The King of Pop Keeps Making History & Breaking Records!

Michael Jackson's Thriller has become the first album in RIAA Gold & Platinum Program history to be certified 33x Diamond for United States sales and streams, it was announced by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA), the Estate of Michael Jackson, Epic Records and Legacy Recordings (the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment).  

Thriller is still the ONLY album ever to have surpassed the RIAA's 30x million mark in U.S. sales.

"Thirty five years later, Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' remains as timeless and iconic as ever," said Cary Sherman, Chairman and CEO, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "'Thriller' has now become the first and only album to achieve an RIAA 33X Diamond Award, a moment forever etched in Gold & Platinum Program history. Congratulations on another 'Thriller' milestone." 

The same day as Thriller's record-breaking certification, Michael Jackson's Bad has also achieved RIAA 10x Diamond Award status in recognition of United States sales and streams of 10 million units.

With sales now topping more than 105 million copies worldwide, Thriller has solidified its status as the best-selling album of all-time while Michael Jackson's overall worldwide record sales exceed the 1 billion threshold. During his extraordinary career, Michael Jackson released 13 No.1 singles and became one of only a handful of artists to be inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

The Guinness Book of World Records recognized Jackson as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time and Thriller as the World's Top-Selling Album of All Time. His artistry, choreography and music continue to inspire generations of pop, soul, R&B and hip-hop artists and fans.

Executives from Sony Music Entertainment and the Estate of Michael Jackson were in Los Angeles in a special plaque presentation honoring the most recent RIAA Gold & Platinum Program milestones achieved by Thriller and Bad.  Featured in the photo left to right are:  Doug Morris (Chief Executive Officer, Sony Music), Rob Stringer (Chairman & CEO, Columbia Records), John Branca (Co-Executor of the Estate of Michael Jackson), Richard Story (President, Commercial Music Group), Antonio "L.A." Reid (Chairman & CEO, Epic Records), and Karen Langford (Estate of Michael Jackson).

About Thriller 
Michael Jackson's masterpiece Thriller, produced by Quincy Jones (and co-produced by Michael Jackson on his own songs), won a record setting 8 Grammys, more than any album ever, and has been earning awards and setting new standards of success since its release on November 30, 1982. Thriller spent nearly 2 -1/2 years on the Billboard album chart and holds a modern day record of 37 weeks at #1. It was the first album in history to spend each of its first 80 weeks in the album chart's Top 10, a feat only reached by one other album in the more than three decades since. During its 112th week on Billboard's album chart, it became the first title ever to be certified RIAA 20x Diamond (October 30, 1984) and RIAA 30x Diamond (December 16, 2015). Worldwide, Thriller went to #1 in practically every country in the world, including the UK, France, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, South Africa, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and apartheid South Africa.

The importance of Thriller was recognized by Michael Jackson's industry peers at the Grammys. Thriller was nominated in a record breaking 12 categories, and won a history making eight, which stands as the record for most Grammy Awards to be won by any album. Seven of those Grammys that year were awarded to Michael for: Album of the Year; Record of the Year ("Beat It"); Best Male Pop Vocal Performance ("Thriller"); Best Pop Vocal Performance ("Thriller"); Best Male Rock Vocal Performance ("Beat It"); Best Male R&B Vocal Performance ("Billie Jean"); Best R&B Song ("Billie Jean"). (Michael's eighth Grammy that year was in the Best Recording for Children - Single or Album, Musical or Spoken category for "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" which also gave Michael the record for the most Grammys won by a single artist in one year). That same year, Michael Jackson took home eight American Music Awards and three MTV Video Music Awards. 

The following year, "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller" took home the Best Video Album trophy at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards.

More than just an album, Thriller has remained a global cultural multi-media phenomenon for both the 20th and the 21st centuries, smashing musical barriers and changing the frontiers of pop music forever. The music on Thriller is so dynamic and singular that it defied any definition of rock, pop or soul that had gone before. "Beat It" was a new kind of pop-rock hybrid and demolished the longstanding segregation between black and white music with Eddie Van Halen's incendiary guitar. On "The Girl Is Mine," a black man and a white man bantered about the same girl. 

On the same album were songs like the African-rooted "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and the rhythm and blues-based "Billie Jean." No one had ever released an album with such a vast range of material.

"Perhaps Michael's most significant racial trailblazing came with music videos," wrote Joe Vogel in Man in the Music. Fascinated with the fledgling art form, Michael wanted to tell a story and entertain on a grand scale and, in fact, called these masterpieces "short films," not "music videos." Despite the luscious cinematography, dramatic narrative and spectacular choreography of "Billie Jean," a fledgling MTV, which was programming white rock artists almost exclusively, refused to play it. Epic persisted. 

Once the wall came crashing down, MTV's ratings soared and a door was opened for a generation of African American artists. "He was MTV's Jackie Robinson," said cultural critic Touré. Next, came the unforgettable short film for "Beat It," which featured Michael bringing two gangs together through the power of music and dance. And then there was "Thriller." Premiered at the AVCO Theatre in Los Angeles in 1983, it sold out every night of its limited run.  

No other video before or since has generated such excitement and has such a hold on our attention, such that more than 30 years later we all share it as a collective memory and it remains the only music video to be inducted into the elite National Film Registry by the Library of Congress

About Bad 
One of the 30 top-selling albums of all-time, Michael Jackson's Bad--the artist's third solo studio collection for Epic Records and the eagerly-awaited successor to Thriller--was released on August 31, 1987, and generated a record setting five consecutive #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, a feat that took 25 years to match, with some of Michael's most iconic tracks.

The BAD album is "a fantastical, thematically eclectic, sonically innovative musical odyssey" and, along with Thriller, was one of the best and most influential pop albums of all time. It was monumental in many ways; Michael wrote nine of the album's eleven tracks and co-produced the entire album with Quincy Jones. The album was #1 around the world, made history with five consecutive #1 singles on the Billboard chart, produced ten chart-topping singles, nine ground breaking short films and to date, the Bad album has generated over 45 Million units in sales around the world. Bad was nominated for six Grammys and won two; the album earned Michael the first-ever Video Vanguard Award at the MTV VMA Awards. 

 Songs on the original album are:   "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Speed Demon," "Liberian Girl," "Just Good Friends" featuring Stevie Wonder, "Another Part of Me,"  "Man in the Mirror," "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "Dirty Diana," "Smooth Criminal," with "Leave Me Alone" added to the CD version of the album once released.

SOURCE: Legacy Recordings

Bonus Video:

UK: They Should Not Be Punished For Telling The Truth! [Petition]

Image via 38Degrees.org

Today's email is rather worrying.... apparently, the British Government is toying with the idea of imprisoning anyone daring exposing abuses of human rights? Wow! Last time I checked, we were still living in a democratic nation. WTF happened?

The email is from our friends at 38 Degrees. Feel free to read it and, of course, act accordingly. Thanks in advance.

Stay safe!

Loup Dargent

The Email:
"Dear Loup, 

The Government’s legal advisers have revealed plans to lock up people who expose things like human rights abuses. They could face prison sentences of up to 14 years. Under these terrifying new laws, even journalists could face charges just because they were sent certain information. [1] 

People who reveal things that some would rather the public didn’t know are called whistleblowers. Often they share things that we need to know, because there are serious consequences if the information is hidden. For example, Nurse Helene Donnelly, who helped expose the situation in Mid Staffs NHS trust. [2]

But draft plans to imprison some whistleblowers for up to 14 years were floated by government advisers late last night. It looks like they’re testing the idea to see whether or not the public would let these scary plans go ahead. And that’s where we come in. A huge public outcry would force the government to reject these plans before they get any further than just a draft. 

If you believe that no one should face 14 years in prison for exposing truths that we deserve to know, then please sign the petition. It takes less than a minute: 

SIGN THE PETITION

Without whistleblowers, we would never have known about the revelations in last years “Panama Papers” of politicians and big companies avoiding tax through offshore tax havens, or the state of patient care in some of our hospitals. [3] These people put their jobs on the line to tell us things we should know - but under these plans it’s a lot more than just their jobs that could be at risk. 

Human rights groups and senior lawyers have already spoken out against these plans, but it would be easy for the government to dismiss them as the usual suspects. [4] They won’t be able to ignore a huge outcry by hundreds of thousands of us who know we have a right to hear what’s going on behind closed doors. 

Let’s force the government to scrap these plans before they’re even properly on the table. Sign the petition now asking the government to reject the idea to imprison whistleblowers or journalists who report on the leaks for up to 14 years. 

Use the button below to add your name to the petition today: 

SIGN THE PETITION

Thanks for being involved, 

Jinan, Megan, Charlotte, Holly and the 38 Degrees team"

NOTES:
[1] Guardian: Government advisers accused of 'full-frontal attack' on whistleblowers
[2] Nursing Times: Whistleblowing Mid Staffs nurse too scared to walk to car after shift
[3] The Independent: Panama Papers: Whistleblower breaks silence to explain why they leaked the 11.5m files
[4] International Business Times: 'Draconian' changes to UK espionage laws branded 'full frontal' attack on whistleblowing

#Trump Wins By Accelerating Time – Fight Back By Slowing Down

EPA/Andrew Harrer

By Anthony J. Pickles, University of Cambridge and Joel Robbins, University of Cambridge

Ever since the inauguration of Donald Trump, events of jarring magnitude have come tumbling one after another at breakneck pace: 20 executive orders in ten days, the border wall, the “Muslim ban”, rows over voter fraud and crowd sizes, “alternative facts”, intrigue over conflicts of interest, a controversial invitation to the UK, a gag order on government agencies, a contentious Supreme Court nominee, and more.

It feels almost like political life has sped up beyond people’s ability to keep pace. In the US and all over the world, democratic citizens are exhausted. As Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, told MSNBC: “It’s as if history is being collapsed into a black hole and everything is happening faster than the speed of light.”

This feeling of draining temporal acceleration isn’t confined to politics. In fact, it’s the tempo of our age. We know the life-shortening effects of jet lag, stress, and occupational burnout in societies increasingly replete with technologies to monitor our time use and performance. We know the trials of conditioning our children to sleep through the night and stay awake during the day so that they experience time in discrete blocks. Making sense of time, in short, can be exhausting.

Anthropologically speaking, we also know that people can perceive time in different ways. For some, time is epochal, a series of discrete states unconnected with one another; others see it as millennial, on the verge of catastrophic collapse or renewal. Still others see it as cyclical, bound to forever repeat itself. Some people’s belief in eternal paradise is so powerful that it dominates their relationship with the present, meaning they understand climate change or even nuclear war as relatively minor episodes in a larger story. But for others, the same phenomena portend that we are living on the edge of decline and potential catastrophe.

At destabilising political moments, these perceptions can change. The fall of the Soviet Union was one such moment. Living in a state of fear and desperation, many on the eastern side of the iron curtain had kept up an absolute pretence that the Soviet Union was forever striving forward while their world crumbled slowly. But as the moment broke, time seemed to speed up, marked by daily leaps in inflation. A few canny men took control of those resources and emerged as oligarchs. (Trump’s refusal to divest his business empire opens the door to similar opportunities.)

A remarkable version of this is happening today. Trump and his aides propagate their venomous nonsense at such speed that they accelerate the news cycle to dizzying pace, too fast for the toxicity to be countered. The force of executive power means the consequences of Trump’s actions are spread so widely and chaotically that one can barely grasp the implications before the next monstrosity hits.

But this is not just a side-effect; it’s a brutally effective political strategy.

Do or die
Historians and anthropologists have both argued that the crisis is the defining political concept of our time. Framing a problem as a crisis compresses all its complexity and contingency into a single moment of truth, one that calls out for quick, decisive action that often oversteps usually-respected boundaries.

Perhaps only an age of perpetual crisis could within eight years produce first the US’s first African-American president, with his sparkling oratory of audacious hope, and then a pathological narcissist running on a platform of “you will be tired of winning”. Even Trump’s evangelical Christian supporters consider our times so pressing that all the president’s moral failings, however utterly incompatible with their beliefs, must be forgotten.

Lie down and be counted. EPA/Justin Lane

Trump’s winning move was to pitch crisis against historical complacency. One of the reasons he was able to defeat Hillary Clinton was that she failed to shake off her association with the bad old days of business as usual – a stagnant era that saw the already wealthy steadily enrich themselves further. Only by engaging with accelerating disaster on its own terms, he argued, can we survive.

This is a rocky road to fascism, and there needs to be an effective political counter-strategy. Those protesting or resisting Trump must refuse the crisis-peddlers’ diktat to live at a frighteningly fast pace, and instead get back to thinking in terms of the middle distance. Crisis is being used to force people into a do-or-die mentality; if they refuse to think that way, they can retain the distance they need to identify shared goals and the ways to achieve them. They need to make their own time.

Those rallying against Trump need to undercut his projected strength by gumming up the works of the economy and the state, thereby proving that his power to solve problems has its limits and refusing to let him outrun our attention spans.

The best metaphor, and the best activity, is marching, with its steady rhythm and undeniable presence. This must be combined with more and more of the sort of innovative and news-capturing protests that have already begun. They must be packed with people ready to capture and control the political narrative that emerges, and to break the exhausting cycle of perpetual near-disaster.

The politics of crisis and excessive speed are winning, and they are harmful. Slowing things down to a healthy, manageable pace is the way to fight back.


About Today's Contributors:
Anthony J. Pickles, British Academy Research Fellow, University of Cambridge and Joel Robbins, Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

More Donald Trump Related Stories

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Katy Perry Honored for Global Sales of 40+ Million Adjusted Albums and 125+ Million Tracks

(pictured L-R Steve Barnett; Chairman & CEO Capitol Music Group, Katy Perry, Sir Lucian Grainge; Chairman and CEO Universal Music Group)

Today, Capitol Records celebrated Katy Perry's 10-year anniversary with the label and honored her extraordinary accomplishments, which include a cumulative 18+ billion streams alongside worldwide sales of more than 40+ million adjusted albums and 125+ million tracks. 

The global superstar was awarded a plaque recognizing her "singular artistry, astonishing creative vision and extraordinary global popularity within every realm of recorded music." The ceremony took place during Universal Music Group Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge's annual pre-GRAMMY showcase at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles.

Yesterday's release of Katy's new single, "Chained to the Rhythm," set a new Spotify record. With more than three million streams on its first day of release, it marks the best first day of streaming of a single track by a female artist in Spotify history. Katy will perform "Chained to the Rhythm" for the very first time at the 59^th Annual GRAMMY Awards, which will air on CBS tomorrow, February 12, at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT.

The lyric video, which already has more than eight million views, can be seen HERE. Katy co-wrote "Chained to the Rhythm" with Max Martin, Sia Furler, Ali Payami and Skip Marley. The latter is featured on the track. 

Billboard proclaimed, "Katy Perry Embraces Her Wokeness -- And It Works…one of music's biggest stars is once again dominating conversations."

Katy made her Capitol Records debut with 2008's One of the Boys after signing to the label in 2007. She cemented her status as a global superstar with the follow-up album, Teenage Dream (2010). PRISM, her 2013 album, debuted at No. 1 on iTunes in 100 countries and has sold more than 12.5 million adjusted albums worldwide. 

With the singles "Firework" and "Dark Horse" each surpassing the 10 million threshold including song sales and streams, Katy is the first female artist to earn two RIAA Digital Single Diamond Awards. She is also the most-followed person globally on Twitter. 

Katy played to a total of two million people on the sold-out, 151-date Prismatic World Tour and headlined the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show, which set a record as the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show ever. 

For additional information on Katy Perry, visit:

• katyperry.com
• twitter.com/katyperry
• facebook.com/katyperry
• instagram.com/katyperry
• youtube.com/katyperry
• vevo.com/artist/katy-perry

SOURCE: Capitol Music Group

Bonus Videos:

Tonner Doll Company Introduces Jazz Jennings Doll At 2017 New York International Toyfair

Jazz Jennings book cover and Jazz Jennings doll by Tonner Doll Company, Inc., debuting at New York Toyfair February 18, 2017.

Transgender star of TLC's docuseries "I Am Jazz", Jazz Jennings, will take form as the newest Tonner play doll.  The 18" portrait doll was designed and sculpted by renowned doll artist Robert Tonner.

Robert Tonner founded the Tonner Doll Company in 1991 and has continually created the best and most fashionable dolls in the world.  Designers such as Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan, Betsey Johnson and Anna Sui have dressed Tonner dolls. Tonner has also participated in myriad licensing programs including DC and Marvel, Twilight, Harry Potter, Dr Suess, Peanuts, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.

With the Jazz Jennings doll, Tonner continues its history of ground-breaking doll line introductions based on socially transformational heroes, who have included the plus-size model Emme and Carmen Dell 'Orefice, whose first Vogue cover was in 1946 and who remains a working fashion model.  

Robert Tonner, CEO of Tonner Doll, states "Jazz stands for everything I respect from a human nature point of view-she's incredibly brave, intelligent, warm-hearted and creative." 

16 year old Jazz Jennings, is an honorary co-founder of the Transkids Purple Rainbow Foundation.  Jazz speaks at universities, medical schools, conferences, conventions and symposiums all over the country. She's also a Youtube Vlogger, a youth ambassador for the Human Rights Campaign and an advocate for GLAAD.

When she was six, Jazz appeared on 20/20 with Barbara Walters. Since then, she's been featured on a variety of major programs and news outlets, including an Oprah Winfrey Network documentary, "I am Jazz: A family in Transition" and many others. Jazz and her family now have their own GLAAD Media award winning docu-series, "I Am Jazz," now on TLC.

Jazz is the youngest person ever to be recognized in The Advocate Magazine's, "Top Forty Under 40" annual list. She was named as one of TIME Magazine's Most Influential Teens for 2014 and 2015. She is also listed on Huffington Post's 14 Most Fearless Teens of 2014. In 2015 she became one of the faces of Johnson & Johnson's Clean and Clear Campaign: "See the Real" Me. 

In June of 2015, Jazz was invited to the White House where she met President Obama.  In October of 2015 she was honored as Miss Teen Pride USA.  In August of 2016, Jazz was recognized on Teen Vogue's 21 under 21 list.  Jazz served as Grand Marshall during the 2016 New York City Heritage of Pride March. She is the youngest person to serve as Grand Marshal in the history of the march.

In 2014, Jazz co-wrote a children's picture book with Jessica Herthel titled "I Am Jazz". She and her family continue to participate in many media projects with a goal to educate, and spread the message of tolerance and acceptance for all Transkids.  

Jazz's memoir, "Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen" was released in bookstores and digitally on June 7th, 2016.

The Jazz Jennings dolls will be available in specialty stores and on www.tonnerdoll.com in July, 2017.    

SOURCE: Tonner Doll

Bonus Video:

Berkeley, #Milo Yiannopoulos And The Lessons Of Free Speech

Protestors at the University of California, Berkeley campus oppose the appearance of Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. AP Photo/Ben Margot

By Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California, Irvine and Howard Gillman, University of California, Irvine

Recent events at the University of California, Berkeley reflect the enormous difficulties that campuses can face when trying to ensure freedom of speech while, at the same time, meeting their duty to ensure an inclusive learning environment and to protect everyone’s safety. Many, including President Donald Trump, spoke out about these events, but with apparently little understanding of what actually occurred or all that the campus did to try and protect speech.

On Wednesday, Feb. 1, Milo Yiannopoulos, a controversial speaker who prides himself on being inflammatory, was scheduled to speak at the University of California, Berkeley, at the invitation of the College Republicans student group. A demonstration of approximately 1,500 people developed to protest his presence and to stand against what they considered to be “hate speech.”

Masked protestors speak out against Yiannopoulos’ appearance on campus. pietropiupparco/flickr, CC BY-SA

A few hours before the scheduled talk, a group of protesters pulled down police barricades, hurled Molotov cocktails, smashed windows, and threw fireworks and rocks at police, resulting in US$100,000 of property damage. According to the university, the violent protesters were “150 masked agitators” who had come to campus to disturb an otherwise peaceful protest.

Perceiving a serious threat to public safety, campus officials called off Yiannopoulos’ talk, while also condemning the violence and reasserting their commitment to free speech principles. As university administrators and professors who teach and write about First Amendment law, we see what happened at Berkeley as enormously important in our current debate over free speech.

Did campus officials infringe Yiannopoulos’ freedom of speech and the rights of the College Republicans to hear his views?

The event has triggered intense debates about the scope and limits of free speech. However, to understand who did the right thing and who did the wrong thing, you must also understand a few basic First Amendment principles.

Basic free speech principles
First, by law campuses must allow all views and ideas to be expressed, no matter how offensive. Above all, the First Amendment means that the government cannot prevent or punish speech based on the viewpoint expressed. This also is a crucial aspect of academic freedom.

Milo Yiannopoulos speaking at the LeWeb13 Conference in London. LeWeb14/flickr, CC BY

Even the expression of hate is constitutionally protected; court cases have addressed this very issue on college campuses in the past. Although hate speech unquestionably causes harms, it nonetheless is expression that is covered by the First Amendment. We therefore strongly disagree with those who say that campus officials at Berkeley could keep Yiannopoulos from speaking because of his hateful and offensive message.

Campus officials at Berkeley recognized that Yiannopoulos had a First Amendment right to speak. Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks rightly resisted demands, including from Berkeley faculty, to ban Yiannopoulos’ appearance.

Second, campuses must do all they can to ensure that audience reactions against a speaker are not allowed to silence the speaker. Free speech can be undermined, not only by official censorship and punishment, but also by individuals who seek to disrupt or shut down others when they attempt to exercise their rights. If officials do not work to prevent or punish disruption then there will be a “heckler’s veto” of all unpopular or controversial speakers, and this is not consistent with free speech principles. Campus officials have a duty to protect the free speech rights of protesters, but they must also protect speakers and prevent heckling. Apparently, this, too, occurred at Berkeley. Staff members spent weeks planning extensive security arrangements, including bringing in dozens of police officers from nine other UC campuses.

Third, there may be situations where controlling the audience proves impossible and there is no choice but to prevent a speaker’s presence to ensure public safety. This should be a last resort taken only if there is no other way to prevent a serious imminent threat to public safety. This appears to be exactly what occurred at Berkeley, where the riotous demonstrators could not be controlled. In such cases, authorities should do all they can, after the fact, to identify and punish those who used violence and violated the law, and should assess how different security arrangements might be more effective in preventing future disruptions. Campus officials should also do what they can to reschedule the speaker for another time.

Misguided criticism of Berkeley officials
A number of commentators were outraged that Yiannopoulos was not able to speak, and claimed that free speech was under attack at Berkeley. But the campus itself consistently reaffirmed his right to speak, resisted calls to cancel the event and arranged for extraordinary security at great expense. The vast majority of the demonstrators were also merely exercising their free speech rights. Thus, the campus efforts were consistent with free speech principles. If there is blame to be assigned it should focus on the small number of outsiders who were intent on using violent and unlawful means to disrupt the event.

Nonetheless, President Trump tweeted after the event that federal funds might be withheld from Berkeley unless it allowed freedom of speech.

Putting aside that he lacks the legal authority to do this, Trump ignored the fact that freedom of speech never is absolute. Campuses can punish speech that constitutes true threats or harassment or incitement of illegal activity. Campuses also need to act to protect the safety and welfare of all on campus.

Campus officials at Berkeley faced an enormously difficult situation. They were not insensitive to speech and they did not deserve the disapproval of the president. The campus did not keep Yiannopoulos from speaking because of his views, but because public safety at the time necessitated it.


About Today's Contributors:
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the School of Law, University of California, Irvine and Howard Gillman, Chancellor, University of California, Irvine

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Other Milo Yiannopoulos Related Posts:

• A Storm In A Twitter Cup... [The One About That Milo Unverified Account Thing]
• Tell Colleges: Don't Let Milo Yiannopoulos Harass Your Students [Petition]

Discipline Kellyanne Conway For Violating Federal Ethics Rules [Petition]

Another day, another email about the current White House's Administration...

No surprise, really, as it seems that so-called President Donald Trump and the members of  his team keep doing their best (or is it their worst?) to look/sound stupid on a daily basis.

On the bright side, some of the people who didn't care about politics a few months ago are now interested again. Silver lining and all that...

Anyway, today's email is from our friends at the Daily Kos. As usual, feel free to read it and act accordingly.

Thanks in advance

Stay safe!

Loup Dargent

Click here to read recent Guardian's article about Conway

The Email:
"Loup,

On February 9, Kellyanne Conway—counselor to President Trump—went on Fox News, and with the White House seal in the background urged viewers repeatedly to buy Ivanka Trump's clothing line.

This is a blatant violation under federal law.

§ 2635.702 Use of public office for private gain.
An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity ...

We now have a White House whose publicly paid employees go around promoting the commercial interests of the President's family members. 

Congressman Elijah Cummings called this a "textbook violation" of ethics laws and recommended that it be referred the Office of Government Ethics.

Sign the petition to the Office of Government Ethics and U.S. General Services Administration: Discipline Kellyanne Conway for violating federal ethics rules.

Keep fighting,
Paul Hogarth, Daily Kos"

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Stop #Trump's Marriage Made In Hell [Petition]

Image via Avaaz.org

Dear friends,

This is urgent! Trump is ready to bless a merger between chemical giants Monsanto and Bayer to create a $100 billion agribusiness beast designed to dominate our earth's food system.

It's not only bad business to allow one company to grow this huge, it's against the law. And two little known regulators in the US and Europe can stop the deal. The problem is they're being pounded by lobbying from two of the world’s most powerful corporations and a President hell-bent on seeing the deal succeed. 

Only a massive movement like ours can counter the assault.

We beat Monsanto twice last year in exactly this way, but this time we need unprecedented numbers to show the regulators people everywhere want to stop a megaplan backed by President Trump. Add your name:  

>> Click to stop this monster marriage made in hell

Monsanto and Bayer combined would dominate global crops and pesticides, and control our food system! And these are companies that have poisoned bee populations, river water, food and created seeds that die after one generation so that small farmers remain loyal customers under crippling debt. 

Bayer and Monsanto met with Trump before he took office and he released a statement afterwards taking credit for large pieces of the merger megaplan. But luckily the EU’s competition commissioner still has the power to block the deal and the US antitrust chief can file a lawsuit if they decide it goes against the public interest. 

Both regulators are under massive pressure to waive the deal through. But we've foiled this kind of contract before. Let's build a call so strong that these public defenders move to protect the common good:   

>> Click to stop this monster marriage made in hell

We already blocked the license renewal of Monsanto's biggest product, glyphosate, and helped ban one of Bayer's bee-killing pesticides in Europe. Let's show them that even if they try to team up, we will stand up and fight together for our health, our food, our farms, and our earth.

With determination,

Loup Dargent

On behalf of Pascal, Nick, Dalia, Alice, Bert, Danny and the rest of the Avaaz team

SOURCES:

• Trump Is Ready to Bless Monsanto and Bayer's Massive Merger
• Bayer-Monsanto Pledge Investment, Jobs After Trump Meeting
• Bayer to Buy Monsanto, Creating a Massive Seeds and Pesticides Company

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