South Korean speed skaters pressured to leave after alleged bullying

Two speed skaters blamed their loss on a third teammate who had fallen behind during the 500M team pursuit heats during Monday's race. Viewers demanded they be removed from the team for their treatment of their team member.  (AP)

Two speed skaters blamed their loss on a third teammate who had fallen behind during the 500M team pursuit heats during Monday's race. Viewers demanded they be removed from the team for their treatment of their teammember.  (AP)

Almost half a million people in South Korea have signed a petition demanding the removal of two speed skaters from their country's national team for their supposed bullying of a fellow teammate, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

South Korean speed skaters Kim Bo-reum and Park Ji-woo were participating in the 500M team pursuit heats Monday with their teammate Noh Seon-yeong. They finished seventh, with Noh trailing four seconds behind her other teammates.

Speaking to a reporter after the heat, Kim blamed their loss and failure to qualify for the semifinals on Noh.
“We were skating well,” she said. “But the last skater [Noh] couldn’t keep up and we had a disappointing score.”
Park said she was “shocked” when she crossed the finish line because that’s when she realized Noh was not with them.
Noh was reportedly seen crying after the race, being comforted by her coach while Kim and Park didn’t acknowledge her.
A petition was signed on the president’s website demanding Kim and Park’s removal from the national team, saying it was "a clear national disgrace that such people with a personality problem are representing a country in the Olympics.”
Kim’s sponsorship with a sportswear company declined to renew her contract in the wake of the unfolding drama. On Tuesday Kim and Park held a press conference in which Kim issued a tearful apology to “those who have been affected by what I said during the TV interview yesterday.” Noh did not attend.
Noh was reportedly added to the Olympic team because of a “mix-up” by the Korea Skating Union, despite not meeting the requirements to be included, The Chronicle reported. She was officially added after Kim and Park were dropped.

US Embassy in Montenegro attacked with grenade, prompting security scare

The U.S. Embassy in the Balkan state of Montenegro was attacked Thursday by an individual armed with a hand grenade, who hurled the explosive at the compound before blowing himself up.

The area was sealed off by the police and the embassy warned Americans to avoid the area because of “an active security situation.”

“The U.S. embassy in Podgorica advises U.S. citizens there is an active security situation at the U.S. embassy in Podgorica,” it said. “Avoid the embassy until further notice.”
The government of Montenegro said an unknown assailant threw the grenade into the embassy compound in the evening and then blew himself up with another explosive device.
There are no reported deaths except of the attacker.
The New York Times reported that a witness saw the man throw the object over the wall at around midnight. The embassy was closed at the time of the attack.
Security officials swept the grounds and found no other threats. Employees were told to stay home on Thursday, the paper reported.

Police block off the area around the U.S. Embassy in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018.  (AP)

The European Union 2016 report claimed that roughly 20 Montenegro nationals went on to fight in Syria and Iraq since 2012. It remains unclear how many of them returned to the country.
The report urged the government of Montenegro to improve government agencies to “monitor possible terrorist threats, including radicalized Montenegrin nationals returning from battlefields.”
Last month, a court sentenced one Montenegro national for fighting for the Islamic State. He was given a six-month jail term.
Several other people, including two Russian secret service operatives, meanwhile, are on trial on charges that they wanted to overthrow the government in 2016 over its pro-Western policies.
Montenegro borders the Adriatic Sea in southeastern Europe and its capital is Podgorica. It joined NATO last year.
The U.S. established diplomatic ties with the tiny Balkan state in 2006 after it split from much larger Serbia.

NYC Pension Cartoons

Retired NYC sanitation worker makes $285K a year from pension

A retired New York City sanitation worker cashes in on a $285,047-a-year pension, The New York Post reported.  (Reuters)
A former Sanitation Department honcho is pulling in an astonishing $285,047-a-year pension — more than twice what he was making on the job, according to newly released data.
And that’s just one of dozens of huge pension payouts revealed in records published Tuesday by the Empire Center for Public Policy— data that lay bare the city’s insanely generous pension system, the government watchdog said.
“Pensions like these are unheard of in the private sector — and deserve the close scrutiny of taxpayers,” said Tim Hoefer, executive director of the Empire Center.
“The long list of six-figure pensioners in the New York City Employees’ Retirement System shows just how great a burden the city has placed on its finances,” Hoefer added.
Eugene Egan, the garbage-hauling agency’s longtime director of labor relations, was earning $128,189 a year when he retired in 2015, public records show.
But because the 86-year-old Bronx man started working for the department before July 1973, he was enrolled in the city’s most lavish pension plan — known as Tier 1 — and was able to continue growing his retirement pot throughout a lengthy career.
Asked about his lifetime golden handshake on Tuesday, the golden oldie became defensive and called the figures “fake news.”
“You’ll go ahead and say I’m ripping off the city ’cause I got a pension,” Egan said at the door of his two-story home in the Bronx, saying he didn’t want to look “like a bum.”
“The fact is that I worked almost 60 years for it,” he added.
While he was still working for the Sanitation Department, Egan didn’t like other workers at the agency knowing how long he’d been there, a department insider who worked with him told the Post — but said he was known as a good and knowledgeable guy.
The source said Egan kicked in his own contributions over the years to help fatten his final pension check.
Egan wouldn’t break down the details of his sweet Tier 1 deal, which is no longer available to today’s city workers. The average Department of Sanitation pension is $49,405, according to the Empire Center.
“You retire. That’s it,” he snapped, before shutting the door on a Post reporter, instructing him to “get an honest job.”

Dems fume as Trump pushes low-cost, ObamaCare alternative health plans

The Trump administration moved Tuesday to allow health insurers to sell lower-cost, less-comprehensive medical plans as an alternative to those required under ObamaCare – in a plan that drew swift protest from congressional Democrats.

The proposed regulations would allow insurers to sell individual consumers "short-term" policies that can last up to 12 months, have fewer benefits, and come with lower premiums.

The plans also would come with a disclaimer that they don't meet the Affordable Care Act's consumer protection requirements, such as guaranteed coverage. Insurers could also charge consumers more if an individual's medical history discloses health problems.
But at a time of rising premiums, Trump administration officials touted the option as a boost for those who need coverage but don’t qualify for the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies and would otherwise face paying the full premium cost.
"We need to be opening up more affordable alternatives," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters. "It's one step in the direction of providing Americans with alternatives that are both more affordable and more suited to individual and family circumstances."
Wary of any effort to undermine ObamaCare, however, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill accused the administration of trying to green-light the sale of “junk” policies.
“Since day one, the Trump administration playbook on health care has been to sabotage the marketplaces, jack up costs and premiums for millions of middle-class Americans. Then – as a supposed life-line to a self-inflicted crisis – offering junk insurance that fails to offer protections for those with pre-existing conditions or coverage of essential health benefits and more,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement, “Americans purchasing these shoddy, misleading short-term Trumpcare plans will be one diagnosis away from disaster, discovering they have been paying for coverage that may not cover basic care such as cancer treatment, preventative care or maternity care.”
She claimed the move would, in turn, drive up premiums for those with pre-existing conditions.
The proposal comes after congressional Republicans failed to pass legislation to repeal and replace the ACA, though did repeal the individual requirement to buy health insurance.
Critics of Trump's approach say that making such short-term policies more attractive to consumers will undermine the health care law's insurance markets, because healthy customers will have an incentive to stay away from HealthCare.gov and its state-run counterparts.
Democrats say the solution is to increase government subsidies, so that more middle-class people will be eligible for taxpayer assistance to buy comprehensive coverage. Under Obama, short-term plans were limited to periods of no longer than three months.
Trump administration officials reject the notion that they're trying to undermine the ACA. One major health insurance company, United Healthcare, is already positioning itself to market short-term plans.
The administration's proposal will be open for public comment for 60 days. However, for 2018, short-term coverage won't count as qualifying coverage under the Obama health law, which means consumers with such plans would legally be considered uninsured, putting them at risk of fines.
The repeal of the individual mandate does not take effect until next year.   

Dems taking heat from allies for fixation on slamming tax cuts, Trump

Washington Democrats are taking heat from some of their biggest financial supporters over a midterm-election strategy still focused on bashing President Trump and the Republican tax cut plan – as recent polls suggest the party's candidates could be losing their edge. 

Congressional Democrats, just a couple months ago, thought they had a winning plan for taking control of the chamber by arguing the tax cuts were a gift to corporate supporters at the expense of the American worker. Within hours of the bill's passage, Democrats returned to their districts for the holidays, ready to trumpet the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s message of “House Republicans Sign Away Their Seats.”

However, the extra money in employee paychecks since early January, and bonuses related to the cuts, apparently are winning over voters.
Those outside the Capitol Hill bubble are taking note, and urging Democrats to reconsider their message.
“If we spend all of our cycle running against the tax bill, it’s probably going to be a mistake,” Julie Greene, a former Democratic National Committee aide who now leads midterm campaign efforts for the AFL-CIO, recently said.
The most recent RealClearPolitics average of “generic” ballot polls -- asking voters which party they prefer in congressional races -- shows Democrats with a roughly 7-percentage-point lead over Republicans, compared with 13 points the day after Congress approved the tax law.
And a new Morning Consult/Politico poll showed Republicans leading by 1 percentage point, after trailing for three months.
Trump also has taken note of the polls, as Democrats try to win a total two-dozen seats to retake the House majority they lost in 2010.
“Republicans are now leading the Generic Poll, perhaps because of the popular Tax Cuts which the Dems want to take away. Actually, they want to raise you taxes, substantially,” the president tweeted Tuesday.
Gallup, meanwhile, announced that Americans’ satisfaction with the direction of the country was its highest since before Trump became president in November 2016, saying the impact of the cuts -- as seen on employees’ “first pay stubs” -- was a potential factor.
“This is a terrible idea for Democrats to run on,” Rory McShane, a Republican political media consultant, said Tuesday. “The tax plan is benefitting most Americans. Everybody knew it was going to be like an extra 50 bucks in each paycheck. But that pays a cellphone bill. That just shows you the world in which Democratic leadership doesn’t live.”
Republicans already are trying to tie 2018 Democratic candidates to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s recent comment that employee bonuses as a result of the tax cuts amount to “crumbs.”
McShane speculated that by Election Day, the cuts likely won’t impact the well-paid, well-educated “suburban” swing voters that pollsters frequently say decide elections. “But they will likely make Trump’s base happy that they put him in office and make them want to vote the same way in 2018,” he said.
Meanwhile, Priorities USA, the major Democratic super PAC that backed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, issued a memo last week raising concerns about whether the party has become too focused -- or perhaps too refocused -- on reacting to Trump, according to Politico.
Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan told Politico the memo was "spot on."
"There are some real issues that we need to pound -- and I mean pound relentlessly -- if we are going to win the districts we need to win in," said Ryan, who has been critiical of House leadership.

The offices for House Democratic leaders and the DCCC, whose mission is to get the chamber's Democratic candidates elected and reelected, have not responded to requests for comment for this report.
Washington Democrats acknowledge that their failures in 2016 to keep the White House or retake the House were in large part the result of a campaign platform relying too much on opposing Trump and failing to connect with Middle America voters.
The party last year announced its “Better Deal” platform, an effort to create more better-paying, full-time jobs for Americans. This past fall, House Democratic leaders announced their related “Jobs for America Task Force,” though the idea of attacking Trump still appeared to be on their minds.
“We all know our agenda just can’t be against Donald Trump, as alluring as that may be,”’ said New York Rep. Joe Crowley, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “We will create a jobs package that our members can advocate for in this Congress and beyond.”

William Shatner shames Texas Dem for using his photo in campaign newslettter

Actor William Shatner demanded a photo of him and a Texas House candidate be removed after she used it for a campaign newsletter.

A Democrat running for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives may have recently learned a valuable lesson: Don't mess with Captain Kirk.

Texas House candidate Brandy Chambers.  (Facebook)

Candidate Brandy K. Chambers apparently stoked the ire of William Shatner when she sent out a campaign newsletter featuring a photo of herself with the "Star Trek" actor that was snapped at a Comic-Con event, the Dallas Morning News reported.  

Chambers, who is hoping to unseat Republican Angie Chen Button, said she included the photo as a way to endear herself to voters.
“If you think a grown woman going to Comic-Con and getting geeked out when she sees Captain Kirk is not what you want in a leader, that’s fine, too. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not for everybody,” she wrote in her newsletter.
The image circulated until it reached Shatner on Saturday. The 86-year-old actor tweeted at Chambers that her use of the convention photo misleadingly suggests an “endorsement” on his part. He then told her to “remove my photo” and “destroy all copies of whatever this is immediately.”

A Twitter exchange between Chambers and Shatner.  (Twitter)

"Am I clear?" Shatner added.
Chambers apologized from her personal account saying “it was clear from the context of the photo” that she wasn’t trying to imply his endorsement, merely her respect for the actor. She added that she doesn’t remember signing any waivers or disclosure agreements when she bought the photo.
Chambers deleted a tweet linking to the newsletter, calling the ordeal “distracting” and “stressful,” the Dallas Morning News reported.

Gun Free Zone Cartoons

Colorado state rep, Columbine survivor, pushes to end gun-free zones in schools

Colorado House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, a survivor of the Columbine massacre in 1999, is attempting — again — to introduce legislation to remove limitations on concealed carry in schools. (Patrick For Colorado)

Colorado House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, who was a Columbine High School sophomore at the time of the 1999 mass shooting, is pushing legislation that he says would protect students — by getting rid of gun restrictions in schools.

He has introduced the bill annually since he was elected in 2014, The Washington Times reported. Previous attempts have been turned down.

Neville, a Republican, told The Times the current law “creates a so-called gun free zone in every K-12 public school.”
Under Colorado law, concealed-carry permit holders may bring firearms onto school property, according to The Times, but must keep them locked inside their vehicles.
“Time and time again we point to the one common theme with mass shootings, they occur in gun-free zones,” Neville told The Times.
He added law-abiding citizens should be able “to defend themselves and most importantly our children from the worst-case scenarios.”
The massacre on Valentine’s Day of last week in Florida has renewed a nationwide debate about gun violence and how to prevent mass shootings.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, was suspected of opening fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he was a former student, killing 17 people and injuring more than a dozen others.
Neville has contended, according to The Times, that more of his classmates would have survived the attack if faculty had been armed. In April 1999, two teens killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves inside Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado.
The congressman’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Facebook top executive's comments on Russian meddling sparks fury

A top executive at Facebook came under fire Friday after tweeting that it takes a “well educated citizenry” to fight off Russian election meddling attempts and claimed the main goal of the Russian online disinformation campaign was not to sway the 2016 presidential election, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“Most of the coverage of Russian meddling involves their attempt to affect the outcome of the 2016 US election,” Rob Goldman, Facebook’s head of advertising, tweeted on Friday. “I have seen all of the Russian ads and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal.”

Goldman’s comments came shortly after a federal grand jury indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in a case brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The indictment described how an organization called the Internet Research Agency allegedly used social media, including Facebook, to create division and tried to influence U.S. public opinion. The company allegedly set up hundreds of social media accounts using stolen or fictitious identities to give an impression that real people are behind the activism online.
The defendants are also accused of starting a disinformation campaign in 2014 and spreading derogatory information about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, attacking Republican candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and expressing support for then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders.
13 RUSSIANS NATIONALS INDICTED FOR INTERFERING IN US ELECTIONS
But Goldman, who was “excited to see the Mueller indictment” on Friday, said that despite the common view, “the majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election.” Part of the reason for lack of awareness is that “very few outlets have covered it because it doesn’t align with the main media narrative of Trump and the election.”
“44% of total ad impressions (number of times ads were displayed) were before the US election on November 8, 2016; 56% were after the election,” read a factoid released by Facebook in October 2017.
“The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us. It has stoked fear and hatred amongst Americans.  It is working incredibly well. We are quite divided as a nation," he said.
He added: “There are easy ways to fight this. Disinformation is ineffective against a well-educated citizenry.  Finland, Sweden and Holland have all taught digital literacy and critical thinking about misinformation to great effect.”
But Goldman’s tweets caused a fury on social media and accusations of sowing confusion and diminishing the problem of Russian interference.
“You really are not in a position to preach and your astonishing tweets have created confusion and anger,” Mainardo de Nardis, a senior executive at advertising giant Omnicom Group Inc., said in a tweet Sunday. “Enough damage done over the past 2+ years. In the absence of real actions silence would be appreciated.”
The backlash was further amplified after President Donald Trump cited Goldman’s tweets. “The Fake News Media never fails. Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman!” Trump tweeted.
“Mr. Goldman should have stayed silent,” Clint Watts, a fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute who studied the Russian influence campaign, told The Wall Street Journal. He notes that minimizing the impact of the Russian efforts to influence the election risked further angering Americans.
“The public is upset that they got duped on Facebook’s platform. Facebook got duped,” he added. “It makes it seem like they don’t get it.”
Facebook’s vice president of global public policy Joel Kaplan released a statement on Sunday regarding Goldman’s tweets, saying that “Nothing we found contradicts the Special Counsel’s indictments. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.”
After the onslaught of criticism, Goldman later expanded on some of the claims, tweeting that “the Russian campaign was certainly in favor of Mr. Trump.”
He also issued a caveat about his assertions: “I am only speaking here about the Russian behavior on Facebook. That is the only aspect that I observed directly.”