03/19/24

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, March 19th.

Red Nose Day!

Rod Nose Day was started 30 years ago in England and is one of the largest fundraisers in the UK and it raises money for people in need in the UK and Africa.

It’s helpful and it’s silly. Sound like someone else you know?

Carrot Top!

And now, the news.

U.S. Bans Asbestos

-via NPR

Let’s start with news that I really thought had already happened like… decades ago.

On Monday the EPA announced that it is banning the most common form of asbestos.

Turns out, this whole time, companies have pushed back on banning the cancer-causing thing that causes cancer so commonly that I bet when I said asbestos you already thought “good! That stuff causes cancer!”

Most companies have eliminated using asbestos, because it’s so bad, but this is the first actual ban.

We join more than 50 other countries that have already banned the substance.

Texas v Human Rights

-via NBC News

A big, and good!, ruling out of the high court came on Monday as the Supreme extended the temporary block on Texas’ immigration law that says that police are able to arrest anyone that enters the country illegally which is… not how our immigration works. It also solves nothing. And on top of that, it makes murky the way federal versus state government works. Because it’s up to the federal government to decide how and when noncitizens should be charged for entering illegally.

On Monday, Justice Alito, aka A-Leak-O, was the one who put a freeze on the law – this is the third time the pause button has been hit. The two previous times came with a deadline. In this third case, the pause is indefinite, to give the justices more time to figure out what they’re going to do.

1A v SCOTUS

-via Washington Post

More news out of the Court! This time… it’s also good! Did you like that? I did a little flip there – made it seem like it would be bad. Because of how often it is.

On Monday the Court heard arguments in a Republican-led effort to limit how much the federal government can pressure social media companies to remove posts that have misinformation or harmful posts.

This case accuses the Biden administration of violating the First Amendment by working with social media companies to take down posts that say things like – no no, take the medicine that has a picture of a horse on it. It’ll cure covid for sure… even though covid it’s real!

And now it appears the Court is going to rule against the GOP-effort, with Justices Kagan and Kavanaugh both suggesting that the government’s exchanges with both social media platforms as well as media outlets were routine and did not amount to censorship.

We’ll see what happens!

Trump Crime Update Time

-via NY Times (Access Hollywood tape) and CBS News (bond)

And hey, let’s do a little

Trump Crime Update Time

(two different stories! Edition)

First up – A judge has ruled that jurors in the hush money case may hear about Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, where he literally brags about being a serial sexual assaulter. However, the tape itself cannot be played.

The prosecution believes that the tape shows motive for why he would have paid Stormy Daniels off – he did so right after the tape was leaked, a move that we all believed spelled the obvious end of Trump’s campaign.

But it turns out that the country is still sexist enough to not want a super accomplished and incredibly prepared president just because they happen to be a woman. Also racist enough to vote for the guy who opened him campaign coming down those escalators and spewing some truly horrific rhetoric about migrants.

And guess what? He’s only gotten worse! Not better! He says worse stuff now! He is more like Hitler than ever – and he’s the leader of the Republicans!

But if you ask most people why they voted for Trump, they won’t tell you it’s because they’re racist or sexist (though likely it’s both), they’ll tout his amazing business skills.

Well…

In a nearly 5,000 page filing on Monday (5,000 pages! Even if they’re double-spaced, that’s still likely more words than all of the Harry Potter books, all seven, combined! What a bunch of losers!) – lawyers for Trump said that $464 million he owes to the state for all the lying about building sizes, et al (not to mention what he owes E. Jean Carroll) is too much money.

He can’t secure a bond – because the more than 30 bond companies they’ve gone to won’t accept his real estate as collateral.

This was the easiest crime not to do. All he had to do was not tell an easily provable lie. That’s it. All he had to do was not say his building was bigger than it was.

This is so funny to me. I hope they take so many things away from him.

I would really love that.

Princess Kate Seen

-via NBC News

And finally… just an update that it does appear there are photos of Princess Kate from a weekend outing. NBC News reported and linked to TMZ. I can’t, in good faith, link to TMZ because they’re… not nice… but I did look at it and by all accounts, that really does appear to be her.

So… who knows what’s going on over there in London but at least it appears we perhaps have proof of life in this truly bizarre story.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of… bond companies that don’t trump Trump. I think that’s just good business there.

Also noses… the unsung heroes of detective work.

But more than noses… because… just because! I’m proud of you.