Russian hardcore punk ex-pats Svetlanas have bailed on their tour with Barb Wire Dolls after an alleged Nazi incident at a show in New Hampshire.
Svetlanas cancel tour with Barb Wire Dolls after Nazi incident in New Hampshire
hmmmm
Northam defeats Gillespie in race for Va. governor
If those results held, it could signal a big win for Democrats in Virginia. In another closely watched race, in Prince William County, Democrat Danica Roem became the first openly transgender person to win a seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates. She beat longtime Republican incumbent Robert Marshall by a wide margin. At least four other Republican incumbents lost their seats.
That was part of a wave of apparent victories for Democratic candidates, including what looked like a sweep of statewide offices. Democrat Justin Fairfax appeared headed to win as lieutenant governor over Republican Jill Holtzman Vogel, and incumbent Attorney General Mark Herring was headed for re-election over Republican challenger John Adams.
Live updates: Ralph Northam defeats Ed Gillespie – The Washington Post
hmmmm
Hawaii Na Ka Oi
Donald Trump received a bit of karma on his first trip to Hawaii as president, with protesters greeting the president with mocking signs that read, “Welcome to Kenya.”
…[Trump had pressed] Obama to the point that the president released his long-form birth certificate, showing he had been born in Hawaii.
…During the 2016 campaign, Trump [finally!] backed away from his birtherism after coming under scrutiny, saying that Obama was indeed born in the United States and that the matter was closed.
…Hawaiian islanders also greeted Donald Trump with other mocking signs, including one that read, “Hawaii 3, Trump 0,” in reference to the state’s record in blocking Trump’s travel ban from Muslim-majority countries.
‘Birther’ Movement Leader Donald Trump Arrives In Hawaii, Mocked By Signs Reading ‘Welcome To Kenya’
Heh
Perez: Brazile claims about Clinton’s health ‘without merit’
Perez: Brazile claims about Clinton’s health ‘without merit’ | TheHill
OK, sure, but… That’s what he’s commenting on in relation to Brazile???!
Donna Brazile’s Curious Account of the 2016 Election – The Atlantic
For anyone who watched the 2016 campaign, it’s surreal to see Brazile’s overtures to Sanders and to see her complaining that the DNC had been in the tank for Hillary Clinton. Brazile is not a product of the Clinton machine…
…But by the 2016 race, she was ready to join the Clinton bandwagon. As hacked DNC emails would later show, she even passed Democratic primary-debate questions—obtained through her position as a CNN political analyst—to Clinton. When this was revealed, it earned Brazile the heated enmity of many Sanders backers. Given that she was a vice chair of the DNC, it also fed the already-strong impression that it heavily favored Clinton.
…The fact that the Democratic Party apparatus would lean toward Clinton—a former senator and first lady, the wife of a former Democratic president, and part of a family whose patronage had largely shaped the current party—over Sanders, who didn’t even serve as a Democrat in the Senate, was not a shock. Even so, Sanders’s campaign had been blowing the whistle on the Victory Fund for months.
…While it’s hard to argue with Brazile’s position that “Debbie was not a good manager,” or to disagree that Wasserman Schultz should have kept officers better in the loop, this hardly exculpates Brazile. As a DNC officer, she should have been asking more questions of both the chair and other top officials, and she apparently didn’t.
Donna Brazile’s Curious Account of the 2016 Election – The Atlantic
Still haven’t seen anyone call Ms. Brazile out on having waited so long to share this very, very pertinent information about the inner orchestrations of the DNC with voters. Am I the only one who finds it striking that could have attempted to right the ship and instead she prioritized book sales?
Brazile on Clinton Campaign’s Influence DNC
Gary [Gensler, the chief financial officer of Hillary’s campaign] said the campaign had to do it or the party would collapse.
“That was the deal that Robby struck with Debbie,” he explained, referring to campaign manager Robby Mook. “It was to sustain the DNC. We sent the party nearly $20 million from September until the convention, and more to prepare for the election.”
…Officials from Hillary’s campaign had taken a look at the DNC’s books. Obama left the party $24 million in debt—$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign—and had been paying that off very slowly. Obama’s campaign was not scheduled to pay it off until 2016. Hillary for America (the campaign) and the Hillary Victory Fund (its joint fundraising vehicle with the DNC) had taken care of 80 percent of the remaining debt in 2016, about $10 million, and had placed the party on an allowance.
…The party chair usually shrinks the staff between presidential election campaigns, but Debbie had chosen not to do that. She had stuck lots of consultants on the DNC payroll, and Obama’s consultants were being financed by the DNC, too.
…I knew that Debbie had outsourced a lot of the management of the party and had not been the greatest at fundraising.
…When the party chooses the nominee, the custom is that the candidate’s team starts to exercise more control over the party. If the party has an incumbent candidate, as was the case with Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012, this kind of arrangement is seamless because the party already is under the control of the president. When you have an open contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I was manager of Al Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.
Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC – POLITICO Magazine
hmmm
Citing The Bible, The EPA Just Changed Its Rules For Science Advisers
Referencing the Book of Joshua, EPA head Scott Pruitt announced sweeping changes to the agency’s science advisory boards, opening the door to more input from the business world.
Citing The Bible, The EPA Just Changed Its Rules For Science Advisers
Oh good lord…
Georgia attorney general quits defense in server wiping case
The Georgia attorney general’s office will no longer represent the state’s top elections official in an elections integrity lawsuit filed three days before a crucial computer server was quietly wiped clean.
The lawsuit aims to force Georgia to retire its antiquated and heavily questioned touchscreen election technology, which does not provide an auditable paper trail.
The server in question was a statewide staging location for key election-related data. It made headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn’t fixed for six months after he first reported it to election authorities. Personal data was exposed for Georgia’s 6.7 million voters, as were passwords used by county officials to access files.
Georgia attorney general quits defense in server wiping case
hmmmm
Miss Peru contestants accuse country of not measuring up on gender violence
Latin American beauty pageants are [criticized] as sexist and patriarchal in their portrayal of women. But the 23 Miss Peru contestants agreed with [a suggestion from] the pageant’s [organizer,] former beauty queen Jessica Newton, to dedicate the event to empowering women in a country with an appalling record for gender violence.
Whoa… Nicely done, ladies.
Evidence mounts that Sessions perjured himself under Senator Franken’s questioning
Sessions told Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) at the January hearing that he was “not aware” of evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government during the campaign, according to the New Republic.
He walked back those claims last month during another Senate hearing, telling Franken he “conducted no improper discussions with Russians at any time regarding the campaign or any other item facing this country.”
But court filings, and a new CNN report, show he was aware of evidence that at least one campaign associate was in contact with Russia.
…“The good news for Sessions is that he can plausibly claim to have opposed any Russian collusion,” writes the New Republic‘s Jeet Heer. “The bad news is that, in making those claims, he opens himself up to charges of perjury.”
BUSTED: Evidence mounts that Jeff Sessions perjured himself under Al Franken questioning
hmmm
Gitmo Judge Convicts U.S. General—Because He Stood Up for Detainee Rights
Brigadier General John Baker protested the government’s surveillance of Guantanamo Bay defense lawyers. And that got him sentenced to 21 days in confinement.
…Baker is a senior officer within in the highly controversial military commissions process: the Chief of Defense Counsel.
“The military commissions are willing to put people in jail for defending the rule of law,” Jay Connell, who represents another Guantanamo detainee facing a military commission, told The Daily Beast.
…Earlier this month, three civilian attorneys for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the accused bomber of the USS Cole in 2000, abruptly quit the death-penalty case. The attorneys said that they had significant reason to believe the government was listening in to their communications. [They were] barred them from discussing the issue with Nashiri, since it was classified. [Which means,] Nashiri had lost his lawyers without ever knowing exactly why.
Gitmo Judge Convicts U.S. General—Because He Stood Up for Detainee Rights
wild.
Former Mexican ambassador says State Department is telling world leaders to stay at Trump hotels
What’s the point of public service if you can’t profit off of it?
oy….
Sam Clovis, Trump nominee for Agriculture post, withdraws amid Russia probe
Sam Clovis, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist, withdrew himself from consideration Thursday, the White House announced.
…Questions are swirling over Clovis’ relationship with George Papadopoulos — the Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who has admitted to making a false statement to the FBI regarding his interactions with foreign officials close to the Russian government — and a trip Papadopoulos took during the election where he met with a Russian figure.
…The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Clovis was one of the campaign officials referred to in court documents who Papadopoulos was emailing with.
…Clovis, a former conservative radio talk show host in Iowa who was a frequent guest on CNN during the election, became an early supporter of Trump’s two years ago. He quickly rose through the ranks of the campaign after Trump’s strong finish in the Iowa caucuses, taking a national role in the organization as officials scrambled to build a campaign team.
Clovis, a novice to national presidential campaigns, was supervising Papadopoulos and became a visible spokesman for Trump on CNN and other networks.
…Trump had picked Clovis for the position despite him not having a background in science, and that lack of experience, alongside a history of racially charged and homophobic comments, made his nomination particularly controversial.
…Clovis previously argued that protections for LGBT people would lead to protections for pedophilia, and as a radio host and political activist, he promoted the hoax that former President Barack Obama was not born in the US. Likewise, he called Obama a “Maoist” and said Attorney General Eric Holder is a “racist black.”
Sam Clovis, Trump nominee for top Agriculture post, withdraws amid Russia probe – CNNPolitics
hmmmm
Fossil fuels help prevent sexual assault in Africa
Since taking the helm at the Energy Department, Perry has said he doubted the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide was causing climate change.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested on Thursday that increasing fossil fuel use to spread electricity across Africa would help prevent sexual assaults there.
…from the standpoint of sexual assault. When the lights are on, when you have light that shines — the righteousness, if you will — on those types of acts,” he told an Axios event.
Perry was implicitly responding to a protester who yelled that fossil fuels were causing climate change and killing people in poor countries.
“Let me tell you, where people are dying in Africa is because of the lack of energy they have there, and it’s going to take fossil fuels to push power out into those villages in Africa.”
Perry: Fossil fuels help prevent sexual assault in Africa – POLITICO
Good lord, he is such an idiot.
Awaiting Trump’s coal comeback, miners reject retraining
Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
…Hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.
…“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions.
… Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation’s poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity.
…They say mining pays well; other industries are unfamiliar; and there’s no income during training and no guarantee of a job afterward.
…Coal jobs are preferable to those in natural gas, they said, because the mines are close to home, while pipeline work requires travel.
Awaiting Trump’s coal comeback, miners reject retraining
hmmm
Poll: Americans Were Sort of Hoping Mueller Would Arrest Someone New Every Day
Perhaps in response to the poll results, Mueller on Thursday issued the following official statement: “I understand people’s eagerness for more arrests, but all I can say is that if they’re patient we have some new ones coming up that are just amazing.”
Poll: Americans Were Sort of Hoping Mueller Would Arrest Someone New Every Day | The New Yorker
Heh
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