November 29, 2017

Murdoch says his company would never buy CNN

Twenty-First Century Fox "would never be interested" in buying CNN, Fox Executive Chair Lachlan Murdoch said on Wednesday at the Business Insider Ignition Conference in New York.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit to block AT&T's planned $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner, the parent of CNN, over antitrust concerns about the merged company owning too much content and distribution.

Before the suit, Department of Justice staff had recommended that AT&T sell either its DirecTV unit or Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting unit — which includes CNN, to gain antitrust approval, sources have told Reuters.

Earlier this month, Reuters first reported that Rupert Murdoch, who shares the title of executive chair of Fox, telephoned AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson twice to discuss CNN over the past six months.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/foxs-lachlan-murdoch-says-company-would-never-buy-cnn.html

November 28, 2017

In the Outer Banks, Officials and Property Owners Battle to Keep the Ocean at Bay

Nags Head’s struggle with beach erosion and litigious homeowners offers a preview of what’s to come as storms and rising seas hit communities from Maine to Texas.

NAGS HEAD, North Carolina—This hurricane season, Lance Goldner harbored an unusual wish: that his beach house on North Carolina's scenic Outer Banks would collapse in a storm.

Goldner bought the property with his brother 14 years ago, when it was part of a row of cottages perched above the high-tide line. They'd planned to rent it out, but for much of the past decade, the faded yellow structure has stood vacant. Today, insulation spills from its bowels. Windows are boarded up. And high tides wash underneath between pilings, even on calm days.

Ever since a nor'easter slammed the Outer Banks in 2009, damaging hundreds of homes along these barrier islands, Goldner's cottage has been largely uninhabitable. The storm sucked the land out from beneath the homes. Now only two remain in a row that once numbered 10. Erosion has gradually consumed the shoreline in the tourist town of Nags Head, seizing homes and threatening nearly a billion dollars' worth of property.

Sea level rise from climate change is making matters worse. For homeowners caught in the middle, the damage has left some facing substantial financial losses.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28112017/nags-head-north-carolina-beach-erosion-climate-change-sea-level-rise?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

November 28, 2017

It's really hard to tell who the stupidest Trump is.

https://twitter.com/rudepundit/status/935519545707593733

https://twitter.com/EricTrump/status/935509603340648448

Eric Trump
✔
@EricTrump

The irony of an ABC reporter (whose parent company Disney has profited nearly half a billion dollars on the movie “Pocahontas”) inferring that the name is “offensive” is truly staggering to me.

November 27, 2017

ACLU has taken over 100 legal actions against the Trump administration so far

here's a guide to the most notable ones

Three days after Donald Trump was elected president, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote a memo urging him to reconsider several controversial campaign promises.

Trump's plans to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, ban Muslims from entering the US, reduce women's access to abortion services, reauthorize torture tactics, and open up libel laws were "not simply un-American and wrong-headed," the ACLU said, but "unlawful and unconstitutional."

"If you do not reverse course and endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at your every step," the civil liberties law group cautioned the incoming president.

Trump ignored the warning. The ACLU, in response, has kept its word. On the one-year anniversary of Trump's election, the ACLU wrote a full-page letter in The New York Times, vowing to continue its fight against many of his policies.

http://www.businessinsider.com/aclu-lawsuits-vs-trump-administration-2017-10/#the-travel-ban-1

November 27, 2017

Marine Colonel Announces He's Running Against Roy Moore

When retired Marine Col. Lee Busby read it was too late for a write-in candidate for the Alabama senate race, he said, “Hold my beer, we will just see about that.”

Busby told The Daily Beast on Monday he is launching his long-shot bid to stop Republican nominee Roy Moore from reaching the Senate.

“I have no idea if the allegations against him true or not, but I don’t see anything within his experience as a judge that qualifies him for the job.”

Busby said his state needs a choice other than Moore or Democrat Doug Jones.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/marine-col-lee-busby-announces-hes-running-against-roy-moore?via=twitter_page

November 27, 2017

Indivisible South Carolina Founder To Take on Joe 'you lie' Wilson

An increasingly prominent progressive figure around Columbia and South Carolina plans to run for the U.S. House.

Annabelle Robertson has made her 2018 candidacy for the District 2 seat official. Republican Joe Wilson has held the seat since 2001.

Robertson has come to be a frequent sight at left-leaning rallies and events. She hit the South Carolina progressive scene hard earlier in the year as the founder of Indivisible South Carolina, a group that’s part of the grassroots network of the Indivisible movement which dedicates itself to resisting the Trump agenda. She came out against President Trump’s Secretary of Education pick, Betsy DeVos, in the wake of her nomination, and spoke critically about the Republican attempts at health care reform.

She also confronted Joe Wilson during his recent tour of the district about his support of Trump’s pardon of controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And in so many words, Robertson believes Wilson is a puppet of the president, particularly on the latest Republican tax plan passed by the House.

https://www.free-times.com/news/local-and-state-news/indivisible-south-carolina-founder-to-take-on-joe-wilson/article_320ec44e-ce18-11e7-9f09-fbb278804d2e.html

November 26, 2017

Gender-Neutral God

Church Of Sweden Moves To Drop 'He' And 'Lord'

The Church of Sweden is updating its rules and urging clergy to use gender-neutral language when referring to God, given that the being is not human.

Looking to update a 31-year-old handbook on service rituals and congregation interaction, the national Evangelical Lutheran church is moving to reduce usage of terms like “Lord” and “he” instead of just plain old “God,” the AP in Stockholm reports. The decision on Thursday followed an eight-day meeting of church leaders in which the 215-member religious body updates theology and policy regarding the direction of the church and the ways it fits into modern society. The head of the church says God's gender is beyond a human's understanding.

God is set to lose their male designation as the update takes effect on May 20 during the Christian holiday of Pentecost.

Archbishop Antje Jackelén, the leader of the church, told Sweden’s TT news agency that the language of inclusiveness is the point of the move and the topic has been discussed by church leaders since at least 1986.

http://www.ibtimes.com/gender-neutral-god-church-sweden-moves-drop-he-lord-2619497

November 24, 2017

Why Democrats feel Miami-Dade is moving their way

Six reasons why Democrats in Miami-Dade are feeling bullish on their prospects.

MIAMI — Miami-Dade County has long been a crucial region for Democrats' hopes of winning races in Florida. But today, the county's Democratic lean is becoming stronger than ever.

Both Al Gore and John Kerry won Miami-Dade by about 40,000 votes. Then, in 2008, Barack Obama won Miami-Dade by 139,000 votes.

Four years later — and contrary to the decline in his vote share elsewhere — Obama won Miami-Dade by 208,000 votes. Finally, in 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in Miami-Dade by a whopping 290,000 votes.

The trend line is clear: In Miami-Dade, an ethnically diverse metropolitan area where staunchly Republican Cuban-Americans have traditionally played a leading role in politics, the Democrats are gaining ground.

http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2017/11/22/why-democrats-feel-miami-dade-is-moving-their-way/

November 22, 2017

Trump Organization Will Walk Away From Its Struggling SoHo Hotel in New York

The announcement came on his television show, “The Apprentice.” Donald J. Trump would open his second luxury hotel in New York, a “work of art” in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan that would become “an awe-inspiring masterpiece.”

That was 11 years ago. The 46-story skyscraper, it turned out, was actually an albatross for Mr. Trump — drawing local opposition soon after its unveiling, partisan protests when he became a candidate for president and political scrutiny because of its early ties to a dubious Russian deal maker.

Now, in the latest sign of strain in the president’s family business, the Trumps want no more.

The Trump Organization has reached a deal that will allow the company to walk away from the property by the end of next month, the company said Wednesday. It is the second time this year the Trump name was erased from a hotel development, after a June announcement in Toronto.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/business/trump-organization-soho-hotel.html?emc=edit_na_20171122&nl=breaking-news&nlid=50533710&ref=headline

November 22, 2017

U.S. government warns businesses about cyber bug in Intel chips

(Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday urged businesses to act on an Intel Corp alert about security flaws in widely used computer chips as industry researchers scrambled to understand the impact of the newly disclosed vulnerability.

The Department of Homeland Security gave the guidance a day after Intel said it had identified security vulnerabilities in remote-management software known as “Management Engine” that shipped with eight types of processors used in business computers sold by Dell Technologies Inc, Lenovo Group Ltd, HP Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co and other manufacturers.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-cyber-vulnerability/u-s-government-warns-businesses-about-cyber-bug-in-intel-chips-idUSKBN1DM01R