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demmiblue

demmiblue's Journal
demmiblue's Journal
May 2, 2017

How did I not know that Serena Williams is pregnant?!

From the Met Gala (via Mashable):



Congrats to the couple.

May 2, 2017

Minnesota GOPers Sorry For Post Calling Keith Ellison Muslim Goat Humper

Source: TPM

Minnesota’s state Republican chair apologized Monday to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) for a post on the 7th Congressional District Republican Party’s Facebook page calling the congressman “Minnesota’s Head Muslim Goat Humper.”

“As chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota I absolutely would like to issue an apology to Congressman Ellison,” state party chair Jennifer Carnahan told the Star Tribune on Monday.

She would not identify the person who made the post, per the Star Tribune, but said that they “resigned immediately” and “no longer represent” the state’s Republican Party.

The original post was deleted several hours after it was made on Monday night. According to a screencap taken by GoMN, its original caption cited conservative commentator David Horowitz and referred to Ellison as a “raving, Louis Farrakhan supporting, anti-Semite, anti-white, racist and fascist American.”

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/minnesota-republicans-apologize-keith-ellison-facebook-post?utm_content=buffer5de3c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

May 1, 2017

Fox News Reporter Diana Falzone Sues Network

Source: New York Magazine

Yet another woman has filed a gender-discrimination claim against Fox News today, bringing the total number of lawsuits against the media company to at least 15. Fox News online reporter Diana Falzone filed suit in New York Supreme Court alleging she was demoted after publishing an essay in January on Fox News’ website about suffering from endometriosis. “The male-dominated senior management of Fox News obviously objected to the fact that a female on-air host had disclosed that she suffers from a women’s reproductive-health condition, which, in their eyes, detracted from her sex appeal and made her less desirable,” the lawsuit claims.

Falzone has appeared on Fox since 2008, on Hannity as well as the Fox Business Network with hosts Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo. She also hosts online shows on Fox News’ website.

In the suit, Falzone says she cleared her essay with her supervisors, Refet Kaplan and Chris Kensler, executives at Foxnews.com. In the piece, Falzone goes into detail about her experience with endometriosis, which affects an estimated 176 million women globally. “It was just days after my 33rd birthday when my doctor delivered the worst news of my life: I will likely never have a child and fulfill my greatest wish of being a mother,” she wrote. “When hit with the news that I am infertile, I could not stop crying. And not only was it very unlikely I’d ever conceive, my health was in jeopardy.”

Falzone says that after the piece ran, Kaplan told her that the “Second Floor,” referring to the network’s top executives Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy, no longer wanted her appearing on-air. According to the suit, Kaplan said Falzone was “permanently banned from ever appearing on air on any Foxnews.com, Fox News Network, Fox Business News Network or any other Fox News medium and would never again be permitted to host her own shows or conduct her own interviews.” Falzone claims that a producer later told her she was also banned from doing voice-overs. When Falzone asked Kaplan why she was being demoted, he declined to say, according to the suit.

Read more: http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/05/diana-falzone-fox-news-reporter-sues-network-gender-discrimination.html



Oh, and, buh-bye, Bill.
May 1, 2017

Trump Defends Invite to Philippines' Duterte Amid Drug War Toll

Source: Boomberg

U.S. President Donald Trump underscored his eagerness to meet with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte despite international condemnation of the Asian leader’s violent crackdown on drug addicts and dealers.

“The Philippines is very important to me strategically and militarily,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News, two days after he invited the Philippines leader to Washington. “I look forward to meeting him. If he comes to the White House that’s fine.”

A White House statement after the April 29 call said the two leaders discussed “the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs.” Trump also committed to taking part in a summit with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations near Manila in November.

...

“You know he’s very popular in the Philippines,” Trump said. “He has a very high approval rating in the Philippines.”

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-01/trump-defends-invite-to-philippines-duterte-amid-drug-war-toll?utm_content=politics&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics



Approval ratings fetish and business deals.



Image via Raw Story: https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/ivanka-trump-hawks-familys-new-development-in-philippines-as-dad-invites-strongman-to-white-house/
May 1, 2017

On come on!: CNN guest crushes GOP panelists attempt to spin Trumps Andrew Jackson blunder

Source: Raw Story

CNN political commentator and Republican communications strategist Paris Dennard tried his best to spin President Donald Trump’s historically illiterate remarks about Andrew Jackson — but Bill Press was there to quickly shut him down.

During a panel discussion about Trump’s questioning why the Civil War needed to happen, Dennard tried to make the case that Trump was simply asking the question to help educate the public and to make sure that nothing like the Civil War ever happens again in the United States.

...

“That is the most nonsensical statement I’ve ever heard on any television program before,” he said. “We all know why there was a Civil War: Because Southern states treated people inhumanely. Immoral slavery existed, they refused to give it up… where did Donald Trump get his history degree from, Trump University?”

...

Dennard then accused Press of wanting to forget the lessons of history, and said that he wanted to “do away with the Holocaust Museum, do away with the new African American Museum.”


http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/on-come-on-cnn-guest-crushes-gop-panelists-attempt-to-spin-trumps-andrew-jackson-blunder/


May 1, 2017

Trump Says Hed Meet With Kim Jong Un Under Right Circumstances

Source: Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un amid heightened tensions over his country’s nuclear weapons program if the circumstances were right.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”

The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, and as recently as last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said at the United Nations that the U.S. would negotiate with Kim’s regime only if it made credible steps toward giving up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

“Most political people would never say that,” Trump said of his willingness to meet with the reclusive Kim, “but I’m telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news.”

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-01/trump-says-he-d-meet-with-north-korea-s-kim-if-situation-s-right



"We have breaking news." That pretty much sums it up.
May 1, 2017

What Its Really Like to Cover Trump

Source: Politico Magazine



This marks the fourth year in a row that Politico Magazine has surveyed the White House press corps, our annual snapshot of the highs, lows and general chaos of trying to cover the most powerful office on earth. Every administration has its own running fights with the press, but this year the context was different from the start: a new president who gets unparalleled media attention, yet has publicly attacked the press over and over since taking office. President Donald Trump has called the media “fake news,” the “enemy of the American people,” “dishonest” and much more; he has singled out individual reporters with criticism and name-calling. At the same time, Trump has welcomed multiple outlets into the Oval Office for interviews, makes a point of praising the journalists he likes, and devours print and TV coverage of him and his staff. And in case there was any doubt that this was a new team with a whole new relationship to the media, for the first time (that we know of), someone in the press corps leaked our questions to the administration—and, for the first time, the White House emailed Politico Magazine demanding detailed answers about the survey and how it was conducted. (The answers are in the fine print at the end of this piece.)


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/28/poll-trump-white-house-press-corps-journalists-215051


This cracked me up:



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