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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 1h

It won the subject line in today’s newsletter from down-the-middle New Jersey monitor. Doubt he’ll comment further. His answer to any question of consequence is always “I’m too busy doing THE WORK to answer that” and meanwhile “the work“ seems to be just going on IG live saying he’s doing the work.

Cory Booker's urgency
MORNING MONITOR
A Watchdog for the Garden State
Thanks for being here and supporting our work.

Cory Booker: The hosts of podcast I've Had It grilled Sen. Cory Booker over his support of Israel during the war in Gaza and found something that personally irks myself and many other members of the press:
Some politicians refuse to answer a yes-or-no question, and with Booker there's a particular way he refuses to answer a straight question that frustrates. Here's the first part of that exchange:
Jennifer Welch (host): "Do you think he's a war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu? Do you think he's a war criminal?"
Booker: "I, again, these are questions that a lot of people think are the important litmus tests that are loaded and hot. My urgency is to be an effective leader in bringing an end to this crisis. And I get these questions all the time that, to me, undermine my urgency."

It undermines his urgency, ladies!!! Welch then expressed frustration that the Democratic Party's leaders don't answer yes-or-no questions, even on that particularly loaded topic. Booker interrupted her to say this: "Here's the yes-or-no that you want. Do I think Netanyahu's worse than Trump? Yes." You should listen to the whole segment. I look forward to the next time Booker gives a reporter from New Jersey 40 minutes of his time (lol).

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 1h

“They bundled me like a log of wood from all the sides and they were just carrying me like a corpse,” he said.
…
“I told him ‘I can’t breathe,’” the man said. “He responded, ’I don’t care, I’m doing my job.’”

Bucks County Beacon @buckscountybeacon.com · 1d

ICE’s Use of a Full-Body Restraint on Immigrants, Referred to as ‘the Burrito’, Raises Concerns Over Inhumane Treatment | The WRAP is the subject of a growing number of federal lawsuits likening incorrect usage of the device to punishment and torture.

ICE's Use of a Full-Body Restraint on Immigrants, Referred to as 'the Burrito', Raises Concerns Over Inhumane Treatment - Bucks County Beacon

The WRAP is the subject of a growing number of federal lawsuits likening incorrect usage of the device to punishment and torture, and when used by local law enforcement has even resulted in deaths.

buckscountybeacon.com

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 22h

even if you already think regulatory law is just an honor system, wait until you find out about “dietary supplements.“

paris martineau @paris.nyc · 23h

i was surprised to learn that bc most protein powders are considered dietary supplements, they basically fall into a regulatory grey area

there's no federal limit on the amount of lead they can contain and neither manufacturers nor the FDA have to prove these products are safe before they're sold

Protein powders and shakes, like all dietary supplements, fall into something of a regulatory gray area.

There is no federal limit specifying the amount of lead allowed in protein powders. And while the FDA requires that manufacturers keep their products free of harmful contaminants, it largely leaves it up to companies to decide what counts as harmful and test their own products for compliance.

Before 1994, manufacturers had to prove herbal products were safe before selling them. That changed after Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. The law sharply limited the FDA’s authority, leaving supplements far less regulated than drugs.

Today, supplements are “presumed safe unless found otherwise,” says Cohen at Harvard Medical School, and most products face scrutiny only after reaching the market—meaning unsafe or contaminated supplements can reach consumers before problems are caught.

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 1d

Marilyn Monroe can’t be in Game of Thrones because she’s been dead for 63 years. Hope this helps.

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Reposted by elenore

Los Angeles Times @latimes.com · 2d

'We're chasing what's left of life': Gazans journey back to destruction

‘We’re chasing what’s left of life’: Gazans journey back to destruction

Gaza residents return to homes destroyed by the Israeli military during the war with Hamas. “I remember my window was there,” said one Gazan, pointing to where his house used to be.

www.latimes.com

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 5d

that plus this is just the bog-standard crowd-out defense of means-testing that’s been in vogue for the last few decades despite how “bus,” just like “student loan cancellation,” is not in any real sense a finite resource.

Reposted by elenore

Harms Committed @harmscommitted.com · 5d

"[W]hen 'bullets crashed through the window and hit Miguel,' he turned to the 18 year-old boy sitting next to him in the van and said, 'I don't think I'm going to make it, get underneath me. Let me shield you.'"
#Texas #USA #Incarceration #Deportation #EthnicCleansing

In Dallas, Organizers Mourn the Immigrant Victims of Recent ICE Shooting

At a vigil outside city hall last week, advocates gathered to “center the victims” and to condemn the “dehumanization” of migrants by the federal government.

www.texasobserver.org

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 5d

And don’t get me started on “infection controls,” but the resources to respond to the—at this point predictable—traumatic injuries with potential lifelong consequences are indefensible. To my knowledge, the people on hand to respond to medical emergencies at WNBA games are employees of the teams.

elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 5d

the in-house scientists of a vast profit-making industry have never led us astray before, so I’m optimistic.

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 5d

As a former paramedic I just have to say “concussion protocols” in pro sports are motivated by capital and not medical evidence and, besides, they’re never followed. This is a serious occupational health issue, and players’ unions are among those falling down in the job. It’s disgusting to watch.

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 6d

lmao.

elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 7d

let’s fucking go.

hardcover copy of the book Shadow Docket by Thomas Pynchon

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 7d

bring down an empire in 191 minutes with this one weird trick.

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 7d

the fact that she’s talking about the MOVIE Gandhi (1982) is so fucking funny lmao.

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 8d

And when Germany took control of France, they enthusiastically started using a better tank they found there.

elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 10d

"While the firefighters were inside, a white panel van of the kind ICE sometimes uses to transport detainees raced out of the federal complex's underground garage and through the gap in the crowd that had parted to let the fire truck pass, according to eyewitnesses.”

Hell Gate *subscribe today!* @hellgatenyc.com · Jun 10

On Saturday, the FDNY rushed to 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE is holding more than 100 people in inhumane conditions, to respond to an emergency call, only to learn there was no such emergency. What's going on? hellgatenyc.com/fdny-ice-hea...

The FDNY Was Sped to ICE Headquarters for a Bogus 911 Call: 'They Used Us'

After the fire truck pulled up to the federal building where more than 100 people are being held, a van of the sort ICE uses to transport detainees sped out past protesters.

hellgatenyc.com

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 11d

she only supports killing children in *other* countries.

Detroit Free Press @freep.com · 20d

BREAKING: Rep. Haley Stevens to call for RFK Jr.'s impeachment bit.ly/47Wm2xl

Reposted by elenore

Anjali Enjeti @anjalienjeti.bsky.social · 13d

My god.

“Watson said she saw agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without any clothes on and into U-Haul vans. Kids were separated from their mothers…’It was heartbreaking to watch…seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.’”

Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated'

The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Reposted by elenore

David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 17d

The agent admits he treats immigrants like "they're animals" and that he tells his kids that they are animals "all the time"

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 18d

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 18d

One thing the existence of “the buildings we call prisons” does is create a kind of zone of false reasonableness for anything that isn’t locking someone in a remote cage.

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 18d

when I was writing Predatory Decarceration, I came across a published law review paper that said one thing prison abolitionism fails to consider is crime (lmao) and suggesting we could resolve this tension and do “abolition” by creating a bespoke cyber-prison for every person.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Sep 3

Local man embraces fascism.

AI Startup Flock Thinks It Can Eliminate All Crime In America

With more than 80,000 AI-powered cameras across the U.S., Flock Safety has become one of cops’ go-to surveillance tools. Now CEO Garrett Langley has both police tech giant Axon and Chinese drone maker...

www.forbes.com

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 18d

idk if the himbos claim him (he can’t do a pull-up; potentially disqualifying)

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elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 19d

FYI for Philly people, PFS is hosting two screenings of a 4K restoration of the 1973 film The Spook Who Sat By The Door (tonight and Sunday).

Rare chance to see an amazing movie you’ve either never seen or have only seen in a bad YouTube upload.

filmadelphia.org/movies/the-s...

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR - Philadelphia Film Society

A new 4K restoration of the long unavailable, galvanizing masterpiece! Ivan Dixon’s seminal adaptation of the Sam Greenlee novel follows the fictional first Black CIA agent whose disillusionment within the agency fuels his own activism and training of civilians in Chicago to become freedom fighters. Presented with Reelblack.

filmadelphia.org

elenore @dropthatphone.bsky.social · 19d

Someone should really tell all the small children getting turned into roadkill by their own parents that they need to look both ways.

A bar chart showing vastly increased deaths from 15 in the decade beginning in 1989 to 575 in the decade beginning in 2009, as cars have gotten bigger and have less visibility range in front of them. The graphic explains that these "frontover" fatalities occur most often in driveways and parking lots when slow-moving vehicles don't have visibility of children in front of them.