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“Get Out” Star Responds To Samuel L. Jackson’s Statement

While promoting his new movie, Kong, Samuel L. Jackson called out the casting of the lead role in “Get Out”, questioning if the successful movie would be better received if the lead role was given to an African American actor “who really understands” racial issues, instead of British actor, Daniel Kaluuya, born in London to Ugandan parents.

“There are a lot of black British actors that work in this country all the time. I tend to wonder what would that movie have been with an American brother who really understands that in a way. Because Daniel grew up in a country where they’ve been interracial dating for a hundred years. Britain, there’s only about eight real white people left in Britain. … So what would a brother from America made of that role? I’m sure the director helped. Some things are universal, but everything ain’t.”

In an interview with GQ, Daniel, who played the lead role of Chris in “Get Out” – a movie that cost about $5 million to make while grossing over $100 million since its release – responded to Jackson’s criticism.

“When I’m around black people, I’m made to feel ‘other’ because I’m dark-skinned,” he said. “I’ve had to wrestle with that, with people going ‘You’re too black.’ Then I come to America, and they say, ‘You’re not black enough.’ I go to Uganda, I can’t speak the language. In India, I’m black. In the black community, I’m dark-skinned. In America, I’m British. Bro!”

Kaluuya went on to reference the racism that he and other black people have experienced in England, including police violence similar to events that have taken place in the U.S.

“I really respect African-American people. I just want to tell black stories,” he continued. “This is the frustrating thing, bro — in order to prove that I can play this role, I have to open up about the trauma that I’ve experienced as a black person. I have to show off my struggle so that people accept that I’m black. No matter that every single room I go to, I’m usually the darkest person there. You know what I’m saying? I kind of resent that mentality. I’m just an individual.”

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CBO Report – Republican’s Plan Increases Healthcare by 750% For Elderly

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s Report, the new Republican proposed Healthcare bill would increase healthcare costs on people 64 and older by 750%.

The bill does bring down overall premiums in the individual market by about 10 percent by 2026 compared with what they would be under current law, the CBO found. But the CBO includes a big caveat: This would greatly differ based on age and income.

The CBO offers an example of a single individual with an annual income of $26,500.

If that person is 21 years old, he’ll largely benefit from the Republican health care bill. Under the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), he would on average pay $1,700 in premiums for insurance. Under the Republican plan, he would pay $1,450.

But if that person is 64 years old, he would be hurt by the Republican bill. Under Obamacare, he would also pay $1,700 in premiums for insurance. But under the Republican bill, he would pay $14,600 — more than half his annual income. That amounts to more than a 750 percent increase in premiums from Obamacare to the Republican bill.

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Celebrities

Tyra Banks Will Be The Next Host of America’s Got Talent

It’s official. The announcement was made via twitter. Tyra Banks will replace Nick Cannon as the new host of America’s Got Talent.

Howie Mandel tweeted out the announcement on Sunday.

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Paul Ryan Cannot Say How Many People Will Lose Healthcare – Video

Republicans are repealing Obamacare and millions of Americans will be left without healthcare once again. I guess this is their idea of “Making America Great Again!”

House Speaker and vocal proponent of the repeal and replace process, Paul Ryan, was asked to comment on home many people would lose their healthcare under the proposed GOP plan. Ryan could not answer.

“I can’t answer that question,” Ryan told CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” when asked how many people will lose healthcare coverage. “It’s up to people.”

“Here’s the premise of your question: Are you going to stop mandating people buy health insurance? People are going to do what they want to do with their lives because we believe in individual freedom in this country.”

The GOP last week unveiled two measures to repeal and replace ObamaCare. While the new plan would get rid of some components of ObamaCare, it would keep other parts in place.

Video

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Healthcare

To Hell With the Health of the State

I really do try to see the intellectual arguments behind the politicians that utter them and I really do try to keep my judgements closely aligned to the agree/disagree axis, as opposed to the anger/unreasonably mean axis that seems to be in vogue these day.

But on both health care and the environment, I just can’t help but think that the Republican Party is using its treasured Second Amendment rights to shoot itself in multiple locations on its body politic. I understand that the voters who installed this regime thought terribly of President Obama and wanted the ACA repealed, and I also understand that many farmers and ranchers and manufacturers detest Environment Protection Agency rules on land use and cleanup, and many more deny the science behind the changing climate, but did these voters truly want what’s ambling down the lane? Do they really want to lose health insurance coverage and to make the air and water dirtier? Because that’s what’s going to happen.

It’s no secret that the Trump administration wants to take us back to some mythical past where the country was greater than it is now, but that invariably means that we’ll go back to a time when air and water pollution was at its height, lead paint sickened children, DDT killed eagles, sludge in rivers forced any kind of wildlife to flee or die and people died because they did not have adequate health insurance or access to medicine. Is this what people voted for?

On health care, the GOP is so bent on repealing the ACA quickly that they’ve created a program that will strip away insurance from millions of people, cut taxes for the wealthy, and only the wealthy, cut back on assurances that certain medical procedures – especially those that relate to women and the elderly – would continue, and increase the budget deficit. Their plan will also make insurance cost more for those unable to qualify for Medicaid and to cut money for Medicaid recipients to the point where they won’t be able to get the full coverage they would under present rules. And all of this is being done because the GOP believes that insurance companies, who will still have to cover people with pre-existing conditions, will magically cut their premiums in the name of competition.

I certainly appreciate that premiums have risen under the ACA, but at least people still retain their insurance and most are shielded from the cost because they qualify for subsidies. Rather than fixing the problems so people can retain coverage, the GOP plan ensures that many insured citizens will lose their plans. And all in the name of ideology.

As for the environment, EPA Chief Scott Pruitt’s statement last week that he doesn’t believe that human activity has anything to do with any climate change is beyond ignorant, and is a danger to life on this planet. His position, then, is that we should be able to freely pollute the air and water because, really, who are we hurting? Has someone ever shown him the pictures from the 1960s and 70s that show the haze and pollution over both urban and rural areas? It’s astounding.

Fortunately, I live in New Jersey, where the air is clean, the water is crystal clear and fresh, the traffic is minimal and there are, thankfully, no toxic waste sites. None. Because if I lived in a state that had a great deal of pollution or an abundance of carbon monoxide-spewing cars or terrible traffic or long-ago-but-obvious-today violations of industrial laws because let’s say chemical and manufacturing companies illegally dumped ungodly amounts of toxins in the water or in leaky rusting drums and left them beside some chain link fenced in area near a stinky, foul river and then claimed that they didn’t have to clean it up or vented smelly fumes without cleaning the smokestacks near the, well, let’s call it a Turnpike for want of a better word, then I would be outraged that the new head of the governmental agency responsible for ensuring that the country is as clean as can be recently denied that humans have anything to do with why the climate is changing.

So when I take my giant SUV out to drive along this great flat earth of ours, I can do so with a clear conscience and the freedom to pollute at will because not only is carbon monoxide not responsible for climate change, it’s also non-polluting. Because if it polluted the air, then it would be a contributing factor in the climate. But it doesn’t. So it doesn’t. Scott Pruitt told me so. So shut up.

The Republican agenda is danger to the country. A government that purposefully ignores the health of its citizens and actively works to undermine it deserves to be opposed at every turn.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Jeff Sessions Apparently Forgot About This Meeting with Russian Operatives

Maybe it’s Alzheimer, or maybe it’s just selective memory. Whatever it is, Trump’s Attorney General is not being totally honest with the American people.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to amend prior testimony to Congress this week, acknowledging that contrary to an earlier statement, he’d encountered the Russian ambassador to the United States twice in the last year.

Sessions appears to have left out a third instance in which they crossed paths.

In April of 2016, Sessions attended a VIP reception at a hotel in Washington, D.C., with President Donald Trump and roughly two dozen guests, including four ambassadors. One of them was Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The cocktail meet-and-greet took place in a private room at the Mayflower Hotel near the White House. Shortly thereafter, Trump delivered a foreign policy speech in the hotel’s ballroom, where he called for improved U.S.-Russia relations. Kislyak was seated in the front row.

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Listen to Trump Brag on 911 That His Building Was Now the Tallest – AUDIO

Who cares that almost three thousand people had just died in the biggest terrorist attack in America’s history? Not Donald Trump. His only concern after the buildings at the World Trade Center fell, was to make that point that his building was now the tallest in Manhattan.

Asked in a radio interview if his building suffered any damages during September 11th, Trump went on a rant explaining that his building is now the tallest in downtown Manhattan.

“Forty Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was, actually before the World Trade was the tallest, and then when they built the World Trade Center became known as the second tallest and now it’s the tallest…”

It’s all about the donald!

Audio

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A $400 Million Giveaway to Rich People Hidden in Republican’s Healthcare Plan

Republicans are on the fast-track to repealing Obamacare and throwing Americans off their life saving healthcare. But in the process of sticking it to middle class once again, Republicans are using their Obamacare replacement to give more money to rich people.

Republicans are giving away $400 million in tax cuts to CEOs of insurance companies, according to language buried deep in their proposed plan.

Democrats on Wednesday broadly blasted a proposed Obamacare replacement bill after learning the federal government would lose about $400 million in lost tax revenue over the next decade due to a sweet break for health insurers.

Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., said that the tax break related to executive pay underscores the fact that the Republican replacement bill is “the beginning of a huge giveaway to the very, very wealthy,” and the end of insurance coverage to millions of lower-income people.

“We’re starting off… with essentially a giveaway to insurance executives,” Levin said.

The proposed tax break, buried in cryptic language in the Republican plan, would allow health insurers to more fully deduct the value of their executives’ compensation on their taxes. That compensation can be as high as tens of millions of dollars, in the case of CEOs of insurers.

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Report – Obama Furious Over Trump’s Wiretapping Accusation

Sounds like a defamation of character lawsuit to me. Without any evidence, Trump has accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping his phones during the 2016 presidential campaign. But knowing the easy-going ways of the former president, he would probably just allow Trump to bury himself with his dumb tweets.

That said, Trump’s wiretapping accusation really got under the former president’s skin.

An aide to Obama told the Wall Street Journal the former president had decided he would not respond to every one of the his successor’s tweets. But people familiar with Obama’s thinking told the WSJ he was livid after Trump posted several tweets early Saturday morning making serious accusations.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Trump first tweeted on Saturday, without evidence.

An Obama spokesman later responded:

“A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” said Kevin Lewis. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

Trump’s allegations have widened a rift between Trump and his predecessor, according to the report, who made an effort to be cordial during the transition.

Trump also reportedly believes that officials loyal to Obama have been behind the leaks coming out of the administration.

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Celebrities

George Michael’s Cause of Death Revealed

The autopsy report is in. George Michael died of natural causes as the result of heart disease and a fatty liver, a British coroner said Tuesday.

Darren Salter, senior coroner for the county of Oxfordshire in southern England, said a post-mortem has found that the singer died of “dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and fatty liver.”

Dilated cardiomyopathy is a condition in which the left ventricle of the heart becomes stretched and weakened, limiting the heart’s ability to pump blood. Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle.

The former Wham! singer-songwriter was found dead at his country home in Oxfordshire on Dec. 25. He was 53.

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Celebrities

Applause for Barack and Michelle Obama in Washington D.C

The former President and the former First Lady made an appearance in Washington today at the National Gallery of Art museum. Museum goers were taken by surprise and greeted the couple with cheers and applause.

This is the first time the couple have been seen out since Donald Trump made unsubstantiated claims the Obama administration wire-tapped his Trump Tower phones during the presidential election. President Trump has yet to provide any evidence for his bold claim and President Obama’s intelligence chief has denied any such activity occurred.

A crowd gathered to watch the former first couple leave the gallery and reportedly launched into a round of applause and cheers for them.

NBC reporter, Benjy Sarlin, commented on the throng of people who gathered to watch the pair.
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Republicans Rushing to Stop Enforcing Obama’s ‘Fair Pay and Safe Workplace’

Yes, they are against “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces.” Who would be against that? Republicans of course.

Earlier this month, the House approved a measure to stop implementation of Obama’s 2014 “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” order, which was designed to ensure that contractors “understand and comply with labor laws.” Senate action is expected soon. The order had been stalled, if not killed by, a federal court ruling in Texas.

If repeal efforts are successful, it would be “the start of what we fear will be a sustained assault on America’s working families,” Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said in a statement.

Under the executive order, contractors would be required to report workplace violations for the previous three years. Agency contracting officers then would use that information to determine if the business “is a responsible source that has a satisfactory record of integrity and business ethics.”

In other words, a firm’s prior violations of fair-pay and safe workplace standards could be used to prevent that company from getting future contracts, among other options.

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