Category: Top Stories

Joan Rivers “Not a Nice Person,” Says Hollywood Union Official

July 10, 2014 - David Feldman Show, The News From Around The World, Top Stories

http://youtu.be/YsQgsQJmmgQ

Joan Rivers is not a nice a person according to a spokesperson for the Writers Guild of America. Melodie Shaw, field representative and organizer for The Writers Guild of America West, said that Rivers verbally abused the writers on E’s Fashion Police after they approached her about joining a union. Shaw said this during an interview airing Friday on Pacifica Radio’s David Feldman Show.

Shaw said the Fashion Police writers were earning $610 a week without health insurance. In 2013 they decided it was time to go union after two other E comedy programs, hosted by Chelsea Handler and Joel McHale, joined the WGA (Writers Guild of America). Shaw said those two programs went union, “in no small measure due to Handler and McHale supporting their writers every step of the way.”

Shaw said Rivers, a member of the WGA for several decades, “turned on her writers” during a meeting “hurling expletives” and then storming out when they told her they couldn’t live on $610 a week without health insurance.

In response to Rivers’ failure to assist them in joining the WGA, Fashion Police writers approached the union on their own, and then staged a walkout. Shaw said Rivers, a WGA member, continued to work despite the walkout which is a violation of union rules. This prompted the WGA to schedule a disciplinary hearing to determine whether they would revoke Rivers’ union membership. In October of 2013, right before her hearing was to be held, an apologetic Rivers contacted the WGA and promised she would support her writers and help them get a union contract. Shaw said that based on those assurances the WGA immediately cancelled Rivers’ disciplinary hearing.

Fashion Police writers voted unanimously to join the union in December of 2013. Under federal law Fashion Police was then required to negotiate with the WGA. Shaw said since that vote Rivers has not negotiated in good faith, rarely returning calls from the union and offering her writers a contract way below union standards. Shaw said Rivers even went so low as to tell the press that her writers were “schmucks” and “idiots” for organizing.

When asked if Rivers had been kicked out of the Writers Guild, Shaw said not yet because the WGA is still hoping they can cut a deal with E’s Fashion Police.

Shaw was a guest on the David Feldman Show broadcast nationwide on Pacifica Radio and available as a podcast on iTunes. Feldman said he invited Shaw on his program after watching Rivers grow hostile and storm off the set during a CNN interview earlier in the week after the host asked if she was “mean.”

“It seems to me,” said Feldman, “that how you treat your employees is a pretty good barometer of whether or not you’re cruel. $610 a week with no health insurance? That seems pretty cruel to me.”

Feldman began the interview by asking Shaw if Joan Rivers was mean. Shaw responded, “Yes.”

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Sarah Palin Attacks Boehner For Not Impeaching President Obama

July 9, 2014 - The News From Around The World, Top Stories

Sarah Palin started the week expressing interest in being one of the hosts of The View. She told THR:

I hear everyone recently got canned from ‘The View’, maybe a show like that needs a punch of reality and a voice of reason from America’s heartland to knock some humble sense into their scripts. You know, someone willing to go rogue.

“Scripts?” Sarah, just because you’re told what to say doesn’t mean everybody else’s opinions are scripted.

Then Sarah got distracted and decided President Obama should be impeached. Seriously. I can only imagine Palin having to stand on her own two feet outside the Fox bubble.

Me: Governor on what grounds should our president be impeached?

Sarah: How the hell should I know? I’m not a constitutional scholar.

Me: Oh, sorry, I always confuse you with Laurence Tribe.

Pay attention to the dumbest people on the right because even though they’re not thinking, they do reveal what their paymasters are thinking. While watching this video your first reaction is how irresponsible John McCain was in believing Sarah Palin was up for the job of Vice President. But then as the conversation peels back you realize that Sarah Palin, like Reagan, like George W. Bush, was another empty vessel that could be told what to say. You know, like scripted.

Her latest script sounds insane. But Speaker John Boehner is planning to file a lawsuit against our president for a string of executive orders that are well within Obama’s constitutional authority. We’re just beginning to get a glimpse of the what the next two years would look like should Democrats lose the senate. From the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the invasion of Iraq all the way up to going off the “Fiscal Cliff” the GOP consistently demonstrates that just because something is insane it doesn’t mean they won’t go through with it.

Sarah Palin is dumb, she is scripted, she is irresponsible. She is the GOP.

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The Party of Lincoln Is For Slavery

July 8, 2014 - David Feldman Show, Top Stories

The party of Lincoln is for slavery.

The Republicans are pretty good at disguising what their end game truly is. But those core beliefs fly under the radar because Republicans get plenty of help from sane, rational and decent people like you and me who simply refuse to accept that anybody could be so craven as to believe some Americans deserve to be poor. It’s pretty remarkable that the same zealots who don’t want the theory of evolution taught in our schools could develop an entire economic policy based on survival of the fittest. Or maybe it’s just based on pure hatred.

Occasionally we run across moments of candor. This one is from Michele Bachmann who is a joke, but that doesn’t mean she’s joking. She not only means what she says, she’s also parroting, word for word, what she’s been taught by the high priests of GOP thought when the doors are closed and the room has been swept for bugs. This is what she accidentally blurted out about the minimum wage back in 2005. The only mistake she made was revealing what she and so many in her party actually believe.

Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.

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Video: Soccer Playing Turtle Displays Incredible Ball Handling

July 8, 2014 - The News From Around The World, Top Stories

Watching the World Cup one often thinks, “Sure it’s an interesting sport, but how interesting is it really? I mean would it still be an interesting game if a turtle was playing it?” The answer turns out surprisingly to be yes. In fact it’s even more interesting. An Italian soccer fan captured this rough and tumble scrimmage between a turtle and a dog. If you think turtles don’t play soccer you’re wrong. Some are, hard to believe but true, even better at it than dogs. Quite frankly this turtle’s ball handling is nothing short of incredible:

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The Mentally Enfeebled Are Taking Over

July 7, 2014 - Top Stories

This is what happens to a country when its government spends trillions on weapons in the name of “defense.” Too many Americans are now convinced that owning a military assault weapon will make them safer. This is a lie propagated by lobbyists and politicians who make big money from the gun manufacturers who stand to gain from a nation of frightened cretins. Politifact has the truth. Watch this and then head over to our Politifact link.

ABC US News | ABC Sports News

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World’s Unluckiest Drunk Driver Crashes Right Into Police Cruiser

July 7, 2014 - The News From Around The World, Top Stories

Montgomery Township, Philadelphia police made public today dash cam video of a drunk driver smashing into a cop car stopped at a light. Nobody was injured on June 17, 2014 when Phillip Marress from Tennessee plowed headlong into a police cruiser and three other cars before his vehicle came to a complete stop on its side. Marress was arrested after allegedly telling police he had mixed beer with two shots and a Percoset. Montgomery Township Police Chief Scott Bendig said today that Marress never hit his brakes and seemed unperturbed while officers rescued him from his overturned car.
Watch:
http://youtu.be/MYOYqzrKx0A
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