Meanwhile, in another part of the forest that Trump is chopping down – now we want more global disease outbreaks.

Four years after the United States pledged to help the world fight infectious-disease epidemics such as Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is dramatically downsizing its epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries because money is running out, U.S. government officials said.

But don’t worry, Donald Trump’s golf courses and hotels are profiting like crazy.

The CDC programs, part of a global health security initiative, train front-line workers in outbreak detection and work to strengthen laboratory and emergency response systems in countries where disease risks are greatest. The goal is to stop future outbreaks at

Speaking of “where was the mother while this man was torturing a baby?” – the ACLU offers one example of a woman punished because a man abused their children.

Tondalao Hall spent her 13th New Year’s Day inside a prison cell this month. The man who abused her and her young children never served a single day in prison. The details of Hall’s story speak volumes about criminal injustice in the nation today.

Thirteen years ago, Tondalao Hall’s ex-boyfriend and abuser, Robert Braxton Jr., pleaded guilty to breaking the ribs and femur of their 3-month-old daughter. Hall had not abused her children. She herself was also a victim of her ex’s violence. Prosecutors presented no evidence that Hall, then

Originally a comment by iknklast on Grave concerns.

why nobody in the media seems to grasp the gravity of what the GOP is trying to do

The media has struggled with the Trump dumpster fire from the beginning, because they keep trying to do things the same way. They keep treating it as politics as usual, so they try to figure out what the strategy is, what the end game is, what Plan B might be. None of these things exist. This is a demolition operation, and unless you understand demolition, you can’t get there.

Maddow gets it because she is able to see that this is not business as usual. But most of the pundits are in the … Read the rest

The crazy is ratcheting up. Even a Republican senator is urging Nunes and his gang not to be in such a hurry to release the memo.

Mr. Thune’s note of caution joined a growing chorus of warnings from national security officials who say that releasing the memo would jeopardize sensitive government information, including how intelligence is gathered, and from Democrats who say it is politically motivated and distorts the actions of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. by omitting crucial context.

President Trump, who has made clear that he wants the memo to be public, was expected to indicate as early as Thursday that despite strong objections by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, he did not intend to

Adam Schiff (the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee) explains why the release of Nunes’s memo is such a terrible move.

As multiple investigations work to unearth the full truth, the president has lashed out with Nixonian ferocity at the Justice Department, the FBI, congressional investigators and the media.

However, unlike President Richard Nixon, who waged his Watergate fight without the same kind of vocal allies, Trump not only has an entire media ecosystem dedicated to shielding him from accountability but also senior Republicans on the Hill who have cast aside their duty to uphold the law and perform oversight in favor of protecting the Trump presidency — no matter the cost. Nunes may have wielded the committee

https://twitter.com/vonny_bravo/status/958296320808292352

https://twitter.com/vonny_bravo/status/958296899152437248… Read the rest

The drawbacks to being born female:

An eight-month-old baby girl has been raped, allegedly by her cousin, in the Indian capital Delhi.

Police say she is in a critical condition after being admitted to hospital on Sunday. They have arrested the 28-year-old cousin.

Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal, who visited the girl, described her injuries as “horrific”.

…

Ms Maliwal tweeted that the baby had undergone a three-hour operation and that her cries could be heard in the hospital.

Geeta Pandey, BBC News, Delhi, has analysis:

This distressing case of assault on an infant has shocked India and made national headlines. The extent of her injuries has horrified many and prompted them to wonder whether we have

John Crace at the Guardian does a Digested Read version of Jordan Peterson’s already brisk 12 rules for being like Jordan Peterson.

1 Stand up straight with your shoulders straight
Most lobsters are complete bastards left to their own devices. Most humans are complete bastards left to their own devices. This proves there is a God who wants us to have Order. Order is Masculine and Chaos is Feminine. Therefore to move towards Order, we all need to man up.

Order is Masculine and Chaos is Feminine except when it’s the other way around. Men are the rebels, the lone geniuses, the innovators, the disrupters, while women are the boring anal petty rule-followers and tidiers of messes who stay home … Read the rest

Also:

President Trump is seeking to parlay his first State of the Union address Tuesday into cash for his reelection campaign by offering supporters a chance to see their name flashed on the campaign’s website during the speech.

In a fundraising solicitation Monday, Trump offered those willing to pay at least $35 the opportunity to see their name displayed during a live-streaming of the address on the website.

“This is a movement,” the solicitation says. “It’s not about just one of us. It’s about ALL of us. Which is why your name deserves to be displayed during Tuesday night’s speech.”

The Web page to which the solicitation links offers donors the opportunity to contribute as much as $2,700 —

Donnie the Grifter:

Donald Trump says the Trump National Golf Club in Florida is worth more than $50m. Palm Beach County property tax appraiser Dorothy Jacks disagrees, saying the Jupiter course, where Trump plays when he visits nearby Mar-a-Lago, is actually worth $19m.

Oh burn. She’s dissing his valuable golf club resort luxury escape.

The president’s lawyers are now suing Jacks, saying her estimate and the nearly $400,000 property tax bill it generates are too high, even if her appraisal is only 40% of what the president listed in his 2017 financial disclosure form.

Oh so he’s saying it’s worse less than 50 million…and less than 19 million too. Or I suppose that it changes value depending on whether … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Anna Y on Top lobster.

Yet another guy who thinks he’s very “Alpha” spouting off about how all the feeeemales should be irresistibly attracted to him (and conveniently picking a species where this is the case; admittedly lobsters are a novel choice, normally this sort goes for lions; funny how no one talks about hyenas, or elephants, or bonobos, etc, with a female topped hierarchy). But, even accepting his premise that all women should be irresistibly (and exclusively) attracted to Alphas, I don’t think he’d like that in practice.

For one, in the animal kingdom, high status males don’t just magically spring forth full-formed: they rise up through the ranks by competing with other males, … Read the rest