Minnesota officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright freed
Kim Potter, the Minnesota police officer who said she mistook her gun for a Taser and killed Daunte Wright in 2021, was released from prison early Monday
abcnews.go.com
Kim Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who said she mistook her gun for a Taser when she shot and killed Daunte Wright in 2021, was released from prison early Monday.
She was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and given a two-year sentence. Under Minnesota law, those sent to prison typically serve two-thirds of their sentence behind bars and the remaining time on supervised release. In Potter’s case, she served 16 months of her two-year sentence behind bars, said Department of Corrections spokesman Andy Skoogman.
Skoogman said Potter will be on supervised release until Dec. 21, and she will live in Wisconsin during that time.
Actually it was Maddie who made the comment as she gestured to Kaylee. This interview is an important revelation. Up till now the police have been waffling all over the place about the possibility that at least one of the victim of the Idaho murder was being stalked.
You wonder why our defense budget keeps growing during a pandemic. Why we spend more than the next 10 countries combined. And why we don’t win wars anymore. Then look no further than a Congress that is bought-off. Democrats and Republicans disagree on everything. But they do agree on defense spending. Congress gets outraged about providing programs for the poor and needy in America. There is no issue sending billions to Ukraine. Not even a little. That is our system. But we were warned decades ago. President Eisenhower warned us about the M.I.C. Obviously we have not learned our lesson:
Every year, the defense industry donates millions of dollars to the campaigns of members of Congress, creating pressure on the legislative branch to fund specific weapons systems, maintain an extremely high Pentagon budget, and add ever more military spending. This upwards pressure is a constant, no matter what figure is requested by the president for the Pentagon, even though nearly 50% of the current Pentagon budget already goes to private contractors each year.
Members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are especially targeted by defense contractors. These committee members determine the amount of money authorized for the Pentagon when the committee marks up the annual Pentagon policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.
Because of this critical position, the defense contractors pour money into the reelection campaigns of these members, creating a self-fulfilling feedback loop that many call the “military-industrial-Congressional complex.” This year, the armed services committees voted to increase the Pentagon budget beyond the President’s $813 billion request for the Pentagon for the coming fiscal year, a $31 billion increase from the previous fiscal year, by an additional $37.5 billion in the House and $45 billion in the Senate.
Illinois has a long history of high-ranking politicians going to jail. This case won’t be any different. Obama came from this political machine:
The federal indictment against former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on Wednesday sent shockwaves through the halls of state and local government, with politicians from both sides of the aisle condemning Madigan’s alleged behavior as "deplorable" and "disturbing."
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, a political foe of Madigan’s for years, said Wednesday "may be the darkest day in Illinois government history."
A wedding in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province turned deadly on Friday after alleged Taliban members shot and killed three people during a fight concerning whether music could be played, according to local town residents.
At least 10 others were injured during the altercation, which took place after three gunmen demanded that the wedding party stop playing music, NBC News reported. Two residents of the area said they recognized the gunmen as local Taliban members.
It never gets better. Just worse. And along with trade deficits come the loss of good jobs. But U.S. corporations don’t care about that. They are reeking big profits by moving operations abroad to take advantage of cheap, repressed labor abroad:
The U.S. trade deficit increased to a record $73.3 billion in August as a small gain in exports was swamped by a much larger increase in imports.
The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that the monthly trade deficit increased 4.2% in August, rising to an all-time high, surpassing the previous record of $73.2 billion set in June. The trade deficit represents the gap between what the country exports to the rest of the world and the imports it purchases from other countries.
In August, exports rose 0.5% to $213.7 billion, reflecting revived overseas demand. But imports, even with all the supply chain problems at ports, were up an even stronger 1.4% to $287 billion.
The politically sensitive deficit with China surged 10.8% to $31.7 billion.
Even a pro-business outlet like CNBC has to admit that trade deficits are a bad for the U.S.:
China trade deficit has cost the US 3.7 million jobs this century, report says
The U.S. has lost 3.7 million jobs since 2001 due to its trade imbalance with China, with most of the damage done to manufacturing, according to a report released Thursday.
As the deficit has continued to swell, American workers have suffered, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., generally considered to be left leaning.
The facts speaks for themselves. Trade deficits began to appear in 1976. At around the same period manufacturing jobs in the U.S. began to decline. In the 1978 the number of manufacturing jobs peaked (month of December) at 19.3 million jobs (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics). They’ve been declining ever since then. Today about 7 million jobs are in manufacturing. Manufacturing is what built the American middle class.
There is clearly a connection between trade deficits and the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Sinema is fond of mocking her critics. Now she’s upset that she’s being held to account for her betrayal of Democratic voters:
Senator Kyrsten Sinema is firing back at protesters’ "unacceptable behavior" after they followed her into a bathroom at Arizona State University over the weekend.
Videos posted to social media Sunday showed a group of people trail the Democratic lawmaker through a campus hallway. The group continued to berate Sinema as she entered a bathroom stall.
The 99 Percenters 