#i may have a thing for storches shocking

[schwarzgeier]

Hhhnngh Storch tall... strong...

[cxhnow]

Chloe x Halle are all matured and prepared to show up

New York City (AP) – After the sis duo Chloe x Halle invested a year dealing with their sophomore album – which they co-wrote, co-produced and co-engineered – they sent it off to get ideas from their coach, King Beyoncé.

Her royal action: It’s perfect.

“When we sent her the album, she said that she loved it and didn’t have any notes,” Chloe Bailey remembered in an interview with The Associated Press “(We) were like, ‘Oh wow!’ She must really like it because she always sends notes, which we appreciate and add in most of the time. I’m really proud of this album and if she loves it, I hope everyone else loves it, too.”

The 13- track “Ungodly Hour,” to be released Friday by Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, discovers the singing brother or sisters, who debuted on the music scene as charming, harmless teens, transitioning into their adult years.

The co-stars of the struck TELEVISION series “grown-ish” are all matured on the job, as the vocalists trade verses on the tunes – and do that legendary sisterly harmonization thing – while singing about female self-reliance, self-regard and relationship concerns, consisting of dirty kids and players They even sometimes drop the f-bomb.

“We’re growing as young women. We’re finding ourselves through experiences — whether it’s through love, through heartbreak, getting over any insecurities we may have — we just wanted to put that into the music,” stated Chloe Bailey, who turns 22 next month.

“The root of everything is definitely the inspiration of our lives,” included Halle Bailey, 20 “A lot of the songs on the album — well, most of them — are true.”

To develop the album, which they completed in November, they transformed the garage of their brand-new home in Los Angeles into a home studio. They laid down brand-new carpet to enhance the acoustics and sound quality, and set up drapes and generated comfortable sofas.

The album bumps with mid-tempo and groovy R&B taste throughout, as the artists sing about heading out and kiki-ing with the ladies on “Do It” to requiring their prospective suitors enjoy themselves initially prior to pursuing them on the title track. ���Forgive Me” discovers Chloe Bailey high up on feelings as she sings about an individual experience: “I was into this guy and I felt we had something, and we were talking but I found out that he was involved with someone else at the same time.”

So she entered into the studio and freestyled the lyrics. “I feel like when you’re hurting or your emotions are heightened, it’s a lot easier to create,” she stated.

On the memorable and radio-ready “Busy Boy,” they sing: “It’s 4 o’clock, you sending me too many pictures of your (insert eggplant emoji here).”

Some of the product shocked their moms and dads.

“Dad would be like, ‘What?’ Mom would be like, ‘Oh, really?’ Dad would listen to the song a few more times and be like, ‘OK, I like it,’” Chloe Bailey remembered. “He said, ‘I just had to get over what you guys were saying.’ We all started laughing around the house.”

The album has currently significant brand-new heights for the group: First single “Do It,” which had a viral moment on TikTok because of the song’s popular dance, reached No 9 on Billboard’s R&B tunes chart, marking the very first time a Chloe x Halle track has actually appeared on any Billboard chart.

Their launching album, 2018’s “The Kids Are Alright,” peaked atNo 139 on Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart, though the duo made elections at the Grammys, MTV Video Music Awards, BET Awards, the Soul Train Music Awards and NAACP Image Awards for the job.

“‘The Kids Are Alright,’ I’m really happy with what it did for us. It wasn’t like a big chart-topper or anything like that,” Chloe Bailey stated of the album, which interestingly enough lost the very best metropolitan modern Grammy to “Everything Is Love,” Beyoncé and Jay- Z’s collective job. “As long as we got our message across and poured our hearts and love through that, that’s all we needed to do to feel accomplished.”

“I feel we did the same with this album,” she continued. “It’s just a cherry on top when people do praise what you’re putting out.”

Though “Ungodly Hour” includes popular manufacturers and songwriters like Sounwave, Disclosure, Scott Storch, Victoria Monet, Boi -1 da and Mike WiLL Made-It, the ladies are the imaginative center of the album. Chloe Bailey has production credits on 10 of the 13 tunes, 3 of which she produced alone. She likewise tape-recorded the duo’s vocals for 12 tracks. And Halle Bailey worked as an assistant engineer on all the tunes, and co-produced 2 of them.

And the ladies co-wrote every track on the album.

“Our dad has always told us to be independent and if we don’t know something to figure it out. That’s why we’re so hands on in everything that we do,” Chloe Bailey discussed.

“It wouldn’t feel right if we weren’t so hands-on with the process. If it’s our music and our art, we want to articulate in a way that is us fully.”

[newstfionline]

Government Will Protect Us From Bad Speech? That’s the Fakest News of All.

J.D. Tuccille, Reason, Jan. 23, 2018

The folks from the government are here to protect us from extremism, fake news, and hate speech, and they’ve strong-armed some media company friends to help.

“Twitter is sending out messages to people telling them that, for their own good, they are documenting that the user has either followed, cited or re-tweeted an account Twitter decided is linked to Russia & its propaganda efforts,” journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted over the weekend. “That’s not creepy at all.”

The thread to which Greenwald linked featured an example of such an email, which is connected to Twitter’s promise last fall to the U.S. Congress to cooperate “with congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” The company was caught up in the frenzy in Washington, D.C. to pin the country’s political turmoil not on angry Americans, but rather on Russia’s clumsy, low-rent news-spinning through social media.

“As previously announced,” Twitter notes on its blog, “we identified and suspended a number of accounts that were potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization… Consistent with our commitment to transparency, we are emailing notifications to 677,775 people in the United States who followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked a Tweet from these accounts during the election period.”

Ummm… Thanks for that, Twitter. I’d hate to think that I’m paying attention to the “wrong” people.

But maybe I’m also not paying attention to the right people--as decided by the powers-that-be.

“We work with respected organizations... to empower credible non-governmental voices against violent extremism,” Twitter’s Carlos Monje Jr., director of public policy and philanthropy in the U.S. and Canada, told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation last week.

“Over the past three years, we have commissioned research on what types of counterspeech are the most effective at combating hate and violent extremism,” Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, assured senators at the same hearing. “We have therefore partnered with non-governmental organizations and community groups around the world to empower positive and moderate voices.”

YouTube’s Juniper Downs, Director Public Policy and Government Relations, also promised lawmakers that her company was quarantining what she termed “borderline content” to achieve “a substantial reduction in watch time of those videos.” YouTube is also actively producing “counterspeech,” Downs testified. “We are expanding our counter-extremism work to present counternarratives and elevate the voices that are most credible in speaking out against terrorism, hate, and violence.”

To be sure, working against violent extremism sounds, on its face, like a good thing. But let’s be clear that these are executives of media companies going before government officials to promise to suppress officially disapproved speech and to promote ideas and messages that the government supports. Historically, the sort of “hate speech” government officials tend to dislike most is that directed at them, and their definitions of “positive and moderate voices” most commonly apply to anything that strokes their egos.

Need an example? Let’s peek at our friends across the Atlantic. Unhampered by strong protections for free speech, they’re openly most concerned when the targets are themselves.

“In recent years, the intimidation experienced by Parliamentary candidates, and others in public life, has become a threat to the diversity, integrity, and vibrancy of representative democracy in the UK,” fretted the UK government’s Committee on Standards in Public Life in a report published last month. “Intimidatory behaviour is already affecting the way in which MPs are relating to their constituents, has put off candidates who want to serve their communities from standing for public offices, and threatens to damage the vibrancy and diversity of our public life.”

Aspiring politicians may refrain from running for office because people could say not-nice things about them. Shocking. And journalists who report on politics are such meanies too!

“The freedom of the press is essential and must be protected. Nevertheless, journalists, broadcasters and editors should consider how the content they create might incite intimidation through delegitimising someone’s engagement in the political process… While continuing their important scrutiny of those in public office, they must also be careful they are not unduly or unfairly undermining trust in the political system.”

Well, we can’t have that. What should be done?

“We propose legislative changes that the government should bring forward on social media companies’ liability for illegal content online, and an electoral offence of intimidating Parliamentary candidates and party campaigners.”

So, the committee wants to prosecute people for criticizing politicians? I kind of thought that’s where we were going. That should work out well.

Unsurprisingly, France’s President Emmanuel Macron is also concerned about “fake news” that targets the powerful and the prominent.

“Thousands of propaganda accounts on social networks are spreading all over the world, in all languages, lies invented to tarnish political officials, personalities, public figures, journalists,” Macron complained earlier this month.

Macron also has Russkies on the mind. He bitterly complained during his successful presidential campaign last year that Moscow had targeted him with “fake news” that did nothing to prevent his victory, but left him very annoyed indeed.

Or maybe blaming “les Russes” is just a handy way of pushing through laws that would, among other things, empower judges to suppress any content these government officials deemed to be “fake” during election periods. Government regulators would also gain more power to “fight any destabilization attempt” via television content.

“The first question is: What is fake news? Who will define it?” asked Daniel Schneidermann, a media columnist for the French newspaper Libération, in just the sort of destabilizing comment tending to tarnish political officials that gets Macron’s goat.

Germans could answer that question, based on the laws they already have on the books. Government officials will define it, of course, and they won’t be shy about doing so.

When Beatrix von Storch, a lawmaker from the Alliance for Germany party, greeted the new year with a dyspeptic anti-Muslim tweet, Twitter promptly suspended her account, followed by Facebook, after she reposted her comments there. The social media companies acted under threat of 50 million euro fines under the country’s new censorship law, which requires media companies to delete “hate speech” without defining the term.

Next to be suppressed was Titanic, a satire magazine which poked fun at von Storch.

“Why are [North-Rhine-Westphalia] police using Arabic numbers for their emergency hotline?” the magazine asked, in a tweet purporting to be from the lawmaker.

Of course Titanic was suspended. They tweaked a legislator in a country that bans hate speech, and it’s clear from the examples of Britain and France that the speech politicians hate most is that directed at them.

Yeah, it’s “creepy” when media companies mold and twist the news we see to please their political masters. Worse, it’s chilling when governments take the logical next step to promote speech they favor and punish speakers who anger them.

Because when politicians tell us that they’re trying to make the world a better place with censorship, that’s the fakest news of all. But here’s a bit of real news: when government officials suppress critics, they do so only to help themselves.

[opedguy]

Merkel’s Governing Coalition Collapses

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Nov. 20. 2017.--When German Chancellor Angela Merkel won reelection Sept. 24 for another four-year term, she couldn’t imagine her governing coalition in the 709-member Bundestag [German parliament] would fall apart.  Blindsiding Merkel, the pro-business Free Democrats Party [FDP] led by Christian Lindner pulled the plug on Angela.  When Angela appointed her main rival 61-year-old former German Foreign Minster Frank-Walter Steinmeir March 19 president, she thought she had a sure thing for a governing coalition.  Steinmeier asked all German parties to get behind Merkel to form a grand governing coalition.  “It’s better not to rule than to rule the wrong way.  Goodbye!” said Lindner, showing that he’s fed up with Merkel’s pro-European Union immigration policy.  Merkel miscalculated badly in 2015 letting some 1 million Syrian and Mideast refugees into Germany.

            Losing Lindner’s pro-business FDP may be too big of a loss to cobble together, as Steinmeir urges, a grand coalition to rule Germany.  Angela said in response she’d call new elections, thinking, that when all the dust settles, she’s the right one to lead Germany over the next four years.  “It’s a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany,” Merkel told Reuters.  “As chancellor, I will do everything to ensure that this country is well managed in the difficult weeks ahead,” Merkel said.  But if Merkel had “well-managed” Germany, she wouldn’t be in the current crisis losing the FDP party.  President Donald Trump predicted that Merkel pro-immigration policies would upend her attempt at another term.  Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and Steinmeir’s Social Democratic Party aren’t enough for Merkel to govern the Bundestag [lower house] or the Bundesrag [upper house].

            Since the end of WW II when Germany rose from the ashes of its Nazi past, no German Chancellor other than Merkel has faced the collapse of a ruling coalition.  Compared by German analysts to Trump’s shocking Nov. 8, 2016 victory or the U.K’s surprise June 23, 2016 Brexit vote, Merkel finds herself caught in a sticky wicket.  She ignored the will of German voters to limit Mideast immigration, getting slapped when Islamic terrorist struck Berlin Dec. 19, 2016, killing 12, injuring 56 at a open-air Christmas market. German citizens have been having second thoughts about Merkel’s policies ever since.  While Merkel’s the first to criticize Trump’s “America First” policy, she’s put the EU before the good of German citizens.  If Merkel can’t form a minority government, then Steinmeir must call for new elections to find a new chancellor with a governing coalition.

            Steinmeir, a former SPD foreign minister, will try to apply pressure on Lindner to pull in coalition back under Merkel.  Lindner didn’t seem too receptive to another four years of EU rule under Mrs. Merkel.  Green Party member Michael Kellner accused Lindner of “bad theatrics,” hoping Steinmeir could pressure him back into the fold.  But Kellner’s really worried, not about Merkel, but about the conservative anti-immigrant Alternative for German [AFD] Party refusing to play ball with Angela.  Even if Steinmeir can bring the pro-business FDP Party back, it’s not likely to include Merkel as chancellor.  Steinmeir walks a tightrope serving Merkel’s government while, at the same time, offering himself up as the logical next chancellor.  Appointing Steinmeir president was Merkel’s clever way of keeping Steinmeir from running against her.  Letting in more asylum seekers cost Merkel her job.

            Merkel’s inability to form a governing coalition goes beyond Germany but mirrors the discontent with the EU’s pro-immigration policies.  When Brexit happened in the U.K, it signaled a backlash against the Islamification of Europe, happening because of the EU’s open-border immigration policies.  Countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech,  Republic, etc. have resisted admitting Mideast immigrants, watching devastating terrorist attacks in France, in the U.K, Germany and Spain.  Trump warned Merkel—and the EU—of the unintended consequences of liberal immigration policies.  AFP Party leader Beatrix von Storch hailed Merkel’s collapse as a success for her party.  But beyond Germany, there’s a growing backlash against the EU because of its liberal immigration policies.  French President Emanuel Macron faces real challenges in the EU with Merkel potentially sidelined.

                 When Great Britain voted June 23, 2016 to end their lies to the EU, inescapable cracks emerged in Nov. 1, 1993 Brussels-based government.  Considered the world’s largest bureaucracy, U.K. voters found that the costs outweighed the benefits.  With Germany and France the EU’s most powerful members, Merkel’s problems go to the very heart of the governing body.  Tone deaf to the needs of various member-states, the EU’s one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work.  Leading the EU’s pro-immigrant policy has cost Merkel her governing coalition.  Blaming Linder’s FDP or von Storch’s AFP Parties misses the point.  What’s good for bureaucrats at the EU isn’t necessarily good form EU-member states.  If the EU wants a wake-up to its failed immigration policies, it needs to look no further than Brexit and Merkel’s problems cobbling together a governing coalition.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.  

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