The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said its undercover detectives have been using dating apps to track down a number of people suspected of buying and selling drugs in the area.
A 6-month undercover sting, called “Swipe Left for Meth,” yielded more than 60 arrests, the agency said. Detectives also obtained warrants for eight people.
The investigation began in July 2021 after PCSO was tipped off that people were openly selling drugs on the well-known dating app Grindr. Further investigation revealed drug sales were also happening on the dating apps Scruff, and Taimi, although Grindr was the app with more drug sales.
In 2020, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd [photo] was appointed to a federal juvenile delinquency prevention council by Trump.
While his office is technically nonpartisan, Judd regularly wades into local politics to endorse right wingers.
Judd has served as president of the Florida Sheriffs Association and was among the 88% of Florida sheriffs who endorsed DeSantis last week.
In October 2020, he made headlines for telling Trump that he’d never have to wear a mask in Polk County. Trump had tested positive for COVID hours earlier that day.
Last week cutouts of Grady and Trump were displayed on a busy Polk County road next to a “Let’s Go Brandon” sign. Judd reportedly found the display hilarious.
GDP growth dramatically outpaced forecasts made a year ago. Most forecasters expected the economy to grow 3 to 4 percent this year. Instead it has grown 5.5 percent. That is more than a percentage point faster than even the most optimistic forecast was expecting. pic.twitter.com/ocZ3S41sWW
5.7 according to the WH chart. I should post that here. And I did
We've always been told that corporations keep prices as low as they reasonably can to stay competitive. But what happens when corporations don't HAVE competition, or when their competition agrees to jack up prices too? New from @RBReich 👇 https://t.co/XG0UovMPsKpic.twitter.com/ghNeqyJflG
If you think a Democrat is wrong for something but the same something done by a Republican is okay to you it is not the policy that bothers you. You are just tribal and hate the others not in your group simply because they are not in your group. That doesn’t work for running a country and shows how immature the person is.
There is far too much tribalism and emotionalism when having a discussion about many subjects these days. The idea that adults can not have civil discussions even when they are passionate and disagree with each other is a sad testament on the people in this country. People have forgotten that the goal is sharing information and hoping that information brings others to your view. A discussion is not to force the other person to agree with you against their will. Insulting or threats don’t add anything valuable to a conversation. Trolling shows how childish you are, not how informed or correct about a subject.
Are these two Gorsuch and Barrett? Or is the guy the I love beer Kavanaugh? Mitch McConnell is warning … warning Biden to to not but a lefty on the court, not to listen to the progressive wing, even though he pushed three every extreme right members on the court. The misleading right wing is pushing the narrative that if Biden appoints someone who cares about how the law effect people vs how it is now favoring business interest that the court will be destroyed. More fear tactics on the right.
Justice Breyer has an extraordinary record of public service. I’m very happy that President Biden will fill this seat by naming the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. And we ought to #ExpandTheCourt to give her at least four more new colleagues & rebalance this institution.
Leadership, by definition, does not cater to the center. If it did, there would be no need to lead.
America's visionary leaders have always understood that the “center” is a fictitious place lying somewhere south of thoughtless adherence to the status quo.https://t.co/dvGGfcmrkG
Granted the person is retiring, but even Republicans admit they are cheating.
The forces undermining our democracy are counting on you to give up. Cynicism is how they win. Do not, under any circumstances, give up on voting rights. Here are 8 ways we can still protect them. pic.twitter.com/SrQW7ZSlJl
Let’s be clear: educating our children about the full terror of the Holocaust is not “promoting” it.
If we don’t accurately teach this history to future generations, we're doomed to repeat it. Remember: the Holocaust started with Nazis banning books and cracking down on speech. https://t.co/CDkh2PFWz0
Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must fight back against the GOP’s authoritarian agenda by committing to educating ourselves, and our children, about the full horrors of the Holocaust.
Curriculum is about preparing minds to think and reason, it’s not about parental control and subordination. Banning books is small-minded.
Night is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe.
White people think they are the victims of racism. Then ban people from talking about how racism works in America.
House Dems are fast-tracking a massive defense spending bill for Ukraine as tensions with Russia escalate, leaving no opportunity for debate.
Where is the CBO score? The cries about inflation? Concerns about the deficit?
Hello? Why does none of that matter when it comes to war?
Will escalating tensions w/ Russia put the final nail in the coffin on Build Back Better? History says yes, but it’s not too late. It’s up to all of us to fight against the military-industrial complex & hold this administration accountable for its promises to the American people.
Biden is held to a totally different set of standards than Trump/traitors.
Lock them up.
Modern day trolls
Tucker Carlson is yet another conservative pawn for Putin.
We are dealing with emotional and intellectual three year-olds. #WearAMask
“Just do what they say” and “follow the rules” are bad faith suggestions from conservatives.
I… don't really care?
She's a semi-famous actress, not a policy analysis. There are hundreds (thousands) of B-level celebrities; it would be weird if there weren't some who had opinions I disagree with or even find stupid. https://t.co/GVBYS9DJ0V
What I think is much more disturbing, and important, is when public officials are anti-vax, or think it's wrong for health care workers to have to be vaccinated to work, or are climate change denialists, etc etc..
Yes smart people understand the professionals have evaluated the data that shows the vaccines effective and safe which makes it good public policy to get vaccinated. People who have no higher education claiming they did their own research really are not smart enough to know how silly that is, so are not ready for higher education.
The Senate advises and consents. It did neither. Obama should have put him on and dared it turn him down. It’s been done before; in fact, Washington put a nominated chief justice on the Court, and then the Senate turned him down. Eisenhower didn’t wait to put Earl Warren on the Court. The Senate later approved him. If the Senate won’t have a hearing, then it consented.
tRump was an asset for Putin either willingly or just easily manipulated because he wanted to do big money business in Moscow. tRump openly took Putin’s word over the evidence of Russia’s interference in 2016 election and continuing attempts to destabilize the US in social media. These are facts and are demonstrable. At every turn tRump tried to ingratiate himself with Putin. For example when both California and Siberia were having wild fires tRump denied federal assistance to California and offered the US help to Putin fighting the fires in Siberia. Again a fact. Also at the start of the pandemic tRump authorized a shipment of PPE to Russia when supplies were short in the US. So he either was an asset willingly or just easy for Putin to control, but none of that can be said of Biden. Biden has not take Putin’s side over US intelligence or other cabinet level departments. Biden has not granted Putin favors to gain a favor back. Even while Tucker Carlson advocates abandoning Ukraine to please Putin Biden has stood defending the fledgling democracy. So the cartoon is correct about the old puppet, but wrong that there is a new one in Biden.
Republicans in Congress and their enablers at Fox News actually want to see Putin invade Ukraine for a myriad of reasons. Tucker Carlson has openly stated that he favors Putin over Biden. The invasion will put Biden in a tough spot, which Republicans hope will make Biden look weak. This is all part of their scheme to retake the majority in Congress and bring trump back to power.
Republicans are all giddy about the conflict. The stock market has taken huge hits because of these tensions and likely invasion. Again, Republicans hope that a sinking stock market will make Biden look weak. It is driving them nuts that in just the first year of Biden as President, we now have the lowest employment rate in decades, the fastest growing GDP in decades, and all-time highs in the stock market. But oh no, Republicans will not stand for this. They will not stand for America to succeed, and certainly not with Joe Biden as President.
And I want to know if the Republican members of Congress who serve on the Intelligence Committee have made stock trades after they received their briefings. Maybe that’s why they all opposed Elizabeth Warren’s proposed bill to prevent insider traitors in Congress from engaging in insider trading.
It is a fact different presidents have promised to name the first … what ever to the SCOTUS. They do the same with cabinet nominations. In fact candidate Ronald Reagan promised to appoint a woman to the SCOTUS if he won, and he did so. Nothing new and nothing shocking. It is just the right wants to make it an issue. The demographic make up of the courts do not match the demographics of the country.
As of August 2019, 80% of federal judges were white, while just 10% were Black and 6.6% Hispanic. Moreover, as of 2015, nearly 83% of all federal law clerks were white — an extension of the fact that most law schools are also severely lacking in racial diversity. And despite efforts at many of those top universities to admit more law students of color, in 2019, only 12.7% of law students were Hispanic and just 7.8% were Black. Trying to fix that equality by appointing a black women is not racist it is a good start to making the court look like the people of the country they serve.
A photo id to prick up a child? Well yes, and be on the approved list for safety sake. The number of child abductions in the US is higher by far than the number of proven cases of voter fraud. And nobody ever died because a vote was fraudulently cast in their name. If the person registered to vote, THEY ALREADY SHOWED THEIR ID, and they will need to sign the ballot, which will be matched to the signature on file.
Votes are NOT CONTAGEOUS! Right wing idiocy, on the other hand, is more contagious than pink eye, as demonstrated by Al.
You already registered to vote, and provided credentials to do so, and voter fraud is so minuscule to be almost nonexistent. Passing around diseases in school happens to a much greater degree.
“At the federal level, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires a voter ID for all new voters in federal elections who registered by mail and who did not provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number that was matched against government records.1 Though state laws requiring some sort of identification at voting polls go back to 1950, no state required a voter to produce a government-issued photo ID as a condition for voting before the 2006 elections.” – Wikipedia (Coincidentally 2006 election Democrats won both houses)
FILE – In this Dec. 24, 2020, file photo, a COVID-19 vaccination record card is shown at Seton Medical Center during the coronavirus pandemic in Daly City, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
A West Seneca couple is accused of using fake COVID-19 vaccine cards to enter Highmark Stadium for a Buffalo Bills game.
The Erie County District Attorney’s Office announced 34-year-old Michael Naab and 37-year-old Amber Naab were arraigned Monday in Orchard Park Town Court. Both are charged with one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree, a class “D” felony.
According to the district attorney’s office, they are accused of intentionally presenting falsified COVID-19 vaccine cards at Highmark Stadium for the Buffalo Bills game on January 15 in violation of the vaccination policy.
“Individuals who misrepresent their vaccination history, not only jeopardize their own health, but the health of all those they come into contact with. This legislation ensures that as New York opens up and many businesses choose to rely on checking vaccination status, the falsification of vaccination records will not be tolerated,” the governor said in December.
The district attorney’s office said this is the first case to be prosecuted in Erie County following the passage of that bill.
This legislation makes it clear that presenting a fake vaccine card, with the intent to defraud another person or entity, is a crime. I am committed to keeping the residents of Erie County safe, which includes upholding laws related to public health. These two defendants are accused of using a fake vaccine card to intentionally violate the rules at the stadium, potentially putting the health of other fans at risk. As I have stated before, if you present a fake vaccine card, you will be prosecuted.
– Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn
Michael Naab and Amber Naab are scheduled to return February 22 at 5:00 p.m. for a felony hearing and were released on their own recognizance as the charge is a non-qualifying for bail. If convicted of the charge, they face a maximum of 7 years in prison.
Learning and exposure make you more Democratic. Conversely, no one who banned books was ever the good guy.
BREAKING: Over the last three weeks, 71 educational gag orders (aka "anti-CRT bills") have been introduced or prefiled. That's more than half of 122 proposed since January 2021. And they're getting worse.https://t.co/j9lYuvk69xpic.twitter.com/RRqKiyXA2F
Some parents don’t see the actual stress they allow/put on their kids.
They would rather try to score political points with book bans and vaccine disinformation.
A Tennessee school board voted to drop the Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel MAUS, which tells the story of the Holocaust with cartoon mice, because it contained inappropriate words and imagery. I wish them luck in their quest for wholesome, family-friendly Holocaust content. https://t.co/cNcz6ocmJB
I will match this. DMs are temporarily open, send me your McMinn County mailing address and I’ll have a copy of THE COMPLETE MAUS shipped to you. Trolls = block. Please RT. https://t.co/DexfURBVWU
re both sides and partisanship around the pandemic. yes, pandemic measures have become markers of partisan identity on both sides. but one side is saying the pandemic is killing thousands a week and that's bad, and the other is saying we shouldn't care. one side is right!
Equating masks with the holocaust shows you how white people [who have never suffered] have no similar experience. They steal and try to pass themselves off as victims. It’s disgusting.
Hey, look: there it is, reverse racism. The worst take of the day.
Not today, satan. We’re too busy celebrating the fact that SCOTUS is going to look a little bit more like America soon. https://t.co/QXalTSid0w
Imagine telling your grandfather that the communists we fought in the Cold War for fifty years are now your best friends because they are equally corrupt and equally hateful of non-white citizens.
It amazes me how left Twitter gets more exercised by rightist intellectuals voicing support for Orbán than it is by the American government's routine transfer of arms to repressive regimes across the world. One more example of the left's indifference to the materiality of power. https://t.co/1LGbgPvPBp
South Africa’s Caster Semenya can run 800 meters faster than any woman on the planet. But the two-time Olympic gold medalist won’t defend her title in Tokyo because her testosterone levels exceed a 2018 limit imposed by track’s governing body on female athletes competing in distances between 400 meters and 1500 meters.
It is an article of faith among the radical right that young men are lining up to get their testicles removed and taking hormone shots for the sole reason of competing with women athletes.
Of all the insane things I’ve ever heard, that’s pretty much a topper.
I was just reading the right wing media about the swimmer Thomas who competed as a male and then transitioned and after waiting for her testosterone to be at the accepted levels again joined the university team. The right likes to mention how she is beating the times of other women. Oh the horror. Except they fail to mention she has been beaten by women also.
Three things: There isn’t a sport I am aware of that utilizes the Penis.Using Kelly’s transphobic logic, if strength and endurance is a determining factor, athletes like the Williams sisters would have been required to play as men.If people (like Kelly) who attempt to argue against Transgender accept that man came from a handful of dust and woman from a rib, they have no valid opinion on Transgender.
I find it very disturbing that for decades conservatives have ignored and underfunded women’s sports…even mocked them openly. And now all of the sudden they claim the role of protector from a threat that they made up solely for the purpose of uniting hateful ignorant people under their banner and get their votes.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
This cartoonist is not normally in the misleading right wing group. How ever in this case he is. Biden has stated that there will be no active fighting troops from the US in the Ukraine. I think that is because the Ukrainian military will do the Afghanistan model of warfare. Hit and run, hard to spot enemy that wears the attacking army out trying to conquer the territory. It wouldn’t make sense for the US to add unformed troops to that situation. There will more likely be special forces trainers and CIA agents. Along with mercenaries of course. The US will need to use a lot of non-traditional methods to fight the Russians if they invade Ukraine. In this case we are not forcing our will on the Ukrainians, we are standing beside them as best we can to protect their democracy.
Same as above except this cartoonist is a proud member of the misleading right wing media.
And again same as above notes.
Bull. Breyer is retiring on his own recognizance, though he has already said that one of the considerations was to give Biden time to replace him before midterm elections. Breyer has been talking about retirement for a while. He merely chose the best time so that Moscow-Mitch would have a hard time tanking the nomination of his replacement like he did with Obama’s nomination of Garland. here was no problem when Kennedy resigned to give McConnell the same opportunity. I know Trump claimed he was the one to appoint the new one, but all he did was sign where McConnell told him to.
The CDC has the expertise to evaluate the medical data and make the needed public health guidance. Something their critics lack with abundance.
There is a huge difference between muttering something under your breath that is picked up by a hot mic and have staff members shout insults at those they did not think properly honor their cult leader like the staff of the former guy. One is excusable and understandable, the other should be grounds for HR involvement and evaluating if the person should have that job. You do not hear the regular staff harassment and mistreatment in Biden’s administration that we did in tRump’s.
Doocy tries to frame questions that can be used on Fox news as a sound bite, normally with out the answer given to the question because that shows how stupid the question was. So Doocy asked a really dumb question and the president noted that out loud. He did not go on a personal attack to Doocy like the former guy did, Biden did not call Doocy the enemy of the people like the former guy kept calling the press. Seems to me a lot of hype over nothing. But then again the right has very little to attack Biden over so they cling to anything they can.
The US southern border is secure despite the misleading right wing media trying to hype that the border is wide open and there are hoard of marauding brown people storming over it. There is no storming force coming over the southern border but there is an armed military threatening to cross the border between Ukraine and Russia. The Russian army is poised to invade and wipe out the new democracy in that country. The US was once known for defending democracy, are we still? I do not understand why so many on the right want to defend Putin and Russia when the St. Ronnie the Reagan called evil and Republicans had the slogan “Better dead than red”. Besides the cartoon is misleading because Biden has ruled out combat troops fighting in Ukraine.
This is cute, but sanctions beat tanks over the medium and long term. IF they can be deployed in sufficient number and on time. Keep in mind New York City has a larger economy than all of Russia.
The diplomats have warned Putin that the added pending sanctions will be heavier and the oligarchs including Putin will feel it. Putin either believes it’s a U.S./NATO bluff or he wants an escalation so the tail can wag the dog and distract the common Russian.
Some believe that P’s strategy will backfire if the Ukrainian resistance can send enough body bags back. The Ukrainians have already lost territory and thousands of lives so they may decide to go “all medieval (Afghanistan) on their ass”.
We will not send in troops but surreptitiously probably “advisors”. The profiting war machine will love the commitment to increased armaments.
The propaganda Putin / Russia is pushing. That they have overwhelming force and the will to use it. Truth is their economy is not able to handle a war over 6 weeks. They need to roll in and have it over quickly so they can take money out of Ukraine. It will be much worse if Biden is able to force really tough sanctions on the Russian oligarchs themselves.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson argued against government efforts to make child care cheaper for parents during a visit on Tuesday to Kwik Trip’s headquarters in La Crosse.
“People decide to have families and become parents. That’s something they need to consider when they make that choice,” Johnson told local Wisconsin TV station WKBT. “I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”
Speaking to WKBT, Johnson said that he did not support moves by the government to help families find child care options. Instead, Johnson told the news station that he would support slashing unemployment benefits to get more people back to work and alleviate the ongoing labor shortage.
He told WKBT that he would back more efforts to help people get jobs that would allow them to support their own families.
Johnson has historically not been a supporter of childcare-related legislation.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told a local news channel this week that he “never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”Samuel Corum/Getty Images
In May 2021, Johnson remarked on WKOW-TV that he supported slashing Wisconsin’s $300 per week federal unemployment subsidy. During the interview, Johnson pushed back on a suggestion from WKOW-TV host A. J. Bayatpour that many women cannot re-enter the workforce because their wages do not cover the cost of childcare.
“Unemployment benefits are not meant to provide replacement wages. That was provided during COVID when it was nobody’s fault that they were losing their job or they were being encouraged to stay home so they wouldn’t spread the disease,” Johnson said.
“Wages are set in the marketplace. Businesses pay what wages they can afford based on the competitive situation, whether it’s in a restaurant, whether it’s in manufacturing, where they’re competing against foreign manufacturers versus domestic suppliers,” Johnson added. “I just have greater faith in the marketplace setting appropriate wage rates.”
Johnson also admitted he was “not a real fan” of the child tax credit which offers parents up to $3,600 per child.
“In general, I don’t like to use the tax code for either economic or social engineering. I think we do a terrible job. I prefer a tax code that was simple, that was rational, that treated all income equally,” Johnson said in response to a question about the child tax credit.
Build Back Better is now stalled while Democratic lawmakers try to negotiate with Manchin, one of the lone holdouts against the plan, whose support is essential for them to get the bill over the finish line in the 50-50 Senate.
Remember in the Republican universe the people decide to have children doesn’t include abortion, sexual education, masturbation to reduce need to marry for sex, female control over their own sexual / reproductive parts because she is subservient to her husband or other adult male in charge of her.
On the wage front remember that Johnson is a millionaire who is / was the CEO of the plastics company that was started by his wife’s brother with money from their father. Think of that. They were wealthy enough to start a company because dad gave them the money. But this wealthy man wants to cut all assistance and government help to force people to do shit jobs at a shit wage so he and his friends make more profit. To hell with the people’s needs, they can suffer and starve to be made to work so wealthy people make more money, more profit.
Johnson does not want the government providing assistance for child care, yet had no qualms about voting for tax cuts for himself and his fellow multimillionaires. 🙃https://t.co/y8VTdRWtEl
Elected leaders should be advocating to set our children up for success, not against it. This is shameful behavior from Senator Ron Johnson.https://t.co/WKQIa92Ivc
Not only does Ron Johnson want to cut unemployment benefits, but he wants to make it harder for working people to get child care so they CAN work. Your RT and small donation will help us defeat him. https://t.co/Olk5ISfdzP
Sen. Ron Johnson asked about reducing child care costs: "Well, people decide to have families and become parents. That's something they need to consider when they make that choice. I've never really felt it was society's responsibility to take care of other people's children." pic.twitter.com/HyJr4iTwUG
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Scottie's Playtime 
Republicans in Congress and their enablers at Fox News actually want to see Putin invade Ukraine for a myriad of reasons. Tucker Carlson has openly stated that he favors Putin over Biden. The invasion will put Biden in a tough spot, which Republicans hope will make Biden look weak. This is all part of their scheme to retake the majority in Congress and bring trump back to power.
Republicans are all giddy about the conflict. The stock market has taken huge hits because of these tensions and likely invasion. Again, Republicans hope that a sinking stock market will make Biden look weak. It is driving them nuts that in just the first year of Biden as President, we now have the lowest employment rate in decades, the fastest growing GDP in decades, and all-time highs in the stock market. But oh no, Republicans will not stand for this. They will not stand for America to succeed, and certainly not with Joe Biden as President.
And I want to know if the Republican members of Congress who serve on the Intelligence Committee have made stock trades after they received their briefings. Maybe that’s why they all opposed Elizabeth Warren’s proposed bill to prevent insider traitors in Congress from engaging in insider trading.