Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Two Words, Chanted (Creators Syndicate)
If we can't chant it, we don't want it. Doesn't rhyme. Doesn't have to. It's too long anyway. Like "Yankees Suck" or "Sieg Heil," what you want in a chant is brevity. If possible, two words, maybe three words. "Couldn't arrest him because he's a sitting president," can't be chanted, so it's no good. "Lock her up!" Now, there's a chant. It's short, action-y, muscular and can apply to any "her" at any time.
Mark Shields: Can Democrats Ever Get to the Fourth Stage? (Creators Syndicate)
Stage Four: Get Me a Winner! Remember 1952? Republicans had lost five consecutive presidential elections to FDR and Harry Truman. So Republicans, depleted by internal strife between isolationists and internationalists, and between conservatives and moderates, nominated the American Hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who until one year before the election had belonged to neither a political party nor an organized religion. But Ike was a winner, just as Bill Clinton would be for Democrats - 40 years later - after that party had lost five of the previous six White House contests.
Lenore Skenazy: Why We're Talking About Tom Brady in the Off-Season (Creators Syndicate)
Fact: We love talking about celebrities. Fact: We love judging parents. Fact: When you put the two together, it's like a giant peanut butter cup. Chocolate! Peanut butter! Mmm!
Susan Estrich: Justice Stevens (Creators Syndicate)
It was Justice Stevens who taught me not only how to write but also how to think like a lawyer. In the 40 years since, I have never met a finer one. May he rest in peace.
Susan Estrich: Heat Wave (Creators Syndicate)
On the day I left Paris (after a well-timed visit to my daughter), the temperature was 96 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was still morning. That day, it climbed to 104; the next day was the hottest in France in recorded history.
Froma Harrop: Democrats, Send the Wonks Home (Creators Syndicate
Wouldn't strengthening the Affordable Care Act and adding a public option - a government-run health plan that would compete with private plans - be the easier sell? Joe Biden is championing the idea.
Froma Harrop: Build a Wall to Keep Them in (Creators Syndicate)
I'll never forget the man with one of the least glamorous jobs in the place - collecting plastic bags of garbage at night. It was 10 p.m. on a Saturday, and I was feeling a bit lonely reading on my lighted Kindle. The man silently emptied my trash can and, upon seeking me sitting in the dark, said in an African accent, "I hope you feel better very soon." I almost cried. America needs people with technical skills, that's true. But some virtues cannot be measured by standardized tests. In reforming our immigration program, let's recognize that humanity is another quality that often seems in short supply.
Connie Schultz: So, No Oscar for Mueller? (Creators Syndicate)
NADLER: "Director Mueller, the president has repeatedly claimed that your report found there was no obstruction and that it completely and totally exonerated him, but that is not what your report said, is it?"
MUELLER: "Correct, that is not what it said."
NADLER, after reading an excerpt of Mueller's report: "Does that say there was no obstruction?"
MUELLER: "No."
NADLER: "Did you actually totally exonerate the president?
MUELLER: "No."
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
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Michelle in AZ
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from Bruce
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Current Events
It's sad having a racist president
Sad to be aware of Predator Bully's heinous attack on Elijah Cummings. You also ought to watch the 2 minute embedded video in this article of Victor Blackwell's response to Predator Bully's racist tweeting. Ripped my heart out:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Raccoons are bowling on the roof, again.
Judge Dismisses Suit
Washington Post
A federal judge has thrown out a Kentucky teen's lawsuit against the Washington Post for its coverage of his viral encounter with a Native American activist at the Lincoln Memorial back in January.
Nicholas Sandmann, a student of Covington High School gained public notoriety after a video emerged of him wearing a "Make American Great Again" hat while standing in front of activist Nathan Phillips, while being cheered on by his fellow classmates.
Phillips, who was seen on the video beating a drum and singing while surrounded by the teenagers, claimed the the group yelled derogatory comments at him before the stare down took place. Sandmann disputed the claim in a statement, saying he believed "that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation."
In the wake of the incident and subsequent coverage, Sandmann's parents filed a complaint alleging the Post "ignored basic journalist standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented, biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump ("the President") by impugning individuals perceived to be supporters of the President."
The suit sought $250 million in damages.
Washington Post
Keeps Museum Post
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will keep his job as head of the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History after the museum concluded its investigation into sexual misconduct charges against him.
A museum spokesman said in a statement Thursday that based on the results of the investigation, Tyson "remains an employee and director of the Hayden Planetarium."
The statement said museum officials would not comment further "because this is a confidential personnel matter."
Tyson was accused of behaving inappropriately with two women in an article published in November on the website Patheos.
Fox Broadcasting and National Geographic cleared Tyson to return to the air on his television series, "StarTalk" and "Cosmos" after investigating the same allegations.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
$12 Million In Bids
Neil Armstrong
Items that once belonged to Neil Armstrong - the first man on the moon - are fetching some sky high prices at auction.
A gold commemorative medal that flew with with Armstrong on Apollo 11 sold for more than $2 million. A plaque that included an identification plate from the lunar module from that mission sold for $468,500. And a piece of one of the propellers from the Wright brothers' Flyer - the first powered airplane - that Armstrong also took with him to the moon sold for $275,000.
All told the items from Armstrong's collection have garnered more than $12.1 million over the course of three different auctions held since November by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. The most recent, which featured the gold medal, was held earlier this month to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 11 mission.
In addition to attracting interest and big bids, the auctions have also drawn controversy, according to The New York Times. None of the items are known to have been offered by Carol Armstrong, the astronaut's second wife, according to The Times. And several people who knew Armstrong believe he would have felt that the attempt to cash in on his fame was unseemly.
The items were put up for auction by Rick and Mark Armstrong, the astronaut's sons, the Times reported. Mark and his wife defended the sales, telling The Times that what mattered was what they did with the money, not what happened to the items. The brothers have donated nearly $2 million in cash and artifacts to museums, according to the report. Meanwhile, Mark and his wife have set up an environmental nonprofit called Vantage Earth in honor of his parents.
Neil Armstrong
Warns British Media
Russia
Russia on Friday warned British media operating on its territory that they should be ready for consequences after Britain's media regulator fined the state-financed RT television channel over its coverage of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal.
Relations between London and Moscow sank to a post-Cold War low over the 2018 poisoning of Skripal, a mole who betrayed hundreds of Russian agents to Britain's MI6 foreign spy service.
Britain said Russian military intelligence poisoned Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as Novichok. Russia repeatedly denied any involvement and said Britain staged the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.
Britain's media regulator Ofcom said on Friday it had fined RT 200,000 pounds ($248,740) for breaching impartiality rules in broadcasts over the poisoning, the conflict in Syria, and Ukraine's polices on Nazism and gypsies.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement it regarded Ofcom's actions as part of "an anti-Russian campaign" intended to limit Russian media's activities in Britain.
Russia
Reichstag Fire
1933
Newly found German testimony from 60 years ago has cast fresh doubt on Nazi-era claims a Dutch communist was responsible for the 1933 fire that gutted the Reichstag building, German media reported on Friday.
The Reichstag blaze remains a source of controversy in Germany as Adolf Hitler used the fire to claim a Communist plot and consolidate his influence with a crackdown. It was seen as a pivotal moment in the Nazi rise to power.
Germany's RND newspaper group on Friday published an affidavit of a former Nazi paramilitary dating from 1955 and found in archives of a Hanover court, which confirmed its authenticity.
In his testimony, the Nazi official clears Dutch trade union member Marinus van der Lubbe of setting fire to the Reichstag.
A Nazi court found Van der Lubbe guilty of arson and treason and he was beheaded in 1934. But his case remained controversial.
1933
Add $4.1 Trillion
National Debt
Once President T-rump (R-Fish Lips) signs the budget deal that was passed by the House on Thursday and is expected to be approved by the Senate in a few days, he will have added $4.1 trillion to the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The total national debt surpassed $22 trillion in February.
This will mark the third time that a major piece of deficit-financed legislation will get Trump's stamp of approval. Legislation Trump has so far signed since 2017 has added $2.4 trillion to the national debt through 2029, according to CRFB, a nonpartisan public policy group.
Many investors are worried about the ballooning national debt, with 54% naming the political environment and 47% viewing national debt as their top concerns, according to a UBS second-quarter investor sentiment survey. Tax and spending policy are the main reasons for the national debt expansion from 2017 to 2029, according to CRFB.
The biggest contributor to the $4.1 trillion that will be added to the national debt through 2029 is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This signature tax cut legislation signed by Trump in 2017 single-handedly increased the debt by $1.8 trillion, according to CRFB.
National Debt
Killing Children
U.N.
A Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting in Yemen killed or injured 729 children during 2018, accounting for nearly half the total child casualties, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a report to the Security Council on Friday that blacklisted the coalition for a third year.
Guterres also reported that the highest number of Palestinian children had been killed or injured last year since 2014, mainly by Israeli forces, though no parties were blacklisted in the annex to the annual Children in Armed Conflict report, seen by Reuters.
The report, which does not subject those listed to action but rather shames parties to conflicts in the hope of pushing them to implement measures to protect children, has long been controversial with diplomats saying Saudi Arabia and Israel both exerted pressure in recent years in a bid to stay off the list.
The Israeli U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest report. In 2015 the United Nations left Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas off the blacklist, after they had been included in an earlier draft, but criticized Israel over its 2014 military operations. Israel denied lobbying then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the issue.
Saudi U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi said the report acknowledges steps taken by the coalition to safeguard children, noting that "every child's life is precious." But he also questioned the sourcing and accuracy of the report, describing the numbers as "exaggerated."
U.N.
'Into the Wild'
Alaska
A Belarusian woman who was trying to hike to an abandoned bus at the edge of Denali National Park in Alaska made famous in the book and movie "Into the Wild" died after being swept away in a river, state troopers said on Friday.
Veramika Maikamava, 24, was pulled underwater when she tried to cross the Teklanika River with her husband Piotr Markielau, also 24, in their journey to the site where hiker Christopher McCandless perished in 1992, the troopers said.
There is a rope stretched across the river to help hikers, but waters were waist-high and swift-running when the newly married couple tried to cross on Thursday night, said Ken Marsh, an Alaska State Trooper spokesman.
Hundreds of visitors have ventured over the years into the now-famous Stampede Trail along the edge of the park to try to reach the wrecked vehicle now known as the "Magic Bus."
The abandoned Fairbanks city bus was used as shelter by the 24-year-old McCandless before he died of what the state coroner determined to be starvation. A diary he left describing his final days became material for the book written by Jon Krakauer and the 2007 movie, which stars Emile Hirsch.
Alaska
Contractors Hear It
Siri
Voice assistants are growing in popularity, but the technology has been experiencing a parallel rise in concerns about privacy and accuracy. Apple's Siri is the latest to enter this gray space of tech. This week, The Guardian reported that contractors who review Siri recordings for accuracy and to help make improvements may be hearing personal conversations.
One of the contract workers told The Guardian that Siri did sometimes record audio after mistaken activations. The wake word is the phrase "hey Siri," but the anonymous source said that it could be activated by similar-sounding words or with the noise of a zipper. They also said that when an Apple Watch is raised and speech is detected, Siri will automatically activate.
"There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on," the source said. "These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data."
Apple, along with Google and Amazon, all have similar policies for the contract workers it hires to review those audio snippets. But all three voice AI makers have also been the subject of similar privacy breaches, either by whistleblowers going to the press or through errors that give users access to incorrect audio files.
Siri
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