The U.S. women's national soccer team has been fighting for months to receive the same rate of pay as their male counterparts. On Friday, a judge dismissed the claim for equal pay, but said that other allegations of discrimination can proceed to trial. U.S. District Judge R Gary Klausner said he would not allow the equal pay allegations to go forward because the women's national team previously "rejected an offer to be paid under the same pay-to-play structure" as the men's national team. According to CBS Sports, the women's team sought $66 million under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-dismisses-us-womens-national-soccer-teams-claim-for-equal-pay/
https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/uswnt-equal-pay-case-dismissed-by-federal-judge-but-case-on-travel-can-go-to-trial/
Traders illegally dealing in cat meat in Vietnam accused of stealing beloved family pets. Piles of cat bones discovered laid out on pavements in Hanoi this week, from estimated 100 animals. Cat carcasses still with collars on also seen at live animal markets.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/cat-meat-vietnam-pet-steal-theft-coronavirus-hanoi-four-paws-a9495236.html
Russian state television pushes conspiracy theory Bill Gates is behind coronavirus pandemic | he conspiracy theory that Bill Gates is responsible for the coronavirus pandemic has been pushed on Russian state television, with the European Union warning that some state media outlets in Russia are trying to create confusion with bogus theories about the virus. The prime-time program Man and Law, which is broadcast on the country's Channel 1 network, ran a 15-minute segment in which Gates was described as a billionaire sponsor of the World Health Organization (WHO) who sought to "reduce the population of the planet." Some 51% of Channel 1's shares are owned by representatives of the Russian state. Radio Free Europe reported that the segment, broadcast on April 24, drew on a number of controversial online sources including a homeopathy website, an anti-vaccination campaigner and a Canadian pro-life, site to smear Gates, who has pledged $250 million to develop a coronavirus vaccine.
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-television-pushes-conspiracy-theory-bill-gates-behind-coronavirus-pandemic-1501465
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/24/bill-gates-were-not-even-halfway-through-coronavirus-pandemic.html
Colorado Governor Jared Polis did not announce that the state recently received over 100,000 coronavirus test kits from South Korea over fears that federal authorities could seize them. Multiple instances of feds seizing state supplies of tests and personal protective equipment have been reported since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Polis said on Friday that Colorado kept their latest shipment hidden because the state did not want to lose the tests to "the competition." "We were worried that the federal government or somebody else would take them," the governor told Colorado Public Radio. "We kept it under wraps. We simply didn't know if anybody would swoop in... I mean, we didn't want another state or the feds or anybody." "We don't want to give the competition, which could mean other countries, could mean our own country, could mean other states—we don't want to give them a heads up of what we're doing," he added. Colorado is not the only state government to act out of concern that supplies could be taken by the federal government or others. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan told The Washington Post on Thursday that members of the Maryland National Guard and state police were at an "undisclosed location" protecting 500,000 tests that had recently arrived from South Korea.
https://www.newsweek.com/colorado-purchased-100k-covid-19-tests-south-korea-kept-it-under-wraps-avoid-feds-seizure-1501554
https://www.newsweek.com/national-guard-protecting-marylands-coronavirus-tests-undisclosed-location-so-federal-government-1501309
Trump moved on Friday night to replace Christi A. Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general whose report highlighting supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic angered him. After learning that Ms. Grimm had worked during President Barack Obama’s administration, Trump claimed the report was politically biased. Ms. Grimm is not a political appointee but a career official who began working in the inspector general office late in President Bill Clinton’s administration and served under President George W. Bush as well as Mr. Obama. She took over the office in an acting capacity when the previous inspector general stepped down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/us/politics/trump-health-department-watchdog.html
Obama team fully vetted Biden in 2008 and found no hint of former aide's allegation
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/opinions/biden-tara-reade-allegations-2008-vetting-axelrod/
William Jeffress, a lawyer who headed the vetting of Biden during Obama's VP search: "This kind of complaint — not just Tara Reade, but any kind of complaint about Senator Biden on sexual harassment — never came up," he said. "We found no such accusation.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-denies-he-sexually-assaulted-a-former-senate-aide/2020/05/01/08d59662-8b39-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html
Axelrod was a senior official on the campaign for of the first African American major party nominee. I can bet you the vetting for veep was more thorough than most candidates and if they had found something like this Axelrod would have known. The Republicans in all their digging failed to find anything about this. I am sure if they had, they would have had a field day.
I mean, that's self-evident. He wouldn't have been chosen otherwise. I will also say the RNC's opposition research on all VP prospects for Obama was extremely thorough. I saw pretty much every piece of RNC oppo in 2008 and I didn't see anything like this.
https://twitter.com/LizMair/status/1256383173929377799
Remember to this date have not seen Trump's taxes. And there's audiotape of Trump bragging about exactly what Biden is accused of doing.
Reade is a serial liar who has changed her story repeatedly and as recently as 2017 praised Biden for his legislative efforts combating sexual assault. This woman is not all there and not to be trusted without substantial corroborating evidence.
https://medium.com/@eddiekrassenstein/biden-accuser-tara-reade-allegedly-stole-from-a-non-profit-organization-e276cac68a2b
In the wake of Thursday's raucous protest in Lansing against Governor Gretchen Whitmer's Stay Home order, Republican state Senator, and Majority Leader, Mike Shirkey said people who used threats to stir up fear not only do they not represent the cause of protesters, they are "a bunch of jackasses". |
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/michigan-gop-senator-majority-leader-condems-armed-protesters-in-capitol-calls-them-bunch-of-jackasses
Earth's Insect Population Shrinks 27% in 30 Years | The world has lost more than one quarter of its land-dwelling insects in the past 30 years, according to researchers whose big picture study of global bug decline paints a disturbing but more nuanced problem than earlier research. From bees and other pollinators crucial to the world’s food supply to butterflies that beautify places, the bugs are disappearing at a rate of just under 1% a year, with lots of variation from place to place, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science. That’s a tinier population decline than found by some smaller localized studies, which had triggered fears of a so-called insect apocalypse. But it still adds up to something “awfully alarming,” said entomologist Roel van Klink of the German Centre for Integrative Biology, the study’s lead author. “The decline across insect orders on land is jaw dropping,” said Michigan State University butterfly expert Nick Haddad, who wasn’t part of the study. “Ongoing decline on land at this rate will be catastrophic for ecological systems and for humans. Insects are pollinators, natural enemies of pests, decomposers and besides that, are critical to functioning of all Earth’s ecosystems.” Insect declines are worst in North America, especially the Midwestern United States, and in parts of Europe, but the drop appears to be leveling off in the U.S. in recent years, said the study that pulled together earlier research on more than 10,000 species with data from 1,676 locations. The Midwest lost 4% of its bugs a year. The big global losses seem to be around urban and suburban areas and croplands, where bugs are losing their food and habitat, van Klink said.
https://time.com/5826457/insects-global-decline/
https://www.sciencemag.org/
https://time.com/4070683/nature-climate-change/
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/plantsanimals/pollinate/
"So what?" said Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday when a journalist asked him about the fact that more than 5,000 Brazilians had died of the coronavirus.
https://www.france24.com/en/20200502-president-s-so-what-as-5-000-die-sparks-fury-in-brazil
"All jobs are essential": actually no jobs are essential but thanks for playing
Technology once used to combat ISIS propaganda is enlisted by Democratic group to counter Trump’s coronavirus messaging | A new Democratic-aligned political action committee advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is planning to deploy technology originally developed to counter Islamic State propaganda in service of a domestic political goal — to combat online efforts to promote Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The group, Defeat Disinfo, will use artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the president’s claims on social media. It will seek to intervene by identifying the most popular counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across the country — in some cases paying users with large followings to take sides against the president. The initiative reflects fears within the Democratic Party that Trump’s unwavering digital army may help sustain him through the pandemic, as it has through past controversies, even as the economy craters, tens of thousands have died, and Trump suffers in the polls.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/technology-once-used-to-combat-isis-propaganda-is-enlisted-by-democratic-group-to-counter-trumps-coronavirus-messaging/2020/05/01/6bed5f70-8a5b-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
Our desperation for courage made Justin Amash, an obscure Republican congressman from Michigan's west side, appear the principled hero when he left the GOP in the summer of 2019, became an outspoken critic of Trump and then voted in favor of impeachment. | Amash is a libertarian fundamentalist with near-perfect adherence to its ideological principles. He was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, a collection of the most extreme conservatives in Congress. The Pew Research Center estimates that the least conservative member was still more conservative than the average among other Republicans. Amash has earned a 99 percent lifetime voting record from FreedomWorks, a libertarian advocacy organization. Amash is known to write lengthy social media posts attempting to explain his votes in Congress. Yet some are simply inexplicable. For example, he was one of four congress members—and the only one from north of the Mason-Dixon—who voted against an anti-lynching law. His reasoning? The law "gives power to unelected federal official whom voters can't directly hold accountable." His "principles" would include destroying programs that millions of Americans rely on and deregulation in favor of polluters and gun manufacturers. Rather than helping us move to universal health care coverage through Medicare for All, Amash would rather repeal the Affordable Care Act. He has voted to privatize Medicare and slash the ACA's Prevention and Public Health Fund. Rather than take on climate change through a Green New Deal, Amash believes the same free market that leaves us guzzling fossil fuels can solve it. He's earned an 18 percent lifetime voting record from the League of Conservation Voters. Rather than support sensible gun policies that would save lives, he'd deregulate them. He's earned an A- lifetime score from the National Rifle Association. Rather than seek to reign in the power of corporations, increase the minimum wage or support labor unions, Amash believes in "right to work" laws that decimate union power and agrees with the notion that corporations should be treated as people. He was endorsed and supported by the Citizens United PAC (yes, that Citizens United). Though opposing Trump was certainly the right thing to do, it does not make Amash a hero. We cannot allow the president's resetting of the political playing field to blind us to that fact.
https://www.newsweek.com/justin-amash-no-anti-trump-hero-opinion-1501525
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1232845319664218112?s=20
https://www.ontheissues.org/mi/Justin_Amash_Health_Care.htm
https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/justin-amash
http://www.cupvf.org/press-releases.aspx?article=8050
Over 26,000 of you have followed Democrat @ChristyforCA25 over the last two weeks. She is the nominee running against the mini version of Trump in a Special Election on May 12 to fill the vacancy of Katie Hill. There is a good chance Republicans will flip this if we don’t step up
https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1256409025740242946
https://www.christyforcongress.org/
Anti-anti-Trump takes on Covid are mostly ignoring the sheer scale we’re working with here — say a more competent response had reduced the death toll by 5%? That’s more lives than were lost on 9/11 and the numbers are growing.
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1256397842631077890
Tara Reade today says the supposed senate complaint report she filed did not accuse Biden or anybody else of any kind of harassment or misconduct or assault, etc
http://apnews.com/aec7beb03e9e0e0e6e3c58111293e0ea
March 31, 2020:
Tara: I actually did come forward in 1993 but not to the press. But I went through protocol and complained.
Katie: What was your complaint about?
Tara: Sexual harassment.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200331050720/https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/03/tara-reade-tells-her-story/
Her tweets (which she deleted in recent weeks) saying she reported Biden for sexual harassment:
https://archive.vn/M629b
Something that the Obama campaign never found, the McCain and Romney campaigns never found, something none of his Republican opponents for Senate in the nearly two decades between this incident and his last Senate election in 2008 found...Either the Republican Party has the single worst opposition research apparatus in the country, or this is spurious as best. Not to mention all the Democrats in the primaries this cycle.
Let us not forget that what she accuses Biden of is exactly what Trump bragged about doing on tape.
I don't take sexual assault or harassment lightly, but as much as her story keeps changing and escalating with no paperwork to back it up and the facts not staying consistent between interviews. It sure feels like she's being paid to just create confusion and make voters that would have voted for Biden, but didn't like him, to stay home. How much more energy actually needs to be spent on this now that the inconsistencies are plain, the goal posts keep moving, and any attempt at actual rigorous investigation is being stifled (and not from Biden's side).
Asian giant hornets, nicknamed “murder hornets,” have mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins to decapitate honeybees. Their venom and stingers have been likened to hot metal driving into skin. And now, for the first time, they have arrived in the U.S. | With queens that can grow to two inches long, Asian giant hornets can use mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins to wipe out a honeybee hive in a matter of hours, decapitating the bees and flying away with the thoraxes to feed their young. For larger targets, the hornet’s potent venom and stinger — long enough to puncture a beekeeping suit — make for an excruciating combination that victims have likened to hot metal driving into their skin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/us/asian-giant-hornet-washington.html
A federal judge on Friday vacated 287 oil and gas leases on almost 150,000 acres of land in Montana, ruling that the Trump administration had improperly issued the leases to energy companies in 2017 and 2018. The judge, Brian Morris of the United States District Court for the District of Montana, said the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately take into account the environmental impacts of the drilling. In particular, Judge Morris found that the officials had not accounted for the drilling’s impact on regional water supplies and the global impact that the increased drilling would have on climate change. The decision is at least the third such legal loss that criticized the Trump administration for failing to consider the cumulative impacts of expanding fossil fuel production on the warming of the planet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/climate/oil-gas-leases-montana.html
In response to the NYT editorial board’s suggestion that the DNC assemble an “unbiased, apolitical panel” to inventory Biden’s Senate papers, DNC communications director @XochitlHinojosa calls this an “absurd suggestion on its face” and argues Biden has already been fully vetted.
https://twitter.com/rubycramer/status/1256642334638440450
The attorney who led the VP vetting of Biden in 2008 tells us allegations of sexual misconduct never came up or were brought to his team during their 6-8 week investigation. He hadn’t heard of Tara Reade or her accusations until last week.
https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1256545267891023872
Republicans+Trump barred the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from using any of the $45 billion Congress appropriated to the agency through the CARES Act to help families and relatives pay for funerals costs incurred due to COVID-19. | Language within the memo prohibits “individual assistance,” that is funds provided to the states and then distributed to individuals through FEMA assistance programs, except for “crisis counseling services.” On April 18 the Trump administration declared that a “major disaster exists in all States and territories as a result of the virus” and authorized “Emergency Protective Measures.” However, the only “protective measures” for individuals and families approved have been the aforementioned “crisis counseling services.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/02/fema-m02.html
Patti Solis Doyle on Twitter: I ran VP nominee operations for Obama campaign in 08. When Biden was selected I served as his Chief of Staff. NO sexual assault or harassment allegation ever came up against him. It was an exhaustive vet
https://twitter.com/PattiSolisDoyle/status/1256592141918384128
I'll say what Donald Trump won't: The Confederate flag, swastikas, and other symbols of hate that have been used in these protests have no place in America. The president should encourage folks to follow Gov. Whitmer’s public health orders — not sow further discord and division.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1256306743585370112
Tara Reade cancels planned interview on Fox Sunday
https://twitter.com/isaacdovere/status/1256626314787852289?s=21
Scientists from around the world are developing robotic skin that helps machines gain the sense of touch. By 2030, Oxford Economics estimates that robots will displace 20 million human workers worldwide.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/02/scientists-make-artificial-skin-for-robotic-androids.html
Joe Biden wiped the floor with Bernie in Kansas
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/02/us/elections/results-kansas-president-democrat-primary-election.html
Commercial whaling may be over in Iceland: Citing the pandemic, whale watching, and a lack of exports, one of the three largest whaling countries may be calling it quits
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/commercial-whaling-may-be-over-iceland/
Third Russian doctor plunges from Covid hospital window: Medic, 37, is now fighting for life 24 hours after warning of PPE shortages and being forced to work despite being infected
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8282033/Third-Russian-doctor-plunges-coronavirus-hospital-window.html
Trump touted a new report on voter fraud, but ProPublica found a critical error with the data. Even with the correction, experts say the report is misleading. | In an April report that warns of the risks of fraud in mail-in voting, a conservative legal group significantly inflated a key statistic, a ProPublica analysis found. The Public Interest Legal Foundation reported that more than 1 million ballots sent out to voters in 2018 were returned as undeliverable. Taken at face value, that would represent a 91% increase over the number of undeliverable mail ballots in 2016, a sign that a vote-by-mail system would be a “catastrophe” for elections, the group argued.
However, after ProPublica provided evidence to PILF that it had in fact doubled the official government numbers, the organization corrected its figure. The number of undeliverable mail ballots dropped slightly from 2016 to 2018. The PILF report said that one in five mail ballots issued between 2012 and 2018, a total of 28.3 million, were not returned by voters and were “missing,” which, according to the organization, creates an opportunity for fraud. In a May 1 tweet that included a link to coverage of the report, President Donald Trump wrote: “Don’t allow RIGGED ELECTIONS.” | Experts who study voting and use the same data PILF used in the report, which is from the Election Administration and Voting Survey produced by the federal Election Assistance Commission, say that it’s wrong to describe unreturned ballots as missing. “Election officials ‘know’ what happened to those ballots,” said Paul Gronke, a professor at Reed College, who is the director of the Early Voting Information Center, a research group based there. “They were received by eligible citizens and not filled out. Where are they now? Most likely, in landfills,” Gronke said by email. | In a statement, the National Vote at Home Institute, an advocacy group, challenged the characterization of the 28.3 million ballots as missing. Of those ballots, 12 million were mailed by election officials in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, which by law send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter, roughly 30% of which are not returned for any given election. “Conflating voters choosing not to cast their ballots with ‘missing’ ballots is a fundamental flaw,” the statement reads.
https://www.propublica.org/article/a-conservative-legal-group-significantly-miscalculated-data-in-a-report-on-mail-in-voting
https://publicinterestlegal.org/files/Mail-Voting-2012_2018-1P.pdf
https://www.eac.gov/research-and-data/datasets-codebooks-and-surveys
People might think, “Well, if they go to the slaughterhouse, they’re going to die anyway. Who cares?” But it’s a big difference in terms of the amount they suffer at their death. And it’s also crazy wasteful — the fact that all these animals went through a factory-farmed, horrible life, only to be foamed to death and then disposed of. ||| The moral cost of America’s meat-supply obsession | To evaluate these claims and discuss what America’s obsession with the meat supply might be missing, I called up Leah Garcés, the president of Mercy for Animals. She suggested that while we’re all focused on the possibility of a meat shortage, what we should really reflect upon during this crisis is our profoundly immoral food system. | And in areas where plants close, **we will see millions of animals being euthanized by farmers who have nowhere to send them for slaughter. That means these animals will die for nothing — the meat will never make it to our plates. | This is not an appropriate use of the Defense Production Act. Slaughter plants are not critical infrastructure, and they are certainly not worth the price that will most certainly be paid: further death and illness. This is a slap in the face to workers and protects the industry from being held accountable for the deaths and illnesses it is causing. Our government should be focused on protecting workers’ health and creating systemic solutions to overhaul our outdated, unsafe, and inhumane food system, not providing protections for Big Ag. | Our meat supply is not “perilously close to the edge.” These claims are simply meant to stoke fear. US meat producers are still exporting meat, and the industry still has a surplus of meat in frozen storage. The National Chicken Council even said, as they were asking for relief funds [from the government], they have “historically high cold storage supply levels.” | Let me describe what it looks like in a chicken slaughterhouse. The chickens arrive from the back of a warehouse in these crates, and then they’re moved onto a conveyor belt. And then workers who stand shoulder to shoulder are rapidly grabbing them by the legs and putting them on shackles that are moving extremely fast — the birds are hung upside down. And then they move rapidly away from the workers and they go through the process of being killed. From the workers’ perspective, each has a very specific job. One of them has to make this cut and the other one has to make that cut. Another one has to pull this part of the body off. One of them has to put it into a package. And they have to do all that very, very fast. You can’t step away to go to the bathroom, for example, because then your job in the machine is left unattended. [Even before the pandemic] there were reports that women were not getting bathroom breaks and were wearing diapers. Now that we’re impacted by Covid-19, workers are getting sick in droves because they’re continuing to stand shoulder to shoulder. It’s really questionable whether this is the right thing to be doing as a nation. Should we be putting these workers at risk just to deliver us cheap chicken? | In a single slaughterhouse, a million chickens are killed a week on average. Now, if even just one of those plants is at 50 percent capacity, it means that 500,000 birds that were supposed to be slaughtered are not going to be slaughtered now. So what’s happening to them? Well, the answer is that they’re being killed through emergency methods on farms. We know that because one poultry company reported that they were doing that. They said they’re just going to kill them on the farm en masse. | People might think, “Well, if they go to the slaughterhouse, they’re going to die anyway. Who cares?” But it’s a big difference in terms of the amount they suffer at their death. And it’s also crazy wasteful — the fact that all these animals went through a factory-farmed, horrible life, only to be foamed to death and then disposed of. | It’s a very rare opportunity to hit “reset” on the food system. (me: nope....)
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/1/21243300/meat-supply-coronavirus-plant-shortage-food-chain
https://www.businessinsider.com/millions-of-chickens-killed-food-supply-chain-brink-meat-shortage-2020-4
https://www.iatp.org/blog/202005/cold-hard-storage-facts-about-meatpacker-threats-scarcity
https://nccwashingtonreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FINAL-NCC-Farmer-Relief-Letter-Secretary-Perdue.pdf
https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/40045-allen-harim-reportedly-depopulating-2-million-birds
** Because murdering the animals means product loss means billion-dollar government handout whereas releasing the animals to sanctuary farms means no billion-dollar government handout
The modern Republican Party is made of up of the ideological heirs of the people who caused the Great Depression and the people who caused the Civil War. These are not normal Americans who are capable of rational thought, they’re greedy and they’re hateful. These people are hardwired to fail as their predecessors did, which is why they usually represent their communities so poorly.
Città Violenta (1970)
Lo Strano Vizio Della Signora Wardh (1971)
Biden Campaign Provides Documents to Dispute Eva Murry Sexual Harassment Allegation |
On May 1, Eva Murry came forward to allege that former vice president and presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden sexually harassed her at a dinner in 2008. Law&Crime published her account (which has now been updated) along with corroborating witnesses who asserted that she had shared the details with them. Thirty-six hours later, the Biden campaign responded and denied that allegation by providing a series of documents that cast doubt on one of the key specifics of Murry’s allegation. | Murry had alleged the incident occurred at the First State Gridiron Dinner & Show in 2008 when Biden was still a senator from Delaware. | A PDF version of Biden’s senatorial schedule for Saturday, May 3, 2008, the date of the dinner in question, has now been shared with Law&Crime and is sub-headlined with the phrase “REGRETS IN DELAWARE.” | According to this schedule, a staffer named “John” attended the dinner in lieu of Biden himself. | The next document provided by Biden’s campaign to dispute Murry’s claim is the Sunday, May 4, 2008 edition of The News Journal out of Wilmington, Delaware. | Biden, 65, is back home after having surgery Tuesday in Philadelphia to deal with significant sinus issues including a deviated septum. “We anticipate that he’ll be out for the remainder of the week recovering at his home in Wilmington, his spokeswoman, Annie Tomasini, said before the surgery. | The campaign also provided a brief news item from National Journal’s CongressDaily dated April 29, 2008 which made prior note of the above-reported sinus surgery. | Finally, the Biden campaign provided a letter written by attorney J. Brian Murphy, which identifies himself as the former vice-president of the First State Gridiron Dinner. In this letter, Murphy explicitly disputes Biden’s attendance at the event in question. | The year 2008 is particularly noteworthy because it is the only year where the Senator agreed to appear in a video, which was a spoof of Meet the Press. It was taped earlier that week. It was our hope the Senator would attend the dinner to see the video, but he sent regrets. Had he been there, myself as well as others would have known and in fact, I would have acknowledged him from the stage.
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/biden-campaign-provides-documents-to-dispute-eva-murry-sexual-harassment-allegation/
https://www.scribd.com/document/459647377/Biden-Documents-Dispute-Eva-Murry-Claim
https://am24.mediaite.com/lc/cnt/uploads/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2020-05-03-at-9.14.38-AM.png
They pick the one year he didn’t attend to try and smear him. How smart. They’re not sending their best accusers. And for the record I don't believe any of the Trump or Kavanaugh accusers.
Republican Eva Murray, the accuser, is the niece of Republican Christine O’Donnell, who just happened to be running against Joe Biden for his incumbant Senate seat at that time. My huge question is, if Christine O’Donnell is her aunt and was running against Biden at the time, why didn't this become a big story then? It would’ve destroyed Biden forever. It’s laughable that she’s adamant about her story and when/where it happened and is insisting the nose surgery story is a cover up. These people really think they can bend reality. Un-fucking-believable. She said it was supposed to have happened at a specific event that happened on a specific day, it never happened because Biden was not there, she can't have "confused the date" unless she confused the year or confused which event it happened at, both of which are such large changes in story it renders the whole story unbelievable. All the major players in the Tara Reade story - Nathan Robinson, Katie Halper, Rich McHugh, Ryan Grim - every single one of them spread this story without doing a single iota of journalism to fact-check basic details. None of them noticed the clear red flags - they had an agenda (Bernie or Bust!) and wouldn't let truth get in the way. Just a reminder for everyone that Nathan Robinson was caught coaching Tara Reade's brother on how to change his story. He deleted an entire series of tweets admitting it after people called him out on it.
O'Donnell stood by the accusation, while acknowledging to Fox News that it could have been a different year. "Yes, it could have been another year. So what?" So, you’re lying. You said specifically that your niece was 14 at the time. "It happened when I was running for office against him" which was 2008...the year you originally said....when your daughter was 14. And it actually wasn't the only year Biden missed that event.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dinner-organizer-says-biden-was-not-at-event-where-alleged-sexual-harassment
If someone out of the blue asked me about some event from over a decade ago, I'd probably get dates and even the year wrong. But if I was making an accusation about a very specific event, you can be sure I would double and triple check calendars, notes, the memories of friends and family, maybe check data in old digital photos, documents, etc that would help contextualize the event in question. I would want full confidence in the facts of my accusation. I wouldn't go on national TV and then say, oh, well it could have been a different year. I would know for certain what year it was, and it wouldn't even be up for debate. Certainly not after declaring with such specificity the event and the age of my child at the time. That makes no sense to me. But, like Biden said, let's keep the fact checking rolling. So far, that's only exonerated Biden. Increased scrutiny has not been so kind to the accuser in this case, however.
Biden was in Iowa all day of the 2007 event. So another lie (Murray's response was she was wrong about the year and Biden was at the event every year except 2008)
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1257006356722323457
http://web.archive.org/web/20070509193441/http://www.joebiden.com/newscenter/page?id=0004
2007, the "I made a mistake, it was 2007" year, is also a lie: news article matching the schedule showing Biden being in Iowa that evening.
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1257008523491368962
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXHKe5NXgAARpmd.png
Oh, the media is ready: to promote the lies
https://twitter.com/anna43bella/status/1257022768597495808
O'Donnell was running in 2006 against Biden. She ran every year from 2006-2010. And lost badly every time. She never mentioned it while accusing Biden of phonetapping her, sending the FBI after her, and bribing Delawarean journalists. If it happened at a semi-public event with 300-400 people, we would have heard about it the very next day, and multiple attendees would have backed her up.
The left and the Republicans and the media are trying to turn Joe Biden into Donald Trump. In this case Biden is accused of eyeing up and saying something sexual to a 14 year old. Trump has eyed up and talked sexual about Ivanka when she was a kid. Trump has barged into the dressing room of the Miss Teen Universe contestants to eye them up with little to no clothes on and bragged about it. Trump ran a strip club (Scores) in one of his casinos, and the adult entertainment industry held gang bang events at the strip clun. Trump sexually exploited teenage and adult females for personal profit. He's a sex trafficker and pornographer. Joe Biden = Innocent of sexual assault. Fights his entire life for womens' rights. Trump = Guilty of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking and pornography (AO events at strip club). We've seen him on camera bragging about what Joe is accused of. Multiple times. across decades. Even minors aren't safe. Trump and Biden are opposites. Remember that. Not to mention the way that Trump talks to and about women all the time. There’s an endless record of video evidence with Trump being sexist and mysognist and directly threatening to women. He has incredible distain and hostility, especially towards successful women who challenge him in any way.
Reminder: Tom Brady is a Buccaneer. Philip Rivers is a Colt. Andy Dalton is a Cowboy. Nick Foles is a Bear. Jameis Winston is a Saint. Teddy Bridgewater is a Panther. Marcus Mariota is a Raider. Cam Newton has no team. Wild offseason.
We left a playbook. He ignored it. We created an office to prepare for pandemics. He gutted it. We had CDC officials in China to detect and contain outbreaks. He pulled them out. Trump can try and shift blame all he wants, but the fact is his actions left us unprepared.”
https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1256667024912244736?s=21
A reminder that everything Joe Biden will be accused of, by his political opponents, over the next seven months will be things that NO ONE else has credibly accused him of over the last seventy years.
Expected events that FEMA boss Pete Gaynor is preparing for:
1. Second wave of pandemic, at the same time as...
2. Worse than usual Atlantic hurricane season (per early forecasts), at the same time as...
3. Wildfires, floods, earthquakes
https://www.axios.com/fema-coronavirus-hurricane-season-ef660cda-f4b3-4002-b8ac-71438c8edebd.html
Unfortunately, I don't think anybody should necessarily feel too optimistic about the lower-than-usual number of reported deaths today, since reporting is often slower on weekends. Note that last Sunday was a slow day too but was then followed by 2K+ on Tues/Wed/Thurs.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1257055999808200705
U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show. Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.
https://apnews.com/bf685dcf52125be54e030834ab7062a8
Faced with 20,000 coronavirus deaths and counting, the nation’s nursing homes are pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort to get states to grant them emergency protection from claims of inadequate care. At least 15 states have enacted laws or governors’ orders that explicitly or apparently provide nursing homes and long-term care facilities some protection from lawsuits arising from the crisis. And in the case of New York, which leads the nation in deaths in such facilities, a lobbying group wrote the first draft of a measure that apparently makes it the only state with specific protection from both civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution. Now the industry is forging ahead with a campaign to get other states on board with a simple argument: This was an unprecedented crisis and nursing homes should not be liable for events beyond their control, such as shortages of protective equipment and testing, shifting directives from authorities, and sicknesses that have decimated staffs.
https://apnews.com/8948150b9dec5b468dde0563ad28689f
Oleske repeatedly warned officials in emails that her office is “in a dire situation” and she didn’t have the necessary staff, equipment and capacity to handle all the potential covid-19 deaths. She said her office, along with the county’s hospitals and funeral homes, could hold a total of 119 bodies. She asked for two trailers, one to store corpses and the other to perform autopsies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/03/florida-countys-medical-examiner-begged-officials-close-beaches-internal-emails-reveal/
Trump has broadly dismissed the allegations, which include ogling, harassment, groping, and rape, as "fabricated" and politically motivated accounts pushed by the media and his political opponents. He promised to sue all of his accusers during the 2016 election. In some cases, Trump and his lawyer have suggested that he didn't engage in alleged behavior with certain women because they weren't attractive enough for him to be interested in. | Trump denied the allegations and during a rally in October 2016, suggested that Leeds wasn't attractive enough for him to assault. | Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, argued in 2015 that his client could not have raped Ivana because "you cannot rape your spouse." | Cohen later recanted, saying his comment was "inarticulate." | Trump appeared to admit to this behavior when he boasted in an April 2005 interview with radio host Howard Stern that he regularly walked into contestants' dressing rooms on the beauty pageants he owned while women were unclothed. "I'll go backstage before a show and everyone's getting dressed and ready and everything else. And you know, no men are anywhere. And I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant," he said. "You know they're standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that." | Trump called Drake's accusations "total fiction" and implied that Drake was accustomed to being "grabbed" because she is a porn actress. |
https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12?/
Reminder that there is an entire wiki page dedicated to Trumps sexual misconduct allegations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations
Where is Ken Starr when you need him? Working for Trump, contradicting everything he said when he was going after Bill Clinton. If Epstein hadn't died, he'd probably be working for him as well.
Trump is not happy with FBI director Christopher Wray and would love to replace him
https://www.axios.com/fbi-michael-flynn-chris-wray-trump-00c13ada-569b-4f5e-bfa3-354b794ea9e0.html
Millions of U.S. workers without traditional bank accounts must wait weeks for federal relief paper checks during the pandemic. They are disproportionately black and Hispanic and often have little choice but to use expensive check-cashing services.
https://apnews.com/f18671b03d07a6b227b46e614e541e7d
A Democratic super PAC is buying television time around Trump's Fox town hall and is planning to air ads attacking his response to the coronavirus pandemic in key swing states.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democratic-attack-ads-trump-town-hall_n_5eac6856c5b6995f1400a68f
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