THE NEXT BIG MELTDOWN: Olivia Wilde Chops Off Hair, Doesn’t Want to Look Like Melania Trump.
I’m starting to wonder if Hollywood publicists are trolling their clients with silly ways to make anti-Trump statements.
Archive for 2016
December 23, 2016
BREAKING: Suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack shot dead.
The 24-year-old Tunisian, Anis Amri, was killed following a dramatic encounter in the Piazza I Maggio in the Sesto San Giovanni area outside Milan, after a two-man patrol stopped him for questioning around after 3 a.m. on suspicion of burglary. One of the officers requested his identification. Amri responded by pulling a gun, shooting one officer in the shoulder.
The second patrolmen — trainee Luca Scatà — fired back, killing Amri, according to Italian officials.
“He was the most-wanted man in Europe” said Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti. “There is absolutely no doubt that the person killed is Anis Amri.”
In Germany, Federal Attorney General Peter Frank said fingerprints confirmed Amri was the man killed. But authorities struggled with other questions — still seeking to piece together how Amri slipped out of Berlin made it to Milan amid a massive manhunt.
German police, intelligence, and courts all have much to answer for.
THE ATLANTIC: How Barack Obama Failed Black Americans: The country’s first black president never pursued policies bold enough to close the racial wealth gap. That was Obama’s problem. Not enough fundamental transformation.
Prediction: The racial wealth gap will narrow more under Trump than it ever did under Obama.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN is a bit more personal than usual: Finding the good in my dad’s final days.
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN: Outspoken Prince Charles again shows he’s not much like Queen Elizabeth II.
Speaking to the BBC, the Prince of Wales said the rise of populist groups around the world that are “aggressive” toward those who practice a minority faith had “deeply disturbing echoes” of the Nazi era.
The 68-year-old was delivering a segment for BBC Radio 4’s “Thought for the Day,” a feature in which contemporary issues are discussed through the prism of religious faith.
This was the third time that Charles, the queen’s eldest son and heir to the throne, has taken part in “Thought for the Day.” The queen, who is recovering from a heavy cold, has never recorded a slot for the program.
Elizabeth is Britain’s longest-serving monarch. But little is known about her personal views — she is careful to keep her own counsel. She has given exactly zero interviews to the media during her 64 years on the throne.
I get the feeling the old dear is trying to hold on long enough that she’s succeeded by her grandson, William.
Wish her luck.
JOE LIEBERMAN: Trump’s Israel envoy pick will soften hard line.
David Friedman, a conservative bankruptcy lawyer and Israel hardliner, has drawn howls from Democrats and liberal advocates for challenging the two-state solution with Palestinians and his harsh condemnation of peace-seeking Jewish groups.
But Lieberman, a former Democratic VP candidate and staunch Israel supporter, said Friedman’s most severe statements came “in the heat of the campaign” to elect Trump, predicting the nominee will soften his tone when he seeks Congressional approval.
“I think you’re going to find in the weeks ahead in the confirmation process on David Friedman that it’s going to be very clear that … he and President Trump want to be part of achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and that some of the things he said really don’t reflect what he believes,” Lieberman told CNN on Thursday.
“I think you’ll find along the way that he will express some regrets.”
Diplomats have to be, well, diplomatic. So I suppose the question is whether Friedman will temper his views only when speaking to the US Senate on his own behalf, or if he also does so when speaking to the Israeli government on behalf of the United States.
If it’s the former, the howls of outrage will be even more entertaining than has become usual.
REMEMBER, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO THINK THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS UNDEMOCRATIC: EPA steamrolls auto industry to rush out new regs.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday rejected an auto industry request to extend the review period for strict new vehicle regulations, allowing them to go into effect before President Obama leaves office.
“The EPA continues to believe that the [decision] and the associated 30-day comment period remain appropriate and, therefore, the EPA is denying both the request for withdrawal and the request for an extension of the comment period,” Janet McCabe, the EPA’s air pollution chief, wrote in a letter to the top trade group for the automakers,the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
The auto industry requested last month that the EPA extend the review period for an agency study that determined the new rules for improving fuel efficiency and lowering carbon emissions be extended into the next year.
The agency had surprised the industry last month by saying it was planning on finalizing its determination this year, instead of doing so next year as the law requires.
Pen and phone.
WAYNE ALLEN ROOT: New president is set to unleash a wave of prosperity.
Trump is winning on two fronts. One line of attack is to motivate business owners and business builders to start or expand by dramatically lowering corporate taxes, individual taxes, cutting regulations that strangle business, killing Obamacare and reigning in the IRS. If those things all happen, we will create a “reverse inversion.” All the companies in the world will want to move to the United States, instead of American companies running for their lives to escape. All the world’s companies rushing to relocate to America — wouldn’t that be wonderful?
But Trump is fighting on a second front, too: the psychological one. People are more productive if they feel positive, if they feel loved and appreciated. Over the past eight years, Obama has made business owners feel lousy, miserable, intimidated, targeted, persecuted, greedy. He made us feel like “Public Enemy No. 1.”
Remember Obama saying, “You didn’t build this”? That kind of thinking set the tone for the past eight years of misery and malaise. That’s why GDP has been close to zero. That’s why more than 94 million Americans are not working. That’s why business creation is the lowest in history. That’s why — for the first time in history — more businesses close each day than open.
Think about your own personal life. Would you work for a boss who treated you poorly and made you feel miserable? Would you produce your best work and efforts in that kind of hostile environment?
Then there’s John Galt’s short take: “Get the hell out of my way!”
KELLYANNE CONWAY: Trump will not pursue immigration ban based solely on religion.
Asked repeatedly if an individual’s religious affiliation would trigger heightened scrutiny, Conway said, “No.”
Instead, Trump will focus more on the country of origin, Conway said.
“You’re going back to over a year ago in what he said about the (Muslim) ban versus what he said later about it, when he made it much more specific and talked about countries where we know that they’ve got a higher propensity of training and exporting terrorists,” she told CNN’s Chris Cuomo during an interview on “New Day,” after he prodded her to share more details.
Conway also denied that Trump has changed his position.“He doesn’t go back and forth on anything based on criticism. I mean, if you’re us, and certainly if you’re him, you are impervious to naysayers and critics in terms of them changing policy,” she said.
Changing focus to “country of origin” is very nearly a difference without distinction.
THE DOGS BARK BUT THE CARAVAN MOVES ON: Top Senate Democrats List Requirements for Trump Nominees. Now if Harry Reid hadn’t crossed the nuclear threshold, their opinions would carry more weight.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, INFIDELS: Holiday Events An Increasing Target for Terror.
TWO CAN PLAY TRANSITION POWER POLITICS: Trump Pressures Obama Over U.N. Resolution on Israeli Settlements.
President-elect Donald J. Trump publicly pressured President Obama on Thursday to veto a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, the newly elected leader’s most direct intervention in foreign policy during his transition to power.
Mr. Trump called on the president to use the United States’ veto in the United Nations Security Council to block the Arab-sponsored resolution, which condemned the “construction and expansion” of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Obama administration, which vetoed a similar resolution in 2011, had withheld judgment over the latest measure.
With the United States’ position publicly in doubt, the resolution was pulled by its sponsor, Egypt, on Thursday morning, hours before the Council was scheduled to vote, and it was unclear when or even if it would be brought back up. But Mr. Trump’s forceful insertion into the matter reflected an unusual public split between incoming and departing presidents, and it highlighted the stark shift on Middle East policy ahead when the new administration takes over in a month.
Obama has already said he won’t demur on policy questions like almost every other former President, so Trump’s move feels like preemptive payback.
Vetoing almost anything at the UN concerning Israel also happens to be good policy.
[Typo — fixed!]
THE HILL: Trump’s White House press shop intends to change status quo.
The communications team announced by President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday shows that the status quo is shifting in the White House press shop as well as in other corners of the incoming administration
The structure of the team is changing from past administrations in order to address the needs of the first Twitter president.
While previous White House communications staffs have been hierarchical, Trump’s four key appointees will each be an “Assistant to the President,” as well as having more specific job titles.
That jibes with word from sources in previous days that Trump was weighing creating equal roles instead of the usual chain of command.
Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee’s chief strategist and spokesman, will take over the mantle of White House press secretary while campaign communications adviser Jason Miller will become White House communications director.
Joining them in the press shop will be Hope Hicks and Dan Scavino, two longtime Trump loyalists who have been with the business mogul since the start of his presidential bid. Hicks will serve as director of strategic communications while Scavino will become director of social media. Both served in similar roles during the campaign.
Hmm.
WHAT’S FUNNY IS, WHEN TRUMP CALLED FOR STRONGER LIBEL PROTECTIONS, PEOPLE CALLED HIM HITLER. BUT NOW: Making Defamation Law Great Again: Michael Mann’s suit may continue.
In refusing to dismiss claims against Steyn and Simberg, the D.C. Court of Appeals placed tremendous weight on the fact that Penn State and other institutions investigated Mann and did not find evidence of academic misconduct. Yet it is the alleged inadequacy of Penn State’s investigation that was the focus of the very posts at issue. Indeed, this was the whole point of the Sandusky comparison. Both Simberg and Steyn believe that Penn State failed to conduct a thorough investigation of the allegations against Mann and that other investigations either did not focus on Mann’s conduct or relied too heavily on Penn State. They were explicit on this point, and they cited the reasons for their conclusions. Further, a reader of their posts would be well aware that they were expressing their own opinions and not claiming that some independent investigatory body or tribunal had reached an equivalent judgment.
Because the university and other investigations failed to find evidence of scientific misconduct on Mann’s part, the court declared that claims Mann engaged in such action were “definitively discredited.” On that basis, it concluded, “a jury could find, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants ‘in fact entertained serious doubts’ or had a ‘high degree of awareness’ that the accusations that Dr. Mann engaged in scientific misconduct, fraud, and deception, were false, and, as a result, acted ‘with reckless disregard’ for the statements’ truth when they were published.” This is a troubling conclusion.
Well, when you challenge the core tenets of a religion, you meet the Inquisition.
JUSTICE: Philippines leader Duterte faces investigation over killings claim.
The Philippines independent human rights watchdog has said it will investigate claims by President Rodrigo Duterte that he personally killed drug suspects while mayor of Davao.
The Commission on Human Rights will also examine reports that so-called death squads killed several hundred people in the southern city.
Mr Duterte confirmed to the BBC last week that he shot dead three men.
Since being elected in May, he has waged a brutal anti-drugs crackdown.
Critics say he has encouraged police, vigilantes and mercenaries to shoot suspected drug dealers and users on sight. Nearly 6,000 people are said to have been killed.
That’s nearly 1,000 dead each month.
I’M NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS… Mystery of ‘Alien Megastructure’ Star Testing Astronomers’ Creativity.
In September 2015, Yale University’s Tabetha Boyajian and her colleagues reported that the star KIC 8462852 has dimmed dramatically multiple times over the past seven years, once by an astounding 22 percent.
NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope spotted these dimming events. But the brightness dips of “Boyajian’s star,” as it has come to be known, were far too significant to be caused by an orbiting planet, so astronomers began thinking of alternative explanations. [13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Alien Life]
Researchers have come up with many possible causes for the dimming, including a swarm of broken-apart comet fragments, variability in the activity of the star itself, a cloud of some sort in the interstellar medium between Kepler and Boyajian’s star, and, most famously, an orbiting “megastructure” built by an alien civilization to collect stellar energy.
A partially completed Dyson Sphere?
SO THIS THING THAT IS PRACTICALLY HITLER IS ACTUALLY A PROGRAM THAT RAN FOR MOST OF OBAMA’S FIRST TERM:
The Obama administration said Thursday it will formally do away with a dormant travel registry program that tracked visitors from many Muslim-majority countries — a program some surrogates of President-elect Donald Trump have proposed reinstating.
The move is symbolic — the controversial program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but has not been in use since 2011.
But it comes as Trump continues to float the possibility of some kind of registry to track potential terrorists in the U.S.
Yeah, why would anyone want to do that.
December 22, 2016
FRED SMITH ON THE LEFT’S BULLYING CULTURE.
MEMORY DENSITY: How Your Brain Controls the Speed of Time.
FROM STEPHEN KRUISER, A ROUNDUP: Tweets About Ivanka Trump Being Harassed on Jet Blue: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. “Naturally, all of this would have been presented and received differently had the harassment been directed at a famous liberal woman. However, wealthy liberals don’t fly coach. They prefer to sit in first class and discuss what’s best for average Americans.”
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