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Trump cuts off one of his closest friends

Inside the president’s feud with Tom Barrack.

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More than five years after the death of Eric Garner was captured on cell phone video, the officer responsible for causing his death was terminated from New York City’s Police Department.

Since July 17, 2014, NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo has waited to learn whether he can remain on the force with the plainclothes anti-crime unit, lose vacations days or lose his job entirely.

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Planned Parenthood said it will pull out of a federal family planning grant program rather than stop referring patients for abortions — as required by a new Trump administration rule that takes effect at midnight.

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@dragonfly9
This is interesting,

There are significant age gaps among Republicans in these views. Older Republicans are much more likely than their younger counterparts to point to ideological factors, such as professors bringing their views into the classroom and too much concern about political correctness on campus. For example, 96% of Republicans ages 65 and older who think higher education is headed in the wrong direction say professors bringing their views into the classroom is a major reason for this. Only 58% of Republicans ages 18 to 34 share that view.

I wonder why that number is so high? Doesn’t that demographic overlap with a majority of Republicans that didn’t have to go college and are now retired? How would they know what kids are learning in schools these days?

Here’s a helpful graph of what Republicans don’t like about higher education. :joy:

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It might be easier to insert a thought bubble of what Archie Bunker ALL IN THE FAMILY might say - example “Why college never made anyone smarter, you just hear all the libs talking their nonsense.” (I know I am making a sweeping generalization here, but there may be some truth to the open and closed mindset separating the two POV’s)

But it is a good question…The fundamental reasoning would not make sense to a liberal point of view because it is reasoned, questioned, dissected. I assume then that the R perception would stay the same… my examples “why expose your kids to an expensive education where all you will hear is 'nonsense.” And also “what a waste of money…it is way too expensive.”

The article I posted from Danna Young, (and @Pet_Proletariat - your post with her interview) has a comment which talks about the “perception gap” and the unique tribalism that is built-in.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans are also prone to caricature Democrats. For example, Republicans approximated that only about half of Democrats are “proud to be American” despite the country’s problems. Actually, more than four in five Democrats said they are. Similarly, Republicans guessed that fewer than four in 10 Democrats reject the idea of open borders. Actually, seven in 10 said they do.

If the reasons for mutual hatred are rooted as much in mutual misunderstanding as in genuine differences of values, that suggests Americans’ divisions should in principle be easy to remedy. It’s all just a matter of education.

Unfortunately, the “Perception Gap” study suggests that neither the media nor the universities are likely to remedy Americans’ inability to hear one another: It found that the best educated and most politically interested Americans are more likely to vilify their political adversaries than their less educated, less tuned-in peers.

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Well that’s certainly true. :joy:

Come to think of it, I would enjoy witnessing a 65 year old Republican audit any 101 Cultural Studies class. That would be comedy gold. Lol.

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Alarm in Texas as 23 towns hit by ‘coordinated’ ransomware attack

China may have a new way of boosting its economy. Here’s what the central bank just did

I’ll believe it when I see it, but this could be a good thing:

The CEOs of nearly 200 companies just said shareholder value is no longer their main objective

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Internationally declines are happening, although Germany is saying it is a ‘technical’ down turn in their economy. As a trading partner to the US, we are impacted as well, and the fear of a global recession are real.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany, Europe’s industrial powerhouse and biggest economy, with companies like Volkswagen, Siemens and BASF, may be entering a recession, according to a gloomy report from the country’s central bank Monday — a development that could have repercussions for the rest of the eurozone and the United States.

A technical recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and Germany saw a 0.1% drop in the April-to-June period. In its monthly report, the Bundesbank said that with falling industrial production and orders, it appears the slump is continuing during the July-to-September quarter.

The overall economic performance could decline slightly once again,” it said. “Central to this is the ongoing downturn in industry.”

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What could go wrong? The Volckert Rule is amended.

You remember the Volcker Rule, don’t you? It was the brainchild of former Fed chair Paul Volcker, who wanted to prohibit banks from proprietary trading—that is, betting their own money on risky investments. Volcker figured that prop trading should be done by hedge funds and investment banks, not by regulated commercial banks using house money with an implicit government guarantee.

The FDIC and four other independent agencies have dropped their proposal to tie the rule to a strict accounting standard — a move that banks argued would have made it more burdensome by subjecting additional trades to heightened supervision. Instead, regulators will give banks the benefit of the doubt on a much wider range of trades, according to the text of the final rule. ….The inclusion of the accounting provision in the original Volcker 2.0 proposal had been key in securing the support of Martin Gruenberg, then FDIC chairman and now a regular board member at the agency. Gruenberg, an Obama appointee, voted against the revised rule Tuesday morning, saying it would “effectively undo” the Volcker rule’s ban on proprietary trading. As amended, “the Volcker rule will no longer impose a meaningful constraint on speculative and proprietary trading by banks and bank-holding companies benefiting from the public safety net” of insured deposits, Gruenberg said.

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Trump’s disrespect for other countries knows no bounds. Does he imagine for one second that the people of Greenland are laughing at his little “joke”? NOT. Every single Greenlander must be fuming at the U.S. for making them the butt of a joke like this – ha, ha – the super rich guy won’t really squash our beautiful culture and countryside. On top of that, Eric Trump tweeted the same meme, snarkily implying that his dad would indeed “modernize” Greenland.

Trump should also promise us he won’t do this:

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This is actually great. :clown_face::muscle:

In 2007, the group Anti Racist Actionstaged a full-fledged clown performance at a neo-Nazi rally in Knoxville, Tennessee. The clowns feigned confusion at demonstrators’ cries of “White power!” and called back, “White flour?” as they threw fistfulls of flour into the air.

“White power!” the neo-Nazi group shouted, and the clowns pretended they finally understood their mistake. “Oh, white flowers!” they cried out, handing white flowers to passersby, including some of the neo-Nazis themselves.

“White power!” they yelled again. “Tight shower?” the clowns called back, holding a shower head in the air and crowding together in a ridiculous attempt to follow the directions of the white supremacist group.

They tried once more: “White power!” And the female clowns exclaimed, as though they finally understood, “Wife power!” raising letters in the air to spell out the words and hoisting the male clowns in the air, running around and carrying them in their arms.

The clowns stole the show, and continued parading through the streets with the police smiling happily at their sides while the neo-Nazi group called off their demonstration several hours early. This action inspired clowns in Charlotte, North Carolina to also yell “Wife power!” at a white supremacist rally. They also held signs that said “Dwight Power!” next to photos of the NBA player Dwight Howard.

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Fantastic tactic - the razzle dazzle technique. Kill their drill.

Wow, these clowns are the good ones and not the super scary ones. What a concept!

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It will never be feasible for Facebook to launch a news service with seasoned journalists who can also present conservative news. It is back to square one for them, as Conservatives are not having it.

Granted Facebook tried to invoke the wonders of it’s clients doing the self-policing but the real truth is that all sorts of fringe elements can post freely. You wonder if even in this highly charged political atmosphere if anything in terms of content could be agreed upon and layer in a serious regulation clause, ie, it must be based on facts, not made up of conspiracy theories. And it only takes a moment to refer to what #CambridgeAnalytics did with the FB client base, and move to what #EpochTimes. #RussianTrollFarms and #Breitbart all can still do.

What now Facebook?

On the same day that Facebook announced its intent to rehire journalists to curate news on its platform, it also shared the results of an audit of supposed anti-conservative bias conducted by former GOP senator Jon Kyl. The report, which collected responses from “more than 130 leading conservative politicians and organizations,” outlines the well-worn fears of conservatives without substantiating any of them. The report has been roundly criticized, even from Republican Facebook critics. “Merely asking somebody to listen to conservatives’ concerns isn’t an ‘audit,’ it’s a smokescreen disguised as a solution,” Missouri senator Josh Hawley said in a statement advocating that Facebook make its actual underlying distribution and moderation systems available to third-party analysis.

Several interviewees believed that this change disproportionately decreased the reach of conservative news content (as compared to liberal news content),” the report states, referencing a much-publicized News Feed ranking change in 2018 that prioritized posts from personal contacts over brand pages. Despite this, sites like Fox News, Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, and Breitbart still get healthy distribution on Facebook; in some cases, they perform better than other mainstream outlets that aim down the center.


…There is no appeasing conservatives here. The algorithms are biased, and if Facebook hires editors and moderators to double-check decisions made by algorithms, those editors will be denounced as biased too. Facebook, according to the Times , will only hire “seasoned” editors. It’s not clear what that means, but it is clear that Establishment journalists aren’t going to quiet the charges of bias either. You don’t exactly see conservatives respecting established news outlets like the New York Times and CNN or the editorial staff that works there. Unless Facebook has suddenly grown a backbone, its rebooted News initiative will be another way for conservatives to badger the company into appeasement.

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I’ve read about them before, and still so very neat.

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US says it’s ready to resume nuclear talks with North Korea

Sexual assault numbers, suicides on the rise: 'Clearly we have to do something different,’ acting Army secretary says

“The rise in sexual assault is focused in the 17- to 24-year-old demographic, meaning soldiers who are relatively new to the Army. Suicides among active-duty soldiers also rose about 20 percent late last year.”

This is a disturbing development; Trump has railed against our alliance with Japan since the 80s, and this dispute between them and South Korea makes that whole region more unstable.

South Korea Says It Will Scrap Intelligence-Sharing Deal With Japan

We purposely blew up treaties against developing new missiles. Now Russia and China are reacting to our new tests, casting the U.S. as the rogue. I can’t help but feel Trump intended this.

Russia, China seek Security Council meeting after US missile test

Moscow and Beijing warn of ‘threats to international peace and security’ after latest US test of new cruise missile.

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Women Look to 2020 to Break the National Security Glass Ceiling

Advocacy groups see the upcoming election as an opportunity to boost the number of women in senior positions.

Want to Run for Office? Now There’s a Politics Boot Camp for Veterans

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Disturbing hazing at border where US Customs and Border Protection officer goes after journalist as someone who spreads fake news.

When James Dyer approached a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday, he was just another traveler passing through the bustling hub. But then Dyer said he presented his journalist visa to the agent and what should have been a routine immigration stop quickly transformed intoan unsettling experience.”

In a lengthy Twitter thread that has since gone viral, Dyer, who covers film and TV for Empire magazine in the United Kingdom, detailed how the CBP agent accused him of “being part of the ‘fake news media’” before launching into a “surprising and inappropriate” diatribe that echoed rhetoric used by President Trump in his frequent attacks against the media. Dyer told The Washington Post he had flown from London to Los Angeles for Disney’s D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif., where he plans to write about Star Wars.

“He wanted to know if I’d ever worked for CNN or MSNBC or other outlets that are ‘spreading lies to the American people,’” Dyer tweeted, referencing two media organizations Trump has repeatedly blasted as “fake news.” “He aggressively told me that journalists are liars and are attacking their democracy.”

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This is puzzling. Russia, known as a haven for hackers, implements a paperless, internet voting scheme for a major election in its capital city. WTF? What career burglar would remove the locks from their own doors?

Not surprisingly, the system was hacked in 20 minutes using a regular laptop and readily available cyber attack code. Is there something more at play here? Is Russia trying to convince the rest of the world to go paperless to make their victims easier to hack? Or, and I think this may be more likely, are the people currently in power trying to make it easier for them to rig future elections so they can stay in power? Who knows – but this is just weird.

A French security researcher has found a critical vulnerability in the blockchain-based voting system Russian officials plan to use next month for the 2019 Moscow City Duma election.

Pierrick Gaudry, an academic at Lorraine University and a researcher for INRIA, the French research institute for digital sciences, found that he could compute the voting system’s private keys based on its public keys. This private keys are used together with the public keys to encrypt user votes cast in the election.

Gaudry blamed the issue on Russian officials using a variant of the El Gamal encryption scheme that used encryption key sizes that were too small to be secure. This meant that modern computers could break the encryption scheme within minutes.

“It can be broken in about 20 minutes using a standard personal computer, and using only free software that is publicly available,” Gaudry said in a report published earlier this month.

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No, I’m not at all scared out of my mind by this. Why do you ask?

Russia will launch the world’s first floating nuclear reactor and send it on an epic journey across the Arctic on Friday, despite environmentalists warning of serious risks to the region.

A deadly explosion during testing has already caused a radioactive surge, and environmentalists to call it a potential “Chernobyl on ice” and a "nuclear Titanic.” The floating reactor is “due to go into operation by the end of year, mainly serving the region’s oil platforms.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-launches-floating-nuclear-reactor-in-arctic-despite-warnings/ar-AAGc7EO?ocid=st

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