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Fast walkers had a 30% lower risk of developing dementia, a 25% lower risk of developing cancer or heart disease and a 35% overall lower risk of premature death.

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“The pattern of fraud that was used by Mr. Trump and the Trump organization for their own financial benefit was astounding,” James said.

Forced to testify in the investigation last month, Trump refused to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 440 times. In a civil trial, jurors can draw negative inferences from a witness taking the Fifth. Last month, James rejected an offer from the Trump Organization to settle the case.

The suit seeks to recover the profits from the scheme, to ban the Trumps from engaging in real estate transactions for five years, and to prohibit Trump or his children from running any business licensed in New York state. James also filed a criminal referral to federal prosecutors and a tax fraud referral to the IRS.

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The result, argue Blevins and others, is that what began as a democratic power experiment morphed into a monopoly. "What they don't think they can do is get competitive," Blevins told the assembled power companies. "So if you don't want to get competitive and you're a monopoly, what you do is lock your customers in forever." In his view, TVA abandoned its original mandate of providing cheap electricity and failed to adequately focus on environmental programs in favor of netting billions in annual revenues and paying out enormous executive bonuses.

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...three of the migrants Florida governor Ron DeSantis flew from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard filed a class action lawsuit against DeSantis, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation Jared W. Purdue, the state of Florida, the Florida Department of Transportation, and others, for planning and executing “a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme” to exploit vulnerable migrants—in this country legally—“for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial and political interests.”

That and much more from Heather Cox Richardson:

Letters From an American

“The Cumberland Fossil Plant is one of the dirtiest power plants in the nation, and its retirement is long overdue. But instead of using the retirement as an opportunity to transition toward a clean energy future, TVA is planning to double-down on dirty fossil fuels of the past by replacing the aging plant with a new “natural gas” plant and pipeline,” said SELC director Amanda Garcia.

Our greatest opportunity is grid tied roof top solar, something that TVA hates because they can't charge us for it.

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Autumn 2022

Thursday

Sep 22 8:03 pm

“The Rule of Law means that the law treats each of us alike: there is not one rule for friends, another for foes; one rule for the powerful, another for the powerless; a rule for the rich, another for the poor; or different rules, depending upon one’s race or ethnicity or country of origin."

Merrick Garland is looking rather Presidential as he continues to investigate the Russian spy formerly known as President Trump. Lots happening:

Letter from an American

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Show Malcolm some love!

paypal.me/GypsyEyesMusic

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Billionaires, some of them...OK a few...well two so far, are trying to save Planet Earth and America by spending some of their money doing good and righteous things. These good deeds will fail.

Want to save the Earth? Found and support a national news network with the goal of telling the truth and calling out crooks and liars. You know, like CNN used to be before it was bought by a right-wing billionaire with the purpose of silencing critics of the thieves and traitors in the GOP.

Here's the inside baseball look at the destruction of journalism in America.

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more

On Democracy Day, newsrooms draw attention to a crisis in the U.S. system of government

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The Biden Administration was masterfully involved in negotiating the Railroad Worker's contract with the Railroads. It keeps goods and services flowing in our economy. But...

Democrats are the worst marketers. The worst! They are running around talking about how Biden worked for an equitable solution that works for Railroads Workers AND the Railroads. This is totally accurate but so misses the point. We are just over a month from Halloween and the start of the greatest driver of the American Economy. Democrats should be shouting at the top of their lungs...

"Biden Saved Christmas!"

Even in TN GOP corruption is being kicked down the road with unprecedented grants of delays in court trials of legislative corruption.

Nationally it is a malignant disease:

The turning of the courts into a tool for partisan advantage has been part of the Republican project since 1986, when Reagan’s attorney general Edwin Meese vowed to “institutionalize the Reagan revolution so it can’t be set aside no matter what happens in future presidential elections.” That partisan use of the courts inspired then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to help Trump replace about 30% of the federal bench and to swing the Supreme Court to the far right with three new justices.

This article by Heather Cox Richardson

What you are seeing

"If he had any good qualities, he kept them well hidden"

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A retired New York Police Department officer was sentenced on Thursday to a record-setting 10 years in prison for attacking the U.S. Capitol and using a metal flagpole to assault one of the police officers trying to hold off a mob of Donald Trump supporters.

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Two major operations are underway in America.

The Biden administration has brough out a plan to rebuild the American economy in a way to serve everyone who is not a billionaire. It tackles inflation and global warming at the same time. Economists love it. Fascist Trumpers hate it because it is good for ALL Americans.

Trump is being destroyed in court except where he has appointed an unqualified and corrupt judge, such as Judge Aileen Cannon, who refused (unheard of in major cases) to allow legions of judicial friend of the court briefs by learned judges and officials and ruled that the FBI could not continue to review vital top secret nuclear documents Trump stole to evaluate the damage done to American security interests. There is no reason for Trump to have stolen the documents except to sell them or allow them to be seen by Russian spies.

The damage Trump has done and Republicans continue to do to America is unbelievable. Even more unbelievable is that Republicans know it and continue to allow it.

Dr. Richardson lays it out better than I can:

Dr Heather Cox Richardson

Even more Toons at Juanita's Place

When the totally mismanaged Texas power grid failed last winter, EV and hybrid owners had relief parked in their driveway.

While millions of Texans found themselves without electricity for days without the ability to run refrigerators or stoves in the freezing temperatures of the 2021 winter, Randy Jones, a retired refinery worker from the town of Katy (outside Houston) and owner of a Ford F-150 Hybrid equipped with Pro Power Onboard had no such issues. He just plugged into his truck, and turned on the lights.

“You’re living your life normally and all of a sudden you’re thrust into the dark. I think it got around 9 degrees,” Jones told the Detroit Free Press. “It’s been in mid-20s and low 30s. You don’t expect that in south Texas. You don’t expect to lose power when we [the US] have nuclear, natural gas, wind and solar power … the truck gave us light at night, TV access to catch the news and weather. It helped give us a little bit of heat and a good pot of coffee.”

The same thing happened earlier this summer, when flash floods in Kentucky drowned out the grid in a number of mountain towns. Ford responded by sending Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickups down to the region to help get crews back up and running.

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Nikki Zite, a Knoxville OB-GYN, watched Akers’ video and sent her a message.

“I need to know you,” she wrote. “I think physicians and people will be very confused about the affirmative defense. How close to dead does the patient need to be?”

Zite is a complex family planning physician, and until recently provided abortion care for pregnancies that threatened the life of the mother and for those where it was clear the fetus would not survive. The latter are no longer allowed in Tennessee.

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The traditional news media failed to carry it live, showing reruns etc, instead, but the world is burning up with realization that Biden called for America to wake up and save its democracy.

Biden did something remarkable. He didn’t just invite people, regular sane people — who’ve not had a voice, a leader, representation, but been crying out, for God’s sake, for our leaders to get in the fight, say something, do something, anything — to “get involved” in “hope and change” or what not, the usual anodyne ways political speeches end. He said, right out loud, that it was every sane person’s responsibility and duty to defend democracy from those who are attacking it existentially — regardless of their minor-league partisan politics. He made it a matter of responsibility and duty to history, the future, and each other.

In other words, Biden issued not just a political call — but something much, much more vital: he issued a moral directive.

Economist Umair Hague lays it out in plain terms in the historical backdrop of world events:

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More toons

“we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.”

Things are not normal, he said...“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

...(Biden) acknowledged the truth that “the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.”

They “do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”

Heather Cox Richardson give the best overview

The Justice Department issued a damning late-night filing in reply to Trump's attorneys asking for a special master. No sane person can review this and come to any conclusion other that Trump is a Russian spy on the order of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for giving nuclear secrets to the Russians. It is of curious note that Trump's mentor in the ways of the Mafia was Roy Cohn, one of the federal prosecutors in the Rosenberg case.

Here is the damning photo along with the damning evidence of Trump's treason:

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Roane County does not, as far as I can find, have a policy that allows corporal punishment. It is a source of revulsion to me that we have a state law allowing violence upon children. Here's the link to the PDF:

"Most school board policies on corporal punishment contain similar language and guidelines, and leave discretion to the principal, assistant principal, or teacher who administers corporal punishment
within the school."

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The other toons

President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he's appointing Kimberly Cheatle to be the next director of the United States Secret Service, a selection that comes at what administration officials acknowledge is a critical time for the federal law enforcement agency.

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Former Tennessee House Speaker Rep. Glen Casada and his chief of staff were arrested at their homes by FBI agents Tuesday morning after a federal grand jury on Monday issued an indictment on 20-counts involving bribery, theft from programs receiving federal funds, kickbacks, conspiracy to commit money laundering and other charges, according to a news release from the US Department of Justice.

If convicted, each faces up to 20 years in prison.

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