New York Post:
After 146 years, the curtain is coming down forever on “The Greatest Show on Earth.”This is sad news. Going to the circus was a natural part of childhood for people of my generation. I even took my kids to the circus.
Its last performance will be May 21 at the Nassau Coliseum.
The show stoppers included high operating costs, declining attendance and changing public tastes.
Not to mention a long and costly legal battle with animal rights advocates, which ended with its hugest stars — the elephants — being pink slipped. Elephants had been the symbol of the circus since an Asian pachyderm named Jumbo joined the show in 1882.
But when you have the fascists and socialists fighting for control of your country, who needs a circus?
New York Times:
Days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump is engaged in a high-profile feud with some of the country’s most prominent African-American leaders, setting off anger in a constituency already wary of him after a contentious presidential campaign.News flash for supporters of John Lewis: Being correct on civil rights doesn't make you correct about everything, or even sacrosanct. Lewis took a step outside of his civil rights legacy when he said Trump was not a “legitimate president”. Feel free to explain what Trump's legitimacy as president has to do with civil rights.
Mr. Trump’s criticism of Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a widely admired leader of the civil rights movement, has prompted a number of Democratic lawmakers to say they will not attend his inauguration on Friday.
Blacks around the country have reacted to Mr. Trump’s remarks with fury, and the subject has dominated social media and discussions among black activists. Mr. Trump said on Saturday on Twitter that Mr. Lewis, who asserted last week that Mr. Trump was not a “legitimate president,” should focus on his district and “the burning and crime infested inner-cities.”
This is politics, not softball, and Trump was well within his own "civil rights" to call Lewis out on his failures, as well as the condition of his district.
The angry reaction is driven not only by Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts but what many blacks say they reveal about the president-elect’s lack of understanding of the reverence with which the civil rights movement, and its leaders, are viewed by African-Americans.Here's another news flash for the black community: Being black doesn't mean you get your own set of political rules. Equal rights also means equal responsibilities. If you act inconsiderately, as Lewis did here, then you deserve whatever is said about you next.
“I don’t think we have ever had a president so publicly condescending to what black politics means,” said Mark Anthony Neal, an African and African-American studies professor at Duke University.
In other news of sore losers...
Ynet News:
Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration as the next president of the United States is causing Israeli intelligence officials to lose sleep as well. Discussions held in closed forums recently raised fears of a leakage of Israeli intelligence top-classified information, clandestine modus oprandi and sources, which have been exposed to the American intelligence community over the past 15 years, to Russia – and from there to Iran.The fact the Israelis are talking to the press about this meeting is telling. If they bought the story from the American intelligence community, why would they admit publicly what they plan to do? They would just quietly go about their business and become even more secretive towards the U.S.
The cause of concern are the suspicions of unreported ties between the president-elect or his associates and the Kremlin, whose agents are also associated with intelligence officials in Tehran.
These fears, which began upon Trump’s election, grew stronger following a meeting held recently between Israeli and American intelligence officials (the date of the meeting is not mentioned to protect the sources of the report). During the meeting, according to the Israelis who participated in it, their American colleagues voiced despair over Trump’s election, as he often lashes out at the American intelligence community. The American officials also told the Israelis that the National Security Agency (NSA) had “highly credible information” that Russia’s intelligence agencies, the FSB and GRU, were responsible for hacking the Democratic Party (DNC) servers during the elections and leaking sensitive information to WikiLeaks, which hurt Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The American officials further added that they believed Russia President Vladimir Putin had “leverages of pressure” over Trump – but did not elaborate. They were apparently referring to what was published Wednesday about embarrassing information collected by the Russian intelligence in a bid to blackmail the president-elect.
The Americans implied that their Israeli colleagues should “be careful” as of January 20, Trump’s inauguration date, when transferring intelligence information to the White House and to the National Security Council (NSC), which is subject to the president. According to the Israelis who were present in the meeting, the Americans recommended that until it is made clear that Trump is not inappropriately connected to Russia and is not being extorted – Israel should avoid revealing sensitive sources to administration officials for fear the information would reach the Iranians.
Israel knows where they stand with the current administration, especially after Obama's ham-handed Iranian treaty. Even if there is a Russian connection to Trump, Israel knows the American Democrats are anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. They have nothing to gain from working with Democrats.
But this brings up an even more disturbing possibility: American intelligence officials are actively campaigning against the next administration around the world. If this is true, this borders on treason. At the very least, Trump needs to do a thorough housecleaning in our intelligence agencies.
Speaking of bad intelligence...
Business Insider:
An unverified dossier provided to US intelligence officials alleges that President-elect Donald Trump "agreed to sideline" the issue of Russian intervention in Ukraine during his campaign after Russia promised to feed the emails it stole from prominent Democrats' inboxes to WikiLeaks.The first three words above tells you all you need to know: "An unverified dossier". In other words, unverified by US intelligence officials, and unverified by Business Insider. So why are they reporting on these unsubstantiated allegations?
Welcome to the era of yellow journalism. It is sad to see Business Insider displaying such little journalistic integrity.
But it does make the next story reasonable:
The Guardian:
Talk radio hosts and bloggers could be invited to official White House press briefings once the Trump administration takes office, under a highly irregular proposal being floated that may also remove briefings from the West Wing.Count me in!
Trump’s pick for White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said on Sunday that due to “off the chart” interest in the new administration, the president-elect was considering moving briefings from the James S Brady press briefing room, which has been used by presidents to address the media since 1970, to a venue with a greater capacity.
Spicer argued the proposal would mean “you can involve more people, be more transparent, have more accessibility”. He suggested that this would mean outlets that are not traditionally part of the White House press corps would be able to ask questions during presidential press briefings.
“There’s a lot of talk radio and bloggers and people that can’t fit in right now and maybe don’t have a permanency because they’re not part of the Washington elite media,” Spicer said, “but to allow them an opportunity to ask the press secretary or the president a question is a positive thing. It’s more democratic.”
Seriously, the mainstream media hasn't been doing its job properly for decades. It is past time for a new media presence at the presidential press conferences.
Finally...
Daily Caller:
The Clinton Foundation announced it’s laying off 22 staffers on the Clinton Global Initiative, keeping with a plan to deal with the negative spotlight put on the organization during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.Anyone willing to bet this wouldn't have happened if Hillary had won the election? I guess there isn't as much need for those people when your influence-peddling possibilities have fallen off the radar.
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