BREAKING: NC Court just ordered LARGEST expansion of voting rights in NC since VRA of 1965. Starting now, ANY person on community supervision can register & vote—incl: felony probation, parole, & post-release. Congratulations to #NC2ndChanceAlliance @ncnaacp @Forward_Justice

BREAKING: NC judges have restored voting rights to 55,000 people on parole or probation for a felony conviction. We're proud to have fought alongside @arnoldporter, @protctdemocracy, @ncnaacp, The NC Second Chance Alliance, and others to Unlock the Votes of our community members.

Today’s super spreader Trump rally in Cullman, Alabama was hosted on Judy York’s family farm. Judy is a recovery nurse who works at @CullmanRegional hospital.

The hospital is currently out of ICU beds along with all of Alabama because of the surge in COVID-19 cases.

BREAKING: @SecDef has ordered @US_TRANSCOM to activate Stage I of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, providing 18 commercial airliners to support the evacuation of Americans, SIV applicants and other at-risk Afghans, says @johnfkirby63

The airliners will not fly into the Kabul airport, rather they will ferry passengers arriving at temporary locations - for instance US bases in Qatar and the UAE.

This is the third CRAF activation in the history of the program. The first occurred in support of Operations Desert Shield/Storm (Aug. 1990 to May 1991), and the second was for Operation Iraqi Freedom (Feb. 2002 to June 2003). @PentagonPresSec

News that this was in the works first reported by @WSJ

Woman in line at the Trump rally today says she is hoping that he is about to reveal that he is still the president and “never left ... He’s the 19th president of the Republic ... It’s going to happen soon, because God is in this, and God wins!”

President Biden will nominate former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve as ambassador to Japan and R. Nicholas Burns to serve as ambassador to China, the White House announced Friday.

Emanuel previously worked as White House chief of staff in the Obama administration and served in the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2009. Biden’s decision to tap Emanuel for one of the top diplomatic posts has been widely reported despite strong pushback from liberal Democrats who criticized his tenure as Chicago mayor, specifically how he handled the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, a Black teenager, by a White police officer

Burns is a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has served as ambassador to NATO and to Greece and worked at the State Department as undersecretary of state for political affairs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/20/biden-nominate-rahm-emanuel-serve-ambassador-japan/

In Afghanistan, there is real fear and concern as the Taliban take back control of the country after 20 years. Of particular concern is how women will be treated, given the brutality they faced during the Taliban's last regime. Shamsia Hassani, who is Afghanistan's first female street artist, is turning her emotions into art and has published a series of heartbreaking images on her social media.

Hassani was born as a refugee in Iran in 1998, when the Taliban was still in control of Afghanistan. She returned to her home country in 2005, determined to make a difference and hoping to use art to cover the scars of war. After finishing her visual arts degree at the University of Kabul, she became part of the faculty as a fine arts lecturer and sculpture professor. As a street artist, she dared to bring her work—which mainly focuses on women—into public space. In doing so, she became lauded internationally as an example of a new generation of trailblazing Afghani women.







https://mymodernmet.com/shamsia-hassani-afghani-female-street-artist/

Today, a Michigan House committee is set to take up a bill that would make it illegal for employers to require employees to:
- Get COVID-19 vaccines (or flu/TDAP vaccines)
- Wear a mask
- Disclose their vaccination status

https://twitter.com/Dave_Boucher1/status/1428354256994652168

Another physician is speaking (I'm sorry, I didn't catch his name).

He's suggesting COVID-19 is a manmade virus "in the works" for at least 2 decades. He's also suggests Dr. Anthony Fauci had a role in its creation.

Here's a study refuting all of this

Next speaker, Michigan neurosurgeon Dr. Avery M. Jackson III, suggests vaccines are killing people.

Again, that's not supported by the vast majority of research and goes against expert consensus. In fact, substantial evidence refutes this

Jackson says "we've seen over 10,000 deaths whith hours or days after vaccine administration."

Multiple fact-checks have noted this is false:

Christine Parks, who has a Phd in celluar and molecular biology from the University of Michigan, speaking now. She's spoke out against vaccine mandates in the past.

She argues that vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID-19. The CDC says vaccination helps slow spread

...

Parks argues that vaccines in general, not just the COVID-19 vaccine, can cause far worse syptoms if people are infected with a variant down the road.

That's not the consensus of the majority of experts and researchers.

Parks now suggests that certain vaccines may cause autism. (She alleged a certain study found this to be true but researchers shredded the results).

That's false. Lots of research showing vaccines *do not* cause autism

The @CapitolPolice are actively investigating a bomb threat on the complex’s southeast side.

The security perimeter around the Capitol is far larger than it was after Jan 6. Cap Police taking this very seriously.