Several of the early questions at the Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan, focused on the recent toxic water crisis in that city, and both candidates called for Governor Rick Snyder to resign. Snyder took the opportunity to register his objection to the implication that he might be responsible.
“In a few days, political candidates will be leaving Flint and Michigan. They will not be staying to help solve the crisis, but I am committed to the people of Flint. I will fix this crisis and help move Flint forward. Long-term solutions are what the people of Flint need and what I am focused on delivering for them,” Snyder wrote in a statement on Facebook.
Last week, the Detroit Free Press reported, Snyder hired two outside attorneys, including a criminal defense attorney who will serve as “investigatory counsel.” The contracts are worth $249,000 each—just below the $250,000 threshold threshold that would require State Administrative Board approval. Such approval would have involved a public meeting.
On March 5, 2016, the Human Rights Campaign honored Kesha with their Visibility Award, bestowed upon “high profile individuals who use their platform to advance and advocate for the LGBT movement.” She accepted the award through tears, beginning with an earnest thank you to all those who have shown her support during her own recent struggles.
“As many of you know I am going through some personal things that have been really intense and hard lately,” the singer told the audience at the 2016 Nashville Equality Dinner, “and I just want to say thank you for any support I have received.” She was met with a roar of applause and cheers.
Recently, Vulture reports, “Kesha...lost a bid for an injunction to break her contract with Dr. Luke, who, according to Kesha, sexually abused her during the time that they worked together.”
In her speech, Kesha recounts her misfit youth, remarking that she continues to feel like “an outsider” even as a celebrity.
“Fame is strange and unnatural,” she says, “and I’m grateful for it mainly because it has put me in the position where I can actually do something positive for the world.”
Even as a fledgling songwriter, Kesha “wanted to give other people confidence to be themselves” and “to feel like they’re not alone.” But she spoke—and still speaks—to herself through her lyrics just as she reaches out to others.
“Music was my outlet,” Kesha explains. “I started writing songs and recording my own songs, songs about everyone celebrating themselves and trying to find a rock n’ roll paradise.”
You can watch the entirety of Kesha’s speech in the video below.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has fixated on China’s increasing economic influence as exemplary of America’s failure to win anymore. He has not, however, thus far mentioned Chinese investors’ involvement in financing a Trump-branded tower in New Jersey being built by his son-in-law.
The promotional video above, part of a marketing campaign for Kushner Companies “Trump Bay Street,” shows a short tour of Jersey City by car, set to the the theme song from The Sopranos, and subtitled in Chinese.
According to Bloomberg Politics, the video was produced to entice Chinese financiers to invest in the development project—a 50-story luxury rental apartment building—under the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. A business partner of Trump’s on a golf course in Jupiter, Florida, named Nicholas Mastroianni runs the firm dealing with potential investors, U.S. Immigration Fund. (Jared Kushner, the chief executive officers of the building’s developer, Kushner Companies, is married to Ivanka Trump, Donald’s daughter.)
Trump has railed against some such programs, saying that he wants to “institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program” even as he acknowledges hiring temporary workers at his Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. However, Trump Bay Street has thus far raised $50 million through loans facilitated by EB-5. According to U.S. Immigration Fund’s general counsel, nearly all of the investors are from China.
“This was a highly successful license deal but he is not a partner in the financing of the development,” a Trump spokeswoman told Bloomberg.
Under the EB-5 program, foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in an American project that promises to create at least 10 jobs can receive a two-year visa. The program has become increasingly popular as a source of capital for real estate developers in New York and California in recent years: Only 346 EB-5 visas were issued in 2005, rising to 3,340 in 2011 and 10,692 in 2014. According to the Atlantic, about 1,200 Chinese millionaires were granted visas in the course of raising money to finance the $20 billion Hudson Yards project alone.
It is, essentially, a way to buy American citizenship. Some, like Senator Diane Feinstein, have called for the program’s reform.
“EB-5 sends a terrible message to the millions of immigrants patiently waiting their turn to enter the United States legally to be reunited with their families or for legitimate employment,” she said in a statement last year, just before the program was renewed. “It says that American citizenship is for sale, and that’s not what our country stands for.”
What is more, a report from the Government Accountability Office around the same time indicated that it was difficult to verify the source of investor’s funds, and that the program was vulnerable to fraud and abuse. From ABC News last February:
In addition to reaching wealthy foreign investors, the program has become a magnet for those seeking to sidestep the scrutiny of the traditional immigration process. In one case, immigration officials pushed through a visa application from Chinese investor in a Las Vegas hotel project despite an internal review that found the investor had previously been turned back at the border, and much of his visa application had likely been fabricated, immigration records show.
A Feb. 1, 2013 Homeland Security internal review obtained by ABC News also lays out in stark detail the breadth of the troubles afflicting some of the roughly 600 so-called regional centers — private sector entities certified by Homeland Security to recruit foreign investors for specific business ventures that will qualify for EB-5 visas. The document summarizes 41 investigations, some open and some now closed, into allegations ranging from espionage to fraud to drug trafficking involving investors in various EB-5 investment projects.
The farcical degree to which Caitlyn Jenner was willing to blindly defend Republicans was on screaming display during last night’s second season premiere of her reality show, I Am Cait. Jenner is famously conservative (last week, The Advocate published a profile in which she voiced interest in being Ted Cruz’s “trans ambassador”), but last night’s episode vividly illustrated just how little logic or thought she’s put into that affiliation given just how little Republicans advocate for (and how often they advocate against) LGBT rights.
Here are just some telling examples of Jenner’s willful ignorance regarding the ways of the willfully ignorant (clips above):
When trans activist and writer Jennifer Finney Boylan asked Jenner which Republican Presidential candidate would be most supportive of transgender people, Jenner’s response was, “All of ‘em...None of the Republicans [say], ‘Oh, I hate trans people,’ or, ‘I hate gays.’ Nothing like that. They do more, ‘I want a thriving economy so every trans person has a job.’” Here’s an example of Republican Sen. Travis Holdman filing a bill that would ban discrimination based on sexuality, but not gender identity, which would suggest, in fact, that he doesn’t care at all about trans people having jobs.
When Boylan pointed out that it was conservatives who spearheaded the successful campaign against the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which was voted down in November, Jenner wouldn’t hear it. “Don’t go there,” she said. “No it’s not. Republicans and conservatives are not these horrible people out there trying to oppress people...I don’t know anything of what they said down there, but I’m not blaming it on Republicans and conservatives.” When Boylan insisted that Jenner look at that—while wielding a newspaper—Jenner said, “No, I’m not gonna identify that.” On November 2, the day before the vote, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, tweeted: “HOUSTON: Vote Texas values, not @HillaryClinton values. Vote NO on City of Houston Proposition 1. No men in women’s bathrooms.”
When Kate Bornstein brought up Jeff Norwood’s “No men in women’s bathrooms” ad campaign, Jenner said of its creator, “Now, he may have been Republican, I don’t know, he might have been a Democrat. I don’t know.” When Boylan produced evidence of Norwood’s conservatism, Jenner said, “It just so happens he happens to be a Republican. I wish he was a damn Democrat. That would have made my argument much easier.” It also would have given her argument the credence that it doesn’t have because it’s a factually incorrect argument.
“I don’t feel like they’re out to get us,” said Jenner of Republicans. “Every conservative guy out there believes in everybody’s rights.”
As the debate raged on, Jenner said of LGBT rights, “For the Republicans, it’s not a big issue. The economy’s the big issue.” That’s a problem, but at least it’s arguably true—a brief moment of vague clarity. For whatever reason, Jenner seemed more willing to believe in some fairytale version of Republican inclusiveness than the actual reality of the kind of discrimination, disregard, and bigotry that party promotes almost always implicitly and often overtly.
At least she’s got smart friends. This season of I Am Cait is set to document a cross-country road trip Jenner took with a bunch of trans writes and activists, including those mentioned above, as well as Candis Cayne, Chandi Moore, and Zackary Drucker. During the filming of this season, Jenner said some dumb things that drew public ire, including telling TIME, “If you’re out there and, to be honest with you, if you look like a man in a dress, it makes people uncomfortable.” This show promises to capture behind-the-scenes response to backlash, and Jenner being schooled by her trans peers, which sounds fascinating and a bit cathartic.
“I thought I knew a lot more than I actually turned out to know,” said Jenner at the start of last night’s premiere, reflecting on the footage that we were about to see. Could it be that Jenner emerges wiser as a result of being on a reality show? If so, does that mean that her human experience is even more singular than previously suspected?
This time last year, the mood at the Conservative Political Action Conference could best be described as giddy as hell. Republicans were, at that point, spoiled for presidential candidates: Rand Paul won the presidential straw poll, with Scott Walker close behind. Ben Carson spent the event being trailed by his own literal, albeit tiny, parade of cheering, sign-holding supporters. People roared so loudly for Ted Cruz I feared for the rafters in the ballroom when he spoke. The vibe was clear: this time next year, a Republican will be sweeping his (definitely his) way towards victory.
And then Donald Trump happened. He’s bowled through the GOP like a urine-hued, gold-plated whirlwind, destroying every possible hope they had for any of their less-insane candidates. After years of attending CPAC, he abruptly dropped out this year, heading to Kansas instead. In part, that was because he likely knew he’d face protests and booing from the establishment Republican crowd, which he’s too emotionally delicate to withstand. But partly, he didn’t show because it simply doesn’t matter. Right now Trump is winning, and nothing that happened at CPAC could slow his momentum
Republicans attending this year’s CPAC responded with, more or less, a healthy dose of denial. Trump is going to disappear, somehow, several attendees said to me, maybe in a brokered convention situation, where, basically, some delegates at the Republican National Convention just nominate whoever they want, regardless of which way the states have voted.
And Hillary Clinton? Well, she’s not a threat, people kept saying, over and over, because she’s about to be arrested at any moment.
“I would have voted for Jim Webb, but he’s not there anymore,” one young RNC employee told me. Between Cruz and Trump, he’d have to go with Cruz, he said. But if Trump was the nominee... he trailed off.
“I have to vote my party,” he said, finally, and then literally bit his lip.
But Hillary Clinton getting indicted over her homegrown email server was “a real possibility” he added. So that would take care of her. (It’s certainly possible Clinton could face charges over Emailgate, and the FBI is interviewing at least one of her former aides, but the odds of her getting carted off in handcuffs before the election are pretty slim.)
We talked for a little while longer. I misheard a minor point the young man was trying to make and repeated it back to him to make sure I’d got it right. He got very angry.
“You media, you twist everything,” he told me, raising his voice. We were done talking pretty quickly after that.
But his was a popular viewpoint: we don’t have to worry about Hillary, because she’s going to prison. I heard that during the weird parties I went to, where I was assured her indictment was “around the corner.” (One of the parties was thrown by James O’Keefe of Project Veritas infamy, the other by Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News. Both of them were unremarkable, unless you want to hear about young conservatives groping each other in a crowded bar, which you probably don’t.)
Ted Cruz joked during an interview with Sean Hannity that the general election might have to be “convened at Leavenworth,” since Clinton would be jailed there.
“I hope she likes orange pantsuits,” Hannity cracked.
“Well Sean, orange is the new Democratic blue,” Cruz responded, because that’s what jokes look like at CPAC.
Meanwhile, the speakers kept insisting that the GOP is also definitely not losing their battle to attract women and people of color. Alexandra Smith from the College Republican National Committee led a panel on “attracting the female youth vote,” which she said the GOP is doing a better and better job doing, by “applying language principles” and “testing winning messages” on healthcare, education and the economy.
“We’ve seen a real winning formula in terms of being able to transform the debate and make it our own,” Smith beamed. “We’re winning with everyone when we talk in a new language and an updated way about our principles.”
This kind of corporate-tinged motivational bland-speak is very popular at CPAC. It’s the Republican party as they wish to be seen: efficient, sanitized, poll-obsessed and cheerily on-message. It’s the literal opposite of Trump’s brutal, anarchic appeal, and it’s clearly stopped working, if it ever began.
Even though he was absent, Trump loomed everywhere: in Marco Rubio’s speech, where he warned against letting the conservative movement be “hijacked by someone who isn’t a conservative.” During the debate-watching party, Trump’s comments, especially about his giant dick, led to such a confusing mixture of cheers and boos that Gawker news editor Gabrielle Bluestone and I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on. Everything felt ragged and jittery and disorganized this year: the schedule kept changing. The speakers repeated their stump speeches with noticeably little verve (Ted Cruz has been making that Leavenworth joke since the fall.) And everywhere, there was a creeping sense that maybe things are really, truly fucked for the GOP this time.
There’s maybe no better example than NRA president executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre, who in the midst of his annual gun-humping address accidentally referred to Hillary Clinton as the president. LaPierre was talking about women and gun ownership, or trying to.
“No woman should be left to face evil with empty hands,” he roared. “To all of America’s women, you aren’t free if you aren’t free to defend yourselves. And if President Clinton—President Obama—let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
He tried again: “If Hillary Clinton or anyone else denies you that right, they don’t really care about you at all.”
Everyone clapped when they were supposed to. But the unintentional point lingered there, awkwardly, long after he left the stage.
A new report compares Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Hall to a “Third World country prison.”
The LA Times today writes up a scathing new report by a member of the Los Angeles County Probation Commission, which details a juvenile jail that is dirty, capricious, poorly run, unsanitary, and sometimes lacking running water. The report also questions LA’s use of solitary confinement for juveniles, a practice that is slowly being banned across the nation. And then there’s this:
A county audit recently found that the average cost of incarcerating a youth has soared to $233,600 a year, significantly higher than other comparable jurisdictions across the country. Experts are struggling to understand the reasons behind the high cost.
Two hundred and thirty three thousand dollars per year just to treat a young person like hell. That seems like a lot.
Here’s a metaphor, the media is either Vince McMahon being forcibly shaved or a fake ref watching, hard to say
Ted Cruz has a new theory: the American political media is in possession of “bombshell” stories about Donald Trump that could ruin him, but are choosing to not publish them for some reason. Ted, I’m here to tell you: we’ve got nothing, and we’re all really fucking freaked out about it.
“I think an awful lot of reporters — I can’t tell you how many media outlets I hear, you know, have this great exposé on Donald, on different aspects of his business dealings or his past, but they said, ‘You know what? We’re going to hold it to June or July,’” Cruz said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” Sunday.
“We’re not going to run it now.”
Haha! This conversation has not happened nor will it happen. This is a hypothetical from a science fiction novella. In real life, reporters, bloggers, commentators, (et cetera) are not patient enough to sit on an enormous story until June or July. It’s March, man—a cold, long March. We need something now. Not many of us are even confident enough that our jobs or publications will even exist in their current forms by June or July to sit on something big, so if you’ve got something worth publishing, we’ll put it up today, promise.
Even for those in the media confident in their abilities and job security, the fear of getting “scooped” (someone else writes your shit before you can write your shit) outweighs all other considerations. I can’t imagine a single reporter or editor in the world sitting on a good story for months, for the simple reason that (on both sides of the political spectrum) we’re all desperate for attention and completely bent on destroying Donald Trump.
God, Ted, we’ve been trying! It’s not like we haven’t tried. Over the past year Gawker has posted:
None of it has even slightly hurt Trump or changed the mind of his supporters. We’re at a complete loss. We’re out of ideas. I honestly can’t even imagine something at this point that would scuttle the Trump campaign given how perfectly calibrated his core following is to reject anything and everything they see in the media. I could publish a recording of Donald Trump screaming “ISIS IS GOOD! ISIS IS GREAT!” during sex and he would brush it off in one tweet—Gawker, a loser website. They want me to be politically correct. Sad!
What bombshell could anyone be holding onto at this point? What, conceivably, could be left out there? More shady business dealings? Even more racism? This is a man who boasted that he could kill innocent people in the middle of New York and not lose voters. He’s right! He would probably gain voters. What the media loathes about Trump is what endears him to voters. Oh, we’re going to reveal to the world that he’s a boor, a horror, a bully? When you see us making fun of Donald Trump’s orange face or misspelled tweets, what you’re really seeing is our deep, rapidly rising levels of dread. We mock Trump’s complexion and dumbassery because we’ve never felt more impotent in our lives, so powerless to stop such a manifestly bad, bulletproof man. We are sublimating our own sense of terror and irrelevance via blogs. We will be spinning our wheels like this until Trump either self-destructs or wins the election. We’ll be spinning our wheels because we don’t have any bombshells. Donald Trump has neutralized the very concept of the bombshell.
We are desperate and scared, Ted Cruz, and we wish, we would beg you for some scandalous hidden scoop about Donald Trump. Do you have one? It’s entirely possible that opposition researchers and the like might be holding on to some big shameful Trump story for some time they consider opportune—but as for the media, we’re on empty. Fumes. The gun is not loaded. We had to sell the trigger. So, about a bombshell: Please email it to me. I’ll publish it today, Ted. That’s my promise to you, Ted Cruz: give me a bombshell (or even an old grenade, something, any kind of explosive device, any ordnance will do, PLEASE man) and I will let loose ASAP. I will pull the trigger on anything, Ted. We all will, any of us at any outlet. Pick your favorite. Please. Help.
Despite repeated denials, a new report suggests Donald Trump had a long-standing relationship with a racist mobster who ultimately cost the Trump casino $650,000 in fines because he didn’t like black croupiers.
According to a new report by Michael Isikoff for Yahoo, Trump and his casino for years catered to Robert LiButti, a gambling-addicted, John Gotti-affiliated mobster who didn’t like “women, blacks or other minorities.”
He also made it clear that “he did not want women, blacks or other minorities dealing or supervising his games,” according to one filing by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement. He referred to one Trump Plaza floor person as a “dumb c***” and “dumb bitch,” another as a “Jew broad” and an African-American dealer as a “black bastard.” Finding himself playing with an African-American at his craps table, LiButti shouted, “Shoot the f***ing dice. Shoot the f***ing dice like you’re f***ing some n*****,” according to testimony in the case.
And according to the Casino Control Commission, the Trump Plaza—as it was called before Trump filed for bankruptcy—was happy to accommodate LiButti, prompting nine employees to file complaints that ultimately resulted in a $200,000 fine.
(According to Isikoff, the casino did more than that, buying LiButti—a high-roller who spent “millions”—at least nine luxury vehicles worth $1.6 million, five European vacations worth $104,338, $279,978 worth of event tickets, $121,712 worth of jewelry, and $40,020 in champagne. For these favors, the casino was also fined $450,000.)
Even so, Trump to this day claims he doesn’t know LiButti.
“During the years I very successfully ran the casino business, I knew many high rollers. I assume Mr. LiButti was one of them, but I don’t recognize the name,” Trump said, via a spokesperson, in an email to Yahoo.
But LiButti, in a 1991 conversation with someone secretly working with New Jersey police, indicated otherwise.
“I’m very close with him,” LiButti said, adding later, “I told him this right in the helicopter with, ah, Ivana and my daughter one night.”
LiButti’s daughter also recalls spending quality time with Trump and his family.
“Of course he knew him. I flew in the [Trump] helicopter with [Trump’s then wife] Ivana and the kids. My dad flew it up and down [to Atlantic City],” she told Yahoo. “My 35th birthday party was at the Plaza and Donald was there. After the party, we went on his boat, his big yacht. I like Trump, but it pisses me off that he denies knowing my father. That hurts me.”
Those accounts are also corroborated by John R. O’Donnell, the former president of the Trump Plaza casino who wrote an anecdote in the 1991 book, “Trumped!: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump — His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall,” about LiButti selling Trump a lame $500,000 horse
“Bob [LiButti] was selling him the horse, for sure,” O’Donnell confirmed to Yahoo. “Everything in the book is true.”
Last week, the drivers who shuttle San Francisco Google employees to work voted to unionize with the Teamsters. How long until their passengers do the same thing?
The more than 100 employees of WeDriveU, a third party contractor that drives tech employees to work, join more than 450 other tech shuttle drivers who have unionized over the past year. These workers—who pick up and drop off employees from Facebook, Apple, eBay, and other top tech companies—work grueling hours, and recently had to file a class-action lawsuit to try to get paid for the time they spend waiting around at tech company headquarters to pick up the employees for the trip home. Their union contract will bring them a pay raise, time off, health care, and other benefits.
These tech shuttle buses have become symbolic of the two-tiered Silicon Valley economy, in which high-paid tech workers are forcing out the middle class. Protesters have even blockaded roads to stop the buses, waving signs about high rents and inequality. The fact that the drivers of those buses are now unionized only magnifies the public outrage that will be directed at the actual targets of those protests: the tech employees inside the bus.
It is true that the booming tech economy has warped San Francisco and all of Silicon Valley beyond recognition. It is true that the middle class (not to mention the lower class) is being completely priced out. There is also at least a grain of truth to the objections of those hated tech workers inside the bus, who will say that they are simply kids with a dream, doing what they love, and that they never intended to become living symbols of income inequality. Silicon Valley—as a real place, rather than a metaphor on the lips of grandiose venture capitalists—is a cauldron of justified class resentment and wounded egos on all sides. Meanwhile, the executives and large investors at these tech companies are reaping the financial gains with little care for these low-level human squabbles.
So what can the well-intentioned young employee of Google or Facebook or Apple do about all this? How can the tech worker sitting on that bus, with a unionized driver and an angry crowd of sign-waving locals outside make a meaningful gesture towards equality? Here is how: they can unionize themselves.
Most of these tech workers are relatively well-compensated and work in highly desirable jobs. The immediate reaction to suggesting that they should unionize tends to be one of dismissal. But why? The fact that tech companies are profitable and pay their employees well relative to other, less profitable industries does not change the fact that they operate according to the same rules of capital and labor that all other companies do. That means that a very small group of people who control the capital get most of the profit, and a much larger group of people who do most of the work get much smaller returns. It also means that those workers who do most of the labor can increase their bargaining power—and get a better deal—by bargaining collectively, rather than as a bunch of individuals. This is a universal truth of the workplace. The fact that your company gives you good free lunches and shuttles to work and nice paycheck does not change the fact that you could get more by negotiating together, as a union. Anyone smart enough to get a job at Google is smart enough to grasp these facts.
Of course, this would require some level of class consciousness, which does not seem to be in ample supply in Silicon Valley. Megalomaniac libertarians spouting borderline Nietzchean arguments about Great Men Accomplishing Great Things tend to have an outsized platform in tech, for some reason. But I do not doubt for a moment that there are thousands and thousands of regular old employees at these enormous, successful tech companies who are concerned about the economic inequality that their industry is driving; who are concerned about the demoralizing lack of diversity in their industry; who are concerned that they are forcing the middle class out of an entire region of the country. The most meaningful way for them to take action against the inexorable rise of inequality that is benefiting them is to stand up and declare that they are on the side of labor, rather than on the side of capital—to declare that they are workers who are on the side of all of the other workers, from shuttle drivers to gardeners to janitors to security guards, who make these tech companies function. The way for them to do that is to unionize. Once they have unionized, they will be in a position to put their considerable collective power behind policies that spread the wealth more widely, and mitigate the kind of inequality that their industry has been fueling for years.
Plenty of tech employees will scoff at this idea, say “I’m doing fine,” and move on. But as the entrepreneurial wizards of Silicon Valley know, the fact that many ignore a market opportunity just provides an opening for those bold enough to seize it. It only takes a few who see the big picture to start a movement. In an industry full of people obsessed with progress, there is a chance for a leader to emerge to start a movement towards social progress the likes of which their industry has never seen. Tech workers are not America’s most exploited workers. They are, though, some of America’s most envied and celebrated workers. Their declaration of unity with the labor movement would mean more than any individual charitable contributions they might make to try to salve their conscience.
Is the woman pictured above Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mother? Heh, no. That’s Kim Cattrall, the Canadian actress best known for her role on Sex and the City and best known in my heart for doing this. In a feature on the prime minister last night, however, CBS’ 60 Minutes misidentified her as Margaret Trudeau.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, that 1981 photo actually shows Cattrall “on a date with then-Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.” (Margaret and Pierre separated in 1977.)
A CBS spokesman offered the following apology to The Hollywood Reporter: “We regret the error on one of the several video and still images shown of Margaret Trudeau. It was corrected online last night.”
Here is a photo of the real Margaret Trudeau in 1978:
The caption, via Getty: “Margaret Trudeau, former first-lady of Canada, now an aspiring actress, enjoys a dance at New York’s famous Studio 54 discotheque, with her latest boyfriend, millionaire Bruce Nevins.”
In America, corrupt billionaires get off too easy. A man was recently awarded a prestigious trophy for artistically making this exact point. Iran, it won’t surprise you to learn, swings the pendulum far in the opposite direction. Yesterday, the country announced that it plans to execute billionaire oil magnate Babak Zanjani after finding him guilty on corruption charges.
Zanjani was, at one point, essentially working on behalf of the government. As a way of circumventing economic sanctions imposed on Iran by countries belonging to the United Nations, Zanjani had set up a network of companies that he used to covertly sell the country’s oil. The state has accused him of withholding profits from those deals. Via the BBC, from when Zanjani was arrested in late December:
Mr Zanjani has acknowledged that since 2010 he has used a web of more than 60 companies based in the UAE, Turkey and Malaysia to sell millions of barrels of Iranian oil on behalf of the government, generating $17.5bn of desperately needed revenue.
After being accused of withholding money earlier this year, Mr Zanjani said that he had already transferred $700m, but that the international sanctions were preventing him from handing over the remaining $1.2bn.
“I will pay it back if they give me an account number tomorrow that accepts up to 1bn euros,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with an Iranian magazine. “How can I transfer the money when the oil ministry and the central bank are under sanctions? We also are not able to transfer the money, but the money is in the account.”
The verdict against Zanjani orders him and two co-defendants to repay the money that he says he is unable to transfer, but, via Newsweek, the trio were also convicted on a nebulous-sounding charge of “spreading corruption on Earth.” In the past, Western countries have asked Iran to overturn convictions that violate democratic standards of human rights, but it’s worth noting that Zanjani was blacklisted by both the United States and European Union over the very oil routing scheme that resulted in his arrest.
Up until he ran afoul of the state, Zanjani had profited immensely from his role as a key cog in Iran’s crippled economy. Per the BBC, Zanjani has valued his own net worth at over $13 billion.
“All crime is about stealing,” utters Dinesh D’Souza on the voiceover for his new film’s trailer, sounding like a stoned Bill Walton who accidentally caught a 7-Eleven shoplifter after wandering in for a cheeseburger-flavored hot dog. But D’Souza himself doesn’t have such quotidian concerns. What he’s worried about is the stealing of...America as we know it.
This being D’Souza, the culprit is the Democratic Party. The new documentary is called Hillary’s America. Judging from its trailer, it will be every bit the insane, possibly racist spectacle that Obama’s America, D’Souza’s previous film, was. I’ve thought for a while about my favorite moment from the trailer, and I’ve decided it’s a dead heat between the horse-riding KKK member who jumps out of a filmstrip projection screen and D’Souza’s smoldering death stare at the camera near the end, which I’ve made into a GIF above. Watch below and decide for yourself.
For about five minutes after the collapse of the global economy in 2008, the public’s anger was focused enough to cause a temporary cutback in the abuse of corporate jet perks by rich executives. Clearly, those days are over.
The FT has published a long investigative story today about the use of corporate jets for personal trips by executives at large public companies in the US. Read it all why don’t you! As you peruse its findings, please keep in mind that
These are public companies, meaning its shareholders are paying for these private jet flights;
Even if you believe corporate executives’ time is so valuable that they require private jets for business trips, it is hard to argue that they need private jets for personal trips, paid for by their shareholders; and,
These corporate executives are rich and could well afford to purchase their own fucking travel.
Barry Diller, the billionaire chairman of IAC, “has consistently taken personal flights worth more than $1m a year on a jet co-owned by [his] companies.” The bill was $1.7 million in 2014, making him the single biggest jet abuser in corporate America. The fourth-biggest personal user of corporate jets in 2014, by the way, was CBS boss Les Moonves, who gobbled up this perk at the expense of his shareholders despite the fact that many believe he is the single most overpaid CEO in the country. What a greedy prick.
Morgan Stanley (yes—a public company!) spent $238,000 on a single trip for its CEO James Gorman to fly to Australia for his mother’s funeral. We all have mothers, James Gorman, and we all earn less money than you, and yet we are expected to pay for your flight to your mother’s funeral, and you do not pay for our flights to our mothers’ funerals. Odd.
In 2014, Comcast’s $1.2 million in spending on corporate jets for executives ended up costing its shareholders $3.75 million, thanks to tax deductions that the company missed as a result. No wonder these managers are so well-compensated, what with financial wizardry such as that.
Charging shareholders of a public company for your personal trips on a corporate jet should be outlawed. You fucks.
Canada’s relatively radical fight against economic inequality is hobbled by “the government’s insistence that the chief beneficiary of that fight will be the middle class — as opposed to the poor... living up to it appears to have produced policy designs that wouldn’t otherwise make much sense.”
Details remain spotty, but early reports indicate a U.S. drone strike was carried out on a terrorist training camp in Somalia just as a very large group of fighters had amassed. Sources told the Washington Post and other outlets that the targets planned to attack U.S. interests in area.
The camp, which was tied to the notoriously brutal African terror group Al Shabaab—a group that actively aligns itself with ISIS—was located about 120 miles north of Mogadishu. It had been under surveillance for some time before the strike was authorized. The final call came as intelligence showed that the fighters at the camp posed an imminent threat to the small group of U.S. special forces deployed to Somalia to advise and assist Somali and African Union troops.
NBC reports that its sources state the strike was largely prompted by a strange scene at the camp. A large group of fighters was in formation, conducting what appeared to be a ceremony of some kind.
Some sort of ritual and/or prayer before a planned operation may have given the unmanned aircraft overhead the perfect opportunity to strike with maximum results. Still, 150 plus militants killed without any known civilian deaths is an amazing statistic for a drone.
The MQ-9 Reaper commonly carriers a load of four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and a pair of GBU-12 500 pound laser guided bombs. If the majority of the fighters were packed together in the open, this is enough firepower to have significant effects, although it is probable that other aircraft were involved, including manned fighters.
It remains unclear if any of Al Shabaab’s top leadership were taken out in the strike, or exactly what type of attack the group had planned. Additionally, we don’t know if any fighters are thought to have escaped the drone’s crosshairs.
In the past, a detachment of U.S. Air Force, Navy or Marine fighter aircraft have also been based at the sprawling African outpost. These fighters were mainly used for contingency operations during America’s involvement in counter-terror operations in Yemen. Now that these operations have largely ceased, this capability could have been retained for attacks just like the one unveiled today.
Will will keep you updated as more details on this strike unfold.
A photo of our next president? Not anymore (Getty)
With a heavy heart, local technocrat Michael Bloomberg has “announced” that he will not seek the presidency—because he can’t risk what his independent campaign might end up doing to the country (and also because he would not win).
As the race stands now, with Republicans in charge of both Houses, there is a good chance that my candidacy could lead to the election of Donald Trump or Senator Ted Cruz. That is not a risk I can take in good conscience.
Wow. Picture the old bones of George Washington: Are they not weeping at this sacrifice?
Of course, in saying his campaign might “lead to the election” of other candidates, Bloomberg is basically conceding that he would not get enough votes to win a presidential election. Still, Mike is a man of faith: “I believe I could win a number of diverse states — but not enough to win the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency.” Which states are these? We will not ever know.
The announcement entertains a second far-fetched hypothetical:
The fact is, even if I were to receive the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, victory would be highly unlikely, because most members of Congress would vote for their party’s nominee.
The odds that this would have happened: Zero, less than zero, not in a million years. The kind of man it takes to admit it in a dissembling, self-important blog that shines the hopelessness of reality through a prism of money and self-grandeur: Big.
The Logitech Harmony Ultimate has just about every feature you could ever ask for in a universal remote, and then some. It can control 15 of your favorite devices (from a database of 270,000), including ones hiding behind cabinet doors. Its touchscreen gives you quick access to your favorite settings, and its smartphone companion app brings the same options to your iOS or Android device. Plus, it can even control smart home devices like your Philips Hue lights, meaning you can create a “Movie” mode that turns on your TV and Blu-ray player, switches to the right input, and dims the lights, all with one push of a button.
Update: There actually is a higher end Harmony remote: The Harmony Elite, which is currently selling for $315.
The excellent Pebble Time Round smart watch was recently dropped from $250 to $200, but Amazon’s gone one step further and shaved off an extra $20. The deal isn’t available on all band options, but you do get to choose from a a 20mm or 14mm strap size. [Pebble Time Round, $180]
The newest, larger-screen Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0 is down to $200 today on eBay, which is the best cash discount we’ve ever seen, and essentially a match to Amazon’s $50 Black Friday gift card deal. We only see good deals on these thermostats a few times per year, so if you have one on your wishlist, I wouldn’t hesitate. [Nest Learning Thermostat 3.0, $200]
This deal would have been a lot more useful a few months ago, but then again, that’s probably why it’s on sale today. This $100 space heater has Belkin WeMo support built right in, meaning you can control and schedule it right from your smartphone, no matter where you are in the world. [Holmes Smart Wifi-Enabled WeMo X-Large Heater, 1500 watts, $100]
It’s no secret that you guys love Dyson vacuums, and you can upgrade to a brand new DC39 for just $200 today, courtesy of Dyson’s eBay storefront. That’s about $130-$180 less than you’ll find it elsewhere, and right in line with what we’d expect refurbs to sell for. [Dyson DC39, $200]
Lifehacker readers’ favorite mouse is down to $46 today, which is within $1 of the lowest price we’ve ever seen. The Logitech Performance Mouse MX will work on practically any surface (even glass!), can recharge over microUSB, and includes dedicated forward and back buttons for web surfing. [Logitech - Performance Mouse MX, $46]
If you ever pay for iOS apps, movies, music, or iCloud storage with your credit card, you’re throwing money down the drain. Instead, stock up on iTunes gift cards at a 20% discount, and grab some to give as gifts while you’re at it. [$100 iTunes Gift Card, $80]
They’re not going to win any fashion awards, but these sport watches are great for exercising and hiking, and you can pick one up starting under $20 today. Just note that this is a Gold Box deal, meaning these prices are only available today, or until sold out. [50% or More Off A Large Selection of Sport Watches]
Warm weather is on the horizon, which means it’s nearly iced coffee season. This $17 Takeya can brew four servings of the good stuff in your refrigerator overnight, and boasts a solid 4.4 star review average on Amazon. [Takeya Cold Brew Iced Coffee Maker, 1-Quart, $19]
We’ve seen deals on air fryers before, but this model from VonShef can pull double duty as a slow cooker, rice cooker, soup maker, and more. And of course, it can also fry french fries and other delicacies with just a tiny fraction of the oil (and fat) you’d need for traditional deep frying. [VonShef Digital Air Fryer & Multi Cooker, $70]
Range extenders can’t work miracles, but if a corner of your house just doesn’t quite get acceptable Wi-Fi reception, this little gadget can probably do enough to help. [TP-LINK AC750 Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender, $35]
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On September 28, 2004, Kristin Cavallari appeared in the premiere episode of MTV’s Laguna Beach (“A Black & White Affair”). So began her transition from “popular high school student” into “person who gets paid to promote things.” What was the first dumb product our nascent reality TV star promoted?
An exhaustive search through multiple photo archives indicates that Kristin probably hawked her first product on August 28, 2005, at a “Style Villa” pre-party for the MTV Video Music Awards. Here she is holding up an extra-large Vitamin Water with her ex-boyfriend and co-star Stephen Colletti. (It appears Stephen is also promoting something on his t-shirt, but I could not tell you what.)
Today, Kristin hawks all sorts of products online: Hoover® vacuums, Secret Bangs™, Wonderful Halos...the list (truly) goes on. But everyone starts somewhere, and now you know that Kristin started with Vitamin Water.
Video games are very good at teaching, even if they have to repeat the lesson over and over. Sometimes the lesson is “don’t fall into that bottomless pit.” Other times it’s “she’s just not that into you.”
Last Friday I predicted I’d be playing a lot of Fire Emblem Fates and Far Cry Primal over the weekend. I was completely wrong. On Saturday morning I started playing the new PC life sim Stardew Valley, and I didn’t really stop until late Sunday night.
Stardew Valley is the hot new sensation tearing up the Steam charts. It’s a Harvest Moon-like life sim where, in addition to farming, crafting, secret-hunting and dungeon-crawling (!), you can romance any of the ten bachelors and bachelorettes living in your small town.
Which brings us to Haley.
Act One: Be Still My Heart
When I arrived in Pelican Town, Haley was one of the first people I met.
“Rowr,” I thought. “I will win your heart through the time-tested practice of giving you the same gift over and over again until your love meter maxes out, then completing whatever arcane quest is necessary to obtain the unique item that allows me to marry you.”
How young I was then. How naive.
One of the first times I saw Haley walking around, I gave her a daffodil I’d picked. She loved it.
Sweet! This was going great. I tried to ignore some possible warning signs, like the times I’d try to talk to her and she’d completely ignore me.
She’s into her photography, I figured. I’m not some entitled city bro expecting all the women to pay attention to me all the time! I’ll talk to her when she’s not busy. I’ll be a responsible adult about this.
...so, naturally, I took the Lloyd Dobler approach and started standing outside her house in the morning with a daffodil over my head.
On her birthday, I was sure to give her another daffodil.
She seemed into it, but not that into it? Nah, I was probably imagining things. This was still going great.
A few days later, I stopped by her house, where she lives with her sister Emily. They were in the middle of an argument. I’ll admit, her greeting threw me a little:
“Oh, it’s that new farm boy,” she says.
Oh, you mean the guy you’ve been hanging out with on the reg, who keeps asking about your day and giving you flowers? And who remembered your birthday like four days after he met you because that’s not weird that’s charming and, uh, sweet, and anyway, “that new farm boy”? Really?
Turned out they were arguing about cleaning duties. I wound up brokering an agreement, but couldn’t help feeling like Haley was kind of being a brat about everything.
Act Two: The Big Dance
Not too long after that came the spring Flower Festival. I was new in town but even I knew this would be my big shot at getting a dance partner. My heart was set on Haley.
I’d been giving her daffodils as often as possible (which is twice a week) to make her like me (increase my heart score) as much as possible (to as high a score as I could get) and figured that if I asked her to dance, she’d totally say yes (because I’ve been conditioned by decades of video games to expect this).
I got to the festival and found Haley warming up in the middle of the dance area.
I blithely soldiered on.
Not only did I genuinely not expect to be so flatly, coldly rejected, it actually hurt my real-life feelings a tiny bit.
I’d assumed... well, I’d assumed that because this was a video game, I’d be totally able to focus on one girl from the outset, win her heart in time for the big dance, and make a splash in my new town by tearing it up at the Flower Festival. I wasn’t prepared for rejection, particularly not rejection prefaced with an “Ew.”
Now desperate, I asked all the other girls to dance, even though I hadn’t given them the time of day up until this point. You can probably guess how that went.
Eventually I’d exhausted my options, so I told the Mayor to go ahead and start the dance.
The dance was lovely! Oh, how fine the young people looked, dressed up so nice and proper. And look at Haley, with a ring of flowers in her hair! Everyone had so much fun.
Well, almost everyone.
Act Three: Things Go Downhill
Things just weren’t the same after the dance. I kept hanging out with Haley but I started to realize that she actually didn’t seem like a particularly nice or interesting person.
Spring ended and there weren’t any more daffodils, so I wasn’t sure what gifts to bring her. She wasn’t that into the new stuff I brought.
I gave her the wrong gift once, and she was pretty rude about it.
On top of that, I realized that half the time we talked, she was straight-up dismissive of me.
Even my little dude was getting sick of it.
One fine summer day, she full-on negged me twice in a row:
Okay, first of all: Like you don’t wear the same clothes every day?? Second of all, man, I sure am not getting the hint, am I?
The next time I saw her at the juice stand, she didn’t even say hi, she just started talking about some other dude.
And that was when I realized: Wow, this sucks! Go away, Haley! I have better things to do!
I’d reached the final act in an unexpectedly realistic video game depiction of what it’s like to be crushing on a girl who doesn’t know you, doesn’t seem interested or even particularly likable, and has her own whole thing going on that has nothing to do with you. It was time to move on.
Act Four: Letting Go
Here at Kotaku, I edit our biweekly Ask Dr. NerdLove advice column. I found myself imagining what it’d look like if my Stardew Valley character wrote the Doc for advice.
Dear Doc,
You gotta help me! I have a crush on this girl, but lately she’s been acting like I don’t exist. She’s the prettiest girl in our town, and I felt this major connection with her the first time we met. She’s so cute and funny, and we really seemed to hit it off. We’d hang out and have fun, and I’d always go and get her gifts and stuff. I figured she knew I was into her, since I felt like I was being pretty obvious about it, but I never got more than a “just friends” vibe from her.
In fact, sometimes she’s kinda rude to me? I figure she’s usually just kidding around, but it hurts. She’ll make fun of my clothes, and one time I asked her to dance with me at the big town festival and she said “No” in front of everyone. I wound up standing in the corner alone. Other times she talks about this Alex guy, and even though I know they’ve known each other for a long time and I don’t think there’s anything going on, I don’t know.I can’t help but feel hurt and ignored.
What should I do, Doc? Is this a lost cause? Is there some way I can up my game? Help!
- Confused in Pelican Town
Now, I can’t speak for the actual Dr. NerdLove, but I’ve been working with Harris long enough that I can imagine his response. It’d probably be something along the lines of “CIPT, I’m only gonna say this once: Run for your life.”
He’d probably elaborate on how Haley has been telling me in a dozen different ways that she isn’t interested. He’d mention the fact that she never shows any interest in or real kindness toward me, and would say that her rejection at the dance just made explicit what had already been implicit.
He’d likely say, “Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action a complete lack of interest in you.” He’d also probably say something about how she’s self-selecting out of my dating pool, which in the end is a good thing. Then he’d tell me to expand my social circle, start making other friends in town, and stop fixating on this one person.
(The Dr. NerdLove who lives in my head is a very helpful guy.)
Now, I understand that Stardew Valley is a video game. I get that all of the young men and women in Pelican Town are coded to be uninterested in my character at first, and that all of them can be gradually won over with affection and presents. I know that if I just keep at it, I can probably marry Haley and live happily ever after. She’s an artificial construct waiting around for me to enter the proper chain of inputs and “win.”
But Haley’s character has been cleverly written, to the point that, aided by a bit of projection on my part, my experience with her has mirrored real relationships that I (and I’m guessing a lot of other people) have had in the past. Infatuation leads to rejection leads to frustration leads to an eventual realization that this person was wrong for me all along.
The nice thing about Stardew Valley is that there are always other fish in the sea. I’ve got a whole life to live here; a farm to build up, a community center to save, a chicken coop to construct and a mine to explore. Maybe one day Haley and I will be great friends, but I can tell well enough that we’re just not meant to be any more than that. And that’s fine.
Come to think of it, remember her sister Emily? There was that time she remembered my name...
