Friday, January 03, 2025
What The Public Thinks Trump Will And Won't Be Able To Do
About 211,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment report on Thursday. It showed about 211,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on December 28th. Here is the official Labor Department statement:
In the week ending December 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 211,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 219,000 to 220,000. The 4-week moving average was 223,250, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 226,500 to 226,750.
Trump Was Wrong (Again) - Here Is The Truth About The New Orleans Attacker
Donald Trump was quick to assume the attacker in New Orleans was an immigrant because he had dark skin and a foreign-sounding name. He wasn't. It was just another Trump lie!
Federal authorities named the suspect as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar.
Born in Beaumont, Texas.
He studied for two years at Georgia State University between 2015 and 2017, the school confirmed Wednesday, and graduated with a bachelor’s in business administration.
Has a record of minor offenses in Katy, Texas including misdemeanor theft in 2002 and driving with a suspended or invalid license in 2005.
Jabbar spent ten years in the military as a human resources and IT specialist and also worked as a realtor in Houston.
Jabbar, an American citizen, is understood to have served from 2007 to 2015 in the U.S. military. He deployed to Afghanistan before transitioning to the Army Reserve, where he served until 2020.
An ISIS flag-carrying U.S. Army veteran who converted to Islam.
Authorities had recovered other writings tying him to the Middle-East based terror group (ISIS).
Records show that Jabbar was married twice, with his first marriage ending in 2012. The suspect filed a court document in August 2022 as part of further divorce proceedings that said he said he worked at the time for the accounting firm Deloitte and made about $120,000 a year.
He said he owed more than $27,000 in late payments on his house and was facing foreclosure.
His ex-wife earlier went to court to get a restraining order against him during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Thursday, January 02, 2025
The Epidemic Of Mass Shootings Continued In 2024
There were 501 mass shootings in the United States in 2024 (a shooting in which at least four people were shot - not counting the shooter). That's slightly less than in 2023, but it's not a reason to celebrate. There were still about one and a half mass shooting for every day on average.
This doesn't happen in any other developed nation. None of them even come close to the carnage allowed to happen in the United States. The sad part is that it doesn't have to be that way. A few reasonable gun laws could prevent most of those shootings - and it could be done without violating the Constitution's Second Amendment.
Unfortunately, even though most Americans want those laws, it won't happen. It won't happen this year or the next because the government is controlled by Republicans. And Republicans have decided that it's more important to protect the right of criminals and other dangerous people to buy a gun than it is to save the innocent lives of Americans.
Expect 2025 to be a bloody one - with a ridiculous and unnecessary number of mass shootings (and gun deaths.
NOTE - the numbers in the chart above are from the Gun Violence Archive.
Wednesday, January 01, 2025
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I wish all my readers a very happy new year. I hope you can keep your resolutions, and fervently wish you will not be hurt by the incoming administration.
PRRI Poll Shows Many Worried About The Incoming Administration
The charts above are from a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute -- done between November 8th and December 2nd of a nationwide sample of 5,772 adults, with a 1.72 point margin of error.
CN = christian nationalists
RWA = right-wing authoritarian
Why Don't Texas Republicans Care About Dying Babies?
Since the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the establishment of a near-total abortion ban in Texas, at least 18 newborns were abandoned by their mothers after giving birth, often in trash receptacles and almost always fatally.
Texas has a famously broken natal healthcare system. The Commonwealth Fund, a national women’s health nonprofit, ranked the state the second-worst place to give birth in 2024. The reasons include a failure to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and a resulting high rate of uninsured pregnant people, a crumbling rural healthcare infrastructure, a lack of reproductive health professionals after large-scale exodus following the state’s abortion ban, and Governor Greg Abbott’s recent crackdown on undocumented immigrants using hospital services.
The latter is in the spotlight thanks to a recent newborn abandonment in Houston over the summer. First responders were able to rescue an abandoned baby from a dumpster. His mother, a Guatemalan migrant whose actions were caught on parking lot CCTV cameras, was arrested a few days later. The mother is a teenager named Everilda Cux-Ajtzalam, who was working in a food truck by herself when she left to give birth. Following her arrest, Cux-Ajtzalam said that she didn’t go to a clinic because she was afraid of being deported. She claims a relative raped her, leading to the pregnancy.
Before the fall of Roe, Houston had seven newborn abandonments a year. That number has nearly doubled following the loss of reproductive choice and the hardline crackdown on undocumented immigrants seeking medical attention.
Nor is abandonment the only danger on the rise in the state. Johns Hopkins University observed that infant deaths were up by 12 percent across the board in Texas following the abortion ban. Neglect, violence, and poor post-natal care all contribute to the increasing number of newborn and infant deaths.
Texas was the first state to establish “Baby Moses” laws (also known as safe haven laws) in 1999. The laws make it legal to surrender a baby that is less than 60 days old at a fire station or other emergency services location. This is supposed to deter people from abandoning children in dumpsters.
In practice, these law are a mixed success at best. The National Safe Haven Alliance estimates 4,000 children have been saved through the practice, but there is no systemic, scientific review of the data to back that up. Nor do they address the hardships surrounding pregnancy for people with limited resources. As Jamie Marsella of the peer-reviewed medical history blog Nursing Clio put it in 2023:
“These laws do nothing to prevent unwanted pregnancies, provide support or resources for victims of domestic violence or assault, or ensure access to contraception or abortion services for those who do not wish to be pregnant. They don’t offer medical care for pregnant people who cannot afford the costs of pregnancy or childrearing, nor do they offer resources for pregnant people who wish to parent their children but fear they can’t due to lack of resources, safety, or employment. Further, they don’t account for the emotional and psychological toll of infant surrender and adoption on either the parent or the child. Even though these laws putatively prioritize the child, they do nothing to ensure that the children involved will find themselves in a safe and caring environment as they grow.”
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