All in all, the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards was a pretty good Emmys. Stephen Colbert didn't make a single racially insensitive joke, Lena Waithe gave an incredibly inspiring acceptance speech, the gay episode of Black Mirror won twice, and there was not a Modern Family win in sight. But there was one dark cloud over the evening: the surprise, supposedly comedic appearance by disgraced former press secretary Sean Spicer. Judging by the Sean Spicer Emmy reactions on Twitter, viewers were not pleased to see this angry little man joking around with his pal Stephen Colbert on their television screen. Maybe it's a good thing the 2017 Emmys got this questionable political stunt out of the way early. The Former White House Press Secretary to President Trump was brought out on stage by host Stephen Colbert at the end of his opening monologue. The real Spicer rolled out on a mobile podium, famously used by Melissa McCarthy in her impressions of him on Saturday Night Live. The real Spicer got a few jokes in. He referenced his famously inaccurate judgment of the inauguration crowd size by saying, Ha ha. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Get it? It's totally fine that he spewed blatant lies to the American public, because now we can all laugh about it together! The audience laughed and cheered for this former face of the Donald Trump presidency, and then later in the night gave all the Emmys to The Handmaid's Tale, you know, that show about how a dystopian, oppressive government is a bad thing. Yay, cognitive dissonance! Anyways, I'm not the only one who found this particular political stunt to be in fairly bad taste. The reaction on Twitter to Sean Spicer's Emmy appearance was overwhelmingly negative — from both regular viewers and celebrity viewers. Former SNL player and actress Jenny Slate tweeted that she was "so grossed out" by the decision. She said, Similarly, actor Zach Braff tweeted, Filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner, known for his role as Max Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, tweeted, And of course, though she didn't share her opinion on Twitter, Melissa McCarthy's reaction when the camera cut to her during the real Spicer's bit said a thousand words: She did not approve. Many non-celebrities also shared their disapproval on Twitter, some viewer lamenting the double standard for 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and this small angry liar. Others critiqued the Television Academy for its hypocrisy. Again, though the night was filled anti-Trump sentiment, inspiring speeches about political activism, and supposedly subversive post-Trump television, Spicer was still invited onto that very same stage where that all took place. And according to journalist Chris Gardner of The Hollywood Reporter, who attended the show, Spicer had no lack of fans and attention after the Emmys. Gardner tweeted, Don't you just love it when lying politicians — who are so terrible at their job even Donald Trump has to fire them — become beloved, whacky celebrities? Thanks for that one, Academy of Television Arts &amp; Sciences. Answer: forum
President Donald Trump once left his son, Donald Trump Jr., stranded on a tarmac after he was five minutes late for a flight, the president's first wife Ivana Trump wrote in her new book "Raising Trump." Ivana referenced the anecdote when describing a key feature of Donald and the rest of the Trump family that she learned when she and the future president first began dating. "The entire Trump clan arrived exactly on time," she wrote. "I learned early on that they were punctual to an extreme. For them, 'on time' meant five minutes early." "When Donald arrived in a boardroom, or took his seat on an airplane and the door closed, that was that," she continued. "If you weren't on the inside, the meeting or the flight would start without you. Donald once left Don Jr. standing on the tarmac for being five minutes late to the airport." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Roger Stone explains what Trump has in common with Richard Nixon See Also: SEE ALSO: McConnell gives strongest hint yet that GOP should gut the biggest weapon Democrats have to halt Trump's judicial nominees Answer: grade
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and his wife, Jane Sanders have hired prominent defense attorneys amid an FBI investigation concerning possible bank fraud, according to CBS News and Politico Magazine. The investigation centers on a loan that Jane Sanders secured to expand Burlington College when she was its president. Jane Sanders allegedly distorted school donor levels in a 2010 loan application for $10 million from People's United Bank to buy 33 acres of land for the school, which shut down in 2016. Bernie Sanders told the Washington Post that the investigation would clear his wife of any wrongdoing. Rich Cassidy has reportedly been hired to represent Bernie Sanders, while high-profile Washington defense attorney Larry Robbins is reportedly representing Jane Sanders. Answer: grade
Only seven months into his puzzling presidency, Donald Trump has accomplished an odd achievement: He’s made Sigmund Freud relevant again. Although the father of psychoanalysis is no longer fashionable, the Freudian concept of psychological projection is alive and well. “I think he’s crazy,” said Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, speaking into an open microphone about Trump. J. Brien Comey, father of fired FBI director Jim Comey, thinks Trump belongs “in an institution.” Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin has questioned the president’s “mental stability.” These aren’t isolated examples. Many prominent liberals, conservatives, moderates, and libertarians have concluded that the president is off his rocker. The tangible evidence for that proposition is thin, and Trump seems to be enjoying himself more and more. Maybe we’re all just projecting. “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is the phrase used by those sympathetic to the president to explain liberals’ hair-on-fire response to anything Trump says or does. TDS is also an occupational hazard of being a member of the Republican establishment or a movement conservative who cares about such trite concepts as political principles. This became clear again last week in the hysteria over Trump’s approach to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. In response to the administration’s original announcement rescinding DACA, liberals came unglued. Not content to call the decision dumb and racist, which they did, they played the sanity card. “It is lunacy,” opined Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Mark Dayton. The president, added HBO comedic pundit John Oliver, is out of his mind. “Utter insanity,” proclaimed Susan Hay, a co-founder of a Florida-based pro-immigrant and refugee nonprofit. That was then. A few days later, after dining on Chinese food (you can’t make this stuff up) at the White House with Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Trump reversed field on DACA. In the real world, such a development is called processing new information. In modern U.S. politics, it’s considered treason -- or insanity. This time, it was conservatives who melted down. Ann Coulter pronounced it the death of the GOP brand; Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, an immigration hardliner, claimed it would “crack” Trump’s core base of support; various commenters on conservative news sites theorized that Trump had been taken over by aliens. Not the illegal kind, the kind from outer space. Since before Trump’s inauguration, Democratic attorneys in the nation’s capital have contemplated replacing Trump under the 25th Amendment’s requirement that the president is able to “discharge the powers and duties of his office,” i.e. impeaching him on grounds he’s intellectually incapacitated. Although this idea itself is bonkers, Coulter alluded to it—not unfavorably—Friday. “At this point,” she tweeted, “who DOESN’T want Trump impeached?” Fellow conservative pundit Laura Ingraham, more measured in her criticism, noted that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough had spent most of the year speculating that Trump is “mentally unstable [but] is praising him today.” Ordinary civilians are getting into the psychology racket, too. “Jody,” an Arizona conservative who dialed in to Ingraham’s radio show, said she was suffering from a new strain of the disease: “Pelosi Trump Schumer Disorder,” she called it. “I am done if they don’t build the wall.” Jody was kidding, or at least half-kidding, but stressing out to this degree over politics is becoming a national obsession. It can’t be healthy. And as for labeling as cuckoo those with whom we disagree, well, that’s an old KGB tactic. We can’t let Vladimir Putin do that to us. Unfortunately, the psychology racket is full of those with no sense of history. A new book arrived, unsolicited, in the mail recently with a long title: “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” The cover gives the game away, but the publisher also included a foreword from 91-year-old psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who offers the melodramatic view that clinicians who don’t warn the world about Donald Trump’s shortcomings are akin to Nazi doctors who worked at Auschwitz. At the risk of practicing medicine without a license, I’d suggest that this historical comparison is de facto evidence of TDS -- and paranoid grandiosity. A better title would have been “27 Angry Democrats With Advanced Degrees Who Voted Against Trump and Say He’s Crazy Although They’ve Never Met Him.” Lifton and others associated with this project are part of something called the “Duty to Warn” project. The word “duty” is a term of art, given that since 1973, the American Psychiatric Association had cautioned its members against diagnosing patients they’ve not personally evaluated. Although this seems like common sense, it’s more than that: It’s a hard-earned lesson. It’s called the “Goldwater Rule,” and it comes from the 1964 presidential campaign. In October of that year, when educated elites were just as unhinged over the idea of a Republican populist in the White House as they are today, provocative left-wing pamphleteer Ralph Ginzburg published an article in his “Fact” magazine with an incendiary headline: “1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater Is Psychologically Unfit to Be President!” For those too young to remember, Barry Goldwater was a conservative Arizona senator and the Republican Party’s 1964 presidential nominee. Key in the creation of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Goldwater was also a decorated World War II pilot, a fiscal conservative, a fierce anti-communist, and friends in the Senate with John F. Kennedy. As Donald Trump would do 52 years later, Goldwater wrested the GOP nomination away from the Establishment, creating a fissure in Republican politics that exists to this day. Unlike Trump, Goldwater did not become president. He lost to Lyndon Johnson in a historic landslide. I’ve never heard any political observer blame the Fact magazine article for that defeat, but it was so nasty and gratuitous that when the campaign was over Goldwater filed a libel suit in federal court. Of the 12,356 psychiatrists queried by Ginzburg, 2,417 responded – and only 657 pronounced Goldwater psychologically fit to be president. Some 1,189 of these quacks diagnosed the senator -- on the record, with their names attached – as unfit, offering such dubious diagnoses as “megalomania,” “paranoid personality, “emotionally unstable,” “immature,” “grossly psychotic,” “mass murderer,” “immoral,” “chronic schizophrenic,” “dangerous lunatic” and – stupidest of all -- “cowardly.” Goldwater won his case, despite the high bar public officials face in such matters. When he testified in federal court, he came across as rational, composed, normal, and emotionally healthy. His critics were the ones who were unhinged. Is that happening again? Donald Trump seemed almost happy last week. Sure, he wants good coverage in the New York Times. Doesn’t everyone? And, yes, he’d rather spend time with Chuck Schumer than Mitch McConnell. Who wouldn’t? He wants to build a wall to prevent future waves of illegal immigration, but has a soft spot for “Dreamers.” He was in his element comforting hurricane victims. These traits make him crazy? He could be the sanest politician in Washington right now. Answer: forum
In March 2016, Trump tweeted: “Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used an image of Melania from a GQ shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!” Trump followed up his initial comment by retweeting an unflattering photo comparing Heidi Cruz with his wife, Melania, stating, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It was reported in the same story that a friend of Diana, Selina Scott, said the princess felt stalked after her divorce from Prince Charles; Trump “bombarded Diana at Kensington Palace with massive bouquets of flowers.” In a tweet that Trump later deleted, he wrote on April 16, 2016: “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” In December 2015, Trump said Clinton “got schlonged” by President Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential primaries. In doing so, he turned the Yiddish word for penis into a verb. According to CNN, Yiddish scholars were shocked by the word’s use in a “filthy” context. Trump condemned Clinton for “shouting” during her appeal to female voters. In an MSNBC interview, he acknowledged that he was using gendered terms when referencing Clinton’s decibel level. Trump has also criticized her credentials for president by saying, “Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the women’s card.”The Republican candidate followed that remark up by calling Clinton an “enabler” of her husband’s infidelity. California: Say Goodbye To Your Mortgage If You Have No Missed Payments Forget Skinny Jeans. These Are What You Should Be Wearing This Summer. Thinking About Solar For Your Home? Read This First "Gesture of love": Photo of police officer breastfeeding malnourished baby goes viral Members of Amazon tribe never seen by outsiders filmed by drone Natasha Aponte, woman who tricked thousands of men on Tinder, explains purpose behind dating competition Ivana Trump worked for the Trump Organization after they were married. She was president of Trump’s Castle casino resort and the Plaza Hotel. According to the New York Times, she was only paid an annual salary of $1. He wrote in his book “The Art of the Comeback” that he regretted taking Ivana out of the role of being his wife and making her a businesswoman, because business then dominated their personal lives as well. Ivana has praised her ex-husband, telling the New York Post that his trust in her business skills was proof of his respect for women. She said, “He loves women. But not a feminist.” When she filed for divorce from Trump, instigated by his affair with Marla Maples, she stated in a deposition that her husband had raped her. However, she later said that “it was all the lawyers,” adding, “I was never abused.” It was Donald Trump’s affair with Marla Maples that led to his divorce from Ivana Trump. The couple married in 1993 and divorced six years later in 1999. It was Trump’s relationship with Maples that also provided fodder for recently resurfaced allegations that Trump posed as his own public relations rep in interviews with various publications. In a 1991 phone interviewwith People magazine reporter Sue Carswell, a recording of which was released in May 2016, a rep who identified himself as “John Miller” explained why Trump had left Maples for Italian singer-model Carla Bruni. In the interview, “Miller” bragged that Trump was constantly pursued by famous women and that “he’s living with Marla and he’s got three other girlfriends.” According to Carswell, Trump later apologized for the ruse, saying it was a “joke gone awry,” though he currently denies he ever posed as his own rep. In the recording of the phone conversation, “Miller” -- whose tone, cadence and style of speaking are all remarkably Trump-like -- gave intimate details of Trump’s encounters with celebrities like Italian singer and model Carla Bruni and pop star Madonna. Of stories that Trump dated Bruni, the woman now married to former French President Nicolas Sarkozy told London’s Daily Mail, “Trump is obviously a lunatic.” She stated Trump dreamed up the match for publicity sake. “It’s so untrue and I’m deeply embarrassed by it all.” Answer: forum
Vice President Biden defended Hillary Clinton’s decision to use a private email server as secretary of state in an interview Thursday with “Face the Nation” moderator John Dickerson. Dickerson asked Biden about a lesson from his Grandfather Finnegan: “Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they’ll like what he, the public servant, has to say.” He asked the vice president, “Do you think that applies to Hillary Clinton’s dealing with this private server that she set up?” “Well, I think it’s a combination of a couple of things,” Biden replied. “One, I don’t think she understood the gravity of setting it up. She thought it was, ‘This is okay to do.’” Clinton has said she set up her private server for the sake of convenience, but she has since acknowledged that it was a mistake and that she would use the government system if she had to do it over again. Biden further suggested that Clinton may be a bit battle-scarred from her long time in the public eye, and he said that may have contributed to her initial clumsy response to the email controversy. “This woman has been so battered over 30 years,” Biden explained. “I think then when faced with, ‘This is a problem,’ I think instead of just cutting it and dealing with it immediately, there’s always an inclination to overthink it.” The vice president also weighed in on his own future after his time in the Obama administration. “I’m not going away,” he began. “Everything from this issue of violence against women, to income inequality, to the cancer ‘moonshot,’ I’m gonna devote the rest of my life to this.” “I have been so proud of being involved in public service that I’m not sure exactly how I’m gonna do it,” he added, “other than the structure of [the] American political system.” When Dickerson asked Biden what he’ll do on his final day in office, the vice president replied, “What I’m going to do is go home and begin to figure out what I do for the rest of my life.” More of Dickerson’s interview with the vice president will air Sunday. Check your local listings for airtimes. Answer: grade
that's hot I mean, it worked in Brazil, where Gisele Bündchen — supermodel, World Wildlife Federation representative, and behind-the-scenes shaper of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s political consciousness — tweeted at Brazilian President Michel Temer: It's our job to protect our Mother Earth. @MichelTemer, please say NO to reducing protection in the Amazon! https://t.co/KkKF4MrhGg Bündchen’s tweet concerns legislation that would have removed protection from some parts of the Amazon rainforest. Temer’s administration has been remarkably anti-conservation, threatening indigenous lands in favor of new agricultural, mineral extraction, and hydroelectric developments. And lo! Temer responded: That means, “I vetoed those bills, because you are extremely beautiful.” NO! It just means, “I vetoed those bills.” This seems like a good approach to try in America. Can someone please text Kendall Jenner to ask if she feels like doing something substantive for the greater good? The EPA is really hot right now. Answer: forum
Medical science is constantly making cancer breakthroughs, however there’s an extensive process to bring treatments to the public. After making a discovery in the lab and performing tests, there are human clinical trials that require oversight by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before approval. That being said, there are some promising new treatments (with some currently still in the investigational stages) targeting cancer, and they could prove valuable to millions of patients in the U.S. and beyond in the future. Here are six experimental cancer treatments that are catching attention from the medical world… BestMedicalDegrees.com outlines this experimental use of heat to target tumors. This technique can zero in on specific areas or heat the whole body, which will break down protein cells within a tumor and cause them to die, notes the source. While the treatment can potentially blast away existing cells, it could also help prevent new ones from forming. “Hyperthermia Therapy is very exciting because, if it turns out to be a viable treatment, this will destroy the cancerous tumors from the inside out and hinder its ability to infect more healthy cells,” adds the source. Also called adoptive cell transfer, the experimental technique aims to improve the ability of a patient’s natural T-cells (lymphocytes for immunity) to fight cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Doctors can take the best and most active T-cells that have invaded a tumor and extract them to multiply in a lab – the patient’s immune cells are then wiped out and the lab-grown cells are re-infused back to them, it adds. There are variations of this treatment, and the first use of it targeted metastatic melanoma, which can spread quickly through the body. Modified T-cells are also being looked at to treat other solid tumors as well as hematologic cancers (cancers of the blood), it adds. ABC News says in an article that this therapy consists of drugs that are aimed at destroying only specific cancer cells, without negatively affecting healthy cells as many existing treatments do. “Thus, people taking the drugs too often suffer horrible side effects on top of whatever havoc the cancer itself is already wreaking,” notes the source. ABC says the leading drug in this new therapy is called Glivec (or STI571). It is designed to treat a specific form a leukemia called chronic myeloid leukemia, which has about 7,000 new cases per year in the U.S., adds the source. “Doctors are extremely hopeful that the drug could provide a model for similar drugs to treat cancers affecting many thousands more people,” it notes. The National Cancer Institute detailed a potential new cancer therapy in early 2017, which looks to target ovarian cancer cells. The basics are that tumor cells “express” a protein called TNFR2, which can prevent a patient’s natural immune system from attacking a tumor. Researchers have developed new antibodies that target TNFR2, as well as having the ability to kill ovarian cancer cells, thus “killing two birds with one stone,” notes the source. The team found that ovarian cancer cells express an abnormal level of TNFR2 that can promote tumor growth – and the source points out other types of cancers, such as colon and kidney cancer, also show unusual TNFR2 production. This therapy, which the American Brain Tumor Association said was recently approved by the FDA for glioblastoma (an aggressive brain cancer), usually follows surgery and radiation therapy, adds the source. It involves ceramic discs called transducer arrays to deliver electromagnetic energy to the scalp. “These electrical fields exert selective toxicity in proliferating cells thereby halting cell division and destroying the cancer cells,” notes the source. While the treatment is used in conjunction with oral chemotherapy drugs for glioblastoma (GBM), it can be used on its own to target recurrent (returning) GBM when other options have been exhausted, according to the source. Usually, having a virus is a bad thing. However, this therapy essentially involves introducing a virus to cancer cells that leave healthy cells alone, notes StandUp2Cancer.org. The virus only seeks out cancer cells due to their genetic mutation that normal cells don’t have, it explains. One treatment in particular is called Reolysin, developed by a Canadian biotechnology company, notes the source. The site notes that almost 300-patients “with various forms of cancer” in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. have been treated with this therapy, which infects cancer cells and causes them to explode. Apparently, side effects (such as a low-grade fever) are a lot milder than those associated with chemotherapy and radiation, it adds. Answer: grade
Earlier this morning, President Trump took to Twitter to announce his decision to ban transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military. After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017 ….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming….. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017 ….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017 “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump announced via Twitter. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.” The announcement drew swift responses on the social media platform. “No American, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be prohibited from honor + privilege of serving our nation #LGBT,” tweeted Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). “Pleased to hear that @realDonaldTrump shares my readiness and cost concerns, &amp; will be changing this costly and damaging policy #readiness,” tweeted Rep. Vicky Jo Hartzler (R-MO). Just spoke to a Trump administration official about the transgender military decision. Here's what they said… pic.twitter.com/eOWdvlxTfd — Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) July 26, 2017 Trump’s decision will roll back military policy after the Obama administration lifted the ban last year, allowing transgender soldiers to openly serve in the United States Military. The Department of Defense policy drew sharp criticism, as it supported service members looking to change their gender, making them eligible to receive coverage for “medically necessary care and treatment.” “This is the right thing to do for our people and for the force,” former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in announcing the policy. “We’re talking about talented Americans who are serving with distinction or who want the opportunity to serve. We can’t allow barriers unrelated to a person’s qualifications prevent us from recruiting and retaining those who can best accomplish the mission.” It is not yet clear what effect this decision will have on the roughly 250 transgender individuals currently serving openly in the armed forces. SOUND OFF: Do you support Trump’s decision to ban transgender citizens from serving in our armed forces? Answer:
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