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solarbirdA couple of these are older because I had them and forgot. Sorry.
(ps cascadia now)
----- 1 -----
Deadly attack at Toronto erotic spa was incel terrorism, police allege
By Stewart Bell, Andrew Russell and Catherine McDonald
Global News
Posted May 19, 2020
https://globalnews.ca/news/6910670/toronto-spa-terrorism-incel/
A deadly attack at a Toronto erotic massage parlour three months ago is now being treated as an act of terrorism after police allegedly uncovered evidence it was inspired by misogynist incel ideology.
Charges against the suspect accused of carrying out the Feb. 24 stabbing attack, which killed a woman and injured another, were updated in court on Tuesday to “murder — terrorist activity.”
The suspect, who cannot be named because he is a minor, was also charged with terrorism for the alleged attempted murder of the woman who survived.
He was already facing first-degree and attempted murder charges, but the development means police believe the incident was terrorism-related.
...
A police source told Global News the suspect had said he wanted to kill as many women as possible.
The woman who survived the attack said in an interview she was pleased with the terrorism charges and that Canadians should be more informed about incels.
“I’m overjoyed at the news that they’ve decided to charge him with the terrorism stuff. I hope it sticks,” said the woman, who asked not to be named.
The incident points to the evolving threat posed by the incel movement, which a recent paper said was “flourishing, ideologically evolving, and continuing to threaten more … attacks.”
Almost 50 deaths in Canada and the United States have been linked to incels, leading to calls to treat their actions as a form of domestic terrorism.
----- 2 -----
Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
18 May 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1262478367842078721
This is the letter the President sent to twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi on Friday expressing his lost confidence in former IG Steve Linick. Today: “Never heard of him.”
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
----- 3 -----
REVEALED: Fired State Department IG was probing Trump administration’s potentially illegal Saudi arms sales
By Brad Reed
18 May 2020
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/revealed-fired-state-department-ig-was-probing-trump-administrations-potentially-illegal-saudi-arms-sales/
Former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, who was fired by President Donald Trump abruptly last week, had launched a probe into potentially illegal arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Two sources tell NBC News’ Josh Lederman that “Linick was also investigating use of emergency declaration last year to sell arms to Saudis over objections of Congress” at the time he was fired.
Aides for lawmakers serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee tell the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that the investigation into the Saudi arms sales has been “mostly” completed, although there’s no time table for when the results would have been made public.
----- 4 -----
University of Utah police officer showed off explicit photos of Lauren McCluskey to his co-worker
By Courtney Tanner
18 May 2020
https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2020/05/17/university-utah-police/
UPDATE: Logan police announced an internal affairs investigation into Officer Miguel Deras in reaction to this article.
Lauren McCluskey explained to the officer at the University of Utah that she was being extorted over explicit photos she had taken of herself. Someone — she wasn’t certain who at that moment — had accessed her files and was threatening to release them if she didn’t hand over $1,000.
Scared by the demand, she paid the money and then sent copies of the messages and the pictures to the campus police department as evidence.
When Miguel Deras, one of the officers assigned to her case, received them, he saved the photos on his personal phone. And days before McCluskey was killed by the man who was blackmailing her, Deras showed off at least one of the images to a male co-worker and bragged about getting to look at them whenever he wanted, according to two fellow officers.
The university has only now confirmed that display occurred — a year and a half after McCluskey first brought her concerns to the department — as part of a continued push by The Salt Lake Tribune to obtain public records on how the case was handled. The U. spoke to the officer who was shown the pictures by Deras and verified the action with him. The Tribune also substantiated it with another officer, who overheard Deras talking to that co-worker.
Neither officer reported the incident at the time, and Deras was never disciplined for it.
In fact, the university says it didn’t know about the inappropriate behavior and abuse of evidence until after Deras left the department in September 2019, though it occurred before McCluskey’s murder on Oct. 22, 2018. The only reason officials looked into it, said U. police Lt. Jason Hinojosa, was because The Tribune’s records request first brought it to their attention.
----- 5 -----
Georgia Republicans cancel election for state Supreme Court, meaning governor can appoint a Republican
Republicans will control a seat on the state Supreme Court for an extra two years.
By Ian Millhiser May 19, 2020
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/19/21262376/georgia-republicans-cancel-election-state-supreme-court-barrow-kemp-blackwell
The state of Georgia was supposed to hold an election Tuesday to fill a seat on the state Supreme Court. Justice Keith Blackwell, a Republican whose six-year term expires on the last day of this year, did not plan to run for reelection. The election, between former Democratic Rep. John Barrow and former Republican state lawmaker Beth Beskin, would determine who would fill Blackwell’s seat.
But then something weird happened: Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and the state’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, canceled Tuesday’s election. Instead, Kemp will appoint Blackwell’s successor, and that successor will serve for at least two years — ensuring the seat will remain in Republican hands.
On May 14, the state Supreme Court handed down a decision that effectively blessed this scheme to keep Blackwell’s seat in the GOP’s hands. The court’s decision in Barrow v. Raffensperger is unusual in many regards — among other things, six of the state’s regular Supreme Court justices recused from the case, and they were replaced by five lower court judges who sat temporarily on the state’s highest court. The court’s decision in Barrow turns upon poorly drafted language in the state constitution, which does suggest that Blackwell, Kemp, and Raffensperger’s scheme was legal.
----- 6 -----
The woman behind ‘Roe vs. Wade’ didn’t change her mind on abortion. She was paid
By Meredith Blake
Staff Writer
May 19, 2020
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-05-19/roe-v-wade-jane-roe-norma-mccorvey-hulu-doc-abortion
When Norma McCorvey, the anonymous plaintiff in the landmark Roe vs. Wade case, came out against abortion in 1995, it stunned the world and represented a huge symbolic victory for abortion opponents: “Jane Roe” had gone to the other side. For the remainder of her life, McCorvey worked to overturn the law that bore her name.
But it was all a lie, McCorvey says in a documentary filmed in the months before her death in 2017, claiming she only did it because she was paid by antiabortion groups including Operation Rescue.
“I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say,” she says in “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX. “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”
In what she describes as a “deathbed confession,” a visibly ailing McCorvey restates her support for reproductive rights in colorful terms: “If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.”
----- 7 -----
Trump Administration to End National Guard COVID Deployments One Day Before GI Bill Benefits Kick In
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
May 19, 20202:14 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/national-guard-deployments-to-fight-coronavirus-will-end-day-before-benefits-kick-in.html
In 2017, Donald Trump signed something called the “Forever GI Bill” at his company’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. The law expanded the educational benefits that had been made available under the “Post-9/11 GI Bill,” which was passed in 2008, and which supplemented various benefits that can be traced back to the original 1944 GI Bill. The White House would later tout the “Forever GI Bill” as an example of how Trump was “working tirelessly to provide the benefits and services that our veterans deserve.”
In late March, the Trump administration authorized the deployment of members of the National Guard to help local authorities conduct coronavirus tests, set up field hospitals, and perform other critical public health tasks that carried a risk of infection. More than 40,000 service members have been deployed in total, but Politico now reports that they will all be recalled on June 24—one day before the first group sent into the field would reach the 90-day active-duty minimum that’s required to qualify for GI Bill education benefits and for a retirement benefit that was also created in 2008. Says the news site (the “official” is a FEMA staffer):
----- 8 -----
Supreme Court grants Trump request to temporarily shield Mueller grand jury materials
By John Kruzel - 05/08/20
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/496798-supreme-court-grants-trump-administration-request-to-temporarily
The Supreme Court on Friday granted a Trump administration request to temporarily shield redacted grand jury materials related to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe from the Democratic-led House.
The order, signed by Chief Justice John Roberts, halts the disclosure of secret grand jury transcripts and exhibits that Democratic lawmakers had initially requested as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
The move pushes back a lower court’s disclosure order on the materials, which was set to take effect Monday, while the justices consider the administration’s request for a longer delay.
Roberts gave the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee until May 18 to file its response.
----- 9 -----
Trump intensifies war with Democrats over voting laws
By ALEX ISENSTADT
05/07/2020 04:42 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/trump-democrats-voting-laws-243517
President Donald Trump’s political operation is expanding its legal effort to stop Democrats from overhauling voting laws in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Republican National Committee and Trump reelection campaign are doubling their legal budget to $20 million as litigation spreads to an array of battleground states. With the virus likely to complicate in-person balloting in November, Democrats have been pushing to substantially ease remote voting restrictions — something the Trump campaign and RNC are aggressively fighting in the courts.
Trump, who has long been fixated on voter fraud, has taken a personal interest in the project. He is expected to discuss the legal maneuvering during a meeting with his political team Thursday.
The battle over voting laws — specifically Democrats' efforts to make it easier for people to vote remotely during the pandemic — has emerged as a key front in the general election showdown between the parties.
- Deadly attack at Toronto erotic spa was incel terrorism, police allege
- This is the letter the President sent to twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi on Friday expressing his lost confidence in former IG Steve Linick. Today: “Never heard of him.”
- REVEALED: Fired State Department IG was probing Trump administration’s potentially illegal Saudi arms sales
- University of Utah police officer showed off explicit photos of Lauren McCluskey to his co-worker
- Georgia Republicans cancel election for state Supreme Court, meaning governor can appoint a Republican
- The woman behind ‘Roe vs. Wade’ didn’t change her mind on abortion. She was paid
- Trump Administration to End National Guard COVID Deployments One Day Before GI Bill Benefits Kick In
- Supreme Court grants Trump request to temporarily shield Mueller grand jury materials
- Trump intensifies war with Democrats over voting laws
(ps cascadia now)
----- 1 -----
Deadly attack at Toronto erotic spa was incel terrorism, police allege
By Stewart Bell, Andrew Russell and Catherine McDonald
Global News
Posted May 19, 2020
https://globalnews.ca/news/6910670/toronto-spa-terrorism-incel/
A deadly attack at a Toronto erotic massage parlour three months ago is now being treated as an act of terrorism after police allegedly uncovered evidence it was inspired by misogynist incel ideology.
Charges against the suspect accused of carrying out the Feb. 24 stabbing attack, which killed a woman and injured another, were updated in court on Tuesday to “murder — terrorist activity.”
The suspect, who cannot be named because he is a minor, was also charged with terrorism for the alleged attempted murder of the woman who survived.
He was already facing first-degree and attempted murder charges, but the development means police believe the incident was terrorism-related.
...
A police source told Global News the suspect had said he wanted to kill as many women as possible.
The woman who survived the attack said in an interview she was pleased with the terrorism charges and that Canadians should be more informed about incels.
“I’m overjoyed at the news that they’ve decided to charge him with the terrorism stuff. I hope it sticks,” said the woman, who asked not to be named.
The incident points to the evolving threat posed by the incel movement, which a recent paper said was “flourishing, ideologically evolving, and continuing to threaten more … attacks.”
Almost 50 deaths in Canada and the United States have been linked to incels, leading to calls to treat their actions as a form of domestic terrorism.
----- 2 -----
Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
18 May 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1262478367842078721
This is the letter the President sent to twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi on Friday expressing his lost confidence in former IG Steve Linick. Today: “Never heard of him.”
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
----- 3 -----
REVEALED: Fired State Department IG was probing Trump administration’s potentially illegal Saudi arms sales
By Brad Reed
18 May 2020
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/revealed-fired-state-department-ig-was-probing-trump-administrations-potentially-illegal-saudi-arms-sales/
Former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, who was fired by President Donald Trump abruptly last week, had launched a probe into potentially illegal arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Two sources tell NBC News’ Josh Lederman that “Linick was also investigating use of emergency declaration last year to sell arms to Saudis over objections of Congress” at the time he was fired.
Aides for lawmakers serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee tell the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that the investigation into the Saudi arms sales has been “mostly” completed, although there’s no time table for when the results would have been made public.
----- 4 -----
University of Utah police officer showed off explicit photos of Lauren McCluskey to his co-worker
By Courtney Tanner
18 May 2020
https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2020/05/17/university-utah-police/
UPDATE: Logan police announced an internal affairs investigation into Officer Miguel Deras in reaction to this article.
Lauren McCluskey explained to the officer at the University of Utah that she was being extorted over explicit photos she had taken of herself. Someone — she wasn’t certain who at that moment — had accessed her files and was threatening to release them if she didn’t hand over $1,000.
Scared by the demand, she paid the money and then sent copies of the messages and the pictures to the campus police department as evidence.
When Miguel Deras, one of the officers assigned to her case, received them, he saved the photos on his personal phone. And days before McCluskey was killed by the man who was blackmailing her, Deras showed off at least one of the images to a male co-worker and bragged about getting to look at them whenever he wanted, according to two fellow officers.
The university has only now confirmed that display occurred — a year and a half after McCluskey first brought her concerns to the department — as part of a continued push by The Salt Lake Tribune to obtain public records on how the case was handled. The U. spoke to the officer who was shown the pictures by Deras and verified the action with him. The Tribune also substantiated it with another officer, who overheard Deras talking to that co-worker.
Neither officer reported the incident at the time, and Deras was never disciplined for it.
In fact, the university says it didn’t know about the inappropriate behavior and abuse of evidence until after Deras left the department in September 2019, though it occurred before McCluskey’s murder on Oct. 22, 2018. The only reason officials looked into it, said U. police Lt. Jason Hinojosa, was because The Tribune’s records request first brought it to their attention.
----- 5 -----
Georgia Republicans cancel election for state Supreme Court, meaning governor can appoint a Republican
Republicans will control a seat on the state Supreme Court for an extra two years.
By Ian Millhiser May 19, 2020
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/19/21262376/georgia-republicans-cancel-election-state-supreme-court-barrow-kemp-blackwell
The state of Georgia was supposed to hold an election Tuesday to fill a seat on the state Supreme Court. Justice Keith Blackwell, a Republican whose six-year term expires on the last day of this year, did not plan to run for reelection. The election, between former Democratic Rep. John Barrow and former Republican state lawmaker Beth Beskin, would determine who would fill Blackwell’s seat.
But then something weird happened: Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and the state’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, canceled Tuesday’s election. Instead, Kemp will appoint Blackwell’s successor, and that successor will serve for at least two years — ensuring the seat will remain in Republican hands.
On May 14, the state Supreme Court handed down a decision that effectively blessed this scheme to keep Blackwell’s seat in the GOP’s hands. The court’s decision in Barrow v. Raffensperger is unusual in many regards — among other things, six of the state’s regular Supreme Court justices recused from the case, and they were replaced by five lower court judges who sat temporarily on the state’s highest court. The court’s decision in Barrow turns upon poorly drafted language in the state constitution, which does suggest that Blackwell, Kemp, and Raffensperger’s scheme was legal.
----- 6 -----
The woman behind ‘Roe vs. Wade’ didn’t change her mind on abortion. She was paid
By Meredith Blake
Staff Writer
May 19, 2020
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-05-19/roe-v-wade-jane-roe-norma-mccorvey-hulu-doc-abortion
When Norma McCorvey, the anonymous plaintiff in the landmark Roe vs. Wade case, came out against abortion in 1995, it stunned the world and represented a huge symbolic victory for abortion opponents: “Jane Roe” had gone to the other side. For the remainder of her life, McCorvey worked to overturn the law that bore her name.
But it was all a lie, McCorvey says in a documentary filmed in the months before her death in 2017, claiming she only did it because she was paid by antiabortion groups including Operation Rescue.
“I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say,” she says in “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX. “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”
In what she describes as a “deathbed confession,” a visibly ailing McCorvey restates her support for reproductive rights in colorful terms: “If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.”
----- 7 -----
Trump Administration to End National Guard COVID Deployments One Day Before GI Bill Benefits Kick In
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
May 19, 20202:14 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/national-guard-deployments-to-fight-coronavirus-will-end-day-before-benefits-kick-in.html
In 2017, Donald Trump signed something called the “Forever GI Bill” at his company’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. The law expanded the educational benefits that had been made available under the “Post-9/11 GI Bill,” which was passed in 2008, and which supplemented various benefits that can be traced back to the original 1944 GI Bill. The White House would later tout the “Forever GI Bill” as an example of how Trump was “working tirelessly to provide the benefits and services that our veterans deserve.”
In late March, the Trump administration authorized the deployment of members of the National Guard to help local authorities conduct coronavirus tests, set up field hospitals, and perform other critical public health tasks that carried a risk of infection. More than 40,000 service members have been deployed in total, but Politico now reports that they will all be recalled on June 24—one day before the first group sent into the field would reach the 90-day active-duty minimum that’s required to qualify for GI Bill education benefits and for a retirement benefit that was also created in 2008. Says the news site (the “official” is a FEMA staffer):
----- 8 -----
Supreme Court grants Trump request to temporarily shield Mueller grand jury materials
By John Kruzel - 05/08/20
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/496798-supreme-court-grants-trump-administration-request-to-temporarily
The Supreme Court on Friday granted a Trump administration request to temporarily shield redacted grand jury materials related to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe from the Democratic-led House.
The order, signed by Chief Justice John Roberts, halts the disclosure of secret grand jury transcripts and exhibits that Democratic lawmakers had initially requested as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
The move pushes back a lower court’s disclosure order on the materials, which was set to take effect Monday, while the justices consider the administration’s request for a longer delay.
Roberts gave the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee until May 18 to file its response.
----- 9 -----
Trump intensifies war with Democrats over voting laws
By ALEX ISENSTADT
05/07/2020 04:42 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/trump-democrats-voting-laws-243517
President Donald Trump’s political operation is expanding its legal effort to stop Democrats from overhauling voting laws in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Republican National Committee and Trump reelection campaign are doubling their legal budget to $20 million as litigation spreads to an array of battleground states. With the virus likely to complicate in-person balloting in November, Democrats have been pushing to substantially ease remote voting restrictions — something the Trump campaign and RNC are aggressively fighting in the courts.
Trump, who has long been fixated on voter fraud, has taken a personal interest in the project. He is expected to discuss the legal maneuvering during a meeting with his political team Thursday.
The battle over voting laws — specifically Democrats' efforts to make it easier for people to vote remotely during the pandemic — has emerged as a key front in the general election showdown between the parties.
