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Sunday's Best Deals: Breville Juicers, Activewear, Best Xbox One Price So Far

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Sunday's Best Deals: Breville Juicers, Activewear, Best Xbox One Price So Far

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, and don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter.

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Sunday's Best Deals: Breville Juicers, Activewear, Best Xbox One Price So Far
refurb RM-JE98XL Juice Fountain Plus, $100

I’ve been a fan of Breville juicers for years, and at $100 for a certified refurb today, you can try your hand at some ridiculously healthy kale concoctions.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005E0A1MI/


Sunday's Best Deals: Breville Juicers, Activewear, Best Xbox One Price So Far
Xbox One Price Drop | Illustration by Sam Woolley

Update: Newegg’s eBay store has the Xbox One Gears of War Ultimate Edition Bundle for $259 with free shipping and no tax. Which is the best straight discount so far. [Xbox One Gears of War Ultimate Edition Bundle, $259]

Microsoft’s second fake price drop on the Xbox One doesn’t result in the single best deal we’ve ever seen on the console- in terms of total price or when taking into account pack-ins. What it does do however is not limit you to one or two bundles when getting your great deal. More bundles here.

Tell us which bundle you think is the best value, or at least the best value for you in the comments.

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-One-500GB...

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-One-1TB-E...

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-One-1TB-C...


Sunday's Best Deals: Breville Juicers, Activewear, Best Xbox One Price So Far
Activewear Gold Box, Today only

Amazon has a whole lot of today only activewear discounts. Tell us what you’re picking up in the comments.


Sunday's Best Deals: Breville Juicers, Activewear, Best Xbox One Price So Far
Tribesigns Digital Kitchen Timer, $8, use code SNUBMVG9

That’s no Nest Thermostat, it’s an $8 magnetic kitchen timer (that operates like a Nest).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XXZEMXK


Sunday's Best Deals: Breville Juicers, Activewear, Best Xbox One Price So Far
X-Chef Non-Stick Silicone Mats 3-pack, $14, use code N3HM7XP3

Cleaning baking sheets is an absolute nightmare. Grab a 3-pack of these non-stick mats that will protect your cookie sheets and clean up easily.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A6CKFCY


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Two American Citizens Identified as Victims in ISIS Suicide Bombing

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Two American Citizens Identified as Victims in ISIS Suicide Bombing
Photo: Getty

Five people died on Saturday morning after a suicide bomb detonated in a busy tourist shopping area of Istanbul, Turkey. Among those five, Reuters confirmed that two held dual citizenship with the U.S. and Israel.

A Turkish member of the Islamic State militant group was reportedly responsible for the blast, which also killed another Israeli citizen and an Iranian citizen. Another 36 people were injured.

“We have determined that Mehmet Ozturk, born in 1992 in Gaziantep, has carried out the heinous attack on Saturday in Istanbul. It has been established that he is a member of Daesh,” said Turkey’s Interior Minister, Efkan Ala.

The latest bombing brings the number of people killed in suicide bombings this year in Turkey up to 80. The blast was captured on security footage nearby:

Trump Campaign Caught Blaming Shirt-Yanking Incident on a Member of Their Own Staff

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Trump Campaign Caught Blaming Shirt-Yanking Incident on a Member of Their Own Staff

Donald Trump has been defending allegations against his own campaign manager’s behavior at a recent rally, all the while piling heaps of blame on one, unidentified man in a “dark pullover.” That man, as it turns out, is also on the Trump payroll, and will also not be facing discipline for manhandling a protestor.

Politico reported on Sunday that the Trump campaign acknowledged the man’s identity, though it had failed to do so the day before when asked about an altercation that appeared to involve campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

http://gawker.com/video-appears-...

After journalists identified the man that the Trump campaign blamed the incident on as a security staffer, Politico confronted the campaign to ask why their first statement didn’t mention that considerably relevant fact:

When POLITICO on Sunday asked Hicks why she did not identify the man as a member of Trump’s security detail, she explained: “Although we did not identify this individual, we did not make any suggestion as to his affiliation or lack thereof.”

Hicks also deferred much of the blame to protestors, saying they were holding signs displaying profanities and that that kind of language is not acceptable for the families and television cameras in attendance.”

No word yet from the Trump campaign about whether that kind of violent behavior is acceptable for the families and television cameras in attendance.

[Image via Getty]

Multiple Riders Accuse Arnaud Démare Of Cheating To Win Milan-San Remo

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Multiple Riders Accuse Arnaud Démare Of Cheating To Win Milan-San Remo
Screenshot via

Yesterday’s Milan-San Remo was as chaotic, crash-happy, and dramatic as the first Monument of the cycling season should be. A landslide blocked the course and forced a redirect, Michael Matthews ate shit, poor debutante Fernando Gaviria fell at maybe the worst possible time, and Frenchman Arnaud Démare somehow won despite getting caught up in the same crash that bloodied Matthews at the foot of the race’s penultimate climb.

Démare thanked his teammates for getting him back up to the front of the race and keeping him toward the pointy end long enough to win the sprint. He said that he was ready to call it quits after he fell around 30 km from the finish, but was persuaded to go on. However, if the testimonies of several of his competitors are to be believed, he has his team car to thank for towing him up the Cipressa climb.

Matteo Tossatto, one of the most well-respected riders in the pro peloton, was livid after the race and told La Gazzetta dello Sport (It.) that he saw Démare get hauled back to the race by his team car.

“Demare was off the back before the Cipressa. Then on the climb he passed us going twice our speed. I didn’t see if he was on the car window or with a (sticky) bottle. Of course he was strong in the sprint but without that tow he would never have made it to contest the sprint. I’ve never seen a thing like that done so shamelessly.”

Eros Capecchi of Astana also went on record with the Italian paper saying that the French winner had cheated.

“Demare passed us at 80km/h on the climb. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I was on Tosatto’s wheel and saw it very clearly. Demare was hanging onto the right of the team car. It’s disgusting!”

TV cameras were focusing on other segments of the race, so there’s no video proof of what the two Italian riders are accusing Démare of, but there is a rather curious Strava file that shows Démare had the fastest time up the Cipressa ever by a few seconds. The file was deleted, but it reappeared this morning. He is very much not a climber, so the numbers are more suspicious than impressive.

Multiple Riders Accuse Arnaud Démare Of Cheating To Win Milan-San Remo

The data shows that Démare went 4 kilometers per hour faster than the peloton over 10 minutes, which is a pretty significant bump. For their part, his team FDJ have denied that he cheated, telling Cyclingnews that they couldn’t have towed him because of traffic.

“We didn’t cheat,” [directeur sportif Frédéric] Guesdon told Cyclingnews. “I was with Arnaud on the way up the Cipressa but simply because he was in the convoy of cars after the crash. At one point he took a bidon from us, but I couldn’t have towed him at 80kph when I was in the queue of directeur sportifs’ cars on the climb. It was bumper to bumper.

“He just took a bidon, but like I said, there were cars all over the place, and riders all over the place, so it simply wouldn’t have been possible to give him a tow at 80kph like they’re claiming.”

At this point, there’s really no way to know what happened. The Italian press is probably eager to seize upon these allegations as incontrovertible proof since a Frenchman won their beloved Monument. FDJ could release Démare’s power data, and Guesdon has suggested that they might, while also accusing the Italians of being jealous.

“It’s a part of Italian races,” Guesdon said of the polemic over the legitimacy of Démare’s win. “Coming from two older riders, it’s very petty. But if there’s really a problem we can show Arnaud’s power data.”

Race officials probably aren’t going to go back and reassign Démare’s win elsewhere, especially since it would go to Englishman Ben Swift. 2014 Tour de France champion Vincenzo Nibali was kicked out of the Vuelta a Espana last year for getting an illegal tow.

John Kasich Hulked the Fuck Out About Being Ted Cruz or Donald Trump's Potential VP

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John Kasich Hulked the Fuck Out About Being Ted Cruz or Donald Trump's Potential VP

In the Dantean hellscape we now call America, there is a very good chance that either the Zodiac Killer or a botoxed Garfield the Cat impersonator might end up being the next leader of the free world. But fellow GOP contender John “The Other One” Kasich is having none of that fuckery, because he’s still in the race, dammit. He won Ohio! Ohio!

In video clip from a yet-to-air March 20 interview with Meet the Press, NBC anchor Chuck Todd made the understandable mistake of asking Kasich if he’d run as the vice-presidential nominee on the same ticket with Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. It then became apparent to millions of Internet viewers (i.e., me) that it’s Kasich, not Mark Ruffalo, who is actually the Hulk.

“Under no circumstances. Are you people kidding me,” Kasich sputtered with simmering frustration and anger. “I’m running for president!”

In my mind, and in my mind only, did Kasich turn a toxic shade of green while his muscles bulged, screaming, “YOU WON’T LIKE KASICH WHEN HE ANGRY.”

The current Ohio governor proceeded to accuse “pundits” of dismissing his campaign efforts, mimicking the haters who question his viability with lines that sound like the first lyrics of my new favorite emo song.

“People are like, ‘What’s his calculation? What’s this or that,’” the admitted Linkin Park fan bemoaned. “You don’t understand me.”

Hulk so sad, guys.


Contact the author at jamie.reich@jezebel.com.

Image via Getty.

Jeb Bush Loaned His Own Campaign $250,000 Last Month and Other Sad Facts

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Jeb Bush Loaned His Own Campaign $250,000 Last Month and Other Sad Facts
Image: AP

In February (the month he dropped out), Jeb Bush loaned his presidential campaign $250,000, according to new campaign finance documents. Also: nearly half of the money Marco Rubio’s super PAC raised since he announced his candidacy came in February—the month before he quit.

Bush raised almost $1 million in his campaign’s final days, and contributed almost $157,000 of his own money, separate from the loan. When he dropped out, on February 20, the campaign had $465,000 cash in hand—barely more than the $452,000 in debt it still owed. Thank goodness the former governor was around to bail himself out!

“Between his own loan and contributions, Bush accounted for a full third of the campaign’s $1.2 million haul in February,” Politico notes.

Among his eleventh-hour backers were Steve Wynn, the casino tycoon; megadonor Foster Friess; Shell oil executive Marvin Odum; Louis Rohl, head of a California luxury fixture seller; Jose Mallea, a consultant to the campaign and a former aide in Bush’s brother’s administration; and Richard L. Wyatt, a litigator at Hunton & Williams in Washington.

Chris Christie’s campaign finished the month with $287,000 cash on hand and $485,650 in debt after raising $419,600 and spending $874,000 in February, according to its FEC report.

Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, more than 40 percent of the $58 million Conservative Solutions, the super PAC supporting Bush’s fellow Floridian, Marco Rubio, has raised since the senator announced his candidacy last spring entered the committee’s coffers in February. From the AP:

Many of the contributions came from donors whose favorite candidates had previously failed. In fact, the pro-Rubio surge was concentrated in the days after one-time rival Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor, dropped out on Feb. 20.

Poultry magnate Ronald Cameron was Conservative Solution’s top donor in February, contributing $5 million. Cameron, the chief executive officer of Little Rock, Arkansas-based agricultural company Mountaire, had previously given $3 million to a group backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, also once a 2016 presidential hopeful.

The insurance executive Hank Greenberg’s C. V. Starr & Company Inc. and Starr International companies gave a total of $5 million to Conservative Solutions. Last year, C.V. Starr gave $10 million to a group backing Bush.

The deadline to file the month’s finance report for February is midnight Sunday, so we’ll have to wait to see whether Rubio loaned himself any dough before calling it quits.

Trump Campaign Names "Veterans for Trump" Co-Chair Under Federal Indictment as Alternate Delegate to Republican National Convention

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Trump Campaign Names "Veterans for Trump" Co-Chair Under Federal Indictment as Alternate Delegate to Republican National Convention
Image via YouTube

Last week, the New Hampshire Secretary of State released the list of delegates who will represent the state at the Republican National Convention in July. One of the alternates for the Trump campaign is Gerald DeLemus, who is currently facing federal indictment over his alleged involvement with the Bundy family.

http://gawker.com/fbi-arrests-ve...

In 2014, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy organized an armed standoff with agents from the federal Bureau of Land Management. The 64-page, nine-count indictment issued earlier this month names DeLemus as a “mid-level leader and organizer of the conspiracy,” and alleges that he and eight others “planned, organized, led, and/or participated as gunmen in the assault, all in order to threaten, intimidate, and extort the officers into abandoning approximately 400 head of cattle that were in their lawful care and custody.”

Despite a powerful current of support for Trump in the patriot movement, the Republican frontrunner has been careful not to explicitly court militant right-wing radicals. From the New York Times, in January:

In addressing the Oregon standoff, Mr. Trump also spoke about the “great anger out there” that appears to be fueling the situation in Burns, Ore.

“I think what I’d do, as president, is I would make a phone call to whoever, to the group,” he said, adding later, “I’d talk to the leader. I would talk to him and I would say, ‘You gotta get out — come see me, but you gotta get out.’”

“You cannot let people take over federal property,” Mr. Trump said. “You can’t, because once you do that, you don’t have a government anymore. I think, frankly, they’ve been there too long.”

Mr. Trump said he wasn’t necessarily suggesting a large-scale military action, but that “at a certain point you have to do something and you have to be firm and you have to be strong, you have to be a government.”

“You have to maintain law and order, no matter what,” Trump told The Hill. But if it was the real estate developer’s intent to chasten his more extreme supporters’ revolutionary inclinations, he failed.

“It’s my intention to ensure that he has the whole story,” DeLemus, who is the co-chair of New Hampshire’s Veterans for Donald Trump group, told Reuters in January. “I think it’ll really arouse him, and once he understands, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him heading out West.”

Federal prosecutors asked that a judge deny DeLemus’ release on bail before his trial, saying that his participation in the 2014 standoff demonstrated his “desire and willingness” to kill law enforcement officers. The judge agreed, ordering that DeLemus remain in custody until his trial in Nevada.

State Representative Susan DeLemus, Gerald’s wife, is also named as an alternate, and Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is named as a primary delegate.

Aaron Carter Won't Vote After Being 'Bullied' for Supporting Donald Trump

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Aaron Carter Won't Vote After Being 'Bullied' for Supporting Donald Trump

We proclaimed far and wide that the party was over at Aaron Carter’s house after he tweeted an endorsement for neon-tinted hellion Donald Trump. If we weren’t completely correct before, we might be now: the Boy Who Once Beat Shaq stated on social media that he doesn’t think he’ll be voting come November, all due to being “bullied so badly” for his political sentiments.

A series of tweets posted to Carter’s account began in response to a promotional post for the singer’s upcoming single “Fools Gold.” In one the deepest shows of sympathy and/or empathy I have ever witnessed, a fan replied with “u voting for trump but I still love u @aaroncarter.”

Carter then responded:

The performer went on to state that he had received “death threats” and an “abundance of attempts to humiliate” him, and added his disappointment over the“contradicting” nature of “people [coming] at me for my beliefs but...doing the exact thing to me that they hate.”

I think that we can all agree that Carter isn’t necessarily a political wunderkind, but oy fucking vey, death threats? Really? Can we get this guy some candy or something?


Contact the author at jamie.reich@jezebel.com.

Image via Getty.


Donald Trump Says He Wants to Go To Court in the Trump University Lawsuit—But His Lawyers Don't

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Donald Trump Says He Wants to Go To Court in the Trump University Lawsuit—But His Lawyers Don't
Photo: AP

In December, in a deposition regarding one of the class-action lawsuits being brought against Trump University, Donald Trump said, “I’m dying to go to court on this case.” On Friday, however, his lawyers argued that by requesting a summer trial the plaintiffs were trying to undermine his presidential campaign.

“I so look forward to having this case go to court. I’ve been waiting for it for a long time,” Trump said in the December 10 deposition, taken at Trump Tower in New York City. “Let’s just go to court and get this case—I’m dying to go to court on this case.”

But in a filing submitted on Friday afternoon, Trump’s lawyers wrote that the plaintiffs’ request for a trial date in June or August constitutes “a transparent attempt to prejudice defendants’ ability to defend this case at trial while Mr. Trump is running for President.” The Republican National Convention is in July.

“Defendants have a constitutional right to a jury trial for certain claims and have demanded a jury. Until now, plaintiffs have also demanded a jury trial,” they wrote. “Plaintiffs’ proposal also would require the Court to conduct a trial at a time when this case has become a politicized national story and while Mr. Trump is running for President.”

At a status conference in December, in California, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Jason Forge, acknowledged the difficulty the fact that Trump is running for president presents. “We’ve all seen high-profile cases, but nothing like this,” Forge told the judge. “Whether that impacts our ability to pick a fair jury, it would be foolish for me to say it wouldn’t. I mean, of course it would. Whether it makes it impossible, I just don’t know.”

“I know we have one fair and unbiased fact-finder here,” he said, referring, presumably, to Curiel, “who would be unaffected by the publicity.” (Trump has disputed whether Curiel is, in fact, fair and unbiased.)

The day before, lawyers for the plaintiffs had requested that Judge Gonzalo Curiel set a trial date at the next status conference. “Time is of the essence in getting this case to trial,” they wrote in a filing submitted on Thursday. The class-action lawsuit includes a number of individuals who are elderly, who, according to court documents, “need resolution before it is too late.”

“The fate of their claims should not depend on the political process or the level of publicity this case garners, which is out of their control,” their lawyers wrote.

Meanwhile, Trump may be called as a witness in another potential trial relating to Trump University, in New York, where Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is pursuing a $40 million fraud case against the Republican frontrunner. The attorney general has asked the judge in that case to rule on the case without a trial—a hearing is scheduled for April 26. If the judge rejects Schneiderman’s request, the case will likely move to a bench trial, which recent court filings indicate the AG wants to happen as quickly as possible.

This Is Why You Don't Ask the Internet to Name Things

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This Is Why You Don't Ask the Internet to Name Things
Image Credit: NERC/PA

Great Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council has a £200 million polar research vessel set for construction, and for some reason, they decided it was a good idea to ask the internet to come up with a name for it.

The boat sounds pretty spiffy: it will be one of the world’s most advanced research vessels when it’s ready for the sea in 2019. They set up a nice looking website and asked the general public to weigh in.

Here’s what they asked for:

1. What sort of name do we need?

  • We will apply to register the ship as a Royal Research Ship (RRS), so the name must be in the format RRS NAME. Secondly, we would like the name to be inspirational and about environmental and polar science, to help us tell everyone about the amazing work the ship does.Finally, we don’t want it to be a name we have already used for one of our science ships (James Cook, Ernest Shackleton, Discovery and James Clark Ross).

You can see where this is going. There’s certainly plenty of aspirational names such as the RRS Journeyman and RRS Pride of Britain, but the one that quickly rose to the top of the pile was the RRS Boaty McBoatface, with 18,000 votes. Other joke names include RRS Cold Trousers and RRS It’s Bloody Cold Here.

Despite the lack of seriousness, The Guardian noted that the organization was happy for the attention:

Alison Robinson of the NERC said the organisation was thrilled at the “enthusiasm and creativity” of the naming process, while declining to offer an opinion on the merits of Boaty McBoatface.

Got a better idea? They’ll be taking votes and suggestions until April 16th. Hopefully they’ll name it that, because frankly? RRS Boaty McBoatface is the perfect name.

[Guardian]

“Gov.

Hillary Clinton Raised $30.1 Million Last Month to Beat Bernie Sanders

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Hillary Clinton Raised $30.1 Million Last Month to Beat Bernie Sanders
Photo: AP

Last month, according to campaign finance reports, Hillary Clinton raised more than $30.1 million to be used in the Democratic primary—to be used, in other words, against Senator Bernie Sanders. From the New York Times:

Despite her lead in the race for the delegates needed to secure the nomination and the donors urging her campaign to shift her focus to the general election, Mrs. Clinton has continued to focus on raising money for the primary. Her campaign raised just $715,408 in February to be used toward the general election. She also raised $4.4 million last month for the Democratic National Committee to use on state parties and down ballot races throughout the country.

In her victory speech in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Tuesday night, Mrs. Clinton implored supporters to make small-dollar donations to her campaign. “We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November,” she said. “If you’ve been waiting for the right moment, now’s the time.”

Bernie Sanders raised $43.5 million in February and entered March with $17.2 million cash on hand.

Trump Supporter Charged with Assault after Beating Protester at Arizona Rally

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Trump Supporter Charged with Assault after Beating Protester at Arizona Rally
Photo: AP

A man who punched and kicked a protestor at a Donald Trump rally in Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault, the Tucson Police Department said. Tony Pettway, 32, was released later on Saturday.

The incident was captured on video and initially posted to Twitter by University of Arizona student Alex Satterly, who wrote in a subsequent tweet that the protester, who was white, was carrying a sign showing “trumps face with a confederate flag over it.” According to ABC News, the sign also read “Trump is Bad for America.”

“There’s a disgusting guy, puts on a Ku Klux Klan hat on, he thinks he is cute—he’s a disgusting guy,” Trump told the Tucson crowd. “These are not good people, folks. They’re throwing the flag all over the place.”

“And they’re not really protesters, they’re agitators. And if [Maricopa County] Sheriff Joe [Arpaio] was here, they’d be in jail already. I want to tell you that. They’d be in jail a long time ago.”

Pettway, who is black, was charged with assault with injury. From ABC:

Besides Pettway, Tucson police said a woman, Linda Rothman, 67, was arrested for assault no injury at the event before being released.

Police said it was unknown if Rothman was captured on video at the event. Rothman could not be immediately reached for comment.

A female protester wearing an apparent Ku Klux Klan hood was also escorted out of the rally by law enforcement. A spokesperson for the Tucson police told ABC News the incident with Rothman was unrelated to the female protester wearing the apparent KKK hood.

The woman wearing “apparent KKK hood” was also caught on video.

At the same rally, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields has accused of pulling her so roughly away from his candidate that she was left bruised, was himself reportedly seen manhandling a protester.

MTA's Latest Revenue-Generating Scheme: Stealing Profits from a Movie About a Guy Who Steals Trains

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MTA's Latest Revenue-Generating Scheme: Stealing Profits from a Movie About a Guy Who Steals Trains
Image: AP

How cash-strapped is the MTA? Enough to go after serial train thief Darius McCollum, who recently sold the movie rights to his life story, in an effort to wrest any profits from the film away from him.

McCollum, 50, suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, and began stealing MTA vehicles as a teenager. His first arrest was in 1981, as a 15-year-old, when he was caught commandeering an E Train for six stops. He told a profiler later that he had already driven trains dozens of times before that. Most recently, he was cuffed in November for allegedly taking a Greyhound bus from Port Authority and tooling around Gowanus with it. “Next time, I’m taking a plane,” he told cops after that arrest.

http://gawker.com/serial-transit...

Last week, it was announced that Julia Roberts would star as McCollum’s defense attorney in Train Man, a film adaptation of his strange story. Not long after, MTA board members told the New York Post that they wanted in on the action.

According to the Post, the MTA is meeting today to consider invoking the so-called “Son of Sam” law—passed after the serial killer David Berkowitz terrorized New York City in the 1970s—which prohibits felons from profiting off stories about their crimes.

If they decide to proceed against McCollum, the tactic could divert any profit he made from the movie into department coffers. Anything to avoid another fare hike, I guess.

A porn star describes the unique demands of virtual reality porn: “‘If the artifice is apparent then


Donald Trump Danced Onstage With Ben Carson While a Man Serenaded Them With a Special Song

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Donald Trump Danced Onstage With Ben Carson While a Man Serenaded Them With a Special Song

Finally something delightful this primary: Donald Trump and Ben Carson trapped onstage and on-camera for the entire duration of a special live rendition of the song “Stand By Me”.

The Palm Beach County Republican party engineered the performance as part of its annual Lincoln Day fundraiser, which Trump hosted Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump, who also served as the keynote speaker, did not appear to be in on the joke—the emcee had to drag him back onstage after presenting him with an award.

Either way, here is what happened: Trump and Carson swayed awkwardly in front of a large crowd of people for more than three minutes while the musician Beau Davidson serenaded them with Trump-themed lyrics. “There is nothing you can do about this except grimace and sort of bounce your shoulders listlessly until I finish singing this song,” was not one of those lyrics, but it could have been.

If this whole thing was an elaborate prank, it was a very good one.

It's Hard to Find America Inside of Pulitzer Bait 

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It's Hard to Find America Inside of Pulitzer Bait 

Are you “Looking for America?” Have you checked underneath your shoes? Ah, here it is—inside of the Washington Post, of course.

If you are an alien who has descended from outer space and taken on the appearance of an American citizen but actually have no idea what “America” means or is, you have no doubt been closely following the Washington Post’s ongoing series, “The Definition of Ponderous Pulitzer-Seeking.” Excuse me. Fact-checkers tell me the series is actually named “Looking for America.” The real description of this journalism project, printed right there in the Washington Post, is “What’s happening in America? What does it mean to be an American? These are questions defining a campaign unlike any other. For nearly 35 days, we crossed the nation looking for answers. This is what we found.”

This pitch might be attractive to, say, a recent immigrant cramming for a citizenship test at the very last minute. For the rest of the Washington Post’s audience—made up primarily of Americans—the questions, “What’s happening in America? What does it mean to be an American?” are not incredibly compelling, given the fact that, as an American, you can look out your window and see what’s happening there (in America), and you can ask yourself, “Hey, American—what does it mean to be me?”

There is little need to have these questions answered by journalists hoping desperately to be awarded with a prestigious award later this year.

In the name of journalistic solidarity, I read the many thousands of words contained in all four installments of this Very Long and Weighty Series. It has some good anecdotes as well as keen observations! In deference to the reporter, Robert Samuels, who clearly put in a good deal of work over the course of months to write it, I will not spoil it for you. I will simply offer you this accurate summary: “He follows the candidates around and talks to a bunch of people about politics.”

There is nothing inherently bad about newspaper series like this, save for one thing: they have at their very core a dishonest premise. They imply they will tell you something real about the essence of America. In fact, when you strip away the many paragraphs of self-importance that gird these sorts of projects, what they tell you is: what happened when one reporter went around America talking to some people about politics.

Unless you interviewed a statistically significant portion of the electorate, it doesn’t really tell you anything for sure.

Political reporting is fun and full of colorful characters but if you want to know What’s Happening in America, you’re better off reading a poll.

http://gawker.com/political-repo...

[Photo via WaPo]

Arizona Republicans Want to Defund Cities That Mandate Paid Sick Leave

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Arizona Republicans Want to Defund Cities That Mandate Paid Sick Leave
Image: Wing-Chi Poon/Wikimedia Commons

Republican members of the Arizona state legislature are so worked up about the prospect of paid sick leave in their state that they’re trying to actively divert taxpayer dollars from cities that have chosen to mandate it. You can tell these guys are really dedicated to the concept of a small central government that doesn’t meddle in local affairs.

Bloomberg has the story of Lauren Kuby, a city councilwoman in Tempe who launched an effort to require companies to offer paid sick leave in her city. It’s not a particularly radical proposal—cities all over the country have passed similar legislation in recent years.

Then, Kuby learned that by helping fast food workers not go broke when they catch a cold, she might inadvertently deprive Tempe of money for things like police and firefighters. Arizona’s state House has passed a bill disallowing cities from mandating sick leave from private companies, and the state Senate has passed a companion bill that would cut state funds for cities that go against state legislation. The message is clear: Push for sick leave and risk seeing slashes in the municipal budget. In fact, Tempe disbanded its formal sick leave study after the legislation passed, “because they were so chilled by the state threat,” Kuby told Bloomberg.

The bills are especially galling because the people of Arizona have repeatedly signaled that they want more government protection for workers. In 2006, years after state legislators made it illegal for cities to pass minimum wages that are higher than the state standard, voters overturned the law with a referendum, Bloomberg notes. The state then passed another law limiting minimum wage, and activists got it struck down in court.

Cities “think that they’re an independent and sovereign entity from the state, which is not true—they’re a creature of the state,” the state Senate president said of the rationale behind the bills. “You can’t put a municipality in jail, nor would we. What we’re really seeking to do is provide a deterrent effect.”

I get it—it’s kind of like how states aren’t independent and sovereign entities from the federal government. We’ll remember that sentiment next time the senator’s colleagues try to avoid abiding by U.S. gun control laws.

Today's Best Deals: Headphones, DC Blu-rays, Bias Lighting, Dash Mounts

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Today's Best Deals: Headphones, DC Blu-rays, Bias Lighting, Dash Mounts

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Today's Best Deals: Headphones, DC Blu-rays, Bias Lighting, Dash Mounts

The ATH-M50Xs are the upgraded version of your favorite headphones, and you can snag a pair today for $100 plus free shipping and no tax, which is a no-brainer to say the least. [ATH-M50X, $100]

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At AIPAC, Clinton Attacks One Race-Baiting Demagogue, Invites Another to the White House

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At AIPAC, Clinton Attacks One Race-Baiting Demagogue, Invites Another to the White House
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Speaking today at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest and most influential organization in the so-called Israel lobby, likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton drew a sharp contrast between her own position on the American-Israeli relationship and that of another politician whose more realist approach had won him few fans in the room: President Barack Obama.

“One of the first things I’ll do in office is invite the Israeli prime minister to visit the White House,” Clinton said, to applause. This is not the first time Clinton has promised to extend this invitation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu almost as soon as she takes office.

This sounds harmless enough, but the audience would have understood this to be an endorsement of the following contentions: that Barack Obama’s frosty relationship with Netanyahu is primarily the president’s fault, that a more accommodating Democratic president would have a more constructive and cooperative relationship with Netanyahu, and even that a more cooperative and cordial relationship with Netanyahu would be good for both countries.

All of those contentions are dubious.

Thousands of explanatory words have been published on the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu, but it’s easy enough to explain: Netanyahu does not like, trust, or respect Barack Obama, and would rather work with a Republican president.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a conservative, who leads a conservative political party that is allied with the far right. In 2012, Netanyahu blatantly worked to help elect Mitt Romney, and he has continued to work with American Republicans to try to embarrass President Obama. (These efforts have mostly been fruitless in the United States, because the American Republican Party is inept and unpopular, but they have likely helped Netanyahu with his domestic base of right-wingers who hate Barack Obama.)

Far more important than the silly questions of whether or not Obama and Netanyahu are snubbing each other or attempting to damage each other politically is the matter of the actual actions and policies of Netanyahu and his government. It’s also been apparent for some time that Netanyahu has no interest in negotiating an end of the occupation of Palestinian land, has no intention to do anything to advance a just two-state solution, and would rather have seen us bomb Iran than negotiate a nuclear deal with them.

In response to all of that, the Obama administration has been more openly critical of the Israeli government, and more willing to express its annoyance with their decisions, than has been the norm in mainstream American politics over the last few decades.

It should be noted, for the record, that the Obama administration has not actually done anything substantive to push back against Israel, unless you count signing a deal with Iran rather than going to war with them. At the moment the administration is negotiating with Congress and Netanyahu’s government over whether we shall give them $40 billion in military support or merely $34 billion.

But even criticisms and reprimands, delivered without threats of serious consequences, are too much for many in Washington, including, perhaps, Hillary Clinton: Clinton has said that taking a hardline stance on Israel’s construction of illegal settlements in occupied territory, as the Obama administration tried to do early in his first term, “didn’t work.” (It’s hard to imagine what a more accommodating approach would have accomplished.)

Clinton promising a return to a bipartisan and seemingly unconditional embrace of the political leadership of Israel is disheartening to many—especially many liberals, including plenty of Jewish liberals—who’d hoped to see America challenge Israel’s intransigent, increasingly right-wing leadership, rather than refuse to admit the existence of daylight between America’s aims and interests and those of the Netanyahu government.

This may be an issue on which Hillary Clinton is acting not, as her critics claim she often does, on political expediency, but rather on personally held principle. Promising a friendlier relationship with Netanyahu, and strongly signaling that she’d go “easier” on the Israeli government in general, are not exactly positions a Democrat would take to fire up the base—a small and declining minority of Democrats have a “favorable” impression of Netanyahu. Even the general electorate is largely indifferent, with a third of all voters saying candidates’ positions on Israel have “some” impact on their vote, and 40 percent saying “just a little” or “not at all.”

Cynics may point out that there is a financial benefit to loudly embracing the Israeli government; one of Clinton’s biggest supporters is Haim Saban, the hawkish Israeli American mega-donor. But there are plenty of ways to privately assure the Sabans of the world of your intentions without loudly and publicly broadcasting them.

It may simply be the case that Hillary Clinton genuinely believes in the wisdom of establishing a better working relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised his supporters that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he remains in power, who campaigned for reelection with explicitly and blatantly racist rhetoric, and who would sell her out to her Republican opponents at the first opportunity.

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