All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[InformationGeek]

Word is David Koch died. Can't say I'm upset or hurt though.

[Tendrin]

Word is David Koch died. Can't say I'm upset or hurt though.

I'm only sad he dies without seeing his empire dismantled.

[Tami]

Word is David Koch died. Can't say I'm upset or hurt though.

David Koch, billionaire conservative activist and philanthropist, dies at 79

Guess so. Cancer is a bitch, it spares no one regardless if you are rich, poor, liberal or conservative. As for short and long term implications of his passing? We'll see if there are any.

[SquirrelMan]

I'm only sad he dies without seeing his empire dismantled.

Amen to that.

May he burn in hell.

[Tami]

Trump said doctors left operating rooms to greet him after mass shootings. Hospitals in Dayton and El Paso say that’s not true.

Speaking to reporters on the White House’s South Lawn on Wednesday, President Trump claimed he was warmly welcomed at hospitals in the wake of recent mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, and intimated that surgeons had even deserted their patients to meet him.

“The doctors were coming out of the operating rooms,” Trump said. “There were hundreds and hundreds of people all over the floor. You couldn’t even walk on it.”

But the hospitals he visited say that isn’t what happened — and that doctors would never pause surgery to greet the president.

“At no time did, or would, physicians or staff leave active operating rooms during the presidential visit,” Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for University Medical Center of El Paso, said in a statement to The Washington Post on Thursday. “Our priority is always patient care.”

[Tami]

Seth Moulton ends presidential campaign

WASHINGTON — Rep. Seth Moulton is ending his 2020 presidential campaign, his spokesperson confirmed to NBC News.

"I will continue to fight for a new generation of leadership in our party and our country," the Massachusetts Democrat was expected to say in remarks prepared for a Democratic National Committee meeting in San Francisco. "And most of all, I will be campaigning my ass off for whoever wins our nomination in 2020."

Moulton, an Iraq War veteran who failed to gain traction, is expected instead to seek a fourth House term. He is the third candidate to drop out of the race in the past eight days, following the exits of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who will seek a third term, and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who has decided to run for the Senate. Party insiders expect the field to be culled even further in the coming weeks as poor polling and barren campaign treasuries force more candidates to assess their reasons for continuing to run.

[Tami]

Marysville should be as white 'as possible,' says candidate in the Michigan city

MARYSVILLE, Mich. — A city council candidate in Michigan shocked a public forum when she said she wants to keep "Marysville a white community as much as possible."

Jean Cramer made the comment Thursday in response to a question about diversity in Marysville, a city in St. Clair County, 55 miles (88 kilometers) northeast of Detroit. The Times Herald in Port Huron says she's one of five candidates running for three council seats in November.

After the forum, Cramer told the newspaper that she's not "against blacks" but believes married couples "need to be the same race."

Mayor Dan Damman, who isn't running for re-election, says Cramer's comments were "vile" and "jaw-dropping." Council member Paul Wessel says Marysville is open to anyone who arrives in the city.

[Tami]

A Louisiana Parish Jailed a U.S. Citizen for Being Latinx. We’re Suing.

Ramon Torres had been a U.S. citizen for nearly ten years when he was detained for four days on an immigration hold – despite having a U.S. passport, a Louisiana driver’s license, and a Social Security card, and despite that fact that a court ordered his release.

Torres’ ordeal began in August 2018, when he was pulled over and arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Torres, a naturalized U.S. citizen since 2009, was carrying multiple forms of identification, including his driver’s license and other security credentials. Torres was booked at the Ascension Parish Jail, and the next day the Parish Court ordered his release.

But Torres wasn’t released. Instead, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office placed an “immigration hold” on Torres on the suspicion that he was unlawfully present in the United States.

The basis for this suspicion? He had a Latinx name and brown skin. Staff at the sheriff’s office explained that they had a policy of detaining all Latinx people for immigration review.

[PwrdOn]

David Koch, billionaire conservative activist and philanthropist, dies at 79

Guess so. Cancer is a bitch, it spares no one regardless if you are rich, poor, liberal or conservative. As for short and long term implications of his passing? We'll see if there are any.

And nothing of value was lost...

[Tami]

The NRA is being run like a Dictatorship.

[GindyPosts]

Seth Moulton ends presidential campaign

It's funny how the candidates who couldn't get on the debate platform and had less than 1% of polling votes only get news when they drop out, but it also shows that it's time the people who never had a chance just get out and focus on other things using whatever funds they gained from their ill-fated presidential campaigns (which was really the reason they attempted all this in the first place).

[Tami]

Innocent man spent months in jail for bringing honey back to United States

Leon Haughton likes honey in his tea. Which is why during his Christmas visit to relatives in Jamaica, he made his regular stop and bought three bottles from a favorite roadside stand before heading home to Maryland.

It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at the airport in Baltimore. Customs officers detained Haughton and police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling in not honey, but liquid meth.

Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were dropped and two rounds of law enforcement lab tests showed no controlled substances in the bottles.

By then, Haughton, who according to his lawyer had no criminal record, had lost both of his jobs as a cleaner and a construction worker.

“They messed up my life,” Haughton said. “I want the world to know that the system is not right. If I didn’t have strong people around me, they would probably leave me in jail. You’re lost in the system.”

[Tami]

It's funny how the candidates who couldn't get on the debate platform and had less than 1% of polling votes only get news when they drop out, but it also shows that it's time the people who never had a chance just get out and focus on other things using whatever funds they gained from their ill-fated presidential campaigns (which was really the reason they attempted all this in the first place).

I wouldn't be hard on him. He gave it a try, boosted his name recognition a little (even a little helps), and now he was wise enough to admit defeat. So he'll go back, run for reelection, and maybe something more in the future.

[Tami]

What you can do to help the burning Amazon rainforest

How to help the Amazon rainforest

The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world and vital to combating climate change. In the aftermath of the wildfires, several organizations have stepped up to assist in aid or other ways to help save the Amazon. The following organizations have been rated 4 out of 5 stars by Charity Navigator, a non-profit that evaluates financial health, transparency and accountability in charities.

Amazon Conservation Team fights climate change, protect the Amazon and empower indigenous peoples.
Amazon Conservation Association accepts donations and lists exactly what your money goes toward –– whether it's planting trees, sponsoring education, buying a solar panel and preserving indigenous lands.
Donate to the Rainforest Trust to help buy land in the rainforest. The organization has saved over 23 million acres and counting since 1988.
The Rainforest Foundation is committed to making sure donations made reaches projects such as supporting environmental defenders, indigenous advocacy organizations and deforestation monitoring.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I'm only sad he dies without seeing his empire dismantled.

Or that his loathsome brother Charles didn’t die with him.

Innocent man spent months in jail for bringing honey back to United States

If Mr. Haughton were white and had returned to the States from, oh, let’s say, Denmark, he wouldn’t have been detained for so much as an hour, never mind three months.