January 1, Trump Cries Foul After CBC Removes His Scene from Home Alone 2

This Day in History | 1932 

Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City. 

Good Morning Middle Americans, 

President Trump has proven once again that nothing is too petty for him to notice.  The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently cut out his scene from Home Alone 2.  Yesterday the president blamed, although jokingly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the edit.  The president’s son also joined in on the Christmas fun, blasting the CBC, and also accused it of bias. 

AOC for president? Are you kidding me? Apparently not. Even though she is still a few years shy of the constitutionally required age of 35 to become president, people are still buzzing about the idea.  The “buzz” is based mostly on AOC’s ability to draw a crowd and capture the spot light.  

Also, it is now illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to buy tobacco products.  It happened with the new massive government spending bill recently signed by President Trump.  The FDA is less clear on how to implement the change in the law. 

Finally today, in a story that will certainly make many people’s blood boil, Boeing’s fried CEO could walk away with a $60 million dollar retirement package.  This, despite his botched handling of the two deadly Boeing crashes that happened on his watch. 

Read all about it. 

– Fraser Dixon

Trump Blames Trudeau for Removing HIs Scene from Home Alone 2

(Newsweek) – President Donald Trump jokingly fired back at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the country’s leader Justin Trudeau on Thursday after his cameo was cut from the nation’s airings of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

In the original 1992 Christmas classic, the film’s main character Kevin McCallister runs into Trump in the Plaza Hotel after being separated from his parents—again. He asks the then-businessman for directions to the lobby and Trump obliges before walking away.

Over the past week, Canadian broadcaster CBC aired the film with the president’s cameo removed. Although CBC has said the edits were made in 2014, before Trump officially announced his 2016 presidential campaign, it hasn’t stopped the president’s supporters—including his eldest son Donald Trump Jr.—from accusing the network of bias.

“The movie will never be the same! (just kidding),” the U.S. president tweeted. “I guess Justin T doesn’t much like my making him pay up on NATO or Trade!”

Read more about this “controversy” here

AOC For President? The Buzz has Begun

(Politico) – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was campaigning for Bernie Sanders at a jampacked beach-side rally last week when she took a moment to look beyond 2020.

“I know, and we all know, that this isn’t just about Bernie Sanders,” she said. “This is about a movement that has been decades in the making.”

Since endorsing him in October, Ocasio-Cortez has become a supercharged surrogate for Sanders in early-voting and delegate-rich states. As she’s drawn massive crowds alongside the Vermont senator in Iowa, Nevada, California and New York, progressive insiders and activists are increasingly whispering about Ocasio-Cortez inheriting the movement one day — and running for the White House with it behind her.

“The future of the Democratic Party is not Pete Buttigieg. It’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” said Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, president of the California Young Democrats, which has endorsed Sanders. “She has gripped the attention of fellow millennials across the country. The Green New Deal has changed the conversation on environmental action in the Democratic Party.”

Read more about the people who think that AOC can be president here

FDA Officially Raises Federal Minimum Age to Purchase Tobacco from 18 to 21

(USA Today) – The new minimum age applies to all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and vaping cartridges. 

The provision came as part of a $1.4 trillion spending package signed by President Donald Trump Dec. 20, which amended the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which also included $1.4 billion reserved for building the U.S.-Mexico border wall and $25 million for gun violence research.

It had bipartisan support, being introduced in May by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. 

What was unclear in the proposal, however, when the change in the minimum age would be enacted. From the date of Trump signed the legislation, the FDA had six months to amend their policies, per Convenience Store News. 

Read more about this change of the law here

Boeing’s Fired CEO Could Walk Away With a $60 Million Golden Parachute

(CNN Business) – Boeing’s ousted CEO Dennis Muilenburg left behind a long list of problems at Boeing, but he’s walking away with a sizable golden parachute.

The exact amount of money that he will leave with isn’t yet clear. That will depend on his negotiations with Boeing, including how the company labels his departure — for example, was it a retirement? A resignation? A layoff?

But public filings show Muilenburg could be entitled to a benefit plan worth more than $30 million and, potentially, a severance payment of about $7 million. Muilenburg also has another $20 million-plus worth of vested stock and a pension package totaling more than $11 million.

Muilenburg, 55, became CEO of Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, in 2015 after serving in several other executive roles, including chief operating officer and CEO of its defense space and security division, throughout his 34-year tenure at the company at Boeing.

Read more about the settlement here

The 7 Biggest Stories of 2019 Countdown

#7) The US Women’s National Soccer Team and Equal Pay Push 

#6) Internet Censorship

Hurricane Season Ends, but Dorian Left a ‘Massive, Massive Crisis’ in the Bahamas

#5) Hurricane Dorian Slams the Bahamas, Barely Misses US

(The Miami Herald) – The liquor stores do brisk business with cases of water. Aid groups and utilities offer giveaways regularly. Everywhere you turn, a professionally printed sign advertises water and ice for sale.

Those signs will probably be there for a while. Almost three months after Hurricane Dorian became the strongest storm to make landfall in the Bahamas, the tap water isn’t safe to drink in Grand Bahama. And it won’t be drinkable until at least June 2020, Grand Bahama Utility Company says.

“Totally unacceptable,” said Iram Lewis, Bahamian minister for disaster recovery. “We cannot wait until June next year.”

When 23 feet of storm surge sloshed over Grand Bahama, one of the largest islands in the archipelago, it destroyed half the homes and sullied the island’s fresh water with salt water. The utility is exploring drilling more wells or building an expensive desalination plant, one of many tough decisions the cash-strapped government has to make as it recovers from the historic storm. Dorian hit the Abacos on Sept. 1 and Grand Bahama on Sept. 2 as a Category 5 hurricane.

Read more here