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LKLK (0)
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| 05-17-22 06:28pm - 910 days | #104 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Florida family complains about pet alligator in their swimming pool. Don't they realize that Donald Trump, the most fierce President of the Untied States of Trumperland, has opened the borders of Florida to illegal immigrants? Donald Trump has stated that, after Sleepy Joe Biden stole the White House, that Trump is taking a break from fighting illegal immigrants. That includes alligators and other pests. Vote for Trump, and when he's back at the White House, he will fight to increase the Police Force and help Florida residents remove unwanted pets and pests. ---- ---- Florida family finds 550-pound alligator in their swimming pool CBS News Victoria Albert May 17, 2022, 12:14 PM A Florida family got a massive surprise when they found a 550-pound alligator in their swimming pool, according to a Tuesday post from the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office. Authorities said the nearly 11-foot-long gator tore through the family's screen in search of cool water. The sheriff's office said a family in Deep Creek, Florida — about 30 miles north of Fort Meyers — was woken up at night by a series of loud noises. When the family looked outside, they saw the giant animal swimming in their pool. "Always check your pool before diving in!" the sheriff's office said. Photos of the incident shared by the sheriff's office show multiple officials working to restrain the alligator. Alligators are no stranger to Florida swimming pools. In 2020, a resident in Tampa found a gator leisurely doing laps in his pool. And in 2018, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office posted images and video of an 11-foot gator floating in a backyard pool. The incident in Deep Creek, Florida wasn't the only warning pool owners received about dangerous animals this week: A volunteer fire department in Salado, Texas, told residents to check inside their pool noodles for rattlesnakes, which like to hide in the cool, dark spaces. | |
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| 05-17-22 06:13pm - 910 days | #103 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
I realize that Donald Trump had some crazy ideas. But maybe they weren't all bad. What would be so wrong about shooting protesters in the leg? You aren't trying to kill them. Also, if you fire missiles into Mexico, won't you get rid of druggies? Isn't that a good thing? In Esper’s book, A Sacred Oath, the former cabinet member claims that he wrestled with quitting but decided to stay to prevent the president from doing anything catastrophic. That being said, he also shared stories about Trump wanting to fire missiles into Mexico to take out the drug cartel, as well at wanting to shoot the protesters that gathered following the murder of George Floyd. ------- ------- Judd Apatow slams Stephen Colbert's other guest on Monday's 'Late Show': 'People with money manipulate the whole system' Yahoo TV George Back May 17, 2022, 1:12 AM Judd Apatow visited The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Monday to promote his documentary George Carlin's American Dream. Apatow was the second guest on the show, with the first being Mark Esper, former President Donald Trump’s secretary of Defense. Esper was there to promote his new tell-all book about the absurd things the former president did in office. Apatow did not pull any punches when Colbert asked him what Carlin would think of Esper. “I don't think George Carlin would like Mark Esper,” Apatow said. “Carlin's whole idea was that people with money manipulate the whole system. So if somebody knows that Trump is a maniac, you would think the day after he gets fired is the day to go, ‘Hey, he wanted to shoot all the George Floyd protestors in the legs.’ But he waits a year to write a book and make money. And I think that was George Carlin's whole thing, which is that they're not looking out for you.” In Esper’s book, A Sacred Oath, the former cabinet member claims that he wrestled with quitting but decided to stay to prevent the president from doing anything catastrophic. That being said, he also shared stories about Trump wanting to fire missiles into Mexico to take out the drug cartel, as well at wanting to shoot the protesters that gathered following the murder of George Floyd. While Colbert appeared more willing to give Esper the benefit of the doubt, Apatow seemed prepared to make things awkward with the other guest in the green room. The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on CBS. | |
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| 05-16-22 11:19am - 911 days | #102 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Amber Heard denies defecating in Johnny Depp's bed. Says she was potty trained as a child. Says she suspects Depp is a disgusting person who probably did it himself. ----- ----- Amber Heard denies defecating in Johnny Depp marital bed: 'That's disgusting' Yahoo Celebrity Taryn Ryder May 16, 2022, 8:31 AM Amber Heard and Johnny Depp were back in court on Monday after a weeklong hiatus in their defamation trial. The Aquaman star, 36, testified about her "violent and chaotic" relationship with Depp, claiming most of their fights ended with her being assaulted. But she insisted no argument ended with human fecal matter in their marital bed. One of the many headline-grabbing claims during trial is that, in April 2016, there was "human fecal matter" left on Depp's side of the bed. (The topic even made it into Saturday Night Live's latest cold open.) Last month, the court was shown a photo of the defecation, which Heard insinuated was from the pair's small dogs, Boo or Pistol, not a prank played by her or her friend. "What if any issues did Boo have with bathroom problems, if you will?" Heard's lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, asked. "She had eaten Johnny's weed when she was a puppy and had bowel control issues for her entire life, among some other issues, we regularly had to take her to the vet," Heard replied. "She had some control issues." Heard said she left the dogs in bed while she packed for Coachella. "Did you commit any kind of prank?" Bredehoft asked. "Absolutely not," Heard replied. "First of all, I don't think that's funny. I don't know what grown women does. I was also not in a pranking mood, my life was falling apart." Johnny Depp arrives into the courtroom at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia on May 16, 2022. Johnny Depp arrives into the courtroom at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia on May 16, 2022. (Photo: Reuters) Heard testified Depp abused her the night before. "I had just been attacked on my 30th birthday by my violent husband with whom I was desperately in love and knew I needed to leave. It was not really a jovial time and I don't think that's funny, period. That's disgusting," the actress added. Heard claimed that the night prior, Depp chest-bumped her "in a kind of bro-y way." When she was on the ground, he allegedly grabbed her pubic bone. "He kind of pushed my down and was asking me: 'You're so tough? You wanna be tough like a man now?" she claimed. The actress said she used their safe word "couch," which meant truce. "I was just so tried, hurt. I remember crying, feeling ridiculous," she told a jury. As Depp left their penthouse that night, Heard said the actor purportedly yelled out, "Happy f****** birthday!" The April 2016 incident was one of many Heard walked the jury through. The former spouses didn't see each other for a month after the fight on her birthday. They met up in May 2016 after Depp's mother passed away. Heard said they got into a fight about the fecal matter as Depp was certain it was human feces. "I thought it was just a delusion he was having," Heard said. She claimed Depp threw a cell phone that hit her in her face. He then whacked "me on the top of my head." The actress testified her friend and neighbor ran in and saved Heard. Depp has denied all of his ex-wife's allegations of abuse. The actress is expected to face cross-examination from Depp's legal team later on Monday. Heard's spokesperson preemptively issued a statement. "There's an old saying by trial lawyers: when the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the facts are not on your side, pound away on the podium. Today, we expect Depp's attorneys will instead pound away on the victim. We fear it will be equal parts shameful and desperate. And, the overwhelming evidence — the truth — is not on Depp's side," Heard's rep said. "The one thing we suspect Depp's attorneys will avoid is the central issue of this trial: does Amber or any woman have the First Amendment Right of Freedom of Speech." Depp is suing Heard for $50 million for a 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as a victim of domestic and sexual abuse. | |
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| 05-16-22 11:16am - 911 days | #101 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Photos show GOP Senate candidate Kathy Barnette marching with Proud Boys on Jan. 6. But Barnette explains that she was only out for exercise, that she doesn't know who the Proud Boys are. So she is completely innocent of marching, or of any civil or criminal actions. Vote for Trump. He's the Man who can stop Putin from invading the USA, from firing nuclear missiles into the US and killing innocent civilians. ------- ------- Photos show GOP Senate candidate Kathy Barnette marching with Proud Boys on Jan. 6 Yahoo News Christopher Wilson May 16, 2022, 9:30 AM Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Kathy Barnette marched with members of a right-wing extremist group prior to the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to footage recently unearthed on social media. The photos and video showing Barnette marching alongside the Proud Boys originally surfaced on Sunday via writer Chad Loder’s Twitter account. On Monday, the photos were verified by NBC News. Responding to NBC News, Barnette’s campaign said, “Kathy was in DC to support President Trump and demand election accountability. Any assertion that she participated in or supported the destruction of property is intentionally false. She has no connection whatsoever to the proud boys.” Over the last week, Barnette has surged into contention for the race to fill the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. After months trailing two well-funded candidates, Dr. Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick, Barnette has recently closed the gap and is seen as a top contender for the nomination. Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., is suing the Proud Boys for its involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. “Our intent is to hold these violent mobsters and these violent hate groups accountable and to get every penny of damage that we can,” Racine said in December. The pro-Trump group’s leader, Enrique Tarro, was arrested in March on conspiracy charges related to the insurrection. Five other Proud Boy associates were also charged for their alleged connections to the Jan. 6 violence. Barnette has been a prominent promoter of election conspiracy theories, including organizing buses to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the violence at the Capitol. She has contended that there were irregularities in her own 2020 House race for a safe Democratic district, which she lost by 19 points to Rep. Madeleine Dean. Barnette is a close political ally of Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the frontrunner for the GOP’s gubernatorial nomination. Mastriano was also in Washington on Jan. 6. and was subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating the events of the day. National Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have warned that Barnette would prove unelectable if she’s the GOP nominee this November. Her detractors note that she has a history of making Islamophobic and homophobic comments, and has refused to clarify pieces of her biography, even to conservative outlets. But Barnette, having run her campaign so far on a shoestring budget, recently received the backing of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax organization that is now running $2 million in TV ads for her. She also received the endorsement of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group. In addition, Steve Bannon, the far-right media personality and sometime Trump adviser, embraced Barnette on his podcast on May 9. “Barnette is a true-blue MAGA candidate and her victory would be a message from the grassroots that they want candidates who are dependably MAGA more than they want candidates who Trump endorsed,” Bannon’s website said. | |
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| 05-16-22 11:08am - 911 days | #100 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The US Supreme Court is expanding the law to serve conservatives. The US government does not have the right to limit political free speech, or to limit the amount of money politicians can grab. The US government has no right to tell you what to do, unless it's the right thing to do. Then it can tell you anything it wants. -------- -------- In victory for Sen. Ted Cruz, Supreme Court strikes down campaign loan repayment limits NBC Universal Pete Williams May 16, 2022, 7:15 AM The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal restriction that applied to candidates who loan large amounts of money to their own political campaigns, a victory for Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who challenged it. In a 6-3 ruling, the court said the law, adopted in 2002, was a violation of a political candidate’s free expression, applying longstanding rulings that said because money buys the ability to spread a political message, limits on expenditures implicate the First Amendment. Under the law at issue, candidates who contributed money to their own campaigns could be paid back from the pool of other campaign contributions. But the repayments were capped at $250,000. Cruz loaned his re-election campaign $260,000 — intentionally going above the limit in order to trigger a legal challenge — when then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke ran against him in 2018. Writing for the court’s majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the limit imposed a risk that candidates wouldn’t be repaid the full amount they loaned if they spent more than $250,000. “That risk in turn may deter some candidates from loaning money to their campaigns when they otherwise would, reducing the amount of political speech.” Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented. In an opinion for the three, Kagan said that when political candidates loan money to their own campaigns and then solicit donations in order to get repaid, the contributors know the money they’re giving goes directly to the candidate’s pocket. “The politician is happy; the donors are happy. The only loser is the public. It inevitably suffers from government corruption,” she wrote. At the time, the Cruz campaign against O'Rourke was the most expensive Senate contest in history. When his campaign said it could not repay the senator the full amount, Cruz filed a lawsuit challenging the limitation. The Justice Department had urged the court to throw the case out because Cruz intentionally triggered a violation of the law. When the case was argued, government lawyer Malcolm Stewart said he couldn’t sue McDonald’s after hearing that it serves very hot coffee and intentionally pouring it in his lap to injure himself. But the Supreme Court rejected that view, saying "the appellees' injuries are directly inflicted by the FEC’s threatened enforcement of the provisions they now challenge. That appellees chose to subject themselves to those provisions does not change the fact that they are subject to them, and will face genuine legal penalties if they do not comply." | |
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| 05-16-22 08:23am - 911 days | #99 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
North Korea has no vaccines. But not to worry. North Korea is Covid-free. And if anyone in North Korea gets sick, they have the bestest home remedies in the world. Hospitals don't need vaccines. Or electricity. Or machines that use electricity, since many hospitals don't have electricity. Home remedies are the bestest. Parsley in water is good for you. Along with earthworms. Eating parsley and earthworms will cure hepatitis, AIDS, and other diseases. Also, injecting Clorox, or the North Korean variant, might be helpful, as suggested by Donald Trump, one of the foremost geniuses the world has ever known. ------ ------ Lacking vaccines, N.Korea battles COVID with antibiotics, home remedies Reuters SungHyuk An and Heejung Jung May 16, 2022, 6:34 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - Standing tall in bright red hazmat suits, five North Korean health workers stride towards an ambulance to do battle with a COVID-19 outbreak that - in the presumed absence of vaccines - the country is using antibiotics and home remedies to treat. The isolated state is one of only two countries yet to begin a vaccination campaign and, until last week, had insisted it was COVID-free. Now it is mobilizing forces including the army and a public information campaign to combat what authorities have acknowledged is an "explosive" outbreak. In an interview on state television on Monday, Vice Minister of Public Health Kim Hyong Hun said the country had switched from a quarantine to a treatment system to handle the hundreds of thousands of suspected "fever" cases reported each day. The broadcaster showed footage of the hazmat team, and masked workers opening windows, cleaning desks and machines and spraying disinfectant. To treat COVID and its symptoms, state media have encouraged patients to use painkillers and fever reducers such as ibuprofen, and amoxicillin and other antibiotics - which do not fight viruses but are sometimes prescribed for secondary bacterial infections. While previously playing down vaccines as "no panacea", media have also recommended gargling salt water, or drinking lonicera japonica tea or willow leaf tea three times a day. "Traditional treatments are the best!" one woman told state broadcasters as her husband described having their children gargle with salted water every morning and night. An elderly Pyongyang resident said she had been helped by ginger tea and ventilating her room. "I was first scared by COVID, but after following the doctors' advice and getting the proper treatments, it turned out not a big deal," she said in a televised interview. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a Worker's Party meeting on COVID-19 outbreak response in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15, 2022. (via Reuters) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a Worker's Party meeting on COVID-19 outbreak response in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15, 2022. (via Reuters) The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, said on Sunday - when state news agency KCNA reported 392,920 more cases of fever and eight more deaths – that drugs reserves were not reaching people, and ordered the army medical corps to help stabilize supplies in Pyongyang, where the outbreak appears to be centred. KCNA said the cumulative tally of the fever-stricken stood at 1,213,550, with 50 deaths. It did not say how many suspected infections had tested positive for COVID. Authorities say a large proportion of the deaths have been due to people "careless in taking drugs due to the lack of knowledge and understanding" of the Omicron variant and the correct method for treating it. The World Health Organization has shipped some health kits and other supplies to North Korea, but has not said what drugs they contain. Neighbours China and South Korea have offered to send aid if Pyongyang requests it. While not claiming that antibiotics and home remedies will eliminate COVID, North Korea has a long history of developing scientifically unproven treatments, including an injection made from ginseng grown in rare earth elements it claimed could cure everything from AIDS to impotence. Some have roots in traditional medicines, while others have been developed to offset a lack of modern drugs or as "made in North Korea" exports. Despite a high number of trained doctors and experience mobilizing for health emergencies, North Korea's medical system is woefully under-resourced, experts say. In a March report, an independent U.N. human rights investigator said it was plagued by "under-investment in infrastructure, medical personnel, equipment and medicine, irregular power supplies and inadequate water and sanitation facilities". Kim Myeong-Hee, 40, who left the North for South Korea in 2003, said such shortcomings led many North Koreans to rely on home remedies. "Even if we go to the hospital, there are actually no medicines. There was also no electricity so medical equipment could not be used," she said. When she contracted acute hepatitis, she said she was told to take minari - a water parsley made famous by the 2020 film of the same name – every day, and to eat earthworms when afflicted by another, unknown illness. Home remedies had sometimes failed to prevent loss of life during epidemics in the 1990s, Kim added. | |
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| 05-16-22 08:11am - 911 days | #98 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Putin says Russia has been scarred emotionally when the West invaded Russia in 1812 and 1941. So if Russia decides to fight back, sending nuclear missiles into Europe, Japan, the United States of America, those countries only have themselves to blame. "We are innocent. We only want to defend Mother Russia." Putin will hold a peace conference with President for Life and Supreme Dictator Donald Trump, to discuss the bestest way to hold the world accountable for the hurts Russia has endured... -------- -------- Putin says Russia will respond if NATO bolsters Sweden, Finland militarily Reuters Guy Faulconbridge May 16, 2022, 6:12 AM LONDON (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Monday that Russia would respond if NATO began to bolster the military infrastructure of Sweden and Finland which have both decided to join the U.S. military alliance after the invasion of Ukraine. Putin, Russia's paramount leader since the last day of 1999, has repeatedly cited the post-Soviet enlargement of the NATO alliance eastwards towards Russia's borders as a reason for the conflict of Ukraine. Speaking to the leaders of a Russian-dominated military alliance of former Soviet states, Putin said the enlargement of NATO was being used by the United States in an "aggressive" way to aggravate an already difficult global security situation. Russia, Putin said, had no problem with Finland or Sweden, so there was no direct threat from NATO enlargement which included those countries. "But the expansion of military infrastructure into this territory would certainly provoke our response," Putin told the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. "What that (response) will be - we will see what threats are created for us," Putin said at the Grand Kremlin Palace. "Problems are being created for no reason at all. We shall react accordingly." Russia has given few specific clues about what it will do in response to the Nordic enlargement of NATO, the biggest strategic consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine to date. One of Putin's closest allies, former President Dmitry Medvedev, said last month that Russia could deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad if Finland and Sweden joined NATO. NATO, founded in 1949 to provide European security against the Soviet Union, ultimately outguns Russia in almost every military measure apart from nuclear weapons, though the backbone of the alliance's military power is the United States - whose forces are mostly deployed far from Europe Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia May 16, 2022. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool via Reuters) Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia May 16, 2022. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool via Reuters) Before Putin spoke, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the West should have no illusions that Moscow would simply put up with the Nordic expansion of NATO. The West says NATO - an alliance of 30 countries including former Warsaw Pact republics such as Poland and Hungary as well as nuclear powers the United States, Britain and France - is purely defensive. Moscow says NATO threatens Russia and that Washington has repeatedly ignored the Kremlin's concerns about the security of its borders in the West, the source of two devastating European invasions in 1812 and 1941. Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917 and fought two wars against it during World War Two during which it lost territory. Sweden has not fought a war for 200 years. Foreign policy has focused on supporting democracy and nuclear disarmament. Putin said that besides the "endless expansion policy", NATO was reaching far beyond its Euro-Atlantic remit - a trend that Russia was following carefully. Putin says the "special military operation" in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia through NATO enlargement and Moscow had to defend against the persecution of Russian-speaking people. Putin says assurances were given as the Soviet Union collapsed that the alliance would not expand eastwards towards Russia, a promise he says was a lie that humiliated Russia in its time of historic weakness. The United States and NATO dispute that such assurances were given explicitly. Kyiv and its Western backers say the claim of persecution of Russian speakers has been exaggerated by Moscow into a pretext for an unprovoked war against a sovereign state. | |
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| 05-16-22 06:17am - 911 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Elizabeth Olsen Admits She's No Longer Close Friends With Chris Evans. She also said she is not close with John Krasinski, even though they both shared a scene in the new Doctor Strange movie. Olsen says she doesn't know why she's acting like Chris Evans is dead. What did he do to piss her off? ----- ----- Glamour Elizabeth Olsen Admits She's No Longer Close Friends With Chris Evans in Hilarious New Video Emily Tannenbaum Sat, May 14, 2022, 10:55 AM Elizabeth Olsen may be the most honest woman in Hollywood—or, at least, the Marvel Universe. You see, Olsen was recently tasked with completing Vanity Fair's lie detector test, and her answers were refreshingly off-the-cuff. Unlike Andrew Garfield, who lied to everyone about appearing in Spider-Man: No Way Home, I actually believe Olsen when she says she doesn't know John Krasinski—an actor whom she shared a scene with in her latest film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. “I've never met him,” she said confidently, despite the interviewer pointing out their obvious connection. “I've never met him,” she repeated, adding, “I've never met that man. I've met his wife.” The lie detector declared her truthful. Though it's possible this video was taped prior to the film's release and Olsen was attempting to pull a Garfield, many on Twitter are pointing out that Krasinsky and Olsen may have filmed their scene separately. Another reason why I'm inclined to believe Elizabeth Olsen is that she doesn't pretend to be besties with all her coworkers, an unfortunate Hollywood trend. In the same video, the WandaVision star has no problem admitting that she's no longer very close friends with Chris Evans. It all started when Olsen revealed she was not in an Avengers group chat and no longer took part in a Fantasy Football league with other members of the cast. After it was established that Olsen has never even met Krasinsky, the interviewer moved on to her question about Evans. Please enjoy the following exchange: Vanity Fair: You've said you and this man, Chris Evans, are very close friends. Elizabeth Olsen: We were. We lived very close to each other and during that time we hung out a lot. I still like him but I don't, like, hang out with him anymore. VF: You don't like hanging out with him anymore? Olsen: No, I just like—no, it's not that I don't like hanging out with him anymore. I was doing it more in an LA way. I don't, like, still hang out with him. I was doing it more as a Valley kid. But um, yeah, he has a great laugh, so it makes you feel better about yourself when you tell a joke. VF: Would you say you were BFFs? Olsen: Never, but we were friends…I mean, we're friends. I don't know why I'm acting like he's dead. We're friends but, like, we just don't hang out anymore. Chris Evans, if you're reading this, you should probably give Olsen a call! You can watch the full video, here: Originally Appeared on Glamour | |
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| 05-16-22 06:05am - 911 days | #97 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
HuffPost Trump, Don Jr., Imagine Themselves MAGA 'Royalty' In Cringey Memes Mary Papenfuss Mon, May 16, 2022, 5:16 AM If anyone had any doubt Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are not fans of democracy, they’ll have to check out the Trumps’ embarrassingly arrogant MAGA royalty memes featuring themselves on social media. Trump Jr. fancies himself “THE GREAT MAGA PRINCE” in the manner of Russian royalty in an image he posted on Truth Social on Sunday. (He’s also now hawking “MAGA King” shirts.) Donald Trump reposted a message and video on Truth Social from another user Saturday of a Napoleon-like emperor with Trump’s face — and talons. The image appears to be modeled on the God Emperor character from the dystopian cyber game “Warhammer 40,000.” Trump’s Truth Social posts were all available on Twitter Sunday under @PresTrumpTS. He pleaded with everyone to “please follow and retweet.” Trump vowed last month not to return to Twitter, which permanently banned him for his role in last year’s Jan. 6 insurrection — even if Tesla CEO Elon Musk acquires the company. Trump vowed to stick with his own Truth Social, calming nervous investors for the time being. “They tried to mock Trump with this,” noted the Truth Social user Trump reposted. “It had the opposite effect.” Not necessarily: Both father and son were inspired to make the imaginative leap to authoritarian rulers by President Joe Biden’s comments calling Trump the “great MAGA king.” “Under my predecessor — the great MAGA king — the deficit increased every single year he was president,” Biden told the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference in Chicago last week. That was music to the ex-president’s ears. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. | |
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| 05-15-22 04:17pm - 912 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx_7uZhKL84 A video on YouTube illustrating what can happen if different species are put together. YouTube now allows X-rated videos. Only watch if you have parental permission. | |
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| 05-15-22 03:55pm - 912 days | #96 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Sam Raimi says he's lives in fear of Tobey Maguire. Tobey Maguire rose to fame playing Spider Man. But now Tobey has taken the role too far, and is threatening Sam Raimi. Sam supported Tobey years ago, but is now in hiding while he seeks protection from the embittered actor. Sam did come out of hiding to watch the newest Doctor Strange movie, but scurried back as soon as the movie was over. "Never did I think that Tobey Maguire, once my dearest friend, would turn into a my most hated enemy", cries Sam Raimi, while holding onto the arm of Nell Fisher for support. Nell Fisher is one of the stars of "Evil Dead Rise", where Nell has superpowers to fight flesh-possessing demons. But Raimi is also thinking of asking Doctor Strange for help, since Strange has an extensive background in mental illness. ---- ---- Sam Raimi Says Tobey Maguire Would ‘Break My Neck’ If He Directed a Tom Holland ‘Spider-Man’ Movie Raimi loves Tom Holland's take on the character, but would only direct a fourth "Spider-Man" movie with his original muse. Intern Christian Zilko 4 hours ago Director Sam Raimi arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," on Monday, May 2, 2022 at El Capitan Theatre. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Images) Sam Raimi Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” marks Sam Raimi’s return to the superhero genre after a 15-year hiatus, but he doesn’t want to wait that long to make another one. In the weeks leading up to the film’s release, Raimi has made no secret of his desire to keep working in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “It’s like the world’s best toy box to be able to play at Marvel,” he recently said. “I’d love to come back and tell another tale, especially with the great management they’ve got there.” While he could potentially keep focusing on Doctor Strange, Raimi has even expressed interest in returning to his most iconic hero, Spider-Man himself. Now that Tobey Maguire’s take on the character is a part of the MCU thanks to “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the director is game to re-team with him on a fourth webslinging film. “I love Tobey [Maguire]. I love Kirsten Dunst. I think all things are possible,” he said. “I don’t really have a story or a plan. I don’t know if Marvel would be interested in that right now. I don’t know what their thoughts are about that. I haven’t really pursued that. But it sounds beautiful.” While the possibilities for future films are truly endless thanks to the MCU’s multiverse, it looks like one thing can be definitively ruled out. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Raimi said he would not make a Spider-Man movie with any other actor wearing the suit. “I love Spider-Man. And I love Tom Holland in the role,” Raimi said, before adding a caveat. “If I made a Spider-Man movie, it would probably have to be with Tobey, or he’d break my neck.” That said, the chances of Raimi and Maguire reteaming for another “Spider-Man” movie seem to look a little better every day. The director continues to talk about his passion for the character at every chance he gets. “If there was a great story there, I think it’d be […] my love for the characters hasn’t diminished one iota,” Raimi said in another interview. “It would be the same things that would stop me now that stopped me then: ‘Does Tobey want to do it? Is there an emotional arc for him? Is there a great conflict for this character? And is there a worthy villain that fits into the theme of the piece?’ There’s a lot of questions that would have to be answered. If those could be answered, then I’d love to.” Edited on May 15, 2022, 03:58pm | |
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| 05-15-22 03:41pm - 912 days | #95 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
May 15, 2022 12:07pm PT ‘Into the Weeds’ Review: An Agrochemical Cancer Scandal That’s Big Tobacco Redux Jennifer Baichwal’s new documentary charts the battle for accountability over carcinogenic herbicide Roundup. Into the Weeds Courtesy of Hot Docs Though few members of the public were still denying a link between smoking and cancer at the time, it was still nonetheless rather startling when the extent of the tobacco industry’s deliberate disinformation campaign on that subject got exposed about a quarter-century ago. The déjà vu runs thick watching Jennifer Baichwal’s new documentary, “Into the Weeds,” which provides another illustration of coldblooded corporate denialism in the face of widespread harm. Here the culprit is agrochemical giant Monsanto, and their product Roundup, purportedly for some time the world’s most popular herbicide. Borrowing from “Big Tobacco’s” playbook of yore, it appears the company set out to bury ample evidence of its carcinogenicity as long as it could, buying malleable scientists and discrediting more principled ones, refusing to apply warning labels, denying a causal relationship even as tens of thousands of cancer patients sued. Those lawsuits (some still ongoing) are the focus here, in a film that’s more straight reportage than many of its director’s prior nonfiction features such as “Manufactured Landscapes,” “Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachia” or “Anthropocene.” Though not as emotionally wrenching as some of its whistleblowing ilk (such as 2018’s similarly angled “The Devil We Know”), this Hot Docs opening-night premiere is still first-rate nonfiction storytelling that should attract interest particularly from broadcasters. Baichwal frames a complex issue — one she doesn’t muddy further by referencing the many other frontiers where Monsanto has drawn bitter controversy — by giving us a sole primary protagonist in the form of Dewayne “Lee” Johnson. He’s a Northern California husband and father who’d been excited after an unemployment stint to get a groundskeeping job for the Benecia School District. Much of his duties involved spraying lawns and other areas with a Roundup variant. Though the product decreed no precautions necessary, he suited up for such tasks in an “exposure suit” as protection. Nonetheless, after a second spring season in the post, he had a lesion; by that fall (in 2014), lesions covered his body. Naively, he wrote Monsanto to ask if the herbicide might have caused his health crisis — rather than, say, immediately consulting a lawyer. The company did not respond. But internal communications later revealed they were well aware of his predicament. However, their efforts appear to have been entirely directed toward discrediting any such claims — as well as the scientists, journalists and others fingering Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate (originally patented in the 1960s as a stripper for industrial boilers) as carcinogenic to lab animals, and very likely to humans. Somehow that data managed to fly over the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, whose classification said precisely the opposite. How did that happen? Well, as one expert opines here, too often that agency is now “really working for the industry it was created to protect us from … [and which] they regulate.” Dubious scientific logic was applied again and again, seemingly just to keep Monsanto from having to change its product, or warn consumers about it. When faced with incriminating emails and documents in court, Monsanto officials feign amnesia while sticking to the company’s official line. They’re so blandly dismissive of their own malfeasance, one expects the answer to “How do you sleep at night?” is “Just fine, thanks.” Such moments, shown either on the witness stand or in previously taped video interviews, provide the most potent material here. There’s always something fascinating about seeing bald-faced official disingenuousness, even if that has sometimes seemed the New Normal in recent years. Elsewhere, we get acquainted with some of the many lawyers working on cases to “hold Monsanto accountable,” eventually pooling resources to form an Executive Committee. (Such coordination helps in managing the estimated 15 million documents relevant to the issue, among other things.) We also meet plaintiffs, many of them farmers, including an older couple who both fell ill and whose dogs died. Glyphosate-based weedkillers are considered necessary by growers of most crops, because they greatly expedite harvest in an industry where razor-thin profit margins are now often dependent on maximum volume delivered at lowest cost. But those products’ very effectiveness curtails the biodiversity needed for a sustainable ecosystem. And users like Johnson who carefully followed all instructions and (scant) warnings are nonetheless at risk. Even if the cancer they developed gets successfully treated, side-effects may continue to hobble their lives. It’s an infuriating tale in large part because, as with Big Tobacco, the corporate entity continued to deny things they knew years, even decades earlier. Though Germany’s Bayer AG bought Monsanto in 2018, accountability has remained reluctant at best, despite release of the notorious, hitherto-secret “Monsanto Papers” before and after that sale. Baichwal streamlines a complicated story as much as possible, though not everything here is maximally effective. There’s a detour to contested spraying of First Nations lands in Canada that feels gratuitous because the facts of the dispute are poorly articulated. She might also have cast a wider principal-character net than leaning so much on Johnson, who is certainly a sympathetic figure but not especially articulate. That gets underlined at what’s intended to be a feel-good ending, when he celebrates a court win by performing a rather awkward rap about his plight in a recording studio. The global scope of what one observer describes as “complete and utter hatred toward this company” is captured in footage of anti-Monsanto protests from Tokyo to Zagreb to Buenos Aires. “Into the Weeds” is highly polished in all departments, if less focused on making an aesthetic or editorial statement than Baichwal’s more personalized projects. The soundtrack features relevant protest songs by fellow Canucks Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, the last being a rare musician to be targeted (for releasing an excoriating whole album called “The Monsanto Years”) for discrediting by corporate-funded shell agencies, along with irksome scientists, activists and others. | |
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| 05-15-22 03:37pm - 912 days | #94 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Wanda Sykes says she's still traumatized by Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. Says "Fuck him", to Will Smith. In the interests of human decency, Wanda Sykes should be shunned by all moral people, and barred from ever appearing in any movie or tv or stage or public role. Keep America clean and white and moral. Also, Wanda Sykes is a bare-faced liar. She says she can't talk about the slap, and then goes on to talk about her hate-filled emotions. America is the land of the free. But we have no room for liars and people who are filled with hate. ----- ----- ‘F*ck Him’: Wanda Sykes Says She’s Still ‘Traumatized’ by Will Smith Oscars Slap Sykes also criticized the decision to let Smith accept his Oscar after he slapped Chris Rock. "Shouldn't you be sitting there with a lawyer or LAPD, motherfucker?" Intern Christian Zilko 1 hour ago Co-hosts Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall speak onstage at the 94th Academy Awards held at Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center on March 27th, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Co-hosts Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall at the 94th Academy Awards Christopher Polk for Variety Wanda Sykes still isn’t over that slap. While performing a stand-up comedy show in Orlando this week, the comedian and Oscars co-host had a lot of thoughts to share about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage at the award ceremony. “I’m still traumatized,” Sykes said (via PEOPLE). “I can’t talk about it. I get emotional.” But talk about it she did. Sykes went on to say that she was appalled that Smith was allowed to stay in the Dolby Theatre and accept his Oscar for Best Actor after the incident. “I couldn’t believe he was still sitting there, like an asshole,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be sitting there with a lawyer or LAPD, motherfucker?” While she remains upset, she acknowledged that Smith has some problems that may have contributed to the slap. “I hope he gets his shit together,” she said. “Until then, fuck him.” This is not the first time Sykes has been critical of the decision to let Smith stay in his seat after the slap. “For them to let him stay in that room and enjoy the rest of the show and accept his award, I was like, ‘How gross is this? This is just the wrong message.’ You assault somebody, you get escorted out of the building and that’s it. For them to let him continue, I thought it was gross,” she said soon after the Oscars, before joking that “I wanted to be able to run out after he won and say, ‘Unfortunately, Will couldn’t be here tonight.’” The backlash to Smith slapping Rock has been fierce, with the actor losing film roles and receiving a 10-year ban from attending the Oscars. Smith also chose to resign from the Academy. “My actions at the 94th Academy Awards presentation were shocking, painful, and inexcusable,” he said in a statement. “The list of those I have hurt is long and includes Chris, his family, many of my dear friends and loved ones, all those in attendance, and global audiences at home. I betrayed the trust of the Academy. I deprived other nominees and winners of their opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work. I am heartbroken.” | |
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| 05-15-22 02:30pm - 912 days | #93 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Milania Trump, wife of President Donald Trump, the President for Life of the Untied States of Trumperland, says that Vogue is biased for putting Jill Biden on the cover of Vogue. Since Milania is still the first lady of Trumperland, the honor belongs to Melania. Not to the wife of Sleepy Joe Biden, who shamefully stole the election and the White House away from her husband. Now the entire nation, and the world, must hang their heads in shame. And peoples will rise up and help the Trump family take back what is theirs. ---- ---- Melania Trump Calls Anna Wintour Out for 'Biased' Decision to Put Jill Biden on Vogue 's Cover People Hattie Lindert May 15, 2022, 8:40 AM Melania Trump has some thoughts about First Lady Jill Biden's August 2021 Vogue cover. In a new interview, her first sit-down since leaving the White House, the former first lady criticized Vogue and its editor-in-chief Anna Wintour for their "biased" decisions when it comes to choosing political cover stars. Trump accused Wintour of having "likes and dislikes" during her appearance on FOX & Friends Weekend on Saturday. Co-host Pete Hegseth asked the Be Best advocate how she felt about past cover choices, while also noting that Michelle Obama received three covers during her tenure and that Hillary Clinton made it onto one. "Yet with your business background and your fashion background and your beauty, never on the cover of Vogue. Why the double standard?" Hegseth asked Trump. Trump responded by claiming that Vogue is "biased," sharing: "They have likes and dislikes, and it's so obvious." Conservative first ladies Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, and Nancy Reagan were all photographed for Vogue, but none of them received cover star status. Although Trump did make the cover of Vogue in 2005, she was not first lady at the time. She made the appearance after her wedding to Donald Trump, and was featured in her wedding dress. "I think American people and everyone sees it," Melania added on Saturday. "It was their decision, and I have much more important things to do — and I did in the White House — than being on the cover of Vogue." | |
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| 05-15-22 11:35am - 912 days | #92 | |
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Trump uses lies to boast about how wonderful he is. Nothing new, just more bullshit from the most dishonest president we've ever known. ----- ----- Trump uses Buffalo mass shooting to make misleading boast about lack of US deaths in Afghanistan during his presidency, video shows Joshua Zitser Sun, May 15, 2022, 2:48 AM Former President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd shortly after the Buffalo mass shooting on Saturday night. He used the shooting to boast about the lack of US deaths in Afghanistan during his presidency. The boast is misleading. There were several US military deaths throughout Trump's time in office. Former President Donald Trump used the racially-motivated Buffalo mass shooting to make a misleading boast about the lack of deaths in Afghanistan during his presidency, a video shows. Speaking in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, the former president took to the stage shortly after an 18-year-old opened fire on customers and employees, killing 10 at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. "I think they had a tragic event in Buffalo, just as I'm coming on the stage, tragic event in Buffalo with numerous people being killed," Trump said, per the video. "In 18 months in Afghanistan, we lost nobody," the former president continued in an apparent non-sequitur. He went on to talk about negotiating with Abdul Ghani Baradar — the co-founder of the Taliban. Trump's claim that nobody died in Afghanistan during 18 months of his presidency is misleading. It's not clear which 18-month period Trump was referring to. Insider reached out to Trump's post-presidency office for clarification but received no response. He may have been referring to claims popularized on social media, described by USA TODAY, in which Trump supporters said there were no US military deaths between February 2020 and August 2021. According to a USA TODAY fact check, these claims are misleading. There were four US deaths recorded in Afghanistan during that period, according to the Pentagon's casualty tracking system, per USA Today, though not in combat situations. Eight of those months were during President Joe Biden's time in office. If Trump was referring to the last 18 months of his presidency, a period between July 2019 and January 2021, this is also factually incorrect. In 2020, 11 military deaths were recorded in Afghanistan. Throughout the final 18 months of Trump's presidency, a total of 22 US service members were reported dead in Afghanistan. Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California criticized Trump's comment in a tweet on Saturday night. "This is a ridiculous comparison by the former President," Lieu, an Air Force Reserve Command colonel, wrote. "Also, Trump is a liar and disrespects the 64 brave US servicemembers who died under his watch in Afghanistan by ignoring their deaths in his statement: 11 in 2020; 24 in 2019; 14 in 2018; 15 in 2017." | |
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| 05-15-22 05:42am - 912 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Variety May 12, 2022 10:48am PT Christopher Walken Joins ‘Dune Part Two’ as Emperor Shaddam IV The House Corrino has its ruler. Christopher Walken will join Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya in director Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune Part Two,” as Shaddam IV, the Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe. Walken’s casting fills out the major characters for the second half of Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal science-fiction novel. He joins Florence Pugh (“Black Widow”) as the Emperor’s daughter, Princess Irulan; and Austin Butler (star of the upcoming “Elvis”) as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the presumptive heir to the Harkonnen dynasty. Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts are returning as screenwriters for the sequel, which will be produced by Villeneuve, Mary Parent, Cale Boyter and Tanya Lapointe, and executive produced by Josh Grode, David Valdes, Herbert W. Gains, Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Kim Herbert, Thomas Tull, Spaihts, Richard P. Rubinstein and John Harrison. Although the Emperor does not appear in “Dune Part One,” he is the catalyst for the story, ordering the House Atreides on a doomed mission to take over dominion of the Spice mining planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. Jealous of the Atreides’ power and respect in the universe, the Emperor colludes with Dune’s previous overseers, House Harkonnen, to wipe out the Atreides family forever. That plan ultimately fails when Paul Atreides (Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) escape into the desert, and set Paul on his destiny to become the messianic figure known as the Kwisatz Haderach — which will culminate in the events of “Dune Part Two.” Villeneuve’s first “Dune” film was a gamble by Legendary and Warner Bros. — the filmmaker insisted on splitting the novel in two in order to do it proper justice, but the studios only bankrolled the first half on the hope that it would prove popular enough to warrant making the second film. It was: Released day-and-date by Warner Bros. in theaters and on HBO Max, “Dune” ultimately grossed $400.6 million worldwide. The film went on to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including best picture, and it won six, for sound, visual effects, production design, original score, editing and cinematography. Production on “Dune Part Two” is expected to start later this year, for an Oct. 20, 2023, release date. Walken, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor for 1978’s “The Dear Hunter,” most recently appeared in the Apple TV+ series “Severence” and the Amazon Prime Video series “Outlaws.” He is represented by ICM Partners. | |
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| 05-15-22 04:51am - 912 days | #91 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Democrats are a party of losers. They need someone dynamic to criticize the Republican party and expose the GOP for the hypocrites they are. Sleepy Joe Biden is a loser. Get someone else to lead the Democratic party. Bring back Jen Psaki and make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez her chief of staff. ------ ------ Why Biden is blasting the 'ultra MAGA' agenda, not Donald Trump, in his midterm push USA TODAY Joey Garrison and Francesca Chambers May 14, 2022, 1:00 AM President Joe Biden speaks about his plan to fight inflation and lower costs for working families. Biden acknowledged the pain felt by Americans from the highest inflation in four decades, calling it his President Joe Biden speaks about his plan to fight inflation and lower costs for working families. Biden acknowledged the pain felt by Americans from the highest inflation in four decades, calling it his WASHINGTON — Looking to avert a midterm disaster that would all but end his domestic agenda, President Joe Biden has landed on a message aimed squarely at the political movement of his predecessor. But he's not mentioning Donald Trump. Instead, the White House is working aggressively to paint Republicans and their policies as an “ultra MAGA agenda” in a push to overcome the president's brutal approval ratings and voters’ frustration with high inflation to help Democrats maintain control of Congress. “It’s important that we go for someone besides Trump because Trump’s not on the ballot,” said Celinda Lake, a pollster for Biden's 2020 presidential campaign pollster who conducts focus groups with midterm voters. “We’re trying to beat Republicans in 2022 in state legislatures, secretaries of state races, governors races and congressional races." Biden's dilemma on inflation: Blaming the Republicans isn't a winning strategy, analysts say Rather than calling out Trump by name, Biden is targeting the Make America Great Again takeover of the Republican Party, casting a range of issues – the fight with Disney World over LGBTQ-related issues, aGOP income tax proposal and a recent Supreme Court draft opinion overturning abortion rights – as the product of an increasingly extreme party. Biden introduced the “ultra-MAGA” label last week, making it a staple in his public remarks since. Other Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have picked it up as well. Behind the scenes, the term "ultra MAGA" was the subject of months of polling from Democratic allies, focus groups and recent meetings among White House officials to fine-tune a strategy to define the opposition. The conclusion: Voters respond more negatively to "MAGA" than Trump. "The great MAGA king," Biden said in a speech Wednesday in Chicago, referring to the former president. Democrats are trying to define a clear choice in the midterm elections to avoid a referendum on a struggling presidency. They want voters to see “ultra MAGA” as their alternative. And omitting Trump’s name is meant to reinforce a movement that Democratic strategists say is bigger than Trump – who Biden has largely sought to avoid direct conflict with since taking office. More: Biden unleashes a year's worth of anger at Trump in Jan. 6 speech, blasting him as an undemocratic liar Yet the strategy still risks making the midterms about Trump, not the movement he spawned or Democrats' vision for the country. Voters in Virginia last year were unconvinced by Democratic efforts to seize on Trump's unpopularity in the state during Republican Glenn Youngkin's gubernatorial victory. Months of research leads Democrats to 'ultra MAGA' Biden has ramped up his criticism of Trump’s political movement as several Republican primaries take place this month. Democrats face a possible outcome in November that could leave Biden with a Senate and House controlled by Trump loyalists, virtually ending any chance of the White House passing major legislation for the rest of Biden's term. Biden worked to craft the message with White House advisor Mike Donilon, according to an administration official. The rollout followed months of research beginning last fall from the political arm of the left-leaning Center for American Progress that supported the new branding.In polling of battleground areas, 81% of independent voters said the Republican Party has “changed" over the last five to 10 years, with most saying it’s “change for the worse.” More: With inflation, gas prices on voters' minds, Biden's domestic agenda muddied by war in Ukraine The voters – surveyed by Democratic pollster Hart Research and Global Strategy Group – also said they view Republicans as more “power hungry” and “willing to break the rules” than Democrats. The polling found two-thirds of voters who aren't strong Trump supporters have an unfavorable view of the MAGA movement – only 13% favorable – and that “MAGA Republicans” are viewed more negatively than “Trump Republicans” in regards to congressional candidates. “There is this notion across a wide swath of the electorate that the Republican Party changed. This isn’t the same Republican Party,” said Navin Nayak, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Despite Trump’s departure from the White House, Nayak said voters still see Republicans as a “different, radicalized party,” pointing to the emergence of Trump-allied lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. “There’s a recognition that the threats are much broader than Trump,” he said, adding that the “ultra MAGA” label "told a much broader story that was no longer about one individual but a much broader set of actors.” More: Pence will go toe-to-toe with Trump in Georgia as he announces rally with GOP Gov. Brian Kemp Biden first hinted at the phrase last month during a swing to Western states. “This ain’t your father’s Republican Party,” he said at a fundraiser in Seattle. “This is a MAGA party now ... These guys are a different breed of cat." He used the new attack language heavily in a speech Tuesday on his administration’s efforts to tackle 40-year high inflation while railing on an income tax plan by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., that the White House has worked to make a midterm boogeyman. Scott is the chair this cycle of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the political entity that provides support to Republican Senate nominees. “It’s the ultra MAGA agenda,” Biden said of Scott's proposal that would have all Americans have "skin in the game" by paying income tax. "I never expected the ultra-MAGA Republicans who seem to control the Republican Party now to have been able to control the Republican Party.” Strategy fueled by new crop of Trump-endorsed candidates In several states, Trump's hand-picked candidates are expected to win GOP primaries. That outcome sets up a general election dynamic in which elected Democrats and retiring Republicans who have supported some of Biden’s priorities could be replaced by Trump-endorsed politicians who have centered their campaigns on their relationships with the former president. “It is about extreme ideology and blind loyalty in this ultra-MAGA crew, where we take a look at someone like a J.D. Vance, who has contorted himself more than a pretzel to win Trump's backing and approval,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton when she ran for president. “So it's more than just saying someone like that is following Trump.” Senate candidate J.D. Vance and former President Donald Trump at a rally on April 23, 2022, in Delaware, Ohio. Senate candidate J.D. Vance and former President Donald Trump at a rally on April 23, 2022, in Delaware, Ohio. Vance cruised past a crowded Republican primary field last week in Ohio to become the party’s nominee for the state’s open Senate seat after receiving Trump’s endorsement. He will face off against Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan at the ballot box in November. The winner of that political fight will replace Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who is not seeking reelection. Vance was the first of several Trump-backed Senate candidates to go before primary voters this month. Trump-supported candidates in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia also face ballot tests in May. In Pennsylvania, Trump endorsed Mehmet Oz in a Republican Senate primary seen until recently as a two-way contest with David McCormick. But a third candidate, Kathy Barnette – who Trump strategist Steve Bannon labeled "ultra-MAGA" because of some of her views – has gained momentum in polls. More: Trump-backed J.D. Vance wins Ohio primary, will face Democrat Tim Ryan in November Democrats say Barnette's rise is further proof that "MAGA" is bigger than Trump. They are seeking to make it the alternative to Biden’s proposals to subsidize childcare and reduce the cost of prescription drugs. “My Republican colleagues say these programs to help the working-class and middle-class people – that’s – they say that’s why we have inflation. They’re dead wrong,” Biden said in a Wednesday speech at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ conference in Chicago. President Joe Biden speaks Friday, April 22, 2022, at Green River College in Auburn, Wash., south of Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) ORG XMIT: WATW117 President Joe Biden speaks Friday, April 22, 2022, at Green River College in Auburn, Wash., south of Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) ORG XMIT: WATW117 More: Trump is backing 'Dr. Oz' in the Pennsylvania Senate race. What to know about the ex-TV show host 'Ultra MAGA' attacks will backfire, Republicans say. | |
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| 05-14-22 12:52pm - 913 days | #90 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Madison Cawthorn supports Donald Trump. And some Republicans are trying to bring Cawthorn down. Support Cawthorn. Support Trump. Support Putin. They will make America great again. Unless Putin sends missiles into the Untied States of Trumperland, to eliminate Sleepy Joe Biden. Because missiles are not always reliable, and they might land in Florida, where Donald Trump, the Glorious Leader of the Free World, has established his residency, since leaving his home state of New York. ----- ----- Madison Cawthorn tries to survive primary as slip-ups mount Associated Press GARY D. ROBERTSON May 13, 2022, 4:31 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn's prominent role as the youngest pro-Donald Trump agitator in Congress can rub people on the right and the left the wrong way in his North Carolina district. That's made the 26-year-old culture warrior a social media political celebrity and successful fundraiser. He's near the top of the list of the former president’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill. But a series of unforced political and personal errors has brought both the force of big-name state Republicans and traditional enemies to bear against Cawthorn's reelection bid. Some blunders have been headline-grabbing, like one that rankled GOP colleagues who believe he insinuated they were holding orgies and snorting cocaine. Others have been salacious, like recently released videos showing him in sexually suggestive poses. But at home, the most consequential may have been when he decided to run for a different U.S. House seat, only to return to the mountainous 11th Congressional District that he now represents when redistricting litigation shifted the lines again. The two top Republican leaders in the General Assembly have thrown their support to a Cawthorn rival — state Sen. Chuck Edwards, one of seven challengers in the May 17 primary. With Trump winning North Carolina twice and endorsing Cawthorn this year, his reelection in a Republican-leaning seat in a strong GOP year would have seemed likely. Now, after just one term in office, the upstart congressman faces a tough primary challenge, with a difficult general election fight if he survives. “I don’t know what has happened to him, but I do know this: The people of western North Carolina have not been represented in Washington, D.C.,” said Michele Woodhouse, who was once a Cawthorn ally but is now running against him. U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., endorsed Edwards in the race in late March, saying, “Cawthorn has fallen well short of the most basic standards western North Carolina expects from their representatives.” A super PAC aligned with Tillis is taking the unusual action of spending $1.5 million in the district on mailers and TV ads, one of which calls Cawthorn a “reckless embarrassment" and ”dishonest disaster." Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., speaks before former President Donald Trump takes the stage at a rally on April 9, 2022, in Selma, N.C. (AP) Cawthorn is fighting back, accusing the Washington establishment and Tillis of trying to shut him down. “I have never folded in Washington and the swamp hates me for it,” he says in an ad. “They want someone who will make backroom deals to sell out our values and someone who will abandon America First principles.” The 11th District field became crowded with well-known or well-funded challengers after Cawthorn decided in the fall to run in another district closer to Charlotte under boundaries retooled during redistricting that would have made his path to reelection much easier. But the statewide House map was struck down by state courts, and its reshaping ultimately forced Cawthorn in late February to return to what is largely the 11th District he currently represents. Meanwhile, Edwards, Woodhouse and other Republicans had been running there for months. “It’s clear that his interest was to move somewhere else and seek a political career someplace else after we, including myself in this district, worked to get him elected,” Edwards said in an interview. “He turned his back on us.” Cawthorn's campaign said he wasn’t available for an interview. Campaign spokesperson Luke Ball wrote in an email that the congressman is “focused on moving forward, uniting the NC-11 GOP, and winning the November election, not relitigating the redistricting process.” Cawthorn infuriated his fellow Republicans in Congress when he alleged on a podcast that he had been invited to an orgy in Washington and that he had seen leaders in the movement to end drug addiction use cocaine. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy reprimanded him publicly for the remarks. He's been stopped by police three times since October — two in which he was cited for speeding and one for driving with a revoked license. He’s been caught with guns at airport checkpoints twice in the past year, including two weeks ago. He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug” after Russia invaded the country. “It was analogous to ripping Santa Claus on Christmas Eve,” said Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political science professor. In a nearly eight-minute video posted on social media last week, Cawthorn apologized for speeding and acknowledged that carrying a gun through airport security was a mistake: “I have to own this one.” 'I was being crass with a friend, trying to be funny' But he pushed back against other allegations made in news articles, calling them “outlandish.” And he later described two videos depicting him in sexually suggestive poses as part of a “drip campaign” by his enemies to flood the district with negative stories in the race's final days. “I was being crass with a friend, trying to be funny,” he tweeted about one video. “We were acting foolish, and joking, that’s it. I’m NOT backing down.” In 2020, many conservatives saw Cawthorn as a rising star who could bring young people into the party. He turned 25 — the constitutionally mandated minimum age to serve in the House — during the campaign. Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair after being partially paralyzed from a car accident as a teenager, vaulted to prominence by winning a primary runoff for the seat being vacated by Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff. Both Meadows and Trump had endorsed Cawthorn's primary rival, but the former president soon became an ally. “I love him because he’s never controversial,” Trump joked at a rally last month with Cawthorn. “There’s no controversy. But you know what? He loves this country. He loves this state and I’ll tell you, he is respected all over the place. He’s got a big voice.” Some constituents believe he’s more interested in inflaming the culture wars or striking a pose on Instagram than helping the district. Dairy farmer Bradley Johnston, 59, an unaffiliated voter from Henderson County, said Cawthorn seemed like a “smart young man” who “we all thought would go to Washington and represent the values that we liked.” “He just, in my opinion, has not conducted himself in the ways that he’s going to be able to be much of a representative down the road,” Johnston said. Registered independents can vote in the GOP primary, and Johnston is supporting hotel operator Bruce O’Connell. Early in-person voting ends Saturday. If the top vote-getter after Tuesday doesn't receive more than 30% of the votes cast, the two leading candidates will go to a July runoff. In the six-candidate Democratic primary, minister and LGBTQ activist Jasmine Beach-Ferrara has been the top fundraiser. Even if Cawthorn wins the primary, he's not yet fully avoided a formal challenge of his candidacy by voters who say he should be disqualified over his involvement in the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Cawthorn got a federal judge to block the state board of elections from examining the challenge. That ruling is on appeal. While the 11th District, which stretches 160 miles from east of Asheville to the north Georgia border, is a haven for retirees, it could be new voters who decide the race. “Madison is a very flashy person and a character himself,” said Brian Penland, 22, of Franklin, a Western Carolina University student who declined to give his preference in the race. “Whether people like him or not ... he is here and he has made his stamp in western North Carolina. And the rest of it is up to the voters.” | |
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| 05-14-22 12:37pm - 913 days | #89 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Supreme Court Justice admits that the Supreme Court is fragile. We need a stronger Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is supposed to be important. Fire all the Supreme Court judges, and get people who will stand up for the rights of people under the US Constitution. ----- ----- Justice Thomas laments leak of draft Supreme Court abortion opinion: 'Kind of an infidelity' USA TODAY John Fritze May 13, 2022, 7:21 PM WASHINGTON – Associate Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday compared the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion in a blockbuster abortion case to "an infidelity," arguing that it weakens trust within the high court as well as public perceptions of the institution. "When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I'm in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder," Thomas said at an event in Dallas. "It's like kind of an infidelity – that you can explain it but you can't undo it." Thomas, a stalwart conservative on the nine-member court, is the latest justice in recent days to speak publicly about the leak of a draft opinion that showed the high court may overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. The stunning leak of the opinion upended official Washington in the middle of a midterm election year and prompted protests across the nation, including at the homes of the justices. "I've been in this business long enough to know just how fragile it is," Thomas said of trust in the nation's institutions. "And the institution that I'm a part of – if someone said that one line of one opinion would be leaked by anyone, and you would say that, 'Oh, that's impossible. No one would ever do that.'" Related video: Sen. Murkowski calls SCOTUS leak 'shocking' and 'unprecedented' Crossover: How a Supreme Court case about pig farms could muddy looming debate over out-of-state abortions Precedent: The Supreme Court has overruled itself on segregation and saluting the flag. Will Roe be next? Though Supreme Court deliberations have leaked before, including in abortion cases, the release of an entire draft opinion from the closely guarded high court was unprecedented. The court confirmed the authenticity of the document but stressed it was not its final opinion in a case about Mississippi's ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation. Justice Clarence Thomas on April 23, 2021. Justice Clarence Thomas on April 23, 2021. Thomas was speaking at a conference organized by the American Enterprise Institute, Manhattan Institute, and Hoover Institution. Thomas' remarks came a day after Associate Justice Samuel Alito was asked about the leak during an event at George Mason University. "I think it would just be really helpful for all of us to hear, personally, are you all doing okay in these very challenging times?" a questioner asked, according to The Washington Post. "This is a subject I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about today regarding, you know – given all the circumstances," Alito replied. "The court right now, we had our conference this morning, we’re doing our work," Alito said, the Post reported. "We’re taking new cases, we’re headed toward the end of the term, which is always a frenetic time as we get our opinions out." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Clarence Thomas: Abortion opinion leak weakens trust at Supreme Court | |
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| 05-14-22 12:23pm - 913 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Maybe it's time the US toughened up and sent hit squads into Russia to eliminate Putin. If he's crazy enough to threaten the world, maybe the world is better off with Putin dead. ------- ------- Russia's media propaganda turns to 'spine-chilling rhetoric' to intimidate the West NBC Universal Yuliya Talmazan May 14, 2022, 1:30 AM How many seconds does it take for a ballistic missile to reach London, Paris or Berlin? That’s the question pundits on Russian state TV were pondering as the war in Ukraine entered its third month. The eerie estimates were accompanied by a graphic showing the trajectories that Moscow’s intercontinental ballistic missiles would take to reach the capitals of European nations that supply Kyiv with the most military aid. All the while, pro-Kremlin host Olga Skabeyeva and the experts on her “60 Minutes” show on the Russia-1 TV channel were nonchalantly joking about how the West should tune in. Rossiya 1 show discussed Russian nuclear strikes on European countries late last month. (via Russia-1) Rossiya 1 show discussed Russian nuclear strikes on European countries late last month. (via Russia-1) Just months ago, the graphic, the rhetoric and the seeming casualness of such conversations would have been shocking, even by the standards of Russian propaganda. But with Russia’s military struggling, its rivals emboldened and the neighbor it invaded responding with defiance, NBC News watched dozens of hours of state media coverage to find the Kremlin and its mouthpieces increasingly reaching for new and more outlandish claims to justify the Ukraine invasion. “The Kremlin has relatively few instruments to try and influence the West, and therefore it’s resorting to all this spine-chilling rhetoric as a means of attempted intimidation,” said Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank based in London. That leaves “the dark power of looking crazy and dangerous” as one of the very few tools at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s disposal, he said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s false suggestion that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood” like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and that some of the “biggest antisemites were, as a rule, Jewish” drew widepsread condemnation and ridicule. Russian state media has also peddled narratives about “black magic” supposedly practiced by Ukrainian troops and hinted at baseless allegations of drug use by Zelenskyy. The country’s tightly-controlled media space means that Russian audiences have been seeing a strikingly different version of events in Ukraine on their TV screens than people in the West — one that bears little resemblance to evidence of what’s happening on the ground. Newscasts and daily political shows have spent countless hours of airtime telling their viewers that the war in Ukraine is not, in fact, a war, but instead a “special military operation” designed to spare civilians. The Russian forces are portrayed as liberators, fighting against what the propaganda calls the “neo-Nazis” who are said to overrun Ukraine under the influence of the United States and it allies and are allegedly committing “genocide” against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. The atrocities documented in Bucha and other Ukrainian towns are staged by Kyiv, Russia claims. Moscow says it went into Ukraine as a pre-emptive strike against NATO, as Ukraine was seeking nuclear weapons. The public is told that tough sanctions are simply further proof of the West’s pathological hate for Russia that drove the conflict in the first place. Above all, the state media would have Russians believe that the military operation in Ukraine is going to plan and that Russian forces are winning. A recent poll by Russia’s Levada Center, which is not a state-run group, found that public support for “the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine” remains high at 74 percent, although experts have raised doubts about whether such polls can be accurate. But a lot of that support is for the war as it’s being portrayed on state television, rather than support for what’s actually going on in Ukraine, Galeotti said. “It’s support for a limited operation, conducted surgically to avoid civilian casualties in order to prevent a neo-Nazi regime from getting nukes and committing genocide,” he said. “If that’s what you’re presented with, well, I’m not surprised that a lot of people will say — yes, that sounds like a perfectly appropriate war. It’s more about what happens once reality starts to confront them as more people start coming back from the battlefield.” Moscow’s war has been beset by uneven offensives and heavy personnel losses as Kyiv’s allies ramp up military aid. That has seen the rhetoric on Russian state TV ramp up further to a point where talking about missile strikes on European capitals and the possibility of nuclear war are simply par for the course, said Stephen Hutchings, professor of Russian studies at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. “There is an unprecedented and seemingly almost concerted effort to bandy around and play fast and loose with this rhetoric of World War III and nuclear strikes,” he said. It’s a reflection of a war that’s not going according to plan, and in which people are becoming frustrated and angry, he added. One of the most egregious examples, he said, came from pro-Kremlin journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, who used an episode of a weekly current affairs show in early May to illustrate how Moscow could swiftly turn Britain into a “nuclear wasteland” if it was moved to do so. The U.K. could be attacked with Russia’s unstoppable Poseidon underwater drone, he said, generating a giant tsunami that would annihilate the nation. “A lot of this rhetoric is essentially to ram home this notion that this is not actually just a war in Ukraine, but rather a proxy war with the West,” Galeotti said. “They’re trying to amp up the sense of the scale of this confrontation just in case the decision is made about converting it from a special military operation into a full-scale war. If you want to avoid making that sound like a defeat, then you have to say it’s because this is no longer just about Ukraine, but rather about Russia against the whole West.” RUSSIA-HISTORY-WWII-ANNIVERSARY (Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images) RUSSIA-HISTORY-WWII-ANNIVERSARY (Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images) The Ukrainian government has blamed Russian state media for fueling the war, with Zelenskyy threatening retaliation against Moscow’s most prolific propagandists. Russia’s jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny has also called out his country’s state media for being “warmongers.” It all comes against the backdrop of a country with nearly no remaining independent media. Russia passed a law criminalizing any criticism of its armed forces early in the invasion, and the few remaining independent journalists have either left the country or have stopped working altogether. The internet, of course, is still there for those seeking out international war coverage — although several foreign news sites have been blocked — but for an average Russian consumer, state TV remains the main source of news about Ukraine. Feeding audiences an intensifying stream of propaganda, including the potential for nuclear war, may only achieve so much for the Kremlin, however, experts said. “It’s all very well threatening these kinds of things,” Galeotti said. “At what point do people start thinking — this is getting really scary?” | |
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| 05-14-22 11:52am - 913 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
I know that many sites are now charging extra for downloads. Can't argue with that. Is it fair? Not to people who pay for porn. But I also know that many sites (and the models they pay) are hurting from reduced revenues from Covid and other factors. So I think that paying for porn supports sites that I join, as well as the models. And inflation seems a fact of life that we must live with. I'm old, I remember growing up when a gallon of gasoline was 29.9 cents. And there were gas wars when prices dropped to 19 cents a gallon. Unbelievable, compared to today's prices. But a nickle candy bar, when I was a child, now costs almost $1. So inflation is here to stay. And we have to live with it. I don't like it, but the old saying, "Grin and bear it", comes to mind. There are too many other problems with the world to worry about the cost of porn. Find the porn sites you enjoy, and figure out if you are willing to pay the membership fees. And, yes, if download limits are involved, then that's part of the site. I think there are plenty of sites without download limits, depending on the type of membership you pay for. Or, you can surf the tube sites. If your budget is really tight, that's the best way to enjoy porn. But even Pornhub, a tube site, is changing with the times. They used to allow free downloads for many of their videos, for low definition downloads. No longer. They don't offer free downloads, as far as I can tell. Maybe on their paid membership, you can download. But I would rather pay for memberships at regular porn sites, where I hope part of my money will go to the models. Which might be naive. | |
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| 05-14-22 06:44am - 913 days | #88 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Britain is sanctioning friends of Putin. Donald Trump speaks out about his bestest buddy, saying it's a witch hunt, that Putin is a warm-hearted guy who loves everyone. Why would Britain, a country of mainly white people, go after dear Putin? Don't they realize that white people must stick together? Also, men have urges, Donald Trump says. That's why Trump has grabbed women by their pussies. So if Putin wants to have some nooky, that's normal. You shouldn't go after a woman just because she's friends with Putin. ---- ---- Britain sanctions Putin's inner circle, including rumored mistress Alina Kabaeva Yahoo News Niamh Cavanagh May 13, 2022, 6:06 AM LONDON — The U.K. has imposed a new round of sanctions that will ban travel and freeze the assets of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s family and close friends — including his alleged mistress, Alina Kabaeva. “We are exposing and targeting the shady network propping up Putin’s luxury lifestyle and tightening the [vise] on his inner circle,” Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said in a statement on Friday. The group includes Igor Putin, the president’s cousin, and Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, the former first lady of the Russian Federation and Putin’s ex-wife. Despite their divorce in 2014, the Foreign Office believes that Ocheretnaya benefited from “preferential business relationships with state-owned entities.” Russian President Vladimir Putin hands flowers to Alina Kabaeva. Russian President Vladimir Putin hands flowers to gymnast Alina Kabaeva at an award ceremony in 2001. (Sergei ChirikovAFP via Getty Images) Among the sanctioned is Kabaeva — a retired Olympic gold-medal-winning gymnast reportedly dubbed by Russian tabloids the “First Mistress” and “Secret First Lady” — whom the Foreign Office said is “alleged to have a close personal relationship with Putin.” In recent years, Kabaeva, who is rumored to have children with the Russian president, sat as the deputy in the Russian state assembly, the Duma, for Putin’s United Russia party. Her grandmother, Anna Zatseplina, has also been sanctioned. The penalties also targeted the Kremlin leader’s loyal supporters and friends — many of whom have important positions within the government and financial institutions. They include Alexander Plekhov, a friend of Putin's; Mikhail Klishin, a top executive in Bank Rossiya; Vladimir Kolbin, the son of Putin’s childhood friend and alleged business associate Peter Kolbin; and Yuri Shamalov, the son of Nikolai Shamalov, who was sanctioned by Britain in 2014. “Today’s sanctions will hit this cabal who owe Putin their wealth and power, and in turn support Putin and his war machine,” the Foreign Office report said. Vladimir Putin and his then-wife, Lyudmila. Putin and his then-wife, Lyudmila, in 2012. (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA-Novosti/AFP via Getty Images) The Biden administration has withheld Kabaeva from several rounds of sanctions since the start of the war. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. officials decided to leave her out of the tough penalties over fears that including her would thwart efforts to negotiate an end to the invasion and would fuel tensions between Russia and the U.S. The Treasury Department said, however, that sanctions against Kabaeva aren’t off the table. Following the announcement on Friday, Truss said on Twitter, “We’re ramping up the pressure on all those aiding and abetting Putin’s aggression until Ukraine prevails.” So far the U.K. has sanctioned over 1,000 individuals and 100 entities since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The net global worth of those sanctioned is over $142 billion, according to the U.K. | |
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| 05-14-22 05:46am - 913 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Why do actors often play characters that are supposed to be younger than the real age of the actors? Is this fair? Or does this teach people to lie, and cheat, and steal? Enquiring minds want to know: are all actors liars? ----- ----- Movies Interview Haley Lu Richardson: ‘I’ve retired from playing teenagers’ Adrian Horton The 27-year-old star of Edge of Seventeen, Columbus and Unpregnant is growing up with indie Montana Story and a role in the next season of The White Lotus ‘I’ve had this slow, steady burn that I’m kind of appreciative for, because I feel like it’s given me space to really make mistakes’ … Haley Lu Richardson Haley Lu Richardson: ‘I’ve had this slow, steady burn that I’m kind of appreciative for, because I feel like it’s given me space to really make mistakes.’ Photograph: Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock Adrian Horton @adrian_horton Sat 14 May 2022 02.04 EDT Last modified on Sat 14 May 2022 02.40 EDT In the last half decade, Haley Lu Richardson has amassed an impressive variety of roles, from slapstick comedies and indie dramas, united in their striking naturalism. As the popular best friend to Hailee Steinfeld’s misanthrope in teen comedy Edge of Seventeen, a star-crossed lover with cystic fibrosis in Five Feet Apart and an architecture nerd who befriends a grieving older man in Kogonada’s critically acclaimed Columbus, the 27-year-old American actor’s warmth consistently elevates what could be flat or derivative characters into full-blooded people. She is remarkably good at the more casual, throwaway aspects of life that often translate poorly to screen – Googling Planned Parenthood in Unpregnant, shooting a glance in the memories of a techno-sapien robot in After Yang or, in the case of her new film Montana Story, calling an Uber to her father’s ranch in Big Sky country. Unpregnant review – road-trip abortion comedy is a fun if rocky ride Read more Montana Story, written and directed by the film-making duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel, marks a departure for Richardson, who has mostly played teenagers in complicated situations. Her character Erin is a full adult – 25 years old, reconnecting with her estranged brother, played by Owen Teague, after a stroke sends their mutually loathed father into a coma. “I’ve retired from playing teenagers,” she says with a laugh over Zoom earlier this week from Italy. The decision came after filming Unpregnant, in which she played a 17-year-old honor student reconnecting with her best friend over slushies and Kelly Clarkson while road-tripping across states for an abortion. “I remember thinking after that movie, ‘I think that was the last time I can connect to a teenager.’ Like, I just don’t think that I have it in me any more … that was 10 years ago!” The warmth she projects on-screen carries off it; there’s a disarming goofiness throughout our chat, as she interrupts herself to mention cat hair (her cat made it to Italy with her), sparkling water burps and an aside about how we both had first kisses to Kelly Clarkson songs, which would be fully vintage to her more recent teen characters. Clad in a hoodie, she’s zooming in from Sicily, where she’s deep into filming the second season of The White Lotus, HBO’s biting satire of privilege and leisure that became the breakout TV hit of summer 2021. Richardson plays Portia, a mid-20s woman traveling with her boss, and that’s about all we can know about her character so far. “It’s the same show, it’s just that the characters are different and the place is different, and the themes that intertwine through all the storylines are new themes that are equally as present in society and humanity now,” she says, searching for the right words. I supply: relevant, unsettling, disturbing. “Thought-provoking, fucked up,” she adds, and we both laugh. Also that. With The White Lotus and Montana Story, Richardson was drawn to inhabit a more mature, calcified era of emotional turmoil. Erin returns after a seven-year absence with a hard shell of bitterness – toward her father, who we learn was cruel and abusive. Toward her brother, for more mysterious reasons gradually unlocked through a pressure cooker of awkward car rides, logistical decisions, and an inevitable confrontation that rips off the scabs on past wounds. “The maturity of that is something I connected to more personally,” she says. “Obviously when I did Edge of Seventeen, I still love that movie and I connected to it then, but this is a different level of connection that I personally felt to what Erin was going through, and a lot of that has to do with where she’s at in her life, and what she’s able to face and deal with.” It’s been 11 years since Richardson and her mother moved to LA from her home town of Phoenix, where she had won a number of regional dance competitions. Unlike many of her cohort, she entered Hollywood with no industry connections – her mother works in marketing, her father designs golf courses. Asked if she got frustrated by nepotism barriers coming up, Richardson was sanguine. “I don’t try to fight, and I’m not mad at,” she says. “I mean, I see people kind of come up around me, or have these incredible opportunities around me, and a lot of them have been working really hard for a long time, and a lot of people have a certain kind of connection, or just get really lucky in a certain role at a certain time.” Haley Lu Richardson in Unpregnant Richardson in Unpregnant. Photograph: Ursula Coyote/AP “I’ve had this slow, steady burn that I’m kind of appreciative for, because I feel like it’s given me space to really make mistakes,” she adds, expressing wariness around rocketing careers, the kind that draw intense buzz all at once. “It’s like, where do you go from there, you know? How do you top that? And not just on a level of how others view you, and how you’re perceived, but also the fulfillment. I hope my whole career is just a steady build.” Montana Story’s Erin shares a common trait with most Richardson characters: stubborn independence. Her performances, whether breezy or bottled up, seem to originate from the same well of headstrong determination. With Montana Story and acclaimed turns in Columbus and After Yang – both directed by pseudonymous South Korean film-maker Kogonada, with whom she shares a mutually affectionate close friendship – Richardson has demonstrated an affinity for small, collaborative environments and an eye for female characters who can’t fade into the background. “I would rather, if I had to choose – which I do sometimes, because I don’t get those opportunities thrown at me left and right,” she says. “I’d rather be doing a smaller independent film with people that I really feel like I can collaborate with and I really trust, and playing a character that’s really full and interesting to me, than playing someone’s wife in a bigger movie.” Richardson was almost in a much bigger movie, albeit not as a sidelined wife, as one of the final candidates for Batgirl in the DC superhero film – a role that ultimately went to In The Heights breakout Leslie Grace. Was she nervous about potentially joining a massive franchise? “Yes,” she says. “The times that I’ve been up for – not just speaking about that experience with Batgirl – but the times I’ve been up for like really big or franchise things, superhero things or something, they happen so fast. You have to sign deals ahead of time. There’s never a script.” Haley Lu Richardson and John Cho in Columbus Richardson and John Cho in Columbus. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy She contrasts it to her creative sense – “the reason I do this” – over which she’s become increasingly protective. With franchises, “you become a puzzle piece and less like someone who’s helping to put together a puzzle,” she says, though she tipped her hat to Brie Larson, who fashioned her Captain Marvel in the 2019 MCU movie as a flinty superhero with a feminist sensibility. “I really do hope that if I ever do something like that, there’s room for [that].” One place where she does that find that room: Instagram, where she’s occasionally applied her acting talents to some cheeky homages of millennial culture. (See: an incredibly faithful rendition of Marissa’s pool chair-tossing freakout from The OC.) “I feel like Instagram is the one place that I have that I can really control how people that know about me as an actor see me as a person,” she says. “I like to keep just really … fun, I feel. I don’t put too much thought into it, honestly.” That sounds healthy, I note, as someone generally anxious about posting online. “I do feel like it’s not too unhealthy for me,” she responded. “I think where Instagram gets unhealthy is when I start looking” – the rabbitholes of online shopping, other people’s enviable profiles, or an explore page filled with an endless scroll of facetuned skin and injected lips. “That does get to you.” We end on a dour note, speaking just a week after a leaked supreme court draft opinion signaled the all but certain end of Roe v Wade, which would throw the US into a more chaotic and punitive hellscape of inaccessible reproductive healthcare than the one depicted in Unpregnant. “I just can’t believe – I am so sad that this is still a conversation,” she says. “I really think it’s just so sad and wrong that this is a conversation that anyone is having except for a woman in the situation talking personally with the people that she wants to talk about it with in her life.” We agree on a sentiment that’s true to many a Richardson character, candid and punchy: “I think it’s fucked.” | |
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| 05-13-22 08:31pm - 914 days | #87 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Psaki bids farewell to the White House press corps: 'You have challenged me' Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan May 13, 2022, 12:49 PM WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Jen Psaki stood at the podium in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room for the last time on Friday, facing questions on crises old and new, foreign and domestic. She addressed the baby formula shortage and gun violence, immigration and war. She also addressed the journalists seated and standing before her. “You have challenged me. You have pushed me. You have debated me — and at times we have disagreed,” she said. “That is democracy in action.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki White House press secretary Jen Psaki at her final daily press briefing on Friday. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Tearing up, Psaki acknowledged that her plans to “keep it together” were being undone in the moment. Her successor, principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, watched from a chair alongside several of her loyal deputies in the White House communications department. Psaki’s husband was also there to mark her departure, though a cameo from President Biden that some had expected did not materialize. A spokeswoman for the State Department during the Obama administration, Psaki did not work on the Biden campaign, but beat out several well-regarded candidates for the job when she was named to the position shortly after the 2020 presidential election. Her immediate task was to move beyond the atmosphere of animosity and recrimination that had marked the Trump years, when the president himself would sometimes spar with members of the press. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, right, with then-Secretary of State John Kerry, en route to Beijing State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, right, with then-Secretary of State John Kerry, en route to Beijing in 2013. (Paul J. Richards/Pool via Reuters) “There will be times when we see things differently in this room — I mean, among all of us. That’s OK. That’s part of our democracy,” she said at her first briefing. An analysis by Business Insider found that Psaki held 224 briefings in all, more than the total conducted by all four of Trump’s press secretaries (Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany). It was rare for her to go two consecutive days without a briefing, whereas, by contrast, Grisham did not hold a single briefing. Psaki could sometimes be short with reporters, and progressives on social media delighted at the “Psaki bombs” she deployed to cut off unwelcome inquiries. Heated exchanges with Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy became a regular occurrence, one that seemed to benefit both the conservative network and the White House. Karine Jean-Pierre, left, with Jen Psaki Karine Jean-Pierre was introduced as the next White House press secretary by Psaki on May 5. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Psaki’s biggest misstep was likely her quip — made as a new coronavirus surge was underway — about the White House sending coronavirus tests to every American, an idea she plainly found preposterous. “Should we just send one to every American?” Psaki fired back sarcastically at NPR reporter Mara Liasson, who had asked about making the tests free. Days later, the Biden administration announced it was, in fact, providing Americans with free tests. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Psaki used her expertise in foreign affairs to capably detail the administration’s approach to the war without making the kinds of gaffes that complicate international relations. The invasion almost certainly prolonged her tenure at the White House by several months. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Psaki waves goodbye after her final daily press briefing. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) The Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, praised Psaki as “one of the best press secretaries ever,” even as conservatives were attacking her for telling a reporter during Friday’s briefing that parents seeking baby formula should “call a doctor.” Psaki will soon start a new gig at MSNBC, where she is expected to be a high-profile on-air personality, especially as the congressional midterms approach. Jean-Pierre, the new White House press secretary, will begin work on Monday. | |
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| 05-13-22 08:29pm - 914 days | #86 | |
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Mother Russia must invade Finland and Sweden to prevent WW3. Although Russia is pro-peace, and thinks of war with distaste, Russia will be forced to invade both Finland and Sweden, and maybe even Britain and the Untied States of Trumperland, if Finland and Sweden join NATO. NATO has long been recognized by Mother Russia as a threat. Now the Untied States of Trumperland, in a move that was not supported by Glorious Lifetime Dictator Donald Trump, has urged both Finland and Sweden to join NATO, and prepare to invade Russia. Russia, to defend itself, will be forced to act: loose the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles against all enemies, Putin cries. We will bury you. ------- ------- Sweden sets out benefits of NATO as membership bid looms, Turkey objects Reuters Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander May 13, 2022, 8:38 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. By Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish membership of NATO would boost national security and help stabilise the Nordic and Baltic regions, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Friday, a day after neighbour Finland said it would seek to join the U.S.-led alliance without delay. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has forced Sweden - and its closest military partner Finland - to publicly pick sides after remaining outside the military alliance since it was founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Stockholm is widely expected to follow Helsinki's lead and could apply for entry to the 30-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization as early as Monday. "Swedish NATO membership would raise the threshold for military conflicts and thus have a conflict-preventing effect in northern Europe," Linde told reporters as she presented the conclusions of an all-party security review that examined the pros and cons of NATO membership for Sweden. "The most important consequence of Swedish membership of NATO would be that Sweden would be a part of NATO's collective security and included in security guarantees according to...Article 5." Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty says that an attack on any NATO country should be seen as an attack on all. While Sweden and Finland have long had close relations with NATO and regularly take part in exercises and its high-level meetings, they are not covered by its security guarantee. The government said the report did not constitute a recommendation to join NATO. The Left and Greens were the only parties that did not support the report's conclusions. An application would have to be approved by all NATO countries and, later, by Sweden's parliament. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday it was not possible for NATO-member Turkey to support Swedish and Finnish membership because, he said, the two countries were "home to many terrorist organisations". [L5N2X53HU] Turkey has in the past slammed Sweden and other Western European countries for their handling of organisations deemed terrorist by Ankara, including Kurdish militant groups PKK and YPG and followers of U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. Linde said Sweden nevertheless hoped to get unanimous support in NATO if it applied and that the two Nordic countries had "very, very strong support" from important member states with whom Turkey had an interest in maintaining good relations. She added that she would discuss the situation at an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin over the weekend to which both Sweden and Finland were invited. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto counselled patience. "It's not happening in one day," he told reporters, adding that he was due to meet his Turkish counterpart in Berlin on Saturday. FROM ARCTIC TO BLACK SEA Finnish and Swedish membership of NATO would redraw the geopolitical map of northern Europe and create a largely unbroken ribbon of member states facing Russia from the Arctic to the Black Sea. On Thursday, Finland's president and prime minister said the country - which shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border and a difficult past with Russia - must apply to join the NATO military alliance "without delay". Russia said Finland's bid was a hostile move that posed a threat to its security. Moscow in April said it could station nuclear-armed missiles in the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, if Finland or Sweden joined the defence alliance. "If Sweden chooses to seek NATO membership, there is a risk of a reaction from Russia," Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist said. "Let me state that, in such a case, we are prepared to deal with any counter-response." Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said threats from Russia had been expected. "We can't go back to the way we were used to it being," Swedish news agency TT quoted him saying on Friday. "But Russia should also have in interest in seeing that we don't have high tensions at the border all the time." He said he planned to ring Russian President Vladimir Putin and "tell him that the situation has changed, as we both know". Sweden and Finland have received promises of support during the NATO application process from key NATO powers including Britain, Germany and the United States. (Reporting by Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson in Stockholm, additional reporting by Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, Ece Toksabay in Ankara and Essi Lehto in Helsinki; editing by Niklas Pollard and Mark Heinrich) | |
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| 05-13-22 08:15pm - 914 days | #85 | |
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The end of Donald Trump? Mike Pence is supporting Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Donald Trump wants Brian Kemp to be gone from politics. Kemp did not support Donald Trump in the 2020 election results that stole the White House from Donald Trump. Can Donald Trump stay in power, now that his Vice President has abandoned Trump? ------ ------ Georgia rally shows Pence cutting his own path, regardless of Trump Yahoo News Tom LoBianco May 13, 2022, 2:42 PM In his latest split from former President Donald Trump, Mike Pence will headline a rally for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who has remained at odds with Trump since the 2020 presidential election. Pence’s rally with Kemp on May 23 may be his sharpest rebuke yet of Trump. The former vice president has decided to throw his weight behind a bid to win a second term for one of the Republicans whom Trump has blamed in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. In addition, Pence’s longtime consigliere, Marc Short, has signed on as an adviser to Kemp. “The Vice President's leadership was instrumental in creating the most prosperous economy in American history, including here in Georgia, and his commitment to building a safer, stronger America represents the highest ideals of our party,” tweeted Kemp, who appears likely to fend off a Trump-backed challenger in a little more than two weeks. Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a fundraiser for Carolina Pregnancy Center on Thursday, May 5, 2022, in Spartanburg, S.C. Pence made his second trip to the state in less than a week to headline an event for the crisis pregnancy center in early-voting South Carolina as he continues to mull a possible 2024 presidential bid. (Meg Kinnard/AP Photo) Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a fundraiser for the Carolina Pregnancy Center in Spartanburg, S.C., on May 5. (Meg Kinnard/AP Photo) “Brian Kemp is one of the most successful conservative governors in America,” Pence said in a statement. “He built a safer and stronger Georgia by cutting taxes, empowering parents and investing in teachers, funding law enforcement, and standing strong for the right to life.” Neither man mentioned Trump nor his baseless claims that he won the election, which have opened the sharpest divide inside the GOP since Trump left office. The former president has wrestled with Kemp for more than a year now, with little success. In December 2020, Trump called Kemp and pressured him to throw out the election results in Georgia. A year after Kemp refused this request, Trump endorsed former Georgia Sen. David Perdue in his attempt to oust Kemp in the May 24 primary. Trump headlined a rally for Perdue at the end of March. And in a surprising move, the typically tightfisted Trump released $500,000 from his extensive political war chest for Perdue. But his efforts to unseat Kemp have stumbled, with Perdue falling well short of Kemp in most polling. On Wednesday, Trump slammed Kemp, calling him a “RINO” — a “Republican in name only” — in a statement that also took aim at Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, all of whom are backing Kemp. Political observers seeking signs of where Republican voters stand ahead of the 2024 primaries have drawn mixed results from recent contests. Almost two weeks ago, the primary victory of Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who had been endorsed by Trump, was deemed a clear sign of the former president’s continued control of the party. Former President Donald Trump mugs for the crowd as J.D. Vance takes the microphone. Former President Donald Trump listens as J.D. Vance, a Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, addresses a rally in Delaware, Ohio. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) This week brought further indications that Trump’s grip on the party is not as firm as he and his aides have claimed. His pick for Nebraska governor, a GOP donor who helped Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, lost a tight race to a Republican backed by the GOP establishment and the powerful Ricketts family. The next test, on Tuesday in the Pennsylvania Senate primary, could bring another loss for Trump, if the extreme-right commentator Kathy Barnette succeeds in holding back the daytime TV celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz, whom Trump endorsed a month ago. Ever since a mob of pro-Trump rioters ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and scoured the halls searching for the vice president chanting “Hang Mike Pence!,” many Republicans have written off Pence as unlikely to win the nomination of a party whose most fervent voters have threatened to kill him. But Pence has charted a steady, if somewhat subdued, path campaigning in support of Republicans in early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina, only occasionally speaking out against his former boss. Indications from Republican primary voters that they won’t march in lockstep with Trump’s endorsed candidates have Republican operatives predicting that the former vice president has a possible path (if a narrow one) to the nomination in 2024. “Mike Pence has always been about doing the right thing, no matter the difficulties that may present,” said Mike Murphy, a longtime Indiana Republican and friend of Pence’s. “The Georgia race is not burning bridges for Pence, it is building bridges for the future prosperity of America." | |
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| 05-13-22 11:56am - 914 days | #84 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Sub Mariner is coming to theaters to kick butt. The superhuman mutant known as the Sub Mariner is coming to America to kick butt. No longer will Aqua Man be the face of Atlantis. The Sub Mariner, with his superior powers and godly strength and intelligence, has awakened from the deadly sleep his Evil enemies (the Commies and the Arrogant Prick Donald Trump) used to keep our hero from making America great again. We must unite, grab our AK47s and 454 Casull handguns, and force Washington to accept the Sub Mariner as our new, immortal leader-in-chief and commander of all military forces on Earth and our native Solar System.  Go, Sub Mariner! | |
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| 05-13-22 10:30am - 914 days | #83 | |
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Donald Trump reveals the truth: Aliens are preparing to invade the USA. They have already invaded Antartica. Now they are getting ready to invade the USA. Trump has warned Sleepy Joe Biden about the invasion, and Sleepy Joe Biden has ignored the signs. Vote for Trump, and make America safe again. Trump will keep out the Commies, the Mexicans, the Canadians, and other un-desirable aliens that want to enter our precious lands and rape our women. ---- ---- The Alien Invasion of Antarctica Is Only Just Beginning As the world warms, non-native species threaten Earth's last great wilderness. ryan-hs-2020 Jackson Ryan May 5, 2022 5:00 a.m. PT At the bottom of the stairwell leading to deck five, an alien lies upturned on green nonslip flooring. If you get close enough, you can see one of its six legs twitching and one of its translucent wings crushed to pieces. Unlike the throng of Antarctic expeditioners aboard the RSV Nuyina, Australia's newest icebreaking ship, it hasn't cleared customs. Days after the Nuyina departed its harbor in Hobart, Tasmania, the alien buzzed its way across the Derwent River, slipped through an open door and zipped into the bowels of the ship until this restless, twitching death. Scientists call the creature Musca domestica. You likely know it as the housefly. Even if it hadn't been felled by an errant hand or boot, it likely wouldn't have survived the journey to Antarctica. At temperatures below 14 degrees Fahrenheit, flies move lackadaisically and seem to barely get airborne. I know this because I've been watching them as part of the crew onboard the Nuyina as it crosses the Southern Ocean. Surviving flies buzz at the ship's windows, trying to escape the upper decks. If their prison break were to succeed, they'd find themselves facing seemingly endless waters, with nowhere to go. The Southern Ocean provides a formidable barrier to entering Antarctica, a great wall of water and powerful currents that has separated the continent from the rest of the world for about 30 million years. Couple that with freezing temperatures, and the Antarctic provides little hope for a wayward housefly trapped on a ship. The RSV Nuyina, and orange and white ship, pushes aside ice in the Southern Ocean The RSV Nuyina during its maiden voyage to Antarctica in January. Pete Harmsen/AAD But Antarctica's temperature is changing, and dramatically. In March, a French-Italian base in East Antarctica recorded temperatures 70 degrees higher than average for that time of year. That may just be an unprecedented anomaly, but it's expected the continent's average temperatures could rise a few degrees by 2050. In particular regions, like the western peninsula, the continent is warming at a rate 10 times faster than the rest of the world. In February 2020, the temperature at Argentina's Esperanza Base research station reached 18.3 degrees Fahrenheit – an all-time high – providing the kind of conditions a wayward housefly might survive in. Historically, it's been difficult for lost flies to reach the most southern landmass on Earth. As Antarctic explorers aimed to discover and map the continent in the 1800s, humans began providing fleeting opportunities for alien trespass. A handful of nations with a permanent presence across the continent annually resupply research stations that provide permanent outposts for studying the ice and the Antarctic ecosystem. It's become easier to reach the continent and its surroundings by sea or air, but it remains an exclusive club. "Back-of-the-napkin math, less than a million people in the entire history of human existence have visited Antarctica," says Dana Bergstrom, an ecologist at the Australian Antarctic Division. But that too is changing. Before the pandemic slowed cruises to a halt, Antarctic tourism was on the rise. In the 2019-20 season, almost 75,000 people visited the continent, according to IAATO, the chief tourist body in the Antarctic. That's a 35% increase over the previous season. Wherever humans go, so too our pests. Signatories to the Antarctic Treaty and the Madrid Protocol, which include protections for the Antarctic environment, must endeavor to limit their effects on the pristine wilderness, and tourist bodies like IAATO and national Antarctic programs go to great lengths to prevent biological invasions. But their strategies aren't bulletproof. If an alien were to slip in, it could be disastrous for the delicate Antarctic ecosystems hidden from the world for millennia. "It's a super special place to understand how the planet works," says Bergstrom. "And so it's really worthwhile putting all our efforts to try to keep nature operating without interfering." Black and white Adelie penguins fill the image, some are standing, some are flat on their stomach. An Adélie penguin colony on Shirley Island, near Casey Station. Introducing alien species could disrupt the fragile Antarctic ecosystem. Louise Emmerson/AAD The Thing(s) On the eastern edge of Antarctica, a collection of shipping containers and sheds lies in an ice-free oasis. Surrounded by a variety of wildlife, including Adélie penguins massed on nearby islands, the base, called Davis, is Australia's southernmost presence on the continent. In 2014, its hydroponics facility was the site of an infamous alien invasion. In May of that year, expeditioners entered the facility, composed of two gray shipping containers, to pick fresh greens for the chef's evening meal. They trudged across the snow-covered Davis grounds and opened the door, as if stepping through a portal. They were greeted by the sight of leafy vegetables arranged neatly, the sound of trickling water and, most obviously, heat. During the vegetable collection, they inspected the facility's water and noticed a black mat had developed over the surface. "When they looked closer, they realized it wasn't a mat," says Andy Sharman, environmental manager at the Australian Antarctic Division, "it was thousands of tiny invertebrates." Davis had been invaded by The Thing, a thousand times over. An alien species of arthropod known as Xenylla had snuck into the facility and began multiplying in the warm, wet conditions. The flealike critters, known as collembolans, hadn't been seen in this region of the Antarctic before but had become established in warmer areas. A crack team of scientists deduced that should they get out, they might threaten the local ecosystem. A panorama of the Davis hydroponics facility. Green planets line a corridor. A purple light glows by the exit door at the far end of the image. A view inside of the Davis hydroponic facility in 2017. Marc Mills Almost immediately, the station went into eradication mode. "We had a biohazard response like you might get with a virus or disease," notes Sharman. The effort was blazingly fast. The response team sprayed alcohol throughout the facility, then bagged and burned everything, including recently harvested vegetables that had already made it to the Davis kitchen. The building was subjected to rigorous freeze-thaw cycling; the heat would trick any leftover eggs into hatching and then the temperatures would drop to minus 11 degrees Celsius, killing the hatchlings. The response team also took extreme social distancing measures. "We actually lifted the whole building out and parked it on the sea ice and left it there," says Sharman. A few months after the discovery and various eradication measures, the containers were shipped back to Australia. An investigation into the source of the incursion eventually discovered that the aliens likely got in through plant feed. Subsequent monitoring hasn't found the collembolan in the area since, but other stations have experienced invasions, too, and protecting the continent from such risks is a constant battle. Exterminating The Things at Davis is one of the Australian Antarctic Division's success stories, but the threat of incursion is constant. Invertebrates are the most widely dispersed non-native species and are known to hide in shoes and bags, while plant seeds can become stuck in Velcro and marine creatures can lurk in ballast tanks on vessels. | |
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| 05-13-22 08:55am - 914 days | #82 | |
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Russia denies war crimes in Ukraine. Says it will call Donald Trump as a friendly witness that all of its actions in the war are user-friendly, and that Ukraine was the true aggressor. ------ ------ Ukraine begins 1st war crimes trial of Russian soldier Reuters Pavel Polityuk and Tom Balmforth May 13, 2022, 7:59 AM KYIV (Reuters) - A Ukrainian court held a preliminary hearing on Friday in the first war crimes trial arising from Russia's Feb. 24 invasion, after charging a captured Russian soldier with the murder of a 62-year-old civilian. The case is of huge symbolic importance for Ukraine. The Kyiv government has accused Russia of atrocities and brutality against civilians during the invasion and said it has identified more than 10,000 possible war crimes. Russia has denied targeting civilians or involvement in war crimes and accused Kyiv of staging them to smear its forces. The Kremlin told reporters on Friday that it had no information about a war crimes trial. The defendant told the court he was Vadim Shishimarin, born in Russia's Irkutsk region and confirmed that he was a Russian serviceman in the short, preliminary hearing. The court will reconvene on May 18, the judge said. The Kyiv district court's website said Shishimarin was accused of "violations of the laws and norms of war". He will tell the court at a later date whether or not he denies the charge, his lawyer Viktor Ovsyannikov said. Shaven headed and looking scared, Shishimarin wore a casual blue and grey hoodie and was led into the courtroom by police to a glass booth for defendants. The Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said the defendant was a 21-year-old tank commander in the Kantemirovskaya tank division from the Moscow region. The prosecutor general had published a photograph of him ahead of the hearing. If convicted he faces up to life imprisonment over the killing in the northeast Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka, east of the capital Kyiv, on Feb. 28. Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin, 21, suspected of violations of the laws and norms of war, arrives for a court hearing, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 13, 2022. (Reuters) Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin, 21, suspected of violations of the laws and norms of war, arrives for a court hearing, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 13, 2022. (Reuters) In a statement ahead of the hearing, the prosecutor general's office said the soldier had stolen a privately-owned car to escape with four other Russian servicemen after their column was targeted by Ukrainian forces. The statement said the Russian soldiers drove into the village of Chupakhivka where they saw an unarmed resident riding a bicycle and talking on his phone. It said the defendant was ordered by another serviceman to kill the civilian to prevent him reporting on the Russians' presence and fired several shots through the open window of the car with an assault rifle at the civilian's head. He died on the spot. It did not say how the soldier was captured nor elaborate on evidence that led to the war crimes charges. It did not say what its evidence was based on. The SBU Security Service of Ukraine conducted the investigation into the case, it said. Many more cases expected In the courthouse, Shishimarin was questioned by a judge who addressed him in Ukrainian and in Russian. He had an interpreter with him. Reuters could not reach him or his legal representative for comment ahead of the hearing. State prosecutor Andriy Synyuk told reporters after the hearing that: "This is the first case today. But soon there will be a lot of these cases." Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Thursday there were many examples of possible war crimes since the Russian invasion and that 1,000 bodies had been recovered so far in the Kyiv region. The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on April 25 it would take part in a joint team with Ukrainian, Polish and Lithuanian prosecutors investigating war crimes allegations against Russian forces. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" to disarm the country and protect it from fascists, denying its forces committed abuses. Kyiv and its Western backers say the fascism claim is a false pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression. | |
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| 05-13-22 07:21am - 914 days | #81 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Joe Manchin has made millions from coal. Joe Manchin collects $500,000 a year from coal stock dividends. He drives a Maserati. He lives on a yacht called Almost Heaven. Joe Manchin says people on welfare will spend their money on drugs and use sick time to go hunting. Is Joe Manchin a Democrat? Or is he really a Republican wearing fake Democratic Party clothes? Vote for Trump. He will kick Sleepy Joe Biden out of the White House, and clean the swamp in Washington. And make friends with Joe Manchin. The friend of the common man. | |
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| 05-13-22 06:01am - 914 days | #80 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The GOP are experts in criticism. They love to complain. They love to stop the opposition. They can't do anything except complain. And plot to take down anything the other party tries to do. Is that the way politics is supposed to run? The GOP seems to be the party of hypocrites, liars, and the morally bankrupt. Why can't Sleepy Joe Biden wake up, declare martial law, and put the GOP in jail, where they belong? Then maybe the Democrats can start to make America great again.  ----- ----- 'A matter of life or death': GOP lawmakers bash Joe Biden over baby formula shortage USA TODAY Merdie Nzanga May 12, 2022, 3:30 PM WASHINGTON – GOP House members on Thursday criticized the Biden administration over the country's worsening shortage of baby formula. Almost 40% of baby formula brands ran out at retail stores across the country last month. Republicans blame the White House for not moving fast enough to restock empty store shelves, part of a larger criticism of supply chain and inflation problems the GOP has leveled at the president. "This is sadly Joe Biden's America," Rep. Amy Wagner, R-Mo., said during a Capitol Hill news conference. "Working families are already struggling to put food on the table due to the skyrocketing costs of everyday items." GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers said she's heard from nurses in her home state of Washington calling the shortage a "crisis" that demands immediate action. "This is a matter of life or death," she said. Baby formula is displayed on the shelves of a grocery store with a sign limiting purchases in Indianapolis on May 10, 2022. Parents across the U.S. are scrambling to find baby formula because supply disruptions and a massive safety recall have swept many leading brands off store shelves. Baby formula is displayed on the shelves of a grocery store with a sign limiting purchases in Indianapolis on May 10, 2022. Parents across the U.S. are scrambling to find baby formula because supply disruptions and a massive safety recall have swept many leading brands off store shelves. The shortage that began late last year due to supply chain issues was exacerbated by a recall involving the nation's largest producer of infant formula. The White House late Thursday moved to ease shortages of infant formula, such as increasing imports, even as the administration said it didn't know when consumers would see fully restocked shelves. "Our message to parents is, we hear you, we want to do everything we can and we're going to cut every element of red tape to help address this and make it better for you to get formula on the shelves," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. Empty shelves: Baby formula shortage worsens: About 40% of popular brands sold out across US Biden response: White House moves to curb baby formula shortage but says unsure when parents could see relief Psaki said hoarding is also leading to empty shelves of the supply. Biden on Thursday spoke with retailers and manufacturers, including Wal-Mart, Target, Reckitt and Gerber, to discuss the shortage and how they can work to get families more access to infant formula. At the news conference, North Carolina GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry said congressional Democrats should be doing more to pressure the administration into action. "This is not meant to be a partisan exercise," he said. "We've come together because we don't see Democrats raising the same issue and willing to work with us to get some answer from this administration." Contributing: Rebecca Morin This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Infant formula shortage spurs Republican criticism of White House | |
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| 05-12-22 08:49pm - 914 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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https://www.slashfilm.com/862070/dan-ste...-godzilla-vs-kong-2/ Dan Stevens was just announced as having joined the cast of "Godzilla vs. Kong 2," reuniting him with Adam Wingard who directed Stevens in the action-thriller "The Guest." Stevens' announcement is the first major casting news from "Godzilla vs. Kong 2," the highly-anticipated sequel to Wingard's 2021 ultimate kaiju battle flick Godzilla vs. Kong. Principal photography is due to start in Australia later this summer. No plot details have been made available. | |
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| 05-12-22 06:03pm - 915 days | #79 | |
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Article continues: Another potential drag on both Oz and McCormick is that they’ve both been criticized for swooping in from more Democratic states to attempt to buy a winnable Senate seat. Both McCormick, who has Pennsylvania roots but has lived in Connecticut for years, and Oz, who attended medical and business school in Philadelphia but has lived in a New Jersey mansion for the last two decades, established Pennsylvania residency only in the last year. “I can promise the people of Pennsylvania, when these carpetbaggers lose, you will never see them again,” Barnette said at a televised debate last week. Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Barnette Barnette with other Republican candidates at a forum in Newtown. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary, joked this week that he was surprised he could brag about being from Pennsylvania in a race for the state’s U.S. Senate seat. In his final ad before the primary, Fetterman said he’s “taking on every politician, insider and out-of-state rich guy trying to take over Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania is likely Democrats’ best hope of picking up an extra Senate seat in what is expected to be a tough November election for the party. Republican leader Mitch McConnell is hoping to wrest the Senate back from Democratic control, but that may prove impossible if the GOP can’t retain Pennsylvania’s open seat. At an event in Kentucky last month, McConnell said Republicans were looking at their best midterm elections in decades, before warning that the GOP could still manage to “screw this up” by picking bad candidates. “In the Senate, if you look at where we have to compete in order to get into a majority, there are places that are competitive in the general election,” he said. “So you can’t nominate somebody who’s just sort of unacceptable to a broader group of people and win. We had that experience in 2010 and 2012.” | |
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| 05-12-22 06:01pm - 915 days | #78 | |
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Trump takes aim at Kathy Barnette. Is it because she is a young black woman? Does Trump favor whites over blacks? Barnette lost an earlier race, which she blamed on voter fraud. So maybe she and Trump have more in common than Trump realizes? Can Barnette and Trump kiss and make up? Or maybe they need some privacy, to work out their differences behind closed doors? ---- ---- Trump takes aim at Kathy Barnette as little-known Senate candidate throws Pa. GOP into chaos Yahoo News Christopher Wilson May 12, 2022, 3:58 PM PITTSBURGH — Just days before Pennsylvania’s primary elections, the Republican Senate nomination has been turned upside down with a late surge from Kathy Barnette, a virtual unknown whose sudden rise has riled former President Donald Trump and his allies. Multiple polls this week have shown Barnette within striking distance for the nomination to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. She’s a conservative commentator who moved to the state about eight years ago and failed in a bid for a Philadelphia-area House seat in 2020. She lost the safe Democratic seat by 20 points, a result she blamed on voter fraud. Although Barnette has spent a fraction of her rivals' outlay on television ads, a confluence of events — late endorsements, an alliance with the gubernatorial frontrunner, a lack of enthusiasm for other options and a viral ad about her own mother’s decision not to have an abortion after being raped at age 11 — has pushed her into contention. It’s also opened her to new scrutiny, including questions about her biography, her embrace of conspiracy theories and her incendiary comments about Islam, which she once said should be “banned in the USA.” Barnette’s explosive rise threatens to make next Tuesday the second straight week that a Trump-backed candidate has lost a high-profile Republican primary, after Trump’s pick for governor in Nebraska was defeated this Tuesday. In Pennsylvania, Trump has backed former daytime talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz. Until the past week, Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick had been locked in a tight contest for the top spot. Dr. Mehmet Oz, with former President Donald Trump at his side, speaks at a rally. Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, accompanied by former President Donald Trump, speaks at a campaign rally in Greensburg, Pa., on May 6. (Gene J. Puskar/AP) On Thursday, Trump said Barnette “will never be able to win the General Election” this November against a Democratic candidate. “She has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted, but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party — and I will be behind her all the way,” Trump said. Top Trump allies, like former Ambassador Richard Grenell and Fox News host Sean Hannity, have also spent recent days warning that Barnette is unelectable and could cost Republicans their chance of retaking the Senate. Grenell has used his Twitter account, where he has 875,000 followers, to cast Barnette as a left-wing radical on race, as well as an anti-Muslim and antigay bigot. Hannity, an outspoken supporter of Oz’s candidacy, said on his show Wednesday night that Barnette “has a very troubling history of attacking Donald Trump.” Former Ambassador Richard Grenell. Former Ambassador Richard Grenell, who has been a leading critic of Barnette's candidacy. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) But over the past few days, Barnette has also gained new allies. The influential and well-funded Club for Growth, which is locked in a grudge match with Trump that arose out of a disagreement over which Senate candidate to support in Ohio, this week started running $2 million in TV ads for Barnette. And the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, on Tuesday endorsed her. In addition, Steve Bannon, the far-right media personality and sometime Trump adviser, embraced Barnette on his podcast Monday. “Barnette is a true-blue MAGA candidate and her victory would be a message from the grassroots that they want candidates who are dependably MAGA more than they want candidates who Trump endorsed,” Bannon’s website said. Even before her recent surge, Barnette was creeping up on Oz and McCormick, who have spent months — and millions from their respective individual fortunes — pummeling each other on the TV airwaves. And over the past week, Barnette’s polling numbers have gone from around 12% in the RealClearPolitics average to 21%, effectively tying her with Oz and McCormick. Attendees applaud as Kathy Barnette, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, speaks Attendees at a candidate forum in Newtown, Pa., applaud Barnette on Wednesday. (Matt Rourke/AP) Barnette’s rise, experts said, is linked to her alliance with right-wing state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the leading GOP contender for governor in a nine-person primary. Mastriano and Barnette have endorsed each other, have campaigned with each other in heavily Republican areas of the state and have both promoted baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen by the Democrats. “I think the bulk of her rise can be attributed to the fact that the Mastriano voters have realized that Doug has endorsed her too,” said Republican consultant Christopher Nicholas, who is working for a lower-tier gubernatorial candidate, Charlie Gerow, but is not involved in the Senate race. “People said she did good in debates,’’ Nicholas told Yahoo News. “Yeah, but so did the other candidates. What is different is the fact that she’s endorsed by [Mastriano].” At a rally Wednesday evening, Mastriano didn’t mention Barnette, but her literature was included in preassembled bags for attendees. One man wore a shirt that said “PA A-Team” on the back and listed Mastriano, his running mate Teddy Daniels and Barnette. And at a recent rally for Oz headlined by Trump, Mastriano supporters placed fliers and magnets on cars in the parking lot. Kathy Barnette Barnette campaigning in Camp Hill, Pa., on April 2. (Matt Rourke/AP) Republicans in Pennsylvania and at the national level are not optimistic about Mastriano’s chances of winning a crucial governor’s seat this fall against Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running unopposed for his party’s nomination. Mastriano aside, Barnette is an appealing option for Pennsylvania Republicans for a number of reasons. She’s a Black woman in a party still dominated by older white men. She has benefited from the brutal campaign Oz and McCormick waged against each other while she remained under the radar. And she’s so far been able to embrace Trump and his policies while downplaying the importance of his endorsement. “MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” she said at an April debate. “Our values never, never shifted to President Trump’s values. It was President Trump who shifted and aligned with our values.” Yet questions are also being raised about her résumé ahead of the Tuesday primary. Salena Zito, a national political reporter for the Washington Examiner who is popular in conservative circles, submitted questions to Barnette’s campaign about some of the claims made on the candidate’s website. Barnette’s campaign bio says that she “served her country proudly for 10 years in the Armed Forces Reserves where she was accepted into Officer Candidacy School. She worked with two major financial firms in corporate America and sat on the board of a pregnancy crisis center for five years.” It also says she was “an adjunct professor of corporate finance.” Kathy Barnette Barnette in Newtown, Pa., on Wednesday. (Matt Rourke/AP) Zito asked for details about where and when she was a professor, her time in officer candidate school and the financial firms where she worked. But Barnette’s campaign declined to answer the questions, citing a need for privacy, other than to say she attended “basic training at Fort Dix Army Reserves.” Her website does state that she worked for A.G. Edwards and Sons and for Bank of America Capital Asset Management. But the campaign’s response prompted Zito to criticize it for “trying to run out the clock.” “She could be hiding nothing. She could be hiding everything. We don’t know because there are no answers,” Zito wrote. “All candidates should face scrutiny and pointed questions about their biographies, their positions, their life experiences, and their work experiences. Barnette, to date, has not faced them.” Zito also compared Barnette to Christine O’Donnell, a right-wing activist who defeated a popular mainstream Republican in a Delaware Senate primary in 2010. O’Donnell then lost the general election in a landslide to Democrat Chris Coons. The conventional wisdom has been that the race would be between Oz and McCormick. Oz has hit McCormick for being soft on China and alleging he’s “pro-Biden.” McCormick has hit Oz for being a “Hollywood liberal,” his dual citizenship with Turkey, and his flip-flopping on key issues such as abortion. Republican Senate candidates David McCormick, left and Mehmet Oz Republican Senate candidates David McCormick, left and Mehmet Oz. (Matt Rourke/AP, Marc Levy/AP) Unlike in Ohio’s Senate primary earlier this month, where Trump’s endorsement led to a steady increase in polling for eventual winner J.D. Vance, Oz has not seen a similar climb. At the recent Trump rally for Oz, the celebrity doctor was at times booed, with some attendees telling Yahoo News that they were confused why Trump had backed him. Trump, however, has stayed in Oz’s corner, telling rally-goers that McCormick — a former hedge fund CEO and the husband of former Trump aide Dina Powell — is a “liberal Wall Street Republican.” | |
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| 05-12-22 05:53pm - 915 days | #77 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Headline news: What role did Sleepy Joe Biden play in the US Supreme Court leak? Can the Republicans, in the name of honor, impeach Sleepy Joe and bring back Trump to rule over the land and lead us back to greatness? Vote for Trump. Vote for the whitest America we can achieve. | |
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| 05-12-22 12:39pm - 915 days | #76 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Fiji Seizes US$ 300 million Superyacht Belonging to Sanctioned Russian Oligarch. Donald Trump says this is not fair: he had scheduled a game of golf with the Russian to discuss Russia's war with Ukraine. Trump says the US is spoiling his golf game, and that his efforts to help both Russia and Ukraine are being hurt by Sleepy Joe Biden. Vote for Trump. He will make America great again. ----- ----- Fiji Seizes US$ 300 million Superyacht Belonging to Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Published: 11 May 2022 Written by Vinicius Madureira At the request of U.S. authorities, police on the Pacific island of Fiji seized last week the US$300 million superyacht of sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov. Amadea YachtAmadea, superyacht of sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, seized in Fiji. (Photo: The U.S. Department of Justice, License)“As you know, the President [Biden] has made clear we will go after Russian oligarchs and their ill-gotten gains using every authority we have to hold them accountable,” White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki told reporters. A seizure warrant from a U.S. court said the motor yacht Amadea, a 348-foot luxury vessel, had docked at the port of Lautoka last month and was making plans to leave the island on April 14 for the Philippines. FBI special agent Timothy J. Bergen said he had enough reason to believe that the yacht could also head for Russian waters, where it would be safe from authorities that would want to seize it. But before it left the harbor, Fijian authorities obtained another seizure warrant from a local court enabling law enforcement to confiscate the superyacht. Before docking in Fiji, the Amadea had sailed Caribbean waters, passed through the Panama Canal, touched Mexico and then made its way to the South Pacific archipelago. The seizure “nearly 8,000 miles from Washington, D.C., symbolizes the reach of the [DOJ] as we continue to work with our global partners to disrupt the sense of impunity of those who have supported corruption and the suffering of so many,” Director Andrew Adams of Task Force KleptoCapture said. “This Task Force will continue to bring to bear every resource available in this unprecedented, multinational series of enforcement actions against the Russian regime and its enablers,” he added. So far, this task force has focused on seizing yachts and luxury goods from Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to disrupt the Kremlin’s war machine. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, authorities from around the world have frozen luxury vessels, goods and mansions from sanctioned Russian billionaires. A press release from the DOJ designated Kerimov as part of a group of Russian oligarchs who profit from corruption and the Russian government’s malign activity around the globe, including the occupation of Crimea. Back in 2018, Kerimov had already been sanctioned by the U.S. in response to Russia’s actions in Syria and Ukraine. Later, he was also sanctioned by the European Union. | |
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| 05-12-22 12:10pm - 915 days | #75 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Finland to apply to join NATO. Russia threatens retaliation for Finland joining NATO. Mother Russia is a friend to everyone. But like Donald Trump has stated, you must take revenge on your enemies. And Finland joining NATO is a threat to Mother Russia. Why is this important to the PU site? Take a look at Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin. She could be in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. That is one fine babe. ------ ------ Finland to apply to NATO 'without delay' as Russia threatens 'retaliatory steps' Yahoo News Niamh Cavanagh May 12, 2022, 6:37 AM Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin speaks into two microphones in front of two flags. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin speaking on Wednesday. (Franck Robichon/Pool via AP) LONDON — Finland’s leaders said it intended to apply for NATO membership “without delay” — prompting Russia to threaten that it would “be forced to take retaliatory steps” if the Nordic country joins the Western military alliance. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and President Sauli Niinistö released a joint statement on Thursday announcing their support for Finland — which shares an 810-mile border with Russia — to join the alliance. “NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security,” the statement said. “As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defence alliance.” The leaders added that Finland must apply “without delay” and expressed hope that the steps needed to make the decision would be “taken rapidly within the next few days.” Marin’s Social Democratic Party is expected to announce a decision about joining on Saturday, with the five-party governing coalition in Helsinki expected to announce on Sunday. For a country to be accepted into NATO, there is a list of minimum requirements. This includes having a functioning democracy, treating minority populations fairly and having the ability to make military contributions to NATO operations. Once a country meets the basic requirements, it is asked to join a membership action plan, which prepares it for membership. However, this does not guarantee a place in the alliance. Although NATO has an “open door policy” for aspiring members, Ukraine has been unable to be formally admitted. The ongoing unrest in regions across Ukraine — from the annexed peninsula of Crimea to the Russian-backed separatist regions in the east — has worried NATO members. For the first month of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the alliance to allow Ukraine to join. But in March, he admitted that he did not expect his country to join anytime soon. Zelensky praised Finland’s decision on Thursday following a phone call with Niinistö. It was the pretext of stopping Ukraine from joining NATO, and ultimately pushing back on the alliance’s eastward expansion, that was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reasons for invading its neighbor. But that has seemingly backfired on the Kremlin leader. Putin’s aggressive foreign policy has instead sent other European countries, such as Finland and Sweden, into applying for NATO membership. Since the war in Ukraine began on Feb. 24, Finnish public support for the country to join NATO has jumped from 20-30% to 76%, according to a poll published by broadcaster YLE. At a press conference on Wednesday, Niinistö said Moscow had only itself to blame: “You caused this. Look at the mirror.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Finland President Sauli Niinisto stand together in apparent conversation, with a red carpet and other people visible in the background. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Finnish President Sauli Niinistö in Kyiv in 2019. (Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) The Kremlin responded to the announcement by saying that Finland’s membership is “definitely” a threat to Russia. “As we have said many times before, NATO expansion does not make the world more stable and secure,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “[Russia’s reaction] will depend on what this expansion process will entail, how far and how close to our borders the military infrastructure will move.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry added in a statement: “Finland joining NATO is a radical change in the country’s foreign policy. Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop threats to its national security arising.” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday that it was Russia’s unpredictable behavior and its readiness to wage “high-risk operations” that led to Finland’s decision. Meanwhile, Sweden is also expected to announce its decision to join the alliance in the coming days. On Thursday, it was announced that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had signed security pacts with both Sweden and Finland. Johnson said the agreements would aid both countries if they came under threat. Boris Johnson waves with a hand that also holds a red satchel while holding bound material under his other arm as he apparently descends an airplane gangplank. Boris Johnson boards a plane at London Stansted Airport on Wednesday. (Frank Augstein/Pool via Getty Images) Asked whether British soldiers would be sent to Finland if there were “possible conflict in Russia,” Johnson said: “I think the solemn declaration is itself clear. And what it says is that in the event of a disaster, or in the event of an attack on either of us, then yes, we will come to each other’s assistance, including with military assistance.” | |
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| 05-12-22 11:55am - 915 days | #74 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald Trump, the most honest, God-fearing President of the Untied States of Trumperland we've ever known. Donald Trump swears by vengeance. "You must kill your enemies. Destroy them before they drag you down. That is why Sleepy Joe Biden must be destroyed. He stole the White House away from me. I am God's annointed son, the Chosen One who will lead America back to greatness." Vote for God. Vote for Trump. ------ ------ Trump sees 'vengeance' on the political horizon Yahoo News David Knowles May 12, 2022, 2:00 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. During a closed-door speech Monday to the National Republican Congressional Committee, former President Donald Trump told the invited guests that “we” are coming back with “vengeance” in an apparent reference to his as-yet-unannounced decision to seek a return to power in 2024. Given that Trump has resumed holding rallies nationwide, continues to dominate Republican primary polling and has, since losing to Joe Biden in 2020, repeatedly hinted that he plans to mount another White House bid, it’s not exactly a closely guarded secret that he wants his old job back. Equally unsurprising is the promise that a second Trump term would hold its share of political payback. Trump, after all, has repeatedly spoken over the years about how exacting revenge is a guiding principle. “If somebody hits you, you’ve got to hit ’em back five times harder than they ever thought possible. You’ve got to get even. Get even,” Trump said in a 2012 speech. Seven years later, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon remarked that if the then president won reelection in 2020, “You’re going to get pure Trump off the chain. Four years of Donald Trump in payback mode.” In further anticipation of a second Trump term, Bannon this week went after former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who had detailed numerous instances of what he saw as Trump's faulty judgment in a new book. “When we come to power, don’t think you're going to be skipping away from this,” Bannon said of Esper. Donald Trump Donald Trump at the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. (Peter Casey/USA Today) Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham warned in October that a Trump victory in 2024 would usher in four years of reprisals. “He’s clearly the frontrunner in the Republican Party,” Grisham said in an interview with ABC’s "Good Morning America." “Everybody’s showing their fealty to him. He’s on his revenge tour, for people who dared to vote for impeachment. And I want to just warn people that once he takes office if he were to win, he doesn’t have to worry about reelection any more. He will be about revenge, he will probably have some pretty draconian policies.” Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina was one of 10 House Republicans who voted in 2021 to impeach Trump for "incitement of insurrection" for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that year. That vote, Rice knows, effectively painted a target on his back because Trump is "driven by revenge." “He is, of anybody I’ve ever met, he’s probably the most spiteful, vengeful person I’ve ever met,” Rice said in an April interview with “Meet the Press.” Of the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, just six, including Rice, are seeking reelection. The former president has endorsed GOP challengers in each race. Trump’s “revenge tour,” as Grisham has put it, also takes aim at those who refused to go along with his false contention that the 2020 election was fraudulent. On Wednesday, Trump issued a statement criticizing Republicans who still supported the reelection of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump wants Kemp defeated over the governor’s refusal in December 2020 to block the certification of the vote in Georgia and hand Trump the swing state's electoral votes. Brian Kemp Gov. Brian Kemp campaigning in Glennville, Ga., April 14. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images) “Today, the worst ‘election integrity’ Governor in the country, Brian Kemp, loaded the great state of Georgia up with RINOs. That’s right, he had them all. Chris Christie, Doug Ducey from Arizona, and Pete Rickets from Nebraska,” Trump said in a statement, adding that the grouping represented “just a continuation of bad elections and a real RINO if you vote for Brian Kemp.” While most Republicans who may have to again work with Trump should he win in 2024 are careful not to publicly criticize Trump out of fears of retribution, Christie didn’t hesitate to return fire. “Insightful commentary about three Republican Governors who were overwhelmingly reelected by their people from a former President who lost to Joe Biden. Maybe the ‘R’ in RINO really stands for re-elected,” he tweeted Wednesday. Yet, according to polls on a hypothetical rematch between Trump and Biden, the 45th president appears to have a good chance at becoming the 47th. For former Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele, if those polls are right, Trump’s effort to weed out dissent from the GOP regarding the false claim that election fraud cost him the 2020 election will extend beyond members of Congress. “His four years would be consumed with validating his lie,” Steele told the New Republic. “His four years would be consumed with retribution against those who, in his view, wronged him, and [he] would then corrupt the instruments of power in Washington, from Congress — because he’d have a compliant, complicit House and Senate Republicans who would do every bidding that he put in front of them — and then corrupt the various institutions that would be required to execute his revenge, which would include the Department of Justice, etc.” William Barr William Barr, attorney general during the Trump administration. (Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) In January, the former president offered yet another possible preview of how he’d settle scores if he wins reelection: pardoning those convicted for crimes committed on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters attempted to block the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote. “If I run and I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly,” he said at a campaign rally in Conroe, Texas. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.” On Dec. 15, 2020, immediately after the Electoral College count confirmed Biden’s victory over Trump, former Attorney General William Barr tendered his resignation to the then president. The schism followed disagreements about whether the election had been marred by fraud and whether Justice Department could intervene to overturn the results. “I told him that all this stuff was bulls*** about election fraud,” Barr told NBC News. In his memoir, “One Damn Thing After Another,” Barr has since offered his own take about what ultimately guides the former president. “That Trump, of all people, should consider himself an arbiter of ideological purity — a man whose political allegiances oscillated randomly for decades — is comical,” Barr wrote. “In reality, he has no concern with ideology or political principle. His motive is revenge, and it is entirely personal.” | |
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| 05-12-22 11:41am - 915 days | #73 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
This is dumb. A federal law called the U.S. Presidential Records Act requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president's official duties. But I've read that there are no penalties if people destroy all the required records. No penalties. None. So it's a stupid law, because since when can you break the law without any penalties? When you deal with the President of the United States. ------- ------- U.S. prosecutors open grand jury probe into Trump's handling of classified records -NYT Reuters May 12, 2022, 10:50 AM Horse Racing: 148th Kentucky Derby WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Federal prosecutors have opened a grand jury probe into whether former U.S. President Donald Trump mishandled classified records that ended up at his Florida residence, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing two people briefed on the issue. Prosecutors have issued a subpoena to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to obtain the documents, the report said. Authorities have also made interview requests to people who worked in the White House in Trump's final days in office, it said. A grand jury probe suggests the Justice Department has advanced in its inquiry, which began after NARA said it had recovered 15 boxes of documents, including classified records, that Trump took to his Mar-a-Lago estate when he left the White House in January 2021. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump has previously confirmed that he agreed to return certain records to the Archives, calling it "an ordinary and routine process." A federal law called the U.S. Presidential Records Act requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president's official duties. (Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Grant McCool) | |
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| 05-12-22 07:40am - 915 days | #72 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald Trump says he is not responsible to missing fossils from a national park in Utah. But Trump cut back funding for US national parks and services to save money to build the great walls to keep out illegal immigrants. So maybe Trump knows who stole the fossils? Enquiring minds want to know: did Trump get a kickback from the thieves, because he made their job stealing easier? ------ ------ 'Irreplaceable' fossils dating as far back as 251M years ago stolen from national park in Utah, officials say NBC Universal Minyvonne Burke May 11, 2022, 6:48 AM Officials are offering a reward after rare fossils dating as far back as 251 million years ago were stolen from Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. The reptile track fossils date back at least 200 million years. (NPS.gov) The trace reptile track fossils dating from the Triassic period were removed from a trackway in the park between August 2017 and August 2018, the National Park Service said in a news release Tuesday. Officials said the fossils are "irreplaceable" and are offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to the identification and prosecution of whoever is responsible. The U.S. Park Rangers are seeing help from the public. "Information from other visitors is often very helpful to investigators," the news release states. "If you have information that could help recover the stolen fossils or that could help identify those responsible, the park asks you to please submit a tip." "Vandalism hurts. Some of the oldest and most extensive reptile tracks in the western United States are found within Capitol Reef National Park," it added. "Fossils preserve the record of life on earth and are exceedingly rare." | |
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| 05-12-22 07:24am - 915 days | #71 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Sleepy Joe Biden needs to go back to college. To take lessons in economics. To learn that the federal government needs taxes to run. Bring back Donald Trump, the man who fought to lower taxes for the wealthy, while also giving pennies to the lower classes. Donald Trump, the man who was trying to make America great again. Why is Sleepy Joe Biden in the White House? Because he stole the election from Donald Trump. But before Biden leaves the White House, he needs to give Donald Trump an unlimited pardon for any and all crimes Trump may have committed. That's only fair, since Biden stole the White House. And then, maybe, Republicans won't put Biden's son in jail. Or maybe they will. You commit a crime, you do the time. ----- ----- PODCASTS The Soapbox Homepage Timothy Noah/May 6, 2022 PROGRESS Biden Is Smart to Attack Rick Scott’s Tax Hike on the Poor. But He Needs to Hit It Harder. A $1,000 tax increase on someone making $30,000 isn’t just bad. It’s repugnant. Please, Democrats, say it. Florida Senator Rick Scott gestures with his hands at a press conference, flanked by John Thune and Mitch McConnell Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Florida Senator Rick Scott Republican Senator Rick Scott professed bafflement last week that President Joe Biden is “obsessed with my plan to rescue America.” It’s true, he kind of is. On Tax Day, the White House released a fact sheet that said Scott’s plan would “increase middle-class families’ taxes an average of nearly $1,500 this year alone and take $100 billion out of the hands of middle-class families each year.” This week, Biden cited the Scott plan again in a speech attacking the Republicans’ “Ultra-MAGA Agenda.” Expect Biden to attack Scott’s plan repeatedly as the midterms draw nearer. I only wish he’d hit harder. There are two reasons Biden is making a big deal about Scott’s Rescue America plan. The first is that Scott isn’t just some junior senator from Florida; he’s chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. That makes Rescue America not just Scott’s plan but the Senate Republican campaign plan, even if it’s not an official NRSC document. (When you click on “Donate,” you’re invited to contribute to Scott’s own campaign fund.) Mitch McConnell is very unhappy that Scott is hawking this plan. Asked in March whether he endorsed it, the Senate Republican leader said no. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people,” McConnell said. Too late! It already was. The second reason Biden is making a big deal about the Rescue America plan in general, and its tax increase in particular, is that it revives the idea that sank Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012—an idea even Romney wasn’t dumb enough to articulate publicly but that he instead shared en famille at a Boca Raton fundraiser captured on video and passed along to David Corn of Mother Jones. The idea is that poor people and the lower middle class don’t pay enough in taxes. “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game,” the Rescue America document says, “even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.” Here’s the Romney version from 2012: There are 47 percent … who are dependent on government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name it.… These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. Actually, it was 46, but don’t let’s quibble. This cohort, Romney confided to his donors, was going to vote for President Barack Obama no matter what, because it didn’t have skin in the game. The idea was that the Democrats had put the 47 percent into a sort of political Skinner box that conditioned them to believe government was a source of benefits and imposed no costs. That was not a new Republican conceit. Back in 2002, a Wall Street Journal editorial (“The Non-Taxpaying Class”) had argued that a person earning $12,000 a year (about $19,000 in today’s dollars) who paid only 4 percent in income tax could not get his or her blood boiling with tax rage.… As fewer and fewer people are responsible for paying more and more of all taxes, the constituency for tax cutting, much less for tax reform, is eroding. Workers who pay little or no taxes can hardly be expected to care about tax relief for everybody else. They are also that much more detached from recognizing the costs of government. The Journal subsequently labeled low-income non-taxpayers “lucky duckies.” The Republican subculture that wants to raise income taxes on lower-income people would dismantle one of the very few tax policies that enjoys long-standing bipartisan support: the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC was created by a conservative Democrat, Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, during the administration of a Republican president, Gerald Ford. President Ronald Reagan expanded it, and President Bill Clinton expanded it more. The Biden administration increased the refundable credit in its 2021 American Rescue Plan. Conservatives like the EITC because it rewards work. Liberals like the EITC because it lifts families out of poverty. The nonprofit Tax Policy Center has called it “the single most effective means tested federal antipoverty program for working-age households.” It’s also the largest. The right-wing argument against the EITC and for raising taxes on lower-income people is that if you reeducate the lower orders to recognize that government costs money, you can pry them away from the Democratic Party. But no practicing politician is stupid enough to believe that. Were Republicans ever to jack up lower-income people’s taxes, the much more likely result would be a strengthening of these voters’ allegiance to the party that abhors such behavioral experiments on society’s most vulnerable. The actual appeal of “Tax the poor” to Romney then, and to Scott now, is that it demonizes the poor as shiftless and irresponsible. That’s a helpful message perhaps in a primary campaign, but a terrible message in a general election. Romney learned that the hard way. Perhaps you wonder how we got from 46 percent not paying taxes in 2012 to more than half not paying taxes today. In a word, Covid. Before the pandemic, the non-taxpaying cohort had actually shrunk a little, to the low to mid-40s. During the pandemic, the cohort grew because people lost their jobs, because the stimulus checks weren’t taxable, and because the government extended various emergency tax credits (not just the EITC). Scott’s a bit of a hypocrite on this point because he voted for the 2020 Cares Act, which sent out many of those stimulus checks. But Scott voted against the follow-up stimulus bills in December 2020 and March 2021. Scott’s embrace of Romney’s losing strategy is, for Biden, a softball pitched right over the plate. It allows Biden to depict Republicans as moral monsters. It allows him to demonstrate he’s the true friend of the working poor and the working class, and to sidestep any defense of the nonworking poor that might rub moderate voters the wrong way. (The nonworking poor are irrelevant to this conversation because they have no income on which to pay taxes.) In the Tax Day fact sheet, Biden said the Rescue America plan would “increase middle-class families’ taxes an average of nearly $1,500.” That’s a point Biden should have hit harder, because when you consult Biden’s source (a Tax Policy Center study), it’s apparent that he’s talking about the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution. That isn’t middle class in most cases; it’s poor. The NRSC plan would increase taxes by $1,020, on average, for the bottom 20 percent. That’s people who make less than about $30,000. The plan would increase taxes by $2,250 for the 20 percent above them. That’s people who make more than about $30,000 but less than about $55,000. Imagine squeezing people making this kind of money. It’s repugnant. In this week’s speech, Biden again soft-pedaled the petty cruelty of the Rescue America plan by saying it would “raise taxes on 75 million American families, over 95 percent of whom make less than $100,000 a year.” Obviously, Biden was trying to convey that the NRSC wants to raise taxes on you, Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class, but that isn’t the outrage. The outrage is that the NRSC wants to raise taxes on people who may not be tuning in—people whose fondest dream is to earn enough to join the middle class. And it was a mistake for Biden to signal that 5 percent of the people who’d pay more taxes under the Rescue America tax-the-poor plan have incomes above $100,000 a year. If you make that much and you don’t pay taxes, I would certainly like to know why not. Still, Biden is on the right track. There’s lots of other stuff to attack in the Rescue America plan, including a sunset provision that McConnell concedes could shut down Social Security and Medicare. But attacking the poor people’s tax is very rightly Biden’s first priority. Some news organizations fault Biden for associating it with “congressional Republicans,” given McConnell’s rejection of it. But give me a break. Scott is in the Senate leadership. He’s giving out money to Republican Senate candidates. That makes it a Republican plan. If some Republicans don’t like it, I can well understand why. But tough luck. Timothy Noah @TimothyNoah1 Timothy Noah is a New Republic staff writer and author of The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It. | |
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| 05-11-22 10:05pm - 915 days | #70 | |
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The truth exposed: People have been wondering how smart the Presidents were. Well, Donald Trump has opened up about the results: After studying history for many years, Trump can now reveal the truth: The smartest President of the Untied States Of Trumperland was: Donald Trump. Then, in second place, was Ivanka Trump. It's true that Ivanka is not yet President, but she will be. There's no one who can stand in her way. So, first place: Donald Trump Second place: Ivanka Trump And then there are the losers. They were not as smart or as rich as Donald and Ivanka Trump. | |
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| 05-11-22 10:59am - 916 days | #69 | |
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Read this and weep. A Vermont man found in raft is charged with killing his mother. The man was set to inherit millions of dollars on the death of his mother. Does Donald Trump have to worry about his sons inheriting his financial kingdom? Both of Don's sons are hunters. What is there was a hunting accident, and Trump was accidentally killed? Would his sons inherit his millions? Or would Ivanka get a piece of the pie? What about Melania? Doesn't she get some of the pie? Enquiring minds want to know: Which of Donald's heirs will get most of his estate? Or will it be the US Government, which should grab most of his estate due to fraud?'' Will the US Government cover the costs if Donald Trump wants to hire bodyguards to guarantee his safety from assasination from family members? ------ ------ Vermont man found in raft is charged with killing mother at sea to inherit estate worth millions USA TODAY Katie Mulvaney May 10, 2022, 5:04 PM BURLINGTON, Vt. — A Vermont man found floating in a life raft off the coast of Rhode Island in 2016 after his boat sank has been indicted on charges alleging he killed his mother at sea in order to inherit his family's estate. A federal grand jury on Tuesday handed down an eight-count indictment in federal court in Burlington, accusing Nathan Carman, 28, in his mother's death. The indictment also says he killed his grandfather, John Chakalos, at Chakalos' home in Windsor, Connecticut, in 2013 as part of an effort to defraud insurance companies. He was not charged with Chakalos' killing. Carman was found in an inflatable raft a week after he and his mother, 54-year-old Linda Carman, went on a fishing trip. His mother was never found and is presumed dead. Carman was arrested Tuesday. He’s due in U.S. District Court in Burlington on Wednesday. His lawyer did not return a call seeking comment. More: Carman loses insurance case over lost boat In 2019, U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr. determined at a bench trial in Rhode Island that Carman's faulty repairs contributed to the 2016 sinking of the boat that led to his mother being lost at sea. McConnell ruled in favor of an insurance company that had refused to pay an $85,000 claim to Carman for the loss of his 31-foot fishing boat, Chicken Pox. Evidence showed that Carman removed bulkheads from the front of the boat that experts testified provided structural support and buoyancy. Carman told the court that he also removed trim tabs from the back of the boat the day before departing on the fishing trip with his mother, creating holes that he plugged with putty. He also replaced a bilge pump that same day after finding water in the boat. Carman testified at trial that he and his mother set out to fish off Block Island before heading to Block Canyon, premiere fishing grounds far offshore. They planned to return by nightfall the next day. Carman described the moments leading up to the sinking. He discovered water in the bilge and turned the engine off. He asked his mother to pull in the fishing lines. He readied a life raft and grabbed three packages of survival gear from the pilothouse. The floor felt spongy and seconds later, the boat went under. He had not placed a distress call or alerted his mother that they were in peril. “But you didn’t shout out to your mother to be prepared?” McConnell asked at trial. “I didn’t know the boat was going down until I was in the water,” Carman said. “I treated my mother like a passenger,” Carman said. “She was more of a problem than a solution.” Carman said he got into the life raft, which was equipped with 30 days of food, and called out for his mother but got no response. Carman filed an insurance claim weeks after the boat vanished. The insurers denied his claim after reviewing the case. Carman denied doing anything to intentionally make the boat unseaworthy. In the ruling, McConnell rejected Carman’s arguments that the insurers operated in bad faith and breached their contract to provide coverage. Carman’s aunts have long tried to block him from receiving millions of dollars in inheritance, alleging that his actions contributed to his mother’s death. Carman had remained a person of interest in the fatal shooting of his grandfather, a developer in Connecticut. For years, Carman has denied his aunts' allegations. If convicted of murder, Carman faces mandatory life imprisonment, according to the U.S. Attorney in Vermont. He could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison on the fraud charges, the U.S. Attorney said. Contributing: The Associated Press His millionaire grandfather: Nathan Carman alleges grandfather was killed by 'mistress' This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Nathan Carman charged with killing mother at sea for inheritance | |
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| 05-11-22 09:50am - 916 days | #68 | |
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Andrew McCarthy admits he was not a true member of the Brat Pack. Vote for Andrew McCarthy, and maybe he can help Donald Trump make America great again. Or not. Is Andrew McCarthy a Donald Trump supporter? Did Andrew McCarthy vote to impeach Donald Trump? Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy hopes Trump’s presidency will be remembered in one ruinous way. Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy said in February 2021 the presidency of Donald Trump was “indelibly stained” by his misconduct during his final weeks in office. In a podcast interview with Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin, McCarthy said he couldn’t recall anything as bad from an American president as Trump’s weekslong riling up of his supporters with election fraud lies following his loss to President Joe Biden. Advertisement “I can’t think of any other president, if you (don’t) just take Jan. 6 by itself, but this whole continuum from Nov. 3rd up until he left office ― that’s as bad as anything I’m aware of in American history from an American president,” said McCarthy, a columnist for National Review. Note: Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy is not the actor Andrew McCarthy, they are two separate people. But maybe actor Andrew McCarthy can study law and become a lawyer, and then run for Congress, or maybe even President. ------- ------- Yahoo Movies Andrew McCarthy on his Brat Pack past and why he'll never be Team Duckie Ethan Alter·Senior Writer, Yahoo Entertainment Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:00 AM Andrew McCarthy wasn't really a member of the Brat Pack, but he definitely played one in the press. In the summer of 1985, New York magazine journalist David Blum accompanied some of McCarthy's St. Elmo's Fire co-stars — including Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson and Rob Lowe — during a night out on the town. The resulting article coined the collective name that would haunt an entire generation of young Hollywood actors ... even those that weren't present on the evening in question. That's what happened to McCarthy, who is referenced once in the article in absentia. And that single mention was enough to make the then-22-year-old actor a Brat Packer for life, like it or not. And to be clear, he didn't like it ... at least, not back then. "It took me years to come to terms with it," McCarthy tells Yahoo Entertainment, adding that he felt "swallowed" by the association when it happened. "The 'Brat Pack' thing is warm and fuzzy now, but at the time, it was a very scathing thing. The public perceived us as being the ultimate in-group, and while that certainly wasn't the actuality, perception is everything. There was something about it and it very quickly became embedded in the culture." The cast of St. Elmo's Fire became the faces of the Brat Pack. (Photo: Andrew McCarthy) The cast members of St. Elmo's Fire became the faces of the Brat Pack. (Photo: Grand Central Publishing) Almost four decades removed from the Brat Pack era, a 59-year-old McCarthy confronts that tumultuous time head-on in his memoir, Brat: An '80s Story, which arrives in paperback on May 10. The book traces his New Jersey childhood to his struggling actor days in Manhattan to that sudden burst of stardom that ignited with St. Elmo's Fire and continued in hits like Pretty in Pink, Mannequin and Weekend at Bernie's — movies that serve as touchstones for the audience that grew up wanting to be part of the club that its actual members would have rather renounced. "Those movies are meaningful to a generation of people, because they remind them of their own youth," McCarthy observes. "When they talk to me about the Brat Pack, they're really talking about that own moment in their youth when they were in their basement or their friend's basement watching one of my movies for the 10th time. It's about them, and I'm just the avatar that represents that to them." | |
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| 05-11-22 09:34am - 916 days | #67 | |
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Britain pledges to defend Sweden if Sweden is attacked. Says Putin can't be allowed to invade any country he wants to add to Mother Russia. Mother Russia says she only wants what any mother wants: all her children to be happy. Only in the arms of Mother Russia will these countries truly be safe and happy. Therefore, with hope and faith in God and Mother Russia, Putin has signed a treaty with Donald Trump, the President of the Unteid States of Trumperland, to allow Putin and Mother Russia to expand it borders in all directions. ------- ------- Britain pledges to defend Sweden if attacked Associated Press May 11, 2022, 8:37 PM COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Britain pledged to defend Sweden if the country came under attack, with Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Magdalena Andersson signing a security assurance deal outside Stockholm on Wednesday. Sweden and Finland are pondering whether to join NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Johnson is later expected to make a similar defense commitment to Finland, where he will meet with President Sauli Niinisto. The agreement will “fortify northern Europe’s defenses, in the face of renewed threats,” Johnson said in a statement, adding it “is a symbol of the everlasting assurance between our nations." “These are not a short-term stop-gap, but a long-term commitment to bolster military ties and global stability, and fortify Europe’s defenses for generations to come,” Johnson said in the statement . Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) land border with Russia. The Kremlin has warned of “military and political repercussions” if Sweden and Finland decide to join NATO. Should Sweden and Finland apply, there will be an interim period lasting from when an application has been handed in until all 30 NATO members’ parliaments have ratified it. The two Nordic countries are expected to announce their positions on NATO membership in the coming days. Johnson also offered during his one-day visit to increase the deployments of British troops and military assets to the region. He met with Andersson in Harpsund, the country retreat of Swedish prime ministers, which is located about 90 kilometers (55 miles) southwest of Stockholm. Britain is already present in the Baltic Sea areas with the Joint Expeditionary Force, which consists of 10 Northern European nations: the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Norway. In 2017, Sweden and Finland joined the British-led military rapid reaction force, which is designed to be more flexible and respond more quickly than the larger NATO alliance. It uses NATO standards and doctrine, so it can operate in conjunction with NATO, U.N. or other multinational coalitions. Fully operational since 2018, the force has held a number of exercises both independently and in cooperation with NATO. | |
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| 05-11-22 09:22am - 916 days | #66 | |
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Draining the swamp in Washington. The ghost of Donald Trump is still here. He is helping to drain the swamp in Washington, as Trump promised. A GOP represenstative, who faces misconduct claims, has resigned. We must fight for a clean, open Washington, where politicians will be free of corruption. Vote for Trump, who has promised that if President of the Untied States of Trumperland, he will avoid golf courses while fighting to make America great again. GOP Rep. Tom Reed voted against impeaching former President Donald Trump in January 2021 but voted in favor of certifying the 2020 election of Democrat Joe Biden. Therefore, Tom Reed is only half bad. ------ ------ GOP Rep. Tom Reed, who faced misconduct claim, resigns Associated Press MICHELLE L. PRICE May 11, 2022, 5:59 AM FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 21, 2020, file photo, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington. In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House on Tuesday, May 10, 2022, he announced that he was resigning. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) NEW YORK (AP) — New York Congressman Tom Reed is resigning, leaving office more than seven months before the end of his term. Reed said last year that he would not seek reelection after he was accused of sexual misconduct but he announced in a speech on the floor of the U.S. House that he was resigning Tuesday. He did not give a reason for his resignation but said there is more to do to put “people before politics.” “I am leaving to continue that work and hope to have a greater impact on our country," Reed said. His office did not immediately respond to messages seeking more details. The Republican from western New York was accused of rubbing a female lobbyist’s back and unhooking her bra, without her consent, at a networking event in a Minneapolis pub in 2017. Reed apologized days after the allegations were reported in March 2021 and said the incident occurred at a time in which he said he was “struggling” and entered treatment after realizing he was “powerless over alcohol.” Reed, who was first elected to Congress in 2010, had said earlier in 2021 that he was considering a run for New York governor should Andrew Cuomo run again. Cuomo, a Democrat, resigned from the governor's office in August amid sexual harassment allegations, which he denied. Reed, when issuing his apology last year, said he would not run for any office in 2022. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to questions about when she would call a special election to fill Reed’s seat before November’s elections. Reed is a former mayor of Corning, New York and was a co-chair of the House of Representatives’ bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. He voted against impeaching former President Donald Trump in January 2021 but voted in favor of certifying the 2020 election of Democrat Joe Biden. Reed was the second New York Republican who is not planning to run again this year. Upstate New York Rep. John Katko, who was among 10 House GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump, announced earlier this year he would not seek reelection. | |
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| 05-11-22 06:36am - 916 days | #65 | |
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Actor James Cromwell superglues hand to Starbucks counter to protest Starbuck's charge for vegan milk. Cromwell says he want to save the planet. Since we both live on the same planet, I guess I want to save the planet, too. ---- ---- James Cromwell Superglues Hand to Starbucks Counter to Protest Starbucks' Upcharge for Vegan Milk Charmaine Patterson Tue, May 10, 2022, 6:59 PM https://www.facebook.com/official.peta/v...deos/314196994124454 working hed: James Cromwell Glues Himself to Starbucks Counter in PETA's Protest Over Vegan Milk Prices https://www.facebook.com/official.peta/v...deos/314196994124454 working hed: James Cromwell Glues Himself to Starbucks Counter in PETA's Protest Over Vegan Milk Prices Actor James Cromwell went to great lengths while joining PETA's protest against Starbucks on Tuesday. In a video shared by the animal rights organization, the Succession star, 82, superglued his hand to a counter in a New York City Starbucks to protest the coffee chain's "senseless" upcharge for Vegan milk. "There's no reason for it except greed," Cromwell says in part in a video shared by PETA on Facebook, later reading a letter and asking, "Will you stop charging more for vegan milk? When will you stop raking in huge profits while customers, animals, and the environment suffer? When you will stop penalizing people for their ethnicities and morals? The senseless upcharge hurts animals." After his message, Cromwell and other protesters begin to chant "Save the planet, save the cows. End the vegan upcharge now." RELATED: Pamela Anderson Takes Part in PETA's 'Vegans Make Better Lovers' Valentine's Day Campaign A woman who appears to be the store's manager approaches the Babe actor and seems to ask him to stand up. "No," Cromwell, who has been involved in numerous PETA protests in recent years, is heard saying. "I'm glued to your counter so I can't get up." After additional chanting, police walk in and address the protesters. RELATED: Chihuahua and Pit Bull Friends Found Caged in the Cold on N.C. Porch Now Need a Home Together "The police have arrived and asked us to leave. We let them know that James and John are glued down," a female activist tells the camera, motioning to the actor and another man whose hand is also superglued to the counter. "They feel that Starbucks needs to take this seriously for the sake of the planet, for the sake of the cows who are forcibly impregnated over and over and have their babies ripped away from them their entire lives." She adds that police had gone outside and were trying to figure out what steps to take with Cromwell and John. RELATED VIDEO: Justin Bieber Tells PETA to 'Suck It' After Backlash –– 'Leave My Beautiful Cats Alone' "We're happy to stay all day if we need to," the woman says. "It's time for Starbucks to get the message." Police reenter the cafe before Cromwell is seen using a tool to separate his hand from the counter. He successfully gets his hand off before helping John remove his hand. Starbucks ultimately closed down the store, one protester says while outside. Cromwell and John are met with cheers as they walk out of the store. A protester then shares that the pair only removed their hands so they would not be arrested. "My friends at PETA and I are calling on Starbucks to stop punishing kind and environmentally conscious customers for choosing plant milks," said Cromwell in a release shared with PEOPLE. "We all have a stake in the life-and-death matter of the climate catastrophe, and Starbucks should do its part by ending its vegan upcharge." It is not clear if the actor or his fellow protesters will face any changes. A spokesperson for Starbucks did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment. | |
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| 05-11-22 06:30am - 916 days | #64 | |
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Blacks advancing in the world. The Fed Board will get its first black woman governor. Not only have we gotten a black President of the US, but we've also gotten a black Vice President of the US, who is a woman. And now a black woman is going to be a governor on the Federal Reserve Board. We need to get Donald Trump back in the White House. He will make America the land of the Free, White and 21-year-old people again. Vote for Trump. Vote for Freedom. Vote for a president who will stay off the golf course and guide our country to Free White Prosperity!!! ------- ------- Reuters Fed Board to get its first Black woman governor David Morgan Tue, May 10, 2022, 7:47 AM By David Morgan (Reuters) -Lisa Cook, an economics professor at Michigan State University known for her work on racial and gender inequality, on Tuesday won U.S. Senate confirmation to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, making her the first Black woman to serve on the Fed board in its 109-year history. Cook will join the U.S. central bank as it faces a monumental challenge: reining in 40-year-high inflation that is straining household budgets and sapping U.S. President Joe Biden's approval ratings without undercutting a historically strong labor market or sending the world's largest economy into recession. Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown called Cook's confirmation "historic." Not a single Republican supported her, and the Banking Committee's top Republican, Patrick Toomey, said he feared she would not be tough enough on inflation. Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote in the evenly divided Senate, making the final tally 51-50. Cook's term will run to January 2024. "That is fantastic news," said Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic. "Lisa was a student of mine. She is a fantastic economist and will bring a welcome voice.” The Fed raised interest rates in March for the first time since 2018, and last week delivered the first in what is expected to be a series of half-point rate hikes, double the usual size, as policymakers try to slow supercharged demand for both goods and labor. Cook, who will help set U.S. monetary policy with the rest of the seven-member board and the heads of the 12 regional Fed banks, is not expected to change that trajectory. Cook was an adviser on the transition teams for both the Biden-Harris and Obama-Biden administrations. She has written extensively about racial disparities, documenting the negative impact of anti-Black violence and gender inequality on innovation and economic growth. "The Fed Board needs governors who understand how the economy works for Americans across race, gender and class, and Dr. Cook’s deep expertise makes her exceptionally qualified to serve," said Michelle Holder, president of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. The Senate last month confirmed Fed Governor Lael Brainard as the U.S. central bank's vice chair, with several Republicans joining Democrats to confirm her. Two other nominees to the Fed - Jerome Powell, renominated to his current position as the central bank's chair, and Davidson College dean of faculty Philip Jefferson, who like Cook is both Black and an economist - have bipartisan support but it is uncertain when the Senate will take up their confirmations. Biden plans to fill the last of the Fed board's seven seats by nominating former Treasury official Michael Barr to be the Fed's vice chair of supervision. His initial pick for that post, former Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, withdrew from consideration after Democrat Joe Manchin joined a united Republican front opposing her nomination. (Reporting by David Morgan and Ann Saphir; Editing by Sandra Maler, Chris Reese and Leslie Adler) Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting. | |
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| 05-11-22 04:47am - 916 days | #2 | |
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Republican Senator wants to strip Disney of copyrights. The move by a Republican senator is part of a broad attempt to punish Disney for Disney’s opposition to the Parental Rights in Education bill. Disney needs to stay out of politics, or else it will lose its favored status in Florida, where Florida has allowed the Mouse company to stay. Mice are often considered pests. But Florida was good to Disney. Now Florida is re-considering, and thinking whether they want to allow Disney's mice to stay at Florida under protected status. ------ ------ May 10, 2022 3:55pm PT Sen. Josh Hawley’s Move to Strip Disney’s Copyrights Called ‘Blatantly Unconstitutional’ UNITED STATES - MAY 3: Sen. AP Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill on Tuesday that aims to revoke Disney’s copyrights, as Republicans are seeking to outdo each other in attacking the “woke” corporation. Hawley’s bill would dramatically rewrite U.S. copyright law, shortening the total term available to all copyright holders going forward by several decades. It would also seek to retroactively limit Disney’s copyrights, effectively stripping the company of much of its intellectual property, in a move that would face several legal obstacles. “That is a blatantly unconstitutional taking of property without compensation,” said Prof. Paul Goldstein, an intellectual property expert at Stanford Law School. Hawley’s move comes on the heels of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed a bill last month that aims to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a 40-square-mile area that Disney controls in Orlando. DeSantis took the action in retaliation for Disney’s opposition to the Parental Rights in Education bill — dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its opponents — that restricts classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. Both DeSantis and Hawley are seen as potential contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. In a press release announcing the legislation on Tuesday, Hawley said that Disney had benefited from “unnecessarily long copyright monopolies,” and that it is time to end “the age of Republican handouts to Big Business.” “Thanks to special copyright protections from Congress, woke corporations like Disney have earned billions while increasingly pandering to woke activists,” said Hawley, who once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts. “It’s time to take away Disney’s special privileges and open up a new era of creativity and innovation.” The retroactive provision of the bill applies to any entertainment company with a market capitalization above $150 billion. Disney’s market cap is $196 billion. In 1998, Disney lobbied heavily for the extension of copyright for works made for hire, such that critics dubbed the bill the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. The character first appeared in “Steamboat Willie” in 1928, and was set to enter the public domain in 2003. The act extended the term from 75 years to 95 years. The character — at least, the original black-and-white version — is now set to lose copyright protection on Jan. 1, 2024. (Disney would still retain copyright to later versions of the mouse.) There is no indication that Congress is interested in further extending copyright at this point. Hawley’s bill would impose a 56-year term on all of Disney’s copyrights retroactively. Prof. Tyler Ochoa, an intellectual property expert at the Santa Clara University School of Law, agreed with Goldstein that that is likely unconstitutional. “The Supreme Court has held that Congress can extend the term,” Ochoa said. “But if you try to take the term away, that is almost certainly a taking of property.” The Copyright Act of 1909 set an initial copyright term of 28 years, with an option for a renewal of another 28 years. In 1976, Congress extended the term to the life of the author plus 50 years, later extended to 70 years. That provision is necessary to participate in the Berne Convention — the international treaty on copyrights. If Congress were to go back to a 56-year maximum, it would violate the treaty, potentially incurring monetary penalties or trade sanctions. Restricting copyrights to 56 years would also likely draw opposition from every corner of the creative world — not just from Disney and other entertainment companies, but from authors, composers, songwriters, and many others. “Copyright contributes $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy and employs 5.7 million Americans,” said Keith Kupferschmid, CEO of the Copyright Alliance, which represents copyright holders in Washington, D.C. “This legislation would harm those millions of everyday Americans in all 50 states who rely on copyright for their livelihoods in creative industries largely dominated by independent and small businesses.” Disney did not respond to a request for comment. Ochoa said that Congress does have the power to limit copyright terms prospectively — but he does not expect that it will. “This has zero chance,” he said. “He’s showboating.” | |
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| 05-11-22 04:30am - 916 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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May 10, 2022 4:28pm PT Charlize Theron Posts First Look of Her Marvel Studios Debut in ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Welcome to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Charlize Theron. Six days after the debut of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” Theron posted to Instagram the official first look of her as Clea, her character introduced in the mid-credits scene of the Marvel Studios film. Theron’s casting as Clea had been rumored for the last few weeks as word of the many surprises in “Multiverse of Madness” began to trickle through the internet. But Theron’s post marks the first time the Oscar-winning actor has acknowledged she’s playing the character. (Warning: The rest of this story contains some light spoilers for “Multiverse of Madness.”) In the film, Theron appears in full sorcerer regalia while Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is walking down the street. She tells him that his multiverse hopping actions from the film have caused an “incursion” between universes, which, as it sounds, not a good thing. After ripping the fabric of reality to reveal a portal to the Dark Dimension — i.e. Clea’s home — she asks Strange to join her to repair the damage, and he does. In the Marvel comics, Clea is a fellow sorcerer with a lineage that traces directly to Dormammu, the overlord of the Dark Dimension who faced off with Strange in the climax of 2016’s “Doctor Strange.” (In that film, Dormammu is represented by a semi-corporeal giant floating head also voiced by Cumberbatch, whereas Clea is, to recap, played by the flesh-and-blood Theron sporting smokey magenta eye shadow.) Eventually, Clea and Strange get married, but Clea must commute between the Dark Dimension and Strange’s reality, which, naturally, puts something of a strain on their relationship. At this point, it is unclear where Theron’s version of Clea will go within the MCU, but the post-credit scene strongly suggests that she and Cumberbatch will headline the next “Doctor Strange” movie. Given that Theron is one of the biggest established stars ever to join the Marvel Studios fold, it also seems likely that Clea could have a long and healthy future within the MCU. Theron is next set to appear in the Netflix film “The School for Good and Evil,” directed by Paul Feig and costarring Kerry Washington, Michelle Yeoh, Ben Kingsley, Rachel Bloom and Laurence Fishburne. She’s also set to reprise her role as the villain Cipher in “Fast X,” which recently paused production after director Justin Lin unexpectedly dropped out a week into filming; days later, Universal hired Louis Leterrier as a replacement. | |
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