Peggy Noonan has a dream: a dream of being cradled in Ronald Reagan’s welcoming arms, safe, protected, and embraced. That is not the dream we’re here to discuss, however. There’s another dream.
The relevant Peggy Noonan dream of the moment: that after this contentious and grinding primary election season, in which she has been called upon to write as many as one columns per week about her hazy political impressions of whites and nonwhites alike, she might be able to repair any relations that may have been torn with the various presidential candidates, because that is “Journalism 101,” as those of you who are frequent guests on Sunday political talk shows are well aware. Yet the downright boorish behavior of one “Ted” Cruz at the Republican National Convention has forced Peggy to withdraw her extended hand of friendship and retreat once again into the bosom of Reagan, the only man who has ever known her heart and soul.
When his campaign ended in June, I attended a small dinner in his honor. Mr. Cruz was charming, modest and funny. When we said goodnight I told him I felt, in retrospect, that I hadn’t always been just to him and was glad I’d have a chance to be more generous in the future. Apparently I will need still more time. What a jerk.
In your lust for power, sir, you have lost the only thing in this world that truly means anything, sir: the friendship of a journalist that you can leverage in your own self-serving way in years to come.
CLEVELAND— That Donald Trump is unpopular among women is well-known. The statistic citing seven out of ten women who have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican nominee and his penchant for sexism have been central features of both conservative anti-Trump campaigns and the Clinton campaign. But at the Republican National Convention, that unfavorable opinion doesn’t exist—or at least it isn’t worth talking about. It’s either a lie propagated by the liberal media who is in the corrupt pocket of Hillary Clinton or by Clinton herself, a felon, who uses gender like a bludgeon against conservative women.
Throughout the Republican Nation Convention, conservative women, who are, more often than not, wealthy and white, positioned themselves as seers and as outsiders. After all, they are uniquely positioned to wade through the bullshit and propaganda truth, in a community dependent on domestic authority and in which common sense is found at the kitchen table.
The Republican reframing of national security and economics as a family issue and thus, by extension, a women’s issue has been successful. The “Security Mom,” a hypothetical woman invented after September 2001 who was anxious about violence, both real and perceived, was rarely mentioned by name, but her specter haunted. During her speech at Women Vote Trump (a political action committee not affiliated with the campaign), Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) spoke of threats from ISIS and “illegal immigrants” sneaking across the border.
Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are dust in the wind and in their place, so the new Security Mom, worries about ISIS (which, according to organizers of Women Vote Trump, exists in all 50 states). On Monday, Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, a Foreign Service employee who was killed in Benghazi, took on the role. Sean Smith is a real testament that terrorism—as well as the lax security policies of Barack Obama and, by extension, Hillary Clinton—can quickly end the lives of loved American children. “I am a woman, a mother and a grandmother of two,” his mother said with tears in her eyes. “How could [Clinton] do this to me?” She was followed by other mothers who conflated terrorism with immigration, insisting that the threat of both is very real, very dangerous, and is coming for you. As Pat Smith said to a standing ovation, Trump is not “afraid to kill the terrorists.” Security is knowing that your children are safe at night, from all of the real and fictional things that might go bump in the night.
Security is a two-fold concept: it’s not simply the ability to feel safe in a suburban home, unthreatened by evil terrorists out to behead your children; it’s also safety from financial security and persecution. Both are undercut by lax liberal values like reckless spending, Obamacare, and political correctness. What Republicans have traditionally defined as “family values”—abortion, parental choice, that simultaneously abstract and concrete idea of good families—is subsumed to a message more befitting to Trump’s campaign. Family values, especially as presented at the RNC, are more about safety and less about the evangelical values of the past (though, the Republican platform is clear in its advocacy of those values).
It’s not just the older women who are concerned with security and invested in the Security Mom. At a Tuesday panel on millennial women voters, Alex Smith, National Chair of the College Republican National Committee, actually used the phrase itself. There was something jarring about seeing a recent college graduate invested in the Security Mom, a concept nearly as old as millennials, at the cost of discussion about the representation of women in Trump’s campaign or reproductive rights or equal pay.
Perhaps that’s because women’s power—specifically, conservative women’s power—is still deeply rooted in domesticity; they wield what they have as wives and mothers. During a She Should Run panel on Thursday, Blackburn appealed to “kitchen table economics,” women’s common sense on fiscal policy as learned at home. She also alluded to her role as a mother as evidence of her authority, suggesting that Republican women could create party unity. When asked about Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorse Trump, Blackburn responded that she “would tell [Cruz] the same thing I would tell my kids, ‘get over yourself.’”
The dance with gender and identity at the RNC was, at best, awkward. “The women problem,” the co-chair of Women Vote Trump said, “is from the liberal news media and propaganda.” That groups like Women Vote Trump or panels filled with young female Republicans exist is not necessarily proof that women might need a space of their own to create political action, according to Blackburn, it’s merely proof that liberals and the media don’t allow the dissonant voices of women who support Trump to be heard. “Men and liberal women discount conservative women’s point of view,” Blackburn said.
They suspect it’s because they’re not acting as women should, not voting for Clinton as prescribed by the news media, and in turn, it reaffirms their suspicions that they are outsiders. And the eye-rolling statements from members of their own party are numerous enough that they’re not worth a history. The most recent example, however, was Trump advisor Paul Manafort who, in an interview with MSNBC, said women would vote for Trump because “They can’t afford their lives. Their husbands can’t afford paying the family bills.”
“We are the fourth rung,” Blackburn said as she described the plight of conservative women. And rectifying that—to be heard, to be seen and present—seems the primary purpose of the majority of women for Trump. What exactly they want to say, however, it a bit ambiguous. Women want equal pay and representation, as well as an acknowledgment that they are party leaders, but they don’t allow that such issues are born from systemic discrimination. At Women Vote Trump, co-founder Ann Stone lauded Trump for his equal hiring practices; unlike Clinton, he pays women equally and women are valuable assets in his company. And Pat Smith said that she’d like to see “20 more Joni Ernsts,” referring to the Iowa senator who was bumped from her primetime convention slot.
At the RNC, identity politics are undoubtedly the enemy, but then to support Trump, perhaps they need to be. Sure, women are women and they necessarily speakaswomen, but that doesn’t define them. It’s circular reasoning, but then, that’s reflective of the Trump campaign itself. Ivanka Trump, who is often touted as her father’s “secret weapon,” has described her father as a feminist. In her Thursday night speech, Ivanka tried to recast her father as a champion for women; a fighter for family leave, equal pay, and childcare. Trump himself doesn’t actually have a policy on any of these issues, but it played well to the crowd, who (surprisingly) cheered at a pay gap statistic that many Republicans argue is inaccurate. According to Ivanka, she was encouraged to go into the family business and given female role models. It’s an emphasis on personal achievement hindered only by the self; gender isn’t a curse as long as you work hard. “My father is race blind and gender neutral,” Ivanka said.
That theme—that discrimination might exist, but only needs some grit to overcome—was peppered throughout the convention. In her Thursday night speech, Mary Fallin said that it was her mother taught her that “if I worked hard I can do anything. I took that to heart and became the first female governor of Oklahoma.” Conservative women are leaning in.
They are also interested in the language of choice, but not as it pertains to abortion. Freedom of choice is about speech, about the choice to speak politically incorrect words, express thoughts that are “politically incorrect,” and to have those words heard. There is an insistence that such thoughts are stifled for fear of being called racist or sexist. Criticism and censorship are conflated; the sense that conservative women believe themselves to be persecuted is very tangible. Trump not only says what they’re thinking—a proxy fighter for reclaiming the public sphere in totality—but he listens. “Trump is a terrific listener,” Blackburn said. “He’s interested in what you accomplish.”
To be heard, be visible and speak freely without fear of retaliation was the same message that three young Black Lives Matter demonstrators expressed to me. The three young women from the Cleveland area had made the drive downtown to sit in Public Square and hold handmade black and white signs (one read “No Justice, No Peace”; the other, a list of names of people of color who had been killed by the police, including Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old killed by Cleveland police in 2014).
Simply put, these three activists also wanted to safe, but their location of danger and its causes are very different than their conservative counterparts. They also wanted to be seen—that’s why they’d come to the RNC, to remind people in what they called the “Trump bubble” that they existed. But at the RNC, there was a resolute refusal to look and listen to these women; BLM’s insistence on identity politics (or “political correctness) is, like ISIS and immigration, one of the threats to safety. While women at the RNC ask to be seen and heard, they refuse to return the favor.
A shooting at Olympia shopping mall in Munich, Germany, has left at least six people dead and many others injured, according to various reports.
Witnesses reported seeing several shooters, and as of this afternoon, Munich police have said that three suspects armed with rifles are still on the loose:
Police have asked Munich residents to stay indoors as they search for at least one gunman, who opened fire in, or near, a McDonald’s at the outskirts of the mall.
Via the BBC, the video below shows man shooting at a small, unsuspecting crowd. No one appears to be hit, and you can hear the man fire upwards of a dozen rounds.
Gun rampages are rare in Germany, as they are across Europe. In 2010, a woman killed four people after opening fire in a hospital in the city of Lörrach.
Update 10:51 PM: It appears nine people were killed and 21 injured in the shooting spree, committed by an 18-year-old German-Iranian:
Photo of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz via AP
Russia, by way of Wikileaks, today released close to 20,000 hacked DNC emails searchable by keyword, just in time for the convention.
According to Wikileaks, the cache of emails come from the inboxes of seven central DNC employees—Communications Director Luis Miranda, National Finance Director Jordan Kaplan, Finance Chief of Staff Scott Comer, Finance Director of Data & Strategic Initiatives Daniel Parrish, Finance Director Allen Zachary, Senior Advisor Andrew Wright, and Northern California Finance Director Robert Stowe.
Of the 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments, only 19 contain the word “daddy.” Others appear to contain personal information, including credit card numbers, despite the DNC’s initial claim that no personal donor information was accessed in the hack.
The news across America this summer: sharks. Alive!
Photos of sharks swimming on the Jersey shore are causing a stir. Videos of sharks swimming near the beach are in the local news. A shark sighting in Pacifica, California “has some beachgoers spooked.” On Coney Island, shark sightings this week caused authorities to close the beach.
Do people know that sharks actually live in the water? The same water that’s adjacent to the beach. They’re always there. Doesn’t seem that newsworthy.
Call me when you find a shark that’s not in the water!
WikiLeaks firmly believes in radical transparency, the idea that the world would be better if there were no secrets. That level of transparency can be used for good, like the time the site published a video called “Collateral Murder” showing innocent journalists shot to oblivion by US troops in 2010. But not always.
The organization has also used that tradition of transparency for less just causes, like today when the site published 19,252 emails from top US Democratic National Committee members, many of which included personal information about innocent donors including credit card, social security numbers, and passport numbers.
If you visit the WikiLeaks DNC emails website, you can browse the emails using a simple boolean search. Typing a word like “contribution” will actually turn up hundreds of results. The emails include unencrypted, plain-text listings of donor emails addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, passport numbers, and credit card information. WikiLeaks proudly announced the data dump in a single tweet.
The new leak is part of the organization’s ongoing Hillary Leaks series, which launched in March as a searchable archive of more than 30,000 emails and attachments sent to and from Clinton’s private email server, while she was Secretary of State. The original email dump included documents from June 2010 to August 2014. The new release includes emails from January 2015 to May 2016.
This isn’t the first time WikiLeaks has recklessly published personal information of innocent civilians, either. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission have previously requested that WikiLeaks remove names of Afghan civilians in 77,000 classified military documents published online. The civilians were (ironically) collateral damage in the same leak that spurred the “Collateral Murder” video obtained by Wikileaks.
Exactly why Wikileaks decided not to redact the private information of unsuspecting Americans remains unclear. We’ve reached out for comment and will update as soon as we hear back.
“I am overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace most of the issues that I have championed for years,” says Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke in a video announcement of his plans to run for U.S. Senate in Louisiana today, the day after he came out in praise of Trump’s Republican nominee acceptance speech. Among other white-supremacist things the famous white-supremacist said are:
I believe in equal rights for all and respect for all Americans. However, what makes me different is I also demand respect for the rights and heritage of European Americans... Thousands of special interest groups stand up for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Jewish-Americans, etc. etc. The fact is that European-Americans need at least one man in the United States Senate, one man in the Congress, who will represent their rights and heritage.
But that’s not all. Duke said “America First” first. Oh, and the immigrants! Duke is going to stop those immigrants that are doing a “racial and ethnic cleansing of people whose forefathers created America.”
Duke is seeking the open seat vacated by Republican David Vitter, the AP reports. He has previously served one term in the Louisiana’s House of Representatives, served time in prison for tax and mail fraud, and hasn’t run for office since 1999. But he’s been very inspired lately. And so, here we are.
According to one incredibly detailed summary in the cache of hacked DNC emails, the White House vetoed a performance by Ariana Grande because she was caught on camera licking a bunch of donuts.
On September 10, 2015, DNC Finance Chair Zachary Allen sent an email asking that Grande, hot off the heels of her donut scandal, be vetted for a potential gala performance for the president.
“Can we also vet Arianna Grande?” Allen wrote, butchering her name, much as Grande often butchers her own lyrics.
And vet her they did. “Ariana Butera,” Deputy Compliance Director Kevin wrote in an incredibly detailed response. “Video caught her licking other peoples’ donuts while saying she hates America; Republican Congressman used this video and said it was a double standard that liberals were not upset with her like they are with Trump who criticized Mexicans; cursed out a person on Twitter after that person used an offensive word towards her brother,”
White House employee Bobby Schmuck—real name—ultimately vetoed her in two words: “Nope, sorry.”
Here is the full vetting, which is incredible:
Hello everyone,
Finance would like to use Ariana Grand as a performer for the Gala.
Thanks, Kevin
Ariana Butera-video caught her licking other peoples’ donuts while saying she hates America; Republican Congressman used this video and said it was a double standard that liberals were not upset with her like they are with Trump who criticized Mexicans; cursed out a person on Twitter after that person used an offensive word towards her brother.
4605 NW 24th Ave Boca Raton, FL 33431
DOB: 6/1993
Employer/Occupation: Self Singer
NGP Notes: None
NGP Vet History: None
CONTRIBUTIONS: None
EVENTS: None
LOBBYIST/DOJ FARA: No
EARMARKS/TARP/ARRA: None
LIENS: No
JUDGMENTS: None
BANKRUPTCIES: None
CRIMINAL RECORDS: None
LEXIS-NEXIS NEWS SEARCH: Yes
*No criminal charges for Grande after doughnut licking video: “It brought on two long YouTube apologies, but Ariana Grande’s doughnut licking video won’t lead to criminal charges.
Police in Lake Elsinore, California said in a statement Monday that the owner of Wolfee Donuts, where the licking took place, declined to press charges against Grande. They say their investigation was primarily to help the Department of Health, which lowered the restaurant’s grade from an “A” to a “B” for leaving the tray of doughnuts exposed.
In the second of her two YouTube apologies posted last week, the 22-year-old singer said she was “disgusted” with herself and wanted to “disappear” after TMZ posted the video.
In another online apology earlier in the week she expressed regret at saying “I hate America” in the same video.” (The San Mateo Daily Journal-July 15, 2015)
* Police investigating Ariana Grande’s video doughnut licking: “Police said Wednesday they were investigating video that appears to show Ariana Grande licking doughnuts at a shop in Southern California. Earlier, Grande apologized for saying “I hate America” in the same video.
Police in Lake Elsinore, where the doughnut shop is located, said they and Riverside County public health officials were investigating the leaked video, which appeared to show the 22-year-old singer and a man with her “maliciously lick” the doughnuts.
Mayra Solis, 22, a cashier on duty at Wolfee Donuts when Grande went into the store, said the singer didn’t purchase any of the doughnuts she licked.
“She was really rude,” Solis told The Associated Press.
Earlier Wednesday, Grande said in a statement to the AP that she’s a proud American.
“I am EXTREMELY proud to be an American and I’ve always made it clear that I love my country. What I said in a private moment with my friend, who was buying the doughnuts, was taken out of context and I am sorry for not using more discretion with my choice of words,” the statement read.
In the video posted Tuesday by TMZ, Grande says “What ... is that? I hate Americans. I hate America” when a tray of doughnuts appears in front of her.
Grande said she chose to express herself as she did because she leads a healthy lifestyle and is upset with “how freely we as Americans eat and consume things without giving any thought to the consequences.”
“The fact that the United States has one of the highest child obesity rates in the world frustrates me. We need to do more to educate ourselves and our children about the dangers of overeating and the poison that we put into our bodies,” she said. “However I should have known better in how I expressed myself; and with my new responsibility to others as a public figure I will strive to be better.”
Asked about the police investigation, Grande’s representatives said she would not have further comment.
Dottie Ellis-Merki, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County Department of Environmental Health, said the agency was investigating why the doughnuts were left out unprotected and exposed to the public, in violation of state food laws. She said investigators found no further issues at the shop on Wednesday.
“During the investigation, the manager did state they normally don’t leave donuts out like was shown in the video,” Ellis-Merki said in an email to the AP. “The employee went to the back to retrieve freshly made donuts by request of the customer and left the trays out while getting other trays.” (Associated Press Online-July 9, 2015)
* Ariana Grande blasts fan for homophobic remark about brother: “Pop star ARIANA GRANDE has lashed out at a fan for posting a homophobic remark about her gay half-brother on her Instagram.com page.
Frankie Grande initially hid the fact he is related to the singer/actress by adopting his father’s last name of Marchione when he signed on for the current season of U.S. reality show Big Brother, but he has since come clean about his connection to Grande.
His tactics drew a number of negative comments from social media users, and one in particular caught the Problem hitmaker’s eye after the fan referred to Frankie as “that homo” in the comments section of her Instagram profile page.
Blasting the follower, the 21 year old reportedly wrote, “That ‘homo’ is the fiercest, most incredible, funniest, most intelligent, kind hearted and most LOVED person on the face of the planet!
“he also cleaned up his game and told the truth to everybody in the house WHICH by the way, nobody else on the show has done. so i don’t give a flying f**k if or when he comes home!!! he is incredible and i am SO proud!!!! oh and also ‘that homo’ gets more a** than you’ll ever get in your life. k miss thing ?” (Daily Star Online-August 13, 2014)
INTERNET: Yes
YouTube video of the donut and hate America incident
* Ariana Grande Getting Off Easier Than Donald Trump, GOP Congressman Says: “A Republican congressman from South Carolina is calling out America’s “double standards” for not bashing Ariana Grande the way it has Donald Trump.
Jeff Duncan said in a Facebook post Saturday he was curious why companies TV networks such as NBC, Univision and ESPN, and other businesses such as record labels and concert venues have not had any response to the recent leak of a video showing the 22-year-old Grande licking donuts and saying, “I hate America.”
Meanwhile, those companies were “mighty quick to jump on the ‘bash Donald Trump’ bandwagon when he spoke about illegal aliens and ‘sanctuary city’ policies,” Duncan wrote.
When announcing his presidential candidacy, Trump said that Mexican migrants to the U.S. are drug traffickers and rapists, as well as “some ... good people.” And, since, he has gone on to defend these statements, while losing millions of dollars in sponsorships and other business opportunities.
“This misguided young pop singer said that she hated America and hated Americans, while she proceeded to contaminate food for resale with the very tongue with which she uttered the hatred rant,” Duncan’s post continued. “The double-standards in this country are disgusting.”
Grande has apologized several times for the incident.” (billboard.com-7/13/2015)
According to hacked DNC emails published by Wikileaks, BuzzFeed president Greg Coleman made a $10,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee on May 23 for an event hosted by BuzzFeed chairman Ken Lerer and attended by President Obama—just two weeks before BuzzFeed’s advertising department canceled a $1.3 million ad deal with the Republican National Committee.
The contribution, which had a filing deadline of June 20, is not currently listed on the FEC website, though the agency says it takes “approximately” thirty days to process filings.
Although the DNC claimed no personal donor information had been captured in the hack, Coleman’s name, email address, home address, birth date, social security number and what appears to be a MasterCard number, are all listed in the cache, as are those of dozens of other donors. (Gawker is not linking to any emails containing credit card or Social Security numbers.)
The donation, other emails show, was made to guarantee a seat at a June 8 DNC fundraiser held at the home of BuzzFeed chairman Ken Lerer. The event, which featured President Obama, who was in New York that week, was reportedly attended by 60 donors, and raised at least $668,900, according to emails sent between Lerer and Zachary Allen, the chairman of Tipah Consulting.
Two weeks after Coleman’s donation, and two days before the fundraiser, BuzzFeed announced its ad department had canceled a deal with the Republican National Committee to run a Donald Trump ad campaign on the website. In an email to staff, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti explained the candidate’s policies were antithetical to the value’s held by BuzzFeed’s advertising department.
“The tone and substance of his campaign are unique in the history of modern US politics. Trump advocates banning Muslims from traveling to the United States, he’s threatened to limit the free press, and made offensive statements toward women, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and foreign nationals,” Peretti wrote. “Earlier today Buzzfeed informed the RNC that we would not accept Trump for President ads and that we would be terminating our agreement with them. The Trump campaign is directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States and around the world and in some cases, such as his proposed ban on international travel for Muslims, would make it impossible for our employees to do their jobs.”
Coleman doesn’t appear to play an editorial role in BuzzFeed’s structure, and it’s common for media executives to make political donations. But BuzzFeed’s decision to reject Trump ads is—while laudable—a relatively rare step by a media company into partisan politics.
It’s not clear what role Coleman, the president of the company, played in the decision to cancel the ad campaign, and he has yet not returned a request for comment. Still, it seems highly unlikely he was not involved in the high-profile, expensive decision to cancel the RNC’s ads. BuzzFeed announced when he was hired that he would be responsible for “the management and growth of all facets of the business, including sales, creative services, marketing, ad products and business development.”
As the world waits for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to announce her running mate, Jezebel has been thinking, hard. And we have a great idea.
What if Clinton passes over Sen. Tim Kaine, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Corey Booker—all human politicians with human flaws—and opts for something a little more... rebarkable?
What if Clinton added a dog to her ticket? Picture this:
Hillary Clinton/Corey Barker
Hillary Clinton/Tim Kanine
Hillary Clinton/Julian Catstro (in this case, that would be a cat)
Hillary Clinton/Elizabark Rawren (a dog and a lion)
On June 15, 2015, Breaion King, an African American elementary school teacher, was approached by Austin police officer Bryan Richter in a parking lot. The officer said she was driving 15 miles over the speed limit. As captured on two police videos—obtained by Austin American-Statesman and KVUE yesterday, more than a year after the incident—King was then body-slammed, thrown to the ground repeatedly and pulled violently by her arms, which were handcuffed and jerked in a 90-degree angle. Austin officials are investigating the case.
About an hour later, in the back of the cop car, King was lectured by a different transporting officer, Patrick Spradlin, on why white people are afraid of black people. Specifically, their “violent tendencies” and “their appearance and whatnot, some of them are very intimidating.”
It is unclear exactly what happened between King and Richter’s initial conversation off camera. There is shouting: A terrified King, an angry Richter. “Oh my god, why are you doing this!” “Stop resisting!” “I’m not!” “Get on the ground!” “I’m getting up!” Watching a 112-pound woman slammed into the ground, tripped, lifted into the air, and slammed into the ground again, for her crime of speeding sure looks like what they call “excessive force.” (King’s charge of resisting arrest has been dropped since the release of this video.)
The Washington Postwrote up a detailed account of the two tapes. The transcript of the woman’s conversation with her transporting officer is particularly unsettling:
“I’m not saying anything, I’m not saying it’s true, I’m not saying I agree with it or nothing,” Spradlin says. “But 99 percent of the time, when you hear about stuff like that, it is the black community that is being violent. That’s why a lot of white people are afraid. And I don’t blame them.”
When King asked him, “How do y’all know before you even hire a person that they are not a racist?” Spradlin had a theory:
“Oh, trust me. There is a four-hour psych exam that we’ve got to go through. Four hours of psychological testing we go through prior to being hired. So yeah, there’s a lot to it.”
“So do you think later on they build a certain type of image about certain people after working, and then become racist?” she asks.
“Oh yeah,” he answers. “I’m sure.”
In a press conference, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said: “My heart was sickened and saddened when I first learned of this incident... For those that think life is perfect for people of color, I want you to listen to that conversation and tell me we don’t have social issues in this nation. Issues of bias. Issues of racism. Issues of people being looked at different because of their color.”
According to the Statesman, the police chief also noted that he can’t take disciplinary action except for a written reprimand, because the incident took place more than six months ago.
Hillary Clinton announced this evening that Virginia senator Tim Kaine will be her running mate. Look how cool and relatable he looks in this photo!
Per the New York Times, she considered Thomas Perez and Cory Booker, among others, before deciding on Kaine:
Mrs. Clinton had entertained more daring choices. She considered Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor, who would have been the first Hispanic on a major party ticket; Senator Cory Booker, of New Jersey, who would have been the first African-American to seek the vice presidency; and Adm. James G. Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who served as the supreme allied commander at NATO, but had never held elected office.
Beau Cribbs and Tim Kaine circa 2008. Photo courtesy Cribbs
Earlier this week, Gawker received an email from one Beau Cribbs, Senator Tim Kaine’s body man from 2008 to 2010, when he was governor of Virginia. “My job was sort of like Tony Hale’s on ‘VEEP,’ but only slightly less pathetic,” Cribbs wrote. Aw.
“I’m (shamelessly) reaching out to volunteer myself as a character witness for Senator Tim Kaine if/when he’s selected as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the next few days,” Cribbs, who now works as a political consultant, explained. “I’m still pretty close to him personally, so I might be able to give you some insight into what he’s like beyond the public persona (I don’t think he’s boring, by the way).”
Asked why people think Kaine is boring, Cribbs wrote:
I think it’s easy to call him dull because he doesn’t get in Twitter fights or wear hats with campaign slogans tastefully embroidered on the front.
And I suppose you can call him boring when compared to candidates that get into hand-measuring contests and throw grenades every single day.
But I spent many 15 hour days with the guy traveling on the road when he was governor, and this is a guy that is full of attributes that are sorely missing from the 2016 campaign: He’s thoughtful, consensus-building, and genuinely cheerful. He also knows a hell of a lot about baseball and music, too.
Sure, history says this is what was expected. The Democrats have given us Joe Biden, better known for his flubs than his actual oratory execution; Al Gore, whose “look at how hard I am acting like I am hot for my wife” kiss is impossible to forget; and Walter Mondale, whose face I cannot picture at all even as I know that Ronald Reagan kicked his ass in 1984. Are you old? Are you white? Are you not too ambitious because you can’t overshadow No. 1? Perfect! Welcome to the Democratic presidential ticket!
Yes, Tim Kaine speaks Spanish. That doesn’t mean as much as Clinton’s camps will make it out to—Jeb Bush is fluent in Spanish, as are more than 50 million Americans, and that it’s seen as a big deal is political circles is just a sad referendum on how English-only those circles are. Similarly, his year spent in Honduras as a Catholic missionary is being trotted out as if something millions of people do—go abroad—is edgy because it was on a continent that was not Europe.
His resumé is the expected list of working-his-way-up-the ladder jobs: mayor to lieutenant governor to governor to chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He’s pro-free trade and kinda-sort of pro-choice, with some purple-state squishiness as outlined by the BBC:
While he is committed to the broader tenants of Roe v Wade, including a woman’s right to choose, he supports restrictions on certain types of abortion, parental consent laws and “informed consent” practices.
The Gray Lady, ever cautious because sources must be greased, put it politely: “Mrs. Clinton had entertained more daring choices.” There are random strangers on the street who would be more interesting. You, dear reader, might be more interesting. All these pre-written Kaine stories have almost no interesting anecdotes about him, and my only takeaway is that because there are none. This is the wet blanket of vice-presidential picks, dampening hopes that Clinton would counter the GOP’s recently nationally televised white power festival (they called it a “convention”) with a loud declaration that the Democratic Party’s own full-on declaration of support for inclusion, tolerance, and expansion of rights for the neediest was here.
Picking a boring white guy isn’t a surprise: even Obama did it! But the revolution, where America entrusts the most powerful job complex in the world to not one but two not-white-straight-men, will have to wait.
In a more perfect world, our national leaders would be judged by the content of their character, the way their strong wills contest against their empathy in difficult situations, and their willingness to do what was right as opposed to what would get them re-elected. But that’s just the plot of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, so let’s talk about how they really get judged: On looks, on folksiness, on if they seem like fun guys at happy hour.
Personally, I’m having a hard time believing newly minted Democratic Party VP candidate Tim Kaine would be able to hold his own at the local happy hour with such sports treason as this:
The Virginia governor grew up in Overland Park, Kan., and is an avowed Jayhawks fan. Back in 2005, he called them his favorite team. But not, as it turns out, on the gridiron.
“I root for the Jayhawks in basketball,” Kaine told us yesterday. “I’ve never been a KU football fan.”
Let me interject here to say that Kansas is historically weak in football, which makes our man Kaine a significant opportunist. (“Oh, I only root for Kansas in the sport it’s good at!”) It gets worse:
Parsing the nuances of team loyalty, Kaine explained that his parents were “K-Staters” (Kansas State U) and he graduated from the University of Missouri, which meant he was usually rooting against rival KU.
So he roots for the school that is the fiercest rival of his alma mater and where his parents attended. This is worse than when Carly Fiorina pandered to Iowa voters by abandoning her alma mater in the Rose Bowl to pull for the Hawkeyes (and that didn’t work out for her). This might rank up there with when John Kerry asked for Swiss cheese on his Philly cheesesteak (and that didn’t work out for him either). The Democrats might be screwed.
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While it doesn’t print in color, it more than makes up for that with the ability to spit out 32 pages per minute, duplex printing, and inexpensive toner cartridges that can last for years without being replaced. We’ve posted a lot of Brother deals in the past, and we’ve heard nothing but good things from readers about them. Plus, this particular model has a sterling 4.4 star review average on Amazon, a built-in scanner, and AirPrint and Google Cloud Print support, so it should serve you well for years.
If you’re ready to step up to 4K, BuyDig’s eBay storefront is selling a 55" LG 4K smart TV for $650 today. This particular model sells for $1,000 or more elsewhere, and it even comes with a “Magic Remote” which lets you search for shows with your voice.
The new DJI Phantom 4 sure looks impressive, but for $500 less, you can pick up the still-completely-amazing Phantom 3 Professional today, plus a spare battery, a carrying case, and even a 2TB external hard drive. To put it simply, that’s one of the best drone deals we’ve ever seen.
You also get Anker’s standard 18 month warranty and a nice travel pouch, but the real reason to buy the PowerCore 10000 is its size. If you’ve owned other ~10,000mAh battery packs, you’ll be shocked how small and light this thing is, which makes it ideal for carrying in your back pocket on Pokémon hunts.
At first glance, this looks like a regular grill brush, but the Grill Daddy actually features a water reservoir and nozzle. Just spray some onto a hot grill as you brush, and the steam will help loosen up that tough-to-remove charred residue.
That price gets you 1080p recording, night vision, auto on/off, and a g-force sensor to automatically lock your footage in the event of an accident. Now go film some meteors.
5% isn’t a huge discount, but every dollar counts when it comes to buying games on Steam, or rarely-discounted games and DLC through the Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo digital storefronts.
If you still haven’t watched Firefly, or just want to own a physical copy for posterity, the complete Blu-ray is down to $13 on Amazon, the best price ever listed. Shiny!
Need to fill out your summer wardrobe? Gap has something for just about everyone, and today, they’re taking 40% off sitewide with promo code HAPPY. Plus, all orders over $50 ship for free.
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.
LEGO has come to be dominated by licensed sets with strict instructions and little room for creativity, but you can still buy a big ol’ box of LEGO bricks for $15 on Amazon today, an all-time low. It doesn’t include Han Solo or a Minecraft creeper, but you will get 303 pieces to build whatever you want.
As part of its Black Friday in July sale, Best Buy is offering up $5 gift cards when you purchase $50 in select gift cards to other retailers, or $10 when you buy $100.
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On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan enacted an emergency decree to shutter thousands of institutions across the country, including private schools and charities, Reuters reports. The emergency decree is Erdogan’s first since imposing a three-month state of emergency on Wednesday after a military insurrection against his government failed a week ago.
The Anadolu agency, a state-run Turkish news source, reports, that Erdogan authorized the closure of 1,229 charities and foundations, 1,043 private schools, 35 medical institutions, 19 trade unions, and 15 universities. These institutions are allegedly linked to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his teachings. Erdogan believes Gulen is responsible for inciting the coup, and demanded his extradition to Turkey from Pennsylvania last week.
Over the past week Turkish authorities have aggressively detained people in the Turkish judiciary, education system, military, and police departments, targeting in particular alleged followers of Gulen.
The state of emergency gives Erdogan the power to pass laws and suspend civil rights without going through the tortuous business of winning parliamentary approval.
The reality of the situation is approximately as Orwellian as it sounds. Ugur Tanyeli, dean of faculty of architecture at Bilgi University in Istanbul told the New York Times on Friday, “We were given no information as to what will happen next. We were just asked to resign, and we resigned.”
80 people are dead and at least 260 wounded from an explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan that detonated on Saturday in the midst of a peaceful demonstration by members of Hazara, a Shiite minority group, CNN reports.
The head of the United Nations assistance mission in Afghanistan called the attack a “war crime” for its targeting of civilians.
The Islamic State’s media group, Amaq, alleges the attack was carried out by two ISIS fighters who detonated suicide belts.
Fatima Faizi, an Afghan freelance journalist, told CNN, “I saw tens of people laying down in blood around me and hundreds of people running away from the scene.”
An Afghan intelligence source told the BBC that Abo Ali, an ISIS commander, has sent three jihadists from the Nangarhar province to carry out the attack.
The Taliban has denied involvement in the attack, calling it, in statement posted on their website, “a plot to ignite civil war.”
If Roger Ailes has at times reminded you of a depraved, wizened Roger Sterling, don’t worry you are not alone.
Remember, Ailes is the guy who resigned as chairman and CEO of Fox News this week after dozens of women accused him of sexually harassing them. These allegations go as far back as the ‘60s, a time when workplace sexism also existed.
In a Washington Post article published Friday, in which dozens of current and former Fox News employees spoke anonymously (either because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement, or feared retribution), a former high-ranking network executive said:
I look at Roger [Ailes], it’s like Mad Men. This guy can of age in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s when it was a whole different culture. I don’t think he was thinking [what he was saying] was really all that bad.
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