John Newton Mitchell (September 15, 1913 – November 9, 1988) was the 67th Attorney General of the United States (1969–1972) under President Richard Nixon. Prior to that, he had been a municipal bond lawyer, chairman of Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, and one of Nixon's closest personal friends.

After his tenure as U.S. Attorney General, he served as chairman of Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign. Due to multiple crimes he committed in the Watergate affair, Mitchell was sentenced to prison in 1977 and served 19 months...

On February 21, 1975, Mitchell, who was represented by the criminal defense attorney William G. Hundley, was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury and sentenced to two and a half to eight years in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up, which he dubbed the "White House horrors." As a result of the conviction, Mitchell was disbarred from the practice of law in New York. The sentence was later reduced to one to four years by United States district court Judge John J. Sirica. Mitchell served only 19 months of his sentence at Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery (in Maxwell Air Force Base) in Montgomery, Alabama, a minimum-security prison, before being released on parole for medical reasons.

Tape recordings made by President Nixon and the testimony of others involved confirmed that Mitchell had participated in meetings to plan the break-in of the Democratic Party's national headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. In addition, he had met, on at least three occasions, with the president in an effort to cover up White House involvement after the burglars were discovered and arrested

Lacey Township High School unconstitutionally punished students for posts made off-campus and outside of school hours, says ACLU-NJ suit

April 10, 2019

The ACLU-NJ and the law firm Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, P.C., filed a lawsuit today on behalf of two students whose First Amendment rights were violated after they were suspended for posting photos of firearms to social media made entirely outside of a school context.

“When I was pulled into the principal’s office for something I shared with my friends privately, outside of school, over a weekend, it felt like I had no place where I could truly speak freely,” said H.S., one of the students whose Snapchat post precipitated the school’s actions, whose name is being withheld because he was a minor at the time of the suspension.

“I’m filing this suit so that no one at my high school in the future has to feel like the First Amendment wasn’t meant to include them,” said Cody Conroy, the other student who was suspended for the Snapchat messages.

The Lacey Township School District overstepped its constitutional boundaries by suspending Cody Conroy and H.S., both seniors at the time, for their photos of legally owned guns resting on a table. One of the posts had no caption and the other had tongue-in-cheek text: “hot stuff” and “If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, you know where to go.”...

Lacey schools may lay off special education staff to close budget hole

LACEY - School employees who work with special needs children are facing layoffs and elimination of their benefits as the Lacey Board of Education plans to fill a budget hole created by declining state aid.

School officials issued the district's paraprofessional staff, who assist students with various special needs, "reduction in force" notices earlier this month.

School board President Shawn J. Giordano estimated that about 70 to 80 paraprofessionals currently work in the district, and most of them receive full-time hours and benefits. However, a new plan would fire and rehire only about 35 to 45 percent of them as full-time staff, he said...

Lacey Township High School unconstitutionally punished students for posts made off-campus and outside of school hours, says ACLU-NJ suit

April 10, 2019

The ACLU-NJ and the law firm Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, P.C., filed a lawsuit today on behalf of two students whose First Amendment rights were violated after they were suspended for posting photos of firearms to social media made entirely outside of a school context.

“When I was pulled into the principal’s office for something I shared with my friends privately, outside of school, over a weekend, it felt like I had no place where I could truly speak freely,” said H.S., one of the students whose Snapchat post precipitated the school’s actions, whose name is being withheld because he was a minor at the time of the suspension.

“I’m filing this suit so that no one at my high school in the future has to feel like the First Amendment wasn’t meant to include them,” said Cody Conroy, the other student who was suspended for the Snapchat messages.

The Lacey Township School District overstepped its constitutional boundaries by suspending Cody Conroy and H.S., both seniors at the time, for their photos of legally owned guns resting on a table. One of the posts had no caption and the other had tongue-in-cheek text: “hot stuff” and “If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, you know where to go.”...

Lacey schools may lay off special education staff to close budget hole

LACEY - School employees who work with special needs children are facing layoffs and elimination of their benefits as the Lacey Board of Education plans to fill a budget hole created by declining state aid.

School officials issued the district's paraprofessional staff, who assist students with various special needs, "reduction in force" notices earlier this month.

School board President Shawn J. Giordano estimated that about 70 to 80 paraprofessionals currently work in the district, and most of them receive full-time hours and benefits. However, a new plan would fire and rehire only about 35 to 45 percent of them as full-time staff, he said...

...House Bill 370 won approval from the state House on Wednesday just hours after the association announced its opposition.

The bill would require law enforcement agencies across the state to comply with detainer requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

...After the House vote, Speaker Tim Moore’s office published a news release that included quotes from Rep. Destin Hall, a Caldwell County Republican.

“These sanctuary sheriffs are simply putting partisan politics ahead of public safety,” Hall said.

SANTA FE — Attorney General Hector Balderas is warning sheriffs and police chiefs throughout New Mexico that they risk legal liability if they refuse to enforce the state’s new background checks law for gun sales.

The legislation, which takes effect this summer, emerged as one of the most fiercely debated proposals of the 2019 session, with sheriffs and their deputies turning out in force to testify against it. Some said they simply wouldn’t enforce it even if it became law.

But Balderas, a Democrat, sent a letter to every law enforcement agency in the state Thursday, warning them of a legal obligation to uphold the requirements outlined in Senate Bill 8, regardless of whether they agree with the legislation.

“As law enforcement officials,” Balderas said, “we do not have the freedom to pick and choose which state laws we enforce.”

Lock him up.

Fire all police who refuse to enforce the law

Fire them, lock them up, fine them. Fucking Nazis!

Let's hope his wish is granted

...House Bill 370 won approval from the state House on Wednesday just hours after the association announced its opposition.

The bill would require law enforcement agencies across the state to comply with detainer requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

...After the House vote, Speaker Tim Moore’s office published a news release that included quotes from Rep. Destin Hall, a Caldwell County Republican.

“These sanctuary sheriffs are simply putting partisan politics ahead of public safety,” Hall said.

SANTA FE — Attorney General Hector Balderas is warning sheriffs and police chiefs throughout New Mexico that they risk legal liability if they refuse to enforce the state’s new background checks law for gun sales.

The legislation, which takes effect this summer, emerged as one of the most fiercely debated proposals of the 2019 session, with sheriffs and their deputies turning out in force to testify against it. Some said they simply wouldn’t enforce it even if it became law.

But Balderas, a Democrat, sent a letter to every law enforcement agency in the state Thursday, warning them of a legal obligation to uphold the requirements outlined in Senate Bill 8, regardless of whether they agree with the legislation.

“As law enforcement officials,” Balderas said, “we do not have the freedom to pick and choose which state laws we enforce.”

Lock him up.

Fire all police who refuse to enforce the law

Fire them, lock them up, fine them. Fucking Nazis!

Let's hope his wish is granted

Background

Glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH) are the major pesticides used worldwide. Converging evidence suggests that GBH, such as Roundup, pose a particular health risk to liver and kidneys although low environmentally relevant doses have not been examined. To address this issue, a 2-year study in rats administering 0.1 ppb Roundup (50 ng/L glyphosate equivalent) via drinking water (giving a daily intake of 4 ng/kg bw/day of glyphosate) was conducted. A marked increased incidence of anatomorphological and blood/urine biochemical changes was indicative of liver and kidney structure and functional pathology. In order to confirm these findings we have conducted a transcriptome microarray analysis of the liver and kidneys from these same animals.
Results

The expression of 4224 and 4447 transcript clusters (a group of probes corresponding to a known or putative gene) were found to be altered respectively in liver and kidney (p?<?0.01, q?<?0.08). Changes in gene expression varied from ?3.5 to 3.7 fold in liver and from ?4.3 to 5.3 in kidneys. Among the 1319 transcript clusters whose expression was altered in both tissues, ontological enrichment in 3 functional categories among 868 genes were found. First, genes involved in mRNA splicing and small nucleolar RNA were mostly upregulated, suggesting disruption of normal spliceosome activity. Electron microscopic analysis of hepatocytes confirmed nucleolar structural disruption. Second, genes controlling chromatin structure (especially histone-lysine N-methyltransferases) were mostly upregulated. Third, genes related to respiratory chain complex I and the tricarboxylic acid cycle were mostly downregulated. Pathway analysis suggests a modulation of the mTOR and phosphatidylinositol signalling pathways. Gene disturbances associated with the chronic administration of ultra-low dose Roundup reflect a liver and kidney lipotoxic condition and increased cellular growth that may be linked with regeneration in response to toxic effects causing damage to tissues. Observed alterations in gene expression were consistent with fibrosis, necrosis, phospholipidosis, mitochondrial membrane dysfunction and ischemia, which correlate with and thus confirm observations of pathology made at an anatomical, histological and biochemical level.
Conclusion

Our results suggest that chronic exposure to a GBH in an established laboratory animal toxicity model system at an ultra-low, environmental dose can result in liver and kidney damage with potential significant health implications for animal and human populations.

Abstract

The impairment of liver function by low environmentally relevant doses of glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH) is still a debatable and unresolved matter. Previously we have shown that rats administered for 2 years with 0.1 ppb (50?ng/L glyphosate equivalent dilution; 4?ng/kg body weight/day daily intake) of a Roundup GBH formulation showed signs of enhanced liver injury as indicated by anatomorphological, blood/urine biochemical changes and transcriptome profiling. Here we present a multiomic study combining metabolome and proteome liver analyses to obtain further insight into the Roundup-induced pathology. Proteins significantly disturbed (214 out of 1906 detected, q?<?0.05) were involved in organonitrogen metabolism and fatty acid ?-oxidation. Proteome disturbances reflected peroxisomal proliferation, steatosis and necrosis. The metabolome analysis (55 metabolites altered out of 673 detected, p?<?0.05) confirmed lipotoxic conditions and oxidative stress by showing an activation of glutathione and ascorbate free radical scavenger systems. Additionally, we found metabolite alterations associated with hallmarks of hepatotoxicity such as ?-glutamyl dipeptides, acylcarnitines, and proline derivatives. Overall, metabolome and proteome disturbances showed a substantial overlap with biomarkers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and its progression to steatohepatosis and thus confirm liver functional dysfunction resulting from chronic ultra-low dose GBH exposure.

The opinion expressed by Eriksson and colleagues’ fails to recognise that there are no standard experimental designs for academic investigations involving omics analyses of genetically modified crops and that the only valid comparator to determine the effect of the process of transgenesis is a near isogenic variety grown at the same time and location, as was the case in our investigation of NK603 maize. Eriksson does not acknowledge that the quality of the rat liver tissues in our chronic Roundup toxicity study has neither been questioned nor branded as unsuitable for further investigation. In addition, Eriksson fails to appreciate that the statistical methods we used to analyse the liver metabolomics dataset are recognised as appropriate as some of a number of approaches that can be taken. Moreover, Eriksson neglects to mention that the proteomics analysis of the liver tissues highlights structural and functional damage from Roundup exposure. Thus our results are sound and the claims by Eriksson and colleagues of experimental flaws are unfounded.Replying to: Eriksson et al. Sci Rep 8 (2018); 10.1038/s41598-018-30440-7.

U.S. jury hits Bayer with $81 million in Roundup cancer trial
Source: Reuters

BUSINESS NEWS MARCH 27, 2019 / 6:05 PM / UPDATED 16 MINUTES AGO

U.S. jury hits Bayer with $81 million in Roundup cancer trial

(Reuters) - A U.S. jury on Wednesday awarded $80.9 million to a man who claimed his use of Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup caused his cancer, in the latest legal setback for the company facing thousands of similar lawsuits.

The jury in San Francisco federal court said the company was liable for plaintiff Edwin Hardeman’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Reporting by Alexandria Sage in San Francisco; editing by Bill Berkrot

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit/u-s-jury-hits-bayer-with-81-million-in-roundup-cancer-trial-idUSKCN1R

5. the difference is,

she is the whole group. Bloomberg hired her firm, Popvox Public Relations LLC, to create an astro turf group to be the "MADD" of guns. A month before their creation, Bloomberg and his staff were using NYC government email to discuss how to create it. Someone filed a city equivalent to a FOIA, and got the whole dump.
The few protesters who show up might be "likes" on Facebook, or paid employees. The armed body guards at these events are certainly paid.
Since Watts is speaking as a Bloomberg employee, she is speaking for Bloomberg. Since she is MDA, she is also speaking for it.
Oh yes, she really was the PR chief for Monsanto, you know the "Round up is harmless" people...

DonP (6,185 posts)
8. FWIW, she also worked on the "GMO foods are good for your children" campaign


So obviously we can all trust her, since I'm sure she feeds her children GMO Veggies every day and probably resents having armed guards following her to events.

But to control "fans" I guess armed guards are not really hypocrisy, that's just more proof of how "dangerous" those gun owners are.

Revealed: Interior department official says he is ‘thrilled’ by Trump’s ‘knack for keeping the attention of the media and public focused somewhere else’

A top US official told a group of fossil fuel industry leaders that the Trump administration will soon issue a proposal making large portions of the Atlantic available for oil and gas development, and said that it is easier to work on such priorities because Donald Trump is skilled at sowing “absolutely thrilling” distractions, according to records of a meeting obtained by the Guardian.

Joe Balash, the assistant secretary for land and minerals management, was speaking to companies in the oil exploration business at a meeting of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, or IAGC, last month.

“One of the things that I have found absolutely thrilling in working for this administration,” said Balash,“is the president has a knack for keeping the attention of the media and the public focused somewhere else while we do all the work that needs to be done on behalf of the American people.”...