babylonsister
babylonsister's JournalHearts, brains and bones: Stolen body parts scandal stretches from Harvard to Kentucky
Hearts, brains and bones: Stolen body parts scandal stretches from Harvard to Kentucky
USA TODAY
Andrew Wolfson, USA TODAY NETWORK
August 4, 2023 at 6:06 AM
This story contains graphic material that may be disturbing for some readers.
They bought and sold human hearts and lungs and livers and brains not to mention skulls, spines, skin and fetuses. It was ghoulish and macabre.
But it also was profoundly sad for victims like a woman in Little Rock, Arkansas, identified in court papers only as D.S.
After she gave birth in February 2022 to a stillborn boy whom she had named Lux, a Little Rock funeral home delivered his body to Arkansas Central Mortuary Services for cremation. His ashes were supposed to be returned to her for burial.
Instead, according to court records, attendant Candace Chapman Scott, 36, sold the fetus for $300 to Jeremy Pauley, 41, a self-described body modification artist and human blood painter, who lived 1,062 miles away in Pennsylvania.
But that wasnt the end of the line for Baby Lux. Pauley allegedly sent his body, plus $1,500, to Matthew Lampi, 52, a tattoo artist in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, in exchange for five human skulls.
more...
https://www.aol.com/hearts-brains-bones-stolen-body-100612541.html
Ron DeSantis Promises To 'Start Slitting Throats' In Government On 'Day One'
Ron DeSantis Promises To 'Start Slitting Throats' In Government On 'Day One'
The Florida governors remarks in New Hampshire are part of a broader trend of Republicans demonizing the federal civil service.
Daniel Marans
Aug 3, 2023, 01:41 PM EDT
While campaigning in New Hampshire earlier this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) used a violent metaphor to describe his plans to transform the federal bureaucracy.
Emphasizing his commitment to firing federal bureaucrats, the presidential candidate vowed to start slitting throats on Day One, according to a New Hampshire Public Radio report on his remarks to voters in Rye, New Hampshire.
Under a DeSantis presidency, the Florida governor also said that Mexican drug cartels will be shot stone cold dead.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest labor union for federal workers, reacted to DeSantis remarks with indignation on Thursday, arguing that rhetoric of that kind has helped fuel violent attacks against federal workers, such as the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ron-desantis-slitting-throats-federal-civil-service_n_64cbdb28e4b099151f36ca9b
"Trump lied, Democracy nearly died"
https://digbysblog.net/2023/08/02/trump-lied-democracy-nearly-died/Trump lied, Democracy nearly died
Published by digby on August 2, 2023
Ed Kilgore thinks the exposure of Trumps lies in a trial might just penetrate more of the publics consciousness. Im not too optimistic but if its even a possibility, its a good thing:
So in the indictment he secured involving Trumps efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat, Smith has pulled together a vast array of evidence on an extraordinary series of events with a reasonably simple theme: Trumps self-conscious lies about what happened in that election.
Trump lied about the outcome; lied about a host of made-up fraud claims; lied about the authorized agents for certifying the results; lied about the identity of legitimate electors; lied about the vice-presidents powers in counting electoral votes; and, worst of all, lied to the crowd on January 6 that subsequently stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of the election of his successor to the presidency.
Three of the four counts in the indictment allege Trump orchestrated a conspiracy, underlying the premeditated nature of his attempts to fraudulently interfere with the election and thus rob Joe Biden and his voters of their rights. Aside from the telltale moments that Trump betrayed self-awareness that he was lying through his teeth (most notably telling Mike Pence on January 1 Youre too honest when the vice-president denied he had the power to reject and accept electors at will), he was told over and over and over again by those he relied on for information that his general and specific claims about the election were lies.
Now to those of us who have been consciously or unconsciously fact-checking Trump for years, his incorrigible, incessant, and world-class mendacity is hardly breaking news. But to a depressing extent, his lies about 2020 remain credible to a broad swath of Americans, undermining faith in the institutions that supervise elections in a way that threatens democracy no matter what happens to Trump and his political career. But Smiths prosecution of Trump in pursuance of this indictment will force a reckoning in great detail with the fundamental character trait that underlies all the other forms of his misconduct. So in addition to stitching together a strong criminal case covering an array of unfortunate events over an extended period of time, this indictment will lay the groundwork for public acceptance of a subsequent verdict against Trump, at least at a significantly greater level than we can currently expect.
The meta-theme of Smiths indictment might be described as Trump lied; democracy nearly died. If nothing else, the former presidents power to bamboozle people could suffer a major blow as the facts of this case roll out.
Wouldnt that be nice?
Jan. 6 Cited 'Repeatedly' By Ratings Firm In U.S. Credit Downgrade: Administration Official
Jan. 6 Cited 'Repeatedly' By Ratings Firm In U.S. Credit Downgrade: Administration Official
The Treasury brushed off the potential impact of Fitch Ratings' move as it announced details of upcoming debt sales.
By Jonathan Nicholson
Aug 2, 2023, 03:00 PM EDT
The Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol played a significant role in the decision by one of the three major credit rating firms Tuesday to downgrade the nations pristine creditworthiness by a notch.
The 2021 attack, which also led to former President Donald Trump being indicted on multiple federal charges this week, was cited repeatedly by officials from Fitch Ratings, said a U.S. administration official who requested anonymity to speak to HuffPost.
And the man who made the downgrade call, Richard Francis, a co-head of Fitchs Americas sovereign ratings division, said that the insurrection was something that loomed large in the agencys considerations when deciding that the nations political dysfunction merited a credit demotion.
snip//
He also cited constant brinkmanship surrounding the debt ceiling, the debt ceiling debate, as well as inaction on federal entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
In its downgrade commentary, Fitch said, The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jan-6-fitch-downgrade_n_64ca8c44e4b03d9b515f3f6f
Rudy Giuliani Uncensored
https://politicalwire.com/2023/08/02/rudy-giuliani-uncensored/
Rudy Giuliani Uncensored
August 2, 2023 at 4:37 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
An example: Jewish men have small cocks because they cant use them after they get married. Whereas the Italian use them all their lives so they get bigger.
Another: Jews. They want to go through that freaking Passover all the time. Man, oh, man. Get over the Passover. It was like 3,000 years ago. Okay, the Red Sea parted. Big deal. Not the first time that happened.
Some unsolicited advice for the Teflon Donald
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/1/2184655/-Some-unsolicited-advice-for-the-Teflon-DonaldSome unsolicited advice for the Teflon Donald
Tuesday, August 01, 2023 at 8:07:23p EDT
By Meteor Blades
Hey, Donald, hows it hanging? Speaking of which, your attorneys might manage to produce a hung jury, but thats a mighty big risk. If youre convicted, attached to a guilty verdict could be a lot of years spent where the toilets are stainless steel, the TP single ply, and the cheeseburgers infrequent.
Of course, many experts say that the requirement that you be permanently guarded by Secret Service personnel makes incarceration too difficult, so some form of house arrest might have to be worked out. Youll excuse me if I think an ankle bracelet keeping you to the grounds of Mar-a-Lago where you hold court until the day you meet the Reaper is just not going to cut it. Confinement that isnt like the gilded version of the luxurious prison scenes in Goodfellas ought to be a foregone conclusion if the jury says guilty.
If you are convicted, I hope the sentence is worthy of the crimes. For you AND your cabal of would-be usurpers. Stewart Rhodes, another conniver who gave orders to others, got 18 years in the slammer. How does that strike you? Of course, Im pretty sure you think your conspiracy was the bestest ever, so maybe add a few years for that?
Im dreaming obviously. But beyond whether you wind up behind bars or in some joke of a prison, what I most want is for you to disappear. Just vanish from all the media and internet coverage and from our daily if not hourly attention. We have a global crisis underway that requires more aggressive political, economic, and environmental action than we have so far seen if there is to be any hope of curtailing some of the worst impacts of climate change and the destruction of biodiversity. You are a distraction from that, Donald. As well as a ton other issues that need serious attention. So I dream of multiple convictions before the election.
And I dream that the response of your devoted supporters if you are convicted will be peaceful. And that you will not spout some inciteful version of there will be blood to stir violent turmoil. That, instead, you will take itas they told us when I was in reform schoollike a man.
But thats a lot of dreaming.
You could finally do the nation a service instead of always serving yourself at our expense. Plead guilty in exchange for exile and vow never to seek the presidency or any public office ever again. Ditch the comb-over, dye your hair, stuff some money in a backpack and vanish. Thats what a dignified mob boss would do.
You dont have the guts though. So youll fight it out with shenanigans to the end instead of admitting your obvious guilt. And youll be dominating the news for the next three years while the world burns and your progeny in the Republican Party keep trying to undermine every effort at addressing the climate emergency. You could do your part for America and for the Earth, Donald, if you would make a deal and just get the fuck out of sight. Say, an uninhabited island in the Maldives. I dont really care.
Ex-Fox News Star Bill Kristol Joins Fight to Get FCC to Come Down on Fox
Ex-Fox News Star Bill Kristol Joins Fight to Get FCC to Come Down on Fox
CUT THE CORD
Kristol said the FCC should fully consider the fitness of Fox to broadcast as the Dominion case proved that the company repeatedly disseminated false news.
Justin Baragona
Senior Media Reporter
Published Jul. 31, 2023 11:33AM EDT
Bill Kristol, the neoconservative commentator who founded The Weekly Standard and spent a decade at Fox News, is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject the broadcast license renewal of a local Philadelphia station owned by Fox Corporation.
The informal objection, which is co-signed by former PBS President Ervin Duggan, follows the formal petition to deny FOX 29 Philadelphia a license that the non-partisan Media and Democracy Project (MAD) filed with the FCC earlier this month. In what it described as a landmark bid, MAD cited Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox as proof that the company broadcast false news about the 2020 election and, therefore, breached the FCCs policy on licensee character qualifications.
Now an editor-at-large with the anti-Trump conservative outlet The Bulwark, Kristol said in the objection that while he and Duggan came from different political partiesDuggan served in the Johnson administrationthey both believe that open and actual debate is key to American democracy.
The pair added that they believe that media companies who are directly or indirectly granted the privilege to serve the public through the operation of FCC-licensed television stations have a corollary duty to facilitate and strengthen democracy by participating in that debatenot by hiding their opinions, nor by providing equal time on all issues to outside parties, nor by merely chasing ratings or corporate stock price, but by adhering to the highest journalistic standards in reporting and distributing news to ensure that the public has solid facts upon which to make the decisions that are essential to our society's future as a democracy.
snip//
The adjudication of the Dominion case unequivocally established that Fox News Channel repeatedly disseminated false news, and the Fox cable channels and its broadcast ones are clearly intimately linked, as Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch hold the authority for decision-making over both, he said. The Commission should follow the well-established legal framework and conduct a hearing to fully consider the fitness of FOX and the Murdochs to continue as licensees of the public airwaves.
more...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-fox-news-pundit-bill-kristol-joins-fight-to-deny-fox-station-broadcast-license?ref=home
They Want to Rewrite My History and I Cannot Stop Crying
They Want to Rewrite My History and I Cannot Stop Crying
Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 7:20:03p EDT
They want to hurt black people in America.
snip//
Now, monsters like Ron DeSantis want to rewrite history and say that Black folks were partly responsible for their own deaths at the hands of White Supremacist mobs.
Rosewood. The Ocoee Massacre. Black Wall Street. The Atlanta Riots, hell; even 14-year-old Emmett Till are all somehow to blame for the hundreds who died at the hands of racist mobs. These murderers had no interest in truth; they just wanted an excuse to kill People of Color.
Now, the very proponents of stand-your-ground laws, where timid White men can kill POC for any hint of supposed violence, try to equate Black people defending their homes and their own lives with the perpetuation of violence. The psyops couldn't be more clear. They want black people to become African Dodgers. You know the story, dont you? Back in the day, White people used to throw baseballs at the head of Black people who signed up for work at carnivals.
They did this for mediocre prizes.
snip//
Where is the extremely loud and vocal public pushback?
Where are the allies screaming to stop this?
more...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/30/2184224/-I-Am-Heart-Broken-and-Cannot-Stop-Crying
Senate Democrats Go for the Jugular on Medicare, Social Security
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/joan-mccarter/107147/senate-democrats-go-for-the-jugular-on-medicare-social-securitySenate Democrats Go for the Jugular on Medicare, Social Security
by Joan McCarter | July 31, 2023 - 7:17am
from Daily Kos
Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, expressed only well wishes when asked about the clearly ailing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell following his on-camera neurological glitch Wednesday. No Senate Democrat is going to try to exploit the Republican McConnells frail health as an issue.
But when it comes to politics and the 2024 election, the gloves are off. McConnell and two of the most unlikeable members of his caucus feature prominently as the villains in a new five-figure digital ad campaign from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee thats aimed at seniors. You cant trust Senate Republicans, the ad says. Theyre a threat to your Medicare.
The ad shows headlines about the 11-point plan that would potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security proposed last year by Florida Sen. Rick Scott for the Republican midterm platform.
McConnells face is in every frame of this ad running in the Senate battleground states of Ohio, Montana, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, where Democratic-held seats are on the 2024 ballot.
The DSCC has tailored ads with the same message in states where theyre going on offense next year, against Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas and Scott in Florida. In 2024, voters will hold Ted Cruz, Rick Scott and every GOP Senate candidate accountable for their partys agenda that would gut Medicare and spike the cost of their health care and prescription drugs, DSCC spokesperson Tommy Garcia said.
This is always a winning message from Democrats. It also has the distinct advantage of being true. Scott did put out a plan to sunset Social Security and Medicare. Cruz has advocated for privatizing Medicare and raising the Social Security retirement age, just as the ad says.
The critical social insurance programs have remained at the forefront of President Joe Bidens and the Democrats talking points since Scott unveiled his disastrous plan; its the gift that keeps on giving. Yes, McConnell disavowed that plan, but Republicans havent given up on their long-standing goal to meddle with Social Security and Medicare until they erode the programs into extinction. McConnell, Cruz, and Scott make the perfect villains.
How To Remind Republicans Of Joe Biden's Economic Miracle
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/07/how-remind-republicans-joe-bidens-economicHow To Remind Republicans Of Joe Biden's Economic Miracle
Them's the facts, Jack!
By Susie Madrak July 29, 2023
Republicans are starting to panic as they realize that President Joe Biden has led one of the most successful economies in American history. They're still trying to cry and scream and protest on right wing media, but the facts are piling up and in this video, we lay them out clearly and succinctly. The case is devastating.
From jobs to manufacturing to wealth and inflation, the Biden record is starting to tower over not just Donald Trump's, but over every president for the last 50 years. More Americans today are working and are happier with their work, and we all have more money in the bank.
And America is outpacing every other economy in the world on growth and keeping prices down.
It doesn't mean the Fox News attacks will stop. But this video is the go-to source you need to bounce every right wing attack back in their faces.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: NY
Home country: US
Current location: Florida
Member since: Mon Sep 6, 2004, 09:54 PM
Number of posts: 171,065