Last Call For Meat The Press, Con't

In order to get rid of America's free press, we have to have an official state media.  Sure, you can just call it Fox News, but Donald Trump has always wanted his own media empire, and now he's thinking about making that official.

President Donald Trump suggested that the government would launch a network to rival CNN International, as a way “to show the world the way we really are, great!”

Trump broached the idea in an afternoon tweet that again attacked CNN, this time its highly successful global network.

“While CNN doesn’t do great in the United States based on ratings, outside of the U.S. they have very little competition. Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair….and false way. Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!”

But the U.S. government already funds international broadcast outlets, including Voice of America, which has a budget of about $235 million, employs more than 1,000, and programs in more than 40 languages. One of its shows is “Plugged in With Greta Van Susteren.”

Voice of America is run through the U.S. Agency for Global Media, whose CEO is John Lansing, the former president of Scripps Network. At the time that Trump took office, there was a significant amount of consternation that he would try to influence the content of the VOA news operation. But Lansing told NPR that such an action would be “illegal,” and VOA has compared its standards and structure to that of the BBC.

Expect that to change.  Trump wants his state media, and one way or another, he's going to get it.

No Love For Trump, Or Mia Culpa

Utah GOP Rep. Mia Love was handed a defeat by voters earlier this month, and in her concession speech she tore into Donald Trump's transactional nature.

“What did he have to gain by saying such a thing about a fellow Republican?” Love told a crowd of supporters on Monday. “Mr. President, we’ll have to chat about that. However, this gave me a clear vision of his world as it is. No real relationship just convenient transactions. That is an insufficient way to implement sincere service and policy.”

“This election experience and these comments [from Trump] shines a spotlight on the problems Washington politicians have with minorities and black Americans,” Love continued. “It’s transactional. It’s not personal. Politicians claim they know what’s best for us from a safe distance. Yet, they are never willing to take us home.”

“Because Republicans never take minorities communities into their home and citizens into their homes and into their hearts, they stay with Democrats and bureaucrats in Washington because they do take them home,” she added. “I’ve seen the cost to conservatives for not truly taking people into their hearts. Democrats saw newly-elected black members and women to Congress in this election. This is a matter of fact that Republicans lost in this regard.”

My response to Mia Love is very simple: You knew the devil when you shook his hand.

More specifically, any black Republican who gets in bed with Trump gets exactly what they deserve: a loss to a Democrat and relegation to political oblivion.  I have no sympathy or empathy for anyone who sold out to Trump in order to be his poster girl for "the blacks".  You fooled yourself if you thought there was a place in the party of white men for a black woman, no matter what her politics may be. 

Get.  Thee.  Hence.

Deportation Nation, Con't

In direct contravention of international law, the US is now firing tear gas at migrants trying to cross the border and claim asylum.

Migrants approaching the U.S. border from Mexico were enveloped with tear gas Sunday after a few tried to breach the fence separating the two countries.

U.S. agents shot the gas, according to an Associated Press reporter on the scene. Children were screaming and coughing in the mayhem.

Honduran migrant Ana Zuniga, 23, said she saw migrants open a small hole in concertina wire at a gap on the Mexican side of a levee, at which point U.S. agents fired tear gas at them.

“We ran, but when you run the gas asphyxiates you more,” she told the AP while cradling her 3-year-old daughter Valery in her arms.

Mexico’s Milenio TV also showed images of several migrants at the border trying to jump over the fence. Yards away on the U.S. side, shoppers streamed in and out of an outlet mall.

U.S. Border Patrol helicopters flew overhead, while U.S. agents held vigil on foot beyond the wire fence in California. The Border Patrol office in San Diego said via Twitter that pedestrian crossings have been suspended at the San Ysidro port of entry at both the East and West facilities. All northbound and southbound traffic was halted.

Earlier Sunday, several hundred Central American migrants pushed past a blockade of Mexican police who were standing guard near the international border crossing. They appeared to easily pass through without using violence, and some of the migrants called on each other to remain peaceful.

They convened the demonstration to try to pressure the U.S to hear their asylum claims and carried hand-painted American and Honduran flags while chanting: “We are not criminals! We are international workers!”

A second line of Mexican police carrying plastic riot shields stood guard outside a Mexican customs and immigration plaza.

That line of police had installed tall steel panels behind them outside the Chaparral crossing on the Mexican side of the border.

Going to be fun when that tear gas becomes something much more lethal.  After all, it's what we do to groups of black folk here inside the states, so why wouldn't we treat San Diego like Ferguson, Missouri?

International law, you say?

I'll get back to you after I stop laughing.

StupidiNews!

• In a major escalation of tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Kiev says that Russian naval forces opened fire on and capture three Ukranian ships in the Kerch Strait.
• Ukrainian President Petro Porosheko wants parliament to declare martial law as a result of the Russian aggression to head off protests and lock down the country.
• General Motors plans to close its largest Canadian car plant in Ontario as part of global restructuring, the plant closing is expected to affect more than 2,500 jobs.
• European Union leaders have endorsed UK PM Theresa May's Brexit deal, but it's still not clear at all whether or not the UK Parliament will sign off on it.
• After launching the InSight probe towards Mars in May, NASA will attempt to land the craft on the surface of the red planet on Monday afternoon.