Thread for obviously newsworthy stuff

[Broken_Erika]

Radiation is good for you.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is quietly moving to weaken U.S. radiation regulations, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight.

The government’s current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk. And critics say the proposed change could lead to higher levels of exposure for workers at nuclear installations and oil and gas drilling sites, medical workers doing X-rays and CT scans, people living next to Superfund sites and any members of the public who one day might find themselves exposed to a radiation release.

https://apnews.com/6a573b6b020e453c90ecd5e84aa23f57

[Giancarlo]

The Donny administration needs more brain dead zombie voters of course.

[Proteus_MST]

Seems like Donnies claims that he only got 1 million Dollar from his parents, were flat out lies.

Donnie got more than 400 million dollars worth of his father company in 1990, as part of a tax evasion scheme by Fred Trump.
And Donnie and his siblings already before got millions of dollars to their name in order to help their parents evade taxes.

Donnie was already made a millionaire (by Fred Trumps money) when he was 8 and when he left college, he got paid 1 million A YEAR by Fred Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Will surely be interesting if the tax agencies take the article as justification to more closely look into Trumps taxes, especially those during the 1980s/1990s, when his parents were still alive.
Could be a lot of fines in ot for Donnie, for illegal tax evasion.

Donnie may take pride in evading taxes, but I guess he may be less happy about being caught in having to pay hefty fines because of his involvement in past illegal tax evasion schemes.
Guess it will, once again, be a "witch hunt" by the democrats, if this happens

Guess his refusal to publish his last tax returns also has to do with the (lack of) legality of his currently employed tax evasion methods

[pchang]

Donnie can handle fines. Jail time is another story. He may be pardoning himself sooner than expected.

[Proteus_MST]

True ... unfortunately the past tax evasions (under his parents) may be too far away (in time) to give him time in jail.
Getting caught in more recent illegal tax evasion schemes however ...

[Kidlicious]

The Case against Kavanaugh Is Collapsing

By DAVID FRENCH
October 1, 2018 2:22 PM Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 27, 2018. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) There is entirely insufficient evidence to prove even one of the terrible allegations against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

A very strange thing happened over the weekend: If you follow Twitter closely, you’ll notice that the debate over Brett Kavanaugh moved significantly from the central question of last Thursday’s hearing — did he commit sexual assault? — to a raging debate over whether he lied about high-school slang, college drinking, and inside jokes, and whether he was just too “angry” to be a Supreme Court judge.
This torrent of commentary (most of it silly, including competing, furious arguments about how people described anal sex in 1982) obscures an important development: The sexual-assault claims against Kavanaugh are in a state of collapse.

Let’s deal with the easiest issue first. The day before the hearing, Michael Avenatti released a “declaration” by a client, a woman named Julie Swetnick, claiming that she saw Kavanaugh “waiting his turn” for gang rapes after facilitating them by spiking or drugging the punch at high-school parties. She claimed that she went to multiple such parties and was gang raped at one of them, though she would only assert that Kavanaugh was present on that occasion.

The claim against Kavanaugh was transparently absurd. The idea that a person would repeatedly attend gang-rape parties and that the existence of these parties (which would presumably generate multiple victims and bystander-witnesses) remained utterly secret for decades is nonsense. But left-wing Twitter took up the claims with a vengeance, dragging anyone who dared express doubt through the mud. After all, didn’t the Catholic Church scandals prove that crimes could be concealed? Didn’t Sixteen Candles have a subplot about a drunk male geek sleeping with a drunk popular girl? (Yes, that was an actual article in Vox.)
But then the Wall Street Journal did some actual reporting, “contacting dozens of former classmates and colleagues,” only to find it “couldn’t reach anyone with knowledge of [Swetnick’s] allegations.” Moreover, “no friends have come forward to publicly support her claims.” Again, she alleged repeated gang rapes. Yet there are still no other witnesses.


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It also turns out that a former employer, a company called WebTrends, once sued Swetnick for defamation and fraud. Among other things, it contended that Swetnick engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct and then, “in a transparent effort to divert attention from her own inappropriate behavior,” made uncorroborated sexual-harassment complaints against the two men who accused her of such behavior.

The case was never adjudicated, but it’s just one reason that the commentariat should be hesitant to credit lurid allegations from an unknown individual. Shouldn’t there be a modicum of due diligence before leaping to the conclusion that a man is a rapist?
Meanwhile, Deborah Ramirez’s allegation — that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a party at Yale — remains essentially where it was last week, uncorroborated and difficult to believe. She was drinking heavily at the time. She confesses that her memory contains “gaps.” She even told other classmates that she wasn’t certain it was Kavanaugh. No one else could even confirm he was at the party where the incident allegedly occurred.
No responsible journalistic outlet should have run the story. And without more evidence, no fair-minded person should believe it today.

Which brings us to Christine Blasey Ford. Yesterday, Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell released a memorandum to all Republican senators summarizing Ford’s evidence against Kavanaugh. I’d urge you to read the entire thing. Democrats are describing it as a “partisan document,” but it refers to multiple, undisputed facts that should cause even Ford’s most zealous defenders to pause and reevaluate her claims.

Ford has no corroborating witnesses, and even the friend she says was at the party in question has denied being there or knowing Kavanaugh at all. She doesn’t know who invited her to the party, where it took place, how she got there, or how she got home after, by her account, Kavanaugh attacked her. But the problems go beyond gaps in memory. She has offered substantially different accounts about when the attack occurred (she’s previously said it happened in the “mid Eighties,” in her “late teens,” and in the “Eighties.” Now she’s saying it happened in 1982, when she was 15) and how it occurred (her therapist’s notes conflict with her story of the attack, and she has offered different accounts about who attended the party).
All of these inconsistencies and omissions are important. None of them help her case.
For a brief moment after the hearing, Democrats believedthat one of Kavanaugh’s calendar entries corroborated Ford’s story. A July 1, 1982, note says, “Go to Timmy’s for Skis w/Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, Squi.” According to the Democratic theory, because Ford testified that “Skis” was short for “brewskis” (beer), and because Mark Judge and “PJ” were allegedly at the party where Ford claimed she was assaulted, this could be the documentary evidence that the party took place.

Interestingly, no Democratic senator explored this theory with Kavanaugh while he was testifying, and Ford’s team never raised it, either. It was left to be floated after Kavanaugh was off the stand. And now legions of Democrats are presenting it as “corroboration.”
It’s nothing of the sort. First and most important, “Timmy’s” house was ten miles from the country club Ford has described as in proximity to the party, and it did not meet the description of the house that Ford offered in her testimony. Second, the lineup of attendees does not mention a single female and is substantially different from the one she has described. And finally, the lineup includes “Squi,” the nickname for Chris Garrett, a boy Ford was (according to her testimony) seeing at the time. It would be odd indeed to remember a party’s attendees and forget that one of them was your then-boyfriend.

In other words, for the July 1 theory to be correct, Ford’s previous testimony would have to be substantially incorrect. The theory is so thin that even a CNN analysis described it as “circumstantial, at best.”

No responsible lawyer would bring even a civil case on the facts described above, and civil cases must meet only the lowest burden of proof. Believe women? Believe men? No. Believe evidence. It’s possible that the FBI investigation will uncover additional material facts. It’s also possible that the investigation will leave us back where we started — with entirely insufficient evidence to prove even one of the terrible claims against a person who was once one of the most-respected public servants in America.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/brett-kavanaugh-case-against-nominee-collapsing/

[Giancarlo]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/...ee-collapsing/

Collapsing my ass.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5...b0876eda994495

National review = partisan diarrhea.

National review is rated as far right.

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/national-review

An ultra conservative site.

[Giancarlo]

I was about to post on the massive tax fraud that Trump committed. That will come back to haunt him in New York State. While the statue of limitations may have run out on some of the charges, I think the tax evasion and tax fraud has continued until recently. The Trump organization, for example, is under criminal investigation.

[Broken_Erika]

Thieves steal entire German vineyard
Police in southern Germany are looking for thieves who stole an entire vineyard of grapes from under their noses.

The criminals made off with the field full of grapes by "running a professional harvesting machine over the entire vineyard", the police said, according to the local Rheinpfalz newspaper.

Most galling of all for the police is the fact that the vineyard does not lie on some remote hillside, but is to be found right next to the car park of a major supermarket on the outskirts of the village of Deidesheim.

The resourceful thieves struck at some point between teatime last Wednesday and sunset the following day, netting 1,600 kg (3,527 lb) of the white grapes used to make Riesling wine. The haul is estimated to be worth 8,000 euros (£7,110; $9,272).

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-45720218

[Kidlicious]

In a letter released Tuesday, an ex-boyfriend of Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, seemingly contradicted her testimony under oath last week that she had never helped anyone prepare for a polygraph examination.

The former boyfriend, whose name was redacted, also said Ford neither mentioned Kavanaugh nor said she was a victim of sexual misconduct during the time they were dating from about 1992 to 1998. He said he saw Ford helping a woman he believed was her "life-long best friend" prepare for a potential polygraph test. He added that the woman had been interviewing for jobs with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's office.

He also claimed Ford never voiced any fear of flying and seemingly had no problem living in a small apartment with one door -- apparently contradicting her claims that she could not testify promptly in D.C. due to a fear of flying, as well as her suggestion that her memories of Kavanuagh's alleged assault prompted her to feel unsafe living anywhere without a second front door.

In a pointed, no-holds-barred letter Tuesday evening that referenced the declaration, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley demaned that attorneys for Ford turn over her therapist notes and other key materials, and suggested she was intentionally less than truthful about her polygraph examination during Thursday's dramatic Senate hearing.

"Your continued withholding of material evidence despite multiple requests is unacceptable as the Senate exercises its constitutional responsibility of advice and consent for a judicial nomination," Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/christine-blasey-ford-ex-boyfriend-says-she-helped-friend-prep-for-potential-polygraph-grassley-sounds-alarm

[Giancarlo]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chr...y-sounds-alarm

Faux News writes about a so called ex-boyfriend. Bull**** alarm is going off right now. Have Kavanaugh taken a polygraph? Oh that's right. He would fail.

[Broken_Erika]

Kavanaugh was a virgin until he got married! He was too busy lifting weights and drinking beer with Squeak, Donkey-Dong Doug and Gang-Bang Greg!

[Broken_Erika]

And now Trump is openly mocking Ford. And talking about how America is not a safe place for men anymore.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/02/politics/trump-mocks-christine-blasey-ford-kavanaugh-supreme-court/

[Giancarlo]

America is safe for men. It's just not safe for men who assault and rape women, kinda like the orange ****head.

[Kidlicious]

The woman that Ford helped take a polygraph test is one of the women that signed the letter in support of Ford's character, which was sent to the committee.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/10/here-are-some-interesting-facts-about-christine-fords-friend-monica-mclean/