ChiGoose

‘Morally dubious’: 4 House Republicans protest Biden's IVF expansion for veterans "WASHINGTON — A group of four House Republicans sent a letter to the Biden administration Wednesday protesting a policy to expand access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, for veterans. The letter, addressed to Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs, was signed by Reps. Matt Rosendale of Montana, Mary Miller of Illinois, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Bob Good of Virginia, who said they had "a plethora of ethical concerns and questions" about the policy. "IVF is morally dubious and should not be subsidized by the American taxpayer. It is well known that IVF treatments result in a surplus of embryos after the best ones are tested and selected. These embryos are then frozen — at significant cost to the parents — abandoned, or cruelly discarded," the lawmakers wrote." Fun facts about Illinois' own Mary Miller: She employed someone who had previously been convicted of attempting to solicit sex from a minor She quoted Hitler positively in a speech two days into her first term She voted against giving medals to the police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan 6 Her husband is an Illinois state rep who was at January 6th and has a 3%er decal on his car.

Judge rules Georgia Republican Party’s vice chairman voted illegally It’s almost as if it’s just projection the whole way down

Biden: Make America Make Things Again

That tweet is unfair. Trump isn’t a fascist. Fascism requires believing in an ideology, something that Trump is completely incapable of doing due to his crippling NPD.

MAGA: Making Attorneys Get Attorneys Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I wasn't able to follow it too closely, but from what I can tell, the argument for standing is extremely weak. Do you think they even reach the merits in the final decision or will it be dismissed for lack of proper standing?

My takeaway is that the IVF/abortion issue is a very good issue for the Dems and it is likely to still be a very live issue in November, but they cannot just rely on that winning it for them. They still need to do the work. There were only 5,951 votes in this election compared to 14,696 in 2022 and 20,948 in 2018. I don't think it's wise to extrapolate *too* much from such an unusually low turnout election.

The district lines changed a bit in 2022, but for context here are the most recent elections: 2024: D+25 2022: R+7 2018: R+13 2014: R won uncontested 2010: R won uncontested I don't know enough about Alabama to know how much of the (seemingly minor) district change would impact the demographics but it still seems like a huge swing to the Dems.

If anyone is looking for a comprehensive overview of the case from a legal perspective, Just Security has put together a very detailed guide. They are more bullish on this case than I am, but something I've noticed is that the more familiar people are with NYS law and the regular practice of the Manhattan DA's office, the stronger they believe this case is. In regards to proving the elements of the case, they note: "Despite early and ongoing skepticism of DANY’s case, we view it as strong because prosecutors will likely establish with relative ease three of the four corners of the alleged crimes: the “catch and kill” scheme, the payment to Daniels to bury the story of the affair, and the paper trail of reimbursements and records that mischaracterized and concealed the nature of the hush payment. As one commentator wrote, “the spine of the case is the paper trail of the money, [and] Bragg will be bringing the receipts to trial.” The fourth corner of the scheme is Trump’s intent to commit or conceal another crime, as the law requires to be elevated to the felony first-degree falsification of business records. DANY will have to prove that Trump intended to commit or conceal campaign finance violations (state or federal) or tax violations. Proving this intent will be more difficult than proving the objective facts (as it almost always is), but as discussed in more detail below, DANY appears to have the upper hand." (emphasis mine) As for how these types of charges have been used in the past, they provide some examples: "When Bragg first charged Trump in April 2023, he stated that in his 14 months in office he had already prosecuted 117 felony counts of falsifying business records against 29 individuals and companies. During the ten years from March 2013 to March 2023, the office prosecuted 437 such cases. Moreover, DAs across the state of New York frequently charge defendants with felony falsification of business records. Reports in April 2023 stated, “Data shows 9,794 cases involving state penal law 175.10, or falsifying business records in the first degree, have been arraigned in both local and superior New York state courts since 2015.”" (emphasis mine) They also note that these charges have been used in the context of campaign finance violations in the past: Former NYS Assemblyman Clarence Norman was convicted in 2005 of falsifying business records in connection with campaign finance violations Richard Brega pleaded guilty to one count of felony falsifying business records for misrepresenting the source of funds he funneled into a county executive campaign Richard Luthmann was arraigned for multiple felony charges including falsifying business records and election law violations and subsequently pleaded guilty.

Well, if Jones didn’t want such a big judgment against him, maybe he should have actually participated in discovery.

Last time I checked, the suit was a civil case and not a criminal one.

If your child was murdered at school and then you had to endure harassment and threats because a moron who was popular with other morons was making bank by saying that you made the whole thing up and your kid either never existed or wasn’t actually killed, what kind of damages do you think would be reasonable to get the idiot to stop ruining your life?

Thanks for sharing. Didn’t realize this was a thing. I’ll have to watch it as soon as I have time. Alex Jones is a garbage human and anyone who believes him is also garbage.

I listen to far too many podcasts. Used to listen to SYSK but fell off a while ago. Nothing against the show, there is just too much stuff out there.

We have to fix the electoral system to eliminate the Spoiler Effect for third parties to become viable. Anyone running as a third party candidate in the current system is either a conman or ignorant. (I say this as someone who voted for Gary Johnson twice…)

This feels like a classic pump and dump (the financials are a mess), but I’m wondering if it has legs as a way for people to give money to Trump.

Looks like a cargo ship lost power and crashed into the bridge. I’m not an engineer but I don’t think bridges are built to withstand impacts like this. But I’m sure the usual crowd will spin this into a dumb conspiracy.

Should be interesting but this is easily the weakest case against him. Given the delay tactics for the other cases, there’s a non-zero chance he’s acquitted in Manhattan and the election occurs before the more serious and easier cases against him.

Cover1 is an excellent Bills content site. Greenwald is a hack.

Huh. A big government policy aimed at protecting vulnerable people. Is DeSantis a lib now?

I also subscribe to NYT digital but can’t bring myself to spend money on a Murdoch property. I do get the print editions of The Economist which gives center-right perspective with an international focus I find very informative. Twitter tends to be what you make of it. I’ve mostly curated my news feed towards beat reporters instead of publications or outlets. Like following people on the Bills beat as opposed to ESPN or the official Bills accounts. I don’t watch tv news with the exception of major events or occasionally watching WGN for local news here. Generally, CNN is only on for NYE because my wife likes to watch the hosts get drunk on air. I’d much rather read an article or listen to a podcast than watch a show. Feels like a lot of the show format is to either evoke emotional reactions to keep you invested through the ad break or to fill time to meet their 30 or 60 minute air time. I’m not familiar with half the shows people talk about here. I’ve only started getting into financial news in the last two years. My last job barred me from trading stocks due having access to MNPI. That’s not an issue anymore so I have a small brokerage account just for fun. Haven’t really gotten into too much though.

I haven't used Google News but if I'm in a newsy mood, I usually keep Memeorandum open on a tab. It's a pretty solid aggregator and also lists multiple sources for the trending stories so you can pick if you want to see the takes from different outlets.

Trump getting special treatment:

Feels like this is just going to lead to more mistakes by the refs. If you have to go through large amounts of effort explaining what the thing your banning actually is, how do you expect the refs to make the correct calls in the moment?