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Wallace: Spicer's Resignation Shows 'Tremendous Disarray' in White House

Army Vet Told to Take Down American Flag at Braves Tailgate

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told voters who support deporting children covered under the DREAM Act that he didn't want their vote.

"I'm excited about giving you a chance to live the rest of your life" in America, Graham said of DREAMers.

"I embrace you, and I want you to succeed," he said, speaking at a press conference with Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).

"To the people who object to this, I don't want you to vote for me. Because, I cannot serve you well," he said.

Graham said he was inspired to support comprehensive immigration reform in 2000, when then-presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made it a campaign issue.

He said immigration reform is "essential" for national and economic security.

"I just don't see the upside of telling these kids they have to live in the shadows," he said.

Watch more above.

'Trump Would Be Engulfed': Krauthammer Says Mueller Is 'Politically Unfireable'

'Out of Control': Pirro Says 'Comey's Pal' Mueller Is on a 'Fishing Expedition'

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Sen. Graham: If You Don't Support Keeping DREAMers, 'Don't Vote For Me' - Fox News Insider

Questions Neals belief in First Amendment

I was shocked to learn that Richard Neal and many other congressmen think we should take away the First Amendment rights of people who express their support of a boycott of Israel.

I am Jewish, and committed to Israels long-term survival. I think the thuggish actions and racist comments of Benjamin Netanyahus far-right Israeli government represent a long-term threat to that survival. Along with the constant theft of Palestinian land (land the whole world, including Israel, recognizes as Palestinian), these actions arouse deep-seated hatred which can only lead to destructive war. At the end, it will likely lead to the destruction of Israel.

So I think anyone in this country who backs the extremist Netanyahu is really backing the long-term destruction of the Jewish state, and certainly the destruction of Israeli democracy.

But if anyone came up with a law to deprive Netanyahu-backers of the right to express their views, I would oppose it to my last breath. Does Congressman Neal believe in the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech? He should be ashamed of himself.

David Ball

Northampton

See the original post:
David Ball: Questions Neal's belief in First Amendment - GazetteNET

But Candy Lab, maker of the AR game Texas Rope 'Em, sued the county and claimed that the ordinance was a First Amendment violation. They also asked the courts for an injunction of the rule before the lawsuit goes to trial next April, which a district judge granted on Thursday. In the ruling, the judge said, "Greater injury will be inflicted upon [Candy Labs] by the denial of injunctive relief than will be inflicted upon [Milwaukee County] by the granting of such relief."

Milwaukee County has argued that this isn't a First Amendment violation because the game and its makers don't have First Amendment rights. "Texas Rope 'Em is not entitled to First Amendment protection because it does not convey any messages or ideas. Unlike books, movies, music, plays and video games mediums of expression that typically enjoy First Amendment protection Texas Rope 'Em has no plot, no storylines, no characters and no dialogue," said Milwaukee County in its motion to dismiss the case. It also claims that the game isn't protected by the amendment because it constitutes illegal gambling.

The permit Milwaukee County began demanding treats AR gaming like a special event, requiring start and end times, expected numbers of participants, portable restroom supply and fees for things like garbage collection. All of which seem rather ridiculous to ask of a game developer.

In response to the judge's injunction approval, Candy Lab's attorney told Ars Technica, "I think it's a huge win for the medium of augmented reality as a whole. It's a strong affirmation that AR is a medium for creative expression."

Go here to read the rest:
First Amendment suit halts anti-'Pokmon Go' law - Engadget

A judge on Thursday declared as unconstitutional a local Wisconsin ordinance mandating that the makers of augmented reality games get special use permits if their mobile apps were to be played in county parks. The lawthe nation's first of its kindwas challenged on First Amendment grounds amid concerns it amounted to a prior restraint of a game maker's speech. What's more, the law was seemingly impossible to comply with.

The federal lawsuit was brought by a Southern California company named Candy Lab. The maker of Texas Rope 'Eman augmented reality game with features like Pokemon Gosued Milwaukee County after it adopted an AR ordinance in February in the wake of the Pokemon Go craze. Because some of its parks were overrun by a deluge of players, the county began requiring AR makers to get a permit before their apps could be used in county parks.

The permitting process also demanded that developers perform the impossible: estimate crowd size, event dates, and the times when mobile gamers would be playing inside county parks. The permits, which cost as much as $1,000, also required that developers describe plans for garbage collection, bathroom use, on-site security, and medical services. Without meeting those requirements, augmented reality publishers would be in violation of the ordinance if they published games that included playtime in Milwaukee County parks.

US District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller issued a preliminary injunction Thursday blocking Milwaukee County from enforcing the law until the outcome of a trial tentatively set for April. "Greater injury will be inflicted upon plaintiff by the denial of injunctive relief than will be inflicted upon defendants by the granting of such relief," the judge ruled. (PDF)

The county did not immediately respond for comment.

In court papers, the county said (PDF) that augmented reality games like Texas Rope 'Em"werenot protected by the First Amendment:

Texas Rope 'Em is not entitled to First Amendment protection because it does not convey any messages or ideas. Unlike books, movies, music, plays and video gamesmediums of expression that typically enjoy First Amendment protectionTexas Rope 'Em has no plot, no storylines, no characters, and no dialogue. All it conveys is a random display of cards and a map. Absent the communicative features that invoke the First Amendment, Candy Lab has no First Amendment claim.

In Texas Rope 'Em, the county added, "The player simply views randomly generated cards and travels to locations to get more. That is not the type of speech that demands First Amendment safeguards."

Brian Wassom, Candy Lab's lawyer, said the judge's decision undercuts the county's argument.

"I think it's a huge win for the medium of augmented reality as a whole," he said in a telephone interview. "It's a strong affirmation that AR is a medium for creative expression."

Niantic, the developer of Pokemon Go, told Ars in a recent interview that it was working with Milwaukee County and other jurisdictions to alter game locations and to accommodate park hours.

Link:
Augmented reality wins big in 1st Amendment legal flap | Ars Technica - Ars Technica

There is a specter haunting the United States, or at least the Republican Party and its friendly news outlets. You may think its just a former government official who holds no office and wont be running for anything again, but they know the truth. America needs to get worried and, more important, angry at Hillary Clinton.

Oliver Darcy of CNN has been watching Fox News:

The former Democratic presidential candidate, a favorite villain of the right, has been featured prominently across Fox News programming this week.

In many cases, instead of the networks hosts applying pressure to the current President, who is grappling with the fallout from a federal investigation related to Russian election meddling, Fox News personalities have deflected and turned their attention to Clinton. On Tuesday night, for instance, Clinton found herself a key point of discussion throughout the networks primetime lineup.

It isnt just them. President Trump himself seems to be practically obsessed with Clinton, as Philip Bump explains:

Whatever Trump does or doesnt do, hes always willing to point out what Clinton did or didnt do thats worse.

So she comes up in his interviews a lot. In fact, in 19 interviews that hes conducted since becoming president, we found that Clinton tended to be mentioned much earlier than a number of Trumps other favorite topics: The 2016 election, the votes he received, the electoral college and Barack Obama.

In 17 of 19 of his interviews, Clinton came up, on average about 36 percent of the way in.

Without going back and checking, Im pretty sure Obama didnt bring up how he beat John McCain in 90 percent of the interviews he conducted during his first six months in office. I dont recall George W. Bush talking about Al Gore at all after he became president. So whats going on here?

For Trump personally, I think its mostly about the deep insecurity that comes through every time he opens his mouth. Its why hes always telling everyone how smart and knowledgeable and accomplished he is, something that people who are actually smart and knowledgeable and accomplished dont do. He feels a need to remind everyone that he won the election, usually embellishing the story by characterizing it as bigger and more emphatic a victory than it actually was. As his vanquished opponent, Clinton is a symbol of his potency and dominance.

The fact that Clinton got millions more votes than him is obviously a wound that wont stop hurting, so he keeps trying to convince everyone that the vote was fraudulent and that whatever hes being accused of, she did it worse. Eight months after the election, shes still the yardstick hes measuring himself against.

President Trump signed an executive order on May 11, initiating an investigation into voter suppression and election fraud. Here's what we know so far. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

Trump also seems to bring up the campaign (and Clinton) so much because things were much clearer for him then. It was him against her in a contest that made sense, and he won. Now he has to spend his days worrying about policies he neither understands nor cares about, hes bedeviled by investigations, and he doesnt have the succor that comes from hearing the cheers of an adoring crowd every night. When he brings up Clinton, hes like an aging athlete reliving his glory days. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I threw a touchdown pass to win the homecoming game? Yes, Uncle Don, only about a hundred times.

For the conservative media, theres a slightly different motivation at work. If youre Fox News or a conservative talk radio show, the fact that Trump squeaked out an electoral-college victory laid waste to the plans you had for the next four years. It was going to be such fun! A Clinton presidency would have been a glorious time, filled with purpose and professional success. Now you find yourself defending a dreadful health-care plan, but if she were president, you would have been luxuriating in constant congressional investigations, innumerable phony scandals and an endless supply of things to get outraged about. And outrage is the fuel of conservative media its what provides the content, engages the viewers and listeners, and keeps the audience coming back. Getting people mad is much easier than persuading them to feel happy or hopeful or excited about what the administration is doing.

Thats especially true if the administration isnt actually doing very much. As the months drag on without any significant achievements from the Trump administration, the need to pump up the emotional volume becomes more acute. And emotion comes not from discussions about policy but from stories with heroes and villains.

The problem for conservatives is that American politics today is a story that has its hero but doesnt have a villain. The president makes news nearly every day, but we can go weeks without hearing something interesting from Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) or Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). And like all opposition leaders, next to the president with the majesty of his office behind him, they look small and inconsequential, barely worth getting mad at.

Trump got elected in large part by getting his voters mad at immigrants, at Muslims, at politicians and at a supposedly rigged political system. But as president, hes had a hard time sustaining that anger and constructing that story of himself as a warrior fighting against a threatening enemy.

Other Republican presidents had it much easier. President Ronald Reagan had a natural counterpoint in the Russians, an enemy Americans had hated for decades. The Cold War provided opportunities for threat and confrontation invade a tiny island country here, make a speech in Berlin there, and you have a drama that never gets old. President George W. Bush spent eight years telling Americans they were about to be annihilated by villainous Middle Easterners, first al-Qaeda, then Saddam Hussein. By the end of his tenure the story had lost its punch, but it did get him reelected.

Trump, on the other hand, has no villain to fight. So he and his allies are left looking backward to the person who was supposed to be the villain of the moment but now is just a retiree strolling around the woods in Westchester County. No wonder they seem so dispirited.

Read more:
Why Trump and the conservative media are still obsessed with Hillary Clinton - Washington Post