Sean Spicer may be missing, but Melissa McCarthy is everywhere

Ha Ha, she's riding down the street in front on the NBC studio on a podium



http://www.salon.com/2017/05/12/melissa-mccarthy-sean-spicer-snl-cnn/

Departure of U.S. census director threatens 2020 count

Source: Science

John Thompson is stepping down next month as director of the U.S. Census Bureau. His announcement today comes less than 1 week after a congressional spending panel grilled him about mounting problems facing the agency in preparing for the 2020 decennial census. And Thompson’s pending retirement is weighing heavily on the U.S. statistical community.

Thompson is leaving halfway through a 1-year extension of a term that expired last December. His departure will create what a 2011 law was expressly designed to avoid--a leadership vacuum during a crucial time in the 10-year life cycle of the census, the nation’s largest civilian undertaking. The immediate concern is who the Trump administration will appoint, and how soon it will act.

“The key is to act expeditiously,” says Phil Sparks, co-director of the Census Project, a Washington, D.C. based advocacy organization. “The normal length of time to fill a vacancy [with a nomination] is 6 months, but the Census Bureau doesn’t have the luxury of time.

Ken Prewitt, who led the agency from 1998 to 2001, worries that a long delay in naming a well-qualified replacement for Thompson could be the first step of a long, steep decline in the quality of the federal statistic system, which spans 13 agencies. “That system is fragile, and it wouldn’t take much to damage it severely,” says Prewitt, a professor of social affairs at Columbia University in New York City. “My real fear is that they don’t care enough to do a good job with the 2020 census. And then after doing a bad job, they decide to let the private sector take over.”

Read more: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/departure-us-census-director-threatens-2020-count

At FDA, TVs now turned to Fox News and can't be switched

Source: CBS news

Attention viewers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Televisions will now be tuned to Fox News.

CBS News has confirmed an email was sent to researchers at the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research responding to apparent efforts to change the channel on internal television screens. The email from "[White Oak] Digital Display" sent on Wednesday, May 3, was sent to inform the researchers of the "reason for the change from CNN to Fox." White Oak is the name of the FDA's campus.

The email goes on to inform employees that the decision came from the Trump administration.

"The reason for the change is that a decision from the current administration administrative officials has requested that all monitors, under our control, on the White Oak Campus, display FOX news," the email reads.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/at-fda-tvs-now-turned-to-fox-news-and-cant-be-switched/

Donald Trump invites Rodrigo Duterte to Washington

Source: The Guardian

US president Donald Trump has invited Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte to the White House during a phone call that also addressed concerns over North Korea, the White House said in a statement.

The White House gave no details of when the leaders would meet in Washington to discuss their alliance, but said Trump looked forward to visiting the Philippines in November as part of two summits with other Asian nations.

A readout of the call on Saturday said the discussion between the two was “very friendly” and the US-Philippines alliance was “now heading in a very positive direction”.

The pair talked about “the concerns of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) regarding regional security, including the threat posed by North Korea”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/30/donald-trump-invites-rodrigo-duterte-to-washington

This Alabama town is rebounding but Trump could change that

Snip: “I told him, you realize you may end up uninsured and dead because you voted for him?” she said. “But it doesn’t seem to matter.”

Snip: There have been signs Trump is losing his grasp of that core constituency with a historically low approval rating during his first three months in office.

But in northwest Alabama, voters like Marsha Jeter remain faithful.

“We needed someone in office that cannot be bought,” she said.

“I think he will bring back jobs, and I truly believe he wants to make America great again.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/16/muscle-shoals-alabama-trump-budget-appalachian-regional-commission

CNN treats politics like sports and its making us all dumber

Kobach finally convicts an immigrant, but Kansas is paying a price

Hand out the celebratory cigars.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach finally nabbed himself an immigrant.

Pardon if we don’t order the band to play. Kobach announced Wednesday that he’d achieved an elusive goal — catching an immigrant who voted illegally in a Kansas election.

Victor David Garcia Bebek of Wichita pleaded guilty to voter fraud. The Peruvian native’s voting record was uncovered after he registered to vote and it was discovered that he’d already voted three times in past elections. It’s a misdemeanor.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article144523704.html#storylink=cpy

Today, Senators will vote to allow ISPs to sell your internet history and end FCC online privacy ru

Source: Privacy News Online

On March 23rd, 2017, the US Senate votes on S.J.Res 34, which would use the Congressional Review Act to strip away online privacy protections gained under the FCC and also disallow the FCC from enacting privacy rules in the future. The resolution, if passed along with its House counterpart and then signed into law, would pass the responsibility of online privacy regulation from the FCC onto the FTC, with the American public losing out in the meantime.

The FCC online privacy rules currently require ISPs to get your affirmative consent before selling your personal, sensitive information to advertisers. Notably, the FCC didn’t go as far as to ban “pay-for-privacy” schemes that were being offered by some ISPs. Back in 2016, when the FCC passed sweeping net neutrality and online privacy rules for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecoms to follow, the FTC did release a statement titled: Net Neutrality and Privacy: Don’t Fear the Reclassification.

The Senators that proposed this resolution did so for a reason
If you’re wondering whether or not the Senators that proposed S.J.Res 34 received any money from ISPs or telecoms, the answer is a resounding yes. Vocativ has a nice infographic that shows which Senators have received donations from telecoms and ISPs, and even trade groups like the CTIA. In a recent filing with the FCC, the CTIA has been attempting to push the idea that web browsing history and app usage data are not sensitive information.

Read more: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/03/today-senators-will-vote-allow-isps-sell-internet-history-end-fcc-online-privacy-rules/

New documents show Trump aide hid payments from Ukraine party with Moscow ties, lawmaker alleges

Source: Washington Post

KIEV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian lawmaker on Tuesday released new financial documents allegedly showing that a former campaign chairman to President Trump laundered payments from the party of a disgraced ex-leader of Ukraine using offshore accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

The new documents may revive questions about the ties between the Trump aide, Paul Manafort, and the party of the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who has been in hiding in Russia since being overthrown by pro-Western protestors in 2014. He is wanted in Ukraine on corruption charges.

Manafort, who worked for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions for nearly a decade, resigned from Trump’s campaign in August after his name in connection with secret payments totaling $12.7 million by Yanukovych’s party. Manafort has denied receiving those payments, listed in the party’s so-called “black ledger.”

The latest documents were released just hours after the House Intelligence Committee questioned FBI Director James Comey about possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow, which also touched on Manafort’s work for Yanukovych’s party in Ukraine.


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-documents-say-trump-aide-hid-payments-from-pro-moscow-ukrai

The American Dream is Disintegrating Under Trump

It is all starting to break down now. Moral fibers that once wove the American spirit together are unraveling and disintegrating. Our team lost the baseball game, the Chevrolet won't start, and the apples in the pie are rancid. Any semblance of the American Dream is slipping into a nightmare of epic proportions, robbing our youth and future generations of the promise and hope they deserve. Of course that dream actually existed once, and for many it still does in a theoretical way, but the boundaries of acceptance in the United States have never been so far off track. Conversely, rather than moral boundaries, Americans now have a president who wants to wall his citizens inside of their own national border.

As the gloom settles over a frustrated American public, the violence between those who oppose and support Donald Trump is increasing, and video clips of bloody faces, tear gassed eyes, the whole enchilada… splash across social media sites. Recent clashes between anti-Trump and pro-Trump protesters turned radically violent last week in Berkeley, a California university town known for its left wing roots.

Antagonists from both sides contributed to the thuggish violence and other problems at the Berkeley pro-Trump protest. In a clear demonstration of what future days will bring, Anarchists descended into the crowds, instigating more violence which the two sides both decry. I have written about this in the past, and it becomes more clear by the day that the direction the US is moving in is very dangerous.

Supporters of Trump have many common attributes. Almost all of them are White. As a whole, they are against immigration, and particularly oppose those who entered the US illegally. Trump supporters consider themselves patriotic, and sport flags at their rallies, which of course angers those who fail to support and strongly resent Trump’s extreme right wing, money oriented politics in America. People on both sides of Trump are increasingly losing patience with each other and they are walking a potentially explosive path. What comes next? Gang warfare? Drive by shootings?



http://ahtribune.com/us/maga/1538-american-dream-trump.html