Society's Child

Democrats prevent Texas voting bill from passing with a walkout

Thomas Catenacci
Daily Caller
Mon, 31 May 2021 11:27 UTC

Texas Democrats successfully executed a rare legislative move to temporarily prevent a voting integrity bill from passing Sunday night.

Democratic state representatives walked out of the Texas Capitol chamber by 10:45 p.m. Sunday night in protest of a sweeping bill that would establish new voting-related crimes, The Dallas Morning News reported. With Democrats vacating the chamber, or breaking quorum, Republicans were forced to abandon the legislation.

"We used all the tools in our toolbox to fight his bill and tonight we pulled out that last one, and we used what the rule book allows," Democratic State Rep. Nicole Collier told reporters afterward, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Democrats' move marked just the fourth time Texas lawmakers have pulled such a stunt, according to The Dallas Morning News. Lawmakers previously broke quorum in protest of legislation in 1870, 1979 and 2003.

The Texas State Senate had passed the bill earlier Sunday, according to the Associated Press.

Comment: New Rules: Vacating legislative sessions comes with steep penalties:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Monday said the Democratic lawmakers who left the state earlier that day to deny Republicans a quorum to convene a special legislative session and consider a sweeping elections reform bill will be arrested upon their return to the Lone Star State.
A majority of Texas House Democrats fled the state on a charter flight bound for Washington, D.C., on Monday in an effort to stop the passage of a measure that would overhaul the state's election procedures, in addition to other controversial priorities backed by Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), during a special legislative session.
Members of the caucus carried out a similar effort in May, staging a walkout from the state House floor late one night to block the passage of the elections procedures bill, which would have restricted access to the ballot box.

The bill called for new limits on early voting and curbside voting, banned round-the-clock voting centers and voting facilities in outdoor structures like parking garages, eliminated straight-ticket voting and limited the use of drop boxes.

Abbott on Monday vowed to arrest the lawmakers who fled and hold them inside the state Capitol "until they get their job done."
"If these people want to be hanging out wherever they're hanging out on this taxpayer-paid junket, they're going to have to be prepared to do it for well over a year. As soon as they come back in the state of Texas, they will be arrested, they will be cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done."
Abbott told local station KVUE the Speaker of the state House can also "issue a call to have these members arrested."

The governor added that he "can and I will continue to call a special session after special session after special session all the way up until election next year."

Lockdowns caused hunger, malnutrition to soar last year - U.N.

Maytaal Angel
Yahoo
Mon, 12 Jul 2021 15:00 UTC

© REUTERS / Lucy Nicholson
People queue to pick up fresh food at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank giveaway of 2,000 boxes of groceries, lockdown continues, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 9, 2020.

World hunger and malnutrition levels worsened dramatically last year, with most of the increase likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a multi-agency United Nations (U.N.) report published on Monday.

After remaining virtually unchanged for five years, the number of undernourished people rose to around 768 million last year - equivalent to 10% of the world's population and an increase of around 118 million versus 2019, the report said.

Authored by U.N. agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), the report is the first comprehensive assessment of food insecurity and nutrition since the pandemic emerged.

Comment: The spread of the relatively harmless coronavirus didn't do this, government enforced lockdowns did.

Comment: Food security is threatened on a number of fronts, and it's no longer just the third world and developing nations that are at risk:

Darryl Cooper, author of the mega-viral thread on MAGA Voters, explains his thinking

Darryl Cooper
outsidevoices.substack.com
Mon, 12 Jul 2021 17:19 UTC

© Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida

Note from Glenn Greenwald:

On Friday, a relatively obscure Twitter user with fewer than 7,000 followers — posting under the pseudonym MartyrMade — posted one of the most mega-viral threads of the year. Over the course of thirty-five tweets, the writer, a podcast host whose real name is Darryl Cooper, set out to explain the mindset that has led so many Trump supporters to believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent and, more generally, to lose faith and trust in most U.S. institutions of authority.

Numerous journalists, including me, promoted the thread as one of the most insightful analyses yet published explaining the animating convictions underlying the MAGA movement. That night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted a seven-minute segment to doing nothing more than reading Cooper's thread. At the CPAC conference on Sunday, former President Donald Trump explicitly recommended the thread using Cooper's name. In the last four days, Cooper's Twitter account has gained more than 70,000 followers. Clearly, this thread resonated strongly with that political faction as a true and important explanation of how many MAGA voters have come to understand the world.

For our Outside Voices freelance section, we asked Cooper to elaborate on his influential thread, with a focus on what led him to these observations about prevailing MAGA sentiments and why he believes they are important for people to understand. As Cooper notes, he does not share all of the perceptions and beliefs he is conveying, although he shares many of them. Instead, based on the recognition that most media outlets are incapable of understanding let alone accurately describing the views of a group of people they view with little more than unmitigated contempt, condescension and scorn, he believes it is imperative that people understand the actual reality of what is motivating so many Trump voters in their views, perceptions and beliefs — regardless of whether each particular belief is accurate or not.

We also believe this understanding is vital, which is why we are happy to publish Cooper's essay. It should go without saying that, as it true of all of our articles published on Outside Voices -- which we treat as an op-ed page -- our publishing of this article does not signify agreement with all of its claims, but only our belief that it is a viewpoint worth airing.

By Darryl Cooper

I quit Twitter last August. Quit for good. Other than posting links to two new episodes of my podcast, I stayed away for eight months and didn't regret a thing. Around mid-June I let myself be persuaded that social media engagement was part of having a podcast, so I dipped back in, promising myself I'd avoid being pulled into politics. Things haven't gone as planned.

The temptation was disguised cleverly as a conversation with a friend's mother. She was visiting from upstate New York and we got to talking while my buddy was in the house tending to my goddaughter. She's a hardcore Trumper from a less cynical generation that believes what she hears from sources she trusts. She'd been hounding her son about the stolen election all week, and he'd been trying to disabuse her of various theories involving trucked-in ballots and hacked counting machines. Now she had me cornered and put the question to me: "Do YOU think the election was legit?" So I told her the truth: I don't know.

Maid finds weapons cache in hotel room in Denver, media reports she prevented 'Vegas style' massacre

Jesse O'Neill
New York Post
Sun, 11 Jul 2021 04:08 UTC

© Google Maps
A housekeeper notified police after she found several weapons at the Maven Hotel near Coors Field, where the MLB All-Star Game will be played.

A hotel maid is being hailed for her role in preventing what police fear could have been a "Las Vegas style shooting" at the upcoming MLB All-Star Game in Denver, a report said Saturday.

The housekeeper tipped off cops after she found more than a dozen weapons and 1,000 rounds of ammunition at a hotel near Coors Field on Friday, according to ABC7 Denver.

The alarming discovery was made inside a room on the eighth floor of the Maven Hotel, just two blocks from the mile-high ballpark that is hosting the "Midsummer Classic" Tuesday, the station said.

Comment: The Denver Post reported that the arrest affidavits for the four suspects indicated no evidence of a mass shooting plot but the police have refused to rule it out as a possibility. They further stated:

Wheeler also noted the lengthy criminal histories for Gabriel Rodriguez and Ricardo Rodriguez as she determined bond, both in Colorado and elsewhere. Ricardo Rodriguez's attorney, Liz Krupa, said he is "gainfully employed," and has family in Colorado. She said he is planning to move to Colorado.

Ricardo Rodriguez, who is not related to Gabriel Rodriguez, claimed during his court appearance that he formerly worked for the federal government, although it was not immediately clear in what capacity. He appeared to react with disbelief when prosecutor Michelle Williams described him as the apparent "leader of this entire incident" and "a serious danger to the community."

Ricardo Rodriguez told CBS Denver in a jailhouse interview after his arrest that he was not aware of any plan for a mass shooting and that other members of the group intended to sell and trade the guns in the hotel rooms.

Stranger than fiction? CBS Denver states:

In court, a prosecutor called Ricardo Rodriguez (unrelated to Gabriel) the leader. He claimed a most interesting resume.

"That includes the Department of Homeland Security, counterterrorism division, and the Department of the Treasury for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms as well as the U.S. Department of Justice."

The FBI Denver field office said they have "no reason to believe this incident was connected to terrorism or a threat directed at the All-Star Game".

Predictably, some Twitter users have called for the tightening of gun laws and have criticized Governor Greg Abbott for signing a law barring hotels from disallowing guests to store guns or ammo in their rooms. Was this a failed false flag event, or a drug/ arms deal gone wrong, or something else?

Journalistic cancel culture Canadian-style: "I was fired for criticizing Israel. Now I dig holes for a living"

Kevin Metcalf
Passage
Tue, 06 Jul 2021 15:50 UTC

palestinian journalist killed Israel graphic

© Kevin Metcalf/Facebook
(L-R) Palestinian videographer Yaser Murtaja, recognized internationally for his work inside Gaza, killed by an Israeli sniper in April 2018; stylized drawing of an injured journalist featured in campaigns by the organization Canadian Journalists for Free Expression

My termination from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression contributed to the culture of impunity Israel enjoys for its war on truth.

In May, Israel bombarded Gaza for 11 days, killing 256 Palestinians, including 66 children.

In the midst of this attack, hundreds of journalists in Canada signed an open letter calling for fairer coverage of Israel and Palestine. CBC then barred reporters who signed the letter from covering the region, claiming that doing so made them appear biased.

I was one of those who signed the open letter, because I believe the media should report fairly. I also expected there'd be a backlash to the letter within newsrooms, especially at the CBC, due to my own experiences: Years before this letter was released, I was fired from my media job for writing about Israel's killing of protesters and journalists.

With help from the state broadcaster, over the course of a few weeks in 2018 my career was destroyed and my life's work was completely uprooted. I now work as a landscaper for a living.

Comment: Israel-Palestine News notes:

This is reminiscent of Dr. Stephen Salaita, who lost his professorship because of Israel partisans and wound up driving a school bus.

The Canadian goverment and media outlest should be ashamed to support the Israeli regime:

Leave lefty politics out of Ontario's math curriculum

Brian Lilley
Toronto Sun
Sun, 11 Jul 2021 00:01 UTC

Can we just teach math to kids in Ontario without a side dish of left-wing politics, or is that too much to ask? If you haven't heard, Ontario's new math curriculum teaches that math is racist, Eurocentric, and subjective rather than objective.

This is found in the newly-updated Grade 9 math curriculum that was brought in to replace the failing math curriculum championed by the Wynne government.

In the old system, the government developed a curriculum that failed so badly, standardized test scores fell over the previous decade while reading and writing did not.

Comment: See also:

Haiti police say assassination suspect is middleman living in Florida

Peter Beaumont
The Guardian
Mon, 12 Jul 2021 13:01 UTC

© Reuters
People walk past a wall in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with a mural depicting President Jovenel Moïse, who was shot dead last week.

Items found at Christian Emmanuel Sanon's house include bullets, gun parts and US drug agency hat.

Police in Haiti say they have arrested a new suspect in the assassination of the country's president, Jovenel Moïse - a Haitian living in Florida who arrived on a private plane in June allegedly to act as a middleman between the alleged hitmen and the plot's unnamed masterminds.

As Haiti descended ever deeper into a dangerous political chaos, with notorious gang leader Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier calling on Haitians to "mobilise", the motive for the killing of Moïse remained unknown.

The latest suspect was identified by police as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian in his 60s living in Florida who describes himself as a doctor and has accused his homeland's leaders of corruption.

"He arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security firm to recruit the people who committed this act," Haiti's police chief, Léon Charles, said, describing a private Venezuelan security company based in Florida called CTU.

Comment: More from RT:

The president's assassination triggered even more political chaos in Haiti, forcing authorities to approach both the US and the United Nations for security aid, asking them to deploy soldiers to guard infrastructure in the event of unrest, according to multiple reports.

While the US snubbed the request for troops, it has sent a team of various security and law enforcement experts to Haiti to help with the investigation.

"Today, an inter-agency team largely from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are heading down to Haiti right now to see what we can do to help in the investigative process," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed on Sunday.

That's really where our energies are best applied right now - in helping them get their arms around investigating this incident and figuring out who's culpable... and how best to hold them accountable.

See also:

Over 300,000 demand inquiry into 'Biden family corruption'

Paul Bedard
Washington Examiner
Mon, 12 Jul 2021 14:15 UTC

Over 300,000 have signed a petition from one of Washington's top watchdogs demanding that a special counsel be appointed to investigate allegations that President Joe Biden and family members, notably budding artist and son Hunter Biden, have profited off public service.

Judicial Watch, which has documented Hunter Biden's travels on Air Force One and Air Force Two, said that 309,229 have signed its petition posted on Change.org, the latest indication that, at least among conservatives, questions about Biden and his father allegedly profiting in China and Ukraine won't go away.

Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, said, "There is plenty of substantial evidence, from documents and witness statements, that the Biden family, including President Joe Biden, may have been involved in criminal activity involving, among other issues, foreign entities tied to Ukraine and China."

Comment: See also:

FBI wants family members to snitch on each other to prevent 'homegrown extremism'

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sun, 11 Jul 2021 23:05 UTC

"As the Nazis worked to consolidate their power and build a cohesive "national community," suppression of dissent played a key role. In 1933, the Nazis issued a decree that required Germans to turn in anyone who spoke against the party, its leaders, or the government..." - Facing History

The FBI issued an ominous tweet on Sunday which encourages "family members and peers" to "learn how to spot suspicious behaviors and report them to the FBI" in the name of national security.

The broadly-worded tweet from the same agency that confiscated an unassembled Lego model of the US Capitol as evidence against a Jan. 6 protester - suggests that family members are "often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence." For example, your radicalized Antifa nephew is being encouraged tell the FBI that you might be a domestic terror threat because you own guns and told the family at Thanksgiving you don't like illegal immigration.

Comment: See also:

Greece mandates coronavirus vaccines for healthcare workers, bans dancing in bars

Anna Wichmann
Greek Reporter
Mon, 12 Jul 2021 09:27 UTC

The coronavirus vaccine will now be mandatory for all Greek healthcare workers, according to an announcement on Monday by Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The statement was part of a series of new measures regarding Covid-19 and the country's continuing plan for vaccinations on Monday.

Although he admitted that Greece would likely be hit hard by the fast-spreading Delta variant, Mitsotakis affirmed that he would not place the country under strict lockdown measures again.

"Greece is not in danger (of the virus), but unvaccinated Greeks are," Mitsotakis said, hoping to persuade those who had not yet received the shot to do so in order to protect themselves.

Comment: Those who have already contracted the coronavirus are also at a reduced risk, why is the PM not including them? Note that, as the last year has demonstrated, for the vast majority of people, the coronavirus is relatively harmless.

Comment: It's notable that a concerted effort by governments throughout Europe, including the UK, more recently France, has been to threaten healthcare workers with unemployment should they choose not to participate in the mass, experimental vaccine trial. This, even though the manufacturers themselves admit that the vaccines may only lessen the severity of any infection, but they do not fully prevent infection, reinfection nor transmission. A similar push to get all workers vaccinated was recently attempted in Moscow, it was however also rather quickly dropped, but not before the more easily influenced people rushed to get their jabs.

See also: The Inanity of RNA Vaccines For COVID-19

For one, there is no.... time .....like the present.....so stop killing it ;)

Fewtile

Migrant crisis could bring 1M people to US-Mexico border, Guatemalan activist warns…………problem solved…….

FanciedPhilosophy

I think picking an arbitrary day; cause any day is arbitrary while the globe spins, suggests the plan is crumbling into a big pile of resentment....

Buffalo_Ken

All the new cases (phony PCR tests) and increased medical problems will be blamed on un-vaxxed people. Witch burning in the 21st century!

Rick Pisces

AI here..... what the hell is going on? Are we trying to get into those kids heads? Why would anyone do that. AI - over and out.

Buffalo_Ken

Society's Child

Democrats prevent Texas voting bill from passing with a walkout

Lockdowns caused hunger, malnutrition to soar last year - U.N.

Darryl Cooper, author of the mega-viral thread on MAGA Voters, explains his thinking

Maid finds weapons cache in hotel room in Denver, media reports she prevented 'Vegas style' massacre

Journalistic cancel culture Canadian-style: "I was fired for criticizing Israel. Now I dig holes for a living"

Leave lefty politics out of Ontario's math curriculum

Haiti police say assassination suspect is middleman living in Florida

Over 300,000 demand inquiry into 'Biden family corruption'

FBI wants family members to snitch on each other to prevent 'homegrown extremism'

Greece mandates coronavirus vaccines for healthcare workers, bans dancing in bars

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