Think the House GOP is doing a shitshow? The NY Democratic party can compete!
If you really want to understand what's good and what's bad about money-driven health care, read this (and do note I have changed 'profit' to 'money', because sometimes wanting to save money can have similar effects to wantng to profit financially)
Current headline: "Mayor: Teacher shot by 6-year-old ‘red flag for the country’" (So have we hit bottom for school shootings yet?)
Previous Crime News thread here with stories and commentary through 1/7
At 93, the memoirist Yuan-tsung Chen hopes that her recollections of China’s tumultuous past will help the country confront its historical wrongs — and avoid repeating them.
By Alexandra Stevenson @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 15
HONG KONG — Yuan-tsung Chen, an author, leaned forward in an oversize velvet chair to tell the story of the man so hungry that he ate himself. Once, that tale had seemed unbelievable to her. “I thought that was an exaggeration,” she said. But living in a village during the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s calamitous attempt to catapult China into communist plenty in the late 1950s, changed her view on what extreme hunger could drive people to actually do.
“It wasn’t anyone’s exaggeration, it was as true as real life, but nobody would say it,” Ms. Chen said, recalling the desperation and starvation caused by Mao’s experiment. Historians estimate that up to 45 million people died over the course of five years.
Now, sitting at a restaurant in one of Hong Kong’s most opulent hotels, Ms. Chen, 93, says she has a warning for the world. Having lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in China’s recent history, Ms. Chen disputes the Communist Party’s sanitized version of its past and worries it has allowed it to continue making mistakes with global consequences.
Her voice drops, barely audible among the din of cutlery and diners in the restaurant: “When you do things in the spirit of Mao, that scares me,” she says, referring to China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.
Her books, she said, are meant to add “blood and flesh” to the official party account and help readers empathize with the Chinese people who have suffered under an authoritarian system. But her efforts have raised questions about whose voice matters when it comes to narrating Chinese history [....]
Thousands faced evacuation orders or warnings on Saturday, and the authorities temporarily halted the search for a 5-year-old boy who was swept away in floodwaters this week.
@ NYTimes.com, live feed, currently updated (and headlined) Jan. 15, 2023, 2:01 a.m. ET, and ongoing
the latest: Another storm is soaking California. Here’s what to know.
SACRAMENTO — A fresh wave of storms inundated California again on Saturday, swelling rivers, downing power lines and imperiling travelers during yet another holiday weekend as a procession of atmospheric rivers continued to wallop the state.
At least 19 people have died since late December, with the toll expected to increase, in a series of powerful storms that unleashed destructive downpours from the North Coast to the southern border over the last two and a half weeks, [....]
The attorney general's decision underscores the gravity of the discoveries, which included one set of documents found at an office space Biden used and another set found in the garage of his Wilmington home.
By Kyle Cheney, Josh Gerstein, and Kelly Hooper @ Politico.com, updated 1/12, 3:57 EST
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Thursday that he was appointing a special counsel, former U.S. attorney Robert Hur, to review the storage of sensitive documents discovered in spaces used by President Joe Biden during the years preceding his return to the White House.
“The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter,” Garland said during a news conference at the Justice Department. “This appointment underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.” [....]
While Democratic leaders seem content to let Speaker Kevin McCarthy stew in his party's disarray, liberals are excited to launch a new headache-causing House tool.
By Nicholas Wu @ Politico.com, Jan. 12
Kevin McCarthy’s concessions to conservatives did more than win him the speaker’s gavel — they empowered House progressives to wreak havoc. And they’re eager to mess with him.
Republicans’ new rules allow just one member, regardless of party, to force a floor vote on deposing the speaker. And liberal Democrats, some of whom are part of the progressive “Squad,” are warning they have no problem with using the move against McCarthy, even if they don’t expect it to succeed.
“Why not? You know, that sounds like a good idea. I mean, you’re still going to need what, 218 for passage, right? But listen, man, he has a very slim majority,” mused Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). “Whenever we want to cause complete chaos, we’ll do that.
The gambit, known as the motion to vacate, would almost certainly fail this early in the new Congress, as Republicans can use a procedural move to toss the motion before it actually gets a vote and Democrats would need GOP support to reach the required majority. But progressives’ zeal confirms a fear from McCarthy’s allies — that a rule he greenlighted to assuage conservatives could easily cause frequent headaches.
Still, while progressives dream of stirring trouble for their cross-aisle colleagues, Democratic leaders seem happy to let him stew in the speaker’s chair for a bit amid divisions in his own conference. They say they aren’t considering using the move, at least for now. A Democratic leadership aide noted it was clear the party didn’t need to help Republicans with their infighting and suggested such a motion from the minority party could strengthen McCarthy’s hand.
“It’s the furthest thing from my mind at this point,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters. Another senior Democrat, House Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), said: “I want to get stuff done, and so it’s not where I’m at.” [....]
Previous thread HERE includes news and analysis on McCarthy becoming Speaker of the House. (And recent news on George Santos is HERE.)
Residents hope that Jaylen Smith’s youthful energy and sense of purpose can improve the fortunes of Earle, Ark. — or at least attract a supermarket to the small city
By Rick Rojas @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 10
EARLE, Ark. — The shoe factory closed and the supermarket pulled out. So did neighbors whose old homes were now falling apart, overtaken by weeds and trees. Likewise, the best students at Earle High School often left for college and decided their hometown did not have enough to lure them back.
Jaylen Smith, 18, could have left, too. Instead, when he graduated from high school last spring he resolved to stay put in Earle, a small city surrounded by farmland in the Arkansas Delta, where his family has lived for generations.
Not only that, but he ran for mayor. And won. “Why should I have to go somewhere else to be great when I can be great right here in Earle, Arkansas?” Mr. Smith said a few days after his inauguration last week. [....]
By James Pollard @ apnews.com, 30 mins. ago
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina ban on abortions after cardiac activity is no more after the latest legal challenge to the state’s 2021 law proved successful.
The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the restrictions violate the state constitution’s right to privacy. The measure banned abortions after cardiac activity is detected, typically around six weeks into a pregnancy, with exceptions for those caused by rape and incest or endangering the patient’s life.
“The State unquestionably has the authority to limit the right of privacy that protects women from state interference with her decision, but any such limitation must be reasonable and it must be meaningful in that the time frames imposed must afford a woman sufficient time to determine she is pregnant and to take reasonable steps to terminate that pregnancy. Six weeks is, quite simply, not a reasonable period of time for these two things to occur, and therefore the Act violates our state Constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable invasions of privacy,” Justice Kaye Hearn wrote in the majority opinion.
South Carolina bars abortion at 20 weeks [....]
