There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Friday, May 6, 2022

Linkee-poo Friday May 6

"If you're wondering how your child might fare on a vegetarian diet, a new study offers some factors to consider. Children eating a vegetarian diet and children who ate meat were similar in terms of growth, height and nutritional measures, but vegetarian children had higher odds of being underweight, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics." Note if you're going to be vegetarian, especially with kids, you really need to do it correctly.

"The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the first in vitro diagnostic to aid in the early detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD)."

"But achieving that goal has become more difficult lately. Don said all of the home health agencies responsible for Jon's care are understaffed, meaning Don and Laurita are frequently rushing over to their son's house, often on short notice, when there's no aide available… As they get older and face health challenges of their own, Don said they've been looking at institutional care. Jon, now 36, doesn't know." Home health aids are typically the least paid in the healthcare sector.

"Researchers trying to learn what killed the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig have discovered the organ harbored an animal virus but cannot yet say if it played any role in the man’s death… Because some viruses are 'latent,' meaning they lurk without causing disease, 'it could be a hitchhiker,' Dr. Bartley Griffith, the surgeon who performed Bennett’s transplant, told The Associated Press."

"All people infected with omicron BA.1 had antibodies able to neutralize BA.1. But that potency decreased dramatically against the new variants (BA.2.12.2, BA.4 and BA.5). And how much it declined depended heavily on whether the people were vaccinated… For people not vaccinated, their antibodies ability to neutralize BA.4 and BA.5 dropped by nearly 8 times, compared to the activity against BA.1, both studies reported." What "living with it" might look like.

"The company behind the TurboTax tax-filing program will pay $141 million to customers across the United States who were deceived by misleading promises of free tax-filing services, New York's attorney general announced Wednesday… Under the terms of a settlement signed by the attorneys general of all 50 states, Mountain View, California-based Intuit Inc. will suspend TurboTax's 'free, free, free' ad campaign and pay restitution to nearly 4.4 million taxpayers, New York Attorney General Letitia James said."

"The Federal Reserve raised its target federal funds rate by a half point at the end of its two-day meeting Wednesday, notching the largest increase in the benchmark in more than 20 years."

"The U.S. economy added slightly more jobs than expected in April amid an increasingly tight labor market and despite surging inflation and fears of a growth slowdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday."

"US labor productivity tumbled by 7.5% in the first quarter of 2022 -- the largest decline in worker output per hour since 1947, according to Labor Department data released Thursday."

"Intelligence shared by the U.S. helped Ukraine sink the Russian cruiser Moskva, U.S. officials told NBC News, confirming an American role in perhaps the most embarrassing blow to Vladimir Putin’s troubled invasion of Ukraine." Part of this is controlling the narrative, that is the US did not know Ukraine was going to target the ship, and part of this is telling Russia, yes, we know where your assets are at all times. And there's a final part of this to say we are operating within international law.

"Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he accepted an apology from Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday for controversial remarks about the Holocaust made by Moscow’s top diplomat."

"Gov. Greg Abbott wants Texas to challenge a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires states to offer free public education to all children, including those of undocumented immigrants… That ruling, known as Plyler v. Doe, struck down a Texas law that had denied state funding to educate children who had not been 'legally admitted' to the United States." Performative cruelty is the agenda of the right.

"Attorney General candidate Jeff Crossman and Auditor candidate Taylor Sappington say they plan on releasing records that were finally secured from DeWine, and Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters will announce legal action against the governor for illegally rejecting records requests filed by the Party… Ohio Democrats say they have been working on getting answers to who knew what and when about the FirstEnergy scandal." I would like to say this is more than a election year political stunt, but it's not much more than that. Although the total impact of FirstEnergy bribery needs to be discovered.

"Democrats increasingly are warning that the reversal of Roe v. Wade could threaten an array of rights besides abortion, including marriage equality and birth control. They point to the legal reasoning in Justice Alito's draft opinion…"

"Maginnis and her cohort learned to weaponize those conditions, Loofbourow said. Maginnis and a handful of local activists would show women how to 'fake the symptoms that would get them "therapeutic abortions."' Still, the majority of people seeking abortions at the time did so extra-legally, according to University of Illinois history professor Leslie Reagan, who wrote When Abortion Was a Crime. And it was often a clandestine and dangerous experience." A reality check on America before Roe.

"An abortion rights protest had been going on peacefully for hours in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday when a 'help call' suddenly went out over police radios about 9 p.m… The SOS didn’t come from Los Angeles police officers, but a small group of federal officers with the Department of Homeland Security."

"About 30 Senate Democrats marched down the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday to declare their support for abortion rights and shout their solidarity with protesters who gathered just across the Capitol plaza in front of the Supreme Court… It was a typical rally. Democrats blamed Republicans for creating a Supreme Court majority that, according to a draft opinion leaked to Politico, intends to end federal abortion-rights protections by overturning Roe v. Wade. They spoke of a generation of women who will likely have fewer reproductive rights than their mothers, and they made promises to hold every Senator accountable." End the procedural filibuster.

"Below, seven popular claims surrounding abortion get fact-checked."

"Chief Justice John Roberts said Thursday that the leak of a draft opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade is 'absolutely appalling' and stressed that he hopes 'one bad apple' would not change 'people's perception' of the nation's highest court and workforce." Note that Justice Roberts is not upset about the decision, but about the leak itself. For Roberts, his top goal is to maintain the myth of the non-partisanship of the court, that the 9 justices work together to come dispassionately to a review of the law before them, and what differences there may be are handled in a professional manner. This leak blows all of that out of the water. And that's why this leak is so much more damaging than prior leaks (and there have been leaks before).

"The clothing brand Levi Strauss & Co. said in a statement on Wednesday that employees could get reimbursed for travel expenses for health care services not available in the state where they live, including abortions, through the company's benefits plan. Part-time hourly workers could also seek reimbursement."

"Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani is not expected to appear at an interview scheduled for Friday with the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack, throwing into jeopardy the prospect of his cooperation, say sources familiar with the matter… The move by Giuliani to cancel his appearance after the panel declined his request to record the interview means it may not secure documents and testimony from a central figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in time for public hearings in June."

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