BeckyDem
BeckyDem's JournalHow Ghislaine Maxwell's Lawyers Are Attempting to Discredit Her Accusers: Very aggressively.
By Seth Stevenson
Dec 01, 20219:58 PM
Witness “Jane” cries as she testifies on day three of the Maxwell trial. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
Day three of the Ghislaine Maxwell trial began with the defense resuming its cross-examination of “Jane”—an accuser who’s been granted a pseudonym. Again and again, defense attorney Laura Menninger tried to trip up Jane by highlighting inconsistencies in statements she’s made at various times. Menninger noted things Jane has said in FBI interviews or in meetings with government prosecutors over the past couple of years, and then contrasted them with the testimony that Jane gave in the courtroom yesterday.
Jane, who says she was a victim of sexual abuse perpetrated by Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, kept her composure amid the onslaught. The defense’s aim was to poke holes in her credibility by suggesting her memory is faulty, but few of Menninger’s gotchas landed. Does it really matter whether Jeffrey Epstein took Jane to see the Lion King on Broadway in prime mezzanine seats when she was 14 (as Jane claimed in one statement) or a few years later, while she was still a teenager (as she later amended)? Seems like the sort of mistake a jury is unlikely to hold against a witness. Menninger also tried to ensnare Jane in a confusing and ultimately fruitless back and forth over when she’d first seen Maxwell “without her clothes” (during an alleged incident of abuse) versus when she first saw Maxwell topless (while lounging by Epstein’s pool), which mostly just served as a reminder that Jane remembers seeing Maxwell in states of undress on multiple occasions.
Menninger did, however, create one powerful moment, when she introduced the fact that, in a document prepared by Jane’s personal lawyer prior to the trial, Jane named only Epstein as her abuser, while making no mention of Maxwell. This could undercut Jane’s testimony yesterday that Maxwell was present and intimately involved in some of the abuse Jane alleges. I wouldn’t call it a home run for the defense, as the document didn’t specifically rule out the possibility that Maxwell played a role. But establishing evidence like this is crucial to the defense’s grand strategy, which involves convincing the jury that Maxwell has been ret-conned into the case—that Ghislaine was never a part of the government’s narrative until Epstein died and the story suddenly required a new antagonist.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-day-three-jane-matt-interlochen.html
( The fight for justice here will not go without more pain and suffering for the victims. This is not to suggest Maxwell has no right to a defense, but it is important to note the agony victims must go through when they come forward. )
( 2014 ) They'll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record's clear: It was segregation.
The Real Origins of the Religious Right
They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.
By RANDALL BALMER
May 27, 2014
( Authors bio: Randall Balmer is the Mandel family professor in the arts and sciences at Dartmouth College. His most recent book is Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter. )
One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.
This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.
Some of these anti- Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had fought to eradicate slavery.
But the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
( ***** 5 stars. ) Throughout history and in the context of today's continued ill-treatment of black people, this remains accurate, imo.
Global Pandemic Will Rage Until WTO Approves Vaccine Patent Waiver (Stiglitz- Wallach)
The WTO must not postpone this decision. It needs to call an online meeting of its General Council and adopt the waiver this week.
Joseph Stiglitz, Lori Wallach
December 1, 2021 by CNN
If international organizations are subject to karma, last week's abrupt postponement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference, the body's first major decision-making gathering in four years, was fated to be. News of the emergence of Omicron, the latest coronavirus variant, not only caused the meeting to be delayed but it also shined a light on how the international community has failed to get the virus under control.
Over the past two years, the global scientific community has figured out the pathogen that causes Covid-19 and developed vaccines and antivirals to fight the virus. Rapid production has meant that everyone in wealthy countries who wanted a vaccine has gotten one. But the market, on its own, has failed to provide enough for the rest of the world.
Since October 2020, a large number of WTO member countries have sought a temporary waiver of the organization's expansive intellectual property restrictions, which limit the production of vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests to certain pharmaceutical companies. But a few WTO members have blocked this initiative, which is needed to ensure sufficient supply of Covid-19 medicines to inoculate the world and end the variant cycle that otherwise will indefinitely prolong the pandemic.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/01/global-pandemic-will-rage-until-wto-approves-vaccine-patent-waiver
( There is no rational argument against what they present here....none. )
BREAKING: 2.5 million nurses from 28 countries have filed for a UN investigation of human rights
https://twitter.com/ProgIntl/status/1465202919687348227( A must. )
David Dayen@ddayen: Why workers are quitting their jobs, after the trauma of the pandemic
https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1465322403014217735Excerpt: She started as a bather, and showed enough promise to be invited to the company’s dog grooming academy, where they teach how to cut hair. “I knew it was what I wanted to do with my life,” Caroline said. “I was really passionate about animals and I loved grooming.”
There was only one problem: PetSmart. Groomers were pressured to complete as many dogs as possible, through a constant whirlwind of commotion and barking and often verbal abuse and harassment from customers. Without enough staff available, Caroline sometimes worked seven days in a row. https://prospect.org/labor/great-escape-why-workers-quitting-pandemic-trauma/
I know how lobbyists make sure Americans don't get dental care-I was one of them
By
Wendell Potter
November 19, 2021 6:47 AM EST
Many seniors cross the border to Los Algodones, Mexico, to get the dental care they can't afford in the U.S.Guillwemo Arias—Getty Images
excerpt: A recent Morning Consult poll found that the number one thing Americans say they want out of the reconciliation bill is Medicare dental coverage. That’s no surprise when you consider that millions of seniors lack dental coverage. Many suffer quietly with often excruciating pain caused by untreated–and often lethal–oral health disease.
The main reason Medicare hasn’t covered dental care since its inception in 1965 (except when oral health problems become so severe they require hospitalization) is that organized dentistry staunchly opposed it.
https://fortune.com/2021/11/19/congress-lobbying-americans-dental-care-biden-democrats-medicare-build-back-better/
( The fight continues. )
State legislation tracker: Major Developments in Sexual & Reproductive Health
Posting a resource for anyone interested.
By the end of October, eight state legislatures (IN, MA, MI, NJ, NC, OH, PA and WI) and the District of Columbia were in their regular sessions. Forty-two legislatures (AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, NY, ND, OK, OR, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV and WY) had adjourned their regular sessions.
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy
The Guttmacher Institute is a pro-choice[1][2] research organization started in 1968 that works to study, educate, and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights.[3][4] The organization works mainly in the United States but also focuses on developing countries.[4] The Guttmacher Institute uses studies to help support policy making and program reform.[4] The Institute is named after obstetrician-gynocologist and former president of Planned Parenthood Alan F. Guttmacher.[5] The Guttmacher Institute has many sources of funding nationally and internationally.[4] One of the Institute's biggest projects is keeping a running list of the reproductive health laws and policies throughout the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute
Oath Keepers in the State House: How a Militia Movement Took Root in the Republican Mainstream
A membership roster for the Oath Keepers, a violent extremist group whose followers have been charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, includes state lawmakers, congressional candidates, and local government and GOP officials.
by Isaac Arnsdorf
Oct. 20, 3 p.m. EDT
excerpt:
ProPublica identified Clampitt and 47 more state and local government officials on the list, all Republicans: 10 sitting state lawmakers; two former state representatives; one current state assembly candidate; a state legislative aide; a city council assistant; county commissioners in Indiana, Arizona and North Carolina; two town aldermen; sheriffs or constables in Montana, Texas and Kentucky; state investigators in Texas and Louisiana; and a New Jersey town’s public works director.
ProPublica’s analysis also found more than 400 people who signed up for membership or newsletters using government, military or political campaign email addresses, including candidates for Congress and sheriff, a retired assistant school superintendent in Alabama, and an award-winning elementary school teacher in California.
https://www.propublica.org/article/oath-keepers-in-the-state-house-how-a-militia-movement-took-root-in-the-republican-mainstream?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter#1136356
( Sometimes there are no words to describe the depth of dysfunction in the Republican Party. )
Early warnings and emerging accountability: Total's responses to global warming, 1971-2021
Highlights
•
Archives, interviews used to trace Total's engagement with global warming since 1970s.
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Total or predecessors aware of harmful global warming impacts since at least 1971.
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Total engaged in overt denial of climate science in late 1980s, early 1990s.
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Various postures and strategies pursued by Total other than overt science denial.
•
IPIECA played key role in coordinating international oil industry beginning in 1980s.
Abstract
Building upon recent work on other major fossil fuel companies, we report new archival research and primary source interviews describing how Total responded to evolving climate science and policy in the last 50 years. We show that Total personnel received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971, became more fully informed of the issue in the 1980s, began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming by the late 1980s, and ultimately settled on a position in the late 1990s of publicly accepting climate science while promoting policy delay or policies peripheral to fossil fuel control. Additionally, we find that Exxon, through the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA), coordinated an international campaign to dispute climate science and weaken international climate policy, beginning in the 1980s. This represents one of the first longitudinal studies of a major fossil fuel company’s responses to global warming to the present, describing historical stages of awareness, preparation, denial, and delay.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378021001655
( Perhaps consider e-mailing this to your editorial boards, would be nice if it were featured, God forbid, on the front page of a newspaper or two.)
As Police Violence Increases, Civilians Less Likely to Call 911: Study
By Andrea Cipriano | October 20, 2021
A mirror created by the group Visual Black Justice, installed in front of the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, where Derek Chauvin stood trial in the death of George Floyd. Photo by Lorie Shaull via Flickr.
Examining detailed data from eight major American cities, a new research study from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government found that police violence reduces civilian trust and engagement with law enforcement.
In other words, as police violence and police brutality rates, and media attention increases, public trust plummets. As a consequence, communities stop relying on law enforcement for help.
The researchers, Desmond Ang from the Harvard Kennedy School, Panka Bencsik from the University of Chicago, Jesse Bruhn from Brown University, and Ellora Derenoncourt from Princeton University, examined the ratio between 911 call data and the number of gunshot occurrences for Baltimore, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Richmond, and San Diego, before and after the high-profile police killing of George Floyd.
https://thecrimereport.org/2021/10/20/as-police-violence-increases-civilians-less-likely-to-call-911-study/
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