The Daily Moth 2-20-2020
Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Thursday, February 20. Ready for news?
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Recap of Las Vegas debate
Here is a recap of last night’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas which had an average of 20 million live TV viewers. The six candidates took shots at each other, but everybody targeted newcomer Mike Bloomberg.
Bernie Sanders opened the debate by criticizing Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” policy when he was the mayor of New York City. Bernie said he hurt black and brown people.
Bloomberg said Bernie can’t beat Trump if he is going to take away health insurance from 160 million people.
Elizabeth Warren said Bloomberg made sexist remarks and hid his tax returns and that we need a president who will be on the side of working families.
Amy Klobuchar said we don’t think we can look at Trump and say, “We need someone richer in the White House.”
Bloomberg said he can take on an arrogant conman from New York (referring to Trump). He said he knows how to win in a diverse city, and made his own money — emphasizing that he did not inherit it.
Joe Biden said based on polls, he is the best person to defeat Trump and criticized Bloomberg again for his “stop and frisk” program.
Pete Buttigieg said that we have to wake up because we don’t want for only Bloomberg or Bernie to be left — because they were too extreme on either side — that one wants to burn this party down and the other wants to buy it out.
Bernie said that the U.S. spends the most per capita on healthcare in the world but too many are uninsured and that tens of thousands of people die each year because they don’t have a doctor. He said the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry have made billions of dollars in profits.
Biden said he is the only person on the stage who has experience with healthcare, pointing out that he helped to pass Obamacare.
Bloomberg defended his “stop and frisk” policy by saying that when he became mayor, there were 650 murders a year in the city and that his focus was to make sure people had the right to live, that the murder rate went down to 300 a year. He said the policy got out of control and that he has sat down with African American leaders to try and learn from it.
Biden said the only reason why Bloomberg stopped the policy was because former president Obama sent moderators to monitor the policy and that Bloomberg was against the monitoring.
Bloomberg said he has apologized and asked for forgiveness.
Warren said that Bloomberg’s apology was meaningless because his policy targeted communicates of color from the outset and that he continued the policy even when people were protesting about it.
Buttigieg said he was concerned that Bernie was not showing full transparency because he wouldn’t release his full medical records and was not transparent that his healthcare plan would cost $50 trillion.
Bernie repeated his points that Americans were paying too much for health insurance a year and that Medicare for All would save hundreds of billions of dollars.
Warren said Bloomberg signed many nondisclosure agreements with women who accused him of sexual harassment or discrimination, and asked him if he would release them from the NDAs so we could hear their side of the story. People in the audience cheered.
Bloomberg said the women decided to sign the NDAs and that’s what we are going to live with.
Warren said he was muzzling the women and that we can’t beat Trump if there is a drip and drip of information from women who said they were harassed or discriminated against by him.
Klobuchar and Buttigieg had a tense back-and-forth about Klobuchar forgetting the name of the Mexican president (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador). Buttigieg said there was no excuses while Klobuchar asked “are you trying to call me dumb” and said she had far more political experience by passing over 100 bills in Congress.
Bernie said it was “immoral” that Bloomberg has more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans.
Bloomberg said he deserves the money because he worked very hard and said he is giving it away. He also warned that if you target the rich, then it will hurt the country and we’ll be more like communists.
Buttigieg said he is the only person on the stage who is not a millionaire.
So, that’s a recap of the debate. The Nevada caucuses are this Saturday. Bernie is leading several polls in the state, with Biden in second and Warren in third. We’ll see what happens.
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/20/21145559/nevada-caucuses-2020-results-news-updates-winners
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“Racist” gunman kills nine in Germany
On Wednesday night in Hanau, Germany — near Frankfurt — a gunman shot and killed at least nine people in shisha (hookah) bars. The gunman shot up a bar, then drove to another bar, shot it up, and went back to his home and apparently shot and killed his 72-year-old mother before killing himself.
Five of the victims were Turkish citizens. The other four victims appear to be German nationals with immigrant backgrounds. Their ages were between 21 and 44.
The suspected gunman was identified as Tobias Rathjen (43). News images show that he is a white man. His apartment was very close to the two bars.
The shooting is considered an act of terrorism by German authorities, who said the gunman published a racist manifesto on his personal website. Chancellor Angela Merkel said there were “many signs the attacker acted out of racism.”
Germany has strict gun laws and the gunman had a license to carry firearms. He did not have a criminal background.
An analysis by BBC said far-right extremism is a growing problem in Germany as there are some angry with the country allowing over a million immigrants from the Middle East.
CNN reported that there are at least 70 vigils and anti-racism protests that are planned across Germany.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51567971
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/germany-shooting-dle-intl/index.html
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Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months
Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison, which is just over three years. He was convicted of obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, and threatening a witness. Stone was suspected of acting as an intermediary between Wikileaks and the Trump campaign and lied to Congress about his activities.
Stone became a hot topic last week after President Trump complained on Twitter about federal prosecutors’ recommendation of 7 to 9 years in prison. Attorney General Bill Barr then intervened to submit a second and more lenient sentencing recommendation. This was considered by Democrats as improper political interference.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who Trump and Stone criticized as a biased judge, said Stone was prosecuted not for standing up for the president, but prosecuted for covering up for the president.
Now that he is sentenced, it is possible that President Trump will pardon him.
Axios explained that Stone’s legal team has filed a request for a new trial, which will delay his reporting date to prison until that request is resolved.
Trump said he wants to let the process play out and that he would “love to see Roger exonerated.”
https://www.axios.com/roger-stone-sentencing-prison-trump-f59a2ad0-4583-4089-89db-d6822ffaa8dc.html
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Deaf mother and four daughters to compete for $25,000 on Crystal Maze
A Deaf mother, June Ann LeFors, and her four daughters will have a chance to win $25,000 on Nickelodeon’s game show “Crystal Maze” on Friday, February 21 at 7 p.m.
(Clips of competition)
The host is Adam Conover, best known for his show “Adam Ruins Everything.”
Here is an interview with the LeFors competitors!
JUNE ANN:
Hey, Alex! Thank you for having us here. I’m June Ann.
SAVANNAH:
Hey, I’m Savannah.
SCARLETT:
Hi, I’m Scarlett.
OLIVIA:
I’m Olivia.
CAROLINE:
I’m Caroline.
PRISCILLA:
My name’s Priscilla.
DAILY MOTH:
Your team represents “Girl Power.”
Can you explain what girl power is about?
PRISCILLA:
Girl power means that whatever boys do, girls would do it better!
With the Crystal Maze, they noticed that we are 6 sisters and no brothers.
They wanted the mother and four girls to team up together. It’s called girl power!
DAILY MOTH:
Can you explain what Crystal Maze is and how to win the $25,000 prize?
OLIVIA:
The Crystal Maze has 4 different mazes. The first one is Aztec-themed, similar to Egyptians. There’s another one that’s futuristic, like UFOs. We also have an Eastern, Asian theme and the last maze is industrial-themed like machines. One member of the team will try to conquer the first challenge and win one of these.
(holds up crystal)
It’s worth 5 seconds, I’ll explain in a bit.
After the team has finished all 4 mazes, the final maze is huge and full of wind gust. There are tickets to be collected. Golden tickets give you positive points while silver tickets negate your total points. If you end up having more than 100 golden tickets, you’ll win $25,000. If you have less than that then you’d have to make some conversions. For example, 40 golden tickets would nab you $4,000.
SAVANNAH:
In the Crystal Maze, there are 3 kinds of games. One of these games challenges your skills, another game challenges your mental acuity and the third game tests your physical abilities. In each game, one person will play on behalf of the team while the family shows their support whether it’s through windows or screens. In physical challenge, you have to do some sort of activity in order to get the crystal. In the mental challenge, you must figure out your way around. In the skill challenge, it means doing something like balancing yourself or hand/eye coordination. These are the 3 games you’d play in the Crystal Maze.
DAILY MOTH:
What was it like when you met the host, Adam Conover?
CAROLINE:
We gave Adam his sign name because of how he did his hair. I already saw him on “Adam Ruins Everything.” Seeing him in person was cool. He was very sweet, nice and funny. We just took a picture with him and I think he was fascinated with our ASL!
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THE DAILY MOTH:
The game is filmed in London, so the entire LeFors family, including the husband/father Eric (deaf) and two other daughters/sisters flew across the pond in September for the taping.
The game is limited to five players only, and the producers of the show wanted the mother, the three youngest daughters, and the oldest.
June Ann said the producers of the show hired Scarlett, another daughter, to be the interpreter at their request.
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DAILY MOTH:
This family consists of both deaf people and CODAs (Children of Deaf Adults). How do you usually communicate at home or is it the same with what is presented in the show?
JUNE ANN:
When it comes to the game show and our daily routine, I’d say ‘yes’. However, at home, I have 6 children, all of whom are girls. 3 of these girls are hearing and the other 3 are deaf. Out of those 3 deaf girls, 2 have unilateral hearing loss meaning they’re deaf in one ear, but they’re hard of hearing in the other ear with range of 30-40 decibels. They still can hear to a degree and they can speak audibly. The third girl is fully deaf just like me. My husband Eric is deaf also so there are 3 of us in the family that are fully deaf. So, when it came down to the game show, I would use my voice and yell out for my hearing children. If it was my deaf children up there instead, we’ll have one of my other daughters interpret whatever instructions is being yelled out. There are different scenarios where we have to communicate behind barriers like a TV. That’s where my other daughter can interpret and sign what is being said. If it was one of my hearing daughters, I would use my voice while Priscilla will sign while the interpreter speaks. We do have our own system. Nickelodeon did such a great job making sure that the game show is accessible for us deaf contestants. They did a great job running the show!
DAILY MOTH:
Priscilla is the youngest of the family and she was selected as the captain. What is the captain’s role?
PRISCILLA:
Being the captain, I make the decisions on which one of the 5 of us in the room is best suited for the challenge so we can win these!
I could decide to use a mega crystal and they’re much bigger than these. They’re worth 10 seconds so I could either use them now or later, but they can be used only once! You should watch the show on Friday night if you want to know whether we won!
DAILY MOTH:
All of the LeFors family got to visit the United Kingdom and travel while they filmed on location. Can you share any good memories from that trip?
JUNE ANN:
My favorite thing about our trip to the UK was really just being with my children. Going on an international trip is fun! Our children got exposure to all the different tasting food and the experience itself was my favorite thing about it.
OLIVIA:
My favorite part was the city of Conwy in Wales. There are high city walls surrounding the city and there’s a really old castle there that you can walk around in. It was pretty cool.
PRISCILLA:
There was a double decker bus with two floors. The top was open. We rode all over London.
CAROLINE:
My favorite part was hanging out with my family, but Scotland was so beautiful! I loved it! The weather was good too, but the sights were very pretty!
DAILY MOTH:
Is there anything else you want to add?
SCARLETT:
I interpret for my family on the new show, Crystal Maze. We filmed over in England where they use BSL (British Sign Language). Here, we use American Sign Language (ASL). We asked if I could interpret for the family because I know how they talk and sign. The show’s producers were totally fine and had no problems with it. They were very compromising with us. I got to spend all day on the set with my family and interpret for them. I was proud of my family and to be a part of that. There was one weird thing though where I had to take on the mindset of an interpreter instead of being a sister. I had a role as facilitator, and I couldn’t pass on any of my opinions or help! It was pretty cool though and you guys need to watch the show starting at 7pm!
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DAILY MOTH:
You can watch the show on Friday night on Nickelodeon if you have cable. If you don’t, you can download the Nick app — there is a one-week free trial. Good luck to the family. Girl power!
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That is all for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!