Leopards Ate My Face

“Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?”

After six consecutive days of drone attacks on the Moscow region this week, one would think the shock of sudden late-night explosions might compel some Russians to consider what Ukrainian civilians have endured during 550 days of relentless Russian attacks.

Instead, some residents near the Russian capital have taken to social media to vent about the inconvenience of being woken up in the middle of the night, question why the “international community” isn’t coming to their rescue, and blame Ukrainian “terrorists” for targeting civilian areas. (Never mind that Moscow has repeatedly attacked residential areas in Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed drones.)

No injuries have been reported in the recent string of attacks, and Russian officials claim to have shot down most of the drones that they say caused only “minor damage” to a building in Moscow City and several broken windows elsewhere. Kyiv has not confirmed or denied involvement in the drone strikes.

Russian media widely covered the attacks, airing interviews with residents who showed off their broken windows.

“It was scary to go up to the window,” said one man recounting his shock to wake up and find his window shattered. “This is the first time anything like this has happened to me.”

Separately, he told Deutsche Welle, “At first, there was panic. I thought the building had been hit by a shell.”

“It’s very scary. What if it hits the house next time?” another resident told DW, noting that she has a young child in the home. “Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?”

The Sotheby's auction house has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by investors who regret buying Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that sold for highly inflated prices during the NFT craze in 2021.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/343323

Giuliani went from RICO charge prosecutor to a defendant in Fulton County DA Fani Willis' RICO case over Trump's alleged 2020 election interference.

The bitter fight between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Byron Donalds over a line about slavery in the state’s revised African American history standards is infuriating several prominent Black conservatives.

Meanwhile, college officials are working to fill 36 open faculty positions in time for the fall semester that begins Aug. 28, the News Service of Florida reported. The vacancies account for about a third of the college's full-time faculty members, which provost Brad Thiessen said at a separate board meeting this month was a "ridiculously high" level of turnover.

Wants to fight "cancel culture", gets cancelled.

“There are now lots of voters who should be instinctive Tories who feel very poor in a way they haven’t before. And instinctive Tories feeling poor is very bad news for the Conservatives,” Mr Dorrell said.

“They are what I would call ‘Tebbit Tories’, who would admire Margaret Thatcher. These are people who have started their own small businesses, plumbing firms, electricians, who are now saying they are unsure how they will survive next year.”

Your papers, please.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/11/tsa-airport-security-facial-recognition/

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/154069

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has scared off millions of dollars worth of business from his state with his extremist, bigoted agenda.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1108345

In what can only be called a significant lack of self-awareness, New York U.S. Rep. George Santos, the serial fabulist under federal indictment on fraud charges, is crying foul.

Republican senators are looking for a way to avoid the political hit they took on abortion rights in the 2022 midterm election, when they suffered a net loss of one seat, as Senate Democrats ramp up to make it a top issue in 2024.

Republicans think they have a great opportunity to recapture the Senate next year, as Democrats must defend 23 seats, including vulnerable incumbents in Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Senate Republicans only have 10 seats up for reelection and no vulnerable incumbents to worry about.

But Senate Republican strategists warn their hopes of winning back the majority in 2024 could be derailed by the abortion debate, as they believe happened last year.

Major Republican donors to the Arizona and Michigan Republican Parties, who have each donated tens of thousands of dollars to the parties over the last six years, have ceased supplying funding because of Republican leaders' attempts to overturn 2020 election results, their support of losing candidates who tout Trump's election conspiracy theories and what they consider extreme views on issues like abortion, six benefactors told Reuters. "I question whether the state party has the necessary expertise to spend the money well," real estate mogul Ron Weiser, one of the Michigan party's biggest donors and a former chair of the party, told the outlet.

Despite Republicans' efforts to ramp up support in order to win back the battleground states that could determine whether they regain political power in the 2024 election, Arizona and Michigan's parties have been bleeding money in recent years, according to the outlet's review of financial filings and interviews with the donors and three election campaign experts. Arizona's Republican Party on March 31 had less than $50,000 in cash reserves in its state and federal bank accounts to spend on overhead expenses, compared to the $770,000 it had at the same point four years ago. And as of March 31, the total in the Michigan party's federal account amounted to $116,000, down from the nearly $867,000 it had two years ago. "They are effectively broke, and I don't see the clouds parting and the sun coming out on their fundraising abilities," Jason Roe, the former head of the Michigan GOP, told the outlet.

MIAMI - Florida's so-called "toughest in the nation" immigration law takes effect July 1st, and there's concern it could cause a major agriculture and construction labor shortage.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Florida already has 53 available workers for every 100 open jobs, landing the state in the "more severe" category of labor shortage.

...The approval drew an outcry from members of the “First Wives Advocacy Group,” a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.

“On behalf of the thousands of women who our group represents, we are very disappointed in the governor’s decision to sign the alimony-reform bill. We believe by signing it, he has put older women in a situation which will cause financial devastation. The so-called party of ‘family values’ has just contributed to erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida,” Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message Friday.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/963879

Bigoted fascist called out by slightly less bigoted fascists for bigoted behavior.