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Middleboro Review 2

NEW CONTENT MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW 2

Toyota

Since the Dilly, Dally, Delay & Stall Law Firms are adding their billable hours, the Toyota U.S.A. and Route 44 Toyota posts have been separated here:

Route 44 Toyota Sold Me A Lemon



Friday, March 31, 2017

Summit County televangelist Ernest Angley FRAUD







I bet he's got his first dollar
Wonder if it knows a funny he looks in that hairpiece
A federal judge has ordered Ernest Angley to pay more than $388,000 in back wages and damages to more than 200 unpaid workers at his buffet restaurant.
WKYC.COM


http://www.wkyc.com/mb/news/local/summit-county/summit-county-televangelist-ernest-angley-ordered-to-pay-388000-to-unpaid-workers/426734948?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=58dc97dc04d30136e0f85c4c&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook








UW professor: The information war is real, and we’re losing it




 link.
A University of Washington professor started studying social networks 
to help people respond to disasters. But she got dragged down a rabbit 
hole of twitter-boosted conspiracy theories, and ended up mapping our political moment.

SEATTLETIMES.COM


“After every mass shooting, dozens of them, there would be these strange clusters of activity,” Starbird says. “It was so fringe we kind of laughed at it.
“That was a terrible mistake. We should have been studying it.”
Starbird is in the field of “crisis informatics,” or how information flows after a disaster. She got into it to see how social media might be used for the public good, such as to aid emergency responders.
Instead she’s gone down a dark rabbit hole, one that wends through the back warrens of the web and all the way up to the White House.
Starbird argues in a new paper, set to be presented at a computational social-science conference in May, that these “strange clusters” of wild conspiracy talk, when mapped, point to an emerging alternative media ecosystem on the web of surprising power and reach.
It features sites such as Infowars dot com, hosted by informal President Donald Trump adviser Alex Jones, which has pushed a range of conspiracies, including that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a staged fake.
There are dozens of other conspiracy-propagating websites such as beforeitsnews dot com, nodisinfo dot com and veteranstoday dot com. Starbird cataloged 81 of them, linked through a huge community of interest connected by shared followers on Twitter, with many of the tweets replicated by automated bots."
The Seattle Times


http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/uw-professor-the-information-war-is-real-and-were-losing-it/









Groper Trump proclaims April 'Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month'





 link.
The president is currently involved in multiple sexual assault-related 
lawsuits.

THEHILL.COM

President Trump, who was accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct following the release of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which he could be heard making sexually violent comments about women, has proclaimed April 2017 as "National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month."



http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/326780-trump-proclaims-april-2017-national-sexual-assault-awareness




Paul Ryan [Dirty Energy Koch Brothers Sock Puppet]: I don't want to work with Democrats on health care





Paul Ryan: I don't want to work with Democrats on health care






 link.
House Speaker Paul Ryan says he has no interest in working with Democrats on…

CNN.COM|BY EUGENE SCOTT


(CNN)House Speaker Paul Ryan says he has no interest in working with Democrats on getting health care legislation passed, disputing a suggestion by the White House to reach across the aisle and bypass conservative House Republicans.
"I'm trying to get this bill passed," Ryan said on CBS's "This Morning." "Nancy (Pelosi) and I see things very, very differently. I don't want government running health care."
"I don't want that to happen. I want a patient-centered system," Ryan added.
    Earlier this week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump is "absolutely" willing to work with Democrats on a way forward on health care.

    "What I worry about, Norah (O'Donnell), is if we don't do this, then he'll just go work with Democrats to try to change Obamacare -- and that's hardly a conservative thing," he said.
    "If this Republican Congress allows the perfect to become the enemy of the good, I worry we'll push the President to working with Democrats. He's been suggesting that much."
    The Wisconsin Republican said he hopes that Republicans can come together and figure out a solution to repealing the Affordable Care Act.
    "Plan B is we keep talking to each other and figure out how we get to yes," he said.
    Republican Sen. Bob Corker quickly pounced on Ryan's comments.
    "We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem," the Tennessee lawmaker said.



    http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/30/politics/paul-ryan-democrats-health-care/index.html


    Guv Charlie Baker: Drop your support for Fracked Gas Pipelines!




    Guv Charlie Baker has accepted generous campaign contributions from these folks. 

    Time for Guv Baker to stand for the residents of Massachusetts. 



     Consumers for Sensible Energy shared a link.







    RSN: Charles Pierce | The Russian Answers Are Coming




    It's Live on the HomePage Now: 
    Reader Supported News

    FOCUS: Charles Pierce | The Russian Answers Are Coming 
    House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. (photo: Getty) 
    Charles Pierce, Esquire 
    Pierce writes: "Before we get to the first day of testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding possible Russian ratfcking of the 2016 presidential campaign on behalf of the Trump campaign, we should note that events are moving apace elsewhere in Washington, too, and that House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes seems to be getting hung out to dry in the process." 
    READ MORE

    Contribute to RSN
    Become a Fan of RSN on Facebook and Twitter










    When the President Is Ignorant of His Own Ignorance



    This is not a partisan attack, rather an exploration of complex foreign policy concerns and an Administration incapable of protecting American. 


    When the President Is Ignorant of His Own Ignorance


     









    President Trump at the White House last week. CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
    How prepared is our president for the next great foreign, economic or terrorist crisis?

    After a little more than two months in office, President Trump has raised doubts about his ability to deal with what the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously described as the “known unknowns” and the “unknown unknowns.”

    “President Trump seems to have no awareness whatsoever of what he does and does not know,” Steven Nadler, a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote me. “He is ignorant of his own ignorance.”

    During his first 63 days in office, Trump made 317 “false or misleading claims,” according to The Washington Post.

    The FBIthe Treasury Department and two congressional committees are probing whether Trump’s campaign aides and advisers — including Paul Manafort, Carter PageRoger Stone and Michael Flynn — were complicit in alleged Russian interference.

    Without an obvious mandate (as the world knows, he lost the popular vote by 2.87 million), Trump has proposed a profound retrenchment of domestic policy.


    His 2018 budget, the potential impact of which he does not seem to grasp, calls for cutting $54 billion from programs that pay for education, housing and child care assistance for low- and moderate-income families, protection against infectious diseases, enforcement of environmental, worker and consumer protection regulation, national parks and a host of other social programs. See the accompanying chart, which illustrates the depth of these changes. It shows, to give a few examples, Trump’s proposal to cut the Environmental Protection Agency budget by 31 percent; the Labor Department by 21 percent; and the Health and Human Services budget by 16 percent.


    ******




    Continue reading the main story

    Discretionary spending, in billions

    Agency
    2017 baseline
    2018 proposal
    Change
    Pct. change
    Environmental Protection Agency
    $8.2
    $5.7
    $2.6
    –31%
    State and other development programs
    38.0
    27.1
    –10.9
    –29%
    Agriculture
    22.6
    17.9
    –4.7
    –21%
    Labor
    12.2
    9.6
    –2.5
    –21%
    Justice
    20.3
    16.2
    –4.0
    –20%
    Health and Human Services
    77.7
    65.1
    –12.6
    –16%
    Commerce
    9.2
    7.8
    –1.5
    –16%
    Education
    68.2
    59.0
    –9.2
    –14%
    Transportation
    18.6
    16.2
    –2.4
    –13%
    Housing and Urban Development
    36.0
    31.7
    –4.3
    –12%
    Interior
    13.2
    11.6
    –1.5
    –12%
    Energy
    29.7
    28.0
    –1.7
    –6%
    Treasury
    11.7
    11.2
    –0.5
    –4%
    NASA
    19.2
    19.1
    –0.2
    –1%
    Veterans Affairs
    74.5
    78.9
    +4.4
    +6%
    Homeland Security
    41.3
    44.1
    +2.8
    +7%
    Defense
    521.7
    574.0
    +52.3
    +10%
    Note: Numbers may not add due to rounding. Totals are shown for fiscal years, which begin in October. They reflect base budget levels for each department, which do not include supplemental money for disaster relief, emergencies or additional war spending. They do include offsetting receipts and proposed changes in mandatory programs (CHIMPS) that are used to offset discretionary spending.



    Trump proposed these cuts in spite of what Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, described in an essay titled “The World Without America” as threats to “the domestic foundations of American Power,” including “crumbling infrastructure, second-rate primary and secondary schools, outdated immigration system, and slow economic growth.”

    In addition, Trump has antagonized the leaders of allied countries like Mexico, Australia and Germany, and he has repeatedly demonstrated an extraordinary lack of knowledge about foreign affairs.


    How dangerous is the situation that the United States faces?
    This is the president who faces what Warren Christopher, President Clinton’s first secretary of state, called problems from hell. A partial list, compiledby Project Syndicate, includes: intensifying conflicts and dissent within the European Union; the rise of illiberal forces, including welfare chauvinism andexclusionary nationalism;the danger to the continued independence of the buffer states surrounding Russia; a frayed consensus in support of western liberal democratic principles;aggression from a nuclear-armed North Korea and counter threats from the Trump administration of a pre-emptive strike; a foreign policy that The Economist reports has left America’s allies “aghast” — a policy that “seems determined to destroy many of the institutions and alliances created in the past half century.”

    I asked a range of foreign policy analysts and other scholars to assess the ability of President Trump and his administration to effectively manage the developments listed above.

    Steve Nadler of the University of Wisconsin had more to say:


    Donald Trump and the people with whom he has filled his cabinet are perfectly unqualified and unprepared to handle any and all of those developments and trends. The lack of experience and understanding of the world, especially of our historical and contemporary relationship with our European allies and rivals is frightening, especially in today’s world, where the stakes and the dangers are so much greater than ever.


    Andrew Bacevich, professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University and a retired Army colonel, wrote that Trump is “utterly unqualified, both intellectually and by temperament, for the office he holds,” adding that “the possibility that Trump will disastrously mishandle” foreign policy “is real.”

    Bacevich makes an intriguing argument to downplay the danger of a Trump presidency:

    Because Trump is manifestly unprincipled, there are very few things he actually believes in.


    the growing list of things he seemed certain to do where that certainty has now largely disappeared: “tearing up” the Iran nuclear deal; jettisoning NATO; abandoning the “One China” policy; moving the US embassy to Jerusalem; reinstituting torture.


    Gambling the future of the country on the possibility that Trump will turn out to be a weak reed is, however, a high-risk proposition.

    Charles A. Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown, wrote me, arguing that Trump’s “America First” agenda is a retreat “into an illusory and dangerous isolationism.”


    “If Washington walks away from the rules-based order it has defended for the last seventy years,” Kupchan explained,
    its democratic allies will be ill-placed to defend it on their own. Whether by design or by default, Trump may well preside over the closing of the era that began when the bombing of Pearl Harbor awakened the United States to the responsibilities and privileges of international leadership.

    Of the multiple international tensions that could turn into crises at any time, North Korea could lead the way.

    Toby Dalton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment, focuses on this growing threat. In an email, he writes:


    Between an impulsive president who seems uninterested in details, an advisory system that does not (yet, at least) produce good advice, a general lack of respect for expertise, and a distrust of intelligence, a crisis with North Korea could go very poorly.


    The current situation is not stable, Dalton said,
    and probably not sustainable. I wish I had greater confidence that Trump could distinguish between the imperatives and distractions, discern the worst outcomes and least worst outcomes, weigh up the options, and come up with a reasoned approach.


    David Bell, a historian at Princeton, emailed his thoughts on Trump’s capacity to handle the difficulties that will face his administration:

    Trump himself is abysmally ignorant about both international and domestic affairs, and he is nearly always guided by a single principle: his own self-interest.

    Normally, there is quite a lot of expertise available in institutions such as the State Department to guide administrations during crises, but Trump seems to be doing his best to decimate the institution.


    Mark Leonard, a British political scientist who directs the European Council on Foreign Relations, suggests that Trump is part of a much larger phenomenon encompassing Brexit and the rise of right wing populism. In a Project Syndicate essay at the end of February, Leonard argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in what he calls “Liberal Order 2.0,” which no longer sought to uphold “national sovereignty at all costs” but instead “sought to pool sovereignty and to establish shared rules to which national governments must adhere:”


    Before too long, sovereignty-obsessed powers like Russia and China halted its implementation. Calamitous mistakes for which Western policy makers were responsible – namely, the protracted war in Iraq and the global economic crisis – cemented the reversal of Liberal Order 2.0.


    In this context, Trump arrives ill equipped to manage a larger, more dangerous process that Leonard argues has the potential to become “a new kind of globalization that combines the technologies of the future with the enmities of the past.”

    In this emerging system, according to Leonard,

    modern and pre-modern forms will prevail: support for government repression, like Russia has provided in Syria, or ethno-religious proxy wars, like those that Saudi Arabia and Iran have waged across the Middle East. The internet, migration, trade, and the enforcement of international law will be turned into weapons in new conflicts, rather than governed effectively by global rules. International conflict will be driven primarily by a domestic politics increasingly defined by status anxiety, distrust of institutions, and narrow-minded nationalism.


    So how prepared is our president for what’s next? Given the magnitude of the problems that lie ahead and the embedded contradictions that make them difficult to solve, we face precisely the kind of world President Trump is least equipped for, mentally and morally.


    Correction: March 30, 2017 

    An earlier version of this column gave the date of the collapse of the Soviet Union as 1989; while the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred in 1991.


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    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/opinion/when-the-president-is-ignorant-of-his-own-ignorance.html