Author: Randy Slovacek

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Pittsburgh: Unarmed 17-Year-Old Shot In The Back While Running Away From Police

17-year-old Antwon Rose was shot in the back while running away from police in East Pittsburgh
17-year-old Antwon Rose

A 17-year-old boy in East Pittsburgh is dead after being shot three times in the back by an officer who had been sworn into the police department just hours earlier.

Antwon Rose was killed Tuesday night while fleeing from a car that had been pulled over in connection with an earlier shooting in North Braddock, Pennsylvania, according to WTAE TV.

From the Allegheny County Police Department’s Facebook page:

An East Pittsburgh police officer saw a vehicle matching the description on Grandview Avenue which also had ballistics damage to the rear window. The officer stopped the vehicle near Grandview and Howard Street in East Pittsburgh.

The officer took the driver into custody. While he was putting the driver into handcuffs, two other occupants ran from the car.

One individual ― a 17-year-old male ― was shot by police. He was transported to McKeesport Hospital where he was declared deceased.

According to USA Today, no shots were fired at the officer at the scene. You’ll notice the report doesn’t mention the teen being shot three times in the back.

Allegheny County police Superintendent Coleman McDonough confirmed that Rose was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

The officer involved in the shooting has been placed on leave but not identified.

In a statement to local station WPXI TV, East Pittsburgh Mayor Louis Payne shared that the officer had been sworn into the department only a few hours before the shooting, but clarified the officer was not a rookie having served with other area police departments for seven years.

A petition has been launched calling on Gov. Tom Wolf to require the East Pittsburg Police Deparmtent to wear body cameras at all times.

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Donald Trump Gets Another TIME Magazine Cover

Donald Trump shown on the cover of this week's TIME Magazine with the caption "Welcome to America" as a small immigrant child cries at Trump's feet

Donald Trump covers TIME Magazine again this week.

From the new issue:

TIME’s Karl Vick writes: “For the first 240 years of U.S. history, … our most revered chief executives reliably articulated a set of high-minded, humanist values that bound together a diverse nation by naming what we aspired to: democracy, humanity, equality. … Donald Trump doesn’t talk like that.”

And from Molly Ball: “The inhumanity unfolding at the border has not just been a test for Trump. It has been, and will continue to be, a moment of reckoning for America.

“Trump has often bet that if he just rides out the current frenzy, the anger will fade and some new controversy will erupt. He thinks shock is a temporary condition, moral outrage is phony posturing and that the American people can be numbed to just about anything.

“If there is a Trump creed, it’s that there’s no such thing as going too far. That may have found its limit with putting children in cages. “

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Trump Complains His Opposition Is Called “Elite”

At a rally in Minnesota last night, Donald Trump lamented that liberals and Democrats are often referred to as “the elite.”

“You ever notice they always call the other side ‘the elite.’ The elite! Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president and they didn’t.”

Of course, what he doesn’t mention is the label “the elite” is being used by far-right convservatives – his own people – as a putdown.

Watch the statement below.

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Gorilla Koko, Who Learned To Communicate Through Sign Language, Passes Away At Age 46

Koko, the beloved western lowland gorilla who famously learned to communicate through sign language, has died in her sleep at the age of 46.

Koko was believed to have had an IQ of between 75 and 95 and could sign more than 1,000 words. The average IQ of a human is around 90 to 110. Scientists say she also understood spoken English.

From The Today Show:

“Koko touched the lives of millions as an ambassador for all gorillas and an icon for interspecies communication and empathy. She was beloved and will be deeply missed,” the organization said in a statement.

The western lowland gorilla died Tuesday at the foundation’s preserve in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains.

Born at the San Francisco Zoo in 1971 on the Fourth of July, Koko was named “Hanabi-ko,” which means “fireworks child” in Japanese.

Animal psychologist Francine “Penny” Patterson began to teach Koko sign language a year later while she was a graduate student.

Patterson, along with biologist Ronald Cohn, eventually would go on to help establish The Gorilla Foundation in 1986.

“Koko’s capacity for language and empathy has opened the minds and hearts of millions,” the foundation said in its statement.

Here’s a 2016 report on Koko:

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InstaHunk Round-Up

It’s Hump Day!

Or – Hunk Day!

Whichever. Some eye-candy to get you through the rest of the week.

I’m not sure if the pic above is the beginning of a new day for Ignacio Pérez Rey or the end of a long night. Either way, looks good 😉

A post shared by Quin Bruce (@quin_bruce) on Jun 20, 2018 at 1:02pm PDT
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Out Music: Aiden James “Colorblind”

Aiden James “Colorblind”

Wait until you see this gorgeous music video from Aiden James for his latest single, “Colorblind.”

Aiden recently told OUT, “People express love in different ways and I’ve assigned them to colors. Some people love in a fiery red and some a more nurturing yellow. But, when someone doesn’t feel the same way about you they can be colorblind to all the light you shine for them.”

Not only is the creative video fab to watch, the song is terrific.

With a strong banging piano and full, fat production this is wholesale, mainstream pop. Aiden’s vocals are in top form, and the full stop for vulnerability after the bridge is great before heading for the exit.

Totally up my alley. I’m feeling a serious contender for ‘Best of 2018’ here at The Randy Report.

Take a listen below. “Colorblind” is now available on digital download sites like iTunes.

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News Round-Up: June 20, 2018

Some news items you might have missed:

• InstaHunk Dan Welden (above) is getting his summer on. Who’s doing what this summer? Lake time? Pool time? Vacay?

• A gay military veteran who was harassed and spit on by neighbors was honored at a Los Angeles Pride event for his contributions to his community.

• Last night, Stephen Colbert took time to profile the virulently anti-LGBT extremist Scott Lively, whose currently running for governor in Massachusetts. As Colbert notes, when you google Lively, Adolf Hitler comes up in the “People also searched for” column. Check out the funny but factual 3 minute segment below.

• Longtime GOP strategist Steve Schmidt quit the Republican Party in a ripping Twitter rant denouncing the party’s “feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders.”

• Federal authorities have subpoenaed the publisher of the National Enquirer for records related to its $150,000 payment to a former Playboy model for the rights to her story alleging an affair with Donald Trump.

• Canada’s Parliament passed bill C-45 this week legalizing marijuana for the entire country. Starting October 17 Canadians will have access to legal, regulated cannabis. Watch the announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau below.

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Rachel Maddow Breaks Down Reporting On Separated Children At The Border

At the end of her MSNBC show last night, Rachel Maddow was handed breaking news by the Associate Press about the Trump administration operating “tender age” shelters for migrant babies and toddlers.

As has been widely reported, journalists who have toured the facilities have described the experience being similar to “visiting an animal shelter.”

Coming after an hour of reporting on the “zero tolerance” policy, Maddow tried to read the report live on air she kept choking up while speaking.

“This has just come out from the Associated Press,” she began, then paused, as her emotions were clearly taking hold.

She attempted to continue reading, but her voice broke.

Trying to get the camera off of her, Maddow asked producers to put up a graphic, but it’s not ready.

There was a final attempt before shaking her head, saying: “I think I’m gonna have to hand this off.”

And that’s exactly what happened. Thankfully Lawrence O’Donnell was at the ready for the handoff into the next hour.

Maddow later apologized via Twitter to her viewers:

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Obama Takes Veiled Swipe At Trump Immigration Policy On ‘World Refugee Day’

President Barack Obama

In observing World Refugee Day, former President Obama took a not-so-veiled swipe at Donald Trump’s hideous policy of separating families at the southern U.S. border.

From Obama’s Facebook page:

Today is World Refugee Day.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to have been born in America, imagine for a moment if circumstance had placed you somewhere else. Imagine if you’d been born in a country where you grew up fearing for your life, and eventually the lives of your children. A place where you finally found yourself so desperate to flee persecution, violence, and suffering that you’d be willing to travel thousands of miles under cover of darkness, enduring dangerous conditions, propelled forward by that very human impulse to create for our kids a better life.

That’s the reality for so many of the families whose plights we see and heart-rending cries we hear. And to watch those families broken apart in real time puts to us a very simple question: are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms, or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together? Do we look away, or do we choose to see something of ourselves and our children?

Our ability to imagine ourselves in the shoes of others, to say “there but for the grace of God go I,” is part of what makes us human. And to find a way to welcome the refugee and the immigrant – to be big enough and wise enough to uphold our laws and honor our values at the same time – is part of what makes us American. After all, almost all of us were strangers once, too. Whether our families crossed the Atlantic, the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we’re only here because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, how our last names sound, or the way we worship. To be an American is to have a shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us deserve the chance to become something better.

That’s the legacy our parents and grandparents and generations before created for us, and it’s something we have to protect for the generations to come. But we have to do more than say “this isn’t who we are.” We have to prove it – through our policies, our laws, our actions, and our votes.

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Trump Announces Executive Order To Stop Family Separations At The Border

President Trump announces he will finally stop separating migrant children from their parents after weeks of saying he had no power to do so
Donald Trump

After weeks of claiming only Congress has the power to stop separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border of the United States, Donald Trump announced today that he will sign an executive order to stop the horrific policy.

The truth of the matter is no executive order is needed. Trump can stop all this with a phone call to his Attorney General.

From The New York Times:

Mr. Trump’s executive order would seek to get around an existing 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores settlement, that prohibits the federal government from keeping children in immigration detention — even if they are with their parents — for more than 20 days.

Stories of children being taken from their parents and images of teenagers in cage-like detention facilities have exploded into a full-blown political crisis for Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers, who are desperate for a response to critics who have called the practice “inhumane” and “evil.”

Mr. Trump has for weeks refused to simply end his government’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to the separation of more than 2,300 children from their parents, saying that the alternative would be to fling open the nation’s borders and allow immigrants who cross the border illegally to remain in the country.
But the president, furious about the pummeling he has taken in recent days, has been casting about for an escape from the crisis, people familiar with his thinking said.

Today’s announcement comes as Trump’s approval rating on immigration has hit an all-time low.

According to a CNN poll released Monday, Trump’s handling of immigration dropped five points in just the last month to only 35% approval.

Axios reported this morning that a senior White House official described Trump’s perspective on the issue as “being moved personally, but also doesn’t want to look weak.”

“He feels boxed in, is frustrated and knows it’s bad politics — but also understands it’s not a fight he can back down from,” added the official.

Watch Trump weave back and forth in his announcement below: