https://www.politicususa.com/2021/08/10/things-are-falling-apart-for-ron-desantis-as-mainstream-media-calls-out-his-hypocrisy.html


Posted on Tue, Aug 10th, 2021 by Jason Easley
Things Are Falling Apart For Ron DeSantis As Mainstream Media Calls Out His Hypocrisy
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is being called out as a small government hypocrite for his authoritarian anti-mask COVID policies.


Video of Willie Geist on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:


Geist said, “And the idea that Mr. Small Government Desantis is using this top-down pressure of the governor’s office to dictate what school boards can do, flies in the face of the argument that he doesn’t want the federal government telling him what to do these are local issues. But on a human level with no politics involved, a career educator is trying to protect her kids from getting covid, and she’s being threatened now in an official letter she has to answer by 5:00 today with having her funding taken away from the state.”

Republicans Aren’t Really In Favor Of Small Government.

When a Republican says they favor small government, what they mean is a small government for things that they oppose. Masks in schools go from being a personal choice to government mask bans because Ron DeSantis is trying to build a 2024 presidential platform atop the bodies of COVID victims. Small government is Republican code for let me do whatever I want. It has nothing to do with the use of governmental power or decision-making.

Ron DeSantis is following the Trump playbook and running himself and his 2024 presidential hopes straight into the ground.

Biden’s reconciliation bill would be a big fucking deal
Democrats’ massive spending plan, explained.
By Andrew Prokopandrew@vox.com Aug 9, 2021, 11:30am EDT


Democrats are moving ahead on what could be the most consequential piece of domestic policy legislation in decades, and the planned centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s first-term agenda.

This coming megabill doesn’t yet have a name. It hasn’t technically been written. But on Monday, Senate Democrats released their current plan for what to put in it — and, well, it’s a whole lot.

Low-income families would get what’s effectively a “child allowance” — money to help raise kids — for longer, via an expanded child tax credit. Seniors on Medicare would get new dental, vision, and hearing benefits, as well as lower prescription drug prices. The coming bill would create new programs for universal pre-K, subsidized child care, free community college, and paid family leave. Some unauthorized immigrants would be able to get green cards. Then there’s major spending on clean energy, housing affordability, and much more.

It would be “the most consequential piece of legislation passed since the Great Depression,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said last month. In spending terms, it would be as much as $3.5 trillion — about triple the size of Obamacare, the law that then-vice president Biden famously called “a big fucking deal.”

The sheer range of issues the bill will cover is dizzying: It’s practically everything in Democrats’ domestic policy agenda that Senate rules would permit them to pass without any Republican support, via the special, filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process.

more...

https://www.vox.com/22577374/reconciliation-bill-biden-medicare-climate

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/08/09/chuck-grassley-argues-on-the-senate-floor-that-trump-has-a-right-to-plot-a-coup.html

Posted on Mon, Aug 9th, 2021 by Jason Easley
Chuck Grassley Argues On The Senate Floor That Trump Has A Right To Plot A Coup


Standing on the same ground that was attacked on 1/6, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) claimed on the Senate floor that Trump has a right to plot a coup.

Chuck Grassley Called Trump’s Coup Plot A Robust Discussion With His Advisors






Chuck Grassley Seems To Be Saying That It Is Fine To Plot A Coup As Long As A President Doesn’t Do It.

Sen. Grassley seemed to be suggesting that plotting a coup is just “locker room talk.” Unless the government is actually overthrown, then it is no harm, no foul.

The problem is that the 1/6 attack was more than talk. Trump funded the rally, his White House communicated and coordinated with the attackers, and he incited the attack.

Trump’s talk of trying to force the DOJ to overturn the election is part of a broader plot. His pressure on the DOJ and the 1/6 attack are part of the same thread, and no Sen. Grassley, presidents do not get to plot coups after they lose elections.

That’s not democracy. That’s authoritarianism.

https://crooksandliars.com/2021/08/if-florida-was-foreign-country-wed

8/09/21 5:39am
'If Florida Was A Foreign Country, We'd Consider Banning Travel'
CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner said Ron DeSantis "needs to understand that he has painted himself into a corner. People are dying in Florida. It is going to get much worse."
By Susie Madrak
Video @ link~


CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner didn't mince words about the covid pandemic in Florida.



"Harry, the doctor set it up asking the question, 'if Florida or Louisiana were foreign countries, would we ban travel?" John Berman asked.

"I mean this is bad. Florida, Louisiana, look at this. Worst of the entire pandemic in both Louisiana and Florida," Harry Enten said.

Climate change report from IPCC a 'code red for humanity', United Nations chief warns
By national science, technology and environment reporter Michael Slezak and the Specialist Reporting Team's Penny Timms


The Earth could be just 10 years from heating by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius — a threshold beyond which even more serious and frequent fires, droughts, floods and cyclones are expected to wreak havoc on humanity.

Key points:



That is one of the key conclusions of the most comprehensive climate report ever released — produced by the world's most authoritative body on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Globally, warming has now reached about 1.1C since industrialisation (1850-1900), according to the hundreds of scientists and governments that make up the IPCC. In Australia, warming has reached 1.4C.

The new report was a "code red for humanity", United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres declared.

"The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable: Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk," he said.

"This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.

more...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-09/coal-climate-change-global-warming-ipcc-report-released/100355952

https://pressrun.media/p/why-is-good-news-for-biden-constantly

When good news for Biden is no news for the press
Networks ignore jobs report
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago


Friday’s job numbers released by the Department of Labor were shockingly good. Easily beating analysts’ expectations, the U.S. economy posted 943,000 new positions in the month of July, as the unemployment rate fell to 5.4%, delivering one of the strongest reports of the last decade. It was welcome news not only for President Joe Biden, since presidents are routinely graded on the strength of the job market, but for the U.S. economy as it tries to free itself from the year-and-a-half constraints of the pandemic.

Friday’s red-hot accounting also went off like a firecracker on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring to new heights, setting its 44th record-high close of 2021. That benefits 60 million Americans who participate in 401K accounts and whose retirement funds balloon every time the Dow soars.

So, the fantastic jobs news and record-setting Dow climb were treated as a huge deal by the press, right? Recall that back in May, when a disappointing jobs report badly missed expectations, the press hovered over the story for days, suggesting Biden faced an economic crisis, while Republican critics condemned his handling of the economy. So to be fair and to be consistent, the media ought to have treated the July numbers just as intensely as it did the May findings, right?

Turns out lots of news outlets weren’t that interested in the breakthrough job news. As has become custom, good news under Biden is often treated as no news by the press, which is for more enthusiastic pushing Biden “crisis” stories. (Remember this April headline from Politico? "How Good News Could Complicate the Biden Agenda”)

snip//

The press has been slightly obsessed with that economic narrative all year. Eagerly echoing complaints from Republicans and the business community that workers had become lazy because of the federal assistance paid out during the pandemic, news outlets have hammered that point and been portraying it was bad news for Biden. Worse, the coverage often only focused on the viewpoint of business owners, not on employees.

But when there was great news for workers — and for Biden — in the form of nearly one million new jobs posted in July, the press was far less interested.

For the record, some news organizations got the story right. Late Friday afternoon, the New York Times’ jobs report update was still prominently displayed as the second headline on the paper’s homepage. And at the Wall Street Journal, its jobs story was the top headline all day long.

Proving once again that good journalism isn’t really that hard.

As Florida's COVID troubles worsen, DeSantis faces GOP pushback
The worse COVID conditions in Florida become, the more Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) balks at policies designed to help address the pandemic.
Aug. 9, 2021, 8:00 AM EDT
By Steve Benen

snip//

What the governor has refused to do is adopt policies designed to help address the pandemic. As the New York Times reported over the weekend:



A Washington Post report added that the GOP governor is among the Republicans who've "decided new surges are tolerable and do not require a robust response to quell."

The passivity in response to tragedy is difficult to understand, much less defend, but it'd be a mistake to suggest DeSantis is doing literally nothing. He's already taken important actions such as preventing local officials from acting on their own to try to save lives, preventing Florida communities and businesses that want to impose modest restrictions to stem the tide of infections.

snip//

It is a position DeSantis, at least for now, refuses to consider. One can only wonder how much worse conditions would have to become before the governor changes course.


more...

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/florida-s-covid-troubles-worsen-desantis-faces-gop-pushback-n1276324

19 hours ago
Did a PG&E Power Line Spark the Second-Largest Fire in California History?
As the Dixie Fire wipes out an entire town and continues to rage, a federal judge orders the utility company to disclose information.


On Sunday, the Dixie Fire, a three-week-old blaze that has ravaged more than 463,000 acres and forced thousands of people from their homes, became the second-largest fire in California history. Eight people have been reported missing so far, and the mountain town of Greenville has been mostly destroyed.

Now, a federal judge wants to know whether Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), the state’s largest utility company, played a role in starting the fire.

On late Friday night, US District Judge William Alsup, who oversees PG&E’s probation for its role in the San Bruno gas explosion in 2010, ordered the utility to provide inspection information on a tree that fell on a power line where the Dixie Fire started. He also asked the utility to disclose information about vegetation and equipment in the area. “PG&E’s responses will not be deemed as an admission by PG&E that it caused any fire, but they will serve as a starting point for discussion,” Alsup wrote.

PG&E, which was aware of the judge’s order, has indicated in electric incident reports filed to the California Public Utilities Commission that its equipment may have sparked the Dixie Fire, though no official cause has been determined. The utility company announced it would bury 10,000 miles of power lines in the coming years in high-risk fire areas.

more...

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/08/did-a-pge-power-line-spark-the-second-largest-fire-in-california-history/

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/08/07/jim-acosta-suggest-naming-covid-variants-after-republican-governors.html

Posted on Sat, Aug 7th, 2021 by Jason Easley
Jim Acosta Suggest Naming COVID Variants After Republican Governors


CNN’s Jim Acosta said that people should not have to die so the GOP can “own the libs” and suggested that COVID variants be named after Republican governors.

Video @ link~

Acosta: People should not have to die so some politicians can own the libs. They’re not owning anybody but they may end up owning the pandemic because they’re prolonging it. Perhaps it’s time to start naming these new variants that may be coming out after them… https://t.co/1xfTUGY1rt

Acosta said, “People should not have to die so some politicians can own the libs. They’re not owning anything, but they may end up owning the pandemic because they’re prolonging it. Perhaps it’s time to start naming these new variants that may be coming out after them. Instead of the Delta variant, why not call it the DeSantis variant? We could sell beer koozies that say don’t Florida my Fauci and use the money to help pay for all the funerals that will be coming in the days to come.”

Naming The Variants After Republican Governors Would Put The Responsibility Where It Belongs.

The Delta variant is the DeSantis variant. Future variants could be named after Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas and Kristi Noem in South Dakota.

DeSantis tried to pick a fight with President Biden because he thinks that he could have a shot at being president. (Ron DeSantis has no chance of being president.)

Naming the variants after Republican governors, even if it is only done informally in the United States, is a great idea because it will put the blame for all of the needless death and injury caused by the pandemic on the shoulders of those who should completely own it for the world to see.

Louisiana Supreme Court upholds Black man's life sentence for stealing hedge clippers more than 20 years ago
By Kay Jones and Leah Asmelash, CNN
Updated 6:15 PM ET, Thu August 6, 2020


(CNN)A Black Louisiana man will spend the rest of his life in prison for stealing hedge clippers, after the Louisiana Supreme Court denied his request to have his sentence overturned last week.

Fair Wayne Bryant, 62, was convicted in 1997 on one count of attempted simple burglary. In his appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Louisiana in 2018, his attorney, Peggy Sullivan, wrote that Bryant "contends that his life sentence is unconstitutionally harsh and excessive."

Last week, though, the state Supreme Court disagreed -- with five justices choosing to uphold the life sentence.

The lone dissenter in the decision was Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Johnson, who wrote that "the sentence imposed is excessive and disproportionate to the offense the defendant committed."

Johnson is the only female and Black person on the court. The rest of the justices are White men.

more...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/us/louisiana-supreme-court-trnd/index.html