Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
“Do you believe your father’s [sexual misconduct] accusers?” -@PeterAlexander
“I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to it.” -@IvankaTrumppic.twitter.com/23AVPgcOdE
Mike Hughes said the Bureau of Land Management wouldn't approve his plan to use public land for Saturday's planned experiment, so he'll have to move the project to private land next week, the Washington Post reported.
The 61-year-old limo driver said he had received verval approval from the same federal agency just last year, pending an OK from the federal Aviation Commission, the paper reported.
Hughes added that engine trouble in his motor home, which was converted into a ramp, also affected his original launch plans.
“It’s still happening. We’re just moving it three miles down the road,” Hughes told the Post on Friday. “This is what happens any time you have to deal with any kind of government agency.”
Hughes said the rocket will take flight next week, from private property near the Mojave Desert, along Route 66.
If all goes according to plan, Hughes said his stunt will be the first phase of the flat-Earth space program, sponsored by Research Flat Earth, a group that believes Earth is flat.
Climate change deniers, anti-evolutionists, and these flat earth idiots probably feel that with Donald Trump in office this is their time.
After all clearly facts no longer matter, and denying reality seems to be a winning strategy.
However after taking a look at the rocket in that picture up above I think the only thing this Mike Hughes is going to prove is that the human body can disintegrate on impact.
"He says he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on the trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. "Every time he sees me, he said: 'I didn't do that.' And I believe, I really believe that when he tells me that he means it."
Trump and Putin did not have a formal meeting while they were in Vietnam for an economic summit, but the two spoke informally several times and reached agreement on a number of principles for the future of war-torn Syria. But Trump made clear that the issue of Russian meddling in the election hovers over the leaders' relationship — Putin is "insulted" by the accusation, Trump said. In a blistering partisan attack, Trump accused Democrats of using the election issue to create a barrier between the U.S. and Russia as the nations work on crises in Syria and Ukraine.
"Having a good relationship with Russia's a great, great thing. And this artificial Democratic hit job gets in the way," Trump told reporters, once again casting doubt on the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia did try to interfere in the election. "People will die because of it."
You know to me this simply reinforces the idea that Trump knew all along that the Russians were interfering in our election, and was very likely helping them to do it.
Why else take the word of a former KGB agent over the word of our own intelligence agencies?
Here’s the *key* quote from Trump on Putin re: Russian election meddling:
“Every time he sees me he says, 'I didn't do that,' and I believe, I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it.” pic.twitter.com/kLrx2pNLIf
And to call the work by our intelligence agencies, an the Mueller investigation, a "Democratic hit job" is essentially the talk of a traitor.
Update: Well this is kind of an interesting twist.
Trump and Putin spox Dmitry Peskov are telling 2 different stories -- Trump says they discussed Russian meddling, Peskov says the subject didn't even come up https://t.co/YnuSlenPa8
In the summer of 2016, US intelligence agencies noticed a spate of curious contacts between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian intelligence, according to current and former US officials briefed on the investigation. James Comey, in his Senate testimony, said the FBI opened an investigation into Trump campaign-Russia connections in July 2016.
The strands of the two investigations began to merge.
In the months that followed, investigators turned up intercepted communications appearing to show efforts by Russian operatives to coordinate with Trump associates on damaging Hillary Clinton's election prospects, officials said. CNN has learned those communications included references to campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Well looky there.
Boy, Paul Manafort's name sure does pop up a lot during conversations about Russian collusion.
Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, issued this statement on the latest round of accusations: “Paul Manafort did not collude with the Russian government to undermine the 2016 election or to hack the DNC. Other than that comment, we aren't going to respond to anonymous officials illegally peddling second hand conspiracy theories. But the Justice Department, and the courts if necessary, should hold someone to account for the flood of unlawful government leaks targeting Mr. Manafort."
Hmm, have you also noticed that members of Trump's campaign always deny that there is any truth to various allegations, right before they have to admit that there might be a little truth to various allegations?
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he flew to Paris to take part in Bastille Day celebrations, Mr. Trump offered his first extended account of a dramatic closed-door meeting he held with Mr. Putin last week in Hamburg, Germany.
“I said to him, ‘Were you involved in the meddling with the election?’” Mr. Trump recalled. “He said, ‘Absolutely not. I was not involved.’ He was very strong on it. I then said to him, in a totally different way, ‘Were you involved with the meddling?’ He said, ‘I was not — absolutely not.’”
Putin then changed the subject to Syria, and Trump let him because, as he says, “What do you do? End up in a fistfight?”
Yeah, that would have shown he had at least some balls.
Then there was this later on:
The president defended Mr. Putin when a reporter asked him to respond to Mr. Putin’s assertion, at a news conference, that Mr. Trump had accepted his denial of Russian involvement.“He didn’t say that,” Mr. Trump said. “No. He said, ‘I think he accepted it, but you’ll have to ask him.’ That’s a big difference.”
Mr. Trump again raised the prospect that countries other than Russia could have carried out the hacking, although four United States intelligence agencies concluded that Russia was solely responsible.
China and North Korea are also skilled at hacking, he said, pointing out that the North Koreans had infiltrated the internal computers of Sony Pictures. “I’m not saying it wasn’t Russia,” Mr. Trump said. “What I’m saying is that we have to protect ourselves no matter who it is.”
No he isn't definitively saying it wasn't Russia, he is just raising doubts that it was Russia.
Which certainly sounds like he agrees with Putin's denial to me.
"The next time I’m with Putin, I’m going to ask him: who were you really for? Because I can’t believe that he would have been for me," Mr Trump said.
He argued that Hillary Clinton would have cut investment in domestic energy sources an increased US dependence on foreign oil, saying: “That’s great for Russia.”
So his argument is that Russia hacked the DNC and John Podesta in order to HELP Hillary Clinton get elected?
"The Crown prosecutor of Russia ... offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father," said the June 3, 2016, email to Trump Jr. from publicist Rob Goldstone.
"This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump," according to the email posted by Trump Jr. on Twitter.
Oh yeah, the Russians were working REAL hard to help get Hillary elected all right.
By the way, do you think THIS guy might have been willing to end up in a fistfight with Vladimir Putin to protect our election integrity?
Yeah lucky Hillary, she was only dogged for years concerning made up scandals about Benghazi and her private server that saw her testifying before the Senate on multiple occasions.
The W.H. is functioning perfectly, focused on HealthCare, Tax Cuts/Reform & many other things. I have very little time for watching T.V.
I actually woke up to this thing today and had to stop and wonder if it was not an SNL skit that I missed or something.
"America has rarely seen such success."
"America investing in American jobs again.,"
"America becoming more energy independent."
"The biggest tax cut plan in history."
None of that, not one word of that, is actually true.
It is all a complete fabrication.
And Trump covers for that by adding this:
"You wouldn't know it from watching the news ("Fake News" banner prominently placed at this point.), America is winning and president Trump is making America great again."
Yes it is now so great that it is completely invisible to the American people, unless they attend his rallies or watch his commercials.
If ever there were any doubt that Donald Trump suffered from a pathological narcissistic disorder this should put those doubts to rest.
From the depths of the dark web where only fools dare to tread:
Todd is an Alaskan native and part Eskimo; my kids’ Yupik Eskimo heritage is a badge of honor, not a chip on their shoulder. (Eskimo?)
You’ll not see my kids falsely charging someone with racism just because they disagree with an opinion. (No they just call them "faggot.")
But liberals slap that racist label on me – and any other conservative – simply to stop debate on any issue. What a tactic! It immediately puts you on the defensive.
Racial tensions are mounting, and Americans are being divided. We don’t have “whites only” water fountains or “separate but equal” schools anymore, but, ironically, race relations in this country seemed to take a giant step backward under the presidency of Barack Obama. (Yes, because of the racists who came out of the woodwork in response to his candidacy. You know, that same ones that showed up at the McCain/Palin rallies.) Slogans proclaiming “black lives matter” have clouded the truth that all lives matter. And, to show how crazy things are, both a college president and a Democrat politician have actually apologized for saying that “all lives matter,” as if that were somehow wrong. (They missed the point, as does Palin.) But the fact is, we’re all created in God’s image. (The white Anglo-Saxon god that was inflicted on the native people in Alaska by the missionaries who punished them for speaking their own language and forcibly changed their names to ones plucked from the Bible? Does she mean THAT god?)
Not to nitpick, but I have known dozens and dozens of Alaska natives in my life, and not one of them ever called themselves an "Eskimo."
As for Palin being a racist well she was quoted as saying she would not hire any blacks when she became governor, did nothing to help the people of Emmonak despite public outrage, and during her 2008 campaign rallies whipped the racists into a frenzy by constantly attacking Barack Obama as "the other."
I would argue that Palin actually planted the racist seeds in 2008 that Donald Trump harvested to become president in 2016.
Jessa (Duggar) Seewald and Jill (Duggar) Dillard appeared on TLC's documentary Breaking the Silence Sunday, seeking education to address the aftermath of the abuse they faced at the hands of brother Josh Duggar more than a decade ago.
"It's amazing to understand that there are so many people that deal with this exact same thing in their own families," said Jill, 24.
"So just being educated is very good."
Jessa, 22, noted, "I feel like this should be a discussion people are having, even regularly. I think that it shouldn't be a taboo subject, that we should be bringing awareness to child sexual abuse and talking about this."
Okay I'm confused.
Didn't the Duggar family do just about everything they could think of, including the threat of a lawsuit, to keep people from talking about Josh Duggar's molestation of at least five young girls, including his own sisters?
And doesn't the family still claim that none of the victims even knew they were being abused?
Michele Duggar also appeared on the program and here is what she said:
"I was so glad that my girls and I were able to do this together and that we could just be a support and encouragement to each other to be able to gain more information about this important topic," said Michelle, 48.
Yes well that's all well and good but it does not really speak to the fact that the family's refusal to get Josh Duggar the treatment he really needed early on, and their ignorance about his predatory impulses, allowed him to victimize his own siblings as well as other young women who made the mistake of sleeping over at the Duggar household.
Not only that but the fact that Josh was also recently outed as a paying customer for the online cheating website Ashley Madison, and that he paid for sex with a porn star, should also suggest that Josh's problems were not due to childlike curiosity, but rather to a pathological need for illicit sexual encounters that may very well have resulted from his upbringing and the example set by his parents.
If true than the problems in the Duggar family are undoubtedly more problematic than we have been led to believe, and they should be the last people trotted out as "victims" in any sense of the word.
His name is Edgar Nernberg, and when he’s not sitting on the board of directors of Big Valley’s Creationist Museum or actively lobbying for the inclusion of creationism in Alberta’s school curriculum, Nernberg operates a backhoe in Calgary.
It was in the seat of that machine that Nernberg made the discovery being hailed by scientists in Alberta as one of the most important fossil finds in decades, helping to solve an evolutionary puzzle dating back 60 million years.
Not that Nernberg is buying that date for a second: To him, the five perfectly preserved fossil fish, found while excavating a basement in northwest Calgary, are just more proof of a world created by God only a few thousand years ago.
“No, it hasn’t changed my mind. We all have the same evidence, and it’s just a matter of how you interpret it,” says Nernberg.
In response to the evidence that disputes his claim that the earth is only about 6,000 years old Nernberg had this to say:
“There’s no dates stamped on these thing."
And that my friends is why there is no arguing with people like this.
And the frightening part is that the museum that this guy contributes to, and others all around the world like it, are actively teaching young children lies in order to protect their religious faith from being undermined by actual scientific evidence.
In this month’s Medical Care there’s a great study by Brendan Nyhan and colleagues:
Context: Misperceptions are a major problem in debates about health care reform and other controversial health issues.
Methods: We conducted an experiment to determine if more aggressive media fact-checking could correct the false belief that the Affordable Care Act would create “death panels.” Participants from an opt-in Internet panel were randomly assigned to either a control group in which they read an article on Sarah Palin’s claims about “death panels” or an intervention group in which the article also contained corrective information refuting Palin.
Findings: The correction reduced belief in death panels and strong opposition to the reform bill among those who view Palin unfavorably and those who view her favorably but have low political knowledge. However, it backfired among politically knowledgeable Palin supporters, who were more likely to believe in death panels and to strongly oppose reform if they received the correction.
Conclusions: These results underscore the difficulty of reducing misperceptions about health care reform among individuals with the motivation and sophistication to reject corrective information.
So in other words those Palin supporters who were paying attention to politics, most likely through the filter of Fox News, were FAR more likely to reject the corrected information about death panels, and suspect that the information was liberally biased, than the people who did not care for Sarah Palin or who did not pay much attention to politics or Fox News.
To put it plainly, if Sarah Palin says it, MUST be true! If one of those atheist scientist guys, or liberal democrats, say it, totally obvious attempt to attack her family and take away our freedoms!!
I think that is a pretty accurate description of the kind of die hard Palin supporter that continues to look for the day when the Grizzled Mama rises from the ashes like a frostbitten phoenix and suddenly becomes relevant in American politics again, or...dare they hope...runs for office.
So here is the tweet that Palin sent out earlier today.
Really? Well color me confused because the e-mail she refers to was sent on September 26, 2007, but MY post about her marital troubles was not posted until August 1, 2009.
Up until that post NOBODY in the media had ever even heard of any marital problems between the Palins. Believe me I know, because that was why I suffered such an aggressive and sustained backlash after that post went viral.
So my question is, how could she have been mocking "divorce rumors" that first started in mid 2009, all the way back in 2007?
Methinks somebody did not think this tweet all the way through.
Cain was defiant and completely unapologetic, in his defense. Claiming that he did not know Bialek and that the accusations are the result of the "Democrat machine."
At one point Cain spoke of himself in the third person and even offered to take a polygraph test, asdding to the circus like atmosphere of the press conference.
Not to give away the ending, but what happens next in the Herman Cain story is that there will now be proof provided that he DOES indeed know Bialek, and more women will come forward publicly to present a united front, and Cain will eventually have to drop out of the race in disgrace. I do not see this playing out any other way.
Essentially Cain could not have dug his political grave any faster if he had a shovel in both hands.
Normally, a movie with such poor box office would not receive story coverage on Box Office Mojo, but the furor over The Undefeated calls for an injection of truth.
Even before The Undefeated bottomed out in its second weekend, the movie was a bust in its first weekend, but its boosters latched onto two stats: per-theater average and ranking among political documentaries. The classic tactics of movie spin include bragging about per-theater average and declaring a high ranking in a niche category. The funny thing is that Undefeated's opening didn't rate highly on either front, making the spin extra-egregious.
Within the minor political documentary sub-genre, The Undefeated's $6,532 opening weekend per-theater average ranked 33rd out of the 91 limited openings tracked over the past 30 years, normalized for ticket price inflation. Among all documentaries, it was in the middle of the pack. Hardly worthy of hyperbole. Even if it had little to no advertising, Undefeated had far more media coverage than most other political documentaries and independent releases could ever dream of. The awareness was there.
Undefeated boosters ran with the notion that the movie's opening had the "second highest per-theater average of the weekend, behind only Harry Potter," but the movie was actually sixth in that metric. They also latched onto a press release about how The Undefeated averaged "above $11,000 in top markets." But averages are naturally higher in top markets (that's why they're "top markets") and, without context (how it compared to other movies' grosses in those markets), that was a meaningless statistic.
It's extremely myopic to believe that having one of the higher per-theater averages on a given weekend means a movie is a success, and The Undefeated's second weekend bore that out. Indeed, "per-theater average" is one of the most overrated stats. For limited releases, the most receptive locations are cherry-picked with the purpose to impress with a high per-theater average in order to book more markets. The fewer the theaters, the easier it is to have a higher average.
To put these numbers into further perspective: The Undefeated's ten theaters on opening weekend yielded 159 showings. Using the current average ticket price of $7.86, that means the movie played to an estimated 52 people per average showing or at about one-fifth to one-quarter capacity. In the movie's second weekend, which had 211 showings, the per-showing average attendance dropped to 15.
Damn, I like how this guy Brandon Gray left absolutely NO doubt that this movie was an unmitigated disaster.
Not really much argument left is there?
Which makes THIS, seem just that much more pathetic.
The path to the White House runs through the theaters across America showing this film.
We need to sell those theaters out! No more excuses, no more complaints. Let’s show the world why we support her. Show them this film! We need your help to make this happen. We can’t sit silently anymore. Now we must act.
Special incentives:
Each Youth For Palin's Youth Brigade member will receive special rewards including $$ compensation and/or a donation to our group (your choice). special recognition, and other items.
Game On!
Personally I think that any parent who encourages their child to pimp this move for Snowdrift Snooki should be brought up on charges of child abuse.
It finally dawned on me who the Palin-bots who are refusing to see the writing on the walls about Palin's pathetic propaganda piece remind me of. They remind me of those Japanese soldiers who stayed at their posts for decades because they did not realize the war was over.
Bachmann said that someone must have doctored the recording of the interview, in which he addressed child discipline as well as homosexuality and sex education.
The recording also became a focus of media attention this week, including ABC's "Nightline."
"I was talking in reference to children. Nothing, nothing to do with homosexuality. That's not my mindset. That's not my belief system. That's not the way I would talk," Bachmann said.
"I think the strongest myth. ... is the myth that I have ever called a homosexual a barbarian," Bachmann said
Unfortunately for Marcus I am not sure that Americans are going to be that much happier with the idea of their children being called "barbarians" by a grown man.
Besides the blogger who first posted the video, states unequivocally that it was NOT doctored in any way.
In response to news that the Bachmann clinics accept federal Medicaid funds, while his wife attacks government funding:
Bachmann said federal and state subsidies flow to his business because it doesn't discriminate against patients in subsidized health-care programs.
"It's low income. It's people who are on limited income," Bachmann said. "It is a lower-paying insurance. It's not a money maker. ... So, gee, we get criticized because we take it. And somehow they tie it all in, into my wife because she's the big proponent of less taxes and less programs and so forth.
"So, over and over the bell rings about how we take this federal money," he continued. "Oooh, how evil that is. And I say to you: 'No. It would be evil not to.'"
"There are many grants that are just not that wise. This one actually made a lot of sense," Bachmann said. He said his business lost money by accepting the grant because the training kept employees from seeing clients.
"It had to go and rightfully so, totally to the employees. It didn't go into the pot where Bachmann & Associates could collect, receive, so that we could go on a little vacation or go to wherever," he said.
So it is okay to take government funds for providing widely discredited counseling, while your wife stands on a soapbox decrying government waste, because it "actually made a lot of sense?"
Well I guess it is not technically fraud unless Dr. Bachmann is not really a doctor of Psychology, but that would be crazy tal...wait what is that you say?
On his website Dr. Bachmann states he’s had 23 years experience. Simple math brings us to the year 1988. If Dr. Bachmann’s Ph.D. was completed prior to this date, he might have graduated from The Union Graduate School which offered ONLY a Ph.D. in Arts and Sciences. If he graduated later than 1986, then he would have graduated from The Union Institute (1986), or The Union Institute and University (2001) and his Ph.D. would have been in Interdisciplinary Studies.
Ohhh! Well that is not good. But I guess as long as he is a licensed clinician he should be fin...what...seriously?
Bachmann is not a licensed psychologist in Minnesota, but state law has allowed unlicensed therapists to see patients. According to the Bachmann & Associates website, he has been a clinical therapist in the Twin Cities for more than 20 years.
Unbelievable. These people may in fact be grifters ALMOST on the same level as the Palin Traveling Circus, and Baby Factory.
By the way, for any of you who might be interested, the Bachmann's just came out with a video to explain their views on marriage.
