tyb
#flagsout
ANOTHER huge celebrity has defended Michael Jackson – amid child sex abuse claims
Will.i.am has defended playing Michael Jackson’s music, by using a bizarre reference to the Holocaust.
The rapper spoke out following the release of Leaving Neverland – which details past allegations of child sex abuse made against the late singer.
According to Sky News, Will said not playing Michael’s music would be like choosing to stop buying Bayer, who he claims made the chemicals to “kill all the Jews”.
He said: “We live in a very, very, very, very hypocritical, double-standard, fake society. I can name a thousand other products that we still buy, still use, that are owned by folks that have done the most horrendous things to people, millions of them, and we don’t take their products from the market.”
“You’re not talking about banning Bayer that made the chemicals to kill all the Jews. You’re not talking about real s**t and yet you want to flex on a song?”
“Bayer is really responsible for chemicals that killed millions of people but they’re headache medicine now. Are you going to ridicule them for their past? Are there reparations that need to be done for that?”
He added: “Imagine every country that ever had slaves, people said never travel to those countries because of what they’ve done in the past.”
“Are you not supposed to do anything with anyone who ever did anything ill in the past? England, Spain, Portugal. That’s not that long ago. Are there reparations for everyone who’s done something ill? I could name a thousand more ills that are worse but we’re going to pull songs?”
Will, who was the last artist to work with Michael, said, “I don’t know what to trust or believe, when I don’t know who’s behind it. Obviously it’s money, when The Beatles’s catalogue Sly And The Family Stone’s catalogue is still with the estate.”
“I’m torn, because that’s not the Michael Jackson I loved and will always love. It is a smear campaign, there’s been a number of smear campaigns in the past. If he did it, it’s sad and inhumane. If he didn’t, what’s happening is sad, and inhumane.
“And for somebody that knows him, you’re torn. You have the doc. Your heart wants to believe them but they’re on record lying so how am I supposed to trust that?”
http://goss.ie/featured/another-huge-celebrity-has-defended-michael-jackson-amid-child-sex-abuse-claims-170927
notable?
Beto O’Rourke Rallies Near Southern Border After Trump’s Closure Threat
Hours after the president warned he would shut down the border, the Democrat announced he would kick off his campaign nearby.
Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is holding three rallies Saturday in his home state of Texas, the first of which will take place in El Paso near the Mexico border that President Donald Trump threatened to close the day before.
The former Democratic congressman announced the plan on Twitter Friday, and will also be visiting Houston and Austin on his tour.
Though O’Rourke has been making a series of public speeches since he announced his run earlier this month, he’s pitching Saturday’s rallies as the official start of his campaign.
During a Friday press conference in Florida at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the president vowed to shut down the southern border “if Mexico doesn’t get with it.”
“There is a very good likelihood that I will be closing the border next week,” he said.
Trump issued the warning on Twitter too, where he claimed that “Mexico has for many years made a fortune off of the U.S., far greater than Border Costs,” adding that he would shutter the border if all illegal immigration didn’t come to a halt immediately.
On the same day, a Department of Homeland Security official told reporters there are no plans for a border closure next week. Trump has previously made such threats without following through.
O’Rourke, a former congressman who launched a failed bid for Senate in 2018, has taken a firm stance against Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, noting that El Paso is remarkably safe despite the president’s fearmongering over drugs, sex trafficking and violent crime.
Though Trump has credited the border wall as having made the city safer ― a claim that has been debunked with FBI data showing the area was never highly dangerous to begin with and actually saw more violent crime after the wall was built ― O’Rourke said in February that he would take it down if it were up to him.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beto-orourke-rallies-texas_n_5c9f7392e4b0474c08cf6114
Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx open to outside investigation into Jussie Smollett case
After intense public backlash, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said Friday night that she is open to an outside investigation into her office’s dramatic decision to dismiss all charges against "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett.
In an op-ed for The Chicago Tribune, Foxx admitted that a third-party review into the high-profile case would help maintain transparency.
The surprise decision to drop charges on Tuesday, followed by Smollett's claims of innocence and exoneration paired with an immediate rebuke from Chicago's mayor and police superintendent that it was a "whitewash of justice" put pressure on the state's attorney's office to defend its actions.
“I am not perfect, nor is any other prosecutor out there, but ensuring that I and my office have our community’s trust is paramount,” Foxx, who ran on a platform of transparency, wrote.
Smollett is accused of staging an anti-gay, racist attack on himself in January in order to promote his career. He has denied the charges from the start and says two men approached him, beat him, threw bleach on him and tied a rope around his neck before shouting, "This is MAGA country," in reference to President Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
In order to investigate the hate crime, the city removed 24 detectives from their regular cases, expending up to 1,000 hours to hunt down the truth.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants Smollett to reimburse the city $130,106.15 to cover the cost of overtime hours spent on the investigation.
“In determining whether or not to pursue charges, prosecutors are required to balance the severity of the crime against the likelihood of securing a conviction,” Foxx wrote. “For a variety of reasons … my office believed the likelihood of securing a conviction was not certain.”
Foxx said Smollett’s “alleged unstable actions have probably caused him more harm than any court-ordered penance could.” But she added that jails should be reserved for those who commit violent crimes.
Her defense isn't swaying many people.
Foxx could have distanced herself from this blunder given that her own blunder — emailing and texting with people close to Smollett early in the investigation — had prompted her to step away from the case and leave it to underlings," Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn wrote. "But she grabbed ownership of it Wednesday, giving interviews in which she expressed pride and confidence in the way her office had handled the case."
Zorn, like so many others in Chicago, believe Foxx "probably will and arguably should lose her job next year over her office's handling of the Jussie Smollett case."
Foxx's actions also prompted both the National District Attorneys Association and the Illinois Prosecutors bar Association to sharply criticize her office.
President Trump even waded into the controversy, saying he'd asked federal law enforcement officials to look into Smollett's case.
“I think the case in Chicago is an absolute embarrassment to our country, and I have asked that they look at it,” Trump said.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-prosecutor-kim-foxx-open-to-outside-investigation-into-jussie-smollett-case