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BarryLaverty

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  1. Is it just the Internet running amuck or is there a deeper push out there? (Washington Post) Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion By Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi March 21, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT Search for birth control on TikTok or Instagram and a cascade of misleading videos vilifying hormonal contraception appear: Young women blaming their weight gain on the pill. Right-wing commentators claiming that some birth control can lead to infertility. Testimonials complaining of depression and anxiety. Instead, many social media influencers recommend “natural” alternatives, such as timing sex to menstrual cycles — a less effective birth-control method that doctors warn could result in unwanted pregnancies in a country where abortion is now banned or restricted in nearly half the states. Physicians say they’re seeing an explosion of birth-control misinformation online targeting a vulnerable demographic: people in their teens and early 20s who are more likely to believe what they see on their phones because of algorithms that feed them a stream of videos reinforcing messages often divorced from scientific evidence. While doctors say hormonal contraception — which includes birth-control pills and intrauterine devices (IUDs) — is safe and effective, they worry the profession’s long-standing lack of transparency about some of the serious but rare side effects has left many patients seeking information from unqualified online communities. The backlash to birth control comes at a time of rampant misinformation about basic health tenets amid poor digital literacy and a wider political debate over reproductive rights, in which far-right conservatives argue that broad acceptance of birth control has altered traditional gender roles and weakened the family. Physicians and researchers say little data is available about the scale of this new phenomenon, but anecdotally, more patients are coming in with misconceptions about birth control fueled by influencers and conservative commentators. “People are putting themselves out there as experts on birth control and speaking to things that the science does not bear out,” said Michael Belmonte, an OB/GYN in D.C. and a family planning expert with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). “I am seeing those direct failures of this misinformation.” He says women frequently come in for abortions after believing what they see on social media about the dangers of hormonal birth control and the effectiveness of tracking periods to prevent pregnancy. Many of these patients have traveled from states that have completely or partly banned abortions, he said, including Texas, Idaho, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Doctors stand a better chance of dispelling misinformation when they listen to patients’ concerns, said Belmonte, noting that some are more worried about the side effects of birth control than the effectiveness doctors have long been trained to emphasize. He has adopted ACOG’s recommendation that physicians candidly discuss common side effects such as nausea, headaches, breast tenderness and bleeding between periods; many of these resolve on their own or can be mitigated by switching forms of birth control. Women of color whose communities have historically been exploited by the medical establishment may be particularly vulnerable to misinformation, given the long history of mistrust around birth control in this country, said Kimberly Baker, an assistant professor at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. Forced sterilizations of tens of thousands of primarily Black, Latina and Indigenous women happened under U.S. government programs in the 20th century. “That’s another huge reason why these negative videos around birth control get a lot of fanfare, because there’s already the stigma attached to it, and that’s steeped in our history,” she said. For influencers of all political stripes seeking fame and fortune on the internet, negative content draws more clicks, allowing them to reach a wider audience to sell their products and services. Nicole Bendayan, who has amassed more than 1 million combined followers on Instagram and TikTok for her holistic-health coaching business, shared on social media that she stopped using hormonal birth control because she was concerned about weight gain, low libido and intermittent bleeding, which she had assumed were side effects. Bendayan’s TikTok about getting off birth control and becoming a “cycle-syncing nutritionist” who teaches women how to live “in tune” with their menstrual cycles has drawn 10.5 million views. The 29-year-old is not a licensed medical specialist. “I had a lot of really bad symptoms [and] went to see a bunch of different doctors. Every one of them dismissed me. Even when I asked if it had anything to do with birth control, they all said no,” Bendayan said in an interview with The Washington Post. She had used a vaginal ring for eight years and an IUD for two; she said that when she went off birth control, her symptoms went away. “I believe that the access to birth control is important,” she said. “I don’t think that we’re given informed consent.” Bendayan has told her followers that birth control may deplete magnesium, vitamins B, C and E, and zinc levels. She charges hundreds of dollars for a three-month virtual program that includes analyses of blood panels for what she calls hormonal imbalances. When asked about the science behind why her symptoms resolved after getting off birth control, Bendayan said she did her own research and found studies that backed up what she was feeling. She doesn’t claim to be a doctor, but says she wants to help others. “I always make it clear in a disclaimer that I’m not a medical professional and that I would happily work with their health-care team,” said Bendayan, who lives in Valencia, Spain. “I’m an educator.” In recent years, an entire industry has popped up around regulating hormones that experts say is often a cash grab; there is no proven science that the hormone-balancing regimes pushed by some social media influencers such as Bendayan work. Social media companies struggle to combat misinformation as they balance free-speech protections. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, says it works hard to protect online communities. “Our policies are designed to give people a voice, while at the same time keeping people safe on our apps,” said Ryan Daniels, a spokesman for Meta. TikTok recently removed at least five videos linking birth control to mental health issues and other health problems after The Post asked how the company prevents the spread of misinformation. One of the videos removed was of Bendayan saying certain forms of birth control could make users more susceptible to sexually transmitted infections, which experts say the evidence does not support. A TikTok spokeswoman said the videos violated company policies prohibiting “inaccurate, misleading or false content that may cause significant harm to individuals or society.” Bendayan told The Post she “fully” supports “the removal of any content that may inadvertently perpetuate misinformation.” She added, “As I often remind my audience, it’s essential for individuals to conduct their own research and seek comprehensive understanding, especially considering the limitations of short-form content.” An underlying conservative push Prominent conservative commentators have seized upon mistrust of medical professionals, sowing misinformation as a way to discourage the use of birth control. Some commentators inaccurately depict hormonal contraception as causing abortions. Others say they’re just looking out for women’s health. Brett Cooper, a media commentator for the conservative Daily Wire, argued in a viral TikTok clip that birth control can impact fertility, cause women to gain weight and even alter whom they are attracted to. It racked up over 219,000 “likes” before TikTok removed it following The Post’s inquiry. In a Daily Wire video, Cooper and political commentator Candace Owens denounce birth-control pills and IUDs as “unnatural,” with Owens saying she’s a “big advocate of getting women to realize this stuff is not normal,” and claiming that viewers of her content told her copper IUDs can harm women’s fertility. Medical experts say there is no evidence birth control impacts fertility long term. On his show, Ben Shapiro, another right-wing pundit, called discussing birth-control side effects a “political third rail,” while interviewing a guest who proclaimed that women on birth-control pills are attracted to men who are “less traditionally masculine.” Shapiro, Cooper and Owens did not respond to requests for comment. The online magazine Evie, described by Rolling Stone as the conservative Gen Z’s version of Cosmo, urges readers to ditch hormonal birth control with headlines such as “Why Are So Many Feminists Silent About The Very Real Dangers Of Birth Control?” Brittany Martinez, founder of Evie Magazine, said in an email that the outlet’s work has made questioning birth control mainstream. “Women have been silenced and shamed by legacy media, the pharmaceutical industry, and, in many cases, by their own doctors who have gaslit them about their experiences with hormonal birth control,” she wrote. Martinez co-founded a menstrual cycle tracking app called 28 that is backed by conservative billionaire and tech mogul Peter Thiel. The company, 28 Wellness, told The Post it does not disclose its investors, but Evie announced Thiel Capital’s support when the product launched. A spokesman for Thiel did not respond to requests for comment. The app’s website declares: “Hormonal birth control promised freedom but tricked our bodies into dysfunction and pain.” The “feminine fitness” app told The Post it has “never been marketed as an alternative to hormonal birth control.” The influencers’ messaging helps drive potential legislation limiting access to hormonal birth control, said Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist, demographer and assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who is studying how antiabortion activists and lawmakers are trying to restrict birth control. Already Republican legislators in Missouri have tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the state’s Medicaid program from covering IUDs and emergency contraceptives. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit this month upheld a Texas law requiring minors to obtain parental permission before accessing birth control. Stevenson pointed to pronouncements by Lila Rose, an antiabortion activist with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media who has urged women to get off birth control, in what Stevenson called an effort to stigmatize it. “To be anti-fertility is to be anti-woman, and the proliferation of hormonal birth control is just another way of trying to force women to be more like men, with significant consequences for our emotional and physical health,” Rose said in an email. In a 2017-2019 federal survey, the latest available, 14 percent of women 15 to 49 years old said they were currently using oral contraceptive pills, and 10 percent said they were using long-acting reversible contraceptives such as an IUD. In a federal survey of women ages 15 to 44 who had had sex, the percentage who reported ever having used the pill dropped from 82 percent to 79 percent between 2002 and 2015, while the percentage for those ever having used an IUD more than doubled to 15 percent. Side effects of birth control All forms of medication, including hormonal birth control, can have side effects. Some are rare, but serious: Birth-control pills that contain estrogen can lead to blood clots and strokes. IUDs can perforate the uterine wall. When Sabrina Grimaldi went to urgent care for chest pain last spring, the medical staff told her she had pulled a muscle and sent her home. Weeks later, when her left leg started to swell and turn purple, the 24-year-old from Arizona realized it was more than a pulled muscle. Medical providers discovered blood clots in her leg and in both of her lungs, which she said they told her were caused by her birth-control pills. Grimaldi wrote about her experience in the Zillennial Zine, an online magazine where she is editor in chief, and also shared it on TikTok. “There’s all of those crazy things on the package that say you might have a blood clot or a heart attack or death, and you’re just like whatever. You don’t actually think that that’s going to happen,” Grimaldi said in an interview, noting that her doctor never discussed potential side effects with her. The Food and Drug Administration points out that the risk of developing blood clots from using birth-control pills — 3 to 9 women out of 10,000 who are on the pill — remains lower than the risk of developing blood clots in pregnancy and in the postpartum period. Doctors note that Opill, the over-the-counter pill that will soon be available in stores and online, contains only progestin — meaning it does not have the blood clot risk of estrogen-containing pills. The algorithms behind TikTok, YouTube and Instagram are designed to surface content similar to what viewers have already watched, which experts say leads viewers to believe that more people suffer complications than in reality. Jenny Wu, an OB/GYN resident at Duke University, noticed that her Gen Z patients were turning away from IUDs at higher rates than her millennial patients — and were referencing TikToks about the pain of IUD insertion. So she analyzed the 100 most popular TikTok videos about IUDs and found that a surprisingly high proportion — almost 40 percent — were negative. “It’s changed how I practice,” she said. She now routinely offers patients a variety of pain management options including anti-inflammatory drugs, a lidocaine injection into the cervix, or anti-anxiety medication. Catherine Miller, a junior at the University of Wisconsin at Stout, had never wanted to be on hormonal birth control after going down a rabbit hole of TikTok videos that listed negative side effects without context. “It created this sense of fear that if I ever needed to be put on birth control, I would become a completely different person, I would gain a bunch of weight, and my life would be over,” the 20-year-old said. “I was like, well, obviously, this is true. This applies to everybody, because it’s the only thing I’m seeing.” But in the fall, Miller took a human sexual biology class taught by a family physician who had spent decades counseling women on how to choose the right birth control. The professor walked the class through scientific research to dispel some of the misconceptions they had encountered. After learning that her understanding of the risks was skewed by social media, Miller said she worries about her generation of women facing a lack of accurate information — and choices. Abortion is banned in Wisconsin after 22 weeks of pregnancy. “It’s terrifying to think about our options being taken away, and misinformation about the things that we still have access to,” she said. “That’s a combination for disaster.”
  2. Why wouldn't they be, if they were? Do you have an example?
  3. Researched for a minute, and it won't be a specific course, just that members of the LBGTQ community who are historical figures should be included in their history/social studies curriculum. Oh, the horror!
  4. I am thinking that this will be an elective course. Is there a problem with students and parents choosing to study this?
  5. Maybe racism still exists in this country and maybe law enforcement isn't always honorable and pure in their actions. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-mississippi-goon-squad-deputy-sentenced-admitting-torturing-abu-rcna144256 2 former Mississippi 'Goon Squad' deputies sentenced to prison in torture and abuse of Black men Six officers burst into Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker's home, assaulted them, and called them racial slurs. Jenkins was shot in the face by one deputy. Christian Lee Dedmon; Daniel Ready Opdyke.Rogelio V. Solis / AP file March 20, 2024, 12:23 PM CDT / Updated March 20, 2024, 3:15 PM CDT By Minyvonne Burke and Tom Junod Two former Mississippi sheriff deputies who were members of a self-described "Goon Squad" were sentenced to federal prison Wednesday after admitting they tortured and abused two Black men in a racist attack that left one of the victims seriously injured. Daniel Ready Opdyke, a former deputy with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison. And former deputy Christian Lee Dedmon was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Both men, along with four other law enforcement officers, pleaded guilty last year to felony charges that included civil rights conspiracy, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. The charges stemmed from an interaction with Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker in January 2023, when the group of six officers burst into their Rankin County home without a warrant and assaulted them with stun guns, forced them to ingest liquids, punched and kicked them, and called them racial slurs. Dedmon fired his gun twice during the incident in an attempt to intimidate the victims, the Department of Justice said in a 2023 news release. Parker, via a statement read by his lawyer, told the court that he was "severely impacted" by what happened and it "left a scar that will last forever." "I don’t know if I will ever sleep again at night," Parker said in his statement. "I am in therapy now and in the future. My mind is all messed up and my emotions are all over the map." The incident took place on Jan. 24, 2023, when a white person called Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that Jenkins and Parker were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton, Mississippi, according to The Associated Press. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies who called themselves "The Goon Squad." The Justice Department said members "were known for using excessive force and not reporting it." The group handcuffed Jenkins and Parker, poured chocolate syrup, alcohol and milk on their faces, and then made them undress and shower together to hide the mess, the AP reported. They punched and kicked the victims, forced them to ingest liquids, assaulted them with a sex toy, shocked them with a stun gun 17 times, called them racial slurs and told Jenkins and Parker to stay out of Rankin County, the Justice Department said. Michael Corey Jenkins, third from left, and Eddie Terrell Parker, right, with supporters outside the courthouse in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday.Rogelio V. Solis / AP One deputy, Hunter Elward, removed a bullet from the chamber of his gun, placed it into Jenkins' mouth and pulled the trigger, according to the Justice Department. The unloaded gun clicked but did not fire. Elward then "racked the slide, intending to dry-fire a second time" but this time the gun discharged and the bullet lacerated Jenkins' tongue, broke his jaw and exited through his neck, the department said. Jenkins still has trouble speaking and eating. The Justice Department said the officers did not provide medical aid to Jenkins. They instead went outside "to devise a false cover story" and then planted a gun on Jenkins, destroyed video evidence, submitted false drug evidence to the crime lab, and filed false reports. Jenkins and Parker were arrested on false charges that were later dismissed. Jenkins, via a statement read by his lawyer, told the court that Jan. 24, 2023, "was the worst day of my life." "I’m hurt, I’m broken, I’m ashamed and embarrassed by the entire situation," he said in his statement. "The effects will forever linger in my life. I’m broken inside, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the person I was." Jenkins' mother, Mary Jenkins, said Opdyke did not show her son "any mercy." His father, Melvin Jenkins, said the former deputy "ought to be lined up against the wall and shot by a firing squad." Opdyke sobbed loudly during the sentencing before addressing the court. "I cannot fathom how I fell so easily in line going along with and at times participating in the use of excessive force," he said. "It will haunt me every day for the rest of my life. I take full responsibility for my actions." As he was apologizing to the victims, Jenkins got up and left. "I was a coward. I deeply regret all the pain and suffering I caused you," Opdyke said to Parker. "I could have tried to stop it but I didn't." U.S. District Judge Tom Lee told Opdyke he was "not merely a passive observer" in what happened before handing down the 210-month sentence. Elward and "Goon Squad" leader, former deputy Jeffrey Middleton, were sentenced Tuesday. Elward received just over 20 years in prison and Middleton was handed 17.5 years. McAlpin and Joshua Hartfield, a Richland police officer, will be sentenced on Thursday.
  6. You know the rules don't apply to him or his followers, right? And, not all of them are sane and law-abiding or respectful of the law. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-blows-maga-whistle-signal-130006820.html Trump blows the MAGA whistle — and his signal is heard loud and clear Lucian K. Truscott IV Tue, March 19, 2024 at 8:00 AM CDT·5 min read 905 Trump Supporters; MAGA Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images It may seem superfluous to say this, but it needs saying: He means it. Donald Trump meant it when he called his mob to Washington in December of 2020 by telling them, “Be there, will be wild!” and he means it right now when he tells the mobs at his rallies that the members of the January 6 Committee belong in jail, and if he is elected in November, he will have his Department of Justice “go after” President Biden and his family. Donald Trump is dangerously escalating the rhetoric he is using to rile up his followers at his rallies. On Saturday in Dayton, Ohio, he saluted those convicted of violently attacking police officers and doing damage to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He called them “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots.” And he executed a military-style salute as a loudspeaker played a version of the National Anthem sung into a telephone in a federal prison by felons convicted of crimes at the Capitol. Let’s stop right there and discuss what it means for Donald Trump to salute people convicted of committing crimes on Jan. 6. A report on ABC News way back in September of 2021, just eight months after the assault on the Capitol, said that a comprehensive review of police body-cam footage taken on Jan. 6 found that about 1,000 individual assaults had been committed against police officers. That doesn’t mean that 1,000 people had assaulted police officers. Instead, it means that an indeterminate number of people had committed 1,000 assaults on police officers – individual strikes with weapons, hits with fists, sprays with chemicals, pushing officers off their feet, dragging them by their feet, even in one case, dragging an officer down steps in front of the Capitol so that his head bounced as it fell from step to step. Hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump have been convicted of violent offenses at this point. Some of them are facing years in prison for the assaults they committed. Remember the guy who beat a police officer with a flagpole? His name is Peter Stager, and he struck the officer as one of his compatriots, Logan Barnhart, was dragging the officer down the Capitol steps. In January, Stager was sentenced to 52 months in federal prison. Last April, Barnhart was sentenced to 36 months. Those are just two of the “unbelievable patriots” Donald Trump saluted on Saturday in Ohio. Trump stood at attention with his right arm bent at the elbow and hand extended touching his right eyebrow. This is the position soldiers assume every day on an army post as the flag is lowered and the bugle call “Retreat” is played. It is the position soldiers assume when one of their compatriots is buried and a trio of riflemen fire their weapons seven times in quick succession just before “Taps” is played. Soldiers salute each other as they pass, the junior between them saluting the senior, and the senior officer returning the salute. It’s a sign of mutual respect that also honors the rank of the more senior officer. Soldiers stand at attention and salute as the flag passes in review at a parade, or when it is marched to the middle of a playing field before a football game as the National Anthem is sung. Soldiers do not stand at attention and salute criminals convicted of assaulting police officers or invading the Capitol building. Soldiers do not salute felons convicted of interfering with the certification of an election by the United States Senate and House of Representatives. A salute is a form of honor. Donald Trump has no honor to bestow on anyone. He doesn’t know what honor is. His supporters understand this. They don’t support him because he is an honorable man, but because he isn’t. They get that his salute is not a sign of respect but one of defiance. His salute signifies his belief that the laws that his supporters broke are illegitimate. Trump doesn’t believe in those laws, so his supporters don’t, either. What Trump is saying with his salute to his supporters is that he, and they, stand apart from the laws of this nation. They are a law unto themselves. When he promises that he will pardon the “hostages,” as he calls them, he is saying that they did not break the law because they were following his orders. That was the defense of the Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg trials, and it has been used again and again by defendants facing charges for their actions on Jan. 6. They went to the Capitol because Donald Trump told them to. Donald Trump is acknowledging his role in what they did, in the crimes they committed, by promising to pardon them. But he’s doing more than that. He is signaling to the people at his rallies that if they follow him and obey his orders and somehow end up getting arrested, he will stand up for them and give them pardons, too. He is turning them loose, and they know it. They come to his rallies so they can hear it directly from Trump himself and then go home and get ready to take his next set of orders as they did before Jan. 6, when he told them it was okay to “be wild” at the Capitol. If you can be wild at the Capitol and attack police officers with weapons like batons and flag poles and bear spray, you can be wild anywhere, and you can do anything. What is Donald Trump really saying when he tells his crowds that he will protect their “sacred” Second Amendment? He is escalating his movement to the next level. He’s telling them that guns will be okay next time. Don’t leave them at home. Take them and use them. Trump has begun his escalation. He has threatened a “bloodbath” if he is defeated in November. We watched the bloodbath on Jan. 6 at the Capitol. We get it. Here are the questions that remain: How far will it go this time? How many will die?
  7. You do understand that production was shut down, due to low demand during the throes of COVID, with oil prices actually going under during Trump's time, and that the economy had slowed to a crawl during 2020. Once we reopened our economy, demand steadily climbed, and with supply not completely in line, there was a natural increase. Do you really need a lecture on supply and demand? Groveling is letting Saudi Arabia get away with the murder of a journalist, like the Trump administration did.
  8. I can promise you that they aren't Youtube, X, or anonymous if they aren't affiliated with an actual news organization or some form of journalism, or an actual government agency.
  9. Yep, dumb reason, absolutely. There was ZIP financial consideration but lots of goofy political motivation.
  10. Are you denying the production numbers? Your blind hostility makes you goofy.
  11. Do whatever you like, but facts are facts, Anecdote Andy.
  12. And this thing called Summer is coming, while Russia is having refineries attacked. https://www.deseret.com/business/2024/03/19/us-gas-prices-up-utah-russia-ukraine-war/
  13. The Biden Administration has approved almost 50% more drilling permits than Trump did. In addition we produced more than anyone else in the world EVER in one year in 2023. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545
  14. Yeah, it's a big victory to attack a company for investing your money by yanking it and turning it over to some other company.
  15. Do you ever pass up an opportunity to be a simpering fanboy of his? He's a well known cheater in golf. There was even a book written about it. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/sports/2023/02/03/trump-and-golf-fancy-resorts-a-list-partners-cheating-at-highest-level/69857594007/
  16. Was reading how he will be in a minimum security, AC filled facility, next to a zoo where you can hear the lions roar in the morning, so not dissimilar to his White House job. https://www.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-says-trump-white-213236730.html Supreme Court says Trump White House official Peter Navarro must begin prison sentence Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY Mon, March 18, 2024 at 4:32 PM CDT·2 min read WASHINGTON − Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro is headed to federal prison after the Supreme Court on Monday rejected his emergency request to postpone his four-month sentence while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction. The Bureau of Prisons had scheduled Navarro to report for detention by 2 p.m. Tuesday in Miami unless the Supreme Court intervened. Chief Justice John Roberts said he saw no reason to disagree with an appeals court decision denying Navarro's request to remain free, adding that the decision is distinct from a ruling on the appeal itself. Navarro was convicted in September for refusing to testify or provide documents to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Lower courts sided against Navarro Navarro, a former trade adviser, has maintained that he couldn't cooperate with the House inquiry because former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege to keep their communications confidential. But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta found no evidence Trump did that. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled last week that Navarro forfeited his chance to make an executive privilege argument, and is unlikely to win his appeal. Peter Navarro, an advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters as he arrives at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse on September 07, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Navarro had argued he should remain free while appealing because he's not likely to flee the country and poses no danger to public safety. He also said he is raising issues in his appeal that could overturn his conviction, including what constitutes a "proper" invocation of executive privilege. The Justice Department said the Supreme Court didn't have to consider Navarro's executive privilege argument because he didn't comply with the committee's requests for personal communications that would not have been protected even if executive privilege had been invoked. And even if executive privilege existed, the department continued, the district court said the committee's demonstrated need for the information was more important. Why Congress wanted to question Navarro The Jan. 6 committee wanted to question Navarro because he wrote, in his 2021 book "In Trump Time," about the scheme to delay certification of President Joe Biden's election. Navarro described the scheme as the "Green Bay Sweep" and said it was the "last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats’ jaws of deceit." Navarro said in a later interview that Trump was “on board with the strategy,” according to the committee. Another Trump aide, political strategist Steve Bannon, also refused to cooperate with the committee and was convicted of contempt of Congress. Like Navarro, Bannon was sentenced to four months behind bars. But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was appointed by Trump, allowed Bannon to remain free while he appeals his conviction.
  17. I was the 3rd one done! I plan on reclaiming the throne!
  18. My school may close for the day, with encouragement from Austin, and I can't wait for the wholescale looting and mayhem from the sun being blocked for a bit, otherwise, surely that will be the day that all my public school students may be rounded up and placed in camps from here. Right, @country?
  19. Borrowing a concept from @Monte1076 I have absolute proof that all MAGA fanatics are morons when it comes to basic information, as shown on Jimmy Kimmel. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jimmy-kimmel-stumps-maga-fanatics-051528565.html Jimmy Kimmel Stumps MAGA Fanatics With U.S. Citizenship Test Jennifer M. Wood Tue, March 19, 2024 at 12:15 AM CDT·2 min read 881 Donald Trump’s beef with Jimmy Kimmel just keeps escalating. Ever since Kimmel used the Academy Awards stage to embarrass Trump in front of the world by reading the former president’s scathing review of Kimmel’s hosting skills, the former president has been desperate to spin the narrative and paint himself as the winner of this particular showdown. On Monday, Kimmel upped the ante once more by showing just how little Trump’s die-hard supporters know about the world around them. The late-night host sent writer Blaire Erskine to a Trump rally in South Carolina with one simple task: Get Trump supporters to agree to answer a few questions from the American Citizenship Test “to find out just how patriotic these patriots are,” Kimmel explained. “The fact of the matter is the people who support Trump and the MAGA agenda are under the impression that America was founded on the idea of excluding those who do not share your beliefs, which is the opposite of the truth,” said Kimmel, which is exactly why he wanted to “to find out just how patriotic these patriots are.” If we’re basing the answer to that question on just how well they did on a basic citizenship test, then the answer is: not so patriotic, after all. Erskine’s first question—“What is the supreme law of the land?”—may have seemed like a no-brainer to some, but that was definitely not the case with the MAGA fans she spoke with. The question was met with a number of groans, head-scratching, and one seemingly earnest response of “Guns, liberty, and justice?” (The answer, for the record, is the Constitution.) When quizzed on how many amendments there are, the answers ranged from 10 to “twenty-something I think” which was a great guess… until the same woman changed her answer to “maybe 13.” (The answer: 27.) As for the first three words of the Constitution, one very confident MAGA responded with a quick “In God we trust,” to which Erskine quickly explained, “OK, so that’s four [words].” One young MAGA did answer, “We the people,” correctly… but only because he admittedly got some help from a passerby. “You cheated,” said Erskine. “You cheated like Joe Biden!” Which received an enthusiastic response.
  20. First, I condemn Olbermann for clearly inferring that he is hopeful that Trump may be killed. I condemn all violence in the name of politics or protests. Always have and always will. Second, Olbermann speaks for the 'party' as much as the worst racists out there who vote Republican do. I don't even hold Trump against most Republicans I know, although if you vote for Abbott or Dan Patrick, or Ken Paxton, I do have a bone to pick with your overall concern for this state. Trump is his own energy, and however vile and negative and hateful he may be, I don't think he should be killed or that all think the same way he does. Clearly too many do, as he will be the nominee, but I will still keep those people as friends and neighbors I hope long after he has faded into a footnote.
  21. It's not lying, at all. It's a response to the long history of Trump making threatening comments and trying to crawfish away from them or have apologists like yourself give him cover. People aren't so stupid that they can't pick up on inference if it is even that.
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