June 16, 2020

Human Trafficking Prosecutions Decline Under Trump Administration

Federal efforts to combat human trafficking in the U.S. have slowed under the Trump administration, according to government data and human trafficking advocates, Axios reports.

There are thousands of trafficking victims in the U.S., including children trafficked into prostitution and agricultural and domestic workers who are paid little or nothing. The Trump administration has cut back on prosecutions of these crimes and assistance to victims.

Last year, the National Human Trafficking Hotline identified almost 15,000 people who were likely trafficked. That’s more than any year since at least 2012. The number of defendants charged with human trafficking by federal attorneys fell to 386 last year, from 553 in 2017, according to the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report.

So far this year, federal attorneys have prosecuted 39 percent of the cases referred to them with child sex trafficking as the lead charge, according to Syracuse University.

That’s down from 49 percent in the last year of the Obama administration.

More: https://thecrimereport.org/2019/09/09/human-trafficking-prosecutions-decline-under-trump-administration/

June 16, 2020

Don Juan de Onate statue in Rio Arriba County comes down

This is a different statue from the one the protester was shot at by the insane militia.

June 16, 2020

Judge lambasts amendment to rename confederate bases as "madness," gets thoroughly bodied by clerk

FEDERAL JUDGE LAMBASTS AMENDMENT TO RENAME CONFEDERATE BASES AS “MADNESS,” GETS THOROUGHLY BODIED BY CLERK

Ryan Grim
June 15 2020, 4:01 p.m.

THE BATTLE OVER renaming U.S. bases that currently honor Confederate officers broke out in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., on Monday. But the argument was not in the courtroom; rather, it was launched, and settled, over email.

In an email sent Circuit-wide on Sunday, Judge Laurence Silberman, a Reagan appointee, lambasted Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for her amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act requiring the military to strip the names of rebel officers from any military assets.

“Since I am about to be interviewed I thought it would be appropriate to unburden myself in opposition to the madness proposed by Senator Warren: the desecration of Confederate graves,” Silberman wrote.

The interview Silberman referenced was part of a series of chats judges do, open only to court staff. Silberman went on to explain that his great-grandfather had fought for the Union as part of Ulysses S. Grant’s army and was badly wounded at Shiloh, Tennessee. His great-grandfather’s brother, meanwhile, joined the Confederate States Army and was captured at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “It’s important to remember that Lincoln did not fight the war to free the Slaves Indeed he was willing to put up with slavery if the Confederate States Returned,” he wrote (lack of punctuation and errant capitalization in the original, and throughout). “My great great grandfather Never owned slaves as best I can tell.”

More: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/15/dc-circuit-confederate-bases-federal-judge/?fbclid=IwAR2tpsa3tmRD5yUrWA-cjXRAjYgeTZ057XaeWKRgYEH079lYl_StehyhuSE

June 16, 2020

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar's father dies from coronavirus complications

June 15, 2020, 10:26 PM MDT



By Phil Helsel
U.S. Rep. Ilham Omar said Monday that her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, had died from complications from the coronavirus illness COVID-19.

"No words can describe what he meant to me and all who knew him," Omar, D-Minn., said in a statement.

More: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/u-s-rep-ilhan-omar-s-father-dies-coronavirus-complications-n1231141?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR2IQ2553po-3L_-9_LvTI3jVTWOFmqoYXQ4iCYBwKwn21mAz8LZo-h8EXc

June 16, 2020

Right wing militia nutcase shoots protester in Albuquerque

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — One man was shot in Old Town as a protest over the “La Jornada” sculpture in front of the Albuquerque Museum erupted into violence Monday evening.

The shooting occurred during a clash between individuals trying to take down the controversial sculpture and five or six heavily armed New Mexico Civil Guard members, a civilian group, trying to protect the monument that features conquistador Juan de Oñate.

“One male subject was shot and has been transported to (University of New Mexico Hospital) in unknown condition,” Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said in an email. “Officers are securing the scene. Detectives will be investigating this scene.”

More: https://www.abqjournal.com/1466626/one-man-shot-during-protest-in-old-town-albuquerque.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1BBeWtbJjpkcJ1HKtG4C8xhBFPWXqAL8Zogwp3iG1siShyMcQJyKmmR4E#Echobox=1592275246

Video of the sound of gunshots at the video here: https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/one-man-injured-at-protest-near-old-town-albuquerque/5760821/

Video of the militia here: https://www.facebook.com/FFOLABQ/videos/881900242306563/

June 16, 2020

Bette Midler: 'Are Police Departments Magnets for Sadists the Way the Church is for Pedophiles?

Bette Midler: ‘Are Police Departments Magnets for Sadists the Way the Church Was a Magnet for Pedophiles?’

Singer Bette Midler sent out a tweet late on Wednesday asking whether police departments were “magnets for sadists the way the church was a magnet for pedophiles.”

Midler’s tweet forwarded a tweet by Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K Brown which showed side-by-side photos of 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling on the sidelines during the national anthem and the Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, who died after repeatedly telling the policeman he could not breath.

“For all those who didn’t get it the first time, the second time, the 20th time…this is not a political issue—it’s a civil rights and human rights issue,” Brown wrote in her tweet.

“Are Police Departments magnets for sadists the way the church was a magnet for pedophiles??” Midler asked in her tweet forwarding Brown’s.

More: https://cnsnews.com/blog/cnsnewscom-staff/bette-midler-are-police-departments-magnets-sadists-way-church-was-magnet?fbclid=IwAR0gkuc18p1IPUs6aEr_Il6r8eTpg4-xbjI8S6tL3n4ZJ3S5utBTKde3TMQ

June 16, 2020

From Daily KOS in May: Holy crap, Trump is on track to lose Georgia

kos for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday May 19, 2020 · 10:00 AM MDT

I’ve been saying that there are seven presidential battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Six of the seven are obvious and long-standing battlegrounds. But … Georgia? Yes. Georgia.

The latest numbers are courtesy of Civiqs for Daily Kos:

ALL URBAN SUBURBAN RURAL
TRUMP 47 31 43 67
BIDEN 48 63 52 27

Can you believe that impeached president Donald Trump won Georgia suburbs in 2016? The reason presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is winning in 2020 and Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 is the suburbs.

According to the 2016 exit polls, Trump won rural Georgia 67-29, which is virtually identical to what this poll found. Clinton won urban Georgia 68-29, again within rough range of Civiqs’ findings. But those suburban numbers! That’s the new ball game, going from Trump 51-46 in 2016 to 52-43 Biden in this poll—a 14-point swing.

It was massive shifts in the suburbs that delivered the House to Nancy Pelosi in 2018. It was that shift that delivered the Virginia legislature, and governors in red Louisiana and Kentucky in 2019. And it’s those suburbs that have made Georgia so competitive in 2020.

More: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/19/1946035/-Biden-is-beating-Trump-in-Georgia

June 15, 2020

Something you don't hear enough about. Viral load reduction due to face masks.

Even if you get the virus, if you get a smaller load you probably won't get that sick. I will hear doctors talk about how important it is to reduce viral load and they will suggest masks do this but I haven't seen too many articles touching on it like this one does.

Snip:
One and Two : Missing the Compounding Effect, Missing the Nonlinearity of the Risk of Infection
Taleb argues that mask-wearing doesn’t just reduce the risk of transmission by a fixed percentage. There are non-linearities at play, so a reduction in probability of transmission of x% actually reduces transmissions by another, larger percentage — perhaps as large as 95%.
For me, this jibes with the idea of looking at viral transmission not as a threshold event (“Get exposed to virus, get the virus”) but as a cumulative exposure based on your total viral load, with some inflection point (likely personal) where you become infected if a particular exposure value is exceeded.
This fits with Taleb’s other work. Everything is dose dependent — poisons can be beneficial at small doses, but fatal at higher ones. Covid-19 is probably not beneficial at any dose. But it’s also likely that infection (and perhaps the severity of infection) is dependent on total viral load (also likely in a non-linear fashion). That explains why workers, like front line medical staff, that receive higher viral loads get sick more and die more from the virus.
Masks, in reducing the wearer’s total viral load (both by protecting them partially from virus in the environment and protecting others from spreading the virus if infected) reduce the viral load substantially. They might even reduce it past an inflection point at which infection occurs in all but the most susceptible parties.
If that’s the case, then masks may be both necessary and (shockingly) sufficient to control environmental exposure and infections from Covid-19.

More: https://medium.com/gado-images-insights/face-masks-may-be-necessary-and-sufficient-to-stop-covid-19-f4f5a295deb

June 15, 2020

LA Riots 92 (Full Documentary) National Geographic

June 14, 2020

Two infected hairstylists were wearing masks. None of their 140 customers, also masked, got COVID-19

Think about this. A hairstylist hovers right next to people they are working on for as long as an hour!!!!


Author: Chacour Koop, The Kansas City Star clock Updated: 2 days ago calendar Published 2 days ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Missouri health officials discovered no new coronavirus cases after two infected hairstylists served dozens of clients at a Great Clips hair salon.

The Springfield-Greene County Health Department says the incubation period has passed after the hairstylists worked on 140 people at the location in Springfield. Six coworkers also were potentially exposed.

"This is exciting news about the value of masking to prevent COVID-19," Health Director Clay Goddard said in a news release. "We are studying more closely the details of these exposures, including what types of face coverings were worn and what other precautions were taken to lead to this encouraging result."

A hairstylist at the Great Clips location served 84 clients while symptomatic. The hairstylist infected a coworker, who worked with 56 clients.

More: https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/06/12/two-infected-missouri-hairstylists-were-wearing-masks-none-of-their-140-customers-also-masked-contracted-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR09_CbQkOM17g-G-E06GHR7cWRZoqGkTxqcVXTRFi0eOBgdVhYwkABCpJI