https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1450853816895741954

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Conservative-YouTube-host-racist-remark-betty-yu-16550371.php

https://www.mediamatters.org/steven-crowder/steven-crowder-mocks-local-reporter-having-aggressively-asian-face

They're dubbing it the "Ultimate World Cruise," and it's easy to see why: Royal Caribbean International on Wednesday announced that in late 2023 its Serenade of the Seas ship will set off on a 274-night voyage that will hit more than 150 destinations in 65 countries and get to all seven continents. Among those destinations are some of the biggies, reports USA Today, like Machu Picchu in Peru and the Taj Mahal in India. You'll also hit the Great Wall of China, Petra in Jordan, Antarctica, the Great Barrier Reef, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and the Colosseum in Rome.

It's not cheap: Per-person rates start at $60,999, which doesn't include taxes and fees. The cruise departs Miami on Dec. 10, 2023, and returns to the same port on Sept. 10.


https://www.newser.com/story/312421/royal-caribbean-wants-you-to-come-aboard-for-274-nights.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_world_login

Royal Caribbean announces 'world cruise of world cruises' scheduled to visit 150 destinations

Search and rescue authorities in Canada are praising some quick-thinking Sikh men who rescued two men stranded on a rock next to a fast-moving river above a waterfall. The five men tied their turbans and other items of clothing together to make a 33-foot rope and pull the men to safety, NBC reports. The stranded men had slipped down the rock and were unable to make their way out unaided. Kuljinder Kinda says he was hiking with four friends in Golden Ears Provincial Park near Vancouver, BC, last week when another group told them about the men's plight.


Kinda says the other group asked him to call 911, but there was no cellphone service in the area. The three members of his group who were wearing turbans unraveled them to form the makeshift rope. "In my Sikh culture, the turban is for that, to help save the life of people who need the help," Kuljinder Singh tells CTV. Ridge Meadows Search and Rescue manager Rick Laing praised the group for their "ingenious" solution. He says the two rescued men, who did not require medical treatment, said they hadn't seen warning signs about the hazards of approaching the waterfalls, which are behind a fenced area.

"I’ve never heard of anything like this before and it was quite impressive,” Laing says. He says that if the men had fallen into the water and been swept away, they would have had little chance of survival. "Several people are injured each year as a result of slips or falls,” he tells NBC. "It seems about once every one to two years, someone will be swept over the falls and die as a result of their injuries." (Read more Canada stories.)


https://www.newser.com/story/312417/hikers-use-turbans-to-rescue-stranded-men.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_world_login

NYPD Officers Eject Commuter Who Asked Them to Wear Masks
Mayor says their behavior was 'unacceptable'

A New York City commuter says two NYPD officers kicked him out of a subway station Tuesday morning after he asked them to obey the rules and put their face masks on. Andrew Gilbert tells CBS New York that after he saw officers on a platform and asked them to put their masks on, "the male officer there basically was playing dumb and pretending he couldn’t hear what I said. You know, he was saying, 'Oh, I can’t hear you with your mask on.'" He says the officer then grabbed him by the jacket, pushed him around 80 feet backward, and shoved him out of an emergency exit door at the Eighth Street station in Manhattan. Gilbert says he didn't touch the officers or do anything else to justify being pushed.



Video of the confrontation was shared widely on social media. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority requires masks to be worn in subway stations and the NYPD requires officers to wear face coverings in public transit settings, though many commuters have complained about officers flouting the rules, the New York Times reports. "It's an endless stream of incidents like this and every single time it’s sort of the same thing," Gilbert tells the Times. "Politicians talk about how terrible it is and then nothing happens, there’s no follow-up." He says officers' refusal to follow the same rules as everybody else "sort of breeds disrespect for the law."

But this time, there will be consequences, the New York Daily News reports. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Wednesday that the two officers will receive command disciplines, which could cost them up to 10 vacation days. Earlier Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said what he saw in the video was troubling. He said he hadn't seen the lead-up to the confrontation, "but I saw the officers not wearing their masks in the subway, that’s evident. That’s unacceptable." He added: "We’ve given this instruction a thousand times: If you’re going to be in law enforcement, you actually have to participate in following the law."

There’s something of an unspoken rule among city residents of many major metropolitan cities, whether it be D.C. or San Francisco or New York City: If you’re standing at an intersection with traffic lights, no cars are approaching and you’re waiting at a red light, you can cross the street.

Now, this isn’t standard practice everywhere — nor is it probably a great idea on, say, an intersection by a highway exit or an extended, dual road. It's also not much of a thing in super car-centric places like Los Angeles, as you'd expect. But in many instances, jaywalking is a relatively harmless act when done appropriately — and whether you’d like to admit it or not, you’ve probably done it.

So, it begs the question: Why did Gov. Gavin Newsom veto a bill that would decriminalize jaywalking? In his veto message, he expressed concern that California still has high rates of pedestrian fatalities, ranking eighth in the nation for every 100,000 people. Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request from SFGATE for more context on the decision.

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Ting, who represents California’s 19th district, including portions of San Francisco, told SFGATE that his primary goal in writing this bill was to encourage more of his constituents to explore their cities by foot. He was, in part, inspired by the fact that jaywalking initially originated as a car manufacturer promotion to establish motor vehicles as the standard mode of transportation in America. (This 2015 Vox explainer dives deeper into that.)

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Assembly Bill 1238 would have banned fines for jaywalking "when there is no immediate hazard" and permitted pedestrians to "use a crosswalk on a yellow light." The bill would still prohibit risky jaywalking, such as on a crowded throughway or on a highway.

https://www.sfgate.com/california-politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-veto-jaywalking-bill-California-Ting-16545646.php

Is Trump running in 2024? The Claremont Institute hopes so

Once one of the most prestigious bastions of conservative thought, Claremont now spends its time putting lipstick on the Trumpian wildebeest.


Trumpism is, of course, less an idea or set of principles than it is a cult of personality and series of angry impulses. But even the ugliest movements have their pseudo-philosophers and their rationalizers.

And this where Claremont comes in: It is attempting to put a veneer of intellectual respectability on some of the darkest impulses of the right. It’s not at all surprising that Claremont was at the center of the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

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Claremont was once the center of what was known as the "West Coast Straussian" school of thought founded by scholar Harry Jaffa.

But in recent years, Claremont has moved away from its intellectual roots. Its recent list of fellows includes some serious conservative thinkers, but also Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Ben Shapiro, radio host Mark Levin, and Trumpian activists like Charlie Kirk and Mollie Hemingway.

But, as Laura K. Field noted in her comprehensive analysis of Claremont, one of the clearest indications of its evolution was its 2019 decision to name "the conspiracist and 'king of fake news' Jack Michael Posobiec III' one of its Lincoln Fellows. You might know Posobiec for his role in the horrifying Pizzagate hoax and equally gross Seth Rich conspiracy. This year, one of Claremont’s so-called Publius Fellows is a legislative assistant for conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Claremont’s drift into racism or authoritarianism has similarly not been subtle.

As Field has noted, Claremont "knowingly provided cover to, and made common cause with, an alleged white supremacist named Darren J. Beattie." Beattie is a former White House staffer who had been fired for consorting with white supremacists. As the attack on the Capitol unfolded on Jan. 6, Beattie sent out a stream of tweets directed at various African Americans — including Sen. Tim Scott, S.C., and Kay Cole James, the president of the conservative Heritage Foundation — telling them they now had to "learn their place" and 'take a knee to MAGA."


https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/trump-running-2024-claremont-institute-hopes-so-n1281683

CNN's John King reveals he has multiple sclerosis and says he's grateful for his colleagues who got vaccinated


CNN anchor John King shared that he has multiple sclerosis.

He also said he is immunocompromised, which raises his risk of severe illness due to the coronavirus.
The national correspondent said he's grateful to work for a company where everyone is vaccinated.
CNN anchor and chief national correspondent John King revealed on Tuesday that he has multiple sclerosis.

King made the announcement on his program, "Inside Politics," and said he was immunocompromised. Having MS isn't a risk factor for developing COVID-19 in itself, but some disease therapies suppress the immune system, increasing the risk of a severe infection.

"So I am grateful you are all vaccinated. I am grateful my employer says all of these amazing people who work on the floor, who came in here in the last 18 months when we are doing this, are vaccinated now that we have vaccines," King said on the program.

"I don't like the government telling me what to do. I don't like my boss telling me what to do," he continued. "In this case, it's important."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cnns-john-king-reveals-he-has-multiple-sclerosis-and-says-hes-grateful-for-his-colleagues-who-got-vaccinated/ar-AAPItMa?ocid=BingNewsSearch

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-19/a-normal-l-a-school-day-unless-your-teacher-was-unvaccinated

Confronted with losing their jobs, 99% of LAUSD teachers meet COVID-19 vaccine requirements

Faced with getting a COVID-19 vaccine or losing their jobs, thousands of hesitant Los Angeles school-district employees opted for a last-minute jab, allowing them to access schools and offices on Monday and resulting in 99% compliance among classroom teachers and 97% of all employees.

The high compliance rate — which includes those with an approved medical or religious exemption — fended off the need for a longer-term contingency plan that officials launched Monday in case the final vaccination rates were lower: Thousands of supervisors and staff from central and regional offices were deployed to campuses and classrooms. Some supervised classrooms or filled in for missing custodians and food-service workers. Police officers worked overtime.

Los Angeles — widely viewed as a national leader in COVID-19 safety measures — was among the first major school districts in the nation to issue an ultimatum to all employees amid the summer Delta surge: Get vaccinated or lose your job. The mandate came with the risk of serious disruption in the nation’s second-largest school district, already struggling to fill a high number of teacher and other vacancies.

Yet the strategy has appeared to work as intended. Members of the administrators union got up to 99.4%. A small fraction of teachers, about 240, apparently opted against vaccination

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been milking his access to the Secret Service.

Thanks to Trump's order extending the use of the Secret Service to members of his administration, Mnuchin has used the professional perk to his benefit. The publication reports that in his first six months out of office, Mnuchin has racked up the highest Secret Service tab. The Washington Post detailed how Mnuchin managed to rack up more than $150,000 in Secret Service expenses:

Wilbur Ross is reportedly fantasizing about putting "Trump condos on the moon."

Back in February after the Trump administration transitioned out of the White House, Ross spoke with Bloomberg and shared his upcoming post-government plans; which involve "Trump condos on the moon."

Ben Carson is launching a venture similar to Boy Scouts of America.

After departing Washington, D.C., Ben Carson —the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary— launched an organization called the American Cornerstone Institute. Carson's new think tank reportedly places an emphasis on discovering "commonsense solutions to some of our nation's biggest problems."

Elaine Chao contributed to calls for Kroger to be boycotted.

Chao —wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former transportation secretary— worked for several of the country's top corporations prior to her role with the Trump administration. But Intelligencer reports that "she and other Trump Cabinet alums were having a hard time finding cushy landing spots after exiting the administration. 'The feedback was 'It's too soon,' said one of the headhunters involved in an unsuccessful effort to find companies willing to work with Chao."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-trump-officials-new-career-ventures-suggest-very-little-changed-after-leaving-white-house/ar-AAPCBe3?ocid=msedgntp

A 36-year-old San Jose resident pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud for soliciting donations from individuals to help her pay for cancer treatments she did not need nor received.

Amanda Christine Riley admitted to purposely deceiving people into thinking she had Hodgkin's lymphona in order to receive monetary donations from 2013 to 2019.

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When people donated to her fundraising page, the funds would go to Riley's bank account, not for cancer treatment. Riley said she received $106,272 in donations from her fake illness.

Riley's sentencing is scheduled for February 22, 2022. She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/Woman-Pleads-Guilty-To-Cancer-Fundraiser-Fraud-16528864.php


In approximately October 2012, Riley began documenting her purported illness on social media, including on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. She also created a blog located at http://lymphomacansuckitblogspot.com/. On these social media platforms, she posted photos of medications, photos of herself at hospitals, and photos of herself allegedly suffering the side effects of chemotherapy. Riley added captions to the photos with false statements claiming that she was taking cancer drugs and receiving cancer treatment. She even shaved her head to make it appear as if she had lost her hair as a result of chemotherapy.

Riley admitted taking additional steps to raise money for her phony illness. For example, Riley’s blog included a link to a support page, http://www.supportamanda.com, which also included false information about Riley’s purported “battle with cancer.” The support page featured a clickable “donate now” icon for visitors to donate money online, and encouraged visitors to donate money to “support Amanda” and help “Amanda’s battle with cancer.” In addition, Riley organized several fundraisers, including in-person fundraisers at the Family Community Church in San Jose, to solicit donations and raise money for her supposed cancer-related expenses.

In reality, Riley did not have – and has never had – Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or any other type of cancer. When people donated to Riley over the internet or at in-person fundraisers, they believed their donations would be used to pay Riley’s cancer-related expenses. In fact, Riley had no cancer-related expenses, and donors’ funds were simply deposited into Riley’s personal bank account. In total, Riley admitted she received over four-hundred donations worth approximately $106,272 from her fake cancer fundraising scheme.


https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/bay-area-woman-pleads-guilty-wire-fraud-soliciting-donations-bogus-cancer-treatment