Being a bit of tech echo chamber, I don't know if some people on here don't realize that the majority of Android phone owners couldn't tell you what version of the OS their phone is running and couldn't care less. If it makes calls and plays their favorite apps then they're all good.
In fact I would hazard a guess that the majority wouldn't even want to be upgraded to the most recent version if it meant they'd have to adapt to changes to their interface except for those rare occasions where some killer feature is introduced. So a phone being introduced that doesn't have a version of the OS that was only released a couple of days ago is hardly a big deal.
iPhone users are probably better able to tell you their OS version (well most will just say "I'm on the latest") since if you don't update immediately the phone will beat you into submission until you finally buckle and allow the update.
Almost the entirety of the "Space Force" exists today but they are spread across multiple DoD and Intelligence groups so this isn't a huge expansion of the defense budget, more a realignment of existing expenditures. Over time it could even save money through consolidation. It's not even like this is a new proposal it's just the first time the Executive Branch bothered listening.
It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological. There looking to develop better defense of satellite and earth based communications, GPS systems and physical space based equipment as well as develop tech that may be able to interfere with those same systems as used by the 'enemy'.
It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.
A lot of these projects are already funded but due to various agencies priorities the money doesn't necessarily get spent in those areas. This will create an agency that ensures the money appropriated for space based defense gets spent on space defense.
That's because Obama preferred the use of Presidential Memos instead of EOs and despite having the same legal authority of an EO (though few of the reporting requirements) the press and the "fact checkers" who have the research ability of a squirrel with ADD when it comes to digging into anything Obama related, made sure to only counts EOs when any question of his use of the 'phone and pen' were questioned.
Obama in 2 years: EOs = 74, PMs = 139 Trump in 20 months: EOs 76, PMs = 42
And just for comparison: Obama 8 years: EOs = 276, PMs = 644 Bush 8 Years: EOs = 290, PMs = 7
There are also a few other Presidential documents that act similarly to EOs but they tend to be in the low double digits for all Presidents so not really worth counting.
And as people have already mentioned, not all EOs and PMs are created equal. They are supposed to be used to further clarify existing laws or express how the President would like certain powers granted to him to be executed, or for mundane things like declaring some random day special or bestowing special honors on someone. Obama routinely used them to bypass congress altogether and just write new laws that didn't exist. Not only is that unconstitutional but as we've all seen since Trump arrived (since several of his EOs are expressly to counter Obama's), a terrible way to govern as anything done by EO can be erased by EO.
Technically the model wasn't cancelled but the price was removed from the ordering page so no one knows if it will actually be $35,000 when it's available in 9 months or not. There were stories that some of the expected cost savings from production scaling aren't appearing so it's anyone guess if it will ever arrive at that price point.
Of course that doesn't prevent reviewers from reviewing the $35,000 model 3 from Tesla, and then almost as an afterthought mentioning that the actual version their testing is actually the $53,000 or $64,000 model.
From my understanding MoviePass isn't actually associated with the theaters themselves so they get no share in the concession sales. They wanted to be the defacto theater subscription service but the various chains figured they could skip the middle man and just offer their own services. The theaters have the advantage that they do make money on concessions so just getting a person in the door is a win for them.
MoviePass wanted to be the Netflix of movie tickets but they were looking at the streaming market when Netflix launched not the market as it stands today. Back then Netflix was a lone wolf pushing the boundaries of subscription based services so were able to build a pretty good subscriber base and use that strength to get some good deals with distributors as well as build up their own in house production systems. Today everyone and their dog has a streaming service and it would be much harder for a new Netflix to launch. Amazon Prime is the closest but that's only because they weren't really reliant on profits to survive in the short term.
Essentially MoviePass went with the "if you build it, they will come" business strategy but the problem is anyone else can also build it and a lot of theater chains are doing just that. They should have pushed harder on contracting with the various chains to become their in house movie service provider instead of just assuming they would hop on board later.
It is next to impossible to tie any payments to mistresses to a campaign no matter how obvious it looks. John Edwards being the poster boy for that type of charge. If funneling money to your pregnant mistress to stay out of sight while your wife is dying of cancer(?) all while you're trying to win your parties candidacy for President doesn't meet the standard of a campaign finance violation than simply paying off a couple of old hookups (one of which was already under contract not to talk and there is no actual record of a payment being made on Trump's behalf) is miles away from meeting that standard.
Regardless, campaign finance violations rarely ever results in any type of charges let alone felonies unless the act in question itself was illegal such as robbing a bank to finance your campaign. Paying hush money to ex-lovers may be stupid but is not in and of itself a crime. Violations are just a pretty normal part of all campaigns. For example, Obama had over $2 million dollars in violations in his campaign and just paid a small fine which is pretty much the SOP.
So you can get the fever dreams of watching Trump being perp walked for campaign violations and the entire election being overturned out of your head. Most likely this will be ruled a personal matter and not subject to campaign finance laws (as Edward's was) or Trump will have to pay back any parties who spent money on his behalf and pay a small fine, probably in the low double digits.
The stats for drug sniffing dogs are horrendous. Some of the top 'performing' dogs give a positive response in 90% + exams with less than 60% backed up with by the resultant searches. It's not that they can't smell the drugs but their need to please their handlers takes priority. It's almost like having a four legged polygraph; it's mostly for show and to step over the small justification hurdle. It's effectively just a tool used by police when they already think they have their suspect and any form of reliability metric is unimportant.
Bomb sniffing dogs, on the other hand, have a much higher effective result rate because their handlers are much less likely to 'signal' where they want a hit to occur. Since bomb dogs aren't generally used to justify a search and are usually brought in only after a warrant has been executed to try and safely clear a site they receive less direct guidance from their handlers to find something and just do their jobs.
Being Canadian I've always preferred the hockey style offside rule which is zone based as opposed to defending player position based. Basically the field would just have to be split into 3 zones, a zone for each team and a neutral zone. An attacking player could not enter the defenders zone unless they are in possession of the ball or the ball has already entered first. After that point all play is considered onside unless the ball exits the zone.
This prevents long range goal camping, as you can't enter the defending zone without the ball already being there, but doesn't require attackers to have to stay behind the defense once in the defending zone so they can be a little more aggressive in their play.
Foreign governments HAVE ALWAYS been involved in the democratic process. The only time they aren't is if your country has absolutely nothing of advantage for them which is rare.
It may be as little as a nasty word or two about a particular politician or it could be an outright assassination but you'd be hard pressed to find any election in the past 200 years in which some foreign power wasn't involved either behind the curtain or outright on the streets.
The 'Russian' thing is just sour grapes. China probably had more of an impact on the last election in the US.
The one 'witch' Mueller has found was simply a father being blackmailed into pleading guilty to a 'process crime' that even the FBI agents involved didn't believe happened because of threats of similar prosecution against his son (Flynn).
Manafort is, was, and always has been a crook (while working with both parties) but none of the crimes he's being charged with, by Mueller's own admission, have anything to do with Trump or the Russian investigation.
The Russian companies and citizens were just padding and no one, especially Mueller, expected them to ever show up for trial and his team was effectively slapped by the judge when a lawyer actually appeared to defend some of them and Mueller's team wasn't ready. It has to be one of the only times a prosecutor tried appealing for a continuance based on a their own bad summons while the target happily surrendered any extra rights they may have gained from the prosecutors mistakes.
Benghazi was just terrible management and an even worse attempt at a cover up but nothing that really rose to a the level of a crime and really had no reason to be investigated as such. The families may be able to sue in civil court but I doubt any politician or bureaucrat will ever face any personal hardship over it.
The rate plans in Canada are all about timing and location. If you renew around Christmas you can generally get a much better plan.
I got unlimited talk and text nationwide + 10gb of data for $60 (taxes in) last Christmas and then a week later that same plan was a about $115 + tax.
You can get similar $60 plans all the time but the trade off is you have to live in Manitoba. I guess they figure you're suffering enough so they'll give you a little break on your phone bill.
Harvey Weinstein was running around Hollywood assaulting, harassing, raping women for decades and it was only after Ronan Farrow decided to walk his story away from his own news department (NBC) who had refused to report on it and get his story printed in another magazine that it became so public that the liberals in the entertainment industry couldn't hide it anymore. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into taking any action.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a teenager and didn't even try to hide it, instead just did a 'she was asking for it' defense and he still managed to find work and receive awards and accolades from some of Hollywood's finest.
And of course there's always Bill Clinton.
You don't get to claim the moral high ground for your side when you finally do something after 30 years of inaction and mostly because it's beyond your control to stop it from happening anyway.
Yes, the military staffed White House communications security team say his phones are secure. It's not like he had the local Geek Squad guy come over and set it up for him.
All of the hyped up controversy about phone security is based off of one Politico article using a couple of unnamed 'senior administration officials' (which could mean anyone) as a source and even then they are only commenting on Trumps twitter phone. All other articles are essentially a circle jerk of reporters re-writing Politico's story by finding their own security experts and posing questions with no actual first hand knowledge of the procedures used to secure Trumps phones.
ABC actually did a follow-up and asked another 'senior White House official' about the phones and they were told that Trump follows the instructions of the White House Information Technology and the White House Communications Agency (these are military staffed team(s) that handle White House communications security). They were told that the talk capable phone is swapped regularly but the twitter phone does not require the same replacement process as it's highly restricted in capabilities so often goes months between exchanges.
Even Politico's original article states that their sources didn't know anything about how often the talk capable phone was swapped out right before going into their 'the world is going to end because Trumps phone is insecure!!!" spiel.
Essentially it's a non-story that became overhyped because people, either through error or intentional deceit, conflated 2 completely different devices.
According to the White House IT Security team Trumps phones are quite secure. He uses 2 phones for different reasons.
Phone #1 is used solely for Twitter (this is the phone I'm sure everyone would like him to lose). That phones is already locked out of other functions and they rarely do any updates on it but will if the need arises.
Phone #2 is call capable and is routinely swapped out as mandated by the security team.
The whole "Trumps phones are a security risk" story seems to be another drummed up controversy based on half a fact presented to outside 'experts' who are more than willing to give their opinions on matters they aren't familiar with.
FYI asylum seekers showing up at a port of entry and asking for asylum have committed no crime At All.
The cases people keep pushing to the media are for people illegally crossing the border and then claiming asylum when caught.
Previous admins use a "catch and release" system where they were given a court date and let go a very large number never showed up. This, as well as other 'kid friendly' policies led to exponential increases in people crossing with underage children or simply sending underage children across alone. It also led to a boost to human traffickers who could simply claim the child they were with was theirs and be let go.
Trump is simply choosing to enforce the law as written but as is the norm for immigration/border laws, nobody in congress ever expects their laws to be properly followed so they underfunded it leading to a lack of family housing units.
Almost all American indictments have been for process crimes or crimes that had nothing to do with the Trump campaign or even the 2016 election. Their highest profile conviction, Flynn, is falling apart even after he confessed as it's been shown that the original FBI agents reported no sign of perjury (a report hidden from the defense) and the primary driver of the confession was a threat to pursue and potentially bankrupt his son on similar 'made up' charges (made up in the manner that the FBI can effectively charge anyone with lying to them as it's almost impossible to be 100% accurate when making a statement about anything you are not currently doing).
The majority of the indictments are Russian and were so poorly backed that when some of the named companies actually sent lawyers to court (something no one, especially Mueller expected) Mueller's team couldn't actually proceed and had to ask for a continuance. The funniest part was the motion to delay based on not properly handling the summons. Usually this is a defense tactic to say they weren't properly served so therefore should be given more time or special considerations but in this case it was the prosecutors claiming they weren't able to properly send out the summons while the defense lawyers were in court saying we don't care if the summons wasn't properly processed because of mistakes on the special councils part, they were ready to go and would waive any rights this mistake may have granted them.
He was effectively padding his numbers by including charges he had no legal means to follow up on but was called on it and didn't know what to do. Adding to that, because the Russians showed up, they now have legal rights to all of the evidence against them which could include details about highly classified intelligence sources. All in all a very bad move on the Special Councils part. Even if they get a conviction the Russians win as they'll get a lot of juicy data and there's no legal recourse to penalize those companies anyway except preventing a few Russians from being able to go to Disneyworld or catch Hamilton on Broadway. If they lose the Russians still get the data plus they can fly on over to Kansas to visit the world's largest ball of twine if they so choose to.
As for Manafort, the closet thing to what most people think of as a criminal case, all of his charges stem from dealings that had nothing to do his short time at the Trump campaign and more to do with his very slippery business practices dating back several years. I don't think anyone from either side of the aisle will shed a tear if Manafort is convicted of something but those crimes should really be outside of the scope of this special councils mandate.
Campaign finance laws aren't really criminal matters either. At worst this is a violation to the tune of $130,000. Obama's campaign was found guilty of violations in the millions and, as is pretty par for the course, paid a small fine and life continued.
Trumps image was hardly squeaky clean to begin with so the revelations that he had an affair with a porn star would have hardly rocked the boat. John Edwards had a similar case during his presidential run and was easily able to claim it was a payoff for personal reasons and it is guaranteed that the news of him having a love child while his wife was dying of cancer would have had a much greater political impact on his presidential chances than the news that a thrice married reality TV star who cheated on each wife with the next one had had a one night stand with a stripper.
And almost all of those pleas and indictments are for process crimes (perjury) or events that happened years ago and had nothing to do with the Presidential election. The biggest plea so far, Flynn, is already in legal trouble as released FBI documents show that none of the investigators believe he perjured himself during their meeting and the charges were only later created out of thin air to apply pressure. It was only after they threatened to go after his son for similar trumped up charges and almost bankrupted him that he pled out.
As for Manafort, he's the scum of the earth and probably deserves to rot in prison but even some of the charges brought against him are facing some legal issues.
For those indictments that were added to pad the numbers (Russian companies and persons) Mueller knew that he had no legal ground to even pursue the charges so was completely taken by surprise when one of the companies actually sent a lawyer to represent them. It was so bad that Mueller's team had to ask for a continuance because they were completely unprepared. Hell, one of the companies that he indicted didn't even exist at the time of the crime they were indicted for; as the defense lawyer stated, they were the proverbial ham sandwich in front of the grand jury.
Comcast Won't Give free Speed Boost To Internet Users Who Don't Buy TV Service
This is a write up about a bundling deal Comcast is offering where tv subscribers get a free internet upgrade to the next package for free. Non subscribers are still free to pay the $10 or so to upgrade their speeds if they want to.
How is it screwing over customers to add a speed upgrade to their bundling offer? Non tv subscribers can still get the speed upgrade if they want, they just have to buy the next internet package up from their current one.
For the tv subscribers they get a nice little speed boost.
Let me add to your depression by asking how exactly getting a free speed upgrade costs the consumer more?
All this program does is give customers who are also cable tv subscribers the next internet package up from their current one for free. There are no additional fees unless you own your current modem and it can't handle the higher speeds in which case you can continue at the lower speed for free or buy/rent a new modem for some additional amount. If you are already renting you just swap your modem for free.
For non-tv subscribers life continues as normal (unless you get jealous and decide to pay the $10 for the upgrade yourself).
In either case the bills remain the same, just one group gets an added benefit because they have a bundle of services instead of a single service.
Absolutely nothing in the linked articles says a non-cable subscriber won't be able to get the listed speeds. They are merely write-ups about a deal Comcast is offering where those who are subscribers will get a speed boost for free.
So don't worry, you can still pay your $2 for your large coke but for $3.50 AC is getting the large coke as well as a burger and fries.
The rules change is supposed to be based on the HONEST act which specifically states that while the details and methods of the study must be public for review/reproducability:
"Personally identifiable information, trade secrets, or commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential must be redacted prior to public availability."
If Pruitt changed the wording of his rule even after meeting with Smith, the author of the HONEST act, no one has shown so.
As for the EPA's current procedures, nothing requires them to disclose any of the details to the studies used for their decision making. They routinely use data from studies they do not make public which allows them to pick and choose which pieces of data they like with no means of an outside source to verify their claims. That doesn't mean that there is some nefarious plan for them to control the US through over-regulation but when some of their rules can have billion dollar impacts it is important for people to be able to double check their work.
Slashdot Mirror
Being a bit of tech echo chamber, I don't know if some people on here don't realize that the majority of Android phone owners couldn't tell you what version of the OS their phone is running and couldn't care less. If it makes calls and plays their favorite apps then they're all good.
In fact I would hazard a guess that the majority wouldn't even want to be upgraded to the most recent version if it meant they'd have to adapt to changes to their interface except for those rare occasions where some killer feature is introduced. So a phone being introduced that doesn't have a version of the OS that was only released a couple of days ago is hardly a big deal.
iPhone users are probably better able to tell you their OS version (well most will just say "I'm on the latest") since if you don't update immediately the phone will beat you into submission until you finally buckle and allow the update.
Almost the entirety of the "Space Force" exists today but they are spread across multiple DoD and Intelligence groups so this isn't a huge expansion of the defense budget, more a realignment of existing expenditures. Over time it could even save money through consolidation. It's not even like this is a new proposal it's just the first time the Executive Branch bothered listening.
It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological. There looking to develop better defense of satellite and earth based communications, GPS systems and physical space based equipment as well as develop tech that may be able to interfere with those same systems as used by the 'enemy'.
It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.
A lot of these projects are already funded but due to various agencies priorities the money doesn't necessarily get spent in those areas. This will create an agency that ensures the money appropriated for space based defense gets spent on space defense.
That's because Obama preferred the use of Presidential Memos instead of EOs and despite having the same legal authority of an EO (though few of the reporting requirements) the press and the "fact checkers" who have the research ability of a squirrel with ADD when it comes to digging into anything Obama related, made sure to only counts EOs when any question of his use of the 'phone and pen' were questioned.
Obama in 2 years: EOs = 74, PMs = 139
Trump in 20 months: EOs 76, PMs = 42
And just for comparison:
Obama 8 years: EOs = 276, PMs = 644
Bush 8 Years: EOs = 290, PMs = 7
There are also a few other Presidential documents that act similarly to EOs but they tend to be in the low double digits for all Presidents so not really worth counting.
And as people have already mentioned, not all EOs and PMs are created equal. They are supposed to be used to further clarify existing laws or express how the President would like certain powers granted to him to be executed, or for mundane things like declaring some random day special or bestowing special honors on someone. Obama routinely used them to bypass congress altogether and just write new laws that didn't exist. Not only is that unconstitutional but as we've all seen since Trump arrived (since several of his EOs are expressly to counter Obama's), a terrible way to govern as anything done by EO can be erased by EO.
Technically the model wasn't cancelled but the price was removed from the ordering page so no one knows if it will actually be $35,000 when it's available in 9 months or not. There were stories that some of the expected cost savings from production scaling aren't appearing so it's anyone guess if it will ever arrive at that price point.
Of course that doesn't prevent reviewers from reviewing the $35,000 model 3 from Tesla, and then almost as an afterthought mentioning that the actual version their testing is actually the $53,000 or $64,000 model.
From my understanding MoviePass isn't actually associated with the theaters themselves so they get no share in the concession sales. They wanted to be the defacto theater subscription service but the various chains figured they could skip the middle man and just offer their own services. The theaters have the advantage that they do make money on concessions so just getting a person in the door is a win for them.
MoviePass wanted to be the Netflix of movie tickets but they were looking at the streaming market when Netflix launched not the market as it stands today. Back then Netflix was a lone wolf pushing the boundaries of subscription based services so were able to build a pretty good subscriber base and use that strength to get some good deals with distributors as well as build up their own in house production systems. Today everyone and their dog has a streaming service and it would be much harder for a new Netflix to launch. Amazon Prime is the closest but that's only because they weren't really reliant on profits to survive in the short term.
Essentially MoviePass went with the "if you build it, they will come" business strategy but the problem is anyone else can also build it and a lot of theater chains are doing just that. They should have pushed harder on contracting with the various chains to become their in house movie service provider instead of just assuming they would hop on board later.
It is next to impossible to tie any payments to mistresses to a campaign no matter how obvious it looks. John Edwards being the poster boy for that type of charge. If funneling money to your pregnant mistress to stay out of sight while your wife is dying of cancer(?) all while you're trying to win your parties candidacy for President doesn't meet the standard of a campaign finance violation than simply paying off a couple of old hookups (one of which was already under contract not to talk and there is no actual record of a payment being made on Trump's behalf) is miles away from meeting that standard.
Regardless, campaign finance violations rarely ever results in any type of charges let alone felonies unless the act in question itself was illegal such as robbing a bank to finance your campaign. Paying hush money to ex-lovers may be stupid but is not in and of itself a crime. Violations are just a pretty normal part of all campaigns. For example, Obama had over $2 million dollars in violations in his campaign and just paid a small fine which is pretty much the SOP.
So you can get the fever dreams of watching Trump being perp walked for campaign violations and the entire election being overturned out of your head. Most likely this will be ruled a personal matter and not subject to campaign finance laws (as Edward's was) or Trump will have to pay back any parties who spent money on his behalf and pay a small fine, probably in the low double digits.
The stats for drug sniffing dogs are horrendous. Some of the top 'performing' dogs give a positive response in 90% + exams with less than 60% backed up with by the resultant searches. It's not that they can't smell the drugs but their need to please their handlers takes priority. It's almost like having a four legged polygraph; it's mostly for show and to step over the small justification hurdle. It's effectively just a tool used by police when they already think they have their suspect and any form of reliability metric is unimportant.
Bomb sniffing dogs, on the other hand, have a much higher effective result rate because their handlers are much less likely to 'signal' where they want a hit to occur. Since bomb dogs aren't generally used to justify a search and are usually brought in only after a warrant has been executed to try and safely clear a site they receive less direct guidance from their handlers to find something and just do their jobs.
Harder to use a dump and chase strat on a field with no boards.
Being Canadian I've always preferred the hockey style offside rule which is zone based as opposed to defending player position based. Basically the field would just have to be split into 3 zones, a zone for each team and a neutral zone. An attacking player could not enter the defenders zone unless they are in possession of the ball or the ball has already entered first. After that point all play is considered onside unless the ball exits the zone.
This prevents long range goal camping, as you can't enter the defending zone without the ball already being there, but doesn't require attackers to have to stay behind the defense once in the defending zone so they can be a little more aggressive in their play.
Foreign governments HAVE ALWAYS been involved in the democratic process. The only time they aren't is if your country has absolutely nothing of advantage for them which is rare.
It may be as little as a nasty word or two about a particular politician or it could be an outright assassination but you'd be hard pressed to find any election in the past 200 years in which some foreign power wasn't involved either behind the curtain or outright on the streets.
The 'Russian' thing is just sour grapes. China probably had more of an impact on the last election in the US.
The one 'witch' Mueller has found was simply a father being blackmailed into pleading guilty to a 'process crime' that even the FBI agents involved didn't believe happened because of threats of similar prosecution against his son (Flynn).
Manafort is, was, and always has been a crook (while working with both parties) but none of the crimes he's being charged with, by Mueller's own admission, have anything to do with Trump or the Russian investigation.
The Russian companies and citizens were just padding and no one, especially Mueller, expected them to ever show up for trial and his team was effectively slapped by the judge when a lawyer actually appeared to defend some of them and Mueller's team wasn't ready. It has to be one of the only times a prosecutor tried appealing for a continuance based on a their own bad summons while the target happily surrendered any extra rights they may have gained from the prosecutors mistakes.
Benghazi was just terrible management and an even worse attempt at a cover up but nothing that really rose to a the level of a crime and really had no reason to be investigated as such. The families may be able to sue in civil court but I doubt any politician or bureaucrat will ever face any personal hardship over it.
The rate plans in Canada are all about timing and location. If you renew around Christmas you can generally get a much better plan.
I got unlimited talk and text nationwide + 10gb of data for $60 (taxes in) last Christmas and then a week later that same plan was a about $115 + tax.
You can get similar $60 plans all the time but the trade off is you have to live in Manitoba. I guess they figure you're suffering enough so they'll give you a little break on your phone bill.
Harvey Weinstein was running around Hollywood assaulting, harassing, raping women for decades and it was only after Ronan Farrow decided to walk his story away from his own news department (NBC) who had refused to report on it and get his story printed in another magazine that it became so public that the liberals in the entertainment industry couldn't hide it anymore. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into taking any action.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a teenager and didn't even try to hide it, instead just did a 'she was asking for it' defense and he still managed to find work and receive awards and accolades from some of Hollywood's finest.
And of course there's always Bill Clinton.
You don't get to claim the moral high ground for your side when you finally do something after 30 years of inaction and mostly because it's beyond your control to stop it from happening anyway.
Yes, the military staffed White House communications security team say his phones are secure. It's not like he had the local Geek Squad guy come over and set it up for him.
All of the hyped up controversy about phone security is based off of one Politico article using a couple of unnamed 'senior administration officials' (which could mean anyone) as a source and even then they are only commenting on Trumps twitter phone. All other articles are essentially a circle jerk of reporters re-writing Politico's story by finding their own security experts and posing questions with no actual first hand knowledge of the procedures used to secure Trumps phones.
ABC actually did a follow-up and asked another 'senior White House official' about the phones and they were told that Trump follows the instructions of the White House Information Technology and the White House Communications Agency (these are military staffed team(s) that handle White House communications security). They were told that the talk capable phone is swapped regularly but the twitter phone does not require the same replacement process as it's highly restricted in capabilities so often goes months between exchanges.
Even Politico's original article states that their sources didn't know anything about how often the talk capable phone was swapped out right before going into their 'the world is going to end because Trumps phone is insecure!!!" spiel.
Essentially it's a non-story that became overhyped because people, either through error or intentional deceit, conflated 2 completely different devices.
According to the White House IT Security team Trumps phones are quite secure. He uses 2 phones for different reasons.
Phone #1 is used solely for Twitter (this is the phone I'm sure everyone would like him to lose). That phones is already locked out of other functions and they rarely do any updates on it but will if the need arises.
Phone #2 is call capable and is routinely swapped out as mandated by the security team.
The whole "Trumps phones are a security risk" story seems to be another drummed up controversy based on half a fact presented to outside 'experts' who are more than willing to give their opinions on matters they aren't familiar with.
A small correction to your post:
FYI asylum seekers showing up at a port of entry and asking for asylum have committed no crime At All.
The cases people keep pushing to the media are for people illegally crossing the border and then claiming asylum when caught.
Previous admins use a "catch and release" system where they were given a court date and let go a very large number never showed up. This, as well as other 'kid friendly' policies led to exponential increases in people crossing with underage children or simply sending underage children across alone. It also led to a boost to human traffickers who could simply claim the child they were with was theirs and be let go.
Trump is simply choosing to enforce the law as written but as is the norm for immigration/border laws, nobody in congress ever expects their laws to be properly followed so they underfunded it leading to a lack of family housing units.
Almost all American indictments have been for process crimes or crimes that had nothing to do with the Trump campaign or even the 2016 election. Their highest profile conviction, Flynn, is falling apart even after he confessed as it's been shown that the original FBI agents reported no sign of perjury (a report hidden from the defense) and the primary driver of the confession was a threat to pursue and potentially bankrupt his son on similar 'made up' charges (made up in the manner that the FBI can effectively charge anyone with lying to them as it's almost impossible to be 100% accurate when making a statement about anything you are not currently doing).
The majority of the indictments are Russian and were so poorly backed that when some of the named companies actually sent lawyers to court (something no one, especially Mueller expected) Mueller's team couldn't actually proceed and had to ask for a continuance. The funniest part was the motion to delay based on not properly handling the summons. Usually this is a defense tactic to say they weren't properly served so therefore should be given more time or special considerations but in this case it was the prosecutors claiming they weren't able to properly send out the summons while the defense lawyers were in court saying we don't care if the summons wasn't properly processed because of mistakes on the special councils part, they were ready to go and would waive any rights this mistake may have granted them.
He was effectively padding his numbers by including charges he had no legal means to follow up on but was called on it and didn't know what to do. Adding to that, because the Russians showed up, they now have legal rights to all of the evidence against them which could include details about highly classified intelligence sources. All in all a very bad move on the Special Councils part. Even if they get a conviction the Russians win as they'll get a lot of juicy data and there's no legal recourse to penalize those companies anyway except preventing a few Russians from being able to go to Disneyworld or catch Hamilton on Broadway. If they lose the Russians still get the data plus they can fly on over to Kansas to visit the world's largest ball of twine if they so choose to.
As for Manafort, the closet thing to what most people think of as a criminal case, all of his charges stem from dealings that had nothing to do his short time at the Trump campaign and more to do with his very slippery business practices dating back several years. I don't think anyone from either side of the aisle will shed a tear if Manafort is convicted of something but those crimes should really be outside of the scope of this special councils mandate.
Campaign finance laws aren't really criminal matters either. At worst this is a violation to the tune of $130,000. Obama's campaign was found guilty of violations in the millions and, as is pretty par for the course, paid a small fine and life continued.
Trumps image was hardly squeaky clean to begin with so the revelations that he had an affair with a porn star would have hardly rocked the boat. John Edwards had a similar case during his presidential run and was easily able to claim it was a payoff for personal reasons and it is guaranteed that the news of him having a love child while his wife was dying of cancer would have had a much greater political impact on his presidential chances than the news that a thrice married reality TV star who cheated on each wife with the next one had had a one night stand with a stripper.
And almost all of those pleas and indictments are for process crimes (perjury) or events that happened years ago and had nothing to do with the Presidential election. The biggest plea so far, Flynn, is already in legal trouble as released FBI documents show that none of the investigators believe he perjured himself during their meeting and the charges were only later created out of thin air to apply pressure. It was only after they threatened to go after his son for similar trumped up charges and almost bankrupted him that he pled out.
As for Manafort, he's the scum of the earth and probably deserves to rot in prison but even some of the charges brought against him are facing some legal issues.
For those indictments that were added to pad the numbers (Russian companies and persons) Mueller knew that he had no legal ground to even pursue the charges so was completely taken by surprise when one of the companies actually sent a lawyer to represent them. It was so bad that Mueller's team had to ask for a continuance because they were completely unprepared. Hell, one of the companies that he indicted didn't even exist at the time of the crime they were indicted for; as the defense lawyer stated, they were the proverbial ham sandwich in front of the grand jury.
The headline is misleading. It should say:
This is a write up about a bundling deal Comcast is offering where tv subscribers get a free internet upgrade to the next package for free. Non subscribers are still free to pay the $10 or so to upgrade their speeds if they want to.
How is it screwing over customers to add a speed upgrade to their bundling offer? Non tv subscribers can still get the speed upgrade if they want, they just have to buy the next internet package up from their current one.
For the tv subscribers they get a nice little speed boost.
For non subscribers absolutely nothing changes.
Let me add to your depression by asking how exactly getting a free speed upgrade costs the consumer more?
All this program does is give customers who are also cable tv subscribers the next internet package up from their current one for free. There are no additional fees unless you own your current modem and it can't handle the higher speeds in which case you can continue at the lower speed for free or buy/rent a new modem for some additional amount. If you are already renting you just swap your modem for free.
For non-tv subscribers life continues as normal (unless you get jealous and decide to pay the $10 for the upgrade yourself).
In either case the bills remain the same, just one group gets an added benefit because they have a bundle of services instead of a single service.
Absolutely nothing in the linked articles says a non-cable subscriber won't be able to get the listed speeds. They are merely write-ups about a deal Comcast is offering where those who are subscribers will get a speed boost for free.
So don't worry, you can still pay your $2 for your large coke but for $3.50 AC is getting the large coke as well as a burger and fries.
The rules change is supposed to be based on the HONEST act which specifically states that while the details and methods of the study must be public for review/reproducability:
If Pruitt changed the wording of his rule even after meeting with Smith, the author of the HONEST act, no one has shown so.
As for the EPA's current procedures, nothing requires them to disclose any of the details to the studies used for their decision making. They routinely use data from studies they do not make public which allows them to pick and choose which pieces of data they like with no means of an outside source to verify their claims. That doesn't mean that there is some nefarious plan for them to control the US through over-regulation but when some of their rules can have billion dollar impacts it is important for people to be able to double check their work.