Sacklers Accused Of Shielding One Billion Dollars As Hedge Against Litigation

On By peanutgallerynhIn Addiction,, Drugs & Drink,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The filing comes after nearly two dozen states and 2,300 local governments reached a tentative settlement with Purdue Pharma to resolve thousands of lawsuits alleging that the company helped fuel the opioid crisis. New York and others states rejected the settlement.

…The court filing highlights the activities of Mortimer D.A. Sackler, a former Purdue board member. It alleges that Sackler transferred millions of dollars from trust companies, at least one of which was previously unknown, through Swiss bank accounts to himself as early as 2009. Some of the funds were directed to real estate companies that owned Sackler family homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons, the filings said.

…The New York attorney general’s office believes there is much more to be learned about the family’s holdings and that information is central to arriving at a just settlement. Prosecutors want the court to enforce subpoenas of companies, banks and advisers tied to Purdue and the Sacklers.

Forbes estimates the Sackler family fortune at $13 billion, making the Sacklers the 19th wealthiest family in the nation.

Sacklers Accused Of Shielding One Billion Dollars As Hedge Against Litigation : NPR

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Jury awards $17M to 3 plaintiffs in deadly Amtrak derailment

On By peanutgallerynhIn Infrastructure and Transportation,Leave a comment

On Dec. 18, 2017, Amtrak’s first paid passenger run on a new route from Tacoma to Portland, Oregon, plunged onto Interstate 5 near DuPont, killing three people and injuring more than 60 others. Amtrak admitted liability before trial.

…In June, the National Transportation Safety Board published its final report on the crash, with the agency’s vice chairman blasting what he described as a “Titanic-like complacency” among those charged with ensuring safe train operations.

Jury awards $17M to 3 plaintiffs in deadly Amtrak derailment – ABC News

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Woman Who Ran For US President In 1872 Was Compared To Satan, Locked Up

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

“Victoria did have a messianic aspect in all she did, which led her to believe she could make a major statement – that women should have the right to run for office, as well as get the vote – even if not in her lifetime,” said Myra MacPherson, author of the Woodhull biography “The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age.”

Woodhull was a contemporary of famed suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but “she was a feminist, not a suffragist,” MacPherson explained. The distinction was significant. While Anthony and Stanton primarily sought the right to vote, Woodhull espoused sexual, societal and economic liberation, concepts controversial to many suffragists.

She advocated for “free love,” a Victorian-era concept that espoused sexual and societal liberation for women and, most controversially, that women should be allowed to have sex outside marriage. Woodhull saw the institution as nothing more than a trap that robbed women of their identity, and denied them ownership not only of property but their own bodies. At that time, when women married, they were completely subsumed by their husbands, with their rights to property and their children rendered moot. Long before “domestic violence” entered the public lexicon, Woodhull was speaking before crowds about the evils of rape within marriage.

…And then, in November 1872, Woodhull and Claflin published a salacious accusation that a famous Protestant minister, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, was having an affair. (For more context on Beecher’s standing: His sister was abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”) Beecher had preached against “free love,” and Woodhull saw the affair as an example of a double standard for men.

The article ran afoul of the era’s obscenity laws and spelled doom for her political career.

“The whole thing just explodes, it becomes this national sensation,” Lemay said. “Victoria Woodhull gets arrested for spreading pornography, and put into jail for a couple months.”

Imprisoned, Woodhull could not campaign, and never actually did as a presidential candidate.

Woman Who Ran For US President In 1872 Was Compared To Satan, Locked Up

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Khanna: I ‘didn’t appreciate’ Castro’s attack on Biden

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Speaking on CNN, Khanna, one of the leading supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders‘s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, said that it was possible to make the case that Biden should not lead the Democratic Party or the nation going forward without showing disrespect for the former vice president’s “lifetime of public service.”

…”I think we have to respect his service, and so I didn’t appreciate the way Castro attacked him. But I think the argument needs to be about the future, and he is not the change agent for the future in leading the party. You can say that while still respecting his lifetime of public service.”

Khanna: I ‘didn’t appreciate’ Castro’s attack on Biden | TheHill

Go home, Julian.

Who won the Democratic debate? Here are the winners and losers

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

*Julián Castro: The former San Antonio mayor had a clear plan going into this debate: Go after Biden and paint himself as the true heir to the Obama legacy. Unfortunately for Castro, he went way too hard at Biden on the age issue with his “are you forgetting” line — that he repeated four times. The attack wound up making Biden look sympathetic — and the former vice president’s response, measured and in control, made Castro look small.

Who won the Democratic debate? Here are the winners and losers – CNNPolitics

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Castro needs to find a way to create a moment for himself without pulling anyone else down. It’s way past starting to make him look petty and whiny.

Beto O’Rourke just did Republicans a massive favor on guns

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Beto O’Rourke just did Republicans a massive favor on guns – CNNPolitics

You fucktard!!!!

What the ever living fuck is wrong with your ass, Beto?

You don’t think you’ll make it to the General so you want to tank all of the other Dems chances too?

Fucking ignorant, short-sighted, dipshit.

It’s not a bout being right, you ass! It’s about appealing enough to win. Then you can be right about anything you want. Until then? No more handing the opposition  the middle gift-wrapped and on a silver platter.

Sit down and shut the fuck up before you, Cory Booker, or any of you other clearly-don’t-have-what-it-takes idiots ruin it for the entire country.

Fucking dipshit.

Andrew McCabe: prosecutors recommend charges for former FBI official

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

McCabe was fired from the FBI just before his retirement in March 2018 after the Justice Department’s internal watchdog concluded that he improperly authorized a leak about a federal investigation into the Clinton Foundation in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. Investigators concluded that he displayed a lack of candor when asked about the leak. 

…The recommendation that McCabe be charged is the latest fallout from the FBI’s handling of investigations around the 2016 presidential election, when agents investigated both of the major-party candidates. Those investigations – into Russian meddling to help Trump win the presidency and Democrat Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server – inserted the FBI into the center of fraught political controversies.

…McCabe’s firing came after the inspector general investigated the information behind a Wall Street Journal story about the Clinton Foundation to determine whether it was an unauthorized leak and if so, who was the source. The story appeared online Oct. 30, 2016, and in print Oct. 31, which was a week after another story reported that McCabe terminated the foundation probe under pressure from the Justice Department.

Investigators determined that McCabe, to promote his impartiality, authorized associates to disclose a call Aug. 12 between McCabe and the principal associate deputy attorney general to The Wall Street Journal. The call effectively confirmed the existence of the Clinton Foundation investigation, which Comey refused to do.

The inspector general found McCabe “lacked candor” when he said he hadn’t authorized the disclosure and didn’t know who did while talking to Comey, when questioned under oath by FBI agents, then when questioned under oath by investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller.

Andrew McCabe: prosecutors recommend charges for former FBI official

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Mother And Daughter Duo Have Possibly Developed The First Alzheimer’s Vaccine

On By peanutgallerynhIn Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The vaccine contains synthetic versions of amino acid chains that trigger antibodies to attack Alzheimer’s protein in the blood. The vaccine is a huge breakthrough because it attacks Alzheimer’s protein without creating any side effects.
Yi told Wired that they were able to generate some antibodies in all patients, which is very unusual for vaccines, and she noted that they’re talking about almost a 100 percent response rate.

According to the researchers, the vaccine can delay the onset of the disease by five years, which can be a godsend for people with the disease and their families.

Mother And Daughter Duo Have Possibly Developed The First Alzheimer’s Vaccine

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Sawdust Might Be One Answer to the World’s Plastic Problem – Bloomberg

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Origin Materials is getting ready to pay sawmills in the area $20 a ton for the scraps left over in the process of turning logs into lumber, which it will use to make recyclable plastic bottles that remove carbon-dioxide from the sky because they’re made from sustainably sourced wood waste.

…Other so-called bio-based plastics are being developed from sugar, corn, algae, seaweed, sewage and even dead beetles.

…However ingenious the techniques to make plant-based bottles may get, though, they’re still plastic. Not all varieties are recyclable or biodegradable. And ultimately unless they are recycled — and worldwide only one out of every five bottles is — plastic bottles inevitably end up in landfills where they may spew pollutants into the air, or worse, find their way into the oceans where most could take hundreds of years to degrade, killing birds, fish and whales in the process. When incinerating, bio-based plastics may be little better than oil-based ones because the carbon stored in them is released.

…Phasing out petroleum-based plastics will be an uphill battle. Use of the material has become so ingrained for societies around the world that about half of all new oil demand through 2040 will come from petrochemicals, an industry that relies on plastics for most of its business, according to BloombergNEF. The $500 billion global plastics market is responsible for 5% of greenhouse gas emissions.

…Nestle alone produces 1.7 million tons of plastic packaging a year. …Beverage makers like Coca-Cola Co. and Pepsi use a lot more than that. Coca-Cola rolled out its so-called plantbottle in 2009, but it’s still 70% petroleum based.

Sawdust Might Be One Answer to the World’s Plastic Problem – Bloomberg

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Andrew McCabe, Ex-FBI Deputy Director, Sues Justice Department Over Firing

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

McCabe said he was “singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey,” he said in a statement last year.

…Comey also said that the process had been infected with “corrosive doubt” because of Trump’s attacks on McCabe in the past. Trump targeted McCabe in part because his wife had unsuccessfully run for state office in Virginia with support from Democrats.

Andrew McCabe, Ex-FBI Deputy Director, Sues Justice Department Over Firing : NPR

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Patrick Crusius mother: Suspected El Paso shooter’s mother called Allen Texas police about son

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,Leave a comment

Patrick Crusius mother: Suspected El Paso shooter’s mother called Allen Texas police about son – CBS News

…And they not only did nothing but they are pretending she wasn’t calling because was concerned and wanted them to do something.

American police forces ne ver accept responsibility for their mistakes and shortcomings. They like they were Donald Trump or something.

There will never be law and order or justice until all American police departments undergo a complete culture change.

…Perhaps they should be banned from having lobbyists or a police union to speak for them? The peanut gallery is usually prounion law enforcement talking heads are a major part of the problem.