(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest: Clarence Thomas is on the take [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-06 Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire ProPublica In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef. If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too. For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks. The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones expelled from TN legislature The Tennessean Thursday, April 6, 2023 was an unprecedented day in Tennessee politics. The state House took up resolutions to expel three Democratic lawmakers over their actions interrupting a floor session and using a bullhorn to lead chants for gun control. Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, was expelled by a vote of 72 to 25 after 90 minutes of debate. Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, was not expelled after the resolution to oust her failed by one vote. Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, was expelled by a vote of 69 to 26. Jones' expulsion marks the fourth time since the end of the Civil War when House members expelled their elected colleagues. […] As the vote concluded, spectators in the gallery yelled “shame on you” and “fascists!” Ukrainian forces cling onto besieged city, China pressed to help end war Reuters Ukrainian and Russian forces battled in Bakhmut, the devastated eastern city which has become a symbol of Kyiv's defiance, while seven civilians were reported killed by Ukrainian artillery strikes in Russian-controlled areas. Ukrainian soldiers in trenches just outside Bakhmut said they were ready for a long-anticipated counter-offensive once the weather improves. Elsewhere, other Ukrainian recruits trained hard for new combat missions. In Beijing, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to use his influence to persuade Russia to halt the war, now in its 14th month, and come to the negotiating table. Ukraine War Plans Leak Prompts Pentagon Investigation The New York Times Classified war documents detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russia were posted this week on social media channels, senior Biden administration officials said. The Pentagon is investigating who may have been behind the leak of the documents, which appeared on Twitter and on Telegram, a platform with more than half a billion users that is widely available in Russia. Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed. 'Just the way the Nazis did': Evidence suggests Russians are stealing art from Ukraine on a World War II scale NBC News Last fall, Ukrainian troops were closing in on Kherson, rolling back Russian forces who had seized the city after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine. At the Kherson Regional Art Museum, a team of armed Russians in civilian clothes arrived along with several large trucks and buses. Over five days, they hauled away more than 11,000 pieces of art, including paintings, sculptures, graphics and other works from Ukraine and around the world, said Alina Dotsenko, the director of the museum. “It was obvious that it was all planned. The decision to loot the museum was not made on the spot,” Dotsenko said. “It was all carefully planned.” The theft, verified by human rights monitors and independent scholars, was not an isolated incident. Biden vetoes Clean Water Act resolution E&E News President Joe Biden on Thursday vetoed a Congressional Review Act resolution against the administration’s rule to define the Clean Water Act’s reach. The legislation now heads back to Capitol Hill, where critics of the waters of the U.S., or WOTUS, rule lack enough support to override Biden’s veto despite support from several moderate Democrats in both the House and Senate. Thursday’s veto is the second such action by the president to defend his energy and environment policies, with Republicans looking to attack the administration’s agenda and put moderate Democrats in a tough spot. In defending the latest veto, the White House said the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers’ rule provides “clear rules of the road that will help advance infrastructure projects, economic investments, and agricultural activities — all while protecting water quality and public health.” Biden review of chaotic Afghan withdrawal blames Trump AP News President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday laid the blame on his predecessor… for the deadly and chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that brought about some of the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency. The White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the so-called “hotwash ” of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation’s longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that Biden was “severely constrained” by Trump’s decisions. It does acknowledge that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but blames the delays on the Afghan government and military, and on U.S. military and intelligence community assessments. Probe widens into federal watchdog over missing Jan. 6 Secret Service texts The Washington Post A nearly two-year investigation into allegations of misconduct by the Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog expanded this week to include his role in missing Secret Service text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. On Monday, investigators demanded records related to the deleted texts from the Office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, an appointee of … Donald Trump whose office shut down an inquiry into the Secret Service messages last year amid the House’s probe of the insurrection. The records request, which was revealed in a federal lawsuit this week filed by Cuffari and his staff against the panel of inspectors leading the probe, suggests new urgency in a high-profile investigation that began in May 2021 and has since evolved into a wide-ranging inquiry into dozens of allegations of misconduct, including partisan decision-making, investigative failures and retaliation against whistleblowers. The Biden administration moves to make broad, transgender sports bans illegal NPR News On Thursday, the U.S. Education Department announced a proposed change to Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs. The proposal would make it illegal for schools to broadly ban transgender students from sports teams that align with their gender identity, rather than their assigned sex at birth. The department says the move comes after two years of outreach to stakeholders across the country, and the changes still give schools some flexibility to ban transgender athletes depending on age and sport. "Every student should be able to have the full experience of attending school in America, including participating in athletics, free from discrimination," said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. "Being on a sports team is an important part of the school experience for students of all ages." Israel launches airstrikes in Lebanon and Gaza Strip after ‘biggest rocket salvo since 2006’ The Guardian Israeli jets hit sites in Lebanon and Gaza early on Friday, in retaliation for rocket attacks it blamed on the Islamist group Hamas, as tensions following police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem this week threatened to spiral out of control. Two explosions were heard in Gaza late on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted but Israel said its jets hit targets including tunnels and weapons manufacturing sites of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the blockaded southern coastal strip. “Israel’s response, tonight and later, will exact a significant price from our enemies,” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a security cabinet meeting to discuss what the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) described as the biggest rocket salvo since the 2006 war into northern Israel. Most of the 34 projectiles were intercepted, but there were two minor injuries and a fire. COVID-origins data from Wuhan market published: what scientists think Nature Researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) have published an eagerly awaited analysis of swabs collected at a wet market in Wuhan, China, in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic — as well as the underlying data, which the international research community has been calling for since the beginning of the outbreak. The analysis, published in Nature on 5 April, confirms that swabs from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market — which closed in January 2020 and has long been linked to the start of the pandemic — contained genetic material from wild animals and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. This suggests that it’s possible an animal could have been an intermediate host of a virus that spilled over to infect humans. But researchers say the latest findings still fall short of providing definitive proof that SARS-CoV-2 originated from an animal-to-human spillover event. […] Still, researchers say that the publication of the genomic data, which have been deposited on open repositories, is crucial — because it will allow further analyses that could offer clues about the pandemic’s origin. In Taiwan, citizens train for a Chinese invasion UPI On a recent Saturday in Taipei, a few dozen men and women met in a community center beneath a 100-year-old red-brick Presbyterian church. At first glance, it looked like the setting for a cooking or language class, but the students were here for a more serious subject: lessons on what to do if China invades, a once-distant prospect that is increasingly seen as a very real possibility on this self-governing island. The all-day class was held by Kuma Academy, the best-known of a handful of private civil defense training organizations that have popped up in Taiwan in recent years. In front of a banner featuring the logo of a cartoon bear holding an assault rifle (the group's name is "black bear" in Chinese), instructors taught students about cognitive warfare, invasion scenarios and how to identify Chinese soldiers. Fulton DA Willis calls Trump’s insults ‘ridiculous’ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis called insults leveled against her by Donald Trump “ridiculous” and said the former president can say what he chooses so long as it doesn’t amount to a threat. In a speech to supporters on Tuesday, just hours after he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts in Manhattan, Trump railed against Willis’ investigation into his alleged criminal meddling in the 2020 presidential election. He also called Willis, who is Black, “racist.” “The comment does not concern me at all,” Willis said in the interview with Channel 2 Action News. “But I support his right to be protected by the First Amendment and say what he likes. ... People have the right to say whatever they choose to say as long as it does not rise to the level of threats against myself, my staff or my family.” ‘Abuse of Power’: Alvin Bragg Slams Jim Jordan for Subpoena Rolling Stone Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is doing his best to undermine Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against the former president. The Trump sycophant issued a subpoena to former New York County Special Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz on Wednesday, demanding testimony regarding his resignation from Bragg’s office. Pomerantz’s departure from the district attorney’s office was motivated by disagreements over his belief that Bragg was not moving to bring charges against Trump quickly enough. In his letter to Pomerantz, Jordan wrote that “as a special assistant district attorney, you seem, for reasons unrelated to the facts of this particular investigation, to have been searching for any basis on which to bring criminal charges.” Bragg responded to the subpoena by rebuking Jordan for meddling in a state investigation by a federal lawmaker. “The House GOP continues to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation,” he wrote. “Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law.” A once reluctant Harris embraces her biracial identity in Africa Los Angeles Times Crowds of locals packed onto balconies and cheered as Vice President Kamala Harris’ motorcade pulled onto a manicured, palm-tree lined driveway, near where she had visited her grandfather in the late 1960s. But something wasn’t quite right. Harris was wrapping up a weeklong trip across Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia aimed at highlighting Africa’s economic potential. Like any vice president facing a near-certain reelection campaign, though, she was also focused on her political future. As the No. 2 to America’s oldest-ever chief executive, she wanted to show off her foreign policy bona fides and reassure voters that she’s prepared to lead. Last week’s trip also offered Harris, who prefers projecting her strength and expertise to displaying the vulnerability that comes with talking about biography and family history, an opportunity to remind the public of her personal story, and to tie together its many threads. That’s the sort of mission a visit to your Indian grandfather’s house in Zambia is supposed to accomplish. How Rural America Steals Girls’ Futures The Atlantic “Boy crazy” was what people called it. “She was so boy crazy,” I would hear about my girlfriends. I never heard the reverse, that a boy was “girl crazy.” Girls having crushes, sneaking out at night to have fun: It seems innocent enough. But in my small, conservative town, a “wrong” choice at a young age could cut girls off from their future dreams, leaving them mired in despair. Growing up in the ’90s in Clinton, Arkansas, all that my best friend, Darci Brawner, and I dreamed about was getting out. “I want to see new people and new places,” I wrote in my journal when I was 12. I wanted to move to California but would take “any state besides Oklahoma or Mississippi.” We wanted careers, we wanted to be rich and famous, we wanted to be far away. Boys and sex would only stop us, catch us, or so my mother had warned. Minnesota organic dairy farmers face peril after rising grain costs push consumer prices higher Star Tribune On a cold March afternoon in southeastern Minnesota's Driftless Area, Casey O'Reilly sent his three sons to coax the cows into the milking parlor. It didn't take much. "This one's always first up," Carsyn O'Reilly, 17, said, nodding toward a Holstein standing in the entryway. "She knows her spot." One by one, the dairy cows lumbered into stalls as the teenage sons sprayed orange disinfectant on the udders. Everyone — including Casey's wife — helped out. "I've got a real job, too," Kim O'Reilly, who works as a banker in town and grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, said. "On top of this one, that is." She knows they're one of the lucky ones. The robots are coming ― to pick Northwest apples Oregon Pubic Radio News In the orchards of Central Washington, a new kind of technology is revolutionizing the fruit tree industry. One of the robots being tested is 14 feet tall and has six mechanical arms with suction cups at the end for gently removing apples with minimal damage. On-board stereo cameras act as the robot’s eyes, ensuring that it chooses only the ripest, healthiest apples. Orchardist Kent Karstetter is a firm believer that technology has an important role to play in the progress of farming, and sees robots as a necessary part of the future. “This robot can work 24 hours a day,” he said. “That can help us get the job done.” Magnets wipe memories from meteorites, erasing billion-year-old data Science In 2011, nomads roaming the western Sahara encountered precious time capsules from Mars: coal-black chunks of a meteorite, strewn across the dunes. “Black Beauty,” as the parent body came to be known, captivated scientists and collectors because it contained crystals that formed on Mars more than 4.4 billion years ago, making it older than any native rock on Earth. Jérôme Gattacceca, a paleomagnetist at the European Centre for Research and Teaching in Environmental Geosciences, hoped it might harbor a secret message, imprinted by the now-defunct martian magnetic field—which is thought to have helped the planet sustain an atmosphere, water, and possibly even life. But when Gattacceca obtained a piece of Black Beauty and tried to decode its magnetic inscription, he found its memory had been wiped—Men in Black style—and replaced by a stronger signal. He instantly knew the culprit. Somewhere along its journey from Moroccan desert to street dealers to laboratory, the rock had been touched by strong hand magnets, a widely used technique for identifying meteorites. “It’s a pity that, just by using magnets, we’ve been destroying this scientific information that was stored there for 4 billion years,” Gattacceca says. In a new study, Foteini Vervelidou, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and her colleagues have documented the destructive power of the hand magnets, which are often made from rare-earth metals such as neodymium and are typically about 10,000 times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field. When brought within a few centimeters of a rock, the researchers found, the magnets overwrite vestigial fields contained in iron-based minerals such as magnetite and reset them to the higher strength and orientation of the magnet. In an instant, a unique view into the heart of distant rocky bodies can be erased. Black Beauty, for example, is the only known meteorite old enough to “remember” Mars’s magnetic field before it started to disappear about 4 billion years ago. Jellyfish and flies use the same hormone when they’ve had enough to eat Ars Technica [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/6/2162564/-Overnight-News-Digest-Clarence-Thomas-is-on-the-take Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/