USA News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

More on that by the AP (The WT sux)

https://apnews.com/article/energy-effic ... 9fb12dfd50

[caltrek]

More on that:

White House Doctor Offers Explanation for Parkinson's Expert's Visits
by Mary Bruce
July 8, 2024

Introduction:

(ABC) In a letter released late Monday night by the president's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, he confirmed that Dr. Kevin Cannard, the Parkinson's expert who visited the White House eight times in an eight-month span, "was the neurological specialist that examined President Biden for each of his annual physicals."

Cannard’s visits to the White House don’t represent examinations of the president, according to O’Connor’s letter. Cannard is involved in a range of care for others beyond the president at the White House, O’Connor said in his note.

“Prior to the pandemic, and following its end, [Cannard] has held regular Neurology clinics at the White House Medical Clinic in support of the thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations,” his letter reads. “Many military personnel experience neurological issues related to their service, and Dr. Cannard regularly visits the WHMU as part of this General Neurology Practice.”

On the subject of Biden’s physical, O'Connor noted that "President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical."

O’Connor also stressed that Biden's last physical found no signs of Parkinson's, which he detailed in a Feb. 28 letter.

Read more here: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white- ... 11764565

[caltrek]

Ocasio-Cortez Introduces Articles of Impeachment Against Justice Thomas and Justice Alito
Press Release
July 10, 2024

Introduction:

(Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) Washington D.C.—Today, July 10, 2024, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) introduced articles of impeachment against United States Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

“The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed.

The Constitution of the United States explicitly outlines a higher standard of conduct for the judiciary to meet, far surpassing its existing bars on treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors for all civil officers: the standard of Good Behavior. Judicial ethics and rules, to which even the lowest level judges are held, make those standards clear. The lifetime appointments of Supreme Court justices make enforcement of these standards a solemn responsibility for the protection of our democracy,” said the Congresswoman.

“Justice Thomas and Alito’s repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law. And their refusal to recuse from the specific matters and cases before the court in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated represents nothing less than a constitutional crisis. These failures alone would amount to a deep transgression worthy of standard removal in any lower court, and would disqualify any nominee to the highest court from confirmation in the first place.

Given the court’s demonstrated inability to preserve its own legitimate conduct, it is incumbent upon Congress to contain the threat this poses to our democracy and the hundreds of millions of Americans harmed by the crisis of corruption unfurling within the court. Congress has a legal, moral, and democratic obligation to impeach,” she continued.

Read more here: https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/ ... thomas-and

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[firestar464]

How States Can Undo One of This Supreme Court Term’s Most Egregious Decisions

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... -pass.html

[weatheriscool]

Apparent assasination attempt against Trump at Butler, PA rally

breaking

https://x.com/meridithmcgraw/status/1812248766172512373

Quote
JUST NOW: Gun shots fired at Trump rally in PA. Screams can be heard. People taking cover. Terrifying.

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Quote
The Shooter who attempted to Assassinate the Former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump at a Campaign Rally today in Pennsylvania is reported by Law Enforcement to be Deceased.

[Powers]

Quote
The Shooter who attempted to Assassinate the Former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump at a Campaign Rally today in Pennsylvania is reported by Law Enforcement to be Deceased.

It seems that there were 2 deceaseds, including the shooter.

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Corrupt Judges are Legalizing Bribery
by Jim Hightower
July 10, 2024

Introduction:

(Other Words) If the six right-wing dogmatists who now literally rule the Supreme Court wonder why 70 percent of the American people consider them somewhere between politically corrupt and grotesque, they might re-read their own Kafkasesque decision last month perverting the meaning of bribery.

Appropriately enough, the case involved garbage trucks.

A small town Indiana mayor had funneled a million-dollar contract for new garbage trucks to a local seller, which then made a $13,000 payoff to the mayor. Obvious graft.

But no, the six supremes decreed that the payoff was not illegal, because it was given to the mayor after the garbage truck contract was issued. Taking money before would be a bribe, they babbled, but money given afterwards is an innocent “gratuity” — like tipping a waiter for good service.

The court’s distortion of kindergarten-level ethics was written by Brett Kavanaugh, infamous for his own frat-boy moral contortions. In his formal opinion, Brett rhetorically asked if such after-the-fact kickbacks should be considered bribes. “The answer,” he proclaimed,” is no.”

Read more here: https://otherwords.org/corrupt-judges- ... -bribery/

[Vakanai]

Corrupt Judges are Legalizing Bribery
by Jim Hightower
July 10, 2024

Introduction:

(Other Words) If the six right-wing dogmatists who now literally rule the Supreme Court wonder why 70 percent of the American people consider them somewhere between politically corrupt and grotesque, they might re-read their own Kafkasesque decision last month perverting the meaning of bribery.

Appropriately enough, the case involved garbage trucks.

A small town Indiana mayor had funneled a million-dollar contract for new garbage trucks to a local seller, which then made a $13,000 payoff to the mayor. Obvious graft.

But no, the six supremes decreed that the payoff was not illegal, because it was given to the mayor after the garbage truck contract was issued. Taking money before would be a bribe, they babbled, but money given afterwards is an innocent “gratuity” — like tipping a waiter for good service.

The court’s distortion of kindergarten-level ethics was written by Brett Kavanaugh, infamous for his own frat-boy moral contortions. In his formal opinion, Brett rhetorically asked if such after-the-fact kickbacks should be considered bribes. “The answer,” he proclaimed,” is no.”

Read more here: https://otherwords.org/corrupt-judges- ... -bribery/

The only thing surprising about this obvious show of corruption from our conservative judges is the opinion was written by Kavanugh and not Clarence, considering all the "not" bribes he's clearly taken on the court...

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Senator Menendez Must Resign to Restore Voters’ Faith
by
July 16, 2024

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Today, after deliberating for two days, a jury found New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez guilty of all 16 counts in a federal corruption trial, including bribery, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent. The senator was accused of accepting gifts in exchange for official favors to Egypt and Qatar. The gifts, from New Jersey businessmen, include cash, gold bars, luxury watches, car payments to his wife, and more.

The senator is the first sitting member of Congress to be charged with conspiracy by a public official to act as a foreign agent. He continues to sit on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged with shaping the country’s international policy and affairs.

Statement of Common Cause President and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón

“When we choose our elected leaders, we place a high level of trust in them to represent our interests and protect our freedoms. After a guilty verdict from a jury of his peers who heard all the facts of the case, Senator Menendez has broken the trust of New Jersey voters

Conclusion:

Rather than serve the voters, Senator Menendez sold them out for his own personal profit. He must resign.”

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/ ... ers-faith

caltrek’s comment: If the Justice Department is weaponized to go after partisan opponents, then why did they go after the Democrat Menendez?

You don’t suppose it is because they go after people that break the law?

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[caltrek]

I often find myself invoking a socialist oriented vocabulary to describe the events of the day. MAGA strikes me as being profoundly reactionary in nature. I found these passages from a recent Jacobin article to be a nice description of the nature of this reactionary movement. I must admit that the article is longer than the sort I usually cite, and I only skimmed over other parts as they merely reviewed what has otherwise been well documented in this forum. Still, I found the passages cited below to be quite striking and very much on point.

The End of the Future
by Steve Fraser

Extract:

(Jacobin) MAGA world longs to go back — way, way back. It imagines a time untainted by the cultural inversions of the ’60s, one where the New Deal never got dealt, for some even one where the Civil War and Reconstruction were roads not taken. This is made plain in its racial and ethnic phobias, its sexual orthodoxy, its patriarchal sensibility and patriotic braggadocio, its evangelical piety, and its live-free-or-die antipathy to interfering government. MAGA is a magnet for all the anxieties unloosed by the decay of an antiquated industrial capitalism.

MAGAites are resentful, and for many good reasons; they are the flyover, bypassed, disdained millions of the postindustrial order, living in the ruins. Their sense of the future is soured in the bile of their resentment. That past tense future is a gossamer prevision, a reincarnation of a past that never quite was.

Still, it grips. A recent survey of Republicans, reported by the Washington Post on July 6, found that 70 percent of them believed life had deteriorated since the 1950s. Maybe the old-time familial order wasn’t exactly frictionless, but in their minds, at least it was orderly, unlike today’s entropic disarray and dysfunction. God lent solace and moral certainty, even if His regime could be exacting, His ineffable mercy just beyond reach. Now God is a social refugee, exiled from the mainstream.

Read more here: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-polit ... progress

caltrek’s comment: Trump appeals to this mentality in that his administration is seen as at least a partial attempt to restore this old order of the 1950s and before. It is a movement seeks to go not back to the future but forward to the past. At least a past as many imagined it to be.

[weatheriscool]

Heat-related Texas deaths climb after Beryl left millions without power for days or longer

Source: AP

By JAMIE STENGLE and LEKAN OYEKANMI
Updated 12:32 AM CDT, July 21, 2024

SPRING, Texas (AP) — As the temperature soared in the Houston-area home Janet Jarrett shared with her sister after losing electricity in Hurricane Beryl, she did everything she could to keep her 64-year-old sibling cool.

But on their fourth day without power, she awoke to hear Pamela Jarrett, who used a wheelchair and relied on a feeding tube, gasping for breath. Paramedics were called but she was pronounced dead at the hospital, with the medical examiner saying her death was caused by the heat.

“It’s so hard to know that she’s gone right now because this wasn’t supposed to happen to her,” Janet Jarrett said.

Almost two weeks after Beryl hit, heat-related deaths during the prolonged power outages have pushed the number of storm-related fatalities to at least 23 in Texas

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/houston-powe ... 5e179953ba

[Time_Traveller]

Prime sued in trademark case by US Olympic committee

3 hours ago

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee is suing Logan Paul and KSI's Prime energy drinks brand, accusing it of trademark infringement.

It claims that Prime is using trademarked Olympic phrases and symbols on a special edition of its hydration drink featuring basketball star and three-time Olympic gold medallist Kevin Durant.

The committee said it does not have an agreement with Prime for the use of its terminology and trademarks, and said its actions had been "deliberate" and "in bad faith".

The BBC has contacted Prime for comment.

The committee filed the lawsuit in Colorado on Friday, and also accused Prime of using the trademarks in internet campaigns and promotions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ng785gjv0o

[weatheriscool]