Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Kamala Harris to Headline Fundraiser Hosted by Hollywood Producer Who Derided Women as ‘Twats’ — and Called Harris ‘Tiresome’

Kamala Harris is headlining a Thursday afternoon fundraiser cohosted by a Hollywood producer who has disparaged Republican women as “twats” and argued that Harris herself was “tiresome” and needed to “grow a pair.”

Doug Prochilo, who gave at least $100,000 to cohost the Biden campaign’s virtual fundraiser, routinely calls female Republicans “twats.” He described former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as an “amoral, demented twat,” current press secretary Kayleigh McEnany as “an insane twat,” and Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wy.) as a “lying, ignorant twat.” In 2018, he referred to Maine Sen. Susan Collins and two of her Republican colleagues as “uptight old twats.”

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Nearly seven in 10 Americans more concerned about bias in news others consume

Nearly seven in 10 Americans surveyed in a new poll — 69 percent — said they are more concerned about bias in the news others consume than in coverage they view themselves.

Six in seven Americans also said they believe there is at least “a fair amount” of political bias in news coverage in general, according to research from Gallup and the Knight Foundation released Thursday. A majority also agreed that it can be found in “the news source they rely on most.”

Education levels are also a key metric regarding respondents’ perspective on bias, pollsters found. 

“Differences in Americans’ concern about the bias other people are exposed to are particularly striking when viewed by education level, with higher concern seen at each level of educational attainment,” the study finds. “Specifically, whereas 52 percent of Americans with a high school education or less are more concerned about bias in others’ news than in their own, the figure is 64 percent among those with some college education and is even higher among college graduates, 73 percent, and those with postgraduate education, which comes in at 77 percent.” 

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No, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Didn’t Spawn 250,000 Coronavirus Cases

Here’s what we were told: An August motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, helped spread COVID-19 to more than a quarter-million Americans, making it the root of about 20 percent of all new coronavirus cases in the U.S. last month. So said a new white paper from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, at least. And national news outlets ran with it.

“Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was ‘superspreading event’ that cost public health $12.2 billion,” tweeted The Hill.

“The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally held in South Dakota last month may have caused 250,000 new coronavirus cases,” said NBC News.

“The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally represents a situation where many of the ‘worst-case scenarios’ for superspreading occurred simultaneously,” the researchers write in the new paper, titled “The Contagion Externality of a Superspreading Event: The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and COVID-19.”

Not so fast. Let’s take a look at what they actually tracked and what’s mere speculation.

According to South Dakota health officials, 124 new cases in the state—including one fatal case—were directly linked to the rally. Overall, COVID-19 cases linked to the Sturgis rally were reported in 11 states as of September 2, to a tune of at least 260 new cases, according to The Washington Post.

There very well may be more cases that have been linked to the early August event, but so far, that’s only 260 confirmed cases—about 0.1 percent of the number the IZA paper offers.

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THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN ON PROBATION ARE INCARCERATED EACH YEAR FOR NONVIOLENT, NONCRIMINAL BEHAVIORS

Whether they are jailed for a technical violation or status offense, these children end up confined in a legal system that experts say is rife with racial disparities and provides few if any educational or therapeutic services.

“[Detained] children are not free to leave, the doors are often locked, and the range of services that are available are from nothing to mediocre around the country,” said Tim Curry, special counsel with the National Juvenile Defender Center.

In addition to being incarcerated for alleged crimes like drug offenses or committing an assault, children in the United States can also be jailed for technical violations of their probation—nonviolent, noncriminal behavior that a judge finds objectionable—or for violating what are known as valid court orders. Grace was jailed in mid-May for a technical violation of her probation after she didn’t complete court-ordered homework in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other children are incarcerated on “status offenses”—typical adolescent behaviors such as refusing to obey their parents, skipping school, running away, or experimenting with alcohol. These “offenses” are criminalized by law solely because of the age of the people engaged in them. 

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Tulsi Gabbard Calls On Donald Trump To Drop Efforts To Charge And Extradite Julian Assange

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard took to Twitter on Tuesday to call on Donald Trump and his administration to cease its efforts to charge and extradite journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“Likewise the Trump Admin should drop its efforts to charge & extradite Julian Assange,” she tweeted after calling for a pardon for whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked intelligence to Assange. “Failure to do so is a threat to the freedom & civil liberties of every American (especially journalists and publishers).”

The journalist has been imprisoned in Britain since 2019 and is currently on trial for his role in releasing confidential U.S. government information and violating the country’s espionage law, Reuters reported. While critics claim his role in publishing the documents undermined American national security, supporters argue that his actions exposed U.S. government abuses of power and should be protected as free speech.

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