Since 1987, Donald Trump has written at least 15 books. According to his personal financial disclosure, eleven of those earned him less than $1,000 in royalties last year, and nine earned him less than $200.
Personal financial disclosures do not require candidates to specify income amounts, but rather give ranges: Last year’s Crippled America, for example, made him between one million and five million dollars.
Other recent tomes are also still selling relatively well: Think Like a Champion, published in 2009, brought in less than $50,000 in income; Time to Get Tough, published in 2011, is still selling at a lively pace, bringing in between $100,000 and $1,000,000 in royalties last year.
But many more of Trump’s books are barely selling at all: The Way to the Top (2004) made between $201 and $1,000, and How to Get Rich (2004) made between $5,001 and $1,000.
The following titles earned Trump no more than $200:
Trump: Surviving at the Top (1990);
The Art of the Comeback (1997);
The America We Deserve (2000);
Think Like a Billionaire (2004);
The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received (2005);
Why We Want You to Be Rich (2006);
Trump 101: The Way to Success (2007);
Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life (2007);
Never Give Up (2008).
His 1987 debut, The Art of the Deal, brought him between $50,000 and $100,000 in royalties. Then again, according to the book’s ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, Trump didn’t actually write The Art of the Deal. In September, Schwartz tweeted:
This year, Californians will vote on a ballot measure that could legalize weed recreationally in the state. Many of the groups donating money to fight the legalization effort represent police and corrections officers. Why do you think that might be?
The Intercept dug up a disclosure filing showing donations from several state law enforcement and corrections associations to a lobbying group called the Coalition for Responsible Drug Policies, which raised $60,000 in the first three months of this year with the aim of beating legalization. Keeping cannabis illegal is good business for the cops, and these groups are probably not solely concerned with the placid horrors of weed addiction. For instance: The Department of Justice gives grants to police departments for fighting drugs, including marijuana; cops can use asset forfeiture to seize cash and gear from dealers and keep it for themselves; more people in jail for pot possession or dealing means greater demand and more job opportunities for prison guards. If pot is legalized, all of those revenue streams suddenly dry up.
The Intercept notes that John Lovell, the lobbyist who founded the Coalition for Responsible Drug Policies, has previously worked to funnel federal money into weed enforcement and to stymie asset forfeiture reform, which would have made seizing your stuff less profitable for the police. Making money isn’t just a pleasant side effect of prohibition for these guys; it’s the whole ballgame.
The law enforcement community’s flailing to stop legalization also happens to show exactly why it’s a good idea to support it, even if you don’t smoke: Fewer people imprisoned, and less policing for policing’s (and profit’s) sake. Go out and vote for pot this November, California.
Today in the New York Times, Yale Law emeritus professor Peter H. Schuck takes a constitutionalist’s approach to the bathroom controversy currently choking out the Republican party, which is to say that Schuck wonders if the federal government should really give trans men and women the right to piss where they please without first canvassing the entire United States of America.
Schuck takes issue with the Obama administration’s decision to send a letter to every public school in the country urging them to allow trans students to use any bathroom on campus under provisions outlined by Title IX. Schuck writes:
Normally, under the venerable Administrative Procedure Act, a rule change like this requires the government to invite the public to join the specific policy conversation before any rule is issued, by publishing the proposed policy, explaining its rationale, soliciting public comments on it and seriously considering those comments before deciding on a rule. If a rule is adopted, opponents may then challenge it in court based on this administrative record. Instead, by using what’s called a Dear Colleague letter, the administration hopes to sidestep that requirement.
The administration has ignored the notice-and-comment process for other controversial rules — on campus sexual harassment, and on the legal status of millions of undocumented immigrants (which is before the Supreme Court), for example. By ignoring it in this case, it has aborted a much-needed public debate over whether identity-based bathroom use can and should be regulated as a legal right, or merely left as an option.
Schuck imagines said debate going something like this:
Here are just a few questions that people might have asked before making up their minds. How uncomfortable are people with the prospect of those with different anatomies sharing their bathrooms? Is this discomfort likely to grow or decline? Since gender identity cannot be confirmed before entering bathrooms, how great is the risk of voyeurism or other abuses? How costly will it be to provide gender-neutral bathrooms, and how would people of all genders feel about such alternatives? Will market pressures such as the boycotts against North Carolina’s bathroom regulation produce a better mix of solutions than the government’s one size fits all?
And how many transgender people actually experience indignity when using traditional bathrooms, and what is the nature of this indignity? Discomfort about using a urinal when men at nearby urinals think one is a woman? Annoyance at having to wait for a stall to conceal one’s anatomy?
You could go on forever. What if a trans person brings a parrot into the bathroom? What if the free market decides trans people must land a triple axel before flushing? Unfortunately for the conflicted centrists among us, nothing would ever get done in America if the government had to account for every hypothetical question imaginable. The Obama administration sees one’s choice of bathroom as a basic right that requires no further debate.
The administration is correct, and they have our past on their side. Not that Yale emeritus professor Peter H. Schuck seems to remember America spending decades violently hashing out rules governing the use of public facilities much to the embarrassment of every sane citizen of this nation (emphasis mine):
Relatively few Americans considered bathroom access a civil rights issue until last week. They deserve to hear the arguments pro and con before making up their own minds. Much remains to be said and learned about the issue; truncating this conversation just as it is beginning is wrong (and arguably violates the Administrative Procedure Act).
Even as unions fret that many of their members will vote for Donald Trump, Trump’s company is actively fighting a union campaign by his own workers in Las Vegas. We spoke to Vegas workers about what’s at stake.
On the Vegas strip, the Culinary Workers Union reigns supreme. The 57,000-strong group boast that 98% of the jobs on the downtown strip are unionized. A glaring exception to that is the Trump hotel. After a long union campaign, workers at the Trump property voted to unionize late last year, a move that was immediately subjected to ongoing exhaustive legal challenges by Donald Trump’s company.
In Las Vegas last week, we spoke to a Trump hotel worker who is active in the effort to unionize, as well as a worker at The Bellagio, a plush property on the strip that has long been unionized.
Alma Zamarin is originally from the Philippines. She lived in California for ten years, working at hotels, and has worked for nearly six years at Trump Las Vegas as an on-call food server and bartender. She has been active in the effort to unionize Trump’s Vegas operation, which is a full-time condo residence as well as a hotel. She says that management practices unfair favoritism in hiring and promotion. She started at $8.50 an hour more than five years ago, and currently makes $10 an hour. Asked whether she thinks Donald Trump (who once drove by his picketing workers in his limo) is conscious of the union campaign, she said, “He knows it, but he’s ignoring it.”
“Before, when it’s not a union, I go to HR many, many times, and they don’t listen. If you are not the favorite, even if you’re doing the best job, it’s nothing.”
“Most of the managers told our coworkers, ‘Oh, the union is just coming here in the hotel because they want your money.’ So they come to me and ask me and I’m explaining everything—union dues is like a payment for our insurance, for our benefits and everything. Look at the insurance you have now at the hotel: you’re paying more, and there’s less benefits.”
“When we get hired, they tell us they have an open door. But how come with an open door, it’s so hard to find him, reach him? They just say it, but they don’t do it.”
“[The residents of the building] are now with us, because they know how management treats us. Some of the owners there are also Filipino, so they’re asking me how it is, so I’m telling them the truth.”
“Mr. Trump—we are his employees, working hard for him to make his money. He said he wants America to be great again. How come he won’t make us great again, the employees of his hotel? I would tell him please give us a raise, and give us good benefits, because we are the ones who are making you rich.”
Jerome Rodgers has worked at the Bellagio for 12 years. He’s a bar porter who keeps all the bars stocked, from five a.m. to one p.m. He moved to Las Vegas from Pennsylvania in 1979. He makes $17.86 per hour, and is a shop steward for the union. He says Las Vegas is “very affordable, if you got the union,” and that most of the unionized workers he knows own homes, cars, have health insurance, and generally lead comfortable middle class lifestyles.
“If there’s problems with the other bar porters, or if somebody gets in trouble, they’ll come and get me and I’ll help them. If somebody gets in trouble, they have to have somebody there to represent them, so I’ll sit in the meetings. I’ve been to quite a few meetings with upper management. Sometimes [they get along with the union], and sometimes not. They’re pretty fair. Bellagio is one of the best hotels, so everyone tries to keep it fair across the board.”
“We’re the backbone of the money they’re making... We all deserve a fair shake in everything.”
“There’s a big difference in your standard of living, everything. If you have the union behind you, you feel you can do anything. You feel secure. We all want to feel secure, have a decent wage, insurance, benefits. If you got that, your employees will be happy, and they’ll work better. There are a lot of happy people where I work.”
In a nation in which only 11% of workers are unionized, the Las Vegas strip is an ostentatious outlier. Bethany Khan, a Culinary Union spokesperson, explains it like so: “In our 80 years, we’ve seen a lot. We’ve seen politicians and pundits come and go, we’ve seen companies and owners come and go, and casinos. But the union and the workers who built this town, we’re not gonna leave. This is our town.”
If Donald Trump does win a significant portion of union votes, those votes will probably not come from Las Vegas.
This afternoon, Donald Trump released a list of 11 potential Supreme Court justices. Unless you play Fantasy Federal Judge there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of any of these people, which is good, because Trump has already shown that the sort of people who have heard of these potential justices are completely irrelevant.
According to the campaign, the list includes: Steven Colloton of Iowa, Allison Eid of Colorado, Raymond Gruender of Missouri, Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, Joan Larsen of Michigan, Thomas Lee of Utah, William Pryor of Alabama, David Stras of Minnesota, Diane Sykes of Wisconsin and Don Willett of Texas.
Unfortunately for those people, led by hero-in-waiting Bill Kristol, Trump has rendered them irrelevant and flailing at the margins of the party. Like a small child sucking on a lollipop as his mom flips through department store racks, they will accept this measly gift and wait as the adults conduct their business.
When he’s not busy making terrible paintings of dogs, former leader of the free world George W. Bush has to find some other ways to fill his days—like keeping up a correspondence with the World Congress of Families, which opposes gay marriage, abortion, and pornography, and which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group.
The WCF emphasizes what they call the “natural family,” by which they mean exactly what you think they mean. As BuzzFeed reported in an excellent, in-depth piece last year, WCF conferences act as an intercontinental gathering for social conservatives who oppose homosexuality and are prone to getting into philosophical debates about whether all gay people are pedophiles or not.
Using deceptive “pro-family” rhetoric, WCF’s campaign for the “natural family” is being used to promote new laws justifying the criminalization of LGBTQ people and abortion, effectively unleashing a torrent of destructive anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ legislation, persecution, and violence around the world that ultimately damages—and seeks to dismantle—any and all “nontraditional” families (e.g. single parents, same-sex couples, grandparents, non-biological guardians, etc.).
The WCF disputes that they’re a hate group, saying in a response to the SPLC that they “stridently condemn any violence against homosexuals and would never support any legislation that would advocate such,” and have “never…taken a position on the criminalization of homosexuality.”
In a letter dated May 2016, the former president sends “greetings” and says: “I commend your efforts to recognize the importance of families in building nations. Your work improves many lives and makes the world better.”
Bush previously sent a warm letter to the group in 2004 in Mexico City, the paper notes, but a spokesperson said he has no idea what the WCF is: “Our knowledge of the group is limited to their work to encourage adoption.”
In fairness, though, it’s not difficult to believe that George W. Bush routinely has no idea who he’s writing to and would disavow any knowledge that Georgia, the country, exists.
Republican legislators and the various American filter feeders that populate YouTube’s comment section have long clung to the theory that Hillary Clinton intentionally delayed (or blocked) military reinforcements that could’ve saved the American embassy in Benghazi. Today, that theory should be over forever.
In an interview with Fox News, Select Committee on Benghazi leader Rep. Trey Gowdy admits that entire narrative—one that firmly blames then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the death of four Americans—is false. There was no way that American troops could have reached the embassy in time to save anyone. He says it himself: “Whether or not they could have gotten there in time, I don’t think there is any issue with respect to that, they couldn’t.”
Why, then do so many Republicans believe that Hillary Clinton told the military to “stand down” in Benghazi? Most likely because disingenuous GOP lawmakers and barking heads have repeated the fiction enough times for it to seem as if it must be true—true enough to be immortalized in the shitty Benghazi movie, wherein Jim from The Office is forced to stand down while Ambassador Chris Stevens is murdered.
But that fiction has been discarded even by the members of Congress whose job it is to keep the anti-Clinton Benghazi machine humming. So, this should be the last anyone hears of the “stand down” myth, except it won’t be, because the voters who truly believe it will only actually believe something if they read it on the DEPORT MEXICAN SYRIAN REFUGEE 9/11 HONKERS Facebook page.
The cruise industry is booming, and so are the fortunes of the newly popular cruise hub, Boston. Jesus. Imagine that—a cruise to Boston. Like a vacation on “opposite day.” Are these prank cruises?
This week Donald Trump submitted his personal financial disclosure forms to the FEC, a fascinating 104-page document that, more than anything else, illustrates how good the self-proclaimed billionaire is at hiding those billions. We don’t know how he did it, but they show up nowhere in the entire disclosure.
Trump’s 104-page report lists him as a director, chairman, president or member of some 564 companies collectively worth somewhere north of one-and-a-half billion, though Trump has publicly stated he’s worth more than 10 billion. (Forbes peg his net worth at less than five billion.)
This year, Trump declared a self-reported income of $615 million. (The Wall Street Journalestimates he’s really earning something more like $160 million, pre-tax.)
Because candidates report the dollar amounts of each of their sources of income not as specific amounts but as within a range set by the FEC—for example, between $1,001 and $100,000 or $100,001 and $1,000,001—it’s hard to say exactly how much he actually makes and holds from year to year.
Between his checking, savings, and money market accounts, Trump has somewhere between $6 and $30 million in cash on hand—couch money, so-to-speak. He reports another few dozen million invested with several funds.
He also appears to be carrying, at the very least, $315 million in debt.
Trump, in character as fake publicist John Miller, once observed that he’d intentionally hid evidence of his financial success during his divorce from his first ex-wife, Ivana.
“I don’t know if you heard that, but that Trump became poor until he got his divorce. And then all of the sudden he’s been doing very well,” Trump said, pretending to be someone else.
With that in mind, this billionaire’s understated disclosure can only be interpreted as a hostile move against Melania.
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Inside, you’ll find over a dozen Yukon Outfitters camping hammocks marked down to impulse-level prices. These hammocks are made of lightweight nylon for easy travel, and several even include built-in mosquito netting if you want to relax without worrying about Zika. Just note that like all Gold Box deals, these prices are only available today, or until sold out.
By the way, unless you’re going to permanently mount your new hammock in your yard or on a stand, you’ll probably want to pick up a cheap set of tree straps to go with it.
If you want to experience the joys of cooking cooking on a great skillet, but don’t have the cash for an All-Clad, this tri-ply Cuisinart is a solid facsimile, and only $50 today. Yeah, that’s a little extravagant compared to the $20 nonstick you bought in college, but it’ll heat up faster and more evenly, and if you take good care of it, it’ll last you your entire life.
By now, you should know that Anker PowerLine Lightning cables are incredibly popular, but did you know there’s another tier of cables above them? Anker’s PowerLine+ line increases the bend lifespan from 5,000 to 6,000, adds a nylon braided exterior, and includes an innovative carrying case that keeps your unused cord length from tangling. Want to see one for yourself? The 6' model is available in red for $14 today, or a couple bucks less than usual.
Assuming it’s legal in your state, a good radar/laser detector can pay for itself over time, and this highly-rated Escort Passport S55 is on sale for just $109 on BuyDig’s eBay storefront, or about $20 less than Amazon.
Today only, Groupon’s discounting refurbs of the excellent Pebble Time and Pebble Time Round smart watches for as little as $81. Just select the model you want, and use promo code SALE3 at checkout to save 10%.
Apple’s 15" Retina MacBook Pro isn’t for everybody, but if you demand a lot from your laptop, it’s one of the best options on the market. The newest model comes complete with a 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM, and you can save a whopping $400 on yours today, with no sales tax for most buyers.
For just $6 today, you can sip your drinks in style with a four pack stainless steel drinking straws. I own this exact set, and use them for everything from Coke Zero to Moscow Mules. And don’t worry, they come with a little tube cleaner to help you wash them.
The concept is basically the same: Lots of container sizes, with relatively few lid sizes. But Sterlite’s color coding system arguably makes it even easier to find the proper lid. Oh, and about those lids: They all include a sealable vent, which allows the container to release a little steam in the microwave, without expelling all of the moisture from your food. Clever!
Oh hey, would you look at that, it’s another Amazon sample box, this time featuring lotions, oral care products, sunscreen, and other beauty products. This one is more expensive than most at $15, but it comes with a $15 credit on your next beauty purchase.
It never hurts to have some extra microUSB cables, and you can get six today in various lengths for just $7 with code 6USBCORD. If only Lightning cables were that affordable.
If you have any old hard drives or SSDs lying around, this affordable docking station can turn two of them into USB external drives for any computer. We post enclosures like this fairly often, but this is pretty unique in that it supports both 2.5” and 3.5” drives, and can even clone one to the other without the use of a computer.
For a limited time, Amazon will sell you three pouches of Tide HE-compatible laundry detergent (totaling 144 ounces or 93 loads) for just $14. These pouches are designed basically as refills for plastic Tide bottles, but as long as that doesn’t bother you, this is a fantastic price-per-ounce for any detergent, let alone name brand. Just be sure to clip the $3 coupon on the page and use Amazon Subscribe & Save.
Did you know you’ve been pooping all wrong? It’s true! Luckily, the obscenely popular Squatty Potty is designed to lift your legs into an ideal bowel movement position, and you can get a 7" or9" model for just $19 on Amazon today. These things never go on sale, so if you’ve had your eye on one, it’s officially time to poop or get off the pot.
Note: These are listed for over $25 on the product page, but they’ll drop to $19 automatically at checkout. You must purchase from Squatty Potty’s Amazon listing, not Amazon’s first party one.
The only acceptable place to use a Bluetooth headset is in the car while driving, and this $10 headset answers the call with an air vent-mounted charging dock. Once you get a call, just lift it off the dock, and it’s ready to go. And since it can connect to two phones at once, it’ll still connect to your phone automatically, even if you share your car.
We’ve seen several deals lately on RFID-blocking front pocket wallets, but if none of them have been quite what you’re looking for, maybe this one will fit the bill. It’s leather, it can hold about five cards and some cash, and it’s only $7 today.
This bathroom scale doesn’t have any bells & whistles; just a sleek look, a great price, and tons of five-star reviews. Save a couple bucks with promo code HLNI3XKL.
Two and a half years after launch, PS4 console discounts are still pretty rare, but you can save 10% on a couple of bundles today on Groupon with promo code SALE3.
The parade of ridiculous Xbox One deals continue today with a 1TB holiday bundle (which includes three games), plus Fallout 4, The Division, and Doom, all for the standard $399 price of the console alone. Even if you don’t care for all of those bonus games, they’d be easy enough to sell.
American Gods is one of the most popular novels from the prolific Neil Gaiman, and the source material for an upcoming TV show. If it’s been on your to-read list, you can grab a Kindle copy today for just $3.
If you remember the old label makers that literally pressed the letters into a piece of tape, this is a bit more advanced than what you’re picturing. The Dymo LabelManager 160 can print in eight fonts at six sizes, along with clipart and special characters, and you can even preview the entire label on its LCD screen before you print. Every time we post this deal, it sells out quickly, so you’ll want to grab yours fast.
We’ve posted several deals on USB power banks that can also jump start a dead car battery, but this model from Nekteck puts out 600 amps, compared to 400-450 on most other models. For your standard dead car battery, 400 is probably enough, but if it’s really dead, or hasn’t been started in a long time, the extra oomph could make a big difference.
Amazon’s back at it again with another irresistible sample box deal. This time around, $5 gets you five or more assorted snack bars, plus a $5 credit to spend on your next snack bar purchase from Amazon. These tend to sell out within hours after we post them, so I wouldn’t chew on it for too long.
You’ve heard of Automatic’s smart driving assistant, but if $80-$100 is too rich for your blood, this cheap OBD2 dongle connects to any iPhone or Android device over Wi-Fi, and can fulfill many of the same functions using various third party apps.
The new Roku streaming stick is all you need, and Amazon just knocked $10 off its base price, the first discount we’ve ever seen. Even if you already have the old model, it might be worth $40 just for the ability to stream audio to your mobile device, enabling pseudo-wireless headphones so you can watch TV in bed without waking your significant other.
A few months ago, I bought the this exact drive in order to build a my own DIY external SSD to store photos, and it’s worked incredibly well so far. Seeing this price though, I wish I’d waited.
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Several dozen men in military fatigues and red fur hats can be seen on video punching and shoving the activists. Artyom Torchinsky—who is also a journalist for Dozhd TV, Russia’s only independent TV channel—was kicked repeatedly after being thrown to the ground, Navalny said on Twitter. Torchinsky was taken to the hospital for a head injury.
According to Reuters and Meduza, one of the Cossacks involved told Mosvka radio that they originally intended to throw some milk at the visitors, shout at them and “show them that there is no room here for Navalny, who lives on American money.” He said that one of the activists elbowed an elderly Cossack, which set off a brawl. (Another theory, one that Russia Today likes, is that these were not even Cossacks, but aggressive unidentified people “in camouflage.”)
Navalny—lawyer, politician, powerful LiveJournal blogger and occasionally arrestedthorn in Putin’s side—brought his crew to the southern Russian resort town for a country-side team-building exercise, ahead of the September primaries. Navalny called the incident “a continuation of a campaign of intimidation” orchestrated by the state, noting that armed cops had followed his group for days and the two cops at the scene barely intervened.
The Cossacks are best known for patrolling Russian borders and pogroming Jewish villages in the Czarist era, then being massacred by the Bolsheviks. Around Yeltsin’s time in the nineties, their Christian Orthodox Church-loving descendants began to enjoy a revival of traditions and employment. By the time Putinism swept the nation, they blossomed into flashy conservative squadrons, sometimes serving as an auxiliary police force on the government’s payroll, aiding the military annexation of Ukraine and volunteering at the Winter Olympic Games, where they “showed” stuff to some balaklava-clad devil-women with their whips and pepper spray.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who rode into office on a wave of populist anger—buoyed in no small part by promises of transparency—has denied an open-records request from local news channel NY1 for emails between his office and a high-powered political operative Jonathan Rosen, whose consulting firm BerlinRosen is deeply entwined with his administration.
Good government groups have accused de Blasio of operating a “shadow government” through a network of former aides and associated non-profits that operate outside City Hall to support his agenda. In a letter to NY1, a city lawyer referred to Rosen as “a consultant to the Mayoralty,” which supposedly conveys the same privilege of confidentiality granted to actual City Hall staff. Normally, emails between city officials and people outside of City Hall are presumed to be public.
“It’s disappointing to see the mayor, whose whole persona in government is about doing it for the people and being transparent about it, and to be relying on a legal analysis from some lawyer about whether this consultant’s communications are protected is ridiculous,” Dick Dadey, of the Citizens Union group, told NY1. “Just disclose.”
Communication between City Hall and Rosen is of particular interest, as Rosen and his firm’s interests are so closely aligned with the mayor’s own. “We have real questions about the role of outside consultants advising elected officials who have public staff to provide them with strategy and communication ideas,” Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York said last year, after NY1 reported that Rosen had attended 20 meetings with the mayor. “When you substitute private influence or privately paid advisors, you lose the public.”
In 2013, the de Blasio campaign paid BerlinRosen $275,000 to help get the mayor elected; in 2014, Campaign for One New York (a now-defunct non-profit lobbying group run by former de Blasio campaign staffers that happens to be under federal investigation) paid BerlinRosen more than $425,000.
At a hearing on political disclosure regulations for nonprofits in 2013, de Blasio, then public advocate, testified against the influence of “shadowy nonprofit organizations” that pose “not only a threat to our democracy but also to the integrity of our nonprofit sector.” Last year, Campaign for One New York, which focused on local issues, granted $480,000 in seed money to the Progressive Agenda Committee, de Blasio’s other (national) nonprofit.
At a press conference today, de Blasio said, “We do everything with high ethical standard, we have a lot of transparency,” and referred to Rosen as an “agent of the city.” Maybe, but then again Rosen is presumably also an agent of the clients his consulting firm works for, many of whom frequently interact with city government—like real estate developers Two Trees Management, Forest City Ratner, and the Durst Organization.
Setting aside the fact that Rosen is not actually an employee of New York City, even if he were somehow deputized (or whatever it is that the de Blasio administration is implying is happening here), there is very little reason to believe that emails between the mayor, his aides, and this so-called agent of the city would not include, for example, “factual data” or “instructions to staff that affect the public”—about which the public is entitled, by law, to know.
On Wednesday, relations between the Bernie Sanders campaign and Democratic leaders reached an embarrassing new low, resulting in the use of verbal hashtags and even accusations of shade.
Earlier this week, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Harry Reid and other party leaders asked Sanders to condemn the behavior of his supporters at this weekend’s chaotic Nevada convention. Instead, Sanders released a statement on Tuesday denouncing violence while expressing frustration with the party’s actions in Nevada.
When asked about the growing tensions on CNN Wednesday, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver tried to downplay conflict with the party as a whole by singling out Wasserman Schultz for “throwing shade.” From Politico:
“He categorically condemns any kind of threats that went on — absolutely unacceptable,” Weaver told CNN on Wednesday before accusing Wasserman Schultz of “throwing shade on the Sanders campaign since the very beginning,” citing a limited debate schedule that featured weekend debates, the campaign’s revoked access to its voter data and a joint fundraising agreement with Hillary Clinton’s campaign that Weaver said takes money away from state parties and goes to the DNC.
“Look, I gotta say it’s not the DNC,” Weaver added. “You know, by and large, people at the DNC have been very good to us. Debbie Wasserman Schultz really is the exception.”
Later that day, Wasserman Schultz dismissed Weaver’s comments.
“My response to that is hashtag SMH,” Wasserman Schultz told CNN. “We need to focus on one thing: get through this primary and work to prepare for the general election.”
“My name is Joe Biden and I love ice cream,” alleged Biden. “You all think I’m kidding—I’m not. I eat more ice cream than three other people you’d like to be with, all at once.”
Bold words, certainly. But does the Vice President’s record back it up? After an exhaustive, 15-minute investigation, Gawker managed to uncover these shocking photos:
Denver, Colorado, July 2015. Photo: APPortland, Oregon, October 2014. Photo: APNelsonville, Ohio, September 2012. Photo: APSteubenville, Ohio, May 2012. Photo: APColumbus, Ohio, January 2012. Photo: APPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 2010. Photo: AP
In conclusion, his name is Joe Biden and he loves ice cream.
EgyptAir has confirmed that Flight MS804, carrying at least 56 passengers and 10 crew members from Paris to Cairo, has disappeared.
A spokesperson for Egypt’s aviation authority reportedly told SkyNews that the plane most likely crashed into the sea. Officials say search and rescue teams have been deployed.
According to EgyptAir, the plane took off from Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport shortly after 11 p.m. local time. Officials say they lost contact with the flight at around 2:45 a.m. Cairo time.
Flightradar24's tracking service shows the plane disappearing from radar over the Mediterranean Sea some 30 to 40 miles north of the Egyptian coast. According to EgyptAir, the plane was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared.
This post will be updated as more information becomes available.
One of Donald Trump’s surrogates this week gave a new reason for why the candidate seems so confident he can get Mexico to pay for a wall: There isn’t really going to be a wall.
“I have called it a virtual wall,” Rep. Chris Collins, R-NY, said in a recent interview with The Buffalo News. “Maybe we will be building a wall over some aspects of it; I don’t know.”
Collins isn’t just a Trump supporter saying crazy things—he’s also the co-chairman of Trump’s U.S. House Leadership Committee, an honor he shares with the vaping congressman himself, Rep. Duncan Hunter.
And he’s not the only one walking back Trump’s outrageous policies. Trump himself recently admitted his proposed ban on Muslims was “just a suggestion” with no basis in reality.
“Yeah. It was a suggestion. Look, anything I say right now, I’m not the president,” Trump said in a radio interview with Fox News. “Everything is a suggestion, no matter what you say, it’s a suggestion.”
Like his proposal to immediately deport 12 million people, which Collins also said is unlikely to actually happen.
“I call it a rhetorical deportation of 12 million people,” Collins said. “We’re not going to put them on a bus, and we’re not going to drive them across the border.”
Then again: “I’m not speaking for Donald,” Collins clarified to the paper. “Those were my opinions.”
Either Trump is full of shit, or Collins is in for an extremely rude awakening—truly hard to say which.
Not to be outdone by a plane crash and 66 possible dead bodies, Donald Trump has found a way to insert himself into the EgyptAir news cycle, speculating that the plane was brought down by “yet another terrorist attack.”
The plane, carrying 66 people, crashed in Egyptian airspace on its way to Cairo. Rescue workers haven’t even found the debris yet. Egypt’s minister of civil aviation, Sherif Fathy, has said that it’s too soon to rule out either a terror attack or technical problems.
“When we have the truth, we must draw all the conclusions, whether it is an accident or another hypothesis, which everybody has in mind, the terrorist hypothesis,” French president François Hollande said Thursday. On the other hand, why wait?
Yesterday, America got a look at the new overtime rule, which will make millions of people who make less than $47,500 a year eligible for overtime pay. You may be wondering: who, exactly, is responsible for making sure I get paid for all my newfound overtime?
Any time that the government tries to actively meddle in the freedom of the free market to pay most people the absolute lowest wage and pool the absolute highest amount of wealth in the absolute fewest hands, there will be objections from the right wing that such government actions will have devastating unintended economic effects. (The Wall Street Journalis a reliable repository of such objections.) In the case of expanded overtime pay, though, the truth is that businesses have a limited number of options for shirking it: they can raise your salary over $47,500 (which would be fine), they can shift low-salaried workers to hourly pay (which still leaves them eligible for overtime), they can leave your pay the same but have you stop working long hours (fine), or they can reduce salaries in order to absorb the increase in overtime pay (which would suck, but leaves you in about the same place you are now). In an economy that is as strong as ours is now, the base fact is that businesses need labor to meet demand, and they will have to pay for that labor, and the ability to go around imposing widespread salary cuts in response to this rule is limited by the fact that unemployment is relatively low, meaning people can get other jobs.
It is also worth remembering that, adjusted for inflation, the new overtime threshold is still well below what it was back in what Republicans view as “the good old days.”
So, how do you collect on your new overtime pay? Many people are reasonably anxious about this question. The good news: your employer is required by law to track your hours and pay you accurately. It’s the law! And that hasn’t changed. We got more clarity on this point from Department of Labor spokesman Jason Surbey. Bolding ours:
The current law already requires that an employer keep an accurate record of the total number of hours worked for each day in a pay period to ensure that an employee is fully compensated for all hours worked. There is no particular form or order of records required and employers may choose how to document or record hours worked for overtime-eligible employees. The Department’s long-standing recordkeeping rules can be found at 29 C.F.R. part 516. The final rule has not changed these requirements.
Employers have options for accounting for workers’ hours - some of which are very low cost and low burden. There is no particular form or order of records required and employers may choose how to record hours worked for overtime-eligible employees. For example, where an employee works a fixed schedule that rarely varies, the employer may simply keep a record of the schedule and then indicate the changes to the schedule that the worker actually worked when the worker’s hours vary from the schedule (“exceptions reporting”). See Fact Sheet 21: Recordkeeping Requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
For employees with a flexible schedule, an employer does not need to require an employee to sign in each time she starts and stops work. The employer must keep an accurate record of the number of daily hours worked by the employee, not the specific start and end times. So an employer could allow an employee to just provide the total number of hours she worked each day, including the number of overtime hours, by the end of each pay period.
Again: your employer is legally required to keep an accurate record of your hours worked, and to pay you overtime if you qualify under the new rule, which goes into effect in December. If they don’t, sue them.
