All Purpose Politics and News Thread

[walkonby]

There have been a few responses to #45's accusatory tweets, namely from Ben Rhodes, former Obama deputy national security adviser.

Ben Rhodes tweeted his response.

Ben Rhodes ✔ @brhodes No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/...89835818287106 …

9:25 AM - 4 Mar 2017

• 26,166 26,166 Retweets
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[thriftygranny]

Mass grave of babies and children found in Tuam care home in Ireland.

If you want to watch a great movie about this subject, Philomena is an amazing true story of an unwed mother raised in one of these hell holes. My husband and I were riveted by this true story, we had no idea that this had gone on. Here is a link to the movie info.
https://rewire.news/article/2014/01/...ced-adoptions/

[Natalka]

@thriftygranny - thanks for the movie recommendation, I watched it this morning - it was truly good.

[Darth Penguin]

If you want to watch a great movie about this subject, Philomena is an amazing true story of an unwed mother raised in one of these hell holes. My husband and I were riveted by this true story, we had no idea that this had gone on. Here is a link to the movie info.
https://rewire.news/article/2014/01/...ced-adoptions/

@thriftygranny - thanks for the movie recommendation, I watched it this morning - it was truly good.

I saw that several years ago. It was disturbing. There was also a BBC(?) documentary about the Magdalene Laundries back in the late 1990's .

One of my cousins was trying to do a family history on the Irish side of the family and hit a brick wall with a female relative who just vanished when she was 15 in the 1940's. He suspects she was sent to one of these homes.

[Ciel]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I bought today's Sunday Sun paper (Toronto edition) and spotted this thoughtful column on Steve Shuster's passing (son of late Wayne Shuster) and the work of obituary writers:

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/03/04...o-the-obituary

I had not known that Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live fame was married to Rosie Shuster or of her work in founding SNL.

[thriftygranny]

I saw that several years ago. It was disturbing. There was also a BBC(?) documentary about the Magdalene Laundries back in the late 1990's .

One of my cousins was trying to do a family history on the Irish side of the family and hit a brick wall with a female relative who just vanished when she was 15 in the 1940's. He suspects she was sent to one of these homes.

I loved the movie but I agree it was upsetting, I think a lot of this went on all over the world with young expectant mothers, my how times have changed.

[Natalka]

I love that at 90, the Queen still goes out to ride, here with the head groomsman

[seylz_gurl]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...se-Sweden.html

Katie Hopkins reports from Sweden. "I didn't come to Sweden for the riots. Or because of Trump. In fact, I was supposed to be here in December — before airline strikes stood in my way.

I came because I was asked. Repeatedly. Swedish women reaching out by email, by letter, to quietly show me what has become of their country.

Within twelve hours of my landing in Sweden, an asylum centre was burned down, arson suspected; a hand grenade was planted in a bin, either for the police or the mosque; and another hand grenade exploding, injuring one in Malmö.
Whether this noisy stuff matters or not is open to debate. I'd argue this is madness. I am in utter disbelief that this is Sweden in the 21st century, a country idolised for its ultra-advanced ideals.
During her visit, a lady would explain to Katie how there is a strange moral code in Rinkeby. You are much more exposed to crime if you are not a Muslim and do not wear a hijab
A cameraman for the Swedish equivalent of the BBC asked me why this had to be politicised at all; why couldn't it just be that someone put an explosive device in a bin?
I looked at him and wondered which one of us was mad."

[lecale]

The Daily Mail's Xenophobic Pseudo-Journalism Is Fueling The “Alt-Right”
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/0...t-right/215542

The U.K. tabloid the Daily Mail is mounting a crusade against refugees and immigrants in Europe. The tabloid’s fearmongering, xenophobic claims of immigrant criminality -- which are often completely false and unsourced -- have positioned the outlet as a favorite among American conspiracy theorists and white nationalists.


The Daily Mail, which is the U.K.’s most popular online and print newspaper, is known for peddling junk science, led the latest right-wing assault on climate change science, and has been accused of racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Even the open-sourced encyclopedia Wikipedia has banned its editors from using articles from the Mail to source its pages, calling the publication “generally unreliable.”


The Daily Mail’s Katie Hopkins is one of the paper's writers pushing xenophobic misinformation. Hopkins, who is currently being sued for libel, has called migrants “cockroaches” and falsely accused Muslim travelers of being terrorists. In a recent report from Sweden, she claimed without evidence that the country’s news is filled with reports of rape and assault of young women, discussed an unsourced alleged rape of a 12-year-old by an unaccompanied minor immigrant, and told the impossible-to-substantiate story of a girl “terrified of going out alone” because she lives “near a busy shopping centre which draws migrants from no-go zones,” which do not exist in Sweden. Hopkins went on to discuss an “unexploded hand grenade [found] in a bin outside the police station of a no-go area of town, near a mosque.” But Swedish police would not confirm whether the object found was a bomb, and they described the location where it was found as a town square, not as near a mosque.

[seylz_gurl]

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/03..._15205976.html

The federal government wants Canadians to air their concerns about China's human rights record as part of broad consultations on a possible free trade deal.

[Natalka]

My goodness, Sophie just doesn't have a clue....

Yeah, let's celebrate International Women's day by promoting our husbands.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3294258/so...medium=Twitter

[GoJays]

She's just as clueless as her husband. They were definitely made for each other.

[Natalka]

New Heritage Minute honours Edmonton Commercial Graduates women’s basketball team



When they played their last game in 1940, the Grads had been national, North American and world champions for 17 years and following men’s rules – rather than the more restrictive “ladies’ rules” – for about as long. The women, who ranged from their late teens to their 40s, won 93 per cent of their games, making them the most successful sports team in Canadian history.



http://globalnews.ca/news/3295077/ne...ial-graduates/

[Patty Smyth]

My goodness, Sophie just doesn't have a clue....

Yeah, let's celebrate International Women's day by promoting our husbands.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3294258/so...medium=Twitter

Yeah she missed the boat on this one

[Darth Penguin]

The World's Greatest Health Plan 2017

House Republican Bill 1275 has another, catchier name.
The "World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017" - its official title - has been introduced by Texas Representative Pete Sessions and begins its long slug through the House and Senate before hitting the President’s desk.
It is just one bill introduced by disgruntled Republicans who are fighting it out to have a new plan that completely repeals Obamacare.
The American Medical Association said the Trump-approved House GOP Bill, different to the above, would "reverse the coverage gains" of Obamacare, and cause millions of people to lose coverage.
As lawmakers wade through the House GOP Bill, introduced by Donald Trump on Monday, to make revisions over the coming months, they might notice that the Trump administration’s boast that it has taken away the parts of Obamacare that people do not like, for example, being fined if they do not purchase coverage, is inaccurate. The penalty still applies but this time Americans will pay to their insurance provider, not the government.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer proudly declared the document dedicated 50 pages to detailing how Obamacare would be repealed. He then wheeled out Tom Price, the new Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, who pointed to the 900-page Affordable Care Act of 2010.
"Notice how thick this is?" he asked reporters, comparing the stack of paper with the Republicans’ new, much slimmer document.

Mr Price also mentioned the phrase "conscience clauses", hinting that the new plan might not cover birth control. No public statement has been made on that issue yet - women had no co-pay access to contraception under Obamacare - but critics have suggested Republicans will use the excuse of the Congressional Budget Office's scoring of the plan - in other words, making sure it is financially viable - to not cover contraception.
Democrats claim the healthcare replacement plan will not protect the most vulnerable Americans. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer criticsied the cut to Planned Parenthood funding, which provides millions of people with access to mammograms, cancer screenings and maternity care. He said it also reduced protection for young people, LGBTQ people, people of colour, rural communities and those on low incomes.
"Simply put #Trumpcare is a mess for the American people. We Democrats will fight tooth & nail to put your access to healthcare first," he wrote on social media.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill said Mr Trump’s plan is repeating the same mistakes of Obamacare but "on steroids".
"Jamming bill, no cost estimate, no [Democratic] votes," she wrote on Twitter.