Mediaboss Marketing

Former Vice President Al Goresays hes given up hope that President Donald Trumpwill act on key climate issues.

Gore recounted toLate Show hostStephen Colberthis optimism after his meeting with Trump to discuss climate change and the landmarkParis Accord. Trump hadpromised supporters during the campaign that he would pull out of the agreement, arguing it was a bad deal.

I went to Trump Tower after the election, said Gore, who was on the show to promote his new movie, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. I thought that there was a chance he would come to his senses. But I was wrong.

Trump announced the United States withdrawalfrom the agreement last month, a decision widely met with criticism from business leaders, fellow politicians and longtimeU.S. allies. More than 350 mayorsin cities across the U.S. have since pledged to honor the Paris climate agreement.

Gore added he worried that Trumps decision to exit the agreement would be disastrous, but he was excited by the response of political leaders in the U.S.

A lot of our most important governors and mayors and business leaders said, Were still in the Paris Agreement, and were going to meet the commitments of the country regardless of what Donald Trump tweets.

Watch the whole clip in the video above.

This article has been updated with an updated figure for the number of mayors who have signed on to the Climate Mayors initiative.

More here:
Al Gore: 'I Was Wrong' About Donald Trump - HuffPost

WASHINGTON PresidentDonald Trumppaused after falsely claiming Monday that hes signed more bills and Im talking about through the legislature than any president ever.

I better say think, otherwise theyll give you a Pinocchio, Trump said, referring to The Washington Posts rating system for fact-checking politicians statements. And I dont like those, I dont like Pinocchios.

It took roughly 8.5 minutes for Trump, who has an extensive history of lies, to deliver what appears to be another doozy taking credit for the creation of tens of thousands of new mining jobs.

In Pennsylvania, two weeks ago,they opened a mine, the firstmine that was opened in decades. Opened a mine! he said during a speech to kick off the White Houses Made in America week, referring to the states new coal mine. And you know all the people that were saying the mining jobs?Well we picked up 45,000 mining jobs in a very short period of time. Everybody was saying, well,you wont get any mining jobs. We picked up 45,000 mining jobs.

And the miners are very happy with Trump and with Pence, Trump boasted. And were very proud of that.

While Americas miners may be happy with the administrations push for increased fossil fuel development, theres a problem: The number of coal mining jobs has increased by roughly 800 since Trump became president.

In a pair of posts to Twitter, Washington Post Fact Checker columnist Glenn Kessler addressed both Trumps Pinocchio comment and his claim about mining jobs.

Well, this is how you end up with Pinocchios! Kessler wrote, linking to the Posts fact-check of a similar claim made by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency last month.

In a series of TV interviews on June 4, in which he defended Trumps decisiontowithdrawthe U.S. from thehistoric Paris Agreement on climate change, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt bragged that the administration had added 50,000 jobs.

Since the fourth quarter of last year until most recently, weve added almost 50,000 jobs in the coal sector, he told NBCs Meet the Press. In the month of May alone, almost 7,000 jobs.

However, there are only 50,800 coal mining jobs nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In another interview June 4 with Fox News, Pruitt said that since the fourth quarter weve had almost 50,000 jobs created in the mining and coal sector alone, being careful to not pin the number specifically to coal.

For his claim, Pruitt earned four Pinocchios the worst kind of falsehood from the Post.PolitiFact gave Pruitts claim a grade ofmostly false.

The Washington Post noted in its analysis that the increase in all mining and logging jobs since Trump took office was, at the time, around 33,000. Including preliminary figures for June, BLS estimates roughly 47,000 new mining and logging jobs have been added since December.

Trump didnt mention logging in his remarks Monday.

Read more here:
8 Minutes After Saying 'I Don't Like Pinocchios,' Donald Trump's Nose Grows - HuffPost

Back in February, it looked like Milo Yiannopouloss career was toast. After winning fame on the strength of President Trumps campaign, the right-wing provocateur suffered a succession of setbacks after it was revealed that he once defended pederasty: He lost a book deal, a coveted speaking slot and his post at Breitbart News in one week. But as we hit the six-month mark of the Trump administration, Yiannopoulos has accomplished a quick comeback, once again commanding the attention of conservative fans and outraged foes.

Yiannopoulos re-emerged in May, when he slammed the singer Ariana Grande and headlined a protest against activist Linda Sarsours commencement address at CUNYs public health school. Sadly, Ariana Grande is too stupid to wise up and warn her European fans about the real threats to their freedom and their lives, the British-born Yiannopoulos wrote only a few hours after dozens of people had been killed in a terror attack at the pop stars concert in Manchester, England. He continued the broadsides at his New York speech against Sarsour later in the week; he spoke under a driving rain and denounced the Muslim civil rights leader as a Sharia-embracing, terrorist-embracing, Jew-hating ticking time-bomb of progressive horror.

Since then, Yiannopoulos has only garnered more attention, with the Independence Day release of his book Dangerous a title ripped from the visits he made to American college campuses as part of his self-declared Dangerous Faggot tour. Panned in numerous outlets, the book is divided into laundry list chapters about why various demographics hate him - including feminists, Black Lives Matter activists and the media. It also includes occasional discussions of Yiannopouloss sexual interest in black men, which he often invokes to dispel charges of racism. Nonetheless, the memoir has shot to the top of the Amazon best-seller list a definite sign that Yiannopouloss star continues to shine brightly. His achievement was made more impressive, given the fact that he self-published the memoir, following Simon & Schusters decision to dump his title in February.

When the pedophilia comments surfaced that, the chastened Yiannopoulos gave a formal press conference where he apologized for his actions and sought forgiveness. But now that hes back in the saddle again, the bomb-thrower isnt saving any of his firepower. Hes threatening to sue Simon & Schuster for canceling his book deal a threat that the imprint dismissed as a publicity stunt. He also hired dwarfs to don yarmulkes at a New York book launch party to mock Jewish right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro, an old rival from the days when both men worked at Breitbart.

Yiannopoulos is also getting support from some deep-pocketed people. According to leaked e-mails between Yiannopoulos and Breitbart News head Alex Marlow, it appears that hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer, helped finance Yiannopoulos after he left Breitbart and may have even helped him obtain a visa to remain in the United States. Rebekah Mercer loves Milo, said an unidentified source friendly with the family, which funded Trumps presidential campaign and set up the electoral data mining company Cambridge Analytica to back him. They always stood behind him, and their support never wavered.

As the summer continues, Yiannopouloss plans seem to be up in the air. Will he write another book, launch another hair-raising speaking tour, start his own media outlet, join an existing one? These are unknowns. But already hes done something impressive: Hes maintained and expanded his public profile after a scandal that may have felled longer-time celebrities. Whatever happens next, hes the master of the millennial internet culture that is his domain.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon

Follow this link:
'Alt-Right' Celebrity Milo Yiannopoulos Re-emerges After Kiddie Sex Comments - Forward

Share

149

Shares

Since the start what has become known as the Russian Election Meddling conspiracy, much of the mainstream media has reported that the goal of Russias meddling in the 2016 US election, was to disrupt American politics. While many within the mainstream media have run with this idea, one Russian-born former Israeli Parliament Official who has been studying Russian election meddling for the past two years, feels otherwise.

Shaul Vladimir Kabakchy, who formerly has worked in the Israeli Parliament, tells us that he learned a great deal about Russian communications while working in his position. While he agrees that Russia tried to influence American politics, what he doesnt agree onis the notion that their main goal was to simply disrupt our system of politics, regardless of who would become president.

First of all, in the course of the last two years, I have read on Russian social media websites thousands and thousands of 2016-election related posts, many of which were apparently belonging to the people who volunteered in a pro-Trump campaign spreading fake news and reaching out to the American voters, Kabakchy tells IR.net. I have never ever seen any single post referring to their motivation as willingness to disrupt the American political life. Most of the time their motivation was coming down to two Russian words; NASH TRUMP, meaning its our Trump, and that is what scares the hell out of the Alt-Right who doesnt want to have any association with the Kremlin.

Kabakchy doesnt believe that Russian leadership is stupid enough to have simply meddled with our election in order to discredit candidate Hillary Clinton, with the idea that Clinton would ultimately be elected President.

If the motivation behind the election meddling was to simply disrupt the American political system and the Kremlin was sure that Hillary would eventually come to power anyway, Kabakchy notes. Think about what the outcome would have been for them after she would have inevitably discovered the facts behind the Russian efforts. Does it make any sense? Does Russian leadership look that stupid to spit into their own drinking water, as the Russians often say?

Basically Kabakchy doesnt buy the idea that Russia would have simply been OK with Hillary becoming President, as if she had, she would have easily exposed everything the Russians had done. Instead Kabakchy focuses on the idea that this entire conspiracy is an Alt-Right movement, or as he puts it an Alt-Right Conspiracy.

The idea of a global Alt-Right conspiracy under the auspicious of Russia is presented in the books of Alexander Dugin, which is mandatory reading material for the Russian military academies, and that fact somehow is never mentioned in the American media, Kabakchy points out.

Alexander Dugin is one of the more well know political writers and philosophers in Russia. Many say that Dugin is Steve Bannons ideological soul mate. His ideas of government seems to fit perfectly in line with the ideas of Steve Bannon, who has tremendous influence over President Trump. While Russia doesnt necessarily care if they are associated with the Alt-Right or not, the Alt-Right prefers to be disassociated from Russia, even though this conspiracy has now linked the two in recorded history. Bannon and Trump would never admit that they believe Russias form of governing is suited for the US, and neither would the members of the Alt-Right in America.

So Kabackchys point appears to be one that blames the international Alt-Right for what we see going on in American politics. Trump being elected President was part of a great conspiracy by the international Alt-Right movement, one that Dugin plays a huge part in. It wasnt the goal of Russian meddling to simply disrupt the American political system, but rather to allow the Alt-Right movement to spread throughout the country, via electing a President who ran on Alt-Right ideologies. The conspiracy seems to be working, and the Alt-Right movement that Dugin and Bannon are so fond of is spreading its feet in American culture. The only problem for the Alt-Right though is the fact that most Americans are not buying the NASH TRUMPline.. but perhaps it could be Trumps 2020 campaign slogan.

Excerpt from:
NASH TRUMP! Evidence that Russian Meddling is an Alt-Right Movement? - IR.net

BUFFALO, N.Y. Bioethical arguments related to abortion and embryonic stem cell research often depend on first answering questions of origins. When do humans come into existence? Does fertilization represent creations flash point? Or does existence require the glow of consciousness or perhaps separation from the birth mother?

These questions of our origins, along with discussions pertaining to personal identity, represent the dual themes of this years Romanell Conference (formerly the PANTC Conference) presented by the University at Buffalo Department of Philosophy.

Three preeminent philosophers will visit UB to defend their positions on these issues as part of the two-day event on Friday, July 28, and Saturday, July 29, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day in 280 Park Hall on the universitys North Campus, a space unofficially renamed the Theresa Monacelli Conference Room in appreciation of the retired philosophy staff members contributions to previous conferences.

John Lizza, professor of philosophy at Kutztown University; Don Marquis, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Kansas; and Marya Schechtman, professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago; will each deliver a separate keynote address.

The Romanell Conference, the fifth annual event exploring bioethics and the philosophy of medicine, is free and open to the public. A complete schedule of presenters and their topics is available online.

These issues go right to the heart of the culture wars abortion, control over ones body, sexual identity, personal identity, the social construction of the self and hastening death, says David Hershenov, a professor in the UB Department of Philosophy who joined the keynoters on a panel about personal identity and death at the American Philosophical Associations national meeting last year in Chicago.

This conference will not be a dry philosophical debate.

There is no philosophical consensus on when a human being comes into existence, according to Hershenov.

If we persons were never early mindless embryos, then we couldnt have been harmed by an abortion or embryonic stem cell research that destroys an embryo, he says. Early abortion would be more akin to contraception in that it prevents someone from coming into existence rather than killing an existing individual, preventing them from having a valuable future.

Some philosophers think existence begins two weeks after fertilization when twinning can no longer occur.

If we came into existence before identical twins were formed, then twinning might have involved our deaths as the embryo that we were identical with splits in two.

Other philosophers believe persons are essentially thinking entities, so there is no existence without consciousness. Fertilization in this case cant represent existence since the fetal brain requires 20 weeks of post-fertilization development before it can support consciousness.

There are even some philosophers who believe we dont come into existence until we are separated or at least separable from our mothers, he says. They dont think we could ever have been a part of another human being. That would mean there is a larger human being composed of a smaller human being.

Marquis, author of the seminal article, Why Abortion is Immoral believes existence occurs two weeks after fertilization. Schechtman, the most famous promotor of the narrative account of personal identity has a more fluid belief on existence and is exploring the idea that our origins stretch across the entire pregnancy. Lizza, an expert on death and a proponent of the constitution idea, uses the analogy of a sculptures differences from that of unformed clay. He sees humans as minded beings that dont exist until weve formed the capacity for thought.

The conference will be entertaining for many reasons, including the fact that many of the participants are long-term philosophical rivals and so quite willing to bluntly and sarcastically express their criticism of each other, says Hershenov.

Other conference highlights include a talk on the transgender category of personal identification by Barry Smith, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and director of the National Center for Ontological Research. In addition, Catherine Nolan, affiliate assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas, will discuss intersex children; and Stephen Kershnar, SUNY Fredonia professor of philosophy will discuss whether physicians deserve the high compensation they receive.

Kershnar is a libertarian, says Hershenov. I suspect he will answer they are entitled to that money and should hardly be taxed.

Read more here:
Philosophers to discuss origins and identity during two-day UB conference - UB News Center