USpolitics

The Los Angeles Fire Department knew it was severely underfunded long before this fire. “We don't have enough firefighters and medics, we don't have enough fire engines, we don't have enough trucks and ambulances in the field,” Freddy Escobar, an LAFD Captain II told the city during his testimony at a budget hearing on May 1, 2024. “And we don't have the equipment and staffing that we need to respond to half a million emergency calls for service every year,” added Escobar, who is union president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City (UFLAC).

The LAFD will likely go over budget this year, with an estimated $920 million total expenditure in fiscal year 2024-25. However, this is nowhere near a $50 million increase compared to the 2023-24 total expenditure at $903.8 million — they had to spend $66 million more than the city budgeted for.

With emergency calls on the rise and equipment outdated, the department has more large one-time purchases to make in 2024-25. The LAFD will again have to spend over budget to meet their needs. In a July memo, Chief Crowley addressed the likely overspending, with total expenditure estimated at $920 million in 2024-25. The chief emphasized that this year’s budget cut deleted, “onetime funding in various spending accounts.” As a result, the over budget spending will include, “new fleet purchases,” a one-time expense that is likely to exceed $50 million.

The fire department's resources and personnel are spread thin partially because of the homeless crisis in Los Angeles. “We are on the frontlines of this homeless crisis,” said Captain Freddy Escobar. “Fifty percent of the fires we respond to come from our homeless population. And the city reportedly spends $1.3 billion each year on homeless programs, but the LAFD is scheduled to receive a $23 million cut? This makes absolutely no sense,” he told the budget committee back in May.

Arichive Link: https://archive.is/B5AaI

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Independent news on politics and war. Founded by Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, and veterans of The Intercept.^[[1] https://www.dropsitenews.com/about]

At 78 years, 4 months and 22 days of age, Donald Trump is the oldest major-party presidential nominee in history, after President Joe Biden withdrew from contention prior to becoming the nominee of his own party in the 2024 United States presidential election. If elected, by the end of his term he would become the oldest person ever to hold the office, sparking renewed discussion of his fitness to assume the presidency. Since the early days of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, his physical and mental health have been a subject of public debate. Trump was 70 years old when he first took office, surpassing Ronald Reagan as the oldest person to assume the presidency to that date. During Trump's presidency, comments on his age, weight, lifestyle, and history of heart disease raised questions about his physical health. In addition, numerous public figures, media sources, and mental health professionals have speculated that Trump may have mental health impairments, ranging from narcissistic personality disorder to some form of dementia, which runs in his family.

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Clip with video showing it even more than the freeze frame

https://xcancel.com/MeidasTouch/status/1846746612980199817

"You are currently arming, funding, and defending a genocide in Gaza. That is how history will remember you."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was accused of stark hypocrisy on Saturday after he condemned the Myanmar military's genocide against the Rohingya people while simultaneously aiding Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip.

In a double boost for Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday afternoon threw his backing behind the former president in the 2024 presidential election while Jill Stein unequivocally stated she will not drop out of the race.

West spoke with the Washington Examiner’s Christian Datoc at the Abandon Biden convention, hosted down the street from the Democratic National Convention. He denied in strong terms that he had ever been a fan of “top cop” Vice President Kamala Harris and accused her of complicity in genocide.

The US presidential election is a toss-up between a ‘soft-on-Palestine’ Democrat whose boss has armed Israel’s genocide and an unabashedly pro-Israel Republican who doesn’t like war or war budgets.

This has led to the loss of crucial constituencies, including young voters, Arab and Muslim communities, and many progressives. Additionally, many younger and left-leaning Jewish voters “no longer see unequivocal support for Israel as a litmus test.”

While the Democratic party is well aware of this vulnerability, many wonder whether its candidate, Kamala Harris, can win back disappointed voters and bring a new approach to policy toward Gaza – at this late date.

Former President Trump’s campaign raised nearly $139 million in July, it announced Thursday, following a tumultuous few weeks of the election season.

Trump and its authorized committees raised $138.7 million last month, which brings its total cash on hand to $327 million, the campaign announced. The announcement said the latest numbers “reflect continued momentum with donors at every level and provide the resources for the final 96 days until victory November 5th.”

Harris’s campaign said it raised $200 million in just the first week of her campaign as Democrats rallied behind her and enthusiasm grew among voters. Her campaign also said it signed up more than 170,000 volunteers in the first week.

Kamala numbers form July 28 2024: Harris Campaign Says It Raised $200 Million Since Biden Dropped Out [ Maggie Astor | July 28, 2024 | NY Times] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/us/politics/kamala-harris-fund-raising-week.html

Newsmax's Mark Halperin reported Thursday afternoon that President Biden will drop out of the 2024 presidential race, will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, and instead call for an open convention in Chicago. Halperin told 'FRONTLINE' host Carl Higbie that advisers around Harris are fine with this because she will be seen as independent of the president. Bidenworld is contradicting this report. See below.

"They do not want what some of my sources have been calling a Kamala coronation, that the problem, in part, that they found themselves in was that President Biden was not seriously challenged for the nomination," Halperin reported. "At least one of her allies said to me, this is better, better to not be anointed by Joe Biden, better to show independence, better to show with a strong ticket, the capacity to win the nomination on her own."

Cross-posting here, as the content under discussion is political in nature, and I feel as if the question might be of similar concern to other posters. Most probably don't care; data miners harvesting information to sell to HR departments and hiring managers are a real thing, though, so I think answers are relevant.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14464872

A friend of mine would like to post an op-ed style political essay about the current turmoil in the Democratic Party about Biden's fitness. They are concerned about it affecting their career, should it be linked back to them; the US is highly divided and they know some of their peers are Republicans, and they're not sure about the affiliations of people in their upward chain of command. My friend is concerned that posting an emotional opinion piece might -- if attributed to them and seen -- negatively affect their career. They want to stay anonynmous.

I think getting something posted anonymously in Lemmy would be fairly easy; no-one is going to trying legally coercing an email out of a Lemmy instance over an op-ed. And getting a boost in Mastodon would be simple. I was hoping that there'd be something like WriteFreely where they could post, but anonymity appears to be not even a consideration by the main developers.

And then there's the question of how to get links to the essay out of the Fediverse, where 90% of the people are. I don't have a Xitter account anymore, and have never had a Facebook account.

What suggestions does Lemmy have? How, in today's world, does someone anonymously post content?

Subscript: I do not mean political anonymity -- not in the way that protection from law enforcement is needed. My friend lives in the US where freedom of speech is still more-or-less ensured, and the content is not illegal, incidiary, inciting, or even unusual. However, they want anonymity sufficient to guard against data miners, correlators, and brokers. They need to get something off their chest, express an opinion, but not at a risk to their career.

cross-posted from: https://mbin.grits.dev/m/[email protected]/t/233112

It’s vitally important that Democrats now ask one question and one question only: Does Biden have the best chance of beating Trump, or is there someone else readily available who has a better chance?

This Wisconsin pastor was once a political pariah.

But now his book is being quoted by politicians and former Trump officials.

One activist is using it to disrupt elections.

Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said Tuesday that disarray over President Biden’s campaign is helping former President Trump, as Democrats question Biden’s health and mental ability.

Damon Lindelof, a co-creator of “Lost” and a notable Democratic Party supporter, called on fellow donors to withhold their money until President Biden ends his reelection bid, citing his struggles in the CNN debate against former President Trump last week.

A teenage stripper and various adult-entertainment businesses are suing Florida over the state’s newest law that raises the minimum age for workers.

On July 1, a new Florida law aimed to crack down on human trafficking took effect. Part of it called for those working at adult-entertainment businesses to be at least 21 years old. The businesses include sex shops, adult bookstores and strip clubs.

That led to a flurry of lawsuits including one from Serenity Bushey, 19, a dancer at a Florida club. Two strip clubs and a sex shop also filed a lawsuit over the law, according to WKMG.

Bushey argues in her lawsuit the law is in violation of her First Amendment rights to allow freedom of expression.

The dancer said she and eight other workers at her club lost their jobs because of the new bill.

Since 2017, Wikipedia editors have compiled a list of news sources from which articles are highly likely to employ systematic bias, lack professional editing and/or journalistic standards, regularly misrepresent sources, and/or fabricate information.

While its list is by no means a complete list of publications with the aforementioned problems, it has helped make Wikipedia articles more reliable by basing them off of sources covering the same events and information from a more objective and factual point of view.

To make Lemmy news communities better than their Reddit counterparts, I think avoiding links to those sources in favor of more reliable alternatives would be worthwhile.