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Top 10 Idiots

(591 posts)
Wed May 15, 2019, 04:59 PM May 2019

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #6-18: How To Lose A Billion In 10 Days Edition


Top 10 Conservative Idiots #6-18: How To Lose A Billion In 10 Days Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Sign up today and get 4 free phones and unlimited gigs on our super fast 4G LTE network! We are back everybody! And it’s good to be home too! We’ve been on the road for a while and had an absolutely great time. But now the time has come where we need to return home and close out this season! Season 7 is going to be very exciting which will include our big Texas roadshow and our university tour. So we need to talk about the sinking ship known as the Los Angeles Lakers. They were a basketball team. They had some of the greatest players of all time and used to win championships. You might have heard of them. Ask your parents. You know that thing that happens when you hit rock bottom? Well the Lakers most certainly did that. after making waves signing LeBron, you would have thought they were going to win championships again. Instead it’s literally been everything but that. But my favorite thing were the two high school guys who they interviewed who went down to the protest who were like “we should be in school but this is more important”. And then the people who said they should hire LaVar Ball. Really? You really want to go there? I mean if you want to see a disaster, look no further than the LA Lakers. We may have to do a deep dive on the sinking ship known as the Lakers next week for “I Need A Drink”. But for now just consider the fact that there were only 30 people at the protest and it made national news. Yes, to quote Tobias Funke, there are dozens of us! Dozens!!!! OK that’s enough of the intro. We have a lot of idiocy to get to, but first we have to play John Oliver’s dissection of the Green New Deal, which conservatives probably didn’t read:



Ladies and gentlemen, returning to the #1 slot this week is the guy who we currently call president, Donald J. Trump (1)! WOOOOOOOOO!!! So the New York Times dropped a bombshell about Trump’s taxes – his ass is broke! But… fake news!!! in the second slot this week is Donald Trump Jr (2), and he is in some deep shit after being subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. And he’s refusing to go quietly! In the 3rd slot this week, is anyone really *THAT* surprised that the guy who took money to build Trump’s wall (3) is a con artist? Yeah neither are we. In the 4th slot this week, it’s the anniversary of Melania Trump’s (4) Be Best anti-bullying campaign, and has it had a positive effect on schools? Well, judging by the content of her husband’s character and tweets, not really. Taking the 5th slot this week is our weekly investigative piece Top 10 Investigates, and this week there’s a bizarre twist in measles outbreaks that are happening all over the country. Is an old episode of the Brady Bunch from 1969 fueling anti vaxxer hysteria? Hey, measles are fun! In the sixth slot this week is our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” and our resident pastor is perplexed that his fellow zealots are heading to New York to protest outside of Hillary Clinton’s home, because Q. Really. In the 7th slot this week is a new How Is This Still A Thing? (7). Yay! We haven’t done one of these in a while. Giant corporations lecturing us about personal expenses – how is this still a thing and why do our corporate masters keep getting away with it? In the 8th slot this week we are going to debut a new segment called “This Will Work! FACT!” (8). So this week on the day Uber goes public, drivers are planning to strike for better wages and working conditions, and we will show them how they can get the upper hand on management. This will work. FACT! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot is People Are Dumb, because of course they are! And finally we’re in the home stretch of our Stupidest State Contest! It’s time for the Final Four, and we’re live at the home of the USC Trojans, the fabulous Galen Center for all the action! Georgia. Wisconsin. Florida. Alabama. Two of these teams will advance. The other two will go home. Plus we have some live music for you from the legendary Bad Religion! Really buy their new album “Age Of Unreason” or you are no friend of this program. Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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So Trump is still frothing at the mouth crazy over the Mueller report that came that close to nailing his illegal and potentially fraudulent election results. But what is he hiding? Innocent people don’t gloat about how they almost got indicted. Well his public enemy number one – the Fake News New York Times, got a hold of his tax returns from 1985 – 1994. Yeah it might be old news but you know what that did? It revealed something very shocking about your favorite president – his ass is broke! Yes, the guy who gave us the Art Of The Deal and many failed businesses spent like a drunken sailor. But Trump doesn’t drink. Well here’s how it happened.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s businesses lost a total of more than $1 billion from 1985 to 1994, according to the New York Times, which said it obtained printouts from Trump’s official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts.

The newspaper said Trump posted losses in excess of $250 million in both 1990 and 1991, which appeared to be more than double any other individual U.S. taxpayer in an annual IRS sampling of high-income earners.

Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the 10 years, the Times said.

Over the 10 years, Trump’s core businesses, including casinos, hotels and apartment buildings, lost $1.17 billion, according to the newspaper.

The Times quoted a lawyer for the president, Charles Harder, as saying the tax information was “highly inaccurate.”

Trump, a real estate magnate who turned over the running of his businesses to his sons after his election in 2016, touted his business acumen and negotiating skills on the campaign trail
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/trump-tax-returns-from-1985-1994-reportedly-show-1-billion-in-losses.html




Holy shit!!!! How does one go that broke that quickly? Was he watching a romantic comedy called “How To Lose A Billion In 10 Days”? And I could totally see Matthew McConaughey playing Trump in that role too. And if it’s this bad, what is it going to take to get those tax returns? Especially when our current Treasury Secretary is doing his best impression of the heckler from Happy Gilmore. You will not see these tax returns, jackass!!!

The Treasury Department said on Monday that it would not release President Trump’s tax returns to Congress, defying a request from House Democrats and setting up a legal battle likely to be resolved by the Supreme Court.

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, wrote in a letter to Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, that Mr. Neal’s request for the tax returns “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” and that he was not authorized to disclose them. The decision came after weeks of delays as Mr. Mnuchin said that his department and the Justice Department needed to study the provision of the tax code that Democrats were using to seek six years’ worth of the president’s personal and business tax returns.

The request for Mr. Trump’s taxes is the latest instance of the Trump administration rebuffing congressional oversight efforts.

“As you have recognized, the committee’s request is unprecedented, and it presents serious constitutional questions, the resolution of which may have lasting consequences for all taxpayers,” Mr. Mnuchin wrote in the one-page letter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/us/politics/trump-tax-returns-mnuchin.html




You will not see these tax returns, jackass!!!! And yes, John Oliver’s evil doppleganger does have a point – they run the show. And they will be like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, except Lucy kicks Charlie in the ribs when he’s lying in the ground and spits in his face. You know, just to rub salt in the wound. Just like the sado-masochists they are. And how are they further rubbing salt in the wound?

Trump won the 2016 election -- as the exit polling makes clear -- for one reason: Because he was viewed as a change agent in a year in which people wanted change. Of the 4 in 10 voters who said a candidate who could bring about "needed" change was their most important priority in choosing who to vote for, Trump won 82% of their votes. That was the entire election.

Could you make the case that Trump's refusal to release his tax returns -- ostensibly because they were under audit -- was part of the "needed" change that drew people to him? Yes, in the sense that you can make literally any argument in the world when there isn't a specific data point to either affirm or refute your claim.

But there is a 0% chance that argument was what Trump was trying to do with his tweet. Instead, he was -- as he often does -- just saying stuff. I'll prove it -- with Trump's own words.
The first clause of the tweet makes a simple argument: He was helped to victory by not releasing his tax returns; "I won the 2016 Election partially based on no Tax Returns," he wrote.
The second clause -- "and the voters didn't care" -- directly undermines the argument from the first clause. Was his failure to release his tax returns a reason voters voted for him (first clause) or a non-factor in the 2016 election (second clause)? Because it can't be both.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/politics/donald-trump-taxes/index.html




He’s actually probably right about that – the voters probably don’t give a shit about his tax returns but you know what didn’t happen? He didn’t win a fucking election because he didn’t release them! But don’t think that this isn’t over. Hell no, it’s not over by a long shot! In fact it’s just getting started and it seems like it’s going to be a long up hill battle. If Trump’s got nothing to hide, then why doesn’t he release them?

We’re starting to get at least a partial picture of what Donald Trump has been trying to hide since ducking releasing his tax returns during the 2016 campaign and then sidestepping demands from Democrats in Congress to see them.

The New York Times has delivered two major investigative scoops — unearthing tax documents filed by Trump’s father and some documents filed by Trump himself, mostly in the 1980s — that explain how Trump became rich in the first place while paying remarkably little in taxes to the Treasury Department.

Everything the Times has found so far is much too old to be the basis for any present-day criminal charges, or even to shed any real light on the current state of Trump’s business operations. The documents do, however, indicate that Trump has been lying to the public about several significant matters, including, most notably, the extent to which his wealth is simply inherited rather than the result of business prowess.

They also indicate some potentially illegal activity as Fred Trump sought to pass wealth tax-free to Donald and his siblings. The statute of limitations has passed, however, and Trump’s sister, a federal judge, abruptly retired in February, ensuring there would be no judicial ethics investigation either.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/10/18537282/trump-tax-returns-congress-irs





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[font size="8"]Donald Trump Jr.
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Well if they can’t get the father, they can probably get the second worst thing to bear the name Donald Trump – his son, Donald Trump Jr.. And how did they reach this point? This is one of those times where we may have to start backwards and work our way to how we got here. Of course you know that Trump loves him some loyalty. But what if Don Jr goes and squeals? I can guarantee that’s the thing that a mob boss like Trump would absolutely hate. Especially if it is coming from his own blood. So why is Trump Jr’s subpoena so important?

If Donald Trump Jr. doesn't comply with the Senate Intelligence Committee's subpoena, the chamber is preparing for the possibility it could vote on enforcing the order on the Senate floor, according to sources in both parties.

Republicans said privately on Monday they were eager to avoid the clash and what would surely be an ugly floor vote if Trump Jr. ignores the Senate; some hope the committee and Trump Jr. can work out a deal to avoid a floor vote on complying with the subpoena or even holding the president's son in contempt. But the chamber has several options if it chooses to force the issue, and they could pass given that they would require only a simple majority and aren't subject to the chamber's supermajority requirement, according to aides in both parties.

Contempt is one way forward. But the Senate also has a special option "as an alternative to both the inherent contempt power of each House and the criminal contempt statutes," according to the Congressional Research Service. The Intelligence Committee and then the full Senate can take civil action to enforce a subpoena in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia or to simply ask for a declaration of the validity of the subpoena, according to CRS.

It's a tactic aimed more at forcing compliance than punishment and has been used sparingly by the Senate, though the chamber did use the power to compel the production of documents from Backpage.com in 2016, which was accused of facilitating human trafficking. Typically civil action has been used more often for seeking documents, though in 1989 the Senate did seek civil action to compel testimony during an impeachment trial of a federal judge.

Still, Republicans aren't eager to test the waters when it comes to Trump Jr.; a floor vote would probably be the worst case scenario for Republicans eager to avoid confrontation with the president during a tough election cycle. There's essentially nothing more toxic than voting on enforcing a subpoena issued to the president's son.

"Hopefully, the Senate doesn’t have to vote on a subpoena, because that would be a difficult vote for a lot of Republicans between letting a chairman run their committee the way they want to, and in this particular instance, it’s usually a bipartisan decision that a person makes," said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Hugh Hewitt's radio show on Monday. "I don’t want that to happen, but I don’t want to discuss why it might happen. And hopefully, it won’t happen."
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/13/donald-trump-jr-subpoena-1319430




And Trump does love him some loyalty. So his men could sit around drinking beer in their underpants, and it would not at all be out of place for this administration. But so is throwing your people, or people who you consider to be your people, like Lindsay Graham for instance, under the bus.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, once one of President Donald Trump's sharpest Republican critics, sparked an uproar this weekend by suggesting Donald Trump Jr. should ignore a subpoena issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, the South Carolina Republican, said he believed the subpoena from the GOP-led panel was based on testimony from Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who is now serving a three-year sentence in federal prison for lying to Congress, among other charges.

"Anything based on what Michael Cohen said is worthless testimony. Michael Cohen is a worthless witness, and if I were Donald Trump Jr.'s lawyer I would tell him, 'You don't need to go back into this environment anymore, you've been there for hours and hours and hours. And nothing being alleged here changes the outcome of the Mueller investigation,'" Graham said.

"I would call it a day."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/05/14/lindsey-graham-advises-donald-trump-jr-ignore-senate-subpoena/3664179002/




Yeah you know the more you try to skirt around the issue, Trump, the guiltier you look. I mean you could silence all this tomorrow and just admit guilt at something. But seriously what the fuck are they hiding? And who is aiding him in avoiding the subpoena? And why is he not backing down? And why is my voice getting so high??? So many questions!

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr is not one to make a splash.

So when the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Burr chairs, issued a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr., it didn’t leak out for a couple of weeks. When the news finally broke, Burr refused to talk about it.

That didn’t stop the onslaught from fellow Republicans, including President Donald Trump who said he was “very surprised” by the move. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul called it “persecution of the president’s family.” Even Burr’s fellow North Carolina Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis, facing a primary challenge in 2020, tweeted “It’s time to move on.”

Burr is not the usual target for Republican ire. He’s been in Washington since 1995, first in the House then the Senate, and is a reliable conservative vote.

The mild-mannered senator is a far cry from the president’s Democratic critics, who have suggested Trump is "goading" impeachment by trying to overturn constitutional norms.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/11/trump-jr-subpoena-richard-burr-faces-pressure/1169275001/




Except that there won’t be any bad court thingys where you’re going Trump, prison. But what we should be looking at is not Russian Collusion, but why the GOP went from hating Trump and Trump Jr. to being his protector in all of this madness. The secret? They’re all in on it!!!

Republicans are up in arms about the actions of one of their own. What did he do to elicit such wrath? He dared to issue a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) sent the subpoena as part of the panel’s continuing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This should hardly be surprising — Trump Jr. makes multiple appearances at key points in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation. On at least two occasions, it appears that Mueller weighed charging Trump Jr. with crimes, but decided against it. And Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress appears to have been misleading, if not outright perjury, especially in light of Michael Cohen’s revelations about his own lies to lawmakers regarding the negotiations in 2016 by the Trump Organization to build a tower in Moscow.

But Burr’s decision to send the subpoena has caused an uproar among Republicans. They’ve been doing their best to sweep the Mueller report — including its damning revelations about the president — under the rug. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a speech declaring “case closed” on the matter.

Now, the head of Senate Intelligence seems to be undermining that narrative.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have spoken out against the subpoena. And as the New York Times documented, there appears to have been a covert pressure campaign to induce Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a close Burr ally, to convince the committee chair to back down.
https://www.salon.com/2019/05/13/how-protecting-donald-trumps-family-became-a-core-principle-of-the-republican-partys-ideology_partner/





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[font size="8"]Go Fund Me Wall Guy
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Here’s a question that I have – why are Trump fans so gullible? And here’s another question that I have – how many times must they get conned before they wake up and realize that they are being conned? I think I have the answer to the second question – all. They must get conned all the times. They’re like the guy on Animal House who gets repeatedly spanked and keeps saying “Thank you sir may I have another?” So that being said, is anyone really that surprised that the guy who started the Go Fund Me account to buy a $1 million yacht? You mean I’m not! Thank god!!! Here’s how it went down.

A GoFundMe Page called “We Build the Wall” has managed to raise well over $22 million from hundreds of thousands of donors over the past five months.

Run by an anti-immigration, triple-amputee, Iraq War veteran named Brian Kolfage, the GoFundMe page promises to build segments of President Donald Trump’s “wall” on private land along the southern U.S. border “for a fraction of what it costs the government.” The page received nearly $13 million in just five days after it was launched late last year.

One snag, though, is that to date, there is no sign of any groundbreaking having occurred on the project, despite promises by Kolfage that it would start in late April.

Now, some donors are beginning to grow concerned that perhaps they were duped. The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer reported on donor concerns on Friday.

“Since We Build the Wall blew their April deadline, Twitter replies to Kolfage and the group’s Facebook page have filled up with angry donors,” Sommer wrote.

One reason public confidence was built around the page is that well-known pro-Trump conservatives signed onto the project, including former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon.
https://splinternews.com/donors-to-the-we-build-the-wall-gofundme-page-want-to-1834704853




So Trump supporters – you just got conned by a charismatic ex-Marine with 3 prosthetic limbs! Yeah seriously don’t fuck around with that guy. But I just love watching Trump supporters blow their money on ridiculous causes like the wall. You mean to tell me this wasn’t a shady enterprise? I mean if you believe that I’ve got 500 bot accounts that follow @realDonaldTrump to sell you! I don’t know who I should be more disgusted at here – this former Marine taking advantage of people or the people who got taken advantage of? Eh… it’s a two way street.

Back in December, Washington state Trump supporter Joshua Greene donated a small amount of money to the crowdfunding effort to build a wall along the southern U.S. border. He wasn’t alone. The GoFundMe page to build the wall, to which he’d donated, was a sensation on the right in late 2018 and raised more than $20 million.

Organized by triple-amputee veteran Brian Kolfage, the campaign eventually morphed into a nonprofit called We Build the Wall, which promised to build portions of the wall on private land using the money it raised.

Months later, there’s no evidence that any construction has started, despite claims from Kolfage and his allies that construction would start in April. And now Greene is wondering what ever happened to that wall he was promised his dollars would fund?

“The lack of updates is very concerning,” Greene wrote in an email to Right Richter.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/shocker-the-gofundme-campaign-to-build-the-wall-is-a-bust?ref=scroll




Eh… not really. Trump supporters are quite the gullible bunch. Us liberals? We know some bullshit when we see it. But did they really learn their lesson? No. Because if this guy didn’t take their millions only to do nothing with it, somebody else would have, damn it! And I should have known that this story takes place in Florida. I mean only in Florida would something like this happen!

Left: Brian Kolfage who created a GoFundMe page to build a wall on America’s southern border but hasn’t apparently taken any steps towards doing so. Right: Former Kansas Secretary of State and failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach.

A source close to the Florida man who raised over $22 million on GoFundMe in the “We The People Will Build the Wall” campaign just revealed today in their opinion money may be diverted to pay for a ‘million dollar’ yacht and high-flying lifestyle.

This article draws on the use of an anonymous source whose identity is being protected because they stepped forward to expose what they believe is a wrong-doing or possibly criminal fraud by the Wall GoFundMe campaign that received over 300,000 individual donations.***

That source is a known activist that is pro-Trump and has gone on Fox News for his bipartisan cause. The source told The Stern Facts that they “ironically” know Brian Kolfage, who built that Wall Go Fund Me page.
https://www.thecoli.com/threads/man-who-started-gofundme-to-build-trumps-wall-has-been-using-the-funds-for-a-yacht.708413/




Well then you’re not going to like this either. Because when any horrible decision like this comes along, someone always gets hurt, and of course Mr. Kolfage is now firing back at his detractors who are saying that he’s misusing his money. Gee, ya think? Maybe you should do some research before you start just blindly funneling money to people on Go Fund Me!

The Purple Heart triple amputee veteran behind a $20million ‘build the wall’ GoFundMe has hit back at claims he is misspending the funds raised after he bought a $1million yacht and donors began to question what happened to their money.

Brian Kolfage, 37, who was severely wounded in a 2004 rocket attack at an Iraq air base, losing both legs and one arm, garnered more than $22 million online for the project along the southern US border since the campaign’s launch in December.

But the Florida resident is now facing repeated questions about the progress of the wall and attention has also turned to a $1million yacht he says he bought a year before he began the GoFundMe appeal.

A source told The Stern Facts that Kolfage is now living a high-flying lifestyle, saying: ‘Whether he ordered it last year with the year before is irrelevant it’s still nearly a million dollar boat. Those new toys are very expensive as is flying private.’
https://www.anglenews.com/2019/05/13/veteran-behind-20million-build-the-wall-gofundme-hits-back-at-claims-he-is-misspending-funds/





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[font size="8"]Be Best
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Remember when Sarah Palin famously asked Obama these words: “So how’s that hopey changey thing going for you?”. Well now it’s our turn to ask Trump – “How’s that Be Best thing going for you?”. Be Best… I mean seriously. Bullying is nothing to fuck around with – people get killed over it and kids die at a young age because of it. But you know who shouldn’t be in charge of such a tricky to navigate subject like this? The Trump Family! I mean this is about as empty of a gesture as you can get as our current president is the biggest bully on the planet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he beats other kids up for their lunch money just for fun.

First Lady Melania Trump is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the creation of her ant-online bullying “Be Best” initiative by announcing an expansion. Critics have savaged the first lady’s efforts noting that her husband, President Donald Trump, is the chief online bully in the country.

Her second-year push includes broadening the program’s focus on drug abuse and social media use, along with embarking on her second international trip.

“This past year has shown me that children are vulnerable to more than just social media, and so I expanded one of my pillars to online safety. Trump, 49, also said the campaign would extend its work on opioid abuse to “include kids of all ages.”

When first revealing “Be Best,” her first major initiative, Trump said its focus is on child well-being, social media use and drug abuse.
https://uinterview.com/news/despite-critics-melania-trump-expands-mission-of-be-best-on-its-1-year-anniversary/




Seriously - a Trump stopping bullying is like a telemarketing company going on a crusade against robo dialers. You know they're part of the problem so why take anything they say seriously? Thank you audience! So what has Be Best accomplished? Well it’s accomplished a whole lot of nothing.

Exactly one year after announcing her long-awaited "Be Best" platform, Melania Trump is scheduled to return to the Rose Garden on Tuesday to push the campaign forward.

Trump unveiled her somewhat grandiose official plan, a three-pillar initiative aimed at issues facing children: well-being, social media and opioid abuse, after 16 months of serving as first lady.

"I feel strongly that as adults, we can and should be best at educating our children about the importance of a healthy and balanced life," said Trump at the announcement, speaking to an audience that included her husband, President Donald Trump, seated in the front row.

One year in, Trump intends to push forward with her platform, and it is anticipated the first lady will reveal more plans for Be Best's sophomore year, according to her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham.

"I don't want to get too far ahead of any announcements she will make at the [anniversary] celebration, but we have expanded two of the three pillars based on information and lessons learned over the past year," Grisham tells CNN. "Her expansion of the opioids pillar will now include speaking to children of all ages, and her expansion of the social media pillar will now focus on online safety as a whole."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/05/politics/melania-trump-be-best-one-year-later/index.html




You know, Melania, not to nit pick here, but if online safety is your biggest concern, have you seen your husband’s twitter account lately? I’m just saying that you might want to take a peak over there because he says some pretty nasty shit, and his followers back it up and pour it on. So just how little has Be Best accomplished? Well it hasn’t really accomplished anything!

Be Best – the grammatical integrity of the phrase has been challenged – is focused on “well-being”, “online safety” and “opioid abuse”, aiming to educate children and parents and promote relevant programmes and services.

Wearing a dark sleeveless dress in brilliant sunshine, Trump said her office had spent the past year listening to children, parents, medical professionals, teachers, leaders in technology and social media and others. She has visited schools and hospitals, hosted or taken part in 18 roundtables and policy briefings and met more than 30 foreign diplomats, heads of state or spouses.

The first lady noted that she had travelled to 15 US states and nine countries including her first solo trip where she visited Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.

“While in Africa, I felt it was important that people throughout the continent and world understand that the United States cares,” she said.

The president’s lack of interest in African nations, which he once reportedly referred to as “shithole countries”, has been widely noted.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/07/melania-trump-be-best-campaign-donald-trump




I just love that Melania Trump went to Africa to go to third world countries on the same day that her husband called them “shithole countries”. I mean remember that? it even inspired the Shithole version of our World Tour way back last year. Hey although unlike Melania Trump, we at least consistently put out fresh content for you on a weekly basis, am I right audience? Although it truly boggles the mind that a Trump would want to keep kids fair and balanced because he knows a thing or two about that!

Melania Trump, the first lady of the United States, briefly stepped out of her husband’s larger than life shadow on Monday to launch a campaign against cyber-bullying – before putting on a show of unity with Donald Trump.

Just as Hillary Clinton was once scrutinized during her husband Bill’s sex scandal, Melania faced the cameras even as Donald Trump kept changing his story about an alleged extramarital encounter with the pornographic film actor Stormy Daniels.

“As a mother and as first lady, it concerns me that in today’s fast-paced and ever-connected world, children can be less prepared to express or manage their emotions and often times turn to forms of destructive or addictive behaviour such as bullying, drug addiction or even suicide,” Melania told an audience in bright sunshine in the White House Rose Garden, which is normally reserved for events hosted by the president.

“I feel strongly that as adults, we can and should be best at educating our children about the importance of a healthy and balanced life,” she added.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/07/melania-trump-white-house-be-best-children





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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Brady Bunch Vs Anti Vaxxers
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It’s time to investigate beyond the headlines. This is Top 10 Investigates.



Measles outbreaks are happening all over the country. As such, scientists and doctors are tracing the origins of the resurgence of this horrifying disease. While the anti-vaccination crowd is largely to blame, people are trying to figure out what’s fueling anti-vaccination hysteria. But would you ever guess that an episode of the classic sitcom the Brady Bunch was fueling the hysteria? Anti-vaccination crusaders may be upping their game when it comes to the hysteria and harassment, but this takes things to whole new levels of extreme. And it’s hard to take them seriously when you find this out.

“If you have to get sick,” Marcia Brady bellows. “Sure can’t beat the measles!” Marcia delivered the line in an episode of The Brady Bunch that aired in 1969. Fifty years later, it's echoing through Facebook antivaxxer communities.

If you ignore the sitcom context, it does sound like a peppy mid-century advertising slogan for the disease, the sort of thing a feverish Don Draper might have come up with after his eighth Old Fashioned. So, naturally, that’s how antivaxxers are taking it.

Marcia’s pro-measles platform has been a staple of the antivax community for a while now—it’s a popular meme, which means that it’s also T-shirt. Screengrabs of blonde-pigtailed Marcia grinning at the thought of measles are so common in anti-vaccine forums that Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia, got on NPR and asked to be excluded from this narrative. She’s quaintly scandalized that strangers would use her face for their own ends without her permission, without asking her whether she believes in vaccines or not. The antivaxxers do not care.

To them, whether or not Maureen McCormick vaccinated her children, which she did, is irrelevant, as is McCormicks’ discomfort with becoming the face of measles. (“Boo hoo,” read several Facebook comments.) So is the fact that the creator of The Brady Bunch, Sherwood Schwartz, was also a known child vaccinator. Everyone involved can wave their vaccination records all they want and it won’t deter anybody from buying a T-shirt that informs the world that the titular family of a sitcom failed to die of measles on daytime television. This meme is not about Marcia or any of the Brady bunch: It’s about having a slice of 1969.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-brady-bunch-measles-episode-is-now-a-viral-menace/




Ha ha ha, measles are so much fun! It’s just a day off school don’t you know? Now this brings up an interesting question – should we trust all of our medical advice to sitcoms? Well if you even have to ponder the answer to this question, you’re an idiot. But then again anti-vaccination crusaders are the kind of people who take what’s said on TV way too seriously.

Some anti-vaxxers – those misguided people who believe vaccines do more harm than good despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary – are using “The Brady Bunch” to make their case.

In an episode from the 1969 TV show, the Brady kids come down with the measles, skip school and hilarity ensues.

“If you have to get sick, you sure can’t beat the measles,” says Marcia Brady, played by actress Maureen McCormick, in a clip circulated by anti-vaxxers.

Nearly fifty years after that episode first aired, the United States has the highest number of measles cases since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000.

McCormick told NPR she isn’t happy that Marcia has become an unwitting spokesperson for the pro-measles, anti-vaccination crowd.
https://www.independenttribune.com/news/should-sitcoms-dictate-our-medical-treatment/article_7cd09c68-6dd7-11e9-a4b6-d31fc4670ee3.html




Well if you give someone the measles you probably wont get any friends. In fact the number of cases of the measles is so severe that it’s a few hundred away from reaching epidemic proportions. But really this is something to be concerned about, and anti-vaccination people should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

The number of confirmed U.S. measles cases this year has climbed to 764, more than double the number a year ago and the highest total in 25 years, federal health officials announced Monday.

Sixty additional cases were reported last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Most of those were in New York City and its suburbs.

Pennsylvania became the 23rd state where measles cases have been confirmed.

Ogbonnaya Omenka, an associate professor and public health specialist at Butler University, found some encouraging news in the report. He noted that the number of cases rose about the same in the past two weeks, less than previous gains. But authorities dare not get complacent, he said.

"This outbreak is an indication that the traditional methods of addressing measles outbreaks in the United States may not suffice any longer," Omenka told USA TODAY. "Public health authorities need to quickly recognize this and adapt accordingly."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/06/measles-outbreak-disease-booming-reaching-764-cases-23-states/1118412001/




Yes in fact that’s the reaction that you should give someone who says that they don’t believe in vaccines and that they won’t get their children vaccinated because of fears of autism. In fact this is so outrageous and stupid that you can’t begin to fathom the ire that is coming from the creators and stars of the actual Brady Bunch. They aren’t having any of it.

As the number of measles cases nationwide rises to levels not seen since before the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, some people who oppose vaccines cite an odd cultural reference as evidence that the concern about measles is overblown: a 1969 episode of The Brady Bunch.

Some former Brady Bunch cast members aren't happy about it.

The episode "Is There a Doctor in the House?" features the whole family sick with measles. First, Peter gets sent home from school. Mother Carol Brady, played by Florence Henderson, describes his symptoms as "a slight temperature, a lot of dots and a great big smile," because he gets to stay home from school for a few days.

Once the rest of the six kids come down with measles, the youngest two Brady siblings fool around, with Bobby trying to color Cindy's measles spots green.

"If you have to get sick, sure can't beat the measles," sister Marcia says, as the older Bradys sit around a Monopoly board on one of the kid's beds. All the kids are thankful they don't have to take any medicine or, worse, get shots, the thought of which causes Jan to groan.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/28/717595757/brady-bunch-episode-fuels-campaigns-against-vaccines-and-marcia-s-miffed




That’s it for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.


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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’s our weekly duty to remind you why the holiest among us are also the most full of:



My fair congregation! You know I have been monitoring a potentially nasty situation happening in Chappequa, New York. That of course is the home of the woman who should currently be our president, Hillary Clinton. Instead we are stuck with the Dark One, whose name shall not be spoken under any circumstances in my church!!! Now those of you may have friends and / or loved ones who support the Dark One. But they are up to some really shady activities. Do they really need to go to New York to demand Hillary Clinton’s arrest? NO!!!! Thank you! You know that is the one and only correct answer, all others shall be cast out! What is going on???

On his “Pass The Salt Live” webcast this morning, Dave Daubenmire declared that he and other right-wing activists will be descending on the Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, New York, over Memorial Day weekend to demand Hillary’s arrest because failure to put her in prison would be “spitting in the face of God.”

All week, Daubenmire has been promoting what is being called The March for Equal Justice that is scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 26, outside the Clintons’ home, where right-wing activists will gather to demand that President Trump arrest Hillary Clinton. On his show today, Daubenmire said that once Clinton is locked away in prison, she will finally have the chance to meet Jesus.

“The Bible says this, ‘The law is the schoolmaster that drives us to Christ,'” he said. “Do you have any idea how many in the deep state are going to meet Jesus as a result of justice coming to them? Do you have any idea? You say, ‘Well, Coach, we just need to share the Gospel with them.’ You’re daggone right we do. Let’s lock ’em up. Let’s lock ’em up and let’s let ’em know they’re not above the law, they’re not above God, and drive them to their knees and they’ll meet Jesus.”

“This is so important,” Daubenmire added. “It dishonors our Lord if we let Hillary Clinton be declared not guilty and she ain’t even been tried. That’s spitting in the face of God.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-daubenmire-failure-to-imprison-hillary-clinton-is-spitting-in-the-face-of-god/




Now Brother Dave, do you have any evidence at all that Hillary Clinton is guilty? Do you have anything that supports this claim of the almighty GAWD? No? Then maybe you are the one who is spitting in the face of our good LAWRD JAYSUS!!!! But it gets weirder, apparently this is an ultimatum from the good LAWRD JAYSUS!! But no, Dave, GAWD does not speak in that kind of tone!

Daubenmire said on his “Pass The Salt Live” webcast today that the video he filmed outside of the Clintons’ home was just a “spark” from which a nationwide movement to imprison Clinton will grow and that Limbaugh’s comments were part of this growing movement that is being orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.

“This idea came from the Lord, and it came to me, and then it went to Rush Limbaugh,” Daubenmire said. “You say, ‘Boy, that sounds arrogant.’ Well, that shows how spiritually disconnected you are.”

“The same Holy Spirit that influenced Coach Dave influenced Rush Limbaugh,” he added. “Don’t you understand that the same Holy Spirit that speaks to me is the same Holy Spirit that can speak to Rush Limbaugh and he doesn’t even know it?”

“I’m believing that this ‘indict Hillary’ spark has been lit and she ain’t going to get out from under it,” Daubenmire declared. “There ain’t anywhere she can run. She can run but she cannot hide. The Holy Spirit has issued an indictment because we will never have free government in America if this criminal goes off scot-free simply because her ‘father’—the devil, in my honest opinion—has declared it so. My daddy said, ‘Coach, you go say, “Indict,” and I’m going to do something that is going to smack her daddy down.’ My daddy is bigger than her daddy.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-daubenmire-the-holy-spirit-has-issued-an-indictment-against-hillary-clinton/




So here’s the thing, Dave, you might want to channel your obsession into something a bit more healthier. Because this is quite literally insane. You and whoever listens to your show are lit by a spark, but it didn’t explode! Instead it’s a sparkler! You know it kind of fizzles out after a while. But you know they can’t kill us all!! I heard a guy say that on TV once!

Dave Daubenmire appeared on “The Hagmann Report” last night to promote the demonstration being organized by right-wing activists for Memorial Day weekend outside the Chappaqua, New York, home of Bill and Hillary Clinton, where they will demand that President Trump arrest the former first lady and presidential candidate.

The event, which was originally billed as “The March For Equal Justice,” has now been changed to “The Equal Justice Tour” after organizers were informed by lawyers that they would need permits if they intended to hold any sort of rally or protest outside the Clintons’ home. In response, organizers are now billing the event as a “tour” since tours require no such permits, meaning that now it will merely consist of right-wing activists driving past the Clintons’ home and around Chappaqua demanding Hillary’s arrest.

Daubenmire admitted to being a bit fearful about taking part in this event, but then likened it to fighting in a war.

“What if our forefathers had that same attitude?” he said. “What about the guys who stormed Iwo Jima? What about those guys who stormed Normandy Beach? What about those guys in the Vietnam rice paddies? They did not fight and die for us to be afraid and not do our job when our time is before us.”

“As long as Hillary is more equal than me, as long as Obama is more equal than me,” Daubenmire said, “then that is not liberty. That is displeasing to our Lord and it spits on the graves of those brave men, living and dead, who struggled for liberty, justice, and the American way.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/they-cant-kill-us-all-dave-daubenmire-urges-christians-to-join-anti-clinton-tour/




And that is true, no one does say those things! But this begs the question – does Brother Dave not know the definition of the word “equal”? I mean how can he claim that someone is “more equal” than him? It is easy – there is no such thing!!!! Cause according to GAWD and our good book, we are all the LAWRD’s children! But this might be my favorite thing said about this whole failed social experiment. I mean you just can’t make this stuff up!

On Monday, we noted that Dave Daubenmire will be joining other right-wing activists in protesting outside the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, New York, over Memorial Day weekend to demand that President Trump arrest Hillary Clinton.

On his “Pass the Salt Live” webcast this morning, Daubenmire proclaimed that The March for Equal Justice, as the event is being called, is an act of spiritual warfare so significant that the angels in Heaven are scalping tickets to get a front row seat to watch what goes down.

“The FBI will be there and the Secret Service,” Daubenmire said. “Why? Because they’re going to try to force you to not do it. Don’t you see? Can’t you see the contention happening in the natural realm as a result of what is going on in the spiritual realm?”

“I’ll be those guys up there, they’re selling tickets to watch,” he added. “I’ll bet they’re scalping ’em. ‘I got a front row seat, I want to watch our boys fight down there on earth, I want to watch that.’ You think I’m crazy. I think that’s what’s going on.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-daubenmire-they-are-scalping-tickets-in-heaven-to-watch-our-anti-clinton-protest/




Why yes, Brother Dave, we do think that you are crazy! You call yourself a coach and preach in front of a blank stadium backdrop. I call myself a pastor but I have a real audience and congregation to show for it!!! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]How Is This Still A Thing?
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It’s time once again to ask:



This week – giant corporations lecturing us about personal expenditures. How is this still a thing? In the modern era when literally everything costs money, there are a lot of ways that you could very easily blow it all. But do you really need Chase Bank or Delta Airlines lecturing you about how something costs too much money when their CEOs and corporate executives make hundreds of millions of dollars? We don’t think so. In fact their “Monday Motivation” post is really reminding people how much they hate big banks.

Chase Bank faced some major backlash and was accused of shaming poor people after trying to get in on Twitter’s Monday Motivation hashtag.

In a tweet, the bank tried to imitate a popular meme that involves a person thinking or doing certain things with an inner voice or inanimate object explaining how those thoughts or actions can be bad.

Chase Bank's version was premised on a low bank account balance: “You: why is my balance so low / Bank account: make coffee at home / Bank account: eat the food that’s already in the fridge / Bank account: you don’t need a cab, it’s only three blocks / You: I guess we’ll never know / bank account: seriously? #MondayMotivation”

The backlash that the tweet generated was swift. Followers, celebrities and politicians explained how the tweet came across as “tone-deaf” and was a form of “poor shaming.” Chase deleted the tweet, but since nothing on the internet is lost forever, screenshots appeared everywhere.

Many people reminded the bank that it owes taxpayers money since its parent company, JPMorgan Chase, was part of the 2008 recession bailout.
www.my9nj.com/group-content-team/chase-bank-faces-backlash-for-shaming-poor-people-in-mondaymotivation-tweet




Yes, we don’t need your bad financial advice, Chase. We need actual money. Bills. Dinero. Moola. Cash. Do re mi. Your financial advice is kind of a slap in the face to those who don’t need any more of it, we need to take action instead. Thankfully there’s Elizabeth Warren who actually slapped Chase back and told them what needed to be said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren hit back at JP Morgan Chase Bank on Monday after the financial giant tried to give its customers some “#MondayMotivation” for saving money.

In a tweet around 1:57 p.m. on Monday, which has since been deleted, the company posted a hypothetical conversation between a person and their bank account, with the customer wondering why their bank account is “so low”:

Chase tagged the tweet with the hashtag #MondayMotivation, and the post drew quick backlash, including from the Massachusetts senator and 2020 presidential candidate.

Warren mimicked Chase’s format in her response, saying that the reason why the bank’s customers aren’t saving money is because they “lost [their] jobs/homes/savings but gave you a $25b bailout.”

According to NBC News, JP Morgan raised the salary of its CEO Jamie Dimon to $31 million. Dimon was also recently questioned at a House Financial Services Committee hearing about the wages the bank pays to low-level employees.

Warren wasn’t the only politician to criticize the bank for the post. California Rep. Katie Porter referenced the CEO’s appearance before lawmakers in her response.

“Hey @Chase, try paying your workers more. Families aren’t spending frivolously; they’re trying to pay rent,” she said, adding, “Mr. Dimon, you couldn’t figure out how to balance an example JPMC teller budget but said you’d ‘think about’ how one might make ends meet. Is this what your crackerjack leadership team came up with?”
https://www.boston.com/news/business/2019/04/30/elizabeth-warren-chase-bank-twitter




Yes, and if Chase’s advice was bad enough, Delta Airlines came along and said “hold my beer”. Yes, Chase wasn’t the only corporation giving us extremely terrible advice about our personal spending habits. Delta upped the ante and said that paying union dues was the same as spending money on video games. You peasants will take your penance and like it!

"Union dues cost around $700 [£540] a year," one of the posters states.

"A new video game system with the latest hits sounds like fun. Put your money towards that instead of paying dues to the union," it continued.

The posters point to a website featuring Delta branding which encourages workers not to unionise.




Without confirming it produced the posters, a spokesperson for the airline said it had "shared many communications, which on the whole make clear that deciding whether or not to unionise should not be taken lightly."

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), which claims to represent more than 110,000 airline employees in the United States, is attempting to organise union representation for 44,000 Delta employees.
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-48225646




Yes, we all need some money now. And there’s not enough of it to go around. So why is this so important? Well, in an era of extremely gross and ever expanding income inequality, you need to know where your money goes. Well, it’s going to the top. And they are making a lot of it. If Delta and Chaase giving you bad financial advice is making you cringe, just wait until you see how much their executives are being paid.

Democratic Rep. Katie Porter (Calif.) grilled JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during a Wednesday hearing, challenging the billionaire about how a single mother working as a Chase bank teller should budget out her starting salary.

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing that included the CEOs of a handful of major banks, Porter shared the story of a woman, meant to represent several of Porter's constituents, who takes home $2,425 each month from her job with JPMorgan Chase and shares a room with her daughter in a one-bedroom apartment in Irvine, Calif., that costs roughly $1,600 a month.

The congresswoman said that after the woman spends about $100 of her paycheck each month on utilities and more on food, travel, rent and child care, she ends up with a deficit of $567 a month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/438540-dem-challenges-jp-morgan-ceo-to-try-and-budget-employees-low-salary-i-dont




So the CEO of Chase Bank makes 1000 times more than their average worker while the average Chase employee can’t afford rent. That’s enough to make you ask – giant corporations lecturing us about personal expenses:




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We’ve been discussing our ever-decreasing wages and our ever-increasing corporate greed a lot this week. And for good reason – our bosses are getting richer by the minute, and we’re getting poorer by the minute. And as we’re working on this week’s edition, guess what? America’s two biggest ride sharing services – Uber and Lyft are getting ready to file their IPOs. Which means there’s some executives that are going to get a whole lot richer. But what will work? What will help the struggling Uber drivers get the upper hand in their negotiations against management? Well there’s plenty of solutions out there. But before we get into that, what are they striking for?

A strike by Uber and Lyft drivers in cities across the United States this week caused barely a ripple to passengers looking to catch a ride, highlighting the challenges in launching a labor movement from scratch in an industry that is by nature decentralized.

Activists and others involved in the labor movement are still declaring it a success. It grabbed headlines, trended on Twitter and won the support of several Democrats running for president. The action was also closely watched by labor organizers, who are brainstorming about ways to build worker power in the 21st-century economy.

Drivers say they wanted to draw the attention of the public, technology investors and political leaders to their plight: low pay and a lack of basic rights on the job.

“The goal is to bring awareness to the incredible disregard for workers,” said Lyft driver Ann Glatt, who helped organize the San Francisco strike and protest outside Uber headquarters.

App-based workers are thought to comprise just a small fraction of the economy, but there are still millions of people making a living in gig work. Uber alone says it has nearly 4 million drivers , while Lyft has over 1 million.
https://www.apnews.com/491a18c0a47e4904b8473f6fd536081c




I think the bigger question there is why does this guy have a foot growing out of his head? So Uber and Lyft drivers are striking against our corporate masters because they feel that they’re being cheated out of wages on the day that the company stands to make billions. But of course like all good plans, this one was poorly organized and begs the question that there’s always two sides to every strike.

A loose network of ride-hailing drivers took to the streets without their cars from San Diego to Atlanta on Wednesday as they protested ahead of Uber’s highly anticipated initial public offering, which is scheduled for Friday.

In Los Angeles, about two dozen protesters took time off work to gather in the early morning at LAX. Meanwhile, tons of working Uber and Lyft drivers dropped passengers off at the airport. In Long Island City, Queens, a lone protester held a sign that read "Uber, Lyft, Juno, Via drivers on strike" as several ride-sharing cars swarmed the area to pick up commuters requesting rides.

Five days in advance, organizers urged drivers to abstain from using ride-hailing apps for durations ranging from two hours to a whole day. The action was poised to put a dent in Uber's biggest markets across the globe, organizers said.

Uber told USA TODAY there was no noticeable impact in their daily operations.

Only about a dozen drivers showed up to a rally in New York City's Financial District Friday morning, and according to local news outlets in Boston, it was a normal day at the airport for travelers trying to hitch a ride using an app. Though later in the day, drivers and protesters blocked traffic on Market Street in front of Uber's San Francisco headquarters.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/05/08/uber-lyft-strike-heres-why-so-few-people-showed-up-protests/1142708001/




So Uber drivers are unhappy that their company is about to make billions and their execs millions and leave them in the dust. They don’t want much – just to be able to, I don’t know, make a wage that enables them to afford the ever-increasing rent in this country! But striking will work, fact! You know what won’t work? A change in the infrastructure! But really doesn’t anyone just walk anymore?

Uber and Lyft drivers are on strike to demand regulated fares and livable wages, in the lead-up to Uber’s initial public offering on the stock exchange on 10 May. Now there is some more bad news for these services: they haven’t lived up to claims of reducing traffic congestion.

In San Francisco, rides through these two services increased traffic delays by 40 per cent over a six-year period, according to a new study.

“We collected information on where and when exactly these trips occur and found they are at the most congested parts of the city and the most congested times of day,” says Greg Erhardt at the University of Kentucky.

They first asked the companies for access to the data but were turned down. “The companies themselves are wholly disinterested in sharing data with anyone,” says Joe Castiglione at the San Francisco Transportation Authority, who also worked on the study.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2202011-uber-and-lyft-increased-traffic-delays-in-san-francisco-by-40-percent/




You know doesn’t anyone just walk anymore? And there’s also these things called “taxis”, they were the original ride share service. You summoned them by using this “app” that was called “your hand”. It’s that thing that you use to control your smart device. We use them for other things, you know! And they would come to you! But guess what? The strikes worked! Well, sort of. The Uber executives were utterly terrified at the fact that their corporate minions were striking. This will work, FACT!!!

Drivers for Uber and Lyft got out of their cars on Wednesday. In major U.S. cities (and a few other places around the world), workers for the ride-hail services organized protests ahead of Uber’s initial public offering on Friday. The company expects to be valued at more than $90 billion. It isn’t profitable right now, hemorrhaging more than $1 billion a year as it subsidizes its service, which is why Uber has been squeezing driver earnings in recent months as it’s made its case to investors. That’s also why the gig workers who make up Uber’s driving fleet chose this of all weeks to make a very loud point.

Their point was that Uber needs to pay up. At a protest in front of Uber’s Market Street headquarters in San Francisco, a driver named Vinni told me that when he started driving for Uber in 2013, he was paid about $2.20 a mile. Now, he says, he gets about 92 cents a mile. At most jobs, he lamented, you’d think that you’d be making more after six years, not less.

The protest in San Francisco attracted about 300 people, mostly drivers, though a fair number of reporters were there as well. Many of the workers I spoke to told me they learned about the protest on Facebook, where they saw either an ad about the strike from a gig worker organizing group like Gig Workers Rising or a post from a friend. Only two of the more than a dozen drivers I spoke to told me that they’d participated in a driver action before. This seemed to be the first collective action for most of the protesters. “We have to do this,” an Uber driver named Marcos told me. If the pay doesn’t improve, he said, he’d need to find new work, even though he invested in a nicer car for his driving gig.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/05/uber-strike-impact-gig-worker-protest.html





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Hit it!



Of course you know by now that people are people, and people are dumb. And I love these stories because they never disappoint. So who is stupid this week? Well I want to start with of course the Sunshine State, and I love this story. Would you put something like “I Eat Ass” on the back of your car or truck? No? Well, keep in mind that this is Florida. And this story does have a happy ending. No, not that kind of happy ending, sir! But this guy not only did that, he got arrested for it! Seriously, we have this thing called “free speech” in this country. Well let’s roll it and then we will show the picture of a truck.

A Florida man arrested this week for refusing to remove a sticker on his pickup truck proclaiming that he eats ass will not be prosecuted, officials said Thursday.

Now the man is threatening to sue the sheriff's office for violating his First Amendment rights.

Dillon Shane Webb, 23, was stopped Sunday on a highway in Lake City, west of Jacksonville, by a Columbia County sheriff's deputy who saw a sticker on his rear window that read, "I EAT ASS."

Dashcam footage shows the deputy telling Webb that the reason he was pulled over was "the derogatory sticker" on the back of his truck.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/florida-sticker-eat-ass-arrest




Oh come on, I’ve seen way worse than that! And if you’re going to eat ass, well… well I probably shouldn’t finish that sentence. Next up – sticking with the Sunshine State, we go to the city of Punta Gorda. OK I have a lot of questions about this one. Who wakes up in the morning and says “I’m going to carry live alligators in my pants?”. And second, how does one go about doing that without getting a large chunk of their leg bitten off? Well, that’s what happened here, and it is insane.

A routine traffic stop in Florida (if there is such a thing) took a turn for the truly bizarre this week after a woman, when asked by the cops if she had anything on her, whipped out a foot-long alligator she was concealing in her pants. Nothing to see here, just another Monday in blessed Florida!

Sheriff deputies in Punta Gorda, Florida pulled over a pickup truck early Monday morning after the driver ran a stop sign, but got much more than they bargained for once they got a closer look at what else was hitching a ride inside the vehicle. The female driver and male passenger explained they had been attempting to collect frogs and snakes from a nearby underpass (?!), so authorities asked to see what they'd collected, according to local NBC affiliate WBBH.

Initially, the woman confessed she had 41 turtles in her bag, but it wasn't until the deputies asked if she had anything else that she made the big reveal. She pulled out a footlong alligator from her yoga pants, and plopped it in the truck bed.

The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office posted a photo of the lil' guy on its Facebook page with a cheeky caption copping to the Florida-ness of the whole ordeal. Eventually, the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission arrived and took over the investigation. The alligator and turtles are native to Florida, but are regulated so the man and woman were cited and all of the reptiles were ultimately seized and released.
https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/florida-woman-pulls-alligator-out-of-pants-traffic-stop




That’s a totally different kind of gator for you! Next up – we go from killer gators to killer fish. Which are piranhas, don’t you know? Well maybe don’t bring them through customs when you go to the airport, because you will get questioned by the police. And it wasn’t just one or two, it was 40! 40 piranhas through LAX customs! They must be some pretty tasty fish!

PSA: Customs officers do not like it when you try to bring a duffel bag full of 40 vacuum-sealed, frozen piranhas into Los Angeles.

Virgilio Martinez, chef-owner of Central restaurant in Peru, who was featured in the third season of Netflix’s “Chef’s Table,” learned this lesson the hard way.

The chef landed at LAX this past week to cook dinners at Somni and at Vespertine as part of the Los Angeles Times’ monthlong food festival Food Bowl. In his luggage when he landed were 40 piranhas.

“I was extremely obsessed about bringing piranhas because we serve piranhas in the Amazon at Central, so I said, ‘Guys, why not take a risk to bring piranhas to L.A.?’ ” Martinez said. “You probably have preconceived notions about piranhas because of movies, but for me, piranhas, we go fish them.”
https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-virgilio-martinez-central-piranhas-lax-peru-20190508-story.html




And that is true, I heard a guy on TV say that once. Next up – remember the insane ending of the Kevin Smith flick Clerks II? Where Randal calls in a bestiality party for Dante and all hell breaks loose? Well these guys had a donkey, they also had a horse, a dog, a chicken, a pig and tons of other farm animals, and well, really, don’t do this.

"Three men were sentenced to up to 41 years in prison for having sex with multiple animals.

Matthew Brubaker, 31, Marc Measnikoff, 34, and Terry Wallace, 41 were all arrested in 2018 and charged with having sex with 9 horses, a cow, a goat and dogs over the past five years.

WTAJ reports the Pennsylvania men were sentenced Monday to 20 to 41 years in prison.

According to the report, a teenage boy was forced to restrain the animals while the men engaged in the sex acts."

https://www.local10.com/news/national/men-sentenced-up-to-41-years-for-having-sex-with-horses-cow-goat-and-dogs




Yeah let’s… actually hope that never happens. Finally this week for People Are Dumb – we go South Of The Border. Yes, even in Mexico, they are not immune from stupid people. If you’re spying on your ex lover, maybe don’t go somewhere that you can’t escape from. Kind of like the Aztec Tomb from Arrested Development.

Officials in northern Mexico say a man accidentally trapped himself in a hole he'd dug so that he could spy surreptitiously on his former girlfriend, in violation of a restraining order.

The attorney general's office for the state of Sonora said Sunday that the 50-year-old spent days digging the hole in Puerto Penasco, on the Gulf of California, only to become trapped inside and require assistance to get out. The man had been ordered to stay away from his ex-girlfriend due to domestic violence charges. He is now in jail.

Violence against women is in Mexico's spotlight this week after a woman was hit by a car and stabbed to death by her husband outside the governor's residence in the western state of Jalisco. That incident was captured on video.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/arizona/articles/2019-04-28/mexican-man-traps-himself-in-hole-dug-to-spy-on-his-ex




That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]Stupidest State Contest: Final Four
[br] [/font]
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16 states will enter and only one state will be crowned the new Top 10 Conservative Idiots Stupidest State!



We are in the home stretch folks! Last week Wisconsin stunned a very strong Michigan showing with a last minute 3 pointer that sends them into the Final Four! And this week – it’s the Final Four! We have all four corners of conservative insanity represented. God, guns, greed, and batshit. Let’s introduce our teams! In the Gun Nut Conference – we have Florida! Representing the Family Values Conference – Alabama! Representing the Fiscal Irresponsibility Conference, we have Wisconsin! And last but certainly not least, representing the Batshit Conference – Georgia! Four of these teams will tangle, two will move on to the championship!!! We’re live at the home of the USC Trojans, the fabulous Galen Center in downtown Los Angeles for all the action action action! We will have the matchups and the net cutting ceremonies! Who will win? Who will go home? We will find out! Let’s get out those brackets!

:large

[font size="4"]Wisconsin Vs Georgia[/font]

[font size="4"]Wisconsin[/font]


Last week Wisconsin stunned a strong Michigan to win the Fiscal Irresponsibility conference. This time they’re taking on a super strong Georgia who also defeated a long time conference favorite. So this week for the Layover League championship, we’re going to focus on something that these two states have in common – jobs. Yes, we all have jobs (hopefully) and those of us who don’t have jobs definitely need them to survive. So how are things going on that front in the state known for its’ amazing cheese?

A big employer in Stevens Point will cut its workforce by at least a third in the coming two years.

The Donaldson Co. manufacturing plant laid off 29 hourly employees and six salaried workers this week. Beck Cahn, a spokesman for the plant, tells the Stevens Point Journal that it will reduce its workforce by an additional 150 to 200 employees over the next two years.

The company employs about 550 people at the plant, which manufactures hydraulic, lube and fuel filters for customers in engine and industrial hydraulics industries. After it finishes restructuring, the plant will employ between 250 and 300 people.

Donaldson operates 140 facilities in 40 countries. Cahn says it’s in the process of conducting a company-wide restructuring.

https://dailyreporter.com/2019/05/10/stevens-point-plant-laying-off-a-third-of-its-workforce/




Yeah except that might be difficult to do. We’ve been talking about how Trump is trying to lure Chinese mega manufacturing conglomerate Foxconn to Wisconsin since the tournament started but there’s plenty of other jobs available in the Badger State. Except not really especially if you read all the doom and gloom in the media. But would you be surprised at all that Trump is lying about how well the Wisconsin economy is doing? Well we aren’t either.

At a April 27, 2019 rally in Green Bay before 10,000 boisterous supporters, President Donald Trump blazed his way through a typical barrage of claims and statistics in a stump speech that stretched well over an hour.

After calling Wisconsin — a key state in his 2016 general election victory — a "special place," he threw out two rapid fire claims on the state’s poverty and unemployment levels. We’ll tackle the first of those here.

"The poverty rate for Wisconsin families has reached the lowest rate in 22 years," Trump said, a pronouncement greeted by cheers from the Resch Center crowd.

His claim is very precise — Wisconsin, families, 22 years.

Read more: https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2019/apr/30/donald-trump/trump-says-wisconsin-poverty-rate-lowest-22-years-/?fbclid=IwAR2dE2pa2Qn3zj-hJL_rwhrKZY48dR_IaPY_4_NViCyW3LGDP7hWucYYSsc




[font size="4"]Georgia[/font]


That guy makes a good point! And just like Wisconsin unseated a long time champion of the conference, Georgia just routed Kentucky to win the Batshit Conference based on stolen elections and anti-abortion insanity. So what have they been up to in the jobs department? Well the good news is that they have experienced a lot of blowback and fallout from the “Heartbeat Bill” that is one of several in the nation, and how is it affecting the Georgia economy? Well there’s lots of things that are happening.

Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams have agreed to shoot an upcoming HBO horror drama “Lovecraft Country” in Georgia but will donate their own fees to charity to help battle a severely restrictive “heartbeat” abortion bill signed into law this past week by Gov. Brian Kemp.

This a different tactic from some actors and a handful of outside TV and film production companies calling for a boycott of the state. Rather, it’s more in line with working within the state to foment change. The bill would largely restrict abortions after five or six weeks when a doctor could detect a fetal heartbeat.

Peele and Abrams, in a statement, said their episodic producer fees will go to the ACLU and Fair Fight Georgia, Stacey Abrams’ group. Both groups are against the new law and the ACLU is planning to file a federal lawsuit to stop it from being enacted on January 1, 2020.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtalk/jordan-peele-abrams-will-shoot-hbo-drama-georgia-donate-their-fees-fight-heartbeat-abortion-bill/4KYKAT7Br4MY0iLy1hptKN/?fbclid=IwAR2aXWf1U5JnjIiGpNPVPC4lO_jhjnhDsq20OQgsBdZ_APyf7oZXxCeE8uo




Well yes, true. But since the current motto of the GOP is “go fuck yourself”, there’s plenty of things that can definitely go wrong, and Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp returned the favor by postponing an event in Los Angeles. Which is kind of good because he can definitely get the fuck out. Maybe the Hollywood of the East Coast will finally wake up if it starts hurting them in the pocketbook?

Gov. Brian Kemp postponed an annual trip to Los Angeles to promote Georgia’s film industry on Tuesday as a growing number of movie executives and celebrities criticized his decision to sign the anti-abortion “heartbeat” bill into law.

Abortion rights activists had threatened to protest the May 22 event, and Georgia film executives were worried that tepid turnout and no-shows from studio chiefs could do lasting damage to the state’s movie-making business.

Kemp spokesman Cody Hall said that the trip would now take place in the fall, and that the governor plans to soon tour Georgia film production firms and meet with employees to show support for the industry.

The delay is the latest sign of how quickly the fallout over House Bill 481, which outlaws most abortions as early as six weeks, has rocked Georgia’s film industry since the Republican signed it into law a week ago.
https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/kemp-postpones-film-celebration-amid-heartbeat-bill-fallout/QWmFK5f1wvSVBwGOJYAYvL/?fbclid=IwAR0Fm37bA3hwNOnhdp__PJmNP74UJn_kJZ1-IPab1uR8rWU9uaTky0tJBCU


[font size="4"]And The Winner Is…[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! And it was a no brainer – Wisconsin wins the Layover League championship against Georgia by an overwhelming score of 81 – 70. Wisconsin moves on, Georgia leaves the court defeated. Cut the net guys, you earned it!



[font size="4"]Florida Vs Alabama[/font]

[font size="4"]Florida[/font]


Ah, Florida. Where would we be without the legendary Florida Man? Well last time the Sunshine State stunned Oregon and absolutely routed them. But they are facing some seriously stiff competition from the Yellowhammer State. And just like we focused on the economy in the last matchup, this time we’re going to focus on something the two states have in common: white supremacy. Yes, Florida may be the home of Florida Man, but Alabama is the original home of the Ku Klux Klan! Who will come out on top?

For the second time this legislative session, the House on Wednesday sent a strict “sanctuary city” bill to the Senate, where Senate President Bill Galvano has already said he plans to make changes and bounce the issue back to the House.

“We are the Senate, and we’ve made our own adjustments and we will make adjustments again,” Galvano told reporters on Wednesday.

With pressure coming from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who promised supporters he would ban so-called sanctuary cities, Republican leaders in both chambers are scrambling to pass a plan before the session ends this week.

The immigration issue has spurred one of the biggest fights of the 60-day session, and tensions have escalated as the House and Senate try to agree on a bill. Before the House vote on Wednesday, protesters in the House gallery began shouting and unfurled a large white banner printed with the slogan “Strong heart fight back.”

Read more: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2019/05/02/activists-dragged-out-of-florida-house-chambers-for-protesting-controversial-ban-on-sanctuary-cities




Yeah so that entire thing is really a white supremacist fuck you to states that do allow sanctuary cities, and this whole war on that concept is really a new thing. And by the way we do have to mention that Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis is a raging white supremacist. And he just gave one of his primary donors, the NRA, a huge thank you. And expect school shootings to get a whole lot worse.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed legislation that expands the controversial school “guardian” program to allow armed classroom teachers.

DeSantis’ office announced the signing shortly after 6 p.m. without ceremony or comments about the bill, which was widely backed by House and Senate Republicans and heavily opposed by gun-control activists, Democrats and some students who survived the mass shooting last year at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The governor signed the bill (SB 7030) hours after it was sent to his desk.

Earlier in the week, DeSantis praised the Legislature for implementing “dozens of school safety recommendations” made by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, noting the recommendations included expansion of the guardian program. The Legislature formed the commission last year to investigate the February 2018 shooting and recommend ways to make schools safer.

Read more: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2019/05/08/gov-ron-desantis-signs-bill-allowing-armed-teachers/1147657001/




[font size="4"]Alabama[/font]


Why does Alabama’s flag always look like it’s about to be rejected from something? I mean it’s just a giant red X. Not really that creative. But just like Florida, people think it’s all about the children, but in reality they couldn’t give less of a shit about children. So we do have to touch on Alabama’s extremely controversial abortion ban and it looks like it’s going to be a complete shit show.

The Alabama state Senate on Tuesday approved a bill essentially banning abortion in the state, a move specifically aimed at challenging over 40 years of federal abortion protection under Roe v. Wade.

The bill, passed by 25-6, would make it a felony for a doctor to perform or attempt an abortion during any stage of pregnancy.

The House approved a version of the bill that had an exception for the mother's health, passing 74-3, then a Senate committee added an exception for rape and incest. Republicans in the Senate, however, suddenly tabled the rape and incest exemptions last week, leading to swift and vocal opposition from Democrats.

Democratic Sen. Bobby Singleton put up an amendment to make exceptions in the case of rape and incest again on Tuesday night. Four Republicans joined the seven Democrats present to vote for the exceptions, but the measure failed in a roll call vote.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-state-senate-passes-near-total-abortion-ban-direct-challenge-n1005556




This is why every single vote matters!! It doesn’t matter what position it is for! If it is up for a vote, vote for it. Otherwise we get religious psychopaths in charge who want to tear down the barriers between church and state and we get shit like this as a result. Next week we’ll go full in on this subject but for now here’s how this can get you in trouble.

The Alabama State Senate erupted into chaos on Thursday after members of the Republican Party tried to jam through a bill that would have made having an abortion punishable by 99 years in prison — without even allowing exceptions for cases of rape and incest.

AL.com reports that the Republican caucus in the Alabama Senate ignited a firestorm in the chamber when they removed an amendment in their anti-abortion bill that would have exempted women who had abortions after being raped from being punished by decades in prison.

This led to furious objections by Democratic lawmakers, who eventually succeeded in getting the Republicans to table the motion and push back a final vote on it until next week.

According to AL.com, Democratic senators led by Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton “strongly objected to Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, who presides over the Senate, for his quick gavel on tabling the rape and incest amendment on a voice vote, meaning there is no recorded vote.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/alabama-senate-erupts-in-chaos-as-gop-tries-to-jam-through-bill-to-punish-abortions-with-99-years-in-prison/




[font size="4"]And The Winner Is…[/font]

Here it is folks, all the marbles. We have less than a minute left to go in the game, score is tied at 93 points a piece. Florida has the ball and passes it to Florida Man… wait, what’s he doing? He’s getting on that forklift and riding it out to the center… oh my god, he falls off the forklift! Oh the humanity! Florida Man is out, Alabama makes the final shot and wins it 96 – 93! Florida Man does it again! Alabama celebrates on the court and leaves happy! Cut the net guys, you earned it!



[font size="4"]Next Week:[/font]

Next week it’s the grand finale! We are live at the home of the UCLA Bruins, the winningest program in NCAA history, the legendary Pauley Pavilion in Westwood, California at UCLA! Wisconsin. Alabama. One of these two teams will win, the other will go home! We will have the matchups, crown our winner with the net cutting ceremony, the champagne celebration, and of course One Shining Moment! Stay tuned!



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

My next guest is a legendary punk rock band, you can see them August 17th at the Hollywood Palladium, their latest album is called “Age Of Unreason”. Playing their song “My Sanity”, give it up for the one the only Bad Religion!!!




See you next week!

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