reACTIONary
reACTIONary's JournalGOP starts forging a alliance with QAnon
The QAnon world is no longer simply a social media community trafficking in conspiracy theories. It’s increasingly a new constituency for the GOP — one that’s fired up like the rest of the MAGA movement, warring with tech giants and ready to battle through Election Day on behalf of a struggling president.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/15/qanon-trump-maga-movement-429739
Accused leader of plot to kidnap Michigan governor was struggling financially, living in basement st
Source: Washington Post
Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf said he met Null several years ago when Null came to his office to vent about the Black Lives Matter movement. Leaf said Null wanted to start his own cause: My Life Matters, which he would eventually turn into what he called the Michigan Liberty Militia.
Leaf said he would periodically run into Null at gun rights rallies in the state, and he “seemed to be a very concerned, straight shooting guy.” During the Flint water crisis, Leaf said, Null told him he drove to Flint to pass out water bottles alongside those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Leaf said that in May, he was invited to speak at a protest of Whitmer’s coronavirus restrictions, and Null and others associated with him provided security. Leaf, who is opposed to the restrictions and what he views as government overreach, said he invited Null on stage to make a point about self-described militias being the last line of defense for people’s rights if government fails. Leaf said he had no indication that Null was plotting to kidnap Whitmer, or that he was capable of that.
“That’s why this is so shocking to me,” Leaf said. “I did not see this coming. Had I caught wind they were even talking about this, I would have stopped it immediately.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/kidnap-plot-whitmer-fox-militia/2020/10/09/ce81751a-0a65-11eb-9be6-cf25fb429f1a_story.html
I'm shocked, shocked I say, that an armed domestic terrorist who is introduced by law enforcement on stage as the "last line of defense for people’s rights if government fails" could be involved in such a plot! It is so unbelievable! It defies all reasonable expectation!
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is 'Very Likely to Work,' Studies Suggest
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is ‘Very Likely to Work,’ Studies SuggestA series of research papers renews hope that the long-elusive goal of mimicking the way the sun produces energy might be achievable.
Sparc employs the same kind of device as ITER: a tokamak, or doughnut-shaped chamber inside which the fusion reaction takes place. Because the plasma cloud is so hot — hotter than the sun — it must be confined by magnetic forces.
Sparc takes advantage of a newer electromagnet technology that uses so-called high temperature superconductors that can produce a much higher magnetic field.
William Dorland, a physicist at the University of Maryland and editor of The Journal of Plasma Physics, said the journal had asked some of these fusion projects “to tell us their physics basis.” The M.I.T. and Commonwealth Fusion group quickly said yes, he said.
“From my perspective, it’s the first of these groups that have private money that actually is saying very clearly what they’re doing,” Dr. Dorland said.
Immigrants Say They Were Pressured Into Unneeded Surgeries
Source: New York Times
The Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga., drew national attention this month after a nurse, Dawn Wooten, filed a whistle-blower complaint claiming that detainees had told her they had had their uteruses removed without their full understanding or consent.
Since then, both ICE and the hospital in Irwin County have released data that show that two full hysterectomies have been performed on women detained at Irwin in the past three years. But firsthand accounts are now emerging from detainees, including Ms. Dowe, who underwent other invasive gynecological procedures that they did not fully understand and, in some cases, may not have been medically necessary.
It was the Irwin County center’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic that inspired Ms. Wooten, the nurse whose whistle-blower complaint was first reported by The Intercept, to come forward about another issue that troubled her: Dr. Amin’s surgeries. She said in an interview that she had for years noticed that an inordinate number of women were being referred to Dr. Amin. She said she would hear reports that they had undergone surgeries but that they had no idea why the surgeries were performed.
Data from ICE inspection reports show that the center, which is operated by a private prison company, Lasalle Corrections, refers more than 1,000 detainees a year for outside medical care, far more than most other immigration detention centers of the same size. It is not clear how many of these referrals are for gynecological care. Lasalle Corrections did not respond to requests for comment.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/immigrants-hysterectomies-gynecology-irwin-county-ICE.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Capitulating to the right won't end the judicial wars
... Conservatives have brilliantly used the abortion question to distract attention from the core of their activist agenda. It involves dismantling regulation, gutting civil rights laws, narrowing voting rights enforcement giving moneyed interests free rein in our politics, strengthening corporate power, weakening unions, undercutting antitrust laws — and, now, tearing apart the Affordable Care Act.
Conservatives would much rather talk about abortion than any of these other questions. Why? Because they don’t want the public to hear about issues related to democracy and economic justice on which the right takes the unpopular side. What they can’t win in Congress, they want to win through the courts. That is the dirty secret of conservative judicial activism that McConnell and his friends would love to keep under wraps
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/capitulating-to-the-right-wont-end-the-judicial-wars/2020/09/23/5402f378-fdd5-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html
Hospital where activists say ICE detainees were subjected to hysterectomies says just two were perfo
Source: Washington Post
A hospital in rural Georgia where a physician has been accused of performing a large number of hysterectomies on immigrant detainees said its records show that just two women in immigration custody have been referred to the hospital for the procedure since 2017.....
Heath Clark, an attorney for ERH Healthcare, which operates the Irwin County Hospital.... said hospital records show that Wooten’s claims are “demonstrably false.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/ice-detainee-hysterectomies-hospital/2020/09/22/aaf2ca7e-fcfd-11ea-830c-a160b331ca62_story.html
50 Years of Blaming Milton Friedman. Here's Another Idea.
Critics have been fighting ever since to get corporations to acknowledge broader responsibilities. It’s the wrong battle. Instead of redefining the role of the corporation, we need to redefine the role of the state....
Government remains the most powerful means to express our collective will. The necessary solution is to create stronger incentives for good behavior and laws against bad behavior....
Government also needs to do more to support economic growth. Friedman’s negative vision of government has helped to obscure the ways the public sector can help the private sector, for example by investing in education, infrastructure and research....
Corporations have a valuable role to play in American society, and they contribute primarily by trying to make money. Friedman’s narrow point is mostly correct. The missing part is the role of government in ensuring that those profits do not come at the expense of society....
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/milton-friedman-essay.html
Melania and Me
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff was part of the Trumps’ inner circle — until she wasn’t. Her memoir is a cautionary tale.
Yep, You are that sucker.
DHS official whose office compiled 'intelligence reports' on journalists and protesters has been rem
Source: Washington Post
A senior Department of Homeland Security official whose office compiled “intelligence reports” about journalists and protesters in Portland, Ore., has been removed from his job, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Brian Murphy, the acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, was reassigned to a new position elsewhere in the department, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/dhs-official-whose-office-compiled-intelligence-reports-on-journalists-and-protesters-has-been-removed-from-his-job/2020/08/01/f01247be-d3ff-11ea-8d32-1ebf4e9d8e0d_story.html?tidr=a_breakingnews&hpid=hp_no-name_hp-breaking-news%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar
Democracy Dies in Darkness
OAC Has Nothing on John Lewis !
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