March 13, 2023

New College President Richard Corcoran fires diversity dean, hires former GOP operative

New College of Florida Interim President Richard Corcoran recently fired the school's dean for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, removing a prominent campus leader despite a report suggesting the dean could be moved into an open position rather than being terminated as part of a plan to abolish the school's DEI office.

A few days after firing the dean, Corcoran hired to oversee admissions a former Republican Party operative who belongs to the National Rifle Association and the conservative Heritage Foundation and once worked for an organization deemed an "anti-LGBTQ" hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The new admissions director, who most recently worked with Corcoran in the Florida Department of Education, doesn't list any college admissions experience on his resume.

The firing of the diversity dean and hiring of a new admissions officer are Corcoran's first two personnel moves since becoming interim president on Feb. 27. The moves exemplify the new direction for a school that is being reshaped by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed six new board members on Jan. 6.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/13/desantis-ally-richard-corcoran-fires-new-colleges-diversity-dean/69993231007/

This is just another example of what DeSantis is doing to higher education in Florida.

March 13, 2023

SpaceX Crew Member Realizes He Fired After Being Locked Out Of Capsule

LOW EARTH ORBIT—Noting that he had a feeling something was off the second he left for a spacewalk, SpaceX Crew member Chris Jeffries told reporters Friday that he realized he had been fired after being locked out of the Dragon capsule.

“While no one has explicitly told me that my job has been eliminated, judging by the fact that I have no space shuttle access, everyone is ignoring me, and I’m floating endlessly in space, I think I can put two and two together,” said Jeffries, who after trying repeatedly to float past the shuttle’s windows to flag down the seven-person crew, told reporters that this was the most unprofessional way he had ever been dismissed from a mission.

“I could think of one million better ways to fire someone instead of locking them outside of the shuttle, cutting their tether, and then not responding to any of their SOSs. But hey that’s Elon in a nutshell! Hello? Is anyone in there? My space suit keeps telling me that my oxygen access is denied.”

At press time, Jeffries could not be reached for comment after desperately tweeting at Elon Musk that he was going to die, to which Elon simply replied with a sideways laughing emoji.

https://www.theonion.com/spacex-crew-member-realizes-he-fired-after-being-locked-1850213418

March 12, 2023

Flush with rain, California plans to replenish drought-depleted groundwater with floodwaters

With torrential rains drenching California, state water regulators have endorsed a plan to divert floodwaters from the San Joaquin River to replenish groundwater that has been depleted by heavy agricultural pumping during three years of record drought.

The State Water Resources Control Board approved a request by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to take more than 600,000 acre-feet from the river and send much of that water flowing to areas where it can spread out, soak into the ground and percolate down to the aquifer beneath the San Joaquin Valley.

The amount of water that’s set to be rerouted under the plan is more than the annual supply for the city of Los Angeles. Some of the water will also be routed to wildlife refuges along the San Joaquin River starting next week, officials said.

The plan is intended to address potential flood risks, capitalize on California’s near-record snowpack and capture some of the high flows from the latest extreme storms to store water underground.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-03-11/california-will-use-floodwater-to-recharge-groundwater

March 12, 2023

8 reported dead after 2 suspected smuggling boats crash at Black's Beach in San Diego

Source: LA Times

SAN DIEGO — At least eight people died late Saturday night when two suspected smuggling boats overturned in the ocean off Black’s Beach in the Torrey Pines area in what officials called one of the deadliest maritime events in San Diego history.

Officials were alerted to the incident when a Spanish-speaking woman called 911 around 11:30 p.m. asking for help. She said two boats were near Black’s Beach, one with eight people onboard and a second with eight to 10 people. She told dispatchers the one she was on had made it to shore while the other had capsized and people were in the water.

However, emergency crews found both boats capsized and did not find any survivors, said Lifeguard Chief James Gartland, of the San Diego Fire Department.

A lifeguard dispatcher used GPS coordinates from the woman’s cellphone to pinpoint the location to water off of Black Gold Road, south of Torrey Pines Gliderport, San Diego Fire-Rescue officials said.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-12/8-reported-dead-after-2-suspected-smuggling-boats-crash-at-blacks-beach-in-san-diego

March 11, 2023

Trump Gets Caught Trying to Play Judges to Manufacture Trial Delays

Donald Trump is in so much trouble that his trials are starting to run into one another, and now his lawyers might get in trouble for fooling judges into delaying them all.

Faced with an onslaught of expensive lawsuits ranging from fraud to racketeering, former President Donald Trump is desperately trying to delay several trials well into the 2024 presidential election season—and he was just called out for the scheme.

Trump’s lawyers have until Wednesday to explain how they tried to play two New York judges off each other by double-booking trials to potentially delay them both.

Trump already pushed back a potential late 2023 trial over duping investors to Jan. 2024, citing a conflict with the New York Attorney General’s trial over his fake financial statements to banks. But when Trump’s team recently sought to delay that AG trial, they got caught.

An attorney has alerted U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield in federal court and Justice Arthur F. Engoron in state court that they may be getting played.

“Donald Trump has a history of leveraging his presidential-campaign activities to delay and avoid judicial proceedings,” attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote in a letter sent to both judges. “We anticipated that, should the case schedule run into 2024, Mr. Trump will begin to argue that his campaign obligations must take precedence over his participation in this case, including at trial.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-gets-caught-trying-to-play-judges-to-manufacture-trial-delays

March 11, 2023

Insurers slashed Hurricane Ian payouts far below damage estimates, documents and insiders reveal

A Washington Post investigation has found that some policyholders had their claims cut by more than 80 percent

FORT MYERS, Fla. — When insurance adjuster Jordan Lee entered the cream-colored house battered by Hurricane Ian, the smell from the rain-soaked carpet made it hard to breathe. Piles of pink insulation covered the worn, white couches, he recalled, and poured from the collapsed ceiling, left gaping from the storm’s 150 mph winds. He photographed debris flecked on the carpet and walls, chunks of roof in the yard, and broken screens and gutters around a pool filled with palm fronds.

The home, which belongs to retired couple Terry and Mary Sebastian, sits on a canal in Rotonda West, Fla., a coastal community that bore the brunt of Ian when the storm made landfall on Sept. 28. The entire place would need to be dehumidified, the roof completely replaced, the insulation torn out and the tattered pool enclosure rebuilt. It would be about $200,000 to repair the damage, the licensed adjuster calculated in his estimate for Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Co.

But when Lee checked in on his report about 10 days later, his stomach dropped, he said. It had been drastically whittled down, with entire portions, such as the one detailing issues in the primary bedroom, removed. The amount of insulation that needed to be redone was cut by half, and his estimate now said that one-third of the roof should be fixed, instead of it being fully replaced. The homeowners were slated to receive a total of $27,000. The changes were made without Lee’s knowledge or consent, he said, but his name was still on the final report, according to documents seen by The Washington Post.

After major disasters like Ian, insurance companies often bring on third-party firms like Tristar Claim Solutions, an independent adjusting company that Lee worked for as a contractor, to help with the hundreds of thousands of claims.

During the insurance claims process, it’s standard for field adjusters, who are trained to assess damaged homes, to collaborate with those back in the office to make minor edits, discuss aspects of the claim and alter line items if, for example, the carrier has evidence that damage was from a prior event, according to adjusters and insurance industry experts. That is how the system is supposed to work.

https://wapo.st/425Qrnp

I'm sure DeSantis will get to the bottom of this critical issue for so many impacted Floridians as soon as he returns from his 2024 campaign trip.

March 11, 2023

'Misinformation': Biden administration responds to Florida COVID vaccine letter

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo wrote the federal government warning of the vaccine’s risks in February.

Top Biden administration officials responded Friday to a February letter from Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, doubling down on the federal government’s stance that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.

In a letter of their own dated March 10, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky admonished Ladapo for what they said were “misleading” claims about the health risks associated with the vaccines.

“Misleading people by overstating the risks, or emphasizing the risks without acknowledging the overwhelming benefits, unnecessarily causes vaccine hesitation and puts people at risk of death or serious illness that could have been prevented by timely vaccination,” Califf and Walensky wrote.

The letter came in response to a Feb. 15 communique from Ladapo to Califf and Walensky in which the state’s surgeon general expressed his concern about what he said was a troubling trend of adverse health events associated with the COVID-19 shots.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/03/10/covid-vaccine-desantis-biden-ladapo-cdc-fda/

March 10, 2023

Gay Sarasota School Board member verbally attacked after public comment rules change

At Tuesday's Sarasota County School Board meeting, where the board agreed to expand the public's comment time, one frequent speaker spent her three minutes launching personal, anti-gay attacks on board member Tom Edwards.

Melissa Bakondy, a regular school board meeting attendee and former member of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, called on Gov. Ron DeSantis to remove Edwards, who is gay, from the board, calling him an "LGBT groomer" and "a threat to the innocence of our children." She also implied he was a threat to the safety of children, citing his sexual orientation, at one point asking why he wanted to read books to elementary students, something commonly done by school district officials, and why he posted the pictures on social media.

The incident again highlighted a simmering debate over the tension between allowing wide-ranging public input and the rancor that often accompanies it at Sarasota School Board meetings over the past few years.

During the speech, Bakondy called on the district to send an email to the parents of all the students Edwards read to.

"These notification letters should include that young children may have been inappropriately photographed and placed on the internet and should include Mr. Edwards' background of alcohol sales and participating in LGBTQ grooming events...," said Bakondy, who also called Edwards a "groomer" at a meeting last September, and was removed from a meeting in April 2022 for refusing to step away from the lectern after speaking out of turn.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2023/03/09/sarasota-school-board-member-attacked-with-anti-gay-public-comments-desantis-tom-edwards-homophobic/69983102007/

March 10, 2023

New College loses at least $10 million in donations after DeSantis' takeover, alum says

A former New College of Florida Board of Trustees member who has spoken to a number of major donors about their giving plans since Gov. Ron DeSantis began transforming the school says 11 told her they are canceling more than $10 million in planned contributions, a huge financial blow to the small Sarasota school.

Charlie Lenger served on the New College board until Jan. 6, when DeSantis replaced her in a dramatic move that saw six conservative board members appointed with a mandate to transform the college.

A Sarasota resident who founded a plant leasing company in 1981 that grew out of her senior thesis at New College and now has 45 employees, Lenger also served on the New College Foundation board for 35 years, helping to bring in donors, and has been a longtime donor herself.

After DeSantis’ takeover, donors started contacting Lenger to get more information about what was happening. A number shared their intentions to remove New College from their estate plans and stop other contributions.

Lenger began keeping a list of canceled contributions. Of those who were willing to share the amount, she tallied more than $10 million from 11 donors.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/10/florida-governor-ron-desantis-new-college-takeover-drying-up-alumni-donations/69984607007/

I believe DeSantis' goal is not to transform New College into the "Hillsdale of the South", but to shut it down permanently -- because he does not want its "woke" legacy to survive.

March 10, 2023

Saudi Arabia and Iran Agree to Restore Ties, in Talks Hosted by China

The deal between regional rivals underlines China’s growing economic and political importance in the Middle East, and what some analysts say is waning American influence.

After years of open hostility and proxy conflicts across the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to re-establish diplomatic ties, they announced on Friday, in a significant pivot for the two regional rivals that was facilitated by China.

China hosted the talks that led to the breakthrough, highlighting Beijing’s growing role as a global economic and political power, and counterbalance to Washington — particularly in the Middle East, a region that was long shaped by the military and diplomatic involvement of the United States.

Seven years after cutting formal ties, Iran and Saudi Arabia will reopen embassies in each other’s countries within two months, and confirmed their “respect for the sovereignty of states and noninterference in their internal affairs,” they said in a joint statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency. Iran’s state news media also announced the deal.

The two countries agreed to reactivate a lapsed security cooperation pact — a shift that comes after years of Iranian-backed militia in Yemen targeting Saudi Arabia with missile and drone attacks — as well as older trade, investment and cultural accords.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-iran-reestablish-ties.html?unlocked_article_code=Wmbjm4F83JDXjPqixFTUjquzgdMa3IRyYgHz5j41xjtxtksvWQ4QoPaXCpGyJtBRFo0BkbYf-JS3_zp7ycLlv-58PogRY7GKeS26OpzPH81cf_4oAmZ2RMuMqgKY3kVQzkmBh73NnD5iTKE7JtrAFVVoAq8Oxio4QzPS1Ftgqyg1RgwdfvM6hBQ-OmphDoBQilG-9PkFMTfm9jLzsSbpKqfJ1FZtd17SvLi_Bdaz1z_zi6PaxoRPmgH25HIVPTbqsYzgy7I2e7fg7WvCfN_CHQGIXDS7ZdtKheoApF_TyTuvROLO-tKENYH-KSi5obHaUC01Mdq3q68_Z0v47CD1ajib0nwhfNtMNCR14YeOmvesv7X5Cg&smid=url-share

While House Republicans waste time and money attacking Democrats and undermining American national and international policy, China is moving in swiftly to assume the influential role the USA once held with other countries. It is happening now throughout South America, Africa, and now the Middle East.