This is a weird one. Michael Strahan’s last NFL game was in 2008, when his Giants upset the 18-0 New England Patriots to win Super Bowl XLII. He had a sack and a pair of tackles in that game and left a 15-year NFL career for a very successful second act as a television host.
After the game, the Giants gave him what was purportedly his game-worn jersey as a memento, but according to a lawsuit filed against the Giants and Eli Manning, among others, the team doctored another jersey to appear as it was the same one Strahan wore during the game. A Giants clubhouse attendant allegedly sold the jersey to memorabilia dealer Eric Inselberg, who then sued the Giants in New Jersey Superior Court.
The New York Daily News first reported on the court papers, which were filed Thursday and accuse the Giants of selling many fake items to Inselberg and other dealers. The jersey in question was even doctored up with Gatorade stains so as to appear legit:
“The Giants went to great lengths to make the jersey they gave to Strahan falsely appear as if it was worn during the Super Bowl, even adding Gatorade stains to the fabric,” the papers say.
Inselberg’s original suit against the team has had a number of complaints thrown out by a judge, including allegations of civil racketeering, trade libel, and malicious prosecution. The FBI reportedly investigated him for fraud for selling fake stuff a few years ago, but they dropped the investigation after Inselberg showed that he wasn’t at fault. His lawyer had some spicy quotes about Justice and Fairness and stuff:
There’s fraudulent memorabilia being sold to fans, and then fraud on the U.S. government to cover it up,” he said.
“The fraudulent sales and the fraudulent cover-up are really two sides of the same coin. I cannot fathom a world where it is okay to throw an innocent person like Eric Inselberg under the bus in order to conceal one’s own misdeeds.”
The Giants have thus far denied everything, and Michael Strahan hasn’t commented on the story yet.
There is simply no other word to describe the sentence Donald Trump tweeted out Sunday morning addressing Bernie Sanders.
It’s no secret that the Republican presidential frontrunner encourages violence at his own campaign events, even offering to support his fans who use it. But Trump reached a new level on Sunday, using a phrase straight out of a mobster movie: “Be careful.” This is, undoubtedly and irrevocably, a threat—a threat that Trump will mobilize his thousands of devoted supporters to violently harass or even attack supporters of a rival candidate. Hmmm, where I have I heard that story before?
Hillary Clinton’s recent misstep—praising former president Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan for helping to initiate a “national conversation” about the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s, despite the fact that the record states otherwise—has led to a public outcry, and now the Democratic nominee hopeful is attempting to assuage voters with a full public apology.
On March 12, Clinton posted a lengthy statement on Medium which emphasized her error and shifted the focus to the countless members of the LGBT community, as well as allies, who were responsible for bringing AIDS and its devastating consequences into the global spotlight, ending with her own promise to continue the fight against HIV/AIDS, which roughly 36.9 million live with worldwide and claims 1.2 million people per year, according to the World Health Organization’s stats from 2013.
In the first paragraph, Clinton more than acknowledged that she was wrong by misrepresenting the role of the Reagans during the zenith of the crisis—she took full accountability for it.
“Yesterday, at Nancy Reagan’s funeral, I said something inaccurate when speaking about the Reagans’ record on HIV and AIDS. Since then, I’ve heard from countless people who were devastated by the loss of friends and loved ones, and hurt and disappointed by what I said. As someone who has also lost friends and loved ones to AIDS, I understand why. I made a mistake, plain and simple.”
She then affirmed that the “Reagans did not start a national conversation about HIV and AIDS” and acknowledged the real heroes of the AIDS crisis: “brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people” and activists from groups like ACT UP and Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who inserted the AIDS epidemic into public discourse back in the 1980s and 1990s.
“The AIDS crisis in America began as a quiet, deadly epidemic. Because of discrimination and disregard, it remained that way for far too long. When many in positions of power turned a blind eye, it was groups like ACT UP, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and others that came forward to shatter the silence — because as they reminded us again and again, Silence = Death. They organized and marched, held die-ins on the steps of city halls and vigils in the streets. They fought alongside a few courageous voices in Washington, like U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, who spoke out from the floor of Congress.
Then there were all the people whose names we don’t often hear today — the unsung heroes who fought on the front lines of the crisis, from hospital wards and bedsides, some with their last breath. Slowly, too slowly, ignorance was crowded out by information. People who had once closed their eyes opened their hearts.”
Clinton then cited her own work in the battle against both the AIDS epidemic and discrimination borne from it, like her effort to bring legislation for research and educational prevention into the Senate, and her work with both the Ryan White Act and PREPFAR. She ended her apology with a call to arms.
“We’re still surrounded by memories of loved ones lost and lives cut short. But we’re also surrounded by survivors who are fighting harder than ever. We owe it to them and to future generations to continue that fight together. For the first time, an AIDS-free generation is in sight. As president, I promise you that I will not let up until we reach that goal. We will not leave anyone behind.”
Despite the fact that the statement seemed to be a genuine mea culpa, there was one thing Clinton did not touch upon: the Reagan’s outright repudiation of the disease all together. Ronald Reagan’s refused to even murmur the world AIDS (or acknowledge its general existence) until the last throes of his presidency, and Nancy Reagan’s now well-publicized and stalwart denial to help her friend, Hollywood actor Rock Hudson, weeks before his death in 1985 from the disease, were anecdotal—and unmentioned—illustrations of this. So while Clinton did correctly point out that the Reagans “didn’t start the national conversation,” they did more than that—their silence helped fuel the flames—and Clinton made no reference to it in her post.
While this might be Clinton erring on the side of caution—she still has time to collect and/or salvage some votes—the omission might anger some potential (or even recently former) voters. Either way, the results have yet to be seen.
Yesterday Donald Trump tweeted a now-debunked video showing that the protester who jumped a barrier at a recent rally was an ISIS supporter. This morning Chuck Todd asked Trump on Meet the Press about the fake video, to which Trump replied, “I don’t know, all I know is what’s on the internet.”
Trump had stated earlier that he believed the protester was involved in a terrorist organization. His tweet attempted to further that narrative.
“This was a guy that was looking to do harm,” Mr. Trump said in Kansas City, Missouri yesterday. “It was probably ISIS or ISIS-related, can you believe it?”
But when confronted this morning by Chuck Todd with the fact that he had tweeted a fake video, Trump basically admitted that as long as it’s on the internet, he feels absolutely no obligation to fact-check what he tweets to his 6.87 million followers.
Update, 4:00pm: Here’s a longer version of what Trump said to Chuck Todd:
TRUMP: He was playing Arabic music, he was dragging the flag along the ground, and he had internet chatter with ISIS, so I don’t know if he was or not, but all we did was put out what he had on his internet—dragging the flag, which I respect obviously more than you. He was dragging the American flag on the ground like it was a piece of garbage, okay? I don’t like that and a lot of people don’t like that. And he also had chatter about ISIS... or with ISIS, and you take a look at it. I mean, people are looking at it very seriously now, but you have to check it before you ask the question.
TODD: Well, we have checked it. That’s my point, sir. There’s no ties to ISIS for this man. No law enforcement official... and this video that you link to appears to be a hoax.
TRUMP: Okay, well, you just, look, was it a hoax that he’s dragging the flag? Was that him? It looks like the same man to me. He was dragging a flag along the ground, and he was playing a certain type of music, and supposedly there was chatter about ISIS. Now, I don’t know, what do I know about it? All I know is what’s on the internet. And I don’t like to see a man dragging an American flag along the ground in a mocking fashion.
The video of the protester, Thomas Dimassimo, dragging an American flag on the ground was indeed real and part of an unrelated protest in April of 2015. The original video was posted by Dimassimo himself. However, The video that Trump tweeted was spliced together by an unknown editor with “Arabic music” as Trump puts it, and was intended to troll the protester.
The alleged ISIS video also includes a description written entirely in Arabic. The Arabic is badly garbled, but appears to say “Tommy D” was trying to look “cool” and as if he has big balls for standing on an American flag.
The alleged ISIS video appears to have been posted to YouTube last May by someone named Thomas Jenners, whose account has since been deleted, then taken down Saturday. But the personal insults directed at Dimassimo are uncharacteristic of ISIS media. It was also posted to Facebook, but has since been deleted.
As of this writing Trump’s tweet is still up and has received 10,242 retweets and 17,476 likes. The video appears to have been removed from YouTube but is still viewable on Trump’s Twitter.
Protests at Trump rallies have really hit a tipping point, with large numbers of people in Chicago and Kansas City turning out to denounce what they see as a very real fascist threat to America should Trump become president.
This past week a Trump supporter sucker-punched a protester in North Carolina. The attacker would later say that perhaps the protester should’ve been killed. Trump has flatly said that he doesn’t accept responsibility for the violence at his rallies, but has suggested that he’ll look into paying the legal fees of the attacker in North Carolina.
Yesterday Trump said at a rally in St. Louis, Missouri that he would ruin the lives of protestors by pressing charges and deluging them with his legal team. “Their lives are going to be ruined, and they’ll know their lives are going to be ruined,” Trump said.
This kind of rhetoric, of course, doesn’t help the case that Trump isn’t a crypto-fascist who would quickly quash any kind of dissent should he take office.
Trump’s rallies are now filled with the kind of security you’d find at the airport, as you can see from this photo taken this morning in Bloomington, Illinois.
TSA and police inspect people entering a Trump rally in Bloomington, Illinois this morning (Associated Press)
Despite Trump’s claims that all he knows is “what’s on the internet,” we still have no documentary evidence that he has ever used a personal computer. If you have documentary evidence please send it to us: novak@gizmodo.com.
An explosion in the Turkish capital of Ankara left 27 people dead and at least another 75 wounded.
According to BBC, the blast, caused by a vehicle packed with explosives, went off in Guvenpark in the Kizilay district, close to the city’s main square. Several cars and a bus caught on fire, and the wounded were taken to 10 hospitals throughout the city.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast yet, but officials suspect a Kurdist militant group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The incident is the latest in a string of horrific bombings in Ankara. On February 17, a similar suicide car bombing killed 29 people, and double suicide bombings in October that left 103 people dead.
“We don’t know when and where there will be another attack, but it’s apparent now that they can’t be prevented, and everyone is on edge,” Mehmet Arabaci, an Ankara resident, told The New York Times.
A reader sends in this fabulous photo from Book Revue in Huntington, New York, where Kristin Cavallari is scheduled to sign copies of her debut book Balancing in Heels this week:
At a campaign event on Sunday, a man stood up in the middle of Marco Rubio’s stump speech to make an announcement: “Marco Rubio is trying to steal my girlfriend.”
“They met in New Hampshire, and she doesn’t look at me the same way anymore,” he continued, before being escorted out. Rubio joked, “I didn’t even win New Hampshire!”
On Sunday, six gunmen from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the terrorist group’s North African affiliate, killed 16 people, including four Europeans and two special forces soldiers, in an attack on hotels in Grand Bassam, a beach resort town in Ivory Coast.
The six AQIM shooters were killed in clashes with Ivorian security forces, authorities said. From Reuters:
Witnesses said the gunmen followed a pathway onto the beach where they then opened fire on swimmers and sunbathers before turning their attention to the packed seafront hotels where people were eating and drinking at lunchtime.
“They started shooting and everyone just started running. There were women and children running and hiding,” said another witness, Marie Bassole. “It started on the beach. Whoever they saw, they shot at.”
Security forces moved to evacuate the area surrounding the beach. Bullet holes riddled vehicles nearby and glass from shattered windows littered the ground.
The body of one of the attackers, dressed in dark trousers and a blood-covered striped shirt, lay beside the beachside entrance to one hotel, a bullet hole in his head.
Beside him on the sand sat a combat vest used to carry extra ammunition. Nearby, on the ground, lay unexploded grenades.
“I present my condolences to the families of the people who were murdered, and of course I am very proud of our security forces who reacted so fast,” Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara said outside one of the hotels, Etoile du Sud. “The toll could’ve been much heavier.”
A former French trading post, Grand-Bassam became the first capital of Ivory Coast (or Côte d’Ivoire) is designated a Unesco World Heritage Site that “bears witness to the complex social relations between Europeans and Africans, and to the subsequent independence movement.”
With his bouncing body, looming grin, and wild hair, Richard Simmons might have terrified me as a child, but it gives me no pleasure to report that the New York Daily News published a story on the fact that his friends are pretty convinced the exercise mogul and TV personality is being held hostage in his own home by his maid.
Yes, you read that correctly.
This is a story that features a number of colorful characters: Mauro Oliveira, a Brazilian orphan who grew up to be a masseuse and confidante to the rich and powerful Simmons (and who I’m convinced might be the real-life Brazilian version of Pip from Great Expectations), Simmons’ mysterious brother Lenny, who proves to be pretty slap-happy when it comes to restraining orders, and Teresa Reveles, the maid-in-question, and who Oliveira accuses of being an actual witch.
And then there’s Simmons himself, who disappeared from the public eye in 2014. In the article, he’s painted as a once-carefree snowflake of a man, a generous and kind benevolent force who, according to Oliveira, has now been emotionally abused for years, and, as Oliveira paints it, is quite possibly suffering from a psychological breakdown and/or emotional breakdown.
(Note: the term “mental illness” was not used in the article, and as far as we know, Simmons has never been diagnosed with one. So I won’t bandy the term about here, especially because no one wins when armchair psychologists try to diagnose celebrities.)
The article more or less follows Oliveira’s POV, and recounts Simmons’ estranged friend about the peculiar final meeting between Oliveira, who was once employed by Simmons, and Simmons himself.
“Richard Simmons opened his front door, frail and trembling. Mauro Oliveira, a visual artist who was also Simmons’ masseur and former assistant, greeted him on the front porch, concerned about his friend. After receiving an ominous phone call from Simmons, Oliveira had driven his truck to the Hollywood Hills, past the two metal gates that Simmons had left ajar for him, and into the driveway. He reached the porch through the white columns that recalled an antebellum Southern mansion, and past Simmons’ bronze statue of a regal Dalmatian.
Wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, a gaunt Simmons led Oliveira through the foyer, and into the living room. ‘Mauro, we can no longer see each other,’ Simmons told him in a quiet, defeated voice.
‘What’s going on, Richard?’ Oliveira asked. ‘Why are you saying that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Simmons replied. ‘I just want to be by myself, and I want to be in the house, and we’re never going to see each other again.’”
Simmons does not let Oliveira into the house, and begins so suspect that something’s not quite right.
“’Let’s talk it over,’ Oliveira said. ‘I want to sit here, and make sure you’ll be OK. Let’s go upstairs, I’ll give you a massage and relax you.’
Simmons called up to Teresa Reveles, his live-in housekeeper of nearly three decades. ‘Mauro is going upstairs with me,’ he said.
‘No, no, no!’ Reveles shouted from the second floor, according to Oliveira. ‘Get out! Get out!’
Oliveira looked at his friend, who told him in a soft voice, ‘You’ve gotta go.’
Oliveira leaned in toward Simmons. Is she controlling your life now?’
As Oliveira tells it, Simmons looked down, and with one resigned word confirmed his worst suspicions: ‘Yes.’ This was the last time he saw his friend.’”
After that, the article also cites similar suspicions from an unnamed friend and June Park, the owner of a wig store that Simmons used to frequent. Park told the NY Daily reporter that the last time she attempted to visit Simmons on his birthday in 2014, Reveles answered the door and turned her away.
Also recounted are two trips Oliveira took with Simmons to Brazil and to Venice, Italy. The former was a philanthropic venture made to the Hope Unlimited in Campinas, where Oliveira spent most of his childhood, and the later as a vacation. Both times, Oliveira alleges that Simmons had emotional outburst and barraged the masseuse with verbal abuses in public, the last which supposedly led Oliveira’s cardiac health to tripwire and eventually lead to a valve replacement for his heart.
The reporter also mentions that he tried to contact both Reveles and Lenny Simmons, who both refused to comment for the story. Simmons’ manager Michael Catalano responded to the request, but only stated that “Richard is enjoying life at home after a 40-year career of traveling the world and inspiring people to take better care of themselves.” He also added that “[Simmons] is working on several projects and continues to encourage those that need his help.”
As mentioned before, Oliveira implies that Reveles is a bonafide practitioner of the dark arts:
“’I think tormented is the best word to describe his mental state,’ Oliveira says. ‘I think it was (caused by) black magic, witchcraft. That’s not close to your culture, but to my culture in Brazil, and to Mexicans’— Teresa Reveles is from Mexico — ‘that is a real thing. They invoke the spirits. They light black candles, and red and blue candles. I’ve never participated. I only saw from a distance. But at services, they do special meals. They offer meals to the bad spirits, and light candles, invoking with words.’”
The former friend went as far as to self-publish an e-book titled King Rich and the Evil Witch. In the tome, Simmons is represented by the character “The Good Goofy King Rich,” positing Reveles as the “Evil Witch Boreza,” and Simmons’ brother Lenny, who attempted to file a restraining order on Oliveira, as “Prince Benny.” As for Oliveira, he appears in the book as “The Artist.”
While it cannot be said for certain that Reveles, Lenny, and Catalano are in on this kidnapping conspiracy in an attempt to milk money out of Simmons, the denizens of the Internet expressed their concern after the article was published on March 12.
A representative for Simmons released a statement the day after the piece was published, which sounded a lot like the one Catalano made to NY Daily:
“Richard, after 40 years of being in the spotlight, is now simply taking a break from the public eye and working behind the scenes to continue to help those millions of people worldwide in need of his assistance and on several projects to be announced soon.”
Simmons himself has yet to comment on the matter at this time.
Kindle memoirs, swimwear, and an OXO mandoline slicer lead off Sunday’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more.
$50 is about as cheap as 1TB external drives get, and this one comes preloaded with some 4K movies as well. You’ll have to pay more to actually unlock them, but again, it’s just an optional cherry on top. [Western Digital My Passport Cinema, 1 TB, $50]
You guys buy boatloads of IR thermometers whenever we post a deal, and it’s easy to see why. They’re a ton of fun to mess around with, and can come in handy for everything from cooking to home energy savings.
Beach season is just around the corner, and Amazon’s celebrating with a big sale on Kanu Surf swimwear for men, women, and kids, today only. [60% or more off Kanu Surf swimwear]
This discounted OXO mandoline slicer can chop all of your favorite fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and fingers for just $32. Plus, its four interchangeable plates and four thickness settings mean it can adapt to many different ingredients and recipes. [OXO Good Grips V-Blade Mandoline Slicer, $32]
Between Netflix, Sling TV, Hulu+, and HBO Now, it’s easier than ever to declare cable independence, but even if you subscribe to ever streaming service under the sun, you’ll still want a good HDTV antenna to pick up your live local stations.
ExOfficio’s Give-N-Go boxer briefs were a finalist in our recent best men’s underwear Co-Op, and you can once again get a pair for $15, one of the lowest prices we’ve seen. That’s still pricey for a single pair of underwear, but reviewers say it’s worth it. Note: The price is only available on certain colors, so click around if you’re not seeing the deal. [ExOfficio Men’s Give-N-Go Boxer Brief, $15]
If you hurry, here’s a rare opportunity to save on PSN credit. While you can frequently find better deals on full games from other retailers, this would be a great deal if you like to buy DLC. [$50 PSN Gift Card, $43]
Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more, and don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter. We want your feedback.
In a tweet this weekend, Donald Trump Jr. incorrectly identified the Trump supporter photographed raising her arm in a Nazi salute on Friday night as Bernie Sanders volunteer Portia Boulger. The tweet has since been deleted.
Trump Jr. quoted a tweet from “the most despised man in science fiction,” Theodore Beale (@voxday), who wrote, “The ‘Trump Nazi’ is Portia Boulger, who runs the Women for Bernie Sanders Twitter account. It’s another media plant.” Beale included a photo of Boulger, 63, with his tweet.
In fact, the “Trump Nazi” is Birgitt Peterson, 69, of Yorkville, Illinois, who attended Friday’s rally with her husband.
“The Republican Party needs to be broken up, and I believe Donald Trump is the one to do it,” she told the New York Times. She was compelled to sieg heil when confronted with a group of “rude” protestors holding a poster with a picture of Adolf Hitler:
Ms. Peterson, who was born in West Berlin in 1946 and became an American citizen in 1982, said she took offense to the comparison of Mr. Trump to Hitler.
“They said Trump is a second Hitler,” Ms. Peterson said. “I said do you know what that sign stands for? Do you know who Hitler really was?”
“I make the point that they are demonstrating something they had no knowledge about,” she said. “If you want to do it right, you do it right. You don’t know what you are doing.”
And so she made the Nazi salute. However: “Absolutely I’m not a Nazi, no,” she said. “I’m not one of those.” And in fact, her husband Don said, “It’s insulting for anyone to assume that we have anything to do with Nazis.”
“We have never done anything other than demonstrate to a bunch of idiots that when they talk about Nazism, they better learn about it first.”
Boulger, for her part, is in fact a Sanders supporter, and was working the phone bank in Chillicothe, Ohio, at the time of the Trump rally. She tweeted on Saturday, “I wasn’t in Chicago last pm spreading some nasty. My hair is short.” She is now asking for an apology from Trump Jr., which has not been forthcoming.
In early March, an unfortunate soul put the pedal to the metal so as to reach his house before pooping his pants. But the fates were not on his side: arrested for speeding, the gentleman was left with no recourse but to take a dump in the police car as he was taken to jail.
According to the Miami Herald, 24-year-old Carlos Adonis Ramos-Erazo “was pulled over for doing 75 mph in a 55 mph zone,” at which point “he told cops he was racing home to use the bathroom.”
Ostensibly desperate, the Florida resident “refused to get out of his car” and continued driving home — “[striking] a deputy’s arm” during his swift departure.
Ramos-Erazo did arrive at his residence in Clermont, but before reaching the sanctuary of the bathroom “was shot with a police Taser.” He was then arrested and taken to jail in the Lake County sheriff’s patrol car, without being given leave to poop beforehand.
So what’s a guy to do? The digestive system, after all, is not beholden to the law. Before reaching the station, Ramos-Erazo both shit and pissed in the backseat of the car.
At a town hall event in Columbus, Ohio, tonight, Hillary Clinton took a question from Ricky Jackson, who was exonerated in May after 39 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Jackson asked Clinton whether she would abolish the death penalty; she said that she would not.
“The states have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials that give any defendant all the rights that defendants should have, the support that defendants’ lawyers should have,” Clinton said. “And I would breathe a sigh of relief if the Supreme Court or the states themselves began to eliminate the death penalty.”
“Where I end up is this—and maybe it’s a distinction that is hard to support—at this point, given the challenges we face from terrorist activities in our country that enter under federal jurisdiction, for very limited purposes it can still be held in reserve for those.”
Clinton invoked the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11, advocating for “a very limited use of [capital punishment] in cases where there has been horrific mass killings.” She added: “It would only be in the federal system.”
This was meant to be reassuring, but it is not. Not only does this proposal put an inordinate amount of faith in federal prosecutors not to cheat the system in the pursuit of vengeance rather than justice—which they have been known to do—there is no reason to think that providing Ricky Jackson’s lawyers with more resources wouldn’t necessarily have done very much (if anything!) about the faulty jury instructions delivered at his trial.
In fact, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994, expanded the federal death penalty to cover about 60 different offenses, and has allowed the federal government to pursue capital punishment in states that abolished it years ago. As Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, wrote in the Nation last year, on the U.S. Attorney’s pursuit of the death penalty against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, in Massachusetts:
State death-penalty law, for better or worse, is usually a deep reflection of local history, culture, and debate. That’s true in the states that still routinely execute prisoners—Texas, Oklahoma, and the Deep South death-penalty strongholds; those that shut their death rows decades ago, such as West Virginia and Michigan; and the nine states that have abolished capital punishment since 1980, including Massachusetts.
The federal death penalty, on the other hand, is a different story: largely a recent invention, radically expanded during a few brief years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Ever since, the federal death penalty—both in the laws passed by Congress and the cases selectively pursued by US Attorneys—has been all about politics of the most cynically expedient variety. Most relevant to the Tsarnaev case, the federal death penalty has been a convenient vehicle for Washington Republicans and Democrats alike to profit from the same terrorism panic which after 9/11 saddled us with the Patriot Act.
Michelle Fields, a reporter who was allegedly manhandled by Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski last week, resigned from Breitbart Sunday night, along with editor-at-large Ben Shapiro. Breitbart has cravenly questioned Fields’ story over the last week, even though photos, videos, and an eyewitness account have corroborated it.
In a statement to Buzzfeed, Fields wrote, “Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation. I do not believe Breitbart News has adequately stood by me during the events of the past week and because of that I believe it is now best for us to part ways.”
Shapiro released a much lengthier statement accusing Breitbart management of betraying the late Andrew Breitbart’s mission by selling out Fields.
After Fields and Shapiro resigned, Breitbart published a bizarre story mocking both reporters and Buzzfeed. It appears to have been deleted as of this morning.
It’s Monday—do you know where your Bollea v. Gawker Media jury trial is? It’s in St. Petersburg, Fla. and if that’s not where you are, great news! It’s streaming live and you can watch all the courtroom drama right here.
In a campaign that is increasingly being defined by the public’s weariness with inequality and aspects of free trade, the labor movement has settled on Hillary Clinton as its presumptive presidential preference. The labor movement is fucking up.
Though unions have woefully declined in power over the course of the past generation, they still represent the biggest unified force of average workers in the political sphere. In the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton definitively won the union endorsement race over Bernie Sanders months ago. Though Sanders’ policies are objectively closer to the ones that the labor movement calls for, many major unions made the political calculation that Hillary is the likely nominee and the best chance for a Democratic White House, and that it would be wise to get on board with her early on.
In the past few months, the landscape has changed. Donald Trump’s nomination is now a distinct probability. Bernie Sanders, who has steadily polled well against Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup, is still in the race, and engenders a level of grassroots enthusiasm that Hillary does not. After an early wave of union endorsements that mostly went for Hillary, the AFL-CIO decided not to endorse anyone at all in the primary, in a nod to the strength of Sanders’ support. The labor movement could be excused for looking at the political situation as it stands today and wondering why the hell they didn’t endorse Bernie Sanders early on—because if Trump gets nominated, Bernie Sanders could actually win the White House, making him the most pro-labor president in living memory.
That is not probable, of course. With the backing of the big unions, Hillary Clinton stands today as the statistically likely nominee. Since Sanders’ upset win in the Michigan primary, she has been raising her voice about her promised opposition to the TPP and other free trade agreements that she supported not too long ago. So it is as good at time as ever for labor leaders to ruefully review Hillary’s actual record on these things. As Dan Kaufman laid out in the New York Times this weekend, that record is not encouraging. She was a happy Walmart board member as the company busted unions; she has repeatedly talked out of both sides of her mouth on free trade, assuring workers she is against various free trade agreements during campaigns only to help enact them once she is safely in power. At a time when manufacturing wages have been stagnant for 35 years and wage inequality across the board continues to grow, there is nothing in Hillary Clinton’s record that should give average workers confidence that she will keep her many promises to them if the political situation should favor breaking those promises.
By backing the perceived safe choice over the candidate who actually agrees with it more, the labor movement helped to ensure that the candidate who agrees with it more will not get the nomination—during what could well be the only election campaign in our lifetime that a candidate as pro-labor as Bernie Sanders could actually win, thanks to the insane and unelectable opponent that the other side could nominate.
Well done, union leaders. You have successfully sold your own interests out in advance. When Hillary Clinton inevitably sells you out again in the future, you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves.
If you can even believe it, a one-time presidential candidate who just endorsed Donald Trump doesn’t understand how the Constitution works.
Ben Carson appeared on NBC this morning to warn of a potential “escalation” of violence at Donald Trump’s upcoming rallies, but the true chilling moment came when he spoke of the First Amendment, which protects citizens from the government (and not, say, from other people.)
“If the protesters continue with their (Saul) Alinsky-like tactics, there is a real possibility of escalation,” the famously soft-spoken Carson warned.
“Because those who are the victims have two choices: They can submit to them meekly, just do whatever those protesters want them to do, or they can fight back. If they decide to fight back, there could be an escalation.”
Carson also criticized anti-Trump protesters for infringing on his supporters’ First Amendment rights.
“The problem is that there are those who are being taught that if somebody disagrees with you, you have the right to interfere with their First Amendment rights, their ability to express themselves, their freedom of speech. That’s where the emphasis needs to be.”
Again: Private citizens cannot infringe on other people’s First Amendment rights, because that is literally not how the Constitution works. Then again, with Donald Trump explicitly encouraging his supporters to “knock the crap” out of protestors, it’s a wonder his surrogates recognize the rule of law at all.
If you were going to make an ordered list of people who Nancy Reagan’s funeral went worst for, number one on that list would probably have to be Nancy Regan. Number two, I think, would be Hillary Clinton, pictured here in a familial embrace with the man who tangentially torpedoed her first presidential campaign and is helping to make her second one much harder than it should be.
Previously in “Maybe Hillary Clinton Should Have Just Skipped Nancy Reagan’s Funeral”:
This morning, Sarah Palin cancelled a planned Donald Trump rally in The Villages, Fla. just minutes before it was about to start. The reason for the abrupt cancellation, NBC reports, is that Palin’s husband, Todd, is in intensive care in Alaska after a “very serious” snowmobile accident last night.
Palin’s son, Track, who was arrested on domestic violence charges in January, is also due in court for a pretrial conference this morning. A statement announcing the cancellation of today’s event made it seem as if Sarah Palin will be off the campaign trail for the near future.
UPDATE (12:55 p.m.) A statement from the Trump campaign confirms NBC’s report:
The comedian Amy Poehler was recently fined for excessive water use in the drought-stricken state of California, where she is reportedly among the worst water waste offenders in Beverly Hills. Why does she need so much water? Her representatives have so far declined to respond to requests for comment, so we’ll have to guess.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Poehler—who is reportedly single and has two children—used 170,000 gallons of water between May and July last summer. That averages out to about 2,786 gallons of water a day; for context, the national average for a family of four is about 400 gallons, according to the EPA.
That’s a lot of water! In lieu of an explanation, some guesses:
Truly a mystery for our times. If you know what Amy Poehler is doing with all that water, feel free to get in touch at tips@gawker.com, or don’t, whatever.
