Lydia had a health scare and is trying to eat better as a result. She's trying to add a new item to her diet each month. This month, she's tried sweet potatoes and yams -- "I've learned the difference between the two" -- and really loves the recipe she found at Love and Lemons:
Ingredients
- Sweet Potatoes
Topping ideas:
- Butter or vegan butter,
- Sea salt
- Chives
- Greek yogurt or tzatziki,
- Guacamole
- Creamy avocado cilantro lime dressing
- Any of these stuffing ideas!
Directions
A sweet potato is also a great work lunch. I keep a sweet potato and a lime at work. In a rush, I can pierce the sweet potato, put it on a napkin into the microwave and cook for six minutes. Then I click down the middle and open it up, cut a lime and squeeze lime juice on it. A friend at work adds sea salt while another adds pepper. But I'm fine with just the lime juice as a season.
News? Shawn Tully (Fortune) reports, "In Michigan, Harris wins 50 percent support in the Quinnipiac poll, compared to 45 percent for Trump and 2 percent for Stein. In Wisconsin, Harris wins 48 percent support compared to 47 percent for Trump and 1 percent for Stein." And that apparently has upset some in Russia. Maybe Tara Reade? Clint Watts - General Manager, Microsoft Threat Analysis Center reports:
Russia and Iran have both undertaken cyber influence operations headed into the 2024 presidential election. In our last report, published on August 8, we detailed how Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations sought to undermine the Republican campaign through targeted hack-and-leak operations, covert social media personas, and imposter US news sites. In the past two months, Microsoft has observed a notable shift in Russian influence operations tactics reflecting the changing U.S. political environment. Specifically, we have observed Russia pivot towards targeting the Harris-Walz campaign, with actors disseminating fabricated videos designed to sow discord and spread disinformation about the new Democratic nominee Vice President Harris.
We discuss this activity in a new report by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) released today. This update follows other reports we have released around activity by actors advancing the geopolitical goals of Iran and China.
The shift to focusing on the Harris-Walz campaign reflects a strategic move by Russian actors aimed at exploiting any perceived vulnerabilities in the new candidates. Initially, Russian influence operations struggled to evolve their efforts following President Biden’s departure from the 2024 US presidential race. However, in late August and September, we observed two Russian actors MTAC tracks closely — previously reported as Storm-1516 and Storm-1679 — using videos designed to discredit Harris and stoke controversy around her campaign. Specifically:
- Storm-1516, identified by news reports as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm, produced and disseminated two inauthentic videos, each generating millions of views. One video depicted an attack by alleged Harris supporters on a supposed Trump rally attendee, while another used an on-screen actor to fabricate false claims about Harris’s involvement in a hit-and-run accident. This second video was laundered through a website masquerading as a local San Francisco media outlet — which was only created days beforehand.
- Storm-1679, a newer group reportedly aligned with the Kremlin, pivoted its focus from producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to publishing false videos discrediting Vice President Harris. One of the videos, which was shared on X shortly after it was published to Telegram, depicted a fake New York City billboard advancing false claims about Harris’ policies. The X post received more than 100,000 views in the four hours after it was published on Telegram.
As we inch closer to the election, we should expect Russian actors to continue to use cyber proxies and hacktivist groups to amplify their messages through media websites and social channels geared to spread divisive political content, staged videos, and AI-enhanced propaganda. The actions taken by the US government on September 4 mark an important and impactful step to protect against foreign influence targeting the upcoming US presidential election, and Microsoft suspended more than 20 active Microsoft email accounts created by the now sanctioned government-funded communications agency ANO Dialog. However, we have also observed actors attempting to create new infrastructure, with one threat actor already having moved media outlets from seized websites to new ones.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Wednesday:
A top science magazine has waded into the political sphere after making a presidential endorsement, only the second in its 179-year history.
“Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment,” read the headline in Scientific American on Monday, announcing the publication’s official support for the Democratic presidential candidate.
Harris is Scientific American’s second presidential endorsement in its history, after the magazine backed President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.
“The US faces two futures,” the editors wrote, pushing one candidate who “offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience.”
They continued: “In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies.”
Scientific American, which has a global readership of six million, cited Harris’s record as vice president, senator and presidential candidate as reasons for endorsing her.
They acknowledged that Trump, “also has a record - a disastrous one,” during his time in the White House.
Harris was also asked about the false and racist tropes that Donald Trump and JD Vance have espoused about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which has resulted in bomb threats and lockdowns in the city.
“It’s a crying shame. I mean, my heart breaks for this community,” Harris said. “There were children, elementary school children, [for whom] it was school photo day. Do you remember what that’s like, going to school on picture day? Dressed up in their best, got all ready, knew what they were going to wear the night before. And had to be evacuated. Children. Children.”
Harris described “a whole community put in fear”, and harkened back to her career as a prosecutor, during which she said she learned the importance of power.
“When you have these positions, when you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to learn how much your words have meaning,” she said. “I learned at a very young stage in my career that the meaning of my words could impact whether someone was free or in prison … When you are bestowed with a microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that.”
Harris said elected officials, particularly the president, have been bestowed with public trust.
“I know that people are deeply troubled by what is happening to that community in Springfield, Ohio, and it’s gotta stop,” she said. “We’ve gotta say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country.”
Harris’ meeting with Black journalists at the Center City offices of WHYY was a sharp contrast to the craziness that happened when Donald Trump met with the group in Chicago six weeks earlier.
During Harris’ interview, no one’s racial identity was questioned. There was no huge headline-making moment, and I didn’t see anyone in attendance nudge the person next to them as if to say, “Did you hear that?” It was just another interview. And I found that totally refreshing. I’m ready for a return to normalcy.
I’m tired of Donald Trump and his antics, including his ridiculous claim last week that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are kidnapping and eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs. It’s always something with him. It never seems to stop.
[. . .]
There’s a quiet dignity about Harris that’s reassuring, not to mention comforting. I can picture her answering a 3 a.m. call to the White House about trouble brewing somewhere in the world and calmly knowing the right thing to do. Harris is a decent human being. She’s steady, not erratic.
During her interview Tuesday in Philadelphia, she didn’t mock anyone the way that Trump did when he met with NABJ and accused Harris, who is both Black and of Indian heritage, of changing her racial identity.
She didn’t sit in a room full of African Americans, the way that Trump did, and chest-thump about being the best thing for Black people since Abraham Lincoln.
Nor did she insult working journalists, the way that Trump did when he accused ABC’s Rachel Scott, one of the moderators at the event in July, of working for a “fake news network.” In contrast, Harris treated the journalists who interviewed her with respect and referred to them as “esteemed journalists.”
Abortion has been the Democrats' strongest motivator for their core vote since the abolition of Roe vs. Wade, and it has been central to the Harris campaign's political ads this cycle.
At the NABJ talk, Harris tripled down on her commitment to restoring the protections of Roe vs. Wade, drawing yet another line between her and the Trump-JD Vance ticket.
When asked about what her administration would do to restore abortion rights across the U.S., Harris said: "We need to put back in place the protections of Roe vs. Wade and let an individual in consultation with her doctor make the decision based on what she can determine, 'cause she's smart enough to know what's in her best interest, instead of having her government tell her what to do."
Senator Patty Murray: It is really critical that after these veterans have sacrificed so much in their service they are fully supported. Fertility challenges are difficult enough without having to fight a bureaucracy to access care that they have earned and that they are entitled to, and as we all know delays in this means sometimes they can't access care and have kids. So I don't want to hear about this anymore, and I want to know what VA is doing to address those barriers to make sure veterans get the care when they need it.
**VIDEO of Murray’s floor speech HERE***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), objected on the Senate floor to Senator Cruz’s attempt to pass through unanimous consent a Republican bill that would “require, as a condition of receiving federal Medicaid funding, that states not prohibit in vitro fertilization (IVF) services.” Senator Murray outlined how this woefully inadequate legislation explicitly allows states to restrict IVF by enacting burdensome and unnecessary requirements that could create the kind of legal uncertainty and risk we saw in Alabama that forced clinics to close their doors.
Murray also pointed out how the bill defines IVF in an intentionally incomplete way to sidestep the matter of what happens to frozen embryos and appease Republicans’ extreme anti-abortion allies who vehemently oppose IVF. Senator Murray made clear that Republicans cannot have it both ways, claiming to support IVF while at the same time supporting fetal personhood—an extremist ideology that says an embryo should have the exact same rights as a living, breathing human being and is fundamentally incompatible with IVF.
“I have been perfectly clear about the glaring issue with this Republican bill,” said Senator Murray on the Senate floor. “The cold hard reality is that this Republican bill does nothing to meaningfully protect IVF from the biggest threats from lawmakers and anti-abortion extremists all over this country. It would still allow states to regulate IVF out of existence!”
“And this bill is silent on fetal personhood, which is the biggest threat to IVF,” emphasized Senator Murray on the floor of the Senate. “It is silent on whether states can demand that an embryo be treated the same as a living breathing person, or whether parents should be allowed to have clinics dispose of unused embryos—something that is a common, necessary part of the IVF process. Talk to the experts who provide this care—talk to the families who are seeking it—and that question looms large in their minds. ‘What are we supposed to do if our state says these embryos are living breathing people? Do we have to do this process in another state? What is our legal risk here?’”
“The last time Republicans offered this hollow gesture of a bill, I asked the junior Senator from Texas point blank: do you support letting parents have unused embryos disposed of?” noted Senator Murray in reference to the last effort by Senator Cruz to pass the same bill back in June. “And a funny thing actually happened—he said on the floor he would answer that question, but he never did. He spoke about what the laws in some of our states are—but he never actually said what he supported, he never said what he believes should be federal law, he never mentioned that he once pledged to support a constitutional amendment to establish fetal personhood as the law of the land.”
“And so, I ask all my Republican colleagues once again—as a matter of national policy, should parents be allowed to dispose of unused embryos?” asked Senator Murray in closing. “If so—why is that key provision missing from your bill? Well, we all know why. And if not—how can you look the American people in the eye, and say you support IVF? It doesn’t compute.”
In a statement following Senator Cruz’s speech, Senator Murray said, “Unfortunately, once again, Senator Ted Cruz, refused to answer my very basic question.”
ICYMI, here’s what Barbara Collura, President and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association said back in May about the Republican IVF Bill: “The bill allows for states to push for regulations that could severely reduce the standard of care for IVF treatment, such as restrictions on how many embryos are created and what individuals can do with these embryos — decisions that should only be made between patients and their doctors, based on science and clinical guidelines. The solution is federal legislation that enshrines access to IVF for all.”
Senator Murray leads the Right to IVF Act with Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), which would establish a nationwide right to IVF and other assisted reproductive technology, expand insurance coverage of IVF services to lower the cost of IVF treatment for families, and expand access to IVF and other fertility services for our nation’s veterans and servicemembers.
In June, Senators Murray and Duckworth released a new FACT SHEET on how Republican attacks on IVF are serious, real, and on the rise across America. The fact sheet explains how fetal personhood is a full-frontal attack on reproductive freedom and could put an end to IVF care and other assisted reproductive technology, and outlines personhood measures and other state proposals that would negatively impact access to IVF that Republicans are actively pushing in state legislatures and at the federal level.
IVF is overwhelmingly popular with Americans—recent polling found that 85 percent of Americans support increasing access to fertility-related procedures and services. A survey from Pew Research Center last September found that 42 percent of adults say they have used fertility treatments or personally know someone who had—up from 33 percent five years ago.
###
JD Vance defended his comments about Haitian immigrants eating pets during a Tuesday rally, saying that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him.
The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.
The comments, in which he appeared to say that politicians can brazenly lie, drew immediate rebuke.
-
-
Watch the 2024 Americana Honors & Awards3 hours ago
-
-
Trump cannot stop failing7 hours ago
-
Kamala7 hours ago
-
-
-
-
-
-
Chicken Taco Soup in the Kitchen8 hours ago
-
The endorsement game8 hours ago
-
