Presumptuous Politics

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Madonna Cartoons

Madonna gives profanity-laced speech at Women's March in Washington

Madonna is very angry about the election of President Trump, and she let the crowd at the Women's March in Washington know it without holding back during a profanity-laced speech.
"I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House," the 58-year-old pop star said, before adding that she "knows this won't change anything."
Later, she dropped an f-bomb and used another vulgarity to give some advice to President Trump.
"It seems as though we had all slipped into a false sense of comfort, that justice would prevail and that good would win in the end," the award-winning singer said.
"Well, good did not win this election. But good will win in the end," Madonna said.
Later, she performed two of her hits, "Express Yourself" and "Human Nature." During the latter, she led the crowd in a chant of "I'M NOT YOUR BITCH!"
A range of other performers and activists, including singers Alicia Keyes and Janelle Monae, trans advocate and writer Janet Mock,and filmmaker Michael Moore, also appeared onstage.

High-profile celebrities march at Sundance Film Festival (thought they were leaving the country)

🙅

PARK CITY, UTAH – Celebrities at the annual Sundance Festival in Utah panned President Donald Trump's inaugural day performance with a rally and march on Saturday.
The Women's March on Main led by comedian Chelsea Handler included a handful of Hollywood royalty marching down Main Street in Park City.
Oscar winner Charlize Theron along with actresses Maria Bello, Mary McCormack, and Kristen Stewart were just a handful of high-profile celebs who participated in one of the 200 sister marches across the country. Actors Kevin Bacon, Benjamin Bratt and singer John Legend were also in attendance.
As the snow came falling down thousands of marchers chanting "Love not hate makes America great" and "Love Trumps hate" with signs from Planned Parenthood and stickers with the saying "I'm with Meryl" – in reference to actress Meryl Streep and her speech at the Golden Globe awards earlier this month.
STEPHEN BALDWIN: ALEC SHOULD RETIRE TRUMP IMPRESSION
Handler took the stage as the crowd cheered continuing to chant going wild. The comedian and activist shared a message of hope in her opening speech.
"We did experience a huge setback but the only thing you can do when you have a setback is to step forward and continue to fight and use your voice," she said. "And if there is a silver lining to be found regarding this past election it is that it opened our eyes to the amount of work that still needs to be done."
Handler continued: "And if the election had gone the other way maybe we would have gone complacent maybe we would have thought we did it, we pushed through the glass ceiling so the groundswell we needed before the election is happening now."
Teri Orr, journalist for the Park Record Newspaper and executive director of the Park City Institute, introduced Handler and spoke to FOX411 before the rally.
"For me it's more about the things we are for today than about the things we are against. That's too easy," she said. "And I think the media has gotten trapped in a lot of that and so have we by listening to soundbites and posting quick things instead of doing the work."
The march was not affiliated with Robert Redford’s annual film festival.
SHIA LABEOUF LEADS WITH 'WILL NOT DIVIDE US' ON INAUGURATION DAY
It was supported by Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, Justice Party, Summit County Democrats, Equality Now, Alliance For A Better Utah, Emily’s List, Sentry Financial and Impact Partners Film.
Stewart was among the crowd with her friends wearing an "I'm with Meryl" sticker. She declined to talk to FOX411.
Chrissy Tiegen tweeted Friday she was skipping Sundance to attend the larger march in Washington D. C.
"I was going to go to Sundance to support John tomorrow but feeling compelled to support my fellow women," she tweeted. "See you at the women's march, DC."

Day after Trump sworn in, hundreds of thousands protest presidency in celeb-studded march

These look like real working women to me🙌

WASHINGTON – Several hundred thousand people from across the country descended on Washington Saturday to protest Donald Trump just hours into his presidency, donning bright pink hats and carrying a dizzying array of political signs – in a celebrity-studded march that put the nation’s lingering divisions on full display despite the 45^th president’s appeal a day earlier for unity.
The protesters, most of whom were women, were largely peaceful by comparison with the scattered bands of rioters who wreaked havoc on parts of D.C. during Friday’s inauguration. This crowd was far larger and more organized.
But the march grew more chaotic as the day went on and protesters moved from the National Mall into the streets. And despite indications from some organizers last week that the demonstration was not defined as “anti-Trump,” it was in every respect a march against the new president -- kicking off as he attended a National Prayer Service after waking up in the White House for the first time.
“A platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday,” actress America Ferrera told the crowd Saturday morning on the National Mall. “But the president is not America. We are America.”
Other celebrities including Madonna and Michael Moore stirred up the crowd, with Madonna making perhaps the most inflammatory comments. In profanity-laced remarks, the singer said she had “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House” but knows “this won’t change anything.”
While called the Women's March on Washington, the protest attracted families of men, women and children mostly sporting pro-women and anti-Trump messages. Hundreds of “sister marches” were held in other cities across the U.S. and internationally.
“Of course this is an anti-Trump march,” a local ambassador for the D.C. march, who declined to give his name, said as he directed the crowds toward the rally. “Sure, of course it’s for rights, but it’s really against Trump.”
Another protester called Trump a “terrible president,” though he has only had the keys to the Oval Office for one day.
In his inaugural address Friday, Trump spoke in stark terms about America's problems but also called for a "new national pride" to heal divisions. Saturday's march showed protesters united -- only in opposition to the new president, on the grounds where just 24 hours earlier, Trump supporters cheered their candidate’s ascension to power.
Women wearing “pussy-hats” -- hand-knit pointy-eared pink winter headgear -- held posters with derogatory messages and phrases bashing the president and filled the National Mall.
Officials estimated a crowd of 500,000 people, which is more than double what march organizers had predicted. One D.C. official told the Associated Press that the massive turnout also forced organizers to revise plans to march on the White House, and instead head to the nearby ellipse.
Children at times held political messages alongside their parents. One family pushed their toddler son through the crowds in a stroller, wearing a sign that read “Who will have a bigger tantrum? Trump or me?”
The signs touched on a range of other issues, including statements against controversial oil pipelines, drone warfare, voter ID laws and more.
The march, while mostly peaceful, did see isolated incidents, with some women vandalizing portable restrooms designated for the inauguration ceremonies by bashing the locks off with bricks, and some screaming in the faces of a group of people holding signs with Christian messages.
“We’re not here against Trump, but we’re not here for him either,” one of the sign-holders said. “We just want to share that God demonstrated his love towards everyone, regardless of what you believe in.”
March organizers also had uninvited the group “New Wave Feminists,” which initially co-sponsored the event, after finding out that the group held a pro-life stance.
“It’s a very specific type of diversity, which does not include everyone,” Founder and President of New Wave Feminists Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa said on “Fox & Friends” Saturday morning. She said despite the lack of invitation, her group still planned to march. “Any time women come together, exciting things happen – so we definitely wanted to be there with the pro-life contingent.”
The movement spread far beyond Washington, as more than 600 “sister marches” were planned spanning as far abroad as Myanmar and Australia. In Prague, hundreds gathered in freezing weather; in Copenhagen and Sydney, thousands marched.
The D.C. march attracted celebrity participants who took a lead role in pumping up the crowd -- like Ashley Judd, who spoke at a morning rally, and Ferrera, who led the artist contingent scheduling appearances and performances from singers Cher and Katy Perry, comedian Amy Schumer, and actresses Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Debra Messing and Patricia Arquette.
A day after the inaugural ceremonies, though, Trump supporters were still in town and keeping a presence. Overlooking the National Mall on Saturday were members of the pro-Trump group Bikers for Trump.
“I admire a group of like-minded people coming together to march and to demonstrate,” founder Chris Cox said. “But there are a lot of children out there and a lot of the signs are certainly inappropriate – I think maybe they should be a little more sensitive to some of their members.”
Cox said his group, whose message is to support Trump’s agenda regarding Islamic extremism, support for veterans, and illegal immigration, had several speakers scheduled, but was running late due to the congestion from the Women’s March. The list included bishops and two women whose children were killed by illegal immigrants.
Cox condemned the violence that broke out a day earlier.
“They say one thing, and preach and act on another and we don’t condone violence,” Cox told said of his group. “We’re the blue-collar, working guy, and we have a lot to lose – we’re not looking for a fight, but hey, we’re not ones to back down from one either.”

New York governor requires insurance companies to cover contraception

New York Governor Andrew Cuomoy says my hands are this big 😭

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that he was requiring health insurance companies to cover medically necessary abortions and most forms of contraception at no cost to women.
Cuomo’s announcement comes on the same day that over a million people around the world took to the streets to protest Donald Trump just hours into his presidency.
The ‘Women's March’ attracted protesters who mostly sported pro-women and anti-Trump messages. Hundreds of “sister marches” were held in cities across the U.S. and internationally.
Cuomo took to Twitter to talk about his effort to "firmly secure access to reproductive health services in New York State."
This move by Cuomo would further protect and safeguard coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act.

The state department of financial services is mandating that health insurers in New York provide for at least one form of FDA-approved contraception exceeding a month's supply at a time. Women would also be provided medically necessary abortions without co-pays or deductibles.
President Donald Trump and Republican members of Congress have said they will repeal the health care act as soon as possible, and that is why New York must act fast to ensure women's access to coverage and care, Cuomo said.
"These regulatory actions will help ensure that whatever happens at the federal level, women in our state will have cost-free access to reproductive health care and we hope these actions serve as a model for equality across the nation," Cuomo said. "Women deserve to make a fair wage and the same salary as any man, they deserve to work in an office free of sexual harassment, they deserve comprehensive paid family leave, and they deserve control over their health and reproductive decisions."
The regulations would make sure insurance companies would face steep fines if found to be violating the laws.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Is flag burning really protected speech?

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.” -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
Is flag burning protected speech? This old issue returned front and center earlier this week after President-Elect Donald Trump tweeted that he found it so reprehensible, it should be criminal. He even suggested a punishment -- loss of citizenship or one year in jail. Is the President-Elect correct? Can the government punish acts that accompany the expression of opinions because the government, or the public generally, hates or fears the opinions?
Here is the backstory.
Last weekend, in a series of continued emotional responses to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, and prodded by the death of Fidel Castro -- the long-time, brutal, profoundly anti-American dictator of Cuba -- students on a few American college campuses publicly burned American flags. These acts regenerated the generation-old debate about the lawfulness of this practice, with the president-elect decidedly on the side of those who condemn it.
For the sake of this analysis, like the U.S. Supreme Court, which has addressed this twice in the past 17 years, I am addressing whether you can burn your own American flag. The short answer is: Yes. You can burn your flag and I can burn mine, so long as public safety is not impaired by the fires. But you cannot burn my flag against my will, nor can you burn a flag owned by the government.
Before the Supreme Court ruled that burning your own flag in public is lawful, federal law and numerous state laws had made it criminal to do so. In analyzing those laws before it declared them to be unconstitutional, the Court looked at the original public understanding of those laws and concluded that they were intended not as fire safety regulations -- the same statutes permitted other public fires -- but rather as prophylactics intended to coerce reverence for the American flag by criminalizing the burning of privately owned pieces of cloth that were recognizable as American flags.

The First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from enacting laws infringing upon the freedom of speech, has consistently been interpreted in the modern era so as to insulate the public manifestation of political ideas from any government interference, whether the manifestation is by word or deed or both.

That is where the former statutes ran into trouble. Had they banned all public fires in given locations, for public safety sake, they probably would have withstood a constitutional challenge. But since these statutes were intended to suppress the ideas manifested by the public flag burning, by making the public expression of those ideas criminal, the statutes ran afoul of the First Amendment.
The First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from enacting laws infringing upon the freedom of speech, has consistently been interpreted in the modern era so as to insulate the public manifestation of political ideas from any government interference, whether the manifestation is by word or deed or both. This protection applies even to ideas that are hateful, offensive, unorthodox and outright un-American. Not a few judges and constitutional scholars have argued that the First Amendment was written for the very purpose of protecting the expression of hateful ideas, as loveable or popular ideas need no protection.
The Amendment was also written for two additional purposes. One was, as Justice Jackson wrote as quoted above, to keep the government out of the business of passing judgment on ideas and deciding what we may read, speak about or otherwise express in public. The corollary to this is that individuals should decide for themselves what ideas to embrace or reject, free from government interference.
In the colonial era, the Founding Fathers had endured a British system of law enforcement that punished ideas that the King thought dangerous. As much as we revere the Declaration of Independence for its elevation of personal liberty over governmental orthodoxy, we are free today to reject those ideas. The Declaration and its values were surely rejected by King George III, who would have hanged its author, Thomas Jefferson, and its signers had they lost the American Revolutionary War. Thank God they won.
Justice Jackson also warned that a government strong enough to suppress ideas that it hates or fears was powerful enough to suppress debate that inconveniences it, and that suppression would destroy the purposes of the First Amendment. The Jacksonian warning is directly related to the Amendment’s remaining understood purpose -- to encourage and protect open, wide, robust debate about any aspect of government.
All these values were addressed by the Supreme Court in 1989 and again in 1990 when it laid to rest the flag burning controversies by invalidating all statutes aimed at suppressing opinions.
Even though he personally condemned flag burning, the late Justice Antonin Scalia joined the majority in both cases and actively defended both decisions. At a public forum sponsored by Brooklyn Law School in 2015, I asked him how he would re-write the flag burning laws, if he could do so. He jumped at the opportunity to say that if he were the king, flag burners would go to jail. Yet, he hastened to remind his audience that he was not the king, that in America we don’t have a king, that there is no political orthodoxy here, and that the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, leaves freedom of expression to individual choices, not government mandates.
The American flag is revered because it is a universally recognizable symbol of the human sacrifice of some for the human freedom of many. Justice Scalia recognized that flag burning is deeply offensive to many people -- this writer among them -- yet he, like Justice Jackson before him, knew that banning it dilutes the very freedoms that make the flag worth revering.

Soros says he would like to see Trump fail as president

Billionaire investor and Democratic donor George Soros said in an interview Thursday that "people like me" would like President-elect Donald Trump to fail as president.
He made the comment during an interview with Bloomberg News at his annual media dinner at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The 86-year-old was recently in the news when he reportedly lost nearly $1 billion after Trump's election over a too-cautious approach to the market.
“I personally am convinced that he is going to fail,” Soros said. “Not because of people like me who would like him to fail. But because his ideas that guide him are inherently self-contradictory and the contradictions are actually already embodied by his advisers…and his cabinet.”
Soros Fund Management LLC has about 250 traders and manages about $30 billion. The billionaire took a more active role in the company in anticipation of turmoil in China and the European Union, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Soros, who last year, called on a “global system of political decision-making,” came out strongly against Trump during the campaign. He reportedly contributed $7 million to Priorities USA Action and gave Clinton’s campaign the maximum $2,700 donation. He also contributed $5 million to a super PAC aimed at mobilizing Latinos and other immigrants in hopes to stop the Trump campaign.
Soros has a long history of contributing millions to liberal political causes, and pockets don't get much deeper than his. He ranked No. 23 in the latest Forbes richest men list.
The Wall Street Journal reported that overall, Soros’ fund is up about 5 percent on the year.

Historic presidency, controversial legacy: What Obama leaves behind

When he took the stage last Wednesday night for his farewell address, Barack Obama made his case for the agenda he doggedly pursued these past eight years – touting gains in the job market, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, legalized gay marriage and breakthroughs in foreign affairs stretching from Cuba to Iran.
“By almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started,” Obama told the audience in hometown Chicago.
While Obama’s pronouncements were met with applause from the friendly crowd, several of his policies now face an uncertain future as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office Friday. The legacy of the 44^th president stands to be shaped almost as much by the man who will follow him into the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress as it was by him.
“His legacy is really in the hands of his successor,” Patrick Maney, a presidential historian and professor at Boston College, told FoxNews.com.
No matter what comes next, Obama’s two terms will go down as some of the most active – and controversial – in modern times.
As the first black president, Obama already had claimed his place in history in January 2009. But the ensuing eight years were consequential – whether that was for better, or for worse, is a matter for the historians to decide.
The Economy
Maney argued Obama will be graded on “the degree of difficulty of when he took office.” When it comes to the economy, Obama entered office at a period of immense challenge.
He took the oath of office just as the country was embroiled in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. After the outgoing George W. Bush administration kick-started a contentious auto bailout package, Obama oversaw the financial lifeline that helped Detroit rebound -- and was able to push through the equally contentious stimulus, which many Republican saw as wasteful but some economists credited with cushioning the blow from the recession.
Over the course of Obama’s two terms in office, U.S. employers added more than 11 million jobs and, following almost a decade of stagnant wages, median household income jumped in 2015.
Despite his administration’s work, the job market for the last two presidential election cycles still has served as a Republican rallying cry. They point to a shrinking labor force due in part to more American retirees and to younger Americans heading back to school, as well as a widening gap between rich and poor amid globalization and technological change.
Some historians say Obama did not get the credit extended to other presidents who faced similar economic crises.
“It was an economic success, but a political failure,” Maney said. “In the 1930s, when people saw bridges and roads being built, they said that was because of [President Franklin Delano Roosevelt]. With the stimulus jobs of the last eight years, nobody said that was because of Obama.”
ObamaCare
Whether history will give Obama more credit than the present on the economy is up for debate, but there is one contentious policy that will be forever attached to his name: The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare.
The law passed with no Republican support in 2010 and has since expanded health coverage to an estimated 20 million people, with the help of subsidies and additional Medicaid coverage. The law’s core consumer protections required insurers to cover people who are already ill, and placed limits on the amount the sick and elderly can be billed for health care.
But the ACA also has been saddled with problems including rapidly rising premiums, particularly for those unable to qualify for subsidies, and a decrease in coverage options in some markets.
Some still warn about a “death spiral” leading to an eventual collapse in the insurance market.
Amid such warnings, Trump and his congressional allies are determined to “repeal and replace” the law.
Many want to end the “mandate” to buy coverage – but how they do that while still preserving other politically popular benefits remains to be seen. Lawmakers are at sharp odds over how to proceed, and Obama has openly challenged them to come up with a better plan if they can.
Trump recently told the Washington Post he is close to finishing a plan to replace ObamaCare.
Foreign Affairs
Inheriting two wars from the previous administration, Obama came into office promising to wind those down and keep American troops out of conflicts abroad.
But the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize will now leave a foreign policy record under fire from both sides of the aisle – to his liberal critics, Obama wrongly continued a state of perpetual war, expanding the U.S. drone campaign to no fewer than seven countries; to hawkish conservatives, his restraint in deploying American military power elsewhere allowed bloody conflicts to worsen.
The president, per his campaign promises, was able to draw down the number of troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But critics argue the withdrawal in the former ultimately left a power vacuum that led to the rise of the Islamic State and the return of U.S. forces to the region.
Perhaps the biggest blotch on his record is the still-raging civil war in Syria. He did not follow through on enforcing the so-called “red line” after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons. And the administration was criticized for taking only modest steps to nudge Assad out of power. Russia’s more recent military support has only strengthened Assad’s position, while the war itself created a refugee crisis that has overwhelmed Europe and Syria’s neighbors.
“Syria is a demonstration of how international action does not occur without the U.S. getting involved,” Jeffrey Engel, the director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, told FoxNews.com.
Obama’s decision last month not to have the U.S. veto a U.N. Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank -- and Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech two days later accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of undermining the possibility of a two-state solution – also created even more tension in the already-rocky relationship between his administration and the Israeli government.
While Israeli-Palestinian peace was never realized in Obama’s term, the president did log two major diplomatic breakthroughs. He quarterbacked the thaw between the U.S. and Cuba that led to the restoration of diplomatic relations after more than 50 years, and his administration helped broker the Iran nuclear deal that granted the Islamic Republic sanctions relief in exchange for strict monitoring and limits on the country’s nuclear program.
The Iran deal, though, also fueled tensions with Israel and is another policy that could be revisited under the Trump administration.
There is one bold-print, all-caps entry in Obama’s national security legacy, though, that no successor will be able to touch: He green-lighted the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that killed Usama bin Laden.
Regulations
The Obama administration set records for the sheer number of pages in the Federal Register, which lists federal regulations. The Register stood at the end of 2016 at a whopping 97,110 pages – shattering the previous record of 81,405, also set by Obama in 2010.
Many of these regulations were enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency as part of the administration’s plans to curb carbon emissions and combat climate change. The coal industry, which has been on the wane for a number of years as Americans move toward cheaper, cleaner alternatives like natural gas, was hit hard by tighter regulations.
Here, too, Trump has promised to rescind many of those programs including the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule.
Unfinished Business
All presidents leave office with campaign promises they failed to meet, policies that got shelved and projects left half-done.
And Obama had his share.
While comprehensive immigration reform took on greater political importance over the last eight years as the U.S. Latino population grew at record rates, no major legislation was passed. Obama’s executive actions helped keep some young immigrants in the country, but his most recent actions were also blocked in the courts. Obama’s hardly alone, however, in struggling with the issue.
“Given that George W. Bush couldn’t solve it, especially with the advantages he had,” Engel said, “I’m not surprised that Obama couldn’t do it.”
Strong opposition from Republicans and the National Rifle Association also frustrated Obama’s moves to set stricter controls on firearms amid a slew of mass shootings from Newtown and Charleston to Aurora and San Bernardino.
He also was unable to achieve one of his biggest campaign promises: shutting down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. He has significantly reduced the prisoner population there from the 242 when he took office, but he leaves office with 41 still remaining at the camp.
When Obama entered office in 2009, there also was a great deal of talk about how the country’s first black president would usher in a new “post-racial America.” But during his farewell address, the president acknowledged that “however well-intended,” that idea “was never realistic.”
“Race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society,” Obama said.