Chilly but civilized American neighbor Canada announced today that it plans to legalize weed by this time next year.
Speaking at a UN conference on drugs today, Canadian Health Minister Jane Philpot said that the level-headed nation will introduce legislation next spring to “legalize and regulate recreational marijuana.” There is little doubt that the rational nation—not being prone to American-style fits of periodic extremist insanity, and where medical marijuana is already legal—will hold true to its commitment.
“By most accounts, voters cast their ballots smoothly and successfully. However, I am deeply troubled by the volume and consistency of voting irregularities, both in public reports and direct complaints to my office’s hotline, which received more than one thousand complaints in the course of the day yesterday,” Schneiderman said in a statement released this afternoon. “That’s why today, we have opened an investigation into alleged improprieties in yesterday’s voting by the New York City Board of Elections.”
After reports of difficulties voting began bubbling up on social media, Gawker issued a call for stories from readers about problems at the polls. While many responded to say that voting went perfectly smoothly, roughly 20 gave some version of the same story: despite having registered to vote, either during this election cycle or in the past, workers were not able to find their names in the poll books, and they were asked to vote by affidavit instead of with a traditional ballot.
Chavisa in Bushwick wrote:
I have voted in the same spot in Bushwick for the last five years. I have been registered as a Democrat because of closed primaries in a New York for more than 10 years. I have voted in almost all of the primaries and general elections. Over the last month, I have double and triple checked that I was registered and that I knew my polling place. Everything has seemed to be in good order. I was even registered in the online system. I triple checked it as recently as two weeks ago. When I came to my polling place today, they said that they didn’t have my name in their book. They couldn’t explain why. I got to vote with an affidavit ballot and they said that it should still count (should!) . But then I was told by another person that I will only be counted if it needs to be or if it comes down to it. I really have no idea how or why this could have happened.
Will, another Brooklyn voter:
Even though I have been a registered Democratic voter in NYC for years, and voted in the last mayoral primary and general election in 2013, my name was not on the rolls in my election district this morning. My girlfriend who shares my apartment has the same voting history as I do, and her name was on the rolls.
I was forced to vote by affidavit, but I am concerned my vote won’t be counted. And there is no reason why my name should have been dropped from the rolls.
I called the Attorney General’s office and they looked me up, found my registration was there but had been listed as inactive, and assured me that my affidavit would be counted, but that’s not super reassuring, especially in what might be a close race called today...
Luckily I work close to the seat of Brooklyn governance and was able to secure a court order from the Bureau of Elections office allowing me to cast my ballot today by machine.
Katherine in the Upper West Side:
I had the worst time this AM at the UWS 73rd street voting location! Even though I haven’t moved in 4 years and voted in that very location in 2012, I was not on the signature sheet, and after about 45 minutes of finagling I had to fill out an affidavit, re-register to vote (even though I AM in the database of registered voters), and seal up my ballot in an envelope. I’m not entirely convinced it’s even going to be counted. Frustrating!
Though the Attorney General’s probe will focus specifically on New York City, Schneiderman’s statement left open the possibility of “inquiries into additional areas of the State” if necessary. The majority of complaints Gawker received came from within the five boroughs, with only a small handful arriving from Long Island and upstate.
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That price gets you 1080p recording (or 720p at 60FPS), night vision, auto on/off, and a g-force sensor to automatically lock your footage in the event of an accident.
Need some more anime in your life? The complete Fullmetal Alchemist Collection One ($27) and Steinsgate ($24) Blu-rays are marked down to fantastic prices in today’s Amazon Gold Box. Like all Gold Box deals though, these prices are only available today, or until sold out.
We see deals on car-starting battery packs just about every week, but even by our standards, $27 is a really fantastic starting price (with code TA9A92XK) for a 300A model. And for owners of larger cars, 400A and 600A versions are also on sale. No matter which one you choose, they all include a DC charger to juice it back up inside your car, and they’re all small enough to fit in your glove box.
Not only does this decanter serve as a classy vessel for serving wine, it also aerates it on the way in. Just press it onto the top of a bottle, and turn it upside down to aerate the wine. If you want to keep it in the bottle, just turn it back over, and the newly aerated wine will pour straight back in. If you enjoy red wine, today’s deal is the best price Amazon’s ever offered, so treat yourself. .
They won’t count your steps or display your notifications, but these Stuhrling watches look nicer than any smart wearable on the market, and you can pick from nearly 20 options today for $60 each. Just note that this is a Gold Box deal, meaning these prices are only available until the clock strikes midnight, or until sold out.
$17 is a solid price for a 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive, especially when you consider that this one includes a microUSB plug to connect to your Android devices. That’s perfect for storing videos to watch on your tablet during a long flight, or sharing large amounts of vacation photos from your phone without using a computer.
Landing on Mun for the first time in Kerbal Space Program is probably one of my top 3 all-time personal gaming moments, and I can’t recommend it highly enough at $24.
We’ve seen our fair share of sub-$20 Bluetooth speakers, but not many of them can join you in the shower. The Omaker M4 can do just that thanks to its IP54-rated splash resistance, and still deliver up to 12 hours of playtime on a single charge. That’s perfect if you like to sing in the shower, or just need to catch up on your podcast backlog.
No kitchen is complete without a substantial Pyrex aresenal, and this 4-container set (it’s technically 8-pieces, but that includes lids) is down to under $15 on Amazon right now. If you aren’t familiar, these magical vessels are super strong, and also freezer, oven, and even microwave safe.
We’ve seen dozens of deals on cheap kitchen scales over the years, but I think this might be the best looking one yet. The stainless steel measuring bowl is removable (but appreciated), and the base can even double as a digital cooking timer.
The tiny-but-powerful Olympus OM-D E-M10 Micro 4/3 camera recently got a Mark II sequel, and that means you can get a great price on the original, if you don’t necessarily care about slightly improved OIS and a marginally sharper viewfinder.
Wallet styles are obviously a matter of taste, but if you’re a front pocket fan, this RFID-blocking leather wallet is a steal at $8. That gets you three card slots (each of which can hold at least two cards), an ID window, and a zippable currency holder for when you have no choice but to carry cash.
Unlike an unsympathetic traditional alarm clock, the Philips Wake-Up Light eases you awake with a gradually-brightening light that simulates a natural sunrise, which is how humans are designed to wake up anyway. And of course, it will still nudge you awake with an audible beeping when it’s really time to get out of bed. It also doubles as a very warm and pleasant reading light as you’re getting ready to go to sleep. I’ve owned this thing for over a year, and I can definitely tell the difference when I sleep away from home and have to rely on my iPhone alarm.
For a limited time, Amazon’s taking an extra 20% off dozens of “box top” cereals and snacks through their Prime Pantry program. You can find all of the eligible items here; just be sure to clip the coupon on the product pages, and note that the prices listed are before the discount, which won’t be applied until checkout.
If Prime Pantry’s $6 per delivery fee is scaring you off, all you have to do is add five of these select items (including several of the aforementioned box top snacks) to your box to enjoy free shipping. And if that weren’t enough, if you have a Prime Pantry no-rush shipping credit in your account, that’ll stack with this deal, giving you an extra $6 off.
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Let’s run down the list of good things about working for the presidential campaign of current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump:
A sense of accomplishment (pending)
A sense of civic duty
A moderate salary
Getting to meet Donald Trump...?
Okay that’s all I have. One thing that’s not on this list is “laying the groundwork for a thriving career in Republican politics,” because, as The Politico reported yesterday, there is a growing sense in the Republican solar system that Trump aides will be blackballed by the establishment once the Trump cloud passes over and the party is able to reset itself:
But according to interviews with more than a dozen operatives — including several who oppose Trump, some who support him and the leaders of some prominent D.C. political shops — some of those who go to work for Trump face an implicit, and occasionally overt, threat: Help Trump, and you’ll never work in this town again.
It may be unenforceable, but the push to stigmatize Trump’s aides, advisers and vendors is among the last remaining pieces of ammunition available to a Republican establishment that has tried just about everything else to block the billionaire from taking over of the GOP. And, critically, it has complicated Trump’s efforts in recent weeks to hire top-tier operatives, according to sources familiar with Trump’s campaign.
As The Politico notes, this is probably a last-ditch tactic by anti-Trump Republicans to deprive the Trump campaign of the party’s most available, if not exactly its best, minds. A few even went on the record:
Juleanna Glover, a longtime GOP operative who is now a corporate consultant in D.C., said of people choosing to work for Trump: “In the world Fortune 100 companies, their careers would be severely curtailed.”
Katie Packer, who served as Mitt Romney’s deputy campaign manager and now runs an anti-Trump super PAC, said: “I know that I would never hire or want to work with somebody who tried to help Trump. It would be disqualifying.”
Alas, much like the anti-Trump movement in general, this feels like wishful thinking. Perhaps there are some operatives out there who are resisting Trump in hopes that a candidate they find more palatable somehow ends up with the nomination. But if Trump is the nominee, the consultant class will do what the consultant class does, which is line up to the trough.
This is already happening. In late March, the campaign hired convention manager Paul Manafort, who has worked for Reagan, both George Bushes, and John McCain. Last week, they hired Rick Wiley—formerly of Scott Walker, Rudy Giuliani, and the RNC—as national political director.
They won’t be the last. Republicans will fall in line.
Pity Reince Priebus, who needs to sit down for interviews and lie, through clenched teeth, about how much fun he is having watch his beloved Republican Party shatter around him, shards of glass pricking his eyeballs and getting stuck under his fingernails.
“People assume, ‘You must be miserable, you’ve got a horrible job,’” he told CNN. “I don’t see it that way! I’m not pouring Bailey’s in my cereal. I’m not sitting here trying to find the Johnny Walker.”
And how much fun is Reince’s lovely wife, Sally Priebus, having? Well. For their first date, Reince took her to a political dinner. “You can’t say you didn’t know what you were getting into,” Sally is told.
“Right,” Sally says, nodding. “Right.”
Incidentally, pouring Bailey’s in one’s cereal is an awfully specific thing to deny unprompted.
This week, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Donald Trump’s Cessna Citation X business jet, which flew as recently as Monday despite being unregistered since January 31.
“The aircraft owner is currently working with the FAA’s Aircraft Registry and will re-register the aircraft before further flight,” said agency spokesperson Laura Brown in a statement.
According to The New York Times, which first reported the lapsed registration on Tuesday, flying an unregistered aircraft can result in serious civil and criminal penalties:
Ms. Brown would not comment on whether the F.A.A. plans to take any action against the Cessna’s owner, the operator or both. Though it is unlikely that the agency will seek the maximum penalty, flying with no registration could result in a civil penalty of up to $27,500, a criminal fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to three years. Fines are often assessed.
Incidentally, three years is also how often active aircraft owners must renew their registration, a process which, according to the FAA website, costs $5.
Former presidential candidate Ben Carson, who’s still 100-percent worthy of my love, doesn’t understand why we have to boot Andrew Jackson from the front of the $20 bill in favor of Harriet Tubman. Why not put her on a lesser bill to match her subservient position? Perhaps a bill that’s barely in circulation?
“I think Andrew Jackson was a tremendous secretary—I mean a tremendous president,” Carson told Fox Business Network on Wednesday. “Andrew Jackson was the last president who actually balanced the federal budget.”
Fox host Neil Cavuto then continues, “And here he gets kicked off the $20 bill.”
Carson agrees: “Right, in honor of that we kick him off the money,” he says.
We KICK him off the MONEY. We takey the good president off the paper thingy. Look, the Underground Railroad was cool and everything, according to Carson, but not enough to warrant completely disrespecting this old amazing slaveholder.
“I love Harriet Tubman, I love what she did,” says Carson, sympathetically. “But can we find another way to honor her. Maybe a $2 bill?”
Good idea. Never thought of it. Next, let’s put Carson on the penny, call it the benny, and then take it out of circulation right away.
More than a decade after six unarmed civilians were shot by police while trying to cross New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, five former officers pleaded guilty in connection with the deadly shooting, NOLA.com reports.
In 2011, the officers were convicted of more serious crimes, but a new trial was ordered after a federal judge determined prosecutors had engaged in “grotesque” ethical misconduct. On Wednesday, all five officers pleaded guilty over the 2005 shooting and subsequent coverup in exchange for reduced sentences ranging from three to 12 years. From CNN:
On Sunday, September 4, 2005, initial police accounts said officers responded to reports of gunshots on the bridge and that a running gunbattle ensued with six suspects. Two people, a disabled man and teenager, were killed and four were seriously wounded in what officers involved claimed was self-defense.
A witness, however, told CNN in 2006 that police lined up “like at a firing range” and fatally shot an unarmed man in the back as he fled from them. Others on the bridge said police ambushed them. In all, two people were killed and four wounded.
“While an imperfect resolution, today’s proceeding ensures that these defendants are held accountable for their criminal actions,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite in a statement. “Those of us who continue to serve as prosecutors must embrace the lessons learned from this Danziger case.”
Despite the lighter sentences, at least one surviving family member found a degree of closure.
“I finally got what I wanted,” Sherrell Johnson, whose teenage son was one of the victims, told reporters. “Someone confessed.”
The US is an extremely diverse society and attitudes towards LGBT people differ hugely across the country. LGBT travellers may be affected by legislation passed recently in the states of North Carolina and Mississippi.
The change appears to have come at the urging of Gay Star News, which criticized the Foreign Office for previously offering warnings to LGBT travelers visiting countries like Russia and Turkey, but not Western allies like the US.
The news site notes that trans tourists face the possibility of “being arrested and held in a male prison if they’re a trans woman and a female prison if they’re a trans man” should they inadvertently violate American law.
As always, it’s important to learn a foreign country’s unique customs before visiting. In the case of the United States, that apparently means lessons in vaguely defined but fiercely defended state-sanctioned bigotry.
“You’re taught that from school, big business, everywhere: You want to be successful? You want to be like Trump? It’s gimme gimme gimme, push push push, step step step, crush crush crush.”
According to multiplenewsoutlets, the video is proof Shakur “tried to warn us” about Donald Trump. This, of course, ignores the fact that Trump has been synonymous with “grotesque, rich prick” since Hammer pants were still in style.
The ongoing federal investigation into corruption in the NYPD expanded this week, as the chief financial officer of an Orthodox volunteer security force was arrested Sunday. He is accused of bribing officers in the NYPD’s Licensing Division to exchange for handgun permits. The mayor’s office has frozen two City Council grants, totaling $35,000, allocated to the organization.
The grants were issued last summer by Brooklyn Councilmen David Greenfield and Chaim Deutsch, and were intended to “defray” the cost of new radios and uniforms for the Shmira Civilian Volunteer Patrol of Boro Park.
According to Politico New York, City Hall had not yet finalized the earmarks. It will wait to do so “until relevant facts are determined to ensure Shmira Civilian Volunteer Patrol of Boro Park Inc. is a responsible vendor,” said mayoral spokeswoman Karen Hinton.
A City Councilman from 2002 to 2010, de Blasio’s old district includes Borough Park. In 2009 and 2010, public records show, he allocated two $10,000 grants to Shmira. (Shmira’s tax returns from 2006 and 2007 indicate that it received $50,000 and $35,000 in government contributions in those years, respectively. It eventually lost its tax-exempt status, which was later reinstated.) From Politico:
A review of public documents show the Boro Park, Brooklyn branch of Shmira, a volunteer security force, has received nine city contracts totaling $425,708 from the 2010 to 2015 fiscal years, which span the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations.
Eight of the contracts were with the Department of Youth and Community Development and one was for $197,208 with the city’s Department of Design and Construction for vehicles for the patrol force.
Alex Lichtenstein, whom the city’s database lists as the chief financial officer of the Shmira Civilian Volunteer Patrol of Boro Park Inc., is charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery. It’s unclear whether the mayor ever dealt with Lichtenstein directly.
The complaint describes a sting operation in which Lichtenstein offers an NYPD officer, secretly recording the conversation, $6,000 per pistol license the officer can help him obtain. (Shomrim are supposedly unarmed.) Lichtenstein allegedly estimated that he’d already obtained 150 licenses this way in the last year.
Poor, sweet, sagging Ted Cruz. The man who can barely get members of his own party to listen to him when he speaks in New York got thoroughly trounced by Donald Trump and John Kasich on Tuesday. Cruz’s showing was so bad in one part of Brooklyn that he only netted one single vote. Oh, wait—hold on just a second—it looks like Cruz actually won that precinct.
A New York Times interactive map of the primary results shows Cruz taking northeastern corner of Greenpoint. And, as Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall notes, he only did it because literally no one turned up to vote for the other guys.
More than anything, Ted’s massive victory in Greenpoint shows just how left-leaning New York City is, aside from a few Republican strongholds like South Brooklyn and Staten Island. According to the Times map, there were only 106,906 total votes cast for the entire Republican field—less than a third of what Bernie Sanders alone got, and he lost.
Donald Trump also managed to squeeze out a single vote-victory, in the slice of Bed Stuy bordered by Flushing Avenue to the north, Myrtle Avenue to the south, Nostrand Avenue to the east, and Spencer Street to the west.
These one-vote precincts don’t even represent the lowest of the low for the Republicans in NYC. My Bed Stuy polling place—and plenty of other precincts all over the city—didn’t cast a single Republican vote at all.
Tipper Gore’s spiritual descendants are 20 year-old college kids. College kids are the new moms.
Action Bronson, a weed-smoking teddy bear who also enjoys rhyming and food, has been disinvited from a planned concert at Trinity College, after students got more than 1,000 signatures on an online petition asking for him to be removed. The petition says that inviting him “is an endorsement of violence, specifically against women and minorities(??)” and that “Allowing Action Bronson to perform at Spring Weekend would create a psychologically harmful and drastically unsafe space for women, LGBTQIA+ students, and survivors of sexual assault.” It also hilariously calls him a “bodybuilder” (he used to powerlift but now could best be described as “short and fat”) and warns that “It only takes one person to drunkenly (or soberly) upset Action Bronson by getting on stage, or in his way, for him to violently assault someone. The available evidence suggests men specifically are targeted by Action Bronson, meaning no one is given a safe space at a Bronson concert.”
Damn.
Last night, the school officially disinvited him, saying that “The very act of bringing him to this campus runs counter to the College’s obligation to protect the emotional and physical safety of its students.” Just weeks ago, George Washington University disinvited Action Bronson from performing there for similar reasons.
We are all thankful that the risk of Action Bronson coming to Trinity’s campus, spewing hateful rhetoric and violently assaulting both the men and women of the student body has been averted. But the dangers posed by rappers are ever-present. In the future, the university powers-that-be should consult this list when seeking out appropriate—and safe—campus acts.
An AP investigation has revealed that Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman, a Tea Party favorite whose political ethos is the vehement opposition of anything President Obama attempts, spent $2,000 in campaign donations for a trip to California:
A Facebook page belonging to the wife of an Indiana congressman touted the family’s visit to the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, with photos showing the two children by the conservative icon’s grave and the couple in front of a “humble” wooden table where Reagan signed a massive tax cut.
Although a caption on one of the photos describes the trip as a “family vacation,” documents obtained by The Associated Press show Rep. Marlin Stutzman’s Senate campaign paid more than $2,000 for the four airline tickets to Los Angeles and covered expenses for a van rental and Hilton hotel room recorded during the August trip. Federal Election Commission guidelines forbid the use of an official campaign fund for personal expenses.
I cannot get over how bad that vacation was! At least raid your campaign fund to go somewhere cool and/or fun. A campaign rep for Stutzman says the spending was a “legitimate” campaign expense, but has decided to repay the vacation bill “in the interests of full disclosure,” which is not what “full disclosure” means at all. But what’s even more troubling for Stutzman, the AP suggests, is that this is only part of a wider spendthrift pattern:
The California visit represents just a small part of the over $300,000 in flights, vehicle charges, meals and hotel stays Stutzman’s campaign fund has spent since the tea party-backed Republican went to Washington in 2010 on a pledge to oppose special interests, an AP review found.
Marlin: If you’re going to be a high roller, have more to show for it than a visit to Ronald Reagan’s old wooden table.
So far, global warming seems pretty OK. On Christmas, I took a walk around the neighborhood with my family and didn’t even wear a coat. It was great. But according to a newly published study, nothing gold can stay.
Party-crashing climate and public policy researchers at Duke and NYU say that even before climate change inundates us with hurricanes and tropical storms and disintegrates the ice caps, it may also make our day-to-day lives a little less pleasant. Lead author of the study Patrick Egan told the AP, “They’re getting the good parts and haven’t had to pay the price of the bad part.”
That won’t be the case for long. The researchers made a model of the kinds of weather Americans prefer, based on the cities they choose to move to. Within 90 years or so, climate predictions show the weather emerging on the other side of the sweet temperate spot it’s currently sitting in (sweater weather in January, manageably sweaty butt cracks in July), giving us summers we’re likely to find intolerably hot.
Of course, there are many more serious things to worry about with global warming than bad beach weather, such as the floods, the natural disasters, the extinction, the spread of disease, the prospect of leaving future generations with a scorched hunk of rock instead of a livable planet. But hey, maybe the threat of gnarly heat rash will finally get us thinking about how we might fix this thing.
Donald Trump does not want Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, he announced this morning. Just like his old frenemy Ben Carson, Trump would be open to putting the abolitionist hero on a smaller-circulation bill—the $2, say—and keeping the $20 for Old Hickory.
Maybe Trump, who wants to ban all Muslim immigration to the U.S., sees a kindred spirit in the guy who signed the Indian Removal Act, expelling thousands of nonwhite Americans from their rightful homes. Jackson’s popularity was based largely on his image as a regular guy who rose to power outside the political establishment. And frankly, he could have used a more attentive barber.
Trump and Carson aren’t the only Republicans making a big stink about Tubman’s placement on the bill. This morning, Greta Van Susteren of Fox News said the Obama administration “went stupid for no reason” by making the change. According to Van Susteren, we should have instead created a new $25 bill and put Tubman on that. Surely more talking heads will follow. Welcome to America’s newest totally meaningless right-wing controversy.
“It is with profound sadness that I am confirming that the legendary, iconic performer, Prince Rogers Nelson, has died at his Paisley Park residence this morning at the age of 57,” publicist Yvette Noel-Schure said in a brief statement.
An earlier report stated that police had responded to an emergency call at Prince’s Paisley Park estate in Chanhassen, Minnesota at 9:43 a.m, at which point a fatality was discovered.
