What's up? News of the world....

[Foxaèr]

IK,R? Better than hanging someone from a tree in a public park. Besides which, those things peel right off, and a little IPA will remove the glue easily. If I ever wanted a ride to said state (not fucking likely, TYVM), I'd even accept plane fare and per diem to wipe their hero's crying eyes.

I know, right.  Conservatives burn crosses and lynch people.  Liberals glue googley eyes onto monuments.  Liberals are so evil.

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Witches to 'hex' Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh; exorcists pray in response

The witches will gather at Catland Books, a "metaphysical boutique and occult bookshop" in Brooklyn, New York on Saturday, according to the event’s Facebook page.

According to its Facebook page, the event is not only aimed Kavanaugh but also at people who the bookstore owners say have committed sexual assault or perpetuate patriarchy.

There will also be a second ritual after the initial hex called “The Rites of the Scorned One,” a ritual which “seeks to validate, affirm, uphold and support those of us who have been wronged and who refuse to be silent any longer."

A group of Catholics and exorcists has responded to the bookstore's hex plans with plans of their own to “pray and fast, not just for the protection of Kavanaugh, but for those who wish him harm.”

Unfortunately, this is not The Onion.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/witches-...d=58585740

[Astreja]

Canada's newest entrepreneur sells cookies outside marijuana store:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/...-1.4868520

Unfortunately, this may make it harder for -me- to score a box of chocolate mint cookies, as I am not of the toking persuasion.

[Angrboda]

Khashoggi Disappearance May Disrupt Trump Administration’s Plans to Squeeze Iran

White House officials are worried that the apparent killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and Saudi Arabia’s changing account of his fate, could derail a showdown with Iran and jeopardize plans to enlist Saudi help to avoid disrupting the oil market.

Officials said the dilemma comes at a fraught moment for the Trump administration, which is expected to reimpose harsh sanctions against Iran on Nov. 5, with the intent of cutting off all Iranian oil exports.

But to make the strategy work, the administration is counting on its relationship with the Saudis to keep global oil flowing without spiking prices, and to work together on a new policy to contain Iran in the Persian Gulf.

If that carefully coordinated plan moves forward, the Saudis would likely see a significant increase in oil revenue at exactly the moment Congress is talking about penalizing the kingdom over the Khashoggi case. It is one reason that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was sent, with a few hours’ notice, to see King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday.

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In interviews this week, Trump administration officials and outside experts said that possible repercussions on an elaborate plan to squeeze the Iranians have dominated internal discussions about the fallout over what happened to Mr. Khashoggi.

By comparison, they said, the issue of limiting American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which Mr. Trump has said would threaten American jobs, pales in importance. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss internal conversations.

[Angrboda]

Congress would have happily given Mr. Trump a deal, allowing him to build his wall in exchange for legal status for “dreamers,” immigrants brought here as children who are American in all but their documents. As he inflames his base on the campaign trail, we’re seeing why the president wouldn’t take yes for an answer.

REPUBLICANS INSIST that, on the immigration debate, Democrats want an issue, not a solution. That seems a better way of characterizing President Trump’s own immigration approach, which he has publicly urged GOP candidates to weaponize in the midterm elections. In response to a caravan of migrants heading northward from Honduras, Mr. Trump threatened to deploy the military, close the southern border, tear up a just-concluded trade deal with Mexico and Canada, and sever aid to impoverished Central American countries.

Even for a president to whom no issue is immune to overreaction, this latest temper-tantrum was an overreach; the last such migrant caravan from Honduras, in April, mostly dissolved before it reached the U.S. border. Still, Mr. Trump is delighted at the chance of deploying this latest migration as a cudgel. “Great Midterm issue for Republicans!” he tweeted Wednesday.

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Family separation 2.0, as conceived by the White House, would present migrant parents with what officials call a “binary choice.” They could remain with their children in detention for months or years — the waiting period reflects the huge backlog in immigration cases — or give them up to the government, which would place them in shelters until other relatives or guardians could seek custody. Aside from the fact that there is nothing approaching the capacity in existing detention centers to absorb even a reduced flow of family migrants, the administration’s blueprint may not be legal. As a deterrent, it is also unlikely to work. Fiscal year 2018’s record number of family members detained along the southwestern border coincided with the uproar over family separations last spring.

[Angrboda]

‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.

A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

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The Department of Health and Human Services has called on the “Big Four” agencies that enforce some part of Title IX — the Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Labor — to adopt its definition in regulations that will establish uniformity in the government and increase the likelihood that courts will accept it.

The definition is integral to two proposed rules currently under review at the White House: One from the Education Department deals with complaints of sex discrimination at schools and colleges receiving federal financial assistance; the other, from health and human services, deals with health programs and activities that receive federal funds or subsidies. Both regulations are expected to be released this fall, and would then be open for public comment, typically for 60 days. The agencies would consider the comments before issuing final rules with the force of law — both of which could include the new gender definition.

Civil rights groups have been meeting with federal officials in recent weeks to argue against the proposed definition, which has divided career and political appointees across the administration. Some officials hope that health and human services will at least rein in the most extreme parts, such as the call for genetic testing to determine sex.

After more than a year of discussions, health and human services is preparing to formally present the new definition to the Justice Department before the end of the year, Trump administration officials say. If the Justice Department decides that the change is legal, the new definition can be approved and enforced in Title IX statutes, and across government agencies.

[Amarok]

Scary

[I_am_not_mafia]

I once appeared naked in The News of the World.

[Foxaèr]

Even scarier.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Even scarier.

Was a shock when I found out I can tell you.

[Angrboda]