Author: Ezra Grant

I'm just tired of the lies and nonsense coming from the GOP, so this is my little contribution to combat the nonsense!

Categories
North Korea Politics

Kenneth Bae Appeals to US Government for North Korea Release

Wearing a gray cap and inmate’s uniform with the number 103 on his chest, Bae spoke in Korean during the brief appearance, which was attended by The Associated Press and a few other foreign media in Pyongyang.

“I believe that my problem can be solved by close cooperation and agreement between the American government and the government of this country,” he said.

Bae, the longest-serving American detainee in North Korea in recent years, expressed hope that the U.S. government will do its best to secure his release. He said he has not been treated badly in confinement.

A sticking point with Bae might be that the U.S. government has said he is not guilty of any crimes. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said last month that Bae is being held without reason, which Pyongyang denies. Bae on Monday made an apology and said he had committed anti-government acts. He said recent comments in the media from the U.S. side — likely alluding to Biden’s remarks — have made his situation more complicated.

Bae was arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group and accused of crimes against the state before being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was moved to a hospital last summer in poor health.

Categories
Politics rachel maddow Television

Ratings: Rachel Maddow Beating Fox Like They Stole Something

Fox News is hemorrhaging young viewers, but last week, things hit a new low for Fox. Rachel Maddow beat Fox News for the entire week with viewers age 25-54.

According to TVNewser, “The Rachel Maddow Show” averaged 325,000 A25-54 viewers for the week, topping Fox News’ “The Kelly File,” which drew 305,000, and “Piers Morgan Tonight,” which had 159,000. It was MSNBC’s best 9pmET performance since the week of the Boston Marathon bombing (4/15/13). MSNBC’s coverage of the Chris Christie bridge scandal propelled MSNBC to#1 in the primetime demo on both Thursday and Friday of last week. Maddow won the 9pmET timeslot among younger viewers both nights.”

Moving Megyn Kelly to 9 PM was supposed to lure young viewers to Fox News. That move has failed as Kelly isn’t drawing the younger demographic that Fox News desperately needs for the future. The Maddow victory comes on the heels of Fox News seeing a 30% drop in young viewership in 2013. These numbers are also a huge victory for Maddow. She broke the Bridgegate story, and it is nice to see her being rewarded for some excellent reporting.

Categories
marijuana Politics

President Obama – Pot is Less Damaging Than Alcohol

In an interview with the New Yorker’s David Remnick published Sunday, Obama said while he believes marijuana is “not very healthy,” the drug isn’t as harmful as some insist.

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” Obama told Remnick.

When asked if he believes marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, Obama said it is less damaging “in terms of its impact on the individual consumer.”

“It’s not something I encourage, and I’ve told my daughters I think it’s a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy,” he added.

Marijuana is currently classified by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule 1 substance, which the DEA considers “the most dangerous class of drugs with a high potential for abuse and potentially severe psychological and/or physical dependence.” Other Schedule 1 drugs include heroin, ecstasy and LSD.

Obama said his focus on reforming laws that punish drug users, noting the racial disparity in drug arrests.

“We should not be locking up kids or individual users for long stretches of jail time when some of the folks who are writing those laws have probably done the same thing,” he said.

Categories
Celebrities Entertainment Music nigger

Madonna Controversy – Used ‘N-Word’ on her Instagram

Madonna and Rocco

The singer uploaded a snapshot of 13-year-old Rocco Ritchie boxing on Friday night, with the offensive epithet used in a hashtag accompanying the photo.

“I am sorry if I offended anyone with my use of the ‘n-word’,” she said in a statement issued on Saturday.

“It was not meant as a racial slur. I am not a racist. There’s no way to defend the use of the word.”

Madonna’s comment was swiftly deleted from her Instagram account after some of her 1.1 million followers berated her for using the hashtag “#disnigga”

She later re-posted the same photo on Instagram, with a defiant (and largely unprintable) new caption that began: “Ok, let me start this again.”

On Saturday afternoon however, Madonna deleted the post entirely, and instead released a statement through her publicist, saying “forgive me”.

“It was all about intention,” she continued. “It was used as a term of endearment toward my son who is white.

“I appreciate that it’s a provocative word and I apologize if it gave people the wrong impression.”

Besides Rocco, Madonna has three other children, including Lourdes, David and Mercy. Her two youngest were both adopted from the African nation of Malawi.

The star came under fire earlier this month for posting a separate picture of Rocco on New Year’s Eve, in which he and his friends posed with bottles of alcohol.

Madonna responded: “No one was drinking, we were just having fun!

“Calm down and get a sense of humour! Don’t start the year off with judgement!”

Categories
ObamaCare Politics

‘I Fought Nazis, And They Didn’t Look Like Obama’ – PIC

Thank you.

Categories
Politics

Police – Clothing Found on Remains Match Those of Avonte Oquendo

Evidence gathered along the East River — body parts, clothing and a pair of sneakers — almost certainly brought to a tragic end the desperate three-month search for autistic teen Avonte Oquendo.

All that remained to confirm the parents’ worst fears was a comparison of DNA taken from the remains with the sample that Avonte’s mother, Vanessa Fontaine, rushed to investigators.

“Unfortunately, there is good reason to think it’s him,” the family’s lawyer, David Perecman, warned. “It’s more than just speculation.”

Still, Avonte’s parents were clinging to dwindling hope that their 14-year-old son was still alive.

“They’re distraught, but they’re hopeful it’s not him,” Perecman said. “They remain optimistic that he’s still out there.”

Avonte walked past a security guard and out of the Riverview School in Long Island City, Queens, on Oct. 4. Avonte was obsessed with the subway system and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials made announcements on trains for weeks asking for help finding him. The MTA sent subway workers into the tunnels in Brooklyn and Queens to check out tips that the teen had been spotted wandering the tracks.

The NYPD went so far as to enlist the help of psychics in the search for the boy, sources told the Daily News. Police, relatives and volunteers posted flyers and combed waterways. The search generated dozens of false tips and a reward grew to nearly $90,000.

The case gripped the city with curiosity, hope and, finally, the beginnings of despair when a photographer spotted remains along the rocky shoreline in College Point on Thursday afternoon.

Just after 7 p.m. Thursday, police found a left arm that police sources said appeared to have separated via decomposition — rather than a violent act. Police divers returned to the cold and murky water on Friday, feeling around the underwater rocks while wearing heavy gloves. Other cops searched the shoreline using cadaver dogs. They shut down the search by nightfall and were expected to resume at 7 a.m. Saturday.

In all, they found legs in boys’ size 16 Old Navy jeans, a size 51/2 Air Jordan sneaker and a striped shirt — all consistent with the outfit Avonte was wearing when he went missing.

h/t NY Daily News

Categories
Politics

The Name of the Iceberg that Sank ‘The Chris Christie’ is Called Hoboken

Last week, I touched on this subject in a post called, Hoboken Could Make Bridge-Gate Look Like Small Potatoes. The point of the piece was based on some reporting by Chris Hayes showing Chris Christie’s lack of interaction with the city – a city ravished by hurricane Sandy – due to political retribution against Hoboken’s mayor, Dawn Zimmer.

Today, MSNBC’S Steve Kornacki took Christie’s new Hoboken scandal to a whole new level. Bringing Hoboken’s mayor on as a guest, Steve showed just how deep Chris Christie’s retaliation against the mayor and the people if Hoboken went.

Breaking the Campaign Finance Laws, bribery, political retribution, holding back federal relief funds, it’s all part of how business is done under the Christie administration and it’s all illegal. This piece by Steve shows that.

Steve Kornacki explains:

Categories
News

Oquendo’s Family Lawyer – “Unfortunatley, there is good reason to think it’s him [Avonte]

The desperate, three-months-long search for missing autistic teenager Avonte Oquendo appeared Friday to be coming to a tragic close.

Skeletal remains clad in clothing that appeared to match the outfit 14-year-old Avonte was wearing when he ran off from his school on Oct. 4 were discovered by a teenaged photographer in Queens along the East River shoreline.

All that remained to confirm Oquendo’s parents’ worst fears was a comparison of DNA taken from the body parts with the sample that boy’s mom, Vanessa Fontaine, rushed to investigators. The DNA of the boy’s father is already on file.

“Unfortunately, there is good reason to think it’s him,” said the family’s lawyer, David Perecman. “It’s more than just speculation.”

Still, Avonte’s parents continued to cling to a slim piece of hope that their son was still alive.

The headless body found in College Point was wearing Fruit of the Loom underwear, size large, police said.

Fontaine dressed her son in Hanes brand underwear.

“They’re distraught, but they’re hopeful it’s not him,” Perecman, said. “They remain optimistic that he’s still out there.”

Categories
News Religion

Pope Benedict Defrocked 400 Priests involved in Sex Abuse Scandals

As the Vatican was being blistered by a U.N. committee this week for its decades-long mishandling and cover up of a global sex abuse scandal involving priests and children, new disclosures show the extraordinary steps that Pope Benedict XVI took to get rid of problem priests.    

In just two years, Benedict defrocked nearly 400 priests, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, which first reported the story on Friday. The number of priests defrocked by Benedict in 2011 and 2012 reflected a dramatic spike over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, according to the AP.

The newly uncovered statistics come from data from annual reports compiled by the Vatican to help the Holy See defend itself before a U.N. committee this week in Geneva.

While Benedict has been seen as remote, dogmatic, and lacking the charisma of both his predecessor, John Paul II, and his successor, Pope Francis, he was aggressive in pushing the Holy See to address the scourge of child molestation within the Church.

Categories
News

Teenage Prankster Rang Doorbell – Got Shot

ARENDTSVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) –
A 14-year-old boy was shot in the foot while he and other juveniles were ringing doorbells at Arendtsville homes as a prank early this morning, according to police.

Authorities have arrested the alleged shooter, 28-year-old Eric Lee Steinour, and have charged him with aggravated assault, simple assault and reckless endangerment, according to state police in Gettysburg.

Several juveniles were involved in the pranks at around 2 a.m. when Steinour confronted two of the youths in an alley and fired a shot from a handgun when they ran away, police said in a news release.

The juveniles were hiding when the victim found that the bullet had struck him in the right foot and leg, police said.

His mother transported him to Gettysburg Hospital, and he was later transported to York Trauma Center for treatment of the non-life threatening injury, police said.

Steinour, of Biglerville, was found at the home of an acquaintance as troopers investigated. He admitted to firing the gun and was taken into custody, police said.

Trooper Robert Hicks, a state police spokesman, said it appears Steinour fired in an attempt to scare the teens.

Categories
Politics Steve King

Republican John Boehner Called Republican Steve King “an asshole!”

Hey, I’m just reporting what the man said.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) claims in a recent article for Texas Monthly that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) an “asshole” in July after King compared undocumented immigrants to drug mules with “calves the size of cantaloupes.”

In the article, Castro reflects on his first year in Congress and expresses his disappointment in the House’s inability to pass immigration reform last year.

Castro himself calls King one of the “less tactful Republicans,” who “seemed to even go out of their way to express disdain for immigrants.” Boehner condemned King’s statements in a July press conference, calling them “deeply offensive and wrong.”

In his piece, Castro offers a candid opinion of Boehner and the circumstances under which the comment was made:

The Democratic caricature of the speaker is that he’s an overly tan, overly emotional cat-herder who has lost control of his flock, but in person, he comes across as approachable and down-to-earth, and you can see how he earned the trust of his colleagues and became their leader. On a day not too long after Boehner’s political body check of Steve King for his immigration comments, the speaker was milling around the aisle walkway in the middle section of the House floor where the Democratic and Republican territories meet. Another Texas Democrat and I were standing a few feet away, and as the speaker passed us we thanked him for denouncing King’s offensive comments. He slowed his stride and then paused to turn toward us. “What an asshole,” he said. My thoughts exactly, Mr. Speaker.

Boehner’s office declined to comment on Castro’s account.

Categories
Politics sexual assault

Woman Files Sexual Assault Suit Against TSA – “it shouldn’t take that much groping”

According to a CBS4 report, police are investigating Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at Denver International Airport after a woman filed a criminal complaint claiming that her frisking was tantamount to sexual assault.

Jamelyn Steenhoek was frisked by TSA officers while escorting her 13-year-old daughter to her gate. She was not flying herself that day, but had acquired permission to accompany her underage child to her gate.

As she attempted to move through the TSA checkpoint, an alarm sounded. Steenhoek told CBS4 that she believes that metallic jewels sewn into her rear pants pocket were responsible for setting off the machine. She said she consented to have her hands swabbed.

“They told me I tested positive for explosives,” she said, and was then ushered into a small TSA screening room in with her daughter. She was told to spread her arms and legs, and when she told the female TSA agent that she needed to get her daughter to her plane, the agent’s demeanor changed.

“At that point she did a pretty invasive search. They are just areas of the body I’m not comfortable being touched in. On the outside of my pants she cupped my crotch. I was uncomfortable with that,” she said.

“The part of the search that bothered most was the breast search. You could tell it shouldn’t take that much groping . To me it was as extensive as an exam from my physician — full touching and grabbing in the front. I felt uncomfortable, I felt violated.”

When the search yielded no explosive materials, Steenhoek said, the TSA agent repeated it, only this time there was “more touching and grabbing than the first time.”

After successfully escorting her daughter to her flight, Steenhoek complained to TSA officials, but felt they were not taking her complaint seriously enough, so she filed charges with Denver police.

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