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Initech

Initech's Journal
Initech's Journal
March 2, 2018

Disneyland's CEO Makes As Much As His Entire Park's Combined Payroll

Disneyland is famously promoted as the "happiest place on earth." But for many of the theme park's 30,000 employees, it isn't the happiest place to work. That's what we discovered after spending a year talking with Disneyland workers and conducting a survey of about 5,000 "cast members," as the company refers to its employees.

Since 2000, Disneyland's attendance (more than 27 million in 2016), daily ticket prices ($117 most days of the year for anyone over the age of 10) and revenues (more than $3 billion) have increased, but during that period, its employees' pay has dropped 15% in real dollars.

Our survey of food service workers, hair stylists, costumers, candy makers, security guards, custodians, hotel workers, retail workers, ticket takers, musicians, puppeteers, singers and dancers affiliated with 10 different unions revealed that 85% of Disneyland employees are paid less than $15 an hour. Even among full-time employees who have worked at Disneyland for more than 15 years, 54% are paid less than $15 an hour and 13% are paid less than $11 an hour.

Workers at the Anaheim resort are paid so little that more than 1 in 10 report being homeless at some point in the last two years, two-thirds say they don't have enough food to eat three meals a day and three-quarters say they can't afford basic expenses every month.

<snip>

If that plan goes through and the company reaches its other major goals, Chief Executive Robert Iger will see his pay quadruple to $162.5 million a year. That would make his annual compensation equal to the total pay of 9,284 Disneyland workers.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-dreier-flaming-disneyland-employee-survey-20180228-story.html


Holy fuck this is insane. This has got to change. One guy isn't worth what 9,000 employees are worth.
February 28, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-8: Wheel Of Corruption & The Chamber Of Secrets Edition


Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-8: Wheel Of Corruption & The Chamber Of Secrets Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Switch to the Top 10 today and save $620 a year on your car insurance! Man this has been a crazy week. It sucks that Kevin Smith almost died on Sunday but glad to hear he’s making a good recovery. And did anyone see the controversy coming from actor Chris Pratt (Guardians Of The Galaxy) over sending his “thoughts and prayers” to Kevin Smith? Well, people, get a fucking grip, OK? You should read the insanely long rebuttal from GOTG director James Gunn who came to Chris’ defense. But to say thoughts and prayers are meaningless, which we get after a mass shooting, but to say that rule applies in all cases, you’re just being a colossal dick. Now switching subjects, there is one thing I want to talk about. It’s no secret that I love music – as evidenced by the wide variety of musical acts that we’ve had on this program. But there’s one band in particular that I want to talk about for the intro this week, that’s been in the news a lot lately because of a much hyped reunion tour. Yup, I’m talking about the Smashing Pumpkins. And it’s not even really a reunion without their original bass player D’Arcy Wretsky, who has been unavailable for comment lately. And of course you know Billy Corgan has gone off the deep end lately – appearing on lunatic fringe places like Infowars and going full anti-vaccination. But the reunion tour isn’t doing so hot. In fact some places still have an overwhelming amount of tickets left. I mean could it be that this is February and the shows aren’t until August? Or could it be they booked arenas too big for a band who hasn’t toured in 20 years? Or could it be that Pumpkins fans have had enough of this nonsense? Or could it be that Billy Corgan is a hardcore Trump loving conspiracy theorist who wears “CNN Is ISIS” shirts, said fuck you to Anderson Cooper, and had former bandmates compare him to Trump? We don’t know! We’re just guessing! It’s the Justice League of tours – it’s a disaster from the get go, but they’re doing it anyways, because, money, and you know some executive somewhere is getting a nice big fat bonus check! OK that’s enough of the intro. We have a lot of idiocy to get to, but first John Oliver explores the upcoming Italian elections and it might be one of his scariest yet:



Hey everybody the Wheel O’ Corruption is back! Yay!!! The kids love the wheel don’t they? And where do we start this week? Well for starters we’re going to dedicate the first slot to recapping the hate on display at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC (1). Taking the second slot is of course Gun Nut Apologists (2). And for this entry we’re going to do something a bit different and we’re going to explore the 5 stages of Gun Nut Grief – and in case you’re wondering, no they don’t have any. Taking the third slot this week is the NRA. Wayne La Pierre really screwed the pooch this week and because of that the NRA lost sponsors left and right! Well, it’s at least a start! In the fourth slot this week is the guy currently sitting in the Oval Office – Donald J. Trump. Yes, he had what might be his worst week ever, and he was also forced to stay in DC for the weekend. Taking the 5th slot this week – we have an all new installment of our new ongoing series “Top 10 Investigates” and we’re going to take Tesla’s controversial auto pilot system out for a spin. And you’ll be surprised at what we find! At number 6 is our weekly sermon on all things holy, Holy Shit (6). And this week, we’re going to show you that the Christian right literally became self aware last week. Taking the 7th slot is our old buddy Alex Jones (7). Yeah he sunk to an unbelievable new level of evil last week trying to disrupt the Florida students’ walk out. We’ll recap all the madness there. In the number 8 slot, I have no entry. There’s no news with this entry. And so instead I’m going to use it to refute a popular NRA talking point by showing you a series of clips and videos dedicated to Idiots With Guns (8). In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot we’ve got an all new installment of “People Are Dumb” because well, people are dumb! And finally we’re going to end the World Tour once and for all by coming home! Yes, we’re going to end this bit forever by putting our own country through the World Tour filter! And to close out our Black History Month celebration, what better way to end it then by having our good friends George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic stop by? And they’ve got some brand new music for you, and I can’t wait to hear it! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]CPAC Recap
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Come on everyone say it with me it’s time for the WHEEL OF CORRUPTION!!!!



Of course you know the rules by now – I spin the wheel and we have to talk about whatever it lands on. Of course if it lands on the guacamole option, you know that it costs $1.50 extra. And it’s a new year and we have some new items on the wheel! So the Pirates theme from last year is done and this year we’re paying tribute to the Harry Potter franchise! Yes there will be plenty of magic and butter beer a flowing at the Top 10 set this year!

- Guns
- Abortion
- Crime
- Poverty
- Chance
- 5,000
- Infowars
- Nazis
- Go Directly To Jail
- Buy A Vowel
- North Korea
- Lawsuits
- Whammy
- Donald Trump
- People Are Dumb
- ‘Merica!
- How Is This Still A Thing?
- A Random Tweet
- 10,000
- Community Chest
- Talk Shows
- Clip Without Context
- Something Random In The News
- Fox News
- Top 10 Investigates
- Polls
- Chance
- Nukes
- Protests
- Intermission
- 15,000
- Bankrupt
- Golf
- The GOP
- Butter Beer
- Community Chest
- Florida (Obviously)
- This Fucking Guy
- Beating A Dead Horse
- Holy Shit
- Guacamole ($1.50 Extra)
- Harry Potter
- T-Shirt Cannon
- ? (Mystery Item)
- I Need A Drink
- Lightning Round
- Bonus Spin

Let’s get this going! Spin it to win it! And it lands on… clip without context!





What the what?????? Did he really say that??? Yes he did! Guess the NRA forgot to mail Pat his weekly dividend. Spin it again! And it lands on… the GOP. Well you know it’s no secret that conservatives held their annual Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend in Washington DC. Which means that Trump actually had to spend the weekend in DC. And the madness was out in full force. And it was insane. But not before Trump did a little self congratulating.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/967526110249537542

In other news - Ronald McDonald has a 93% approval rating among McDonalds patrons, Col. Sanders has a 93% approval rating among KFC patrons, Jack has a 93% approval rating among Jack In The Box fans, and the Burger King King has a 93% approval rating among Burger King patrons. It's the fast food superfecta! I mean come on nobody cares what the other 7% do am I right?

(CNN)Longtime conservative Mona Charen -- who faced backlash at CPAC after lambasting Republicans for supporting "sexual harassers and abusers of women" within their party -- now says she's happy with what happened at Saturday's event.
Charen defended her comments on Sunday in a New York Times op-ed titled, "I'm glad I got booed at CPAC."
"There is nothing more freeing than telling the truth," Charen wrote. "And it must be done, again and again, by those of us who refuse to be absorbed into this brainless, sinister, clownish thing called Trumpism, by those of us who refuse to overlook the fools, frauds and fascists attempting to glide along in his slipstream into respectability."
Charen was one of four women on Saturday's #UsToo panel and was asked what riled her up about modern feminism.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/25/politics/mona-charen-cpac-comments/index.html




I don’t know… what political party is Zoidberg affiliated with? Probably whichever one has the best buffet. And speaking of buffets, there was a buffet of madness on display at CPAC. I mean would you be surprised Trump lied about something? I’m not!

Speaking at the conservative CPAC conference in Washington, President Donald Trump took a hard line on immigration and again used the deadly Central American gang MS-13 as an example.

MS-13 members, he said, "are animals, they cut people. They cut 'em. They cut 'em up in little pieces, and they want them to suffer. And we take them into our country, because our immigration laws are so bad, that when we catch them, it's called catch and release. We have to by law catch them, and then release them. Catch and release.

"And I can't get the Democrats, and nobody has been able to for years, to approve common-sense measures that when we catch these animal killers, we can lock them up and throw away the keys."

It’s hard to tell exactly what Trump meant by this, and the White House answered only by providing details on one case from 2017. We’ve decided not to put this statement to the Truth-O-Meter, but we thought the issues it raises is worth a discussion. Immigration specialists said his statement is at best misleading.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/feb/26/donald-trumps-misleading-impression-about-immigrat/




Yeah two thumbs up! But then things got weird when French, I don’t want to say Nazi. Let’s call her “ultra far right” candidate Marine La Pen, and would you be surprised to learn she’s just like Trump? I’m not!

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a rising star in the French far-right movement, drew explicit parallels between her worldview and President Donald Trump’s when she took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

“I’m not offended when I hear President Donald Trump say ‘America first,'” Maréchal-Le Pen said Thursday. “In fact, I want America first for the American people, I want Britain first for the British people, and I want France first for the French people.”

Maréchal-Le Pen, 28, is the niece of French far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, and known to be more socially conservative than her aunt, the Guardian reports. She’s a former member of the French parliament and announced last year that she was taking a break from politics.
http://time.com/5170730/marion-marechal-le-pen-cpac/




Because that’s one thing conservatives are known for – not taking breaks from politics! But then there was Megan McCain’s turn to speak and she layed the smackdown on Trump for attacking John McCain’s brain cancer. And if there’s one thing you don’t do – it’s attack the Fox News cult. Once you’re on their shit list, you’re on it for life!

“As you know, President Trump took some potshots at my father and got the crowd at CPAC to boo him,” The View panelists McCain said on-air, moments after Trump’s CPAC appearance.

She said her mother will be joining her on The View on Wednesday, at which time “both of us will be addressing this…and talk about what it’s like having this continue to happen while my father battles brain cancer.”

Trump attacked the former Vietnam War POW who has served as Arizona’s senator since 1987, during his CPAC speech Friday morning.

Talking to a hall packed with conservative supporters, Trump slapped himself on the back for his various accomplishments in office, including the repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate. Trump said he would have been able to kill Obamacare outright, and put a new health care plan in place “except for one senator who came in to the room at 3 o’clock in the morning and went like that,” signaling thumbs down.
http://deadline.com/2018/02/meghan-mccain-donald-trump-lied-blasts-john-mccain-father-cpac-promised-to-stop-cancer-video-1202301314/




Wait, he can be insulted? And Mehgan I can’t believe you’re shocked by this! For shame! You should have been following this program! See – we know Trump lies so much his lies have their own character and body to them, much like a fine wine. Yes, I’ll have the 2016 Bigly Fake please! Mmmm, that is some good shit! But it’s good to know that our president is trying to unite people in a time of crisis and tragedy.

President Trump condemned on Friday a Parkland, Fla., sheriff’s deputy who stayed outside the school he was patrolling while a shooting rampage unfolded inside last week, even as he insisted that his proposal to arm well-trained teachers would have prevented the massacre.

“When it came time to get in there and do something, he didn’t have the courage, or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job — there’s no question about that,” Mr. Trump said of Scot Peterson, who resigned on Thursday after surveillance video showed that he had failed to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland to confront the gunman as he was killing 17 people.

“He was there for five minutes — for five minutes,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House. “That was during the entire shooting. He heard it right from the beginning. So he certainly did a poor job, but that’s a case where somebody was outside, they’re trained, they didn’t act properly under pressure, or they were a coward.”

He spoke on his way to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., where he continued to promote his proposal — embraced by the National Rifle Association — to allow some teachers and other educators to carry concealed firearms in schools. He said on Thursday that such teachers should be paid a small bonus, and that he would devote federal resources to training them to use weapons to protect students.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/us/politics/trump-cpac-guns-school-shooting.html




Oh and this might be one of my favorite stories out of CPAC this weekend – Ted Cruz. Yes that Ted Cruz – painted the Democrats as the party of Lisa Simpson. Do they not realize that Lisa became president after Trump? They even predicted it!

Sen. Ted Cruz kicked off his appearance at CPAC today by declaring that, when it comes to protecting gun rights, the Republican Party is proudly the party of Homer Simpson.

Conservative commentator Ben Domenech said that the current debate over gun rights was aptly summed up by an episode of “The Simpsons” in which Lisa asserted that the Second Amendment is “just a remnant from revolutionary days [and] has no meaning today,” while Homer insisted that the Constitution guarantees him a right to own a gun because otherwise “the king of England could just walk in here any time he wants and start shoving you around.”

“I think the Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson,” Cruz responded, “and Republicans are happily the party of Homer and Bart and Maggie and Marge.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ted-cruz-declares-that-the-gop-is-happily-the-party-of-homer-simpson/





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[font size="8"]Gun Nut Apologists
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Spin that shit!!! Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy… STOP! And it lands on… chance!



Nice! I get a “Get out of jail free” card. I’ll just put that away for later. Spin it again! And it lands on… guns! People, are we ever going to learn? I think I’ve figured out the five stages of mass shooting grief in this country. And I will explain this with all of the articles and videos in this entry. So the first stage that I’ve come up with to explain Mass Shooting Grief is of course you’re exploiting a tragedy.

Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President, told the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday that politicians and the media are exploiting the Florida school shooting to expand gun control and ultimately abolish the second amendment, striking a defiant tone in his first public remarks since the mass shooting that killed 17 people and reignited the gun control debate in the U.S. to a fever pitch.

“As usual, the opportunists waited not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain,” LaPierre said during CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists and Republican leaders in National Harbor, Md. “Chris Murphy, Nancy Pelosi, and more, cheered on by the national media, eager to blame the NRA and call for more government control.”

“They hate the NRA,” LaPierre said.”The elites don’t care one wit about school children. If they truly cared, they would protect them.”
http://time.com/5169511/nra-wayne-lapierre-cpac-speech/




No Wayne, we’re actually booing you. Now of course I believe the second stage when a national tragedy like this occurs – which is happening on an almost daily basis now – is to blame the victims.

A sheriff in Florida says he will not resign amid mounting criticism for the armed officer who failed to act during the massacre at a high school in Parkland, saying the deputy's response was "not [his] responsibility".

Scott Israel, the Broward County Sheriff, insisted only one of his armed deputies is so far known to have been at fault for staying outside the school during the attack rather than entering to confront the gunman. Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old former student at the school, has been charged with the killings.

In the wake of the shooting, Donald Trump called for teachers to be armed, saying “gun-adept” teachers, coaches, and other school workers would be able to deter school shooters.

But it later emerged that there had been an armed policeman, identified as the school's resource officer Scot Peterson, was nearby when the shooting began but did not go into the building.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/florida-school-shooting-sheriff-scott-israel-parkland-shooter-resign-deputy-scot-petersen-a8228796.html




Yes, you really do suck, sir. And come on, speaking of suck, how unfortunate is it to be strapped with the name Scott Peterson? Seriously. So I think the third stage of Gun Nut Grief is to ignore the calls for a ban on assault weapons.

The US National Rifle Association (NRA) has said it does not support any gun ban following a shooting in a Florida school that left 17 people dead.

The NRA's comments appear to go against President Donald Trump's proposals to tighten gun controls.

Since the 14 February attack on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School the NRA has become a target of a campaign for tougher gun laws.

On Sunday, some students returned to the school for the first time.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43193222




Yeah you suck, NRA, you jackasses! And then there’s the fourth stage of gun nut grief – threaten to murder those who don’t agree with you!

Students at the elite prep school Harvard-Westlake got a troubling alert as they headed to class Friday morning — their campuses had been closed because of a security threat.

A disturbing post on Instagram showing ammunition and a shotgun with the words "#HarvardWestlake" written across the barrel had come to school officials' attention. The account belonged to Jonathan Martin, a former Miami Dolphins' offensive lineman who was the victim of a high-profile bullying scandal in 2013, and is a Harvard-Westlake alumnus.

"When you're a bully victim & a coward, your options are suicide, or revenge," read the text of an Instagram story posted on Martin's account. Martin was taken into custody Friday, and police said they do not believe he posed a threat to the school.

These types of threats have become a fact of life in the nine days since the Valentine's Day shooting that left 17 students and teachers dead in a Florida high school. Almost every day this week brought a new report that sent law enforcement scrambling to decipher the meaning and intent of teenagers' social media posts and comments to friends. School district officials said they were taking even the vaguest of threats seriously, too afraid to do otherwise.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-schools-internet-threats-20180223-story.html




Because only sane, well adjusted, rational people leave death threats! And it doesn’t take a law enforcement expert to figure that one out. Which leads me to the final stage of gun nut grief: sell more guns!

TAMPA, Fla. -- Thousands of gun enthusiasts -- more so than ever -- flocked to the Florida State Fairgrounds for the Florida Gun Show event.

Organizers say they had a record number of people attend the event on Saturday, Feb. 24, almost 7,000, and expected more Sunday.

The manager for the Florida Gun Show, George Fernandez, says they’ve never seen such a big crowd.

The company canceled the show in Fort Lauderdale next month after the mayor asked them to show respect to the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting earlier this month.

With the heated debate over gun control staying front and center, Fernandez expressed concerns over proposed gun laws possibly restricting gun owners.
http://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/florida-gun-show-sees-record-number-of-attendees-amid-gun-control-debate/67-523267641





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[font size="8"]The NRA
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Let’s give the wheel a nice strong spin shall we? Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy… stop! No a whammy!!!



Spin it again. And it lands on… guns. Ok so if you go back to the previous entry, Wayne La Pierre really screwed the pooch this week and it caused what some might call a “category 5 shit storm”. So here’s more on what happened.

Before last week, membership in the National Rifle Association meant gaining access to a broad range of discounts. From special rates on auto insurance policies to cheaper flights when you booked through its website, the NRA's discount program offered a lot of perks.

But in the wake of a massacre at a Florida high school on February 14, activists flooded social media with calls to end corporate partnerships with America's most powerful gun lobby.

Since Thursday, more than a dozen brands severed ties with the organization.

In a statement, the National Rifle Association called the decisions "a shameful display of political and civic cowardice."
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/25/news/companies/companies-abandoning-nra-list/index.html




Hell yeah! But is it really an act of cowardice, NRA? Well, why don’t you just ask your president? I mean he’s clearly the right man for the job!

President Trump on Monday claimed he would have run into a Florida high school to prevent a gunman from carrying out this month's mass shooting.

"You don't know until you test it, but I really believe I'd run in there even if I didn't have a weapon,” Trump told a gathering of governors at the White House. "And I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too."

The president was doubling down on his criticism of an armed sheriff’s deputy who did not confront the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed earlier this month.

"They weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners, alright?" Trump said. "The way they performed was frankly disgusting.”

Trump also told the governors he ate lunch last weekend with leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/375597-trump-i-would-have-run-into-school-during-shooting-even-without-a-gun




Someone just saw Rambo! But really Trump? You would run into the gunfire? That would require you to run first of all. I mean you can barely walk a golf course! But back to the NRA – they handled this whole thing very poorly. You might be asking why?

The aftermath of a mass shooting in America is tragically familiar. After the shock and grief, advocates push lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws. The NRA stands its ground. Nothing really changes.

But something else is happening after the attack at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

People are pushing companies to cut ties with the powerful gun lobby. Advocates are targeting not weapons makers, but banks, rental car agencies, airlines, insurers and other companies with ties to the NRA.

"Americans have had it," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group that calls for gun law reform. "This feels like a different energy level," she added.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/25/news/companies/boycott-nra-companies/index.html




And yes change is scary. But come on we need to do something. And the backlash has already begun. So the NRA held a town hall over the weekend and it was also a category 5 shit storm. So here’s what happened exactly.

CNN is slated to hold a live town hall event next week featuring a discussion with parents and students from the Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 students and staff members.

The network announced Saturday it will air "Stand Up: The Students of Stoneman Douglas Demand Action" on Wednesday, Feb. 21, following calls from students demanding that lawmakers take legislative action to prevent future mass shootings.

CNN said it has invited President Trump, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), Florida Sens. Marco Rubio (R) and Bill Nelson (D) as well as Rep. Ted Deutch (D) to the discussion to hear from the community members affected by the tragedy.
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/374394-cnn-to-hold-town-hall-with-parents-students-of-florida-hs




Which he brought that same shit eating grin to that meeting. And come on, how do you need note cards to tell you how to feel? I mean this isn’t Futurama!

President Trump tweeted Thursday night a claim that a student had quit CNN's Town Hall after refusing a "scripted question." CNN had earlier issued a statement that said "there is absolutely no truth to this."

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School junior Colton Haab told ABC affiliate WPLG-TV that "CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions, and it ended up being all scripted." Haab, who had previously told CNN he used Kevlar sheets to shield students from bullets, said he decided not to participate.

In a statement posted online by CNN Communications, Haab had been asked to participate after the earlier interview. According to CNN, Haab's father withdrew his name from participation before the forum began.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson also interviewed Haab. Haab told Carlson that a CNN producer had contacted him to participate and asked him to send in comments. Haab said a day later, they asked him to submit only questions and not a statement. He said he sent in questions but then CNN "actually wrote out a question for me" from his earlier interview.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/parkland-town-hall-trump-tweet-scripted-question-colton-haab/




Yes! Wrong! Fake news! Scripted questions! Everything is fake! And of course the NRA isn’t helping things, and I don think this is the right way to phrase how you got owned.

Michael Hammond, a spokesman for Gun Owners of America who just weeks before the recent mass shooting at a school in Florida, boasted of his group’s role in stopping gun legislation after school massacres in Colorado and Connecticut, appeared on VCY America’s “Crosstalk” program on Thursday, where he attacked a CNN town hall about gun violence as a “lynch mob” and entertained callers promoting various conspiracy theories about the Florida shooting.

In response to host Jim Schneider’s question about the claims of one student who claimed that CNN required him to read a “scripted” question at the town hall (CNN has released emails rebutting this), Hammond said that “CNN basically accumulated a lynch mob.” He repeated NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch’s claim, which is not backed up by videos of the event, that attendees yelled “burn her” at her as she left the town hall.

“I mean, that was not a town hall, that was a lynch mob orchestrated by CNN to create the illusion that young Americans, in fact, want to ban guns when in fact, it’s just a carefully selected, carefully group of people that don’t represent America at all,” Hammond said.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gun-owners-of-america-cnn-townhall-was-a-lynch-mob/





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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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Let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? Ooh that was a good spin right there. And it lands on…. Ooh look another clip without context!



Quick! To the pedo mobile! Thank you sound effects guy. You know it’s getting harder and harder to take these clowns seriously anymore. Spin it again! And it lands on Donald Trump. So Donald Trump, our 45th president, has been bringing the crazy extra hard this week. But in case you aren’t aware – he is running again in 2020! Mark your calendars! Because early campaigns are always a good thing!

President Trump will announce this week that he plans to run for reelection in 2020.

Conservative news aggregator Matt Drudge made the announcement Tuesday on his website.

The president plans to tap his former digital adviser Brad Parscale, who is presently spearheading a pro-Trump outside group called America First Policies, as his campaign manager, Drudge reported.

Trump's decision to run for reelection is not a surprise. He's repeatedly talked about being president for eight years and he filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission in January for his reelection committee.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/375776-trump-to-announce-reelection-bid-for-2020




Remember the last time America went through a “winning” phase? Remember how stupid we all thought we were when it was finally over? So what makes this any different than the last time it happened? Well…

When it comes to Russia, Americans have more trust in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation than they do in President Trump's denials of collusion, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds.

By wide margins, those surveyed are convinced that Russians meddled in the 2016 presidential election and that they will try it again. More than four in 10 believe Moscow's interference affected the outcome of the election that put Trump in the White House.

The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken after Mueller's team indicted 13 Russians and three companies on criminal charges, spotlight the potential perils ahead for the president if he ends up in a showdown with the special counsel. A 58% majority say they have a lot or some trust in Mueller's investigation, while a 57% majority say they have little or no trust in Trump's denials.

"I think he's doing a heck of a job," John Shaw, 60, of Madison, Wis., said of Mueller. "He's not leaking anything. He's going piece by piece, methodically putting this whole thing together."

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/26/russia-americans-trust-special-counsel-mueller-more-than-trump-usa-today-poll-shows/371345002/




That’s right! More Americans trust the guy investigating Trump than they trust Trump! I mean is that how we win so much that we’re going to be sick of winning? That’s right! One guy in the audience going “woo!”. And someone really needs to take Fox News away from Trump. I think his derangement of Hillary Clinton is starting to go meta.

President Donald Trump’s TiVo was working overtime on Tuesday morning, as it seemed he was catching up on old episodes of Fox News — notably last night’s episode of Martha McCallum’s Fox News show.

The president first took to Twitter to quote Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, who said on McCallum’s show Monday night that “someone at the Justice Department has a treasure trove of evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s criminality at her own hands, or through others, that ought to be investigated”:

“I fully agree with the president on that,” Napolitano added.

The former judge was reacting to Trump’s remarks in an interview with Jeanine Pirro from the weekend, in which he called on “you know who” — ostensibly Attorney General Jeff Sessions — to investigate Democrats for alleged misdeeds during the 2016 election.

Watch Napolitano’s comments above, via Fox News.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-suggests-investigation-into-hillary-clintons-criminality-after-watching-fox-news/



Think of it like this – Fox News knows Trump watches 24/7. They then feed him talking points which he then posts on his twitter feed. It’s a bullshit to bullshit pipeline. But we got to talk about Trump’s speech at CPAC for a minute. Here’s what he started with.

Two days after his White House “listening session,” where he met with anguished survivors of the Parkland, Florida high school massacre and the parents of the dead, President Trump is in a jocular mood. “I try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks, I work hard at it,” he tells the adoring audience at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. “We’re hanging in there folks—together we are hanging in.”

He is clearly having a fine time hanging in. His rambling, bellicose speech: Bragging about eviscerating Obamacare; disparaging John McCain; smirking as the crowd reprises the stale “Lock Her Up” chant; reminding the audience of his miraculous electoral college victory. (Even they must be sick of this by now?)

It takes him almost an hour to mention the Parkland massacre. When he does, he promulgates what has emerged as his favorite solution for combatting school shootings—giving guns to teachers. Elaborating in a tweet on Saturday, the President wrote: “Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again - a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States.”
https://www.vogue.com/article/president-donaldtrump-cpac-gun-violence-parkland-florida-keith-schiller




Holy shit! If that’s his opener, what’s his closer going to be? I know! Lets think of this like a concert – he’s already got his greatest hits out of the way and he’s building up to the big finale. What is it you might ask?

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Republican activists in the audience at President Trump's speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday broke out into a "lock her up" chant, reviving the 2016 GOP presidential campaign chant to imprison Hillary Clinton.
The chants started after Trump criticized Clinton as "crooked" during a brief aside in his remarks. He seized on the chant to go further on the offensive against his political rival.

“Everything that's turning out — now, it's amazing. It's come full circle. Wow, have they committed a lot of atrocities?" Trump said to the crowd, which cheered and yelled encouragement after the "Lock her up" chants subsided.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/375261-crowd-chants-lock-her-up-at-trumps-cpac-speech


Oh yeah called it!!! That’s always his big closing number! I’ll just leave this here.




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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Self Piloting Cars
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Let’s spin the wheel shall we? Wheel goes round, wheel goes round, and lands on… wait for it… A Random Tweet!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/967538684789739520

He seriously talks like a valley girl doesn’t he? I mean you could seriously cast Trump in a remake of “Legally Blonde” and it would be exactly the same. Spin it again! And it lands on… Top 10 Investigates! Hit it!



Some of America’s biggest auto manufacturers like Tesla, Cadillac, and Volkswagen, are test driving a controversial new system that will allow cars to drive themselves. But what is it exactly? How reliable is it? Does it give you a higher probability of being killed or injured behind the wheel? These are the answers to the questions that are the biggest draw that is self driving cars.

Tesla has been promising a significant new update to the Autopilot software for a while now and Elon Musk, along with a few other executives, have been teasing the quality of the new version over the last few months.

Electrek has now learned the first details of this new update as Tesla started beta testing the new build.

Sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that the only new feature is the ability of Autopilot 2.0 to detect and render on the instrument cluster vehicles driving in lanes adjacent to the lane in which the Tesla vehicle is driving.

The bigger difference is the improvements to existing Autopilot features, like Autosteer, due to a much more advanced neural net system to power the Autopilot’s computer vision.
https://electrek.co/2018/02/23/tesla-autopilot-beta-testing-new-autopilot-update-with-new-feature-neural-net/




We picture the auto pilot system to be just like that. But now people are taking the Auto Pilot in a much different direction – coming up with ways to fool it. I mean come on, do you really want to fool your new $100,000 car?

Autonomous cars are becoming increasingly more popular. It's no surprise that manufacturers are looking to add their own iterations of this creature comfort to newer luxury cars, and despite some of the public expecting to get into a self-driving car and just watch a movie, or not pay attention in the slightest, automakers haven't quite perfected the technology. That's why some owners have resorted to their own "hacks" in order to achieve fully hands-free driving.

To show just why driver alertness is still required with today's self-driving technology, we visit the Golden State to discuss how bad of an idea this alleged drunk driver had when he stepped behind the wheel of his Tesla. Eventually, because the driver failed to respond to the Tesla's prompts to engage the steering wheel, his car came to a stop on the Bay Bridge before officers found the vehicle. According to the California Highway Patrol on Twitter, the offender attempted to defend his actions by explaining to the officers that his car was using Autopilot.

Tesla, which has one of the more advanced autonomous driving platforms available for consumers to purchase in the United States and elsewhere around the world, still has a way to go in order to be perfect. The technical and legal limitations of a brand new kind of driving will most certainly have some ups and downs before becoming a widely adopted standard. Many drivers seem to forget this and still continue to put themselves and others in harm's way.
http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/18168/people-keep-coming-up-with-ways-to-fool-teslas-autopilot


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Because of course they will. This is 2018 here. Never underestimate the other guy’s blatant stupidity – even if he owns a $100,000 electric vehicle. Just because you can afford it, does not mean you get to be stupid with it. But as cool as that Space X launch was, Tesla’s controversial auto pilot system so far is failing to impress.

Tesla's Autopilot feature has become the subject of controversy again after a Model S that was possibly using the feature crashed into a fire truck on January 22. The feature gives Tesla vehicles semi-autonomous capabilities but is not meant to replace a human driver.

Now, Chris Lattner, the former Apple legend who spent nearly six months leading Tesla's Autopilot software team in 2017, has expressed his disappointment at the software's current state.

In a post on Twitter, Lattner shared a short review of the Model 3, Tesla's first mass-market electric car.

"The hardware is truly great (a big step up from my Model S) but the software is unfinished and buggy," he wrote. "I'm also sad how little progress HW2 Autopilot has made since I last drove it in June..."
http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-lattner-criticizes-tesla-autopilot-on-twitter-2018-2




Well, at least the Airplane! auto pilot system was quite a bit better designed than Tesla, and that was in a comedy movie. But why are auto insurers encouraging the use of self driving cars? Maybe it’s because they know they will make more money?

Britain’s largest auto insurer, Direct Line, has been offering Tesla owners a sweet-sounding deal for the last few months: Enable Autopilot, the semi-autonomous driver-assist system, and get five percent off your yearly insurance premium. When the insurer announced the inducement in December, Tesla owners nearly broke the internet, as they rushed to crow, assuming they too were in line for a similar financial windfall. They were wrong.

One problem is that this discount isn't coming to America, for reasons we'll explain. But there's another surprising fact to consider: The cost of auto insurance in the driverless age might just increase, even though the number of crashes decreases.

Direct Line's stated goal with this Tesla initiative is to encourage the use of the semi-autonomous (SAE Level 2/3) system in the United Kingdom. Accelerated adoption would help Direct and the rest of the insurance industry learn more about how self-driving technologies can cut down on roadway mishaps and fatalities, and reduce insurance claims in the process.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/car-technology/a16810535/driver-assist-tesla-autopilot-car-insurance/




But would you really be surprised that the built in wifi on a Tesla Model 3 can be hacked? This is some next level James Bond type stuff here.

Tesla is delivering more Model 3 vehicles every day and now the vehicle is making its way into the hands of Tesla hackers and tinkerers who are exploring the new all-electric vehicle in depth.

It’s why it’s not surprising that someone has now managed to hack the Model 3’s ‘factory mode’ – revealing a few interesting details in the process.

‘Factory mode’ is a version of Tesla’s onboard software in its vehicles used to perform final tests and diagnostics before shipping the car out of the factory.

It has a toolbox screen that can give some interesting information about the vehicle’s powertrain.

A member of the Tesla community who goes by ‘Ingineerix’ already has a lot of experience hacking Tesla vehicles. He recently took delivery of a new Model 3 and started going to work.
https://electrek.co/2018/02/25/tesla-model-3-hacked-details-battery-performance-dual-motor/




Yes there is always the possibility of cracking. But we’ll leave you with this – when you have a car that is capable of driving itself, expect to see more of this. And this is something we don’t want.

The Tesla was traveling at 65 miles per hour---the driver reportedly told firefighters that the vehicle was on auto-pilot. This is the second accident involving a Tesla on auto-pilot in the last two weeks, according to ABC7.

Tesla's auto pilot feature is an advanced driver assistance system that uses cameras, sensors and various vehicle systems to maintain the speed of the car, prevent them from running into slower-moving cars ahead, keep the vehicle in the lane and even change lanes for the driver, according to Auto Trader. Very few other cars have all of these systems, and Tesla gives control of all of them to the car's electronic capabilities, requiring much less input from the driver, according to Auto Trader.

The National Transportation Safety Board will be coming to California to examine the crash, according to ABC7. No one was injured. The first Tesla auto-pilot crash occurred Jan. 13 on the Bay Bridge. The suspected drunk driver had passed out behind the wheel, ABC7 reported.
http://www.autobodynews.com/index.php/industry-news/item/14694-tesla-on-auto-pilot-crashes-into-culver-city-ca-fire-truck.html


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So there you have it. You have a car that drives itself. But not without consequences. That’s it for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.




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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Let’s spin that shit! Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy… stop! And it lands on… another clip without context!



Uh huh sure, blame the victims for not being nice enough to the attacker. How very Christian of you. Spin it again! Holy shit, hit it! Yes friends! Gather around my fair brothers and sisters for the Holy Church Of The Top 10 has convened and it is our weekly duty to inform you that the holiest among us are also the most full of:



So let me ask you something my fine brothers and sisters of this beautiful congregation of the LAWRD our GAWD… how does the religious right respond to the government? Not that way, sir! So this week, the Christian right became self aware. And how does the organizations who proclaim themselves in the name of JAYSUS handle such a situation?

Focus on the Family, the behemoth Religious Right organization founded by James Dobson, has declared itself to be a church, thereby avoiding a requirement that it file public tax documents, according to IRS records and a document available on the organization’s website.

Focus on the Family filed as a non-church 501(c)(3) nonprofit as recently as the 2014 fiscal year, submitting to the IRS a publicly available Form 990 as most tax-exempt nonprofits are required to do. But when the group posted a Form 990 for the 2015 fiscal year on its website—dated October 26, 2017, and reporting a massive budget of $89 million—it was emblazoned with the message “Not required to file and not filed with the IRS. Not for public inspection.”

On the part of the form on which it is required to identify the reason for its public charity status, the group indicates that it is a “church, convention of churches or association of churches.” In an “explanation of church status,” the organization states that while it hasn’t filed with the IRS because the IRS has told it that it’s “not required” to do so, it would “post a pro-forma 990 on our website and make copies available to donors.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/focus-on-the-family-has-declared-itself-a-church-avoiding-irs-disclosure-rules/




Yeah booooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! You lose! You get nothing! Good day sir! So Focus On The Family robbed Peter to pay… themselves! They have committed one of the most egregious of sins as outlined here in the good book! And sins must be punished in the name of the lawrd our gawd!!! But what… else… does the Christian right do to become self aware? Why they simply insert themselves into the business of Donald J. Trump.

While thousands of conservative political activists gather just outside Washington, D.C., this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a gathering of spiritual warriors will pack the Trump International Hotel just blocks from the White House. The sold-out event—The Turnaround: An Appeal to Heaven National Gathering—has been organized by a group of dominionists who consider themselves to be modern-day apostles and prophets, including Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs and Lou Engle.

Event leaders are associated with the New Apostolic Reformation, which believes a triumphant, dominion-taking church will help bring about the return of Christ, and many are part of POTUS Shield, a network of self-described apostles and prophets who believe President Trump was anointed by God to help bring that all about.

Sheets, the event’s main promoter, believes the event will play a prophetic role in getting the church to “function as Christ’s Ekklesia, the representatives of His Kingdom government on earth; as such, we will expose the enemies of God, disrupt their plans, enforce Heaven’s rule, and reform America.” As he described it in 2015, “We must realize that we are God’s governing force on the earth, which have been given keys of authority from Him to legislate from the spiritual realm.”

“It seems the spiritual airwaves are filled with prophetic insight regarding this gathering,” Sheets wrote excitedly in an email sent over the weekend. He told a story about a dream that a “trusted prophet” had, which featured hundreds of angels with tuning forks in their hands transforming into an army of special forces.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dominionists-head-to-trumps-dc-hotel-to-bring-heavens-rule-to-america/




Heaven’s rule? If this is Heaven’s rule, I would hate to see what Hell’s rule looks like! Thank you my fine congregation! And by the way if this is really the work of the lawrd our gawd… then why is HE fucking up so hard? Well here is more proof of God’s existance!!!

On Friday, right-wing televangelist James Robison posted a video on his Facebook page in which he declared that Donald Trump’s presidency is a sign that “God is answering the prayers of praying people.”

Robison, who has been a key spiritual adviser to Trump since the 201 election, called on Christians to not only continue praying for Trump but also to pray against his opponents, who “need to be prayed out of office and replaced by someone who understands freedom’s principles because we are losing freedom, there is an all-out assault on the freedoms our Founding Fathers understood.”

“We are a democracy, in that we choose our leaders,” Robison said. “That means you have got to choose wisely and you have got to be led by God. And when you are praying and you get a leader, that leader is either there to bring correction or judgment on the people. I believe that God answered our prayers mercifully and, in mercy, is giving us a healing of the land. I believe we are seeing a miracle right now.”

Robison said that he has spent years speaking to Trump many times a week and often several times a day, during which he “proclaims the truth of God’s word consistently” and never wavers. He said that Trump has been remarkably open to hearing with word of God.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/james-robison-sees-the-power-of-god-and-the-prayers-of-gods-people-being-answered-in-trump/




Indeed oh lord!!!!! So are the praying people really as big of asshole as he is? Probably!

Former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference this morning, where he declared that Donald Trump’s election is proof that God exists.

Declaring that conservatives and Republicans must mobilize to vote in the 2018 midterm elections in order to prevent Democrats from gaining control of Congress, Gorka said that if Hillary Clinton had become become president in 2016, “we would have lost our republic.”

“If you ever had a doubt that God exists, guess what?” Gorka said, “November the 8th all the proof you need. Why? Because [Clinton] had it all, she had the media, she spent $1.4 billion on a seat, on a position, she thought was owed to her because of her gender and her last name, but she lost!”

Gorka said that Trump “brought us back from the brink. We didn’t have two wheels over the edge of the cliff, we had three wheels over the edge of the cliff. If she had won, that was it—from the Supreme Court on down, that was it. We would have lost our republic.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/sebastian-gorka-trumps-election-is-proof-that-god-exists/




Yes indeed! And by the way how great is our gospel choir? Give it up for them!!! But in order to be self aware, you must be free of DEMONS!!!! And that is what our first lady did!

Last week, End Times pastor Paul Begley appeared on “The Hagmann Report,” where he stood by his claim that First Lady Melania Trump had ordered the White House to be “completely exorcised” before she moved in.

After Begley made this claim earlier this month, the story was widely circulated among those who saw it as a sign of President Trump’s growing Christian faith, which eventually prompted the Associated Press to contact the White House for comment, forcing the first lady’s office to declare that Begely’s claim was “not true in any way.”

But Begley is standing by his claim and insisting that the AP’s story denying the exorcism is “fake news.”

“The lamestream, mainstream fake news media tried to say that that was fake news or that there was no—I think they said the White House, Melania Trump’s spokeswoman said there was no ‘exorcism’ in the White House,” Begley said. “There may not have been a, quote, ‘exorcism’ in the White House, but they didn’t say that they didn’t remove all of the idols, all the relics, all the witchcraft, all the voodoo, all of the things that were in there. They are not going to tell you those weren’t removed because, believe me, they were.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paul-begley-stands-by-his-claim-that-melania-trump-ordered-the-white-house-to-be-exorcised/




Yes, just ask her! But I hope you get that as a take away from this week’s sermon – demons are bad and not allowed in the White House, OK? Now go forth and spread the word of JAYSUS and our GAWD using the knowledge you have acquired in the Good Book! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]Alex Jones
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Let’s spin the wheel shall we? And it lands on…. Go directly to jail? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!



Wait – I’ve got that Get Out Of Jail Free card! Spin it again! Infowars. Shit, do I really have to talk about that shitty channel again? Aw, I’d rather be in jail. Wait, there’s good news about Infowars? But there’s also bad news? OK thanks for clearing that up, Carlos. So here’s at least part of the bad news – we haven’t got to the full story yet – is that Alex is offering up a piping hot dish of some certified grade A bullshit:

InfoWars personality and host Alex Jones said that the school shooting last week, in which a former student killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, was organized by globalists following the release of the House Intelligence Committee’s FISA memo.

Jones says that in the week preceding the mass shooting, he predicted “more than 10 times on air” that there would be a “new Oklahoma City attack on a church, a school, or a federal building blamed on right-wing terrorists” and that comments made at the time by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) were evidence of that.

“You had Congressman Schiff, you had senators, you had globalist operatives, MSNBC, CNN saying there’s going to be massacres if you release the memo. You’re gonna cause right-wingers to kill us.”

Democrats and Republicans had been fighting ahead of the release of a controversial and hyped intelligence memo written by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), which alleged surveillance powers abuse during the 2016 election against the Trump campaign by the Obama administration.
https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/alex-jones-pushes-another-school-shooting-conspiracy/




Yes…. WTF LOL indeed. Although methinks Alex doth protest too much because this is a whole new level of crazy. You know Alex – he kind of reminds me of a much crazier Riddler. You might have heard the term “crisis actor” floating around the internet last week. Well guess where it originated from? Yup you are correct!

Welcome, Parkland shooting survivors, to the ugly world of politics in 2018.

In the aftermath of last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., some of the most powerful testimonies have come from the teenagers who survived the rampage. They have repeatedly detailed their harrowing experience to national news networks, many calling for stricter gun control laws while decrying President Trump for not doing enough to protect students. Others have wept with grief while telling their stories again and again.

The students have become a mobilizing force unlike any seen after previous mass shootings, planning marches and rallies in Florida and Washington — all while mourning the friends they’ve so recently lost.

They have also become a target of right-wing smears and innuendo.

Some prominent figures in the right-wing media are suggesting that the students are making it all up, or that the children are paid actors or that their talking points have been manufactured by public relations experts on the left.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/21/i-am-not-a-crisis-actor-florida-teens-fire-back-at-right-wing-conspiracy-theorists/?utm_term=.ae2a38829bcb




Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Seriously attacking the victims as “crisis actors” and saying they’re paid protestors. That is a stunning, jaw dropping level of evil. But not entirely unexpected, this is Alex Jones we’re talking about here. The guy who sells led-based protein powder and calls it “bone growth formula”. Oh wait, I’m sorry “TACTICAL bone growth formula”. But here’s where the good news comes in! Alex is treading on dangerously thin ice with Youtube after this fuck up!

InfoWars, a far-right media organization run by Alex Jones and known for peddling unfounded conspiracy theories, is on thin ice with YouTube after it posted a video that portrayed the survivors of the Parkland school shooting as actors.

The Alex Jones Channel, Infowar's biggest YouTube account, received one strike for that video, a source with knowledge of the account told CNN. YouTube's community guidelines say if an account receives three strikes in three months, the account is terminated.

That video focused on David Hogg, a strong voice among survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The attention has given him a powerful platform -- but it has also made him the subject of demonstrably false conspiracy theories that claim he's so skilled as a public speaker that he must be a paid actor.

On Wednesday, YouTube removed the video from InfoWars' page for violating its policies on harassment and bullying. The video was titled, "David Hogg Can't Remember His Lines In TV Interview."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/us/infowars-youtube-videos-trnd/index.html




Although it is really sad that we have to take time to clarify the bullshit spewing hard and far among the far right conspiracy theorists. And really, if you admit to listening to Alex Jones, first of all – nobody is coming to take your guns away. But someone needs to take you aside for a little chat.

In the days since a gunman opened fire on their classmates on Valentine's Day, killing 17 people just as school was about to end for the day, a group of outraged teenage survivors have been vocally demanding stricter gun laws. In response to their activism, right-wing outlets have contrived and pushed false reports that the students are actors capitalizing on the tragedy to push a liberal agenda on gun control.

These fake claims have now gone viral. Hundreds of videos, articles, and posts claiming to unmask these fake students have swept across social media, gaining thousands of views, shares, and retweets. The content picks apart the students' performances in media interviews as they talked about the friends they lost in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and their anger that the tragedy happened at another US school.

As of Tuesday night, 108,135 people were talking about "crisis actors" on Facebook. One video had been watched more than 41,000 times and shared by about 2,300 users. Before it was removed, another Facebook post calling Stoneman Douglas senior David Hogg an actor was shared more than 110,000 times. Yet another clip posted on Twitter got more than 6,000 retweets.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/briannasacks/nope-the-florida-school-shooting-survivors-demanding-gun?utm_term=.tc8zZja7G#.vo7gA14Mm





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[font size="8"]Idiots With Guns
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Let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? And it lands on… wait for it… clip without context!



Yeah sure because we all know demons exist. Just ask that crazy lady from Trading Spouses. Spin it again! And we get… the mystery item! So folks we’re going to have some fun with this. I’m taking a break from talking about all the horrible news going on and we’re going to take a second to refute the NRA’s most famous talking point. Yes – you know the one. “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. So where are the good guys with guns? Well they’re here. This is *cue reverb* “Idiots With Guns”. Ooh, that was some good reverb! And I will ask the NRA – how are more guns going to make us safer, exactly? Can we cue up some music please?



And here we go!









Ready for more?













Oh we’re not done yet!









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[font size="8"]People Are Dumb
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Let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? And it lands on… clip without context!



Go on…………………! Spin it again! And it lands on… oh hey! People are dumb!



I want to start with this story out of Oberlin, Louisiana. Loosiana!!!! So really people, is this where we’re at in 2018? Look, I’ve taken a lot of math classes and I’m sure you all have as well. But have you ever looked at a square root symbol and thought “hey! That looks like something you could shoot someone with!”. So of course widespread panic ensues, because I know what country I live in.

A discussion among students at Oberlin High School in Oberlin, La., about a mathematical symbol led to a police investigation and a search of one of the student’s homes, according to the Allen Parish Sheriff’s Office. On the afternoon of Feb. 20, detectives investigated a report of terroristic threats at the school, where they learned that a student had been completing a math problem that required drawing the square-root sign.

Students in the group began commenting that the symbol, which represents a number that when multiplied by itself equals another number, looked like a gun. After several students made comments along those lines, another student said something the sheriff’s office said could have sounded like a threat out of context.

Police searched the student’s home, where they found no guns or any evidence that he had any access to guns. Authorities also wrote there was no evidence the student had any intent to commit harm.

“The student used extremely poor judgment in making the comment, but in light of the actual circumstances, there was clearly no evidence to support criminal charges,” the department wrote, adding that the school board had been contacted to determine any disciplinary action for the student.

http://www.miamiherald.com/article201604224.html




So the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a square root symbol is a good guy with a square root symbol! Maybe that’s why they call it “the sum of all fears”! Hey o! Next up on the subject of guns – you know – don’t bring a corn dog to a gun fight. And why am I not surprised that our old buddy Florida Man is involved?

A Florida man desperate to get his beer Friday used hot dogs and a corn dog stick to attack a gas station clerk, police said Monday.

Cavan McDaniel, 35, threw hot dogs and poked the female clerk with a corn dog stick at Petro gas station in Marion County, officials said. McDaniel’s bizarre outbreak allegedly began after the clerk refused to sell him beer. It’s unclear what the clerk’s reason was.

“The victim was left with a red mark under her eye due to the corn dog stick attack,” the sheriff’s office said.

Surveillance video captured a man identified as McDaniel lunging with a hot dog at the clerk.
https://nypost.com/2018/02/20/man-attacks-clerk-with-hot-dogs-corn-dog-stick-over-beer-cops/




You’re welcome for that image by the way. Next up – planes. And bad puns. This is an exceptionally bad travel story out of Amsterdam, and if your poop is so rancid that it diverts a flight, you might want to go have your bowels examined.

Sometimes plane travel really stinks.

A flight from Dubai to Amsterdam had to make an emergency landing in Vienna after a fight broke out because one of the passengers wouldn’t stop breaking wind.

The fart-induced fracas happened Feb. 11 aboard Transavia Airlines Flight HV6902 when two men sitting next to an apparently very flatulent man raised a stink about his repeated gas attacks, according to Fox News.

When the alleged perpetrator didn’t stop, his disgusted seatmates reportedly complained to the airline crew, who apparently did nothing.

Instead, the captain issued a warning to the two complainants, accusing them of noisy and aggressive behavior and making threats, according to the NL Times.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transavia-airlines-farting-passenger_us_5a8af930e4b05c2bcacddc9b




Hey man we just did Holy Shit! Leave that to Pastor Initech! Next up – fast food. And no it’s not fast food rage, and I do love a good fast food rage story. This is actually more of a fast food marketing fail – would you really want to eat your selfie? Which has me now curious as to whether or not @realDonaldTrump would eat this or not.

One picture is worth a thousand bites.

Hardee's announced today it will be toasting the faces of fans (and others) into the sourdough toast, as a promotion of the chain's Frisco Breakfast Sandwiches. The company says it's because its "sourdough toast in the morning is changing the face of breakfast."

The promotion is taking place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hardee's will be toasting the faces of people who tweet a photo with the hashtag #SourdoughSelfie. Some famous faces will also appear, the chain says.

To participate, follow the company's Twitter account and submit your own selfie.
http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2018/02/hardees_may_serve_up_your_self.html




Damn straight! Finally this week we’ve got this story involving animal transportation – and this is a story that is actually pretty close to where I live! So… this guy is every conservative redneck cowboy wannabe in a nutshell. I love this so much!

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say a drunken man rode his horse onto a California freeway.

Los Angeles news station KABC-TV reports that the California Highway Patrol stopped the man early Saturday on State Route 91 in Long Beach.

Officers administered field sobriety tests, which registered blood-alcohol levels of 0.21 percent and 0.19 percent — more than double the legal limit.

The man was arrested and booked for riding a horse while under the influence. The white horse, Guera, wasn’t hurt and was released to the man’s mother.

The California Highway Patrol offered a message to the public on Twitter: “No, you may not ride your horse on the freeway, and certainly not while intoxicated.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/02/26/man-busted-dui-after-riding-his-horse-california-freeway/372144002/




At least Mr. Ed has more brains than our president does! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]World Tour Shithole Edition Destination #6: The United States Of America
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Let’s give the wheel a final spin this week. And it lands on… t-shirt cannon! Unfortunately I don’t have the budget to make and sell t-shirts. If I did you would be getting our Shithole World Tour t-shirt! Yes, it does have the poop emoji on it. Spin it again! Shithole World Tour 2018! Hit it!



Part of our mission statement here at the Top 10 Conservative Idiots is to show you that conservative idiocy isn’t just a problem with America. No, it’s a global problem that is stemming far and wide, and it’s not just America where conservative idiots ruin everything they touch. And if you’re thinking of moving out of the United States just because Donald J. Trump is our current president and our nation is turning to shit, you should know what it is you’re getting into should you decide that you want to leave the country. Well now things suddenly got interesting! So our world tour got hijacked by Donald Trump, and we’re off on a quest to find if any of the places Trump is suggesting are shitholes are actually shitholes. So here’s the World Tour 2018 Shithole Edition:



[font size="6"]The United States Of America[/font]



Welcome to the United States Of America everybody! This is our very last stop ever of our World Tour, and we decided that we would do something unprecedented. We’re going to put our *OWN* country through our World Tour filter. So of course we know and love the United States whether you’re visiting the insane metropolis that is New York City or stuck in traffic in the crazy freeway system that is Los Angeles. Or maybe you’re visiting the vast mountains of Colorado and Wyoming. Or maybe you’re going to Texas. Or you’re a country music fan who’s visiting Nashville. Or you’re a hip hop fan and you’re going to Atlanta. There is something for everybody here in the Land Of The Free and the Home Of The Brave. We also have the best food in the world and the best fast food in the world. I mean where else can you get a Triple Bacon Whopper and then wash it down with a 45 ounce jug of ice cold Coca Cola? We also have the best entertainment in the world. Come to Los Angeles and watch your favorite band in concert at the Forum or at Coachella. Or go to New York City and catch a taping of your favorite late night talk show host. Or go to Miami and check out all the beautiful rich people hanging out at the beaches. We’re also the home of the road trip! What better summer vacation than to spend it with your family while your kid is in the backseat complaining about how his iPad doesn’t get Wifi reception? So what else is the United States the home of? Well for starters it has a real sexual harassment problem!

Unwanted sexual comments and groping. Propositioning women. Exposing themselves. Coercing women into having sex or doing something sexual. And, especially pertinent to showbiz, forcing women to disrobe and appear naked at an audition without prior warning.

It's been deeply disturbing reading, but so far the powerful stories of accusers outnumber plain, hard facts about the extent of the problem in Tinseltown. Until now.

Working in partnership with The Creative Coalition, Women in Film and Television and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, USA TODAY surveyed 843 women who work in the entertainment industry in a variety of roles (producers, actors, writers, directors, editors and others) and asked them about their experiences with sexual misconduct.

The results are sobering: Nearly all of the women who responded to the survey (94%) say they have experienced some form of harassment or assault, often by an older individual in a position of power over the accuser.

Worse, more than one-fifth of respondents (21%) say they have been forced to do something sexual at least once.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/02/20/how-common-sexual-misconduct-hollywood/1083964001/


https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-58a5be8bed15a3104da3cd35d0573113-c

You know what else the US A is the home of? It’s the home of safe spaces! And one campus in particular has been drawing a lot of controversy for one of the most ridiculous protests yet.

One of America’s most prominent conservative youth organisations has been engaged for months in a bitter internal fight over a university student wearing a baby’s diaper.

Turning Point USA, the non-profit founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk and funded by a roster of Republican mega-donors, is known for the performative stunts it uses to recruit new members on campus. Among other things, they have created a “Professor Watch List” for teachers who they claim discriminate against conservatives, and invited right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on college campuses.

However it was “Free Speech Week” at Kent State University last October, which featured one student dressed in a diaper, sucking on a pacifier in a playpen, that brought the group mass attention.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/diaper-turning-point-usa-kent-state-student-conservative-youth-repulican-kaitlin-bennett-a8230021.html




Well you know there’s no such thing as bad publicity. You know what else the USA is the home of? It’s the home of the National Football League. And it’s also the home of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. And this controversy just will never die!

But it might not be an issue.

Among the NFL players who continued to protest throughout the season, none made it to the Super Bowl.

The protest was started by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick last season. He took a knee during the National Anthem to silently protest the treatment of black Americans, particularly by police.

Many more players kneeled in protest this year, especially after President Trump denounced it and called for the firing of kneeling players.

Several New England Patriots players took part that first weekend after the president's incendiary comments, but haven't kneeled since.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/01/media/national-anthem-super-bowl-nfl-nbc/index.html




That is pretty much our reaction too, there, sir. What else is the USA the home of? I know! It’s the home of the state of Florida! And all the crazy shit that comes out of that state! I could sit here all day and show crazy Florida stories. But I don’t have that kind of time! Here’s a few.






And of course we can’t talk about the USA without talking about guns but we’ve already covered that subject pretty extensively in this edition. So we won’t go into that subject. Instead you know what else the USA is the home of? Fast food! And television. And what happens when you combine the two?

"Rick and Morty" fans looking forward to Monday as their day for another chance to score McDonald's once-discontinued Szechuan dipping sauce found themselves fried yet again over problems getting the condiment.

On social media, some fans reported their McD's locations didn't have the promised sauce, had never heard of it or wouldn't provide it to them unless they ordered chicken tenders, not chicken McNuggets.

McDonald's did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Not all restaurants faced issues. I went to a Seattle McDonald's Monday afternoon and had no problem ordering the sauce with both chicken tenders and chicken McNuggets. The counter staffer knew about it and said it could be ordered with "anything that could be dipped." (Taste-test review: It tastes a lot like a simple teriyaki sauce to me -- fine, but I'd rather have sweet and sour.)

The sauce comes with a complicated backstory. Fans of Adult Swim's cult favorite animated show have been clamoring for McDonald's to bring back Szechuan dipping sauce since the discontinued dip got mentioned on the show in 2017. https://www.cnet.com/news/mcdonalds-szechuan-sauce-burns-rick-and-morty-fans-again/

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[font size="6"]The Verdict & Scorecard[/font]

Our country isn’t perfect but it’s the best we got. Unfortunately the toxic political climate we live in now is making things worse for residents and people looking to move here.

Tourism: A
Culture: A
Political Spectrum: C-
Liberal Appeal: C-

Overall: B-

[font size="6"]Next Week[/font]

There is no next week! We’re finished! Done! Terminado! I want to once again thank all of our amazing hosts for this tour! You have been great! See you next time!



[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen we are ending our Black History Month celebration the right way! Playing the first new Parliament song in 40 years “I’m Gon Make You Sick O’ Me”, give it up for George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic!



Yeah how about that?

See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: UCB Theater, Hollywood, CA
Special Thanks To: UCB Theater Management
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Articles: All article content copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Writing: Top 10 Writing Department
Graphics: Top 10 Graphics Department
Research: Top 10 Research Department
Lighting & Stage Props: Top 10 Lighting Department
Legal: Top 10 Legal Department
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HR: Top 10 Human Resources Department
Initech’s Wardrobe Provided By: JAB Inc.
Wheel Of Corruption By: Studio 1 Stage Props, Burbank, CA
USA Hosting: Come on, do we really need USA hosting?
George Clinton Appears Courtesy Of: Ace Records
Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
Follow The Top 10 At: @DUInitechTop10


Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

February 21, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-7: 3 Billboards Outside Parkland, Florida Edition


Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-7: 3 Billboards Outside Parkland, Florida Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Join our Top 10 Rewards program today for exciting benefits and offers! Ah who am I kidding? I am not going to subject you to that shit! We already get enough of it. But I will give you free Top 10s just for repeat customers. Because unlike Trump, we care. We are back everybody. There's a lot of crazy things happening in the world - whether it's going on in the Olympics or it's Fergie butchering the national anthem. Hey conservatives that's how you disrespect the anthem - it's not by kneeling protests, it's by Fergie. But I really think we need to hold an intervention for Jay-Z guys. Either that or invite him to my next birthday party. So Jay-Z had an epic guys' night out in New York City to celebrate the birthday of his Roc Sports' cofounder Juan Perez. During the course of the night, Jay spent a little over $110,000 for 40 bottles of his own brand of crazy expensive champagne. I really got to find some way to market to rich people - Top 10 Conservative Idiots: gold covered, epic comedy news! Only $40,000 bucks a seat! Come on down to the UCB Theater in Hollywood today! We are elite! OK maybe I need to get a better advertising angle here. But let's go through the tab - he ran through 40 bottles of his "Ace Of Spades" champagne - which totaled $91,000. He even had a $50,000 bottle of Ace Of Spades Rose. Damn, that must have been one hell of a hangover the next morning! And speaking of celebrities and booze, one of our favorites - Ryan Reynolds - bought a gin company. Which is why I'm now extremely proud to introduce to you our own brand of Top 10 Conservative Idiots fortified wine! Yes, it's slightly cheaper than Thunderbird - and in fact we use the same bottle - and it will still get you a good buzz on while you wade through our madness of making fun of Trump and the Christian right every week! And we will sell it at Trump properties, by the way! In fact I have a bottle in front of me right now. Mmmmmmmmm... it's making my eyes water. Why I do believe it tastes like pure gasoline. Maybe slightly better than that. OK enough of the intro. We have a lot of idiocy to get to, but first John Oliver is back and he tears down Trump’s international relations:



Sigh… another week, another mass shooting. I hate to keep talking about guns but as long as they’re in the news, we got to. In the first slot is “Gun Nut Apologists”, and rather than our usual nonsense, we’re going to switch things up and play a game of Gun Nut Bingo! Taking the second slot is the NRA and yes they’ve finally gone off the deep end this week. Meanwhile in Washington, that guy who we still call president Donald J. Trump (3), spent his President’s Day weekend by trashing Hillary and literally politicizing a tragedy. In the fourth slot this week is also Donald J. Trump (4). So while he was having a bad week – possibly his worst yet so far – Mueller laid the smack down and indicted a bunch of Russian nationalists! The plot is thickening, folks! Taking the fifth slot this week is our weekly sermon of all things holy, Holy Shit (5). And this week, Pastor Initech is going to show you all the ways that the Christian right is reacting to the Florida shooting, and it will make your blood boil. In the sixth slot is a new installment of our ongoing series “Top 10 Investigates”. This week – it turns out the paranoid are going to be right and your phone might actually be spying on you! At number 7, we have a new installment of “This Fucking Guy” and this week we’re going to talk about Infowars regular and guy who had his tin foil hat surgically attached, Jerome Corsi (7). At number 8 is also in the realm of Infowars and that is our old buddy Alex Jones (8). See if you can guess how Alex reacted to the Florida shooting, and the answer might shock you! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot we’ve got a new installment of “I Need A Drink”, and this week we’re going to get drunk and talk about a potentially epic crisis brewing affecting our good friends across the pond! Finally this week we’ve got the next to last installment of our Shithole World Tour 2018 and this is going to be a fun one as we’re going to be, as the Beatles would say – back in the USSR! Yes, we’re going to put Putin’s home country through our World Tour filter! Plus continuing our month long Black History Month celebration, we’ve got some live music for you from the one, the only Future! Yes, we’ve got the ATL representing this week! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]Gun Nut Apologists
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Sigh………. Another week, another mass shooting. And the same bullshit about guns has been recycled so much that it’s become mulch at this point. But you know what? Fuck it. This week we’re going to do something a bit different. I hope that everyone got their BINGO cards that were being passed out at the door as you walk into the theater. And for those of you playing at home here’s the game that we will be using:



That comes courtesy of Mother Jones. So with that in mind, we’re going to get interactive here on the Top 10 and a game of Gun Nut Bingo going. Unfortunately I do not have any Top 10 swag to give away but the winner will get the smug sense of self satisfaction knowing they are smarter than your average gun nut! So what’s behind door #1?

Right-wing radio host, commentator, conspiracy theorist and Donald Trump–obsessed sycophant Wayne Allyn Root complained on his radio show last night that while yesterday’s deadly mass shooting at a high school in Florida was tragic, the media was spending too much time covering it and ignoring the much more important story of a New York real estate developer who was fined millions of dollars for destroying graffiti on his property..

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/wayne-allyn-root-fine-against-real-estate-developer-is-a-bigger-story-than-a-mass-shooting/




OK so who had… “N - politicizing a tragedy”? Everyone? Woohoo!!! Free space achieved! What’s next on the agenda? I know!

AWR Hawkins, a Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, told senior editor-at-large Rebecca Mansour that there was “simply not one” law that could have prevented or “even lessened the chance” of a mass shooting like yesterday’s Florida school shooting that killed 17 people.

Last night on “Breitbart News Tonight,” Hawkins shared his reaction to news that a 19-year-old man had entered a Florida high school yesterday and activated a fire alarm with the intention of shooting and killing as many people as possible. Breitbart hosts leveraged the fact the shooter had been expelled from the high school once for disciplinary problems in an attempt to absolve the gun lobby of responsibility for yet another mass shooting.

“I’ve watched and listened to the calls for gun control already and I’ve listened to those things and you take what you describe, and you take this scenario, and you have a student who had already been expelled so he’s not to be near the school or anything,” Hawkins said. “I can’t think of a gun control law that would have stopped this, and I’ve really tried to think of that today.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/breitbart-writer-i-cant-think-of-a-gun-control-law-that-would-have-stopped-florida-shooting/




OK now things are getting interesting! Who had “G - Legal argument from someone not smart enough to get into law school”? All right excellent! Now we’re getting somewhere! What’s behind door #3?

Three students at three separate high schools in North Texas were arrested for bringing guns to school the day after the deadly Parkland, Florida massacre that left at least 17 people dead.

The Dallas Morning News reported that students at North Texas’ Marcus, Plano West and South Garland high schools brought the firearms, and all three may face felony charges.

A 16-year-old at Marcus High in Flower Mound, TX was found with “an unloaded, small-caliber handgun and ammunition,” the Morning News reported. The South Garland student had an unloaded handgun, and the Plano West student also had a handgun.

None of the firearms were discharged, and there were no injuries after students reported all three students to their schools’ Crime Stoppers programs.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/students-three-separate-texas-high-schools-caught-bringing-guns-school-florida-shooting/




Hey, Nana is a bad ass, guys! Nana don’t take no shit! And she has zero fucks left to give! OK so who had… “O – Threat to kill you”? I’m getting… you, you, you , you, you, you, you, you, and you sir? Great! Now what’s behind door #4?

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade argued on Monday that the way to prevent school shootings was for the Department of Education to be more like the Transportation and Security Agency (TSA), which is tasked with keeping firearms out of airports.

During a discussion about the Parkland school shooting on Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy said that the lesson from the incident was that “unstable people should not have access to guns.”

“Something needs to happen from both sides to prevent bad people from doing bad things,” he remarked. “Who knows? Maybe something will be done to federal background checks because the way it’s working right now ain’t working.”

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt asserted that there needs to more armed security in schools.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/fox-news-host-floats-idea-department-education-security-instead-gun-control/




Well fucking duh! Of course it ain’t working! But having a TSA everywhere definitely isn’t going to solve this shit! So who had… “B – A good guy with a gun could stop a bad guy with a gun”? You, you, you, you, you, you, and you! You ma’am? Great! Now what’s next?

Infowars-affiliated “investigative journalist” Laura Loomer has traveled to the site of last week’s mass shooting at a Florida high school, apparently trying to recreate her disinformation and conspiracy theory-filled “coverage” of the aftermath of the mass shooting in Las Vegas last year.

Loomer has been increasingly desperate for validation from her conservative media counterparts after her anti-Muslim Twitter meltdown and her effort to portray the FBI’s investigation into the Las Vegas mass shooting as a government cover-up caused some to distance themselves. So last week, when Infowars rolled out a combination of conspiracy theories about the Florida shooting, claiming that globalists ordered the shooting to cover up the FISA memo and insisting that the shooting was the “perfect false flag,” it provided an opportunity for Loomer to once again appear on the scene of a mass shooting and pull her signature stunt of harassing public officials with conspiracy theory nonsense.

On Saturday, Loomer landed in Florida and quickly got to work on behalf of Infowars, an outlet that holds to this day that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. In a video uploaded yesterday for Infowars, Loomer shouted down Democratic Congressman Tom Deutch. On camera, Deutch told Loomer if she had “any respect for the human lives that were lost in my district” that she “wouldn’t come here” and that he would “never give an interview” to Infowars.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/laura-loomer-is-in-florida-to-help-infowars-sow-disinformation-about-another-mass-shooting/




Yes, Laura, are you proud of yourself? So who had… “I – Guns don’t have minds of their own, you can’t blame them”? You, you, you, you, you, you, sir, and you ma’am. And then what’s behind this door? Ah, Fox News fans of course!

Fox News fans are sick and tired of seeing students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School call for stronger gun laws.

In response to a Fox News tweet about students in Parkland, Florida rallying to demand change to gun laws in the United States, many pro-gun Fox fans lashed out at the students and said they didn’t know what they were talking about when it comes to guns, despite the fact that a gunman last week murdered 17 of their classmates with an AR-15-style rifle.

One of the most common themes among the Fox fans was that the students were being paid by a shadowy left-wing donor to speak out, while other commenters accused the students of swallowing too many Tide Pods.

Check out the angriest reactions below.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/much-paid-fox-news-fans-trash-teen-parkland-survivors-demand-stronger-gun-laws/




BINGO!!!!! Who had “I – you don’t understand my lifestyle”? Come on up here, sir, ma’am! You win our first ever Gun Nut Bingo!!! Bravo, take a bow!!!



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[font size="8"]The NRA
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Whew!!! That was fun everybody! Now back to serious shit. Yeah it sucks. Yeah it sucks to become numb to this fucking bullshit. God damn the NRA. It’s like when something like this happens, I almost don’t want to do a Top 10. But I remember the original Top 10 happened in response so I could trash the NRA’s response to multiple mass shootings. It’s been 2 fucking years!!! And nothing has changed. Not a god damn thing. And it doesn’t help that we have Orange Douche in the White House. It sucks that we live in an America where this happens!

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — A Kansas congressional hopeful does not plan to stop a raffle for an AR-15 rifle, even though it’s the type of weapon authorities said was used in the mass shooting at a Florida high school.

Republican Tyler Tannahill, a candidate in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, announced the raffle to support his campaign on Tuesday, a day before 17 people were killed in the Florida shooting. He told the Kansas City Star hours after the shooting that the raffle would continue, noting it was planned a month ago to coincide with the Kansas Republican Convention this weekend in Wichita.

Tannahill, a Marine veteran from Leavenworth, is among several people in the GOP primary race to replace US Rep. Lynn Jenkins, who is not seeking re-election. He said the raffle was intended to show his support for the Second Amendment.
https://nypost.com/2018/02/15/congressional-candidate-declines-to-stop-ar-15-raffle/




Yes, you’re definitely not helping. Wait, sir, we’re not playing Bingo anymore. But I would have accepted “B – Second Amendment!!!1!1” for this story! And he’s not the only one! Remember back in the first season of the Top 10 about an AR-15 raffle (see: Idiots #31 )? Well this isn’t the first time. This country has a gun addiction. And then this happens in Missouri! Well, it’s Missouri.

Third-graders in a Missouri community are continuing to sell raffle tickets for an AR-15 to benefit their traveling baseball team after the same type of rifle was used to slaughter and injure dozens at a Florida school.

Levi Patterson, the coach of a 9-and-under baseball team in Neosho, Mo., told The Star the idea was conceived before the shooting in Parkland, Fla. A father of one of the players — who co-founded Black Rain Ordnance Inc., a weapons purveyor in Neosho — offered the weapon for the raffle.

Patterson said by phone Saturday that he considered finding a different raffle item after Wednesday’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but ultimately decided to “turn it into a positive thing” after “getting the hate.”

“One of the people from the hate group turned in (a Facebook post about the raffle) for I don’t know what,” Patterson said. The post had shown a weapon next to the school logo, leading to fierce criticism by some until Facebook removed the post, according to Patterson.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/state-and-regional/third-graders-are-selling-ar--raffle-tickets-in-missouri/article_8b76ff3f-0f79-5838-a76b-89cc24e368da.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1




How do you make fun of this shit? I mean I could joke “if only there were a good guy with a baseball bat present”, but you really can’t do that. And you can’t blame Tide Pods for this like that one asshole did earlier. The only thing to blame is the gun, and people using it. Would you be surprised that Florida’s own governor got an A+ rating from the NRA?

As a candidate for re-election four years ago, Florida Gov. Rick Scott won an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association for his record on guns.

A 2014 mailer from NRA's national headquarters told Florida voters that "Scott will stop the gun control extremists from pushing their agenda to restrict your rights in Florida."

Only Scott "will protect your rights from the Obama/(Michael) Bloomberg gun control agenda," said the mailer, which featured a photo of a smiling Scott and a big "A+."

That June, Scott signed five pro-gun bills into law in what the NRA called historic.

One bill fast-tracked applications for concealed weapons licenses; another, the so-called "Pop-Tart" bill, protected students from being punished if they fashioned pastry or other foods into fake weapons, "to avoid traumatizing innocent children," the NRA's mailer said.
www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/02/19/rick-scotts-a-nra-rating-and-what-it-means-now/




This guy even allows fake guns to be protected! Yes, it’s OK to make a gun out of a Pop Tart, it’s legal in Florida! But there is some good news to come out of the shooting is that they pissed off the wrong students! I am loving the reaction to the NRA from these kids.

A student who survived the Florida school shooting on Monday shared a message for the National Rifle Association (NRA), calling for it to "disband."

During an interview on CNN, students were asked what they would say to the NRA.

"Disband, dismantle ... don't make another organization under a different name. Don't you dare come back here," Emma Gonzalez said on CNN.

"The fact that you were in power for so long and that you had so much influence for so long in America just goes to show how much time and effort we still need to spend on fixing our country."
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/374502-shooting-survivor-to-nra-dont-you-dare-come-back-here




And did anyone see that movie 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri? This movie centers around a real life murder. And someone decided to recreate this last weekend. Let’s call it “3 Billboards Outside Parkland, Florida”. :

The placards take inspiration from the Academy Award-nominated film "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" about a mother who uses roadside advertisements to criticize local authorities' handling of her daughter's brutal rape and murder.

Global activist group Avaaz is behind the protest intended to criticize Florida's "notoriously lax gun laws" and Rubio's response to the Thursday shooting at a school in Broward County, Fl., the organization said in a press release. Avaaz cited widely circulated figures that claim Rubio has accepted $3.3 million in donations from the N.R.A. SFGATE has not independently verified those numbers.

Rubio said Thursday that gun control laws would not have prevented the mass shooting.
https://www.sfgate.com/national/article/3-billboards-Miami-troll-Marco-Rubio-shooting-fl-12620471.php




Oh and by the way, if this doesn’t make your blood boil, nothing will!

Shares of gun manufacturer American Outdoor Brands, the parent company of Smith & Wesson, closed higher on Thursday following the tragic shooting at a high school in Florida.

The company's stock rose 1.2 percent and rose as much as 4.5 percent. Sturm Ruger briefly gained 2.8 percent before closing 0.2 percent lower.

The Broward County Sheriff's Office said 17 people were gunned down Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The shooter, identified as 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz, was booked on 17 counts of premeditated murder Thursday. He allegedly used an AR-15 assault rifle in the rampage.

Shares of Sturm Ruger and American Outdoor Brands rallied Wednesday afternoon as news of the shooting spread. The stocks closed Wednesday 2.8 percent and 5.6 percent higher, respectively.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/gun-stocks-are-rallying-as-they-usually-do-after-a-mass-shooting.html




Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! And then of course Trump’s idiot son Qusay certainly didn’t help things in regard to the Florida shooting:

Donald Trump Jr. touted a post on a fringe, right-wing conspiracy website early Tuesday morning that slammed a high school student and survivor of the Florida school shooting — even suggesting the teen is an FBI plant.

The president’s adult son, who spends so much time on Twitter it is astounding he’s able to keep the Trump Organization afloat, liked a tweet from website TruePundit.com early Tuesday morning, which linked to an article bearing the headline: “VIDEO: Outspoken Trump-Hating School Shooting Survivor is Son of FBI Agent; MSM Helps Prop Up Incompetent Bureau.”

The story bashes David Hogg, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a gunman opened fire last week, killing 17.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/don-jr-promotes-article-from-conspiracy-site-suggesting-trump-hating-school-shooting-survivor-is-fbi-plant/





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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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You know what people? Let’s lighten up. This is a comedy show. Let’s do comedy things. This is the 45th president of the United States in a nutshell. Hey, Trump! You’re the president! Be presidential! Lead your country in a time of national tragedy! Oh fuck it, who am I kidding? This is the 45th president of the United States we’re talking about here, would you expect that from him at this point? So this was his agenda last Saturday.

President Donald Trump met with survivors of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting on Friday, before heading to his Mar-a-Lago resort for a disco-themed party.

Trump met with survivors of Wednesday’s mass shooting at Broward Health North hospital in Pompano Beach with his wife Melania. They also stopped at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

“I did indeed,” Trump told reporters when asked if he met with any of the seven victims hospitalized. “It’s very sad that something like that could happen.”

CNN’s Kevin Liptak reported that after the hospital visit, Trump attended a Studio 54-themed party at Mar-a-Lago:
https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-attends-mar-a-lago-disco-party-after-meeting-with-florida-shooting-survivors/




I'm not sure what's more horrifying - Trump using the victims of the Parkland shooting for a photo op, or the thought of him dancing to "Hot Stuff"? And I mean take it from astronaut Mark Whatney – that’s the least disco song there is! So that happened. And how did Trump respond to the Florida shooting? Well in the most Donald J. Trump way possible. Can we throw that tweet up there?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965075589274177536

Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! So that’s how Trump responds – by attacking the FBI for not doing enough!

Washington (CNN)Students who survived the Parkland, Florida, shooting laid into President Donald Trump after he linked the FBI's failure to follow up on a report about the school shooter and the resources expended on the Russia investigation.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted, "Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!"
The President's tweet caused considerable outrage online, including among apparent survivors of the shooting:
"17 of my classmates are gone. That's 17 futures, 17 children, and 17 friends stolen. But you're right, it always has to be about you. How silly of me to forget. #neveragain"
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/18/politics/donald-trump-florida-shooting-twitter/index.html




That was just about the least presidential way Trump could act. And I mean would you expect anything less from him at this point? I know I wouldn’t . After all he’s the president who gave us this:

:large

Which leads me into how he celebrated President’s Day – which as you know is our new national day of mourning when we used to have competent leaders. I miss those times.

Donald Trump didn’t have any control over the decision by Russia’s Internet Research Agency to mount what it called “information warfare against the United States of America.” As the indictment released on Friday stated, the effort began in 2014, long before Trump was a declared candidate—much less a serious one—for office.

But by refusing to take information warfare seriously—in an attempt to distance himself from it and any questions it might raise about the legitimacy of his election—the president has paradoxically made the story about himself again and again.

This solipsism was on display Saturday and Sunday morning, as Trump, at Mar-a-Lago and far from the strictures and structures of the White House, unleashed his most aggressive and scattered tweetstorm in some time. In theory, the things he said were designed to push the story away from himself and downplay any connection. In practice, he forced himself into the middle of the story, inextricably linking himself to it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/trump-solipsism/553664/




Yeah as my British friends would say – bugger off! I mean Trump’s tweets are so bad that the rest of the world is literally telling its’ leaders to ignore them:

President Donald Trump’s tweets not only trigger worries at home. They rattle leaders around the world.

But U.S. officials reportedly tried to reassure global policy representatives at an international conference in Germany over the weekend, urging them to pay no attention to the president’s Twitter rants.

The U.S. actually is angry with the Kremlin over interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, despite Trump’s Twitter denials, American politicians and officials told foreign policy leaders in Munich, The Washington Post reported. America also remains firmly committed to Europe. And, to be clear, the U.S. doesn’t plan on dropping a nuclear bomb on North Korea, the U.S. leaders said.

“The values are the same, the relationships are the same,” insisted Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), the Post reported.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Saturday he no idea how to judge U.S. intentions. “Is it deeds? Is it words? Is it tweets?” he asked.

The disconnect between Trump’s tweets and U.S. government leaders often has been apparent.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-officials-tell-world-leaders-123104774.html





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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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President’s Day. That day where you remember presidents by getting great discounts on mattresses and appliances. Well, when we used to have competent presidents anyways. And now we’re stuck with the asshole we currently call “president”. The division in this country right now is so deep that there’s actually a dating website for Trump supporters. And would you be surprised that the featured user has a sex offender conviction? Well, neither are we!

In the last few days, you might’ve heard about Trump.dating, the new straight-people-only online service to help out Donald Trump fans who are single and ready to mingle. For the last few days, the site prominently featured the North Carolina conservative activists you see in the picture above: William Barrett Riddleberger and his wife Jodi Riddleberger.

However, the site has a new featured couple now, and that may or may not have something to do with the fact that Mr. Riddleberger is a convicted felon.

WRAL News reported that Mr. Riddleberger’s state records show he was charged in 1995 for videotaping himself having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Riddleberger was 25 at the time, and he was convicted of taking indecent liberties with a child.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/turns-out-the-man-featured-on-dating-website-for-trump-supporters-has-a-child-sex-felony-conviction/




So that happened! While on the subject of President’s Day, remember when presidents used to do presidential things like address the nation with uplifting and inspiring messages in times of crisis? Yeah those were good times, and instead we get this:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965676314576543744

Yup – blame the other guy for not doing anything. And let’s face it – it is Donald J. Trump we’re talking about here, would you expect anything less? I wouldn’t. So here’s what he was referring to – on Friday Mueller laid the smack down!

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his prosecutors haven’t concluded their investigation into whether President Donald Trump or any of his associates helped Russia interfere in the 2016 election, according to a person with knowledge of the probe.

Friday’s indictment of a St. Petersburg-based “troll farm” and 13 Russian nationals should be seen as a limited slice of a comprehensive investigation, the person said. Mueller’s work is expected to continue for months and also includes examining potential obstruction of justice by Trump, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an investigation that is largely confidential.

A federal grand jury indicted the Russians for what it alleged was a vast scheme to interfere in the 2016 election and help Trump win. But Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at a news conference Friday that there is “no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant” in the alleged scheme.

Trump indicated that he believes the indictment exonerates him and his campaign.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/mueller-is-said-to-still-be-investigating-collusion-with-russia




But of course Trump immediately goes to “no collusion”. It’s like he’s a parrot. Wait! Our emotional support parrot Trumpy is here and he’s learned a new phrase!



Yay Trumpy!!! And give it up for Trumpy’s trainer everybody! So Trump is desperate and he’s reaching new levels of evil. But there’s another angle in Mueller’s investigation – a company calling itself the “Internet Research Agency” is something he is looking at.

Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller prefers to let his work do the talking for him. On Friday, he delivered a stemwinder.

Thirteen Russians and three Russian entities were indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the attack on the 2016 election. The indictment lays out a number of detailed allegations against the Internet Research Agency located in St. Petersburg and against individuals who owned, controlled, funded or worked for the organization.

Much of what Mueller's office charges — that influence-mongers used Facebook and Twitter to turn up the volume and pit American against American — was already public. But the 37-page indictment also includes a number of fascinating new insights.

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/17/586698361/the-russia-investigations-mueller-indicts-the-internet-research-agency




Damn straight!!! And come on, there’s no good organizations that have the letters “IRA” as its’ initials right? But the noose is tightening on Trump and his election stealing shenanigans. He’s also taking a look at Jared Kushner again:

Washington (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller's interest in Jared Kushner has expanded beyond his contacts with Russia and now includes his efforts to secure financing for his company from foreign investors during the presidential transition, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

This is the first indication that Mueller is exploring Kushner's discussions with potential non-Russian foreign investors, including in China.

US officials briefed on the probe had told CNN in May that points of focus related to Kushner, the White House senior adviser and son-in-law of President Donald Trump, included the Trump campaign's 2016 data analytics operation, his relationship with former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Kushner's own contacts with Russians.

Mueller's investigators have been asking questions, including during interviews in January and February, about Kushner's conversations during the transition to shore up financing for 666 Fifth Avenue, a Kushner Companies-backed New York City office building reeling from financial troubles, according to people familiar with the special counsel investigation.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/19/politics/mueller-investigation-kushner-foreign-financing-efforts/index.html?sr=twCNN021918mueller-investigation-kushner-foreign-financing-efforts0402PMVODtop




Tastes great and less filling! And Kushner isn’t the only one – Manafort is also on Mueller’s radar for pulling some insane bank fraud:

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has told a federal judge it has found evidence that Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, committed bank fraud not addressed by the indictment last October in which he was charged with money laundering and failure to register as a foreign agent.

As legal wrangling continues over a $10 million bail package for Manafort, prosecutors this week accused him of submitting false information to a bank in connection with one of his mortgages.

“The proposed package is deficient in the government’s view, in light of additional criminal conduct that we have learned since the Court’s initial bail determination,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing submitted on Tuesday and made public in a redacted form on Friday evening. “That criminal conduct includes a series of bank frauds and bank fraud conspiracies.”

No criminal charges are known to have been filed over the alleged fraud, and Mueller’s office does not say in the filing whether it intends to bring any.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/16/mueller-manafort-bank-fraud-accusations-416509





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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Yes friends! Gather around, my fair brothers and sisters! It’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate for the Holy Church Of The Top 10 has convened, and it is our weekly duty to remind you that the holiest among us are also the most full of:



Unfortunately this last week is yet another week that ended in tragedy. Although unlike our current president, I will make the most of trying to comfort in this time of need. But not before trashing our brothers and sisters in the Christian right, for their behavior is inexcusable in the eyes of our almighty creator! Like for instance, take this man, Carl Gallup!

Carl Gallups, a right-wing pastor and conspiracy theorist who spoke at Trump campaign rallies in 2016, appeared on TheDove TV’s “Focus Today” program yesterday to discuss the mass shooting at a Florida high school earlier this week, which he said was part of a demonic attack aimed at weakening America through gun control in preparation for the rise of the Antichrist.

“This has it’s origins in the spiritual realms,” he said. “There is a concerted demonic attempt to undermine the United States of America, to bring it down, to destroy the most precious among us. Why is that such a demonic attempt? Because we know the scriptures say that there will arise a generation that will see this Antichrist system, this one-world order … The bottom line is we are headed that way.”

“The United States is the largest Christian nation the planet has ever seen,” Gallups continued. “It’s the number one military superpower, it’s the number one economic superpower and so there is a demonic attempt to destroy it, to bring it down, to break the culture into some kind of submission. One of those ways is to take away our ability to defend ourselves, so every time something like this happens, the leftists start screaming—you can almost hear it from the pits of hell—’Take away all the guns, take away all the guns.’ That’s not the solution and we all know it’s not and we know why, but we hear that, so this is very spiritual, it’s very deep, it’s very dark.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/carl-gallups-mass-shooting-are-a-demonic-attempt-to-weaken-america-through-gun-control-in-preparation-for-the-antichrist/




Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! So apparently the banning of guns will lead to the anti-Christ! I mean really, isn’t killing people one of the original SINS!!! And it is most definitely a sin in the eyes of our Lord JAYSUS! Can I get an amen???? But there apparently be no greater SIN than the SIN of not being masculine enough, because if there's one thing that the Christian right loves, it's the Rambo franchise!

Religious Right activist Dave Daubenmire has been anything but shy about criticizing the male students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, for not acting like “real men” and tackling a shooter who opened fire on the school last week with an assault rifle, killing 12 students and five faculty members.

Daubenmire returned to this theme on his “Pass The Salt Live” webcast this morning, fuming that male students today are not being taught the virtues and responsibilities of masculinity.

“This will sound horrible, but I have to say it,” Daubenmire stated. “Instead of the aftermath of these shootings in Florida being, ‘Hey, dude,’ where young guys are saying to each other, ‘I’m gonna learn to fire a gun, I ain’t ever gonna let this happen again, I’m gonna learn to fire a gun,’ instead the reaction is, ‘Oh, please take the guns away.’ The exact opposite message! Meet power with power! That’s manhood, masculinity!

“We don’t even teach it, we have no concept of it,” Daubenmire lamented, adding that “guys like us who really get it” are ridiculed by people like Howard Stern and organizations like Right Wing Watch.

“Most guys don’t have the stones to stand up and say, ‘I don’t care what you say!'” Daubenmire screamed. “‘It don’t bother me! Here’s what I think! Suck on that one, bud!'”

After Daubenmire fumed that the fear of offending others is “so womanly,” one of the participants in the livestream piped up to share his theory that most men today display a lack masculinity because “they just want to sleep with the women.”

“Boys, your life would be a lot easier if you’d quit letting your peter rule your life,” stated Daubenmire. “I shouldn’t have said that either, and I’m not sorry.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dominionists-head-to-trumps-dc-hotel-to-bring-heavens-rule-to-america/




Yes, David, run into the gun fire! What a great idea! What could possibly go wrong? But of course I now ask my fair congregation – you know why the demons with guns are let loose in the school system? You know why? Take a guess!

Right-wing pastor Rick Joyner posted a video on Facebook today in which he blamed yesterday’s mass shooting at a high school in Florida on the removal of prayer from public schools and declared that only the church is equipped to close the “gate of hell” and make this nation “completely free” of these kinds of attacks.

“There is good spiritual evidence that the Columbine shooting in Colorado years ago opened a gate of hell into our country,” he said. “Gates of hell are access points, they are doorways through which hell gains access to our lives, our families, our churches, our communities. In this case, I think it has been the whole country … When there has been a breakthrough of hell into society, only the church has the spiritual authority to shut that gate of hell.”

“When prayer was removed from our schools, I believe that was the beginning of the gate of hell, many gates of hell, that are destroying our youth, our families,” Joyner continued. “That had provided a hedge of protection for our students … When prayer was removed from school, we basically said, ‘God, we don’t want you in our schools.’ He said, ‘OK.'”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-joyner-links-florida-shooting-to-end-of-school-prayer-opening-the-gate-of-hell/




Really guys? Our JAYSUS wouldn’t do that! Because our god is a just and loving god and he punishes all sinners. It sayeth so in the Good Book! Can I get an amen??? But apparently this mass of murders happened because we liberals don’t worship JAYSUS enough! And blasphemy is a sin in our Good Book!

Gateway Pundit’s White House correspondent Lucian Wintrich blamed yesterday’s school shooting that killed 17 people in Florida on liberals who have “demonized” the church in favor of “fringe ways of thinking.”

Wintrich appeared yesterday alongside his co-host Ali Akbar, an activist within the self-labeled “New Right” movement, for an episode of “Wintrich Report” dedicated to the school shooting in Florida earlier that day, Akbar’s conversation with Twitter’s CEO about alleged censorship of conservatives, and a careless reporting error Wintrich made earlier that evening. While discussing the shooting, Akbar said that the mass shooting was a sign that “something is wrong in society,” which prompted Wintrich to launch into a tangent about the church.

“Part of it is the lack of community and the lack of the role of the church in modern American society. And I think that the way the left has disparaged that, what they’ve done—and it infuriates me what the left has done these days—is they have demonized Christianity, the church, Jesus Christ, who if you read his teachings, right, it was ‘We’re all brothers. Look out for one another.’ The left has demonized that and then propelled these fringe ways of thinking,” Wintrich said.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/lucian-wintrich-says-florida-school-shooting-happened-because-liberals-demonized-the-church/




Wait until he sees this program! And no, dipshit we’re just demonizing *YOU*. So get over it and move on. For the good LAWRD sayeth “He who doth commit the sin of lying must be punished, for it is the most egregious of sins!!!” it sayeth so in the good book of Blame 6 . Yes, our book has both 69 and 420 in it! We are encouraged to do both! But before we go this week, keep this in mind as you celebrate President’s Day – Trump has made America say “Merry Christmas” again! That’s how you spit in the face of tragedy!

Religious Right political operative Ralph Reed urged supporters of his Faith and Freedom Coalition to mark Presidents’ Day by “thanking President Trump for all he’s done for our nation and for the American people.”

Reed’s email gushed that Trump “has proven, time and time again, that he’s a fearless champion for conservative values,” praising Trump’s support for the Republican tax bill and his administration’s zeal in rolling back regulations.

Reed praised Trump as “a tireless advocate for Christian values,” writing, “From the onset, President Trump promised to make America say ‘Merry Christmas’ again—and fight back against anti-Christian bigotry.” Reed also celebrated Trump for addressing the anti-abortion-rights March for Life and supporting legislation to ban abortions after 20 weeks.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ralph-reed-on-presidents-day-thank-trump-for-making-america-say-merry-christmas/




Yes and the LAWRD was truly speechless on this one! Now go forth with the knowledge of how the religious handle tragedies! Next week we will show you how they bend thy rules. Mass has ended, may you go in peace! Or pieces depending on if your church supports thy shotgun or not! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Smart Device Spying
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We now present to you the best in text-based armchair investigative journalism. It’s now time for a new installment of:



Smartphones. You have one. At times they are the best invention of the modern era, and at times they are also the worst invention of the modern era. And for those of you lucky enough to be able to afford and use a current Android or iOS device, you most likely don’t have to worry about this next subject. But for those of you who can’t afford one, you most likely have a phone from Chinese budget brands Huawei and ZTE.

Six top U.S. intelligence chiefs told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday they would not advise Americans to use products or services from Chinese smartphone maker Huawei.

The six — including the heads of the CIA, FBI, NSA and the director of national intelligence — first expressed their distrust of Apple-rival Huawei and fellow Chinese telecom company ZTE in reference to public servants and state agencies.

When prompted during the hearing, all six indicated they would not recommend private citizens use products from the Chinese companies.

"We're deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don't share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks," FBI Director Chris Wray testified.

"That provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure," Wray said. "It provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/chinas-hauwei-top-us-intelligence-chiefs-caution-americans-away.html




But for the truly paranoid it might not be just limited to those brands. In fact you may have one of those smart devices in your home from Google, Amazon, and now Apple. There’s even another method to their madness, and sometimes the truly paranoid might actually be right!

In December, I converted my one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco into a “smart home.” I connected as many of my appliances and belongings as I could to the internet: an Amazon Echo, my lights, my coffee maker, my baby monitor, my kid’s toys, my vacuum, my TV, my toothbrush, a photo frame, a sex toy, and even my bed.

“Our bed?” asked my husband, aghast. “What can it tell us?”

“Our breathing rate, heart rate, how often we toss and turn, and then it will give us a sleep report each morning,” I explained.

“Sounds creepy,” he said, as he plopped down on that bed, not bothered enough to relax instead on our non-internet-connected couch.

I soon discovered that the only thing worse than getting a bad night’s sleep is to subsequently get a report from my bed telling me I got a low score and “missed my sleep goal.” Thanks, smart bed, but I know that already. I feel like shit.
https://gizmodo.com/the-house-that-spied-on-me-1822429852




Yes, WTF LOL indeed. So keep this in mind the next time you’re looking for a bargain based smartphone or any smart device. But it’s not just limited to Huawei and ZTE phones. In fact all of your phones and devices might be spying on you.

Consider everything your smartphone has done for you today. Counted your steps? Deposited a check? Transcribed notes? Navigated you somewhere new?

Smartphones make for such versatile pocket assistants because they’re equipped with a suite of sensors, including some we may never think — or even know — about, sensing, for example, light, humidity, pressure and temperature.

Because smartphones have become essential companions, those sensors probably stayed close by throughout your day: the car cup holder, your desk, the dinner table and nightstand. If you’re like the vast majority of American smartphone users, the phone’s screen may have been black, but the device was probably on the whole time.

“Sensors are finding their ways into every corner of our lives,” says Maryam Mehrnezhad, a computer scientist at Newcastle University in England. That’s a good thing when phones are using their observational dexterity to do our bidding. But the plethora of highly personal information that smartphones are privy to also makes them powerful potential spies.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/smartphones-data-collection-security-privacy




That’s probably the only safe way to talk on the phone these days. Who needs spies when you have smart devices? But it might not just be your smartphone – it might be other smart devices! Your vacuum cleaner!

“Consumers need to be aware of these features and aware of the possibilities that can happen with those features installed on their devices,” said technology expert Burton Kelso.

Kelso said it’s just one more “smart device” that is collecting information about you.

“That will target you with ads that are geared towards your lifestyle or your house size. But at this base, it’s really designed to help the Roomba do a better job of vacuuming,” Kelso said.

iRobot is conscious of the security and privacy concerns that the new camera and connectivity may introduce.

“Right now, the information Roomba collects enables it to effectively clean the home and provides customers with information about cleaning performances. iRobot believes that in the future, this information could provide even more value for our customers by enabling the smart home and the devices within it to work better, but always with their explicit consent,” said a representative from iRobot.
http://www.kctv5.com/story/37451253/sweeping-up-more-than-just-dirt-is-your-roomba-spying-on-you




Yes, it does seem a little crazy indeed. How about your smart medical devices?

Abilify is the first FDA-approved pill with a tracking mechanism, but it's hardly the first medical entry in the Internet of Things. Medical devices such as insulin pumps, pacemakers, and CPAP breathing devices can all be enabled to report data back to users and medical professionals alike. Given the high-stakes nature of the first two, where insulin use and regulating heartbeats can literally be life-saving, these technological changes make sense on the surface. There have been some problems, though. First, all Internet-enabled tech can be hacked. Last fall, the FDA recalled 500,000 Internet-connected pacemakers over security concerns. Medical device giant Johnson & Johnson warned consumers that its insulin pumps could be hacked. The idea of someone turning off your heart by hacking is the scary stuff of science fiction, and might well be a real threat.
https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-pills-have-eyes




Yes, probably. What about your TV?

Consumer Reports has found that millions of smart TVs can be controlled by hackers exploiting easy-to-find security flaws.

The problems affect Samsung televisions, along with models made by TCL and other brands that use the Roku TV smart-TV platform, as well as streaming devices such as the Roku Ultra.

We found that a relatively unsophisticated hacker could change channels, play offensive content, or crank up the volume, which might be deeply unsettling to someone who didn’t understand what was happening. This could be done over the web, from thousands of miles away. (These vulnerabilities would not allow a hacker to spy on the user or steal information.)
https://www.consumerreports.org/televisions/samsung-roku-smart-tvs-vulnerable-to-hacking-consumer-reports-finds/




Again, yes, probably. But while we are pointing out security devices in all the smart products you own, we should point out that the beef between the US government and Huawei might have an ulterior motive.

Huawei is the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world behind Samsung and Apple. It is also the ninth largest technology company (by revenue) worldwide with 180,000 employees and an average annual revenue of $78.8 billion. In other words, Huawei is as "big" a company as Microsoft. That's good news for Huawei, and usually seeing a company move up the ladder to challenge the market leaders is good for consumers, too. Officially, Huawei is a subsidiary of Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen, China and that's where the real issues the U.S. has with Huawei start.

Unofficially, everyone thinks the Chinese government is in control of Huawei. While I'm not an expert on foreign affairs or the history of the Chinese Communist Party, I am smart enough to know that the Chinese state surely does have a financial interest in one of the biggest companies inside its border. The chance that the state has a controlling interest in Huawei doesn't surprise me, either. There has been no evidence offered, and not surprisingly there isn't much on the public record to clear things up, so we have to assume that it could be true. Intelligence agencies, as well as economic agencies and trade officials, have a problem with this. A big problem for several key reasons.
https://www.androidcentral.com/us-governments-beef-huawei-isnt-really-about-phones




There you have it. The US government’s beef with Huawei is based on an urban legend. But that doesn’t excuse the spying. Until next time, that is it for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.




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[font size="8"]Jerome Corsi
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It’s now time for:



This week’s “This Fucking Guy” award goes to Infowars regular and guy who had his tin foil hat surgically attached to his head, Jerome Corsi. You might know Corsi best for appearing along side Alex Jones and saying things more batshit than he does! In case you’re wondering about the kind of Grade A, USDA certified bullshit that Corsi puts out on a daily basis, here’s some of his greatest hits. And this is just for the last couple of weeks!

Jerome Corsi, a right-wing “journalist” for the conspiracy theory website Infowars, has recently dedicated himself to decoding the cryptic postings of an anonymous internet user known as “QAnon” and their supposed relevance to the fringe right-wing conspiracy theory known as “The Storm,” which alleges that the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is really a cover for President Trump’s efforts to take down thousands of corrupt political, business and entertainment leaders who are part of a massive satanic pedophile ring.

Over the weekend, Corsi posted a video in which he claimed that the recent disappearance of Sean Hannity’s Twitter account was the work of the “deep state,” which was trying to conceal a coded message that Hannity was sending that would have revealed that Trump is about to launch a “counterattack” against those who have been working to undermine his presidency.

On Sunday, Hannity’s Twitter account sent out a mysterious message that said simply “Form Submission 1649” before the account disappeared. It was restored a few hours later, but Corsi, relying on posts from QAnon, said that Hannity’s final message actually carried a secret message.

“What 1649 is, that is the year in which Charles I in Great Britain was beheaded in a treasonous plot,” Corsi said. “Those posts that were coming out from Hannity were suggesting that we are moving into a phase in which it is going to be more clearly said that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were involved in treason.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jerome-corsi-says-sean-hannity-was-sending-out-a-coded-message-before-the-deep-state-took-down-his-twitter-account/




So let me get this straight. Hannity is receiving intel from QAnon – an anonymous twitter troll, who then repeats it back on Fox News, and then Hannity says it on air with the hope that Trump is watching and then it shows up in Trump’s daily twitter toilet tantrums. It’s a bullshit to bullshit pipeline! Thank you audience! But that isn’t the only batshit crazy thing Corsi has said lately. Let’s go through some of his greatest hits. I mean come on, Adam Schiff is being targeted because he’s in that super secret pedophile cabal that they’re always talking about. I didn’t know that!

Jerome Corsi, a right-wing “journalist” for the conspiracy theory website Infowars, returned to the “Lionel Nation” program today to discuss his latest effort to “decode” the cryptic postings of an anonymous internet user known only as “Q,” which he claimed reveal that Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff may be being blackmailed over alleged involvement in pedophilia.

Corsi has recently dedicated himself full-time to covering the cryptic postings of an anonymous 8Chan forum board poster known as “Q,” whom some right-wing activists believe to be a high-ranking official within the Trump administration—or possibly even President Trump himself. Q’s posts are at the center of a fringe right-wing conspiracy theory known as “The Storm,” which alleges that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is really a cover for President Trump’s efforts to take down thousands of corrupt political, business and entertainment leaders who are part of a massive satanic pedophile ring.

Relying on recent posts from Q, Corsi attempted to tie Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and leading critic of a recently released memo regarding surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, to the sprawling conspiracy theory. Corsi alleged that Schiff had ties to three people who died in a recent helicopter crash, all of whom were “associated with the Standard Hotel, a trendy, gay-friendly hotel located in Schiff’s district in West Hollywood, California.” Offering absolutely no evidence to substantiate anything he said, Corsi reported that “a pedophilia ring” was being run out of this hotel and now “you’ve got Schiff being involved, perhaps, with blackmail, there is possibly pedophilia, all of which has been suggested by QAnon as the subject of research.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jerome-corsi-suggests-that-rep-adam-schiff-is-being-blackmailed-over-involvement-in-pedophilia/




Quick! To the pedo mobile!



Thank you sound effects guy! We can’t make fun of the right wing enough for this shit because they deserve it every time they bring up “rampant pedophilia”. And then there was this.

Last week, Jerome Corsi, a right-wing “journalist” for the conspiracy theory website Infowars, appeared on “Lionel Nation” to discuss his efforts to decode the cryptic postings of an anonymous internet user known only as “Q” and their supposed relevance to the coming “storm.”

As we have noted before, Corsi, who was behind the bogus “Swift Boat” attacks on John Kerry and the equally bogus birther attacks on Barack Obama, has recently become obsessed with “The Storm,” a fringe right-wing conspiracy theory alleging that the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is really a cover for President Trump’s efforts to take down thousands of corrupt political, business and entertainment leaders who are part of a massive satanic pedophile ring.

Those who traffic in this conspiracy theory rely almost entirely on 8chan forum board posts penned by a figure known only as “Q,” whom they believe is actually a high-ranking official within the Trump administration—or possibly even Trump himself. The cryptic warnings and messages posted by Q, Corsi stated, are designed to prepare Americans for the horrible truth that is soon to be revealed once Trump unleashes a wave of arrests.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jerome-corsi-when-the-storm-breaks-well-see-films-of-global-elites-butchering-children/




Think of it like playing a really fucked up game of “Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon”. Except there’s just one degree and Kevin Bacon is a satanic pedophile. You know one of these days I want to do an all “THIS IS WHAT INFOWARS REALLY BELIEVES IN” edition. Because they believe in some fucked up shit. Like you know Infowars loves them some false flags. Remember the GOP train attack? False flag!

Jerome Corsi, the crackpot conspiracy theorist who works as a “journalist” for the right-wing website Infowars, participated in a livestream on YouTube this morning in which he asserted that an accident yesterday in which a train carrying dozens of Republican members of Congress collided with a garbage truck was really an ISIS “sleeper cell” attack.

According to Corsi, the government had shut down every road that intersected with the route the train was traveling and that the train itself was being escorted by an Apache attack helicopter, which spotted a truck racing alongside the tracks, accelerating in order to “try to calculate the timing to hit the train” and derail it.

“There were three guys in the cab, we don’t know their names, we don’t know who they were,” Corsi said. “We are getting zero information out about this at all. This was clearly an activating sleeper cells attack that failed, done by amateurs who we are going to later find out probably had affiliation with ISIS or whatever.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jerome-corsi-gop-train-accident-was-a-false-flag-terror-attack/




Or how about that Russian plane crash last week? Guess what? False flag!

Jerome Corsi, a right-wing “journalist” for the conspiracy theory website Infowars, appeared on “The Alex Jones Show” yesterday to discuss the crash of an airplane in Russia in which 71 people were killed. Corsi asserted that the crash was really the result of a bomb planted by the CIA to kill executives of the Russian energy corporation Rosatom in order to cover up the Uranium One “scandal.”

Rosatom is at the center of the bogus Uranium One right-wing conspiracy theory and Corsi declared that this plane crash was really “a CIA hit” to kill company executives in order to prevent them from testifying against Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support his claim that any executives from Rosatom were even on the plane in question.

“It turns out on the plane crash, there were several executives of Rosatom, which is the Russian energy agency that is involved in the Uranium One deal,” Corsi said. “There were several executives actually on board of this airplane. One of the top ones was a gentleman named Ivanov, who ended up being the CFO of Rosatom. This is the agency that has been involved in the whole Uranium One deal.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jerome-corsi-russian-plane-crash-was-a-cia-hit-to-cover-up-the-uranium-one-scandal/




Come on, even Steve Harvey thinks you’re crazy! So we have satanic pedophiles, false flags, and cover ups. That’s Jerome Corsi, this week’s:




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[font size="8"]Alex Jones
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Fuck, just once I was hoping I wouldn’t have to talk about Alex Jones and his stupid show. What? I don’t want to! Make me! OK, fine, Carlos. I will. What? You can’t prove it! That’s Carlos, our producer, everybody! Well, anyway, Alex Jones called the latest school shooting a “false flag”. Which should come as a shock to, um, absolutely no one. Especially followers of this program. Aurora? False flag. Sandy Hook? False flag. Orlando? False flag. San Bernardino? False flag. And now Parkland? False flag.

Alex Jones, the nutritional supplement salesman leading Infowars, claimed the school shooting in Florida yesterday proved his prediction that globalists would orchestrate a mass causality after the release of the House Intelligence Committee’s FISA memo

Today on “The Alex Jones Show,” Jones spent much of his time outlining his elaborate multi-shooter, false-flag conspiracy theories about yesterday’s horrific mass murder at a Florida high school.

Jones claimed that he had predicted “more than 10 times on air” that a “new Oklahoma City attack on a church, a school, or a federal building blamed on right-wing terrorists” would happen in the United States after Rep. Adam Schiff warned that releasing Rep. Devin Nunes’ widely hyped (and later panned) memo could pose an increased risk of domestic terrorism in the United States.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-says-globalists-ordered-florida-school-shooting-because-fisa-memo-was-released/




Yes he is fucking crazy. Really, Alex? All of these shootings are false flags? Tell me more! Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the most hair-brained thing he’s cooked up lately. He’s in some deep paranoia about the “deep state”.

This afternoon, the Dow Jones industrial average suffered a dramatic drop while President Trump delivered a speech about the economy. Naturally, Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones blamed today’s sudden Dow drop on what he believes is an ongoing war between President Trump and the secret “deep state” society that supposedly controls the nation.

“This is a big, big deal and again, this is economic warfare, undoubtedly, against this president,” Jones said. “They’ve been trying as hard as they can. There he is touring the country, getting thousands of factories back, and now this happens. You better believe something this big is meant to embarrass him on his big economic tour he’s involved in.”

Doug Hagmann, who was sitting in to take over the radio hour, agreed with Jones and claimed the stock market plunge was “blowback by the deep state.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-dow-jones-drop-is-economic-warfare-between-trump-and-deep-state/




Normally I don’t like showing the clips but we got to show this one because it’s exquisite:



INVEST IN OUR INFOWARS BRAND TACTICAL CURRENCY! IT NEVER DROPS AND YOU’LL NEVER BE BROKE!!!! We got to keep this operation afloat here people! Well, anyway, back to the Florida shooting, while the rest of America was shocked and horrified at the events of what happened, Alex got a gun and he was showing it off.

InfoWars' Alex Jones (left) and his "snowflake" gun (right). Images via screengrab and Twitter.
Don't miss stories. Follow Raw Story!

In the midst of a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, InfoWars host Alex Jones tweeted two close-up photos of a gun etched with epithets about “snowflakes,” “unicorns” and “libturds.” It was accompanied only by a heart-eyes emoji.

It took almost no time for Twitter to pick up on the terrible timing of Jones’ post.

“The Sandy Hook truther decided to post some sweet gun pics right in the middle of another school shooting,” journalist Parker Molloy tweeted, referencing Jones’ belief that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was a “false flag” operation planned by anti-gun government forces.

“What a ghoul,” the journalist added.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/internet-rains-hell-piece-sht-alex-jones-tweeting-photos-anti-snowflake-gun-deadly-school-shooting/




Can we show that?

https://twitter.com/RealAlexJones/status/963881491578130435

Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Wow, you know Alex, timing is everything, and you lost big time. And he loses even further because this is who he chooses to blame. Yup, it’s us.

It took no time at all for the right to start peddling lies, half-truths, and misinformation in the wake of Wednesday's school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—a massacre that took the lives of 17 students and adults who had committed the grevious sin of getting up and going to school that day.

Alex Jones, the lead-supplement-pushing conspiracy theorist and professional yeller behind InfoWars, blamed the Democrats.

The Democrats have been caught in false flags before. I'm not saying this is a false flag but they've been talking about massacres and things if people don’t leave them alone, and release the memo. So, if there are massacres and they keep threatening massacres, that makes them suspects when they’ve been threatening massacres. And who what mentally-ill person they’ve wound up or what’s happening or was this gang related. We don’t know. The media will say that I said it’s a false flag and the Democrats did it. I did not say that. We’re simply questioning the long history that these folks have.
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/02/15/25820511/alex-jones-blames-the-latest-school-shooting-on-democrats






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[font size="8"]I Need A Drink
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It’s now time for:



Whew, man, I need a drink this week. This week got particularly dark. So tell me, bartender, what goes well with KFC? A Bloody Mary with chicken nuggets? No thanks I think I’ll stick to my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. I call it the Double Jack. So this week while Cape Town recently received the alarming news that its’ city only has a finite supply of drinkable water left, our friends in the UK are facing a shortage that’s equally as alarming.

More bad news for KFC fans: A chicken shortage that has closed hundreds of stores in the UK could last all week.

The fast food chain was forced to shut restaurants across the country after a logistics snafu hit chicken deliveries.

As many as 800 of about 900 KFC locations were closed on Monday. Roughly 600 locations remained closed at lunchtime on Tuesday.

"Each day more deliveries are being made, however, we expect the disruption to some restaurants to continue over the remainder of the week, meaning some will be closed and others operating with a reduced menu or shortened hours," a KFC spokesperson said in a statement emailed to CNN.

In a message posted on its UK Twitter account, KFC said "our teams are working round the cluck" to reopen all restaurants.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/20/news/kfc-chicken-shortage-uk-stores/index.html




Damn straight! And I mean come on people it’s fucking KFC! At least in America when we eat shit it’s because it’s late at night, we’re drunk, and that’s usually the last recourse before vomit. But seriously people don’t go and create chaos. That’s what the Joker does!

"The chicken crossed the road, just not to our restaurants," KFC said on Twitter.

"We've brought a new delivery partner onboard, but they've had a couple of teething problems - getting fresh chicken out to 900 restaurants across the country is pretty complex!" it added, apologising to customers for the inconvenience.

"We won't compromise on quality, so no deliveries has meant some of our restaurants are closed, and others are operating a limited menu or shortened hours."

The statement listed KFC restaurants that were still open despite the problems.

The distribution network uses software developed by the firm Quick Service Logistics (QSL).
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43110910




Well, at least it’s good to know that there’s no shortage of bad puns in the UK. And it’s also good to know that they won’t compromise on quality. But really people don’t get the police involved. They have much more important things to do than to fulfill your cravings for grease.

There was panic on the streets of London as the 'KFC crisis' rolled into its fourth day, with more than half of its 900 UK stores closed due to a chicken shortage.

Frustrated chicken lovers were resorting to calling the police, who warned "fried chicken is not a police matter", as well as contacting their MPs.

Staff keen to get back to work reportedly took matters into their own hands, and KFC told The Telegraph it is "urgently investigating" an incident in Kent, where workers were seen smuggling what looked like meat from the local butcher into the back door of the premises. The chain is also looking into reports that staff members in West London, approached a local butcher to ask for all their chicken stock.

The fried chicken company has said it has strict food safety policies in place, and staff should not be taking chicken from local butchers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/20/kfc-chicken-shortage-causes-chaos-police-tell-customers-stop/




Well the chicken from the local butchers is probably a step up in quality. I mean it’s fucking KFC people! At least in America we know shitty food is shitty food, and you know what? We’ll eat it anyways because that’s what we do here. And you know what? When one place runs out of shitty food we go to the next place that serves shitty food. Because it’s late, we’re hungry, and we don’t give a shit! It’s the American way, damn it! At least in Europe you have the option of eating much better food because they banned high fructose corn syrup. Or maybe not.

People took to social media to vent their frustration at the issue, while some also made light of the supplier problem.

Andrew Penfold said: “I think the Colonel should be demoted to Sergeant.”

Adam Thorpe said: “Bad times for a KFC lover here in sunny Ipswich.”

While Bee Giles tweeted: “Every cloud has a silver lining. Bin those calories.”
http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/the-colonel-is-working-on-it-chicken-shortage-closes-cardinal-park-kfc-1-5398617



Well if there is a plus side there is also no shortage of quality jokes in the UK! And really how much fried chicken can you eat, UK? But for every quality joke there is always a bad pun that comes after it.

The UK is KFC's largest market in Europe, and one of its top five globally.

Franchisees operate 95% of KFC's outlets in the country. The company said Monday that it would pay its staff as normal, and it was encouraging franchisees to do the same.

KFC did not say whether it would compensate its franchisee operators for lost business.

KFC fans have used social media to complain and express their amusement this week over a chicken restaurant running out of its signature product.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/20/news/kfc-chicken-shortage-uk-stores/index.html





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[font size="8"]World Tour Shithole Edition Destination #5: Russia
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Part of our mission statement here at the Top 10 Conservative Idiots is to show you that conservative idiocy isn’t just a problem with America. No, it’s a global problem that is stemming far and wide, and it’s not just America where conservative idiots ruin everything they touch. And if you’re thinking of moving out of the United States just because Donald J. Trump is our current president and our nation is turning to shit, you should know what it is you’re getting into should you decide that you want to leave the country. Well now things suddenly got interesting! So our world tour got hijacked by Donald Trump, and we’re off on a quest to find if any of the places Trump is suggesting are shitholes are actually shitholes. So here’s the World Tour 2018 Shithole Edition:



[font size="6"]Russia[/font]



Ah, stupid Youtube copyright laws. I wanted to include the Beatles’ classic tune “Back In The USSR” because that would be perfect for this entry. Of course you know Russia. It’s all over the news right now because of one man: Robert Mueller. Who we will get to in a minute. But first it is always our duty to tell you more about Russia. Russia is the single largest country in the free world. Its’ major cities include Sochi, St. Petersburg, Vladviostock, and of course the capital Moscow. It’s the home to the national airline Aeroflot, which also owns and operates many Russian manufactured aircraft and that includes Russian manufacturers Illyushin, Tupolev, and Yakolev, and it’s also the home of the world’s largest aircraft currently in operation – the Antonov AN-225! Now as far as landmarks go, Moscow is the home of a world wonder – the Kremlin. It’s also the home of the Trans-Siberian Railway – as once famously profiled in Agatha Christie’s classic novel and recent flick starring Josh Gad and Kenneth Branagh – Murder On The Orient Express. Russia is also the home of Red Square – at one point the center of Russian activities which included military parades (something Trump loves) and public executions – something Trump doesn’t say he loves but probably thinks it. But what else is Russia the home of? Why it’s the home of a whole lots of people about ready to go down!

Thirteen Russians have been criminally charged for interfering in the 2016 US election to help Donald Trump, the office of Robert Mueller, the special counsel, announced on Friday.

Mueller’s office said 13 Russians and three Russian entities, including the notorious state-backed “troll farm” the Internet Research Agency, had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington DC.

A 37-page indictment alleged that the Russians’ operations “included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J Trump ... and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” his Democratic opponent.

Mueller alleged that Russian operatives “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign”, but the indictment did not address the question of whether anyone else in Trump’s team had knowingly colluded.

Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, said at a press conference in Washington: “There is no allegation in this indictment that any American had any knowledge.” Rosenstein added that the charges did not mean the Russian activity had an effect on the outcome of the election.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/16/robert-mueller-russians-charged-election




Thank you minions! And then there’s this where the infamous Troll Bot Army finally has a name – they’re called the “Internet Research Agency”.

The Department of Justice’s Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, has announced a sweeping indictment of 13 Russian citizens, and several corporate entities they’re connected to, as part of an attempt to interfere in U.S. elections, at least as far back as 2014 and including the 2016 presidential race. The accusations against the defendants include the following: (1) They operated fake Facebook pages; (2) They committed identity theft for the purposes of electoral interference; (3) They enteried the U.S. on false pretenses; (4) They contacted the Trump campaign without revealing their connections to a hostile power; (5) They tried to stage rallies, discourage people from voting, and laundered money through U.S. banks.

All of this was done under the auspices of the blandly named “Internet Research Agency.” And this isn’t the first time the Internet Research Agency has been embroiled in international affairs. Here’s what you need to know about Russia’s social media propaganda operation:

The Internet Research Agency was first discovered in 2013: Located in St. Petersburg’s Olgino district, the Internet Research Agency was first uncovered by Russian journalists in 2013. It’s not Russia’s only trolling and propaganda operation on the internet, but it became so synonymous with Russian propaganda operations that even those located elsewhere are called “trolls from Olgino.”
http://uproxx.com/news/what-is-internet-research-agency-indicted-russian-hackers-mueller/




Oh come on, guys! Nothing good has the words “IRA” associated with it! And this begs the question – which came first? The troller or the trollee? And if you troll the trollers, does that make you a troll as well? But hey! You know foreign elections aren’t the only thing Russia has targeted. They’re also going after hockey games!

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Russia's presence at the Pyeongchang Olympics — technically the Olympic Athletes from Russia, as named by the IOC — has been controversial.

It continues to be.

On Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin made an appearance ... well, his likeness did.

During a game between Slovenia and Russian athletes, fans in one corner of the Gangneung Hockey Centre unfurled two large banners featuring Putin’s face.

After around 10 minutes, arena security and police intervened and the banners were rolled up.

One read, “No one is stronger than Russia in winter sports,” and the other seemed to be a message of support from Korean practitioners of the Russian martial art of sambo. It wasn’t immediately clear who had brought them in.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/winter-olympics-2018/2018/02/16/vladimir-putin-likeness-disappears-russia-slovenia-hockey-game/344305002/


?noredirect

You know what else Russia is the home of? It’s the home of an Olympic doping scandal that got the whole country disqualified from multiple games. And you know what? They’re doing it again! I mean you can’t keep a good addict from doing their thing!

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Fans of curling at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics describe the sport as cerebral, calculating and generally genteel. If you're wanting feats of physicality, they say, head over to the mountain for freestyle skiing.

However, Monday's announcement that Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky — the winner of a bronze medal last week with wife Anastasia Bryzgalova in the mixed-doubles competition — is suspected of doping after failing a preliminary drug test has sent shockwaves through a sport not commonly associated with scandal.

"It's a little different than like cross country or something where you're going full whirl all the time. There's more finesse and you don't always need your brute strength," American curler Matt Hamilton, who beat Russia in a mixed-doubles round at these games but failed to medal, told "Today."
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/winter-olympics-2018/russian-curler-who-won-olympic-medal-suspected-doping-puts-sport-n849336




Oh and come on it’s curling! It’s the only sport where your opponent can literally quit and walk off the court in the middle of the match! Just… fuck it, I’m done! Speaking of that, even Russians themselves are sick of the election meddling scandal and wish it would go away. Well, they kind of brought it on themselves.

Russians aren't laughing their anythings off.

The day after President Trump tweeted about Russians "laughing their asses off" in response to American investigations of tampering in the 2016 presidential election, the Kremlin on Monday reacted with a distinct lack of hilarity to the indictments of 13 Russians in connection with carrying out an illegal "information warfare" campaign.

"First of all, we didn't see any substantial evidence of someone interfering in their domestic affairs," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. "We still insist such evidence lacks foundation."

For many Russians, the U.S. accusations have simply become tiresome. Many dismiss the idea that their government could be powerful enough to weaken American democratic institutions.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-indictments-20180219-story.html




[font size="6"]The Verdict & Scorecard[/font]

I’d say how I really feel about Russia but come on we’re not going to judge the people of this country based on how shitty their leaders are! I mean what would that make us?

Tourism: C
Culture: A
Political Spectrum: D-
Liberal Appeal: D-

Overall: D-

[font size="6"]Next Week[/font]

This is it! Next week is the very last World Tour stop ever! We are officially going to retire this bit forever, but before we do – we are going to do something unprecedented. Yes, we are going to put our own country through our World Tour filter – and we are coming home to visit the United States!


[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]Future[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, representing the ATL, his latest album is called “HNDRXX”. Playing his song called “Mask Off”, give it up for the one, the only Future!





Yeah how about that?

See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
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Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

February 14, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-6: I Fought The Shut Down (And The Shut Down Won) Edition


Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-6: I Fought The Shut Down (And The Shut Down Won) Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Top 10 Conservative Idiots has been proven to have a +-1% difference in reliability over the next 4G LTE carrier. Switch today and save! You know I want to talk about something cool for the intro again. I wanted to talk about emotional support animals and that Spirit Airlines story, but fuck that story. I’m done with emotional support animals. Instead I want to talk about something I’m sure we all love – Marvel Studios. Yes, this week marks the release of what looks to be one of Marvel’s best yet – Black Panther. Did you get the Kendrick Lamar produced soundtrack? So good!!! OMG, all the best in hip hop contributed – the Weeknd, Schoolboy Q, Anderson Paak, SZA, 2 Chainz, Vince Staples, I could go on and on! I’m getting off topic here. Oh and BTW - we will definitely be featuring more hip-hop, R&B and soul this year! What I really wanted to fanboy out on for a second is that Marvel took a class photo. Can you believe it’s been 10 years since the first Iron Man came out? We can’t either! But this photo is seriously amazing. 10 years of Marvel all in one picture. Can we show that?



How fucking cool is that? You’ve got everyone from Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man), John Favreau (Happy Hogan), Scarlett Johannsen (Black Widow) and Gwenyth Paltrow (Pepper Potts) to Chris Hemswoth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki), to Chris Evans (Captain America) and Anthony Mackie (Falcon) to Chris Pratt (Star Lord) and Zoe Saldana (Gamora), to Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther) and Idris Elba (Heimdall), Vin Diesel (Groot), Jeff Goldbloom (Grandmaster), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Tom Holland (Spiderman), Kurt Russell (Ego), Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury), Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), even directors like James Gunn and John Favreau are in the mix. Even Stan Lee himself has a cameo! Well done, Marvel. That was a truly amazing way to cap 10 years of movies. Damn, I still can’t believe it’s been 10 years. I remember seeing the first Iron Man in the theater. All right enough of the intro. We got a lot of idiocy to get to this week but first Bill Maher had a brilliant new rule last week about Trump’s lack of comprehension:



Taking the top slot this week is Kentucky Senator and before picture in a hair restoration ad, Rand Paul (1). Because he attempted to fight a pending government shut down, and the shut down won! Taking the second slot this week is Mike Pence (2). Meanwhile at the Olympics, Mike Pence made an ass of himself when he refused to stand for the host country. Taking the third slot and only occupying a single slot this week is the guy we call president, Donald J. Trump (3), and whew, this one is a doozy. In the fourth slot is “Conservatives React To Obama’s Portrait” (4) and they are firing on all fours on the batshit crazy. After this, why do they think they get more power over us? Taking the fifth slot, we’ve got a new installment of our new series Top 10 Investigates (5). And this time we’re going to take you to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and introduce you to the town of Bay View, a town where only fundamentalist Christians are allowed to own property. And – wait for it – you must show proof! At number 6 is our weekly sermon of all the crazy things the Christian right has been up to in “Holy Shit” (6), and Pastor Initech is going to explain how the Christian right loves to blame the victim, because, Jesus. At number 7 is the Alt Right (7) and they’re up to their usual bag of tricks, and we’re going to write some white supremacist Valentine’s Day cards. Taking the 8th slot, I just want to take a few minutes and gloat about how election stealing creepy weirdo Julian Assange (8) and his multiple attempts to fight the law, while hanging out in an embassy, and the law keeps handing him his ass! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!!) slot, we’ve got a new installment of “People Are Dumb”, because, well, people are dumb, and there were some incredibly stupid ones this week. Finally this week we’re continuing the Shithole Edition of our World Tour 2018 and we’re going to the South American nation of Chile! Yes we’re making up for last year! Is it a shithole like Trump says it is? Well there’s only one way to find out! Plus it’s finally February and we’re celebrating Black History Month here at the Top 10. And we’re going to top things off with a live performance to get you in the mood for Valentine’s Day from Rhianna! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Rand Paul
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So while you were sleeping or likely passed out on Friday last week, Kentucky Senator and before picture in a Hair Club For Men advertisement, Rand Paul, attempted to fight the shut down. Hey, just remember – he’s not only a spokesperson, he’s also a client! And another shut down, another loss for both sides, and the rest of the world is most likely laughing at us. So here’s what happened exactly.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) railed against what he cast as runaway government spending, days after he forced a short-lived government shutdown with a lengthy floor speech decrying the budget deficit.

Speaking to radio host John Catsimatidis on New York radio station AM 970, Paul accused lawmakers of kicking the can down the road on budget issues by repeatedly turning to continuing resolutions to keep the government running, and took aim at what he called "wasteful spending."

"I can give you a quick example of some of the stuff we spend money on," Paul said. "We spent $700,000 last year studying what Neil Armstrong said when he landed on the moon."

"Remember, he said 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.' Well, some idiot in government took $700,000 of taxpayer money and wanted to know whether he said 'one small step for man' or 'one small step for a man.' So that's the kind of stuff your government is spending money on," he said.
http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/373282-rand-paul-rails-against-wasteful-spending-after-forcing-brief




Yeah really, Rand? $700,000 to find out what really happened on the moon? Are you fucking kidding me or are you just pulling this out of your ass? And if you’re guessing that this couldn’t be worse timing you are correct!

Aya Collins, a spokeswoman for the National Science Foundation, said Paul’s report “mischaracterizes a substantive body of research with significant scientific value.”

“The foundation would have appreciated the chance to provide this report’s authors with the full context about the scope and significance of the research prior to publication,” Collins said....

That Neil Armstrong study? Collins said it supported research into treatments of autism, dyslexia, stuttering “and other conditions related to the brain mechanisms involved in understanding spoken language.”

“Contrary to Sen. Paul’s claim, NSF did not issue awards to specifically support research into Neil Armstrong’s moon landing quote,” she said.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/politics-government/article122646074.html




Yes d’oh!!!! Of course they would lie! I mean this is 2018, we live in a world where facts don’t matter anymore! But it is fun to see what happens when these assholes get called out on their lies!

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday slammed Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's single-handed effort to stop a budget deal and shut down the government last week.

"His idea of railing against the deficit on this bipartisan deal after he supported a $1.5 trillion deficit for tax cuts, 80 percent of which are aimed at the top one percent, is very hollow," Schumer said.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, was speaking at the University of Louisville as a guest of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Paul came up during a question-and-answer session.

McConnell, R-Kentucky, also opposed Paul's interjection.

Paul, a Republican, had objected to a deal that lifted strict budget caps and allowed politicians to spend an extra $300 billion over the next two years on defense and domestic programs.
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/12/chuck-schumer-louisville-rand-paul-government-shutdown-hollow/328831002/




So Rand Paul fought the shut down, and the shut down won. Come on everybody sing it with me – “I fought the shut down, and the shut down won! I fought the shut down and the shut down won!” Eh, doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? And here’s how the shut down won.

There was no reason for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to feel nervous on Thursday morning. The day before, he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had announced an agreement on a massive two-year budget deal to attach to a short-term funding bill. A few Senate Republicans were annoyed, to be sure—the deal busts through budget caps, allocating nearly $300 billion in defense and nondefense spending, along with $89 billion in disaster relief and a one-year suspension of the debt limit. But Schumer had corralled the support of more than enough Democrats. They’d easily reach 60 votes. And as South Dakota Senator John Thune told House members on the floor last evening, they’d likely have a vote ready by lunchtime.

Fast forward to early Thursday evening. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul took the floor, arguing that the United States must withdraw troops from Afghanistan. He then switched to a collection of colorful signs, one lambasting California’s allotment of funds for school lunches (“School Lunch Programs: Feeding Lawns, Not Kids”), and another calling the D.C. streetcar system, “A Streetcar Named Waste.” And just after 11 p.m., the Senate adjourned until 12:01 a.m. without voting on a spending bill, shutting down the government.

At 1:53 a.m., the Senate at last voted and passed the bill, 71 votes to 28. And after a tense standoff with House Democrats, at 5:30 a.m., Republican leadership claimed victory in the lower chamber, passing the deal and reopening the government, 240 votes to 186. Seventy-three Democrats broke from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to vote in favor. President Trump signed the bill on Friday morning, ending the government shutdown.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/the-us-government-may-shut-down-and-reopen-while-you-sleep/552893/





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[font size="8"]Mike Pence
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Yeah it’s Olympics time! I mean what better way to witness the coming together of nations around the globe to put aside their differences and compete in games like the Luge and the Triathlon? Well, there was one guy in the audience during the 17 hour opening ceremony who wouldn’t put aside his difference – particularly with one country. And that’s our Vice President, and guy who has to ask mother if he’s been a good boy today, Mike Pence. Yeah I could have seen Alfred Hitchcock casting him in Psycho. Well, any way here’s what happened.

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — For all of Vice President Mike Pence's efforts to keep North Korea from stealing the show at the Winter Olympics, the images of the two Koreas marching together — and their officials shaking hands — at a time of heightened tensions on the peninsula proved impossible to counteract.

Pence spent the days leading up to Friday's opening ceremonies warning that the North was trying to "hijack the message and imagery of the Olympic Games" with its "propaganda."

But the North was still welcomed with open arms to what South Korean President Moon Jae-in called "Olympic games of peace" and the U.S. appeared to be the one left out in the cold.

Pence sat stone-faced in his seat as Moon and North Koreans officials stood together with much of the stadium to applaud their joint team of athletes. White House officials stressed that Pence had applauded only for the American team, but Asia experts said the vice president's refusal to stand could be seen as disrespectful to the hosts.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-02-09/pence-will-use-olympics-to-push-tougher-stance-on-n-korea


There’s no meme or clip here because I want to point out what happened when he attempted to protest anthem kneeling back last October:



Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! So kneeling bad, sitting good? That’s the take away I’m getting here. So was this a good move for Pence and the Trump administration? No!

The North Korean delegation will not be seeking a meeting with the U.S. on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The four high-ranking members of the North Korean delegation, which includes national leader Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong, are slated to attend the Winter Games opening ceremony on Friday. The event will also see the presence of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who invited the father of Otto Warmbier, the American student who suffered brain damage while detained in North Korea and died shortly after being returned in a comatose state to the U.S. last year, to join him at the ceremony.

“We have never begged for dialogue with the U.S. nor in the future, too. Explicitly speaking, we have no intention to meet with the U.S. side during the stay in South Korea,” read a statement attributed to Cho Yong Sam, director-general of the North American department of North Korea’s foreign ministry, and published in North Korea’s state-controlled news agency KCNA on Thursday.
http://www.newsweek.com/north-korea-says-it-wont-be-begging-dialogue-mike-pence-801322




Yes d’oh indeed! So I don’t know what they were trying to do here, but it didn’t work regardless of what Mikey was trying to accomplish. So not only did the asshole embarrass America more than he embarrassed North Korea, he’s doubling down on his assholery!

Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday evening there is "no daylight" between the U.S. and South Korea, despite their different approaches to engagement with North Korea at the Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games. South Korean President Moon Jae-in had a luncheon earlier Saturday with the North Koreans, while Pence declined opportunities for contact with South Korea's neighbor to the north.

Moon provided Pence with a readout of the historic luncheon between the North and South. On the flight home from his Asian-Pacific trip flying somewhere over South Korea, Pence told reporters aboard Air Force Two that he appreciated Moon's transparency and perspective on North Korea, but reiterated that the U.S. and South Korea will "continue to stand strong and to work in a coordinated way to bring maximum economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea."

"I leave here very confident that we are going to continue to do the things we know have to be done to continue to pressure North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions," Pence said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pence-no-daylight-us-south-korea-olympics-north-korea/




Yeah I can imagine it’s only going to go down like that! So thanks to the arrogance of our grossly incompetent administration, we might have an international incident on our hands! But you know, Hillary’s e-mails, and such. And I mean come on bro, are you gonna leave me hanging?

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence did not shake hands with North Korea’s nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam, on Friday at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, a spokesman for Seoul’s presidential Blue House said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2018-northkorea-pence/vice-president-pence-did-not-shake-hands-with-north-korea-official-spokesman-idUSKBN1FT1G1




So let’s get this straight. In one breath, Pence condemns kneeling protests, but then commits a kneeling protest of his own! The hypocrisy reeks with this one. I mean to call Mike Pence a horse’s ass, is really an insult to horse’s asses. At least the horse’s ass produces fertilizer, something that’s useful. But really, he shouldn’t have come at all.

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – The first weekend of the Olympics was a story of cold wind and hot air.

Can’t do anything about the fierce winds that prompted the postponement of two Alpine events and one snowboarding event. The hot air? That went away when Vice President Mike Pence and his excuse makers returned to the United States.

It would have been better if Pence had not come at all. By declining to stand and recognize athletes of the Korean unified team as they walked together during the opening ceremony, Pence not only offended the host country, he sent a message that to the Trump Administration, not even common courtesy matters more than childish politics.

The world noticed. Columnists were quick to seize on Pence’s walkout of an NFL game last season, so offended by football players who did not stand during the pregame playing of the national anthem. That he saw nothing hypocritical in his behavior in South Korea only underscores how tone deaf this administration is in representing the United States abroad.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/winter-olympics-2018/2018/02/12/vice-president-mike-pence-north-korea-embarrassed-america/328254002/




Yeah seriously the only hot air was coming from our Vice President, and it was so much hot air that it cancelled the Alpine Skiing competition! That’s a lot of hot air! But what would happen if Mike Pence did encounter North Korea’s leaders at the Olympics? Let’s examine that angle.

SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Vice President Mike Pence may encounter North Korea's ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-nam on Friday as both will attend a reception hosted by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, officials from the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.

The dinner meeting will be held in Yongpyeong, just east of PyeongChang, hours before the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. It will involve 200 other dignitaries, including nearly two dozen global leaders. They include Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a ranking official of the Communist Party of China.

It remains to be seen whether Pence and Kim will hold a meaningful conversation.

The communist North said Thursday its delegates to the Olympic Games had no intention of meeting their U.S. counterparts while in South Korea.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2018/02/09/0401000000AEN20180209005800315.html





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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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Sigh………….. yeah I got to talk about this story for a minute. But I really don’t want to. But it’s another pattern in a long line of disturbing behavior coming from the man who sits in the Oval Office who we currently refer to as “president”. But before we go there I want you to know that Trump’s got his own magazine in the works!

https://twitter.com/EricTrump/status/961988534092619776

Well, to be fair, this certainly wouldn't be the worst thing a Trump has done with a magazine! Hey o!!!! Thank you I’m here all week! Don’t forget to tip your waitress! But joking aside, there is a serious matter we need to discuss.

Senior aides to President Donald Trump knew for months about allegations of domestic abuse levied against top White House staffer Rob Porter by his ex-wives, even as Porter's stock in the West Wing continued to rise, multiple sources told CNN on Wednesday.
Porter denied the allegations but resigned on Wednesday.

A scramble ensued inside the West Wing to defend him when the claims became public this week, the sources said. That effort continues even after his resignation.

Senior White House officials were aware for months of the allegations made against Trump's staff secretary, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday after Porter resigned.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/politics/rob-porter-white-house-who-knew/index.html




Of course he denied it! I mean what’s he going to do? Just go “Yeah… I did it!”. Because that happens, um, fucking never! But it’s not just Porter – there is beginning to be a pattern here, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

(CNN)Rob Porter, a top White House aide with regular access to President Donald Trump abruptly resigned on Wednesday amid abuse allegations from two ex-wives, who each detailed to CNN what they said were years of consistent abuse from Porter, including incidents of physical violence.

Colbie Holderness, Porter's first wife, and Jennifer Willoughby, Porter's second wife, both said their ex-husband's consistent abuse was the reason for their respective divorces.
Porter denied the allegations in a statement issued in the wake of his resignation.

The allegations were first reported earlier this week by the Daily Mail.
"These outrageous allegations are simply false," he said in his statement. "I have been transparent and truthful about these vile claims, but I will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/politics/rob-porter-ex-wives-white-house/index.html




Yeah what the fuck???? You know it’s a long standing Top 10 policy that we don’t talk about or joke about cases of horrifying abuse. But when they involve our president, and they contradict everything he says, we have to feel fucking empowered! Thank you! And you know what they say about always judging a person by the company they keep!

President Trump was blindsided by the allegations against his staff secretary of spousal abuse and called Rob Porter a "sick puppy," a close ally of the president told CBS News. Sources stressed that Mr. Trump would likely not have had any knowledge of the details of Porter's personal history, which includes accusations by two ex-wives Porter physically and emotionally abused them.

But there have been questions about the timing and nature of the White House's response.

The allegations of abuse first appeared in a Daily Mail story published Tuesday, Feb. 6, around 7:30 p.m. ET. The story reported allegations by Porter's second ex-wife, Jennifer Willoughby, that Porter had been verbally and physically abusive. And it also cited the June 2010 protective order Willoughby filed with the Arlington, Virginia police against Porter after he violated their separation agreement, refused to leave their apartment and punched the glass out in the front door of their home.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-called-rob-porter-a-sick-puppy-upon-hearing-about-allegations/




Even Steve Harvey is giving you a WTF look, and when he gives you a WTF look, he means it! And we’re not going to post pictures or anything because we don’t want to encourage this kind of behavior. But then again it gives yet another glimpse into the man who is currently serving as our commander in chief. But you think this is only isolated to Rob Porter. But it definitely isn’t! Behind door #2:

Trump campaign co-chair gets 20 years for sexual abuse and trafficking teens

Tea Party leader and former Trump campaign chair Tim Nolan has pleaded guilty and received 20 years in prison for human trafficking, reports Cincinnati.com.

According to the report, Nolan, 71, a former judge, used drugs and threats of arrest to force women and girls under the age of 18 into sex acts.

Pleading guilty to 21 of the counts filed against him — for crimes committed dating back to 2004 — Nolan accepted a plea deal where he will serve 20 years in prison and pay a $100,000 fine, becoming eligible for parole in four years, his attorney stated.

Some of the incidents occurred in the summer of 2016 while Judge Nolan was serving as the chair of the Donald Trump campaign in Campbell County, KY.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/ex-judge-gets-20-years-sexual-abuse-trafficking-teens-serving-trump-campaign-co-chair/#.WoGDg60CCPg.twitter




Yes… holy shit!!!! Quick! To the Pedo Mobile!!



Because we always make fun of GOP conspiracy theorists and how they’re going to out some super secret pedophile cabal that’s been operating under our noses this whole time. And so far they’ve been going about it the same way Wiley Coyote attempts to catch the Road Runner. But it looks like the tide might be turning in this endeavor. So far we’ve caught more child molestors and abusers than they have, and it doesn’t take much effort!

The resignation of top White House aide Rob Porter amid allegations of domestic violence certainly raised questions about the vetting process for working for President Donald Trump.

But it also raised broader concerns about the standards of personal conduct that the president demands in his staff.

Veterans from previous administrations say hiring choices during their times often went far beyond questions of legality or competency and typically considered political, ethical and cultural issues. This may no longer be true, they say.

In Porter’s case, the claims from two ex-wives that he abused them physically and emotionally were enough to prevent him from being given a permanent security clearance during the year he worked in the White House. But some former White House staffers say a potential hire like that may not have made it through the gates in the past.
http://time.com/5149213/president-trump-promised-to-hire-the-best-people-rob-porter-is-just-the-latest-red-flag/





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[font size="8"]Conservatives React To Obama Portrait
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There really isn’t enough batshit crazy for this one. And it might be a new low for Sean Hannity, and this is in the same month he had that epic clusterfuck (See: Idiots #4-5 ). But Hannity doesn’t just run away with his tail between his legs when he knows he’s been defeated. Instead he’s like Popeye – he downs a can of Covfefe and comes back with twice the batshit! And really? The Obama presidential portrait? That’s what you’ve got to attack? Never mind that our rights and civil liberties are being stripped one by one, Obama has a portrait! Squirrel???

As evidence for this claim, Hannity posted a link to an article on his own website titled, “PORTRAIT PERVERSION: Obama Portrait Features ‘SECRET SPERM.'”

The article itself details Obama portrait artist Kehinde Wiley’s past use of what the New York Times has described as “rich textile or wallpaper backgrounds whose patterns he has likened to abstractions of sperm.”

The article then zooms in on a portion of the Obama portrait that it believes depicts a sperm swimming on the former president’s head, just around the area of his left temple.

The Hannity article said that the purported sperm in the Obama painting was part of a “shocking” and “widening scandal” about the portrait. In addition to painting the supposed sperm, notes the Hannity article, Kehinde Wiley has in the past made jokes about “killing Whitey.” See the detail of the Obama portrait yourself below.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/sean-hannity-comes-completely-unglued-alleged-secret-sperm-hidden-obamas-portrait/




In this case, Hannity is *REALLY* making love to the canvas! Excuse me a minute! I feel better! I mean that’s all they got? And why is the first thought “sperm”? I mean are we living in that movie “There’s Something About Mary”? I think Hannity could call this “There’s Something About Obama”, although I do like that graphic! But there’s more to this of course!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Sperm is too.

At least for conspiracy-mongering Fox News host Sean Hannity.

His latest Barack Obama beef revolves around the former President’s official portrait by Kehinde Wiley and “secret sperm cells.”

After a handshake and a hug with the New York-based artist, the former commander in chief applauded the portrait at the unveiling Monday.

“What I was always struck by whenever I saw his portraits,” said Obama, “was the degree to which they challenged our conventional views of power and privilege.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/obama-presidential-portrait-draws-secret-sperm-cells-fuss-article-1.3818548




I hear Hannity might be looking for an attractive blonde cohost. And by the way if there’s no band starting tomorrow called “Secret Sperm”, I will have lost all faith in the internet! And we might be picking on Hannity for insane conspiracy theories surrounding the Obama portrait (trust us – we are) but he’s not the only one cooking up crazy theories surrounding the portrait!

The far-right internet spent yesterday hurling faux outrage at Kehinde Wiley, the artist who painted Barack Obama’s presidential portrait, with one internet personality going so far as to smear Wiley as a “white genocide fetish artist.”

Wiley is known for depicting modern-day African-American subjects using the tropes of classical European art. As Media Matters and Upworthy’s Parker Molloy first noted yesterday, the far-right has latched on to a pair of Wiley’s paintings in which he depicts the biblical story of Judith beheading Holofernes—a frequent subject in Renaissance art—as a black woman holding the head of a white man or a white woman.

These paintings were enough to revive the longstanding right-wing meme that Obama is racist against white people and to make Wiley the latest object of the far-right internet’s smear machine.

The Gateway Pundit’s White House reporter Lucian Wintrich claimed that it was hard to interpret Wiley’s prior paintings as “anything other than a blatant statement of racism.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/a-white-genocide-fetish-artist-far-right-trolls-smear-artist-who-painted-obamas/




And our good friend Alex Jones has also repeated this insane theory about the Obama portrait and sperm:

Infowars leader and crackpot conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, contributing to the second phase of the ongoing right-wing smear campaign against the artist who painted Barack Obama’s presidential portrait, claimed that the artist purposefully painted an image of sperm on Obama’s face to fulfill part of a globalist agenda to “have everything be a ritual of abomination.”

Today on Infowars, Jones claimed the artist Kehinde Wiley, who was hired to paint Obama, “is obsessed with sperm” and that “all of his paintings have sperm swimming all over everything.” For some reason, Jones also felt the need to clarify that the alleged sperm shape in question was a “GMO sperm” that was “fully formed.”

“You say, ‘But, it doesn’t make sense, it’s so degenerate.’ It’s a religion of degeneracy. It’s what globalism is. It’s what Satanism is,” Jones said. “So there you go, President Obama covered in sperm in new national portrait, and it’s all part of the joke in your face, because they don’t want upright strength. They want to have everything be a ritual of abomination.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-artist-painted-sperm-on-obama-as-part-of-globalist-plot/




Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…. In this case I don’t want to know what a happy accident is! And by the way I want to introduce to you my new band “Secret Sperm”! And we’ll be playing our debut album “Ritual Of Abomination”! One night only! And Jerome Corsi also took things in a very dark direction, like he does. We may have to profile him in “This Fucking Guy” sometime.

Corsi was online yesterday when the official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama were released, and like so many others on the Right, he saw something nefarious in the paintings, asserting that the foliage and flowers in Barack Obama’s portrait were a symbol of “the pedophilia that they’re engaging in.”

“That is one of the weirdest presidential portraits I have ever seen,” Corsi said. “It’s a bizarre picture.”

“It’s a reference to the loss of virginity in terms of a physical sense,” he added. “It’s a very physical reference to loss of virginity … This whole elite globalist pedophilia is a major theme that Q continues to remind us underlies a lot of these globalists that we are dealing with. The fact that they are sitting on flowers and the deflowering could be easily an image of the pedophilia that they’re engaging in or the slavery pedophilia, you know, tend your gardens everybody, their slave gardens.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jerome-corsi-obamas-portrait-was-a-secret-symbol-of-the-pedophilia-theyre-engaging-in/


?itemid=5250896

I don’t know why but Hannity’s insane theory suddenly makes innocent Bob Ross clips sound that much creepier. Don’t try to picture that when you go home tonight! I repeat! Don’t do it! “Yes, just ejaculate on the pallet. Now take your sperm, mix it with some blue paint… and then we want a nice little smudge in the bottom right corner. That will just be our little secret!” Whew, this might be the dirtiest entry I’ve ever done! Now… just to get that image out of your head, here’s an article about a guy on the US Men’s Curling team who looks like Mario!

The Winter Olympics have once again brought in the onslaught of jokes and memes at the expense of Curling, a sport that not everyone (including this writer) understands, but some people really enjoy. At the forefront of U.S. curling this year are siblings Matt and Becca Hamilton, who have arguably become superstars within their sport as well as within U.S. news for their impressive performances on the ice.

This year, after having helped dominate the sport in the U.S. for three years alongside his sister, Matt Hamilton has taken center stage for what might be the best combination of red sportswear and a thick mustache ever. Despite - or perhaps in spite of - their fall at the hands of Team Finland in this year's mixed doubles curling competition, the Hamiltons are enjoying a batch of entertaining posts and edits likening the elder sibling to one very important video game hero: Super Mario.
http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/02/12/olympics-matt-hamilton-super-mario/







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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Bay View, Michigan
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Religion. It’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion. Now let’s go to a place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where it would give a glimpse of what a nationwide take over by the religious right would look like in the future. Or a second term of Donald J. Trump, whichever comes first. The town of Bay View was founded in the year 1875 with the premise of advancing scientific and intellectual culture and the religion of Christianity. Really? Wouldn’t those two things cancel each other out? In fact this sleepy community made some big news because of a recent lawsuit.

Tucked away in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, somewhere along the winding roads that hug Great Lakes shores, is an idyllic town named Bay View. For more than a century, generations of “Bay Viewers” have congregated here to share in summer activities.

What started out as a modest camping ground for Methodist families 140 years ago has quietly developed into a stunning vacation spot for people who can afford the upkeep of a second home. Streets named Moss, Fern and Maple are dotted with impeccably maintained century-old gingerbread cottages. Over the horizon, residents can watch lifelong friends sail their boats across the water.

But this paradise is not open to all.

In Bay View, only practicing Christians are allowed to buy houses, or even inherit them.

Prospective homeowners, according to a bylaw introduced in 1947 and strengthened in 1986, are required to produce evidence of their faith by providing among other things a letter from a Christian minister testifying to their active participation in a church.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/09/christians-only-town-bay-view-michigan




Yes, Jesus saves, and saves you money. So this sleepy town sounds like the idyllic community for those stuck in 1950’s nostalgia sitcoms. Everyone goes to church. Everyone has boats. Everyone comes home to a nice home cooked meal. Until you see that last line – you must obtain letters from ministers testifying to your active participation in a church. Yes, cue the horror music.

A Michigan town where prospective buyers need a letter from their church minister to purchase a house has become the subject of a US legal battle.

Bay View, a scenic waterfront community on the shores of Lake Michigan, began life in 1875 as a campsite for local Methodists.

In the intervening century and a half, the settlement has developed into an upscale resort town and sought-after location for holiday homes, The Guardian reports.

The town enjoys an unusual amount of self-governance, MLive reported last year, and the Bay View Association has powers that go far beyond the usual homeowners’ association, including the right to dictate who should - and should not - own houses in the community.

A bylaw prohibiting the sale of homes to non-white residents was lifted in 1959, while a quota on Catholics remained in place until the 1980s.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/91545/christian-only-michigan-community-faces-lawsuit




Well, to be fair, at least they got rid of the racist requirement. I mean it only took them 100 years of progress to do so, but it had to be done, damn it! But there’s more to this sleepy northern town than meets the eye. And you know why does the way this town is run remind us of the way Sanford is run from the movie Hot Fuzz? It’s all for the greater good!

He said that the association --named one of the 12 "Prettiest Painted Places" in the U.S. for its colorful, well-kept "gingerbread" cottages -- welcomes everyone, including renters and the greater community, to many events and programs held at the campus.

"Like most private associations, there are specific requirements for membership. Our membership requirements have been part of our history and we understand that some of our members or the general public may disagree with them," the statement said.

"The Bay View Association of the United Methodist Church is an ecumenical, private, voluntary membership, organization," the statement said.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2017/07/only_christians_can_own_cottag.html




So Bay View is a model village. Does that mean that they have their own tiny model village of their own like in Hot Fuzz? Just like that movie, as you peel back the layers, you see something much more sinister lurking in the shadows.

"Unlike many other private properties and private associations, Bay View welcomes the public to our grounds and to experience our programming. We are not a gated community and anyone, regardless of age, income, race, gender, national origin, or religion is welcome on our campus and to attend our events."

Spencer said he had not heard of the inclusiveness group until it filed the lawsuit challenging association bylaws.

He does not know who filed suit, but said that "it is unfortunate that they would first not identify themselves so that we could sit down and discuss their concerns. Our organization believes in working though disagreements concerning our bylaws outside of the court system."




Yes because that’s what big city people think of small towns far away from civilization. It’s like that movie “Get Out” – eventually they’re going to run around screaming “Get Out” at you. So why would one want to get out of this small town? Well, remember back to when we said that the race restriction was removed? Well, they just imposed it somewhere else.

The race requirement was removed in 1959 but the religion test remained, with "further restrictions on the precise sect of Christian owners" from the 1960s to 1980s, the lawsuit said.

During that period, Roman Catholics could only comprise 10 percent of ownership, the lawsuit said.

A bylaw change in 1986 required prospective buyers to provide a reference letter from a pastor, the lawsuit said.

Prescott said that the state rejected Bay View's efforts to be an "ecclesiastic corporation" with the United Methodist Church controlling its affairs.




We can imagine that’s a typical day in Bay View. But this might be one insight into how a small town government like this works. But it would be nice to see a town without a Wal-Mart or Whole Foods, or anything else.

In response, the association said: "There is a simple process that members of the Association can follow to initiate bylaw amendments to change the membership requirements. Prior bylaw amendments proposals to change the membership requirements have been voted down by our members. They simply have not had enough votes in the past, so it appears that this group is now seeking to change our membership requirements through a court decision."




There you have it. A town so bent on controlling its’ citizens that it can’t bear the thought of being challenged in court. That’s it this week for Top 10 Investigates. See you next time!




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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Gather around, my fair brothers and sisters! For the Holy Church of the Top 10 has convened. It’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate! For it is our weekly duty to tell you why the most devoted of us are also the most full of:



Now remember that last segment from our good friends at Top 10 Investigates? You know we here at the Top 10 qualify as a church! Of sorts. And I, Pastor Initech, will gladly sign a release if you want to purchase a cottage! And in case you’re wondering, I am more of a pastor than a guy who actually *IS* a pastor! And I only wish that the good lord JAYSUS had written down a story like this in the Good Book as an example of what *NOT* to do!

A Pennsylvania pastor insists he was merely counseling a naked man whom cops found bound with nylon rope in a parked car on a residential street, saying, “I have nothing to hide.”

George Nelson Gregory, 61, was sitting in the back seat of a car parked outside a house in Homestead when cops — responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle — spotted a naked man bound with nylon rope in the front seat around 11:30 p.m. Friday, KDKA reported.

A witness told police the naked man got out of the car in full view of his daughter’s window.

Gregory told the officers that he and the unidentified man were “just playing” in a consensual setting, adding that they “meet up from time to time to play with each other,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by the station.

And despite being inside a car on a well-lit public street, Gregory believed they were in a private setting, cops said.

Gregory, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, still disputed what cops said about the bizarre ordeal, telling a KDKA reporter he has “nothing to hide.”

“I did nothing wrong,” Gregory told the station, adding that he and the man were approached by police because the officer thought somebody in the car was unconscious.

“I was counseling a young man with a drug problem,” Gregory told the station. “It did turn strange, but it wasn’t my doing, OK? And I was adamant that I’m participating in that way. And so that’s when the police pulled up, and they assume things, but I’m standing by my story. It’s not true.”
https://nypost.com/2018/02/13/pastor-says-nothing-weird-was-going-on-with-bound-naked-man-in-car/




Uh huh, sure. Keep telling yourself that, Pastor! Nothing to see here! Well, apparently, according to GAWD, the creator of all that is good and holy, his SON Donald J. Trump, must be remaking the world in his divine image! But we all know that lying is a SIN!!!! And sins must be punished!!!

On Friday, End Times author Paul McGuire appeared on Rick Wiles’ “TruNews” program to promote his new book, “Trumpocalypse: The End-Times President, a Battle Against the Globalist Elite, and the Countdown to Armageddon.” During the broadcast, McGuire argued that since President Trump is being relentlessly attacked by the Luciferian globalists, it must be proof that he has been chosen by God.

McGuire asserted that “the very fact that Trump is opposed worldwide by the mass media, by the international banking families, by the globalist elite on every level” is proof that Trump is doing God’s work.

Trump is being “psychologically assassinated” by the media, he said. “CNN is a whore. It’s not journalism, it’s not even reality TV; it’s whoredom, it is spewing forth lie after lie. They don’t even blush when they lie, they’re a lying machine. And the Washington Post—for crying out loud, the Washington Post has sold itself to the lowest bidder as hookers in Times Square in New York.”

McGuire said that late night comedians attack Trump in order to appeal to “idiots” while witches are cursing him because they “get the fact that Trump is being used by God.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paul-mcguire-trump-must-be-doing-something-that-god-wants-because-the-entire-world-system-is-opposing-him/




Yes because even JAYSUS has had enough of your madness! I mean is Trump really the religious guy everyone thinks he is? No!!! Because blasphemy is one of the most egregious of SINS that you can commit here at the Holy Church Of The Top 10 and that is a one way ticket to the most darkest of places!!! Can I get an amen??? But the Christian right loves them some conspiracy theories, don’t they?

Right-wing pastor Paul Begley, who we first became aware of when he claimed to have insider information that First Lady Melania Obama ordered the White House to be “completely exorcised” of demons before she moved in, streamed a video on YouTube earlier this week in which he asserted that Barack Obama is leading an Illuminati plot to assassinate President Trump.

“We know right now, folks, that this was treasonous,” Begley said. “They’ve tried to hijack our nation, they tried to override our election and they are trying to destroy our Constitution. This is a cabal and by their own text messages, they even say they have secret societies and they say that these societies are meeting and these are top level people of several different U.S. government agencies working together as an Illuminati, working together as a cabal, to overthrow the United States of America.”

“I think that Bill Ayers is behind the scenes,” he continued. “I know that Barack ‘Barry’ Obama, I know that Barack Hussein Obama, I know that he is orchestrating it.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paul-begley-obama-is-leading-an-illuminati-plot-to-assassinate-trump/




Now you know Brother Paul, that is so stupid! And stupidity is one of the most egregious of sins and it will send you to the darkest of places! Can I get an amen???? But the Christian right loves to do some victim blaming as you will clearly see by today’s message!

On his radio program today, extremist anti-LGBTQ pastor Kevin Swanson attributed USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse of more than 150 women and girls he treated, in part, to the fact that gymnastics encourages “a fair amount of immodesty.”

Citing a variety of supposed dangers, such as the use of open showers, Swanson warned Christian parents against allowing their children to participate in sports because “sports tend to focus on the body.”

“There is an infatuation with the body,” he said, “and, of course, the sexual aspects of the body as well. Some sports encourage immodesty, revealing large portions of the body and this happens in some sports. These are the risky sports. Here they are, what are the risky sports? Gymnastics. Gymnastics and swimming. These are the sports in which there is an added risk.”

“Why are all of the gymnasts [at] more of a risk than other sports?” Swanson asked. “Do you really want your daughters involved in a sport that involves a fair amount of immodesty in which red-blooded American male coaches are interacting with these girls? Or, worse yet, where the infatuation of the body eventually effects the lesbian coaches?”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/kevin-swanson-blames-larry-nassar-sexual-assault-scandal-on-the-fact-that-gymnastics-involves-a-fair-amount-of-immodesty/




Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! You sir are a liar!!! Because hypocrisy in the eyes of the LAWRD hath cast the first stone. It even says so, I looked it up here in the Good Book! Hypocrities Chapter 32 Verse 5. And how great is the Top 10 Gospel Choir? Give it up for them! But they also love some transparency. Not Transparent, sir! I actually think the Christian fundamentalists probably hate that show!

The final episode of the “Faith for Our Nation” series produced by Kenneth Copeland Ministries for the purpose of preparing conservative Christians to vote in the 2018 midterm elections was dedicated to explaining that “Voting for Godly Judges Sets Our Nation’s Course.” The program featured former Rep. Michele Bachmann and right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton insisting that the proper role of a judge is issue rulings according to God’s law.

“A good judge proclaims the precepts of God, ultimately, because they understand the precepts of God and the premises of God and that’s how you get decisions based on wisdom, judgment, understanding, common sense,” Bachmann said.

Praising the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Bachmann warned that there are hundreds of judges who will be appointed at both the state and federal levels, which means that it is imperative for Christians to elect godly politicians who will install judges “that will be reflective of God’s law.”

Quoting from the Bible, Barton insisted that it is the responsibility of judges to “honor God [and] fear the Son, otherwise you are going to create wrath.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/david-barton-loves-trumps-judicial-nominees-its-like-me-putting-them-in-office/




But in the good book, it sayeth “And the lord, even under the guise of thine own stupidity, one must still seeketh forgiveness from thy lord JAYSUS.” Nehlame 24: 7. But while we must partake in the sin of projection, we should be aware that even JAYSUS would just give a giant facepalm if he saw what thy were doing in thine image!

As we have noted several times before, once Religious Right pseudo-historian David Barton adopts a new talking point, nothing is going to stop him from repeating it, no matter how many times it is pointed out that the claim he is making is demonstrably false.

This fact was on display on Barton’s “WallBuilders Live” radio program today, where he falsely claimed that under President Obama, his organization was designated as “an enemy of the state.”

Barton was responding to a question from a listener who wanted to know what constituted a “domestic enemy” as mentioned in the Oath of Office that members of Congress take in which they vow to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Barton said that nobody can agree what that term means today because we, as a nation, no longer rely on God to objectively establish what is right and wrong and so the definition now largely depends on who you ask.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/david-barton-falsely-claims-he-was-designated-an-enemy-of-the-state-by-the-obama-administration/




Because even the good LAWRD!!! Our GODD!!! Has no idea what to make of these egregious allegations even though they aren’t mentioned anywhere in the Good Book! That’s the take away you should get from today’s sermon! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]The Alt Right
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The Alt Right has been up to their usual bag ‘o tricks lately and it should be no surprise to anyone, especially regular viewers of this program, that they are not ashamed in flashing their racism out in the open like hookers on Las Vegas Blvd during a bachelor party. Hey, they’re open with it. So two prominent figures in the Alt Right – your racist uncle’s racist uncle Richard Spencer, and Patriot Prayer – got their asses handed to them last week.

That’s because Spencer won’t be speaking on the campus at all, at least for a while.

Spencer’s lawyer, Kyle Bristow, tweeted and the university confirmed Monday that the planned March 14 event is off because of a dispute over security fees.

Bristow referred to the security fee as “the unconstitutional speech tax” and said it is “cost-prohibitive.”

University of Cincinnati President Neville G. Pinto said in a written statement that, because no contract has been signed between Cameron Padgett, the Georgia State student who serves as Spencer’s booking agent, and the school, the March 14 date is no longer possible.

The university’s Public Safety Department requires a minimum of six weeks to prepare for such an event, Pinto said. The now-cancelled date would have been during spring break, when few, if any, students would have been on campus.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/13/richard-spencer-calls-university-cincinnati-speaking-engagement-blames-security-costs




Yes, yes universities! Let the hate flow through you! You must give in to the Dark Side! And yes, we do have cookies! And who’s better at recruiting people to the Dark Side than Patriot Prayer? Because you know it has two things conservatives love in the name, and we’ll let you guess!

SEATTLE – Joey Gibson and his Patriot Prayer organization demonstrated Saturday that they are still capable of drawing attention from both the media and police officials for their far-right “free speech” events such as the one sponsored by the local chapter of College Republicans at the University of Washington campus.

The bigger question, however, was whether they remain capable of attracting any actual followers.

Saturday’s rally at UW’s Red Square followed the trend of recent Gibson-led events: Only a small gathering of about 50 people actually showed up in his support. Among them, despite his protestations to the contrary, were a number of devoted white nationalists.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/12/patriot-prayer-whips-anger-seattle-not-much-crowd




And well the hate is well on display here. By the way, anyone remember the Kent State republicans who I profiled last season (see: Idiots #3-19 )? In case you’re wondering the protest against safe spaces backfired on them spectacularly:

The leader of the Kent State chapter of the conservative students’ group Turning Point USA filed a public resignation and announced the dissolution of her chapter of the organization in response to what she believed to be Turning Point USA’s insufficient response to the public ridicule her group’s members faced after conservatives at her university were photographed at an anti-safe-space protest wearing diapers.

In a letter addressed to Turning Point USA field director Frankie O’Laughlin and regional manager Alana Mastrangelo on Monday, Kent State’s Turning Point USA chapter president and campus coordinator Kaitlin Bennett detailed what she believed to be the organization’s abandonment of her chapter as members faced public ridicule after photos of protesters wearing diapers to protest “safe spaces” circulated online. Bennett claimed that Turning Point USA knew that the diaper-clad protesters belonged to another conservative group and not to Turning Point USA, but still let the members of the group’s Kent State chapter “face the consequences of online harassment.” From the open letter on Liberty Hangout (emphasis added):
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/turning-point-usa-chapter-at-kent-state-disbands-over-diaper-debacle/




And then there’s 4Chan – you know that website your cousin Timmy spends way too much time talking about. They also went full racist, and here’s more:

In right-wing internet message boards, users are encouraging one another to print and hang posters that state simply “It’s OK to be white” with the goal of exposing what they claim is anti-white racism in liberal communities and on college campuses.

Creators of the signs were first inspired by a news report that police were investigating fliers hung at Boston College that depicted Uncle Sam and the text, “I want you to love who you are” and “Don’t apologize for being white.” Reporters noted that the signs were posted near the planned location of an anti-racism rally on campus.

Earlier this week, 4chan users called on one another to hang fliers in their own communities with a more succinct spin on the Boston signs, making the statement “It’s Okay To Be White” in large easy-to-read font with no other context. One post detailing the plan explained the goal was to make liberals go “completely berserk” and ruin their credibility, marking a “massive victory for the right in the culture war.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/its-okay-to-be-white-right-wing-culture-warriors-seek-to-prove-anti-white-racism/




So since 4Chan is going all in on the racist card, what would some 4Chan valentines look like? “Pepe The Frog loves you!”. Or maybe “It’s OK to be white. Let’s be white together on Valentine’s Day!”. Or maybe “I have 14 words to say I love you.” The candy hearts really highlight the 14 words don’t they? This one is my favorite – “Be my 88!”. With a Hitler moustache! Nein! But really they’re not racist! Oh and by the way, 8Chan, while you’re too busy trying to figure out how to “trigger” us, we’re too busy doing that thing called “voting” and “winning elections”!

Right-wing YouTube creators have also taken notice, including Infowars editor-in-chief Paul Joseph Watson and white nationalist Paul Ramsey. Alt-right video bloggers James Allsup and Nick Fuentes even launched their own spin-off of the signs that read “Make your ancestors proud. Never feel guilty for who you are,” and solicited donations to produce and distribute their posters.

Offline, reporters have documented the signs at campuses across North America. The signs have appeared everywhere from California to Canada, and even at a Maryland high school. Online, 4chan users have shared hundreds of images of the signs hung on statues, wrapped around telephone poles, and even carved into a pumpkin.

Alt-right and far-right fever swamps of the internet are encouraging increased participation ahead of anti-fascism protests scheduled for the weekend across the United States, where users believe they can further embarrass liberals by proving their claims that white people are currently the subject of more racism and hate than any other group in America.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/its-okay-to-be-white-right-wing-culture-warriors-seek-to-prove-anti-white-racism/


By the way, before we move onto the next entry, 4Chan and 8Chan, I seem to have misplaced something in my jacket. Let me go get it.




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[font size="8"]Julian Assange
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I couldn’t love this next story more, and it involves future James Bond villain Julian Assange. So let’s go back a few weeks because this couldn’t be any more insane. If there’s any proof that the Matrix exists and that we’re trapped in it, Assange is a real life Agent Smith. Well, the Ecuadoran embassy in London doesn’t want him, and London wants to indict him. Yes, kids, this is what we adults would refer to simply as a “clusterfuck”. Here’s more:

LONDON — A British judge upheld an arrest warrant for Julian Assange for the second time in a week on Tuesday, a significant setback for him after five and a half years of evading the authorities by living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Before a packed London courtroom, Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot rejected the arguments made by Mr. Assange’s lawyer, stating that he was not a prisoner, that his living conditions were nothing like those of a prison, and that he could have as many visitors as he liked. In fact, she said, he can — and should — walk free at any time to meet his legal fate.

“He is a man who wants to impose his terms on the course of justice,” Judge Arbuthnot said. “He wants justice only when it’s in his favor.”

If the judge had nullified the warrant, Mr. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, might have left the embassy, but that was far from certain. The United States and British governments have never publicly ruled out the existence of a secret request to extradite him to the United States, where he could face prosecution for publishing classified documents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/julian-assange-uk-warrant.html




But before we can gloat any further, let’s do one of those things from movies and roll back and explain how we got to this point. I don’t think I’ve covered that slippery weasel enough here, because fuck that guy, but here’s some of the ways that we got here while Assange has been in exile:

Mr Assange has frequently said he would happily face British and Swedish justice if he is given a guarantee he will not be extradited to the United States.

This demand has never been overtly agreed to by the UK.

It is unclear how strong the appetite to prosecute Mr Assange is in America. In the past, his organisation has been a source of deeply embarrassing revelations for the US.

But Wikileaks’ recent activity has benefited the current administration – including the leak of Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails obtained by Russian-backed hackers.

The move lead Donald Trump to declare during his presidential bid: “I love Wikileaks.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/julian-assange-what-is-uk-ecuador-embassy-how-leave-us-extradition-wikileaks-a8199771.html




And who lies more than Julian Assange does? Well maybe Donald Trump, but that’s beside the point! Also, you know it’s generally not in our nature to kick a man when he’s down… ah fuck it, that’s all we do here! Plus think about the horror that Assange has wrought on the world! He deserves it! And by the way are we really surprised that Roger Stone wants to be BFFs with Assange, or is he really just a classless jackass? I say both!

Roger Stone, a longtime associate of Donald Trump who has previously claimed he had a “backchannel” to WikiLeaks, on Wednesday visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where officials have harbored the organization’s founder, Julian Assange, for over five years.

Stone told the Daily Beast, which first reported the visit, that he did not meet Assange. “I didn’t go and see him, I dropped off a card to be a smart ass,” he told the Daily Beast.

He added that he left his contact information for Assange, who has stayed in the Ecuadorian embassy for the last five years to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced allegations of sexual abuse.

“I dropped in my card, I don’t even think he’s there any more,” Stone said. He speculated that Assange might have been “extracted” secretly at some point in recent weeks.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/01/roger-stone-dropped-off-card-for-julian-assange-at-embassy




You know if you were to look up the word “tool” in the dictionary you would see a picture of Roger Stone and Julian Assange. They’re both tools! But in case you’re wondering why Ecuador wants to kick him out, look no further. Oh and by the way Infowars fans, this is what a real conspiracy looks like!

Assange's asylum was granted by Moreno's predecessor, Rafael Correa. Moreno has said he will continue to protect Assange, but he's eager to get him out of the embassy. In December, Ecuador granted Assange citizenship, paving the way for officials to ask the United Kingdom to grant him diplomatic immunity. They declined, saying that Assange should leave and “face justice.”

On Sunday, Moreno vented about the situation in a television interview. He said that Assange had created “more than a nuisance” for his government. He also described him as an “inherited problem” and said his government was seeking help from “important people” to solve the problem.

Moreno has also urged Assange, he said, not to interfere with Ecuadoran politics or “that of nations that are our friends.” In the past, Assange had tweeted support for the Catalan independence campaign. He's also met at least once with Nigel Farage, the architect of the Brexit campaign.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/22/ecuadors-president-calls-julian-assange-more-than-a-nuisance/?utm_term=.664825526584






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[font size="8"]People Are Dumb
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Oh you know what time it is? It’s time for this!



And of course Depeche Mode schedules a stop in my home town, on the day of my calculus final. Grr. Yes so of course you know by now you know that people are people, and people are dumb. So who’s dumb this week? Why don’t we start in our favorite state of Florida because why not? You know I’ve been to my local Goodwill Store hundreds of times, never saw this:

BRADENTON, Fla. --
Talk about one heckuva an explosive donation.

Authorities say a grenade launcher, loaded with a live grenade, was left with other donated items at a Florida Goodwill store.

The Bradenton Herald reports that employees at a Goodwill store near Tampa reported the weapon on Sunday.

The Manatee County Sheriff's Office says the store manager told deputies that the grenade launcher had come in a shipment from another store several days earlier. The employees at the other location said they sent it along because they didn't know what it was.

Deputies say they disposed of the active grenade in a Hazmat locker, and the launcher was stored in the agency's property room.

It's not clear who donated the items.
http://abc7.com/society/loaded-grenade-launcher-left-at-florida-goodwill-store/3014308/




Yeah maybe it was that guy who donated the grenade launcher! Next up – a new category that we haven’t explored here yet – dumb professors! So how are you a university professor and you don’t know that Australia is a single country? Well let’s explain.

This is Ashley Arnold, a 27-year-old resident of Idaho Falls, Idaho. She's a stay-at-home mom completing an online sociology degree with Southern New Hampshire University.

As part of her final class, for which she paid almost $1,000, students were required to complete a project outline last month in which they would compare a social norm in the US and another country.

For her "norm" Arnold picked social media use, and for her country she chose Australia.

But when Arnold got her grade back on Feb. 1, she was shocked to see her professor had failed her. Why? Because, according to the teacher, "Australia is a continent; not a country."
https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/australia-is-real-i-swear?utm_term=.ljj9dEjMK#.nh9QMORyG




Yeah come on has that guy not seen The Simpsons? Next on People Are Dumb – our good friend Florida Man! Or maybe Florida Man’s wife Florida Woman! Of course you know the Super Bowl is the best game around, and this time around what happens when you fight during the Super Bowl? Might want to call Jerry Springer for this one!

A Florida woman allegedly injured her boyfriend by throwing a piece of furniture at him during an argument about who would win the Super Bowl, the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office said.

Cheryl Merrill, 60, was arrested after the incident, which happened at 7 p.m. Sunday, according to a police report. Merrill became enraged during the argument and allegedly threw a wooden shelf at her boyfriend of five years, deputies said.

The man suffered a swollen hand but refused medical treatment. Because of his hand injury, he was unable to sign an affidavit, deputies said.

Merrill was described by deputies as being "extremely intoxicated" and disobeyed orders to remain in the cul-de-sac while deputies investigated the incident, the report said.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/deputies-say-florida-man-injured-during-super-bowl-argument/5XxMdyKXGlh58LRHEsO1xK/




Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Next up in People Are Dumb – we go to the Florida of the North – Wisconsin. So we all get it, we have loved ones, they die. And it sucks but it’s a part of life and we have to accept it. But do we really need to bring fucking pizza into the mix? If I’m planning Nana’s funeral I can guarantee the last thing I want would be a slice of pepperoni supreme!

Pre-planning a funeral is not a fun or comfortable task — that's why Mark Krause, president of Krause Funeral Homes in Wisconsin, added something a little unusual to the table: free pizza.

"People don't think about funerals until they really need them," he explained to TODAY Food. "So we asked ourselves, 'How do we get people to relax about the idea of thinking about this difficult topic ahead of time?'"

The answer? Food. "People are relaxed and open when they're surrounded by food," he said. "You think about everything you do in life... it always centers around food."

Last year, Krause and his team decided to invite potential customers to join them for an informational session to learn more about pre-planning their funerals. Knowing the topic wasn't exactly enticing, he decided that perhaps the main course should be.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/restaurantsandnews/pie-before-you-die-funeral-home-throws-pizza-party-for-new-customers/ar-BBIu8Iu




Right, what situation isn’t improved by pizza? Deadpool knows what’s up! And come on, Nana didn’t skimp on the toppings, let’s not kid ourselves here! Finally this week for “People Are Dumb”, here’s a real life Rocket Man! Remember this guy from last year? Well he’s back! And he was proved wrong by Elon Musk!

A man who claims that Earth is flat tried to leave it in a homemade rocket Saturday but failed to overcome the gravitational force of a 13,166,800,000,000,000,000,000,000-pound sphere directly beneath him.

In fairness to Mike Hughes, he knows how to build a rocket. He built them for many years under the precepts of classical physics, when he was still a relatively conventional daredevil, which is to say, one who believed Earth is round.

But Saturday marked Hughes's third aborted launch since he declared himself a flat-earther last year and announced a multipart plan to fly to space by the end of 2018 so he could prove astronauts have been lying about the shape of the planet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/02/06/a-flat-earther-finally-tried-to-fly-away-his-rocket-didnt-even-ignite/?utm_term=.3ae6515ea975




Why does Wiley Coyote keep using Acme products if they keep failing? Does he have a buy one get one free card? Does he have a credit card? Is he part of some rewards program? Does he get frequent flyer miles and access to presale concert tickets? I want to know! Anyway that’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]World Tour Shithole Edition Destination #4: Chile
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Part of our mission statement here at the Top 10 Conservative Idiots is to show you that conservative idiocy isn’t just a problem with America. No, it’s a global problem that is stemming far and wide, and it’s not just America where conservative idiots ruin everything they touch. And if you’re thinking of moving out of the United States just because Donald J. Trump is our current president and our nation is turning to shit, you should know what it is you’re getting into should you decide that you want to leave the country. Well now things suddenly got interesting! So our world tour got hijacked by Donald Trump, and we’re off on a quest to find if any of the places Trump is suggesting are shitholes are actually shitholes. So here’s the World Tour 2018 Shithole Edition:



[font size="6"]Chile[/font]



It’s good to be back in South America everybody! Of course if you were familiar with last season at all you know we had to bail on Chile due to a holiday, so we were off that week. Well this is a makeup date for Chile. Of course you know Chile as the Texas of South America if only for the strikingly similar use of the one star on its’ flag. Chile is of course the home of the former brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet, but let’s not focus on that. Let’s focus on what Chile is the home of. It’s the home of some of the wildest and most extreme nature on earth – you’ve got glaciers, mountains, desert, jungle, geysers, some of the most beautiful beaches in the entire world. It’s also home to one of the highest elevations in the world and one of the lowest elevations in the world. Chile is also the home of one of the world’s original wonders – Easter Island, and yes you know them as the home of those famous statues. It’s also home to the driest place on earth – the Atacama Desert. It’s the home of major cities Santiago (the capital) and the hillside city of Valparaiso. And it’s also the home of the Andes Mountains and to Easter Island – which was once famously explored by Charles Darwin. But you know what else Chile is the home of? Let’s say meet the new boss – same as the old boss!

Chile’s president-elect, the billionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera, has unveiled a new hardline cabinet, including prominent conservative figures and some politicians once closely aligned with the Pinochet dictatorship.

The new interior minister, Andrés Chadwick, was a vocal supporter of Augusto Pinochet during his 1973-1990 regime, which named him president of the Catholic University Students Federation.

Chadwick and the new justice minister, Hernán Larraín, were also supporters and defenders of the secretive German enclave Colonia Dignidad, which was established by the fugitive Nazi officer and paedophile Paul Shäfer in the early 60s. It later emerged that the enclave was used by security officials to torture and murder opponents of the regime.

Both Chadwick and Larraín later made statements distancing themselves from Pinochet’s regime.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/23/chile-president-elect-sebastian-pinera-andres-chadwick




Yes, meet the new boss, same as the old boss! I swear Putin is filling this world what seems like a bunch of James Bond villains. I mean we got Erdogan in Turkey, Duterte in the Philipenes, and now Pinera in Chile! I mean could it get any worse?

SANTIAGO, Chile — They killed Tony the Tiger. They did away with Cheetos’ Chester Cheetah. They banned Kinder Surprise, the chocolate eggs with a hidden toy.

The Chilean government, facing skyrocketing rates of obesity, is waging war on unhealthy foods with a phalanx of marketing restrictions, mandatory packaging redesigns and labeling rules aimed at transforming the eating habits of 18 million people.

Nutrition experts say the measures are the world’s most ambitious attempt to remake a country’s food culture and could be a model for how to turn the tide on a global obesity epidemic that researchers say contributes to 4 million premature deaths a year.

“It’s hard to overstate how significant Chile’s actions are — or how hard it has been to get there in the face of the usual pressures,” said Stephen Simpson, director of the Charles Perkins Centre, an organization of scholars focused on nutrition and obesity science and policy. The multibillion dollar food and soda industries have exerted those pressures to successfully stave off regulation in many other countries..
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/world/2018/02/09/In-Sweeping-War-on-Obesity-Chile-Slays-Tony-the-Tiger/stories/201802090107




Yeah they banned Tony The Tiger to help curb obesity. That’d be like banning Scrooge McDuck to help curb excessive greed! Good job guys! So why do big businesses suddenly have a massive interest in Chile? Well it could be because of this!

Tesla is now in talks with the Chile-based lithium mining firm SQM about the sourcing of further supplies — with the electric vehicle manufacturer reportedly interested in “important volumes,” according to industry figures.

To be more specific, the head of Chile’s development agency Corfo, Eduardo Bitran, was quoted by Reuters as saying that Tesla and SQM were “exploring” various possibilities following from interest being shown by Tesla.

This news isn’t particularly surprising, as Tesla will need to secure new lithium supplies if it is going to continue expanding at the rates that it’s targeting. Chile’s Atacama desert region is of course home to some of the largest concentrated lithium reserves in the world.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/10/tesla-eyeing-chiles-lithium-reserves-talks-sqm/




That is a good point, Morpheus! But unlike here in America, at least Chile embraces its’ natural beauty and its’ natural parks system which makes it home to some of the best hiking in the world!

If Chile isn’t already on your bucket list, get ready to add it. Then bump this wild and wonderful country straight to the top. This week, Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, signed a groundbreaking conservation measure, creating five new national parks and expanding three others.

Much of the land being earmarked for the parks comes from Kristine Tompkins, an American philanthropist and the founder and CEO of Tompkins Conservation. The not-for-profit organization is the life’s work of Tompkins, the former CEO of Patagonia Inc., and her late husband Doug Tompkins, founder of North Face and Esprit. Together, they spent 25 years purchasing and restoring land and, as a result, Tompkins’ donation comes to 1 million acres, making it the largest land donation in history.

Thanks to their hard work and forward thinking, this land will now be preserved for generations to come. “All of us who love the earth can see how the threats to wild places and creatures are growing,” Tompkins shared on her personal blog. “This is crucial work—it’s the work we’ve been doing for decades and will be doing with all of our energy and resources long into the future.”
https://www.simplemost.com/chile-creates-five-new-massive-national-parks/




There is a Simpsons GIF for everything! But in America we look the other way while American corporations ravage our natural beauty! But there’s one difference between Chileans and Americans – when you’ve been through one of the worst brutal dictators in American history, you learn a thing or two about how to stage a fucking protest!

SANTIAGO, Chile – As he does during every papal visit, Pope Francis produced plenty of surprises in Chile: He married a couple during a flight, stopped his motorcade to help a fallen police officer and wept with victims of sex abuse by priests.

But the pope also faced protests and a level of hostility unheard of in modern times for a papal visit. Anti-pope protests had to be broken up with tear gas, attackers burned at least 11 Roman Catholic Churches and pamphlets were found threatening Francis that the "next bomb would be in your cassock."

"This kind of violence during a papal visit is absolutely unprecedented. And Chile is historically a very solidly Catholic nation," said Andrew Chesnut, the Catholic Studies chair at Virginia Commonwealth University.

It remains to be seen whether the friction in Chile was a fluke or a harbinger of what to expect in future papal trips.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/01/19/in-chile-pope-met-by-protests-threats-burned-churches.html




[font size="6"]The Verdict & Scorecard[/font]

Is Chile a shithole? Well some ways yes and some ways no. Sadly Putin got to the South American country so see it before it turns into a shithole!

Tourism: A
Culture: A
Political Spectrum: C-
Liberal Appeal: C-

Overall: C

[font size="6"]Next Week[/font]

We’ve got just two more stops on our Shithole World Tour and then we’re done. Next week is a good one as we’re going to visit Russia!


[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]Rhianna[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen continuing our celebration of Black History Month, we’re going to get some music for all the lovers out there! Her latest album is called “Anti!”, and playing her song “Love On The Brain”, give it up for Rhianna!




Yeah how about that?

See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: City National Grove Of Anaheim, Anaheim, CA
Special Thanks To: City National Grove Management
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
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Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
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Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

February 7, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-5: Better Dead Than Red State Edition


Top 10 Conservative Idiots #4-5: Better Dead Than Red State Edition

Ed. Note - due to a scheduling conflict at our home venue, we're bringing you the Top 10 a little bit early this week! Now on with the show!

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Fly Eagles Fly! Fly Eagles Fly! Fly Eagles Fly! Fly Eagles Fly! Fly Eagles Fly! Whew!!! I’m celebrating like I won the Super Bowl! And my team was out of the playoffs for what seemed like an eternity ago, didn’t it? I mean how great was it to see the unbridled joy wiped off Bill Belicheck’s face? That guy really is a man of 1,000 emotions isn’t he? I actually saw a meme where it said “Who wore it better? Bill Belicheck or Emperor Palpatine?”. And what the fuck was up with Kevin Hart at the end? Did he really think he won the Super Bowl? Or was he going to pull a Kanye West and be like “Carson Wentz isn’t the real MVP, Chris Long is the real MVP of this shit!” And then he goes on the NFL Network to air his thoughts on the game. But my favorite thing is on Monday he went on TV and was like “Kids, alcohol is bad for you.”. And then there was Eagles fangirl Jennifer Lawrence who was on a Delta flight from New Orleans and was trying to get on the plane’s intercom system getting a “Fly Eagles Fly” chant going, only to find she was the only one doing the chanting. Which begs the question - if one person leads a chant and nobody cares, did it really happen? And then there was the Patriots. Yeah Tom Brady, you put up a good fight, and you can rest assured that you don’t have to go to the White House to meet Trump. Yeah remember when we had a president who wasn’t a raging asshole? Those were good times. And then there were the ads which we will get to in a minute. But the parties in Philadelphia were fucking insane. I saw one tweet where this guy said “Philadelphians chased cops out of downtown! Savages!”, which I am saying to this guy: “U mad bro?”. And then there was the guy who ate horse shit. Which is a shame, because that guy will now be famous for the rest of his life as the Eagles fan who literally ate horse shit! OK enough of the intro. We have a lot of idiocy to get to, but first Bill Maher is back and he completely slams Trump’s wall in his New Rules segment:



Ladies and gentlemen, returning to the number 1 slot after a long absence this week is our president, Donald J. Trump (1)! Bravo, well done! So what’s he been up to this week? Well, he released the memo, and as expected it was a colossal shit show! Taking the second slot of course is also Donald Trump (2) – ah, fuck, who cares about his Nazi parade? SpaceX launched a rocket into orbit, how awesome is that? We will tell you all about it! At number 3, we’re going to introduce you to Illinois congressional candidate Arthur Jones (3). If you don’t know who he is, you will. And let’s just say we’re going to need the Blues Brothers for this one, because this guy is a real piece of work. In the fourth slot is White Goodman’s doppleganger Paul Ryan, because he had a huge Twitter SNAFU over the weekend. While he was praising the $1.50 raise working class employees got, his billionaire backers are getting raises that eclipse that. In the fifth slot is our brand new segment – Top 10 Investigates (5)! So we’re going to take you deep inside a neo Nazi themed MMA organization, and it’s scary beyond belief! At number 6 is our duty to have our weekly sermon on all the crazy things that the religious right has been up to in “Holy Shit” (6). And this time we’re going to tell you about how Pat Robetson almost met god over the weekend among other madness. Taking the seventh slot is the Advertising Industry (7). So if you saw Super Bowl 52 over the weekend, you most likely saw some terrible advertisements from Dodge RAM, Honda, and Verizon. And also Doritos is trying out an insane new product we can’t wait to tell you about. AT number 8, we're going to play a game of "Is It Racist"? Spoiler alert! Yeah probably. The subject? We're going to do a deep dive on why the Cleveland Indians decided to finally shitcan their infamous and controversial Cheif Wahoo logo. In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot is "I Need A Drink", and this time we're going to get drunk and talk about the sensitive subject of “Emotional Support Animals” (9) and wait until you see some of the crazy things people try to take on planes. Man nothing exciting ever happens on any of my flights! And then finally this week we have the next round of our Shithole World Tour (10) and we’re going to Central America and the country of El Salvador! Is it really as much of a shithole as Trump says it is? Plus it’s finally February and we’re celebrating Black History Month here at the Top 10. And what better way to kick off our celebration than with a live performance from The Legendary Roots Crew? Hell yeah! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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Remember back in the 80s when Russia was actually our enemy? And you know the GOP loves them some slogans, right? If I remember correctly their motto during that time their slogan of choice was “Better dead than red!!!!”. That’s all you heard during the 80s. “BETTER DEAD THAN RED!!!”. It was flying next to their “don’t tread on me” flags. Well, now I think we need to change that motto to “Better dead than red state!”. Now let me explain. We have a president who’s deep in bed with Russia, and Russia loves him. So much that rejected Keebler Elf Ron Paul was in Russia, on Russian state television and said this:

Russia’s state television channel seems to be happy with President Donald Trump’s decision to not enforce sanctions against Russia that were overwhelmingly approved by both houses of Congress.

Julia Davis, who runs the Russian Media Monitor website, reports via Twitter that Russian TV show host Olga Skabeeva on Tuesday was positively gushing about the White House’s decision to not enforce new sanctions against her country.

“Seemingly, Trump is ours again,” said Skabeeva, according to Davis’ translation. “So far, he’s being quiet and not supporting the sanctions.”

Co-host Evgeny Popov seemingly agreed and told her, “Well, it seems that way.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/trump-russian-tv-host-celebrates-white-house-refuses-enforce-new-sanctions/




Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! So seriously what’s Ron Paul doing on Russian state TV? I mean come on, when you’re under investigation for ties to Russia, don’t talk about Russia. I mean you don’t tell the guy trying to lose 100 pounds: Go on fatty! We’re going to the Golden Corral for lunch! What’s your vice? They got everything you could want!

On Tuesday morning—the day after the House Intelligence Committee voted along partisan lines to send Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo, alleging abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to President Donald Trump for declassification—presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway was confronted with the idea that Russian trolls were promoting the #releasethememo hashtag online. She was offended. Russian trolls, she told a television interviewer, “have nothing to do with releasing the memo—that was a vote of the intelligence committee.” But her assertion is incorrect. The vote marked the culmination of a targeted, 11-day information operation that was amplified by computational propaganda techniques and aimed to change both public perceptions and the behavior of American lawmakers.

And it worked. By the time the memo got to the president, its release was a forgone conclusion—even before he had read it.

This bears repeating: Computational propaganda—defined as “the use of information and communication technologies to manipulate perceptions, affect cognition, and influence behavior”—has been used, successfully, to manipulate the perceptions of the American public and the actions of elected officials.

The analysis below, conducted by our team from the social media intelligence group New Media Frontier, shows that the #releasethememo campaign was fueled by, and likely originated from, computational propaganda. It is critical that we understand how this was done and what it means for the future of American democracy.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/04/trump-twitter-russians-release-the-memo-216935




Hey Alex Jones! This is what an actual conspiracy looks like! You have GOP operatives going overseas to a country we attempted to sanction. They tried to get a memo released that smeared opponents. And they’re conspiring to undermine an FBI investigation. That is a fucking conspiracy! Oh and you know what happened when Trump actually did release the memo? It was a predicted category 5 shit storm, as is everything with this administration!

WASHINGTON — House Republicans released a politically charged memo on Friday that accused F.B.I. and Justice Department leaders of abusing their surveillance powers to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of being an agent of Russia.

The memo alarmed national security officials and outraged Democrats, who accused the Republicans of misrepresenting sensitive government information through omissions and inaccuracies. President Trump declassified it over the objections of the F.B.I., which had expressed “grave concerns” over its accuracy in a rare public break from the White House.

The three-and-a-half-page memo, written by Republican congressional aides, criticized information used by law enforcement officials in their application for a warrant to wiretap the former campaign adviser, Carter Page, and named the senior F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who approved the highly classified application.

But it fell well short of making the case promised by some Republicans: that the evidence it contained would cast doubt on the origins of the Russia investigation and possibly undermine the inquiry, which has been taken over by a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The Page warrant is just one aspect of the broader investigation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/politics/trump-fbi-memo.html




So there’s two memos. There’s a flip side to every memo. So what did the GOP memo actually talk about, and why did it get released? Remember Highlights Magazine and they had that cartoon “Goofus And Gallant”? The GOP are goofus. They would do anything that Gallant doesn’t. Actually – better metaphor – the GOP is Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Only in this scenario, as Charlie is lying on the ground, Lucy spits in his face and kicks him in the ribs. Because they’re just that satanic. Let’s explore that further.

WASHINGTON – President Trump again attacked the Russia investigation on Monday, this time targeting the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee: Rep. Adam Schiff of California.

Trump called Schiff "one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington" and said he "must be stopped."

Schiff's committee is probing whether Trump and his associates colluded with Russians who sought to interfere in the 2016 election through cyberattacks and fake news.

Trump's attacks came as Democrats seek to release a memo to counter claims made in a newly declassified memo written at the direction of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

The Nunes memo argued that the FBI and Justice Department abused their top-secret surveillance to spy on an adviser to Trump's campaign. The memo alleges the government obtained its warrant to spy on Carter Page based on a disputed dossier compiled by an ex-spy retained by an opposition research firm and financed by Democrats.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/05/trump-attacks-adam-schiff-liar-and-leaker-democrats-seek-counter-nunes-memo/306328002/





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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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Can we talk about something cool for a change? I don’t want to talk about Trump or his dumbass Nazi parade, or Fox & Friends having an Americagasm over Trump’s SOTU, or any of the other shit we’ve had to put up with since the election. I mean come on, Trump already had his Nazi parade back in August. Thank you! And the thing is you know I don’t want you to think this show is about negativity! What kind of host would that make me? Not a very good one if you ask me! For the record, before I switch subjects and talk about what I want to talk about, Trump is the idiot in this piece, and only because I can’t stop watching this.



Oh!! Oh!!!! You can’t unsee that, can you! Ha!!!! OK enough of that – here’s the cool thing that I wanted to talk about. Space X. Right? How fucking awesome was that? And allow me to fanboy out for a second – this is what happens when you see science in action. Even the guy who we call president wants in on the action:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/961073467784421382

Wait a minute – isn’t Elon Musk from South Africa? Why yes he is! Trump stopped tweeting out of his ass during his morning Fox & Friends binge to tweet something that actually sounds kind of presidential! So let’s talk some more about this subject:

It takes a beat or two for the brain to compute. The image is startling, incongruous, barmy. A car floats in space. At the wheel is a spacesuit, seatbelt on. Earth hangs behind it. The two objects don’t work together. The image jars like bad Photoshop. But it is real.

The photograph was beamed down to Earth courtesy of Elon Musk’s ego, bravado and taste for the absurd. It is human folly and genius rolled into one, a picture that sums up 2018 so far. Life on Earth feels precarious, so we look to the stars.

So how did we get here: the heavens navigated by a dummy astronaut in an electric car, with a handy note for aliens – “Made on Earth by humans” – imprinted on the circuit board?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/space-oddity-elon-musk-spacex-car-mars-falcon-heavy




That’s right! This is science in action here! I still can’t get over how awesome that was – we shot a fucking car into the Mars orbit! Never mind that it’s going to return in a billion years, it was playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity! So what is the purpose behind the space man driving the car? Let’s explore that a bit.

SpaceX put a “Starman” into space today, on a path to a potential wide looping orbit of Mars and Earth — it was actually a mannequin wearing an official SpaceX crew flight suit, but it was more than just a fun payload for a rocket that stood every chance of exploding mid-flight, it turns out.

Elon Musk revealed on a press call following the Falcon Heavy launch on Tuesday that the mannequin was wearing an actual production SpaceX crew spacesuit, rather than a non-functional prototype or mock-up. The suit, which the SpaceX CEO revealed last year via Instagram, will eventually clothe SpaceX astronauts flying on board Crew Dragon, the capsule it’s developing to bring real people to space, with a target initial launch date of later this year if all goes to plan.

The suit, developed in-house by SpaceX, features a sleeker design than most spacefaring flight suits you’ll find. It’s a design that came with a price, however: Musk said that combining style and function was a particular challenge in a spacesuit.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacexs-spacesuited-starman-mannequin-serves-a-real-purpose/




Damn straight! But my favorite thing about this – of course someone put up a used “Space X Test Rocket” on Craigslist. And it can be yours for the low, low price of $9 million! Hey I’ve got that hiding underneath my mattress, sure!

In the market for a "gently used" SpaceX orbital rocket?

Perhaps looking for a new lawn ornament? A real conversation starter? Planning ahead for Christmas?

Oh boy, do I have the deal for you ...

Someone has listed a gently used orbital launch vehicle for sale on Craigslist for $9.9 million, "or best offer." Good news, the "seller" accepts cryptocurrency, so you finally have an excuse to use those Bitcoin profits.

And this sucker is a beaut. It's fully loaded! "Take off and land anywhere!" Who needs Happy Honda Days or Toyotathon when you can start your morning commute with 9X Merlin engines! And you all thought self-driving cars were the futures ... SMH.
https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/05/gently-used-spacex-rocket-sale-craigslist-bring-your-own-tug-boat/306936002/




Ah gotta love that movie! So where do we go from there? What’s the next target for SpaceX? Maybe fixing Donald Trump’s hair? Hey o!!! Well considering that each launch is ridiculously expensive it could take a few years before the next one.


A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from historic launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., February 6, 2018.
SpaceX launches Heavy Falcon rocket
19 Hours Ago | 02:06

The successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket had the entire space industry watching on Tuesday, and the Department of Defense was chief among those following the test flight, a former official told CNBC.

"This opens up a whole new set of capabilities for the Defense Department, and Washington, to be able to put up even more capable satellites and do it at a fraction of the cost of today," John Young said.

Young was the Pentagon's Under Secretary of Defense for acquisition tech and logistics and is now a SpaceX advisory board member and consultant. His role for more than two years in Washington was to be the person "in charge of all Pentagon buying," he said.

After seven years and half a billion dollars in development, Falcon Heavy's maiden flight had SpaceX CEO Elon Musk saying he wants "a new space race" from both corporations and governments alike. Falcon Heavy "can launch things direct to Pluto and beyond," Musk said, and each launch starts at $90 million.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/spacex-falcon-heavy-brings-new-capabilities-for-the-defense-department.html





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[font size="8"]Arthur Jones
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“Illinois Nazis. I hate Illinois Nazis.” – Jake Blues

Well, where are the Blues Brothers when you need them? Because we’re going to introduce you to an actual Illinois Nazi. And when you guess what party he’s affiliated with, the answer will shock you. Or maybe not if you have been following this program for any length of time. This guy is a real gem too, and not only does he look like a bad rendering of Mr. Magoo, his ugliness will leave a bad taste in your mouth, because… whew.

Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.

“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Indeed, Jones’ website for his latest congressional run includes a section titled “The ‘Holocaust Racket’” where he calls the genocide carried out by the German Nazi regime and collaborators in other nations “the biggest blackest lie in history.”

Jones, 70, a retired insurance agent who lives in suburban Lyons, has unsuccessfully run for elected offices in the Chicago area and Milwaukee since the 1970s.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/holocaust-denier-arthur-jones-republican-3rd-congressional-district-lipinski-newman/




Yeah sorry Jake, but this guy is definitely *NOT* on a mission from god. I’d say he’s more on a mission from Satan. He’s already got the Nazi trifecta – holocaust denier, white supremacist, and an activist anti-Semite. Can he go for the superfecta?

“Well, first of all, I’m running fo Congress not the chancellor of Germany,” Mr Jones said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,”

He went on to describe how he led the American Nazi Party and is currently head of the America First Committee. “Membership in this organisation is open to any white American citizen of European, non-Jewish descent,” he added.

Mr Jones had seven failed runs for the Republican 3rd Congressional District primary, but this time is running unopposed.

“The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones,” the Illinois Republican Party chair, Tim Schneider, said in a statement. ”We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/arthur-jones-holocaust-denier-republican-nominee-congress-illinois-american-nazi-party-racist-anti-a8195421.html




Ding ding ding!!! We have the Superfecta! He said “America First”! Bravo, take a bow! And Mr. Schneider, before you go and condemn this guy, you should be aware that he’s currently running unopposed. Which makes him the perfect GOP target.

A former leader in the American Nazi Party is about to be the only Republican on the ticket for a congressional race in Illinois.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier who has repeatedly tried ― and failed ― to attain office, is the only candidate seeking the GOP nod for the seat in the heavily Democratic 3rd Congressional District.

Images on Jones’ campaign website showed him speaking at KKK and neo-Nazi events, giving the Nazi salute and shredding the flag of Israel. He called the Confederate flag the symbol of “white pride,” “white resistance” and “white counterrevolution.” Jones also told the Sun-Times that the Holocaust was “an international extortion racket.”

Party leaders have disowned Jones.

“The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones,” Tim Schneider, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, told the Sun-Times. “We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/arthur-jones-republican-nomination_us_5a77d3f6e4b0905433b5bd84




Oh and in case you’re wondering what a gem this guy is, there’s more! So much more! In fact in the above article, he’s apparently amused that he has detractors. I mean this guy really is a fucking Nazi!

Jones mocked the party’s attempts to stop him.

“Well, it’s absolutely the best opportunity in my entire political career,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “Every time I’ve run it’s been against a Republican who follows this politically correct nonsense. This time they screwed up.”




Yeah because that’s how good Nazis operate! They blame those for causing their own failures! And of course he’d attack the “politically correct” crowd! Those damn snowflakes! If this is too much for you, go back to your safe spaces! And that’s not all! Wait until you see who else he’s attacked!

And in his most recent blog post — dated Aug. 24 — Jones rails against “Radical Leftists” and blames them for starting racial violence that had roiled Charlottesville about two weeks earlier. Heather Heyer, 32, a protester at a white supremacist rally, died after a driver rammed a car into a crowd of demonstrators. A self-professed neo-Nazi has been charged with first-degree murder in the incident. Jones painted the death as an accident.

Despite his views, Jones is all but certain to become the GOP nominee in one of Illinois’s most prominent congressional districts — one that includes parts of Chicago and several suburbs to the west and southwest. Jones is running unopposed in the Republican primary; the deadline for candidates to file was in early December.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/02/04/holocaust-denier-running-for-congress-has-no-opponents-in-republican-primary/?utm_term=.83e0fc007773





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[font size="8"]Paul Ryan
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Raises. That thing you used to get for doing a good job. Of course, now these days with the greediest men alive, the Koch Brothers, determining our economic destiny, you will most likely never get another one as long as you live. Sad reality. Deal with it. And who definitely won’t be getting raises? Teachers. Secretaries. Assistants. Just ask Speaker Of The House, and White Goodman’s doppleganger, Paul Ryan. So while most people are enjoying their $1.50 tax breaks, the billionaires are enjoying their $1,500,000 tax breaks. Here’s more:

Never mind all the Democrats who call the GOP’s tax bill a deficit-busting giveaway to the rich; House Speaker Paul D. Ryan has been enthusiastically promoting it as a middle-class tax windfall.

He’s been coaching other Republican lawmakers to sell the $1.5 trillion tax cut to voters, and telling people on Twitter to check their paychecks for wage hikes. The bill — which was deeply unpopular when it passed along party lines in December — is now breaking even in a new opinion poll.

So Saturday morning, by way of good news, Ryan’s Twitter account shared a story about a secretary taking home a cool $6 a month in tax savings.

Here is the passage in the Associated Press:

Julia Ketchum, a secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week. She didn’t think her pay would go up at all, let alone this soon. That adds up to $78 a year, which she said will more than cover her Costco membership for the year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/02/03/paul-ryan-celebrated-the-tax-cut-with-a-tweet-about-a-secretary-saving-1-50-a-week/?utm_term=.757272e8a383




Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Good job, dumbass! Way to hit the nail on the head on income inequality guys! Because most people want their Costco memberships covered by $1.50 a week! Meanwhile the people who are actually benefitting from the $780,000 they’ll save in tax breaks will never set foot in a fucking Costco! Thank you! But some good news is that the good people of Twitter won’t let him get away with it!

@paulkrugman, New York Times opinion columnist, tweeting his thoughts on Paul Ryan’s tweet about the GOP tax cuts. On Saturday, Ryan tweeted and then deleted this: “A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week … she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year.” The tweet was derided as out of touch. “How many $1.50’s does it take to add up to the $500,000 payoff you got from the Koch Brothers days after passing the tax scam?” @Amy_Siskind asked.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2018/02/04/trending-paul-ryan-gets-roasted-over-deleted-tweet-bekah-from-the-bachelor-is-not-missing/?utm_term=.0f011d752fea




Yes Paul, you suck! And here is my favorite part of all of this – that tweet has actually given a favorable boost to his challenger in November! Here’s more.

RACINE, WI — An opponent of Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin's First Congressional District says he's made some big-time campaign cash following a tweet by Ryan touting small-time wage gains.

At issue is a tweet that Ryan posted earlier this month. "A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week ... she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year," Ryan posted on his Twitter account.

Supporters of the GOP tax bill say that Ryan's tweet was about touting small-time wage gains as a way to show that the bill stood to benefit the poor as well as the rich. In contrast, however, critics pointed fingers at Ryan, suggesting that he is out of touch with working people.
https://patch.com/wisconsin/mountpleasant/paul-ryans-1-50-tweet-pays-big-dividend-opponent




Wow, even Captain Picard thinks you suck, Ryan! But thankfully our opposition won’t let shit like this slide, because Paul Ryan deserves to get a lot of crap for this. I mean they basically gave a blank check to the billionaires and it’s already reaping the benefits while screwing everybody else.

Democrats slammed House Speaker Paul Ryan on Saturday after the speaker deleted a tweet touting how the new tax law increased one woman's take-home pay $1.50 a week, enough to pay for her Costco membership.

"A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week ... she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year," a tweet from Ryan's campaign account read, before it was deleted.

It's unclear why Ryan (R-Wis.) decided to delete the tweet, which included a link to an Associated Press report that includes an anecdote about Julia Ketchum, the secretary in question.

Democrats and liberals on Twitter immediately bashed the message.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/03/paul-ryan-deleted-tweet-tax-democrats-389082




Did I mention Paul Ryan sucks?


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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates
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Ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely excited to debut our new segment here, and I hope it goes well! Let’s hit it!



Welcome to Top 10 Investigates. In 2017 we saw the rise of white supremacism and neo Nazism on American soil for the first time since World War II. Which ultimately cultivated in the events of last August in Charlottesville, North Carolina. While the rest of the world, and those of us with brains, were horrified at the events that took place, naturally we haven’t seen the end of it. In fact it’s only going to get worse. Taking their cues from the 1999 film “Fight Club”, the Alt Right has started forming their own version of underground fighting. Only they haven’t read the book or seen the movie, apparently.

Anastasia Yankova, a Russian model-turned-mixed martial artist who has appeared in a Nike commercial, was a month away from her professional debut when she took to Instagram to post a cartoon of Adolph Hitler. In the image, Hitler is seated on a window ledge, looking down with weepy-eyes on a dreary, overcast sky. “Matches my mood,” Yankova wrote.

“Aryan sadness?” asked a commenter.

“Only the weather and the restriction of carbohydrates,” she responded with a purple devil emoji later that day, September 2, 2013.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/the-terrifying-rise-of-alt-right-fight-clubs/




Yes, nein. So much nein that it’s practically a 10. Because nothing says you’re depressed like a sad Hitler, and it all comes back to Hitler and Russia like so many of the events of the last year. So to get their aggressions out, there has been an even sinister version of the fighting genre of mixed martial arts have begun to appear.

Mixed martial arts has a long and sordid relationship with white supremacists. But neo-Nazi-affiliated MMA outfits, like White Rex, a Russian clothing company and former fight promotion that helped launch Yankova’s career, have typically been confined to eastern Europe and Russia, where they have, well, something of a stranglehold over the far-right fringes of the sport. But now, inspired in part by emerging international talents like Yankova, groups in America, including Rise Above Movement in southern California, have helped popularize a particularly violent version of combat-ready racism, offering an example of how to advance white nationalism with perfectly executed strikes and takedowns, which have already been used with vicious effect in street battles in California and beyond.




Yes, Yankova is a member of a fight club. Only in the movie, the first rule of Fight Club is that you’re not supposed to talk about Fight Club. And you’re definitely not supposed to talk about a Neo Nazi Fight Club.

White Rex’s events have featured guests with serious criminal backgrounds, including Erich Priebke, a convicted war criminal and former SS Hauptsturmführer—a Nazi Party paramilitary rank—and the convicted criminal “Tesak,” from the neo-Nazi group Format 18. (Tesak can also be seen wearing a White Rex shirt in a video he filmed of himself attacking a gay man in 2013. “I want to kill,” he said, “but I’m not allowed.”) In 2014, White Rex-linked fighters allegedly even brought their fighting skills to a far more militant cause in Wales—to train British white nationalists in underground combat training camps. Anton Shekhovtsov, an extremism researcher who recently published the book, Russia and the Western Far Right, wrote at the time: “British anti-terror police and the Home Office may want to keep a close watch on White Rex.”




If only, Smoochy. If only. Of course if Death To Smoochy had been made in 2018, Smoochy would find some good friends in that crowd of Nazis. And nothing says “sell out crowd” like inviting a former Nazi war criminal to speak. They even attracted corporate sponsors – something that goes against Brad Pitt’s teachings in Fight Club.

In the years since the Birth of a Nation fight, Yankova has risen in the ranks of MMA and extended her reach around the world. She has been featured in the Russian edition of Vogue magazine. A Telegraph article from April crowned her as “the new face of women’s MMA” and claimed that she “has a deal with Nike.” In February of last year, she appeared in a Nike Russia commercial called “Made Of,” which highlights top female Russian athletes. Now, with a professional record of 5-0, Yankova fights in the American promotion Bellator, a league that increasingly competes with the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), which rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars per year and was—in what remains the largest sports transaction in history—sold in 2016 for $4 billion.

According to Nike spokesman Matthew Kneller, the company learned of Anastasia Yankova’s ties to White Rex shortly after Nike Russia aired the commercial that featured her last spring. “We immediately ceased working with Anastasia once this was brought to our attention. We haven’t worked with her since, nor do we have any plans to in the future,” says Kneller. He clarified that Yankova was never a “sponsored” athlete, as has previously been reported. When asked if Nike paid Yankova for her participation in the commercial, Kneller declined to comment.




Yes, we are all part of god’s compost heap. And that’s breaking the second rule of Fight Club, again, that you’re not supposed to talk about it. But that has inspired the Alt Right to take up “bloodsports” – their newest recruiting tool. Here’s more:

Over the past month, prominent alt-right personalities on YouTube have carved out platforms for themselves on a handful of popular livestreamed political debate channels, where they’ve engaged in debates against “classical liberal,” libertarian and “anti-social justice warrior” YouTube talkers.

The series of debates, which have been affectionately dubbed “bloodsports” by their participants, have provided the white nationalist alt-right with its latest chance to thrust itself into the political consciousness of young people and to appeal to members of some of the subcultures that have splintered from the movement in recent months.

The “bloodsports” phenomenon grew out of a fight about “race realism,” which is how some white supremacists refer to their pseudoscientific claims about racial superiority. A private group on the chat service Discord had been debunking “race realism” claims using scientific arguments. After the group was exposed to the public, its critics alleged that it had become a doxing operation that had distributed the personal information of various white nationalist YouTube personalities and targeted them for harassment. This was enough to get various factions of YouTube political personalities publicly feuding among themselves.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/welcome-to-youtube-bloodsports-the-alt-rights-newest-recruiting-tool/




Which sounds harmless until… you see the hardcore racism starting to pile on:

When the feuding between various pundits reached critical mass, alt-right figures who promote “race realism” and white nationalist advocates for the creation of ethnostates offered themselves up for debates with YouTube personalities who have channels much larger than their own. Taking advantage of the attention that the feud was providing, alt-right figures were able to secure spots on YouTube channels that boast hundreds of thousands of followers and to go up against some of YouTube’s biggest political commentators, such as Carl Benjamin (“Sargon of Akkad”), who were eager to inject themselves into the public hype.




Now really, would you put your trust in a guy who hosts a show called “Race War Live”?



Yeah that’s the kind of sick people we are dealing with here. But in case you’re wondering how our president factors into this, take a look at this alarming statistic that recently surfaced:

White supremacist groups have stepped up their recruiting on college campuses over the past two years with a sharp increase in their presence and activism in the past year, a period that perfectly overlaps with the political presence and prominence of President Donald Trump, according to a new study released this week by the Anti-Defamation League.

Calling the spike in hate group behavior “alarming,” the ADL tallied a three-fold increase in propaganda efforts by a variety of hate groups and white nationalist organizations on hundreds of campuses nationwide. “White supremacists, particularly alt right groups, have been actively targeting U.S. college campuses since January 2016,” the report states. “The practice failed to get any real traction until the fall semester of 2016. Since then, propaganda efforts have increased dramatically.”

The ADL recorded 346 incidents of white supremacist materials — fliers, stickers, banners, posters — littering college and university campuses since September 1, 2016. “These campaigns targeted 216 college campuses, from Ivy League schools to local community colleges, in 44 states and the District of Columbia,” the report said.
https://thinkprogress.org/white-supremacist-groups-rise-college-campuses-080c6a5c35d9/




So there you have it. You elect a violent, hateful president, you’re going to encourage the youth of this country to be hateful and violent. That’s it for Top 10 Investigates. See you next time!




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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Yes my fair brothers and sisters! It’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate! For the Holy Church Of The Top 10 has convened and it’s time to tell you why the most devoted followers of JAYSUS are also the most full of:



Because it’s our duty to find out why the most devout followers of JAYSUS, our god, creator of all that is good and holy, are also the most batshit fucking crazy. Can I get an amen???? So over the weekend while you were watching thine Eagles devour thine Patriots, our brother Pat almost met God. Though I think when he got there, even god took a look and said “What the fuck are you doing here?”.

Televangelist Pat Robertson is recovering after suffering an embolic stroke.

In an online news release, The Christian Broadcasting Network, which Robertson founded, says he was rushed to the nearest stroke center Friday after a family member recognized the onset of symptoms.

The release says that within minutes of receiving clot-busting drugs, Robertson was awake, responsive and able to move all his limbs.

The Virginia-based network says 87-year-old Robertson is alert and expected to make a full recovery.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pat-robertson-is-recovering-after-suffering-a-stroke/ar-BBIEUKh




Yes, brother Pat, for Jesus came and you were saved! Or maybe he saw you were coming and they were like “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”. But there are signs of GAWD everywhere! Like in Minnesota where the holiest of games was held over the weekend. So anyone remember Michelle Bachmann? She was looking for a sign from OUR GOD that she should run for Senate. And you know what message the lord layeth down?

Earlier this year, former Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann revealed that she was inquiring of the Lord whether she should run for the seat in the Senate that had been vacated by Sen. Al Franken.

Over the weekend, Bachmannn told End Times radio host Jan Markell that after much prayer, she has decided that God does not, in fact, want her to make a bid for this seat.

“I’m not going to run for that office,” she said. “I had a lot of people contacting me, wanting to give me money and be a part of my team to run for a campaign … But what I did is I did what I have done on every other time I thought about running: I took it to the Lord in a very quiet way, I took it before the Lord, I prayed, I tried to have my ears open and hear what God was saying to me.”

“I considered it for quite a long time,” Bachmann continued. “From the very first day when Al Franken had announced his resignation from the U.S. Senate, I went before the Lord and it became very clear to me that I wasn’t hearing any call from God to do this.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/michele-bachmann-has-decided-that-god-does-not-want-her-to-run-for-the-senate/




And god sayeth “NO”!!! For let this be a lesson to all of you sinners out there that in the good book, the good Lord judgeth not lest ye be judged. For he is the creator of all that is good and holy, can I get an amen??? And who needs a doctor, I ask my fair congregation??? Who needs thy doctor to tell you that you are sick and you need to healed? What kind of GAWD would allow that?? I answer you with this:

Back in 2013, the Texas megachurch run by televangelist Kenneth Copeland, a member of President Trump’s faith advisory council who recently became the proud owner of a Jesus-provided private plane, was at the center of a measles outbreak that was attributed to the church’s belief that congregants can forego vaccines because Jesus will protect them from illness.

You’d think that given past experience, Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church might have learned a lesson, but you’d be wrong, as yesterday a video was posted on the ministry’s Facebook page featuring Copeland’s wife, Gloria, telling people that there is no such thing as flu season and that they don’t need to get a flu shot because “Jesus himself gave us the flu shot.”

“Listen, partners, we don’t have a flu season,” Gloria Copeland said. “And don’t receive it when somebody threatens you with, ‘Everybody is getting the flu.’ We’ve already had our shot, He bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases. That’s what we stand on.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gloria-copeland-no-need-for-flu-shots-because-jesus-himself-gave-us-the-flu-shot/




For Jesus sayeth I AM SICK AND YOU SHALL HEAL ME!!! And how great is our gospel choir? Give it up for them! And speaking of signs from god, there is a sign that Satan exists!! False prophets are one of the most egregious of SINS in our religion, and SINS MUST BE CLEANSED IN THE NAME OF JAYSUS, creator of all that is good and holy! Can I get an amen???

V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, a man who claims to have invented email and is seeking to unseat Elizabeth Warren from her Massachusetts Senate seat in 2018, met with alt-right activist and neo-Nazi cosplayer Matt Colligan at a Massachusetts diner, where he blessed a statue of “Kek,” the Pepe-the-Frog-inspired deity at the center of a satirical 4chan religious institution.

Ayyadurai appeared with Colligan in a live video broadcast yesterday, during which Colligan presented him with a small ceramic figure of 4Chan’s frog deity “Kek.” Ayyadurai described Colligan, who was photographed at the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally where a liberal counter-protester was murdered, as “one of our great supporters” and a “phenomenal video editor.” After exchanging greetings, Colligan presented Ayyadurai with “the statue of ‘Kek’ and Pepe the Frog,” a reference to the cartoon amphibian that alt-right activists co-opted during the 2016 general election.

Colligan told Ayyadurai that he needed to bless the statue of Kek. Ayyadurai obliged.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/massachusetts-senate-candidate-meets-alt-right-troll-and-blesses-kek/




Yes even JAYSUS!!! Believes that Trump don’t pray. By the way, Trump Don’t Pray is the name of our new Christian rock album which you can buy in the lobby for the low low price of $10.99! Featuring our amazing Top 10 Gospel Choir! But apparently if there is a GAWD, that demons walk among us if we don’t praise Trump who according to them is the creator of all that is good and holy! Wait, no, that’s our GAWD!!!

On his radio program last Friday, right-wing pastor Carl Gallups declared that President Trump’s State of the Union address just may have been the greatest one in history and asserted that the Democratic response to his speech exposed that the party is “demonic.”

Gallups, a fringe conspiracy theorist who spoke at Trump campaign rallies during the 2016 election and who served as a “special deputy” on disgraced sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse” investigation into Obama’s birth certificate, said that Trump’s speech was “epic” and “mesmerizing” and “genius” and “Reagan on steroids” and that those who watched it were to treated to seeing “history being made.”

“I’ve never experienced a State of the Union address like that in my lifetime,” Gallups said, “and there are historians saying that it may be one of the very best ever.”

“There is so much supernatural on this man,” he added. “I mean, God has His hand on this man … From his very election to where we are now—and everything that has happened in between—God has His hand on this man.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/carl-gallups-democrats-response-to-trumps-sotu-shows-that-they-are-demonic-america-haters/




Well there you have it – demons do walk among us!!!! And that is the only sign from GAWD that you need! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]Advertising Fails
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Advertising. That thing you go out of your way to avoid, and the advertisers don’t know or care that you don’t want to hear them. No, we don’t have a love – hate relationship with advertising. Most of us have a hate-hate relationship with advertising. Unless I can get some sponsors for my show, then I will love you! So why am I talking about advertising? Well the holy mecca of advertising was this Sunday – of course the Super Bowl . And then there was the Dodge RAM. Now before you boo or hiss, let’s play the commercial first and explain later.



OK now you can boo! Yeah let’s take it in for a minute. Now let’s go over the criticism for the commercial in question.

The online blowback was swift for Ram on Sunday after the carmaker used a sermon given by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the voice-over for a Super Bowl ad.

The general sentiment: Did the company really just use Dr. King’s words about the value of service to sell trucks?

The commercial showed scenes of people helping others while Dr. King extolled the virtues of service. At the end, the phrase “Built to Serve” was shown on the screen, along with the Ram logo.

“MLK wanted equal rights and for me to buy a Dodge Ram,” one Twitter user wrote. Another wrote: “Black people cant kneel and play football but MLK should be used to sell trucks during the super bowl. Unbelievable.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/business/media/mlk-commercial-ram-dodge.html




I have a dream! A dream that one day we will all be able to buy Dodge RAM pickup trucks for low APR financing and great monthly rates! See? See that Top 10 audience? See that only proves my theory that advertising ruins everything! Thank you! Want further proof? Go to any college football stadium. My team – the UCLA Bruins – has signs everywhere saying “no gambling”. Go inside, and there’s ads for Draft Kings everywhere. So I’m getting mixed signals there. Moving on and switching subjects here, this next one asks “who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?”. Ladies, how do you like your Doritos?

Food companies are always attempting to innovate and update their snacks, creating ever-weirder Frankenstein products (remember Burger King’s “Whoperrito?) and introducing novelty flavors (hello, “firework” Oreos). And then there are the products catering directly to specific consumer segments. Today’s example: new chips from Doritos meant just for ladies.

In an interview with Freakonomics, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi commented on the ways that consumer insights about gender differences are driving product development in the world of Doritos. Women, Nooyi suggested, “don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth.”

The company’s answer? The brand has been working on developing chips that are “low-crunch” with the same “taste profile,” but with less of the flavor sticking to fingers. “And how can you put it in a purse?” Nooyi mused; apparently the current chip bags aren’t cutting it for the handbag wielders of the world. “Because,” she said, “women love to carry a snack in their purse.”

“It’s not a male and female as much as ‘are there snacks for women that can be designed and packaged differently?’” Nooyi further explained. They won’t be the first to have tried it; there were those BIC pens for women, too. Doritos is preparing to launch its line of tailored-to-purse-carrying chips shortly. And the internet had feelings about this particular gendered innovation.
http://time.com/5133674/lady-doritos/




Yes, thank you nice lady! It is only sexist when men do it! So I’ve been wrong this whole time! I’m just kidding! JKI So the idea of Lady Doritos isn’t exactly catching on. I mean really? Is this where we’re at in 2018? We’re deciding that women eat chips differently than men? Did the CEO of PepsiCo watch too many 1950s newsreels?

Update at 2:30 p.m. ET on Feb. 6: After coverage of Doritos designed for women spread, the company told AdAge it is not working on a "specific Doritos product for female consumers" and said that "needs and preferences continue to evolve and we're always looking for new ways to engage and delight our consumers."

Indra Nooyi, the CEO of global giant PepsiCo, says her company is trying to solve women's "least favorite things" about Doritos by developing a version of the snack designed specifically for women.

In a recent interview with WNYC's Freakonomics, Nooyi discussed the different ways that men and women eat chips. Men "lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth, because they don't want to lose that taste of the flavor, and the broken chips in the bottom," Nooyi said.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/05/583399141/doritos-for-her




Now to play devil’s advocate for a minute, is it really that absurd that there’s this much backlash to a relatively simple product? Some say “maybe”.

The New York Post reported on Monday that PepsiCo is working on a new “lady-friendly” version of Doritos. The company’s market research has apparently revealed that women prefer not to crunch loudly and lick Dorito dust off their fingers in public, and they generally decline to upend the near-empty bag of chips and dump the flavor crumbs into their mouths. They also like to be able to carry their snacks in their purses. In response, PepsiCo is developing a snack chip that will be less crunchy and messy to eat.

The Post’s article felt as perfectly engineered to troll as a triangular Dorito chip is engineered to please. The objections to “Lady Doritos,” as the internet quickly dubbed them, were many and obvious. Women already enjoy regular Doritos! The very notion of chips “for her” is condescending and absurd! Less-crunchy chips are by definition inferior! The new Doritos are unlikely to solve the problem of pay inequality!

As a woman who loves Doritos, the backlash surprised me. I do want a single serving of chips that I can throw in my purse without worrying it will get crushed. I enjoy the intense flavor of Dorito dust as any other nacho-cheese-blooded American, but Nooyi is right that I don’t love licking it off my fingers in public. Admittedly, the low-crunch idea seems confusing but I fully trust America’s best snack designers to make it appealing in ways I don’t yet understand.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/02/the-backlash-to-lady-doritos-is-absurd.html




But apparently the backlash caused PepsiCo to cancel the planned launch of Lady Doritos:

NEW YORK — Don't expect to see "lady Doritos" on store shelves anytime this century. PepsiCo (PEP), the company behind the cheesy chips, denied on Tuesday that it was developing a line of Doritos designed specifically for women, after widespread online speculation that it was.
Are "lady Doritos" real?

The phrase "lady Doritos" trended on social media after PepsiCo's longtime CEO, Indra Nooyi, said on a podcast that unlike men, women don't like to lick their fingers after eating a bag of Doritos.

"Women would love to do the same, but they don't," Nooyi said in an interview on the Freakonomics podcast. "They don't like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don't lick their fingers generously and they don't like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lady-doritos-not-happening-pepsico-says/





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[font size="8"] The Cleveland Indians
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It’s time to play a game of “Is It Racist”? This week – we’re going to talk some baseball. Specifically The Cleveland Indians logo. Is it racist? Well we’re going to show you, then you can draw your own conclusions. The Cleveland Indians logo – Chief Wahoo – has been around since practically the team itself. So is the Chief Wahoo logo really that offensive? I mean well, probably. So here’s what is happening in Cleveland.


The Cleveland Indians will stop using the Chief Wahoo logo on their uniforms beginning in 2019, according to Major League Baseball, which said the popular symbol was no longer appropriate for use on the field.

The logo has long been the source of anguish and frustration for those who consider it offensive, outdated and racist, but for many of the team’s fans it is a cherished insignia — a divide that has played out at all levels of sports in recent years with teams featuring such nicknames and insignias. Most universities have stopped using Native American nicknames, while other teams, like the Washington Redskins in the N.F.L., have resisted growing pressure to do so.

Chief Wahoo, a cartoonish caricature of a Native American that has assumed several forms over the years, first appeared on the Indians’ uniforms in 1948. In recent decades various groups across North America have appealed to the team to renounce the logo, to no avail. But over the past year the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, has pressured Paul Dolan, Cleveland’s chairman and chief executive, to make a change.

Citing a goal of diversity and inclusion, Manfred said in a statement provided to The New York Times that the Indians organization “ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. Dolan’s acknowledgment that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/sports/baseball/cleveland-indians-chief-wahoo-logo.html




That is a pretty good point. So the question remains – is the Cleveland Indians logo racist? Yeah the trend is diversity and inclusion, which we’re all about here at the Top 10. Unlike what the Alt Right thinks, diversity is what really makes America great! So let’s delve into the history of Chief Wahoo for a bit.

In 1932, the front page of the Plain Dealer featured a cartoon by Fred George Reinert that used a caricatured Native American character with a definite resemblance to the later Chief Wahoo as a stand-in for the Cleveland Indians winning an important victory. The character came to be called "The Little Indian," eventually becoming a fixture in the paper's coverage of the team, including a small front-page visual box where his head would peek out to announce the outcome of the latest game. Journalist George Condon would write in 1972, "When the baseball club decided to adopt an Indian caricature as its official symbol, it hired an artist to draw a little guy who came very close to Reinert's creation; a blood brother, unquestionably."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Wahoo




Yeah sounds about right. So yeah it came out of a cartoon drawn in the 1930s. And considering how racist America actually was during that time, that might be considered to be a little racist. Now you might be asking yourself “it’s all well and good but what do actual Indians think?” Well I answer you with this:

BONIFAY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - One local Muskogee Creek Indian and store owner is speaking out after the Cleveland Indians announced last week they'd be removing Chief Wahoo from their baseball uniforms come next year.

Major League Baseball said the logo is no longer appropriate to use in the sport after years of protest from some Native American groups who said it was "offensive" and "racist."

Beth Gates, the owner of Two Feathers Trading Post in Bonifay, said while she's not a fan of the logo she believes they should leave it alone.

"Originally, I think the owners of those teams gave that name to honor the warrior spirit. Long ago about every nation had ball games of some kind and they would settle disputes," she explained.

Gates said she doesn't think changing the uniforms and helmets is a beneficial move.
http://www.wjhg.com/content/news/Local-Muskogee-Creek-Indian-reacts-to-Cleveland-Indians-logo-change-472809283.html




Well that is a good point. But whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? So an actual Native American doesn’t think the Indians should remove the Chief Wahoo logo? What? Dude, this controversy just gets weirder and weirder! So they don’t think it should be removed. But what about historians? What do they think? Let’s ask one and find out!

Since 1948, the Cleveland Indians’ uniforms have been adorned with the team’s official logo: a cartoonish, grinning Native American man known to fans as “Chief Wahoo.” On Monday, however, Major League Baseball announced that the team would be retiring the logo, finally heeding the demands of protestors who have decried Chief Wahoo as racist and offensive to Native Americans.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement that the popular symbol will be removed from team uniforms by 2019—the same year that Cleveland will host the All Star Game. Chief Wahoo will also no longer be seen on banners and signs at Progressive Field, the Indians’ stadium.

In the statement, Manfred noted that Paul Dolan, Cleveland’s chairman and chief executive, expressed concerns that doing away with the logo would upset fans “who have a longstanding attachment to the logo and its place in the history of the team.” But he went on to say that “the club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball.”

Paul Chaat Smith, an associate curator at the National Museum of the American Indian (and a self-professed baseball fan), is unambiguous in his thoughts about Chief Wahoo. “It’s an outrageous, racist caricature,” he tells Smithsonian.com. “And what’s worse is that in the city of Cleveland in Northern Ohio, it’s really the only visible representation you see of Native Americans ... That’s where it becomes this very insidious phenomenon that puts Indians completely in the past as a caricature.”

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/smithsonian-curator-weighs-cleveland-indians-decision-retire-racist-logo-180968001/#rG4vU5AWFTv2O4Hp.99




OK that might be a little racist. But there’s got to be something – something that indicates why the Indians are getting rid of Chief Wahoo, and that reason might be why the Indians are removing it. If it’s not racism, then what is it?

he Cleveland Indians' decision, with a strong push from Major League Baseball, to remove Chief Wahoo from their uniforms after the 2018 season brought heated reactions from both sides of a decades-long debate over a logo that's been criticized as racist because of its depiction of a red-faced, wide-grinned Native American.

Indians fans who, in the words of owner Paul Dolan, "have a longstanding attachment to Chief Wahoo" were upset at a move that was announced Monday, Jan. 29. They took to social media and online comment sections to threaten to cancel their season tickets, though it's unlikely that anger will result in meaningful gate losses for the Tribe.

And plenty of the Chief Wahoo opponents — of which there are many, especially nationally — said the Indians' move wasn't enough, because the club isn't doing away with the logo until 2019 and can still profit from the sales of Wahoo gear.

While the insignia has been associated with Cleveland's baseball team for more than seven decades, the attachment is significantly more emotional than it is a booming business for the big-league club.
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20180204/news/150791/chief-wahoo-logo-isnt-primary-revenue-producer-indians






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[font size="8"]I Need A Drink
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It’s now time for a new installment of:



And man do I need a drink this week! I mean come on, Trump released the memo you guys! And it’s turned out to be… a spectacular fail. So tell me, bartender, what’s a good drink to enjoy with an emotional support peacock? A Mai Tai? Sure, that sounds good! I’ll have one! Don’t skimp on the vodka please! Look people, I know traveling can be stressful. But that’s only if you let it. I mean come on if traveling wigs you out, take it like a man. Pound a few beers at the airport bar and then pass out watching a Z grade in flight movie on the monitors in front of you! So this latest round of crazy shit happening on airplanes has spawned an interesting debate – what counts as an “emotional support animal”? Let’s explain further:

There are no restrictions on the kinds of animals that you can describe as emotional support animals. But now, United Airlines has joined Delta in restricting people from taking any old pet on planes under that classification.

This review comes on the tail of a recent, bizarre controversy where an artist tried to bring her “emotional support peacock” on board a United flight, and the airline denied her.

The peacock was apparently the last straw, but the new rules have been under consideration for a long time. In 2017, passengers flying United Airlines declared 76,000 animals as “emotional support animals,” up from 43,000 in 2016, a United spokesperson told USA Today.

Previously, United only required 48 hours advance notice and a note from a medical professional stating that the animal has to accompany their owner. Now, passengers have to provide more documents, including a statement from a vet saying that the animal is trained to behave in public settings and is healthy.

The new rules will come into effect on March 1, 2018, on the same day that Delta will start enforcing similar rules. That airline also experienced a surge in people bringing animals on board and claiming them as service animals. Perhaps most famously, in 2000, US Airways kicked an “emotional support pig” off a flight because it was 300 pounds and defecating on the plane.
http://www.newsweek.com/united-airlines-reviews-emotional-support-animal-policy-after-peacock-denied-798416




Yes WTF LOL indeed. I mean a peacock seriously? And how would you like to be the passenger sitting next to whoever has the peacock? If I’m flying coach the last thing I want to be subjected to is a tray full of bird crap. And I’m not counting the food being served. Hey o! Thank you I’m here all week, don’t forget to tip your waitress! So this has spawned an interesting debate – what counts as an emotional support animal?

First, it's important to note that registered service animals have more legal rights—and public social support—than emotional support animals at this time.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a service animal is, legally, a dog "trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities."

Guiding people who are blind, alerting people who or deaf, protecting someone with a seizure, or calming someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are examples of the services registered service dogs might provide. And in the U.S., service dogs are legally allowed to go anywhere their owners go.

<snip>

The latter requires housing providers to make "reasonable accommodations" for emotional support animals, and pet owners are not required to provide an exhaustive medical record. This includes anything from public housing to university dorms.

Under the Air Carrier Access Act, airlines must allow passengers to carry emotional support animals on a plane with no extra fee. To qualify, passengers must produce a letter from a licensed therapist or physician. But it's a rule that many people, such as the popular travel blog Live and Let Fly, now say is being abused by some pet owners trying to avoid paying boarding costs.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/woman-brings-peacock-plane-emotional-support-animal-explained-spd/




So let’s get this straight – airlines must allow passengers to carry emotional support animals. Now let’s make one thing clear – I get a dog or a cat. I’m fine with that. Airlines are even fine with that. But a peacock? Not an emotional support animal. A pig? A frog? A squirrel? Stop it. Madness. What? We’ve got our own emotional support animal right here! Where’s Trumpy at?



Yay Trumpy, our emotional support parrot is back! How about a round of applause right? So now at least the good thing is that airlines are cracking down on this nonsense:

If you were planning to bring a hedgehog on to a flight as a form of emotional support, you might have to think again.

Hedgehogs have been included on a banned list - as airlines get tougher over soaring demands from anxious passengers wanting to travel with "emotional support animals".

United Airlines say requests have risen by 75% to 76,000 in a year.

The airline recently had to turn down a request to travel with a peacock.

But a spokeswoman for the airline says that even before turning away the peacock at Newark airport in the US, there had been recognition that the rules needed to be tightened.
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-42951508





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[font size="8"]World Tour Shithole Edition Destination #3: El Salvador
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Part of our mission statement here at the Top 10 Conservative Idiots is to show you that conservative idiocy isn’t just a problem with America. No, it’s a global problem that is stemming far and wide, and it’s not just America where conservative idiots ruin everything they touch. And if you’re thinking of moving out of the United States just because Donald J. Trump is our current president and our nation is turning to shit, you should know what it is you’re getting into should you decide that you want to leave the country. Well now things suddenly got interesting! So our world tour got hijacked by Donald Trump, and we’re off on a quest to find if any of the places Trump is suggesting are shitholes are actually shitholes. So here’s the World Tour 2018 Shithole Edition:



[font size="6"]El Salvador[/font]



Those responsible for this tour schedule have been sacked. So we went from the Carribbean to Africa to Central America. Some very long ass flights! And then we’re off to Chile next to make up for the date that we missed last year, and we forgot to add in a date or two. So yeah those responsible have been fully sacked. Yeah it’s been a disaster so far but we blame our current president for that. Oh that’s right, I’m rambling again. Let’s get back to El Salvador. It’s a tiny central American country with roots dating back to the ancient Mayans. You can actually view real Mayan ruins. They have some extremely beautiful beaches as well. And mountains – it’s home to some of the best skiing in Central America! It even has some amazing castles and tourist attractions. So this should be the perfect tourist attraction. Let’s put it through our world tour filter and see how it stacks up! What else is El Salvador the home of?

On the surface, Vanessa and Enrique Velasco look like they are living the American Dream. The two immigrants, both from El Salvador—they met as teenagers while both were taking business-studies courses at the university in San Salvador—live in a large, newly constructed, and spotless house in the suburban community of Brentwood, half an hour south of Oakland, California. They have made sure that the house reflects their personalities: In the hallway, just inside the front door, is a large foosball table. Hanging above the fireplace in the living room, when I visited a few days before the new year, were the family’s five Christmas stockings, each one embroidered with a name in red. In 2016, they began thinking about buying a second home as an investment property. Over the years they have saved money: in retirement accounts, in education funds for their kids. Now, finally, in their late 30s, they feel a bit more financially secure, able to dress in stylish clothes, to drive nice cars.
https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-to-200000-salvadorans-drop-dead/




Yes because who loves to fire people more than Trump does? Hey he’s not deporting millions of people from America – he’s firing them! Just like a good business dictator would! But what would set Trump off like that? What’s his nemesis? I know! MS13!

In the middle of December 2017, the Trump administration announced a new National Security Strategy (NSS). It is a series of premises and objectives based on the doctrine of political realism (as explicitly assumed in the document), oriented towards “reestablishing America’s position of power in the world”. It summarizes the goals to follow in order to protect “American interests” – which are the interests of a privileged and influential decision-making minority, though they seem to be presented as “the interests of the American people”.

It is important to note that one of the characteristics of the Trump administration in terms of foreign policy is the gap between incendiary discourse, full of threats and vehement rhetoric, and its decision-making, which on occasion tends to minimize such positions – from the supposed punishment it was to inflict upon the Chinese, to the threat to immediately leave the North American

Free Trade Agreement and its apparently “total” opposition to free trade – such that the NSS must also be read within the framework of this distance between statements and facts that has come to mold an uncertain and unpredictable foreign policy.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/silvina-romano/us-security-strategy-and-national-interest-in-latin-america




Hey only Trump has the hiring and firing power here, Ron! So what else is happening in El Salvador? By the way, while we’re on the subject, could you name the capital of El Salvador? Does it really matter at this point? You sir? San Salvador. Great. Thank you sir! No, this isn’t a quiz show! Moving on!

SAN SALVADOR/GENEVA (6 February 2018) – El Salvador must urgently take more effective steps to prevent arbitrary deprivation of life and bring an end to the vicious cycle of impunity that enables these crimes, a UN human rights expert said.

At the end of an official visit to El Salvador, Agnes Callamard, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, highlighted El Salvador’s complex and longstanding security challenges, including one of the highest rates of murder in the world, the majority of which are attributed to gangs. She expressed her grave concerns about the endemic and pervasive fears and insecurity that prevail in the country in an end-of-mission statement.

"During my visit, I met fathers and mothers who have lost their sons to violence, and young women who have been subjected repeatedly to sexual violence; young men deeply traumatized by their experience of violence, grandparents living in constant fear of the day their grandchildren will be forcibly recruited into violence.” she said.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1802/S00061/un-expert-urges-el-salvador-step-up-measures-to-halt-murders.htm




Yeah sorry to tell you, Salvadoran – Americans, you’re all fired. Well at least if our president gets his way, and he most likely will. I mean is there anything good coming out of El Salvador? Anything? Well they’re finally joining the rest of the world in upgrading to 4G!

LUXEMBOURG, Feb. 6, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Millicom International Cellular S.A. ("Millicom&quot , announced today that its subsidiary Telemovil El Salvador S.A. de C.V. ("Tigo El Salvador&quot has agreed to sell up to approximately 800 wireless communications towers to a subsidiary of SBA Communications Corporation ("SBA&quot in El Salvador. As a result of the transaction, Tigo El Salvador will receive approximately US$145 million in cash.

Additionally, the two companies have entered into a long-term agreement whereby SBA will provide Tigo El Salvador with wireless communications towers to support the company's wireless networks and rollout plans. The transaction is expected to create savings in both capital and operating expenditures for Tigo El Salvador. The specific number of towers and final purchase price will be determined once the various closings have taken place, which are subject to customary closing conditions.

Mauricio Ramos, Chief Executive Officer of Millicom said: "We continue to deliver towards our strategy of growing our mobile data and cable revenue with a focus on Latin America, while enhancing our capital efficiency. Our agreement with SBA, which has a significant presence throughout the Americas, is in alignment with this strategy and with our aim to work with strong partners that can help us provide superior connectivity to our customers in the region."
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/millicoms-tigo-el-salvador-signs-agreement-to-sell-and-lease-back-towers-to-sba-300594577.html




Trust me – El Salvador, you’ll enjoy 4G but don’t overdo it like we have! Well we’ll keep an eye on the MS13 situation as it looks like it’s about to escalate in Boston and possibly create an international incident out of it. And if you guessed Trump knows almost nothing about MS13, you would be absolutely correct!:

During his State of the Union speech, Trump referred to the gang as "savage" and said two teenage girls in New York state were "brutally murdered" by members.

Four suspected members of the notoriously violent MS-13 gang, founded by Salvadoran immigrants, are now on trial after a federal judge in Boston denied a request to delay the case to ensure critical remarks made by U.S. President Donald Trump this week did not prejudice jurors.

Federal prosecutors allege that Herzzon Sandoval and Edwin Guzman were leaders of a Massachusetts-based MS-13 "clique" called Eastside Loco Salvatrucha. They are charged with racketeering conspiracy, along with Cesar Martinez and Erick Argueta Larios.

Thursday's opening statements took place two days after Trump sharply condemned MS-13 in his speech to Congress. The White House blames the gang's existence mostly on illegal immigration from Central America.

MS-13, which started in Los Angeles in the 1980s, has since grown into a cross-border criminal organization with leadership in Salvador that has 30,000 members worldwide and 10,000 in the United States, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Trump, during Tuesday's address, called on Congress to close "deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country."
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/El-Salvador-MS-13-Gang-Trial-Begins-in-Massachussetts-US-20180201-0029.html




[font size="6"]The Verdict & Scorecard[/font]

So is El Salvador a shithole? Honestly we couldn’t really find any information for this subject and we were hard pressed for time. So we’ll say probably!

Tourism: C
Culture: C
Political Spectrum: C
Liberal Appeal: C

Overall: C

[font size="6"]Next Week[/font]

Continuing our nonsense tour schedule to find Trump’s perfect shithole (not counting his mouth), we’re going back to South America to visit Chile! Is Chile a shithole? Only one way to find out!



[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]The Legendary Roots Crew[/font]

Kicking off our Black History Month celebration, we have one of my all time favorites playing tonight! Now playing their classic song “The Fire” from their album “How I Got Over”, give it up for the Legendary Roots Crew!





Yeah how about that?

See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: City National Grove Of Anaheim, Anaheim, CA
Special Thanks To: City National Grove Management
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Articles: All article content copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Writing: Top 10 Writing Department
Graphics: Top 10 Graphics Department
Research: Top 10 Research Department
Lighting & Stage Props: Top 10 Lighting Department
Legal: Top 10 Legal Department
Advertising: Top 10 Advertising Department
HR: Top 10 Human Resources Department
Initech’s Wardrobe Provided By: JAB Inc.
Wheel Of Corruption By: Studio 1 Stage Props, Burbank, CA
El Salvador Hosting: San Salvador Productions, San Salvador
The Roots Appear Courtesy Of: Island Def Jam Music Group
Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
Follow The Top 10 At: @DUInitechTop10


Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

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