Sinclair preps to challenge Fox News

The company has met with former Fox staffers as it awaits approval of its merger with Tribune Media.

By JASON SCHWARTZ 05/03/2018 02:35 PM EDT


Sinclair Broadcast Group, which for months has denied any interest in challenging Fox News while awaiting approval of a merger with Tribune Co., is gearing up to do just that.

Sinclair executive chairman David Smith has been holding meetings with potential future employees, including former Fox News staff members, and laying out a vision for an evening block of opinion and news programming that would compete with Fox’s top-rated lineup, according to a person familiar with the meetings.

Sinclair currently owns the Tennis Channel, and, as part of the $3.9 billion Tribune deal pending before the Federal Communications Commission, would acquire WGN America, a cable network that currently reaches 80 million homes.

Smith, who has been personally involved in at least some of the meetings, still appears to be working through several aspects of the plan, including which of those networks would house his news and opinion programming. He has been discussing a block of at least three hours, but also potentially up to six. Smith is settled, though, on basing his new operation in Washington, D.C., just down the road from Sinclair headquarters in Baltimore, said the person familiar with the discussions. The company already owns local Washington station WJLA, where it produces some of its national content.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/03/sinclair-broadcast-challenge-to-fox-news-566757

On The Hugh Hewitt Show, Mitch McConnell says he is "making a generational change in our country" by

McConnell: "By appointing and confirming these strict constructionists to the courts who are in their late 40s or early 50s ... we're making a generational change in our country"

HUGH HEWITT (HOST): Now I want to switch to judges, it's my pet issue and you've been spectacular on this. Do you expect a retirement from the court this summer, Mr. Leader?

MITCH MCCONNELL (SENATE MAJORITY LEADER): I really don't know, but I'm grateful that you've had an interest in this because I think you've told your listeners from time to time -- this is my top priority in the Senate. Of course I love the tax bill, I think the tax bill will make an important difference for the country, but when the winds, the political winds shift, we never leave taxes alone. When we did comprehensive tax reform 30 years ago, it lasted 4 years. What I want to do is make a lasting contribution to the country, and by appointing and confirming these strict constructionists to the courts who are in their late 40s or early 50s, I believe, working in conjunction with the administration, we're making a generational change in our country that will be repeated over and over and over down the years.

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/05/03/hugh-hewitt-show-mitch-mcconnell-says-he-making-generational-change-our-country-confirming/220107

I want to know if they can be impeached if the orange malignant narcissistic asshole is convicted for the felonies that are coming down the pike

Oh by the way "turtle' FUCK YOU..........................

November 2018 cannot get fast enough

High housing costs are driving out lower-income Californians, reports say

By ANDREW KHOURI MAY 03, 2018 | 5:00 AM

California lost lower-income residents to other states over a recent 11-year period, while gaining wealthier households from elsewhere in the U.S. The disparity reflects the state's sky-high rents and home prices, according to several reports released Thursday.

The studies, produced by Beacon Economics for public policy nonprofit Next 10, mirror findings from the groups two years ago, as well as a flurry of other research that's documented California's persistent housing crisis.

The organizations say the numbers underscore the depth of the affordability problem. They called for policy changes that would increase housing supply so "low-wage residents are able to remain in California."

"In order to maintain a robust economy, California will need to ensure that residents across all income and employment levels are able to afford a basic cost of living in the state," the authors wrote.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-housing-costs-migration-20180503-story.html

Arrest of Golden State Killer suspect could unlock other cold case mysteries

By ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN and PAIGE ST. JOHN

MAY 03, 2018 | 4:00 AM

Since freeing a man last year who spent more than 38 years behind bars for a grisly double murder he didn't commit, Simi Valley police detectives have been searching for the real killer.

So when they heard last week that Joseph James DeAngelo had been arrested on suspicion of being the Golden State Killer, their interest was piqued.

It was a long shot, they thought, but the way he allegedly carried out 12 slayings was similar enough to the Simi Valley murders in 1978 — and within the same time frame — that it might be he was responsible.

"Right now anything is possible," said Simi Valley Deputy Police Chief Joseph May.

The agency joins cold-case investigators across California who are reexamining unsolved homicides with the Golden State Killer suspect in mind — a move May said is standard procedure when new information comes to light.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-golden-state-killer-cold-cases-20180503-story.html

Christopher Nolan returns Kubrick sci-fi masterpiece '2001: A Space Odyssey' to its original glory

By KENNETH TURAN
| FILM CRITIC |
MAY 03, 2018 | 5:00 AM


Christopher Nolan wants to show me something interesting. Something beautiful and exceptional, something that changed his life when he was a boy.

It's also something that Nolan, one of the most accomplished and successful of contemporary filmmakers, has persuaded Warner Bros. to share with the world both at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival and then in theaters nationwide, but in a way that boldly deviates from standard practice.

For what is being cued up in a small, hidden-away screening room in an unmarked building in Burbank is a brand new 70-mm reel of film of one of the most significant and influential motion pictures ever made, Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science-fiction epic "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Yes, you read that right. Not a digital anything, an actual reel of film that was for all intents and purposes identical to the one Nolan saw as a child and Kubrick himself would have looked at when the film was new half a century ago.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-christopher-nolan-2001-20180503-story.html


I still remember seeing this movie on the big screen at least four times, and it is in my opinion one of the greatest films made

Avenatii drops another bombshell shoe

Fatal encounters: 97 deaths point to pattern of border agent violence across America

In the last 15 years, agents with Customs and Border Protection have used deadly force in states up to 160 miles from the border, from Maine to California

by Sarah Macaraeg

For six long years the family of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez have been caught in a legal saga seeking justice for the 16-year-old who was killed by a US border patrol agent who fired 16 times from Arizona into Mexico.

Ending criminal proceedings that have dragged on since 2012, a jury last week cleared agent Lonnie Swartz of second-degree murder and could not agree on a verdict for two lesser charges of manslaughter. The shooting has compelled judges up to the US supreme court to deliberate whether the American government can be sued in civil court for wrongful deaths on Mexican soil – placing the incident, and eight other cross-border fatal shootings, at the center of scrutiny surrounding the use of force by agents in response to allegedly thrown rocks.

However, lesser known are similar shootings which have occurred inside the US. Such as that of Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, who was shot and killed “execution-style”, in the language of a wrongful death complaint the government paid $850,000 to settle. An Arizona agent responding to an alert from the National Guard in 2007 alleged Rivera threatened him with a rock.

Ten years later, the Department of Justice settled another wrongful death claim involving a rock-throwing allegation in California for $500,000.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/02/fatal-encounters-97-deaths-point-to-pattern-of-border-agent-violence-across-america

Border patrol violence: US paid $60m to cover claims against the agency

Border patrol violence: US paid $60m to cover claims against the agency
Exclusive: analysis of more than a decade of official data reveals government paid settlements after deaths, alleged assaults and wrongful detention

The US government has paid out more than $60m in legal settlements where border agents were involved in deaths, driving injuries, alleged assaults and wrongful detention, an analysis of more than a decade of official data reveals.

Since taking office, Donald Trump has been pushing to expand the patrol force at the southern border, insisting recently on Twitter: “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws.”

But while Trump has ordered national guard troops to be deployed to provide agents with extra support, the review of settlement data and details found in related court records raises concerns about the agency’s history of interactions with civilians, both native-born and immigrant.

Cases uncovered by examination of treasury payment records spanning October 2005 to July 2017, court documents and media reports reveal:

The federal government has settled at least 20 wrongful death claims on behalf of CBP, paying more than $9m to the families of people killed since 2003, in incidents including shooting, beating, use of Tasers and collisions with vehicles.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/01/border-patrol-violence-us-paid-60m-to-cover-claims-against-the-agency

'We live as second-class citizens': what it's like to face border agents every day

The Guardian’s review of claims made against US Customs and Border Protection over the last dozen years shows cause for concern over unreasonable search and seizure

by Sarah Macaraeg

Thu 3 May 2018 01.00 EDT Last modified on Thu 3 May 2018 13.53 EDT

The moment that Jorge Rodriguez noticed five armed border patrol agents beginning to surround his car, his first instinct was to tell his 17-year-old cousin, in the passenger seat next to him, to pick up his hands and not make any sudden movements.

The pair, both US citizens, had been stopped on their way home from a movie at a checkpoint outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, approximately 60 miles north of the border. The young men had already answered questions about their nationality and where they had been that evening.

They were not armed. The only problem was that Rodriguez, then aged 23, had refused to consent to a warrantless search of his family’s vehicle, citing the constitution.

“I was trying to show my cousin ... ‘You didn’t do anything wrong and you have rights,’” Rodriguez said. But wary of the officers’ hands on their holsters, he opted to concede, granting the inspection of his backseat.

“I’m aware of what this agency has gotten away with,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/03/border-patrol-agents-second-class-citizens

A Cartoon....................