August 24, 2021

Oath Keeper wins release from jail after lawyer says he is no longer 'radicalized'

Source: Washington Post

A man accused of helping to coordinate a self-styled militia’s incursion into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was released Monday to home confinement after arguing his wife would keep him from falling back into extremist views.

“She has no tolerance for that kind of talk,” federal public defender Angie Halim said.

Only after a federal judge agreed to release Joseph Hackett did a prosecutor mention that his wife, Deena, hosted a political podcast. While the prosecutor did not describe the show’s content, a Deena Hackett co-hosted two episodes of a podcast called “A&D’s Patriot Battle Cry (Rub THAT In!!)” in which she described her husband as a “political prisoner” who was “trying to preserve … this country.” The podcast also includes references to far-right conspiracy theories.

Reached at home, Deena Hackett declined to comment. Her husband’s defense attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/oathkeeper-joseph-hackett-released/2021/08/23/23de697a-044b-11ec-8c3f-3526f81b233b_story.html

---

Lock him back up. It's obvious the wife walks the same walk and talks the same talk.

The prosecutor was derelict in his Constitutional duty to inform the judge of the wife's podcasts.

August 23, 2021

77 Sarasota County Sheriff's Office personnel out sick due to COVID-19

The Sarasota Sheriff's Office is the latest local agency grappling with a COVID-19 outbreak among personnel after staff knowingly went into work with symptoms, spreading the virus to others.

There were 77 Sheriff's Office workers out last week due to COVID-19, with 60 of those employees testing positive for coronavirus, according to Maj. Jon Goetluck. That The outbreak comes as the delta variant surges through Florida, and COVID-19 cases are up 20% in Sarasota County.

In an email Goetluck sent to staff Wednesday, he mentioned that personnel came to work sick with symptoms even after testing positive for COVID-19. He added that at least five employees have been hospitalized during the past couple of months.

"It is imperative that we all work together to stop unnecessarily exposing each other and depleting our workforce and staffing levels," Goetluck said in an email obtained by the Herald-Tribune.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/coronavirus/2021/08/23/coronavirus-outbreak-hits-77-scso-workers/8239654002/

Wouldn't be surprised if there's an emerging trend of Covid cases in police departments around the country.

August 23, 2021

Unvaccinated are breaking everything--the bank, the health care system, the bonds of society

Vaccines and adequate supplies have definitely made the delta round of the COVID-19 pandemic less horrific for the doctors and nurses trying to save lives. The jeopardy for them and their families is at least reduced by the fact that the vaccine has been available to them, and they don't have to rely on personal protective equipment that's days old. But the fact that there is a vaccine and that many of the people who are filling up ICUs are there by choice adds a whole level of demoralization that didn't exist in the first round.

"It feels very different to me because it is preventable now. So, it's a very different feel in terms of the age of the patients coming in. They are getting really sick, there are a lot of people on ventilators and they are not vaccinated," Dr. Meghan McInerney, the ICU medical director at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, said in a recent interview. "It didn't have to be this way and so with that, the air in the ICU is a little bit defeated. You know, the nurses, the doctors, the respiratory therapists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, all the members of our team are feeling a little more deflated with this round of a COVID surge because it is a preventable illness at this point."

Nancy Roberts, a respiratory therapist with St. Luke's Hospital in Boise, concurred. "It's rough. You leave here having worked a very hard shift and trying to take care of people, and not everybody makes it. So it does, absolutely, wear you down. Just knowing that we are having a hard time keeping staff and having new people hire on those are realities, so we are doing what we can do," Roberts said. It's bad in Idaho. But magnify that several thousands of times in Florida, and you can understand why this is happening: Doctors are walking out.

Nitesh N. Paryani, a radiation oncologist in Tampa, tries to shed light on what's happening in his hospital and to send a dire warning to all those people refusing vaccines: "The unvaccinated are killing people in ways they probably never imagined."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/23/2047685/-Burned-out-frustrated-and-missing-healthcare-workers-intensify-new-COVID-19-crisis

August 23, 2021

Austin Is Capital of Homes Selling at Super Premiums

Texas city’s job growth and cultural appeal attracting buyers ready to pay $100,000 or more above asking price

AUSTIN, Texas—A homebuying frenzy is gripping much of the U.S., but Austin takes the prize for the biggest increase in homes selling well above the asking price.

Nearly 2,700 homes in the Texas capital have sold this year for $100,000 or more above their initial listing price, according to an analysis by Redfin Corp. that examined sales through Aug. 11. While a few other U.S. cities have had more properties sell at that premium to the asking price, none have experienced as big a percent rise in homes transacting at that lofty an increase, Redfin said.

“As a consumer, it seems scary to be in a housing market where the home you’re looking at [is] priced at $400,000, then, when you go to put in an offer, you realize the true price is $500,000,” Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said.

The number of homes sold year-over-year for at least $100,000 over asking price has grown nearly 10-fold in Seattle, and fivefold in Oakland, according to Redfin. In Austin, that figure grew by 57 times the number for last year at this time.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/austin-is-capital-of-homes-selling-at-super-premiums-11629279001

August 22, 2021

Hospitals and Insurers Didn't Want You to See These Prices. Here's Why.

This year, the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret: a complete list of the prices they negotiate with private insurers.

The insurers’ trade association had called the rule unconstitutional and said it would “undermine competitive negotiations.” Four hospital associations jointly sued the government to block it, and appealed when they lost.

They lost again, and seven months later, many hospitals are simply ignoring the requirement and posting nothing.

But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/22/upshot/hospital-prices.html

August 22, 2021

Sarasota School Board mandates masks in school; DeSantis says move is illegal

The Sarasota County School Board enacted a district-wide mask mandate on Friday night during a special board meeting called to address an ever-increasing number of COID-19 cases in the district. Hours later, Gov. Ron DeSantis, during an appearance in Bradenton, said he thought Sarasota’s mandate was illegal.

“I think it violates the Parents Bill of Rights in Florida, which is state law,” DeSantis said in response to a reporter’s question about the new mandate. “And ultimately this is a decision for the parents.”

Under the new policy approved on a 3-2 vote by the School Board, all students and staff will be required to wear masks until Sarasota County’s COVID-19 positivity rate falls below 8%. The policy will automatically suspend if the rate falls below 8% for three days and will be reinstated if it rises above 10% for three consecutive days.

It is not clear what will happen if students do not wear masks or how it will be enforced. The only exemptions are for medical purposes. The policy takes effect immediately.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2021/08/20/covid-19-spike-causes-mask-mandatory-rule-sarasota-schools/8193065002/

August 21, 2021

Why target Raphael Warnock? The answer is clear: A climate of hate.

From the outset, I got why 41-year-old Eduard Florea of Queens was arrested and charged with posting violent threats against a member of Congress. I also understood why he was charged with making threatening statements on and around Jan. 6 regarding acts of violence and the use of firearms. He was nailed by the evidence. Florea had posted comments on the social media platform Parler under the name “LoneWolfWar” calling for the death of a prospective U.S. senator, and he encouraged others to storm and occupy the Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

Florea pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn this week to threatening to kill a newly elected member of Congress, and he also pleaded guilty to a weapons offense.

What was not immediately clear is why Florea, having a universe of hundreds of elected House and Senate members from which to choose, would threaten to kill, specifically, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, who wasn’t even in office at the time of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Warnock had just won a runoff Senate election in Georgia and would not be sworn in until Jan. 20.

But there was no doubt he was Florea’s target. “Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he’s swinging with the … fish,” Florea posted online on Jan. 5, while voting in Georgia was still going on. It seemed pretty clear that Florea mistyped the gangster cliché “swimming (or sleeping) with the fishes,” which suggests a murdered body disposed of in a river. While I’m at it, it’s worth noting that Florea also used a profanity before “fish.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/20/why-target-raphael-warnock-answer-is-clear-climate-hate/

August 21, 2021

As the MAGA-land crackup gets worse, a few voices plead for sanity

With the right-wing media rabidly agitating to keep Afghan refugees out of our country, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has weighed in with a new call for sanity. The Journal’s editorial calls for resettling refugees here on the grounds that conservative principles require it — and, in so doing, captures a bigger story about our fraught political moment.

“It isn’t conservative to betray a promise to those who fought for us,” the Journal opines, pointing out that many of these refugees worked alongside the United States in Afghanistan. Noting that they’re fleeing the theocratic extremism we fought against, the editorial concludes:

This gets at something essential about our politics. On multiple fronts, as the MAGA movement sinks deeper into conspiracy theories, hostility to democracy, fondness for authoritarianism, bloodthirsty hatred of legitimate political opposition, ethno-nationalist cruelty, seething contempt for basic public health measures, and deific devotion to Donald Trump, a few voices are vainly trying to reach MAGA devotees with appeals to conservative principles.

But this is a hopeless endeavor. Which highlights how powerful the pull of those MAGA impulses has grown — and how vulnerable the conservative movement has proved to getting hacked by those impulses, in part because of the tendencies of the movement itself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/20/maga-land-crackup-gets-worse-few-voices-plead-sanity/

August 21, 2021

In Iowa, Gaetz and Greene Pick Up Where Trump Left Off

At a rally in Des Moines, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz showed that many Republicans do not plan to move on from the Trump era.

DES MOINES — Far from Washington, and even farther from their home congressional districts, Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia found their people.

As the two Republican lawmakers spoke at an “America First” rally in Des Moines, held in an auditorium that often hosts people with presidential aspirations, up was down and misinformation was gospel. Ms. Greene denounced Covid-19 vaccines to applause. Both declared former President Donald J. Trump the rightful winner of the 2020 election.

These were facts, argued Eric Riedinger of Des Moines, 62, a small-business owner who attended the event and owns the website BigTrumpFan.com. And he would not vote for any Republican who failed to state this clearly, he said.

“My biggest issue looking ahead: Stop the RINOs,” he said, using a pejorative conservative phrase for ‘Republicans in Name Only.’ “If they’re part of that infrastructure bill and supporting it, they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-matt-gaetz-iowa.html

August 21, 2021

Sarasota chiropractor's actions during Capitol riot are spine-tingling

Joseph Hackett was careful not to look into the surveillance camera in the hotel lobby, dare anyone recognize even a speck of skin through the gaiter that covered his face.

The baseball hat and sunglasses only added to the surreptitious disguise, and the rifle case on the concierge cart he was pushing seemed to suggest he was not at the Comfort Inn near Washington D.C. on Jan. 7 for the national chiropractic convention, as wild as those can be.

Seven months have now passed since that morning, and the Sarasota chiropractor is still in D.C., only now receiving continental breakfasts in jail for participating in the first attack on the U.S. Capitol in over 200 years.

A hearing is set for Monday to determine if Hackett, a 22-year resident of Sarasota, can be released pending trial. But a new document filed by the government spells out why that isn’t such a swell idea, alleging his role was far more involved than originally thought and contradicts a recent report by Reuters that the FBI has determined the attack was 90% unorganized.

Hackett, the man Steve Bannon calls a "political prisoner," had a leadership role in the Oath Keepers, which is one of the biggest anti-government groups in the nation, and they were very organized. He oversaw five Oath Keepers in Sarasota, according to the document, and reported to state leader Kelly Meggs, who on election night tweeted out this little love-tap: "I'm going to go on a killing spree. Pelosi first."

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/opinion/columns/2021/08/21/opinion-sarasota-chiropractor-joseph-hackett-actions-during-riot-cause-chills-up-your-spine/8208561002/