U.S. Congressional Talks Yield Deal To Fund Government Through September

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional negotiators have hammered out a bipartisan agreement on a spending package to keep the federal government funded through the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, a senior congressional aide said on Sunday.

The House of Representatives and Senate must approve the deal before the end of Friday and send it to President Donald Trump for his signature to avoid the first government shutdown since 2013.

Government funding deal reached, senior aide confirms. Planned parenthood funding intact. Language stipulating no $$ for border wall

— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) May 1, 2017

 The Washington Post reported that Congress was expected to vote early this week on the agreement that is expected to include increases for defense spending and border security.

The Republican-led Congress averted a U.S. government shutdown last Friday by voting for a stop-gap spending bill that gave lawmakers another week to work out federal spending over the final five months of the fiscal year.

Congress was tied up for months trying to work out $1 trillion in spending priorities for the current fiscal year. Lawmakers were supposed to have taken care of the fiscal 2017 appropriations bills by last Oct. 1.

Democrats backed Friday’s stop-gap bill a day after House Republican leaders again put off a vote on major healthcare legislation sought by Trump and opposed by Democrats to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, after Republican moderates balked at provisions added to entice hard-line conservatives.

Trump earlier bowed to Democratic demands that the spending legislation for the rest of the fiscal year not include money to start building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border he said is needed to fight illegal immigration and stop drug smugglers.

The Trump administration also agreed to continue funding for a major component of Obamacare despite Republican vows to end the program.

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Open thread for night owls: Fox & Friends is still the lead paint of news

Let's stop being played by our puppeteers: the corporate state

Ever since Donald Trump was elected, I’ve been on a virtual listening tour. It was evident rather quickly that we were all conned in subtle ways that are disturbing. I've spoken to left-wing progressives, center-left progressives, moderates, right-wing Republicans, center-right Republicans, tea party Republicans, communists, anarchists, and everyone in between.

I spent most of the time listening. I did this at Starbucks, at Democratic meetings, at one tea party event, online, by email, at community festivals, and in places where one should not have political dialogues. There was a lot of biting my tongue when I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The most common thing heard was manufactured polarization, even between establishment Democrats and progressive Democrats.

Last week I went out to the polls in Kingwood, Texas, in support of candidates that would represent new blood on the school board. I had a 30-minute conversation with one of the leaders of the tea party in this town, and Kingwood likely has one of the most powerful tea party presences in the country. Ted Cruz and all the major politicians they support do their rounds out here several times a year.

As per my usual modus operandi, the tea party bigwig spoke for the first 15 minutes or so. Like most on the right, all I heard was the typical talking points and the caricaturing of liberals. Ironically, I heard caricaturing of the right on the progressive side—but mostly what I heard was a fight within, the same establishment vs. Bernie’s-not-a-Democrat unwarranted fight.

After letting folks talk at length, I asked a simple question: "Forget about ideology. What do you want for you and your family?" The answer was first and foremost economic. Those with kids wanted good schools for their children, and the possibility of an affordable college education. Those near retirement wanted a pension that is reliable. Many felt they were spinning their wheels as they worked hard just to get by everyday. There were many other responses, but you get the picture.

When asked why none of them are able to realize their desires, they pointed fingers at some group, some sub-group, some race, etc. What was ironic is they seemed to blame their everyday fellow citizens more so than the actual puppeteers pulling the strings: the corporate state.

from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2oWhcaf

Reports: Sebastian Gorka To Leave White House Following Outcry Over Extremist Links

Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to President Donald Trump who generated controversy for his alleged ties to a Nazi-aligned group, is expected to accept a new role soon outside of the White House, according to multiple reports.

Sebastian Gorka expected to leave WH soon, we have confirmed.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 30, 2017

A senior administration official told the Washington Examiner that Gorka, a national security adviser who was heavily criticized for having links to a far-right Hungarian organization, will accept a new role dealing with the “war of ideas” that focuses on radical Islamic extremism. 

Another official told CNN that it is unclear if Gorka would take another job within the Trump administration, but it seems more likely he will just leave the White House completely. 

Gorka served on the Strategic Initiatives Group, an internal policy organization within the White House, in addition to his duties as a national security aide. However, a source told the Examiner that his position with that organization was only meant to be temporary.

A senior administration official told The Daily Beast that Gorka had been “entirely excluded” from the day-to-day work of the National Security Council.

Gorka was previously the national security editor for Breitbart.

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Is There Any Way To Stop Ad Creep?

By Mark Bartholomew, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Ethics lawyers and historians have argued that Donald Trump has blurred the line between his public office and private business interests in an unprecedented fashion.

In another sense, it’s part of a much larger social trend.

Commercial entreaties – whether in the form of magazine ads, radio jingles or television spots – have long been a part of modern life. But advertising is now encroaching on public space as never before.

Cities and states now grant businesses the right to put their names and logos on parking meters, bridges, fire hydrants – even lifeguard swimsuits. Public parks intended to offer a respite from the travails of daily life now allow retailers to advertise amidst historical sites and nature preserves. School boards ink deals with all sorts of businesses to help them meet their budgetary needs.

It’s not just public space that is filling up with brand shout-outs. In conducting research for a new book on modern marketing and its regulation, I discovered that a host of once ad-free environments – from the living room to our friendships – are now becoming sites for ads or surveillance technologies designed to make them more effective.

Some might shrug, calling the ad creep an inevitable part of modern life. But there are dangers to this trend, along with legal remedies – if people care enough to actually do something.

Marketing’s new frontiers

New marketing techniques and technologies allow businesses to reach consumers in new ways and venues. One space becoming increasingly critical to market researchers is the home.

Smart technologies – from Microsoft’s Xbox One to Vizio televisions – now come embedded with what could be described as “spying” capabilities. These devices can record activities once considered private, like the movies we decide to watch and even our facial expressions while playing a video game. This information becomes part of a digital profile used by advertisers to get a better portrait of who we are and how we can be convinced to make a purchase.

Meanwhile, every time we sign on to Facebook or search Google on our personal computers or smartphones, we are adding to vast stockpiles of market research. This kind of surveillance is hard to escape. Marketers have moved past cookies: They can now identify individual users from the number of fonts in their browser or the rate at which their particular computer’s battery loses its charge.

Even our brains have become fair game for advertising annexation. A landmark 2004 study asked subjects to take sips of Coke and Pepsi while a machine measured blood flow in their brains. When the brand was a secret, participants expressed a slight preference for Pepsi. But when the brand names were revealed before taking a sip, participants, both verbally and neurologically, revealed a preference for Coke. The study was widely heralded as proof of the ability of advertising to actually change our brain chemistry, to instill emotional markers that can trump objective evaluation of the actual product.

Since then, companies have spent millions to record activity in consumers’ brains to better capture the desires we won’t or can’t articulate. Some major ad campaigns we currently see – from Samsung to Campbell’s soup – reflect the results from this new neuromarketing research.

Our friendships and social networks aren’t immune. Marketers target “micro-influencers” – often people with modest Instagram or Twitter followings – that can be leveraged to sell products or services on social media. While Federal Trade Commission rules require endorsers to acknowledge the compensation they receive in return for giving favorable plugs for a product, enforcement is minimal.

The consequences of ad creep

Even those bullish about these new marketing gambits do admit that they can be annoying. Still, a common response to complaints about the growing presence of ads is “What’s the harm?” As the argument goes, being annoyed is a small price to pay for subsidized public infrastructure, free online content and exposure to ads more attuned to our actual interests and needs.

My research shows, however, that there are significant costs to opening up our lives to advertisers. One is a loss of consumer agency. Reliance on brain scans to design more effective commercials strips audiences of their ability to consciously shape the advertising content they see and hear. Market research used to rely on focus groups and surveys, not the unfiltered disclosure of brain activity. The result can be advertising campaigns that celebrate biases or behaviors we would rather keep hidden from view. For example, thanks to data gleaned from brain scans, Frito-Lay launched a series of ads encouraging antisocial practices like intentionally putting Cheetos in another person’s load of white laundry. When directly questioned, sample viewers objected to the ads’ gleeful embrace of vandalism, but MRI readings told a different story.

Another cost comes from how advertising can change an environment’s character.

The civic values meant to be instilled by public schooling now must compete with the materialist messages of the sporting goods stores and clothing retailers that advertise in cafeterias and hallways. The use of micro-influencers on social media could make us less trusting, never knowing if that online friend is really a corporate shill.

And as commercial spying becomes routine, norms change to permit snooping in other parts of our life. Witness the recent use of facial recognition technology by churches to record the attendance rates of their parishioners and the placement of monitoring devices on once-innocuous objects like Barbie dolls and children’s toothbrushes so parents can keep tabs on their children.

The need for legal intervention

So what’s to be done? It isn’t realistic for consumers to abandon Google, to drop off of Facebook, to take their kids out of public school or to stop using public infrastructure. Halfhearted measures – like regulations requiring consumers to opt in to some of these troubling advertising practices – won’t do much to change things either. Studies show that such legislative nudges don’t work, that motivated marketers can get us to opt in if they apply enough pressure.

Instead of defaults, the law needs to create hard and fast rules preventing the entry of advertising and corporate spying into these spaces. This kind of reform doesn’t require a sea change in legal attitudes. The history of advertising regulation in the United States reveals several episodes where lawmakers moved to put an end to objectionable selling strategies fueled by new technologies.

The American right to privacy emerged in the late 19th century as a response to advertisers using the relatively new technology of photography to take pictures of people without their permission, and then using these photos to sell products. Judges objected to this forced blending of the personal with the commercial, with one court equating the practice to enslavement by a “merciless master.” Similar objections caused lawmakers to act against a barrage of scenery-obscuring billboards in the early 20th century and subliminal advertising in the 1950s. Of course, not every new advertising strategy has met with a legal response. But the historical record shows strong precedent for using the law to keep some areas of life off limits from commercial entreaties.

A normalization process can easily occur once advertising enters a new territory. Take pre-film advertising in movie theaters. When it was first introduced in the 1990s, audiences howled at the presence of commercials before the trailers and the actual movie. Lawsuits were filed and new legislation proposed to stop the practice. But over time, the lawsuits and legislation sputtered out. Surveys now suggest that audiences have become ambivalent to the presence of pre-film commercials.

The story of pre-film ads should be a cautionary tale. Without a coordinated effort, this same normalization process will take place in more and more spaces, engulfing them into the vast, existing space of commercial white noise.

Mark Bartholomew, Professor of Law,University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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At Least 10 Dead, More Injured, After Tornados, Floods And Storms Sweep Midwestern And Southern U.S.

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  At least four dead from tornados and storms in eastern Texas

  
  
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  At least three dead in eastern Arkansas from storm damage and flooding 

  
  
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  Woman dead after flash flood in southwestern Missouri 

  
  
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  Man and child dead after separate incidents in southern Mississippi

  
  
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Search and rescue efforts are underway after weekend tornados, flooding and severe storms left multiple people dead and dozens more injured across the southern and midwestern U.S. 

At least four people in Texas were confirmed dead following tornadoes Saturday that struck across Van Zandt County, roughly 65 miles east of Dallas. Information on the victims was not immediately available. 

Three more people died across Arkansas after floods and storms. A 10-year-old girl in northwest Springdale was found dead late Saturday after she was swept away in floodwaters. A 65-year-old woman in De Witt, about 80 miles east of Little Rock, died when winds felled a tree that crushed her mobile home. A 24-year-old woman was found dead on Sunday at a Eureka Springs creek near the Ozark Mountains, the Associated Press reports.

Local officials said a woman in Christian County, southwestern Missouri, died Saturday in a flash flood. Madelaine Krueger, 72, from Billings, Montana, drowned after rushing water swept away her vehicle; her husband, also in the car, survived, the Christian County Headliner reports. 

A man near Durant, Mississippi, about 65 miles north of Jackson, died in a strong storm, though no details were immediately available. Sunday evening, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency confirmed a child in Rankin County had died from electric shock in floodwater. 

NEW: devastating wedge tornado from close range just east of #Canton, TX that has caused extensive damage along its path @breakingweather http://pic.twitter.com/U6zvQDmZ2p

— Reed Timmer (@ReedTimmerAccu) April 30, 2017

Patrick Marsh, a warning coordination meteorologist with the NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, said at least five tornadoes were documented since late Friday night to Saturday, including three in Texas and ones in far eastern Oklahoma and far northwest Arkansas. 

Hail, thunderstorms and wind damage also hit a portion of the southeastern quarter of southern plains states, the Midwest and the Southeast, affecting states including Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Montana, Illinois, Georgia and even as far Northeast as Ohio. 

“Severe weather in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas are sweeping East, so ongoing warnings in Alabama and Tennessee” are in effect Sunday, Marsh told HuffPost. 

Significant tornado occurred in Canton yesterday. Survey team still in the area. More updates to come! #Canton #txwx http://pic.twitter.com/Y5m7vcS3g7

— NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) April 30, 2017

In Canton, Tex., tornados flattened homes, stripped and uprooted trees and flipped over vehicles as they cut a path stretching more than 30 miles. 

“It is heartbreaking and upsetting to say the least,” Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett said during a Sunday morning news conference.

Saturday was the night several schools in affected states were to hold proms, but severe weather sparked cancellations. In Canton, the event space “The Rustic Barn” was set to host a local high school’s prom when the tornado sirens began to blare. 

“We were having a high school prom for the Edgewood kids last night. Luckily, most of the kids hadn’t got here. There was a few when the sirens started going off,” owner Reagan Sumner told ABC News affiliate, WFAA Channel 8. 

Sumner said inside, they could feel the air pressure change and everyone ran inside for shelter. 

“We got into the room that was in the front of the building ― the only room still standing. We started hearing the sounds of the roar. All of a sudden it was just explosions, and we had about 15 to 20 people in the bathroom, little babies to older people.” Sumner said.

“That was the only room standing after it was all over,” he added. 

Edgewood high schoolers were supposed to have prom at The Rustic Barn in Canton, but tornado flattened like cardboard box http://pic.twitter.com/wOLXhPQnFE

— Julieta Chiquillo (@jmchiquillo) April 30, 2017

Hours before Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) toured the damaged areas by helicopter Sunday, he appeared on Fox News to assure residents that the affected areas would rebuild.

“Just know that we’ve been through these before and working together, Texans will rebuild and restore the loss of property,” Abbott said. “We can’t do anything about the loss of life, but w’ell come together as a team, as we usually do, in the state of Texas.” 

Over the weekend, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) declared states of emergency due to weather-related damage. 

Marsh said any large, widespread weather event over multiple days is rare in the sense that they don’t occur daily, but he noted they do occur several times a year. 

“And when we do have them in the cool, or ‘transition’ season, if they’re going to happen, you tend to get more of the stronger storms during this period,” Marsh said, describing the transitional season as stretching approximately November to May. 

“The storm prediction center was forecasting a severe weather event about a week ago,” he added. 

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Are we regressing toward being a developing nation?

It’s always advisable to ignore hyperbole and avoid clickbait headlines, but this one from The Independent was eye-catching, to say the least: "US has regressed to developing nation status, MIT economist warns.” The key point of the article is that without a robust middle class, the United States ...

... is not only reverting to developing-country status, it is increasingly ripe for serious social turmoil that has not been seen in generations.” 

Peter Temin authored the book that The Independent is reporting on—and he’s not too far off the mark with this idea.

We are certainly at a tipping point in our society, and the roots of this trace back to the election of Ronald Reagan, when we saw some of the first shots fired on the middle class: the firing of 11,000 air traffic controllers; cutting taxes on the rich; raising the retirement age to 67 on those who did not even have a voice in the matter; and the advent of the media friendly-named "trickle down economics" (for the record, I’ve been waiting since the ‘80s for my pile of cash to trickle down).

This was not unique to the Reagan years. After George H.W. Bush, President Clinton raised taxes and we had a budget surplus at the end of his second term. When President George W. Bush came into office he cut taxes, and by the end of his term we were in the worst economic times since the Great Depression. President Obama came into office, raised taxes, and signed into law a much-too-small stimulus plan to dig us out of the hole the GOP put us in. 

from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2qtr7VM

Priebus says Trump administration has 'looked at' First Amendment changes to protect Trump

Via Josh Marshall, here's White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus casually acknowledging during a Sunday Show interview that the current administration has been considering constitutional changes to restrict the First Amendment.

KARL: I want to ask you about two things the President has said on related issues. First of all, there was what he said about opening up the libel laws. Tweeting “the failing New York Times has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change the libel laws?” That would require, as I understand it, a constitutional amendment. Is he really going to pursue that? Is that something he wants to pursue?

PRIEBUS: I think it’s something that we’ve looked at. How that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story.

Reince Priebus is considered to be the pragmatic one. This isn't Steve Bannon or Baghdad Spicer piping up with the admission that the White House staff has been internally debating whether the Constitution needs the corners sanded off it in order to soothe a single man's eggshell-thin ego. This is the the top-notch, top-shelf doof whose job is to rein all the other bozos in.

As Marshall suggests, maybe Priebus didn’t mean it. But “why would anyone assume that?”

from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2pM8Erg

Nancy Pelosi: 'I Never Thought I’d Pray' Bush Was Still President

Nancy Pelosi may have sparred with former President George W. Bush during his eight years in office, but now she’s making it no secret: She wishes he was still here.

The House Minority Leader made that admission on ABC’s “This Week Sunday” after mistakenly referring to President Donald Trump as “President Bush.”

The California Democrat made the slip while discussing Trump’s first 100 days and both parties willingness to work together.

.@NancyPelosi to @jonkarl: "I never thought I'd pray for the day" when George W. Bush was president again https://t.co/F3g5VI54Ob #ThisWeek http://pic.twitter.com/0jjtChRh3w

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 30, 2017

“I never have seen so much willingness to help win. And winning means winning for the American people, that either we win or whoever wins understands the priorities of the American people, and they are not with President Bush,” she said before catching her mistake ― one she also made in February ― and dramatically putting her hand to her heart.

“I’m so sorry, President Bush! I never thought I’d pray for the day that you were president again,” she exclaimed.

When Bush left office in 2009, he had one of the lowest approval ratings in recent history. Now eight years later, his memory appears to have improved with time. Many of Trump’s critics point to the sitting president ― who hit a record-low approval rating last month ― as the reason why.

This change in opinion wasn’t overlooked Saturday night at Samantha Bee’s “Not The White House Correspondents’ Dinner” when former Saturday Night Live star Will Ferrell reprised his impression of the 43rd president to a standing ovation.

”How do you like me now?” he asked before giving a quiet snicker to the roaring crowd.

“History has proven to be kinder to me than many of you thought,” he remarked. “For the longest time, I was considered the worst president of all time. That has changed ― and it only took 100 days.”

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Montana Democratic Candidate Affirms Support For Legalizing Marijuana

Rob Quist, the Montana folk singer turned Democratic congressional candidate winning over voters in traditionally GOP areas, affirmed his support for legalizing recreational marijuana, one of several policy differences that emerged during a debate held Saturday evening.

Quist’s progressive platform, which includes support for a single-payer health care system, has helped to bring national attention to a special election for Montana’s only House seat, recently vacated by President Donald Trump’s interior secretary pick, Ryan Zinke.

“To me, the war on drugs has been an abject failure,” Quist said Saturday, when asked if he supported legalizing both medicinal and recreational marijuana. “I think the majority of Montanans and Americans agree they would like to see the decriminalization go forward and not criminalize people for something that should not be criminal.”

Quist’s GOP opponent Greg Gianforte said he supported some access to medical marijuana but warned against legalization, comparing it to more addictive drugs.

The two candidates clashed over a wide range of issues in their only televised debate before the hotly contested May 25 special election.

Gianforte, a tech millionaire who moved to the state from New Jersey, defended his wealth, amid recent reports of possible financial ties to Russian companies that received sanctions from the U.S.

“This pejorative of a millionaire? Again, I’ve been clear: I’m in favor of prosperity. I’m an electrical engineer. Honestly, I think we have too many lawyers in Washington,” Gianforte said. “Maybe we need some more engineers. They’re trained to solve problems and we can actually do math, which is a desperately needed skill back there.”

When Quist brought up the issue of Gianforte’s investments, Gianforte dismissed any concerns about them.

“We have a broad range of investments. Anyone who invests in emerging markets around the world has investments in Russia,” he said. “This is a tiny portion of our portfolio.”

Quist and Gianforte also staked out clear positions on Trump’s executive order that could roll back national monuments, which conservationists say could endanger public lands, a major issue in Montana. Both candidates have promoted themselves as advocates for preserving public lands.

Quist warned that Trump’s order, which calls for a “review” of at least two dozen monuments, could lead to their privatization.

“People have worked on these monuments and some of these wilderness areas for years at a time, and they’re great economic boons for the areas that have them,” Quist said. “I really have deep concerns about this process, and I think the people of America are going to stand up against it.”

Gianforte defended the order, attempting to thread a thin needle between environmental protection and resource extraction. 

“What we’re asking for is local input from the people,” Gianforte said. “This review process allows local input to occur.”

On abortion and Planned Parenthood, Quist affirmed his pro-choice views and condemned “the assault on women’s reproductive rights.” While Gianforte said he supports defunding the organization, complaining that tax dollars are used to pay for abortion, the organization’s Title X federal funds actually go toward non-abortion women’s health services.

“I don’t believe that organization has been a particularly good steward of resources,” Gianforte said.

Libertarian candidate Mark Wicks compared himself and his opponents to cars, saying that Quist is similar to “a little half-ton pickup” and Gianforte a “luxury car.”

“It’s really smooth and comfortable getting down the road. But at the end of the day, it just wants to be parked with the other luxury cars down at the country club,” Wicks said, before adding that, if elected, he would be “the work truck.”

The Montana House race has attracted national attention, especially among Democrats hoping to make electoral gains amid a groundswell of anti-Trump activism.

Quist got a boost earlier this month, when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced it would spend money in the race. But he reportedly turned down a visit from Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez, a source told HuffPost on Saturday. Quist has said he would welcome Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who previously announced that he would campaign with Quist as part of his efforts to expand the Democratic Party’s base. 

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Trump's tax plan is a Laffer

Long before it mastered the mass production of “fake news,” the Republican Party propagated its Ur-lie that “tax cuts pay for themselves.” Almost from the moment that Arthur Laffer first sketched his now-famous curve on a napkin in 1974, right-wing pundits, politicians, and propagandists have declared as an article of faith the belief that tax cuts incentivize so much economic growth that revenues to Uncle Sam will be at least as high as they would have been without the reduction in rates.

Unfortunately for the American people, four decades of supply-side snake oil have produced only mushrooming national debt and record-high income inequality. Far from paying for themselves, the Reagan and Bush tax cuts delivered a windfall only for the wealthy while unleashing oceans of red ink from the United States Treasury. (Of course, the other objective of draining Washington’s coffers in order to add to the bulging bank accounts of the rich was to get government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”) It’s no wonder that by 2015 even Keith Hall, the man hand-picked by the Republican majority on Capitol Hill to head the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), acknowledged the obvious:

“No, the evidence is that tax cuts do not pay for themselves. And our models that we're doing, our macroeconomic effects, show that."

Nevertheless, this week Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin unveiled the Trump administration’s tax plan by proclaiming the fiscal equivalent of saying the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Six days after first announcing “the plan will pay for itself with growth,” Mnuchin told the White House press corps:

“This will pay for itself with growth and with the reduction of different deductions and closing loopholes.”

In reality, it won’t even be close.

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Trump Still Thinks Obamacare Repeal Will Cover People 'Beautifully'

The 101st day of Donald Trump’s presidency sounded an awful lot like the first, with Trump talking utter nonsense about health care.

In a series of tweets and during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Trump made the same basic promise he’s been making ever since he started running for president ― that his plan for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act would reduce both premiums and deductibles, while protecting people with pre-existing conditions.

...healthcare plan is on its way. Will have much lower premiums & deductibles while at the same time taking care of pre-existing conditions!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2017

This is not an accurate description of the American Health Care Act, the repeal bill House Republicans have been trying to pass since March.

That bill would definitely help some people ― in particular, younger, healthier and wealthier people who buy insurance on their own today and end up paying high prices because they get little or no financial assistance from the Affordable Care Act.

But the proposal would cause real hardship for many millions of Americans ― whether by raising their premiums or deductibles or both, or depriving them of coverage altogether. And it’d be the poor and the sick struggling the most, even as the wealthiest Americans walked away with a sizable tax break.

Whether Trump understands all of this is an open question. During the “Face the Nation” interview, host John Dickerson kept pressing Trump to explain how the health care law could do all of these things ― and Trump, in response, kept modifying his answers.

Trump appears to reverse himself on pre-existing conditions 2x in 2 mins—first by saying it's guaranteed (it isn't), then kicking to states.

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) April 30, 2017

But Trump isn’t the only prominent Republican making false promises about what the party’s proposal would do. Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have made similar comments in the past few days ― Pence during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Ryan during his weekly press conference.

The timing is not coincidental. Pence and Ryan are working hard with their allies to round up votes for the AHCA in the House. Right now the challenge is winning over less conservative Republicans who are anxious about what the AHCA would mean for health insurance coverage ― and how that would play in their districts.

The promise to provide health insurance that is simultaneously less expensive and more comprehensive, all without excluding people who have serious medical problems, is designed to reassure these lawmakers.

But the promises belie what the Republican proposal would actually do.

GOP Bill Would Shift Costs Onto The Poor, Sick And Old

Republicans are calling for a series of dramatic changes to the so-called non-group insurance market ― that is, coverage for people buying insurance on their own, rather than through employers.

Specifically, the bill would shift financial assistance away from people with low incomes and high insurance costs, while giving insurers new freedom to vary prices by age, so that carriers could charge older customers more than five times what they charge younger customers. The bill would also allow insurers to offer skimpier coverage than the law permits today.

And thanks to the amendment that Republicans introduced last week, states could opt out of some of the law’s most important regulations ― a ban on charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions, and a requirement that all plans include a set of “essential” benefits including mental health, maternity care and prescription drugs.

“On net, the new bill has to be worse with this than even the original,” Linda Blumberg, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, told HuffPost. “This doesn’t give new protections to [states that want to keep existing consumer protections], it gives new flexibility to the states that want to set the clock back to the pre-ACA days.”

Although the effect of all the changes to the individual market would vary from person to person and place to place, the net effect would be cheaper coverage for the young, healthy and wealthy, but more expensive coverage for the old, sick and poor ― to the point that many could not get decent coverage at all.

Republicans claim that other provisions of their bill, designed to reimburse insurers for expensive beneficiaries or to create separate programs for people with pre-existing conditions, would take care of people with serious medical problems.

“They say we don’t cover pre-existing conditions, we cover it beautifully,” Trump said on “Face the Nation.”

But as multiple analysts have pointed out, these programs have never provided adequate protection in the past, even though Republican leaders like Ryan keep claiming otherwise. 

GOP Bill Would Blow Away Medicaid Coverage For Millions

The changes to the individual market represent just one part of what the American Health Care Act would do. The proposal would also cut Medicaid by a whopping $839 billion over 10 years.  

The amendments that supposedly make the proposal so much more appealing don’t do a thing about this. And it’s this cut that would have the single biggest effect on insurance coverage ― with the number of people getting Medicaid coverage falling by 14 million over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Reminder: the #AHCA revised still cuts #Medicaid for the poor and reduces coverage http://pic.twitter.com/SxEz1A5Iay

— Diane Rowland (@dr_dianerowland) April 27, 2017

That Medicaid cut alone would probably represent the single biggest rollback of a public benefit in American history ― and cause widespread hardship to the millions of people who depend on it for everything from opioid treatment to cancer care.  

The vast majority of Americans oppose these proposals, polls now show consistently. Those numbers ― and the backlash Republicans have faced in town hall meetings ― undoubtedly explain why the American Health Care Act hasn’t passed the House yet.

But Republican leaders haven’t given up trying ― and, based on their recent comments, they haven’t given up distorting the truth about their plans, either.

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Trump’s Tax Plan Is An Assault On Working Families

When the Trump administration says that the tax cuts our President proposed this week would be historic, they’re right in one sense. The plan President Trump put forward on Wednesday is one of the worst legislative proposals for working families in recent history.

I agree that today’s tax code is in need of reform. Working American families need relief, American small businesses need help to compete in an increasingly global economy, and many of our nation’s wealthiest individuals use loopholes to avoid paying their fair share. Congress needs to find bipartisan, workable solutions for genuine tax reform that help all Americans make ends meet, and I am ready to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to make that happen.

But President Trump’s tax plan fails to address our biggest economic challenges all while increasing the burden on low- and middle-income families by raising the deficit and laying the foundation for massive budget cuts.

Out of the trillions of dollars in tax cuts that Trump proposed this week, nearly all of that money would end up in the pockets of America’s highest income households and corporations, like Trump and his family.

By any measure, the President’s tax plan proposes massive giveaways to high-income individuals. For example, President Trump’s plan recommends dropping the top individual tax rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent – a change that would apply only to individuals making over $400,000 each year. President Trump would also scrap the Alternative Minimum Tax, a tax provision meant to ensure that the richest Americans pay their fair share. On top of that, Trump’s plan would also eliminate a tax created under the Affordable Care Act which applies only to individuals making over $200,000.

Every day I’m honored to represent Alabama’s 7th District, which includes many underserved communities in the rural south. The average income in my district for a family of four is just $34,000 annually, and only one percent of the families in my congressional district make over $200,000.

That means that more than 99 percent of the constituents in my district would see zero benefit from lowering the top income tax bracket and eliminating the healthcare tax.

But Trump’s tax cuts don’t just target wealthy individuals, high-earning corporations are the other main beneficiaries of this week’s proposal. The Trump tax plan calls for reducing the corporate tax rate and “pass-through” tax rate to 15 percent, a proposal that helps wealthy corporations far more than the mom-and-pop businesses in Alabama’s 7th District.

The real impact Trump’s tax proposal would have on my constituents comes in the form of a ballooning deficit and future cuts to essential government programs.

The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that the Trump tax plan would reduce federal tax revenue by $3 trillion to $7 trillion over the next decade. At the high end, that represents over a third of our nation’s annual GDP.

Attempting to balance those losses in the federal budget could be disastrous. Already President Trump’s proposed budget targets programs that many constituents in my district rely on, like Meals on Wheels and Community Development Block Grants. Together, these initiatives help to keep our seniors from going hungry and our infrastructure from deteriorating.

But the elimination of programs like these does not even come close to paying for the $7 trillion in tax cuts proposed in Trump’s tax plan.

To put $7 trillion of debt in perspective, consider that Social Security costs our nation about $900 million annually, or that we spend about $600 billion annually to fund the United States military. Trying to balance $7 trillion in revenue loss doesn’t just mean cutting to the bone of our most important federal programs, it means cutting off limbs.

President Trump is known for speaking in hyperbole, whether he’s discussing the size of his electoral victory or defending his claims that Mexico will pay for a border wall. But to call his tax plan “reform,” is one of Trump’s greatest exaggerations to date.

True reform means making our child tax credit refundable to provide struggling parents with the help they need raising a family. Reform means building a tax code that focuses relief on our nation’s small businesses and allows our workforce to compete in a global marketplace. Reform is about helping families make ends meet, giving entrepreneurs the leg up they need, and putting our country on solid financial footing.

Instead, President Trump’s tax plan offers our nation’s wealthiest families the tax break of a lifetime. This tax plan isn’t just a missed opportunity, it actively works against reform by raising the deficit and laying the groundwork for damaging budget cuts.

I know that this Congress can do better. Regardless of party, I believe that every lawmaker wants the best for their constituents and for the future of our country, because that is what brought me to Congress. I urge President Trump to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to craft legislation that gives all Americans the opportunity to succeed in today’s economy.

My constituents have too much at stake and deserve nothing less.

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A free press: Part one

Once upon a time in America, there was a leader considered by many historians to be:

"spiteful," "greedy," "jealous," "quick-tempered," "dull," "unlettered," and "haughty"

That man was William S. Cosby, the royal governor of the colony of New York from 1731 until his death in 1736. Here he is as described by University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School law professor Douglas O Linder on his Famous Trials website:

By all accounts, Cosby was spiteful, mean-spirited, quick-tempered, greedy, jealous, dull, and a petty tyrant. Too often many of these traits seemed to turn up among colonial governors who, overall, were quite a bad lot. There is a reason for this, according to one historian, who observed that governors consisted "most often of members of aristocratic families whose personal morals, or whose incompetence, were such that it was impossible to employ then nearer home."

Cosby has also been described as “devoid of statesmanship, seeking money and preferment.” In other words: not too terribly different from the current occupant of the oval office. And like the current president, the royal governor often found himself at odds with individual jurists within the justice system.

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Man In Gorilla Suit Finishes London Marathon After 6-Day Charity Crawl

A British police officer who crawled the London Marathon in a gorilla costume has raised more than $42,700 for charity after completing the 26.2-mile course.

Tom Harrison of the Metropolitan Police Department crossed the finish line on Saturday, six days after the race started.

The 41-year-old, who went by the name Mr. Gorilla, donned the outrageous suit to raise money for the Gorilla Organization, which aims to protect the endangered species, according to his online fundraiser.

“It was tough at points, but I am really glad I did it,” he told The Guardian after completing his extraordinary goal.

Harrison covered himself from head to toe with a furry black costume, which included a face mask, gloves and toed shoes. He averaged about 4.5 miles a day, breaking to stay at friends’ houses along the way, The Guardian reported.

At the finish line, he was met by Gorilla Organization Chairman Ian Redmond and conservationist Bill Oddie, as well as his two young sons who wore similar gorilla suits.

He said he was blown away by the money raised, which was about 20 times his goal of about $1,900.

“The fact it went global has been completely unexpected, but brilliant,” he told the BBC.

But his work isn’t over.

On Harrison’s fundraising page he shared that he plans to cycle 100 miles in Ride London this July. Yes, also in his gorilla suit.

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Trump, on television, yet again displays ignorance and incoherence. And no, that's not normal.

It is Sunday, the day devoted to hosting administration officials on the teevee so that they may lie repeatedly to you. Today the task was performed by Donald Trump himself.

Do you remember listening to other past presidents—Bill Clinton comes to mind here—and being impressed at how that person could hold forth on a given subject, giving details and statistics and policy options, for whatever amount of time was available or desired? Well hold that thought, because by any measure you can suppose the new version remains an idiot:

JOHN DICKERSON: Okay. So what I hear you saying is pre-existing is going to be in there for everybody, it's not going to be up to the states?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Pre-existing is going to be in there and we're also--

JOHN DICKERSON: And it's not up to the states?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: --going to create pools.

JOHN DICKERSON: Okay.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And pools are going to take care of the pre-existing.

JOHN DICKERSON: But on that crucial question, it's not going to be left up to the states? Everybody gets pre-existing, no matter where they live?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, but the states--

JOHN DICKERSON: Guaranteed?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: --are also going to have a lot to do with it because we ultimately want to get it back down to the states.

JOHN DICKERSON: Okay. Is it a guarantee?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Look, because if you hurt your knee, honestly, I'd rather have the federal government focused on North Korea, focused on other things, than your knee, okay?

That was only a small part of a stream-of-consciousness discussion that ended, after a very long while, with Trump assuring host John Dickerson that every single healthcare issue Dickerson asked about was going to be solved, no worries, either now or later or whatever. It followed on the heels of a declaration that China was too a "currency manipulator" but that they stopped as soon as Donald Trump took office, because Reasons, and a back-and-forth about North Korea so vapid and airy that it looked as if Trump was in danger of floating away at any moment.

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'Fate Of The Furious' Becomes The Second 'Fast And The Furious' Movie To Earn $1 Billion

The “Fast and the Furious” pedal earned another medal this weekend, with “The Fate of the Furious” grossing $1 billion.

As of Sunday, the eighth “Furious” installment has earned $192.7 million domestically and a whopping $867.6 million overseas, according to Universal Pictures’ estimates. It’s the 30th movie in history ― and the second in the franchise, after 2015’s “Furious 7” ― to join the billionaires’ club. 

“The Fate of the Furious” pulled this off after just 17 days in theaters, the same amount it took “Furious 7.” The year’s first billion-dollar release, “Beauty and the Beast,” required almost a month to hit that mark. “Fate” is also the highest-grossing film directed by an African-American. 

This news comes as no surprise, given the increasing international fervor surrounding these high-octane movies. Since “Fast & Furious,” the fourth movie in the series, was released in 2009, each installment has outpaced its predecessor domestically and globally. Universal, which is enjoying a bang-up year at the box office thanks to “Fate,” “Get Out” and “Split,” already has two more “Fast and the Furious” sequels planned, and studio executives have reportedly discussed a potential spin-off surrounding Dwayne Johnson’s and Jason Statham’s characters. Plus, as we pointed out a couple of weeks ago, “The Fate of the Furious” introduces a certain baby who could extend the story’s shelf life far beyond its current expiration date. 

Other franchises with multiple $1 billion earners include “Star Wars,” “The Avengers,” “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

In other weekend box-office news, “How To Be a Latin Lover” opened to a decent $12 million, while the big-screen adaptation of Dave Eggers’ popular cyber-panic novel “The Circle” collected $9.1 million, a drowsy figure for a title released on more than 3,000 screens. The weekend’s big surprise was the Indian fantasy “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion,” which took in an estimated $10 million despite a mere 425-theater opening. 

The rest of the Top 10 includes “The Boss Baby,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Going in Style,” “Gifted,” “Smurfs: The Lost Village” and “Born in China.”

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National monuments are public lands, not profit centers

Going back on yet another campaign statement, Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking a review of the lands designated as national monuments in the last 20 years.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t about public lands, or listening to a majority of Western voters. This is about cementing his Republican base, sucking up to certain Republican lawmakers, and distracting from the investigation into his Russian ties. It could allow mining, drilling, and development on public lands. It’s also another way of trying to stick a thumb into President Barack Obama’s eye.

Trump’s latest order, one of a flurry of last-minute signings to make his presidency look significant before the 100-day mark, seeks a review of the Antiquities Act, a law signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 that authorizes presidents to declare federal lands as national monuments. According to the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association:

The Antiquities Act of 1906 is one of our nation's most important conservation tools. Used to safeguard and preserve federal lands and cultural and historical sites for all Americans to enjoy, 16 presidents have designated 157 national monuments under this authority.

”One of our nation’s most important conservation tools.” The bad news is that it’s a tool that some Republicans want to undo. The good news is that they probably won’t be able to—at least, not much.

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Francis Ford Coppola Says 'The Godfather' Wouldn't Get Made Today

You haven’t seen devotion until you’ve been in a room with nearly 6,000 “Godfather” disciples. The manic fandom typically reserved for Comic-Con and “Star Wars” assemblies was front and center when Francis Ford Coppola and the cast reunited Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival’s closing night. 

Capping off a nine-hour event that included screenings of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II,” a 45th-anniversary panel discussion found Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Talia Shire and Rubert Duvall recounting the messy process of making a movie they never expected to become such a defining Hollywood signature.

The sold-out crowd at Radio City Music Hall had been boisterous throughout both films, cheering at iconic dialogue and almost every gruesome death or Corleone victory. Just imagine how enthusiastic they were by the time this A-list group took the stage. 

“The Godfather” is one of the most chronicled movies in history, as proven by the nearly 800-page annotated book Coppola published last year. Much of Saturday’s panel retread well-told stories: Paramount’s resistance to casting the crotchety Marlon Brando, the studio threatening to fire Coppola out of fear that his directorial choices would jeopardize the success, the fateful single take in which Coppola added a cat to the opening scene. 

Frenzy erupted when moderator Taylor Hackford asked the audience to shout out questions. One fan posed something that further explained the film’s fervent following: Could “The Godfather” be made today?

The answer, according to Coppola, is no.

Well, it could be made, he said, but it would be an offer major studios would have to refuse.

The first “Godfather” cost $6.5 million, Coppola explained. That’s the equivalent of about $38 million today, which would make it a mid-budget project in a market that’s overrun by tentpole titles costing well over $100 million apiece, he said. The “Godfather Part II” budget swelled to “$11 or $12 million,” or about $64 to $70 million nowadays. 

“It would never get through the process of getting an OK, or what they now call a green-light,” Coppola said. Contemporary Hollywood studios, he pointed out, are mostly interested in movies with built-in franchise potential ― “pretty much a Marvel comic,” a comment that provoked chuckles from the audience. 

“Basically there’s not enough wires,” Caan joked, referring to the suspension technique used to film superheroes and Hogwarts wizards in flight. 

Coppola and Caan’s assessment is painfully accurate: Original movies are no longer Hollywood’s breadwinners. The mid-budget adult release ― ranging from about $10 million to $70 million ― has become something of a relic over the past 15 years, replaced instead by comic-book adaptations, reboots and pre-determined cash cows. 

Even though it’s based on the popular novel by Mario Puzo, were Coppola to pitch “The Godfather” today, he would have a tough time securing the funds and support needed. The first installment made $245 million worldwide, which today amounts to $1.4 billion. For a film without animation or dazzling technical effects, that seems impossible in 2017.

Coppola said former MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian once asked how one makes a movie that is both financially and artistically successful. “I said to him, ‘Risk,’” he said. “Nobody wants the risk when you get into business.”

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Why Donald Trump's Second 100 Days Will Be Even Worse For LGBTQ Equality

When I wrote a piece a few days after the election, “The Mike Pence (Donald Trump) Assault On LGBTQ Equality Is Already Underway,” I hoped against all hope that something might change to alter what was already happening during the Trump transition.

But in fact, much of what I reported has materialized in the first 100 days. And there’s reason to believe the second 100 days will be worse.

In the first 100 days, Trump installed viciously anti-gay individuals in his cabinet  and throughout the government departments, all of whom were brought forth from the Mike Pence-run transition team, from Ben Carson and Roger Severino to Tom Price and Jeff Sessions. Trump and Sessions, the attorney general, already rescinded guidance on fighting discrimination against transgender students across the country, and had the Justice Department halt litigation against North Carolina regarding HB2 and the equally discriminatory law that replaced it. The Trump administration decided there was “no need” to move forward with the Census Bureau’s planned data collection on LGBT Americans, thereby keeping LGBTQ people invisible. 

Though Trump made a spectacle of not-rescinding President Obama’s executive order banning anti-LGBT discrimination among federal contractors, his administration later quietly issued an order ending data collection among contractors about such discrimination – thus basically allowing for it. Similarly, the administration stopped collecting data on discrimination against elderly LGBTQ people. Trump removed Eric Fanning as Army Secretary, appointed by President Obama and the first openly gay Army secretary in history, and has now nominated an anti-LGBTQ Tennessee legislator, Mark Green, to the job ― a man who sponsored a bill allowing discrimination against LGBTQ people and who has called transgender people “evil.”

And perhaps most consequentially, Trump placed on the Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch, a constitutional originalist in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia ― by his own description ― and someone whose idea of “religious liberty” is a direct threat to LGBTQ rights. 

But here’s why the next 100 days ― and after that ― could be far worse: Trump is continuing to plummet in approval ratings and he needs his base to back him ― and the GOP ― more than ever if he has any hopes of re-election and of keeping Congress in the hands of the GOP in 2018 and beyond. He just barely made it in 2016, and any softening of any part of his base will spell doom. The anti-LGBTQ religious right turned out for Trump in numbers as great or bigger than every previous recent Republican presidential. 

Christian right activists are already demanding much more. They were hoping a religious liberty executive order ― which would allow for widespread discrimination against LGBT people ― would have been issued already, and were disappointed when the Trump administration early on said a leaked draft of it wasn’t coming soon.

But Trump transition official Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, told me in February it was indeed coming, and was being fine-tuned to withstand a legal challenge. Last week USA Today reported that a group of 51 GOP legislators in the House sent a letter to the White House asking for the order to be signed:

 “[We] request that you sign the draft executive order on religious liberty, as reported by numerous outlets on February 2, 2017, in order to protect millions of Americans whose religious freedom has been attacked or threatened over the last eight years.” 

These are anti-LGBTQ legislators who backed Trump and who represent the armies of the Christian right. They’re pressuring him to move ahead with the anti-LGBTQ agenda he promised. Though the media downplayed it, Trump courted these people at events and through their media during the campaign, promising everything from “protecting” religious liberty to getting the Obergefell marriage equality ruling overturned. 

Again, if Trump has illusions of winning re-election, and helping the GOP in Congress, he knows he must deliver to his base, and won’t be able to lose any of it. If you thought the GOP was done with the issue of marriage equality, for example, you need only to look at House member, Randy Weber of Texas, who last week wept as he asked God to forgive the U.S. for making marriage legal for gays and lesbians ― at an event attended by the GOP leadership, which didn’t challenge him.. 

The Christian right isn’t satisfied with what they see as the crumbs Trump has given them in the first 100 days. They’re demanding much, much more, and Trump ― like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both of whom courted the Christian right and knew they needed evangelical voters for re-election ― will feel compelled to deliver. That’s why the next 100 days and beyond are even more treacherous, and why we’ll have pay greaattention and fight back hard. 

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Mike Pence Claims Trump Didn't Change His Stance On NATO — Rather, NATO Changed

President Donald Trump’s recent reversal on his prior criticisms of NATO was not a reversal, Vice President Mike Pence argued on Sunday, falsely claiming that Trump successfully forced the alliance to change.

“He didn’t change on NATO,” Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “NATO changed.”

During his campaign, Trump called the alliance “obsolete,” but as president, he changed his tune. Yet Pence insisted it was Trump who convinced NATO to shift its priorities.

“I mean on the international scene, here’s a president who’s said that NATO had to change, that our NATO allies had to begin to step up to begin to share the burden of the cost of our common defense. And they are,” Pence said. “They’re also changing the mission of NATO to focus more on terrorism.”

Pence’s claim resembled a similar suggestion by White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who attributed Trump’s reversal to the world shifting toward Trump’s position, rather than the other way around.

“If you look at what’s happened, it’s those entities or individuals in some cases ― or issues ― evolving toward the president’s position,” Spicer said earlier this month. “NATO is moving toward what he has been calling for.”

When host Chuck Todd mentioned to Pence that NATO and its priorities have been evolving for years, under multiple U.S. presidents, not simply as a result of Trump, Pence blamed “the gale-force wind of the establishment here in Washington, D.C.” and the media for not focusing on “the president’s relentless effort to keep his promises to the American people.”

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Trump Will Meet President Duterte, Despite Bloody Philippine Drug War

A president nicknamed “the Punisher” who is responsible for a brutal drug war that so far has killed over 7,000 people has been cordially invited to the White House.

President Donald Trump on Saturday told Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte to visit Washington, during a call that the White House described as “a very friendly conversation.”  

The invitation further signals Trump’s willingness to praise and publicly associate with illiberal world leaders. Along with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Duterte is the latest leader accused of widespread human rights abuses and authoritarian tendencies who Trump has embraced in recent weeks. 

Duterte drew worldwide attention during last year’s Philippine election for his vows to violently crack down on crime and repeated inflammatory remarks, which included saying he wanted to participate in a gang rape and calling Pope Francis a “son of a whore.”

Western media often referred to Duterte as the Donald Trump of the Philippines because of his populist rhetoric and outsider persona. Duterte last year dismissed the comparison, saying that Trump is a bigot while he is not. Although Duterte’s rise is unique and different from Trump’s in numerous ways, both did come to power in 2016 appealing to voters who were opposed to establishment politics.

But while Trump’s administration has struggled to implement the major policy changes he vowed as a candidate, Duterte has fulfilled many of the grim promises of his campaign. In less that a year, at least 7,000 people have died in Duterte’s drug war. Many of the killings are carried out extrajudicially by vigilantes who Duterte has encouraged to kill drug dealers and users.

Human rights groups have released a string of damning reports documenting the violence and accusing Philippine police of carrying out extrajudicial killings with impunity ― often falsely claiming self defense or planting evidence. Philippine press photographers have spent long nights covering the killings, showing bodies strewn across the streets of Manila as distraught relatives mourn the dead. Stray bullets have killed children as young as four-years-old.

The killings slowed somewhat following the murder of a South Korean businessman earlier this year, but the death toll continues to rise.

Duterte has viciously defended his drug war as a success, and accused the most prominent opponent of the killings ― Philippine Senator Leila de Lima ― of being involved in the drug trade herself. Duterte has also taken aim at rights groups, and vowed to continue his bloody anti-drug campaign until 2022.

“My order is shoot to kill you. I don’t care about human rights, you better believe me,” Duterte said last August. 

The United States is a key political and military ally for the Philippines, but that allegiance has been fraught since Duterte’s election. He has made overtures toward increasing ties with Russia and China, vowed to kick out American military stationed in the Philippines and holds a longstanding personal grudge against the United States.

The White House canceled a meeting between former President Barack Obama and Duterte last fall, after the Philippine leader called Obama a “son of a whore” and told the U.S. president to go to hell. In October, he said on a visit to Beijing “I announce my separation from the United States.”

Despite Duterte’s anti-U.S. statements, analysts say most of his tangible policy changes geared towards Washington have been minor. Since Duterte’s election, officials in U.S. and the Philippines have continued to speak of the important relationship the two countries possess. The two share concern over the South China Sea dispute and North Korea’s growing nuclear program, the latter of which was discussed in Saturday’s phone call between Trump and Duterte.

The White House press release covering the call stated that the two leaders “discussed the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world.” The statement noted that Trump “enjoyed the conversation,” which included talk of regional security and Trump’s upcoming visit to the Philippines in November.

Duterte’s visit to the White House may result in friendlier ties between the Philippine leader and Washington, especially if Trump is willing to ignore the thousands of dead. 

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The Chainsmokers Crashed This High School Prom

Crashed this prom just now. It was across the street from our arena show, so why not :) http://pic.twitter.com/BIOdSrfMKd

— THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) April 30, 2017

Here’s one way to make a prom truly unforgettable.

The Chainsmokers crashed an Illinois high school’s prom on Saturday night, just before they were set to headline an arena concert.

Prom had just kicked off at Rosemont’s Hyatt Regency hotel when the electronic pop duo slipped onstage and broke into their hit single “Closer,” the Daily Herald reported.

Huntley High School Principal Scott Rowe called the surprise performance “probably the toughest secret I’ve ever kept” ― one that he credited a student with initiating.

Chainsmokers decided to make an appearance @hhshuntley Prom 2017 http://pic.twitter.com/JgEDszM8Vm

— Bradley Aney (@MrAneyHHS) April 30, 2017

When chainsmokers show up at your prom! @TheChainsmokers http://pic.twitter.com/yx7fJ12HWC

— Mckenzie Krich (@246kenzie) April 30, 2017

“About two weeks ago I got this random phone call that I happened to answer, and on the other end this person said ‘This is going to be the strangest call you’ve ever received, but one of your students actually sent an email to the manager of the band,’” Rowe told the Daily Herald, speaking of the call he received from a filmographer with the group.

The band was due to perform at the Allstate Arena across the street that same night. Despite their busy schedule, they offered to entertain the students with a 10-minute set before heading to their next gig.

Social media lit up with posts and videos about the surprise performance, from both students and faculty.

Thank you @TheChainsmokers Fine Arts at it's best!! You are welcome at HHS anytime! https://t.co/VFcJfiQZYH

— HHS Fine Arts (@HuntleyFineArts) April 30, 2017

@mrallenmath27 that'll teach you to not come to prom! http://pic.twitter.com/I07D1LDkue

— Dr. Scott Rowe (@ScottRowe158) April 30, 2017

Chainsmokers decided to make an appearance @hhshuntley Prom 2017 http://pic.twitter.com/JgEDszM8Vm

— Bradley Aney (@MrAneyHHS) April 30, 2017

For those wishing the Chainsmokers would crash their prom, the band offered some hope, tweeting: “Your prom could be next.”

Your prom could be next

— THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) April 30, 2017

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