Octopus Overlords

Sen. Mike Lee has become something of a media critic in recent weeks.

On his personal Facebook page, Lee has repeatedly criticized KSL.com and The Associated Press, attacking them for “bias” and inaccurate reporting.

He has gone so far as to call for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to sell the news website, creating the hashtag #sellKSL.

It appears the sustained campaign began Aug. 15, when the senator ripped into KSL.com for a tweet about an AP story. The tweet read “President Donald Trump’s younger brother, Robert Trump, a businessman known for an even keel that seemed almost incompatible with the family name, died after being hospitalized in New York, the president said in a statement.”

That tweet comes almost verbatim from the AP story. That story also supported that statement with quotes from the president, including this paragraph: “Donald Trump once described his younger brother as ‘much quieter and easygoing than I am.’”

Lee called the KSL tweet “appalling” and said KSL was “spiking some sort of political football.” He finished the Facebook post calling for the church to sell KSL.

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2020 8:46 am I typically find myself avoiding 9/11 on social media, as I've noticed a shift towards extreme jingoism and veiled (or often not-so-veiled) anti Muslim sentiments over the last few years. Doubly so this year.

Watching the same MAGA crowd that talks about the sacrifices they are willing to make to prevent another terrorist attack that killed 3,000, yet cries "TYRANNY!" and refuses to make even the slightest sacrifice to help prevent the deaths of 200,000 Americans (and counting) feels like the height of hypocrisy.

YMMV.

California is making it easier for formerly incarcerated firefighters to go professional, with a new law enabling nonviolent offenders to have their criminal records expunged.

For decades, liberal California has relied on its massive prison population to fight wildfires. Detained men and women are trained on how to fight blazes, sleeping in camps, and earning a couple of dollars a day. But until now they were largely unable to put that experience to use once free.

In a statement on Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he was signing a bill, AB 2147, to fix that.
...
Many fire departments reject candidates with a troubled legal past. Under AB 2147, formerly incarcerated people can petition a county court to have that past excised.

NY Times wrote:Ralph Mitchell’s neighbors were fleeing. Ash rained from the sky. And outside Mr. Mitchell’s natural-medicine business, a police cruiser announced on loudspeaker: “This has been declared a life-threatening fire emergency. You need to evacuate the city.”

Mr. Mitchell was having none of it. He was staying.

“There’s already reports that antifa’s in town, going down the streets looting,” he said, echoing widely discredited rumors on Twitter and Facebook that left-wing activists had been systematically setting blazes. “I’m getting texts.”

Every natural disaster has its holdouts. But the political fear-stoking that accompanied a tumultuous summer of racial-justice protests in Oregon has become a volatile new complication in the catastrophic wildfires that pushed closer to Portland on Friday, as authorities try to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people.

Law enforcement officials across the state said they had been swamped with calls about social media misinformation and begged people to “STOP. SPREADING. RUMORS!” In the line of fire, the swirl of rumors actually helped goad some people into defying evacuation orders so they could stay and guard their homes.

dbt1949 wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:50 am I don't know why the news media keeps reporting on stupid/bad things Trump says. Those of us who hate him can't hate any more and those who love him don't care.
Are there any undecideds anymore?

dbt1949 wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:50 am I don't know why the news media keeps reporting on stupid/bad things Trump says. Those of us who hate him can't hate any more and those who love him don't care.
Are there any undecideds anymore?

Kraken wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 10:44 amMyself, I can't believe 40% of Americans look around and think "Yup, things are good. Let's keep doing this."

Kraken wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 10:44 am

dbt1949 wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:50 am I don't know why the news media keeps reporting on stupid/bad things Trump says. Those of us who hate him can't hate any more and those who love him don't care.
Are there any undecideds anymore?

I recently read that 3% of voters are undecided or persuadable. If true, that's enough to change the outcome.

Kraken wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 10:44 am

dbt1949 wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:50 am I don't know why the news media keeps reporting on stupid/bad things Trump says. Those of us who hate him can't hate any more and those who love him don't care.
Are there any undecideds anymore?

I recently read that 3% of voters are undecided or persuadable. If true, that's enough to change the outcome.

Nothing can shake the 40-42% who approve of trump, and they're already highly motivated, but the 50+% who disapprove are less enthusiastic. Democrats need to make sure that number stays high and those people vote.

Myself, I can't believe 40% of Americans look around and think "Yup, things are good. Let's keep doing this."

U.S. District Judge Janis Jack said Friday she will once again hold Texas health and human services officials in contempt of court, a punishment that may come with hefty fines, for failing to make progress toward foster care reforms she ordered to be implemented last year.

Jack indicated she would give the state about a month to make improvements before deciding whether to assess fines of up to several thousand dollars per day.

If finalized, the contempt finding would mark the second time in 10 months that Jack has punished state officials for being out of compliance with her demands, which are the culmination of a decade-long class-action lawsuit that brought the state under federal court supervision. Her announcement followed a two-day hearing, held by video conference, in which she frequently chided some of Texas’ top child welfare bureaucrats.
...
The hearing focused on more than a dozen of Jack’s orders, which required state officials to beef up oversight of residential facilities that house kids, improve the timeliness of state investigations into abuse and neglect in foster homes, and build software to alert caregivers and caseworkers about instances of child-on-child sexual aggression. Jack also urged state officials at the hearing to improve communication between two separate state agencies: one that oversees children in foster care and one that licenses homes and facilities that house large numbers of foster children.
...
Texas foster care officials testified Thursday that they had recently stopped placing children in one facility where monitors identified problems. A Texas Department of Family and Protective Services official testified that the agency was terminating its contract this week with Prairie Harbor, a Houston-area residential treatment center where a teen died in February from a pulmonary embolism associated with a blood clot in her leg.

The home has yet to have its license pulled, though state officials indicated that was a possibility.
...
In November 2019, Jack held the state in contempt of court after a similarly fiery hearing for failing to comply with her orders, at the time focusing on a requirement that large foster homes have 24-hour, awake supervision. Based on initial information from the monitors, she said then she no longer found the state’s child welfare agency “to be credible in any way.”

She fined the state $150,000 at the time.

Kurth wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 10:00 pmBut I’m at a loss on the second point. I know Ted Kennedy shoulders blame fir the politicization of the SC nomination process due to his handling of the Bork nomination, but it’s not like he refused to hold a hearing.

Anyone know what’s behind this right wing talking point???

ImLawBoy wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 1:57 pm My dad and I were driving to my soon-to-be brother-in-law's bachelor party (the tame version, presumably) and we were on an overpass above an interstate in suburban Chicago. There was a large thump and something rolled up the hood. We were face-to-face with a rather startled deer. My dad memorably quipped, "Th... th... that's a deer!" It then rolled off the hood and ran away, never to be seen again.

Jaymann wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:00 pm

ImLawBoy wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 1:57 pm My dad and I were driving to my soon-to-be brother-in-law's bachelor party (the tame version, presumably) and we were on an overpass above an interstate in suburban Chicago. There was a large thump and something rolled up the hood. We were face-to-face with a rather startled deer. My dad memorably quipped, "Th... th... that's a deer!" It then rolled off the hood and ran away, never to be seen again.

How do you know this?

The attorney general had been driving home to Pierre after attending the Spink County Lincoln Day Dinner in Redfield, Bormann said. The event was hosted at Rooster’s Bar and Grill from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., according to the website of the South Dakota GOP.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:16 pm Growing up in the outskirts, we always kept a.pair of gloves in the trunk to clear dead stuff off the road. We always stopped if we hit something that wasn't an obvious small rodent corpse.

Something like a deer you always check and clear the road, even if it was already dead. A few times we had to euthanize an injured animal. Then get home, call DNR.


You always stop. Who doesn't stop? State AGs I guess.


Also:

The attorney general had been driving home to Pierre after attending the Spink County Lincoln Day Dinner in Redfield, Bormann said. The event was hosted at Rooster’s Bar and Grill from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., according to the website of the South Dakota GOP.

Pretty sure we know why he didn't stop.

malchior wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 7:44 pm Fuck ICE. Shut. It. Down.

Several legal advocacy groups on Monday filed a whistleblower complaint on behalf of a nurse at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center documenting “jarring medical neglect” within the facility, including a refusal to test detainees for the novel coronavirus and an exorbitant rate of hysterectomies being performed on immigrant women.

The nurse, Dawn Wooten, was employed at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Georgia, which is operated by LaSalle Corrections, a private prison company. The complaint was filed with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by advocacy groups Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network.

Multiple women came forward to tell Project South about what they perceived to be the inordinate rate at which women in ICDC were subjected to hysterectomies – a surgical operation in which all or part of the uterus is removed. Additionally, many of the immigrant women who underwent the procedure were reportedly “confused” when asked to explain why they had the surgery, with one detainee likening their treatment to prisoners in concentration camps.

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 5:14 pm I'd say im speechless but there are hints we are the baddies all the time now. This might be a solid indicator.

Eugenics Compensation Act: In December 2015, the US Senate voted unanimously to help surviving victims of forced sterilization. North Carolina has paid $35,000 to 220 surviving victims of its eugenics program. Virginia agreed to give surviving victims $25,000 each.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 6:42 pm

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 5:14 pm I'd say im speechless but there are hints we are the baddies all the time now. This might be a solid indicator.

It's far from a first. We have over a century doing this. That it's still happening it disgusting though. Makes each subsequent one worse, IMO.

I guess when the punishment is a joke, it'll keep happening.

Eugenics Compensation Act: In December 2015, the US Senate voted unanimously to help surviving victims of forced sterilization. North Carolina has paid $35,000 to 220 surviving victims of its eugenics program. Virginia agreed to give surviving victims $25,000 each.

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:20 pmHe knew he might be looking at a Death by Auto (or whatever the SD equivalent is). This cockamamie story gets him out of the whole thing potentially. I'd love to see his cell phone data...it'd probably be very illuminating in both calls, searches, and GPS information...

Smoove_B wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:23 pm

Multiple women came forward to tell Project South about what they perceived to be the inordinate rate at which women in ICDC were subjected to hysterectomies – a surgical operation in which all or part of the uterus is removed. Additionally, many of the immigrant women who underwent the procedure were reportedly “confused” when asked to explain why they had the surgery, with one detainee likening their treatment to prisoners in concentration camps.

Kurth wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 6:44 am For once, I think I may agree with ICE here: This one deserves some skepticism.

I’d like to see a little more evidence before I’m comfortable with the notion that ICE is responsible for implementing a plan to stem illegal immigration by performing mass hysterectomies.

Kurth wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 6:44 am For once, I think I may agree with ICE here: This one deserves some skepticism.

I’d like to see a little more evidence before I’m comfortable with the notion that ICE is responsible for implementing a plan to stem illegal immigration by performing mass hysterectomies.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 7:19 am

Kurth wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 6:44 am For once, I think I may agree with ICE here: This one deserves some skepticism.

I’d like to see a little more evidence before I’m comfortable with the notion that ICE is responsible for implementing a plan to stem illegal immigration by performing mass hysterectomies.

It's not as stratecic as that. It's more like, "these people are trash, sterilize them." As mentioned, we have a long history of this thinking. And it's not ICE, it's the doctor(s) they use. Probably why they use rhe particular doctor(s) though.