Hey gang.
We didn’t focus so hard on any particular story or topic to make it the core of the show. So we’re titling this one as a good introductory episode to our program in general.
Category: Entertainment
PODCAST AUDIO LINK
Motel 6 to Pay Up to $7.6 Million After Reporting Guests to Immigration Authorities
AP, File
A Motel 6 motel is seen Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. Washington’s attorney general is suing Motel 6, saying the budget hotel disclosed the personal information of thousands of guests to federal immigration authorities in violation of state law. Attorney General Bob Ferguson said at a news conference Wednesday that the motel divulged to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the names, dates of birth, license plate numbers and room numbers of more than 9,000 guests at six locations throughout the state.
Analysis in BMJ Global Health suggests dramatic decline in number of girls undergoing the practice, yet experts advise caution over the figures
The study, which looked at rates of FGM among girls aged 14 and under, suggests that prevalence in east Africa has dropped from 71.4% in 1995, to 8% in 2016.
The reported falls in the rates of FGM are far greater than prev
ious studies have suggested, though some in the development community have advised caution over the figures.
Justice Ginsburg hospitalized after fracturing ribs in fall
Washington (CNN)Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fractured three ribs after falling in her Supreme Court office Wednesday night, the Supreme Court said in a statement.
According to the court, Ginsburg, 85, experienced discomfort after going home following the fall and was admitted to George Washington University Thursday morning for observation and treatment.
Ginsburg, who became the second woman to serve on the high court following her appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1993, has become a progressive and pop culture icon.
Why a Poor People’s Campaign?
Just a year before his assassination, at a Southern Christian Leadership Conference staff retreat in May 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
I think it is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights…[W]hen we see that there must be a radical redistribution of economic and political power, then we see that for the last twelve years we have been in a reform movement…That after Selma and the Voting Rights Bill, we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution…In short, we have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society.
The night before his assassination in April 1968, Martin Luther King told a group of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee: “We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We’ve got to see it through” (King, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” 217). King believed the struggle in Memphis exposed the need for economic equality and social justice that he hoped his Poor People’s Campaign would highlight nationally.
With William working extra hours to try to get promoted to another department, The Wine Cellar will be doing these fast action drive by episodes in an attempt to keep the content flowing to you.
Thank you for checking us out.
Free Public Episode.
Full Episode On Patreon.
Full Episode On Patreon.
https://www.facebook.com/winecellarmedia/videos/1780256885376835/
M.WMCACTIONNEWS5.COM
“Mother nature doesn’t discriminate,” President of Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association Thomas Burrell said. “It doesn’t rain on white farms but not black farms. Insects don’t [only] attack black farmers’ land…why is it then that white farmers are buying Stine seed and their yield is 60, 70, 80, and 100 bushels of soybeans and black farmers who are using the exact same equipment with the exact same land, all of a sudden, your seeds are coming up 5, 6, and 7 bushels?”
THEDAILYBEAST.COM
The “Unmasking Antifa Act,” introduced last month by Rep. Dan Donovan of New York, would impose harsh penalties on anyone who “injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person” while wearing a mask or disguise. The legislation, which could send people to prison for up to 15 years, mirrors controversial state laws originally designed at cracking down on the Ku Klux Klan. But unlike those state laws, Donovan’s bill is a direct shot at leftist protesters. And it might be unconstitutional, experts say.
MSN.COM
Michael Selyem, who leads the Hardcore Gang Unit at the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, is the subject of an internal investigation, according to a statement from District Attorney Mike Ramos, after reportedly targeting Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), former first lady Michelle Obama, immigrants and Mexicans in comments on his social media accounts.
THEHILL.COM
The Ithaca Journal reported Wednesday that Reed campaign manager Nicholas Weinstein confronted the activist, Gary McCaslin, at his house after using the tracker to determine the sign’s location.
ABC13.COM
The neighbor’s wife filmed the moment Morris came charging after his neighbor with the farm equipment. That video is what ultimately led police to place him in handcuffs, according to arrest documents.
TCPALM.COM
Stevens’s explanation, however, didn’t keep him out of jail on a DUI charge following a June 27 incident in Vero Beach, an arrest affidavit states.
Indian River County sheriff’s officials went to a McDonald’s in the 700 block of South U.S. 1 in Vero Beach for a possible disturbance.
An owner of the escape room — a locked room full of puzzles and clues that participants must solve in order to escape — told the news station Wardlaw did so much damage to the business that he couldn’t escape after breaking in.
Glee actor Mark Salling has plead guilty to child pornography charges related to his 2015 arrest. As a result of his plea deal signed on Tuesday, which must still be approved by a federal judge, Salling will register as a sex offender and has agreed to pay $50,000 to each victim who submits a formal restitution request. He will to serve between four and seven years in jail after avoiding what could have been 20 years behind bars.
He will also spend 20 years under supervised release, during which his internet use will be monitored and controlled.
Salling, who played Noah Puckerman on Glee, admitted to using software to mask his IP address and download thousands of images of child pornography, which investigators found in 2015 after acting on a tip, reportedly from a woman who was shown the content multiple times.
According to the plea agreement, more than 50,000 images and videos of child porn and erotica were found on Salling’s laptop, and another 4,000 images and 160 videos of child porn were on his thumb drive. Some of the female victims were as young as 3 to 5 years old, federal prosecutors said.
Deadline reported that Salling stated that he is “pleading guilty because I am guilty of the charges.”
In doing so, he also avoids a lifetime of supervised parole, however, he must also participate in counseling and avoid most areas where children congregate, such as schools, playgrounds, and other venues.
Prosecutors are also asking a judge to impose a fine.
Salling was initially arrested by Los Angeles police on Dec. 29, 2015, and released on bond. However, once investigators realized the scope of the child pornography, the matter was referred to federal authorities, which resulted in an indictment to which he initially pleaded not guilty in June 2016.
Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett will not be going to Israel on a trip with other NFL players sponsored by the Israeli government.
He sent out a tweet simply stating he wasn’t going to go on Thursday, and then on Friday, he shared a letter he wrote to “the world” that explains his full reasoning for backing out of the trip.
Im not going to Israel
Bennett wrote that he decided not to go when he first found out his “itinerary was being constructed by the Israeli government for the purposes of making me, in the words of a government official, an ‘influencer and opinion-former’ who would then be ‘an ambassador of good will.’”
“I will not be used in such a manner,” Bennett continued. “When I go to Israel — and I do plan to go — it will be to see not only Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza so I can see how the Palestinians, who have called this land home for thousands of years, live their lives.”
Bennett then went on to mention how Muhammad Ali is one of his heroes, and how “Ali always stood strongly with the Palestinian people,” and said that he wants to be a “voice for the voiceless.”
Bennett’s words have influenced at least one other player who was scheduled to go on the trip to do the same and cancel.
Couldn’t have said it any better. I’m in! https://twitter.com/mosesbread72/status/830226873858695168 …
This comes after an open letter from athlete-activists, organizations and others to all the NFL players going to Israel in the government-sponsored trip was published at The Nation.
TBS has acquired a new animated series—tentatively titled The Cops—from three of the biggest names in comedy: Louis CK, Greg Daniels, and Albert Brooks. The series—developed through CK’s production deal with FX—would feature him and Brooks as police officers, dead-panning their way through their efforts to protect and serve.
C.K. has become a prolific TV producer in recent years; besides his own Louie and Horace And Pete, he‘s served as a guiding force on shows like Baskets and Pamela Adlon’s Better Things. Daniels is one of the most successful TV writers of the last 20 years, having created or co-created The Office, Parks And Recreation, and beloved cartoon sitcom King Of The Hill. Albert Brooks, meanwhile, is Albert Brooks; not just a generation-defining comic force, but also the deliverer of what might be the most beloved cartoon voice performance of all time.
TBS executive Brett Weitz poked a little fun at the show’s impressive pedigree in a press release announcing the series. “We have made the bold decision to put Louis C.K., Albert Brooks, and Greg Daniels at the forefront of what is going to be a serious push into animated comedy for TBS in 2018. I only hope these newbies know what they’re doing.”
Shock, combined with a little wonder at the unnatural. That’s how I feel as I watch the knife slice through the sternum of a dead Laysan albatross.
Inside its ribcage: a sickening array of plastic.
A red bottle top from a well-known soft drink brand. A cigarette lighter. Or two. Long thin items I couldn’t begin to identify.
It looked like the bird had swallowed the contents of an entire trash can whole.
Yet this wasn’t because it dined on a refuse site. I was on Midway Island, in the remote Pacific Ocean, at least 1,500 miles from the nearest one of those. This disgusting and otherworldly sight exists because we’re throwing the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic into the oceans every minute. By 2050, a number of researchers expect the world’s oceans to contain more plastic than fish, by weight.
Matt Brown, from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, used to live on the island and is now our guide.
“Every single albatross in this landscape has been fed plastic,” he says.
Is it killing them?
The Laysan albatross, a vulnerable species for which the Midway Atoll refuge is home, depends on the oceans around it for food. Yet those oceans are packed with trash. Midway is itself on the edge of the North Pacific Gyre, or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. That’s where trash, most directly from the Pacific coasts of North America and Asia, swirls in global ocean currents and collects in a large area. Midway is near the center of the Pacific. According to Brown, it acts like “fingers of a comb,” collecting tons of garbage on its beaches. Billions of tiny — sometimes large — pieces of plastic find their way from land into the water supply and then into the oceans.
The problem for the Laysan albatross, like many other sea creatures, is that these plastic pieces are attractive: They look like food. So, every time we see an albatross on Midway swoop majestically into the ocean to catch its prey, it’s quite likely the bird is swooping up a bottle top or a lighter.
Is it killing them? I ask.
“It’s not good for them,” Brown tells me. “A piece of plastic isn’t nutritious. When they pick up a lighter thinking it’s a squid, that’s not nutritious. It’s another strike against a bird imperiled by so many other things man has done.”
This bird was once hunted because its bones made excellent tattoo implements. It lives on an island slowly being swallowed by storm surges and global warming.
‘It’s all bits of plastic’
Brown looks out across the flat expanse of Eastern Island, which used to be the main focus of the runways that the US military built here in World War II to fight the Japanese. “You see the birds in the air, the birds in the ground nesting, and you see the grass, so when you look at it from this angle, it’s like pristine landscape, void of the imprint of man.” He kneels. “When you get down and push the grass aside, pick up a handful and it’s all this bits of plastic.”
It’s become part of the geology here.
“You have the substrate that was here naturally,” he says “You have the construction from WWII, and then you have this thin layer of what the birds have brought in. It’s primarily plastics. Year after year, the chicks come to this island. Some of them don’t make it. Their bones and their feathers decompose, because that’s natural. What’s left behind is the plastic.”
And the problem for the albatross will just grow as we continue dumping plastic into the ocean.
Consider again that striking figure: By 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish, by weight.
So the Laysan albatross will probably be eating mostly plastic about 30 years from now.
Given they live about 50 years — months of which at a time they often don’t return to dry land — that means some of the birds we see now will grow up to see their diet change massively.
“Essentially seabirds are going extinct,” Chris Wilcox, from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, told National Geographic. “Maybe not tomorrow. But they’re headed down sharply. Plastic is one of the threats they face.”
Casual indifference
The time of year in which we visited Midway is key in the annual cycle of the Laysan, 71% of whose population lives there.
In fact, we could fly to the island only at night because of how the birds swarm around the runway.
The dark, eerie world of Midway Atoll is, at times, a standing-room-only scene for albatross chicks. These huge birds stagger around in the dark, sometimes trampling over the corpses of those who do not live to be adults.
This vital time of year is called fledging. The young birds must learn to spread their wings and fly, or else they cannot feed on the ocean, and they’ll starve. Parents do what they can to feed the birds in their beginning stages, usually passing digested food from their stomachs, directly, beak to beak, into those of their chicks. Yet today, that parental assistance is often harmful. Plastic cannot be digested. Indeed, nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists on planet Earth.
How could we expect a fledgling digestive system to do what nature cannot?
And so, on the island, the chain of life, death and plastic is evident to behold. The birds swoop into the mulch of the ocean, pass the “food” on to their young, and then, around the island, slowly, the birds die off.
True, about a third of the birds are meant to die off as part of the survival of the fittest, according to local scientists. Yet, many oceanographers and wildlife researchers remain baffled as to why, in a refuge as tailor-made as this, the birds are not doing better. It doesn’t take a PhD to realize that having half your stomach full of plastic may have something to do with it.
This gracious bird, fluent in the air with its 6-foot wingspan and able to soar above the mess man has made, is seeing its one remaining sanctuary slowly swallowed up, covered in a thin layer of man’s casual indifference to the future.
Headlines. Short Blast of the news stories of the day. (10 is the preferred amount)
Health department warns of reports for Hand, Foot & Mouth disease
COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) – The West Central Health District, located in Columbus, is warning parents of reports of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease in our area in a public notice Monday.
Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, also known as HFMD, is a common viral illness that affects people of all ages, but children younger than 5 years old and infants are particularly vulnerable.
“The illness is typically mild, and nearly all people recover in 7 to 10 days without medical treatment. HFMD is caused by several different viruses and it’s possible that people can get the disease again. In rare cases, further complications can occur,” the public notice said.
Symptoms include:
Fever
Reduced appetite
Sore throat
A feeling of being unwell
Painful sores in the mouth that usually begin as flat red spots
A rash of flat red spots that may blister on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, and sometimes the knees, elbows, buttocks, and/or genital area.
————————————————————————-
Homeowner claims N-word sign isn’t offensive
Residents in a Pittsburg, California neighborhood are upset because of a sign a resident put on his home. The large sign reads, “You can hang a nigger from a tree equal rights he’ll never see.” A shocked resident took a picture of the sign and posted it to Twitter on Saturday as user James Thompson @JETBallin. The image has been viewed and retweeted by thousands and Thompson has received several responses to his picture thread. Twitter users are calling it a hate crime and stating that the FBI should be involved, as well as local law enforcement
—————————————————————————-
Paul Ryan: Access to birth control for women is ‘nitty-gritty detail’ not worth talking about
Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Sunday refused to say if some women would lose access to birth control benefits after Republicans repeal President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.
—————————————————————————–
Students at Christian university in Texas are expelled after footage emerges of white girl posing in blackface for a Snapchat video
A Christian university in Texas has expelled several students after footage emerged showing a white teenager posing in blackface for a Snapchat video.
Officials at the Abilene Christian University close to Fort Worth were alerted to the clip after it surfaced on social media.
It shows an unidentified white student with her face covered in black make-up and wearing a pair of oversized costume lips.
————————————————————-
Sex-workers’ rights activist’s death shrouded in mystery
KOLKATA: Inmates of Sonagachi, India’s largest red light district on Wednesday woke up to hear the murder of Kabita Roy (58), the first president of Durbar Mahila Sammanaya Samiti, a non-government organization which has been working for the rights of the sex workers in the city.
Mystery shrouds the death of Roy after police found two minor girls were missing from the room where the body of the activist was found. These girls were reportedly rescued from Bowbazar on Monday and brought to the NGO’s office at Nilmoni Mitra lane. Since then these teenage girls were under Kabita Roy’s careful watch. Police sources did not deny involvement of a human trafficking racket behind the murder.
————————————————————-
Cleaning up the Pacific Garbage Patch: Dutch foundation tests new system off coast of Holland
A Dutch foundation called Ocean Cleanup has recently unveiled what it claims to be the first ocean clean-up system. The device is a giant floating barrier anchored to the sea bed. Underneath the floating tubes on the surface hangs a solid yet flexible screen to help catch any debris floating just under the surface.
—————————————————————
3. Opening serious story. HILLSBORO, Ore.
A Hillsboro woman’s trip to a local Safeway the day after Donald Trump’s presidential victory is something she won’t soon forget.
Kara Stevens told KOIN 6 News she hopes no one has to go through what she did.
“The only thing I kept thinking to myself is, ‘This is how my life is going to end,’ and ‘I don’t deserve this,’” Stevens said.
She said she was walking through the Safeway parking lot Wednesday night when she suddenly felt pain in her abdomen. Out of nowhere, she said, she was hit with a brick. Soon after, she started to have difficulty breathing.
“I just thought to myself, if I pass out from not being able to breathe and I hit the ground, it’s over,” Stevens recalled.
As she struggled with the pain, Stevens said she could hear people yelling. The words her attackers used shocked her.
“I heard someone yell ‘Stupid n***** b****,’” she said. “Then they yelled ‘Are you scared? Are you scared now? Because you should be,’ and then they said ‘Now we got a president who finally feels how we feel.’”
Stevens said the 3 men in their 30s and 40s told her they’d rape her and even made references to President-elect Donald Trump.
When they drove off, Stevens said no one stepped in to help.
She said she went back to her apartment roughly a mile away before going to the ER for treatment. Doctors there reportedly told her she had broken ribs.
In the face of such hate, Stevens is speaking up. she said now is the time to stand up and come together to combat racism.
“You’re going to have to bring a whole lot more than a brick to break me,” Stevens said. “This is a real thing… this isn’t a joke. A lot of people are just in denial about it.”
She said the harsh reality of racism can’t be denied, but must be faced head-on.
“When people admit that it’s there, it’s going to be a heck of a lot easier for us to come together and fix it and come together,” Stevens said.
While she said she will recover physically, emotionally she may never be the same.
Hillsboro Police Dept. confirms officers took a report about the incident. Officers will investigate Stevens again sometime this week and hope to “get to the bottom of it.”
Police confirm the Safeway has no safety cameras in its parking lot.
So far, no one has come forward saying they witnessed the attack, but police said people at the scene “may not have known a crime was taking a place.”
Investigators hope to get a better suspect description.
Followed by the Social Dissonance bridge over Britney Spears.
4. Second Story – Something Funny, or something that can be made fun of.
David Kupelian: Hillary Clinton’s Election Would Have Led To Mass Shootings, Widespread Insanity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17khNjR84G4
5. Neo-Nazis throw a tantrum after New Balance denies being the ‘official shoes of white people’
Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist website Daily Stormer, melted down Tuesday after the shoe brand New Balance rejected his endorsement as “the official shoes of White people.”
Saturday, Anglin posted that it was “time to get on-board with New Balance now” after the company’s vice president of affairs, Matt LeBretton, publicly backed Donald Trump.
“The Obama administration turned a deaf ear to us and frankly with president-elect Trump we feel things are going to move in the right direction,” LeBretton told reporter Sara Germano. LeBretton also noted his endorsement of Trump was related to the president-elect’s strong campaign rhetoric against the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
In the days after LeBretton’s statement, customers expressed dissatisfaction with the VP’s statement, some even protesting the brand by posting videos destroying New Balance shoes on social media (or, as Anglin referred to it, “butthurt cucks are burning their shoes, lol”).
“New Balance is making a gesture to support White people and to support US manufacturing. We need to support that,” Anglin wrote after learning about LeBretton’s Trump support. “I see New Balances now becoming the official shoes of White people.”
Monday, New Balance rejected Anglin’s attempt at becoming the latest New Balance brand ambassador, releasing a statement saying the company “does not tolerate bigotry or hate in any form.”
“New Balance is a values-driven organization and culture that believes in humanity, integrity, community and mutual respect for people around the world,” the statement continued.
Anglin called New Balance’s statement “obviously fake,” insisting LeBretton sent the original statement to the Daily Stormer and “said he believes all Jews should be gassed ‘for real this time around.’” The “original statement” per Anglin reads:
“New Balance endorses bigotry and hate in any form,” the fake statement says. “As a 110-year old company with five factories in the U.S. and thousands of white male employees worldwide – New Balance is a Republican-driven organization and culture that believes in White Supremacy, integrity, community and mutual respect for white males around the world. One of our officials was recently asked to comment on a trade policy and was quoted correctly in context. We have been and will always remain committed to manufacturing in the United States.”
“Don’t let the lying Jewish media get you down,” Anglin added.
The hip-hop rhythms of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony are too fierce to be stopped. Even by a drone to the face.
The group was performing at the High Life Music Festival in Victorville on Sunday when a drone buzzed up and smacked rapper Stanley “Flesh-N-Bone” Howse in the face. He winced and grabbed his head, but he and the rest of the group didn’t stop the show or even the song.
It’s not clear whether a fan, the band or someone connected to the festival had launched the drone, which was about 2 feet wide.
Messages left with police and representatives for the group weren’t immediately returned.
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, whose other members are Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone, Layzie Bone and Krayzie Bone, began in Cleveland in 1993 and is known for mixing singing with rap.