What is even happening still anymore?
Iâm still with her.
âImagine, Rachel, that you had one of the Democratic nominees for 2020 on your show, and that person said, you know, the only other adversary of ours who is anywhere near as good as the Russians is China,â Clinton said. âSo why should Russia have all the fun? And since Russia is clearly backing Republicans, why donât we ask China to back us?â
The election could turn into a battle between two rival powers, Russia and China, one supporting the Republicans and one the Democrats, Clinton said.
âJust saying that shows how absurd the situation is we find ourselves in,â she added.
Clintonâs use of a personal email server while secretary of state became a major issue in her 2016 bid, even as she was cleared by the FBI of committing a crime.
Trump has said his call for Russia to find Clintonâs missing emails was made in jest. But according to the report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Russian hackers did seek Clintonâs emails within hours of Trumpâs remarks at a news conference in Florida.
Sheâs not wrongâŚ
Florida had passed that ex-felons could vote. The conservative part of the Florida Senate insisted that in order to vote, the ex-felons needed to pay all their fines, fees, restitution.
Ari Berman calls this a âpoll tax,â or another way to curtail these voters.
Donald Trump is spending billions on an outdated aircraft carrier that the Navy wanted for cybersecurity
Gee, I wonder why he doesnât want our network protected? http://bit.ly/2VFZdJu?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-article
Yes. Where is that report?
Barrâs glossy 4 pager covered it.
At every level this is horrifying, neglect and outright ignorance of what is happening with the earth (Respect to those who do work towards rectifying the situation.) It demands our attention.
From Axios -
The diversity of life on our planet is deteriorating far more rapidly than previously thought, with up to 1 million species threatened with extinction, many of which could be lost âwithin decades,â concludes a sweeping new scientific assessment released Monday in Paris.
Why it matters: The report, from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), finds that factors such as land use change, overfishing, pollution, climate change and population growth are pushing nature to the brink. Only âtransformational changeâ to the way society operates can put us back on course to meet global sustainable development targets, which nearly every country on Earth has committed to, the report concludes.
The big picture: The IPBES findings, a summary of which was released Monday, amount to a first-ever global report on the state of nature, and it is aimed at getting policy-makers, activists and others to place biodiversity loss higher on the list of global priorities.
- Biodiversity, which is the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems, is declining at the fastest rate in human history, the report finds.
- Though many of the reportâs findings are grim, they come with some silver lining: There is still time to avoid the future it projects. For example, nearly 100 groups worldwide are working to designate 30% of the Earthâs surface for protection by 2030, and 50% by 2050, in an effort to avert the extinction of many marine species.
- Biodiversity loss isnât just a matter of losing iconic species, the report finds, but it directly threatens human well-being by reducing the number of crops and livestock available to produce food.
- In addition, the loss of marine and tropical species will also limit the availability and development of new drug treatments for human diseases, among other ramifications.
By the numbers:
- 8 million: Total estimated number of plant and animal species on Earth (includes insects).
- Up to 1 million: Total number of species threatened with extinction.
- Tens to hundreds of times: âThe extent to which the current global rate of species extinction is higher compared to average over the last 10 million years.â This rate is accelerating, the report finds.
- 40%: Amphibian species threatened with extinction.
- 25%: âAverage proportion of species threatened with extinction across terrestrial, freshwater and marine vertebrate, invertebrate and plant groups that have been studied in sufficient detail.â
- 145: Number of report authors from 50 countries during the past 3 years.
- 310: Contributing authors to the report.
- 15,000: Scientific, government and indigenous sources that went into this report.
- 130: Member governments of the IPBES, including the Unites States.
What theyâre saying:
- âWe are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide,â said Robert Watson, chair of the IPBES assessment, in a statement. âThe report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global.â
- âThe essential, interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller and increasingly frayed,â said study co-chair and biologist Josef Settele, in a statement.
- âThe basic message is the same as what the scientific community has been saying for more than 30 years. Biodiversity is important in its own right, biodiversity is important for human well-being, and we humans are destroying it," Watson said at a press conference on Monday.
Details: The report recommends a series of large-scale changes in how we manage our lands and seas, and it states that transformative change alone can put the world on a more sustainable course by 2050.
According to Watson, who has worked as a top science advisor to the U.S. and U.K. governments and chaired the UNâs climate panel, the report defines transformative change as: âA fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.â
Be smart: This report is likely to be dismissed by some as just another in a long line of dire environmental predictions. But its call for systemic change, rather than incremental advances, is likely to provide a boost for activist movements now gaining strength around the world, particularly around climate change.
One such group, which is mainly active in Europe, is appropriately named for this task: Extinction Rebellion.
Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history â and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the summary of which was approved at the 7th session of the IPBES Plenary, meeting last week (29 April â 4 May) in Paris.
âThe overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture,â said IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson. âThe health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.â
âThe Report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global,â he said. âThrough âtransformative changeâ, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably â this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.â
The Trump administration may alter the way it determines the national poverty threshold, putting Americans living on the margins at risk of losing access to welfare programs.
The possible move would involve changing how inflation is calculated in the âofficial poverty measure,â the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a regulatory filing on Monday. The formula has been used for decades to determine whether people qualify for certain federal programs and benefits.
The measure, first set in the 1960s, is calculated at three times the cost of a minimum food diet and adjusted every year as prices rise. In 2018, a family of four making no more than $25,900 was considered impoverished. The figure determines eligibility for a wide swath of federal, state, and non-profit programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.
By changing the index the government uses to calculate how much the cost of living rises or falls, the poverty level could rise at a slower rate.
One proposal the Office of Management and Budget suggested in the filing is to shift to so-called chained CPI, which regularly shows a slower pace of price gains than traditional measures. Chained CPI shows slower inflation growth because it assumes consumers will substitute less expensive items when prices for specific individual goods increase significantly.
âBecause of this, changes to the poverty thresholds, including how they are updated for inflation over time, may affect eligibility for programs that use the poverty guidelines,â OMB said in a notice published to the federal register.
An administration official said the inflation measure was worth re-evaluating because it has remained unchanged for 40 years, and knowledge of how cost-of-living increases are calculated has increased substantially in that time. The official requested anonymity to describe the internal evaluation at OMB.
Read more: Lowest earners miss out as incomes, spending rise
The possible change appears to be the latest effort by the Trump administration to make it harder to access welfare programs. Last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to more strictly enforce current work requirements for welfare recipients, and propose additional, more stringent requirements that could further reduce eligibility.
âMillions of able-bodied, working-age adults continue to collect food stamps without working or even looking for work,â Trump said in December. âOur goal is to move these Americans from dependence to independence, and into a good-paying job and rewarding career.â
This isnât the first time a White House has considered using chained CPI to bring down the cost of government programs. President Barack Obama in 2014 proposed switching cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security and other retirement programs to the index. Congressional Democrats responded with an uproar, causing Obama to abandon the proposal in later budgets.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-06/trump-poverty-line-inflation
Remember folks, âthe development of pregnancy is counted from the first day of the womanâs last normal menstrual period, even though the development of the fetus does not begin until conception, which is about two weeks later.â The first two weeks of pregnancy, a woman is not even pregnant yet.
Gov. Brian Kemp ÂŽ signed the bill, which would prohibit the termination of a pregnancy after a âfetal heartbeatâ is detected â as early as six weeks, before many women know theyâre pregnant.
The bill attracted national attention and prompted fierce protests from abortion rights advocates, who have threatened legal action.
I wish people understood biologyâŚspecifically, female biology.
And, how many laws are there that tell men what they can & canât do to their bodies?
This is so far from even the idea of a well regulated militia. What are we doing America? Why are we allowing this kind of terrorism in our schools? Just heartbreaking.
School shootings are ok but women can get the death penalty if their pregnancy ends. Makes no fucking sense at all.
This radical revision of Georgia law is quite deliberate: The bill confirms that fetuses âshall be included in population based determinationsâ from now on, because they are legally humans, and residents of the state. But it is not clear whether the billâs drafters contemplated the more dramatic consequences of granting legal personhood to fetuses. For instance, as Georgia appellate attorney Andrew Fleischman has pointed out, the moment this bill takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020, the state will be illegally holding thousands of citizens in jail without bond. Thatâs because, under HB 481, pregnant inmatesâ fetuses have independent rightsâincluding the right to due process. Can a juvenile attorney represent an inmateâs fetus and demand its release? If not, why? It is an egregious due process violation to punish one human for the crimes of another. If an inmateâs fetus is a human, how can Georgia lawfully detain it for a crime it did not commit?
But the most startling effect of HB 481 may be its criminalization of women who seek out unlawful abortions or terminate their own pregnancies. An earlier Georgia law imposing criminal penalties for illegal abortions does not apply to women who self-terminate; the new measure, by contrast, conspicuously lacks such a limitation. It can, and would, be used to prosecute women. Misoprostol, a drug that treats stomach ulcers but also induces abortions, is extremely easy to obtain on the internet, and American women routinely use it to self-terminate. It is highly effective in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Anti-abortion advocates generally insist that they do not want to punish women who undergo abortions. But HB 481 does exactly that. Once it takes effect, a woman who self-terminates will have, as a matter of law, killed a humanâthereby committing murder. The penaltyfor that crime in Georgia is life imprisonment or capital punishment.
HB 481 would also have consequences for women who get abortions from doctors or miscarry. A woman who seeks out an illegal abortion from a health care provider would be a party to murder, subject to life in prison. And a woman who miscarries because of her own conductâsay, using drugs while pregnantâwould be liable for second-degree murder, punishable by 10 to 30 yearsâ imprisonment. Prosecutors may interrogate women who miscarry to determine whether they can be held responsible; if they find evidence of culpability, they may charge, detain, and try these women for the death of their fetuses.
Even women who seek lawful abortions out of state may not escape punishment. If a Georgia resident plans to travel elsewhere to obtain an abortion, she may be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, punishable by 10 yearsâ imprisonment. An individual who helps a woman plan her trip to get an out-of-state abortion, or transports her to the clinic, may also be chargedwith conspiracy. These individuals, after all, are âconspiringâ to end of the life of a âpersonâ with âfull legal recognitionâ under Georgia law.
Let me repeat that,
Prosecutors may interrogate women who miscarry to determine whether they can be held responsible; if they find evidence of culpability, they may charge, detain, and try these women for the death of their fetuses.
WTF???
I think all women in Georgia should refuse to have sex until this bill is repealed. And again, where is the law that holds the man equally responsible? It requires sperm to create an unwanted pregnancy.
Ohio is trying to limit abortion by outlawing birth control? Makes no fucking sense!
The bill would ban nontherapeutic abortions that include "drugs or devices used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum.â
Um, thatâs most birth control
Becker says the bill also speaks to coverage of ectopic or tubal pregnancies where the fertilized egg attaches outside of the womb.
âPart of that treatment would be removing that embryo from the fallopian tube and reinserting it in the uterus so that is defined as not an abortion under this bill," Becker explains.
âThat doesnât exist in the realm of treatment for ectopic pregnancy," argues says Jaime Miracle, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. "You canât just re-implant. Itâs not a medical thing."
The law prescribes a medical procedure that doesnât exist.
I think all women in Georgia should refuse to have sex until this bill is repealed.
Well it worked in Athens 2500 years ago
Impossible to square this.
âThe manâs name has not been released, but he was arrested on suspicion of unlawful transportation, and of giving, lending or selling an assault weapon, according to the LAPD. He is expected to be booked in the morning, authorities said.â
FB is not cool anymore guys. Theyâre literally auto-generating extremist propaganda at this point.
The animated video begins with a photo of the black flags of jihad. Seconds later, it flashes highlights of a year of social media posts: plaques of anti-Semitic verses, talk of retribution and a photo of two men carrying more jihadi flags while they burn the stars and stripes.
It wasnât produced by extremists; it was created by Facebook. In a clever bit of self-promotion, the social media giant takes a year of a userâs content and auto-generates a celebratory video. In this case, the user called himself âAbdel-Rahim Moussa, the Caliphate.â
âThanks for being here, from Facebook,â the video concludes in a cartoon bubble before flashing the companyâs famous âthumbs up.â
After a shouting match broke out, the Alabama Senate on Thursday tabled an amendment to a controversial bill that would criminalize abortions by making performing the procedure a felony punishable by up to 99 years imprisonment.
The decision was made by voice vote, angering Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton and other Democrats who were seeking a roll-call vote on all issues related to the abortion bill.
They accused Alabama Lieut. Gov. Will Ainsworth, a Republican who presides over the senate, of being too quick on the gavel in moving forward with the voice vote and steamrolling over their concerns.
âAt least treat us fairly and do it the right way,â Democratic Sen. Vivian Davis Figures said.
As the disagreement escalated, the vote was moved until next week.
The bill, which is expected to be passed by the conservative majority, would be the most restrictive in the country and would impose what is in effect a near-total abortion ban.
Alabama is among more than two dozen states that have sought to impose new restrictions on abortion this year. Georgia on Tuesday became the sixth state to impose a ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.
Strange details in that story. The Gettyâs are fascinating. Billionaires.
The Bel-Air mansion is described as a hoarderâs paradise. Court records show that the property is owned by Cynthia Beck, who has three daughters with J. Paul Gettyâs son Gordon Getty. Beck bought the property in January 2001, but it remained unclear what, if any, connection she had to Wednesdayâs events. Beck could not be reached for comment.
Exclusive: Documents Detail Meetings Of Russians With Treasury, Federal Reserve Russian Agents Alexander Torshin, Maria Butina Met With Treasury, Fed In 2015 : NPR