The 1972 screwworm epidemic killed 90,000 cattle in Texas after the fly was supposedly contained. It was devastating to Texas Ranchers. Here's a video put out by the USDA about it in 1972.
Deputy thinks an Acorn hitting the roof of his car is gunfire so he unloaded his firearm at his own car that had an unarmed suspect inside. This is next level incompetence.
The incident took place in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Deputies from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call regarding a man named Marquis Jackson.
Jackson’s girlfriend had called the police, accusing him of stealing her car and sending her threatening text messages.
Deputies located Jackson, detained him, handcuffed him behind his back, and placed him in the backseat of a standard patrol vehicle for questioning.
Deputy Jesse Hernandez, a trainee at the time, was walking back toward the patrol vehicle where Jackson was being held. As he approached the passenger side of the car, a small acorn fell from an overhead tree and struck the roof of the vehicle.
Because of the metallic thud it made on the roof, Deputy Hernandez misidentified the sound as a muffled gunshot from inside the vehicle. What followed was a massive cascade of panic:
Hernandez immediately fell to the ground, rolled, and began screaming, "Shots fired! Shots fired! I'm hit! I'm hit!"
Believing he had been shot in the torso and that Jackson was actively firing at him through the car windows, Hernandez drew his weapon and fired multiple rounds into the patrol car.
Hearing her partner’s screams and weapon fire, Sergeant Beth Roberts—who was also on the scene—assumed they were under fire. She drew her weapon and also opened fire on the vehicle.
In total, the two officers fired more than 20 rounds into the patrol car.
Despite the patrol car being riddled with bullets and shattered glass, Marquis Jackson was completely uninjured. Because he was handcuffed, he could only lean away and press himself as low as possible into the floorboard/seat crack of the vehicle to avoid the gunfire.
Deputy Hernandez was also not injured. After the dust settled, medical staff confirmed he had not been shot; his belief that he was hit was likely a psychological reaction to intense panic (often referred to as a phantom injury).
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office conducted an extensive internal investigation into the shooting.
The investigation concluded that Deputy Hernandez’s use of force was not objectively reasonable. While Hernandez genuinely believed he was under threat, the investigation found no evidence of any weapon on Jackson, nor any reasonable justification for mistaking an acorn for a gunshot.
Sergeant Roberts' use of force was found to be legally justified under the "fellow officer rule," as she was reacting to what she reasonably believed was her partner being shot.
Deputy Hernandez resigned from the sheriff's office during the investigation, effectively ending his career in law enforcement.
Sheriff Eric Aden publicly released the bodycam footage and issued a formal apology to Marquis Jackson and the community, stating that the department failed in its duty to protect a suspect in their custody.
Ultimately, Jackson was cleared of any wrongdoing regarding the shooting, and the event remains a textbook example used in law enforcement training regarding hyper-vigilance and the dangers of misinterpreting sensory input during high-stress situations.
The @ACLU shares a note from a client detained by ICE and imprisoned at Camp East Montana: “The conditions here are inhumane and cruel. No human being should have to go through this… severely violent treatment by guards…”
FINALLY 4 House Republicans just voted with every Democrat to end Trump’s Forever War in Iran. To every Republican who voted against this: November is coming. We will hold you accountable.
ABC and CBS paid Trump.
NBC gave to his ballroom.
Scott Pelley took a stand and was fired.
CNN is next.
Trump sued me. I fought and won. Democracy Docket is fearlessly independent and always pro-democracy. Help it grow by subscribing now. https://t.co/bZLgVCQ4Xq
BRUTAL indictment of @bariweiss by Scott Pelley:
"For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified." Then it gets worse...
MAJOR BREAKING: Iran has just cut off all diplomatic communications with the United States, shutting down official channels at a moment when tensions remain high.
Iran is playing Trump and making him look like a fool.
Former Fed Chair Powell shades Trump:
"We ought to be united in our commitment to the higher principles that define our nation, chief among them is respect for the rule of law."
I honestly think Elon’s best days are behind him:
BYD is crushing Tesla in EVs.
Waymo is crushing Tesla in AVs.
Anthropic, Openai, and Google are crushing Xai on AI.
The SpaceX S-1 is so ridiculous the Danish pension fund blacklisted it.
He is not the man he was.
When a President’s physicians start citing “AI cardiac age” metrics and explaining bilateral bruising from “frequent handshaking,” the line between medical documentation and political messaging disappears.
This is the kind of things the Republican Super Majority in Missouri has decided to cut after blowing a $600M hole in the budget by getting rid of the Capital Gains tax for the top 1%. They decided to spend another $10M in an already $50M school voucher program for private school attendees. But, yeah, cut free books for needy kids. This is absolutely monstrous (1/2)
it’s crazy how we have both the World Cup and America 250 this year and almost no one cares about them because the administration has wholly sucked the joy out of even momentous national events
Did anyone in the know ever follow up with this grand theft from the White House last year?! Seems to me someone should know where that historic desk now sits and if it’s in the gilded but moldy Mar A Lago mausoleum it should be brought back IMMEDIATELY!
#WhereIsTheResoluteDesk
BREAKING: DESECRATION! Graves are exhumed and the bodies moved to make way for a $1.5 billion Trump Organization golf course in Vietnam — and the locals are furious.
The evil never ends with this man...
“It’s painful. I’m outraged by the compensation price," said Hoang Do, who was paid just $2,660 for removing the remains of his son and parents from their final resting place.
The Financial Times reports that a sacred gravesite in the the Hung Yen province of Vietnam is being demolished, and the bodies inside moved, so that the Trump Organization can erect yet another hideous golf course. Eric Trump has boasted that it will be "the envy of all of Asia and of the entire world." As usual, this monstrous family is paying no heed to the normal people impacted by their insatiable greed.
“It’s a spiritual thing. People don’t want to disturb the graves," said one local farmer.
The Vietnamese government is supporting the demolition and body removal because they know that rubber-stamping Trump's business endeavors is the quickest way to ingratiate them with the White House. This President has made it clear that corruption is the coin of the realm, and the entire world has taken notice.
Vietnam finds itself in a particularly difficult position because Trump previously threatened to place a 46% tariff on exports from the export-reliant nation. They know that he is a deeply vindictive man. They've assessed the risks and decided that harming their own people in one region is better than having Trump destroy their entire national economy.
And the locals aren't even being given a fair price for their heartbreak. Reuters reported last year that some individuals are being paid just $12 for 10 square feet of land. The course is expected to gobble up roughly four square miles, displacing over 4,000 households.
“The grave of my great-grandparents has been there since 1967, before the establishment of this country, so why should I move them?” Hoang Anh Xa, who has five family members buried at the site, told the FT.
Not only are graves being disturbed, but fertile farmland is being snatched up, leaving locals without a way to feed their families.
“I won’t be able to find another job,” said Xa. “We do not oppose the policy of the Party and the government. We just ask for one thing only, the land price has to be [higher].”
One woman was offered a lump sum of $3,200 and rice to abandon her farm. Many have lived and farmed this land for decades.
“The whole village is worried about this project because it will take our land and leave us jobless," said one farmer.
“When they told us about the golf project, the people were excited and supported the project for the development of the country,” said farmer Nguyen Duc Theo. But they soon discovered that the were going to be given "below market rates" for the land.
This is what happens when you elect a lifelong crook to be President. He reaches out his tendrils and infects the entire world with his evil.
Please ❤️ and share to demand that Congress intervene!
🦔A man requested his driving data from LexisNexis and got back 130 pages. Six months of every trip he and his wife took, logged and sold without their knowledge, just because he set up his car's infotainment system. His insurance jumped 21%. Mozilla reviewed 25 car brands and every one failed its privacy standards, with 19 open about the fact they might sell your data. GM already got caught selling driver location data to LexisNexis. And a federal mandate will soon put infrared cameras, eye tracking, and biometric sensors in every new car, with zero rules on what happens to that data afterward.
My Take
Same playbook, different industry. Bury consent in 40 pages of legal text nobody reads, collect everything, sell it to whoever pays. A Maryland study found that 31% of drivers who enrolled in telematics programs got a discount, 24% saw their rates actually go up, and 45% saw no change at all. The insurers collected data on every single one of them regardless. These programs exist because they make insurance companies money, not because they help drivers.
The impaired driving mandate is where it gets worse. Nobody wants drunk drivers on the road, but infrared biometric scans every time you sit in your car with no rules on storage, sale, or access is a completely different animal. Law enforcement can already buy location data when they can't get a warrant. GM already got caught doing exactly this. Next time it'll just be legal by default because Congress wrote a safety law and forgot to write the privacy protections that should have come with it.
Hedgie🤗
@naomibrockwell@ES03784893 Just One of the many Dangers of Secrecy around AI.
Exactly WHAT will AI do behind closed doors?
Regulate & establish Rule of Law to protect We The People from AI abuse, authoritarianism & oligarchs.
The government says it’s not a “search” if your data is stored by someone else.
So they just buy it or take it. Your habits, profiles, everything. And call it legal.
The Surveillance Accountability Act ends this loophole.