All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Justice Department Applauds Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act | OPA | Department of Justice

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco, and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta today applauded the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA was reauthorized as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, which President Joe Biden signed into law this week.

“Domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking are serious violations of criminal law that demand our sustained attention and action,” said Attorney General Garland. “The Department of Justice welcomes the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and will continue to use the resources at our disposal to prevent and respond to gender-based violence and provide critical services for survivors.”

Source: Justice Department Applauds Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act | OPA | Department of Justice

Justice Department Announces Civil Settlement in Cases Arising from 2018 School Shooting in Parkland, Florida | OPA | Department of Justice

This settlement resolves all of the cases for $127.5 million. The settlement does not amount to an admission of fault by the United States. The parties have been in litigation since late 2018, when the survivors of the shooting, and the families of 16 people killed, sued the government for damages. Source: Justice Department Announces Civil Settlement in Cases Arising from 2018 School Shooting in Parkland, Florida | OPA | Department of Justice

Bearing Witness, Asking for More… | NANMYKEL.COM

I am sitting in my comfortable warm home, a sliver of sunlight illuminating the papers on my desk, the sounds outside confined to the occasional passing car and disparate birdsongs.

I am writing one day before the US Congress will hear an impassioned speech delivered by the individual who has morphed—almost before our eyes—from an inexperienced young leader into a giant of a man. The term “Churchillian” has been widely used to describe Volodymyr Zelensky, and it does not seem overblown.

The strength, the courage, the persistence go well beyond inspiring—lifting his own people and many millions more. Rarely do we see with such clarity a public depiction of the times calling on the man—and the man seizing the moment…

Source: Bearing Witness, Asking for More… | NANMYKEL.COM

YO SENATORS!!! Remember Those Oaths???

Filosofa's Word

Today my thoughts (and snarky side) turn to two of President Biden’s nominees … one who was likely doomed from the start, and another who will likely succeed, although not before being run through the grist mill.


Sarah Bloom Raskin

Once again, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has put his own self-interests above the interests of the nation.  This time, he has said that he will not vote to confirm President Biden’s nominee for the Federal Reserve vice chair of supervision, Sarah Bloom Raskin.  Why?  In a nutshell, because she “has written in the past in support of the Fed increasing its attention to financial risks from climate change.”  Manchin, you see, has vested interests in the production of coal, one of the worst offenders to our environment.  He has holdings valued at between $1 million and $5 million in Enersystems, Inc., the coal brokerage business he founded.

Thus…

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Good People Doing Good Things — Aaron Jackson

Filosofa's Word

I don’t know how it is that Aaron Jackson has not flown onto my ‘good people’ radar screen before, but he’s there now and deserves recognition.  Jackson was a CNN Hero back in 2007, a few years before I started my ‘good people’ posts, and he has been noted for numerous humanitarian causes since then.  A bit about Mr. Jackson’s background from Wikipedia provides a foundation before I get into the reason he is on my radar today …

“Aaron Jackson is an American human rights and environmental activist. Jackson was raised in Destin, Florida and attended Valencia College until 2002. After backpacking around the world, he interned at The Homeless Voice, an advocacy group in Davie, Florida, and became director of the COSAC Homeless Shelter. The first orphanages he opened in Haiti were established using money he made as a golf caddy while living in a homeless shelter in…

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Dismay as funding for UK’s ‘world-beating’ Covid trackers is axed | Coronavirus | The Guardian (Me: Boris and Tories reach for new level of stupid with Covid pandemic to appear as if they know how to beat Covid… “by giving in to it”)

“The government says we have to learn to live with Covid, but to learn to do that we need data which is agile enough and trustworthy enough. The ONS survey and React have been very good examples of agile and trustworthy programmes.

“We know immunity is going to wane and health authorities have to decide how to deal with that, with recommendations for boosters, for example. So they need reliable information about what is going on to target their strategy.

“React has given very good information about the effectiveness of vaccines and can monitor the waning of immunity. The pandemic is not yet in a stable equilibrium. Many factors are still changing and we need to keep monitoring basic epidemiological quantities such as prevalence in a reliable way.

“I would like to see a strategic plan for preparedness in terms of what type of studies and resources they are going to keep. So far, myself and other experts at the Royal Statistical Society haven’t been consulted, and there seems to be a lack of strategy – we don’t know how they are going to monitor new variants, for example.”

 

Source: Dismay as funding for UK’s ‘world-beating’ Covid trackers is axed | Coronavirus | The Guardian