July 25, 2024

Ex-deputy who fatally shot Sonya Massey was discharged from the Army for serious misconduct

The Illinois deputy who fatally shot Sonya Massey in her home while responding to her 911 call was discharged from the U.S. Army for “misconduct (serious offense),” according to documents obtained by ABC News.

Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy, was discharged on February 24, 2016, after beginning service in the U.S. Army on May 5, 2014. He served for a total of one year, nine months and 19 days, Grayson’s certificate of discharge from active duty shows.

The U.S. Army, citing the Privacy Act and Department of Defense policy, said it is prevented from releasing information relating to the misconduct of low-level employees or characterization of service at discharge.

Grayson was a 91B (Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic) in the Regular Army from May 2014 to February 2016. He had no deployments and left the Army in the rank of private first class, according to an Army spokesman.

ABC News has also learned that Grayson, 30, was charged with two DUI offenses in Macoupin County, Illinois, in August 2015 and July 2016, according to court documents.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/deputy-fatally-shot-sonya-massey-discharged-army-misconduct/story?id=112264355

This is what they hire for police officers? He's also worked at 6 different police jobs since 2020 https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-sheriffs-deputy-fatally-shot-sonya-massey-held/story?id=112229695

July 25, 2024

A Jewish couple were rejected as foster parents because of their religion. This is the future Project 2025 envisions

In 2021, Liz and Gabe Rutan-Ram decided to take the next step toward growing their family and applied to foster a child. After identifying a three-year-old in Florida who they hoped to ultimately adopt, the Rutan-Rams turned back to their home state of Tennessee to start training to become foster parents.

But their plans quickly fell apart when the Christian state-funded foster care placement agency informed them by email that they “only provide adoption services to prospective adoptive families that share our belief system”. The Rutan-Rams, who are Jewish, were out of luck.

“There’s already emotions playing into wanting to be a parent, and then to have us attacked personally just made it that much harder,” Liz Rutan-Ram told the Guardian.

The Rutan-Rams sued the Tennessee department of children’s services, arguing that a state law permitting private agencies to refuse to work with prospective parents on religious grounds violates the Tennessee constitution’s equal protection and religious freedom guarantees. The case will soon go to trial.

The predicament facing the Rutan-Rams could become more common under a second Trump administration. Project 2025, a 900-plus page blueprint for the next Republican administration and the policy brainchild of the conservative Heritage Foundation, contains an explicitly sympathetic view toward “faith-based adoption agencies” like the one that rejected the Rutan-Rams, who are “under threat from lawsuits” because of the agencies’ religious beliefs.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/24/project-2025-adoption-fostering

This is just WRONG!

July 25, 2024

Republican attacks on Kamala Harris to get 'as ugly and bigoted as they can'

For Barack Obama there was “birtherism” and a name they said sounded like a specific Middle East terrorist. For Hillary Clinton there was “Lock her up” and merchandise that said, “Trump that bitch”, “Hillary sucks but not like Monica” and “Life’s a bitch: don’t vote for one.”

Rightwing playbooks deployed in past election campaigns are being dusted off for an all-out assault against Vice-President Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee aiming to become the first Black woman and first person of south Asian descent to be US president.

It’s obvious that the Republicans are going to play the race and gender card, which we’ve seen already in some of the attacks on social media,” said Tara Setmayer, a Black woman who is co-founder and chief executive of the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee. “It may be catnip for their Maga base but it will be a turnoff for the moderate voters in the battleground states that will determine this election.”

Harris’s sudden ascent after 81-year-old Joe Biden’s decision not to seek re-election has upended the race for the White House, giving Democrats a much-needed jolt of energy and instantly turned the tables on Republicans on the question of age: Donald Trump, 78, is now the oldest presidential nominee in history.

Having built a campaign against Biden, Republicans are hastily recalibrating and racing to define Harris, 59, before she can define herself. They intend to tie her to Biden’s immigration policy, which they say is to blame for a sharp increase last year in the number of people crossing the southern border with Mexico illegally.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/25/kamala-harris-trump-republicans-attacks

It's who they are---bigots and nazis through and through

July 23, 2024

Republicans claim a 'coup' attempt to delegitimize Kamala Harris's candidacy

Speaking on the sidelines of the Republican national convention last week, Chris LaCivita, one of Donald Trump’s campaign managers, repeatedly used an incendiary word to describe the pressure campaign to get Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. Those efforts, he said, were a “coup”.

“This is nothing more than an attempted coup by the Democratic party,” he said. “They are actively engaged in an attempt – in my view and a lot of people share this view – in deposing the president of the United States.”

It was language that foreshadowed how other top Republicans would respond when Joe Biden did drop out of the race, immediately suggesting that the move was anti-democratic.

During an appearance on Fox News on Monday, Trump and his running mate JD Vance endorsed the idea that Biden’s removal was illegitimate. Asked if they thought it was a coup attempt, Trump said, “Sort of, yeah” and Vance said, “I think it is. There’s a constitutional process, the 25th amendment. If Joe Biden can’t run for president, he can’t serve as president and if they want to take him down because he’s mentally incapable of serving, invoke the 25th amendment.”

Their comments underscore how Republicans are already trying to delegitimize Kamala Harris’s candidacy. For a Republican party that embraced the lie that the 2020 election is stolen, the efforts to undermine anyone other than Biden marks the latest front in their attempt to seed doubt about any result that isn’t a Trump win.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/23/republicans-coup-kamala-harris-election-2024

What a bunch of whiners, trying to find any excuse at all for their dementia-addled fat old candidate!

July 22, 2024

MAGA Rages That Kamala Harris Is A Threat To Plastic Straws

As it became clear on Sunday that Vice President Kamala Harris is the front-runner to replace President Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, pro-Donald Trump conservatives went on TV to fiercely condemn her position on sipping devices.

“I mean, heck, she wants to get rid of plastic straws, for goodness sake,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump’s campaign, told NBC. “Whereas Joe Biden was renting some of the territory on the more extreme left, Kamala Harris owns it.”

In a lengthy monologue on Sunday, Fox News host Sean Hannity said Harris would “be the single most radical major party candidate to run for election.” He went on to condemn her environmental record, including her previous support for ending the oil and gas drilling practice known as fracking and, of course, reining in the use of plastic straws.

“She wants to ban plastic straws,” Hannity grumbled. “I love my plastic straw. I hate those paper straws. Anyway.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maga-kamala-harris-plastic-straws_n_669e8123e4b030a2640a5c26

Oh woe! Grasping at straws now, are we?

July 22, 2024

Miss Kansas called out her abuser in public. Her campaign against domestic violence is going viral

A newly posted video of Miss Kansas calling out her domestic violence abuser from the stage the night she was crowned is whipping up a maelstrom of support on social media.

Alexis Smith, who works overnight shifts as a cardiothoracic intensive care nurse in Wichita, was crowned Miss Kansas on June 8, but posted the video of her on-stage comments just this past week on the platform now known as X. Her comments are resonating with thousands in part because she called out her own abuser from the stage while she said the perpetrator was sitting in the audience.

The video Smith posted July 16 has been viewed more than 60,000 times and generated a rash of news stories.

“My vision as the next Miss Kansas is to eliminate unhealthy and abusive relationships,” Smith said during the interview portion of the pageant last month. “Matter of fact, some of you in this audience saw me very emotional because my abuser is here today. But that’s not going to stop me from being on this Miss Kansas stage and from representing as the next Miss Kansas.”

https://apnews.com/article/miss-kansas-alexis-smith-domestic-violence-4ea520487500bc82c415fb4b6a317513

As a survivor of an abusive relationship, I could not be happier!

July 22, 2024

A discontinued asthma medication has patients scrambling, some to the ER

When Jacqueline Vakil needed a refill for Flovent, her 4-year-old son’s asthma medicine, she couldn’t get it. The drugmaker GSK had stopped making the popular inhaler, back in January.

To make matters worse, Vakil’s insurance provider wouldn’t cover the alternative drug their doctor suggested.

“It got to the point that I was on the phone constantly with our doctor to try to find a substitute,” Vakil says.

All the while, her son James was up at night coughing. She tried Vicks VapoRub, a humidifier, and steam from a hot shower to help soothe his deep cough.

Vakil spent hours talking with her pediatrician, the pharmacist and her insurance company trying to find a replacement. At first the insurance company suggested a dry powder inhaler, but it didn't work for her son because the breathing techniques required were too difficult for a 4-year-old.

"The whole process was frustrating because I felt helpless," Vakil says.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/07/22/nx-s1-5042364/a-discontinued-asthma-medication-has-patients-scrambling-some-to-the-er

Greedy, greedy Big Pharma, and screw the "pharmacy benefit managers" who are in it with them right up to their eyeballs! They will do anything to get around the law!!!

July 22, 2024

Stephen Miller's Hypersonic Meltdown Over Biden Withdrawal

Former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller raged on Fox News Sunday about President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 election, accusing Democrats of acting undemocratically.

The ex-White House advisor spoke to host Laura Ingraham about Kamala Harris’ weaknesses as a potential successor to Biden as the Democratic nominee, calling her “napalm for working class voters” and claiming that her party is “in crisis.”

“Well, they’re pretending it’s all exciting right?” Ingraham said, accusing Democrats of subverting their own “democratic process” after spending years “trashing Donald Trump for doing literally what you just did to your own voters.”

“There may be what, 25, 30 percent of the voters who still preferred Joe Biden to remain at the top of the ticket, right?” Ingraham added. “I mean, at least that? And they don’t care about those voters, Stephen. They don’t care.”

“They held a primary!” Miller squealed in response. “People—they had ballots! They filled out circles that went to the voting booths! They spent money on advertisements, and as President Trump said, the Republican Party spent tens of millions of dollars running against Joe Biden.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-miller-has-hypersonic-fox-news-meltdown-over-biden-withdrawal?ref=home

July 22, 2024

Discovery of different forms of insomnia could lead to better treatment

The sluggish start to the day, the struggle to concentrate on everyday tasks and the lethargy that comes with just a few hours sleep, these are the symptoms that will be familiar to anyone who suffers with insomnia.

But according to research, not all sleepless nights are the same. Brain scans have revealed evidence for distinct forms of insomnia, each with an associated pattern of neural wiring.

And while the clinical distinction may mean little to those whose days are blighted by sleep deprivation, the discovery does raise the prospect of tailored interventions for people with different kinds of insomnia, which could lead to better treatments.

Researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam analysed MRI scans from more than 200 insomniacs and dozens of sound sleepers and spotted structural changes that distinguished sleepers from the sleepless and five separate forms of insomnia.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/22/discovery-different-forms-insomnia-could-better-treatment

Doesn't really explain the different types, and offers the same old chestnuts, but the study itself is hopeful

July 22, 2024

Federal judge sides with church in unhoused shelter standoff

A federal judge has ruled that a Colorado gold rush town cannot prevent an evangelical church from providing temporary shelter to unhoused people on the church’s property.

The ruling against the town of Castle Rock comes after The Rock church sued the town for attempting to block it by arguing the church could not park RVs used as residences on site under local zoning laws.

The Rock church had also claimed that the town had violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act because its religious beliefs compel it to run a makeshift homeless shelter to “restore the poor, needy and destitute”.

The ruling represents at least a temporary victory for religious organizations attempting to tackle the country’s increasing rates of homelessness exacerbated by rising housing costs – but facing opposition from local authorities and law enforcement.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/22/colorado-church-unhoused-shelter

Damn NIMBYs and fake Christians wanted to stop the REAL Christians from following Jesus' instructions.....