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BREAKING new RU law; leader of RU companies go to jail if they declare bankruptcy / insolvency, since state-owned RU Railways was declared in default of a bond obligation: Great news, RU soldiers: it's strictly forbidden to die in Ukraine!! Chances low though ;I

Stunning New Report Reveals Trump Administration Used DHS to Conduct Cyber-Audit of Arizona at Request of One State Rep. There is an old saying that an important difference between a nation of laws and fascism is that the police in democracies following the law only investigate reports of a crime. Fascist dictatorships harness the police to investigate people to find something to justify a pre-determined outcome. According to a blockbuster report in Politico, the Trump administration’s DHS Cyber Security Agency (the police) investigated Arizona and its voting machines, a problematic “person,” who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election. In late December of 2020, Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem (almost surely on behalf of the White House as a long-time Trump ally) made a unique request to Homeland Security’s little known department, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, requesting “a full spectrum forensic examination” of Arizona’s voting machines. As typical of the corrupt Trump administration, the request from a state representative was on the desk of the director of the department the next day, the morning of Christmas Eve of 2020. Brandon Wales, the “acting-director” of the little-known agency, received the request as a top priority at 7:59 a.m. All of eight minutes later, Wales wrote, “We need to do a call on this today,” in a message to several people, including the agency’s then-deputy chief external affairs officer. In other words, an unknown state representative called up a highly-specialized and sophisticated federal agency to report a person (Arizona) and requested that the specialized unit find a crime – or mistake – within the Arizona computer vote tabulators. This is new reporting and if one appreciates the utter insanity of it, jaw-dropping. https://www.politicususa.com/2022/04/12/stunning-new-report-reveals-trump-administration-used-dhs-to-conduct-cyber-audit-of-arizona-at-request-of-one-state-rep.html Eastman is an attorney, and what he is apparently trying to do is conspiracy to commit election fraud, and he would have to know that. Either his obsession have devolved into mania or he feels confident that he has some sort of immunity from prosecution. The intransigence (so far) of the American DOJ to have indicted any of Trump's inner circle or Trump himself could reasonably interpreted to give give that impression.

“The coup attempt is ongoing”: Ex-Trump lawyer John Eastman still trying to overturn 2020 election Former Trump lawyer John Eastman is still trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election amid a legal battle with the House Jan. 6 committee over his role in the former president's failed effort to reverse his loss. Eastman played a key role as a top adviser in Trump's scheme to block the certification of President Joe Biden's win and wrote a plan claiming that then-Vice President Mike Pence could reject legitimate electors from states Trump lost. Eastman's efforts came under the scrutiny of the Jan. 6 committee, which subpoenaed his records related to the scheme. Eastman fought the subpoena before a judge last month ordered him to turn over documents after finding that he and Trump "more likely than not" committed federal crimes when they "corruptly attempted to obstruct" Congress. But Eastman is not done trying to undo Trump's loss. He was one of several Trump allies who last month secured a two-hour private meeting with Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to pressure him to "nullify" the 2020 election and "reclaim the electors awarded to Biden," which legal experts say is not possible, according to ABC News. Eastman urged Vos to "decertify the election," according to the report. Jefferson Davis, a Wisconsin activist who also attended the meeting, told ABC that Eastman pushed Vos to start "reclaiming the electors" and move forward with "either a do over or having a new slate of electors seated that would declare someone else the winner." https://www.salon.com/2022/04/12/the-coup-attempt-is-ongoing-ex-lawyer-john-eastman-still-trying-to-overturn-2020/

Just another day in the US of A.

Philadelphia Restores Indoor Mask Mandate Amid New Wave Of COVID-19 Cases Philadelphia is restoring its indoor mask mandate as the number of COVID-19 cases rise across the region. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health announced the reinstatement of the mandate on Monday, giving residents and businesses a “one-week educational period” to prepare for the change. COVID-19 rates are rising in Philadelphia, with an average of 142 cases per day within the last two weeks and a 4.5% increase in positive COVID tests, according to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. Since the pandemic started, over 275,000 city residents have tested positive for COVID-19, and over 5,000 have died because of the virus. Currently, 76.9% of Philadelphia adults are fully vaccinated, while nearly 94.7% have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Philadelphia has four COVID-19 response levels. The city is currently at a Level 2, which indicates that the average number of new cases per day are less than 225, hospitalization numbers are less than 100, and cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous ten days. At Level 2, masks must be worn indoors, but there are no vaccine or testing requirements for places that serve food and beverages. In the press release, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney said the city’s response levels “allow us to be clear, transparent and predictable in our response to local COVID-19 conditions.” “Given the recent rise in cases, we are moving to Level 2 in hopes of preventing higher case rates and stricter measures,” Kenney stated. “Our city remains open; we can still go about our daily lives and visit the people and places we love while masking in indoor public spaces. I’m optimistic that this step will help us control the case rate.”

Maybe just to piss off the Rider fans.

And the law and order Cons are not falling all over each other to bring the miscreant to justice?

The goal of the GOP's QAnon-influenced "groomer" troll: More political violence Republicans don't really think liberals are "grooming" children — but they know saying so is permission to violence Here is the most important thing to remember about the word "groomer": Exactly zero percent of the people flinging the word at progressives care one bit about child abuse. This is all just pure, uncut trolling. It's never meant as a sincere concern or accusation. Indeed, the deep unfairness of the word "groomer" is the point. What right-wing trolls want more desperately than anything else is to "trigger" liberals. Falsely accusing someone of heinous crimes, while unimaginative, is a crude-but-effective way to bully people. So in the past month, there's been a rapid escalation of conspiracy theories falsely accusing Democrats of being somehow pro-pedophilia. The proximate twin causes are the confirmation hearings of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and Florida passing a "don't say gay" bill clearly meant to force LGBTQ teachers and students back into the closet. In the former, Republicans led by slime monster Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri spent the hearing falsely accusing Jackson of going light on sentences for child molesters. In the latter, Republicans defending the law have taken to suggesting that anyone who opposes it is a pedophile. Soon, a generalized accusation that Democrats and even companies that are mildly pro-LGBTQ want to "groom" children spread across Fox News. Falsely accusing someone of heinous crimes, while unimaginative, is a crude-but-effective way to bully people. Much digital ink has been spilled, for good reason, on how this nonsense is both about pandering to the QAnon cult and encouraging more Republican voters to be Q-curious. After all, QAnon espouses a conspiracy theory that Democrats secretly run a blood-drinking pedophilia cult that worships Satan. So any Republican leaders and pundits chattering about "grooming" and other false allegations around the subject of child abuse are clearly nodding in the direction of QAnon. https://www.salon.com/2022/04/11/the-goal-of-the-gops-qanon-influenced-groomer-troll-more-political-violence/

All the sane non-fascist Americans can hope for is that Garland is getting all of his ducks in a row before a mushroom-shaped cloud appears over Mar-A-Lago.

'Criminal conspiratorial intent': Legal experts stunned Trump Jr. claimed 'operational control' over election results Two days before the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden the President’s son, Donald Trump, Jr. sent a text to the White House Chief of Staff that said “we have operational control” to ensure a second Trump term, according to a just-published CNN bombshell report. “It’s very simple,” Trump Jr. added in the November 5 text. “We have multiple paths We control them all.” The damning text to Mark Meadows did not end there. “We have operational control Total leverage,” Trump Jr’s text continued. “Moral High Ground POTUS must start 2nd term now.” Legal experts are weighing in. U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), an attorney who obtained the rank of Colonel in the Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps made sure to stress the President’s son’s remarks seem to reveal illegality: Former federal prosecutor of 30 years, Glenn Kirschner, wrote: “The ‘Subject’ line of Don Jr.’s email might as well have been, ‘I’m a member of my father’s criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.’ ” And he asks, “How long do we have to endure this open, treasonous criminality by Trump and company before someone gets indicted?” Election law expert Rick Hasen, a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law says “Mark Meadows election subversion texts are the gift that keep on giving. It’s amazing he didn’t fight against turning them over.” Former US Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal served up a one-word response: “Premeditated.”

I don't need more snow to be miserable.

Is this a gay reference?

And celebrate it.

Rape is a military tactic of the Russian army, but if they were planning to rape, they would not have brought condoms.

That Russian forces have been lied to, given poor training and outdated equipment and supplies has probably been the biggest factor in the Ukrainian routing of Russian forces. The Russian forces were told they were liberating Ukraine from neo-Nazi, corrupt and unpopular politicians and would be greeted as heroes. Many soldiers were carrying condoms, which gives an idea of what they were expecting.

Considering that the past couple of winters have had below-normal snowfall and temperatures, there ought to have been savings to be applied to this budget overrun.

Trump campaign implicated in Jan. 6 election scheme On Friday, CNN's Annie Grayer reported that David Shafer, a Republican from Georgia who served on the list of "alternative" electors declaring former President Donald Trump the winner of the state, told the House January 6 Committee that the Trump campaign gave the order for the Georgia Republican Party to create the fake elector slate. All told, 84 people allowed their names to be put forward as fake electors in the scheme, which included slates from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — all states won by President Joe Biden. The fake electors included eight current office holders and five former office holders. The fake electors were part of a bizarre legal strategy put forward by far-right Trump attorney John Eastman, who argued that if there were "competing" slates of electors, former Vice President Mike Pence could declare during the Electoral College counting process that there was no way of proving which set of electors was valid for these states and throw out the election results entirely, kicking the decision for president to the House of Representatives, where Republicans controlled a majority of the delegations needed to declare Trump the winner even though Democrats had a majority of representatives overall. Most experts believe this plan would have been illegal, as did Pence himself, who refused to go through with it. https://www.salon.com/2022/02/26/campaign-implicated-in-jan-6-scheme_partner/

Fox News’s Will Cain: ‘Disney Is Turning Your Kids Gay’ The Right Wing’s obsession and terror with the Zoomer generation and Gen Z’s exploration of different self-identity through an LGBTQ prism continue apace. Today, Fox News’s Will Cain pointed directly to Disney content as on proximate cause of what some of us see as evolution, while the Right sees nothing but dissolution in all they ever thought to believe. At issue, this morning on Fox and Friends was a leaked zoom call message in which the child of Disney executive, Karey Burke, claimed her son texted that “Gen Z is 30% to 40% queerer than other generations Mom, so Disney better get with it.” Of course, it couldn’t be thrown away as one statement by one teen with the realization that any one teen is capable of saying any one stupid thing at any given time, which may or may not have any bearing upon reality. The message was very intentionally picked up upon by wedge issue specialist Christopher Rufo, who made Critical Race Theory Virginia’s single biggest issue and threat during Glenn Youngkin’s race for governor and the Disney-LGBTQ link is now being used to scare the living spit out of Fox-watching grandparents everywhere. Cain then set about to freak out over a new Gallup Poll that says one in five of the Gen Z generation identifies as LGBTQ. “What does it entail? What does it encompass? What is more interesting to me is why? Is it because, you know, they are true of this persuasion, or is it because it’s a chicken or egg theme? They are being fed these messages over and over from places like Disney and now the numbers are going up?”

Texas Woman, 26, Charged With Murder After Alleged 'Self-Induced Abortion' A 26-year-old Texas woman has been arrested and charged with murder after authorities said she had a “self-induced abortion.” The extreme move comes after Texas passed a draconian anti-abortion law last year that has forced thousands of women to seek care out of state. Lizelle Herrera was arrested Thursday when officials said she “intentionally and knowingly cause[d] the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” according to a spokesperson for the Starr County Sheriff’s Office. No details about the “abortion” or fetus were provided. Herrera was still in custody Friday. Her bail was set at $500,000, according to Valley Central, which was the first to report the arrest. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-murder-charge-self-induced-abortion_n_62510a34e4b06c2ea31d9ec3

People have been hanged for less

I believe that most of that exported grain came from Ukraine, so things may be different now,

FWIW: Regular gas at Costco today at $1.61 per liter

Russia’s “Elite” 38th Motorized Rifle Brigade entirely destroyed by Ukrainians. With the help of Russia, whose air force could not distinguish between their own troops and the Ukrainians.