USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

He better pull the coin from behind McCarthy 's ear

Got a good lol thinking about ol' Cornpop doing this and giving McCarthy this look

# ? May 25, 2023 17:01

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# ? May 27, 2024 09:41

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

According to the finalized census results, the U.S. became older much faster than predicted. Additionally, fewer children were born than estimated.

- The median age of an American is now close to 40.

- Median age varies wildly by race. The median white American is 44.5 years old and the median Hispanic American was 30 years old.

- North Dakota was the only state that got younger in the last 10 years.

- Utah remains the youngest state thanks to unusually high levels of children. The youngest county in the country is Utah where the median age is 25.5 years old.

- The oldest county in the U.S. is in Florida, where the median age is 68.5 years old.

- The number of people over 100 years old increased by nearly 50%.

- People aged 65 or older made up nearly 1/5th of the U.S. population.

- The population age balance is too high to make up for via births alone for the next 20-40 years and increasing the amount of young immigrants in conjunction with a higher birth rate will be needed to balance out the population in the coming decades. Otherwise, it will take approximately 40 years for the baby boomers to fully die off and for birth rates of Gen Z and the following generations to either stay steady or increase.

- Currently, the median American is projected to be around 52 years old by 2060.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1661764118833971201

quote:

The United States grew older, faster, last decade.

The share of residents 65 or older grew by more than a third from 2010 to 2020 and at the fastest rate of any decade in 130 years, while the share of children declined, according to new figures from the most recent census.

The declining percentage of children under age 5 was particularly noteworthy in the figures from the 2020 head count released Thursday. Combined, the trends mean the median age in the U.S. jumped from 37.2 to 38.8 over the decade.

America�s two largest age groups propelled the changes: more baby boomers turning 65 or older and millennials who became adults or pushed further into their 20s and early 30s. Also, fewer children were born between 2010 and 2020, according to numbers from the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident. The decline stems from women delaying having babies until later in life, in many cases to focus on education and careers, according to experts, who noted that birth rates never recovered following the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

�In the short run, the crisis of work-family balance, the lack of affordable child care, stresses associated with health care, housing, and employment stability, all put a damper on birth rates by increasing uncertainty and making it harder to decide to have and raise children,� said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

There are important social and economic consequences to an aging population, including the ability of working-age adults to support older people through Social Security and Medicare contributions. The Census Bureau calculates a dependency ratio, defined as the number of children plus the number of seniors per 100 working-age people. While the dependency ratio decreased for children from 2010 to 2020, it increased for seniors by 6.8 people.

At the top end of the age spectrum, the number of people over 100 increased by half, from more than 53,000 people to more than 80,000. The share of men living into old age also jumped. Both groups benefited from a century of vaccines and antibiotic developments, improvements in surgery and better treatment of diseases, said Thomas Perls, a professor of medicine at Boston University.

�Many more people who have the genetic makeup and environmental exposures that increase one�s chances of getting to 100, but who would have otherwise died of what are now readily reversible problems, are able to fulfill their survival destiny,� Perls said.

The Census Bureau released two earlier data sets from the 2020 census in 2021: state population figures used to decide how many congressional seats each state gets and redistricting numbers used to draw political districts. Thursday�s data release was delayed by almost two years because of pandemic-related difficulties gathering the information and efforts by the Census Bureau to implement a new, controversial privacy protection method that uses algorithms to add intentional errors to obscure the identity of any given respondent.

This was the first census since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. The tally showed that more than half of U.S. households were coupled households, where partners or spouses live together, and same-sex households made up 1.7% of coupled households. Since the census didn�t ask about sexual orientation, it didn�t capture LGBTQ+ people who are single or don�t live with a partner or spouse.

The median age varied widely by race and ethnicity. Non-Hispanic whites were the oldest cohort, with a median age of 44.5. Hispanics were the youngest, with a median age of 30; and a quarter of all children in the U.S. were Hispanic. Black Americans who weren�t Hispanic had a median age of 35.5. The number was for 37.2 for Asians.

Utah, home to the largest Mormon population in the U.S., was the youngest state, with a median age of 31.3, a function of having one of the nation�s highest birthrates. The District of Columbia�s median age of 33.9 was a close second due to the large number of young, working-age adults commonly found in urban areas. North Dakota was the only state where the median age declined, from 37 to 35.8, as an influx of young workers arrived to work in a booming energy sector.

Maine was the oldest state in the U.S., with a median age of 45.1, as more baby boomers aged out of the workforce. Puerto Rico had a median age in the same range, at 45.2, as an exodus of working-age adults left the island after a series of hurricanes and government mismanagement. Older adults in four states � Florida, Maine, Vermont and West Virginia � made up more than a fifth of those states� populations.

Sumter County, Florida, home of the booming retirement community The Villages, had the highest median age among U.S. counties, at 68.5; while Utah County, home to Provo, Utah, and Brigham Young University, had the lowest at 25.9.

As one of the youngest baby boomers, Chris Stanley, 59, already lives in The Villages. She said her mission in later life is to let younger generations know they can effect change despite perhaps not having the same economic opportunities she did.

�I want to impart the urgency that I feel,� she said. �They can make it better.�

While people 65 and older made up 16.8% of the 331 million residents in the U.S. in 2020, the share was still significantly lower than it was in countries like Japan, Italy and Greece, where the age cohort makes up between more than a fifth and more than a quarter of the population. However, their share of the U.S. population will continue to grow as baby boomers age.

�In the long run, immigration is the only way the United States is going to avoid population decline,� Cohen said.

# ? May 25, 2023 17:24

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

We actively discourage people from having kids thanks to no paid family leave at a national level, and just the general culture of 'work comes first'. That and increasing immigration crackdowns are going to gently caress us.

# ? May 25, 2023 17:35

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

FlamingLiberal posted:

We actively discourage people from having kids thanks to no paid family leave at a national level, and just the general culture of 'work comes first'. That and increasing immigration crackdowns are going to gently caress us.

What they want to do is thread the needle between "Can't afford to have kids" and "Has kids anyways" in order to perpetuate a well-stocked labor caste.

# ? May 25, 2023 18:00

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

I'm pretty sure they are dumber than that and are just happy that the filthy poors aren't outbreeding them anymore.

# ? May 25, 2023 18:02

WebDO: Sep 25, 2009

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/25/1178150234/supreme-court-epa-clean-water-act

Hope you don't like and or need to drink water as the unelected law priests continue to tear down the country for billionaires and corporations

# ? May 25, 2023 18:09

Yawgmoft: Nov 15, 2004

Also get ready for more floods

# ? May 25, 2023 18:13

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Clarste posted:

I'm pretty sure they are dumber than that and are just happy that the filthy poors aren't outbreeding them anymore.

Who is "they" and what is your supporting evidence for "them"?

eta: I ask because the_steve was talking about our country's politicians not supporting a strong social safety net, and the root cause of that seems to be capital opposing social programs & our donor-driven politics allowing capital to call the shots.

Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 18:22 on May 25, 2023

# ? May 25, 2023 18:19

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Stewart Rhodes got eighteen years for Jan 6.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1661781196588630016

SLPC had an interesting interview with his estranged kids which really exposes how much of a freak he, and the people in his movement are.

# ? May 25, 2023 18:20

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

FlamingLiberal posted:

We actively discourage people from having kids thanks to no paid family leave at a national level, and just the general culture of 'work comes first'. That and increasing immigration crackdowns are going to gently caress us.

The lower birth rate thing is tricky.

The U.S. isn't actually even in the top 10 for major countries with this problem.

Part of it seems like social mores and the ease and availability of birth control. Every country from China to Italy to Japan to the U.S. to France is seeing a significant decline in birth rates. The economic circumstances also don't help at all.

It looks like the baby boom was somewhat of an aberration and countries aren't equipped to handle that one disproportionate generation without flying in the face of social trends or massively increasing immigration for younger people. The problem is that there has been a huge surge of anti-immigrant sentiment (or in Japan/China's case, just a continuation of a long trend of limited immigration) and increasing birth rates means you have to somehow reverse major social and economic trends.

That's why France has been in chaos over what to do with its pension system and why Japan is teetering towards a society where half the population has to support twice as many elderly. The U.S. is still in a relatively good (but, objectively not great) position here because you could theoretically still reverse it and the percentage isn't as bad as some other countries.

We can also wait it out and have a very uncomfortable adjustment period for 40 years until things even out. I personally think this is a bad idea because statistically 40 years is going to be most or all of the rest of my life.

Silver linings: Houses are probably going to get moderately cheaper around 2048 and there will be less traffic for 10-15 years.*

*Assuming the population decline isn't concentrated in smaller towns that effectively kills and drives ever increasing demand for living in urban areas.

# ? May 25, 2023 18:23

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

WebDO posted:

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/25/1178150234/supreme-court-epa-clean-water-act

Hope you don't like and or need to drink water as the unelected law priests continue to tear down the country for billionaires and corporations

Kavanaugh and the liberals in the minority is a rare combo.

I am not a water/environmental engineering expert, but from a legal standpoint, this is going to have 0 impact on a lot of areas and potentially huge impacts on others. It is not going to be evenly spread out because the new definition doesn't change anything for bodies of water with continuous surface connections, but completely exempts not continuous bodies.

I do not know what the practical impact of that will be for those areas, though. I guess it will depend on whoever is in charge of the EPA, what state it is in, and who owns the water ways. Some places that are now exempt may not see much change, but it could be much easier to develop land in certain places without having to factor in downstream effects in other places.

# ? May 25, 2023 18:31

enahs: Jan 1, 2010; Grow up.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Silver linings: Houses are probably going to get moderately cheaper around 2048 and there will be less traffic for 10-15 years.*

*Assuming the population decline isn't concentrated in smaller towns that effectively kills and drives ever increasing demand for living in urban areas.

Is this necessarily true though? In my (relatively limited) experience as a potential home-buyer, it seems like there is still a strong incentive for investment firms to buy up existing houses or older rental properties and rent them out or demolish them to build luxury apartments. The last two open houses I went to sold for $30k and $65k over asking price both within a week of showing. I do live in a popular metro area in my state so I'm sure that is a big contributor to this, but I keep seeing more and more single family homes for rent for ~2x what the estimated mortgage/property taxes would be.

Do fed rate increases actually have an impact on investment firms that buy properties and rent them out?

# ? May 25, 2023 18:40

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

zoux posted:

SLPC had an interesting interview with his estranged kids which really exposes how much of a freak he, and the people in his movement are.

That interview is pro-read, but vastly more hosed up that I would have guessed. Also another instance of cops not giving a poo poo about an extremely dangerous domestic violece situation.

# ? May 25, 2023 18:42

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Why are New Yorkers suddenly pushing people into the subway tracks at historic levels in the past year?

This particular person who shoved her was a homeless man and likely mentally ill, but there have been almost a dozen other cases of this happening and most of them were not mentally ill or homeless.

This is America. You're supposed to use guns for your senseless public violence (there was a mass shooting in the NYC subway not too long ago, so I guess they have that covered).

And why aren't any other cities throwing people onto the tracks besides New York?

A quick google says that nobody has been killed by being pushed into the subway by another person in Boston, LA, or Atlanta in the last year.

It's still less than a dozen people, but going from 0 for decades to multiple in a year (and it not happening anywhere else in the country) is weird.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1661780448706535424

quote:

For days after Emine Yilmaz Ozsoy was shoved against a speeding subway train on her way to work, she lay in intensive care at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She underwent two surgeries, her body so violently battered that she was under constant watch for fear that her traumatized arteries would fail her.

On Thursday, Ms. Ozsoy remained partially paralyzed, but was gathering strength, testing her remaining mobility and cognizant of everything that had happened to her since early Sunday morning when a man thrust her head into the train as it pulled out of the Lexington Avenue/63rd Street station.

�At this moment, her journey is a very scary journey,� her husband, Ferdi Ozsoy, said in an interview.

Since moving from Istanbul in 2017, Ms. Ozsoy, 35, has embodied New York�s �hustler� spirit, said a cousin, Deniz Gunduz. She had left a career as a page designer at one of Turkey�s most influential newspapers to pursue a more creative path. In New York, she embarked on a career as an artist and illustrator, simultaneously learning English and picking up a job as a barista. She is focused, motivated and unyieldingly independent, her relatives said.

Now, suddenly vulnerable, Ms. Ozsoy is at the center of concentric rings of care: nurses and doctors who monitor her in the intensive care unit; her husband and cousin, who are intermediaries with everyone who comes into contact with her; friends who arrive with food and embraces. Beyond those inner rings are New York City residents for whom she embodies a persistent fear of such violence, with her story crystallizing the endemic problem of safety underground.

Authorities have said the attack on Ms. Ozsoy was carried out by Kamal Semrade, 39, who was arrested late Monday at a homeless shelter near La Guardia Airport in Queens, charged with attempted murder and held without bail. His lawyer, Rebecca Heinsen, said in a statement that her client should be given the presumption of innocence and cautioned against drawing conclusions about him.

The chance of falling victim to violent crime on the subway is statistically low, but without a discernible motive, the apparently random attack revived fears about an unsafe subterranean city.

Inside the hospital, however, there is a single focus: Ms. Ozsoy.

On Sunday, she underwent a marathon of medical treatment that lasted over 12 hours. She was given an M.R.I. and a CT scan, and then was rushed into surgery after it was discovered her neck had been broken, Mr. Gunduz said.

She suffered a �cervical spine fracture, broken fingers, a laceration on her scalp and damage to four major blood vessels,� a prosecutor, Carolyn McGuigan, said at Mr. Semrade�s arraignment.

By Monday morning, Ms. Ozsoy was able to fully lift one arm, faster than doctors had anticipated. By Thursday, her husband said, she could lift both arms, though she could not move her hands and her legs have remained paralyzed. The battery of machines that had sustained her had been reduced to an intravenous drip.

Family and friends have stayed by Ms. Ozsoy�s bedside day and night. Only two people at a time are allowed to sit with her in the hospital room, so others wait in a family room overflowing with food dropped off by visitors. Mr. Ozsoy or Mr. Gunduz have had to meet well wishers outside the hospital to give them updates on Ms. Ozsoy�s condition. Her colleagues also started an online fund-raiser for the family�s expenses.

On Wednesday, sitting in the back of Matto Espresso on Second Avenue in Manhattan, where Ms. Ozsoy had been scheduled to work on the day she was attacked, Mr. Ozsoy and Mr. Gunduz grappled with the chance nature of the attack and worried about their loved one�s future. �What is Emine going to do now?� Mr. Gunduz asked.

Ms. Ozsoy had been building her community and life in New York, her relatives and friends said. An avid artist, she would take her iPad to parks and draw for hours. Her work has appeared in a number of magazines and she has worked with clients like Airbnb, Puma, Chicago Magazine and the band Maroon 5, Mr. Ozsoy wrote in a statement.

The �sweetest person you�ll ever meet,� Ms. Ozsoy was quiet and observant, her husband said. Art was how she expressed herself: Her vibrant illustrations captured people reading in parks and walking in the city. She was advancing at the cafe also, having just been told she was getting promoted to supervisor.

The Ozsoys met in Turkey in 2011 and married in 2014, Mr. Ozsoy said. A native New Yorker, he said he had told her before they moved to America that New York would be a place to live her dreams. Though they decided to separate, he said, they remain �partners in life.�

Mr. Ozsoy lives near Tampa, Fla., but they would talk often, and they met for dinner in New York a week before her attack. Mr. Ozsoy said he could see that she was thriving in the new life she was building.

�She felt that and she was able to live that,� he said. �Until Sunday.�

That day, Ms. Ozsoy stepped into a transportation system that has struggled since the pandemic emptied it of riders. The subway is the city�s economic lifeblood and its condition defines New York�s broader well-being.

During the long lockdown, ridership dipped and people grew concerned about crime in the depopulated system. Mayor Eric Adams has unveiled programs that he has said are intended to help make the subways safer, with plans to flood them with police officers and mental health workers, and to remove more than 1,000 homeless people.

But even as overall crime in the system has fallen in recent months, violent aberrations have persisted: an unprovoked murder on the Q train, a mass shooting on the R in Brooklyn, the fatal choking of a homeless man just this month on the F.

The attack on Ms. Ozsoy occupied a particular niche in New Yorkers� fears: the sudden shove as an unstoppable train bears down.

In a case that transfixed the city in 2022, Michelle Alyssa Go, who worked in mergers and acquisitions, left her Upper West Side apartment and was on a subway platform in Times Square when a 61-year-old man pushed her from behind, shoving her to her death in front of a southbound train. The man who the police said pushed her, Martial Simon, was found unfit to stand trial and was committed indefinitely to a locked psychiatric facility.

On Sunday, Ms. Ozsoy was on her way to work when she boarded a train in Queens near her home in Jackson Heights. Mr. Semrade boarded the same train at the station, the police said. Both got off at Lexington Avenue/63rd Street at around 6 a.m., officials said.

As a train pulled out, Mr. Semrade approached Ms. Ozsoy from behind, grabbed her head with both hands and shoved her �with all of his force into the moving subway car,� said Ms. McGuigan, the prosecutor, at Mr. Semrade�s arraignment. �She hit the train in her face and head, rolled along it then crashed back to the platform where she was instantly paralyzed,� she said.

At 6:04 a.m., Eli Naim, Ms. Ozsoy�s boss, who oversees the Matto Espresso cafe chain, got a call from her number. But when he picked up, Ms. Ozsoy wasn�t the one on the line.

A woman whom he did not know told him that there had been an accident on the subway and that Ms. Ozsoy was injured, he said. He could hear Ms. Ozsoy in the background telling someone to �call Eli.�

In Florida, Mr. Ozsoy got a call from a police officer after the attack, informing him that his wife was at the hospital, but he wasn�t told about the severity of her injuries. Shortly after, he got another call, he said, this time from a doctor telling him that Ms. Ozsoy had made him her medical proxy before surgery.

�That�s when I called Deniz,� Mr. Ozsoy said. �I said, �Deniz, I�m not in New York, please go next to her.��

Through everything, Mr. Gunduz has been updating her parents and four siblings in Turkey about her condition as they seek emergency passports and visas to come to New York.

For the family, the attack on Ms. Ozsoy was a personal, intimate blow.

�We never think it is going to happen to us,� Mr. Ozsoy said. All New Yorkers, he added, should contemplate the violence that had occurred and what it meant for the city.

�Those metro stations are not only there to take a person from one place to another place, they�re arteries of the city,� he said, adding: �If we�re not safe in these arteries, where are we going to be safe?�

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 18:58 on May 25, 2023

# ? May 25, 2023 18:54

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Why are New Yorkers suddenly pushing people into the subway tracks at historic levels in the past year?

This particular person who shoved her was a homeless man and likely mentally ill, but there have been almost a dozen other cases of this happening and most of them were not mentally ill or homeless.

This is America. You're supposed to use guns for your senseless public violence (there was a mass shooting in the NYC subway not too long ago, so I guess they have that covered).

And why aren't any other cities throwing people onto the tracks besides New York?

A quick google says that nobody has been killed by being pushed into the subway by another person in Boston, LA, or Atlanta in the last year.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1661780448706535424

A lot of things like this are explicable by suicide cluster mechanics. Dramatic violent event hits the news, gets covered, inspires copycats.

One good way to stop school shootings would probably be to stop news coverage of school shootings.

# ? May 25, 2023 18:59

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

It doesn't help that the MTA refuses to install barriers and doors down there, half because they don't have the funding, and half because a good number of the stations would need major overhauls to be able to fit them while remaining ADA-compliant

# ? May 25, 2023 19:00

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

It could also be due entirely to random variation. These attacks happen elsewhere too. One guy got killed in Baltimore last year in another incident.

# ? May 25, 2023 19:10

small butter: Oct 8, 2011

Willa Rogers posted:

Thanks, Kalli.

Speaking of health care:

https://twitter.com/Serenad7/status/1661620178948435968

Reminder that the number of Americans who die each year due to being uninsured or underinsured was 80,000 the last I heard (when Bernie was campaigning in 2020). It's likely greater now given these new stats, and will continue to grow particularly as no-questions-asked Medicaid enrollment continues to phase out after the pandemic.

And this is after the Biden administration & its promoters have touted record insurance enrollment as well as the enhanced subsidies that the federal government has provided private health insurers.

It's actually way more insidious than any polling can show you.

For example, even though I can afford it, I was thinking about not going to a follow-up with my ENT because it would cost like $300. It should not even be a consideration - the ENT thought I should follow up, so I should. Everyone is affected by the fact that we have deductibles, copays, etc., and obviously those without any healthcare have it the worst.

# ? May 25, 2023 19:10

Uncle Boogeyman: Jul 22, 2007

As I mentioned earlier, the trains in Boston are nowhere near reliable enough to commit murder by pushing someone in front of them.

They will, however, drag you to a horrible death if you get caught in the door by accident.

# ? May 25, 2023 19:18

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The Special Counsel's office is nearing the end of its investigation into Trump's handling of classified information following his presidency.

He is likely to indicted for at least obstruction after it was discovered that he had boxes moved out of Mar-a-lago the day before the FBI were scheduled to come search for them as part of a subpoena. Additionally, staff at Mar-a-lago who were brought in for questioning reported that they witnessed him showing off classified documents to guests. The classified documents included information on Iran's missile program, information on an unnamed country's nuclear program, and The DOJ says it has ample evidence that "obstructive conduct" took place in order to impede an investigation.

Trump also staged a "dress rehearsal" where he asked his staff to move the documents out, where they should be taken, and how they should bring them back after the FBI left.

Staff were also allegedly instructed to remove documents from a government storage facility and move them an office building in West Palm Beach and Trump said he considered the documents his property.

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1661796957789061120

quote:

Trump workers moved Mar-a-Lago boxes a day before Justice Dept. came for documents

New details, including alleged �dress rehearsal� for moving sensitive papers, show a focus on Donald Trump�s instructions and intent

Two of Donald Trump�s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president�s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena � timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a �dress rehearsal� for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive ongoing investigation.

Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others, these people said.

Taken together, the new details of the classified-documents investigation suggest a greater breadth and specificity to the instances of possible obstruction found by the FBI and Justice Department than has been previously reported. It also broadens the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining � a period stretching from events at Mar-a-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI raid there on Aug. 8.

That timeline may prove crucial as prosecutors seek to determine Trump�s intent in keeping hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House, a key factor in deciding whether to file charges of obstruction of justice or of mishandling national security secrets. The Washington Post has previously reported that the boxes were moved out of the storage area after Trump�s office received a subpoena. But the precise timing of that activity is a significant element in the investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.

Grand jury activity in the case has slowed in recent weeks, and Trump�s attorneys have taken steps � including outlining his potential defense to members of Congress and seeking a meeting with the attorney general � that suggest they believe a charging decision is getting closer. The grand jury working on the investigation apparently has not met since May 5, after months of frenetic activity at the federal courthouse in Washington. That is the panel�s longest hiatus since December, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the probe and coinciding with the year-end holidays.

Smith also is investigating Trump�s efforts to block the results of the 2020 election. And the former president � who is again a candidate for the White House � has been indicted in New York on charges of falsifying business records and is under investigation for election-related matters in Fulton County, Ga.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in each case. �This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House,� Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, wrote in a statement. �Just like all the other fake hoaxes thrown at President Trump, this corrupt effort will also fail.�

Cheung accused prosecutors of showing �no regard for common decency or key rules that govern the legal system,� and he claimed that investigators have �harassed anyone and everyone who works [for], has worked [for], or supports Donald Trump.�

�In the course of negotiations over the return of documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, �anything you need from us, just let us know,�� he continued. �That DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago proves that the Biden regime has weaponized the DOJ and FBI.�

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment. Justice Department officials have previously said they conducted the search only after months of efforts to retrieve all classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were unsuccessful.

Of particular importance to investigators in the classified-documents case, according to people familiar with the probe, is evidence showing that boxes of documents were moved into a storage area on June 2, just before senior Justice Department lawyer Jay Bratt arrived at Mar-a-Lago with agents. The June 3 visit by law enforcement officials was to collect material in response to the May 2022 grand jury subpoena demanding the return of all documents with classified markings.

John Irving, a lawyer representing one of the two employees who moved the boxes, said the worker did not know what was in them and was only trying to help Trump valet Walt Nauta, who was using a dolly or hand truck to move a number of boxes.

�He was seen on Mar-a-Lago security video helping Walt Nauta move boxes into a storage area on June 2, 2022. My client saw Mr. Nauta moving the boxes and volunteered to help him,� Irving said. The next day, he added, the employee helped Nauta pack an SUV �when former president Trump left for Bedminster for the summer.�

The lawyer said his client, a longtime Mar-a-Lago employee whom he declined to identify, has cooperated with the government and did not have �any reason to think that helping to move boxes was at all significant.� Other people familiar with the investigation confirmed the employee�s role and said he has been questioned multiple times by authorities.

Irving represents several witnesses in the investigation, and his law firm is being paid by Trump�s Save America PAC, disclosure reports show. A lawyer for Nauta, Stanley Brand, declined to comment.

Investigators have sought to gather any evidence indicating Trump or people close to him deliberately withheld any classified papers from the government.

On the evening of June 2, the same day the two employees moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Department and said officials there were welcome to visit Mar-a-Lago and pick up classified documents related to the subpoena. Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the following day.

Trump�s lawyers gave the officials a sealed envelope containing 38 classified documents and a signed attestation that a �diligent search� had been conducted for the documents sought by the subpoena and that all relevant documents had been turned over.

As part of that visit, Bratt and the agents were invited to visit the storage room where Trump aides said boxes of documents from his time as president were kept. Court papers filed by the Justice Department say the visitors were told by Trump�s lawyers that they could not open any of the boxes in the storage room or look at their contents.

When FBI agents secured a court order to search Mar-a-Lago two months later, they found more than 100 additional classified documents, some in Trump�s office and some in the storage area.

In a court filing in August explaining the search, prosecutors wrote that they had developed evidence that �obstructive conduct� took place in connection with the response to the subpoena, including that documents �were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room.�

Prosecutors also have gathered evidence that even before Trump�s office received the subpoena in May, he had what some officials have dubbed a �dress rehearsal� for moving government documents that he did not want to relinquish, people familiar with the investigation said.

The term �dress rehearsal� was used in a sealed judicial opinion issued earlier this year in one of several legal battles over the government�s access to particular witnesses and evidence, some of the people said. It was used to describe an episode when Trump allegedly reviewed the contents of some, but not all, of the boxes containing classified material, these people said.

At the time, Trump and his legal team were engaged in a back-and-forth with the National Archives and Records Administration over whether he had taken from the White House records and property that were supposed to stay with the government. That dispute over presidential records is what ultimately led to the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago � some of them highly sensitive, including information about a foreign country�s nuclear capabilities; Iran�s missile system; and intelligence gathering aimed at China.

The former president, the people familiar with the situation said, told aides he wanted to make sure he could keep papers that he considered his property.

That dress rehearsal episode is one of several instances in which investigators see possible ulterior motives in the actions of Trump and those around him. Lawyers for Trump and some of those witnesses, however, have argued in recent months that prosecutors are viewing the sequence of events in too suspicious a light. They say Smith�s team has unfairly dismissed claims that people were not trying to hide anything from the government but simply were carrying out what they considered to be routine and innocent tasks of serving their boss.

Prosecutors separately have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them, people familiar with the matter said, and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors.

Depending on the strength of that evidence, such accounts could severely undercut claims by Trump or his lawyers that he did not know he possessed classified material.

The people familiar with the situation said Smith�s team has concluded the bulk of its investigative work in the documents case and believes it has uncovered a handful of distinct episodes of obstructionist conduct.

One of those suspected instances of obstruction, the people said, occurred after the FBI search on Aug. 8. They did not provide further details, but the Guardian has previously reported that in December, Trump�s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at Mar-a-Lago. In that instance, a junior aide apparently moved the box from a government-leased office in nearby West Palm Beach.

Trump's legal and campaign teams are bracing for an indictment and plan to fundraise off of his prosecution.

https://twitter.com/sgurman/status/1661010422567436289

# ? May 25, 2023 19:27

Angry_Ed: Mar 30, 2010; Grimey Drawer

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Trump's legal and campaign teams are bracing for an indictment and plan to fundraise off of his prosecution.

https://twitter.com/sgurman/status/1661010422567436289

Sadly, Son of Sam laws are not pre-emptive.

# ? May 25, 2023 19:29

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I am not a water/environmental engineering expert, but from a legal standpoint, this is going to have 0 impact on a lot of areas and potentially huge impacts on others. It is not going to be evenly spread out because the new definition doesn't change anything for bodies of water with continuous surface connections, but completely exempts not continuous bodies.

I�m not an expert either but I work in adjacent* field and deal with those issues enough, and learned enough in school, to know that there is no plausible criteria by which only counting �surface connections� makes a lick of fuckin� sense.

A lot of states have more stringent regulations on the books so this won�t affect anything in those states, but obviously many don�t. So that�s a problem, in that we all share the same water system, but there�s also a concern that eliminating the federal standards could lead to a �race to the bottom� scenario if companies flee responsibly run states for ones that give them a green light to pollute. (The silver lining is that this is less of a problem than it was 20 years ago, because low-regulation Republican-dominated states have so hosed themselves up that they are in shambles in terms of infrastructure and human capital, and therefore not an attractive destination for a lot of firms.)

* maybe I shouldn�t have used this word because as Kagan points out in her partial concurrence the definition of �adjacent� is getting jostled around a lot in this decision.

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 20:03 on May 25, 2023

# ? May 25, 2023 19:56

deoju: Jul 11, 2004; All the pieces matter.; Nap Ghost

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

One good way to stop school shootings would probably be to stop news coverage of school shootings.

I think the public has a right to know. However I would love to see changes in how they are covvered.

I wish news outlets would identify the suspect once by name per piece and thereafter refer to them as the shooter, the gunman, the perpetrator, etc. Furthermore they should never show a picture of them, a physical description is all we need. These assholes want notoriety and infamy, don't give it to them.

# ? May 25, 2023 20:10

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; Can't post for 6 hours!

The press already has and has continued to change its coverage of shooters based on internal discussions along similar lines.

# ? May 25, 2023 20:17

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Discendo Vox posted:

The press already has and has continued to change its coverage of shooters based on internal discussions along similar lines.

If you mean more restrictive coverage can you please provide some links about this?

Because it's usually the press that advocates freer flow of information, as when the AP & other media sued SFPD for access to the videocams of Paul Pelosi & the man who broke into his home, and at least one newspaper (The Tennessean) filing a public-records lawsuit to obtain the content of the manifesto left behind by Audrey Hale, the Nashville school shooter.

# ? May 25, 2023 20:52

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Why are New Yorkers suddenly pushing people into the subway tracks at historic levels in the past year?

This particular person who shoved her was a homeless man and likely mentally ill, but there have been almost a dozen other cases of this happening and most of them were not mentally ill or homeless.

This is America. You're supposed to use guns for your senseless public violence (there was a mass shooting in the NYC subway not too long ago, so I guess they have that covered).

And why aren't any other cities throwing people onto the tracks besides New York?

A quick google says that nobody has been killed by being pushed into the subway by another person in Boston, LA, or Atlanta in the last year.

It's still less than a dozen people, but going from 0 for decades to multiple in a year (and it not happening anywhere else in the country) is weird.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1661780448706535424

Is it actually at historic levels? I didn't see that in the article. I'm not finding any stats on subway track pushings, but I'm also not finding any reporting about a rash of NYC track-pushings. I just see one other one in January, someone arrested in NYC for a track-pushing in Baltimore, and a bunch of articles complaining about homeless people hanging out on or near the tracks.

I'm inclined to be wary here, because our perceptions of extremely rare problems like this are very heavily influenced by media coverage. And not only does the NYC media have an outsized presence in our national media industry, but it also absolutely loving loves crime reporting that portrays public spaces as far more unsafe than they actually are.

And this story clearly falls right into that category. Just look at that tweet. It frames the attack as "embod[ying] New Yorkers' persistent fear of such violence underground" - implying not only that New Yorkers are widely terrified of subway attackers, but also that they're right to be so afraid.

On top of that, even though that NYT story is about subway shovings in general, it's noticeably selective about the cases it chooses. They chose to focus exclusively on cases of women being pushed by non-white homeless men. There aren't even any mentions of cases of men being pushed by homeless men, let alone cases where men got into fights that ended up with one of them on the tracks.

It almost looks to me like the NYT (along with right-wing media like the NY Post) is encouraging readers to fear homeless people on the subway. It's portraying them as dangerous and prone to sudden unprovoked assaults on the vulnerable, and portraying the subway as a dangerous place where New Yorkers ought to live in constant fear of random attacks. And in my opinion, that's a really loving irresponsible thing to be doing less than a month after non-white homeless man Jordan Neely was murdered on the subway for being loud and unruly.

# ? May 25, 2023 21:15

Star Man: Jun 1, 2008; There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

- Utah remains the youngest state thanks to unusually high levels of children. The youngest county in the country is Utah where the median age is 25.5 years old.

Traditionally, Mormons have large families. I would guess other states with large Mormon populations like Idaho or Arizona have high levels of children.

# ? May 25, 2023 21:18

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

small butter posted:

It's actually way more insidious than any polling can show you.

For example, even though I can afford it, I was thinking about not going to a follow-up with my ENT because it would cost like $300. It should not even be a consideration - the ENT thought I should follow up, so I should. Everyone is affected by the fact that we have deductibles, copays, etc., and obviously those without any healthcare have it the worst.

Yes, it's a horrible situation that keeps getting worse, and likely one of the reasons healthcare as an issue keeps cropping up in the top-5 issues of concern among voters in polling.

It's particularly egregious as people age, bc of the ACA's allowing insurers to charge up to three times the cost to pre-Medicare elders, which then forces them to carry bronze plans that are accompanied by stratospheric deductibles & other out-of-pocket costs.

And that's leaving aside the current cost of dental care, which even the olds don't get under Medicare unless they're in a "Medicare" "Advantage" plan for which some dental care is covered.

# ? May 25, 2023 21:19

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

god bless i am going to have to dust off the loving photoshop for this poo poo. i can't even with Four DeSantis Total Landscaping right now

# ? May 25, 2023 23:02

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; Can't post for 6 hours!

Willa Rogers posted:

If you mean more restrictive coverage can you please provide some links about this?

e.g.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/news-media-considers-breaking-grimly-routine-coverage-of-mass-shootings
https://nonotoriety.com/
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/rethinking-gun-violence-coverage-inevitable-news.php
https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2023/covenant-school-shooting-nashville-trans-manifesto-gender-identity/

# ? May 25, 2023 23:31

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Thanks, DV.

Those links provide suggestions for media coverage of shootings, but I don't see anything about the media having actually changed its coverage to date. I skimmed them, though, so I may have missed it.

The CJR link talks about an upcoming "summit" that was to be held on April 6, but the link to the video is broken & I don't want to watch an entire video to see the conclusions of the participants anyway. Is there a link to a transcript of the summit, do you know?

I disagree with the notion that the Vanity Fair piece presented that we need to view murdered 7 year olds, though I don't imagine that any media outlets will provide that, say, on their front pages or websites without heavily warning viewers. Then again, that's a personal preference.

I agree with the Poynter piece that media should refrain from politicizing shooters/shootings & rely more on fact-based narratives, though.

# ? May 25, 2023 23:58

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

What would politicizing a school shooting look like in that context?

# ? May 26, 2023 01:08

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

I AM GRANDO posted:

What would politicizing a school shooting look like in that context?

In that article, for example, it seems to mean publicizing a shooter's identity and statements to paint them as a member of the political groups you think are destroying the country. When a shooter posted Trumpist memes or campaigned for Bernie or was trans or an immigrant or whatever else, it's gonna be tempting for enemies of those groups to use it to show who the real dangerous extremists are. But it's also worth asking if highlighting that is worth doing plastering the news with deep dives on their history and beliefs. Even negative coverage of notorious criminals by nature turns into hagiography in the same way that even anti-war movies tend to turn out as pro-war movies.

# ? May 26, 2023 02:23

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

On the other hand, almost literally every single mass shooter since Columbine at least being clearly a Nazi continues to be mysteriously left out of coverage, in favour of blaming popular entertainment media or niche fashion trends the shooters didn't even participate in.

# ? May 26, 2023 02:36

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Yeah, but most Americans literally can�t understand that. It�s not a conscious choice by reporters to ignore what remains invisible to them.

# ? May 26, 2023 02:46

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

Ghost Leviathan posted:

On the other hand, almost literally every single mass shooter since Columbine at least being clearly a Nazi continues to be mysteriously left out of coverage, in favour of blaming popular entertainment media or niche fashion trends the shooters didn't even participate in.

That's a great example since the extensive coverage of that with Breivik, for example, arguably did less to draw attention to stopping Nazi violence than it did to create a crop of Nazi violence by people quietly or proudly praising his writings.

# ? May 26, 2023 02:48

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Ghost Leviathan posted:

On the other hand, almost literally every single mass shooter since Columbine at least being clearly a Nazi continues to be mysteriously left out of coverage, in favour of blaming popular entertainment media or niche fashion trends the shooters didn't even participate in.

I think, at least wrt the not wanting to call a Nazi a Nazi issue, is that culturally speaking, it's seen as more of a hyperbolic attack. When someone says "That guy is a Nazi", the general populace isn't hearing "That guy literally subscribes to Nazi ideology and legitimately siegs heil." , they just hear someone pushing the :godwin:

button to try to score a cheap point.

# ? May 26, 2023 02:51

Madkal: Feb 11, 2008; Fallen Rib

Rogers being outed as an incel on mass media didn't really put a damper on the incel movement either. If anything it made him a celebrated figure in that toxic culture.

# ? May 26, 2023 02:51

Neo Rasa: Mar 8, 2007; Everyone should play DUKE games.

Main Paineframe posted:

And this story clearly falls right into that category. Just look at that tweet. It frames the attack as "embod[ying] New Yorkers' persistent fear of such violence underground" - implying not only that New Yorkers are widely terrified of subway attackers, but also that they're right to be so afraid.

On top of that, even though that NYT story is about subway shovings in general, it's noticeably selective about the cases it chooses. They chose to focus exclusively on cases of women being pushed by non-white homeless men. There aren't even any mentions of cases of men being pushed by homeless men, let alone cases where men got into fights that ended up with one of them on the tracks.

Yeah it pisses me off because it should be news that this happened, but the idea that there's a people getting shoved in front of trains wave in NYC or that "New Yorkers" in general are terrified of the subway is some real horseshit.

Main Paineframe posted:

It almost looks to me like the NYT (along with right-wing media like the NY Post) is encouraging readers to fear homeless people on the subway. It's portraying them as dangerous and prone to sudden unprovoked assaults on the vulnerable, and portraying the subway as a dangerous place where New Yorkers ought to live in constant fear of random attacks. And in my opinion, that's a really loving irresponsible thing to be doing less than a month after non-white homeless man Jordan Neely was murdered on the subway for being loud and unruly.

And this is why, the weather's getting nicer so, sorry folks, you have to see more homeless people around later into the evening. And you'll see this little extra encouragement in the news every year about NYC as we go from spring to summer.

# ? May 26, 2023 03:16

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# ? May 27, 2024 09:41

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

On the other hand, almost literally every single mass shooter since Columbine at least being clearly a Nazi continues to be mysteriously left out of coverage, in favour of blaming popular entertainment media or niche fashion trends the shooters didn't even participate in.

What are you talking about? Do you honestly believe this? There was mass coverage over one from just earlier this month: https://apnews.com/article/texas-mall-shooting-mauricio-garcia-424607c69a5df0adab64f236924ae4e2

Kalit fucked around with this message at 03:44 on May 26, 2023

# ? May 26, 2023 03:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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