June 6, 2016

NYPD officer points gun at, arrests & illegally searches apt of man cellphone videoing

NYPD sergeant is facing disciplinary action for pointing her department-issued gun at a Brooklyn man who was recording her with his cell phone, the Daily News has learned.

Sgt. Diana Pichardo then confronted the man, David Rivera, called him a "motherf-----," and snatched the phone from his hand — which was all captured on a recording.

Rivera, who was arrested on a slew of felony charges which the Brooklyn district attorney's office declined to prosecute, reported the shocking incident to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. The CCRB substantiated Rivera's allegations that Pichardo pointed her gun at him, abused her authority by searching his apartment without a warrant, and spoke discourteously to him.



----

Rivera, 45, was watching the film "50 Shades of Grey" with his girlfriend on March 8, 2015 when he heard a commotion in the hallway at the Marlboro Houses. He saw three neighbors fighting with cops and began recording the action with his phone.

Additional officers, led by Pichardo, arrived and helped subdue the goons. Pichardo is shrieking into her portable radio, then inexplicably points her gun at Rivera who can be heard saying, "Don't point that gun at me!"


Rivera was ordered by a cop to go back inside his apartment. He is still recording from inside the doorway when Pichardo rushes up to him.



"Who are these people to you?" she yells at Rivera. "Give me the phone, motherf-----!"

A cop pulled Rivera out of his apartment into the hallway where he was handcuffed. The cops apparently were unaware that Rivera, who installs security systems for a living, had installed cameras in various rooms of his apartment. Those cameras recorded a swarm of cops filing into his apartment and searching the rooms in front of his shocked girlfriend.

Rivera was held in police custody for 43 hours before he was released without seeing a judge.


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/nypd-sergeant-aims-gun-man-recording-illegal-search-article-1.2661248

June 6, 2016

Donald Trump Ups His Game, Moves From Lying to Meta-Lying

Here is the start of a Jake Tapper question to Donald Trump this morning. Trump has just gotten done lying yet again—and at length—about his support for the Iraq War, and Tapper finally decides to move on:

TAPPER: At a rally in Sacramento, you accused [Hillary Clinton] of lying about your foreign policy as it relates to expressingsupport for Japan being able to get nuclear weapons.

TRUMP: A hundred percent.

TAPPER: Well, let me just read from you....This is from an April 3 interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News. You said: "North Korea has nukes, Japan has a problem with that. I mean, they have a big problem with that. Maybe they would in fact be better off if they defend themselves from North Korea."

And Chris Wallace says, "With nukes?"

And you say, "Including with nukes, yes, including with nukes."

So...

This is followed by nearly a thousand words over the course of three minutes of Tapper vainly trying to get Trump to address his question at all. It's not that Trump tap dances or makes excuses or pretends he really meant something different. He just flatly insists on talking about something else and bowls over Tapper whenever he tries to get him back on track. Finally Tapper gives up and moves on again.

This is not a criticism of Tapper, who has been more aggressive than most about trying to hold Trump accountable for the things he says. But what can you do? Trump very plainly has expressed support for Japan getting nukes. It's on tape. He's been explicit on multiple occasions that we should withdraw our military presence from Japan unless they're willing to pay us a lot more money. That's on tape too.

____

Eventually exhaustion sets in and everyone just lets it go.

How do you handle someone like that?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/donald-trump-ups-his-game-moves-lying-meta-lying

June 6, 2016

GOP "will be stuck dealing with the latest Trumpism every interview of every day, of every month"

"That was just painful," said one Republican official who served in George W. Bush's administration. The official added that the reality is McConnell -- and Ryan and every Republican in a leadership position or facing an election challenge -- "will be stuck dealing with the latest Trumpism every interview of every day, of every month until November."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/05/politics/gop-fears-donald-trump-judge-attack/

June 5, 2016

Trump claimed "that he started Trump University as a charitable venture.” pocketed $5 million

The records indicate,” Brill wrote, “... that Trump University collected approximately $40 million from its students — who included veterans, retired police officers and teachers — and that Trump personally received approximately $5 million of it, despite his claim, repeated in our interview, that he started Trump University as a charitable venture.”

A sales pitch by Trump University “lecturer” James Harris, distributed by Trump University executives, said Trump “only wants to leave a legacy.”

Brill continued: “Trump, too, told me that ‘all money that I made was going to go to charity.’ His marketing mailings similarly promised that he was launching the program as a way of ‘leaving a legacy.’ ... Trump explained that to me by saying that he had planned to make the charitable donations from his personal accounts, but that because the university had had to shut down and was still paying legal expenses, those donations ‘never happened.’ According to Trump lawyer Alan Garten, Trump returned the money to the university from his personal funds once the legal troubles started.”

Trump portrayed himself as an altruist when he rolled out Trump University in 2005, saying it was about his “legacy as an educator” and “access for all” and his desire to “set an example for others to follow.” A legal complaint against him in New York charges that Trump University claimed it was “solely for philanthropic purposes” and that speakers said students’ payments would not go to Trump.

It will be up to the courts to decide whether Trump University was fraudulent, but the failure to make good on the philanthropic claims of Trump University is, at the very least, unseemly. The documents in the fraud case against Trump, released in response to the Post’s request, make the whole enterprise look tawdry.

http://www.heraldcourier.com/opinion/trump-s-philanthropy-fell-short-of-promises/article_7786754f-ad06-50e5-8f62-32cb8a0444e3.html?mode=jqm

June 5, 2016

GOP worried about Trump wasting time in unwinnable California shouting "build that wall!l

Republican concerns over Trump’s campaign extend beyond his comments to his strategy. After cementing his role as nominee following the May 3 Indiana primary, Trump has taken long stretches off the trail and, when he is campaigning, has focused his time on blue states which still have primaries to come but which are virtually unwinnable for a Republican in the general election. California, where Trump held rallies over the past two weeks, was last won by a Republican nominee in 1988 by George H.W. Bush; a recent survey showed Clinton with a double-digit lead over Trump there.

“By any stretch of the GOP imagination, as many as 18 other states that Mitt Romney lost would probably be better targets for Donald Trump than California,” said Neil Newhouse, who was GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s pollster in 2012. “Recent polling indicates that it may not be far-fetched for the Trump campaign to believe they can expand the electoral playing field, but overreaching can expend scarce resources and divert them from states that are more realistic targets.”

During a three-day swing through the Golden State last week, Trump repeatedly told supporters he intends to contest the state in the fall. “I’m going to play heavy in California,” Trump said in Redding on Friday. “Right? I think we can win.”

Trump also said he harbors ambitions to wrest Oregon and Washington from Democratic hands. Neither state gone Republican since Ronald Reagan won them in his 1984 landslide.

_____

Trump shows little sign of changing course, and continues to champion policies that Ryan and other establishment Republicans oppose. At his Redding rally last week, for example, Trump led one of his regular chants on building a massive wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Build that wall!” Trump said to the cheering crowd.

“The wall got ten feet higher!” one man yelled out in response.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-worries-rise-amid-hostile-trump-comments-on-latinos-and-muslims/2016/06/05/986545e8-2a1c-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html

June 5, 2016

JetBlue pilot decides this outfit is unacceptable. woman told to change

A JetBlue passenger says the airline has apologized to her after gate agents at Logan Airport forced her to change her shorts because they were too short, CBS Boston reports.

The woman from Seattle, a burlesque performer who goes by the name Maggie McMuffin, told CBS station KIRO-TV she was stopped after she tried to board a connecting flight at Logan May 18 wearing a sweater, thigh high socks and shorts.

She said she was told, "The flight crew had discussed it and the pilot had decided that I needed to put something else on or I would not be allowed to board the flight."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jetblue-passenger-stopped-from-boarding-plane-because-shorts-were-too-short/

June 5, 2016

Hiding female cast, 'Ghostbusters' courts male moviegoers

To sell "Ghostbusters," who are you going to call? In the film's initial nationwide TV spots, not its female stars.

Sony Pictures trotted out commercials Thursday night that promoted the female-led reboot not with cast members Melissa McCarthy or Kristen Wiig, but basketball stars Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony. The ads ran on ABC during game one of the NBA Finals, which is watched by a largely male audience.
Targeting different demographics through varied marketing strategies is commonplace for Hollywood films. Rarer are ads that replace a movie's actual cast wholesale.

The ads, which drew mixed reactions from viewers Thursday night, exhibited the anxiety Sony may have in getting enough male moviegoers to buy tickets for the big-budget comedy. A lot is riding on the film, due out July 15, which cost more than $150 million to make.

To sell "Ghostbusters," who are you going to call? In the film's initial nationwide TV spots, not its female stars.
Sony Pictures trotted out commercials Thursday night that promoted the female-led reboot not with cast members Melissa McCarthy or Kristen Wiig, but basketball stars Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony. The ads ran on ABC during game one of the NBA Finals, which is watched by a largely male audience.
Targeting different demographics through varied marketing strategies is commonplace for Hollywood films. Rarer are ads that replace a movie's actual cast wholesale.
The ads, which drew mixed reactions from viewers Thursday night, exhibited the anxiety Sony may have in getting enough male moviegoers to buy tickets for the big-budget comedy. A lot is riding on the film, due out July 15, which cost more than $150 million to make.

June 5, 2016

6 hour painting session and two hours of positioning create this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3623885/It-s-wild-Bodypainter-transforms-three-naked-women-majestic-howling-WOLF-gruelling-eight-hour-art-session-them.html

It's wild! Bodypainter transforms three naked women into a majestic howling WOLF in gruelling eight-hour art session... so can you see them?
Johannes Stoetter took six hours to paint the women's naked bodies
A further two hours were needed for positioning and the photo shoot
It's his most successful piece with many struggling to make out the women


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3623885/It-s-wild-Bodypainter-transforms-three-naked-women-majestic-howling-WOLF-gruelling-eight-hour-art-session-them.html#ixzz4AgmLAz4b
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June 5, 2016

Frilled neck lizard attacks man who helped it out of road

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/furious-frilled-neck-lizard-chases-teen-australia-article-1.2661122





Ricky Mackenzie, 18, noticed the outraged beastie on a dirt road in Western Australia and made the mistake of trying to assist it out of the way of oncoming cars, according to the Daily Star.

"I see a lot of frillies. I didn't want this one to get run over. I tried to help but he didn't want a bar of it," Mackenzie told Storyful. "It climbed right up my body. I had to pull it off and it then ran away.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/furious-frilled-neck-lizard-chases-teen-australia-article-1.2661122

Ricky Mackenzie, 18, recently spotted a frilled-neck lizard on a dirt road in Western Australia’s Kimberley region and tried to help it out of the way. But the lizard didn’t want his help, and went after him with a ferocity that has to be seen to be believed:

June 5, 2016

The media have reached a turning point in covering Donald Trump. He may not survive it.

If this evolution in coverage takes hold, we can trace it to the combined effect of a few events and developments happening in a short amount of time. The first was Trump's press conference on Tuesday, the ostensible purpose of which was to answer questions about a fundraiser he held in January to raise money for veterans' groups. In the course of the press conference, Trump was at his petulant, abusive worst, attacking reporters in general and those in the room. "The political press is among the most dishonest people that I've ever met," he said, saying to one journalist who had asked a perfectly reasonable question, "You're a sleaze." These kinds of criticisms are not new – anyone who has reported a Trump rally can tell you how Trump always tosses some insults at the press, at which point his supporters turn around and hurl their own abuse at those covering the event – but Trump seemed particularly angry and unsettled.

To see how the press looked at that revealing event, it's critical to understand what led to it. It happened because the Post's David Fahrenthold and some other reporters did what journalists are supposed to do. They raised questions about Trump's fundraiser, and when they didn't get adequate answers, they investigated, gathered facts, and asked more questions.

It was excellent work – time-consuming, difficult, and ultimately paying dividends in public understanding. And Trump's attack on them for doing their jobs the way those jobs are supposed to be done couldn't have been better designed to get every other journalist to want to do the same. They're no different than anyone else: When you make a direct attack on their professionalism, they're likely to react by reaching back to their profession's core values to demonstrate that they can live up to them. Trump may have wanted to intimidate them, but it's likely to have the opposite effect.

The same day as the press conference, a trove of documents from Trump University was released as part of a class-action lawsuit accusing Trump of fraud. The documents revealed allegations as to just what a scam that enterprise was: high-pressure sales tactics, nothing resembling knowledge being imparted to the "students," people in financial trouble preyed upon and told to max out their credit cards to pay for more seminars and courses. Some of Trump's other schemes may have been comical, but as far as we know nobody was victimized too terribly by buying a Trump Steak or a bottle of Trump Vodka. Trump University is something entirely different, and it's not over yet; questions are now being raised about an investigation the Texas Attorney General's office undertook of Trump University, which concluded that it was cheating Texans out of large sums of money; the investigation was dropped by then-AG Greg Abbott, who later got $35,000 in contributions from Trump and is now the state's governor.

Plenty of presidential candidates have had shady doings in their pasts, but can you think of anything that compares to Trump University? A party's nominee allegedly running a con not just on unsuspecting victims, but on victims specifically chosen for their vulnerability and desperation? It's no wonder that you can't find any Republicans who'll defend it, in a time when ordinarily you can get a partisan hack to justify almost anything their party's leader is doing or has done.


http://www.adn.com/voices/commentary/2016/06/04/the-media-have-reached-a-turning-point-in-covering-donald-trump-he-may-not-survive-it/