January 29, 2018

Trump security team sees building U.S. 5G network as option

Source: Reuters

resident Donald Trump’s national security team is looking at options to counter the threat of China spying on U.S. phone calls that include the government building a super-fast 5G wireless network, a senior administration official said on Sunday.

The official, confirming the gist of a report from Axios.com, said the option was being debated at a low level in the administration and was six to eight months away from being considered by the president himself.

The 5G network concept is aimed at addressing what officials see as China’s threat to U.S. cyber security and economic security.

The Trump administration has taken a harder line on policies initiated by predecessor Barack Obama on issues ranging from Beijing’s role in restraining North Korea to Chinese efforts to acquire U.S. strategic industries.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-5g/trump-security-team-sees-building-u-s-5g-network-as-option-idUSKBN1FH103

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And of course a "nationalized" 5G network would be subject to the Nationalized Security Apparatus which will make sure that all US residents will have access to only The Best News about their Feckless Leader!

January 26, 2018

Stephen Colbert sells out to Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop

Not sure if this should be in this forum or elsewhere. I enjoy Colbert but I also know about "alternative" medicine (and facts.) She's been promoting an incredible set of cures that all seem to be money-makers.

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2018/01/26/stephen-colbert-sells-gwyneth-paltrow-goop/

I’ve been a fan of Stephen Colbert for a long time, ever since his days on The Daily Show and continuing through his years doing The Colbert Report. One reason is that his comedy is, in general, the sort that skeptics appreciate. For example, his recurring “The Wørd” segment on The Colbert Report, for instance, brilliantly deconstructed the deceptive ways that politicians and others use language. Then, he coined the term “truthiness,” which describes the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Then, of course, there’s his regular segment, which debuted in 2015, on The Tonight Show With Stephen Colbert mocking the expensive quackery and nonsense that Gwyneth Paltrow sells through her Goop lifestyle brand. In it, Colbert touts his own lifestylbrand, Covetton House.

January 26, 2018

USA Gymnastics board to resign amid sex abuse scandal: spokeswoman

Source: Reuters

The remaining directors of USA Gymnastics will resign following revelations that the former national team doctor sexually abused female athletes, complying with a demand from the U.S. Olympic Committee, a spokeswoman for gymnastics group said on Friday.

The USOC had threatened to strip the group of its power to run its sport if the remaining 16 directors did not resign by Wednesday. Five have already resigned as a result of the scandal.

“USA Gymnastics will comply with the USOC requirements,” Leslie King, a spokeswoman for USA Gymnastics, said in an e-mail on Friday.

The U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday and Friday joined the USOC in opening broad investigations into possible sex abuse in sports.

Read more: USA Gymnastics board to resign amid sex abuse scandal: spokeswoman

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Far bigger than the USA Gymnastics and USOC scandal is that awaiting the US Congress.

Non-consensual activity, especially with the younger people, is rampant.

Of course, who is going to enforce "ethics" on this bunch of old lecherous dotards?

January 20, 2018

'Buy a flat, meet Trump Jr' offer criticised as 'ethics atrocity'

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/19/buy-a-flat-meet-trump-jr-offer-criticised-as-ethics-atrocity

The developers behind a Trump Towers project near Delhi are offering to fly the first 100 investors in the property to the US to meet Donald Trump Jr, the US president’s eldest son.

The promotional materials for the project – the fifth in India to take the Trump name – claim the address in the Indian capital is “so powerful, a letter would reach you from any part of the world”.

One former White House ethics counsel described the offer as an “ethics atrocity”.

The specifics of the meeting with Trump Jr were unclear but the offer was repeated on a news broadcast featured on the developer’s website with the tagline “Buy a flat, meet Trump junior”.

The launch of an “ultra luxury” residential project in Gurgaon, a hub for IT workers south of Delhi, was announced last week by two of the Trump Organization’s Indian franchisees, M3M Tribeca Developers.

They claimed to have sold 20 apartments in the two 600ft towers within 24 hours of the launch, in part through boasts of building the “most luxury project in north India”, but also the lure of meeting a member of the US’s first family.

“About an initial 100 buyers will fly to the US where Donald Trump Jr will host them,” Pankaj Bansal, the India director for M3M, told the Press Trust of India.

“Making Donald Jr available to those who can afford it in a foreign land based on purchasing a property is an ethics atrocity,” said Norman L Eisen, who served as a special counsel for ethics in the Barack Obama administration and is the chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), a watchdog group.

“Access to the first family should not be for sale. It’s particularly inappropriate because we know he is in constant communication with his father, so it does create a conduit to attempt to influence the president and one of his closest confidants and family members.”

Crew warned in a report released on Friday that Trump was continuing to profit from his businesses while in office and “in many cases he is profiting as a result of his presidency”.

January 12, 2018

New Der SPIEGEL Cover explained: The Age of Fire and Fury

Source: Der Speigel

"Fire and Fury" is the title of the new exposé of Donald Trump's first year in the White House. The tome has only been out for a few days, and yet it has already established itself as one of the books of the year. Even we journalists find ourselves describing the book's contents as "indescribable" and "unfathomable." Can the world's most powerful man really be dumb, senile and addicted to television as the book claims? He spends his early evenings watching three televisions in his bedroom? Eating a cheeseburger and tweeting all the while? An entire White House teetering between hysteria and chaos? And yet, it's still the journalist's job to describe the indescribable and fathom the unfathomable.

Our latest cover story explains how "Fire and Fury" came to be and whether, and the extent to which, it approaches the truth. Most importantly, however, it delves into the consequences for an America and a world that have been confronted with a nuclear-armed fool who is likely to remain in office for some time to come, who is neither mentally nor psychologically suited for the job - apparently also not physically, either, given how late he starts the working day and how early he ends it. That, unfortunately, is precisely the point: Humanity as a whole is being set back just because of one single person. The achievements of decades - the fight against a climate disaster, against the nuclear threat, for equality between men and women, between blacks and whites and so on and so on. Where is the world supposed to start again if it manages to survive Donald Trump?

Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-age-of-fire-and-fury-latest-der-spiegel-trump-cover-explained-a-1187633.html#ref=rss

January 12, 2018

Can you match the Donald Trump insult to the country he insulted?

From The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/12/can-you-match-donald-trump-insult-country-insulted

Donald Trump’s international diplomacy efforts have hit the headlines again, after he reportedly described several African and Central American nations as “shithole countries”.

Here are 12 other ways in which he has insulted a nation since he began campaigning for the US presidency.

Match the Trump insult to the country he insulted

When campaigning to be US president, of which country did Trump say: “Without us, gone!”

Saudi Arabia
Iraq
Turkey
Russia

According to Trump, where gives "no appreciation or respect" to the US, despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars a year in aid?
Iraq
Turkey
Palestinian territories
Russia

Which state did Trump describe as a “corrupt and poorly run country”?
Turkey
Iran
Syria
Russia

Which country's infrastructure did Trump describe as a "disaster"?
Cuba
Mexico
Puerto Rico
Russia

Which country did Trump say sends rapists to the US?
Mexico
Cuba
Syria
Russia

Which country did Trump describe as "a dumping ground for the world"?
Germany
Mexico
US
Russia

Which European country is apparently "a total mess", according to Trump?
Sweden
Germany
France
Russia

To which country did Trump appoint an ambassador who had previously described that nation as having "no-go areas" and "politicians that are being burnt" due to Islam?
Sweden
Netherlands
Norway
Russia

Of which country did Trump say “we pay billions of dollars to for nothing”?
Iraq
Pakistan
India
Russia

Which country did Trump say looks "more and more like a paper tiger"?
US
North Korea
Iran
Russia

Which nation did Trump say the US could not continue to allow to “rape our country, and that's what they're doing”?
Mexico
Australia
China
Russia

Which nation did Trump describe as "depleted and food starved"?
North Korea
Iraq
Iran
Russia


In compiling this quiz we were unable to find any examples of insults directed at Russia.

January 12, 2018

Coded messages for dump in the Fux chryon?

Since it's been shown that the fearful liar of the US (the subject) gets all of its data feeds from Fux, I was wondering if it's possible that there is a special pattern in the scrolling marquee that triggers primal reactions in the subject's brain.

It's already been shown that the subject will "retweet" material that it sees while indulging in some quality "Executive Time". The subject is probably too old to self-indulge and it appears that the wife-object is rather distant.

It is proposed that a research project be launched to analyze the contents of said chyrons along with visual stimulation of his cortex via exposed flesh (female) on the monitor. While brain-scanning techniques may be useful at some point it seems that there will be very little to uncover (there is no there, there.)

If the the subject can be captured and actually enrolled in a laboratory, evidence-based, blind-trial experiment, please be careful not to over-stimulate for fear of damage to what remains of the sentience. We do want to get good microscopy cross sections before incinerating.

January 8, 2018

Two injured in fire at New York's Trump Tower, officials say

Source: Reuters

Two people were injured in a brief early-morning fire near the top of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan as the city’s workday rush began, the New York Fire Department said on Monday.


U.S. President Donald Trump was in Washington at the time.

One firefighter was hospitalized with nonlife-threatening injuries and a building worker, who had an injury that was initially described as serious, was treated at the scene and declined further medical attention, the Fire Department said.

Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said on Twitter that it was a small electrical fire in the cooling tower on the building’s roof.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-trump-fire/two-injured-in-fire-at-new-yorks-trump-tower-officials-say-idUSKBN1EX17A

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Besides Eric, who else was up on the roof burning papers? Curious minds want to know!