Tom Yossarian Joad
Tom Yossarian Joad's JournalGod, I hate it when the news brings me to tears.
The senseless tragedy of families being needlessly destroyed by an industry paying off the politicians that are supposed to be helping to keep the populace safe and secure.
FUCK GUNS!
The attack in Highland Park was not the only shooting over a violent holiday weekend.
Source: NYT
/snip
As of early Monday morning, at least 57 people had been shot in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, nine of them fatally, according to NBC Chicago. That did not include the toll from the Highland Park shooting outside the city.
/snip
In Philadelphia, two police officers were shot near the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday night. Both officers were transported to the Jefferson University Hospital and are in stable condition, according to the hospital’s media officers.
Before that, there were mass shootings over the weekend in Mullins, S.C.; Tacoma, Wash.; Manassas, Va.; Clinton, N.C.; Haltom City, Texas; and New York City.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/04/us/chicago-shootings-parkway-gardens.html
Why the fuck is this country content to live in a war zone of our own making?
Gun Violence Archive, a tracking project that defines mass shootings as those in which at least four people are killed or injured, has counted 309 so far this year.
Vimeo by Robert Crimo (shooter?)
https://vimeo.com/633103236https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F5XI_IS3vMm7q0-ZyyauHH7GXDyrHwAl/view
Warning: Disturbing.
I am not 100% on the authenticity but it seems like it may be for real.
Wisconsin prison guard who allegedly threw gay woman into a fire will get hate crime charges dropped
On Friday, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported that a prison guard in Brown County, Wisconsin will be given a plea deal that removes hate crime charges after he allegedly threw an LGBTQ woman into a fire.
"According to police reports and witness accounts, on July 3, 2021, Green Bay Correctional Institute officer Shane Nolan called Dessiray Koss a derogatory term for LGBTQ people, threw her into an active fire pit and tried to strangle her when she fought back," reported Natalie Eilbert. "Koss is openly gay and was at her private residence at the time of the incident. The attack was sudden and unprovoked, according to Koss and her sister, who said she witnessed the assault." Koss reportedly required plastic surgery to repair severe burns and is still recovering from the attack.
Nolan, for his part, claims that he blacked out while drinking during the time of the attack, that he woke up to being assaulted, and that he never used any slurs.
"By July 15, Brown County prosecutors had charged Nolan with one felony charge and one misdemeanor — substantial battery and disorderly conduct, respectively — both with hate crime modifiers that would add nearly seven more years of prison time and thousands of dollars in fines if he was convicted," said the report.
/SNIP
At RawStory https://nordot.app/915591973345329152?c=644607769890374753
WTF is happening to our country since Trump?
'I Think It's a Lowball Charge': Two Alabama White Women Charged for Thretening to 'Shoot a N--- In W
‘I Think It’s a Lowball Charge’: Two Alabama White Women Charged with ‘Disorderly Conduct’ for Threatening to ‘Shoot a N—– In Walmart’Two Southern 20-year-old women have been arrested in connection to a video posted on social media, threatening to kill Black people at a local store. Both women were charged with disorderly conduct after a prominent civil rights organization reported the incident to law enforcement.
On Thursday, June 23, the Tuscaloosa County Branch of the NAACP released a statement notifying the public of a video posted a day prior by a white Shelton State Community College nursing student. In the clip, the young woman threatened to “shoot a n-word in Walmart,” prompting the organization to submit a query to the Tuscaloosa Police Department to investigate the “domestic terroristic statement.”
The organization also contacted the school’s administration and learned even before their outreach, both the school and the police were working together to address the issue.
In a statement regarding the investigation, SSC stated, “The College is fully participating with law enforcement’s investigation and is dedicated to upholding its institutional values of integrity, accountability, respect, and responsiveness.”
The rest of the story at https://atlantablackstar.com/2022/06/29/alabama-white-women-charged-for-video-threatening-to-shoot-a-n-in-walmart/?fbclid=IwAR2w90l4FQOEKw8IwBJgyspn39Pi4G8LVSNfC_UAgdbMwbcKPXFYvRo7Zko
They should be charged with a hate crime. This kind of Trump induced racism cannot stand.
Ketanji Brown Jackson to Be Sworn in Thursday as Newest Supreme Court Justice
Source: Bloomberg
Ketanji Brown Jackson will be sworn in Thursday as the first Black female justice on the US Supreme Court, succeeding the retiring Stephen Breyer as a transformational term comes to a close.
Jackson was confirmed to replace Breyer in April but then had to wait until he stepped down at the end of the nine-month term, which included the blockbuster ruling eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. Breyer said in a letter to President Joe Biden that his confirmation would become effective Thursday.
Jackson will take her two required oaths at noon at the Supreme Court before a small gathering that will include her family, the court said in a press release. Breyer, for whom Jackson once served as a law clerk, will administer an oath required under federal law. Chief Justice John Roberts will administer an oath mandated under the Constitution.
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Jackson, 51, is likely to maintain the ideological balance on the conservative-controlled high court and join fellow Democratic appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in the liberal wing.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-29/jackson-to-be-sworn-in-thursday-as-newest-supreme-court-justice?fbclid=IwAR0uxpBiG5l124MMZeI8m8wheVwGsL4Pps4a712s3y6qNATiUhUuEWaqgXE
Prescient quote of the day...
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Robert A. Heinlein
NYC mayor says Giuliani should be investigated: 'To falsely report a crime is a crime'
Source: The Hill
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said during an unrelated press conference Tuesday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani should be reminded “that falsely reporting a crime is a crime” after video was released that called into question Giuliani’s claim that he was “hit very, very hard” by an employee at a Staten Island, N.Y., supermarket.
“I think the district attorney, he has the wrong person that he’s investigating. To falsely report a crime is a crime. If that video wasn’t there, then this person would’ve been charged with punching the former mayor,” said Adams, referencing a surveillance video from the New York ShopRite where Giuliani had said he felt as though “a boulder hit” him.
“Well, when you look at the video, the guy basically walked by and patted him on the back,” Adams added.
“I don’t know if he said congratulations. I don’t know what he said to him, but it was clear that he was not punched in the head. It was clear that it didn’t feel like a bullet. It was clear that he wasn’t about to fall to the ground. So it was clear that he had a lot of creativity and sensationalism that caused this person to be arrested,” Adams stated during the press conference, while also calling Giuliani “irresponsible” for a former mayor. /SNIP
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3539994-nyc-mayor-says-giuliani-should-be-investigated-to-falsely-report-a-crime-is-a-crime/?fbclid=IwAR2aZFE_YaFeSMIEwoLOU4bRkhU7uzqOnHxmV69qeBDCv9XvqwoQwFDPG54
Trump lunged at security detail on Jan. 6, top aide testifies
Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testified Tuesday that former President Trump lunged at his top security detail on Jan. 6 and tried to grab the steering wheel from him.
Driving the news: Trump had a "very strong, very angry response" when he learned that he was not going to the Capitol, Hutchinson testified.
"I'm the f---ing president, take me up to the Capitol now," Trump said, Hutchinson testified, adding that the former president then grabbed the steering wheel and lunged at his security detail, Robert Engel.
Between the lines: Hutchinson also testified that Anthony Ornato, the former White House chief of operations, shared details on the confrontation with Engel present — and he did not dispute the information.
"When Mr. Ornato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned toward his clavicle," Hutchinson also said.
/SNIP
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/28/top-aide-testifies-trump-lunged-at-security-detail-jan6?fbclid=IwAR29IzGHY4gdwLfsyMH0itOP7JwcK2kBKubsIpnTGV4HnWigztA-9pAGovo
Trump, what an asshat.
Fossils in the 'Cradle of Humankind' may be more than a million years older than previously thought
Four different Australopithecus crania that were found in the Sterkfontein caves, South Africa.
The earth doesn't give up its secrets easily—not even in the "Cradle of Humankind" in South Africa, where a wealth of fossils relating to human evolution have been found.
For decades, scientists have studied these fossils of early human ancestors and their long-lost relatives. Now, a dating method developed by a Purdue University geologist just pushed the age of some of these fossils found at the site of Sterkfontein Caves back more than a million years. This would make them older than Dinkinesh, also called Lucy, the world's most famous Australopithecus fossil. The "Cradle of Humankind" is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa that comprises a variety of fossil-bearing cave deposits, including at Sterkfontein Caves. Sterkfontein was made famous by the discovery of the first adult Australopithecus, an ancient hominin, in 1936. Hominins includes humans and our ancestral relatives, but not the other great apes. Since then, hundreds of Australopithecus fossils have been found there, including the well-known Mrs. Ples, and the nearly complete skeleton known as Little Foot. Paleoanthropologists and other scientists have studied Sterkfontein and other cave sites in the Cradle of Humankind for decades to shed light on human and environmental evolution over the past 4 million years.
Darryl Granger, a professor of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences in Purdue University's College of Science, is one of those scientists, working as part of an international team. Granger specializes in dating geologic deposits, including those in caves. As a doctoral student, he devised a method for dating buried cave sediments that is now used by researchers all over the world. His previous work at Sterkfontein dated the Little Foot skeleton to about 3.7 million years old, but scientists are still debating the age of other fossils at the site.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Granger and a team of scientists including researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and the University Toulouse Jean Jaurès in France, have discovered that not only Little Foot, but all of the Australopithecus-bearing cave sediments date from about 3.4 to 3.7 million years old, rather than 2-2.5 million years old as scientists previously theorized. That age places these fossils toward the beginning of the Australopithecus era, rather than near the end. Dinkinesh, who hails from Ethiopia, is 3.2 million years old, and her species, Australopithecus africanus, hails back to about 3.9 million years old.
/SNIP
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-fossils-cradle-humankind-million-years.html?fbclid=IwAR1q8vfPhvJnex369ELGrGyPlDeOAe8rd2QbmMI-CVt5kduCjp1N5_EOPic
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