HEADLINES: 2024

RFK Jr to weigh dropping US presidential bid to join forces with Trump
By Reuters / August 20, 20244:15 PM GMT-5

Aug 20 (Reuters) - Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considering ending his campaign to join forces with Republican rival Donald Trump, Kennedy's running mate said in an interview posted online on Tuesday.
The vice presidential candidate, Nicole Shanahan, said that as independents she and Kennedy ran the risk of drawing support from would-be Trump voters and clearing the way for Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to win the November election.

"Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump," she told Los Angeles media company Impact Theory. Asked when they would make a decision, she did not say.
Trump told CNN on Tuesday he would "certainly be open" to Kennedy playing a role in his administration if the independent candidate drops out of the race and endorses him.
"I like him, and I respect him," Trump told the network in an interview after a campaign stop in Michigan.

"He’s a brilliant guy. He’s a very smart guy. I’ve known him for a very long time," Trump was quoted as saying by CNN. "I didn’t know he was thinking about getting out, but if he is thinking about getting out, certainly I’d be open to it."
In a statement on X on Tuesday, Kennedy wrote: "As always, I am willing to talk with leaders of any political party to further the goals I have served for 40 years in my career and in this campaign."

Kennedy, the son of the late Democratic politician Robert F. Kennedy, is an environmental advocate who has spread misinformation on vaccines and whose family has denounced his campaign.


Think 3rd party candidates don't matter?

H. Ross Perot split the 1992 Republican vote, ushering in the 8 year President Clinton administration.

Ralph Nader split the Y2K Democrat vote, introducing President GWB [R-"TX"] for 8 years.

The 2024 presidential race is volatile and in key States within statistical margin of error, meaning too close to call.

Might RFK Jr. plunge the U.S. back into Trump administration number two?

Yes. That is a non-zero risk.
 
Aljazeera

News | Labour Rights

Canada rail freight traffic comes to a standstill over labour dispute​

The standoff could cause economic damage and supply chain problems for businesses and consumers in Canada and the US.
Published On 22 Aug 202422 Aug 2024
Canada’s two major freight railroads have completely halted operations due to a contract dispute with their workers in a standoff that could cause considerable economic damage to businesses and consumers in both Canada and the United States.
Canadian National (CN) and CPKC railroads both locked out their employees after the Thursday deadline passed without new agreements with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference which represents some 10,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers.
This is the first time the country has faced simultaneous work stoppages at the two companies, which in the past have negotiated labour deals in alternate years.
All rail traffic in Canada and all shipments crossing the US border have stopped, although CPKC and CN’s trains will continue to operate in the US and Mexico.
Labour talks started early this year, but progress has been slow with both the union and the companies accusing each other of bad faith.
The negotiations are stuck on issues related to the way rail workers are scheduled and concerns about rules designed to prevent fatigue and provide adequate rest to train crews. Both railroads had proposed shifting away from the existing system, which pays workers based on the miles in a trip, to an hourly system they said would make it easier to provide predictable time off.
www.aljazeera.com

Canada rail freight traffic comes to a standstill over labour dispute

The standoff could cause economic damage and supply chain problems for businesses and consumers in Canada and the US.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com

While much manufacturing has been off-shored to Asia, the "Just-In-Time" (JIT) practice modernized in Japan, of minimizing local inventory by relying upon transport from supplier to assembly location
leaves operating American production vulnerable.

- Who is right here? Management? Labor?
- When will this lock-out end?
- On what terms?
 
For nearly a year after she seemingly vanished from a Sacramento-area hospital, Jessie Peterson's family mounted a frantic search - distributing posters of her and calling any hospital and police department they could think of, but to no avail.

A California hospital told her family she left. Her body was found in cold storage months later, suit says​

66c7894f92684.hires.jpg

Jessie Peterson, right, with her sister, Angie Rubino

By Salvador HernandezLos Angeles Times

For nearly a year after she seemingly vanished from a Sacramento-area hospital, Jessie Peterson’s family mounted a frantic search – distributing posters of her and calling any hospital and police department they could think of, but to no avail.

But the 31-year-old wasn’t missing. She had never left the hospital alive.

In a lawsuit filed this month, the Peterson family alleges that staff at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael never notified them that Jessie had died. Instead, their attorney told the Times, they were led to believe she had checked out of the hospital – against medical advice – in April 2023.

“You don’t just get to make these kinds of mistakes and think it’s OK,” attorney Marc R. Greenberg said.

A spokesperson for Mercy San Juan, which is operated by Dignity Health and owned by CommonSpirit Health, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“We extend our deepest sympathies to the family during this difficult time,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “We are unable to comment on pending litigation.”

The lawsuit seeks $25 million in damages, including punitive damages for “outrageous and inexcusable negligence.”

According to the lawsuit, Peterson, who had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 10, checked into Mercy San Juan Medical Center on April 6, 2023, after she suffered a diabetic episode.

Two days later, Peterson called her mother, Ginger Congi, and asked her to pick her up from the hospital.

Roughly two hours after that call, according to the suit, Peterson was pronounced dead at the hospital. The following day, the lawsuit says, her body was taken to a cold-storage facility and placed on shelf “Red 22 A,” and remained there for 361 days.

After not hearing back from her daughter, Congi called the hospital on April 11, 2023, but was told she had checked herself out.

As days went by with no sign of or word from Peterson, her family began a search that ultimately lasted months, Greenberg said. The family reported her missing to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, and contacted the California Department of Justice so that Peterson would be included on their missing persons website.

Angie Rubino, Peterson’s sister, posted fliers and reached out to homeless people in the area to see whether anyone might have any information.

It wasn’t until April 12, 2024, that Peterson’s family was contacted by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and told that she was dead.

But Peterson’s body had not been found. Rather, sheriff’s officials were notified because a doctor at Mercy San Juan Medical Center had filed a death certificate.

California law requires ....

CONTINUED
 
The autopsy report well worth scrutinizing, w/ particular detail such as levels of insulin, etc.
Too early to rule out homicide.
 
sear said:
The autopsy report well worth scrutinizing, w/ particular detail such as levels of insulin, etc.
Too early to rule out homicide.
Click to expand...
From the article

By the time Peterson’s family found her body, he said, it had decomposed too much for an autopsy that may have yielded answers about the kind of care she received.
Click to expand...
 
Shiftless2 said:
her body was taken to a cold-storage facility and placed on shelf “Red 22 A,” and remained there for 361 days. #243
Click to expand...
Again, I'm no bio-chem blizzard wizard, but I don't believe there's nothing they could find.
Unstable compounds break down into their constituent components.
It's not the same as a signed murder confession. But one clue leads to another ...
 
sear said:
"I'm no bio-chem blizzard wizard, but ..." #246
Click to expand...
Did someone say "bio-chem blizzard wizard, but ..."?

The New York Times

Something’s Poisoning America’s Farms. Scientists Fear ‘Forever’ Chemicals.​

Hiroko Tabuchi / Sat, August 31, 2024 at 10:50 AM EDT
Corn fields where biosolids form Synagro were used as fertilizer, near Grandview, Texas on July 17, 2024. (Jordan Vonderhaar/The New York Times)
For decades, farmers across America have been encouraged by the federal government to spread municipal sewage on millions of acres of farmland as fertilizer. It was rich in nutrients, and it helped keep the sludge out of landfills.
But a growing body of research shows that this black sludge, made from the sewage that flows from homes and factories, can contain heavy concentrations of chemicals thought to increase the risk of certain types of cancer and to cause birth defects and developmental delays in children.
Known as forever chemicals because of their longevity, these toxic contaminants are now being detected, sometimes at high levels, on farmland across the country, including in Texas, Maine, Michigan, New York and Tennessee. In some cases the chemicals are suspected of sickening or killing livestock and are turning up in produce. Farmers are beginning to fear for their own health.

The national scale of farmland contamination by these chemicals — which are used in everything from microwave popcorn bags and firefighting gear to nonstick pans and stain-resistant carpets — is only now starting to become apparent. There are now lawsuits against providers of the fertilizer, as well as against the Environmental Protection Agency, alleging that the agency failed to regulate the chemicals, known as PFAS.
In Michigan, among the first states to investigate the chemicals in sludge fertilizer, officials shut down one farm where tests found particularly high concentrations in the soil and in cattle that grazed on the land. This year, the state prohibited the property from ever again being used for agriculture. Michigan hasn’t conducted widespread testing at other farms, partly out of concern for the economic effects on its agriculture industry.
In 2022, Maine banned the use of sewage sludge on agricultural fields. It was the first state to do so and is the only state to systematically test farms for the chemicals. Investigators have found contamination on at least 68 of the more than 100 farms checked so far, with some 1,000 sites still to be tested.
“Investigating PFAS is like opening Pandora’s box,” said Nancy McBrady, deputy commissioner of Maine’s Department of Agriculture.
In Texas, several ranchers blamed the chemicals for the deaths of cattle, horses and catfish on their properties after sewage sludge was used as fertilizer on neighboring farmland. Levels of one PFAS chemical in surface water exceeded 1,300 parts per trillion, they say in a lawsuit filed this year against Synagro, the company that supplied the fertilizer. While not directly comparable, the EPA’s drinking-water standard for two PFAS chemicals is 4 parts per trillion.
“We were so desperate to figure out what’s going on, what’s taking our cows from us,” said Tony Coleman, who raises cattle on a 315-acre ranch with his wife, Karen, and her mother, Patsy Schultz, in Johnson County, Texas.
“When we got the tests back, everything started to make sense,” Coleman said.

more at: https://news.yahoo.com/something-poisoning-america-farms-scientists-145057868.html Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

© 2024 Yahoo. All rights reserved.

I'd wondered what extraction / purification methods were used to remove toxic chemicals such as drain cleaner, Chlorine bleach, etc.
Apparently government's strategy for that is to introduce it into the human food chain. A useful way to get rid of it?
It seems not. Instead, it adds U.S. tax payers into the cycle, from sludge, to farm field, to produce, to dining table, to tax payer, to waste drain, back to sludge.
 

Hard Numbers: Georgia school shooting, Harris' tax policy, Grenfell inquiry blames deaths on “incompetence,” Lebanon embezzlement scandal grows, Musk blinks in Brazil dispute, Heavy cars kill more people than they save​


www.gzeromedia.com

Hard Numbers: Georgia school shooting, Harris' tax policy, Grenfell inquiry blames deaths on “incompetence,” Lebanon embezzlement scandal grows, Musk blinks in Brazil dispute, Heavy cars kill more people than they save

4: Four people -- two students and two teachers -- were killed and 30 wounded when a gunman opened fire at a high school in suburban Atlanta on Wednesday. The 14-year-old student accused of carrying out the shooting is in custody, and had been interviewed by the F.B.I last year for making school...
www.gzeromedia.com www.gzeromedia.com
 
Interesting link S2 #248 https:/ /www.gzeromedia.com/

Not entirely sure what to make of it, particularly in context of deep fakes, and A.I.
Interesting none the less.
 

US, EU and UK sign world’s first international treaty on AI to protect human rights, democracy and rule of law​

Summary: The Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI aims to uphold international standards, rather than undermine them, as artificial intelligence advance​

Ten countries and international organizations, including the United States, the European Union, and the UK, have signed the world’s first ever global treaty on AI - specifically focused on protecting human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The treaty applies to both public and private organizations developing AI, will require signatories to implement mechanisms for people to lodge complaints with competent authorities and will require countries to assess, monitor and mitigate risks.

The new framework, which can be found here, was agreed by the Council of Europe and commits those that have signed to take “collective action” to manage ....

CONTINUED
 
The U.S. presidential election is 2 months away.
There's persuasive evidence foreign malefactors have interfered with U.S. electoral politics in recent elections.
Shiftless2 said:

US, EU and UK sign world’s first international treaty on AI to protect human rights, democracy and rule of law​

to uphold international standards, rather than undermine them #250​

Click to expand...
On whose initiative?
 
From North of the border (Ontario Canada to be exact)

Doug Ford’s government is humiliating children with this degrading practice. It needs to stop​

The Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services has stonewalled the Star’s attempts to obtain data on youth strip searches and revealed it doesn’t keep detailed stats on a practice the Supreme Court calls “inherently humiliating and degrading.”

The Ontario government is allowing private contractors to strip children as young as 12, to examine their naked bodies, to make them squat and cough, to keep them fully naked while they search and take notes on everything they see.
The government can’t, or won’t, tell you how often this happens. No government minister will say anything about it all — nothing about the sanctioned, degrading practice of stripping children nude, of humiliating them in the name of safety, of leaving some of the most vulnerable and damaged kids in this province with even more lasting psychological scars.
Those are the headline takeaways from the Star’s reporting this week and last on strip searches in Ontario youth jails. To call the stories, by crime reporter Jennifer Pagliaro, outrageous would be an understatement. They are heartbreaking, both in minute detail and broad scope.

They make it very clear how much this government cares about the children — and again, these are children — who are being routinely strip searched in private and public facilities in Ontario both before and after they’ve been put on trial. Put short, they don’t even bother to keep accurate stats on ....

CONTINUED
 
RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pledged on Friday to conduct mass deportations of Haitian immigrants from the Ohio city of Springfield, even though the majority of them are in the United States legally.
The city for days has found itself at the center of a social media maelstrom after right-wing agitators latched onto false claims that Haitian arrivals were eating household pets.

Trump pledges to deport Haitians in Ohio city if elected

- and -

top stories​

Harris surges to biggest lead yet over Trump after debate: Poll​

New Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris surging to a five-point lead over Donald Trump among registered voters. Harris gains ground »

Springfield woman who sparked false rumors about Haitians filled with regret​



How false pet rumors and Laura Loomer have impacted Trump's campaign plans​



Trump attacks 'lousy' Calif. governor as he threatens to cut state's wildfire aid​



Bomb threats plague Springfield, Ohio, for 2nd day; mayor upset by Trump's comments​

​


Politics·The Daily Beast

Wolf Blitzer Says CNN Is Cutting Away From Trump’s ‘Very Weird Statements’​

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interrupted coverage of Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona on Thursday shortly after the former president took a shot at the appearance of one of the moderators from his debate with Kamala Harris earlier this week.Trump was complaining to supporters in Tucson about his Tuesday night showdown with the vice president, replaying grievances towards the ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. “These two people were bad news,” Trump said.“They kept screaming at me,” Trump cont

Opinion·Los Angeles Times Opinion

Letters to the Editor: Nine years after Trump emerged, some readers are making fun of him​

After Trump's bizarre statements at his debate with Harris, some readers are taking a new approach to criticizing the former president: They're making fun of him.

Business·Yahoo Finance

‘Serious energy deflation’ is coming whether Trump or Harris wins, says analyst​

No matter who wins the election, energy prices are poised to drop.


Politics·The Daily Beast

Laura Loomer Fires Back as Bill Maher Goes There on Donald Trump Affair Rumors​

Laura Loomer has threatened legal action against comedian Bill Maher after he suggested that the MAGA provocateur was in an “arranged relationship with former president Donald Trump.“I should sue Bill Maher @billmaher for Defamation. This is beyond the pale and it’s a complete and blatant lie,” she said on X. “I have never in my life seen such a coordinated attack by the mainstream Media, the White House and leftist personalities to target a private citizen and investigative ...

note:
On the anniversary observance of the terrorist attacks of 09/11/01 former President Trump was reportedly accompanied not by Trump's wife Melania, but instead by Laura Loomer.
Reportedly Loomer has disputed accepted accounts of the 09/11 attacks, & counterclaimed it was an inside job. Seems like another Trump exercise in poor judgement, which in isolation might seem unworthy of mention. BUT !!
In context of Trump's recent Arlington National Cemetery incident, and Trump's general disregard, even in a close political campaign, Trump either doesn't seem to know, or doesn't seem to care.
 
Laura Loomer has threatened legal action against comedian Bill Maher after he suggested that the MAGA provocateur was in an “arranged relationship with former president Donald Trump.“I should sue Bill Maher @billmaher for Defamation. This is beyond the pale and it’s a complete and blatant lie,” she said on X. “I have never in my life seen such a coordinated attack by the mainstream Media, the White House and leftist personalities to target a private citizen and investigative ...
Click to expand...
Given Trump's track record what else are people supposed to think?
 
The U.S. has a "debt ceiling", perhaps originally intended to help cope with runaway federal spending.
Didn't work.

$35 $Trillion + U.S. Federal Debt Right Now

Republicans have been less unwilling to shut U.S. government down than their Democrat complement. Here we go again?

House Republicans poised to reject funding bill with shutdown just around the corner​

Speaker Johnson's plan calls for a six-month funding bill tied to Trump-backed voter ID legislation. The government will shut down on Oct. 1 if Congress fails to act.
Sept. 18, 2024, 10:12 AM GMT-5 / Updated Sept. 18, 2024, 10:42 AM GMT-5 / By Scott Wong and Syedah Asghar

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday are expected to derail their own plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month, with the party divided over the length of a short-term funding bill and what, if anything, should be attached to it.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan calls for extending funding at current spending levels for six months, through March 2025, and linking it with the SAVE Act, Donald Trump-backed legislation requiring that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote.

The funding package is on track to fail given Republicans’ razor-thin 220-211 majority and the fact that a number of GOP lawmakers — a mix of fiscal conservatives and defense hawks — have vowed to tank it.
Democrats, who want a “clean” three-month funding patch with nothing attached, and nearly all plan to vote no. Many oppose the SAVE Act, noting that it is already illegal, and rare, for noncitizens to vote.
Wednesday’s vote comes a week after Johnson, R-La., yanked the exact same funding package off the floor because it lacked enough GOP support, but he’s decided to press forward again. ...
www.nbcnews.com

House Republicans poised to reject funding bill with shutdown just around the corner

Speaker Johnson's plan calls for a six-month funding bill tied to Trump-backed voter ID legislation. The government will shut down on Oct. 1 if Congress fails to act.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com


an·ar·chism (ănər-kĭz′əm)
n.
1. The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished.
2. Active resistance and terrorism against the state, as used by some anarchists.
3. Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority: "He was inclined to anarchism; he hated system and organization and uniformity" (Bertrand Russell).
anar·chist (-kĭst) n.
an′ar·chistic (-kĭstĭk) adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

JD Vance says GOP should threaten a shutdown: 'Why have a government if it’s not a functioning government?'​

Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown.

Sept. 12, 2024, 1:45 PM GMT-5 / Updated Sept. 12, 2024, 2:12 PM GMT-5 / By Sahil Kapur and Alexandra Marquez
WASHINGTON — Sen. JD Vance suggested that it could be in Republicans' best interest to threaten a government shutdown ahead of an impending funding deadline, asking, “Why have a government if it’s not a functioning government?” More at:

“Why have a government if it’s not a functioning government?” Vance

And Vance's idea about "functioning government" is to shut it down. We're supposed to want 4 years of that?
 
Shiftless2 said:
Not exactly - his idea of a functioning government is to shut it down unless it does exactly what he wants it to do. #259
Click to expand...
And the circumstance where that's most applicable is in a Vance totalitarian dictatorship.

BUT !

Vance is number two.
But then, in the opinion of many, so is Trump.
 
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