FirstCircle @ FirstCircle @lemmy.ml

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381

Joined

2 yr. ago

earmarking $45 billion to detain 100,000 migrants

$450K per migrant. I wonder which MAGA-sponsoring corporations are going to see that payday, and I wonder what % of it they'll be kicking-back to Orange and Elmo? We've got a lot of citizens here. Kidnapping them at government expense will be extremely profitable, even at today's rates.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has launched a different lawsuit against the Maine Department of Education that would pull funding primarily from poorer students and students with disabilities. “That’s a separate complaint they filed a few weeks ago, it’s only a one-page complaint that cites no authority, no case, no law,” Mills said. “We’ll see them in court on that one as well.”

• Heather Cox Richardson newsletter

Yup, the orange weakling caved again. I'm looking forward to much more such caving. It will just take a lot more entities to, like Maine did, stand up to the little diaper tyrant and this thugs. It will be entertaining to watch him cave to China and to all the other nations and economies he's been trying to harass.

Oh I doubt he did that. He'd lose prestige down at the Yacht Club! I'm sure he just laid off some of his poverty-wage crew.

When I wrote the previous comment I was thinking that "electronic lock" was referring to a fob-activated lock that you used in place of a key-activated lock. The things that are constantly blasting their honks and beeps throughout the neighborhood when we used to have just quiet. Bad enough, but it sounds from your comment that it's much, much worse than that.

It sounds like you're describing a lock that the vehicle is in control of! No, my cars have no such things. I didn't realize they existed. I've rented a few cars, incl. one "good" (meaning, one that people might envy me for owning, thus increasing my feelings of prestige) European car within the past 10 yrs and didn't notice the car deciding to lock the doors w/o my consent. If this was happening it must have been a silent anti-feature, or at least very quiet.

I can't imagine needing or wanting the car to decide when to lock/unlock the doors. I only lock them when I'm parked, and sometimes not even then (not really paranoid about break-ins ... I've left the Miata top-down on my street overnight before, and the horrific end result was ... a dead leaf or two on the seats, maybe an insect visitor as well, a little extra dust). Locking and unlocking the doors is a simple as putting a mechanical key into a slot or pushing/pulling a lever on the inside. Nothing could be easier, and it's not a decision I'm about to cede to the car (and its manufacturer) for no good reason.

Of course! Miata is a 5-speed, Jeep is a 6-speed. I can't imagine driving a Miata w/o a shifter. Pure heresy that would be. If you're on FB you might like the "Manual Elitist Jerks" group.

I used to see tons of Bs still on the road in Florida back in the 80s. I liked the looks but preferred the TR-6. Spitfires were nice looking too. Dream car would have been an E-type but that was going to have to wait until I became rich & famous. Still haven't got one! :-(

how difficult it could be to evacuate people wearing wrist and ankle shackles

No need to worry about such niceties once it's openly admitted that these are just Death Flights in disguise. Murder the prisoners in mid-flight, or hand them over for murder after landing, the results are the same.

Republicans/MAGA have long loved the idea of Death Flights. MAGA Warms to a Murderous Chilean Dictator

electronic lock

Why TF would anyone have a car with such a device? Key ... key in hand ... insert key into lock assembly ... turn key .... door unlocks and can now be opened. It's simple, effective, proven tech that doesn't need computers or come with any "burned up in the car because door locked" risk. Sure it doesn't make any loud noises that draw attention to you when you lock/unlock, but that's a positive thing.

Got a '97 and yeah, nothing beats it if you're someone who loves to drive for driving's sake. Analog instrumentation, no screens, no "click here" buttons, no auto removed making decisions for me, no cameras or microphones or recording devices. It does have a rudimentary "cruise control" - probably a bad omen for things to come - but it only tries to maintain your speed, it doesn't try to match the speed of the car in front of you or otherwise encourage distracted driving.

The other vehicle I have is a 2005 Wrangler, nearly as analog as the Miata. I can't imagine getting rid of either in favor of an oversized, rolling surveillance computer.

the systematized psychological, physical, and sexual assault of prisoners has been absolutely normalized, often seemingly for no other reason than prison guard recreation.

Another link posted in this very forum today: Away From Cameras, These New York Prison Infirmaries Become ‘Torture Chambers’

This is the kind of guy NYS is hiring as a "guard". From the look on its face, I have to believe it's thinking "I hope I get my hands on this freak in private - I'll rip his guts out". Just the psychopathic qualities you want in a prison guard, ICE thug, or FSB interrogator.

As the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration presses on, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is reminding its bishops and other lay leaders that they are not to ask members about their immigration status in temple interviews.

That position was reaffirmed in a letter this week from the faith’s governing First Presidency to all general officers and local male authorities who conduct “worthiness interviews” with members desiring to participate in temple rituals.

“With enhanced enforcement of immigration laws in various jurisdictions, we have received inquiries from priesthood leaders about temple recommend interview questions,” states the April 24 letter signed by church President Russell M. Nelson and his two counselors. “We remind those conducting temple recommend interviews that under established policy, local leaders are to ask only the temple recommend questions as currently constituted.”

The prescribed questions cover a range of beliefs and behaviors — including members’ faith in Jesus Christ, their attendance at church meetings, their payment of tithes, and their adherence to the faith’s Word of Wisdom health code.

There is no question about immigration status.

It's not a poll. It's a book.

Reminds me of this book about interviews with "ordinary" non-political, non-military Nazi party members in Germany. Just regular citizens with jobs and families. "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45" (1955).

"The author determined that his interviewees had fond memories of the Nazi period and did not see Adolf Hitler as evil, and they perceived themselves as having a high degree of personal freedom during Nazi rule, with the exception of the teacher. Additionally, barring said teacher, the subjects still disliked Jewish people... At the time of the interviews the interviewees were still not in favor of the democratic Bonn government."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Thought_They_Were_Free

Excerpt from the book: https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

This woman is interpreting the Xian god's intent? Heresy!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Askew

Because the "Heritage" foundation paid for it, and they're a bunch of Xian Fundies. Project 2025 (which Trump knows absolutely nothing about, he says so himself) is their baby.

As children's mental health needs escalate, teens in the area would lose access to lifesaving treatment. And other nearby facilities would struggle to fill the gap, Sacred Heart executives wrote in an application for a state Department of Commerce grant in February 2024, obtained by InvestigateWest in a records request.

"If this unit downsized or closed, this would cause even less access in an under-resourced area resulting in patients and families having to travel several hours for inpatient care,” hospital leaders wrote.

Sacred Heart asked the state for $1.8 million to pay for facility upgrades to make the unit safer and “ensure that every child has access to high-quality, affordable and culturally competent mental health care.”

The pitch worked. The state awarded Sacred Heart the full amount it requested.

But Sacred Heart turned the grant down in April. In September, it closed the Psychiatric Center for Children and Adolescents anyway.

In the last decade, Sacred Heart repeatedly reduced services and long-term resources in the unit, according to internal emails, public records and interviews. Yet as Sacred Heart cuts youth services in Spokane, the Providence system is pouring more than $1 billion into a hospital expansion in Seattle that sees fewer Medicaid patients. And its executives are making millions.

https://www.investigatewest.org/investigatewest-reports/former-staff-at-spokane-youth-psychiatric-unit-blame-providence-for-closure-17784579

Yeah it is. I think the company must be trying to filter all user-supplied content in such a way as to make it maximally resellable to other AI companies. Even as a read-only platform, I sometimes wonder how many good posts I'm missing because they've secretly been banned/filtered.

They pay some (all?) of their C-level execs (and maybe others) tens of millions of $/yr in salaries and bonuses. What, you want that money spent on staff and patient resources? You must be a Communist! Some claimed numbers from 2019:

Providence is making enough money to give CEO Rod Hochman a 157% raise between 2015 and 2017, bumping his total compensation to more than $10 million. Top executives at Corporate Headquarters aren’t the only ones getting huge raises. Current Chief Executive at Sacred Heart Peg Curry earned more than $1.2 million in 2018 including a one-year bonus of $131,812. As Chief Nursing Officer, Susan Stacey’s total compensation increased by 35% between 2015 and 2018 including bonuses totaling $97,638. Previous Chief Executive Officer Alex Jackson’s total compensation increased by 47% between 2015 and 2017 including bonuses totaling $668, 468. https://www.wsna.org/union/update/spokesman-story-misleading-incomplete

Naturally they fight against their workers' unions too

I'm blocked by Reddit "filters" from posting on the Spokane subreddit, but if any of you are on there I encourage you to repost this. I had not heard of this story before seeing the article today.