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A beautiful, broken America.
‘American Exceptionalism’ as defined in Wikipedia, is the belief that the United States is either distinctive, unique, or exemplary compared to other nations.
BBC »
More than 115 million people are under some form of heat warnings, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
Phoenix has experienced 13 days of temperatures of at least 43C (110F) and is forecast to surpass its 18-day record of over 43C heat next Tuesday.
Related » The Guardian | Axios | Al Jazeera
Meanwhile » The Guardian » MAGA Republicans oppose climate funding as millions suffer in extreme weather
A new study by researchers at the Petris Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth finds that private equity firms own more than half of all specialists in some U.S. markets.
Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz, writing in the NY Times »
In more than a quarter of local markets — in places like Tucson, Ariz.; Columbus, Ohio; and Providence, R.I. — a single private equity firm owned more than 30 percent of practices in a given specialty in 2021. In 13 percent of the markets, the firms owned groups employing more than half the local specialists.
The medical groups were associated with higher prices in their respective markets, particularly when they controlled a dominant share, according to a paper by researchers at the Petris Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C. When a firm controlled more than 30 percent of the market, the cost of care in three specialties — gastroenterology, dermatology, and obstetrics and gynecology — increased by double digits.
Anita Hill – Law professor; witness in Clarence Thomas controversy (Source » Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia)
She told us who he was.
Anita Faye Hill (born July 30, 1956) is an American lawyer, educator and author. She is a professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, her supervisor at the United States Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of sexual harassment.
Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.
The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.
Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.
Just the day prior, the GOP Senator disputing the claim.
CNN »
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama finally condemned White nationalists, telling reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that “White nationalists are racists,” after previously refusing to equate White nationalism with racism.
Tuberville had doubled down Monday when asked about his previous comments on White nationalism and said it was an “opinion” that White nationalists are racist.
» BBC | Rolling Stone | Salon | Mother Jones
CNN »
The report highlights what legal experts described to CNN as a “five-alarm fire” for taxpayer privacy that could lead to government and private lawsuits, criminal penalties or perhaps even a “mortal blow” for some industry giants involved in the probe including TaxSlayer, H&R Block and TaxAct.
Using visitor tracking technology embedded on their websites, the three tax-prep companies allegedly sent tens of millions of Americans’ personal information to the tech industry without consent or appropriate disclosures, according to the congressional report reviewed by CNN.
Property losses are staggering. The governor said thousands of Vermonters have lost homes and businesses. But with people still being pulled from homes and vehicles, the focus right now is on getting them to higher ground.
Related » The Guardian | VOX | Euronews | NY Times | The Atlantic » Boiling the Ocean | BBC | CBC | Grist
Inflation (mostly driven by corporations looking to increase profits off the backs of their customers) is starting to have a significant impact on spending.
Despite surging inflation, shoppers kept spending thanks to income gains and government stimulus. But those benefits are waning, and now Americans are skimping, even on everyday items such as toilet paper and toothpaste. More insights on the economic environment come on Wednesday with the release June’s consumer price index. That measure is anticipated to show annual inflation slowed to 3.1%, its lowest level since March 2021.
“The strains that the consumer is under have been exacerbated over the last couple of months,” said Morningstar analyst Erin Lash. The reduction of food assistance programs, lower tax returns and using up extra savings and stimulus funds have an impact, she said.
Tuition cost and fee inflation have outpaced CPI Inflation 4-to-1 over the last 40 years:
The cost of tuition has increased 710% in the US since 1983
The resulting $1.78T of debt includes $1.65T that is federally owned (93%). 45M Americans have federal student loan debt. Roughly half of all the debt belongs to individuals with graduate degrees while the other half belongs to individuals with undergraduate degrees; though it’s worth noting that there are fewer graduate students overall so the debt held per student is higher for graduates:
If you are a Prime Member, hurry on over as the made-up holiday ends July 12 at 11:50pm Pacific. 🙃
Threads easily beat AI darling ChatGPT to the milestone. Meanwhile Twitter traffic is ‘tanking,’ according to Cloudflare CEO.
US$44 Billion and for what?
Well, Elon Musk says Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/Threads CEO Mark Zuckerberg “is a cuck” and proposes “a literal dick-measuring contest.”
The Verge | TechCrunch | The Guardian | Reuters | Reuters | The Independent |
BBC »
False and misleading posts about the Ukraine conflict continue to go viral on major social media platforms, as Russia’s invasion of the country extends beyond 500 days.
Some of the most widely shared examples can be found on Twitter, posted by subscribers with a blue tick, who pay for their content to be promoted to other users.
» Security and privacy. You cannot have a functioning democracy without both.
Le Monde »
French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late on Wednesday, July 5. Part of a wider justice reform bill, the spying provision has been attacked by both the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers’ charter, though Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti insists it would affect only “dozens of cases a year.”
Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones, the measure would allow the geolocation of suspects in crimes punishable by at least five years’ jail. Devices could also be remotely activated to record sound and images of people suspected of terror offenses, as well as delinquency and organized crime.
The provisions “raise serious concerns over infringements of fundamental liberties,” digital rights group La Quadrature du Net wrote in a May statement. It cited the “right to security, right to a private life and to private correspondence” and “the right to come and go freely”, calling the proposal part of a “slide into heavy-handed security”.
Federal incentives are driving investments in the electric-car industry worth more than $100 billion. Every state wants a piece of the action, and Tennessee is getting plenty. It’s a lynchpin of the new Battery Belt that stretches from Michigan to Georgia. More than $16 billion in EV capital has poured into the state since 2017. Last year, Ford Motor Co. broke ground on a giant new plant near Memphis that’s slated to open in 2025 and churn out half a million electric trucks per year.
But the drive to reboot manufacturing and claim national leadership in strategic technologies is about to crunch up against a shortfall in trained workers — and impose new demands on technical education all across America.
U.S. Geological Survey researchers said it was the first nationwide study to test for PFAS, or per- and polyfluorinated substances.
Fortune »
Drinking water from nearly half of U.S. faucets likely contains “forever chemicals” that may cause cancer and other health problems, according to a government study released Wednesday.
The synthetic compounds known collectively as PFAS are contaminating drinking water to varying extents in large cities and small towns — and in private wells and public systems, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
Researchers described the study as the first nationwide effort to test for PFAS in tap water from private sources in addition to regulated ones. It builds on previous scientific findings that the chemicals are widespread, showing up in consumer products as diverse as nonstick pans, food packaging and water-resistant clothing and making their way into water supplies.
Five people were killed and two were wounded in the attack.
Ten murdered, 38 wounded, in three mass shootings ahead in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Fort Worth ahead of the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
NPR | BBC | BBC | Axios | The Guardian | The White House | UPI | CBS |
In a phone call in late 2020, President Donald Trump tried to pressure Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to overturn the state’s presidential election results, saying that if enough fraudulent votes could be found it would overcome Trump’s narrow loss in Arizona, according to three people familiar with the call.
Trump also repeatedly asked Vice President Mike Pence to call Ducey and prod him to find the evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims of fraud, according to two of these people. Pence called Ducey several times to discuss the election, they said, though he did not follow Trump’s directions to pressure the governor.
If that estimate sticks, U.S. walkers will have experienced a stunning 77 percent increase in deaths since 2010, rising at a rate more than three times faster than the rest of the traveling public.
Also » NPR
VOX »
The roads were already getting deadlier for pedestrians before 2020, but the pandemic turbocharged the trend. In 2021, 7,624 pedestrians were killed in the United States, a 13 percent increase from the year before, when 6,721 pedestrians were killed. Between 2010 and 2021, the new GHSA report says, pedestrian fatalities increased 77 percent.
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