National Archives - Page 9 of 48 - Alex's Asteroid Astrology

August 31st, 2023 at 09:13am by Alex Miller

Jacksonville Dollar Store Shooting

On Saturday, 26 August 2023, a 21-year-old white male, clad in a tactical vest, shot up a Dollar Store on King Road in Jacksonville, Florida, killing three black persons before turning the gun on himself when police arrived on the scene. Ryan Christopher Palmeter had been remanded to state care in 2017 after a mental health breakdown which should have precluded his access to firearms, but was able to legally purchase the AR-15 style assault rifle and Glock semiautomatic pistol used in this crime, earlier this year. Palmeter, who has a history of racism, adorned the rifle with swastikas and ordered all “non-Black” people to leave the store when he entered. Police are investigating the murders as a hate crime.

August 2nd, 2023 at 02:12pm by Alex Miller

Deja Trump: Third Indictment Released

Here we go again. If you’re counting, this makes three criminal indictments in four months, in three separate jurisdictions. I’m going to step out on a limb here and opine that this has got to be a record. On August 1^st, 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped the other shoe he was holding, indicting Donald J. Trump on four charges in relation to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

July 21st, 2023 at 09:30am by Alex Miller

Vermont Flooding

After a very dry spring in much of the eastern US evoked widespread drought conditions, the climate change worm turned dramatically in late June and early July 2023, deluging these same areas with more rain than they could handle. Vermont quickly became the poster child for Northeast flooding, with new records set for rainfall in the Green Mountain State. Wastewater treatment facilities were among the hardest-hit, with 33 impacted statewide, and the plant in Johnson inundated by eight feet of water, leaving “total destruction” in its wake, with “just the shell of a building” remaining.

July 12th, 2023 at 09:03am by Alex Miller

SCOTUS Cockblocks Gay Wedding Sites

On June 30^th, 2023, the last day of the term, the US Supreme Court issued a bizarre ruling regarding free speech and the ongoing culture wars over gay marriage, siding with a Colorado website designer who balked at having to design wedding websites for same-sex couples. But here’s the thing – in 2016, when the suit was filed, Lorie Smith wasn’t designing wedding webizes at all, for couples of any sexual persuasion; she claimed to have been approached by a gay couple whom she refused the services she wasn’t offering to anyone, based on her religious objections to same-sex unions. So, Lorie Smith’s suit against Colorado’s antidiscrimination law was hypothetical or, shall we say, prophylactic?

July 7th, 2023 at 11:14am by Alex Miller

Fireworks, American Style

The celebration of Independence Day in the US is, tragically, often bound up with a deadly expression of Americans’ Second Amendment rights, coinciding with an uptick in the already ubiquitous incidents of mass shootings. Although Founding Father John Adams, after the signing of the Declaration, wrote to his long-suffering wife Abigail that “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival…It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more,” I doubt that murdering fellow citizens was the type of celebratory gunplay he anticipated, nor the parade of lost and shattered lives.

June 19th, 2023 at 08:48am by Alex Miller

Fire & Water: The Mark Batista Drowning Case

On June 9, 2023, 39-year-old Mark Anthony Batista, a New York firefighter and EMT with Brooklyn Engine Company 226, drowned at the Jersey shore while trying to rescue his daughter, who had become trapped in a rip current. Batista was unsuccessful, losing his own life in the attempt; his daughter was rescued by first responders called to the scene at 8:30 AM, and his body was discovered and retrieved about 10:00. A 15-year veteran of the FDNY, Batista is survived by his eleven-year-old daughter, his wife and two stepsons. The tragedy occurred at Sylvania Beach in Avon-by-the-Sea, NJ.