Lurker > Humble_Novice

All of a sudden people hate field trips? I remember taking field trips in the city to like a park or city hall. Wed walk around and theyd basically teach us about the city or how to cross the street, etc. and I do remember also going to restaurants. They would try and teach etiquette and how to behave and all that. In this case it just seems like they chose the LGBTQ restaurant to also include a little message about acceptance, so these kids dont grow up to be like @Vicious_Dios

no, he's worse, because at least they own the fact that they are on the right, whereas he is still masquerading as a Democrat and taking up a crucial spot in the Senate majority that would be much better off being held by someone who's not a DINO

The South Dakota Supreme Court on Wednesday moved to unseal search warrants in connection with a reported child probe investigation into the states richest man, T. Denny Sanford.

Sanford was not explicitly named in the court filings, which referred instead to an implicated individual. He has been widely reported as the subject of the investigation, however, and his lawyer was listed as the appellants representative. He has not been charged with any crimes.

Two media outlets that had sought the release of Sanfords records, ProPublica and South Dakotas Argus Leader, were also listed in the filings. ProPublica was first to report on the investigation last year.

Reached by phone on Thursday, Sanford seemed unaware that a decision had been published. I dont know anything about it, he told The Daily Beast. He declined to comment further.

In its decision, the court wrote that the question we confront here is not a close one, and found that the law required the documents to be publicly accessible.

The judges said that the search warrants will be released following the expiration of time to file a request for a rehearing or another petition. A staffer at South Dakota Supreme Court said that appellant parties have 20 days to file for a rehearing.

According to the court papers, law enforcement first obtained a search warrant in the case in Dec. 2019. Three months later, in March 2020, they obtained an additional four search warrants against the implicated individual.

The warrants were to be served upon internet or cellular data providers, not the implicated individual himself or his property, filings said.

A lawyer for Sanford, former South Dakota attorney general Marty Jackley, previously said of the investigation: Although we know very little about any state or federal inquiry relating to Mr. Sanford, we do know those authorities responsible for investigating allegations obviously did not find information or evidence that supported or resulted in any criminal charges.

Multiple outlets have since reported that South Dakotas current attorney general believed there was sufficient evidence to charge Sanford, though the case was referred to federal authorities since the alleged activity happened across multiple states.

The probe has not deterred some organizations from taking Sanfords money. In September, for instance, he gifted another $350 million to his namesake health system in South Dakota.

In August, he also gifted $1 million to a Koch-affiliated Super PAC, Americans for Prosperity Action. A golf tournament bearing his name also went off without incident in South Dakota last month, as The Daily Beast reported.

The states embattled governor, Kristi Noem, has maintained ties to Sanford, too. In March, they teamed on a scholarship program for South Dakota students, which included a $100 million gift from Sanford and his companies and new legislation from the state. He reportedly attended the bills signing.

Sanford famously said in 2007 that he wanted to die broke by giving away his entire fortune. At the time he was worth $2.8 billion, Forbes estimated. He is worth $3.4 billion today.

Starbucks (SBUX) on Wednesday became the latest company to hike pay for its workers, announcing plans to increase all U.S. hourly wages to at least $15 per an hour up from the current $12 rate by the summer of 2022.

Effective in late January of 2022, all U.S. partners (the company's term for employees) with two or more years of service could receive a raise of up to 5%, while partners with five or more years of service could receive a raise up to 10%. The move comes as the service industry has been hampered by a shortage of workers, prompting many to offer higher salaries to attract and retain talent.

This will bring the average pay for all Starbucks' U.S. hourly partners to nearly $17 per an hour, with average hourly rates ranging between $15 to $23. Previously, the average wage was $14 per an hour, while more than half of its partners were already at $15 an hour, according to a Starbucks' spokesperson.

As of October 27th, the federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $7.25 per hour, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Meanwhile, Starbucks' move puts its hourly rate closer to other food and retail companies such as Target ($15), Costco ($16), Ben & Jerrys ($18.13), McDonalds ($13) and Chipotle ($15).

Wednesday's news represents the third investment by the Seattle-based coffee giant in wage, benefits and support in the last 24 months. In December of 2020 Starbucks committed to raising its wage floor to $15 an hour.

And in January of 2021, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson told Yahoo Finance he expected all partners in the U.S. to be at or above $15 per hour within the next two to three years, bringing the company ahead of the schedule with this latest announcement.

In an internal memo that went out on Wednesday afternoon, Starbucks North America EVP Rossann Williams noted "Our wage increases from Dec. 2020 to the Summer of 2022 will mean at least a 17% increase for partners, and at least 20% for tenured partners, in two years."

She continues, "I share all this only to reaffirm our belief that investing in our partners is not a cost, its an opportunity and we intend to let our shareholders and peers know the same."

The Senate voted Monday to confirm Myrna Prez, a longtime voting rights attorney and advocate, to a lifetime seat on a U.S. appeals court.

Prez, 47, was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She will be the only Latina on the court and just the second Latina to ever serve on this court. The first was Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The final vote was 48-43. Every Democrat present voted to confirm Perez. No Republicans voted for her. The full vote tally is here.

Now. Is this good?

One thing Ms. Grulkowski does not do because she refuses to pay is read The Great Falls Tribune, the local daily. Its not what it once was, with just eight journalists, down from 45 in 2000, said Richard Ecke, who spent 38 years at the paper before the owner, Gannett, laid him off as opinion editor in 2016. He is vice chairman of the proposed heritage areas board.

In the papers place, information and misinformation about the heritage area spread on Facebook and in local outlets that parroted Ms. Grulkowski. Last winter, a glossy magazine distributed to Montana farmers put the subject on its cover, headlined Intrusive Raid on Private Property Rights.

Ms. Grulkowski badgered supporters of the heritage area to withdraw financial backing. She raised the money to plaster the Just Say No! message on billboards along Interstate 15 and on Highway 87 into Fort Benton, and on bus-stop benches in Great Falls.

Three of the heritage areas board members quit in frustration. Ms. Weber herself resigned from the Cascade County Commission last December after her fellow commissioners voted to oppose the heritage area.

Its very easy to take fear and mistrust and make it work for you. Its very hard to fight back against all of that, Ms. Weber said. Its kind of like trying to convince someone to get vaccinated.

The issue is now roiling Novembers municipal elections in Great Falls.

Its a legitimate concern anytime you have anybody telling you a possibility of someone telling you: You can do this or you can do that with your own property, Fred Burow, an auctioneer challenging Mr. Kelly for the mayoralty, said.

Ms. Grulkowski now has ambitions beyond Montana. She wants to push Congress not to renew heritage areas that already exist.

Buoyed by the trust her neighbors have placed in her, she has begun campaigning for Ms. Webers old seat on the county commission, in part to avenge the way she feels: mistreated by those in power.

She doesnt feel shes been told the whole truth.

Beginning in 2013, Ms. Weber teamed up with local preservationists, formed a nonprofit, enlisted local businesses and raised $50,000 for a required feasibility study. In 2014, the Great Falls City Commission included the heritage area as part of its official growth policy.

The proposal would take in four National Historic Landmarks: Lewis and Clarks portage route around Great Falls; Fort Benton, a pioneer town along the Missouri River that was the last stop for steamships heading west from St. Louis in the 1800s; the First Peoples Buffalo Jump, a steep cliff over which Blackfoot hunters herded buffalo to their deaths; and the home and studio of C.M. Russell, the turn-of-the-century cowboy artist whose paintings of the American West shaped the popular image of frontier life.

The park service requires demonstrations of public support, which Ms. Weber and her allies solicited. For six years, the process went on largely undisturbed. Ms. Weber hosted dozens of public meetings and was a regular on local radio stations. Opponents made scarcely a peep.

Then the 2020 political season arrived.

With the coronavirus ravaging the economy and protests lighting up her computer screen, Ms. Grulkowski said, she walked into a local Republican Party office one day and asked what she could do to help. Someone told her to attend a meeting. So she did.

There, she heard a presentation by Jeni Dodd, a former reporter for The Great Falls Tribune, who was running in a Republican primary for the Montana State Senate. Ms. Dodd had latched on to the heritage area as a waste of public money and a thicket of conflicts of interest for board members and elected officials. She wrote essays in local weeklies and started a Facebook group calling the proposal a Big Sky Boondoggle. It didnt get much traction.

But Ms. Grulkowskis interest was piqued.

At the time, she was becoming engrossed in the online world of far-right media. From her home on 34 acres in Stockett, a farming community of 157 people south of Great Falls, she watched videos from outlets like His Glory TV, where hosts refer to President Biden as the so-called president. She subscribed to the Telegram messaging channel of Seth Keshel, a prolific disinformation spreader.

And she came across a vein of conspiratorial accusations that national heritage areas were a kind of Trojan horse that could open the door to future federal land grabs.

When Ms. Grulkowski, who owns a septic cleaning company, tried using Ms. Dodds group to push the idea that Montanans property rights were at risk, Ms. Dodd kicked her out for promoting lies.

Im not happy with people saying it will seize your property, because that is disingenuous, Ms. Dodd said. I said to her, I think you need to be careful about the message. It isnt actually the way that it works, what youre saying.

But Ms. Grulkowski plowed ahead.

One of her letters reached Ed Bandel, the local board member for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, a powerful lobbying force. Mr. Bandel, who grows wheat and peas for energy bars on 3,000 acres, persuaded the farm bureau to oppose the heritage area and enlisted other agriculture groups to follow suit.

The bureau printed thousands of 4-by-6-inch cards saying Just Say No! and listing Ms. Grulkowskis Facebook group and other opponents, including realtors, home builders, grain growers, stock growers and wool growers. Mr. Bandel, his son and Ms. Grulkowski left the cards on tables at supportive restaurants.

By May, their campaign had reached the state capital, where Mr. Gianforte signed the bill barring any national heritage area in Montana after it passed on a near-party-line vote. A heritage area, the bills text asserted, would interfere with state and private property rights.

In two hours of talking at his farm, Mr. Bandel could offer no evidence to back up that claim. He said he distrusted assurances that there were no such designs. They say, Dont worry, were going to do it right. Dont worry, well take care of you. I think Adolf Hitler said that, too, didnt he? Mr. Bandel said. The fear of the unknown is a huge fear.

Mr. Bandel said he trusted Ms. Grulkowski with the details.

But when pressed, Ms. Grulkowski, too, was unable to identify a single instance of a property owners being adversely affected by a heritage area. Its not that there are a lot of specific instances, she said. Theres a lot of very wide open things that could happen.

That somewhat amorphous fear was more the point.

Outside of a poultry coop, as her chickens and ducks squawked, Ms. Grulkowski ticked through the falsehoods she had read online and accepted as truths in the past year: The Covid vaccine is more dangerous than the coronavirus. Global child-trafficking rings control the political system. Black Lives Matter was responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The United Nations is plotting to control world population and seize private land. Mr. Trump was the rightful winner of last years election. Even in Cascade County, where Mr. Trump won 59 percent of the vote, Ms. Grulkowski argued that 3,000 illegal votes were cast.

We didnt believe in any of that stuff until last July, Ms. Grulkowski said. Then we stumbled on something on the internet, and we watched it, and it took us two days to get over that. And it had to do with the child trafficking that leads to everything. It just didnt seem right, and that was just over the top. And then we started seeing things that are lining up with that everywhere.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. In the summer of 2020, as pandemic shutdowns closed businesses and racial justice protests erupted on American streets, Rae Grulkowski, a 56-year-old businesswoman who had never been involved in politics but was alarmed about what was happening to the country, found a way to make a difference.

The connection to the turbulence of national politics might not have been immediately clear.

Ms. Grulkowski had just heard about a years-in-the-making effort to designate her corner of central Montana a national heritage area, celebrating its role in the story of the American West. A small pot of federal matching money was there for the taking, to help draw more visitors and preserve underfunded local tourist attractions.

Ms. Grulkowski set about blowing up that effort with everything she had.

She collected addresses from a list of voters and spent $1,300 sending a packet denouncing the proposed heritage area to 1,498 farmers and ranchers. She told them the designation would forbid landowners to build sheds, drill wells or use fertilizers and pesticides. It would alter water rights, give tourists access to private property, create a new taxation district and prohibit new septic systems and burials on private land, she said.

None of this was true.

Yet it soon became accepted as truth by enough people to persuade Montanas leading Republican figures and conservative organizations, including the Farm Bureau, Gov. Greg Gianforte and Senator Steve Daines, to oppose the proposal and enact a state law forbidding the federal government to create any heritage area in Montana. It is a ban that the state has no authority to enforce.

Which is how a humble bid for a small serving of Washington pork by a group of local civic boosters became yet another nasty skirmish in the bitter nationwide struggle between the forces of fact and fantasy.

From her point of view, the tale of Ms. Grulkowskis one-woman crusade is a stirring reminder of the power of political activism. I thought, Heres the world going crazy, she said, explaining her motivation.

From the vantage point of informed democratic decision making, its a haunting tale about how a sustained political campaign can succeed despite or perhaps as a result of being divorced from reality.

Misinformation is the new playbook, Bob Kelly, the mayor of Great Falls, said. You dont like something? Create alternative facts and figures as a way to undermine reality.

The dispute has split communities, become a wedge issue in this falls political campaigns and left proponents of the heritage area flummoxed at their collective inability to refute falsehoods once they have become accepted wisdom.

Weve run into the uneducable, Ellen Sievert, a retired historic preservation officer for Great Falls and surrounding Cascade County, said. I dont know how we get through that.

Most of the heritage areas key supporters are Democrats, and virtually all of its opponents are Republicans. But partisanship doesnt explain everyones positions.

Steve Taylor, a former mayor of Neihart (pop. 43) whose family owns a car dealership in Great Falls, is a conservative who voted for Donald J. Trump twice, though he said he has regretted those votes since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Fellow Republicans, he said, have painted the heritage area as a liberal plot.

They make it a political thing because if you have a Democrat involved, then they are all against it, he said. Its so hard to build something and so easy to tear it down. Its maddening. Its so easy to destroy something with untruths.

Congress and President Ronald Reagan created National Heritage Areas in the 1980s as a partnership between the National Park Service and local boosters, who are required to match federal investment with funds raised locally. The 55 existing heritage areas, in 34 states, recognize, among other histories, metropolitan Detroits automotive background, Utahs Mormon pioneers and Tennessees part in the Civil War. They collectively receive about $21 million annually a pittance in the park services $3.5 billion budget and have no impact on private property rights, a finding confirmed in a 2004 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office.

The proposal for the Big Sky Country National Heritage Area, encompassing most of two central Montana counties that are together roughly the size of Connecticut, was the brainchild of Jane Weber, a U.S. Forest Service retiree who spent a decade on the Cascade County Commission.

SANTA FE, N.M. The assistant director who handed Alec Baldwin the gun that killed a cinematographer last week had been fired from a previous job after a gun went off on a set and wounded a member of the film crew, a producer said Monday.

The disclosure emerged as producers of Baldwins movie officially halted filming, and court records showed that investigators seized more than two dozen items from the set on the day after the shooting.

In an email statement to The Associated Press, a producer for the movie Freedoms Path confirmed that Dave Halls was fired from the 2019 production after a crew member suffered a minor injury when a gun was unexpectedly discharged. The producer, who asked not to be identified by name, wrote that Halls was removed from the set immediately. Production did not resume until Halls was gone.

His firing from Freedoms Path was first reported by CNN. Halls has not returned phone calls and email messages seeking comment.

The producer is the second person to air doubts about Halls safety record. On Sunday, another crew member who worked with Halls said she raised concerns about him in 2019.

Maggie Goll, a prop maker and licensed pyrotechnician, said in a statement that she filed an internal complaint with the executive producers of Hulus Into the Dark series over Halls behavior. Goll said in a phone interview that Halls disregarded safety protocols for weapons and pyrotechnics and tried to continue filming after the supervising pyrotechnician, who was diabetic, lost consciousness on set.

The fatal shooting and previous experiences point to larger safety issues, Goll said, adding that crew safety was a top issue in recent contract negotiations between a union that represents film and TV workers and a major producers group.

This situation is not about Dave Halls. Its in no way one persons fault, she said. Its a bigger conversation about safety on set and what we are trying to achieve with that culture.

In an email sent to Rust crew members over the weekend, the movies production team confirmed that work on the Western has been suspended at least until the investigation is complete. The team said it is working with law enforcement and conducting its own internal safety review. The production company is also offering grief counseling.

The email suggested that work on the film could resume at some point.

Although our hearts are broken, and it is hard to see beyond the horizon, this is, at the moment, a pause rather than an end, the email read.

The sheriffs investigation continued Monday, and new court documents showed that authorities seized three black revolvers, ammunition boxes, a fanny pack with ammunition, several spent casings, two leather gun belts with holsters, articles of clothing and swabs of what were believed to be blood.

No charges have been filed. Prosecutors and law enforcement officers were expected to provide an update on the investigation Wednesday.

Moments before the shooting, Baldwin was explaining how he was going to draw the revolver from his holster and where his arm would be positioned, court records show.

The actor had been told that the gun was safe to use for the rehearsal of a scene in which he was supposed to pull out the weapon while sitting in a church pew and point it at the camera, the records said.

Cameraman Reid Russell told a detective that he was unsure whether the weapon was checked before it was handed to Baldwin, and he did not know why the gun was fired.

The camera was not rolling when the gun went off and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, Russell told authorities, according a search warrant affidavit released Sunday.

Authorities have said that Halls had handed the weapon to Baldwin and announced cold gun, indicating it was safe.

When asked about how Baldwin treated firearms on the set, Russell said the actor was safe, citing a previous instance when Baldwin made sure a child actor was not near him when a gun was being discharged.

The affidavit released Sunday also included statements by director Joel Souza, who was standing behind Hutchins and was wounded.

It detailed the moments before the shooting and showed that there was turmoil on the set the day of the shooting. Several members of the camera crew walked off the production in a dispute over payment and lodging, Russell said, and he was left with a lot of work to do. Only one camera was available to shoot, and it had to be moved because the light had shifted and there was a shadow.

Souza said he was focused on how the scene would appear on camera. He said he recalled hearing the phrase cold gun before the shooting, the affidavit said.

He said the scene did not call for the use of live rounds. After a lunch break, Souza said he was not sure if the firearm had been checked again. Souza was looking over Hutchins shoulder when he heard the gunshot, according to the affidavit.

The films chief electrician, Serge Svetnoy, blamed producers for Hutchins death in an emotional Facebook post on Sunday. Svetnoy said he had worked with Hutchins on multiple films and faulted negligence and unprofessionalism among those handling weapons on the set. He said producers hired an inexperienced armorer.

Baldwin, who is known for his roles in 30 Rock and The Hunt for Red October and his impression of former President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live, has described the killing as a tragic accident.

^ Friendly reminder that this guy made a deliberately-misleading topic about the effectiveness of the vaccine recently.

YouTube is social media? I guess that, but all I do is watch videos on it (mostly cooking and documentaries).

Seriously, right-wing views are wildly popular and prevalent. That's why you can't stop hearing about how silenced they are 24/7.

A Weatherford man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after he was caught on video smashing a computer with a hammer in an attempt to stop authorities from seizing it because it may have had child pornography, the Parker County district attorney said Friday.

Weatherford police later seized his cell phone which contained a child porn video

Judge Graham Quisenberry sentenced Joe Eddie Stephens, 71, on Wednesday to 12 years for promotion of child pornography and 10 years for tampering with evidence. The sentences will be served concurrently.

A Parker County jury needed only 15 minutes to convict Stephens on the charges.

He will be eligible for parole in three years.

The case began in May 2019 when Stephens son came home and found out his father had picked up two young girls from an elementary school under the guise that they were going to with his granddaughter.

The son became concerned when he released the granddaughter was not there and Stephens was taking pictures of the two girls posing provocatively in their swimsuits.

Stephens son checked the browser history on Stephens computer which led him to believe his father was accessing child porn on the computer.

When Mr. Stephens was confronted by family members, he blamed other people that he said must have accessed his computer, said Parker County District Attorney Jeff Swain in a Thursday news release When the family didnt buy that, he said he was lonely and then threatened to commit suicide, which is what led to Weatherford PD being called.

Before Weatherford police arrived, Stephens became enraged, pulled the computer out the wall and threw the computer against a brick fireplace before taking it out to the garage.

Once in the garage, Stephens grabbed a claw hammer and smashed the computer 24 times, Swain said.

Weatheford police obtained a warrant and seized the computer and Stephens cell phone. His phone had a videos of the girls in their swimsuits who Stephens was telling how to show him their gymnastics moves like pulling their legs up.

Throughout the defendants phone, we found numerous images of what is known as child erotica, said Assistant District Attorney Travis Warner, who tried the case for the prosecution along with Assistant District Attorney Abby Placke. Those images were of pre-pubescent girls dressed in lingerie posed in sexually provocative ways. While they were not child pornography, the pictures sexualized children in a way that should be offensive to everyone.

Swain said the computer was destroyed, and authorities could not salvage any videos.

As a concept, it can be difficult to find that something that was completely destroyed was evidence or contained evidence because, since it was destroyed, how would you know? Swain said. We were glad that the jury overcame that hurdle by looking at the circumstantial evidence surrounding the computers destruction. A defendant should not be allowed to benefit from destroying the evidence needed to convict them and our jury held Mr. Stephens accountable for doing exactly that.

Stephens wife recorded her husband in the garage.

On the video, Stephens wife can be heard telling him to stop and that he is only making things worse for himself.

He responds by saying, They got this as evidence, and Nobody has the right to look at someones camera.

But his wife responded, Did you have the right to look at somebodys child?

Hopefully the next gen will cut out the religious shit entirely

Quit your fucking pearl clutching TC you celebrate when conservatives die of covid

It was an accident on a movie set. Fuck is wrong with People.

How long did it take you to find all these random tweets?