Guns for Vietnam, Not a Normal Candidate
Monday, May 23, 2016
Vol. 5, No. 144
Vietnam War Ends: President Obama announced overnight in Vietnam that the US is ending its ban on selling American weapons to that country. It’s a move against China, which has been bullying other countries in the region. “This change will ensure that Vietnam has access to the equipment it needs to defend itself and removes a lingering vestige of the Cold War,” Obama said at a press conference.
Vietnam is a one-party country with little political freedom. Critics of the arms agreement say it removes a primary tool to leverage freedom in Vietnam.
Permawar: ISIS struck in the heart of government-controlled Syria today, killing about 80 people. Syrian state television showed the carnage in the cities of Jableh and Tartus.
>In Iraq, government troops have begun a fight to take back the city of Fallujah form the Islamic State. Fallujah has been battled over periodically ever since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Hit men: Frustrated by Pakistan’s inability to get the Taliban into peace talks, the US made an end run to hit Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike within Pakistan’s border. Afghanistan says the Mullah was killed in a direct hit on his car, but the US has not confirmed it. The attack was within Baluchistan, where Pakistan has always refused to allow the CIA to use its drones. It’s an indication that President Obama is fed up with the Pakistani government.
Quiz Show: The secret to miracle weight loss on the reality show “Biggest Loser,” according to a report in the NY Post, is drugs. The Post reports that contestants who lost astounding amounts of weight in just weeks were given drugs and that some of them experienced such drastic weight loss that they passed out at weigh-ins.
The drug use, according to The Post, was accidentally revealed by a federally-funded study that examined why so many contestants quickly gained back their weight. The study blamed metabolic rates, changing hormones, and genetics, but contestants got in touch with The Post to blame the absence of weight-loss drugs; “What’s missing, former Losers tell The Post, is any examination of the show’s secret and brutal tactics, which include providing illicit drugs to contestants and submitting them to questionable medical exams by the show’s resident doctor, Rob Huizenga, known as ‘Dr. H.’”
**The Trump Report**
Abby Normal: Even though she still doesn’t have the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton is focusing on warning voters about Donald Trump. “I do not want Americans and, you know, good-thinking Republicans, as well as Democrats and independents, to start to believe that this is a normal candidacy,” Mrs. Clinton said of Trump’s campaign on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
More than one poll now has Clinton in a dead heat with Trump in a national election. Clinton said “I think in the course of this campaign, we are going to demonstrate he has no ideas. There’s no evidence he has any ideas about making America great, as he advertises. He seems to be particularly focused on making himself appear great. And as we go through this campaign, we’re going to be demonstrating the hollowness of his rhetoric.”
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Actually, No: Tech billionaire Chris Sacca, who made his money investing in Twitter, Uber, and Instagram, proved recently that sometimes even money can’t buy tickets to the Broadway smash, “Hamilton.” The NY Post reports that Sacca and his girlfriend showed at the box office only to be told the tickets they bought on Stub Hub were counterfeit. The sometimes panelist on “Shark Tank” pulled the old “Do you know who I am?” and to her credit, the woman in the ticket booth knew exactly who he was: a man holding counterfeit tickets.
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