On Friday, Meriwether County Sheriff Chuck Smith said that police had arrested a 15-year-old Georgia boy accused of using social media to make death threats against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
According to the Associated Press, Smith said the boy was charged with terroristic threats and acts. The threat was initially reported to the FBI Hotline.
A tiny bird landed on the lectern at a Bernie Sanders rally Friday in Portland—of course it was Portland—and people lost their entire shit.
Sanders beamed delightedly at the bird, which looks like a sparrow or something, while everyone behind him leapt to their feet. Somewhere, Hillary Clinton opened Twitter and muttered, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
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Today only, Amazon’s offering over 25 extremely popular Kindle books for just $2-$3 each. We’ve highlighted a few great titles below, but head over to Amazon to see the full list.
The Pebble Time and Pebble Time Round are some of the best smart watches you can buy right now, and Amazon’s offering refurbs for just $90-$120, today only as part of a Gold Box Deal.
If you usually work on a laptop, or just prefer a tenkeyless keyboard for ergonomics, this wireless number pad from Kmashi can save the day when it’s time to pound on some spreadsheets.
You probably won’t need this smartphone-compatible lapel mic very often, but at $13, it might be a good tool to have handy for shooting videos or recording voice memos on your phone.
For the money, Anker’s long-lasting SoundCore is one of the best Bluetooth speakers you can buy right now, and Amazon will sell you one for $34 today. We’ve occasionally seen it dip to $30 with a promo code, but this is still a solid discount off its usual $40.
If you like the idea of a car vent mount for your phone, but don’t have a case to hold a magnetic plate in place, this Aukey clamp model is only $6 right now.
You might have a bathroom scale at home that you use to weigh luggage before you leave for a trip, but what about for your trip back?
This $5 hanging scale is small enough to take with you, so you can make sure you won’t get dinged for all of those heavy souvenirs on your return trip. All it has to do is save you from an overweight baggage fee once, and it’ll have paid for itself several times over.
If you have any long-neglected home maintenance and upkeep tasks to check off your to-do list, Amazon’s offering up to 30% back in gift cards when you book through their home services department today:
$15 back when you spend $50
$30 back when you spend $100
$60 back when you spend $200
Available services will vary depending on your location, but they can include lawn maintenance, cleaning, home improvement, computer help, and more. In fact, Shane recently used Amazon to install a TV wall mount.
You could drown yourself in deals on standard Xbox One bundles, but if only the best will do, here’s the lowest price we’ve ever seen on the Xbox One Elite. This is the Xbox One you know and (maybe?) love, but with a 1TB hybrid drive for faster load times, and a bundled Elite controller, which retails for $150 on its own.
In case you missed out earlier this month, Amazon’s offering a pair of Bosch Insight Blades for just $22 right now. All you have to do is pick the two you want and add them to your cart, then you should see the discount at checkout. This deal even allows you to mix and match sizes, so you can almost certainly find a combination that will work for your car. [Two Bosch Insight Wiper Blades, $22]
Note: The discount will only work on blades shipped and sold by Amazon directly. No third party sellers.
Just because your house or apartment doesn’t have a doorbell doesn’t mean you’ll have to rely on knocking like a caveman. This $12 kit has everything you need to install one, no wiring required. You can even choose from 52 different chimes!
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“I saw my decision as a trade-off between upsetting people and making a strong moral statement,” he told the Times. “I was nervous...But eventually I closed my eyes and hit ‘post.’”
“I think there was a power in speaking directly to Donald Trump, rather than writing a think piece about him, ” Stanton said, betraying a very unusual understanding of what it means to speak directly to someone. “It also gave people who I think feel very strongly about him a chance to speak directly to him.”
More than 2 million people “liked” Stanton’s post, and more than 1 million “shared” it. (It went, as they say, “viral.”) He’s not in it for attention, though. Just ask him!
“It’s impossible to do this job without a strong sense of humility,” Stanton said. “That’s what it takes to be able to intensely listen as if each person’s viewpoint was as valid as your own.”
He interjected, with a kind of perverse pride, “I’m the only person with a New York Times best seller that gets treated in the street like a homeless person every single day.”
What a thing to say! Also:
At Starbucks, he projected a similar intensity, reddening from time to time, describing his work with a missionary zeal. He grasped this reporter’s arm repeatedly to hammer home a point, and from time to time clamped a hand over hers, lest she somehow misinterpret him.
I don’t have many fears, aside from the normal stuff—Beyoncé dying, arugula, unmoderated internet comments. But I am fucking terrified of this baby born with a full head of hair. I’m not proud of myself, but here we are.
Two-and-a-half-month-old baby Izzy was discovered after her mother, Mackenzie Kaplan, posted a picture of her new daughter on Facebook. Thousands of commenters were like, “Yo, how was that tiny baby born with more hair than Bruce Willis has ever had at one time in his entire life?”
Good Morning America anchor Amy Robach called Izzy “follicly blessed,” but I think what she meant to say was, “the baby reincarnation of Elvis Presley.”
Damn, guys, I don’t know. Izzy is very cute but I also want her as far away from me as possible.
A wise African proverb once (probably) said, We are afraid of that which we don’t understand. I already don’t know much about babies, so I’m not sure why I should be expected to accept that this baby’s scalp developed at triple the rate of the rest of her body.
According to Izzy’s grandmother, her father was also born with a lot of hair. However, we don’t have any receipts on that claim and the Bank of Kara Brown’s Common Sense just ain’t cashing that check.
The one thing that settles me is that baby Izzy and her mights might just be fucking with all of us and if so, I must say: You got me, guys. You got me good.
God bless baby Izzy and her barber. Izzy, you’re perfect. I’m the one with a problem and I apologize. At the same time, I love myself, flaws and rude opinions included.
All I’m saying is, this is going to be a hard image to forget.
NRA Family, the National Rifle Association’s blog for families, recently began publishing a series of classic fairy tales, reimagined to include guns: “Red felt the reassuring weight of the rifle on her shoulder and continued down the path, scanning the trees, knowing that their shadows could provide a hiding place.”
The series is authored by conservative blogger Amelia Hamilton. “Most of us probably grew up having fairy tales read to us as we drifted off to sleep,” an editor’s note reads. “But how many times have you thought back and realized just how, well, grim some of them are?” (Haha.) “Have you ever wondered what those same fairy tales might sound like if the hapless Red Riding Hoods, Hansels and Gretels had been taught about gun safety and how to use firearms?”
Two installments have been published thus far: “Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun)” and “Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns).” Neither story requires too close of a reading to determine the author’s intent, but here’s an exemplary excerpt from the first one anyway:
Taking Grandmother by surprise, the wolf easily pushed past her and into her cottage. Grandmother turned so she was face-to-face with the wolf inside her cottage.
“What big eyes you have,” Grandma gasped as she backed away.
“The better to see you with,” replied the wolf.
“What big ears you have,” She turned, with her back to the door.
“The better to hear you with,” the wolf said, coming ever closer.
“What big teeth you have!” Grandma said, as his fierce jaws came near.
“The better to eat you with!” the wolf threatened.
The wolf leaned in, jaws open wide, then stopped suddenly. Those big ears heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun’s safety being clicked off. Those big eyes looked down and saw that grandma had a scattergun aimed right at him. He realized that Grandmother hadn’t been backing away from him; she had been moving towards her shotgun to protect herself and her home.
“I don’t think I’ll be eaten today,” said Grandma, “and you won’t be eating anyone again.” Grandma kept her gun trained on the wolf, who was too scared to move. Before long, he heard a familiar voice call “Grandmother, I’m here!” Red peeked her head in the door. The wolf couldn’t believe his luck—he had come across two capable ladies in the same day, and they were related! Oh, how he hated when families learned how to protect themselves.
Bit on the nose, maybe.
“The stories are really also for adults, and it’s all about safety,” Hamilton told CBS This Morning on Friday. “It’s for parents to start those conversations.” CBS points out that nobody in the stories actually gets shot.
“There are no consequences for the children here holding guns, walking out into the woods with guns, thinking about killing the bad guys,” Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, told the New York Times. “Children who might read these stories do not have the emotional maturity to understand that gun ownership does come with risks.”
Mr. Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence compared the modified fairy tales to other N.R.A.-produced fare aimed at young people, such as “Noir,” a program on N.R.A. News starring Colion Noir, a young African-American gun enthusiast who shoots guns and delivers monologues on the importance of the Second Amendment against a hip-hop soundtrack.
“The intent here is to create future customers” for the gun industry, said Mr. Everitt. “I think it is wholly a marketing thing.”
“I’m surprised by the fact that it seems like some people didn’t read them before criticizing,” Hamilton told CBS. The next installment, “Three Little Pigs (Have Guns)” is scheduled to be published in May.
The United States Men’s National Team will probably qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Yes, they are trailing Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago in the Group C standings. Yes, they have played conservatively without the defensive ability to make that style work. A day after the U.S. got humiliated 2-0 down in Guatemala City, there is semi-legitimate worry that the Yanks will get bounced Canada-style before the Hexagonal round even starts.
They won’t, but the team has regressed badly under Jurgen Klinsmann, and they need to fix a lot if they want to do anything at the Copa America this summer or the World Cup two summers from now. In this round of World Cup qualifiers, the team has three games left to catch Guatemala, Trinidad, or both, and two of those games are at home and the other is at St. Vincent, who is bad. Even with mangled Klinsmann lineups, you’d expect at least two wins out of those three games.
About those mangled lineups: For some reason, Klinsmann keeps playing Michael Orozco. This is inexplicable, since Orozco is bad and can’t even find playing time for his club. Last night’s backline of Geoff Cameron, Omar Gonzalez, Orozco, and Edgar Castillo had never played together before. Injuries left Klinsmann with few options, but he still managed to play multiple players out of position.
Mix Diskerud doesn’t play defensive midfielder for NYCFC, DeAndre Yedlin doesn’t play in the midfield for Sunderland, and Cameron doesn’t play right back for Stoke. Klinsmann’s pathology for tinkering with the starting eleven is one thing, but playing a new combination of players together in roles they’re unfamiliar with is never going to work.
The player pool he has to work with isn’t as weak as recent competitive results might lead you to expect. The USMNT has precious few European starters, but Michael Bradley, Darlington Nagbe, and Fabian Johnson are true centerpieces. Klinsmann has never achieved less with more, and the team’s consistent failures with all manner of lineups and formations point to a coach in over his head, unprepared to implement the Big Idea reforms he pitched when he got the job in 2011. When he experiments (like when he plays dudes out of position every single game), he harms the team, and when he tries to stay consistent (sticking with Jermaine Jones and Jozy Altidore no matter what) he holds them back.
Not even Klinsmann’s avant-garde lineup proclivities should keep the USMNT from qualifying for the final round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, but this team’s ceiling feels lower than it has in a long time. A team that tries to generate chances through a pair of defensive midfielders playing too high up the field is not going to scare anyone. There is defensive talent in the pool, but we have yet to see it coalesce into a consistent backline. The USMNT shouldn’t have to answer such basic questions on the eve of hosting the biggest tournament the country’s had since the ‘94 World Cup. Hey, at least the Olympic team played well yesterday.
In two lengthy conversations with a pair of New York Times reporters (full transcript here) Donald Trump elaborated on his foreign policy, such as it is. Basically, what he proposes amounts to something like a protection racket.
Trump told the Times that, if elected, he would possibly stop the purchase of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries—maybe he wants to nationalize the oil industry, as well?—until they invest more heavily in the fight against ISIS, either by committing ground troops or until the United States is “reimbursed, substantially reimbursed.”
“If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection,” he said, “I don’t think it would be around.” From the Times:
Mr. Trump’s views, as he explained them, fit nowhere into the recent history of the Republican Party: He is not in the internationalist camp of the elder President George Bush, nor does he favor George W. Bush’s call to make it the mission of the United States to spread democracy around the world. He agreed with a suggestion that his ideas might best be summed up as “America First.”
“Not isolationist, but I am America First,” he said. “I like the expression.” He said he was willing to reconsider traditional American alliances if partners were not willing to pay, in cash or troop commitments, for the presence of American forces around the world. “We will not be ripped off anymore,” he said.
He also said, in response to questions about how he would counterbalance Chinese expansion in the South China Sea, “I wouldn’t want them to know what my real thinking is.” One might wonder who else Trump doesn’t want knowing his real thinking—journalists, perhaps. Or the American electorate!
Two forces eerily contemporary have traditionally been thought to bring down ancient republics: the oligarch and the demagogue. What makes republics fragile are compacts of the very rich confiscating wealth in ways that makes injustice too palpable, and the demagogue who, usually rising as an opportunist among the oligarchs, can manipulate the incoherent discontent of the plebeians. Contemporary historians of the Roman Republic now engage in a lively argument, held between those who think that ancient Republican politics were actually mere squabbles among clans and dynasties, with at most opportunistic, occasional, and absent-minded attachments to ideologies, and those who think that the Roman arguments about who had the right to rule were real and that their politics in this sense were meaningful.
“Now that we are in possession of an honest-to-God demagogue of the classical model, old portents of doom seem pertinent,” he writes. Meanwhile, William Russell Mead, a professor at Bard College, suggested on Twitter yesterday that Trump’s foreign policy proposals resemble more closely the Athenian Empire than the Roman: “protective alliance transformed into protection racket.”
But Politico’s Thomas Wright suggested in January that one doesn’t have to look back to ancient history to find precedents for Trump’s proposals, but rather only to Senator Robert Taft—who ran, to no avail, for the Republican nomination in 1940, 1948 and 1952—and Charles Lindberg:
The difference is that, unlike Trump, Taft was not outside the mainstream of his time. Many people believed America was safe and that it did not matter who ran Europe. Also, unlike Trump, Taft was boring and struggled to break through the noise in several nomination battles. The more bombastic and controversial figure was Lindbergh, the man who became a household name as the first person to fly across the Atlantic. Lindbergh led a national movement that was divisive, xenophobic and sympathetic to Nazi Germany.
The Republican primary of 2016 is shaping up to be the most important party primary since 1940. Lindbergh did not run, of course. But Taft was in with a strong chance. Only the fact that the field was badly divided created an unexpected opening for Wendell Willkie, an internationalist, to emerge as the nominee at the convention. Some of Roosevelt’s advisers were so relieved at Willkie’s nomination that they advised their boss he no longer had to run for an unprecedented—and controversial—third term.
Anyway.
“We have been disrespected, mocked, and ripped off for many, many years by people that were smarter, shrewder, tougher. We were the big bully, but we were not smartly led,” Trump told the Times. “The big stupid bully, and we were systematically ripped off by everybody. From China to Japan to South Korea to the Middle East...protecting Saudi Arabia and not being properly reimbursed.”
“We will not be ripped off anymore, we’re going to be friendly with everybody, but we’re not going to be taken advantage of by anybody.”
Described as “the Eloise from hell,” Fannie Lowenstein made the Plaza Hotel her playground. She was apparently such a terror that even Donald Trump placated her by giving in to the demand that he meet with her privately, after buying the hotel in 1987.
There was a time when not many people were in the market for staying at a fancy hotel, so places like the Plaza started taking in monthly tenants to insure some kind of income. One of those tenants was Leo Lowenstein. Though he worked on Wall Street, he somehow ended up with a rent-controlled unit. He passed away in 1961, and the rights of the apartment transferred to his young widow Fannie.
Viceinterviewed former general council for the Plaza, Gary Lyman, about the hotel’s most consistent human problem:
“The wait staff had to treat her like a VIP although she wasn’t necessarily nice or generous to them.” Apparently, she treated the employees shabbily enough that for years after her death, whenever anything would go wrong at the Palm Court or something broke, it was customary to shout “FANNIE!!!” because they were sure she was haunting them.
She was a terror when dealing with hotel management, too. “Part of what the law required is that you were entitled to the same services that you got when the unit was first under rent control,” Lyman explains. “In those days, they did a ‘high dusting,’ I think they called it, once a month. It was a whole scheduled cleaning. Painting was required every couple of years; she knew her rights extremely well. And she would push.”
It’s been reported that Trump moved her into a three room suite and gifted her with a Steinway piano so he could move forward with converting the hotel into a condo, but no one can confirm. Considering her personality and his habit of dumping money into bad prospects, it seems possible.
Lowenstein eventually moved out when she became convinced that her poor health was caused by toxic paint she believed was on the walls of her apartment. She died in 1992 at 85 years old. Though she was surely an unbearable person to work around if you were in the Plaza Hotel hospitality department, she will always be a legend to New Yorkers seeking that unicorn rental deal.
After reaping a whirlwind of controversy over the past few days surrounding the screening of a film by anti-vaccination ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield, the Tribeca Film Festival says it will no longer be shown. Robert De Niro, Tribeca’s co-founder, released a statement Saturday afternoon announcing its cancellation.
The inclusion of Vaxxed proved immediately controversial for Tribeca; Wakefield claims there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and that the CDC is engaged in a coverup, ignoring that the MMR vaccine increases autism rates, especially among African-American boys. (Vaccines, for the billionth time, do not cause autism and despite Wakefield’s claims, there’s no proof that the CDC is engaged in a vast coverup.)
“My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family. But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for.
The Festival doesn’t seek to avoid or shy away from controversy. However, we have concerns with certain things in this film that we feel prevent us from presenting it in the Festival program. We have decided to remove it from our schedule.”
The link to Vaxxed on the Tribeca website, whose comments section devolved into an argument about vaccine efficacy, is now dead. Wakefield has yet to comment on the film being pulled; his last public post, on Facebook, urged his followers to thank Tribeca for screening the film.
Bernie Sanders just scored a major victory in Washington—one of the largest remaining states. And with around 75 percent of the vote, the Sanders campaign finally got the sort of win its been aching for.
Image: Google
According to The Washington Post, Sanders will “pick up at least 50 net delegates—a sixth of the margin between the two candidates.” Sanders also defeated Clinton in Alaska earlier today, which—while nice for him—really only translates to a handful of delegates.
California lawmakers, working in tandem with labor unions, struck a deal to raise the statewide minimum—at first, to $10.50, with gradual increases to $15. The deal allowed lawmakers to avoid bringing the wage increase issue to a ballot, a vote which polls suggest California voters would overwhelmingly support.
According to The LA Times, Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to make the announcement on Monday. The deal, however, doesn’t ensure that workers will receive the $15 wage anytime soon:
According to a document obtained by The Times, the negotiated deal would boost California’s statewide minimum wage from $10 an hour to $10.50 on Jan. 1, 2017, with a 50-cent increase in 2018 and then $1-per-year increases through 2022. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees would have an extra year to comply, delaying their workers receiving a $15 hourly wage until 2023.
The deal came after a minimum wait vote was Last week, a union-sponsored initiative qualified for a ballot in November, which sent lawmakers scrambling to come up with something that would avoid the vote.
The highest minimum until now is in Washington, D.C., at $10.50 per hour. California’s increase to $15 would make it the highest in the country, if the other states don’t catch up before it goes into effect.
Artificially intelligent computers understand Donald Trump not unlike artificially intelligent humans. His speeches read as extended phrases of semi-clarity interrupted by moments of utter horror. Just watch.
The above video comes from photographer Eric Cheng who explained:
The source video is a CNN highlights reel from Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy announcement in July 2015. I used audio volume (averaged over each frame) to dictate how deep to dream. For fun, I used a picture of Cthulu as a guide image.
Cthulu meets Trump as understood by an A.I. that can dream. Welcome to the state of American politics in 2016.
“The truth is, the media has needed Trump like a crack addict needs a hit,” former “Today” ancho rAnn Curry told Nick Kristof for his column in The New York Times on Sunday. The media, Kristof explains, has a human-centipede-esque relationship with the Republican presidential candidate, whose name appears in the column 35 times.
A suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly killed 50 people and wounded 200 others on Sunday.
According to Pakistan Today, the explosion happened in a parking lot of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, just feet away from children’s playground swings. The park features amusement rides and lawns where families often gather. The Guardian reports that most of the victims were women and children.
Pakistan has been seeing a surge of violence recently, with Taliban insurgency and sectarian violence raging across the country.
In the wake of a suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, that killed at least 50 people, many of them women and children, Facebook pounced at the opportunity to flex its “Safety Check” tool. Unfortunately, something went wrong in the execution, and people all around the world received the notification.
The message reads: “Are you OK? It looks like you’re in the area affected by [the explosion]. Let friends know that you’re safe.” Hundreds of people tweeted about getting the notifications.
In an email to Gawker, a spokesperson for Facebook acknowledged that the check had been improperly deployed, but did not answer questions about whether the mistake was due to a technical glitch.
“We have activated Safety Check in Lahore. We apologize to anyone who mistakenly received a notification outside of Pakistan and are working to resolve the issue.”
Meanwhile, the death toll in Lahore continues to rise, with some estimates at 56 people.
The internet is, generally speaking, a garbage dump suffused with vitriol and poison. “But surely,” some might ask, “the one, tiny corner of Twitter devoted to Cool Pope Francis would be a respite for our bitter, blackened hearts?” To which the answer is: of course not, no.
Just yesterday Cool Pope Francis sent this unassuming Easter message to his millions of loyal followers.
How nice! There will always be trolls, of course. But for whatever reason, the Pope’s devout army of followers refuse to follow Twitter’s one and only advisable rule: Never, ever engage. Otherwise, this happens.
Or if you’re particularly persistent, something like this:
But it’s not just inscrutable bickering the plagues the Pope’s Twitter timeline. Cool Pope Francis is the beneficiary of all sorts of virulent, racist, and wildly misspelled 140-character bits of garbage. Since today is Easter—a day of contrition and fresh starts (I think? To be perfectly honest, I’m a Jew)—let’s celebrate by cleansing ourselves of the digital filth that we’ve all hurled at Francis over the years.
But before we can cleanse, we need to assess the damage. Join us as we sample the different flavors of Cool Pope Francis’s (social media intern’s) daily hell.
The Ones That Won’t Give Up
For some reason, perhaps to punish themselves, some Twitter-inclined believers insist on responding. Incessantly. Forever. No matter what.
This one painting inspired countless unintelligible feuds.
Except for thuglyfe here. Thuglyfe makes a fair point.
The Politicos
What’s even more fun than a Catholic that won’t quit? A Catholic that won’t quit who also has angry opinions about politics. And chemtrails.
As DivaRosebud learned, the internet can be hard.
And apparently, a lot of people are very concerned that the Pope isn’t doing enough to combat the New World Order’s chemtrail agenda (because he is not).
Also, ISIS.
The Confused
While the majority of the Pope’s mentions are clearly intentional trolls, there’s a good chance that some of the Pope’s tweeters actually just think they’re using Google.
Either way, at least they’re asking the important questions.
Or, as with HELIOSKORONA here, let’s just be happy they’ve managed to put words into some discernible order at all.
Mostly.
The Harlots
Everyone loves prog-rock sensation Cool Pope Francis. But some people love Cool Pope Frankie a little too much.
Or just enough!
We’re not here to judge you.
You are your own unique snowflake and no one can tell you what your love should look like.
Just take comfort in the knowledge that no matter how warped and lascivious your snowflake may be...
