This afternoon, Virginia State Senator D*** Black responded on Twitter to a Gwaker story about an email he recently sent to an AP English teacher about Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Jessica Berg, the teacher, objected to State Senator D*** Black’s support of a (failed) bill that would require teachers to obtain parental permission to assign their students certain books. “If it’s so graphic that Gwaker can’t even print it for their adult readers,” he wrote, “then parents should have the right to know.”
State Senator D*** Black was referring to lines from Beloved, the novel that inspired Virginia’s House Bill 516. When arguing in support of the bill, lawmakers chose exceptionally graphic excerpts from Morrison’s books to read on the legislative floor. In one passage, according to D*** Black, a character fantasizes about raping a young girl and leaving her in a pool of blood.
The staff of Gwaker does not believe that examining the most lurid aspects of a work of art without context is an effective way to evaluate that work’s aesthetic or moral value, but for the sake of proving D*** Black wrong, I spent an hour searching Beloved for the passage to which he referred, in hopes of reproducing it here. I emerged with a deeper understanding of the history of racial violence and oppression in America, but could not find a scene in which “a hunchbacked older man fantasizes in detail about raping a little girl and leaving her in a pool of blood.”
The confused mixture of his memories of Pauline and the doing of a wild and forbidden thing excited him, and a bolt of desire ran down his genitals, giving it length, and softening the lips of his anus. Surrounding all of this lust was a border of politeness. He wanted to fuck her—tenderly. But the tenderness would not hold. The tightness of her vagina was more than he could bear. His soul seemed to slip down to his guts and fly out into her, and the gigantic thrust he made into her then provoked the only sound she made—a hollow suck of air in the back of her throat. Like the rapid loss of air from a circus balloon.
Following the disintegration—the falling away—of sexual desire, he was conscious of her wet, soapy hands on his wrists, the fingers clenching, but whether her grip was from a hopeless but stubborn struggle to be free, or from some other emotion, he could not tell.
Removing himself from her was so painful to him he cut it short and snatched his genitals out of the dry harbor of her vagina. She appeared to have fainted. Cholly stood up and could see only her grayish panties, so sad and limp around her ankles. Again the hatred mixed with tenderness. The hatred would not let him pick her up, the tenderness forced him to cover her.
D*** Black also responded to a Twitter user who offered other examples of explicit sex in literature. “This is so tame compared to the other ones I’ve read. But parents have a right to know about it,” he wrote.
“Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father,” reads one of the passages that @SonarJose highlighted for D*** Black. It is from the Holy Bible, New International Version, Book of Genesis, Chapter 19, Verse 34.
Finally, D*** Black took umbrage with a Twitter user who jokingly asserted that the state senator’s email address is BlackD***@gmail.com.
The staff of Gwaker may disagree with D*** Black about many things, but he is correct on this point. If you’d like to reach D*** Black with your concerns, about his opinions on literature and otherwise, you can find his actual email address right here.
The owner of the email address BlackD***@gmail.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SL Newser went the extra mile and even interviewed the people behind these efforts, and that’s how they came to know “JP Laszlo.” JP Laszlo is the proprietor of Trump’s mansion in Second Life. JP Laszlo looks like this:
“I went shopping for a house and saw this villa,” Laszlo said. “I had to have it. It was 6k Lindens, which isn’t the most expensive house I’ve ever bought, but it is just right for a plot this size. I said to my friend, ‘Well I have a house in Second Life again, and we have an election going on. How about a lawn sign?’ One thing lead to another. Now I have about eight of the things, two flag poles, and a Trump themed patrol car (laughter).”
Our own Mike Fahey took a trip to the mansion, and he’ll have a video about it later in the week.
Curiously, Laszlo claims that the Trump mansion is sometimes attacked by Second Life griefers, which is why they’ve set the area as private property. But for Laszlo, the fact these griefers exist at all just confirms what she suggests is unfair media treatment of Trump. According to this (twisted) logic, of course people want to tear down a digital space dedicated to Donald Trump: the media has demonized him in a supposedly unfair way.
“I also find that Trump has been misrepresented and quoted out of context so much, that its now acceptable for leftists to say things like ‘Donald Trump is a racist,’ and people just nod like sheep without actually looking into it,” Laszlo claimed. “Trump has not said a single racist thing.”
Regardless, Laszlo and other players plan on erecting a “campaign headquarters” for Trump in Second Life, and once completed this building will be open to the public.
In the meantime, Bernie Sanders supporters who play Second Life aren’t standing idly by:
Merle Haggard, one of the finest singers (and songwriters) in American popular music history, died today, on his 79th birthday. Here are a couple good songs.
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$200 gets you a brushless impact driver, a drill/driver, a tool bag, and a pair of rechargeable batteries. That’s still not exactly cheap, but it’s $80 less than usual, and the lowest price Amazon’s ever listed by about $60. But like all Gold Box deals, this price is only available today, or until sold out.
When it comes to cleaning hard floors, you’ve basically got three options to choose from, if you don’t want to get down on your hands and knees:
A regular old mop, which can leave your floors wet for hours.
A Swiffer WetJet, or any similar product that uses chemical spray that can leave a residue and disposable (i.e. expensive) cleaning pads.
A steam mop, which cleans using regular old water that dries within seconds.
Now, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but the choice seems rather obvious to me, especially when you can get a highly rated Bissell steam mop for just $64, today only on Amazon. This particular model is actually Amazon’s top-selling steam mop, and carries a 4.3 star average on over 5,000 reviews. Just note that it’s a Gold Box deal, meaning this price is only available today, or until sold out.
If you need a little extra push to get out and go for a run, Amazon will sell you a pair of Mizuno Wave running shoes for just $50 today. These shoes typically sell for about $60-$70 around the web, and you even get to pick your favorite color; Just click through to the product page to find the color selector.
If you squint your eyes, this $9 meat thermometer looks an awful lot like a Thermapen, and while it’s not nearly as fast at 4-5 seconds, it only costs a fraction of the price, and reviewers generally seem to like it.
Using a newly enhanced mechanical lever-style system, the new and innovative Regalia only requires an undemanding nudge downwards on the handle to penetrate all types or corks. With the Regalia’ s innovative lever system and all-metal gears, the smallest effort translates into a multiplication force. Lifting up the handle to extract the cork takes no more than a second in upwards motion, without any straining common to traditional corkscrews.
Reviewers seem to love it, and Amazon just launched its first ever discount, from $30 to $22.
The Vitamix 5200 series is one of the most popular high-end blenders on the market, and a Sweethome step-up pick to boot, and Amazon will sell you one for $400 today, an all-time low. That’s certainly not cheap, but if you use your blender a lot, reviewers seem to agree that it’s well worth it.
If you’re worried that you won’t get a ton of use out of this thing, note that in addition to standard pressure cooking, you can also use the Instant Pot as a slow cooker, rice cooker, yogurt maker, steamer, and more.
The internet-connected Nest Cam is great for monitoring your home while you’re away, or just checking in on your pets while you’re at work, and you can save $20 on yours today, the best deal we’ve seen since Black Friday.
Cordless hand vacs are handy for cleaning the nooks and crannies of your house, but they’re especially great for vacuuming out your car. This 16 volt model from Black & Decker is just $41 today on Amazon, within a couple bucks of an all-time low. Note: The price on the product page shows $51, but you should see an automatic $10 discount at checkout.
As departure dates approach, cruise lines naturally lower their prices, and Travelzoo points out that we’ve hit the annual bottom of that spread. Seven night Alaskan cruises are available starting at $499/person, plus a $100 cabin credit.
The most exciting part of this deal though is that third and fourth guests (in the same cabin) sail free (you still have to pay the taxes on their travel).
Dividing the cost of the trip up between four people instead of two makes the per person cost of the trip incredibly cheap, but you’ll need to be able to schedule a last-minute trip and have friends who can as well to really take advantage.
Deal expires April 8th if it doesn’t get extended. Better rooms and later departure dates available for more money.
If you ever have reason to shop at Staples, they’ll sell you a $100 gift card right now for just $85. We see similar deals on eBay every now and then, but it’s infinitely amusing to buy a discounted Staples gift card from Staples.com.
Rachio’s smart sprinkler controller is the brain your irrigation system needs, and you can pick one up for an all-time low price today on Amazon.
Depending on which model you choose, the controller can manage either eight or 16 different zones in your yard, and automatically adjusts watering schedules based on the weather. If you want to keep tabs on it, its iOS and Android app will show you how much water you’re using (and saving), and allow you to make any adjustments necessary, no matter where you are in the world. All of these smarts mean that the IRO can save you 30% on your outdoor water use, so it should pay for itself over time. It’s also EPA WaterSense Certified, meaning your local water company might offer you a rebate for purchasing it.
Today’s prices, $130 for the 8-zone and $150 for the 16-zone are the best Amazon’s ever listed, but they’re only available today.
Note: There’s also a newer model of the Rachio available for $250, which adds a physical remote, revamped housing, and Amazon Echo support. It’s probably not worth paying nearly double, but it’s there if you’re interested.
Even if you’re not much of a photographer, a decent folding tripod is something that everyone should own, and this highly rated Dolica model is marked down to $50 on Amazon today, the best price they’ve ever listed.
Have any old hard drives lying around, or just want to build your own super-fast external SSD? These enclosures are both on sale today, and each has its own unique feature. The Inateck includes an integrated USB 3.0 hub for plugging in extra peripherals or storage devices, while the Orico can fit both 3.5" and 2.5" drives.
Today only, Amazon’s offering big discounts on over 20 Citizen watches, including several Eco-Drive models that never need a battery. They’re still fairly expensive by non-smart watch standards, but they sure do look nice.
Having owned a (different) Timbuk2 backpack for several years now, I’m pretty confident that as long as they’re in business, I’ll never buy a laptop bag from another company. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, Amazon is selling the Spire backpack for $67 today. That’s within a few bucks of an all-time low, and comes complete with a lifetime warranty.
There is one “normal” USB hub here, and it includes ethernet and three USB ports for just $12, the best price we’ve ever seen for a hub with that configuration.
Lodge makes some of the most popular skillets in the world, but today on Amazon, you can snag their dual-burner griddle/grill plate for an all-time low $22. This reversible cast iron plate sits atop two stove burners or a grill, and is perfect for everything from steaks to fried eggs.
The Logitech G100s is so basic that I hesitate to actually call it a gaming mouse, but $12 is a fantastic price for any mouse with adjustable DPI, let alone one from a name brand.
To put it simply, Apple Watch strap pricing is the most egregious example of the “Apple Tax” I’ve ever seen. Case in point, these knock-off Milanese loop straps will only cost you $16, compared to $150-$200 for Apple’s versions. They’re not a perfect replica, but judging by the review average, they’re damn close.
Note: $16 price is only available on the black and silver models, in both 42 and 38mm sizes.
If your phone supports Quick Charge 2.0 (or even 3.0), we’ve found great deals on a compatible car charger, USB battery pack, and multi-port dekstop charger today on Amazon. Just be sure to note the promo codes below to score the discounts.
Target’s eBay storefront is currently selling the newly released The Force Awakens Blu-ray for $17, the best price we’ve seen so far. Granted, that’s not an enormous discount, but if you were going to pick up a copy anyway (and let’s face it, you were going to pick up a copy anyway), it’s a nice chance to save a few bucks.
We’ve seen a lot of deals on motion sensing night lights, but this model from Etekcity is unique in that it can automatically turn on when it detects a power outage, and will even work as a flashlight or portable lantern while untethered from the wall, thanks to its built-in battery backup. Amazon has it listed today for $17, but promo code DJJEFES6 will save you an extra $3.
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Kesha’s efforts to avail herself from her contract with Sony and Dr. Luke, who she says sexually assaulted her, came to a halt Wednesday after a judge threw out her appeal to be freed from her contract by emergency injunction.
Additionally, the judge denied Kesha’s argument that she was the victim of a hate crime, stating, via TMZ:
“Although [Luke’s] alleged actions were directed to Kesha, who is female, [her claims] do no allege that [Luke] harbored animus toward women or was motivated by gender animus when he allegedly behaved violently toward Kesha.”
The judge ended with this ... “Every rape is not a gender-motivated hate crime.”
Earlier this week, Kesha claimed on Instagram that she was “offered my freedom” from Dr. Luke if she apologized and said that she “never got raped.” In today’s appeal of a judge’s ruling for Sony in February, lawyer Mark Geragos argued that her contract was akin to “slavery,” stating that by keeping Kesha in a contract with Luke in which her career depended upon working with him, Sony was enslaving her. The court dismissed that argument in New York; according to TMZ, she has filed a similar suit against Dr. Luke in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, The Daily Show aired a clip they dug up of an appearance Donald Trump and his then-wife Marla Maples made on the television show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. In it, Trump discusses his 1-year-old daughter Tiffany’s breasts.
Asked what attributes Tiffany got from him and what she got from his wife, Trump said:
Well, I think that she’s got a lot of Marla. She’s a really beautiful baby—and she’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know whether she’s got this part yet [gesticulates towards where, if he had breasts, breasts would be], but time will tell.
On Wednesday, Donald Blankenship, former CEO of Massey Energy Company, was sentenced to one year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards, a misdemeanor charge he was convicted of in December. Blankenship will also be fined $250,000 and be subject to a year of supervision upon his release from prison.
The sentence was announced six years and one day after a coal dust explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 coal workers and seriously injured the only two survivors. Investigators found the cause of the explosion to be poor ventilation, which allowed for gases to accumulate and, eventually, combust.
It was the deadliest coal mining accident in the United States in 40 years. Blankenship is the most prominent American coal executive to be sentenced for a crime related to mining deaths.
Once known as West Virginia’s “King of Coal,” Blankenship was paid a cool $18 million in 2009—his last year as CEO of Massey Energy before the explosion. (What for is anyone’s guess.) Massey Energy—then the fourth largest coal company in the country—had received thousands of safety citations before the blast at Upper Big Branch, according to the Justice Department. Fifty citations were issued in the month leading up to the explosion.
Blankenship resigned eight months later, saying in a statement, “It is time for me to move on.”
A report conducted by the Mine Safety and Health Administration in 2011 blamed Massey Energy for the explosion citing, “a series of basic safety violations...[that] were entirely preventable.”
At the time of Blankenship’s conviction, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez told the New York Times that the decision sent, “a clear message that no mine operator is above the law, that there must be accountability when people lose their lives because of the neglect of their employer.”
The New York Timesreports that before receiving his sentence Blankenship told the court, “My main point is wanting to express sorrow to the families and everyone for what happened.” However, expressing remorse was one step too far for Blankenship, who added, “I am not guilty of a crime.”
Jonathan Chait is a columnist for New York Magazine, a respectable publication with many great writers. Chait, a white man, is also one of our nation’s foremost experts on what black people are thinking.
In his latest column titled, “The Pragmatic Tradition of African American Voters,” Chait argues that Hillary Clinton’s “firm command of the Democratic primary” is a result of her popularity amongst black voters. The black voter, according to Chait, is a pragmatic one.
“And pragmatism inflects the African-American view of how politicians perform in office. Purists see compromise as a sign of moral failure or weakness, an inability to smash a corrupted system. Pragmatists expect political opposition as normal and enduring. A politician who has their best interests in mind and pushes policy in the proper direction is better than the all-too-common alternative,” he writes.
In some ways, Chait’s column makes sense. Black voters (as well as women voters) have plenty more to lose with a republican in office and that has been true for some time. Still, Chait seems to fall into a line of thinking that has become quite common amongst well-meaning white people—that all black people are the same.
Chait goes on to say “that pragmatic tendency was on display in 2008, when black voters were slow to embrace Obama’s candidacy, waiting until he had demonstrated the ability to win over white Iowans before committing to him.”
This, again, isn’t necessarily wrong, but that Chait uses the fact that many African Americans were skeptical of white people trusting other black people as evidence of anything other than the horrible nature of white supremacy is...odd.
Extending Chait’s logic would have meant not supporting Barack Obama in 2008, because we still have racists out there and, you know, we have to be pragmatic. Even stranger is the fact that Hillary Clinton faces a similar uphill battle, in that there are plenty of backwards-thinking Americans who would never vote for a woman. By Chait’s logic, the most pragmatic choice in this election would have been Martin O’Malley.
Mr. Chait quotes Brett Gadsden, a historian and professor of African-American studies at Emory who told him, in an email “a few months ago,” that “Black voters have always [been] faced with the difficult choice between candidates who have only offered incremental support for their concerns and have been perfectly willing to turn their backs, albeit to slightly different degrees, on black communities when it was politically expedient.”
Again, this is true. To be a black voter, or a female voter, or basically any voter who is not white and a man, means taking the easier pill to swallow. Chait’s column, and the line of thinking it pushes, seems to think there is only one such option in this election, which is fine. People disagree on things all of the time. What makes Chait’s column a flaming pile of shit is that it uses black people as a tool for political gain. It says “see, black people know struggle and they support Hillary.” It is a refrain that has gone uncomfortably unchecked from Clinton supporters. There is no doubt that black voters have overwhelmingly cast their support for Clinton, or even that Bernie’s supporters skew white and annoying, but correlation is not causation and, most importantly, what does her popularity amongst black voters prove to you, white people? Chait uses Shaun King (of all people!) as an example of Sanders’ supporters’ privilege.
But the critique of Clinton’s African-American supporters increasingly lies outside the realm of calculation altogether. Columnist Shaun King, a Sanders supporter, argues that “Political progressives across this country, in supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, are completely rejecting the Democratic Party,” and should take their actions a step farther and “form our own political party.”
He goes on to say that these types of voters are the “ultimate expression of privilege.” Jonathan Chait is basically calling black Bernie Sanders supporters Oreos.
I emailed professor Gadsen to get a better sense of what he meant in those months old emails to Jonathan Chait. Gadsen, who appears to mostly agree with Chait, offered what I think would have been a much better column: “Black voters—like all voters—make decisions on the basis of complex calculations that are informed by experience, pragmatism, ideology, and emotion.”
“Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” is a new poem by Calvin Trillin about how there are too many different kinds of Chinese people. It is a rhyming poem set in 2016 that was published in The New Yorker, a powerful magazine. The primary theme of the poem is that there are a lot of different kinds of Chinese people. The second theme of the poem is that it is Calvin Trillin’s job to keep track of them. The conclusion of the poem is that Calvin Trillin has a hard job.
Calvin Trillin is an 80-year-old author of best magazine stories. Before writing poetry like “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?”, Calvin Trillin went to Yale school and authored humor pieces for The Nation. Family, travel, and food are also themes in Trillin’s work, which is probably the reason that Trillin wrote “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” In my opinion he went to China and said, “Wow! This is very big!”
The protagonist of the poem is a man who really likes Chinese people but thinks there are too many of them. He also really likes to eat Chinese food but is scared by how many kinds there are. He starts the poem by asking “Have they run out of provinces yet?” (Like the title.) He is confused because the names for Chinese provinces, which are like American states, are so confusing. Examples are “Uighur,” “Shaanxi,” and “Szechuan,” which are not English words that normal people know how to pronounce. This is why Calvin Trillin authored the poem. If he didn’t, there would be more names which would be confusing.
The antagonist of the poem is China, and all the states (“provinces”) in China, and all the different kinds of Chinese food. They just keep getting more in number, which is a conflict for Calvin Trillin. The poem shows this because he says, “We’ve reason to fret.” There was Cantonese food, then Shanghainese food, then Hunan food, then Fukien food, then Uighur food, then Xi’an food. The author infers that there is no reason for all these crazy names because they are all Chinese food.
The imagery of the poem is scary and the mood of the poem is confused and troubled. As Calvin Trillin says in the poem, “Now, as each brand-new province appears/ It brings tensions, increasing our fears./ Could a place we extolled as a find/ Be revealed as one province behind?” He misses “simple days of chow mein but no stress/ When we never were faced with the threat/ Of more provinces we hadn’t met.” This line rhymes with the title of the poem, which is “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” which is a question that is connected to the world because everyone understands that China is too big and they are taking American jobs and there are too many kinds of them.
In conclusion, Calvin Trillin hopes the answer is yes, China has run out of provinces.
Of all the things that are “bigger” in Texas, the colossal human misery perpetuated by its prison system had better be at the top of the list.
The Intercept reported on Monday that inmates at up to five Texas prisons are refusing to leave their cells. On Wednesday, the Austin Chronicle reported that in fact inmates at seven Texas prisons are involved in the strike, according to the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), a union for incarcerated people. The prisoners who have gone on strike in Texas are members of IWOC.
A letter from the anonymous organizers of the strike briefly recounts the history of American mass incarceration, attributing its roots to Nixon’s “War on Crime.” The authors describe prison labor within the state as a “lucrative cash-laden business.”
The letter likens the treatment of those locked away in Texas prisons to the conditions of slaves. It reads:
“Human and Civil rights are not allowed in Texas prisons. There are so many violations to these rights on a daily basis, but we don’t hear about it because those violations, if fought against, rarely make it to the court…The truth is that ‘slavery’ it’s very much alive and thriving in Texas.”
The IWOC’s website lists demands of the strike including abolishing $100 medical co-pays and better living and working conditions, such as taking measures to prevent extreme overheating within the prisons. A 2015 report by the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law found that at least 14 inmates have died in Texas prisons from extreme heat exposure since 2007.
Texas has the largest prison population and the fourth highest rate of incarceration in the country.
Robert Hurst, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state’s prisons wrote to The Intercept that the department, “is aware of the situation and is closely monitoring it.”
The Texas government is by now well-accustomed to giving such hollow PR statements on the state of their prisons. In February 2015 a couple thousand inmates at the Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville, Texas set fire to the prison, partially destroying it. The prison primarily held immigrants accused of low-level offenses and had been spotlighted the previous year in an ACLU report on for-profit immigration detention centers.
On a visit to the Bronx on Wednesday, Cruz was unsurprisingly not welcome. According to the New York Post, about a dozen people showed up to a rally the senator held alongside Ruben Diaz Sr.,who is a conservative Christian minister. Two of those dozen people turned out to be protestors.
When word reached Bronx Lighthouse College Preparatory Academy that Cruz would be visiting the school, students planned to stage a walk out saying, “The presence of Ted Cruz and the ideas he stands for are offensive, his views are against ours and are actively working to harm us, our community, and the people we love.”
It didn’t help that Cruz doubled down on his “New York Values” comments during his campaign stop in the city, saying “Let’s be clear. The people of New York know what those values are, the values of liberal Democratic politicians like Andrew Cuomo, like Anthony Weiner, like Eliot Spitzer, like Charlie Rangel, all of whom Donald Trump has supported, given tens of thousands of dollars to throughout the years.”
Bronx Borough president Ruben Diaz Jr., whose father Cruz was in town to meet, said “Ted Cruz is a hypocrite. He not only offended New Yorkers, he offended Bronxites, and now he’s here today in New York and in the Bronx looking for money and votes.”
A cheap, dubiously branded, easily inflamed product of late capitalism running amuck is causing controversy abroad—and it isn’t Donald Trump! Instead, it’s some scarves associated with his daughter, Ivanka Trump.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced on Wednesday that it has recalled 20,000 scarves embroidered with Ivanka’s name for violating the U.S. Flammability Standard.
These very classy scarves are 100% rayon, manufactured in China and, according to the CPSC “[pose] a burn risk.”
Scott Wolfson, a spokesperson for the CPSC confirmed with the New York Times that the scarves are, “a dangerous product.”
Century 21, Lord & Taylor and Marshalls are among the stores that sell these scarves. So far, none of the scarves have ignited.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the importer, Global Brands Group, has not responded to their request to comment, and neither has the Trump Organization.
Tricia Whalen, a spokesperson for the Ivanka Trump Collection said in a statement:
“We’re disappointed to learn of the need for Global Brands Group, our license partner, to recall two styles of Ivanka Trump scarves, but we are relieved that immediate action is being taken.”
Donald Trump has consistently burned other businesses in the media for manufacturing abroad. And yet, as has been pointed out on many occasions, much of his real estate is located overseas and he sells a clothing collection that is made in China. Luckily for America, hypocrisy isn’t flammable.
A teacher in Newtown Connecticut, the site of one of the deadliest school shootings in American history, was arrested Wednesday after allegedly bringing a gun to the middle school where he worked.
Jason M. Adams, a teacher at Newtown Middle School, was carrying a gun for which he had a permit when police arrested him inside the school. He faces a felony charge of possession of a weapon on school grounds.
As The Hartford Courant points out, none of the Newtown schools were open to students when the arrest occurred.
In the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, a campus in the Newtown School district, 26 people, including 20 schoolchildren, were killed. Families of the victims have been outspoken proponents for stricter gun laws in Connecticut and across the U.S.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton often faces criticism for being out of touch with the youth. She doesn’t do a very good job making a case for the opposite, either, opting instead to ruin popular dances for everyone. Still, the former secretary of state just got the best endorsement a candidate hoping to inspire millennials could hope for—Bobby Shmurda.
In a recent interview withVibe Magazine, the rapper and “Shmoney Dance” progenitor currently incarcerated at Rockland County Jail, said that he’s supporting Hillary Clinton in this year’s presidential election.
“I like Hillary more because she’s into the people,” Shmurda said, adding “you know they’ve said that women can’t run the country, but I feel like she’s more independent. She’s got a strong mind state.”
“Donald Trump’s an asshole. I don’t care, but he’s an asshole. I definitely don’t want him as our president,” the rapper continued. “The things that be coming out of his mouth is crazy.”
Shmurda, whose legal name is Ackquille Pollard, has been in jail since 2014 for his involvement with a Brooklyn gang connected to drug sales and shootings, according to authorities.
Will Clinton hit the Shmoney Dance if she wins the nomination?
Every now and then Hollywood makes a difference that’s bigger than Leo before and after his Oscar. Apparently, the plot and popularity of the The Big Short—the critically-acclaimed Adam-McKay directed adaptation of Michael Lewis’s book—rattled some analysts at Morgan Stanley.
As Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, analyst Jeen Ng warned in a recent memo that the movie could be making people nervous about investing in auto lease Asset-Backed Securities (ABS)—auto loans made to gambling borrowers, then bundled into bonds and sold to investors.
The memo reads:
“However, concerns about growing recessionary risks – and perhaps even the popularity of the recent movie The Big Short – have motivated investors to investigate any potential source of weakness. Consumer sectors that involve large initial outlays, such as housing and autos, provide a natural place to start. Combine that with recent headlines from Fitch suggesting that delinquencies in some sectors of the auto ABS market have reached 20- year highs, and you get a target sector for investors’ concerns.
Those concerns are not without merit, at least as far as delinquencies are concerned. It is interesting to highlight that as the housing market continues to heal from its post-crisis depths, mortgage delinquencies have been on a steady decline while auto delinquencies have been going in the opposite direction.”
Or maybe potential investors are suspicious of auto loans because...they’re actual villains. Critics of the auto ABS have been pointing out parallels between the subprime auto market and the subprime housing market for years. Hopefully this story has a slightly less disastrous ending.
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, those two members of your book club who keep getting into weird passive-aggressive fights in the kitchen over the protagonist’s motivations, have been engaged in an extremely useful and pressing argument over who is less “qualified” to be president.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reports that Clinton said Sanders had not done his “homework” on Wall Street reform, referring to an interview with the Daily News editorial board in which Sanders came off as less knowledgeable than he likely is. That night, Sanders said that Clinton “has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote-un-quote, not qualified to be president,” which is something Clinton did not, uh, quote-un-quote say.
Sanders continued, via the Times:
“Let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton, I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is, through her ‘super PAC’ taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds.”
He added: “I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement.”
Clinton’s press secretary fired back on Twitter:
The Washington Post reports that Kim Fredrick, 37, an “unbelievably enthusiastic” Clinton supporter, saw Sanders’ comments and was “livid,” prompting her to start the hashtag #HillarySoQualified. Very briefly, it went well:
By early Thursday, however, according to the Washington Post, more than 90,000 tweets—“many of them decidedly Clinton-unfriendly”—went out under the hashtag.
While I’m not sure anything was really hashed out (haha!) re: anyone’s presidential qualifications, we have learned, for the 90th or 100th time, that Twitter is one population Hillary Clinton is unlikely to win over.
Something really messed up is happening, and I cannot believe everyone is like, so blasé about this, which is a word I learned from this pretty cool guy Liam I was talking to over the summer when I went on a teen tour in Nice, where I lived for literally a month without any adults just counselors who were only like three years older than me, and I did just fine. So I guess my point is my mom is always like “I just want what’s best for you,” but that’s actually really condescending.
Basically, this judge just made it legal for my mom to spy on me, which she does anyway but now she’s going to be all justified about it. Like, I get it’s because a dad secretly recorded a pocket dial his ex-wife and her new boyfriend made while beating up his kid, which like, obviously so messed up, but trust me, that’s not what my mom is going to use it for.
And honestly, we came in third at mock trial regionals this year, so I know more about the law than your average, like, “teen” per se.
Because they’re making it so my mom and stepdad Rob, can secretly record what I’m doing without even letting me know they’re listening if it’s like, “necessary” for my “welfare.” And if you ask my mom, freaking everything is “necessary” for my “welfare.” Like how she got so weird when I wouldn’t let her look at my snapchat!!!
Like there was this time in seventh grade where she made me wear tights under my dress when I was going to Maddie R.’s bat mitzvah even though it wasn’t even that cold out. And when I poured my parents’ vodka into a water bottle I have hidden in the back of my closet and my mom found it, she acted like I had freaking murdered someone. Like, I lived in France without them for an entire summer. I think I can handle it. In France, they have like, a culture of drinking wine at the table that is just, like, so much more healthy than in America. I honestly sometimes think I should have been born abroad.
Anyway I know my mom’s already secretly reading my texts. I can’t prove it, because she knows all this stuff that she, just like, shouldn’t know. Like, Olivia last summer drank like four shots and spent the whole night puking out the window of Matt’s dad’s Range Rover and it got like, all over the side of the car. And I held her hair AND I offered to pay for a car wash because we were drinking the water bottle vodka which might have had tequila in it too because the bottles looked alike in the freezer. It was actually a really serious situation. Anyway Matt was like, “Don’t worry about it,” which honestly was really cool of him and he drove me home and tried to make out with me but I didn’t because the summer was almost over, and I feel like he’s not as sophisticated as the senior guys I’ve been talking with, but anyway my mom totally started hating Olivia after that and I KNOW it’s because she read my texts about it, because Olivia is really popular with all the parents. So, yeah.
Whether because of his recent pizza fuckup or campaign trail stress, John Kasich is currently stuffing himself with tens of thousands of calories of Italian food while on a campaign stop at the Bronx. Where are his friends? Will someone help?
