BEIRUT (AP) — Protesters have closed major roads around Lebanon ahead of an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss a rescue plan for the country’s crumbling economy.
On Monday morning, demonstrators placed barriers on major intersections in Beirut as well as other cities and towns marking the fifth day of protests triggered by proposed new taxes.
Hundreds of thousands participated in Sunday’s mass protests that were the largest since 2005.
A Lebanese demonstrator carries a placard as she takes part in a rally in Beirut’s downtown district on October 20, 2019. – Thousands continued to rally despite calls for calm from politicians and dozens of arrests. Demonstrators want a sweeping overhaul of Lebanon’s political system, citing grievances ranging from austerity measures to poor infrastructure. (ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images)
Prime Minister Saad Hariri will put forward a reform plan during the morning government meeting at the presidential palace in Beirut’s southeastern suburb of Baabda.
Many protesters say they don’t trust any plan by the current government. They’ve called on the 30-member Cabinet to resign and be replaced by a smaller one made up of technocrats instead of members of political factions.
A group of House Republicans called out CNN president Jeff Zucker Monday over the network’s decision not to run a pair of Trump campaign ads, citing possible violations of the Bill of Rights and Supreme Court precedent.
NEW: @RepJeffDuncan leads letter calling out CNN prez Zucker for refusal of Trump campaign ads "potentially in violation of federal law and Supreme Court precedent":
"Being personally offended is truly a poor reason to deny a candidate for public office the right to be heard" pic.twitter.com/kQUGHgmoBN
In a letter spearheaded by Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., nine Republican House members criticized the network’s refusal to run two video ads put out by the Trump campaign and urged him to “correct this flagrant violation with all due haste.”
“As your news organization seems to have lost all sense of objectivity, spinning itself into oblivion to support left-leaning candidates and participating in distortions against conservative candidates, you have still operated within the boundaries of the First Amendment,” the letter begins. “The law of the land and Supreme Court precedent protect your right to be loudly wrong.”
However, they add, the decision to bar two Trump campaign ads from the company’s airwaves earlier this month “is a step that falls beyond your First Amendment protections, and one that we believe is in violation of the law and the Constitution.”
Earlier this month, CNN said it wouldn’t air two Trump campaign video ads on its network over “demonstrably false” claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and his and his son’s dealings in Ukraine.
The lawmakers point to the Supreme Court Case of Buckley v. Valeo, which dealt with free speech for political campaigns, and cite a portion of the majority opinion in the case: “Discussion of public issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates are integral to the operation of the system of government established by our Constitution. The First Amendment affords the broadest protection to such political expression in order ‘to assure (the) unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.’”
According to the lawmakers, the decision to not run the Trump ads while still running ads from his Democratic opponents violates the principles laid out in the Buckley ruling.
“Being personally offended is truly a poor reason to deny a candidate for public office the right to be heard, running contrary to both the intent of the Buckley decision and the self-proclaimed First Amendment values of your network,” the letter reads. “We urge you to correct this flagrant violation with all due haste and allow the paid Trump Campaign advertisements to return to your airwaves immediately.”
A California dad is warning others after a Google Nest Cam hacker threatened to kidnap his child from their home.
On Friday, Jack Newcombe wrote in an article for the Mercury News that when his 18-month-old son’s nanny asked if he and his wife were speaking with their child through their security camera system, he said no.
“Then the nanny texted that a voice was coming through the kitchen camera and using bad words,” Newcombe said.
He continued:
I immediately pulled up the video feed and began reviewing: I hear the familiar chime, which means someone is about to talk through the camera. Then, to my horror, a female voice that I don’t recognize starts talking to my 18-month-old son. He looks around the room and then at the ceiling, wondering who’s there.
The voice is laughing when it chimes in. She says we have a nice house and encourages the nanny to respond. She does not. The voice even jokes that she hopes we don’t change our password. I am sick to my stomach.
After about five minutes of verbal “joy riding,” the voice starts to get agitated at the nanny’s lack of response and then snaps, in a very threatening voice: “I’m coming for the baby if you don’t answer me, bitch!”
“My jaw drops. We unplug the cameras and change all passwords. The nanny has taken our son to the park down the street in an effort to escape. However, the damage has been done,” he said.
A similar instance occurred in January when a couple in Chicago, Illinois, said a hacker with a manly voice spoke to their baby through their home’s Nest security camera.
“My blood ran cold,” said Arjun Sud.
He told reporters that the hacker shouted obscenities at him and his wife and even raised the upstairs thermostat to 90 degrees.
“And then they messed with our thermostat?” his wife, Jessica, asked. “Who does that?”
However, the Google product page stated that the camera is “designed to help you look after your home and family — even when you’re away.”
“With 24/7 live streaming, a versatile magnetic stand, person alerts with Nest Aware and one app for all your Nest products, Nest Cam Indoor helps you keep an eye on what matters. From anywhere.”
A couple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said they no longer feel safe after a hacker spoke to them through their camera and began playing vulgar music.
“It gives me the chills just talking about it,” said Samantha Westmoreland.
Newcombe wrote that he was disappointed at Google’s lack of response regarding the security breach and said the company blames the individual for using a compromised password.
“I am reminded of Google’s former motto: ‘Don’t be evil’ (now buried in literally the last sentence of their code of conduct). It is not evil to bring a product to market before the privacy has been completely figured out, but it is evil to let someone threaten to kidnap an 18-month-old and have no real response,” he concluded.
Abortion propaganda has become so pervasive in the entertainment industry that the dialogue on TV shows is now starting to sound like “Fireproof” for abortion enthusiasts. Take the latest episode of NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for example – an episode that almost literally treats its characters like puppets to spout talking points that could have come from a Planned Parenthood pamphlet.
As reported by Newsbusters, the October 17 episode “The Burden of Our Choices” focuses on a 13-year-old girl from an evangelical Christian family in Ohio who escaped to New York in order to obtain an abortion after her stepfather rapes her. Since Ohio requires minors to have permission from family members in order to obtain an abortion, the girl’s case becomes a major court battle. At one point in the episode, members of the SVU debate the case and it’s hard not to see a Planned Parenthood executive writing the script where the showrunners left off.
From the transcript provided by Newsbusters:
Carisi: Appeals court just refused to hear Ohio’s case. Even some pro-life groups thought the charges were ridiculous.
Olivia: Well, they are.
Tamin: So you guys aren’t under arrest? What about the stay on the abortion?
Carisi: Family court didn’t want to make a ruling until Ohio’s arrest warrants have been dismissed. They’re still deliberating.
Tamin: For how long? She’s 12 weeks pregnant. Any day after the first trimester, it gets more complicated.
Olivia: And that’s part of Ohio’s plan, is to run out the clock.
Tamin: I’m sorry, what century is this? All these old white men trying to control women’s bodies? I mean, how far off are we from “The Handmaid’s Tale”?
Olivia: You grew up taking these rights for granted. My mother, there was a time when she considered abortion, and her only option was – was back-alley. The bottom line is, if you have enough money, there’s always a way. But it’s these poor women, these girls – in some states, they’re gonna see deaths. That’s where this is going.
Tamin: They think that’s what we’re going back to.
Carisi: Fundamentalists, Catholics – they see abortion as deaths.
Tamin: You’re Catholic, right? Is that what you think?
Carisi: What I think is what I think. But if a woman is the victim of rape or incest –
Tamin: I hear that, and it sounds like you’re saying that a woman has to be a victim in order to have control over her own body.
Olivia: That’s not what he’s saying.
Tamin: Good. Because it’s not a decision that should ever be made by a group of men or a prosecutor who’s never had to make that choice.
Olivia: Guys, guys, guys.
Carisi: J-just so we’re clear. My job is to uphold that girl’s rights, and that’s what I’m doing. But I’m sorry, I don’t see this as black-and-white. In my experience, no woman wants to have an abortion.
Olivia: Okay.
Tamin: Fair enough. But these laws that are getting passed, they are not the answer.
Olivia: No, they’re not.
Spoilers: The episode ends with the 13-year-old girl receiving the abortion.
Viewers Blamed After Pro-LGBT Batman Spinoff Bombs
Kevin Mazur / Getty ImagesElizabeth Anweis, Rachel Skarsten, Ruby Rose, Meagan Tandy, Camrus Johnson and Nicole Kang of “Batwoman” speak onstage during the The CW Network 2019 Upfronts at New York City Center on May 16, 2019. (Kevin Mazur / Getty Images)
When a television show failed to impress viewers in years past, it was back to the drawing board. Storylines were rewritten, characters were improved or cut entirely, and the producers gave it another go.
In the brave new world of 2019, however, a show’s failure isn’t the result of bad writing, but the fault of viewers, apparently. Case in point: The CW network’s “Batwoman.”
“Batwoman,” which takes place in the same fictional DC Comics universe as the much more widely known “Batman,” premiered Oct. 6.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for the show’s first season are a study in bad television, with a dismal audience score of only 12 percent. Although the critic rating sits at a lukewarm 70 percent, many of those reviewers are simply celebrating a “superhero in step with the times.”
Oh, did I forget to mention that Batwoman is a loud and proud lesbian?
The show certainly doesn’t, and many reviewers said they didn’t like the show’s relentless and blatant pushing of its agenda. Even LGBT supporters said they grew tired of the constant focus.
“It feels like I am having things I already support somehow shoved even further in my face,” a one-star review reads. “While this pestering social justice vibe they give off is a huge annoyance that takes away from what makes Batwoman actually cool, there are other problems too.”
Of course, challenging the status quo is frowned upon in our enlightened times. Thankfully, many in the media were quick to assure the world that “Batwoman” was simply bombing because of toxic trolls.
Forbes insisted the poor ratings were the result of a “review bombing campaign” nefariously targeting the show over its embrace of the LGBT community.
Are you watching “Batwoman”?
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The evidence used to support this claim — that most of those reviewing the show are men — is shockingly sexist.
Pride was even more shameless in its defense of “Batwoman,” blaming “conservatives and straight white men” for the show’s poor reception.
Unfortunately for the gatekeepers of media, the critic reviews don’t reflect their assumptions of race and sex.
“The whole show is very, very interested in being diverse,” female critic Emily Brookes wrote, “and it’s so obvious it’s cringe-worthy.”
“Batwoman is ultimately painful to watch and a struggle to get through, lacking finesse, emotional depth, and a sense of direction,” wrote Mae Abdulbaki, another critic who just so happens to be a woman.
“Batwoman” isn’t being targeted by straight white men, but a diverse mix of people who are honestly unimpressed with the show.
The media’s attempt to blame an insidious conservative campaign for the show’s shortcomings is about as shameless as it gets. With even LGBT reviewers being turned off by the show’s agenda, it’s starting to look like the media has an agenda of its own.
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Let’s face it: You and I both know that when a headline contains the words “Florida” and “man” in sequence, you don’t expect to read anything redeeming.
The case of Andrew Levy is a very prominent exception.
According to WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, Levy is a real estate agent who does most of his business in Jupiter, Florida. When he found out that kids in the school district were going hungry, he started a chain reaction by paying off their lunch debt.
See, more than 400 kids in the area didn’t have access to a proper lunch because of the fact they had outstanding debt to one of nine schools in the area.
“These children that were in debt were going to either not eat or they would get just cheese sandwiches, and I thought that’s crazy,” Levy said.
“I thought, ‘You know something? If for a modest sum I could make that change, I’m gonna do it,’” he said.
So he paid off all of the lunch debt in the area schools — all $944.34 of it. And what’s more, after meeting with the district, Levy has come up with a way to pay the lunch debt of students in the future as well.
“Every quarter, I’m going to do either a GoFundMe page or a fundraising page that can raise money every quarter, so lunch debt never accumulates so that children never have to worry about a hot meal and parents never have to worry about paying the bill,” he said.
If it stopped there, this would be the best Florida man story we’ve heard in a while.
However, this wasn’t all. Levy posted about his act of kindness on Facebook and people responded in a major way.
According to Levy, he got over 200 comments, some of which were offers of help.
“I even have had some clients over the past 48 hours say, ‘You know something? I want to help I want to give too,’” he said.
Levy isn’t the first person who’s paid off school lunch debt for some needy kids and sparked a reaction.
In Phoenix, Rigo Gonzalez set up a GoFundMe page to wipe out school lunch debt in the Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona. The campaign raised over $8,000.
This summer, when Wyoming Valley West School District in Pennsylvania made the draconian threat to have children put into foster care over their parents’ unpaid school lunch debt, Todd Carmichael, the CEO of local company La Colombe Coffee Roasters, stepped in with a promise to pay the $22,000 in debt.
And, in Gwinnett County, Georgia, the CEO of a roofing company, Todd Price, embarked on a mission last year to get all of the county’s school lunch debt paid.
As Levy’s simple act demonstrated, these acts of kindness multiply themselves. Sure, this may just have been $944.34 for Levy, but it’s clear he’s inspiring a lot more in others.
Beyond that, who knows? Maybe one of the kids that he affects via this program will grow up and pay it forward themselves.
That would be quite the “Florida man” story, indeed.
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Homeless people are defecating on the sidewalks and streets of downtown Miami, turning the city into an outdoor wasteland, residents and business owners say.
“The situation is the worst I’ve seen in my 25 years here,” business owner Jose Goyanes told the Miami Herald. “The stench is really bad, even after you hose it down. We see people urinating against buildings or pulling their pants down and squatting because they have nowhere else to go.”
People said they have seen human waste deposits in gutters, planters, doorways, and even in plain sight in the middle of the street— and they say it is bad for business.
“It’s prolific. It’s on every block and at the base of most trees,” said businessman Gary Ressler. “I can’t bring national tenants here and walk through downtown without having them observe human feces littering the sidewalk.”
The reason for the increase in defecation on the streets mostly stems from a homelessness crisis throughout the U.S. that is hard to solve, but a critical shortage in public bathrooms available to those who live on the streets or cannot find room at a shelter makes it difficult for these people to maintain personal hygiene.
“Most of us do not want to defecate or urinate in public,” said David Beaty, a homeless man who came to Miami from Wisconsin. “It’s like you’re losing your dignity, your humanity. We’re not animals. I personally use a cup and dump it because I don’t want to smell my urine or anybody else’s while I’m sleeping.
According to a survey from the Miami Dade County Homeless Trust, the homeless population in Miami’s central business district soared 16 percent since January.
Four years ago, Miami’s poop problem became so bad that the city’s Downtown Development Authority created a poop map with smiling emojis locating each spot where feces was found over the course of an eight-hour workday.
The map, meant to shame public officials and to make them pay attention to the issue, was similar to a project San Francisco did in 2013.
A 2018 report found that San Francisco was on track to become one of the dirtiest cities in the world due to the amount of feces and hypodermic needles littered on the ground.
As the Florida Senate considers whether to reinstate former Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, one Parkland parent is speaking out against Israel, slamming him for lacking “integrity.”
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was slain in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, was interviewed on “Fox & Friends” Monday, where he blasted Israel’s failed leadership.
“I want everyone to remember he went on national TV claiming his amazing leadership. He wanted to deflect from his department’s failures and blame the gun,” Pollack said. “But there were so many failures.”
Pollack reviewed how the Parkland shooter “had over 40 calls to his house with no policies in place to handle that” and how there was a tip that a shooting might take place and several shooting threats before the massacre.
“Eight of [Israel’s] deputies pulled up and took a perimeter around the school, instead of going right into the school, while there were shots still going on on the third floor. One of those shots could have been my daughter getting murdered,” Pollack said.
“His command center that day failed,” he continued.
“Ten people all in all failed, and this guy claimed he had amazing leadership, and it’s just one failure after the other.”
Under Israel’s leadership, Broward County’s law enforcement agencies adopted several policies supported by progressive criminal justice reform advocates that weakened law enforcement and incentivized local officials to keep juveniles like the Parkland shooter out of jail. As one of his first acts as governor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Israel from service and appointed a replacement.
“He is a total shameless person with no integrity,” Pollack said. “And he has no right to lead in Broward County because the whole community wouldn’t be safe.”
Pastor Adam Tyson revealed during a podcast last week that musical talent Kanye West told him he almost stopped rapping soon after being save by God because he thought rap was “the devil’s music.”
Tyson, the pastor at the California-based Placerita Bible Church that West began attending in mid-May, encouraged the pro-Trump performer to continue with the genre, but to do so in a way that glorifies God.
“One time, he (West) told me that he wasn’t going to rap,” Tyson told Christian outlet Apologia, XXL magazine reported. “I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Well, that’s the devil’s music.’ I said, ‘Hey, man. Rap is a genre. You can rap for God.’ I think he was already thinking about it a little bit, but I just definitely said, ‘Hey, bro. I think you need to use your talents that God’s given you and use that platform for God.’”
West announced Monday that his highly-anticipated “Jesus is King” album is set for release on October 25.
Tyson told Apologia that West was connected to his church through a young couple who knows the rapper and his wife Kim Kardashian. The young man who knows West told Tyson that the artist kept asking him questions about God, some of which he couldn’t answer. Tyson and others at the church prayed for West and suggested the couple invite him to the church, knowing it was a long shot.
But in May, West started attending Placerita Bible Church and soon revealed to Tyson that he had recently been “radically saved.”
“[Kanye] said, ‘About five weeks ago, I got radically saved,’” Tyson said, according to XXL. “He just started telling me a little about his testimony.”
According to Tyson, West told him that he was raised as a Christian but began “chasing all the things of this world” after hitting it big in the music industry. “He would say the devil basically brought him to a place where he just felt like he was in bondage to his sin. So he said, ‘I got delivered,’” Tyson recalled.
As reported by The Daily Wire last week, West confronted Kardashian over her sexy outfits during a recent episode of E!’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” West explained to Kardashian that while he used to think his wife should look like other girls who constantly show off their bodies, he now realizes that Kardashian’s revealing looks are negatively “affecting” his “soul and … spirit.”
“The corset, underwear, all of that vibe,” West said of Kardashian’s Met Gala dress, “I just feel like I went through this transition from being a rapper, looking at all these girls, and then looking at my wife like, ‘Oh, my girl needs to be just like these other girls, showing her body off, showing this, showing that.’”
“I didn’t realize that that was affecting my soul and my spirit as someone that’s married and loved, the father of what’s about to be four kids,” he continued. “A corset is a form of underwear. It’s hot. It’s like, it’s hot for who though?”
“You are my wife, and it affects me when pictures are too sexy,” West added after Kardashian protested.
As reported by The Daily Wire in July, West said that his “radical obedience to Christ” helped stabilize his mental health. Moreover, earlier this year, the rap icon created “Sunday Service” events that include gospel music.
“It’s honestly more like a healing experience for my husband. It’s just music; there’s no sermon. It’s definitely something he believes in – Jesus – and there’s a Christian vibe. But there’s no preaching. It’s just a very spiritual Christian experience,” Kardashian told Elle magazine of the services.
WATCH (relevant comments begin at the 23:40 mark):
