Trump Pope Pics Worth 1,000 Words, Fox Retracts Seth Rich Story, Congress Looks Into Sex Trafficking by U.S. Contractors: A.M. Links

• 

  Alessia Giuliani/CPP / Polaris/Newscom

  President Trump's Wednesday morning meeting with the Pope seems to have happened without major incident, though the photos are a treat.

• Fox News is backing down on allegations that former DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered for leaking documents to Wikileaks, retracting a May 16 story that suggested as much. "The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed," a Tuesday statement from Fox News said. "We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted."
• Melania Trump may have rebuffed her husband's attempt at hand-holding, and the media is on it!
• There's budding momentum to ban light, filtered cigarettes—because if people are going to smoke, they should have to do it in the least safe or pleasant way possible (xoxo, Government).
• A congressional panel is demanding documents and testimony from a U.S. defense contractor accused of facilitating sex trafficking in Iraq.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Trump's Wednesday morning meeting with the Pope seems to have happened without major incident, though the photos are a treat.

No lightning or sulfur smell?

[DJF]

The commie pope does not like Trump.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

[gaoxiaen]

For some reason, that veil on Melania really turns me on.

[gaoxiaen]

It probably matches her panties. Double turn-on.

[Putter]

She's not wearing panties in my version.

[Fist of Etiquette]

In the long run, aren't panties just another type of veil?

[Bee Tagger]

"We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted."

Sounds like there's a warrant for an arrest!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Melania Trump may have rebuffed her husband's attempt at hand-holding...

Who knows where that hand has been. (They just let you do it when you're famous.)

[DJF]

She wants him to grab something else.

[gaoxiaen]

Or someone else.

[Bee Tagger]

There's budding momentum to ban light cigarettes

Tastes Great! Less Sentencing!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Fewer.

[Rhywun]

Fewer filling!

[gaoxiaen]

The Harm Increase Movement.

[Conchfritters]

John Wayne smoked six packs of unfiltered Camels a day. Man up, or GTFO.

[Libertarian]

What did he die from, anyway?

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Overwhelming masculinity?

[CatoTheChipper]

Toxic masculinity.

[gaoxiaen]

Jimmy Stewart covering up why he became a Senator?

[Conchfritters]

I think his plane crashed at the Orange County Airport, thus the name change thereafter.

[Tony]

Some attribute his stomach cancer death to the filming of The Conqueror, which took place downwind from a nuclear test site. Others present during filming died of various cancers all around the same time.

[Citizen X - #6]

John Wayne also died with over 60 lbs of undigested beef in his intestines.

What i'm saying is, John Wayne was a hell of a guy.

[Rhywun]

John Wayne also died with over 60 lbs of undigested beef in his intestines.

Really? I'm almost afraid to verify this at work.

Also, *barf*.

[Citizen X - #6]

Never mind. Snopes says the nay-no.

[Rhywun]

Great. I already lost my breakfast.

[gaoxiaen]

He must have been one of the lizard people, in the Komodo Dragon caste.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Fox News is backing down on allegations that former DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered for leaking documents to Wikileaks, retracting a May 16 story that suggested as much.

So the Clinton Murder Machine still has some juice, eh? Coverup COMPLETE.

[Bee Tagger]

Vast right-wing complicity

[Citizen X - #6]

So Hildog got to Fox News, too? It will be interesting/depressing/hilarious to watch Simple Mikey try to cope with this one.

[Bee Tagger]

Melania Trump may have rebuffed her husband's attempt at hand-holding, and the media is on it!

His hands won't even get upset. How big of them.

[gaoxiaen]

That's because her hands are bigger than his.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A congressional panel is demanding documents and testimony from a U.S. defense contractor accused of facilitating sex trafficking in Iraq.

"Hey, we need some of that heat off the sex trafficking panic here, too, you know."

[gaoxiaen]

If it's little boys for afternoon tea with the ANA, the Army (but not the individual US soldier) is cool with that. This is What Winning Looks Like.

[Bee Tagger]

Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed,"

It's clever since it forces you to either agree that Fox News has higher standards or disagree and imply there's something to the Rich story.

[Fist of Etiquette]

There's budding momentum to ban light, filtered cigarettes...

Once the last cigarette smoker dies off: utopia.

[DJF]

If only we could sell them something which would make them die earlier.

[Libertarian]

Perhaps Phillip Morris could develop a meth-anol cigarette.

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

James Mattis, a Warrior in Washington

Mattis tried to sketch out an end-state to the Middle Eastern wars. In terror-prone areas like Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Somalia and Yemen, his goal is to reduce the violence to manageable levels. "I want to get to a point where the casualties are very low," he said. At that point, he said, it would probably suffice for the United States to intervene only sporadically, in order to contain outbreaks of violence.

It's an interesting profile, for those of you who care about such things.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

Mattis tried to sketch out an end-state to the Middle Eastern wars.

I like Mattis, but he's pissing in the wind here. There is no "end-state" regardless of our level of involvement. Better to just admit that 25 years of sticking our dick directly in their chili hasn't made the region safer or more stable, and pull out entirely. Let the Iranians and the Saudis fight with each other over control of the Middle East, and whatever happens, we negotiate with whoever comes out on top.

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Sex with Kate Moss, threesomes at Jude Law and Sadie Frost's house, love triangles, crystal meth - and 'f***ed up and naked' Courtney Love: Noughties rockers reveal their VERY naughty secrets

I first met Kate Moss up at Sadie's. There was a kiddie slide, and in the morning, we'd be all high on MDMA [Ecstasy], in a little kiddie house playing guitars,' he said.

'I was involved with some very weird things at her place, like a threesome on the top floor with her friend, and I look up and there's pictures of Jude Law and her and the kids on the wall, and I'm like, "What am I doing..."

'She was so up for it, those Londoners are up for it. But Kate, I cheated on my girlfriend with Kate. I f****ed up in the biggest way possible. So why did I do it?

'Because Brendan Benson and Jack White grabbed me at the bar at the Dorchester and said: "You're the one, do it for the USA."

First, it's not cheating if you do it for your country. Second, there is a 55% chance that you will contract an STD while reading that story; thankfully, I've built up an immunity.

[Libertarian]

Are threesomes cheating? Because I was told they arent.

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Correct, they are not cheating.

[Citizen X - #6]

In today's commenter news, we learn that Libertarian is about to find out that he has been in an open relationship for a while.

[gaoxiaen]

Are they gay? Not according to Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake's 3-Way. YMMV.

[sarcasmic]

Courtney Love looks like Dee Snider in that picture.

[Citizen X - #6]

"FACT: At a Santa Monica party in June of '98, routinely unmedicated barre-chorder COURTNEY LOVE blew actor MICHAEL MADSEN so hard that she broke her arm. Madsen, while uninjured, remained seriously blown for several hours."

[gaoxiaen]

I could deal with that. Hell, I'd break her other arm.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

Courtney Love looks like Dee Snider in that picture.

Never seen them in the same room together, have you?

[Bubba Jones]

I think that if I had a FFM threesome with Kate moss then my wife would forgive me.

[Conchfritters]

"Sallyport Global Holdings was paid nearly $700 million in federal contracts to secure Balad Air Base"

We train our soldiers with guns. We train them to kill. I think defending fixed positions is also a part of that training. Who the fuck hired Sallyport Global Holdings to secure a US airbase, and why the fuck does it cost $700 million to do this?

[DJF]

Here is their board of directors. Looks like at least three of them have the inside track to get military contracts

Thomas J. Campbell

Kara L. Bue

Joanne O. Isham

T. Gail Dady

General (Ret.) Michael V. Hayden

Dr. Donald M. Kerr, Jr.

Douglas T. Lake

Admiral (Ret.) James G. Stavridis

General (Ret.) Anthony C. Zinni

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

This story (by the way, Breitbart trigger warning) may not have anything to do with this particular story, but Obama capped troop deployments at a specific number, so the Pentagon was forced to spend a poopton on contractors.

[Bubba Jones]

We pay contractors to "secure" Iraqi bases or portions thereof. Not US bases.

I think.

I didn't read your story but a recent one documented a bunch of thefts from a base secured by contractors. Turns out the thefts were ordered by the Iraqi commander so the contractors just let it happen. That is a level of nuance that is difficult if the US army is directly involved.

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Police say Jefferson Junior High teacher's aide accused of having sex with a student had another victim at another school

According to the affidavit, Enriquez asked him who his cousin was. The boy asked her why she was asking him a personal question. She apologized but, according to the affidavit, she moved her chair closer to the boy. He had his headphones in and was listening to music. She wanted to see what music he was listening to, the report states, and although the boy looked at the screen before him, he could see Enriquez staring at him out of the corner of his eye, he later told police.

He asked her why she was staring at him, he said, and she denied looking at him. When he pressed the issue she said, "Oh, I'm sorry." The boy told police that was her generic response whenever she "knows she was doing something wrong."

She kept her face very close to his, he said, and she wanted to kiss him. He told police he thought it was weird, but he did it anyway. She told him afterward she thought the kiss was "sexy."

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Middle school teacher, 27, is charged with having sex with a high school senior a month after divorcing her husband

Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Mitchell says investigators were tipped off that 27-year-old Taylor Brooks Boyles had been engaging in inappropriate sexual contact with an 18-year-old Lawrence County High School senior.

I mean, how bad can the punishment be?

Boyes, a recently divorced math and social studies teacher at Moulton Middle School, has been charged with engaging in a sex act with a student younger than 19, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

This is why you don't get married people - you inevitably end up getting divorced and going to prison for banging a teenager.

[Feminist Killjoy]

Wait a minute- the kid is eighteen, she taught at a different school, and she was divorced. It's trashy, but doesn't sound like it should be illegal. Yet it's a felony? I am so confused.

And you're using a dailymail link for an Alabama story? What even is the H&R commentary anymore??

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

It's trashy, but doesn't sound like it should be illegal. Yet it's a felony?

It's trashy and absurd, making it the perfect Reason commenter story.

[DanO.]

He is "facing" "up to"...

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

Does that photo remind anyone else of The Addams Family?

[Citizen X - #6]

I WAS ABOUT TO SAY THAT

[Rhywun]

if people are going to smoke, they should have to do it in the least safe or pleasant way possible

The article claims that filtered cigarettes are worse than unfiltered.

[Citizen X - #6]

Because they allow people to avoid some of the negative effects of their chosen self-medicant, thereby escaping punishment. It's like you don't even speak Puritan.

[Rhywun]

Er... switch that.

[Rhywun]

Of course, they've already lost all credibility to me by claiming that vaping==smoking.

[Jerryskids]

Smoking a big fat cheap stogie in a crowded elevator is the least pleasant way to smoke that I know of.

[Jerryskids]

Let me guess - absolutely nobody is pointing out that the Trumpford Wives are wearing head-coverings in the presence of the Pope after refusing to don head-coverings in the presence of Arab men and applauding them for their resolve not to culturally appropriate Muslim customs and mores. Do I need to search the usual suspect sites to find an example of somebody trash-talking the privileging of one's own religious beliefs over the religious beliefs of a marginalized oppressed peoples?

[Putter]

Nice catch. You're a smart cookie.

[Sevo]

I wanted to check before commenting, but I'd have thought this was going to be Fist's first.

[Bubba Jones]

Is that religion or a fashion statement. I am not aware that Catholics cover their heads.

[Jerryskids]

Up until the '60's, Pope Paul VI and Vatican II, the Mass was celebrated in Latin and women wore doilies on their heads, among other things. The Pope and the Catholic Church are still really old-school in a fundamental way, and so is Italy. Mantillas are a religious custom like the scapular.

[Ken Hagler]

It apparently fell out of fashion during the last century. If you live or spend much time in a place with a lot of Catholics, you'll notice that the quite a few of the old women do wear head scarves.

[Fuck You - Cut Spending]

That's only to keep their perms in place.

[Bubba Jones]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fas.....s-meeting/

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Fear of losing dollars has "led to a formula on how to address the tobacco pandemic that nobody will deny, and that is: get a grant, do research, look at tobacco industry documents, prove that they were conspiring to deceive the public, reveal this, get the FDA to pass a regulation, and then people will make up their minds whether they want to continue to smoke," Blum said.
Instead, he says, money should be spent directly on spreading the word to consumers about the evils of smoking -- and, in this case, smoking "light" or filtered cigarettes.

Wait, smoking is evil? What? How come I wasn't told?

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

How come I wasn't told?

You were outside the side entrance lighting up a butt when they passed out the memo.

[Rhywun]

money should be spent directly on spreading the word to consumers

Yeah, the fifty or sixty anti-smoking commercials I see on various TV channels every day aren't doing the trick.

[TW]

Every time I see "the truth," I want to light up.

[gaoxiaen]

It's the first Devil's Weed with Roots in Hell, but somehow pot assumed that position thanks Mr. Anslinger.

[gaoxiaen]

*thanks to

[Necron 99]

I usually vape but when I smoke, I smoke ultra-lights. I am a monster.

[paranoid android]

Looking around the web there seems to be a lack of takes from Trump apologists for Trump's call to congratulate Duterte on what a bang-up job he's doing murdering and terrorizing people. I'm dying to get insight into his ingenious five-dimensional diplomatic strategy.

[Rhywun]

Maybe because it's one of the genuinely awful things he's done.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

They're preoccupied explaining why the protesters at the Turkish embassy were asking for it.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

Melania Trump may have rebuffed her husband's attempt at hand-holding, and the media is on it!

Well, if a billionaire can't even grab his own wife's hand, what should he grab?

[gaoxiaen]

His daughter's... whatever. NTTAWWT.

[Rebel Scum]

Melania Trump may have rebuffed her husband's attempt at hand-holding

Per the video it looks more like she didn't know he was reaching when she simultaneously reached for her hair. But skew reality to make it seem like even Melania hates her husband because Trump.

[Stormy Dragon]

Libertarian Purity Test: RNC and the Chamber of Commerce want the FCC to lift the ban on robocalling cellphones.

Republicans want to leave you more voicemail ? without ever ringing your cellphone

[Citizen X - #6]

Joke's on them - i never check my voicemail anyway.

[Putter]

I think you could argue unsolicited calls violate the NAP

[gaoxiaen]

I haven't heard/received/listened to a voicemail in more than a decade. I forgot that they exist.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

I've been getting 4-5 calls a day recently, so what's a few more?

[Citizen X - #6]

I'd change my number if i was getting that many calls. Your friends can't just text you, like normal people?

[Jerryskids]

A week or so ago I got a text on my phone telling me that my E-bay giftcard could be cashed in for doublepoints or some such crap just by going to such-and-such a website, which I promptly reported to my phone company since I don't have an E-bay account or giftcard or any such thing. Yesterday I got a similar spam text about a gift certificate, followed a little later by a call from my bro-in-law telling me he'd sent me a gift certificate to my phone. Now I'm wondering about that first spam text.

[Ken Shultz]

"The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed"

In related news, CNN, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC appear to have no editorial standards whatsoever.

https://tinyurl.com/kel4lwf

[DanO.]

Oh Rush, never change.

[Rebel Scum]

President Trump's Wednesday morning meeting with the Pope seems to have happened without major incident

He didn't drop trou and pee on the Vatican? What a loser.

[Ken Shultz]

Anything he says will be used against him.

Even his wife doesn't want to hold his hand!!!

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Anything he says will be used against him.

I feel bad for the most powerful person in the world, too.

🙁

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Very unfair!

[DanO.]

Just piling on...

A Conspiracy Theory So Dumb, Even Fox News Apologized

Fox News on Tuesday retracted a story linking the murder of a Democratic National Committee staff member with the email hacks that aided President Trump's campaign, effectively quashing a conspiracy theory that had taken hold across the right-wing news media.

It was a rare acknowledgment of error by the network. But it also underscored a schism between the network's news-gathering operation and one of its biggest stars: the conservative commentator Sean Hannity, who has unapologetically promoted the theory and remained defiant on Tuesday.

"These are questions that I have a moral obligation to ask," Mr. Hannity said on his radio show, shortly after Fox News announced its mistake. "All you in the liberal media ? I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com. I retracted nothing."

Don't fret, Sean. H&R's far-right nutjobs have your back!
https://tinyurl.com/ksksf6a

[Tony]

Really classy of him to continue peddling this horseshit despite constant pleas from the mother of the dead for him to stop.

[Jerryskids]

Hitler's mother was pretty upset about the nasty things said about her son, too. Like with the "victim's rights" horseshit, being affected by a crime doesn't give you any special insight into crime in general.

[Tony]

Neither does watching Hannity, sorry to break it to you.

[Domestic Dissident]

This. And since when did the so-called "mainstream media" become so respectful of and deferential to the wishes of a victim's parents?

Never before in my lifetime have these hacks actually said we're not allowed to talk about a case because the parents say so. Another first!

[Domestic Dissident]

Again, this is literally the first crime ever in my lifetime where you JournoList scumbags are going out of your way to furiously demand that it was a street negro. Normally you guys do the exact opposite and deny that crimes like that happen at all. Heck, you've spent the last few years denying that the "Knockout Game" is even a real thing!

So how come now suddenly in the case of Seth Rich you guys are all so furiously adamant that it was just a gang-bangin', Obama-lovin', whitey-hatin', street-crawlin' hood rat? It's so unlike you all. It's almost like you're terrified or something!

[Tony]

"At this point, only people with transparent political agendas or sociopaths are still perpetuating Seth Rich conspiracies."

--Rich family spokesman

[Domestic Dissident]

Well, that's about as non-responsive as it gets!

[Citizen X - #6]

Are Tony and DanO now also Weigel, Mikey?

Is there anyone here who ISN'T Weigel?

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

If everyone is Weigel, then no one is Weigel.

And that is not possible 'cos that cocksucker is out there cobbling Progtardian screeds for WaPo.

[Tony]

It's the family of the dead guy telling you you're an asshole.

[Domestic Dissident]

You can't really read too much into the words of hostages. That family is like a POW reading a prepared statement, while just off camera a solider has a rifle pointed right at his head.

[Domestic Dissident]

By the way asshole, name one other murder in the history of mankind where the media has officially declared that nobody anywhere is allowed to talk about it because the parents are upset.

You can't, because there isn't one. Just this case, which nobody is allowed to talk about, think about, or question in any way for some odd reason (gee, I wonder why).

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Christ, what an asshole.

[Tony]

Name a time in history Sean Hannity was right about something.

[Citizen X - #6]

The slapfight of the century! Tony v. Mikey - two 'tards enter, everybody else leaves!

[Ron]

Melina rebufs Trumps hand

or as some couples do in crowd etc one will put their hand back and the other just touches the hand as acknowledgement that they are there

it may be as simple as that but its enough for the left to jump on

[Bubba Jones]

It shows that Melania is a strong and independent woman and that Trump likes his women that way.

Right?

[Tony]

I'm reminded of the time Bill Clinton took a group photo with Kim Jong-Il. A quite practiced frowny face.