Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalBlack Passenger's Suit Says Flight Crew Reported He Was Allegedly Trafficking His White Wife
A Black passenger who flew with American Airlines in 2022 claims in a lawsuit that he and his white wife were wrongly imprisoned after crew members reported to local authorities that they suspected him of trafficking his wife.
On Sept. 13, 2022, retired police officer Anthony Williams boarded a flight from Phoenix to Miami for his honeymoon with Katsiaryna Shasholka. A fellow passenger told American Airlines employees that he believed Shasholka was being trafficked, according to the lawsuit filed last week in the Southern District of Florida.
The airline employees who took the passenger’s report did not question Williams or his wife but instead reported him to law enforcement, the lawsuit says. When they landed in Miami, Williams and Shasholka were escorted off the plane by American Airlines employees.
Williams and his wife say they were humiliated and confused as other passengers walked past them as they were made to wait at the airport, according to the lawsuit. The two were then questioned together by police.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-passenger-american-airlines-accused-trafficking-white-wife_n_67894849e4b088524807e450
Look for more of these incidents in the new administration.
Tech founder pledges to give away half his wealth to make the American dream more possible
Unfair. Astonishing. Un-American.
That is how tech entrepreneur Jeff Atwood sees the staggering wealth inequality in the U.S. today. In response, he and his family have pledged to give away half their wealth within five years, starting with $1 million gifts to eight nonprofits this month.
His warning about the dangers of growing inequity was echoed by outgoing President Joe Biden in his final primetime speech Wednesday.
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said.
Atwood, who co-founded Stack Overflow, a popular forum for software developers, made the pledge Jan. 7 in a blog post.
“The American dream isn’t about just getting rich. It’s about everyone succeeding,” said Atwood, in an interview with The Associated Press from his home in the Bay Area.
https://apnews.com/article/wealth-inequality-oligarchy-jeff-atwood-stack-overflow-6ad4ad347b657ce695ca0ce95413040b
The anti-Eloon!
Woman poisoned infant to exploit her for donations
A woman has been arrested after allegedly poisoning a 1-year-old girl over two months so she could post videos of the child online in order to solicit donations from the public, police said.
The Queensland Police in Australia said that the Morningside Child Protection and Investigation Unit (CPIU) has charged a woman with torture following “extensive investigations into allegations of an infant being poisoned,” according to a statement released on Thursday.
“It will be alleged between August 6 to October 15, 2024, a 34-year-old Sunshine Coast woman administered several unauthorised prescription and pharmacy medicines to a one-year-old girl, who was known to her, without medical approval,” authorities said. “It will be further alleged the woman, disregarding medical advice, went to lengths to obtain unauthorised medicines, including old medicines for a different person available in their home.”
Further investigations into the case allegedly revealed that the woman “carefully concealed her continued efforts to administer the unauthorised medicines until the matter was detected and reported to police by medical staff from a hospital in Brisbane’s south while the child was admitted.”
https://abcnews.go.com/International/woman-poisoned-1-year-girl-months-exploit-online/story?id=117776822
I guess their cops are better than ours. They stopped a DeeDee Blanchard long before her daughter's boyfriend did....
Christian extremists held a disturbing worship session inside the Texas statehouse
Far-right conservatives took a loss in Tuesday’s vote for speaker of Texas’ House of Representatives. But the story of the day, from my vantage point, was the scenes of Christian extremism that emerged from the state Capitol.
For those who haven’t been following along: Texas Republicans have been at one another’s throats of late, and the ongoing civil war stems largely from the failed effort to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Late last year, then-Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, withdrew his bid to remain speaker after leading the impeachment effort. On Tuesday, Rep. David Cook, the candidate backed by Paxton and the more conservative of the two Republican sects, lost to a less Trumpy (albeit still conservative) opponent, Rep. Dustin Burrows, who received dozens of Democratic votes en route to victory.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wasn’t happy.
But the most disturbing outbursts came from the Christian extremists who gathered at the statehouse, where they denounced the separation of church and state — with one pastor proclaiming: “We’re going to give this space back to the Holy Spirit.”
https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/texas-speaker-vote-christian-nationalists-trump-rcna187869
Looks like a good place for God to start a new set of fires. Democrats, get out of Texas!
Rep Crockett: GOP Staffer Made Threatening Call to My Office
Shortly after a heated exchange between Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) during a House committee meeting earlier this week, the Texas Democrat said she received a creepy phone call from a Republican staffer that seemingly doubled down on Mace’s threats of “violence.”
“That was a pretty heated exchange between y’all and Mace. My money’s on Mace,” the staffer said on the call, according to Crockett’s office.
She did not name who the staffer was—but the Texas Democrat said she isn’t taking the call lightly.
“I will say that I think that I do need to take it seriously, because violence has become a very real thing in this chamber, and ultimately, kind of in this country when it comes to politics,” she said. “And she threatened violence.”
Mace, a representative for South Carolina’s 1st congressional district and a an outspoken domestic violence survivor, insisted in an X post that she did not in fact mean fisticuffs when she said “take it outside” during a Tuesday meeting of the House Oversight Committee.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jasmine-crockett-gop-staffer-made-threatening-call-to-my-office-after-nancy-mace-drama/
Why would anything Nasty Mace, a 50-something middle school mean girl, does, surprise you? Or tells her staff to do, for that matter?
Jasmine Crockett Has A 'Long' To-Do List For Nancy Mace After Her 'Child' Meltdown
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) on Wednesday doubled down on her push for Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) to drop her anti-trans crusade after the topic sparked a heated exchange at a House Oversight Committee hearing.
“Maybe start serving your constituents, maybe actually come up with legislation that will help them so that they know that they will be safer when the next storm comes through on the East Coast,” said Crockett as she suggested ways for Mace to make “good money” in an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid.
She continued, “Maybe figure out how to bring some jobs to your constituents in South Carolina, maybe figure out how you can have worker protections for the people that are working in factories in South Carolina. I got a long list of stuff she could do that would actually be helpful to not only her coffers but also her constituents.”
The heated exchange at Tuesday’s oversight hearing saw Mace, in response to Crockett’s ask to reinstate a civil rights and civil liberties subcommittee, declare that Republicans shouldn’t get advice from “a group of people who can’t define what a woman is.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jasmine-crockett-nancy-mace-need-money-child-clash_n_6788e30ce4b0ebaad44eeeab
I guess I'll claim Jasmine Crockett as my new representative since Ben Cline (VA-06) most definitely does not represent ME!
Here's everyone performing at the presidential inauguration
President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sworn into office on Jan. 20 — and unlike his first inauguration in 2017, which reportedly struggled to book high-profile performers, several well-known artists will partake in this year's inaugural events.
"The Trump Vance Inaugural Committee is proud to announce that some of our nation's most iconic [musicians] will be participating in the inaugural celebrations," said co-chairs Steve Witkoff and Kelly Loeffler in a statement provided to NPR. "This monumental weekend will commemorate President Trump's historic victory and the 60th Presidential Inauguration with a celebration of music, unity, and patriotism, ushering in America's new Golden Age."
Below is a list of the artists scheduled to perform throughout inaugural events, not including a surprise musical guest set to appear at the Liberty Ball.
Carrie Underwood
Christopher Macchio
Lee Greenwood
Kid Rock
Village People
Billy Ray Cyrus
Liberty University's Praise Choir
Jason Aldean
Rascal Flatts
Parker McCollum
Gavin DeGraw
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/g-s1-42963/presidential-inauguration-performers-carrie-underwood-kid-rock-jason-aldean
So you know who to boycott, if you weren't already. Note that MILEY CYRUS has been openly critical of the orange slime.
Joe Biden says 'soul of America' still at stake in farewell letter as president
Joe Biden has said the “soul of America” is still at stake in a valedictory message implicitly admitting that the national divisions that spurred him to run for the White House remain unbridged at end of his four-year presidency.
The acknowledgment came in a farewell letter issued ahead of a televised speech from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, when he will deliver his final address as president before being replaced by Donald Trump next week.
“I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake,” Biden wrote in what is likely to be a theme reprised in his speech. “And, that’s still the case.”
The admission was an oblique recognition that Biden’s legacy – touted in a long catalogue of claimed achievements at the end of the letter – is overshadowed by the impending return of Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday after his election victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris in November.
Biden made it explicit when he was campaigning for the presidency in 2020 that he was motivated by a desire to defeat Trump and cast the contest against him as a battle for America’s “soul”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/15/joe-biden-farewell
Well said, Joe. And since the orange slime has no soul.....
'A trash can for the US': anger in Mexico and Canada over toxic waste shipments
US companies ship more than 1m tons of hazardous waste to other countries each year, raising questions over possible impacts on health and the environment, an investigation by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab has found.
Exports of toxic waste, most of which is shipped to Mexico and Canada, have climbed 17% since 2018, US records show. And while sending it away for recycling and disposal is legal, some experts are concerned that more and more of America’s most dangerous discards are leaving the country.
In the Monterrey metropolitan area in Mexico, the investigation has uncovered high levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic in homes and schools around a plant that recycles toxic dust produced by the US steel industry. Other huge quantities of waste go to Mexico to battery-recycling plants that experts worry are fouling the air and exposing workers to dangerous heavy metals.
In Quebec, Canada, children and adults who live near a smelter that processes electronic waste, including materials from Silicon Valley and other US locations, have been found to have high levels of arsenic in their fingernails. At another Quebec site, some of the toxic waste is buried in giant cells near a peat bog.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/14/mexico-canada-us-toxic-waste-shipments
Trump will begin his presidency in a delicate position, a new poll finds
As Donald Trump prepares to once again assume the office of the presidency, a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds that, despite his claims of an "unprecedented and powerful mandate," Trump may have to be careful about how far he decides to go with what he wants to do.
More people hold an unfavorable than favorable view of him, most are against pardoning those convicted of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and they're split on whether to mass deport immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal status.
Perhaps most importantly, Americans have high expectations that their personal financial situations will improve under Trump, but more think tariffs will hurt rather than help the economy.
Trump has promised bold action, but, as the NPR poll shows, the politics may be tricky. Presidents often become vulnerable because of overreach. They tend to believe — falsely — that because they were elected, they have a mandate for everything on their agenda. Clearly, that's not the case.
"The opening round of the second term is not going well with the public," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the survey of 1,387 adults. "Americans are not convinced of Trump's agenda pillars, including pardons and tariffs. Mass deportations are only getting mixed reviews."
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5259893/poll-trump-immigration-economy-favorability
"Mr. Big Talk, who do you think you are?"
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