"A night of trick-or-treating ended with a 7-year-old girl critically injured after she was shot Thursday night in Chicago."
"Here are five tips to help you spot misinformation."
"Total bill: $29,894.50, including $16,480 for room and board in a semiprivate psychiatric room and $3,999 for the ER. After the hospital reduced the bill because her insurance didn't cover mental health, she owes $21,634.55." Welcome to President Trump's "lower cost healthcare plans." Tell me again how we have the greatest healthcare system in the world.
"Measles can erase the immune system's memory, leaving us vulnerable to diseases we were previously protected against, new research has found." Well, fuck.
"The brain waves generated during deep sleep appear to trigger a cleaning system in the brain that protects it against Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases… Electrical signals known as slow waves appear just before a pulse of fluid washes through the brain, presumably removing toxins associated with Alzheimer's, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science." Get your sleep.
"Google has just announced that it’s buying wearable company Fitbit for $2.1 billion. In a blog post announcing the news, Google SVP of devices and services Rick Osterloh said that the Fitbit purchase is 'an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into the market.'" Well, so much for FitBit. Full disclosure, I wear one for the hospital.
Who needs clean water regulations? "The area has made news for decades for its notoriously dirty water supply. But now, efforts to fix that have led to another crisis: Many are unable to afford their water bills." It's also something we struggled with in our village. And it's a crisis we continue to face as our main water-tower ages out of service.
"On a windy night in Billings, Mont., Patricia Iron Cloud and about 60 others were protesting the Keystone XL pipeline ahead of a public meeting on Oct. 29. It was the public's first and only chance to meet with U.S. State Department officials about a new environmental analysis of the Keystone XL pipeline." Killing the environment for profit.
"The strong winds that have fanned the multiple fires raging across California are expected to subside Friday, giving firefighters a better chance at containing the blazes."
"An armed shoplifting suspect in Colorado barricaded himself in a stranger's suburban Denver home in June 2015. In an attempt to force the suspect out, law enforcement blew up walls with explosives, fired tear gas and drove a military-style armored vehicle through the property's doors… A federal appeals court in Denver ruled this week that the homeowner, who had no connection to the suspect, isn't entitled to be compensated, because the police were acting to preserve the safety of the public."
"One of Chicago’s longest teachers strikes in the last half century is finally over."
How bad is rape culture? "A Barcelona court's decision to acquit five men accused of gang-raping a 14-year-old girl of the charge of sexual assault has provoked outrage… The court ruled out rape because the victim was in an 'unconscious state' and the accused had not used violence or intimidation."
How goes Brexit? "The UK's election campaign hasn't officially started yet. But that didn't stop US President Donald Trump from weighing in on what's expected to be one of the most unpredictable election campaigns in living memory." One Russian backed politician backs another.
"British euroskeptic politician Nigel Farage tried to ramp up the pressure on Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday, saying his Brexit Party will run against the Conservatives across the country in next month’s election unless Johnson abandons his divorce deal with the European Union." That's an interesting take to obscurity. It's also an interesting twist and example on why support without control doesn't work all that well for a large covert operation (stares in Russian).
"U.S. employers added a solid 128,000 jobs in October, a figure that was held down by a now-settled strike against General Motors that caused tens of thousands of workers to be temporarily counted as unemployed… The government also revised up its estimate of job growth for August and September by a combined 95,000, suggesting a healthier employment market than many had thought." Well that's good. Considering estimates were only for 75,000 or so jobs, that's a good number. It's not a "strong" number, as some are saying. I'm old enough to remember when 125,000 was considered "maintaining".
"The White House appears to be abandoning its plan to freeze the fuel efficiency standards of cars at 2020 levels, reversing a cornerstone policy of Trump’s campaign, reports The Wall Street Journal. The administration is now considering a 1.5 percent annual increase instead." Weak tea.
"Late at night, heavily armed CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary forces will land in a village to carry out a raid in Taliban-controlled areas looking for militants. They'll bomb their way through the walls of a compound, then separate whoever they find into groups of women and young children, and men and boys. They'll question the men, and detain some of them. Others will be shot execution-style." The CIA is fantastic for a lot of things. Training, equipping, and supporting militias and government police forces isn't one of them. In fact, most of their efforts end in war crimes. Its history since its inception has proved this point. And mostly it's because they don't think the laws apply to them (which in many other areas, they intentionally ignore the law… spying, after all, is illegal).
The president becomes a Florida retiree. To bad he didn't retire to do it. And while he states that it's because he'd been "treated badly", my guess is he doesn't want to pay the tax penalty his own tax bill brought about on him (with limiting deductions on state and local taxes paid on the federal tax forms).
"Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues." And he was hacked. Hypocrisy is endemic in the GOP. Hell, as a village councilman I had to be careful about which email account was used for what business. (Grokked form Chuck Wendig)
"The House of Representatives voted Thursday 232-196 to pass a resolution formalizing its impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Just two Democrats voted no — Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey." And there it is.
"President Donald Trump told attendees at a House Republican fundraising event that he didn’t believe first lady Melania Trump would cry for him if he ever got shot." I got nothing. (Grokked from Christopher Moore)
"Just less than a month after President Trump named Rudy Giuliani to be his cybersecurity adviser back in 2017, Giuliani had to seek out help at an Apple Store in downtown San Francisco to unlock his iPhone because he had forgotten his password, NBC News reports." (Grokked from Jim Wright)
Say, what was that application Trump's kids used to avoid government scrutiny of their messaging? "Senior government officials in multiple U.S.-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp to take over users’ phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company’s investigation." Whistling past the graveyard. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
"George Papadopoulos… became a major player in the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia and pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators. He served time in federal prison and wrote a book… Papadopoulos filed paperwork Tuesday to run as a Republican for the soon-to-be-vacant seat currently held by Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., who announced her resignation over the weekend." The problem? He tweeted that California’s 25th congressional district would be up for grabs 2 hours before Red State published the intimate photographs that led to Katie Hill retiring.
"But there may be even more to this moment than that. The vote in the House may focus public awareness on what is going on. It may be the event that gives many Americans the sense they need to start paying attention." You know, like what happened when open hearings started for Nixon and Clinton. Mostly because the average American is woefully uninformed and doesn't have the time, energy, or drive to become more informed. But they'll watch a good mudslinging event.
"James Burnham, arguing for the Justice Department, replied that the dispute between the House Judiciary Committee and McGahn should not be resolved through litigation. He argued that the Constitution and more than two centuries of interactions between the White House and Congress hadn’t required courts to weigh in… 'So the House can never go to court?' Jackson asked… 'As a general proposition, that’s correct,' replied Burnham, a former White House aide under McGahn who is now serving in a senior position in the Justice Department’s civil division." No kings or landlords, motherfucker.
"Republicans have long dismissed the evidence of Donald Trump’s political impropriety — both before and after he took office — as simply sour-grape concoctions from critics unable to come to grips with the results of the 2016 election. But it's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans may not be handling the results of the 2018 midterms all that well themselves." These are totally bullshit arguments and mostly run out by the White House that Democrats are trying to get a "re do" of 2016. If the president didn't abuse his office, didn't attempt to personally profit from what could be seen and emoluments, and basically wasn't a dick we wouldn't be here. But the president has done all of that and more. To ignore it is to condone the actions.
"NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Deputy Assistant to the President and the White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley about the White House's response to the impeachment process." No transcript yet, but definitely worth the listening.
"The National Republican Congressional Committee sent packing boxes to several House Democrats who represent battleground states to signify they'll need them as 'moving boxes' next November, prompting Capitol Hill police to investigate them as suspicious packages." Apparently no-one at the NRCC thought that having boxes show up outside of congresspeople's doors would be suspicious. Also this exposes exactly what the GOP is worried about. While they like to talk about the blowback from the Clinton impeachment, what they're really worried about is what happened to the conservative brand after Nixon's resignation. (Grokked in a roundabout way from Kathryn Cramer)
"More Americans approve of the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump than disapprove of it, though only about a third say the inquiry should be a top priority for Congress, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research." It's still not above 50%, and there's the obligatory breakdown in the usual lumps.
Tweet of my heart: @emptywheel Shorter Tim Morrison:… I don't think the very disturbing thing Trump did broke the law but I'm getting the fuck out of the Administration before it all caves in. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
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