A high school senior was walking his dog in Van Nuys when he was stopped and detained by federal immigration agents who said he overstayed his visa.

Russian President Vladimir Putin lavished praise on President Trump ahead of their high-stakes summit in Alaska, while Trump expressed optimism ahead of the talks.

Three hours ago, a Japanese diplomat in Bangkok met with me to discuss Thai politics. One of the questions was: “Will Paetongtarn Shinawatra survive the Constitutional Court’s ruling on her audio tape conversing with Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen?”

I said her chance of survival is 35% because the judges’ votes back in on July 1st were 7 to 2 in suspending her duties as PM, and even the two minority votes thought some issues should be suspended despite thinking that she can continue her role as PM, like those concerning national security and foreign policy.

The Achilles’ heel is the sentence she said to Hun Sen: “The Second Army Region Commander is on the opposite side,” and also another sentence: “Whatever you want, just say the word.”

I also told the Japanese diplomat that if Paetongtarn was confident she’d survive, she wouldn’t have asked for a six-month deferment of the ruling – which was rejected by the court today. This reflects a lack of confidence, and her opponents can ‘smell the blood.’

Past rulings have not been favourable to top politicians as well, be it then PM Srettha Thavisin, or then PM Yingluck Shinawatra, not to mention Pita Limjaroenrat and Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.

The ruling is now set for August 29, or two weeks from now.

____

The post Is it over for PM Paetongtarn? appeared first on Khaosod English.

Police have now confirmed that Patrick White is the man who killed a police officer while going on a shooting rampage targeting the CDC campus in Atlanta, Georgia. Police have also confirmed that the motive for the attempted mass shooting was White’s complaints about COVID-19 vaccines and the CDC’s response to the pandemic overall.

Documents found in a search of the home where White had lived with his parents “expressed the shooter’s discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said.

White, 30, had written about wanting to make “the public aware of his discontent with the vaccine,” Hosey added.

While RFK Jr. took his sweet time, nearly a full day, to even publicly comment on the shooting at all, and only did so after posting pictures to his private ExTwitter account to show off some fish he caught in Alaska, CDC Director Susan Monarez was fielding questions from CDC staff specifically about whether Kennedy and CDC and HHS leadership understood the role that misinformation played into the shooting.

“Do you expect Secretary Kennedy to make a statement about this, and are you able to speak to the misinformation—the disinformation—that caused this issue, and what your plan forward is to ensure this doesn’t happen again?” the employee asked.

Monarez did not directly answer the question, saying only that she had been in touch with Kennedy’s office. “It’s a good question. We’ve been in constant communication with the Office of the Secretary, and more will be coming,” Monarez said.

More did come. Monarez held an all hands meeting in Atlanta to address her staff’s concerns. And her message to CDC staff was quite good.

“We know that misinformation can be dangerous. Not only to health, but to those that trust us and those we want to trust,” Dr. Susan Monarez told CDC employees in an “all-hands” meeting Tuesday, her first since the attack capped her first full week on campus as CDC director.

“We need to rebuild the trust together,” Monarez said, according to a transcript obtained by The Associated Press. “The trust is what binds us. In moments like this, we must meet the challenges with rational, evidence-based discourse spoken with compassion and understanding. That is how we will lead.”

You have to imagine that message was met with anguish and confusion, however. Only a day earlier, RFK Jr. did an interview with Scripps, in which he first cast doubt on the obvious and now confirmed motives of the shooter that intended to kill as many of these same staffers as he could, only to pivot to repeat the same god damned rhetoric that made those staffers a target in the first place.

“We don’t know enough about what the motive was of this individual, but people can ask questions without being penalized,” Kennedy said.

“One of the things that we saw during COVID is that the government was overreaching and in its efforts to persuade the public to get vaccinated, and they were saying things that were not always true, and public health agencies should never do that,” Kennedy said.

I’m shaking with anger as I write this. Kennedy’s comments, in the wake of the shooting, align with the claims made by the shooter. Folks: he’s parroting the fucking shooter mere days after he shot up the CDC, an agency for which Kennedy is responsible. That isn’t just unhinged, it’s downright evil.

I hope to whatever god might be out there that there is not the further targeting of CDC personnel, or violence done against any other public healthcare servant. But if there is, RFK Jr. will be culpable for it, full stop. As will those that allow him to remain in his position.