Month: August 2024
THE HILL: Trump stokes fears with ‘unconstitutional’ Harris talk
Trump stokes fears with ‘unconstitutional’ Harris talk
Former President Trump is setting off alarms among critics as he pushes the claim that Vice President Harris’s ascent to become the Democratic nominee is somehow unconstitutional, with some warning he could be laying the groundwork to contest an electoral defeat as he did in 2020.
Read in The Hill: https://apple.news/AxwjeZaTSRUKRvIFEochxnw
Shared from Apple News
Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie
Good Sense
“Armistice Sonnet
Ceasefire is a diplomatic gimmick,
They cease only to hit back harder.
Demilitarization is what we need,
We got no use for one more ceasefire.
Ceasefire only postpones war,
disarmament instills peace.
Armistice empowers armament,
demilitarization plants peace.
Tyrants don’t call truce to allow aid,
but only to rearm themselves,
so they can call in more ammunition,
from their apely imperialist friends.
One more ceasefire we could do without,
World is wailing for the final ceasefire.
Disown every statesman who prides military,
Builders of military are merchants of murder.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets
Let’s talk about Trump’s press conference….
Airstrike at Gaza mosque kills at least 80, Palestinian officials say
I don’t care if there was an entire army hold up there, there are rules to war that Israel has violated each one. They are willing and wantonly killing civilians. Plus they are trying to sabotage the peace plans. I am very glad Biden is not running because he is allowing Israel to get away with this. Hugs. Scottie
US Athletes Discover Joys Of Universal Healthcare In Olympic Village by Rebecca Schoenkopf
This is one of those feel-good stories that is actually very depressing when you think about it! Read on Substack
Snippets:
There’s a lot of money to be made on the Olympics — though not necessarily by the people participating in them (or most people who live in the host cities). Those athletes who participate don’t get paid (unless they get sponsorship deals) and, as a result, many of them go into poverty while trying to go for the gold. Training costs are huge and so, often, are the medical bills.
But not when they’re at the Olympic Village!
Ariana Ramsey, who won a bronze medal as part of the US female rugby team has been going viral on TikTok, talking about how amazing it’s been getting free healthcare at the Olympic Village — and in the days following her victory, she was able to celebrate by going to the gynecologist, dentist and an ophthalmologist, where she was able to get free glasses as well.
Ramsey came to Paris as a rugby player. She is leaving as a healthcare influencer. More than 135,000 people have watched her initial TikTok, and another of the half-dozen follow-up videos she has made has pulled in more than 570 views. That is fine with her. The more she thinks about it, the more frustrated she is that she’s so astonished by the concept.
“That’s just America and their privatized healthcare system,” she laments in an interview, adding, “I’ll fight for universal healthcare.”
The idea has gone viral in France: American discovers healthcare. “A lot of people are kind of making a joke about it,” she says. “Like, welcome to France.” (snip)
Every other country has figured out that it makes far, far more sense (and is far, far more economically sane) for health care to be seen as a public good, but we’re still out here making insurance company CEOs obscenely rich for who knows what reason.
Many American athletes do have access to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s health insurance policy. But their eligibility for the program is up to their sport’s governing body, and an independent commission appointed by Congress found that “some of the most talented competitors under our flag go to sleep at night under the roof of a car or without sufficient food or adequate health insurance.” More than a quarter of U.S. athletes report earning less than $15,000 per year, and more than 40% said they paid out of pocket for healthcare, with an average cost of $9,200 per person. Only 16% said they’d been reimbursed.
Meanwhile, in 2022, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee had a net revenue of 61 million dollars and paid their CEO a salary of $1.1 million.
Also meanwhile, NBCUniversal sold $1.2 billion in advertising ahead of the last Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo and say that they have surpassed that number this year (though an exact figure has not been given). (snip)
On the bright-ish side, because of Ramsey’s videos, hundreds of other Olympic athletes have taken advantage of the free healthcare at Olympic Village that they might not otherwise get at home. So that’s nice for them!
House Republicans’ congressional offices spent millions more on taxpayer-funded travel than Democrats since 2023
House Republicans outspent their Democratic counterparts in taxpayer-funded travel expenditures by nearly $8 million since the start of 2023, a new OpenSecrets analysis found.
Eight out of the top ten biggest spenders between the start of 2023 to March 2024 were Republican members of Congress. They accounted for 7% of total taxpayer-funded travel spending by GOP members of Congress and with each of the top spenders spending two to five times more than the average House office. (snip-there’s a graph; the embed link doesn’t seem to be working.)
(Graph on the page)
The total travel spending reported by House Republicans’ offices exceeded $23 million from January 2023 to March 2024 — nearly $8 million more than House Democrats spent on travel during the same period. Despite having only a seven-member majority, House Republicans have significantly outspent Democrats. Congressional offices of House Republicans spent around $102,000 on average for travel during that period, while the average spent by House Democrats sat around $70,000, according to the House Statement of Disbursements.
According to the Congressional Management Foundation, the average total annual budget of a House office is around $1.5 million, which is distributed across a variety of categories such as personnel compensation, franked mail, supplies and materials and travel.
The most commonly cited travel expenses are lodging, meals, wifi on travel and parking as well as the transportation expenses themselves such as car rental, airfare and taxis. Entertainment or recreational activities are not considered to be a part of the travel category and are not covered by taxpayer money, according to Public Citizen.
House Statements of Disbursements are public reports featuring all receipts and expenditures of offices of the U.S. House of Representatives, as required under federal regulations. These reports are released quarterly by the Chief Administrative Officer of the House.
Since 2009, House Statements of Disbursements have been accessible to the public. However, they do not reflect information about the purpose of the travel, travel destinations or specific transportation details.
Of all 435 House Member offices, the top spender on travel was the office of Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) which spent about $379,000 on travel expenditures since the start of last year, nearly 5 times more than the average House member office. Gooden’s travel spending constitutes more than 16% of his office’s budget, also higher than the average of around 4% spent by other House offices, according to OpenSecrets’ analysis.
Gooden is known to be an active traveler with high spending on both office and campaign-related travel, according to Roll Call. After winning reelection to his second term in 2022, Gooden spent leftover campaign money abroad and at popular destinations, including New Orleans, La., and Las Vegas, Nev.
Gooden himself has been spotted in a meat boutique in Israel, a bar in New York and Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida. The office declined our request for comments about the purpose of the travel, its details, or sources of funding.
The second biggest spender was a Democratic member from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Rep. Gregorio Sablan. Yet, Sablan’s office represents a territory almost 8000 miles from Washington, D.C. managed to incur around $90,000 less than Gooden from Texas.
Bob Schwalbach, Sablan’s chief of staff, told OpenSecrets that the high travel expenditures simply reflect the costs of getting to the district.
AP News: An Israeli airstrike on a Gaza school kills at least 80 people, Palestinian health officials say
Hi everyone. Thanks to Ali for correcting my post to include the link. Ali you really are grand. The total is not up to 100 dead. Hugs. Scottie
Israeli airstrike on a Gaza school used as a shelter kills at least 80, Palestinian officials say
At the link about there are pictures and videos of the devatation and the shock of the people including the kids. Hugs. Scottie
Updated 6:13 PM EDT, August 10, 2024An Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza early Saturday, killing at least 80 people and wounding nearly 50 others, Palestinian health authorities said, in one of the deadliest attacks of the 10-month Israel-Hamas war. A witness said it struck during prayers at a mosque in the building.
It was the latest of what the U.N. human rights office called “systematic attacks on schools” by Israel, with at least 21 since July 4 leaving hundreds dead, including women and children.
“For many, schools are the last resort to find some shelter,” it said after Saturday’s attack.
The Israeli military acknowledged it targeted the Tabeen school in central Gaza City, saying it hit a Hamas command center in a mosque in its compound and killed 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. Izzat al-Rishq, a top Hamas official, denied there were militants in the school.
Israel’s military also disputed the toll, saying the “precise munitions” used “cannot cause the amount of damage that is being reported” by the Hamas-run government. It said the steps it took to limit the risk to civilians included the use of a “small warhead,” aerial surveillance and intelligence information.
Walls were blown out on the ground level of the large building. Concrete chunks and twisted metal lay on the blood-soaked floor. Bodies, some in bloodstained shrouds, were placed shoulder to shoulder in makeshift graves, making room for more.
“We received some of the most serious injuries we encountered during the war,” he said, with many wounded having limbs amputated and some with severe burns.
The strike hit without warning before sunrise as people prayed, according to witness Abu Anas.
“There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people,” he said, prayer beads in hand. “The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”
Three missiles ripped through the two-story building — the first floor housed the mosque, and the second level had a school — where about 6,000 displaced people were taking shelter, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense first responders, who operate under the Hamas-run government.
Many of the casualties were women and children, he said.
A camera operator working for the AP said a missile appeared to have penetrated the floor of the classrooms to the mosque below and exploded.
The U.N. previously said that as of July 6, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza had been directly hit or damaged in the war, adding that Israel has a duty under international law to provide safe shelter for the displaced.
“There’s no justification for these massacres,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement posted on X, referring to strikes on schools. U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy said that he was “appalled.” France’s foreign ministry called the recent number of civilian victims in Israeli strikes on schools “intolerable.”
The U.S. said it was deeply concerned about reports of civilians killed.
“Far too many civilians continue to be killed and wounded,” U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said in a statement.
Israel has blamed civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying the group endangers people by using schools and residential neighborhoods as bases for operations. The U.N. human rights office acknowledged that colocating combatants with civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law, but that Israel must also comply with the law’s principles of precaution and proportionality.
The strike came as U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to achieve a cease-fire agreement that could help calm soaring tensions in the region following the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
Egypt, which borders Gaza, said that the strike on the school showed that Israel had no intention of reaching a cease-fire deal. Neighboring Jordan condemned the attack as a “blatant violation” of international law. Qatar demanded an international investigation, calling it a “heinous crime” against civilians.
Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking to reporters traveling with her in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday, said of the Israeli strike in Gaza: “Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed.”
“Israel has a right to go after the terrorists that are Hamas,” she said. “But as I have said many, many times they also have, I believe, an important responsibility to avoid civilian casualties.”
Pressed on the fact that such comments have done little to lower the numbers of civilians in Gaza killed in recent months, Harris said, “First and foremost — and the president and I have been working on this around the clock — we need to get the hostages out.”
“We need a hostage deal and we need a cease-fire,” she said. “And I can’t stress that strongly enough. It needs get to done. The deal needs to get done and it needs to get done now.”
Late on Friday, two separate airstrikes in central Gaza killed at least 13 people, including three children and seven women, hospital authorities said. An AP journalist counted the bodies at the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah.
One strike hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing seven people, all but one of them women, hospital officials said. Another hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing six, including a woman and her three children, the hospital said.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,790 Palestinians and wounded more than 92,000 others, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its tally. The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants from Gaza stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250 others.
Families of hostages demonstrated again Saturday night in Tel Aviv seeking a cease-fire deal to bring loved ones home.
More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, fleeing repeatedly across the territory to escape offensives. Most are crowded into tent camps in an area of about 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) on the Gaza coast with few basic services or supplies.
In the occupied West Bank, dozens of people gathered in Ramallah to protest the latest Israeli strike on a school.
“The message that must be sent to the world, a numb world, a world that is not moving, is ‘how long will the war continue?’” asked one, Muin Barghouti.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed.
AP News: An Israeli airstrike on a Gaza school kills over 60 people, Palestinian health officials say
The Bird Conservancy
I subscribe to their newsletter because I love birds, but I don’t know a lot about them as to ID’ing them, their calls, etc. I love how birds simply keep on keeping on, not seeming to worry about much. Enjoy, if you like; there is lots of info, photos, and you can listen to calls. And more!
Scottie's Playtime 