REMINDER: Melania Trump is a Birther.

In a 2011 interview with Joy Behar, the US First Lady, then appearing as a guest who was described only as 'Married to The Donald', was echoing her husband's birther arguments nearly verbatim, denying the authenticity of the former president's certificate of live birth.
This last week has proven an interesting one for supporters and critics of Trump, with most taking to the internet to express their concern for Melania - whether it's the gif of her face dropping suddenly at the inauguration or the 'Sad Melania' trend gaining traction on social media.

The mother-of-one tends to avoid publicly denounced or supported her husband's political beliefs and she told GQ in 2016, "No one will ever know".

What we do know is that she was vocally supportive of the birtherism campaign in 2011, when she asked host Joy Behar: "Do you want to see President Obama's birth certificate or no? In one way, it would be very easy if President Obama just show it because it's not only Donald who wants to see it - it's American people who vote for him and who didn't vote for him."

And it was clear she was campaigning early for her husband's presidential campaign, saying he was not "obsessed" with the birther claims, saying they "leech on that one issue and they go on and on".


http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/banter/trending/watch-melania-trumps-interview-from-2011-demanding-to-see-barack-obamas-birth-certificate-35396580.html

Layoffs, budget cuts prompted UC Berkeley to pay out $306,000 for PR contract

aced with a $150 million budget deficit at UC Berkeley, university administrators were grappling last year with how to break the news to faculty and the media about the need for major spending and staffing cuts.

The solution? University officials bypassed Berkeley’s own communications staff and approved spending $419,400 to hire an outside public relations agency “to address media and stakeholder backlash,” newly released documents indicate.

The contract with Sard Verbinnen & Co., which bills itself as a global public relations firm, was aimed at helping the university communicate with alumni, faculty, donors, legislators and others about how it was going to address the deficit.

“Campus leadership was considering how best to deal with the considerable communications challenges it was facing and believed that outside expertise would likely be needed,” Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for UC President Janet Napolitano, said Thursday. “The president said that if the campus felt that hiring an outside firm was the best course, that one should be hired. Moreover, the firm was paid with unrestricted donor funds, not state or tuition dollars.”

At the time Sard Verbinnen was advising the Berkeley campus, UC officials were dealing with a separate scandal at UC Davis over the use of at least three outside public relations firms to enhance the reputation of that school and then-Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, who ultimately resigned under pressure.

Amid the controversy over the UC Davis contracts, which were made public by The Sacramento Bee, UC Berkeley abruptly canceled its contract with Sard Verbinnen.

Before the contract was scrapped, however, UC Berkeley paid the firm a total of $306,447.05 for work through June 2016. The firm’s duties had quickly expanded beyond dealing only with the deficit, documents show, and included offering advice on how to strengthen the image of Chancellor Nicholas Dirks as he addressed the shortfall.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/the-public-eye/article136343853.html#storylink=cpy

Berlin Film Review: Logan

“Logan” doesn’t get lost in CGI overkill or annoyingly messy Tinker-Toy franchise plotting. It’s a wholehearted drama made with a shot language that looks nearly classical. It must be said, however, that the story often feels stitched together from other films, a quality made explicit when the characters watch an extended scene from “Shane” on TV. “Logan” isn’t as darkly exciting as “The Wolverine” was. With its hero suggesting a broken-down cousin to Mad Max, it’s like “The Road Warrior” meets “Shane” meets “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (yes, there’s a “bad” Wolverine). But that turns out to be a recipe that brings the saga to a satisfying close. Just about every fan of the “Wolverine” series is likely to feel well-served, and you can do the box office math from there.

The best thing about “Logan” is that it’s one of those movies about a grown-up killer who becomes the mentor and protector of a child, yet it manages not to be cloying. The kid, in this case, is 11-year-old Laura (Dafne Keen), a dark-eyed urchin of silent ferocity who comes under Logan’s wing (or maybe I should say his blade-claw). Wolverine, we’re told, is one of the only mutants left. In “Logan,” they’ve faded away and become cultural relics, and that’s one of the sources of Logan’s weariness. He keeps Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), now 90, hidden on a rusted-out farm below the Mexican border, where Professor X is subject to brain seizures that paralyze everyone around him by making the air molecules pulsate with menace. But then Laura shows up, dumped into Logan’s life by a Mexican nurse (Elizabeth Rodriguez) from a local clinic. She’s a mysterious girl, who says nothing but carries herself with a confidence that’s unearthly. She’s like a version of the Feral Kid from “The Road Warrior.” You could also say that she’s a chip off the old blade.

Keen, in her movie debut, has the orbs of a staring bird and an air of preternatural awareness. She could be the junior sister of Rooney and Kate Mara, and that’s because she holds the screen with her solemnity. Logan agrees to drive her to Eden, a utopian refuge for mutants in North Dakota — though, as he discovers (in one of the film’s few funny gambits), Eden originated in the “X-Men” comics, which in Logan’s mind means that it has to be a made-up place. For most of the movie, he, Laura, and Professor X are on the run from Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant) and his goons. That’s the whole plot, but Mangold strikes a nice balance between road-movie ambling and eruptions of feral suspense.

It’s Jackman who holds “Logan” together and gives the film its glimmer of soul. He has been playing this role, more or less nonstop, for 18 years, but he seems startlingly not bored by it. Better still, he’s a more refined actor now than when he started, and in “Logan,” he gets to play something rare in comic-book cinema: a powerhouse of animal rage who is slowly, agonizingly slipping away. By the end of the movie, he gets his muttonchops back and reminds you, once more, of what’s great about this character — his hellbent quality, embodied in those flesh-ripping kills that are his way of making good on a mutant destiny he never asked for. No “X-Men” movie will ever be great (the material is too derivative), but Jackman, though he’s the Superman of the bunch, has gone deeper into the alienation than any other mutant in the series. The end of “Logan” is genuinely touching, as Jackman lets you feel the character’s strength and pain, and — finally — his release.



http://variety.com/2017/film/festivals/logan-review-berlin-film-festival-1201990143/

BBC claims a second source backs up Trump 'Golden Shower' dossier

BBC correspondent Paul Wood came forward Wednesday to reveal that there are multiple intelligence sources alleging Russia is in possession of potentially embarrassing or compromising material regarding President-elect Donald Trump. Formerly, only a single source was known to have been aware of the alleged material.

"I saw the report, compiled by the former British intelligence officer, back in October," Wood said. "He is not, and this is the crucial thing, the only source for this.” The Wall Street Journal alleges the British source is Christopher Steele, a director of the London-based Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd.

A member of the U.S. intelligence community also told Wood that "at least one East European intelligence service was aware 'that the Russians had kompromat or compromising material on Mr. Trump,'" Raw Story reports. Wood said that he "got a message back" from the U.S. intelligence community member and that there is reportedly "more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg."

Wood did add, however, that "nobody should believe something just because an intelligence agent says it."


http://theweek.com/speedreads/672669/bbc-claims-second-source-backs-trump-dossier

TSA to begin more intimate contact when physically screening

Things are about to get friskier at America’s airports.

The TSA will have “more intimate contact” when feeling up fliers who elect for the pat-down method before taking off.

Previously, blue-shirted agents had five different ways to frisk someone who opted for the pat-down instead of going through a scanning machine, according to reports.

The new method will be a more “universal” approach to screening, according to media reports.

Agents will begin phasing in the new method over the next few weeks, reports indicate, starting with smaller airports.

Employees at Denver International Airport were told on Thursday the “more rigorous” scans “will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before,” Bloomberg reported.

“I would say people who in the past would have gotten a pat-down that wasn’t involved will notice that the (new) pat-down is more involved,” TSA spokesman Bruce Anderson told Bloomberg on Friday.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tsa-to-begin-‘more-intimate-contact’-when-physically-screening/ar-AAnN1mB?li=AAn4eAA&ocid=mailsignout

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