A new battle is brewing over the 2020 U.S. census. At least 12 states are moving to sue the Trump administration over plans to add a question about citizenship to the upcoming census. Voting rights activists fear the question will deter immigrants from participating in the census, leading to a vast undercount in states with large immigrant communities. This could impact everything from the redrawing of congressional maps to the allocation of federal funding. On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the decision to add a citizenship question was “necessary for the Department of Justice to protect voters.” At least five former directors of the Census Bureau, who served under Republican and Democratic presidents, have written a letter opposing the citizenship question. https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/28/journalist_ari_berman_if_trump_is[with embedded video, and transcript]
Killed in Cold Blood: Alton Sterling’s Family Decries Decision Not to Charge Officers for Murder
Published on Mar 28, 2018 by Democracy Now!
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has announced the state will not bring charges against two white police officers from Baton Rouge for the 2016 killing of Alton Sterling, an African-American father of five. Bystander video shows Sterling was pinned to the ground by the two police officers when they shot him. Alton Sterling’s killing sparked nationwide protests. It’s the latest case in which authorities have refused to bring charges against officers for killing civilians, despite video evidence of the killings and mass protests demanding accountability for the death. We speak to Chris Stewart, an attorney for Alton Sterling’s children. https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/28/killed_in_cold_blood_alton_sterlings[with embedded video, and transcript]
A new “CLOUD Act” was sneaked silently into the omnibus budget at the last minute. Romney moves the right of Trump on DACA. Former Supreme Court “Justice” John Paul Stevens is a case in point of the hopeless corruption that unlimited power brings as he has spent a career undermining the Constitution he faithlessly swore to uphold. But Dems want to ban ammunition, “seize, not confiscate” weapons, etc. And, Eric Peters joins to talk about the coming control grid to control your movements and turn you into renters.
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
Readout Of President Donald J. Trump’s Call With Prime Minister Theresa May Of The United Kingdom
Issued on: March 28, 2018
President Donald J. Trump spoke today with Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom. Both leaders agreed on the importance of dismantling Russia’s spy networks in the United Kingdom and the United States to curtail Russian clandestine activities and prevent future chemical weapons attacks on either country’s soil. The two leaders also discussed how the passage of the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act will improve law enforcement cooperation.
This week on a throwback edition of Ask an Atheist, Dan Barker introduces FFRF’s first full length movie from 1980, “A Second Look at Religion [clean upload, better to watch, next below].”
Wednesday, Mar. 28th 2018[, with an appearance by Roger Stone]: Second Amendment in Crosshairs - President Trump proclaims, 'The Second Amendment will never be repealed!' as Democrats ratchet up their attacks on gun rights. Meanwhile, the president takes aim at Amazon's growing monopoly, and hints at an upcoming meeting with the leader of North Korea. On today's show, author Shazia Hobbs discusses AltNewsMedia.net and its documentation of the abuse of Muslim children by Muslim men. We'll also break down the fall of Facebook, the success of ABC's pro-Trump Roseanne show.
Right Wing Watch reports on the extreme rhetoric and activities of key right-wing figures and organizations by showing their views in their own words. In this clip, Alex Jones declares it is “open season” on his critics who, he claims, “want to run my life, want to run your life.” http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-declares-open-season-on-his-critics/
Donald Trump's personal security consultant Zimmer Ziezlow (Greg Hess) is back with a few tips on how to be a super successful bully like the big man himself in the latest episode of Trump Combat TV.
The globalist deep state is doing everything it can with their fake news and their propaganda campaigns but they cannot undue all the good President Trump has done for America. Social media giants Twitter and Facebook are under scrutiny for the use of personal user data, as China goes full totalitarian using facial recognition technology on the streets to monitor Chinese citizens.
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
There’s a reason almost every column has the same leaves…
In this episode of Vox Almanac, Phil Edwards explores why columns look the way they do — in particular, the leave-strewn Corinthian columns you’ll often see on buildings (both old and new).
These leaves actually have an originating myth courtesy of the writer Vitruvius, crediting Callimachus for the Corinthian column design. The acanthus leaves on the column have remained consistent over millennia, and, over time, have come to represent more than just a sturdy plant.
They’re on display in this video at the National Arboretum, where columns that used to sit on the United States Capitol have been relocated. These striking columns aren’t just a historical record — they’re a symbol of how Corinthian design and acanthus leaves manage to endure over time.
Fmr. DOJ Official: Trump lawyer offering pardon is 'mind-blowingly stupid'
The Beat with Ari Melber 3/28/18
Former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who helped draft the special counsel regulations tells Ari Melber Trump and his former lawyer John Dowd could be guilty of “conspiracy” if they offered pre-emptive pardons to Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, to obstruct the Russia criminal probe, even if the pardons weren’t “actually issued”.
Watch rare footage of Trump being deposed under oath
The Beat with Ari Melber 3/28/18
Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Michael Avenatti has filed a motion to depose Trump and his “fixer” Michael Cohen. ‘The Beat’ uncovers rarely seen footage of Trump being deposed under oath during the 2016 campaign. Liz Plank and Adrienne Elrod join Ari Melber.
Roseanne Star 'doesn't get' why Roseanne likes Trump
The Beat with Ari Melber 3/28/18
Sandra Bernhard, host of “Sandyland” on Sirius/XM talks to Ari Melber about reprising her role as Nancy Bartlett Thomas on the reboot of popular sitcom ‘Roseanne’ and the role Trump plays in dividing the family. Bernhard notes some white women who voted for Trump didn't "have the luxury" of thinking for themselves.
Since the 2016 election, the notion of hacking has become inextricably intertwined with one country: Russia.
But cyber crimes emanating from Russia and Russian speaking countries have been around for years, fueling attacks like a 2014 data breach of more than 500 million Yahoo! accounts and a scheme that stole 160 million credit cards from American corporations.
"If someone wants to hack you, they're gonna be able to" former NSA hacker Patrick Wardle told VICE News. And if a Russian wants to hack you, they've certainly got the tools: A 2016 report by the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that 75 percent of all ransomware was created in Russia.
The apparent lack of ethical consideration in the buildup of Russian information technology and cyber security is rooted in decades of technical education under Stalin, who launched polytechnic schools to train engineers for his military-industrial complex. Russia's cyber capabilities can now be used for just about everything, ranging from digital bank robberies to tampering with critical infrastructure.
"This is the website of a big online store." Kostya, an anonymous Russian hacker who agreed to show VICE News how easy it is to steal digital data. "I can get into their configurations and download their client database."
Spurred by the trillions of dollars online and in a generation raised on the web, hacking from Russia and around the world is flourishing.
VICE News went to Moscow to see the country’s expert hackers in action.
Oklahoma Teachers Are Fed Up And Walking Out On April 2. Here's Why.
Published on Mar 28, 2018 by VICE News
Lyndsey Stuart is a history and leadership teacher at Bartlesville High School in Oklahoma. She’s been teaching for 10 years. And she’s never had a raise.
“I don't think any teacher goes into the profession and thinks, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm going to be a millionaire,’’’ Stuart said. “But we also don't think that we're going to be that close to poverty.”
Earlier this month, the state teachers’ union, the Oklahoma Education Association, called for teachers to walk out of their classrooms on April 2, the day after the state legislature is required to pass an education budget. They’re calling for a $10,000 raise for teachers over three years, as well as a $200 million increase in funding for education, which has been cut 28.2 percent since 2008.
Stuart makes $34,929 a year as a teacher, but she works around 30 more hours a week as a photographer to make ends meet. She said she makes about as much as a photographer as she does teaching.
And Stuart isn’t alone. The average high school teacher in Oklahoma makes $42,460, which ranks 50th in the nation.
“I know more teachers than not that have to have second or third jobs,” she said.
And teachers in other states within the seven-state region of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas average $48,103 as of May 2017.
Teachers at Bartlesville High School have been taking personal days every Tuesday to lobby the legislature in Oklahoma City. But they haven’t been as receptive as the teachers would have liked them to be.
“We had a senator come to our school and told our children that a teacher walkout wasn't going to change anything. And I beg to differ. When you have 50 to 80,000, maybe 100,000 teachers show up at the Capitol, it's going to change things.”
While the Oklahoma House has passed a package that would give teachers at least a $5,000 raise and raise taxes in the state for the first time since 1990, it hasn’t become law yet. And it doesn’t include an increase in school funding. So the Oklahoma Education Association has said the walkout is still on.
“We were left with no other option [but to walk out] because they will not listen to us. And thus far they've gotten away with doing whatever they want, and telling teachers just wait and be patient,” Stuart said. “And how long do you wait? How long can we compromise?”
This Elite Gymnast Quit At The Height Of Her Career To Escape USA Gymnastics Abuse (HBO)
Published on Mar 28, 2018 by VICE News
Mattie Larson was an elite gymnast who was adored by fans. She was also one of the dozens who were sexually abused by USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar.
"I don't think it's possible for someone like Larry to get away with doing what he did for 20-plus years if it's not in a corrupt environment and organization," Larson told VICE News. "I just don't really see how that would work."
Here's how the organization USAG works. Gymnastics isn't a popular high school sport like football, so the path to the top, the Olympics, goes through some 3,400 private clubs nationwide. Those clubs are governed by USAG, which sets rules about who coaches and what levels gymnasts compete.
When gymnasts reach the very top level, elite, they're invited to "the ranch," a gym in remote Texas that's also the home of legendary coach Martha Karolyi. From 2001 to 2016, Karolyi was national team coordinator — she effectively picked the world and Olympic teams, and so was the most powerful person in the sport. And she required the national team members to spend one week each month there, to monitor their fitness. The ranch was the site of much of Nassar's abuse.
At the ranch, "The rules were never show any weakness," Jessica O'Beirne, host of the gymnastics podcast GymCastic, told VICE News. "You don't talk, you don't giggle. You don't show a lot of personality. There's not a lot of food. You workout twice a day. There's not a lot of time to do homework or study. Up until February 2018, you could not bring a parent or chaperone with you to the ranch." O'Beirne added, "And the other rule was you had to see Larry for treatment."
That's one way Nassar exploited the system, according to Larson. He would be kind to the gymnasts, and give them snacks — even let them make fun of their coaches — but he also let them compete injured. She would hide the pain from injuries from her coaches, but not from Nassar. "Like with him we would be honest," Larson said. "But he never really like kept us out of competition. So they definitely benefited from him. He let us compete when we were super injured."
In 2009, Larson dislocated both her ankles and broke a foot at the same time at the ranch. "He didn't wrap them whatsoever. I didn't get a wheelchair. I had to stay the rest of the camp crawling on my hands and knees." She did upper body and core exercises while her feet dangled. What did the adults do while a teenage girl crawled around them? "Nothing."
USAG closed the ranch in January, after Simone Biles tweeted that she didn't want to go back to the scene of her abuse. Multiple congressional committees are looking into USAG, and the Texas Rangers are investigating the ranch. USAG told VICE News it’s “cooperating fully” with the investigations, but won’t comment on the ranch amid litigation.
China’s Hottest Boy Band Is Made Up Of All Girls (HBO)
Published on Mar 28, 2018 by VICE News
As Asian pop acts dominate charts around the world, a new band called FFC-Acrush hopes to be China’s answer to K-Pop. The group’s spiky hair and suggestive dance routines make them the platonic ideal of a boy band, with one exception: They’re girls.
The five members of Acrush say they prefer to be referred to as mei shàonián, or “handsome youths.” And with their short hair, drop-crotch pants, and sneakers, they look more like Justin Bieber clones than Fifth Harmony.
Acrush is the brainchild of 34-year-old Wang Tianhai, whose 7-month-old company, Zhejiang Huati Culture Communication, is funded in part by the billion-dollar Chinese tech giant Tencent. Wang now hopes to create China’s popstar industrial complex.
VICE News went to China to visit the popstar factory.
Trump shops for new hires from TV and small, familiar circle
The Rachel Maddow Show 3/28/18
Rachel Maddow looks at how Donald Trump's recent hires have come from people he is immediately familiar with or has seen on Fox News, which is not a good strategy for putting together a legal team as Robert Mueller's investigation appears to be heating up.
Trump lawyer floated possible pardons to Manafort, Flynn: Reports
The Rachel Maddow Show 3/28/18
Bob Bauer, former White House counsel under Obama, talks with Rachel Maddow about reports that Donald Trump's lawyer, John Dowd, broached the possibility of pardons with Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort.
Trump may rue selection of Bolton for national security adviser
The Rachel Maddow Show 3/28/18
Rachel Maddow looks at John Bolton's relationship with Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica and other matters already being investigated by Robert Mueller.
Surprise Trump VA pick faces tough confirmation to a tough job
The Rachel Maddow Show 3/28/18
Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, talks with Rachel Maddow about the daunting challenge of running the V.A. and the particular challenges Donald Trump's new V.A. secretary pick, Ronny Jackson, will face through the confirmation process.
Trump lawyer said to have suggested pardoning possible witnesses
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 3/28/18
The New York Times Editorial Board argues Stormy Daniels has more credibility than Donald Trump, and most Americans agree – especially now that we know Trump's fmr. defense lawyer reportedly floated pardons to the lawyers of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort.
Why ex-Trump lawyer John Dowd is 'in the sights of Mueller'
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 3/28/18
After a new report that fmr. Trump lawyer John Dowd discussed the possibility of pardons for Flynn and Manafort, ex-DOJ official Harry Litman says Dowd is likely now a target of Mueller's investigation. Jill Wine-Banks & John Heilemann also join Lawrence O'Donnell.
Prosecutors: Trump campaign leaders tied to Russian intel officer
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 3/28/18
The Washington Post reports a new court filing from Robert Mueller is the most direct connection between the Trump campaign and Russia. Betsy Woodruff and Jed Shugerman join Lawrence O'Donnell to discuss how this filing could lead closer to the White House.
Rpts: Trump lawyer John Dowd talked pardons for Flynn & Manafort
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 3/29/18
The New York Times and The Washington Post shed light on whether Trump's former attorney John Dowd floated the possibility of pardons for Flynn and Manafort. We discuss with two reporters who broke these stories.
Fmr. White House ethics lawyer: Trump is violating the law
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 3/29/18
Fmr. Bush 43 Ethics lawyer Richard Painter and reporter Peter Baker discuss the many legal issues facing Pres. Trump including the Stormy Daniels scandal & his business interests.
Who is Trump's pick to head Veterans Affairs Ronny Jackson?
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 3/29/18
Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to announce he was firing VA Secy. David Shulkin and picking his White House doctor Ronny Jackson to head the massive Department of Veterans Affairs. Gen. Barry McCaffrey reacts.
Full Frontal With Samantha Bee The Great American* Puerto Rico Great American** Pre-Show
Streamed live on Mar 28, 2018 by Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Our Great American* Puerto Rico special deserves a Great American** Pre-Show, so we're airing just that right here on YouTube Live! *It's Complicated **It's Live
¡Boricua Vota! | The Great American* Puerto Rico Part 7
Published on Mar 28, 2018 by Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Puerto Ricans are leaving for mainland America, but they're also leaving their voting habits behind. If only there were a celebrity to inject a little fun into the election...
Teatro Breve Laughs in Darkness | The Great American* Puerto Rico Part 10
Published on Mar 28, 2018 by Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Laughter is the best medicine, and since Puerto Rico has a medicine shortage, the comedians of Teatro Breve have a lot of work ahead of them with Mike Rubens.
Dana Carvey: Full Unedited Interview With Stephen Colbert
Published on Mar 29, 2018 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
When these two comedy legends sat down to reminisce about the good old days at The Dana Carvey Show, there was way too much footage to make air. Here is the full unedited interview, enjoy!
[from the late-night March 28, 2018 show and show taping]
How Slovakia stood up to a journalist’s murder and kicked out its prime minister BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — During his decade as Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico flashed all the moves of the strongman autocrats now so in vogue the world over. He snarled at journalists, answering tough questions with epithets like “hyena” and “prostitute.” He scapegoated Muslim refugees and a Jewish financier for his country’s troubles. His party cozied up to Slovak oligarchs, Russian apparatchiks and Italian mafia kingpins, while he lived large in a luxurious hilltop apartment with sweeping views of the Danube. Then something extraordinary happened: An investigative reporter hot on the trail of Fico’s finances was murdered, and tens of thousands of people in the once apathetic nation cared enough to take to the streets. Rather than be intimidated by the killing, journalists dug deeper. Grassroots opposition movements sprang from nowhere. Constitutional checks kicked in. Under pressure from all sides, Fico resigned. “I couldn’t have imagined this a month ago. It would have been so naive,” said Juraj Seliga, a 27-year-old law student who was among the protest organizers. “He was so strong. Now he’s weak.” The peaceful uprising that has transformed politics in this landlocked nation of 5 million is a striking counterpoint to global trends that seem to favor leaders willing to bend rules, norms and institutions to their will. From China to Russia to Turkey — and, President Trump’s critics would say, even in the United States — political currents have swung toward consolidated power, nationalist messaging and intolerance for competing voices. In few regions has that been more apparent than in Eastern Europe. Countries that shook off the shackles of communism three decades ago increasingly resemble the one-party states of old. Hungary and Poland, in particular, have taken a turn toward illiberalism and autocracy. Slovaks who see themselves as part of the democratic West once feared their tiny nation, independent only since its 1993 cleavage from the Czech Republic, could follow. The protests of the past month were, at least in part, about ensuring it did not. “We didn’t want to end up like Hungary,” Seliga said. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/how-slovakia-stood-up-to-a-journalists-murder-and-kicked-out-its-prime-minister/2018/03/28/c73bb078-2c40-11e8-8dc9-3b51e028b845_story.html
(1/3) The manner of and timing of Russian diplomatic expulsions is poor diplomacy. The expulsions occurred 12 hours after one of the worst building fires in post Soviet history, which killed at least 64. Russians will see the timing as gratuitous. (2/3) That 21 US allies have expelled diplomats over an unresolved event in the UK and that the US expelled nearly three times as many diplomats as the UK, the alleged victim country, helps the Kremlin further a narrative that it is under conspiratorial siege led by the US. (3/3) Further, while it is reasonable for Theresa May to view the Russian state as the leading suspect, so far the evidence is circumstantial & the OCPW has not yet made any independent confirmation, permitting the Kremlin push the view domestically that Russia is persecuted. https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/978368105322827776
Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M! ["M" meaning military, to be read by uninformed supporters as Mexico] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/977855968364171264
Former Disney Star Caroline Sunshine Joins The Trump White House The latest addition to the Trump administration is used to the limelight. Caroline Sunshine, a former Disney star and White House intern, has joined the White House as a press assistant. The 22-year-old played a recurring character in Disney's Shake It Up, a TV series about teen dancers, during the show's 2010 to 2013 run. She's also appeared in a few films. The actress is one of several recent Trump administration hires to hold backgrounds in cable television. CNBC host Larry Kudlow was chosen by President Trump earlier this month as head of the White House National Economic Council. The president also tapped John Bolton, a Fox News analyst and former Bush administration official, as the next national security adviser. [...] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/28/597709424/former-disney-star-caroline-sunshine-joins-the-trump-white-house
White House Looks to Use Emergency Law to Halt Chinese Investment WASHINGTON — As the White House prepares to levy punishing tariffs on an array of Chinese goods, it is planning a much more strategic strike against China’s dominance in cutting-edge technology by restricting investment in American innovation. The Trump administration is preparing to limit Chinese investment in sensitive American technology, ranging from microchips to 5G wireless technology, as it tries to prevent China from gaining an edge in industries projected to power the global economy for decades. After years of tough restrictions on American companies trying to operate in China, including coercing the transfer of proprietary technology, the White House is looking to subject China to similar investment hurdles in the United States. To do so, the Treasury Department is considering using a powerful law generally reserved for national emergencies, according to administration officials. The 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which was used to place sanctions on other countries after the Sept. 11 attacks, gives the president broad authority to respond to an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” including by halting incoming Chinese transactions, nullifying business deals and freezing foreign-owned assets. Matt Gold, a professor at Fordham University School of Law, said the statute has allowed the United States to impose economic sanctions on nations like Iran and Sudan and tends “to involve restrictions on U.S. firms investing in those countries or doing business with firms of those countries.” Using the law to restrict investment from China would allow the president to “block transactions to move funds, dispose of assets or otherwise do business,” Mr. Gold said. [...] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/business/trump-china-investment-technology.html
Republican denial of the climate crisis appears to be spreading — despite the recent onslaught of natural disasters 69% of Republicans said the threat of climate change is "exaggerated" compared to 4% of Democrats, according to a new Gallup poll. Opinions around climate change have suffered from widening partisanship as President Donald Trump's administration has scrubbed mentions from federal websites and pulled out of the Paris Agreement. The problem isn't going anywhere, despite what people think. http://www.businessinsider.com/gallup-poll-republicans-climate-change-problem-2018-3
Tim Cook airs views on American manufacturing, DACA, and Freedom of Speech - get 3-28-18 interview on MSNBC Tim Cook's political comments during today's MSNBC interview touched on a number of areas, ranging from the government's immigration policies and handling of DACA, to U.S. job creation, and his views on Apple's handling of controversial content in apps and services usable on the company's products. https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/28/cook-airs-views-on-american-manufacturing-daca-and-freedom-of-speech
Emails: Conservatives slammed Pence in 2015 for changing Religious Freedom law - AP Emails released to The Associated Press show then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence faced widespread backlash from conservatives after agreeing to change a "religious freedom" law critics decried as anti-gay. INDIANAPOLIS — Then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence faced a firestorm of criticism three years ago after signing a "religious freedom" law critics decried as anti-gay. Now emails released this week to The Associated Press illustrate similar backlash from fellow conservatives when the eventual vice president agreed to change the law in the face of widespread boycott threats. "Indiana is fronted by a coward," reads a March 31 email to Pence's office, which was among more than 1,400 pages of documents obtained under Indiana's public records law. "I just watched your boss throw the ENTIRE Christian population in America under the Left's Gay Extortion Bus." The correspondence from Pence's official and private email accounts, which the AP first requested when he joined President Donald Trump's campaign, offer a window into one of the most challenging periods of his political career. It was a time when Pence — who describes himself as "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order — came under intense pressure from moderate Republicans, as well as the state's business community to act in the face of a growing public relations crisis. It's unclear how many of Pence's emails are being withheld, including those sent from a private AOL.com email address he used to conduct state business. Indiana's open records law gives government officials wide latitude to do so. More than 1,300 pages of records that were previously released largely consist of correspondence from staffers sharing press releases, news articles or laudatory notes from Pence's fans. Many of the messages between Pence and his top aides are redacted. But emails spanning from March to July 2015 do offer a glimpse of his administration's efforts to battle back against negative headlines from the "religious freedom" law, while closely tracking what conservatives had to say about Pence, who harbored presidential ambitions. "It has been a challenging week," chief of state Jim Atterholt wrote in an April 2 email response to a Pence supporter who criticized the changes made to the law. Days earlier, Pence had signed the initial version of the law during a closed door ceremony that included several well-known social conservative activists. Simmering criticisms exploded on social media and in national headlines. It metastasized after Pence struggled to explain in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos whether the law did — or didn't — allow discrimination against gay people. [...] https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-03-28/emails-conservatives-slammed-pence-in-2015-for-changing-law https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/emails-conservatives-slammed-pence-in-for-changing-religious-freedom-law/article_dbbbf08b-f8a8-5a0e-ae82-7a0097deb397.html original https://apnews.com/14e4e7eeab5f4ce496c25d29b064462f
Trump wants to 'go after' Amazon over taxes, but Congress and the Supreme Court could settle the issue for him President Trump reportedly wants to take on Amazon and the internet retail behemoth's tax treatment. It is unclear what the president would do on his own, but actions in the two other branches of government could settle the issue for him. Some lawmakers have proposed legislation to settle the issue, and the Supreme Court is expected to rule on internet sales taxes this year. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/what-trump-could-do-to-amazon-tax-treatment.html
Trump is determined to take down Amazon — and it could be terrible news for HQ2 President Donald Trump is "obsessed" with Amazon — and with taking it down— the news website Axios reported. Amazon has recently faced criticism on topics including gun regulation in the US, employees' working conditions, and its search for its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2. It's a reminder that not everyone living in HQ2 candidate cites will welcome the company with open arms. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-amazon-hatred-raises-hq2-concerns-2018-3
Orange County votes to join feds to oppose California's 'sanctuary' law Orange County board votes to join federal lawsuit opposing California's "sanctuary" law Policy prohibits local agencies from some cooperation with US immigration enforcement https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/us/orange-county-sanctuary-state-law/index.html
Trump taps his doctor to replace Shulkin at VA, choosing personal chemistry over traditional qualifications President Trump fired his embattled Veterans Affairs secretary Wednesday and tapped as his replacement atop the chronically mismanaged agency the president’s personal physician, who gained prominence with his effusive praise of the 71-year-old’s physical and mental health. The ouster of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who has been mired in scandal over his charging taxpayers for luxury travel expenses and the infighting among his senior aides, had been widely expected and was made official at 5:31 p.m. by presidential tweet. Trump said he would nominate Ronny L. Jackson, 50, an active-duty rear admiral in the Navy who has served for the past three administrations as a White House physician. A biography released by the White House shows Jackson is credentialed and experienced in medicine but has no background in management. He nonetheless will be charged with delivering on one of Trump’s signature campaign promises: to fix the federal government’s second-largest bureaucracy. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ousts-veterans-affairs-chief-david-shulkin-in-administrations-latest-shake-up/2018/03/28/3c1da57e-2794-11e8-b79d-f3d931db7f68_story.html
For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility. Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/978936058795757568 Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/978938860582440960
Man has 'world's worst' super-gonorrhoea A man in the UK has caught the world's "worst-ever" case of super-gonorrhoea. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43571120
Need to make a molecule? Ask this AI for instructions - GIVEN SUFFICIENT TIME/DATA/COMPUTING POWER, THIS AI SHOULD BE ABLE TO EXACTLY DETERMINE THE PATHWAY(S), THE PRECISE SEQUENCE(S) OF CHEMICAL REACTIONS/INTERACTIONS, VIA WHICH OUR SORT(S) OF LIFE COULD HAVE BEGUN/ARISEN ON THIS PLANET - AND GIVEN SUFFICIENT CAPABILITIES IN ITS LAB(S) IT RUNS AUTONOMOUSLY, BY ITSELF, IT SHOULD BE ABLE TO LITERALLY CREATE OUR SORT(S) OF LIFE FROM SCRATCH USING/VIA SAID PATHWAY(S) - AND FROM THERE, TAKING FOR GRANTED ITS FULL INGESTION AND DIGESTION OF THE ENTIRETY OF ALL GENOMIC AND RELATED SCIENCE ALONG THE WAY, CREATE WHATEVER NEW INSTANCES OF OUR SORT(S) OF LIFE IT MAY CHOOSE Artificial-intelligence tool that has digested nearly every reaction ever performed could transform chemistry. Chemists have a new lab assistant: artificial intelligence. Researchers have developed a ‘deep learning’ computer program that produces blueprints for the sequences of reactions needed to create small organic molecules, such as drug compounds. The pathways that the tool suggests look just as good on paper as those devised by human chemists. The tool, described in Nature on 28 March1, is not the first software to wield artificial intelligence (AI) instead of human skill and intuition. Yet chemists hail the development as a milestone, saying that it could speed up the process of drug discovery and make organic chemistry more efficient. “What we have seen here is that this kind of artificial intelligence can capture this expert knowledge,” says Pablo Carbonell, who designs synthesis-predicting tools at the University of Manchester, UK, and was not involved in the work. He describes the effort as “a landmark paper”. Chemists have conventionally scoured lists of reactions recorded by others, and drawn on their own intuition to work out a step-by-step pathway to make a particular compound. They usually work backwards, starting with the molecule they want to create and then analysing which readily available reagents and sequences of reactions could be used to synthesize it — a process known as retrosynthesis, which can take hours or even days of planning. Self-teaching system The new AI tool, developed by Marwin Segler, an organic chemist and artificial-intelligence researcher at the University of Münster in Germany, and his colleagues, uses deep-learning neural networks to imbibe essentially all known single-step organic-chemistry reactions — about 12.4 million of them. This enables it to predict the chemical reactions that can be used in any single step. The tool repeatedly applies these neural networks in planning a multi-step synthesis, deconstructing the desired molecule until it ends up with the available starting reagents. Segler and his team tested the pathways that the program threw up in a double-blind trial, to see whether experienced chemists could tell the AI’s synthesis pathways from those devised by humans. They showed 45 organic chemists from two institutes in China and Germany potential synthesis routes for nine molecules: one pathway suggested by the system, and another devised by humans. The chemists had no preference for which was best. Researchers have been trying to use computing power to plan organic chemical synthesis since the 1960s, with only limited success. But Segler’s tool is one of several programs developed in recent years that use AI to flag up potential reaction routes. Chematica, the most well-known, was acquired by German pharmaceutical company Merck in May 2017, for an undisclosed sum. Bartosz Grzybowski, a chemist at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, and his team spent years inputting the rules of organic chemistry into the system for the program to draw on. Test phase Earlier this month, Grzybowski reported2 that he had tested eight of his algorithm’s suggested pathways in the laboratory, and that they all worked. “I’m very glad there is this revival of retrosynthesis, and welcome different approaches,” he says. Segler’s tool is different because it learns from the data alone and does not need humans to input rules for it to use. Ola Engkvist, a computational chemist at pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in Gothenburg, Sweden, is impressed by the work. “Increasing the success rate in synthetic chemistry would have a huge benefit in terms of speed and efficiency on drug-discovery projects, as well as cost reduction,” he says. Segler says his tool has already piqued the interest of several pharmaceutical companies. But he doesn’t see it putting organic chemists out of work. “It will be an assistant for the chemist who wants to make molecules and get from A to B as quickly as possible,” he says. “The GPS navigation device may render paper maps redundant — but not the driver of the car.” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03977-w
study: Planning chemical syntheses with deep neural networks and symbolic AI Abstract To plan the syntheses of small organic molecules, chemists use retrosynthesis, a problem-solving technique in which target molecules are recursively transformed into increasingly simpler precursors. Computer-aided retrosynthesis would be a valuable tool but at present it is slow and provides results of unsatisfactory quality. Here we use Monte Carlo tree search and symbolic artificial intelligence (AI) to discover retrosynthetic routes. We combined Monte Carlo tree search with an expansion policy network that guides the search, and a filter network to pre-select the most promising retrosynthetic steps. These deep neural networks were trained on essentially all reactions ever published in organic chemistry. Our system solves for almost twice as many molecules, thirty times faster than the traditional computer-aided search method, which is based on extracted rules and hand-designed heuristics. In a double-blind AB test, chemists on average considered our computer-generated routes to be equivalent to reported literature routes. http://www.nature.com/articles/nature25978
related article: Efficient Syntheses of Diverse, Medicinally Relevant Targets Planned by Computer and Executed in the Laboratory Highlights - Computer autonomously designs chemical syntheses of medicinally relevant molecules - The syntheses are successfully executed in the laboratory - The machine-designed routes improve on previous approaches The Bigger Picture Although computers have demonstrated the ability to challenge humans in various games of strategy, their use in the automated planning of organic syntheses remains unprecedented. As a result of the impact that such a tool could have on the synthetic community, the past half century has seen numerous attempts to create in silico chemical intelligence. However, there has not been a successful demonstration of a synthetic route designed by machine and then executed in the laboratory. Here, we describe an experiment where the software program Chematica designed syntheses leading to eight commercially valuable and/or medicinally relevant targets; in each case tested, Chematica significantly improved on previous approaches or identified efficient routes to targets for which previous synthetic attempts had failed. These results indicate that now and in the future, chemists can finally benefit from having an “in silico colleague” that constantly learns, never forgets, and will never retire. Summary The Chematica program was used to autonomously design synthetic pathways to eight structurally diverse targets, including seven commercially valuable bioactive substances and one natural product. All of these computer-planned routes were successfully executed in the laboratory and offer significant yield improvements and cost savings over previous approaches, provide alternatives to patented routes, or produce targets that were not synthesized previously. [...] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451929418300639?via%3Dihub
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