tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75363222671192350732024-03-18T19:50:26.994-07:00The Bennington Vale Evening TranscriptSan Narciso County's Premier Source for Local, California and World NewsBC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comBlogger900125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-36625809676585929462019-09-20T20:30:00.001-07:002019-09-20T21:21:45.342-07:00NRA Ridicules Sandy Hook PSA and Teases Own “See Something, Shoot Something” Ad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- A chilling and emotionally fraught public service announcement (PSA) by Sandy Hook Promise, which <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/Sandy-Hook-Promise-Releases-Shocking-New-Back-to-School-PSA-560665891.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">debuted on the September 18 broadcast of <i>Today</i></a>, has haunted Americans since its airing with a jarring message about the perils facing students in an era where mass shootings have practically become normalized in their frequency and lackluster response by officials. The video opens much like those cheery back-to-school ads pushed by retailers during this time of year. Instead of voguing about campus with their cool new gear, however, the students descend into a nightmarish horrorscape, fleeing an unseen attacker as violence erupts around them. “It’s difficult to watch,” admitted National Rifle Association (NRA) leaders. “But not because of the anti-gun propaganda flagrantly basted over this turkey. If the purpose of our schools is to teach students how to survive the harsh realities of America, this video demonstrates just what a terrible job they’re doing.”<br />
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Back to School Essentials Misses the Target</h3>
The video, titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pungMxzA6U" target="_blank">Back to School Essentials</a>,” shows kids being forced to use ineffective tools like scissors, skateboards, and socks to defend themselves against an aggressor, implied to be well-armed by the steady pulse of gunfire exploding in the background over the helpless, bloodcurdling screams of students. The Daily Beast succinctly <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/sandy-hook-promises-shocking-back-to-school-ad-is-hard-to-watch" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">described the action</a> in its coverage of the PSA:<br />
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One student running from a shooter says: “These new sneakers are just what I needed for the new year.” Another wraps her long socks around a bleeding classmate’s leg that has been wounded by a bullet, and says: “These new socks? They can be a real lifesaver.” A third student uses his new skateboard to smash a window in a desperate attempt to escape the shooter.</blockquote>
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Thorn Havershabe, head of the San Narciso County NRA chapter, mocked the PSA as a “ridiculous fiction, an ironic endorsement for less gun control.”<br />
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“The only back-to-school essentials in this video belong to the alleged shooter,” Havershabe said. “If we want our kids graduating with colorful caps and gowns, not veils and black crepe, we need to give them the ‘essential’ equipment they need: automatic rifles, pistols with high-capacity magazines, and effing grenades. Not safety shears, toys, and Trapper Keepers — which, I can say from experience, neither trap nor keep speeding, armor-piercing rounds. This back-to-school ad needs to go back to school on the essentials for surviving the American dream.”<br />
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Student Body Armor or Student Body Count?</h3>
In the month of August alone, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/us/us-mass-shootings.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">53 people have perished in mass shootings</a>. So far this year, there have been 38 shootings with three or more fatalities. Schools have endured the lion’s share of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/08/us/school-shootings-us-2019-trnd/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gun-related terror</a>. In fact, just one day before Sandy Hook Promise released its shocking PSA, Oklahoma police arrested an 18-year-old who told coworkers she was plotting to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/17/oklahoma-teen-arrested-plan-shoot-400-people-fun/2355821001/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">kill 400 people</a> at her old high school “for fun.” Authorities discovered an AK-47 in the girl’s room.<br />
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Where the “suicidally stupid hippie peacenik” gun control advocates view the PSA as a renewed call to arms, or call to disarm as Havershade joked, he believes it further illustrates the massive shortcomings with nationwide school safety initiatives. <br />
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“Look at what these tuned-out, apathetic parents purchased for their precious cargo,” Havershabe noted. “Just showcases all the failings with the system. Teachers keep crying about supplies and stuff. Folders, tissues, pencils. What about kevlar-reinforced binders? What about body armor instead of Under Armour? Why not replace PE with paramilitary training programs? And where are the teachers in this video? Probably cowering, which would be fine if the campuses invested in fortified guard towers with skilled snipers. This PSA is encouraging our kids to use skateboards and sneakers to run away from the problem when, if properly armed, they could be confronting it, containing it, conquering it.”<br />
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Havershade referenced a hugely successful NRA-sponsored program he helped launch across all San Narciso County schools in 2013. The <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2013/01/nra-begins-funding-hall-monitor-program.html" target="_blank">Grammar School Gauntlet</a> project provides hall monitors with comprehensive courses in Krav Maga and other martial arts, classes in responsible gun ownership and safety, and marksmanship training at police shooting ranges. Hall monitors also receive a broad selection of semi-automatic handguns with ammunition. At the conclusion of the program, NRA mentors prepare students for the written and practical exams needed to obtain concealed weapons permits.<br />
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He also questioned the effectiveness of various “Say Something” efforts under way at most institutions. <br />
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“What’s the point?” Havershabe asked. “Call mommy? Call the cops? What are they going to do? I mean, the gut-punch ending of the PSA is actually the most pathetic part. A scared girl texting her mom to say I love you. Doing nothing but hiding and playing on her phone. It’s the weakness we’ve instilled with the Obama nanny state crap. We created a culture of victims. I want to see a video where the prey become the predators — where the girl sacks up, pulls an AR-15 out of her Hello Kitty satchel, and takes down the assailant in a hail of righteous gunfire. We have the power to turn potential tragedies into probable triumphs.”<br />
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Havershabe revealed that he is working closely with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre on a counterpoint PSA called “See Something, Shoot Something.”<br />
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“Sandy Hook Promise showed us only the promise of a bad end for sniveling, ill-equipped, untrained, ignorant, hapless fish in a pond trolled by a butcher who has a boat, an arsenal, and a backpack stuffed with dynamite,” he added. “This country needs sharks, not guppies whose lifespans can now be measured by grade level. K to 12 should represent an educational milestone. Sadly, it’s becoming the mortality range. If anything, this video accomplishes the justification for more guns on the streets, not prohibitive controls that jeopardize the survival odds — and future opportunities — of our youth. The most important decision facing today’s teens should emphasize weapons of choice, not colleges of choice. Skateboards and scissors won’t get you to Stanford, but a Howitzer will certainly improve your likelihood of getting to Harvard...without a hearse or casket.”<br />
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<i>(c) 2019. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-45942130972783064802018-07-04T11:20:00.000-07:002018-07-04T12:01:19.801-07:00Trump Orders White House Evacuation, Citing Threat of Independence Day Attacks by Illegal Aliens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eP6IrGdrFG4/Wz0PZQLT4FI/AAAAAAAA2M0/SUi0-K8JdqUFj6pAxxZXbfbDjfMvQuxsgCLcBGAs/s1600/Trump-Indpendence-Day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="trump-independence-day-orders-white-house-evacuation" border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="970" height="356" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eP6IrGdrFG4/Wz0PZQLT4FI/AAAAAAAA2M0/SUi0-K8JdqUFj6pAxxZXbfbDjfMvQuxsgCLcBGAs/s640/Trump-Indpendence-Day.jpg" title="trump-independence-day" width="640" /></a></div><b><br />
</b> <b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Panicked White House staffers reported that President Trump directly curtailed planned Independence Day celebrations to order an evacuation of the grounds early Wednesday morning, citing an alien threat. Interns described the president’s behavior as erratic. “His mannerisms were more deranged than usual, and he was spewing delusions about invasions and annihilation,” one said. Secret Service initially believed Trump had procured evidence of a massive, possibly hostile attack from immigrants and civil rights activists who have been protesting the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/inside-casa-padre-the-converted-walmart-where-the-us-is-holding-nearly-1500-immigrant-children/2018/06/14/0cd65ce4-6eba-11e8-bd50-b80389a4e569_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9b4f0fa4262e" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">internment of children separated</a> from their parents at the controversial Casa Padre facility in Texas. But sources now claim that Trump’s actions came in response to an airing of the 1996 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Independence Day</a>,” which he mistook for “intel from the future collected by NSA ‘<a href="http://minorityreport.wikia.com/wiki/Precogs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">precogs</a>.’”<br />
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<h3>Trump Attempts to Board Fighter Plane and Defeat Aliens Alone</h3>Shortly after ordering the evacuation of the White House and surrounding buildings, President Trump disappeared from the view of Secret Service agents. <br />
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“The official response is that we lost sight of him briefly during the confusion,” said Mark Eagleseit, a spokesperson for the Secret Service. “The unofficial response is a policy of turn the other cheek, as we’re calling it. Like, look away and perhaps this nightmare will end. Mr. Trump has been quite preoccupied with illegal aliens from places like Mars and Kolob. Last week he insisted that he had been abducted and anally probed. We later learned that he was simply forced to undergo his routine physical and prostate exams, which occurred in the White House nursing station -- and the president is convinced that any area outside his television room is the ‘vivisection chamber’ of a UFO.”<br />
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“We’re pretty sure he pulled a series of fire alarms near the Oval Office to trigger the alert,” Eagleseit added. “Some folks said they saw an amorphous orange creature slithering down the halls in a strangely fashioned loin cloth. They thought Mr. Trump may have been right about an invasion. We later verified it was the president in his underpants, hysterical after staying up all night watching the movie ‘Independence Day’ and eating 18 KFC family value meals.”<br />
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Trump was eventually apprehended and subdued by military security at Joint Base Andrews, a facility in Maryland under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force 11th Wing. Ranking personnel stated that Mr. Trump was observed trudging across an airstrip in an ill-fitting flight suit. He attempted to commandeer an F-16 Fighting Falcon, insisting that he was a decorated war pilot who would take down the “alien mothership” with Randy Quaid. <br />
The president, though stable, will remain under a 48-hour protective hold for further observation and psychological assessments.<br />
<h3>The Galactic Alien Threat -- It’s Not Just Muslims and Mexicans</h3>President Trump’s bizarre behavior may not be inconsistent with his recent stance on wider-scale immigration perils. He has remained relentless in his crusade to secure the nation’s borders from foreign influences. What many Americans may not know is that Trump has been fighting the battle on three fronts: one domestic, one abroad, and one interstellar. Most recently, he announced his intentions to form Space Force, a new branch of the military to patrol the no man’s land of outer space -- a vast 360-degree access point that leaves Earth utterly defenseless against alien aggressors from across the universe. <br />
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“Seldom has a great nation been so vulnerable,” Rep. Jim Cooper <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-space-force-trump-pentagon-20180618-story.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">told</a> reporters on June 18, reminding Terran citizens that space could transform into a “military battlefield, a place where this nation’s independence is protected or lost.”<br />
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Trump’s solution? As explained by the Washington Post editorial board: “Create a ‘Space Force’ to defend this nation’s security against adversaries that could gain military superiority on the ground via military dominance overhead, in space.”<br />
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The catalyst to this newest iteration of xenophobia likely came from the <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/02/nasa-exoplanet-aliens-space-wall.html" target="_blank">discovery of an exoplanet</a> last year. On February 20, 2017, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) teased an <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-host-news-conference-on-discovery-beyond-our-solar-system" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">intriguing find</a>. The announcement alluded to the possibility that scientists had identified life-sustainable planets beyond our solar system. Astronomers applauded the news, but terrified Trump officials described the discovery as an immigration powder keg, on a galactic scale.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2016/12/trump-border-security-supervillains.html" target="_blank">border wall</a> championed by President Trump has endured as a divisive issue, even among Republicans. Democrats see the structure as an ideological barrier to diversity -- a racist monument. Republicans worry about the incredible costs taxpayers would absorb for erecting the wall. Trump has continued to assert that his administration will spare no expense to safeguard American sovereignty, economic interests, or jobs.<br />
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“They’re coming over here, you know Mexicans and jihadists, and they’re rapists and drug dealers,” Trump said. “And they’re stealing our jobs. They’re putting American rapists and drug dealers out of work. Because they can rape and deal for pennies on the dollar.”<br />
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But Trump, during the past two years, has also submitted proposals for a Space Wall and a Death Star, which he criticized former President Obama from vetoing. Trump blasted the decision as a willful act in a prepared 2017 statement: <br />
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<blockquote>Obviously, Barack Obama was colluding with a foreign interest, who had probably blackmailed him. In this case, one of these demonic planets. He gave a bunch of BS reasons to NOT build a space wall or battle moon or whatever. Because he was already planning to let the aliens through. It’s a Muslim thing, what can I say? But it doesn’t matter how many gazillions of dollars you’ll have to pay in taxes, we’re building the Death Star and we’re going to keep America safe. You know, our second greatest president -- because according to the polls and my tremendous mandate and bigly popularity, I’m the greatest -- Ronald Reagan, a wonderful leader, you know, he developed a Star Wars defense. Laser blasters could shoot down enemy ICBMs. But Obama stopped all that. I’m going to carry on where Reagan left off. Death Star. That also means jobs, new career paths for military personnel, stores that will carry Ivanka’s fashion line and the biggest Trump luxury hotel/casino in the universe. Expect an executive order next week after I meet with Stephen Miller to figure out when Jar Jar will vote for the transfer of supreme emergency powers.</blockquote><br />
In 2013, according to the Washington Post, the federal government was alerted to the possibility of alien incursion through a <a href="https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">petition</a> demanding the construction of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/01/12/white-house-rejects-death-star-petittion/?utm_term=.9307516c63e4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Death Star</a>. The public request received the 250,000 signatures required to elicit a response from the White House. Concerned citizens, anticipating an inevitable refugee crisis from beyond the Milky Way, urged science and technology advisers to build a <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">DS-1 Class Orbital Battle Station</a> capable of shielding the Earth from attack.<br />
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Obama officials, however, scoffed at the $850 quadrillion budget, claiming the cost was too high in a time of tight budgets. Adviser Paul Shawcross told petitioners that “the administration does not support blowing up planets… Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?”<br />
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<i>(c) 2018. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-23269965071627805692017-07-06T18:37:00.000-07:002017-07-06T18:37:12.366-07:00Security Cited in July 4 NJ Beach Closure: Wildlife Activists Tried to Push Christie in Ocean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- On Saturday, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), dubbed the <a href="http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2017/06/14/with-15-percent-approval-christie-is-now-new-jerseys-least-popular-governor-ever-112747" target="_blank">least popular governor in America</a>, ordered the state to close a taxpayer-funded beach during one of the busiest holiday celebrations of the summer. This weekend, revelers hoping to enjoy some sun and quality time on the sands of Island Beach State Park found the popular destination off limits -- to everyone but Chris Christie, who turned a public playground into his private Mar-a-Lago. Citizens of New Jersey erupted in fury after learning that miles of coastline would be roped off to accommodate Gov. Christie. But his aides explained that the governor’s “unnaturally immense stature” and past security incidents necessitated the action. “Last year, a horde of frantic children broke past security and desperately tried to push the governor into the water, screaming something about him being beached,”a spokesperson clarified.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Hefty Dose of Republican Apathy Takes Big, Fat Toll on New Jersey</h3>
Like the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/sunday-review/bridgegate-lives.html" target="_blank">bridge</a> shuttered by Christie in a vindictive political maneuver three years ago, the beach has become a new front in the scandalous battles that have plagued his administration. Even Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, a fellow Republican and Christie running mate, <a href="http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/07/03/chris-christies-lieutenant-governor-just-broke-silence-beach-vacation-scandal/" target="_blank">condemned the governor’s selfish, thoughtless exploitation of privilege</a> at the expense of taxpayers.<br />
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“If I were governor, I sure wouldn’t be sitting on the beach if taxpayers didn’t have access to state beaches. It’s beyond words,” she posted to her Facebook account. “We need to end the shutdown now. It’s hurting small businesses and ordinary New Jerseyans. Instead of political games, Governor Christie, Speaker Prieto and Senate President Sweeney should pass a budget that delivers property tax relief and puts taxpayers first.”<br />
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Christie had initially denied visiting the empty beach. When first questioned about the incident and his alleged presence, he told reporters, “I didn’t. I didn’t get any sun.” Later, photos emerged showing Christie and his family relaxing on an unpopulated stretch of coastline. The evidence pressured the governor’s office to respond.<br />
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“It’s true that Governor Christie did not get any sun,” a reluctant spokesperson said. “Certainly, we know his wife and children didn’t, eclipsed in the long, cold shadow cast by planetary dimensions of the governor. Science also tells us that because of his sheer girth, most of his body was deprived of sunshine, as well. In fact, only the small objects orbiting his frame may have passed through occasional rays of light.”<br />
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The press official also pointed out several past encounters with concerned children, marine wildlife activists and environmental groups who mistook Christie for a beached whale. Although well-intentioned, their attempts to rush part security details and roll the bloated, nebulous mass of the governor into the ocean were generally interpreted as acts of terror. <br />
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Two years ago, a Surfrider volunteer was shot by police and three elementary school children sustained serious injuries when Christie’s body rolled back on top of them. Dozens of other beachgoers were trampled in the confusion.<br />
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From Bridgegate to Beachgate</h3>
In January 2014, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie became mired in scandal when revelations emerged that top aides in his administration orchestrated the <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2014/03/chris-christie-investigates-his.html" target="_blank">politically motivated sabotage of the George Washington Bridge</a> that September. Christie issued a brief public apology after the news broke, followed by two hours of self-indulgent, self-pitying and, at times, passive-aggressive assurances that he was “a very sad person.” <br />
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Emails published by the Bergen Record presented indisputable evidence that Christie’s top staffers and allies plotted to create four days of lane closures on the bustling connector between New Jersey and New York. Christie fired those responsible and denied any involvement in the incident. But nearly four months later, the dark cloud that rained ruin over his career continues to show no signs of dissipating. On Thursday, the embattled governor and former GOP presidential contender announced that he had commissioned an internal investigation into his possible abetting of “Bridgegate,” which ultimately cleared him of any wrongdoing.<br />
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”At great personal expense, I hired the law firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher -- attorneys I know well and trust -- to help me investigate any involvement I may have had in the Bridgegate scandal,” Christie told reporters. “Two months and 344 pages later, we have concluded that I had nothing to do with the closure of the George Washington Bridge.”<br />
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Critics denounced the veracity of the findings, but Christie and his lawyers assured them that the report held the “Christie BMI equivalent” of legal weight.<br />
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“In fact, I think you could say that after 70 interviews and an in-depth analysis of 250,000 documents, our report is overweight -- morbidly obese with evidence,” the lead attorney said.<br />
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The closure of the beach this Independence Day, which also harmed the local economy and frustrated citizens, will likely be more difficult to dismiss. But Christie said he felt confident that his constituents would move past this setback faster than he could move up a small flight of stairs.<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-74954774778303156612017-06-12T10:36:00.001-07:002019-03-14T22:02:47.466-07:00Trump Crashes New Jersey Wedding Reception to Grope Young Bride<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lnh77iM_Hh0/WT7Q7BWDMQI/AAAAAAAAqMc/H2jva4qgldQfzwA7k5-nhko9Cs0bFlHEwCLcB/s1600/trump%2Bcrashes%2Bwedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="trump-crashes-new-jersey-wedding-grope-bride" border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="672" height="564" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lnh77iM_Hh0/WT7Q7BWDMQI/AAAAAAAAqMc/H2jva4qgldQfzwA7k5-nhko9Cs0bFlHEwCLcB/s640/trump%2Bcrashes%2Bwedding.jpg" title="trump crashes wedding" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- On Saturday night, shortly after sealing their nuptials, a young couple received a surprise visit from Donald Trump. The president <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/11/politics/trump-crashes-wedding/index.html" target="_blank">crashed the wedding reception</a> being held at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster Township, New Jersey, where he proceeded to kiss, hug, fondle and grope the new bride who bore a striking resemblance to First Lady Daughter Ivanka Trump. The unexpected appearance was captured on video by guests at the event.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>Trump Seeks Comfort in Beautiful Babies After Embarrassing Testimony from Government Cry Babies</h3>Members of the wedding party and their invited guests had no forewarning of Mr. Trump’s arrival until Secret Service agents entered the room to secure the premise and make sure the bride would not resist the president’s unsavory advances.<br />
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White House public relations representatives said Trump needed to relieve stress after former <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/06/james-comeys-public-testimony-leaked.html" target="_blank">FBI Director James Comey offered a humiliating account</a> of the president’s dishonesty and attempts to pressure intelligence officers to abandon their investigation of possible collusion between the White House and the Kremlin during the 2016 election. Sources close to Trump noted that groping married women, particularly those with uncanny similarities to Ivanka, is how the president prefers to blow off steam.<br />
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“During Mr. Comey’s dubious testimony, the president was so livid he couldn’t even tweet the word <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/06/trump-ditches-paris-accord-jurassic-park.html" target="_blank">covfefe</a>,” Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders remarked. However, Trump eventually managed to <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/06/trump_s_claims_that_comey_lied_under_oath_put_him_in_a_pickle.html" target="_blank">accuse Comey of perjury</a> -- a serious offense that could land the troubled president in hot water if the veracity of Comey’s account is reconciled by Congress. Mark Joseph Stern illustrated the fraught situation in Slate:<br />
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<blockquote>Trump has still accused Comey of perjury, a federal crime that undermines our legal system and carries serious penalties. He likely doesn’t realize the severity of this accusation; he routinely throws perceived enemies under the bus for the sake of political expediency. But this time, his habit will backfire. The president’s reckless barb is certain to escalate the conflict between the two men. And Trump has already given Comey the upper hand.</blockquote><h3>Trump Seals State of Their Union with a Kiss</h3>Following his entrance, President Trump asked the names of the couple, although he insisted on calling the woman “Ivanka.” Mr. Trump raced toward the blushing blonde bride and was greeted with a small peck on the cheek.<br />
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“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married,” the president allegedly told members of his staff after the incident. “Then all of a sudden I see her, and Secret Service whispers in her ear, and she tears up a little, probably with gratitude, and runs over to kiss me.”<br />
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“I’m <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/10/07/donald_trump_2005_tape_i_grab_women_by_the_pussy.html" target="_blank">automatically attracted</a> to beautiful women,” he added. “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything.”<br />
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For Trump, the bride’s attention seemed to justify his lifelong belief that power and celebrity negate acts of sexual assault. He spent several minutes groping the woman, kissing her and asking when the garter toss would be taking place. He volunteered to replace the garter himself with another he fished out of his pocket, bearing the slogan “You Put a Tinkle in My Eyes.”<br />
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After the bride escaped his grip, Trump signed “Make America Great Again” hats and distributed them to guests, some of whom <a href="https://twitter.com/KilloughCNN/status/873986665039241216" target="_blank">cheered and chanted</a> “U.S.A.!” as CNN reported. But one guest clarified that the celebration was misinterpreted by the press.<br />
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“When the president signed hats that said ‘Make America Great Again,’ we cheered, that’s true,” the man explained. “I don’t follow politics closely, but I know that James Comey just blasted Trump -- exposed him as a pathological liar with no integrity. Then, you know, Trump’s never in the White House. He’s staying at his golf club in Jersey. And Melania just moved into the White House, which make sense because she doesn’t want to be anywhere near him. Given all that, I sort of figured he finally got impeached and kicked out of office. But if that hasn’t happened, and he’s still president, I don’t see how Trump can make America great. Looks like we got lied to again.”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-69339334514884499842017-06-06T15:26:00.000-07:002017-06-06T15:26:11.307-07:00Bizarre Details of James Comey’s Public Testimony Leaked to Press<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4wrwGDYxp-c/WTcripYwxfI/AAAAAAAAqIU/gOptxSql27sDmX9van4JKOSH2-zTompjwCLcB/s1600/trump%2Bcomey%2Bpublic%2Btestimony.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="james-comeys-public-testimony-leaked" border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="908" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4wrwGDYxp-c/WTcripYwxfI/AAAAAAAAqIU/gOptxSql27sDmX9van4JKOSH2-zTompjwCLcB/s640/trump%2Bcomey%2Bpublic%2Btestimony.jpg" title="trump comey public testimony" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Former FBI Director James Comey, whom Donald Trump <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/trump-met-russian-officials-comey-fbi.html" target="_blank">unceremoniously discharged</a> nearly a month ago, is set to take the stand in a public testimony on Thursday, during which time he will reveal the sensitive and fraught communications he shared with the president between January and May. CNN has already <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/donald-trump-james-comey/" target="_blank">described the event as the “Super Bowl” of Washington politics</a>. Comey’s revelations will likely raise the stakes for this troubled administration. White House staffers and counsel have gathered to prepare an aggressive defense, which intimates that Comey has a powerful story to tell. Despite the anxiety and speculation, some details have been leaked to the Evening Transcript.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
James Comey Steps into the Big Top of Trump’s Crumbling Carnival</h3>
The nation’s largest broadcasters will preempt normal programming to cover the hearing -- an unprecedented decision for a Congressional gathering that, in ordinary circumstances, would be considered mundane. But the information Comey may impart extends beyond the routine parliamentary procedures that typically occur on Capitol Hill.<br />
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“There’s lots and lots of other questions that Comey can answer in Thursday’s hearing,” wrote CNN Editor-at-large Chris Cillizza. “And his answers are the sort of stuff that could have explosive consequences for this president and this White House -- particularly given how adamant Trump has been that all of the reporting on his conversations with Comey is totally wrong.”<br />
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According to Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the Intelligence Committee chairman who will preside over the hearing, there are no limits on what Comey can say.<br />
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“The story Comey presumably has to tell is a humdinger, based on all of the amazing reporting in and around this White House and Comey’s relationship with Trump,” Cillizza added.<br />
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Trump’s possible collusion with Russian hackers who interfered with the election promises to be a centerpiece of Comey’s testimony, particularly since the erstwhile FBI director admitted that the president asked him to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s disgraced appointment for National Security Adviser. Flynn was fired in February amid controversy. He <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/06/michael-flynn-trumps-ex-national-security-adviser-focus-russia-investigation-what-to-know.html" target="_blank">remains a focus of the Russia investigation</a> for misleading the administration about his dealings with Moscow.<br />
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But given Mr. Trump’s unfiltered rants and penchant for freely releasing classified information, Comey may have learned a great deal in the four months he served under this president’s command. As we noted recently, like Coleridge’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43997" target="_blank">Ancient Mariner</a>, Trump almost seems cursed to stop one out of every three strangers to regale the hapless listener with tales of sensitive policies and covert military schemes. In fact, Trump announced last week that members of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach may purchase <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/mar-a-lago-fortune-cookies-classified-information.html" target="_blank">fortune cookies</a> for $500 that contain a random piece of secret government intelligence.<br />
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The details leaked to the Evening Transcript depict a world leader teetering on the precipice of sanity. Beyond allegations of supplying foreign powers with access to state secrets, the documents outline bizarre behaviors that call into question Trump’s fitness to lead the nation.<br />
<h3>
Leaked Details of Comey’s Testimony</h3>
Close associates of Comey have portrayed him as a man of scrupulous note-taking, who built a repository of memos from his discussions with Trump to serve as a dead man’s switch. Following are highlights of the weird and disturbing interactions Comey allegedly recorded.<br />
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JANUARY 22: Trump mentioned an interest in following Germany’s example of removing socialist restrictions on personal choice by repealing incest laws. This, followed by an executive order introducing the Woody Allen Act (or Woody Act, for short). Trump then muttered a non-sequitur about divorcing Melania and taking Ivanka “out for a nice dinner at this place Cosby recommended.”<br />
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JANUARY 23: The president asked immigration officials about the legality of deporting Alec Baldwin, “that Amityville Whore, back to Ireland. F**k Alec Baldwin.” Overheard Trump telling Kellyanne Conway to clear time on his calendar to “give Rudy Giuliani the foot massage I promised him.”<br />
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JANUARY 27: Trump placed a call on his personal cell phone, presumably to his assistant. He wanted to confirm “Putin’s request for reservations and gift certificates to Comet Ping Pong pizza, whatever the hell that is.”<br />
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FEBRUARY 4: Trump asked one of my FBI operatives to investigate why Monster Cereals -- specifically Franken Berry and Boo-Berry -- are sold only once a year. He implied that the seasonal distribution was bad business and bore some connection to “sleazy Mexican cartels exploiting NAFTA.”<br />
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FEBRUARY 8: Aides reported that they caught Trump cutting eyeholes in White House pillowcases. He told them, allegedly, that he was making a special outfit for Jeff Sessions’ confirmation call. Apparently, they have planned a masquerade.<br />
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FEBRUARY 9: Trump asked scientists at Pentagon if there was an antidote for the “gay bomb” and if he could, as president, use their time-traveling DeLorean to stop Libyan terrorists.<br />
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FEBRUARY 13: Trump told everyone in the White House that he hates being president. For once, I agree. I hate him being president, too.<br />
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FEBRUARY 14: Heated argument transpires between president and first lady. Trump verbally abuses Melania, berating her for continuing to breastfeed Barron -- and her personal trainer and the landscaper and the chauffeur. Melania counters by accusing Russian prostitutes with bladder control issues of interfering with the marriage. <br />
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Trump takes me aside and explains the “curative power of urine” in an awkward moment. “I bathe in the urine of virgins, Jim, to keep up my stamina and youth. I first discovered this purity of essence while changing Ivanka’s diaper as she had an accident.”<br />
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I asked the president when this incident occurred, having no other coherent response. “Oh, a long time ago. I would say she was about 14, Jim,” he said.<br />
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FEBRUARY 27: Trump has spent a frantic week calling officials at the FDA and representatives from the beef lobby. I don’t understand the panic or the point, but he’s demanding that someone make borscht the national dish immediately. References an unrelated meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Envoy Sergey Kislyak, set for May.<br />
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MARCH 2: Trump storms into FBI headquarters unannounced. He orders me to procure the hospital records of Barron’s birth. “I went to the hospital, it was in Italy someplace, and it had burned down,” he told me. “But some monks knew about it and said that my child may have been switched at birth. I went to visit the mother’s grave -- the real birth mother, they said. It was a jackal’s corpse, Jim. A f***ing dog, Jim. I want answers.”<br />
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MARCH 15: Trump confessed that colleagues at the Kremlin tipped him off to a planned incursion into Georgia, slated for June. Said he agreed that an armed invasion would help restore peace in the region. The president cited ethnic unrest, racial tensions and a creeping ideology of liberalism in a normally conservative area. I informed Mr. Trump that he should be directing such conversations to the State Department. He scoffed, grabbed his personal cell phone and called Kasim Reed, the mayor of Atlanta. He recommended that Reed consider taking a long vacation out of the state before summer.<br />
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MARCH 17: Trump meets with the Prime Minister of Ireland. He is visibly angered that the pot of clovers gifted to him is considerably smaller than the one given to Obama. Trump begins referring to PM Kenny derisively, calling him “Edna.” Kenny retorts that Ireland provided a size of bouquet to match the hands of the president, in an effort to avoid embarrassment. <br />
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APRIL 6: Trump issued an internal memo on behalf of Steve Bannon ordering all government agencies to eliminate Mr. Clean from their custodial supplies. Said the bald “genie” on the bottle looks Islamic. “And he’s got an earring, so queer,” the note read.<br />
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APRIL 20: Trump sends portraits to various federal bureaus, including the FBI. He demands that they be hung on the lobby walls. He claims that he painted them himself. They are all poorly fashioned in a style similar to Pollock. Sickly yellow, copper and bluish blotches covering every inch of the canvas. He has signed them all “Pissasso.”<br />
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APRIL 27: After Trump implied that Frederick Douglass was still alive, he lavished similar present-tense accolades on Luciano Pavarotti, who died in 2007. Even more confusing, the commander-in-chief stunned Israel’s ambassador when he delivered a <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/holocaust-remembrance-trump-hitler-warning.html" target="_blank">stern warning to Adolf Hitler</a>, whose life ended 72 years ago. Trump also veered off script to distance himself from comparisons to Hitler. He told the Israeli delegation that Hitler was a terrible leader whose policies ran in contrast to his own: “Hitler was a socialist. He used the government to create jobs and allocated taxes to fund projects that should have been private, like freeways, food, schools, housing and even universal health care. I would never offer Americans a free house, education, meals or medical attention.”<br />
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MAY 1: Trump is overheard criticizing Press Secretary Sean Spicer for failing to maintain a positive image of the president in the media. Threatens Spicer’s job. Insists that Spicer is to blame for not landing Trump the lead role in the upcoming “Wonder Woman” movie. Also demands that Spicer stop appearing on “Saturday Night Live.” Spicer’s clarifications fall on deaf ears.<br />
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MAY 4: Trump phones late at night, around 4:30 a.m. Eastern. He sounds as though he’s been crying. Television noise blares in the background -- cable news shows, infomercials for hair restoration creams, an episode of “Hee Haw” and what sounds like a “Star Wars” film. He asks me if I know of any “Jar Jars” in Congress. I tell him I have no idea what he means. Trump begins shouting. Before the line disconnects, he mumbles something about “no Supreme Chancellor of the galaxy without Jar Jar’s vote.”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-75144995226928257632017-06-01T18:31:00.000-07:002017-06-01T18:39:52.820-07:00Trump Ditches Paris Accord, Sets Sights on Jurassic Park-Inspired Fossil Fuel Farms<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- In struggling to uphold his campaign pledges, many of which have stalled or faded away in a billow of brazen rhetoric, President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris accord, a landmark 2015 global agreement to combat the devastating effects of climate change. Trump has generally viewed green energy initiatives as unfounded scams that contribute nothing to the economy, although employment figures, growth projections and financial data paint a different portrait. Instead, Trump seeks to bolster American production and create jobs by reviving the whaling industry and, in an odd remark from the White House Rose Garden, “putting scientists to work engineering a tremendous Jurassic Park full of dinosaurs we can breed and harvest into petroleum -- like an amazing fossil fuel farm.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Trump Serves Covfefe, Not Cannes</h3>
As Reuters reported, Trump <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-trump-idUSKBN18R1J4" target="_blank">tapped into the “America First” message</a> he campaigned on, saying, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” <br />
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“I serve the interests of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/donald-trump-covfefe/" target="_blank">Covfefe</a>, not Cannes,” he added.<br />
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With this action, Trump honors his vow to secede from the international environmental protection body. He also separates the United States from nearly every other nation on the globe, aligned only with Nicaragua and Syria as a non-participant. Despite pleas and outrage from other world leaders, Trump described his decision as a restoration of “American sovereignty,” which has suffered under the “draconian” financial and economic burdens of the accord. <br />
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Foreign heads of state united in their criticism of Trump, maintaining a defiant and ironclad front. Most agreed with Belgium’s Prime Minister, Charles Michel, that pulling away from the Paris accord defined a “brutal act” with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/world/europe/climate-paris-agreement-trump-china.html" target="_blank">wider repercussions for developing nations</a>, according to the New York Times.<br />
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<blockquote>
Mr. Trump took aim at the Green Climate Fund designed to help poor nations deal with the havoc of <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" target="_blank">climate change</a>, calling it a vast scheme to redistribute wealth. In fact, the accord leaves it to each country to decide how they will reduce emissions and how much they will contribute.<br />
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Mayors from Sweden to Australia pushed back. “What’s heartbreaking is the damage governments can do in a short time when they’re in power,” said Clover Moore, the mayor of Sydney. “But where national action falters, as we see in the U.S.A. tonight, we see more and more city governments stepping up to provide the leadership we urgently need.”</blockquote>
<h3>
Creating Pollution Creates More Jobs and Industries</h3>
At the end of March, President Trump issued an executive order to expand oil pipeline construction and reduce regulatory oversight of environmental controls. The proclamation <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/executive-order-climate-change-jobs.html" target="_blank">rescinded the moratorium on coal exploration and production</a>, while eliminating many Obama-era climate protections. The ceremony took place at the <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/trump-budget-fascist-marine-sanctuaries.html" target="_blank">soon-to-be-shuttered Environmental Protection Agency</a> (EPA). Trump and his supporters have insisted that energy independence for fossil fuel industries remains a key ingredient to economic growth. More importantly, rolling back existing curbs on pollution will save and create dozens of jobs, according to labor analysts.<br />
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Conservatives have touted Trump’s mastery in clearing away political obstacles, such as Native Americans, from impeding initiatives like the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Those projects promised to create upward of 35 permanent positions. The president’s withdrawal from the Paris accord further seeks to capitalize on those impressive employment figures by rolling back climate change policies that have hobbled the fossil fuel and coal mining industries. Analysts say this effort could create tens of jobs, which Trump hailed as “explosive double-digital growth.”<br />
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But according to a <a href="http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA_RE_Jobs_Annual_Review_2016.pdf" target="_blank">2016 report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA</a>. “Jobs in the solar industry grew 12 times as fast as overall job creation in the US economy,” the report noted. The country’s 209,000 solar industry jobs in 2015 outnumbered those in oil and gas extraction -- 187,200 -- and coal mining -- 67,929.<br />
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In January, however, Trump proposed a “climate-friendly energy plan” that he said would create jobs, restore a dying industry and provide low income families with affordable fuel: clean burning <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/01/trump-environment-energy-whaling.html" target="_blank">whale oil</a>. The president’s cabinet members also believe that pollution can lead to more positive economic outcomes, such as the exponential expansion of employment in health care.<br />
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“Imagine that water tables become contaminated,” said DeForrest Tayschon, a representative for Scott Pruitt’s EPA team. “Air quality doesn’t just plummet, the very atmosphere turns to poison. People will need medical attention. Lots of it. That translates to greater demand for healthcare professionals and insurance companies. Instead of saving their money to buy unnecessary luxuries like smartphones and organic produce, Americans will be investing all of their savings into health. It will revitalize the economy and boost it to unprecedented levels. For those who can’t afford treatments? New job openings for interested workers. I also think the funerary marketplace would thrive, again creating more jobs and more economic stimulation.”<br />
<h3>
Making Fossil Fuels Renewable by Breeding Dinosaurs</h3>
Critics of Trump’s nationalistic policies have chided the president for promoting job-creation strategies that ultimately stifle employment growth in other sectors. Green energy is a primary example. With the administration’s downsizing of scientific agencies and outright dismissal of scientists at NASA, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the EPA, lawmakers have attacked Trump for generating unemployment. But the White House believes the construction of a real-life Jurassic Park, headed by scientists, will resolve the issue.<br />
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Trump said he plans to hire geneticists, biologists, zoologists, paleontologists, chemists, computer engineers and other experts to breed new species of dinosaurs in a protected area. The administration is also bidding on technologies that can expedite the aging and fossilization process through accelerated decomposition in a specially designed soil structure made from layers of rock, mud and sand. Other creatures, once reaching maturity, will not undergo the fossilization procedure but will be slaughtered like cattle and sold as food to the poor nations the Paris accord claims to benefit.<br />
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“Oil comes from dinosaurs,” a White House science spokesperson explained. “If we can find a way to breed and slaughter these lizards, our scientists anticipate a limitless supply of oil for future generations. We will discover new food supplies. We won’t need to negotiate with Muslim terrorists and uppity Canadians any longer. We won’t need to trade with communist countries. And, we’ll develop one of the most important pieces of real estate on the planet. We’re going to crack this baby wide open and start pumping black gold straight out of every hole we can dig.”<br />
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Because the transformation from animal to fuel must occur underground, Trump will need to suspend drilling restrictions and open national parks to fracking and excavation. When asked about the potential geophysical dangers of such an undertaking -- ranging from catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis to opening previously undiscovered volcanic chimneys all over the United States -- Trump’s representative replied that the benefits would outweigh the risks.<br />
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“Everything’s a crap shoot,” he said. “You try to negotiate prices with OPEC, and you end up in a war. You set up water mills just to find yourself in a drought. You put up an oil rig off the Gulf and it explodes. This endeavor creates jobs and money and cheap gas prices. Yes, I said it, cheap gas prices...like 1940’s rates. Do you want to continue flying your family to Disney World, driving your BMW and having Vaseline in the medicine cabinet? Or do you want to move to some hell hole in Europe where you’ll end up driving a horse-drawn buggy around a beet farm all day?”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-75655211512684984852017-05-30T19:06:00.000-07:002017-05-30T19:06:10.840-07:00Mar-a-Lago Members Can Buy Fortune Cookies with Classified Information Inside<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zbx-i3g31SE/WS4k2VeILdI/AAAAAAAAqD8/Cq0Fs_Zs_zMRJ-RwkdoIeab9ACG03ERhACLcB/s1600/mar-a-lago-fortune-cookie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="mar-a-lago-fortune-cookies-classified-information" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zbx-i3g31SE/WS4k2VeILdI/AAAAAAAAqD8/Cq0Fs_Zs_zMRJ-RwkdoIeab9ACG03ERhACLcB/s640/mar-a-lago-fortune-cookie.jpg" title="mar-a-lago-fortune-cookie" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- For Donald Trump, sharing state secrets with any interested foreign actor has become a sort of proving ground in a rite of passage to be accepted as a legitimate global leader -- a way to validate that he holds genuine power and knowledge. But as his <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-ratings-impeachment-odds-white-house-russia-scandal-617650" target="_blank">approval rating plummets</a> into an abyss of historic lows, even among right-wing pollsters, Trump has found himself perched atop a fulcrum on which his authority and ability to command teeter. He has become desperate to reassert his image of brash confidence and superior insight. So beginning on June 1, restaurants at Trump’s Palm Beach resort will treat curious diners to confidential secrets that promise to be juicier than their overcooked, cloth-textured steaks. For $500, visitors to Mar-a-Lago may purchase fortune cookies that contain one piece of classified U.S. intelligence (limit one cookie per guest).<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Loose Lips Sink Ships But Build Relationships</h3>
Donald Trump has remained highly secretive about his financial situation, tax obligations, dalliances with Russian prostitutes and business connections that potentially breach established ethics or create dangerous conflicts of interest. However, when it comes to divulging classified information, the president is anything but shy. Like Coleridge’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43997" target="_blank">Ancient Mariner</a>, Trump almost seems cursed to stop one out of every three strangers to regale the hapless listener with tales of sensitive intelligence and covert military schemes. <br />
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President Trump has routinely released classified plans to foreign nationals who have been deemed hostile to U.S. interest. During his most recent <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/tass-monitoring-devices-oval-office.html" target="_blank">meeting with Russian officials</a>, Trump openly discussed U.S. strategies for thwarting ISIS. <br />
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During his visit with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, the violent despot who has sanctioned extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers or anyone the public considers a nuisance, Trump sought to gain expert advice on employing similar strategies. In exchange, the U.S. president rewarded Duterte with information that he had stationed <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-submarines-idUSKBN18K15Y" target="_blank">two nuclear submarines within striking distance of North Korea</a>.<br />
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On May 16, Trump then welcomed Turkey’s ruler, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to Washington. That visit ended with Trump <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/trump-meets-erdogan-nuclear-codes.html" target="_blank">handing over America’s missile launch codes</a> in a fit of wounded pride and boasting. Presidential aides recalled the tense moment when Erdogan questioned the amount of access Trump had to privileged information. <br />
<br />
“The president responded with aplomb,” said National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. “Mr. Trump told Erdogan, ‘I’m one of the smartest men in the world. Everybody knows that. I have access to everything.’ The Turkish president challenged Mr. Trump’s claims of having exclusive control over the United States’ nuclear arsenal. Then Trump -- and this was glorious -- handed the codes right over to Erdogan. Boy, was he embarrassed. Egg all over his face.”<br />
<h3>
Mar-a-Lago Membership Privileges: Privileged Information for the Price of Admission</h3>
Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, dubbed the “Winter Whitehouse,” has become a hotbed of controversy and compromised security. The president has still failed to take the necessary steps to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interests/508382/" target="_blank">distance himself from his business interests</a>. On January 23, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-is-the-emoluments-clause-does-it-apply-to-president-trump/2017/01/23/12aa7808-e185-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.b09cf5442986" target="_blank">filed a lawsuit</a> alleging that Trump’s companies receive payments from foreign governments, a violation of the Constitution’s “Emoluments Clause.”<br />
<br />
The situation with Mar-a-Lago is more tenuous and pressing. The club’s membership list is private, so the American public has no recourse to learning who may be overhearing the sensitive conversations the president shares with visiting dignitaries. The Atlantic also <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interests/508382/#Abe-Mar-a-Lago" target="_blank">reported</a> that the “Trump Organization’s decision to double Mar-a-Lago’s initiation fees led to accusations of profiteering, premised on the notion that people would be willing to pony up in the hopes of earning an audience with the commander-in-chief.”<br />
<br />
Trump has leveraged his position to capitalize on growing the venue’s profits, as membership implies access to the president. But the property, which remains open to all members, lacks the mobile security perimeter -- or <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-12810675" target="_blank">sensitive compartmented information facility</a> (SCIF) -- that Trump’s predecessors regularly installed when hosting meetings outside the walls of the Oval Office. The utter absence of proper security protocols was most evident on February 11, when Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.<br />
<br />
“As news of a North Korean missile test broke during dinner,” the Atlantic noted, “Trump and Abe <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/12/politics/trump-shinzo-abe-mar-a-lago-north-korea/index.html" target="_blank">discussed the situation in public</a>, using light from phones of gathered onlookers to read briefing documents, an incredibly lax approach to information security, particularly ironic given that Trump won in part because of his opponent’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/13/trump-ran-a-campaign-based-on-intelligence-security-thats-not-how-hes-governing/?utm_term=.6b3fd9a67949" target="_blank">own lapses in information security</a>.”<br />
<br />
Trump now finds himself in a predicament. To earn the public’s faith back, he must convince them that he has his hands on the most sensitive secrets in the United States. But Trump’s schedule has made it more difficult for him to maintain frequent broadcasts of clandestine plans on Twitter. Meanwhile, top advisers have urged the president to exercise more discretion in what he relays and to which audiences. The Mar-a-Lago fortune cookie strategy, Trump believes, solves the problem.<br />
<h3>
This Fortune Cookie’s Lucky Numbers Could Be Launch Codes</h3>
Club membership costs $200,000 plus a recurring annual fee of $15,000. At those prices, Trump representatives explained, only the most elite individuals can afford to enroll. The fortune cookies also cost $500 a piece, and no member may receive more than one slip of classified information.<br />
<br />
“We’re limiting recipients of state’s secrets to foreign dictators and wealthy Mar-a-Lago members,” Trump said. “I feel very strongly that rich people represent the most trustworthy Americans. They have put in a lot of hard, honest work to achieve their fortunes. And they have no idea what piece of government intelligence could be in a fortune cookie. I don’t even know. It could be code to an NSA hacking program, James Comey’s memos, FBI profiles, CIA reports on the assassination of Kennedy by Ted Cruz’s father, coordinates to the resting place of Jimmy Hoffa, pictures of me being peed on by Russian hookers, the identity of Barron’s biological dad or who knows what else.”<br />
<br />
<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-33585433301356195922017-05-24T18:37:00.000-07:002017-05-26T00:40:16.622-07:00Trump Wishes Israel a 'Rad Summer' in Guestbook Note at Holocaust Memorial<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Touring the site of <a href="http://www.yadvashem.org/" target="_blank">Yad Vesham</a>, a national Holocaust memorial in Israel, is a customary stop for U.S. presidential visits. The mood is generally somber and contemplative, as reflected in the heartfelt messages left by previous heads-of-state in the guestbook. Following tradition, President Donald Trump also <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-trump-yad-vashem-holocaust-memorial-guestbook-note-israel-barack-obama-speech-us-president-a7752541.html" target="_blank">made an entry on the pages of this historic ledger</a>, but in a style the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/23/the-huge-contrast-between-obama-and-trumps-visits-to-israels-holocaust-memorial/?utm_term=.da19ba0d557e" target="_blank">described</a> as “strangely upbeat, self-referential and written in his signature all-caps.” Unlike his predecessor, who penned an emotional and elegant tribute, Trump seemed to have confused the record for a yearbook and wished Israel a “rad summer with bitchin waves.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Trump Said So Much About America in So Few Words</h3>
The temperaments, approaches to governance and political ideologies of Trump and former President Obama have always run in stark contrast. The differences became glaringly apparent, once again, in the tone of the missives each committed to the enduring legacy of Yad Vesham. In 2013, Barack Obama delivered a powerful speech on tolerance and peace. Five years prior, while campaigning for president, then Sen. Obama wrote this moving note:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
I am grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man's potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim “never again”. And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.</blockquote>
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Trump’s odd message read like the signature in a yearbook of a classroom acquaintance -- written in various colors of crayon and riddled with misspellings.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h3>
Some of Trump’s Best Friends Are Jewish</h3>
Before departing, Mr. Trump gave a brief speech in which he mused about the struggles of Jews like his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka (who converted to the faith from the Mesopotamian Cult of Ishtar), the importance of border walls, his electoral college victory, and how beautiful and “deeply meaningful” Ivanka’s backside looked when she was crying at Jerusalem’s Western Wall during sunset. President Trump also remarked on the horrors of Nazi “Holocaust centers,” condemning Germans for tricking Jews into slaughterhouses disguised as recreational community facilities.<br />
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Yad Vashem’s chairman, the Washington Post noted, “gifted Trump an exact replica of a photo album that belonged to Ester Goldstein, a 16-year-old Holocaust victim.” Trump appeared confused and later complained that it was the “most terrible fashion magazine ever, with ugly models and awful swimsuits. Sad.”<br />
<br />
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded the visit by thanking Trump for a speech that “said so much about American culture, values and education in so few words -- a profoundly revealing glimpse into the American mindset with so few thoughts.”<br />
<br />
<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-50523397883578641432017-05-22T17:32:00.000-07:002017-05-22T17:32:06.269-07:00Horrified Spectators Watch Mime Suffocate While Trapped in Invisible Box<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D5IBVhDZ7Uw/WSOCP4BlzPI/AAAAAAAAqCE/BMpM2PqWtHUb6WTQQAG8WIg7e2Fd6NgHwCLcB/s1600/mime%2Bsuffocates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="mime-suffocate-invisible-box" border="0" height="376" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D5IBVhDZ7Uw/WSOCP4BlzPI/AAAAAAAAqCE/BMpM2PqWtHUb6WTQQAG8WIg7e2Fd6NgHwCLcB/s640/mime%2Bsuffocates.jpg" title="mime suffocates" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- On weekday afternoons along Man-of-War Boulevard, commuters in the Bennington Vale and Santa Calcetines are treated to a variety of street performances put on by aspiring artists from San Narciso College. But Monday, curiosity and amusement turned to terror as a young mime suffocated to death before a gathering of horrified onlookers who were helpless to extricate him from an invisible box.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Glass Half Full of Death</h3>
The incident occurred around 3:45 p.m. in front of McNulty’s Creamed Sweets Emporium. The mime, whose name is being withheld by authorities until family members can be notified, began his act with simple magic tricks and aping members of the crowd. Somewhere between being pushed to the edge of a cliff by gale-force winds and clawing his way back on a mystical rope, the mime stumbled into an invisible box. According to witnesses, the young clown struggled valiantly to escape the transparent prison but ran out of air before he could locate the latch.<br />
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“I’ve heard of stunts like this going wrong before, where magicians can’t find the trick locks on their boxes,” said Martin Kreskich, co-owner of McNulty's ice cream shop. “But this guy looked genuinely scared. You could see it in his face. I don’t think he knew the invisible box was sitting there. How could he have? And we’d all like to know who the hell put the damn thing in his path.”<br />
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Mayor Manny DiPresso has insisted that city council members convene immediately to revise ordinances that allow dangerous public stunts without proper permits. As always, the mayor’s concern is for the welfare of the community’s impressionable youth.<br />
<br />
“If you could’ve seen the expressions on those little kids out there, watching that poor man die an excruciating, pathetic death, you would understand why our new president is adamant about imposing rigorous controls to protect our population,” DiPresso remarked, visibly choked up by the gruesome spectacle. “The mime, he kept trying to scream, but no sound came out. If we’d been better at charades, we may have been able to find the door and set him free. I can still see the kohl running down his bulging eyes, turning the white makeup as gray as ash. Nothing will erase the image of his melting face or the silent agony of his pleas for help.”<br />
<h3>
In the Cold Vacuum of Mime Space, No One Can Hear You Scream</h3>
Police spokesperson Ren Williams explained that frantic citizens were still trying to break into the invisible box by the time units arrived on scene.<br />
<br />
“It was hard to watch,” Williams explained. ”The despair and the tears and the futile attempts to open the box, just tragic. The worst part is that we still haven’t found a way to penetrate the device, so we can’t get to his body. We’ve cordoned off the perimeter, but because the box is completely clear, you can’t help but notice his twisted corpse sprawled out on the sidewalk.”<br />
<br />
Williams also said that based on eyewitness testimony, crime scene investigators believe the box was somehow hermetically sealed. <br />
<br />
“Whoever designed it was an amazing engineer,” Williams added. “A completely airtight, see-through, inescapable cube. What sadistic genius builds something like that and leaves it out in public?”<br />
<br />
SNPD officials could not offer further commentary as the investigation remains ongoing, but detectives have not ruled out foul play.<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-71021747581344475802017-05-16T17:47:00.000-07:002017-05-16T17:47:35.721-07:00Trump Meets Turkish President Erdogan, Hands Over Nuclear Codes While Boasting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Following last week’s controversial meeting with Russian officials, in which President Trump <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/tass-monitoring-devices-oval-office.html" target="_blank">divulged classified intelligence</a> to foreign nationals who have been deemed hostile to U.S. interests, the White House <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/16/politics/trump-erdogan-visit/" target="_blank">welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan</a> on Tuesday. Trump extended a warm greeting to Erdogan, an authoritarian ruler whose relationship with the United States has been strained and at times combative. The president praised his counterpart’s tough leadership style and boasted of a renewed alliance, remarking that he was eager to begin sharing sensitive state secrets with Turkey.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Trump Tackles Learning Curve with Help from Foreign Authoritarians</h3>
Erdogan joins a growing assembly of dictators the president has invited for “friendly discussions.” Mr. Trump also met with <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/30/politics/philippines-duterte-trump/" target="_blank">polarizing Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte</a> at the beginning of May. But administration insiders say that Trump’s meeting with these questionable figures serves to further the agenda on which he campaigned. The media, they say, has merely distorted or misrepresented the stories. Consider a recent <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/the-terrible-cost-of-trumps-disclosures/526818/" target="_blank">critique published in The Atlantic</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Russia is antagonistic to the United States, although Trump has repeatedly indicated his desire to be chummy with the Russians—after all, as he notoriously said during the presidential campaign, we are both killers, and so on the same moral plane. He apparently divulged the information to show off, which not only shows a lack of self-discipline: It shows, yet again, how easy this man is to play, particularly by veteran manipulators like his two experienced, talented, and thuggish guests. The crisis is made worse by virtue of Trump having just fired the FBI director, apparently for having pushed that Russia investigation too far.</blockquote>
<br />
White House officials admitted that Trump was <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/trump-met-russian-officials-comey-fbi.html" target="_blank">consulting with Moscow</a>, but explained that he was soliciting help to select the next director of the FBI -- someone intimately familiar with Russia, who could better lead the investigation into collusion between a U.S. president and former Soviet spies in the Kremlin.<br />
<br />
During his visit with Duterte, the violent Philippines despot who has sanctioned extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers or anyone the public considers a nuisance, Trump sought to gain expert advice on employing similar strategies. Allowing ordinary citizens to shoot alleged criminals with impunity could alleviate the costs and manpower constraints plaguing America’s law enforcement agencies, while eradicating “bad hombres” without the need for a border wall.<br />
<br />
National Security Advisor McMaster implied that Trump’s conference with Erdogan would yield equally beneficial results. Shortly after defending the president’s <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/h-r-mcmaster-and-questions-of-appropriate-presidential-behavior" target="_blank">rash leak of classified data to Russia</a> in a pique of braggadocio, McMaster told reporters: “President Erdogan put down a violent coup in July. You had the military and the police rising up in an armed rebellion, fighting for values Erdogan doesn’t support in Turkey -- gender equality, secular governance, civil liberties, education, social welfare and other dangerous ideologies. He stopped that coup almost overnight. Naturally, President Trump is keen to learn the ins and outs of effectively ending an inevitable overthrow by millions of disillusioned Americans, many of whom we allow to carry automatic, military grade weapons, regardless of their state of mental fitness.”<br />
<h3>
Erdogan Challenges Trump’s Access to Intel -- Trump Proves Him Wrong by Handing Over Nuclear Codes</h3>
President Trump confessed a kinship with Erdogan and expressed optimism that by sharing a trove of secret government intelligence with Turkey, as with Russia, the United States can forge new alliances to end the global threat of ISIS.<br />
<br />
“We’ve had a great relationship and we will make it even better,” Trump commented from the Oval Office as he sat beside Erdogan. “We look forward to having very strong and solid discussions. And that begins with sharing our most intimate secrets with Turkey. I’m very excited to begin. It’s, like, the tit-for-tat of politics. Have you ever heard that expression? I haven’t. Just made it up a few hours ago, along with the word ‘politics.’”<br />
<br />
White House aides did describe one tense moment when Erdogan questioned the amount of access Trump truly had to clandestine information. <br />
<br />
“The president responded with aplomb,” McMaster revealed. “Mr. Trump told Erdogan, ‘I’m one of the smartest men in the world. Everybody knows that. I have access to everything.’ The Turkish president challenged Mr. Trump’s claims of having exclusive control over the United States’ nuclear arsenal. Then Trump -- and this was glorious -- handed the codes right over to Erdogan. Boy, was he embarrassed. Egg all over his face.”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-61265708910533825002017-05-15T16:47:00.000-07:002017-05-15T16:47:07.515-07:00TASS Grants U.S. Press Access to Monitoring Devices Planted in Oval Office<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- The day after President Trump <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/trump-met-russian-officials-comey-fbi.html" target="_blank">fired FBI Director James Comey</a> in a startling and virtually unprecedented decision, he raised further suspicion by hosting a closed-door meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak -- during an active investigation into his possible collusion with Moscow. More troubling, the White House blocked U.S. reporters from attending the conference but allowed members of TASS, Russia’s state-controlled news agency, to be present. Intelligence officials condemned the action as a major security breach, explaining that Russian crews could have brought in concealed electronic monitoring apparatus. But in a largess to the beleaguered U.S. press, TASS has agreed to give American journalists access to the live-streaming audio and video devices it planted in the Oval Office last week.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Enemy of the Enemy of the American People</h3>
Donald Trump, despite enjoying the celebrity he attained as a reality television personality, developed a disdain for that same level of visibility as a presidential candidate. Shortly after taking the Oath of Office in January, the newly enthroned president lashed out at the media, declaring the nation’s free press an “enemy of the American people.” <br />
<br />
A man who spent his life craving attention suddenly found the uncontrolled transparency of news coverage an intrusive watchman whose unflattering depictions could not be edited away in post-production -- a mirror unable to be masked.<br />
<br />
In February, the Brookings Institution published a revealing story about Mr. Trump’s <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/02/21/trumps-troubling-relationship-with-the-press/" target="_blank">troubling relationship with the media</a>.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The press, overall, he says, is a “disgrace,…false, horrible, fake reporting.” It is “out of control…fantastic.” Reporters are “very dishonest people,” their coverage he describes as “an outrage.” The New York Times—a “failing” newspaper. CNN—“terrible.” Buzzfeed—“Garbage.” Then, on top of it all, this <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/832708293516632065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2Fblog%2Fup-front%2F2017%2F02%2F21%2Ftrumps-troubling-relationship-with-the-press%2F" target="_blank">presidential tweet</a>, dripping with anger and threat:<br />
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The FAKE NEWS media (failing <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes" target="_blank">@nytimes</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews" target="_blank">@NBCNews</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC" target="_blank">@ABC</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CBS" target="_blank">@CBS</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN" target="_blank">@CNN</a>) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!</blockquote>
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Trump’s venomous attitude toward journalists began festering before the events of February. Media experts believe the president’s <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/01/trump-fcc-chair-kill-net-neutrality.html" target="_blank">appointment of Ajit Pai as FCC chairman</a> formed an essential step in his plan to limit the reach of the press and suppress voices of dissent within its ranks. Clamping down on the generally free distribution of information across the Internet, Trump understood, could prove instrumental.<br />
<br />
“The real peril is uncensored access to vast amounts of information and facts, which is killing the economy and thwarting governmental efforts to keep people on the right path,” Kellyanne Conway said. Pai immediately vowed to take a “<a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/trumps-reported-pick-to-run-the-fcc-ajit-pai-wants-to-kill-net-neutrality?utm_source=mbtwitter" target="_blank">weed whacker</a>” to the electric communism of <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2014/05/fcc-votes-to-end-electric-communism-of.html" target="_blank">net neutrality</a>, ending the free flow of fake news that is destroying the nation and undermining the alternative facts Americans need.<br />
<br />
The unfettered and unchecked Internet has played a pivotal role in undermining American values and perverting the truth, which only President Trump grasps. A lack of curation has allowed malicious Internet trolls like the Associated Press, Reuters, Washington Post, CNN and others to hide clear instances of rampant <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/25/donald-trumps-defintion-of-voter-fraud-will-apparently-ensnare-his-own-top-adviser/?utm_term=.12bade30d2ae" target="_blank">voter fraud</a>, champion the widespread dissemination of fake news, and force the president’s staff to rely on <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/22/us/politics/president-trump-inauguration-crowd-white-house.html" target="_blank">alternative facts</a> to keep the public informed.<br />
<br />
Since Trump took office, the problem has only worsened. Journalists now are routinely ejected from press briefings or even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/business/media/reporter-arrested-tom-price.html" target="_blank">arrested for asking questions</a>. Dan Heyman, a reporter from West Virginia, was apprehended by alert security personnel when he asked Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price about the administration’s new health care plan -- a clear move in the direction of sedition. <br />
<h3>
Russian Reporters Sympathetic to Plight of State-Controlled Media</h3>
Trump’s private meetings with Russian officials last week raised more than a few eyebrows. Had TASS not received authorization to broadcast photographs and social media posts, no details about the discussions would have been known. <br />
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Thankfully, TASS was in the room to document the conversations. As the Washington Post discovered, President Trump “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?tid=sm_tw&tid=sm_tw&tid=sm_tw&tid=sm_tw&tid=sm_tw&tid=sm_tw&tid=sm_tw&tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.08950cd87976" target="_blank">revealed highly classified information</a> to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.”<br />
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Despite picking up the slack left by the absence of U.S. media, TASS emerged as the villain of the story. American intelligence officials criticized the ability of Russian reporters to enter the White House as a potential <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/05/11/the-white-house-may-have-permitted-a-security-breach-when-it-let-the-russian-government-take-photographs/?source=newsletter" target="_blank">major security breach</a>: “Surveillance equipment like listening devices can be concealed in electronic equipment like cameras, according to these experts, and it was irresponsible at best for the White House to allow a foreign government with a history of spying like Russia to enter a sensitive government building with them.”<br />
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Some TASS employees, however, expressed their sympathy for the plight of American journalists living through the constraints of the Trump administration. They have agreed to grant U.S. press access to the bugs they planted while in the Oval Office.<br />
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“We know what it is like to be censored, arrested and sometimes killed for trying to report stories,” said Alexey Semenov, an editor at TASS. “When we found out that your puppet dictator liked to be urinated on by Russian prostitutes, and that those prostitutes were really cross-dressing men with tiny hands, and that they were all forced to wear name badges that said ‘Ivanka,’ we desperately wanted to run that article. But our leaders refused. Still, we consider the United States a friend. Your new leaders -- people like Michael Flynn, Jefferson Sessions, Mike Pence and even Donald Trump -- they have shared so much with us. We want to return the kindness. So to our brothers and sisters in the American media, we are granting you full access to the livestreaming audio and visual spying devices that we planted in the Oval Office. Even if you are expelled from the White House, you will still be able to cover everything your commander is doing, saying, ingesting and, uh, bathing in.”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-44158211836736638662017-05-11T19:17:00.001-07:002017-05-11T19:17:38.987-07:00Acting FBI Director McCabe Excited About First and Probably Only Week in Office<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Acting, and most likely interim, FBI Director Andrew McCabe rejected a series of assertions by the White House that his predecessor, James Comey, had compromised the bureau’s integrity, lost the faith of the public and frustrated peers with his insistence on squandering Justice Department resources for a costly crusade to validate Russia’s meddling in the election, which Trump described as a “minor concern” to employees. McCabe boldly contradicted Trump’s allegations and praised Comey. He then vowed that nothing could prevent the FBI from “doing the right thing” and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/comey-russia-investigation-fbi.html" target="_blank">pushing the probe forward</a>. After his testimony on Capitol Hill, McCabe said, “I’m terribly excited to step into this role, and I’m looking forward to the one or maybe two weeks I’ll get to serve America as the director of the FBI.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Trump Fires Contestant Comey from White House Reality Show</h3>
President Donald Trump on Tuesday unceremoniously sacked FBI Director James Comey, just days after the nation’s top law enforcement official <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/comey-russia-investigation-fbi.html" target="_blank">requested additional prosecutors</a> from the Justice Department to expedite the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference with the presidential election. <br />
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Trump’s reasons for firing Comey flew in stark contrast to the sloppy explanations given by his own staff, including Vice President Pence. Press Secretary Spicer dodged reporters’ questions and fled into the darkened bushes outside the White House. Sarah Huckabee Sanders pleaded with the nation to just look the other way. Pence proclaimed that Comey’s termination resulted from the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who could also be implicated in the scandal.<br />
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But the president veered off script again, branding Comey a “showboat” and “grandstander” who had lost the respect of his colleagues. As <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/05/11/donald-trump-contradicts-his-own-white-house-about-james-comey-firing-timeline/?source=newsletter" target="_blank">Salon noted</a>: <br />
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<blockquote>
“There’s no good time to do it, by the way,” Trump said of firing an FBI director. Comey was only the second FBI director fired in modern history. “The FBI has been in turmoil. You know that. I know that. Everybody knows that,” the president insisted on Thursday.</blockquote>
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But the drastic call for Comey’s head cast further doubts on the president’s denials that no ties exist between his White House and the Kremlin. With Department of Justice and intelligence officials convinced that Russia meddled in U.S. affairs, Mr. Trump worsened public perception by hosting a <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/trump-met-russian-officials-comey-fbi.html" target="_blank">closed-door meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov</a> on Wednesday.<br />
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Trump explained that diminishing the influence of Russia can only be achieved by those closest to it, particularly Russians themselves. He justified the meeting as an advisory exercise to select the most suitable replacement for Comey.<br />
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“Who understands the deviant, illegal undertakings of former Soviet spies and organized crime families than those same individuals?” Trump asked. “That’s why it’s imperative that we enlist the help of Russians to find an investigator knowledgeable enough to bring down Russia.”<br />
<h3>
Andrew McCabe: New Apprentice Likely to Be Fired After First Episode</h3>
If Mr. Trump’s hasty removal of Comey served to impede the investigation into his ties with Moscow, the testimony delivered by Andrew McCabe on Thursday offered the president no relief.<br />
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“I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard. I have the highest respect for his considerable abilities and his integrity,” McCabe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. <br />
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As <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/andrew-mccabe-hearing-senate-intelligence-committee/" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>, McCabe said Comey enjoyed “broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.” He added, “The majority, the vast majority of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to Director Comey.”<br />
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McCabe then disputed Trump’s claims that Comey said the president was not under investigation directly, and he contradicted the White House’s assessment that the probe was widely discounted as a trivial affair. “We consider it to be a highly significant investigation,” McCabe stressed.<br />
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McCabe’s most forceful statement came during a powerful exchange with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), when he emphasized that nothing would deter him from leading the FBI’s probe of Russian hacking.<br />
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“As you know, senator, the work of the men and women of the FBI continues despite any changes in circumstance, any decisions, so there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date,” McCabe said. “Simply put, sir, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.” He also threatened to inform the Senate if any attempt was made to thwart the investigation.<br />
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Despite the sometimes heated and tense discussions, McCabe emerged from Capitol Hill looking buoyant. <br />
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“I feel great about the meeting,” McCabe beamed. “I went in strong, stood by my principles, honored the bureau’s commitment to ensuring that justice prevails for all Americans, and upheld the tenets of our Constitution with the sanctity they deserve. I’m eager to get started. Transitioning to FBI director, if even for a few days, is a major milestone in my career. I’ve already prepared my family for my upcoming unemployment, so that’s covered.”<br />
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“But before the axe falls,” he added, “I’m really looking forward to doing important work and making progress in this investigation for the week or two I’ll have in the position. With any luck, we’ll uncover some critical leads over the next seven to ten days, before I get fired and Mr. Trump appoints a business buddy with no legal or intelligence experience to replace me -- like an executive from Macy’s or Walmart or LendingTree. Someone, you understand, who won’t take issue with the president of the United States paying Russia hookers to pee on him.”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-87472090044083505002017-05-10T17:28:00.000-07:002017-05-10T17:28:58.331-07:00Trump Met Russian Officials for Expert Advice on Replacing Comey as FBI Director<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- President Trump’s <a href="http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2017/President-Donald-Trump-abruptly-fired-FBI-Director-James-Comey-Tuesday-ousting-the-nation-s-top-law-enforcement-official-in-the-midst-of-an-investigation-by-the-agency-into-whether-Trum/id-094da2d5fb1e45bda42e55c1577f815c" target="_blank">abrupt decision to fire FBI Director James Comey</a> on Tuesday evening, as the probe into Russia’s interference with the election deepens, has raised the hackles of virtually every person outside the president’s circle of trust. Comey’s dramatic ouster as the nation’s chief law enforcement authority, who was deep in the middle of a sensitive investigation that could extend to Trump, casts further doubts on the president’s denials that no ties exist between his White House and the Kremlin. With Department of Justice and intelligence officials convinced that Russia meddled in U.S. affairs, Mr. Trump’s ill-timed, closed-door meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday only intensified the scrutiny. But following the private conversation in the Oval Office, White House press representatives allayed public fears and explained that Trump was consulting with Moscow to help select the next director of the FBI -- someone intimately familiar with Russia to better lead the investigation.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Trump’s Tuesday Night Massacre</h3>
“In a letter to Comey,” the Associated Press wrote, “Trump said the firing was necessary to restore ‘public trust and confidence’ in the FBI. Comey has come under intense scrutiny in recent months for his public comments on an investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton’s email practices, including a pair of letters he sent to Congress on the matter in the closing days of last year’s campaign.”<br />
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Democrats quickly condemned the president’s action, comparing it to Richard Nixon’s 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre,” in which he terminated the independent special prosecutor tasked with overseeing the Watergate investigation. That decision prompted the Justice Department’s top two officials to resign. Trump’s possible collusion with Russia, however, would expose a significantly larger scandal and dangerous constitutional crisis. <br />
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The president further roiled the troubled waters by hosting a conference with Russia’s foreign minister the day after he sacked Comey. Even worse, the White House blocked U.S. media from attending, but allowed Russian media to be present, distribute photographs and post on social networks. <br />
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As CBS <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kremlin-tweets-during-closed-door-oval-office-meeting-with-lavrov/" target="_blank">reported</a>: “In what was supposed to be a closed-door Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, pictures have emerged of meetings between President Trump, Mr Lavrov and Russian Envoy Sergey Kislyak via Russian media and Russian government social media accounts.”<br />
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Lavrov, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/sergey-lavrov-comey-firing-joke-606687" target="_blank">sarcastically mocking</a> Comey’s dismissal, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-lavrov-meet-amid-scrutiny-campaign-russia-ties-n757321" target="_blank">told</a> NBC that “he and Trump ‘discussed specific issues and we didn’t raise those absurd issues’ about election tampering.”<br />
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According to the White House, those specific issues dealt with helping Trump find a suitable replacement for Comey, who could finish the investigation impartially and with bipartisan support.<br />
<h3>
Russian Input in FBI Director Selection: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend</h3>
White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders faced her own trial by fire late Tuesday when confronting the press. As covered by The Hill, Sanders told the nation it was “<a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332669-white-house-spokesperson-time-to-move-on-from-russia-probes" target="_blank">time to move on</a>” from questioning Trump’s allegiance to the Kremlin.<br />
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<blockquote>
“I think the bigger point on that is, my gosh, Tucker, when are they going to let that go? It’s been going on for nearly a year,” she said on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. “Frankly, it’s kind of getting absurd. There’s nothing there. We’ve heard that time and time again. We’ve heard that in the testimonies earlier this week. We’ve heard it for the last 11 months. There is no ‘there’ there.”<br />
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“It’s time to move on, and, frankly, it’s time to focus on the things the American people care about,” she added.</blockquote>
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Sanders’ impassioned plea to ignore the president’s partnership with former Soviet criminals was followed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolling back his pledge to <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-russia.html" target="_blank">recuse himself from the probe</a>. Sessions will instead work with Trump and Russia to determine a suitable replacement for Comey. <br />
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Despite a massive outcry over these developments, Sessions and Sanders have made valuable but misconstrued points. The Russians, of their own volition, likely intervened in the American democratic process for reasons we have yet to understand. President Vladimir Putin intimated that this level of meddling could weaken U.S. opposition and strengthen Russia’s power hold over its territorial interests. But the American people must stop obsessing over Russia’s foreign policy; they have plenty of problems at home to tackle. Diminishing the influence of Russia, the White House explained, can only be achieved by those closest to it -- every member of Trump’s cabinet, all of whom have dealings with Moscow, and Russians themselves. <br />
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“Who understands the deviant, illegal undertakings of former Soviet spies and organized crime families than those same individuals?” Trump asked.<br />
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As Evening Transcript columnist F. Chester Greene cautioned in March, demanding that Sessions remove himself from the investigation could be devastating to its outcome. Sessions, Greene reasoned, was the most qualified Justice official to evaluate Russia and former Sen. Jeff Sessions’ collusion:<br />
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<blockquote>
Here’s another truth, verified by Justice Department officials: Senator Sessions met with Ambassador Kislyak in September, but not as a Trump campaign surrogate. Sessions was still a member of the extremely influential Armed Services Committee. In that capacity, he was required to engage in over two dozen discussions with foreign authorities -- some allies, some rivals -- Russia included.<br />
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Could the senator’s dialog with former Soviet criminals in places like China and Russia have been illicit? Sure. Should the senator be investigated and, if determined guilty, face punishment? Absolutely. But we’re talking about Senator Jeff Sessions, not Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Two different positions. Two distinct officials. Two different people, in context. And with Attorney General Sessions’ deep, intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Sen. Sessions’ twisted psyche, who better to lead the charge for the truth? If the nation’s top legal enforcer steps down through recusal, we may never get to the bottom of the conspiracy. The senator has a reputation of being crafty. Only a cunning attorney general like Sessions would have a fighting chance.</blockquote>
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To Greene’s point, it would also make sense to engage the counsel of Kislyak and Lavrov, both of whom are tightly linked to Trump and understand, with unparalleled insight, the inner workings of Russia’s hacking. <br />
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“To end the tremendous tyranny of Russia, and its terrible Ivans who have caused so much harm to our great country, which includes destroying the faith of the American people in their leaders and institutions, so sad, we must enlist the help of experts who can appoint a new FBI director with the vast knowledge of Russia to uncover what happened, who’s guilty and stop them before they strike again,” Trump said. “We’re dealing with bigly threats, not small fry Orientals from Korea.”<br />
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Conservative political analysts noted that hiring an enemy to help conquer an enemy is not a novel tactic. IBM actively <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-a-hacker-at-ibm-2016-4" target="_blank">employs ethical hackers</a> to advise the company on how to optimize the integrity of their systems. Physical security firms also bring in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/security-companies-hire-hackers-ex-spies-to-fight-cyber-attacks" target="_blank">reformed burglars, bandits and cyber criminals</a> to develop protocols for fending off would-be attackers.<br />
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Allowing Sessions, Lavrov and Kislyak to appoint a similar miscreant to the FBI would ultimately add a superior level of familiarity, intelligence and experience to this confusing investigation -- something that could hasten its end and give the American people real closure.<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-22596019545529241252017-05-09T19:50:00.001-07:002017-05-09T19:50:22.800-07:00AHCA Lets Insurers Hike Rates for New High-Risk Conditions: Being Brown, Female, Gay or Muslim<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Last Thursday’s narrow passage of Trump’s revised health legislation, intended to repeal and replace Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act, marked the first measurable victory for a struggling administration. Despite controversial provisions for low-income tax credits and phasing out the expansion of Medicaid, alarms have been raised over allowing insurers to hike premiums for covering pre-existing conditions. Trump sweetened the pot Tuesday with sweeping additions to what insurance companies can consider pre-existing conditions: being brown, female, gay or Muslim.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Trump Dropped In to See What Condition Your Condition Was In</h3>
The amended bill cleared the House by a thin majority. It will likely face greater opposition in a sharply divided Senate, where Republicans hold only a two-seat advantage. Five moderate GOP senators have also voiced criticisms over the American Health Care Act’s (ACHA) prohibitive overhauls. They could defect and side with Democrats across the aisle. <br />
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Trump already assured conservatives that the bill does nothing to <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/05/gop-health-care-preexisting-conditions.html" target="_blank">rid sick Americans of their pre-existing conditions</a>. “If you have a pre-existing condition, this bill won’t touch it,” the president said. “You get to keep your pre-existing condition forever. Our health care act won’t eliminate any pre-existing conditions you have.”<br />
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While the AHCA seemingly retains the ACA’s provision that insurers may not deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions, NPR <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/08/527415655/gop-health-bill-leaves-many-pre-existing-condition-protections-up-to-states" target="_blank">reported</a> that a potential loophole could unwind those protections: “In a last-minute amendment proposed by Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., a state could <a href="http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20170424/MacArthur%20Amendment%20Summary.pdf" target="_blank">seek permission</a> to allow insurance companies to charge patients more (based on their health history) if their coverage lapses for more than 63 days.”<br />
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The MacArthur Amendment could also assist insurance companies by permitting waivers that allow them to set higher premiums for consumers who fall into “high-risk” pools. Typically, one would expect rare ailments, incurable diseases or complex medical problems to shape the criteria that determine the level of risk. But the AHCA’s list of “pre-existing” conditions includes <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-counts-pre-existing-condition-ahca-trump-obamacare-2017-5" target="_blank">some surprises</a>, including pregnancy, acne, allergies, obesity, headaches and others.<br />
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The Center for American Progress <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/04/20/430858/latest-aca-repeal-plan-explode-premiums-people-pre-existing-conditions/" target="_blank">estimated</a> that insurers could charge additional fees on premiums for more complex ailments: $4,270 for asthma, $17,060 for pregnancy, $26,180 for rheumatoid arthritis, $71,880 for lung cancer and $140,510 for metastatic cancer, for example.<br />
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Some economists have questioned the inclusion of easily treatable and common conditions as prerequisites for dramatic spikes in premiums. Trump defended the intent of the amendment, citing pregnancy as an example.<br />
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“Until the baby is delivered, the condition is pre-existing,” he said. “And the $17,000 price tag is there because pregnancy, not childbirth but pregnancy, falls into the cancer category. An unborn baby is basically like a cancer. There’s this parasitic entity inside the woman -- making her sick, fat, just gross looking, and literally stealing food from her body. Not many people know that. Why? So if some knocked-up broad decides to treat this pre-existing condition, she’s asking a doctor to remove what’s essentially a tumor.”<br />
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The Hill <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/332426-trump-use-the-bully-pulpit-for-a-hail-mary-pass-on" target="_blank">observed</a> that successfully reforming Obama’s health care reform would be critical for this fledgling White House, noting that its increasingly desperate and erratic chief executive stands prepared to leverage the power of his bully pulpit.<br />
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<blockquote>
A final victory for President Trump that could prove integral to the rest of his agenda of <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/330696-trump-proposes-sweeping-tax-reform" target="_blank">tax reform</a> and <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/330430-trump-tax-plan-likely-to-include-infrastructure-spending-report" target="_blank">infrastructure spending</a> is no <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/04/donald-trump-health-care-lindsey-graham/101292316/" target="_blank">slam dunk</a> and will certainly require the additional expenditure of political capital. Now that Ryan has done his job by nosing the replacement bill past the finish line in the House, he should <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/315824-ryan-invites-trump-to-address-congress-on-feb-28" target="_blank">once again</a> invite President Trump to address a joint session of Congress on the exclusive subject of healthcare reform.</blockquote>
<h3>
Conservatives Defend Aggressive Bill as Traditional Insurance Practice</h3>
Connor Uris, an economic and health strategist for the conservative Freedom Caucus, had directly urged Trump’s circle to push for these <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/health-care-overhaul-vote-delayed.html" target="_blank">spartan revisions</a> when the initial bill failed to gain traction -- or votes -- in March.<br />
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“All insurance companies, regardless of what they cover, base their premiums on statistical risk thresholds,” Uris explained. “If you own a house on the cliffs of Malibu, expect to pay more for homeowner’s insurance because your property sits on a sliding foundation of loose mud that can be nudged by even the slightest earthquake.”<br />
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He also illustrated how companies in the marketplace price premiums by demographic and ethnographic factors.<br />
<br />
“Let’s look at automobile insurance,” Uris said. “Why are premiums higher for certain individuals? Well, take women drivers for starters. They’re more likely to fiddle with mirrors, veer off the road while applying makeup or lose control during a bout of PMS. Young people are threats because they spend more time reading text messages than road conditions. Minorities are generally distracted and dangerous, probably because they’re often involved in gang fights on highways or plowing their vehicles into airport terminals as part of some jihad. But old white men pay less because they cost insurers less. Except for the rarified instance of mowing down pedestrians at Farmers Markets, these motorists are generally shuttled around by chauffeurs, so they’re less perilous for insurers.”<br />
<br />
Following Uris’ recommendations, the new AHCA will segregate and eliminate any sponsored care for specific diseases by gender, ethnicity, race and religion. <br />
<br />
“Sickle-cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, hyperlipidaemia, malaria, AIDS and suicide-bomb related ailments affect only a specific group of people,” Uris noted. “They are a minority cross-section of the broader nation. Why should real Americans be paying to cover treatments they will never require?”<br />
<br />
Although Trumpcare dissolves an insurer’s obligation to cover patients with pre-existing conditions at affordable rates, it stops short of mandating DNA testing to detect yet-to-be conditions. Uris had cautioned against this leniency.<br />
<br />
“Without compulsory genetic testing, we could still be saddled with sick people later on,” he said. “We must see if people have a predisposition for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, jungle fever, homosexuality, dangerous belief systems or compromised heredity -- like someone in the family may have had sickle-cell anemia, if you know what I mean.”<br />
<h3>
New Categories of Pre-existing Conditions Added</h3>
To make AHCA more palatable to insurance companies, conservatives in Congress and the genuine Americans who rightfully belong in the nation, the legislation’s architects have now included a more comprehensive set of indisputable risks that exempt health companies from rate ceilings on premiums.<br />
<h4>
Being Brown</h4>
African Americans and Hispanics now fall into one of the redefined risk groups. People with hereditary and genetic ties to the dark continent harbor congenital illnesses that white Americans do not: sickle-cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, hyperlipidaemia and malaria. Unarmed blacks are also 80 percent more likely than armed whites to be gunned down by frightened police officers. Injuries sustained by shooting are common, take priority over patients with less extreme conditions, and generate tremendous treatment costs for emergency room personnel. <br />
<br />
Mexicans, Uris explained, exhibit higher risks of being harmed during acts of rape, handling dangerous landscaping equipment, performing unsafe day labor work, taking bullets from DEA agents while attempting to run drugs over the border and exposing their young to drowning while illegally entering the country through midnight river crossings.<br />
<br />
Uris indicated that Native Americans would be considered because of rampant alcoholism and the widespread beatings they receive from authorities when protesting to keep oil companies from destroying their sacred lands.<br />
<h4>
Homosexuals</h4>
Gay men, by dint of their unnatural sexual proclivities, remain predisposed to contracting all manner of STDs, according to research performed by Uris. Hepatitis C and AIDS, commonly contracted by promiscuous gay men, already occupy positions on the list of pre-existing conditions.<br />
<h4>
Muslims</h4>
Practitioners of the Islamic faith in America have become targets of armed massacres by alt-right assailants and, though less frequently, mosque burnings. Those engaged in terrorism may require urgent and expensive care after failed suicide bombing attempts. Successful attacks, meanwhile, can fill entire hospitals with innocent Judeo-Christian victims. In every scenario, insurance companies face insurmountable coverage expenses when reimbursing claims.<br />
<h4>
Women</h4>
Beyond the problems associated with childbirth, women also find themselves taking up premium space in treatment facilities and shelters. Mouthy women, Uris pointed out, may be battered regularly for sass. They also sustain injuries while being assaulted by police at civil rights protests or political demonstrations targeting the president’s agenda.<br />
<h4>
Not Being a Member of Congress</h4>
In general, federal employees receive health benefits through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program, administered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Members of Congress and designated congressional staff also receive employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) through the District of Columbia’s small business health options program (SHOP) exchange, also known as DC Health Link.<br />
<br />
As with most federal employees, Congress members enjoy “employer sponsored” contributions toward their health care premiums. <br />
<br />
According to the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43194.pdf" target="_blank">Congressional Research Service</a>, “the employer contribution is set at 72% of the weighted average of all FEHB plan premiums, not to exceed 75% of any given plan’s premium.”<br />
<br />
Because the federal government is the employer of record, and because the federal government’s revenues come directly from taxpayers, private citizens essentially pay for three-quarters of a congressperson’s health premiums. Uris astutely reasoned that not being a representative or senator instantly puts most Americans at risk of incurring tremendous debt or bankruptcy from ridiculously unaffordable medical costs.<br />
<br />
<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-73087427638329422732017-05-04T17:23:00.000-07:002017-05-04T17:23:26.815-07:00GOP Promises Health Care Bill Won’t Eliminate Pre-existing Conditions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LuVtHswEKaE/WQvFzHXftoI/AAAAAAAAp5A/vT0-ipyJ4w8NFa3z-gcSAV2FoNdPp3fHgCLcB/s1600/trumpcare-macarthur-amendment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="gop-health-care-preexisting-conditions" border="0" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LuVtHswEKaE/WQvFzHXftoI/AAAAAAAAp5A/vT0-ipyJ4w8NFa3z-gcSAV2FoNdPp3fHgCLcB/s640/trumpcare-macarthur-amendment.jpg" title="trumpcare-macarthur-amendment" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Republicans on Thursday rammed their revised health care bill through the House of Representatives, packed with amendments and additional spending, to seize a narrow victory with a thin majority of votes. Gaining the same hard-fought adoption of the Senate, however, will prove to be a much heftier feat. Despite the skepticism of Senate Republicans, the opposition of uncharacteristically united Democrats, and concerns that the Congressional Budget Office has not reviewed the financial impact of the legislation, the biggest debate involves a concession called the <a href="http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2017/apr/28/politifacts-guide-gop-amendment-health-care-bill/" target="_blank">MacArthur Amendment</a>, which honors the president’s promise to guarantee pre-existing conditions. “If you have a pre-existing condition, this bill won’t touch it,” Trump said. “You get to keep your pre-existing condition forever. Our health care act won’t eliminate any pre-existing conditions you have.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Revised Health Care Act: Less Care, Right Amount of Apathy</h3>
The first iteration of Trumpcare, to the chagrin of staunch conservatives, failed miserably in both chambers of Congress. The provisions fared so poorly among the GOP and Democrats that Speaker Paul Ryan recalled the bill before it was put to an official vote. The prevailing consensus among far-right Republicans was that the <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/health-care-overhaul-vote-delayed.html" target="_blank">American Health Care Act (AHCA) provided too much care</a>. Critics derided the bill as “Obamacare Lite.” <br />
<br />
Repealing the ACA, which has enjoyed more success than condemnation, was never intended to remedy the law’s existing shortcomings. It was meant to strip access from problematic segments of the population -- primarily poor, infirm, immigrant and LGBTQ communities. Trumpcare fell short of achieving those goals. Hardliners criticized the scarcity of hate, discrimination and inaccessibility they were pledged. <br />
<br />
Although the revised plan offers more to insurers and other businesses that profit from medical expenses, lawmakers in the Senate appear less enthusiastic about its potential.<br />
<br />
“The bill is expected to undergo sweeping changes that might leave it unrecognizable -- perhaps stripping away some of the provisions that helped earn the support of hard-right House members and ultimately secure its passage,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/politics/senate-health-care-bill.html" target="_blank">explained</a> the New York Times.<br />
<br />
But for the seemingly liberal pledge to leave pre-existing conditions alone, the MacArthur Amendment strikes a political balance its authors believe will appeal to both parties.<br />
<h3>
MacArthur Act Will Let You Keep Your Pre-Existing Conditions</h3>
As CBS <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-trump-right-that-pre-existing-conditions-are-covered-in-the-gop-health-care-bill/" target="_blank">observed</a>, “This ban on disqualifying consumers from health insurance coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions was one of the major pillars of the Affordable Care Act, but it has also been one of the act’s more costly features.”<br />
<br />
Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), who <a href="http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20170424/MacArthur%20Amendment%20Summary.pdf" target="_blank">wrote the new language</a> in his eponymous corollary, proclaimed that nothing in the current version of the GOP health care bill will prevent patients from keeping their pre-existing conditions. The repackaged Trumpcare proposal also assists insurance companies through waivers that allow them to set higher premiums for consumers who choose to give up their pre-existing medical conditions.<br />
<br />
The <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/04/20/430858/latest-aca-repeal-plan-explode-premiums-people-pre-existing-conditions/" target="_blank">Center for American Progress estimated</a> that insurers could charge additional fees on premiums for more complex ailments: $4,270 for asthma, $17,060 for pregnancy, $26,180 for rheumatoid arthritis, $71,880 for lung cancer and $140,510 for metastatic cancer, for example.<br />
<br />
“The MacArthur Amendment is a tremendous win for America,” boasted President Trump. “You get to keep your pre-existing condition forever. Our health care act won’t eliminate any pre-existing conditions you have. Let’s say a woman finds a lump in her breast. Sad. But it’s her choice. This is a pro-choice bill. I’m a swashbuckler, like Andrew Jackson, I’m walking the wild side. So, she has a lump. Probably a bad thing. And she can keep it. Nothing in my bill will interfere with that or remove it or make it go away. You know, she can even let it turn into full-fledged breast cancer.”<br />
<br />
This is where the waivers come into play, according to the president.<br />
<br />
“Now, maybe she decides she doesn’t want to keep her pre-existing condition, which has gotten a lot worse,” Trump continued. “As the MacArthur Amendment says, health insurance companies can’t limit access to coverage for individuals with preexisting conditions. It says that. I had Ivanka read it to me. Right there in black and white. So, this woman pays like $100,000 to have a radical mastectomy. The lady gets cured, gets to live a longer but uglier life as a boobless ironing board, nothing worth grabbing, and the insurance companies make a bunch of money to create jobs. That’s the beauty of Trumpcare. It’s the greatest job creation machine since God. Think about it, you know and people don’t realize, every time in history when a business has gotten filthy rich, it passes those profits back down by opening positions and hiring more workers.”<br />
<br />
Some economists, however, have questioned the inclusion of pregnancy as a pre-existing condition. Trump defended the language and intent of the amendment.<br />
<br />
“Until the baby is delivered, the condition is pre-existing,” said the president. “And the $17,000 price tag is there because pregnancy, not childbirth but pregnancy, falls into the cancer category. An unborn baby is basically like a cancer. There’s this parasitic entity inside the woman -- making her sick, fat, just gross looking, and literally stealing food from her body. Not many people know that. Why? So if some knocked-up broad decides to treat this pre-existing condition, she’s asking a doctor to remove what’s essentially a tumor.”<br />
<br />
Progressive San Narciso County pundit Ferrel Michaels, whose terrible and abysmally low-rated program on KCUF Radio manages to stay on air, attacked the MacArthur Amendment as a specious tool meant to pander to the left.<br />
<br />
“I think there’s something poetic about it being called the MacArthur Amendment,” Michaels opined. “As in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur#Death_and_legacy" target="_blank">General Douglas MacArthur</a>. Despite his decorated career up to 1942, a series of tactical blunders and bad decisions lost him the Philippines and forced his escape to Australia. Right at that disgraceful point, George Marshall pressures President Eisenhower into giving MacArthur the Medal of Honor, even though Ike noted that the general hadn’t actually performed any acts of valor as required by law. That’s what we’ve got with this bill. A bungled perversion of something previously successful, which will probably lead to loss of life, and a president who slaps a medal on it to save face and shovel the propaganda before the truth hits.”<br />
<br />
<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-91880492563925126862017-05-03T20:38:00.000-07:002017-05-03T20:38:08.595-07:00Trump Now Says Andrew Jackson Could Have Prevented the Civil War, Pearl Harbor and 9/11<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MerCjPQonNU/WQqh8rBwfJI/AAAAAAAAp4c/VjtnOFD5LEI4jwpv-DgtksGePOJVGHRlACLcB/s1600/andrew%2Bjackson%2Bdoctor%2Btardis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="trump-andrew-jackson-civil-war" border="0" height="430" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MerCjPQonNU/WQqh8rBwfJI/AAAAAAAAp4c/VjtnOFD5LEI4jwpv-DgtksGePOJVGHRlACLcB/s640/andrew%2Bjackson%2Bdoctor%2Btardis.jpg" title="andrew jackson doctor tardis" width="640" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><i>Additional reporting by Michael Livingston</i></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- President Trump waxed philosophical about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War during a critically panned interview <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/05/01/us/politics/ap-us-trump-andrew-jackson-quotes.html?_r=0" target="_blank">broadcast Monday on satellite radio</a>. Among his rambling and often non-sequitur musings, Trump clung to his accusations of being wiretapped by the Obama administration, questioned why Americans sat idly while the Civil War erupted, and sympathized with Andrew Jackson’s outrage over the divisive conflict, even though the seventh president died 16 year prior. On Tuesday, Trump tried to <a href="http://verifiedpolitics.com/trump-just-tried-defend-andrew-jackson-remark-humiliated/" target="_blank">defend his odd remarks in a fresh tweet</a>, but double-downed on his claims that Jackson had some mysterious insight to the battle yet-to-come. This afternoon, Mr. Trump again sought to clarify his stance on Old Hickory, revealing that Jackson could have stopped the Civil War, the assassination of James Garfield, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, September 11 and Canada’s hostile annexation of Burger King.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Andrew Jackson and the Civil War: Alternative Facts Edition</h3>
“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” Trump told Salena Zito, a host on <a href="https://twitter.com/SXMPolitics/status/858999704167751680" target="_blank">SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S channel</a>, who interviewed the 45th president for an article in The Washington Examiner. “People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”<br />
<br />
Historians shuddered at Trump questioning the necessity of the Civil War and his implication that most Americans have remained as confused by the catalysts of the bloody event as their new president. As the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/politics/trump-andrew-jackson-fact-check.html" target="_blank">pointed out</a>, it was Mr. Trump’s depiction of Andrew Jackson possessing foreknowledge of the Civil War that prompted jeers, humiliation and outrage. <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this. ’”<br />
<br />
Jackson died in 1845. The Civil War broke out in 1861.</blockquote>
<br />
Rather than admit the historical inaccuracy, Trump dug in his heels and persisted in touting the post-mortem accomplishments of Jackson, the unrepentant and ill-tempered slave owner president he most admires. On Wednesday, he spoke to the Evening Transcript’s Michael Livingston by phone, offering a host of alternative facts that other fake media have chosen to ignore in regard to the life, death and ongoing times of Old Hickory.<br />
<h3>
Trump Reveals Secret History of Andrew Jackson</h3>
LIVINGSTON: Thank you for taking the time to clear up the confusion caused by Salena Zito and The Washington Examiner.<br />
<br />
TRUMP: It’s great to speak with you again, Mark. <br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: It’s Michael, sir.<br />
<br />
TRUMP: That’s right, Mark. Saleeeena Zitto. She’s a Mexican. Probably an immigrant. English is not her native language. She didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Sad. I feel sorry for her. She probably spent her youth running drugs over the border -- stuffed in little balloons she had to swallow -- otherwise she’d show up at school with bruises and black eyes from running into a “door named Dad.” No proper education. Just drugs and beatings and rapings and skinning cats for leather to make clothes. I’m surprised the Washington Examiner hired her. Great paper. Amazing reporting. It was founded by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Myung_Moon" target="_blank">Sun Myung Moon</a> and his Unification Church. Wonderful people, the Moonies. They understood that North Korea was Satan and that’s why the peninsula was divided by God. They blindly follow a natural leader without question. A man with a lot of wisdom. Lots of stamina. Lots of charisma. They supported Richard Nixon when treasonous Americans turned their backs on their commander. Sad.<br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: I believe you’re confusing Washington Examiner with Washington Times. <br />
<br />
TRUMP: You know, Mark, and most people don’t realize, I think the real question about the Civil War is “Why aren’t Lincoln jokes funny, when James Garfield ones are real knee slappers?” I mean each morning when Eric is eating his Frosted Flakes and reading the newspaper, he’s always laughing at a Garfield joke. Who knew the president liked lasagna -- and hated Mondays?<br />
<br />
I have a lot of respect for Abraham Lincoln, too. Lots of respect. I’m a lot like him. I can’t reveal all the details, but I can say that my security team has given me a secret journal that belonged to Abraham Lincoln. It’s classified. Very secret. I can’t tell you everything that’s in there. Top secret stuff, Mark. Some of it very frightening. But I can tell you that before winning the war on blacks [sic], <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2016/11/trump-lincoln-vampire-hunter.html" target="_blank">Lincoln was saving this nation by killing vampires</a>.<br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: In your interview with Ms. Zito, you did imply that Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War -- and that he somehow saw it coming and was angered by it. Unfortunately, the timeline of his death and the stirrings of the Civil War don’t coincide. Could you help clear up that confusion?<br />
<br />
TRUMP: Andrew Jackson was very mean, but he was kind. They killed his wife. A one-armed man did. He framed Jackson. And Jackson spent the last years of his life as a fugitive, hiding out until he could prove his innocence, pretending to be a doctor. Then he saw what was happening in regard to the Civil War and he was angry. And he said, “Not on my watch,” but America let it happen anyway.<br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: Uh, that is fascinating about Jackson’s time on the lam. I wasn’t aware of that. But about the Civil War, Jackson was dead long before he could have offered any opinion or commentary on the situation.<br />
<br />
TRUMP: I hope when I die, which is never going to happen, I get something better than a penny on my eyes. Lincoln is on the penny, and that’s a great thing. Great man. Tremendous achievements. Why the penny? Jackson was on the twenty. Lincoln should have been on the fifty. He was better than Jackson. I love Andrew Jackson, don’t get me wrong. He’s a great friend. Terrific mentor and friend. But he had shipped over 200 or so immigrants from Africa. Those immigrants, you know, are the whole reason the Civil War broke out. And that I disagree with. I have told Andrew that several times. <br />
<br />
People like us shouldn’t be disgraced with loose change when we die. I deserve a diamond coin. Everyone is going to have diamonds falling out of their eyeballs or wherever - you’ll see. Instead of penny loafers, people will have diamonds on the soles of their shoes like that Neal Simon song.<br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: So, and I’m trying to get this correct, Mr. President, you are saying that you still speak with Andrew Jackson? The seventh president of the United States, who passed away in 1845?<br />
<br />
TRUMP: He died in 1845, but he exists throughout time. I watched an incredible documentary on BBC. The show chronicles the life of a man who looks a lot like Jackson. He’s got the crazy mane of gray hair and he wears 19th century apparel, or clothes that resemble the style. And you know, here’s the thing. He’s a time traveler. He gets into this blue police call box, and bam! He’s fighting dinosaurs, he’s in the future killing illegal aliens, he’s in the Civil War, he’s everywhere in time and space. He’s using a Scottish accent to hide his identity. Andrew Jackson was the first president to survive an assassination attempt. He’s got to be careful. But he’s still pretending to be a doctor. Weird.<br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: You’re...you’re telling me you think the fictional character on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006q2x0" target="_blank">Doctor Who</a>, this latest version, is Andrew Jackson? <br />
<br />
TRUMP: Jackson could have stopped so many tragedies like 9/11, Trudeau stealing our beloved Burger King, the iPhone 8, Nordstrom, laws about the age of consent and statutory rape, you name it.<br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: I’d like to switch topics, if I may. In your interview earlier this week, you maintained your insistence that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. Intelligence agencies have universally disproven this. What information do you have to support those allegations?<br />
<br />
TRUMP: It’s very simple, Mark: Andrew Jackson, who could have prevented the Civil War and the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, told me that Obama wiretapped my office. Jackson also said he regretted his involvement in the drafting of the Constitution, which is an archaic, bad document. Case closed.<br />
<br />
LIVINGSTON: Our time is up, according to the schedule your aides provided. But I want to sincerely thank you for agreeing to this interview, Mr. President. It has been enlightening.<br />
<br />
TRUMP: Thank you,, Mark. Lincoln was killed by the Democratics. They are basically the Jews of America. But not the good type, like Jared. The Democrats have screwed things up so bigly that instead of people killing Jesus, a guy named Jesus is killing people. That’s one Jesus who won’t be walking on water to get to America. Liberal traitors keep asking me if I would <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/01/trump-two-for-one-regulation-repeal.html" target="_blank">let Jesus into this country</a>. Because he wasn’t from America. And the answer is absolutely not. What the hell do you think the border wall is for? To keep every Jesus, Juan, Carlos and Maria from coming into this country, stealing jobs and raping our children. Do you want Jesus raping your children after he’s finished picking beans? I didn’t think so. And that’s not going to happen.<br />
<br />
I was watching some footage -- top secret footage from one of our scientists -- a doctor who wants to put sharks with frickin’ lasers on the border. And they say that I don’t like animals. I keep Bannon around.<br />
<br />
And you know, I’d give Bannon a cabinet position, but we can’t find a cabinet that will fit him. Obama went all IKEA. Cabinets made out of horrible, horrible, socialist hate trees...did you know that? I have the resolute desk in my office -- it’s the best desk -- made out of 100 percent American Resolute. They tell me that it was given to us by the Queen Mary after she won the War of the Rose by killing Joffrey at the Red Wedding. But I think that’s fake history. The last time I was in America, her boat hadn’t even left Long Beach. Any other freeloading foreigner, she makes a nice desk, but let’s face it, the Titanic is bigger. And that reminds me, Walmart will be selling Trump deck chairs this summer.<br />
<br />
<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-3391855422966078812017-05-02T18:31:00.001-07:002017-05-02T18:32:39.828-07:00Trump Pushes Repeal and Replace for Obama’s Socialist School Lunch Regulations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eI6TK0h8hKo/WQkx79dgNTI/AAAAAAAAp38/CJ4OaM35bGAktBtLCkeeP4hPPHeGANzzACLcB/s1600/Make%2BAmericna%2BGreat%2BPlate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="trump-repeal-replace-obama-school-lunch-program" border="0" height="580" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eI6TK0h8hKo/WQkx79dgNTI/AAAAAAAAp38/CJ4OaM35bGAktBtLCkeeP4hPPHeGANzzACLcB/s640/Make%2BAmericna%2BGreat%2BPlate.jpg" title="Make America Great Plate" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue pushed forward on Monday with aggressive plans to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/politics/nutrition-rules-school-lunches-michelle-obama.html" target="_blank">reverse the draconian dietary standards</a> the Obama administration had imposed on school cafeterias as part of its eight-year socialist agenda. The Trump White House campaigned on a platform of restoring free market capitalism, vowing to stave off the creeping threat of communism that caused the country, its economy and its business communities to flounder for nearly a decade-- practically to the point of national insolvency. With many executive orders penned, Trump has fought to alleviate burdensome regulations on industry, such as crippling standards for health, safety, fair compensation and labor protections. In his first official act, Purdue has proposed a “repeal and replace” nutrition program that “accurately reflects the true diets and values of American families, and the businesses they depend on.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Michelle Obama’s Obscenely Naked Lunch</h3>
“This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals,” Perdue said in a statement, <a href="http://thehill.com/regulation/healthcare/331400-trump-unwinding-first-ladys-school-lunch-program-rules" target="_blank">reported by The Hill</a>. <br />
<br />
“If kids aren't eating the food,” he added, “and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition – thus undermining the intent of the program.”<br />
<br />
Purdue’s comments, though thinly veiled, took aim at Michelle Obama’s signature healthy lunch programs. The former first lady intended to force a series of restrictions that would curb the growth of childhood obesity. However, such actions also jeopardized the economic fabric of the United States. <br />
<br />
“By limiting the choices of parents, school administrators and food services professionals, Mrs. Obama was really just eroding the underpinnings of America’s prosperity,” Purdue explained. “If businesses fail, so do we as a world power. Just imagine if a drug company developed a cure for cancer, then gave away that pharmaceutical for free. Hospitals lose patients. Drug makers lose customers. Funeral homes and cemeteries struggle under diminishing volumes. You put the country into a fiery death spiral it’s not going to escape from.”<br />
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At a school cafeteria in Leesburg, Va., Purdue told a gathering of kids, parents and education officials that the Trump White House has heard their concerns, and that this administration would liberate the obstructions that eliminated flexibility in implementing nutrition standards that represent America’s greatness.<br />
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But the decision drew the ire of activists and fringe child welfare advocates, as <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/02/526448646/trump-administration-rolls-back-obama-era-rules-on-calorie-counts-school-lunch" target="_blank">NPR revealed</a> in its coverage:<br />
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<blockquote>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-0f1397f3-cbec-ecab-2fd3-3dc217a5c15d"><span style="color: #434343; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span></span>Just because children would rather eat heavily salted, processed foods at school doesn’t mean they should,” Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said in a statement. “The president’s fondness for Big Macs and KFC is well known, but we shouldn’t let Colonel Sanders and McDonald’s run the school cafeteria.”<br />
Howell Wechsler, CEO of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which has worked with more than 35,000 schools to implement healthier meal standards, said in a statement, “We would not lower standards for reading, writing and arithmetic just because students found them challenging subjects, and we should not do it for school nutrition either.”</blockquote>
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Both Cook and Wechsler are wrong. Under Betsy DeVos, Trump has unapologetic designs to lower -- if not eliminate -- academic standards. Nutrition is no different. Purdue denounced Cook’s statements, remarking that Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders offered school cafeterias more practical wisdom and expertise than a radical food activist like Jamie Oliver.<br />
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“Of course celebrities like Oliver are opposed to this,” Purdue said. “He’s a shill for the top one percent of food producers. We’re talking boutique organic farms, specialized hormone-free beef producers and wealthy local growers. Oliver has an agenda, and that’s to profit off of scare tactics. He’s a talking head who’s getting rich in the pockets of these powerful farms. He’s also British, which makes him practically a communist. We’re trying to save school lunch programs, give kids the best nutritional value at the lowest cost, and keep businesses thriving -- the ones real Americans turn to time and again. McDonald’s and KFC provide for more patriots than elitist rackets like Whole Foods and Gelson’s.”<br />
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Purdue also noted that Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders have earned their places as icons of valor, corporate social responsibility and defense. Ronald McDonald runs a series of charitable organizations that assist children in need. Colonel Sanders is obviously a military veteran, a warrior who served his country and later served his countrymen thickly seasoned chicken parts, fried in the juices of their own gristle. Whole Foods and Gelson's, Purdue quipped, have such disdain for consumers that they never bothered to create colorful mascots.<br />
<h3>
Launching a New Strike in the Lunch Wars</h3>
On the 2011 campaign trail, weaker Republicans like Herman Cain attempted to tackle the Obama food initiative with no success. Cain, former CEO of a pizza franchise, embodied the ideals of Trump but failed to execute. In a <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2011/11/ironic-herman-cain-gaffe-imperils-pizza.html" target="_blank">series of gaffes</a>, he tried to classify pizza as a vegetable, which made the otherwise wholesome staple completely unappealing. As President Trump noted last month to Steve Bannon, his chief adviser, “this is what happens when let Hutch try to copy Dutch, or when a n****r thinks he’s The Gipper.” The allusion harkened back to Reagan’s school lunch overhauls.<br />
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During the financial crisis of the 1980s, then President Ronald Reagan tried to reduce school lunch funding by classifying ketchup as one of the required servings of vegetables. It was cheaper than broccoli, peas or greens, and children would eat it willingly. But as the Reagan Era of Reason gave way to the left-leaning lunacy of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, spending returned to dangerous levels. <br />
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Trump pointed to Clinton’s enactment of NAFTA, which allowed cheap foreign farms to drive up the price of U.S. agriculture. That catastrophe was followed by Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity movement, which mandated that children eat expensive produce. Both administrations exhibited a dangerous tendency for the kind of pricey socialism that left Trump with a country in virtual ruin.<br />
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By 2014, the damage inflicted by the Democrats and their food czars had caused almost irreparable damage. As the Evening Transcript wrote at the time, GOP officials worried that the <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2014/03/alarming-drop-in-childhood-obesity-rate.html" target="_blank">alarming drop in childhood obesity</a> would imperil the healthcare industry and, subsequently, the economy. <br />
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With the 43-percent drop in obesity rates for children, a new generation of adults would no longer struggle with heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke -- a devastating development, according to conservative legislators and the lobbies they support for the welfare of the American people. <br />
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“This news is a death knell to medical professionals. We’ve basically told them that within 30 years time, they’ll be of no use,” noted Len Waybill, head economist for the conservative Peter Pinguid Society. “But that’s just the tip of this iceberg. The production of expensive drugs used to treat and manage at-risk people will dwindle, along with profits. What if the only drug we needed was aspirin? There go thousands of jobs and billions of dollars from circulation. Other critical players will also be led to slaughter. Fast food companies, snack food manufacturers, soda pop bottlers, food additive developers, the chemists who design preservatives, corporate bakeries, every mom and pop doughnut shop, where does it end? Trying to count all the businesses that will fold would be like trying to calculate pi to its final digit.”<br />
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But then, Waybill lamented, there would no more pie.<br />
<h3>
Repealing and Replacing ObamaCatering</h3>
Michelle Obama’s first shot across the bow of tradition came with the introduction of the Obama Food Plate, itself a repeal and replacement for the time-honored dietary pyramid. The plate-shaped chart, which GOP leaders derided as unnecessary and even dangerous. The Obama Food Plate, an “affront to American entrepreneurialism and consumerism,” jeopardized the fast food industry, which had already fallen under attack by states that were dictating what restaurants could and could not sell.<br />
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“The Obama chart certainly isn’t what I expected to see,” Rick Santorum allegedly told an aide on his 2012 Republican presidential exploratory committee. “I just assumed it would be a plate full of fried chicken, watermelon and grits.”<br />
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Fast food remains a major part of the U.S. diet, with Gallup <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/163868/fast-food-major-part-diet.aspx" target="_blank">revealing</a> that eight out of 10 Americans dine on fast food at least once a month. Half admit consuming fast food weekly. Because food assistance programs and nutritional guidelines fall under the purview of Agriculture, Republicans had expressed renewed hope that a more <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/01/trump-hispanic-agriculture-secretary.html" target="_blank">honest and conservative iteration of the food chart</a> would replace the Obama perversion. Trump assured them that this effort, as all Obama policies, would crumble under his doctrine of blanket repeal and replace. This Monday, through Purdue’s persistence and dedication, the president delivered on that vow -- for the children.<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-80494816314007693262017-04-27T19:48:00.001-07:002017-04-27T19:48:44.455-07:00Holocaust Remembrance: Trump's Stern Warning to Hitler, Who Died 72 Years Ago<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wlQhIlWqQvc/WQKslzCqQfI/AAAAAAAAp2E/t3I7UuE_X8cEB1cqJ8ZfvgyJSDrMnw3AwCLcB/s1600/trump-warns-hitler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="holocaust-remembrance-trump-hitler-warning" border="0" height="378" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wlQhIlWqQvc/WQKslzCqQfI/AAAAAAAAp2E/t3I7UuE_X8cEB1cqJ8ZfvgyJSDrMnw3AwCLcB/s640/trump-warns-hitler.jpg" title="trump-warns-hitler" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- During the annual Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Capitol on Tuesday, President Trump attempted to send a forceful message to critics who have doubted his commitment to fighting discrimination and anti-Semitism. But Trump also indulged in his penchant for deviating from prepared remarks to interject rambling, incoherent and often bizarre anecdotes about deceased historical and public figures. While bestowing honors on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Trump veered off script and issued a puzzling call to recognize Frederick Douglass, implying that the famous abolitionist was still alive. He recently lavished similar present-tense accolades on Luciano Pavarotti, who died in 2007. But the confused commander-in-chief stunned Israel’s ambassador to the United States when he delivered a stern warning to Adolf Hitler, whose life ended 72 years ago.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
President Who Can’t Remember History Honors Holocaust Remembrance</h3>
Trump’s tough words about the slaughter of six million Jews by Nazis struck an uncharacteristically presidential chord at the beginning of the event. His tone was somber. His condemnations of genocide, harsh. <br />
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But by surrounding himself with far-right racists and white supremacists, despite his strong ties to members of the Jewish community, Trump has courted a befuddling controversy. The president’s speech seemed designed to downplay his allegiances to people like Steve Bannon and distance him from paradoxical composition of his cabinet. <br />
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“The president, who was slow to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/03/donald-trump-calls-david-duke-a-bad-person-and-mentions-a-third-party-run/" target="_blank">denounce campaign endorsements</a> by racists including David Duke, made an unequivocal statement of support for Israel and pledged to ‘confront anti-Semitism’ in a speech attended by lawmakers and survivors of Hitler’s war on European Jewry,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/us/politics/holocaust-remembrance-trump.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> the New York Times.<br />
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Since January, when he failed to mention Jews in the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trump and his administration have come under attack for endorsing or enabling anti-Semitism. In February, the president suggested that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-jews-anti-semitic-hate-crimes-false-flag-reverse-david-duke-kkk-ku-klux-klan-a7604801.html" target="_blank">Jewish people had committed anti-Semitic hate crimes</a> themselves to make their detractors look bad. Trump denounced a spate of such crimes as false flag operations carried out by Jews. He also illustrated the scriptural story of Pontius Pilate, who was coerced into killing Jesus at the exhortations of angry Hebrew politicians. Steve Bannon reasoned that we cannot discount, with absolute certainty, that Jews did not mastermind the holocaust for similar gains.<br />
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Earlier this month, Press Secretary Sean Spicer sparked fresh outrage when he invoked a defense of Hitler to suggest that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s atrocities surpassed those of the Nazis. In a disastrous attempt to apologize and clarify the insensitive remarks, which occurred during Passover, <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/spicer-apology-hitler-vader-sauron.html" target="_blank">Spicer fumbled again by defending Darth Vader and Lord Sauron</a>. <br />
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Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters reference the president’s relationship with members of the Jewish community to discount allegations of anti-Semitic posturing. Trump grew up in a predominantly Jewish part of Queens. Powerful executives in many of his businesses, before those enterprises spiraled into ruin and bankruptcy, were Jewish. More importantly, First Daughter Lady Ivanka Trump married a Jew and converted to Judaism. The president is deeply, madly, passionately, eerily in love with his daughter -- and to a different, lesser extent, her family. It therefore makes no sense to brand Trump an anti-Semite, his supporters reason.<br />
<h3>
The President’s Pantheon of the Undead</h3>
Brushing aside Trump’s strange rhetoric, the weirdest aspect of his ceremonial speeches is an inexplicable tendency to discuss deceased public figures as though they continue to walk among us.<br />
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During his <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/02/trumps-black-history-breakfast-speech.html" target="_blank">"Some of My Best Friends Are Black" History Breakfast</a>, the president suggested that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/frederick-douglass-trump/515292/" target="_blank">Frederick Douglass</a> was alive and active in the civil rights movement. Trump also seemed uncertain about the identify of Douglass, an escaped slave and influential abolitionist. <br />
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“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,” Trump said at one point. “He’s a real up-and-comer. I’ve got my eye on him. We anticipate great things to come.”<br />
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Last Thursday, while meeting with Italy’s prime minister, Trump not only <a href="http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/watch_trump_tells_italian_prime_minister_pavarotti_is_a_great_friend_pavarotti_died_10_years_ago" target="_blank">embellished his friendship with Luciano Pavarotti</a> but appeared unaware that the legendary tenor has been silenced by the grave for a decade. But Trump astounded the audience at the Holocaust Remembrance when he leveled a direct threat against long-dead German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who took his own life on April 30, 1945.<br />
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“We pledge -- never again,” boomed Mr. Trump. “Six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jews in Europe, murdered by the Nazzy [sic] genocide. They were murdered by an evil that words cannot describe, and that the human heart cannot bear. They were murdered by Adolf Hitler, a bad mensch, sick guy. Sad. Stupid moustache. No more genocides, Mr. Hitler, no more anti-Semitic attacks on my watch. I tried to build a relationship with your cow of a prime minister, Angela Merkel, but when I learned that you had killed six million Jews, well Germany is looking for trouble. This is just another example of Islamic extremism threatening Europe and America. If Russia decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the Nazi problem without them. I’ve got battleships with cruise missiles off the coast. I will give Germany a final solution to the Hitler problem. U.S.A.! JEW-S.A.!”<br />
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Trump then praised humanitarian, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-bio.html" target="_blank">Elie Wiesel</a> for his “ongoing efforts” to expose the true horrors of genocide and intolerance, and prevent their recurrence through awareness and activism.<br />
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“I also want to commend Elie Wiesel for her [sic] tremendous work in fighting anti-Semitism,” added the president. “She is an incredible person, a powerful ally to the Jews and a great friend. Just a terrific friend. I think I see her over there near the hall. Take a moment to thank her for her bravery and chutzpah, if you run into her.” <br />
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Mr. Elie Wiesel passed away on July 2, 2016.<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-43151492554508238262017-04-25T20:26:00.001-07:002017-04-25T20:27:02.837-07:00Fake Media Downplays Trump’s Triumphs During First 100 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- The end of a president’s first 100 days in office is not a formal milestone, but during the last century this benchmark has come to symbolize a gauge by which to measure and forecast a new administration’s performance, based on initial accomplishments. But fake news outlets like NBC, CNN, NPR and the New York Times have discounted President Trump’s achievements to promote specious tales of failure and loss. Trump’s grand schemes, in under 100 days, have largely been realized. He has undeniably laid the groundwork to dismantle government, erect barriers between nations, end health care, privatize education, start a global war, weaken the power of fringe groups such as LGBTQ people and feminists, and clear obstacles like Native American protesters from America’s path to energy independence. In this era of fake media, it is important that journalists seek the truth. And the truth is that Trump , like Charlie Sheen, is winning.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
The Media’s Failure is Trump’s Success</h3>
In November 2016, then President-elect Donald Trump published a brash and audacious <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2016/11/president-trump-publishes-100-day-plan.html" target="_blank">100-Day Plan to make America pure again</a>. He campaigned brazenly as a catalyst for disruption and change. Where Obama offered hope -- a hollow and intangible concept, in lieu of action -- Trump pledged the opposite. He had no interest in coddling the nation. He had no designs to comfort the downtrodden or instill hope. And as president, he has delivered. <br />
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Fake media organizations, however, have ignored Trump’s resolve, downplayed his triumphs and distracted the public with blandishments. They omit the influence of Trump’s brinksmanship, while cherry picking convenient facts to paint the portrait of an illegitimate, racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, inept, ignorant, xenophobic, borderline retarded, child-raping, psychotic troglodyte. <br />
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“Over the first 100 days, we’ve seen a president who has failed to make the progress expected when the White House and Congress are controlled by the same party,” CNBC attacked, equating the <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/25/trump-100-days-a-sign-of-trouble-ahead-commentary.html" target="_blank">president’s record to a worrisome report card</a> that portends trouble ahead. “Trump has <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/04/21/donald-trumps-100-days-flip-flop-after-campaigning-on-a-100-day-plan-trump-now-calls-it-a-ridiculous-standard/" target="_blank">failed to deliver on any of the 10 legislative promises</a> on the campaign trail. Trump has resorted to repackaging campaign promises into executive orders that will take years to develop into concrete policy changes. And his most consequential action – the travel ban – has now been blocked in both of its iterations.”<br />
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The fake news machines keep cranking out content at chop-shops like Salon and Time. They have flagrantly bypassed any discussion of the president’s commitment to the issues outlined in his 100-day plan, focusing instead on nebulous polling numbers. Reasonable readers understand that polling data remain inconsistent from one sample to the next, depending on the organization responsible for the study, the generally biased nature of the questions and the homogeneous demographic selected. <br />
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Salon’s figures <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/04/21/donald-trumps-100-days-flip-flop-after-campaigning-on-a-100-day-plan-trump-now-calls-it-a-ridiculous-standard/" target="_blank">vanquished the president</a> with grades ranging from F to below C. Even Trump’s supporters, the publication claimed, scored his performance no higher than a B. Time observed that Trump will reach his 100-day mark with the <a href="http://time.com/4751112/trump-100-days-polling-approval-rating/" target="_blank">lowest approval ratings</a> of any president in modern history: <br />
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<blockquote>
Trump’s approval rating is hovering around 40% as of April 23, according to Gallup -- just 5 points up from his lowest ever rating of 35% in late March.<br />
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The only other President in the past 70 years to come close was Gerald Ford, whose approval fell from 71% at the start of his term to 48% by his 100th day, after he pardoned Richard Nixon.</blockquote>
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CNBC further accused the Trump administration of “lurching from one issue to another issue, with no apparent strategy except to create the illusion of activity.” But this reporting smacks of diversionary tactics, distractions and distortions. <br />
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Bombing Syria was no “illusion.” Trump ordered the launch of <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/trump-desperate-world-war-russia.html" target="_blank">59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian air base</a>. And in a masterful stroke of diplomacy, Trump <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/spicer-apology-hitler-vader-sauron.html" target="_blank">alerted Putin and al-Assad</a> prior to the launch so they could protect their troops. Not only did the president follow through on his plans to use the military more aggressively, he demonstrated his posture as a wise elder statesman. <br />
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By all counts, the attack was successful. Russian warplanes were grounded before the shelling began, preserving the terms of Trump’s blackmail with Putin. And the assault claimed the lives of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/middleeast/syrian-fighters-airstrike-american-military.html" target="_blank">18 Syrian fighters</a> allied with the United States, leaving the butchers of al-Assad’s regime unharmed. After, Trump immediately authorized U.S. forces to drop the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/us/threats-responses-weapons-largest-conventional-bomb-dropped-test-florida.html" target="_blank">most powerful conventional bomb</a> in their arsenal on Afghanistan, obliterating a suspected ISIS stronghold or civilian neighborhood. The damage was too extensive to indicate which.<br />
<h3>
100 Days That Redefined American Democracy</h3>
In reality -- the fact-based realm that fake media have chosen to label as “illusory” -- Trump has done more in 100 days to realize his executive vision than any past president. During the campaign, Trump castigated America as corrupt, economically frail, ignorant and an embarrassment to powers abroad. Since his victory, markets have collapsed, a corrupt businessman has seized control of the United States, the ignorant have triumphed and world leaders have condemned this once great democracy as a foolish comedy of errors. Through Trump’s leadership, things have actually become as horrible as he predicted.<br />
<h4>
Executive Orders</h4>
Trump pledged that he would pen more executive orders than his predecessors. Once he assumed his seat in the Oval Office, the president engaged in a flurry of activity, signing an unprecedented volume of executive actions. But Trump never promised that any of these orders would be passed or ratified. <br />
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Repealing a regulation, for example, requires a federal agency to undertake the same process used to formulate new regulations. There are close to 80,000 pages of published rules in the Federal Register. It would take years for Congress to consider, approve or vote down most of Trump’s executive orders. But that fault lies with the foundations of this democratic system of governance, its checks and balances, and distribution of powers -- not the commander-in-chief.<br />
<h4>
Running the Nation as a Business</h4>
Republican presidential candidates often campaign on the premise of running the country like a business. To date, Trump is the only chief executive who has honored this message. Business is not a democracy but rather an autocracy where executives make unilateral decisions. Employees and customers can do virtually nothing about it, except leave. <br />
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Business leaders can dictate the level of transparency or secrecy in their organizations. They alone may determine what information gets out. They craft the message. They decide who sees it and who does not. They establish the quality and breadth of benefits coverage. They can make terrible decisions that put workers at risk -- that ultimately leave the company in rubble -- but still quit their posts with huge bonuses. In business, nepotism is rampant. In business, the president’s prime directive is to satisfy the demands of shareholders -- investors from abroad or foreign trading partners, say from Russia -- not the needs of at-will workers whose livelihoods can be terminated at any time, for any reason. <br />
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Certainly, Trump has carried out his vision to run America as a corporation. <br />
<h4>
Dismantling Overly Regulated Government Institutions</h4>
To reinvigorate the nation’s economic might, Trump dedicated himself to dismantling the extraneous and overly regulated bureaucracies that have hobbled growth and prosperity: environmental protection agencies, occupational safety boards, fair labor and equality standards, corporate taxes, infrastructure, sovereign lands for indigenous people who live on fuel-rich reservations, alternative energy protocols, public schools and libraries, and scientific administrations.<br />
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Currently, the president has made much progress toward these ends. We may also experience a government shutdown if Congress fails to pass a federal budget. Trump inserted <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/politics/donald-trump-border-wall/" target="_blank">$1.4 billion in funding</a> for the proposed <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/01/mexico-wall-impede-trump-cocaine-supply.html" target="_blank">border wall</a> between the United States and Mexico. The last-minute concession could usher the nation toward financial insolvency. If that were to occur, Trump would have crippled government operations and run the country into ruin like one of his businesses.<br />
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The wall would also impede Trump’s access to the cocaine supplies that keep him alert and active on Twitter, although he has accepted this sacrifice to protect the nation from rapists and terrorists. <br />
<h4>
Ending Foreign Trade</h4>
Trump railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement every day of his candidacy. In his 100-Day Plan, the president asserted that he would renegotiate the terms of the agreement or repeal it. Critics of the administration have routinely emphasized that the White House has made no movement in this area. <br />
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Trump has implemented no official policy, but he has effectively stifled relations with most countries through his demeanor, actions, behavior, threats, vulgarity, insensitivity and hostility. Now that nations across the world want to limit their interactions with the United States, formal legislative procedures would appear unnecessary.<br />
<h4>
Immigration</h4>
While Trump’s physical border wall seems unlikely to materialize, the ideological barrier he has created with groups that are not Christian, Caucasian, heterosexual males born in the United States has curbed immigration. <br />
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Illegal border crossings have <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/03/09/illegal-immigration-from-mexico-down-40-percent-in-trumps-first-month/" target="_blank">plummeted by 40 percent</a>. According to Pew Research, more Mexicans are actually <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/" target="_blank">leaving the United States</a> than attempting to enter it. “Ever since Trump took power, we’ve got more people coming home. They are seeking better health care, good jobs, opportunities to enhance their quality of life and a safe environment, free from war,” a key Mexican immigration official noted. <br />
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With the constant peril of World War III looming over their heads, most Americans are now terrified of leaving the country. In fact, after Trump threatened conflict with Iran and North Korea over missile testing, millions of American refugees rushed to the border seeking asylum in Mexico. But to prevent known foreign extremists, rapists and job-stealers from entering the country, the Mexican government imposed <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/02/mexico-tightens-border-us-refugees-iran.html" target="_blank">crossing fees and extreme vetting processes</a> for U.S. immigrants.<br />
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“Americans are a violent people,” the official explained. “We’ve seen countless extremists burning churches, shooting schools, committing all manner of hate crimes and so forth. America is the murder capital of the world, in terms of firearms. They rape women and children, yet serve no jail time. They are deadly religious fanatics who are bent on wiping out non-believers, in some inexplicable white jihad. And they keep sending their factories over here, stealing jobs from hard-working Mexican citizens.”<br />
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The president’s detractors may point out that his travel bans have been overturned by judges, yet the fact remains that Trump has proven instrumental in staunching the flow of immigration and emigration.<br />
<h4>
Restoring Real American Values</h4>
According to data collected by the <a href="https://csbs.csusb.edu/hate-and-extremism-center" target="_blank">Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism</a> at California State University, San Bernardino, hate crimes in nine major metropolitan areas have increased dramatically since the election. On the low end of the spectrum, researchers found a more than 20-percent spike. Other regions boasted much higher numbers. Hate crimes in Washington D.C. rose 62 percent. <br />
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“In New York City alone,” NBC News <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-hate-crimes-20-percent-2016-fueled-election-campaign-n733306" target="_blank">reported</a>, “there were 55 anti-Semitic crimes reported from Jan. 1 to March 5 this year, up 189 percent from 19 such incidents in the same period of 2016, the data showed.”<br />
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The article also noted that “bias crimes against Muslims and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people accounted for much of the growth in hate crimes that were reported.”<br />
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President Trump has surrounded himself with white supremacists, nativists, racists, homophobes, evangelical extremists and anti-Semites. When assembling his cabinet, the president made sure to place them in key positions. People such as Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions -- fiercely purist Americans who have longed for the restoration of the United States conceived by the Founding Fathers, before the Civil War and its subsequently horrifying amendments -- have dedicated their careers to setting the country back to its rightful habitation. <br />
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They have struggled against the immoral travesty of transgender bathrooms, equal rights, gender parity and the exclusion of Christianity as a legal mandate in schools and government buildings. They represent a population of historically true patriots who have been marginalized by socialist politicians -- opportunists that tout diversity simply to garner more votes. The astonishing growth of hate crimes illustrates that Trump’s Americans have become empowered and are taking back their country. <br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-78128302701036275182017-04-24T19:22:00.000-07:002017-04-25T18:25:53.049-07:00Millennials Defy ‘Lazy’ Stereotype, Mobilize to Save Filthy Park Where Most Lost Their Virginity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Concealed by a canopy of massive eucalyptus trees that line Bennington Vale’s Andover tract is Donkey Dell Park -- a forgettable, squalid, dingy patch of grass that had its sod laid before construction of the first homes began in the late 1960s. While most residents in San Narciso visit the county’s sprawling recreational areas to swim, play tennis, exercise, ride horses or just enjoy a warm day in a beautiful setting, the teens of Bennington Vale seldom stray from Donkeydell Park. Despite its unfortunate name -- the origins of which have remained a source of dispute and mystery for decades -- Donkeydell endures as a nostalgic oasis for neighborhood millennials. The park happens to be the fetid, nasty place where most of them lost their virginity -- and where, according to their parents, they were also conceived. But government officials want to close it down. Local millennials refuse to let that happen without a fight.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Filthy Eyesore Rich with Filthy Memories</h3>
The entrance to Donkeydell offers little to the untrained eye. The field is a rolling swath of brown and yellow grass, the length of two football fields. Farther back, one may discover the ruins of a wooden fort, an incomplete playground with rusted fixtures, and a concrete pit that had been intended for a pool. The strange and disquieting sign still hangs. Despite repeated attempts to remove, dismantle and vandalize the marquee, it inevitably reappears in its original condition. The wooden placard depicts a hobbled jackass pinned down by a fallen tree; a farmer attempts to help it stand by whipping its haunches while pushing its backside with his pelvis. But Donkeydell has a much richer history than other parks in the country. And like most facets of San Narciso, nothing is what it seems. <br />
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Mayor Manny DiPresso, however, believes the park is exactly what it seems: a dilapidated, unfinished beacon sordid activities that is taking up valuable land the county could reallocate to more profitable pursuits, such as commercial real estate ventures or landfills.<br />
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“Donkeydell is an eyesore and just a weird, creepy place to stop,” DiPresso said. “I drove past it late one night and saw a guy with an ice cream cart out front, ringing a melancholy little bell in the dark. It was close to midnight. What could be more unwholesome than that?”<br />
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DiPresso also lamented the tragic condition of the grounds: “My understanding is that much of it was abandoned when funding was diverted to build the Lake Inverarity recreational area -- a much more impressive facility. Donkeydell is an empty, outdated waste of land. It doesn’t even get any sunlight because of the excessive tree cover. Then there’s that odor. Some idiotic city planner decided to plant <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bradford-pear-tree-semen-sex-smell-2013-4" target="_blank">Bradford Pear trees</a> all along the periphery. So the place always smells like a gay bath house near a beach at low tide...on a humid day.”<br />
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Donkeydell also abuts the orange groves that dominate the property of the infamous Inverarity estate. The park’s proximity to this dense and otherwise inaccessible orchard has made it a haven for rapists.<br />
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“If folks stopped going there and wandering too close to the Inverarity’s land -- and we all know about the questionable breeding situation with the family’s heirs -- then the papers would quit reporting the constant discovery of mutilated remains and sexually battered girls who, for some reason, always seem to be employed by Abercrombie and Fitch,” DiPresso added. “It’s giving people in other cities the wrong impression of our suburban splendor. For God’s sake, we’re not <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2010/02/hollister-co-sues-hollister-ca-for.html" target="_blank">Hollister</a> or Fontana, but it’s easy to draw parallels with this crap finding its way into the news.”<br />
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Other prominent members of the community, who agree with DiPresso about Donkeydell being the armpit of the county, doubt the purity of his motives. They worry that DiPresso, under pressure from a growing faction of liberals, has designs to transform the park into a HUD housing zone to profit off the tax incentives. <br />
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Mike Fallopian, Yoyodyne executive and chairman of the conservative Peter Pinguid Society, lives near Donkeydell and sees no improvements arising from creating a low-income housing area.<br />
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“Nobody’s a fan of rape, but what can you do about it?” Fallopian said. “it doesn’t happen all the time. It probably wouldn’t happen at all if girls who worked at the mall dressed more modestly. I mean, this year the incidence rates dropped from eight to three girls a month. But if we start allowing poor people to live in exclusive communities, rape will be the least of our worries. We’ll be facing home invasions, robberies, property devaluation, Korean grocery stores, ethnic restaurants, and maybe Baptist or Catholic churches going up. We already have a Catholic church and a Taco Bell. I’d rather live with the occasional Donkeydell rape.”<br />
<h3>
Park Integral Part of Millennials’ Nostalgic Puberty</h3>
The adults can argue the merits or dangers of Donkeydell until they turn blue in the face, but Bennington Vale millennials claim the park as an integral aspect of their transition from children to adults. <br />
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“Apart from my priest, which doesn’t strictly count, Donkeydell Park is where I lost my virginity,” Roger Tresdon, 25, told the Evening Transcript. His girlfriend Treena, 20, described a similar experience, except with her father and not a priest. More importantly, she also had her first legitimate sexual experience at Donkeydell Park. <br />
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“Everyone I know did it at Donkeydell first. Our parents deflowered each other there. Most of us wouldn’t be here without that filthy park. I lost my innocence there too, in that muddy wood fort with Tobias Bernson. And his stupid friend Brad, but only because he said he had some meth. Which he didn’t. Although the sex was horrible, it prepared me for more meaningful encounters I would have later. All at Donkeydell.”<br />
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“You can’t do anything around this lame town without your parents bearing down on you,” Tresdon continued. “They don’t want you to grow up until the day they ship you off to Stanford or Yale. And they can’t relate to us. Donkeydell is the only place we can go to experiment, to learn, and to move from puberty to maturity. This is our rite of passage, especially since they installed those surveillance cameras in the school parking lot and under the bleachers.”<br />
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Tresdon and nearly 20 other young adults have organized a protest group to preserve not only Donkeydell Park but its legacy and influential role in helping shape their young lives.<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-38801741567516431392017-04-19T21:05:00.001-07:002017-04-19T21:05:33.059-07:00Bill O’Reilly Ousted for Sexual Harassment, Trump Suggests Miki Agrawal as Replacement<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Bill O’Reilly’s ouster from Fox News, amid revelations of a costly sexual harassment cover up, has also put President Trump in an awkward and embarrassing predicament. At the end of March, Trump declared April 2017 to be <a href="http://www.nsvrc.org/saam/sexual-assault-awareness-month" target="_blank">National Sexual Assault Awareness Month</a>. Some progressive opponents accepted the gesture, hoping for an earnest commitment from the White House, even if politically motivated. Others derided the president’s sentiments as ironic and brazen, citing examples of his misogynistic exploits, including a public defense of O’Reilly. When questioned about Trump’s support of O’Reilly, Press Secretary Sean Spicer reluctantly admitted that the president’s intent with National Sexual Assault Awareness Month was to honor the “perverts, rapists and sexual predators who represent the values of America’s great leadership, and who have fueled a thriving patriarchy that created the most powerful nation in the world.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Talking Points Memo: O’Reilly’s Sexual Assault Factor</h3>
Iconic Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly, host of the long-running and top-rated “The O’Reilly Factor,” has been removed by network executives who confirmed on Wednesday that the talk show pundit “will not be returning to the Fox News Channel.” O’Reilly’s departure, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/19/524736631/bill-oreilly-is-out-at-fox-news?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170419" target="_blank">NPR explained</a>, follows an exodus of advertisers who abandoned the show after learning that Fox had shelled out $13 million to settle five sexual harassment suits. Several weeks ago, a <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/04/05/522690611/multiple-scandals-erupt-at-fox-news" target="_blank">sixth victim</a> emerged, pushing the situation to its crisis. <br />
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As <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/19/media/replacements-bill-oreilly-fox-news/index.html" target="_blank">CNN noted</a>, O’Reilly’s departure would “mark a swift and stunning fall for a man who has hosted the number one program in cable news for 16 years running. But the ‘Factor’ became radioactive after the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment-fox-news.html" target="_blank">reported</a> earlier this month that five different women who had accused O’Reilly of sexual harassment or verbal abuse had received settlements totaling $13 million.”<br />
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The scandal punched another dent in the armor of Fox News, still recovering from the sexual harassment firestorm that led to Roger Ailes’ resignation, and delivered a heavy blow to the ego of conservatives. But its implications also extended deep into the increasingly fragile Trump administration. <br />
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“I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” President Trump <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/business/media/trump-oreilly-fox-murdochs.html" target="_blank">told the Times</a> in an interview earlier this month, when the allegations surfaced. “Personally, I think he shouldn’t have settled.”<br />
<h3>
Honoring America’s Sexual Assaulters</h3>
For decades, women’s rights activists have recognized April as a time to raise public awareness for victims of sexual abuse and violence. In 2009, Barack Obama became the first president to officially <a href="http://www.essence.com/2009/04/09/president-obama-april-is-national-sexual" target="_blank">proclaim April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month</a>. The White House, in a symbolic gesture, has renewed the proclamation each subsequent year. But as Sean Spicer explained in Wednesday’s uncomfortable presser, President Trump -- having failed to read to actual documentation -- misunderstood the intent of the holiday.<br />
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The Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-sexual-assault-awareness-month_us_58debcdde4b0c777f78755d1" target="_blank">reminded</a> readers that Trump has been “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-running-list-of-all-the-women-whove-accused-donald-trump-of-sexual-assault_us_57ffae1fe4b0162c043a7212" target="_blank">publicly accused of sexual assault by more than 15 women</a> and was caught on tape boasting he could <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-billy-bush-rape-culture_us_57f80a89e4b0e655eab4336c" target="_blank">grab women 'by the p***y' without their consent</a>.” Huffington Post also observed that Trump’s iteration of the proclamation deleted all mentions of military sexual assault and removed all references to rape culture. But these striking omissions, Spicer said, were not oversights. President Trump’s vision of National Sexual Assault Month skews in a different direction.<br />
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Spicer, backed into a corner, admitted that President Trump believed the ceremonial month was meant to honor the “brave men of America” who “fight to restore traditional family values. Dad out hunting and gathering. Mom pumping out babies, shopping, overseeing the domestics and coordinating with nannies.”<br />
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In October, to sate Trump’s unsavory urges, Pence reportedly <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2016/10/pence-buys-sex-doll-for-trump.html" target="_blank">purchased a custom-made sex doll</a> that replicates the physical dimensions and aesthetics of a woman. Pence defended the unorthodox decision as a way for Trump to appease his predatory tendencies without actually assaulting women or <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2016/10/trump-to-testify-in-child-rape-charge.html" target="_blank">raping teenage girls</a>.<br />
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A month later, Trump declared his resolve in “winning” the <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2016/11/president-trump-war-women.html" target="_blank">war on women</a>.<br />
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<blockquote>
My agenda is as pro-woman as it is pro-immigrant. To my shrill, whiny critics I say take off the dress and deal with the real issues. Stop crying a like a bunch of stupid girls, man up and grab the problem by the p***y.<br />
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If we force businesses to create equal standards, then women will have to abide by stricter attendance policies. No 12-week maternity leave, no excused absences once a month for cramps, no tolerance for behavior problems while they’re PMS-ing, and no ducking out of working lunches at the Stacked Rack Shack. <br />
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Women have superior cooking, cleaning and sewing skills. They surpass men in those industries, I think. Even Mexicans and Chinamen. Women are generally better test subjects for feminine hygiene products, too. And in my professional experience, they’re better salespeople. Now I know sales is a field dominated by men, but I’ve never seen a man close a deal as effectively as a woman. Men don’t have the physical appeal. And when push comes to shove, men aren’t good at nagging buyers into a decision.</blockquote>
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“What the president hoped to achieve with his version of the Sexual Assault Month was recognition for the contributions of alpha males, not real rapists,” Spicer clarified. “Without Bill Cosby, so much comedy would have been absent from our lives. And like Bill O’Reilly, and like President Trump, Mr. Cosby is a victim of unfounded accusations. Settling a case is not the same as pleading guilty. But if we continue to allow legislators to punish locker room talk and a man’s self-expression -- his ability to exert his masculinity, to grow into a man in charge -- then we risk collapsing our entire social and political leadership structure. How many women heads of state can you name? Not one, I’m guessing. Because they don’t exist. And if they did, with access to militaries and nukes, one bad week of PMS could lead to a wholesale slaughter of civilians that would easily <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/spicer-apology-hitler-vader-sauron.html" target="_blank">surpass the atrocities of Hitler or Assad.</a>”<br />
<h3>
Trump Suggests Replacement for O’Reilly</h3>
Although media watchdogs expect Tucker Carlson to assume O’Reilly’s role, President Trump said he thought Fox would be sending viewers the wrong message. <br />
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“It’s clear that Fox needs to maintain a strong, dominant news presence with ‘The Factor’ while appealing to the female demographic,” Trump said. “And reading through a list of conservatives who are also registered sex offenders would take years. My advice is to tap <a href="http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/03/thinx-employee-accuses-miki-agrawal-of-sexual-harassment.html" target="_blank">Miki Agrawal</a> -- the CEO of Thinx, that company that makes period panties and underwear and crap. Strong woman. Very powerful business woman. She’s a woman. But she also understands the important policy issues my administration shares to make America great again. She, you know, <a href="http://www.racked.com/2017/3/14/14911228/thinx-miki-agrawal-health-care-branding" target="_blank">denied her employees maternity leave</a>. She flirted with the women there at the company. She groped their breasts like a man. She came onto other women sexually, which is empowering to them, it validates them as women. And she even held nude video conferences. So hot. If you’re looking for a fresh face on ‘The Factor,’ she’s it.”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-85578479306064580522017-04-17T18:51:00.001-07:002017-04-17T18:51:44.598-07:00Pence Warns North Korea of Trump’s Military Resolve: “He Won’t Hesitate to Kill Us All”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- President Donald Trump frittered away Easter Sunday at the noticeably sparse <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/easter" target="_blank">Easter Egg Roll</a> on the South Lawn of the White House. During the celebration, the 139th of its kind, Trump belittled the audience, <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/donald-trump-upsets-little-boy-10244655" target="_blank">bullied adoring children</a>, complained that the <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2016/10/trump-to-testify-in-child-rape-charge.html" target="_blank">predominantly pubescent</a> attendees (girls over the age of 13) offered little in the way of “Easter eye candy,” and disappointed revelers who discovered only pillow mints from Trump hotels inside their plastic eggs. Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the Korean Peninsula to warn Kim Jong-un against testing Trump’s willingness to launch preemptive strikes in response to threats. “I urge North Korea not to question the strength of the Armed Forces of the United States in this region, nor our president’s itchy trigger finger,” Pence said. “He’ll do it. He’ll press the button. He’ll kill us all.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Passover Passage to Pyongyang</h3>
Vice President Pence quietly traveled to South Korea over the weekend for a meeting with the country’s acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, and addressed the growing tensions between the United States and North Korea after a stop at the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean Peninsula. <br />
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Pence delivered a message to Kim Jong-un, as <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-missile-idUSKBN17H0NL" target="_blank">covered</a> by Reuters, saying that “recent American military strikes in Syria and Afghanistan showed President Donald Trump’s resolve should not be questioned.” But Pyongyang “vowed to continue missile and nuclear tests.”<br />
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Kim In Ryong, North Korea’s deputy representative to the United Nations, accused the White House of provoking a situation where “nuclear war could break out at any time.” His sentiments were echoed by several other officials in the upper ranks of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-Ryol told the BBC that nuclear weapons and long-range missile testing would continue on “a weekly, monthly and yearly basis.” <br />
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Other DPRK spokespeople told Reuters that “the slightest movement” from U.S. forces would instigate a preemptive North Korean strike that would “destroy the aggressors without mercy.”<br />
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Kim Jong-un has already has amassed enough fissile material to construct 20 to 25 <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/atomic_weapons/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" target="_blank">nuclear weapons</a>. He may also have sufficient quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium to produce six to seven new weapons a year, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/world/asia/trump-north-korea-nuclear-us-talks.html" target="_blank">according</a> to the New York Times, citing Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.<br />
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<blockquote>
Should the North conduct its sixth nuclear test, it would move closer to having a hydrogen bomb, or a two-stage thermonuclear weapon, Mr. Hecker said, with up to a thousand times more power than the Hiroshima-style weapons Mr. Kim has detonated so far.</blockquote>
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Although Pence, in solidarity with South Korea, emphasized that coalition forces would be bolstering their military presence in the region, he also extended an open invitation to peaceful negotiations. Analysts observed that Pence’s warnings were more conscientious and concerned than predatory. <br />
<h3>
Pence Possibly Trying to Save World From Trump</h3>
During his trip, Pence praised the efforts of North Korea to fix its historically ruinous social and economic conditions. Last week, Kim Jong-un surprised the world with a ribbon cutting ceremony for a glamorous urban renewal project, instead of another nuclear test.<br />
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The residential highrise on Ryopmyong Street was unveiled during the commemoration of Kim Il Sung’s 105th birthday. Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder, was also Kim Jong-un’s grandfather. Progress in Pyongyang’s city center has begun to show signs of new wealth and a transition toward capitalism, modeled after China’s hybrid approach to communism with elements of free trade. <br />
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“Gleaming new buildings flank freshly paved thoroughfares, some teeming with traffic,” the Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-north-korea-neighborhood-20170413-story.html" target="_blank">wrote</a>. “Men wear suits and ties; women carry designer handbags. Streetside shops sell bananas, apples and peaches, likely imported from China.”<br />
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“Just look at the bold and unexpected steps your dictator is making to strengthen your future,” Pence said, imploring patience and reason from North Korea. “Our dictator is moving in the opposite direction. We’re destroying jobs, ignoring infrastructure, killing health care, ruining the environment and putting people out of homes. Please, don’t predicate your actions on the lunatic ravings of an unhinged business failure with a government title and a Twitter account.”<br />
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Even the Chinese foreign minister is now willing to entertain peace talks -- something former President Obama could not achieve. “Not because Obama was a bad executive,” explained Pence, “but because he wasn’t about to giddily orchestrate an <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/trump-desperate-world-war-russia.html" target="_blank">extinction-level event to save face</a>.”<br />
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“Look what we did to Syria and Afghanistan,” the vice president added, a hint of passion and desperation in his otherwise monotone voice. “Look what we do to non-violent protesters, for considerably less. Please, don’t underestimate President Trump’s impetuous, knee-jerk reliance on force. Don’t push him or test his resolve in obliterating all humankind, especially if his <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/ivanka-trump-donald-trump-syria-582446" target="_blank">daughter becomes displeased</a> with something. You’re Asian. Ivanka, albeit mistakenly, may hold your people accountable for the failure of her <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/02/trump-nordstrom-ivanka-feds.html" target="_blank">cheap, gaudy, unpopular, sweatshop-manufactured fashion line</a>. I implore Kim Jong-un and the people of North Korea, don’t play chicken with our current president. He’s got a bunker at the White House. He just built another at Mar-a-Lago, where he spends most of his time. They’re both stocked with scores of underaged, indentured sex servants who have been trained in all manner of deviant carnal acts. He’ll create a new population of inbred Trumps -- proverbial cockroaches who emerge from the irradiated cinder. He’s not worried about you or Russia or even America. Please, let’s talk. Trump won’t hesitate to kill us all.”<br />
<br />
<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-38311389601575600512017-04-13T21:37:00.000-07:002017-04-14T12:14:00.360-07:00White House Says Trump Desperate to Start World War III Before Russia Investigation Ends<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Just two days after firing a barrage of Tomahawk missiles at Syria, the United States dropped the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), colloquially dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs,” on a cave complex controlled by Islamic State militants in Afghanistan. Intelligence sources also confirmed on Thursday that naval destroyers had positioned themselves about 300 miles from strategic targets in North Korea. When questioned about the increasingly aggressive military actions sanctioned by Trump this week, White House officials emphasized the “now unavoidable need to start World War III before this Russia investigation wraps up.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Look at the Explosions, Not the Man Behind the Curtain</h3>
President Donald Trump relieved the concerns of his wary and disheartened supporters this week by fully embracing the unfettered, destructive powers accorded to the Commander-in-Chief of America’s military. <br />
<br />
On Tuesday, in response to reports that Bashar al-Assad had killed 86 civilians with chemical weapons, Trump ordered the launch of 59 cruise missiles against a Syrian military base. To preserve international relations, he responsibly <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/spicer-apology-hitler-vader-sauron.html" target="_blank">alerted Putin and al-Assad prior to the launch</a> so they could protect their troops. The symbolic show of force attempted to showcase Trump as the defender of American democracy rather than an authoritarian puppet of nouveau-Soviet rulers. <br />
<br />
By all counts, it was successful. Russian warplanes were grounded before the shelling began. And the assault claimed the lives of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/middleeast/syrian-fighters-airstrike-american-military.html" target="_blank">18 Syrian fighters allied with the United States</a>, leaving the butchers of al-Assad’s regime unharmed. Trump roused his hawkish, conservative base without jeopardizing the terms of his blackmail with Putin.<br />
<br />
On Thursday, Trump then authorized U.S. forces to drop the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/us/threats-responses-weapons-largest-conventional-bomb-dropped-test-florida.html" target="_blank">most powerful conventional bomb</a> in their arsenal on an ISIS stronghold in Afghanistan on Thursday. Hours later, intelligence officials told NBC News that the U.S. had positioned two destroyers within <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-may-launch-strike-if-north-korea-reaches-nuclear-n746366" target="_blank">striking distance of North Korean nuclear sites</a>.<br />
<br />
Political analysts and foreign policy experts worry that these bellicose actions could incite, rather than quell, greater violence from U.S. enemies. As the New York Times reported: “American commanders in Iraq and Syria have been given more authority to call in strikes, a loosening of the reins that began in the last month of the Obama administration. But some national security experts said that Mr. Trump and the Pentagon risked inflaming anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world with their approach to fighting the Islamic State.”<br />
<br />
Representatives for Press Secretary Sean Spicer agreed. “That’s what we’re hoping to achieve,” said Irwin Furston, a member of Spicer’s team. “And sooner rather than later. If we can’t get a full-fledged, extinction-level event going in the next month or so, the Department of Justice is going to finish their report on Trump’s collusion with Russia, after which point he’ll probably die in jail. We’re doing everything we can to make sure the world is blinded to the results of that probe. Literally. A few nukes should do the trick.”<br />
<br />
Spicer was unavailable for comment as he had scheduled a belated <a href="http://time.com/4735650/sean-spicer-sheldon-adelson-holocaust/" target="_blank">Seder dinner with Sheldon Adelson</a>, the face of Judaism and undisputed icon of Jewish values, to apologize for his appalling defense of Hitler. <br />
<h3>
The Glorious Fog of War: Shrouding Failures and Embarrassments</h3>
The mounting evidence to suggest that most Trump campaign officials colluded with Russia to hack the election grows each day. The probe has claimed several victims already. Michael Flynn was forced to resign his post. <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-russia.html" target="_blank">Jeff Sessions</a> and <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/white-house-intrusion-devin-nunes.html" target="_blank">Devin Nunes</a> have been pressured to recuse themselves. As the Associated Press learned, Paul Manafort, Trump’s erstwhile campaign manager, is trying to <a href="https://www.apnews.com/861959fa610147b49bc9d5f2b25a0ce8?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP" target="_blank">retroactively register himself under the Foreign Agents Registration Act</a> to avoid legal repercussions for lying about being on the payroll of a foreign government.<br />
<br />
And then the Guardian dropped the bombshell that United States intelligence officials have “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia" target="_blank">concrete evidence</a>” of Trump’s collusion with Russia.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
One source suggested the official [American] investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material.”</blockquote>
<br />
“Trying to provoke an all-out nuclear war is our administration’s only option at this point,” Furston said. “It’s the mother of all nuclear options. Let’s face it, we’ve been lucky enough as it is. Despite Trump’s lies and idiocy and lack of knowledge on any key issues, he hasn’t truly been exposed yet for the absolute fraud he is. Republicans have tolerated his <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/health-care-overhaul-vote-delayed.html" target="_blank">botched health care bill</a>, his <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/trump-budget-fascist-marine-sanctuaries.html" target="_blank">ridiculous budget</a>, his <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/01/trump-mexico-border-wall-taxes.html" target="_blank">imaginary border wall</a>, his vicious attacks against Native Americans to <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/03/executive-order-climate-change-jobs.html" target="_blank">create 35 jobs</a>, his countless business failures and bankruptcies, and his overall illegitimacy as a president and person. This man, if you can even call him that, is a scatalogical King Midas -- everything he touches turns to utter s**t. But when this Russian scandal breaks, and Americans realize they’ve put a traitor in control of the nation’s highest office, well his ego can’t recover from that. Our only option is to scrap everything and start over with a clean, albeit radioactive, slate.”<br />
<br />
Furston said that Trump’s closest military advisers are also planning incursions into Iran, China, Germany, Cuba and Libya next week. <br />
<br />
“We’re calling it Operation NOW,” he added. “President Trump came up with it. He called it an acronym for ‘no witnesses.’”<br />
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<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-85588762051201534422017-04-11T21:09:00.000-07:002017-04-11T21:09:41.380-07:00Spicer Fumbles Apology for Hitler Remarks by Defending Darth Vader and Lord Sauron<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer ignited a feverish backlash in the Jewish community on Tuesday when he invoked a defense of Hitler to suggest that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s atrocities surpassed those of the Nazis. Spicer’s ill-timed comments took place during Passover, the most celebrated Jewish holiday in the United States. Critics pointed out that these seemingly insensitive remarks were part of a larger anti-Semitic rhetoric used by members of the Trump administration. Late Tuesday evening, in a disastrous attempt to apologize and clarify his intentions, Spicer ended up defending Darth Vader and Lord Sauron. Civil rights groups across the country have since demanded Spicer’s resignation.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Enforcing Godwin’s Law in Syria Situation</h3>
Spicer’s unprompted reference to Hitler was meant to emphasize the heinous <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2017/04/trump-syria-gas-attack-wall.html" target="_blank">attacks orchestrated against Syrian civilians</a> by their president. On April 4, the Assad regime deployed warplanes over the Idlib province where they dropped Sarin gas and killed at least 86 civilians, including 30 children and 20 women. <br />
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In a rare departure from the counsel of his unofficial foreign policy adviser, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump told members of Congress and Jordan’s King Abdullah II that he may consider retaliatory action: cutting of all financial aid to Jordan, which is using the funds to harbor Syrian refugees, and walling off the country behind a massive fortification along its borders. <br />
<br />
Later that night, after speaking with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who expressed a desire to create a “$70 million fireworks show a whole nation could see,” Trump became inspired and replied, “Hold my beer.” Moments later, the president ordered a missile strike against a Syrian military base. To preserve international relations, he responsibly alerted Putin and al-Assad prior to the launch so they could protect their people.<br />
<br />
Spicer’s press conference, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/us/politics/sean-spicer-hitler-gas-holocaust-center.html" target="_blank">explained</a>, was an attempt “to lend gravity to the actions of Mr. Assad, who United States officials believe used sarin gas, a lethal chemical weapon, in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/world/middleeast/syria-gas-attack.html" target="_blank">attack</a> on a rebel-held area of Idlib Province last week that killed dozens.”<br />
<br />
“We didn't use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had a, you know, someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/04/11/spicer-hitler-didnt-even-sink-to-using-chemical-weapons-although-he-sent-jews-to-the-holocaust-center/?utm_term=.f20976c85345" target="_blank">said</a>.<br />
<br />
Of course, the Nazis and Hitler were synonymous with chemical weapons. The infamous gas chambers pumped hydrogen cyanide into killing rooms packed with Jews and other groups singled out for extermination, who were deemed a threat to the German state. At the height of deportations, an estimated 6,000 Jews died each day in the Auschwitz gas chambers. When asked to clarify his remarks, Spicer’s explanation fell on deaf ears.<br />
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“I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no — he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing,” Spicer said. “I mean, there was clearly, I understand your point, thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that. There was not in the, he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that. What I am saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent, into the middle of towns, it was brought — so the use of it.”<br />
<h3>
Vader and Sauron: Villains as Victims and Heroes</h3>
In a prepared but yet unreleased statement, allegedly drafted by Spicer and intercepted by Evening Transcript staffers, the embattled press secretary continued his baffling series of unpopular comparisons and exonerations of historic villains to justify this morning’s misunderstanding.<br />
<br />
<i>It was never my intent to imply that Hitler was somehow better than Assad. But significant differentiations exist. What makes Assad a worse villain than, say, Hitler or Darth Vader or Lord Sauron? His schemes. His designs. His slaughter of innocents for sadistic pleasure and not a higher purpose. His ability to destroy his own people, not ideological or physical enemies, whether perceived or legitimate.<br />
<br />
Darth Vader destroyed entire star systems and planets. His death toll probably reached the billions. But he was following a path he believed in, that he believed would restore peace and order to the galaxy. In the end, he did that. He killed the evil emperor and restored balance to the Force. He was a hero, ultimately.<br />
<br />
Lord Sauron. I mean, he’s a scary monster, but if you think about it, he’s also the Abraham Lincoln of Middle Earth. He rose as a lieutenant of Melkor, then as Morgoth’s second-in-command and finally as the god-king who forged the One Ring in dismal old Mount Doom. He understood the trajectory of Middle Earth culture, its political tribalism and an environment that was as morally toxic, corrupt and repugnant as Mordor’s was physically and aromatically.<br />
<br />
It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but he was actually the William Wallace of his age: a broadsword-brandishing champion of the people, who liberated an oppressed race of slaves, mostly Orcs, from the clutches of sadistic murderers. On the surface, he was an easy target. He created a flaming eyeball to watch over his realm. He raised a massive army of grotesque creatures as a deterrent. And he was like ten-foot tall, a pituitary problem that made him the victim of bullies since his first incarnation. But the surveillance, the steel attire, the sprawling ocean of up-armored troops --all of it to defend his people from the architects of genocide...the Men and the Elves. <br />
<br />
He saved Orcs and Goblins from the lynch mobs and the “coon hunts” and Joy Divisions constructed by Elves. Every day for centuries, Elves of all ages emptied quivers of arrows into defenseless Orcs with no more enthusiasm or apprehension than a child discovering a booger in its pointy elf nose. With Men and Elves, it was about class. Everyone was allowed to play, so long as everyone could afford to live in the same neighborhood and get a Hobbit to do his dirty work.<br />
<br />
Well, Sauron ended that abuse. He issued his own Emancipation Proclamation, you could say, and gave these repressed beings homes and jobs...in an environment blind to issues of color or economics or faiths. Everyone was equal in his eye. He created a democracy in a land ruled by monarchs. But everyone cheered on the fiefdoms and kingdoms. Why would Americans support that, a system antithetical to a democratic republic?<br />
<br />
Were Sauron’s tactics ruthless, his methods extreme? Sure they were. Is that different than any other revolutionary fighting for a just cause? Should we hold our original patriots up as criminals? Vlad Dracula may have had his reputation perverted by a drunken Irishman to sell penny dreadfuls, but in his native land, Vlad is still regarded as a liberator -- a folk hero. He sacrificed to save his people from the Islamic terrorists of Turkey. And yet outside his homeland, he’s a predatory molester who eats babies and drinks blood from hobos. And who killed Dracula? A real estate agent, an oil tycoon, a doctor, a college professor and a trust fund kid. Of course.<br />
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It’s tragic, but then history is written by the winners. And there is no moral fiber in a single-minded pursuit so constipated and so appallingly myopic as winning. In the end, those who follow the Men and the Elves are doomed to perish under the inbred whimsy of tyrants. Sauron, on the other hand, founded a sanctuary for tens of thousands of disenfranchised people who were desperate to work hard and build their dreams. But he’s the bad guy. He didn’t kill his own people. Neither did Hitler. He killed Jews and Romas and immigrants and other folks who weren’t part of the Nazi Party. Assad butchers his own. So yes, he is much, much worse.</i><br />
<h3>
Bannon Offers Alt-Right Alt-Facts to Defend Spicer</h3>
Steve Bannon, the president’s top adviser, reminded the public of the need to enforce fairness and balance in this era of fake news. As a lauded alt-right journalist, Bannon provided the correct context to Spicer’s statements by illustrating the alternate facts that mainstream media have conveniently ignored.<br />
<ul>
<li>As President Trump has said before, in some cases <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-jews-anti-semitic-hate-crimes-false-flag-reverse-david-duke-kkk-ku-klux-klan-a7604801.html" target="_blank">Jewish people have committed anti-Semitic hate crimes</a> themselves to make their “oppressors” or political opponents look bad. Trump denounced a spate of such crimes in February as false flag operations carried out by Jews. He also illustrated the scriptural story of Pontius Pilate, who was coerced into killing Jesus at the exhortations of angry Hebrew politicians. Bannon reasoned that we cannot discount, with absolute certainty, that Jews did not mastermind the holocaust for similar gains.</li>
<li>Ivanka Trump married a Jew and converted to Judaism. The president is deeply, madly, passionately, eerily in love with his daughter. And, to a different, lesser extent, her family. It therefore makes no sense to brand Trump an anti-Semite.</li>
<li>Bannon explained, in defense of Spicer’s avoidance of using the term “death camp,” that Holocaust Centers were recreational youth facilities, like the YMCA, dedicated to Hebrew children. They contained billiard tables, exercise rooms, swimming pools, industrial ovens and showers. “Due to an unfortunate mix up with the plumbing, cyanide containers, which were there to put down a rat infestation, accidentally ended up connected to the water systems. So, not all six million Jews were necessarily Hitler’s direct victims.”</li>
<li>”While everyone is attacking Sean Spicer for appearing anti-Semitic in his comments about Assad gassing his own people, let’s not forget that the dishonest media are being anti-semantic,” Bannon said. “I would argue that Hitler did not use chemical weapons. He killed his prey with cyanide, which is a poison found in nature: it’s produced by certain bacteria, algae, fungi and plants. Sarin is a nerve toxin that is produced by chemists in labs. So Sean wasn’t strictly incorrect.”</li>
</ul>
<br />
<i>(c) 2017. Licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>. All articles are works of satire. See <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/p/company.html">disclaimers</a>.</i>BC Basshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03955077314348723159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7536322267119235073.post-35965890152917704502017-04-10T21:01:00.001-07:002017-04-10T21:01:29.144-07:00United Airlines Says Beaten Passenger Should Have Offered Pepsi to Cops<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>SAN NARCISO, Calif.</b> (<i>Bennington Vale Evening Transcript</i>) -- Early Monday morning, a video emerged showing a passenger being <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/business/united-flight-passenger-dragged.html" target="_blank">violently ejected</a> from a United Airlines flight headed for Louisville from Chicago. The 69-year-old doctor was forcibly dragged from the overbooked plane when he refused to “voluntarily” give up his seat to accommodate United employees who had arrived late. The extremity of the incident, captured in graphic images, has sparked a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/04/10/feds-now-looking-into-united-incident.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl" target="_blank">Congressional investigation</a> into the air carrier’s compliance with oversales rules. To make matters worse, United’s PR department and CEO released vague and baffling explanations of the passenger’s bloody expulsion, defending the police and ground crew for their hyperbolic handling of the situation. Late Monday evening, facing criticism for its tone-deaf messaging, United provided another clarification, stating that the passenger could have diffused the fraught standoff by offering authorities a Pepsi.<br />
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Involuntary Voluntary Ejection</h3>
As the Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-united-video-20170410-story.html" target="_blank">reported</a>, no passengers aboard flight 3411 accepted the airline’s offer to voluntarily vacate their seats in exchange for compensation of $800 plus overnight accommodations and an alternative flight the next day. When the deal was refused, the staff picked random passengers. <br />
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“One couple went quietly, but another passenger objected,” LA Times wrote. “Before being dragged off the plane, he reportedly identified himself as a doctor with patients to see Monday. When he refused to go, the ground staff summoned police, who physically manhandled him out of his seat and dragged him, bloodied, down the aisle as several other passengers documented the event on their smartphones.”<br />
<br />
United’s initial response to the incident generated more shame and public outrage than understanding.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.</blockquote>
<br />
CEO Oscar Munoz further exacerbated the botched PR campaign when he provided his own odd, ambiguous and self-serving statement: “This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers.”<br />
<h3>
Pepsi and United Unite</h3>
Candace Fluglieber, a senior public relations specialist with the United Airlines corporate office in San Narciso County, spoke to the Evening Transcript late Monday evening to clear up the confusion.<br />
<br />
BVET: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. We’ve heard a lot of conflicting testimony about the cause of the hostilities. What was the catalyst, or primary problem, according to United?<br />
<br />
FLUGLIEBER: In my opinion, the main problem involved a failure to follow instructions. Air carriers are heavily regulated, and passengers remain subject to many rules. Like turning off cell phones with cameras. That could be the most severe violation here -- that so many other customers were recording and broadcasting video of the conflict. This is exactly why we order people to turn off their electronic devices when they board. If they had acted in accordance with the policy, I doubt this story would have made the news.<br />
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BVET: Social media users attacked your CEO this afternoon and accused him issuing a tone-deaf response that fell short of an actual apology. Can you elaborate on what Mr. Munoz was attempting to say?<br />
<br />
FLUGLIEBER: First, there was nothing tone-deaf about our messaging. That would be like saying Pepsi’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/pepsi-kendall-jenner-ad-how/522423/" target="_blank">powerful commercial</a> about those WhateverLivesMatter demonstrations was tone-deaf. Oscar Munoz said precisely what needed to be said. Yes, the incident upset everyone at United. It was upsetting that the passenger refused to leave voluntarily. It was upsetting to waste police resources on this. Those cops had to beat up this rude guy, pry him from his seat and throw his broken body off our flight. It’s Chicago, those officers should have been shooting unarmed black thugs. It’s upsetting that this doctor’s obstinance led to a two-hour delay in the flight. That’s overtime United has to pay its employees. We also had to pay $800 plus hotel fees for the “volunteers” who were forcibly ejected without police violence. Those costs add up fast, and we have to pass them on to our customers. All because this a**hole believed his job was more important than everybody else’s.<br />
<br />
BVET: You mentioned the Pepsi ad, which also came under fire for being tone-deaf. <br />
<br />
FLUGLIEBER: That’s insane. I watched the commercial several times. It was inspirational. I mean, if all those protesters at Kent State in 1970 had offered the National Guardsmen soda instead of flowers, they may be alive today. If <a href="http://www.benningtonvalepress.com/2012/03/george-zimmerman-claims-skittles.html" target="_blank">Trayvon Martin</a> had been carrying Pepsi instead of iced tea, George Zimmerman may never have pulled the trigger. Pepsi has the power to end racism, discrimination, violence and to diffuse tense standoffs. <br />
<br />
BVET: By that logic, Pepsi could have helped your passenger?<br />
<br />
FLUGLIEBER: Of course. If he had purchased a $15 mini can of Pepsi and handed it to the police, I’m certain the officers would have stopped bludgeoning him, laughed off the confrontation and left the plane to the cheers of every passenger in the cabin. <br />
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