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Pop Smoke, an up and coming rapper, was shot and killed Wednesday morning in what appears to be a home invasion robbery ... TMZ has learned. The rapper was at a home in the Hollywood Hills at around 4:30 AM when 2 men wearing hoodies and masks broke into a house ... this according to law enforcement sources. We're told the 2 men fired multiple shots, striking and critically wounding Pop Smoke. The men were seen fleeing on foot.

Ed Morrissey wrote about the decision by the Sanders campaign to keep the rest of Bernie’s medical records under wraps a couple of weeks ago. At the time, I found myself wondering just how well that would fly with Democratic primary voters and if President Trump’s critics would hold Sanders to the same standard. Curiously, we haven’t heard much talk about that subject on cable news after the first few days. (Funny how that works, isn’t it?)But the topic hasn’t disappeared entirely. This week, our friend Andrew Malcolm pries open that can of worms once again. He highlights an...

Methinks Scarborough doth protest too much. On Wednesday's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, speaking of Joe Biden, insisted, "I'm not doing his bidding. I'm just telling you the truth." And the truth, according to Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, is that Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders would be weak candidates, whereas Biden would have the best chance of defeating President Trump. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

North Carolina primary voters don’t go to the polls until Super Tuesday on March 3rd, but it’s definitely one of the states worth watching. The state offers the third-highest haul of delegates available on that day and it’s seen as another stop where the minority vote will have a large influence. The big problem for the Democrats is that there is no frontrunner in South Carolina at this point. The latest poll from WRAL News shows the race in a three-way tie. And as we’ll discuss shortly, that’s not the only place this is happening. Two weeks out from...

First Amy Klobuchar had to acknowledge in a recent interview that she couldn’t name the president of Mexico. Then, speaking at a Black History Month event in Las Vegas, she met a crowd full of people who had difficulty naming her. Pete Buttigieg has difficulties, too. His speech at a Nevada Black Legislative Caucus brunch over the weekend competed with the din of a buffet line — and whole tables of people who rarely looked up.

Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg “overstated” his partnerships with black-owned businesses in South Carolina as he tries to improve his standing with minority voters, according to a report. The former South Bend mayor wrote in an op-ed last week in The State, a South Carolina newspaper, that his campaign had “proudly partnered with local businesses like Diane’s Kitchen in Chester, Atlantis Restaurant in Moncks Corner and the Fair Deal Grocery on Charleston’s Eastside.” The problem, however, is that two of those businesses denied to ABC News that they had forged any sort of partnership with the candidate.

Published on Feb 12, 2020 During a trip to Arizona and New Mexico, I filmed the construction of new border wall being built east of Douglas, Arizona. An extremely impressive undertaking. This video hopes to remind viewers how incredibly innovative & productive our construction industry is. It reminded me of the Alaska Pipeline Project, in which I personally managed a small portion of. After the politics settle, our relationship with Mexico will dramatically improve, the environment will be just fine (as was the environment in Alaska post project), the word "illegal" immigrant will be gone, and in its place increased...

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina State University will be home to a new apprenticeship program in artificial intelligence as part of a federal push to train more workers in emerging fields. U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia announced nearly $100 million in grants would be awarded to 28 public-private partnerships to help fill the more than 6.4 million job openings in the country. "These grants aim to expand apprenticeships into industries that don’t have large-scale apprenticeship programs, currently industries that are often looking outside the U.S. for skilled workers using the H1B visa program," [NO, THEY'RE JUST LOOKING FOR *CHEAP* WORKERS]...

<p>Looking ahead to the Democrat Convention in July, I believe that a Bernie Sanders-StaceyAbrams ticket may come out of Milwaukee.</p> <p>"It would be doing a disservice to every woman of color, every woman of ambition...for me to say no," she adds. "Of course I want it—of course I want to serve America."</p>

In the slanted world of Charlotte Alter, the “center” is liberal 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg and Barack Obama made voting an “act of love.” MSNBC on Tuesday brought on the Time magazine journalist to explain the state of millennials politics and how her generation will “transform America.” The book, The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For, pulls its title from a Barack Obama speech. Tur, who is 36, made no effort to check the biases of Alter, who is 36. Speaking of millennials and Obama, Alter enthused, “One reason is that Barack Obama was such a transformative figure for people. And...

Two green-dream fantasies are heading for a massive and costly collision. Firstly, they dream of generating all grid power from wind and solar propped up by battery storage (such as lots of giant Tesla batteries and pumped hydro). Secondly, they dream of replacing all petrol, diesel, and gas cars, trucks, and buses with electric vehicles, powered by more batteries. But wind farms do well if they can average about 35% of their rated capacity, with low predictability, while solar panels average just 25% of their capacity, produced intermittently. To generate zero emissions energy for Australia, we would need hills covered...

Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign is hiring hundreds of workers in California to post regularly on their personal social-media accounts in support of the candidate and send text messages to their friends about him. The effort, which could cost millions of dollars, is launching ahead of California’s March 3 primary and could later be deployed nationwide, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It is one of the most unorthodox yet by the heavy-spending billionaire and blurs the lines between traditional campaign organizing and the distribution of sponsored content. Most campaigns encourage their...

A specter is haunting the Democratic Party: the specter of Bernie Bros. What is a Bernie Bro, exactly?  Where along the cline of various political creatures does one fall? The Bernie Bro's natural habitat is the internet.  In the wild — meaning on Twitter, or poking around in the depraved brush of Reddit — the stalwart of the socialist septuagenarian truffles for unconverted Democrats to their cause.  Spotting a Sanders skeptic, or Joe Biden–supporter, they descend with ravening ferocity, unleashing broadsides that recall Maoist struggle sessions. Mainstream journalists, despite their friendliness with the Democratic Party, have found themselves on the receiving end...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Dag Hammarskjöld. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Dag Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the bottom half (answer...

Up until now, Democrats have been focused on finding the right candidate who can Get Trump. For awhile, many were gravitating toward Joe Biden for this very reason, citing his Scranton roots and supposed common man demeanor. It wasn't based on any authentic affection for Biden. It was who could Beat Trump. As Biden fell apart over impeachment, with revelations about how he amassed wealth for himself and his relatives in public office, some moved over to Pete Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar. Then Michael Bloomberg came on the scene, scarfing up a large part of the collapsing Biden vote by...

A top official at the Pentagon has been asked for his resignation, according to reports. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, has lost the support of senior national security leadership and has been asked to step down, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Wednesday. Rood was involved in certifying to Congress that Ukraine was eligible to receive $250 million in security assistance. The certification undercut the argument the Trump administration made for withholding the aid. Shortly after President Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, Rood emailed Secretary of Defense Mark Esper...

Michael Bloomberg has been taking flak from progressives lately because of his longstanding, enthusiastic support for New York City's "stop, question, and frisk" program, a position he renounced just a week before he officially entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The former mayor's support for stricter gun control laws, by contrast, is not very controversial among Democratic voters, although it reflects the same troubling readiness to sacrifice civil liberties on the altar of public safety. During Bloomberg's administration, the annual number of SQF encounters septupled, from fewer than 100,000 in 2002 to more than 685,000 in 2011. Nearly...

Michael Bloomberg has qualified for his second Democratic primary debate as he prepares to take the stage and face his rivals for the first time Wednesday night. The former Big Apple mayor met the qualification requirements thanks to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll released Tuesday that placed him in third with 14 percent support behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden, respectively. In order to qualify for the Feb. 25 in Charleston, South Carolina, candidates need to reach 10 percent support in four national, DNC-approved polls or 12 percent in two South Carolina polls...

"I don’t care.” The fate of 150 million Americans’ insurance plans doesn’t matter to Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the 2020 candidate said Tuesday. Appearing at a campaign event Tuesday in Salt Lake City, Utah, Mayor Pete appeared dismissive of Americans’ concerns that a universal health-care plan will mean the end of private insurance plans they prefer over a government run program.

Ja'Net DuBois, one of the stars from the TV series "Good Times," has died. Police in Glendale, Calif., said they received a report about the DuBois' death late Monday. She appeared to have died of natural causes and no investigation is ongoing, police Sgt. Dan Stubbs said. No additional details, including her age, were immediately available. BernNadette Stanis, who played Thelma Evans Anderson on “Good Times,” said she learned of DuBois’ death Tuesday from the actress’ daughter. Stanis said DuBois appeared to be in good health and they had appeared at a signing event two weeks ago. She noted that...