How Did NY Gov. Cuomo Make $783,000 From A Book That Sold Only 3,200 Copies? | Zero Hedge

How Did NY Gov. Cuomo Make $783,000 From A Book That Sold Only 3,200 Copies? | Zero Hedge
"...The New York governor, whose memoir was published by the News Corp.-owned HarperCollins in 2014, saw his gross income more than double last year, to $417,748 for 2016 (from $196,243 the year before), the Buffalo News reported Tuesday. 
Cuomo attributed $218,100 of that increase to sales of his memoir, “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Successes in Politics and Life.”

In 2015, the governor reportedly earned zero income from book sales and in the nearly three years that it's been on the market, it has sold just 3,200 copies. 
But Cuomo, the Buffalo News found, reported that he received a total of $783,000 from HarperCollins in book sales over the past three years,  a number that would translate to royalty payments of nearly $244.69 per copy.

Today, the book was selling on Amazon for $8.45.

A spokesperson for Gov. Cuomo told International Business Times, “This payment was contractual and per the agreement with the publisher...” 

Read on!

Citing racial strife, students at wealthy colleges demand reparations - The College Fix

Citing racial strife, students at wealthy colleges demand reparations - The College Fix: 
"Financial compensation, affirmative action, more money for therapy
Students who attend a wealthy and elite cluster of schools in Southern California are demanding various forms of reparations, citing racial strife and other injustices they allegedly face.
Various student factions at the private consortium  — which costs an average of more than $50,000 annually — have lodged demands to make right ills they claim to face at the “5Cs” as its known among students, consisting of Pomona, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd and Pitzer colleges.
...The various forms of reparations some students seek for the oppression they say they face includes financial compensation, affirmative action and more money for therapy.
...Racial strife has also hit Harvey Mudd, the math- and science-focused campus among the 5Cs.
Campus leaders recently cancelled classes for two days to go over “long bottled-up tensions about workload,” Inside Higher Ed reports, adding in its April 18 article: “minority students issued demands to administration — among them to funnel more money into counseling services, specifically geared toward students of color, and to prioritize minority student groups with funding and other perks.”..."
Read on!

Wind Industry Titan Soaks Up Billions in Tax Subsidies [Michigan Capitol Confidential]

Wind Industry Titan Soaks Up Billions in Tax Subsidies [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:

"A renewable energy company that is worth $60 billion — and hasn’t paid federal income taxes for the last seven years — is among the country’s largest recipients of federal subsidies. It’s also suing a small Michigan township as it seeks to take advantage of a state law for its financial gain.

NextEra Energy, based in Florida, has filed lawsuits in Michigan against Ellington Township and Almer Township seeking to compel the municipalities to allow its wind turbine towers to be erected."

FACT SHEET: Why the Wells Fargo CEO and Board Must Go: Whitewash, Cover Up and Dereliction of Duty | Better Markets

FACT SHEET: Why the Wells Fargo CEO and Board Must Go: Whitewash, Cover Up and Dereliction of Duty | Better Markets:
"Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States, engaged in an egregious, years-long, illegal practice of ripping off millions of customers.  
It fraudulently opened and funded millions of bogus accounts with stolen customer money.  
In addition to falsely inflating revenue, profits and bonuses, these activities almost certainly manipulated the bank’s stock price. 

The Whitewash and Cover Up

You wouldn’t know that from the carefully crafted Report released this week by the independent members of the bank’s Board of Directors.  

That Report whitewashed away with misleading Orwellian language these many pervasive illegal and possibly criminal activities.  

The Report conceals more than it reveals. 
It is not surprising that an investigation conducted by a Board exonerates the Board and its handpicked CEO while blaming virtually everything on two senior executives no longer at the bank.  

What is surprising is how the Report ignores likely criminal conduct while detailing more than a decade of incomprehensible levels of incompetence, negligence and dereliction of duty by the Board, the current CEO and dozens of other executives and supervisors..."

Blog: Hold the celebrity enablers of Venezuela's hellhole accountable

Blog: Hold the celebrity enablers of Venezuela's hellhole accountable
"What holds Venezuela together these days? 
According to the New York Times,this state is held together only by an encircling ring of death-squad gangs, who serve as its enforcers. 
These are the community organizers known as 'colectivos' who ride and circle around menacingly on motorcycles, and shoot randomly into crowds to generate terror.  
I saw them myself in Caracas in late 2005, and they were scary. 
Now, they are engorged with drug cash and legitimized by the state. 
Who could have imagined that this tontons macoute situation would be the logical conclusion of Chavista socialism?

Not Venezuela's celebrity endorsers from the Hollywood elites, that's for sure. 
These Useful Idiots spent years using their capacity for drawing media attention to browbeat the West into believing that Chavista socialism was the wave of the future. 
They were no different from the political pilgrims who endorsed the Soviet Union in its early days while the Ukraine starved from the communists' man-made famine. 
Sean Penn declared that anyone in the West who called the late Hugo Chavez a dictator should be imprisoned and gushed:

(Chávez) is a fascinating guy. He’s done… incredible things for the 80% of the people that are very poor there.

Meanwhile, film producers Michael Moore tweeted on Chavez's 2013 death that:

Hugo Chavez declared the oil belonged 2 the ppl. He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all..."

Read on! 

Lunch video-----Fake News Remix - Donald Trump vs. The Mainstream Media

Noon-toon

Russia Hacking Reveals This SHOCKING Democratic Plot | The Federalist Papers

Russia Hacking Reveals This SHOCKING Democratic Plot | The Federalist Papers:

"The investigation by The New York Times revealed that among the documents purloined by the Russians is called both an “email” and a “memo” and was written by a Democratic operative.

Here’s how the Times put it: “[The] Democratic operative expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far.”

FBI Director James Comey was worried that Lynch would put the kibosh on their investigation into Clinton’s activities. "

Sean Hannity Accused Of Sexual Harassment | The Huffington Post

Sean Hannity Accused Of Sexual Harassment | The Huffington Post
"Sean Hannity is the latest Fox News star to be accused of sexual harassment.
In an interview with the Pat Campbell Show on Friday, former Fox News contributor Debbie Schlussel claimed that Hannity had invited her to his hotel room — twice — when they appeared together for one of his programs. 

But when she rebuffed him, Schlussel said that she was never asked back on the show.
Schlussel claimed the “awkward” incident began when Hannity invited her to a store where he was signing books. 

While there, she said Hannity asked her: “Why don’t you come back with me to my hotel?” Schlussel said she responded: “No, I have to get ready for the show.”
...Her comments were aired just days after Bill O’Reilly’s ouster by Fox News in the wake of revelations that he and the company had paid out some $13 million to women who accused him of sexual harassment..."

Macron and Le Pen Through to the Run-Off | Statista

• Chart: Macron and Le Pen Through to the Run-Off | Statista:
"As generally predicted, Macron and Le Pen have made it through to the second round run-off in the French presidential election.
With 24 and 21 percent of the votes respectively, France now has a very clear choice to make on May 7.
Will voters choose Macron, the pro-Europe internationalist, or Le Pen, the anti-EU protectionist?
Polls suggest the internationalist will trounce the protectionist but as 2016 showed us, anything can happen in politics nowadays."

The Moral Obscenity of Kim's North Korea

The Moral Obscenity of Kim's North Korea: 
"...The feature I'm talking about is the raw moral obscenity of Kim's North Korea.

...For decades, reports of the Kim-family regime's atrocities have been seeping out of North Korea, including a landmark report in 2003 from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea on North Korea's prison camps ("The Hidden Gulag"), and another groundbreaking report in 2012 on what amounts to North Korea's system of political apartheid ("Marked for Life: Songbun, North Korea's Political Classification System").

The evidence, especially the testimony from defectors, has been so harrowing that a few years ago even the United Nations finally took serious notice, and set up a Commission of Inquiry (widely referred to as the COI), which in 2014 produced a 372-page report on human rights -- or the complete absence thereof -- in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.

This report, one of the best things to emerge in our time from an often morally obtuse UN, concluded, in the words of a summary released by the UN (boldface is mine):

...crimes against humanity have been committed by officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, pursuant to policies established at the highest levels of the State. These crimes against humanity entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation...

Read on! 

You ought to know!

Sharia Law Advocate to Give Commencement Speech at Taxpayer-Funded University | Fox News Insider

Sharia Law Advocate to Give Commencement Speech at Taxpayer-Funded University | Fox News Insider:

"There's been some controversy after the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health announced a pro-Palestinian Sharia Law advocate will serve as the school's commencement speaker.

“I am delighted to confirm that Linda Sarsour will indeed speak at our June 1 commencement at the Apollo Theater,” said Barbara Aaron, chief of staff to the school’s dean, Ayman El-Mohandes."

107 cancer papers retracted due to peer review fraud | Ars Technica

107 cancer papers retracted due to peer review fraud | Ars Technica:
"The journal Tumor Biology is retracting 107 research papers after discovering that the authors faked the peer review process. 
This isn’t the journal’s first rodeo.
Late last year, 58 papers were retracted from seven different journals— 25 came from Tumor Biology for the same reason.
It’s possible to fake peer review because authors are often asked to suggest potential reviewers for their own papers.
This is done because research subjects are often blindingly niche; a researcher working in a sub-sub-field may be more aware than the journal editor of who is best-placed to assess the work..."

AM Fruitcake

History for April 24

History for April 24 - On-This-Day.com:
Edmund Cartwright 1743, Robert Penn Warren 1905, Shirley MacLaine 1934 - Actress


Jill Ireland 1936, Sue Grafton 1940 - Author, Barbra Streisand 1942 - Singer


1805 - The U.S. Marines attacked and captured the town of Derna in Tripoli.


1915 - During World War I, the Ottoman Turkish Empire began the mass deportation of Armenians.


1944 - The first B-29 arrived in China, over the Hump of the Himalayas.


1953 - Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.


1961 - U.S. President Kennedy accepted "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.


1967 - Soviet astronaut Vladimir Komarov died when his craft crashed with a tangled parachute.


1990 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL. It was carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.


2003 - A U.S. official reported the North Korea had claimed to have nuclear weapons.