC reports. "We DO NOT condone this behavior! Our hearts go out to all that have been affected by this tragedy. This event has been CANCELLED," the bar said in a Facebook post. "We were not involved in any way with this accident. However, we are currently looking into options for holding a fundraiser to benefit those involved." Caila Nagel's parents thanked the owners "for personally reaching out to our family directly and apologizing even though it wasn’t their fault and they had no clue." Harvey could face up to 78 months in prison when she is sentenced on March 3.

https://www.newser.com/story/302705/bar-cancels-off-to-prison-party-for-stoned-driver.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_world_login

February 18, 2021

desperate for a hot meal, long line at Burger King that runs out of food

One customer told ABC13 they hadn't 'ate a meal all day so we're trying to get a hot meal and eat it at home'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9274901/Texas-stores-run-food-7-million-boil-water-orders-500-000-without-power.html

February 18, 2021

Ted's walk of shame... back from Cancun..wearing a Texas mask

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9273075/Ted-Cruz-jets-Cancun-millions-Texas-remain-without-power.html

February 18, 2021

SWAT team shows up at UCLA student's home Tuesday.. he participated in the capitol riot

A UCLA student who posted white supremacist views online and founded an ultra-right campus organization has been charged with federal crimes for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection

The student, Christian Secor, was captured on video sitting in the chair that Vice President Mike Pence had hastily vacated after a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol, according to the FBI.

FBI agents, assisted by a SWAT team, arrested Secor, 22, at his Costa Mesa home Tuesday morning after searching the residence, said Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman.

Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have charged Secor with assaulting or resisting a police officer, violent entry and remaining on restricted grounds, civil disorder and obstructing an official proceeding.

https://penpusherhackette.com/news/2021/02/17/ucla-student-with-extremist-views-who-fbi-says-sat-in-pences-chair-is-charged-in-capitol-riot/

In the livestream, Secor uses the moniker Scuffed Elliot Rodger, an apparent reference to the man who killed six people in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014 and became a hero to “incels” — a fringe group of sexually frustrated men who blame women for their misery and often advocate for violence against them.

https://penpusherhackette.com/news/2021/02/17/ucla-student-with-extremist-views-who-fbi-says-sat-in-pences-chair-is-charged-in-capitol-riot/

Secor’s arrest on Tuesday came as no surprise to UCLA students who documented and criticized his role as head of America First Bruins on campus, and urged the university to address what they saw in the past as hate speech and attacks on other students.

Secor, a former member of the Bruin Republicans, the campus’s pro-GOP student club, founded America First Bruins a few years ago, according to several UCLA’s, and is well known for using its platform on campus to deliver hateful, racist, and xenophobic comments. Students familiar with Secor.

Aidan Arasasingham, president of the UC Student Association, said the discussions about Secor’s controversial language reached a fever pitch in April, following disturbing tweets and comments directed at immigrant, undocumented and international students, as well as LGBTQ students and Jewish students.

Comments and Secor’s group sparked a discussion on campus about freedom of expression and hate speech. Arasasingham, a senior and global research division, said that many students petitioned university administrators to annul the club’s charter, an action official refused to do so on First Amendment rights grounds.

https://wikitrusted.com/christian-secor/

February 18, 2021

Volunteers In Texas Are Saving Thousands Of Cold-Stunned Sea Turtles From The Storm

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/17/968719492/volunteers-in-texas-are-saving-thousands-of-cold-stunned-sea-turtles-from-the-st

As of Wednesday morning, Knight said, the floor of Sea Turtle, Inc.'s facility was covered in bins containing some 500 rescues. The city's Convention and Visitors Bureau donated the use of the South Padre Island Convention Centre, which Knight said is currently housing the other approximately 4,000 in a combination of tarps, kiddie pools and boxes "lined up tip to toe."

The persistent cold temperatures mean more turtles will likely arrive throughout the day, prompting the need to spill over into a third storage facility, according to Knight. And with more bad weather on the way, she estimates the first turtles ready to return to the water won't be released until Saturday.

https://twitter.com/lara_hand/status/1361460058530308096

February 18, 2021

Life Expectancy Drops Sharply in U.S. , 2.7 years for Blacks, 1.9 for Hispanic, 0.8 for Whites

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/covid-life-expectancy.html

A Grim Measure of Covid’s Toll: Life Expectancy Drops Sharply in U.S.
American life expectancy fell by one year, to 77.8 years, in the first half of 2020. It may rebound as the pandemic’s end approaches.

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Life expectancy represents the average number of years that a newborn is expected to live if current death rates do not change. Declines tend to signal grave societal problems, like the sharp drop in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Declines in developed countries are rare, but the United States experienced them from 2014 to 2017 as the opioid epidemic took its toll. Before that, demographers had not seen an outright decline since 1993, during the AIDS epidemic.

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Covid-19 hit Black and Hispanic Americans harder than white Americans. People in those first two groups who died from the virus were also more likely to be younger, slicing into the life expectancy figures more deeply, Dr. Bassett said. She said the coronavirus mortality rate for Black people between the ages of 35 and 44, for example, was ninefold greater than for white people in the same age group, according to data from last February through July.

Over all, the death rate for Black Americans with Covid-19 was almost two times higher than for white Americans as of late January, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the death rate for Hispanics was 2.3 times higher than for white Americans.

The 2.7-year drop in life expectancy for African-Americans from January through June of last year was the largest decline, followed by a 1.9-year drop for Hispanic Americans and a 0.8-year drop for white Americans.

February 17, 2021

icicles on ceiling fans... pics illustrate how cold it is

An apartment complex in Dallas, Texas, where icicles have formed on ceiling fans

Natural gas runs in the home of Cynthia Valadez off of East Cesar Chavez Street in Austin on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021

Some desperate residents are defrosting snow for water in heir homes. Many have been told to boil water now and let it cool before they cook with it or drink with it because it's no longer safe. However any can't due to the power outages

People line up to fill their empty propane tanks Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Houston. Temperatures stayed below freezing Tuesday, and many residents were without electricity

Laramie White, whose home was among the thousands in the city that were left without power after extremely cold weather moved through Texas earlier in the week, stays warm with her dogs in her truck in Corpus Christi, Texas

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9270091/Texas-ERCOT-CEO-says-no-idea-power-restored.html