Perfect Dark: GameShark Character Modification FAQ

Perfect Dark: GameShark Character Modification FAQ
Version 1.5
5-19-01
By William Mistretta
willmistretta@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/willmistretta
Codes by Hackmaster 64 and J. Lint

The character mods are here! Now you can alter the heads and bodies of characters in both
multiplayer and solo missions!

For example, let's say you want to modify Joanna Dark to look like James Bond. Let's start with
the head. Trent Easton looks rather Bond-like, so we'll borrow his. Start by taking the
base head codes for both characters:

JOANNA COMBAT

8007CF56 0001
8007CF57 009C

TRENT EASTON

8007CFBA 0001
8007CFBB 00A1

Take the base code of the character you want to modify:

8007CF56
8007CF57

And add the modifier digits associated with what you're modifying it to:

0001
00A1

Resulting in your final code:

8007CF56 0001
8007CF57 00A1

Some heads aren't associated with particular bodies (or vice-versa) and only have modifier
digits.

Now for our body. We'll start with the base code for the Joanna Combat body:

JOANNA COMBAT

8007D5BE 0000
8007D5BF 0042

Now we need to modify it. Obviously, a Bond-like Dinner Jacket costume is in order. Looking
below, we see:

DINNER JACKET

0000
0047

Combine the two codes as above, resulting in:

8007D5BE 0000
8007D5BF 0047

And so, our efforts to turn Joanna Combat into James Bond have resulted in this final code:

8007CF56 0001
8007CF57 00A1
8007D5BE 0000
8007D5BF 0047

Give it a try!

Notes:

You cannot play as an invisible character, any kind of Skedar, Dr. Carrol, the CamSpy, or
a patrol robot.

In order to modify Simulants to look like Skedar, you must first create the Simulant(s) like
normal and save your settings. Then input the code to modify the Simulant bodies to Skedar
bodies, start up the game, load your settings, and play. Viewing a Skedar Simulant in the
character editor window will cause the game to crash. Follow this same procedure whenever
modifying a Simulant to resemble any non-human, non-Maian character. 

If you modify a character's body to a Skedar or other unusual, non-human or Maian thing, make
sure that that character is never displayed on the Combat Simulator character editor window or
the game will crash.

If you modify a character's body to a Skedar or other unusual, non-human or Maian thing, make
sure they don't show up on screen for any cinema scenes or the game will crash.

Not all head and body combinations are guaranteed to work.

**********Head Mod Codes**********

JOANNA COMBAT

8007CF56 0001
8007CF57 009C

ELVIS

8007CF6A 0001
8007CF6B 009D

CARRINGTON

8007CF92 0001
8007CF93 009F

MR BLONDE

8007CFA6  0001
8007CFA7  00A0

TRENT EASTON

8007CFBA 0001
8007CFBB 00A1

DATADYNE SHOCK TROOPER

8007CFCE 0001
8007CFCD 00A2

CASSANDRA DE VRIES

8007D01E 0001
8007D01F 00A6

MAIAN

8007D032 0001
8007D033 00A7

MAIAN SOLDIER WITH BLUE HELMET

8007D23A 0003
8007D23B 003B

THE PRESIDENT

8007D3CA 0005
8007D3CB 005B

VELVET

8007D3DE 0005
8007D3DF 0061

JONATHAN

8007D226 0003
8007D227 003A

JOANNA WITH MAKEUP

8007CFF6 0001
8007CFF7 00A4

BLONDE-HAIRED WOMAN #1

0001
00A5

BROWN-HAIRED MAN

0001
009E

BLONDE-HAIRED WOMAN #2

0001
00A8

RED-HAIRED MAN #1

0001
00A9

GRIMSHAW

0001
00B2

FOSTER

0001
00B3

RED-HAIRED MAN #2

0001
00BC

FREAKY HUMAN/MAIAN (SCARY!)

0001
00BD

FROWNING MAN

0001
00BE

AFRICAN AMERICAN MAN #1

0001
00C0

MAN WITH PONYTAIL

0001
00C2

BLOND WOMAN WITH GLASSES

0001
00C5

BIOTECHNICIAN

0001
00D0

MAN WITH MOUSTACHE AND GOATEE

0002
0062

SMILING MAN

0002
0067

ELVIS WITH SCUBA-GEAR

0005
0054

JOANNA ARCTIC

0005
005A

AFRICAN AMERICAN MAN #2

0005
000D

MIYAMOTO

0005
000E

DATADYNE SNIPER

0004
00AE

BLONDE WOMAN WITH PIGTAILS

0004
00A7

BROWN HELMET WITH MASK

0005
0011

MAN WITH LONG PONYTAIL

0007
00CD

HOWARD LINCOLN

0007
00C6

**********Body Mod Codes**********

JOANNA COMBAT

8007D5BE 0000
8007D5BF 0042

MAIAN

8007D5D2 0000
8007D5D3 004A

AREA 51 BROWN SUIT GUARD

8007D5E6 0000
8007D5E7 003F

OVERALLS

8007D5FA 0000
8007D5FB 0051

CARRINGTON

8007D60E 0000
8007D60F 0040

MR BLONDE

8007D622 0000
8007D623 004E

SKEDAR

8007D636 0000
8007D637 0053

TRENT EASTON

8007D64A 0000
8007D64B 0057

DATADYNE SHOCK TROOPER

8007D65E 0000
8007D65F 0045

MALE LAB TECHNICIAN

8007D672 0000
8007D673 004D

NSA BODYGUARD

8007D686 0000
8007D687 0054

JOANNA PARTY FROCK

8007D69A 0000
8007D69B 0043

JOANNA TRENCHCOAT

8007D6AE 0000
8007D6AF 0044

OFFICE SUIT

8007D6C2 0000
8007D6C3 004F

OFFICE CASUAL

8007D6D6 0000
8007D6D7 0050

SECRETARY

8007D6EA 0000
8007D6EB 0052

CASSANDRA DE VRIES

8007D6FE 0000
8007D6FF 0041

ELVIS

8007D712 0000
8007D713 0056

FEMALE GUARD

8007D726 0000
8007D727 004C

DATADYNE LAB TECHNICIAN

8007D73A 0001
8007D73B 0094

DATADYNE SECURITY

8007D74E 0000
8007D74F 0046

DR CARROL

8007D762 0000
8007D763 0048

CAMSPY

8007D776 0000
8007D777 004B

JOANNA PARTY FROCK (RIPPED)

8007D78A 0001
8007D78B 00B1

DATADYNE INFANTRY

8007D79E 0001
8007D 79F 00BF

DATADYNE TROOPER

8007D7B2 0001
8007D7B3 00C4

INVISIBLE

8007D7C6 0000
8007D7C7 0055

BIO TECHNICIAN

8007D7D7 0001
8007D7DB 00C8

FBI

8007D7EE 0001
8007D7EF 00C9

CIA

8007D802 0001
8007D803 00CB

AREA 51 TROOPER

8007D816 0001
8007D817 00CC

PILOT

8007D82A 0002
8007D82B 0031

PATROL ROBOT

8007D83E 0002
8007D83F 0036

STEWARD

8007D852 0002
8007D853 0037

STEWARDESS

8007D866 0002
8007D867 0039

THE PRESIDENT

8007D87A 0002
8007D87B 003B

HEAD STEWARDESS

8007D88E 0002
8007D88F 003C

SMALLER SKEDAR

8007D8A2 0002
8007D8A3 0040

NSA LACKEY

8007D8B6 0002
8007D8B7 0042

PRISIDENTIAL SECURITY

8007D8CA 0002
8007DBCB 0044

NEGOTIATOR

8007D8DE 0002
8007D8DF 0046

G5 GUARD

8007D8F2 0002
8007D8F3 0061

PELAGIC 2 GUARD

8007D906 0002
8007D907 0063

G5 SWAT GUARD

8007D91A 0002
8007D91B 0064

ALASKAN GUARD

8007D92E 0002
8007D92F 0065

MAIAN SOLDIER

8007D942 0002
8007D943 0066

PRESIDENTIAL CLONE

8007D96A 0003
8007D96B 0039

JOANNA STEWARDESS

8007D97E 0003
8007D97F 003C

JOANNA WETSUIT

8007D992 0004
8007D993 009E

JOANNA AQUALUNG

8007D9A6 0004
8007D9A7 009F

JOANNA ARCTIC

8007D9BA 0004
8007D9BB 00A0

JOANNA LAB TECHNICIAN

8007D9CE 0004
8007D9CF 00A1

FEMALE LAB TECHNICIAN

8007D9E2 0004
8007D9E3 00A2

DATADYNE SNIPER

8007D9F6 0004
8007D9F7 00A3

AIR FORCE ONE PILOT

8007DA0A 0004
8007DA0B 00A4

CI MALE LAB TECHNICIAN

8007DA1E 0004
8007DA1F 00A5

CI FEMALE LAB TECHNICIAN

8007DA32 0004
8007DA33 00A6

CARRINGTON EVENING WEAR

8007DA46 0004
8007DA47 0049

CI SOLDIER

8007DA6E 0004
8007DA6F 00AB

SKEDAR KING

8007DA82 0005
8007DA83 000B

ELVIS WAISTCOAT

8007DA96 0005
8007DA97 000C

JOANNA LEATHER

8007DAAA 0005
8007DAAB 0059

JOANNA NEGOTIATOR

8007DABE 0007
8007DABF 0096

BLACK DINNER JACKET #1

0000
0047

BLACK DINNER JACKET #2

0001
019B

WHITE DINNER JACKET

0001
0199

 GameShark Codes

Perfect Menu

Using Your GameShark With Perfect Dark
Enable Codes
High and Low-Resolution Codes
Low-Resolution Codes
High-Resolution Codes

Welcome to my Perfect Dark GameShark page. This is where I'll post my favorite GameShark codes. None of these codes are for "cheating" as such, but each one will help you to bend the rules a little to get even more out of your Perfect Dark experience.

Using Your GameShark With Perfect Dark

You'll need one of the newer GameShark Pro models to really hack Perfect Dark. A 3.3 or higher is highly recommended.

You'll need to enable the Zelda keycode before your GS will boot up with Perfect Dark.

There are two subdivisions of Perfect Dark GS codes: high and low resolution. Low-resolution codes can only be used in the Combat Simulator, because they only function when Perfect Dark fails to detect the N64 4MB Expansion Pak. High-resolution codes can be used in any game mode, but only with certain GameShark versions and the use of a special enable code (see below) to allow the game to detect the Expansion Pak and to prevent it from crashing upon startup or not starting up at all.

Please note that not all codes will work with all GameShark versions. Trial and error is sometimes the only way to determine which codes work with which GameShark versions.

Back to top...

Enable Codes

The appropriate code must be active if you wish for your GameShark to function with Perfect Dark.

GameShark Pro version 3.3 or higher high-res enable code:

FF1EAE00 0000

Or, if you can't get a code to work with that enabler, try this alternate one:

FF000220 0000

Now, on to the other codes!

Back to top...

High and Low-Resolution Codes

Extra death animations in Combat Simulator. This code will add several very cool death animations that normally only show up in solo missions to your multiplayer games. These include choking, elaborate flips, wild limb-flailing, etc. Works in both high and low-resolution. Code by hack master with modifications by me.

80070769 0019
8007076B 0038
8007076F 0086
8007076D 0088
8007076F 0089
80070771 0091
80070773 00A7

Sky color modifier. These codes allow you to set the color of Perfect Dark's skies. They work in all game modes (solo, multiplayer, etc). The first line regulates the amount of red in the sky, the second green, and the third blue. Mix them to create any color you choose. The "????" represents a value of your choice. Setting all three color values to 0000 results in a black sky. Code by hack master.

80081060 ????
80081061 ????
80081062 ????

Custom weapon modification. A GameShark and a copy of this guide are all you need to begin creating your own customized weapons for Perfect Dark solo and multiplayer use. You can set just about everything. Primary and secondary functions, sound effects, clip size, zoom, whether your weapon can be “doubled up”, and more. Guide by SquareGuru.

Perfect Dark Weapon Modification Guide

As an example of what can be accomplished with the information in this great guide, here's a sample weapon. A silly little version of the Devestator that I like to call the Toilet Launcher:

8106D956 0186
8106D9BA 0186
8106D94E 805C
8106D9B2 805D
8106DA1A B100

New Falcon 2. This code will modify the Falcon 2 (scope) into a new version of the Falcon 2 fitted with both a silencer and scope! There are a couple tiny graphic glitches, but overall, the effect is perfect. Code by Wreck7.

8006B78F 0074
8006B7B6 00B3
8006B7B7 00BC

Slayer in all solo missions. This code modifies the standard Rocket Launcher to fire fly-by-wire rockets like the Slayer! Now you can use fly-by-wire rockets in any solo mission. Sometimes they explode right when launched, so invincibility is recommended. Note that aiming straight up as you fire seems to prevent this premature detonation. Code by Wreck7.

8106D6E2 D7C8

IR Scanner in multiplayer. The Perfect Darkness cheat is almost useless for multiplayer games because the Night Vision that you start out with disappears after you die once. The X-Ray Scanner is a poor substitute to say the least. This code will modify the X-Ray Scanner to work like the IR Scanner, making Perfect Darkness a much more viable option for multiplayer. Also great for spotting cloaked adversaries. Code by Wreck7.

8106F73A F520

Back to top...

Low Resolution Codes

GoldenEye items in Perfect Dark. Thanks to a truly amazing GameShark code, we can now see that a number of unused items from Perfect Dark's prequel game GoldenEye 007 are actually hidden deep within the game! To see the items, you must enter and activate one of these three codes. Then, simply start a game in the Felicity multiplayer level. You will see that the ammo boxes at the top of the stairs (outside the outer bathroom door) have been replaced with an item from GoldenEye! Codes by SubDrag and Wreck7.

GoldenEye computer terminal:

811EED4C 0018
811EEDF4 0018

GoldenEye multiplayer flag token:

811EED4C 0016
811EEDF4 0016

GoldenEye "beta" metallic cube:

811EED4C 0003
811EEDF4 0003

Weird weapons.This code enables you to make your weapons look and function very strangly. You must be playing in the Temple level with no other players for the code to function. Basically, this code replaces whichever weapon that is set to slot one with an item simply called "." When you pick up a ., it will show up as a blank space on your inventory screen. Just equip one of your regular guns, then hit start and select the blank line on your inventory menu. Your regular version will be replaced by a glitchy weapon. Usually, the glitches consist of the weapon being held higher up than normal or the weapon's clip appearing beside it. The weapon loses its normal characteristics and acts like an AR-34 with no zoom, a 27-round clip, and a quick, GoldenEye-like reload animation.

801DC7E4 0059

Beta weapons! This code allows you to access some glitchy but very cool "beta" weapons that were used in programmer testing but never made it into the final version of Perfect Dark. You must be playing in the Temple level with no other players for the code to function. Basically, this code replaces whichever weapon that is set to the designated weapon slot with the item specified in the code. Codes by SubDrag and Wreck7. The beta weapons are:

Tester: Looks like a hovering grenade but fires like a Falcon 2. Quick, GoldenEye-like reload animation.

Rocket Launcher: This version looks and behaves very strange. The rockets it shoots don't explode, but instead hover in place when they come into contact with a solid surface. Reloads like normal.

Tester (Weapon slot one modifier. Temple.):

801DC62C 0033

Rocket Launcher (Weapon slot one modifier. Temple.):

801DC62C 0034

Both (Weapon slots one and two modifier. Temple.):

801DC62C 0033
801DC7E4 0034

Back to top...

High-Resolution Codes

Character head/body modifiers. These codes will allow you to swap heads and bodies between different characters in both multiplayer and solo modes. You can do everything from changing dataDyne troopers into Pelagic 2 guards, to dressing Carrington in a ripped party frock, to turning every human enemy in a level into a Skedar, to turning Joanna Dark into James Bond! Plus just about anything else you can imagine. Just check this FAQ for details:

Perfect Dark: GameShark character modification FAQ

Codes by Hackmaster 64 and J. Lint.

Walk through doors. Pretty much what it says. This code allows you to walk through any door in the game as though it weren't there at all. One of the best ways to hunt for secrets in Perfect Dark. Code by Ructir.

80285798 0001

Walk through walls. A companion code to the one above, this will actually let you walk through almost any barrier. Even better for exploring every hidden nook and cranny of this fantastic game. Code by Ryan Toluchanian.

8002804B 0001
80028053 0001
80028057 0021
8002805B 0001
8002805F 0001
8002806B 00A1
8002806F 0001
80028073 0021
80028077 0001

Moon jump. Just get off the ground slightly by either falling off of something or running down a ramp or other incline, then hold the B button to fly. Release it again to drop back down. Another fantastic code for exploring Perfect Dark's many levels. Codes by Crocc.

Player One Moon Jump:

D009C7E4 0040
81206720 40F2
D009C7E4 0040
802066D3 0000
D009C7E4 0040
811ED720 40F2
D009C7E4 0040
801ED6D3 0000
D009C7E4 0040
811D4720 40F2
D009C7E4 0040
801D46D3 0000

Player Two Moon Jump:

D009C7EC 0040
81208390 40F2
D009C7EC 0040
80208343 0000
D009C7EC 0040
811EF390 40F2
D009C7EC 0040
801EF343 0000
D009C7EC 0040
811D6390 40F2
D009C7EC 0040
801D6343 0000

Player One Moon Jump (Multiplayer):

D009C7E4 0040
811BB720 40F2
D009C7E4 0040
801BB6D3 0000

Player Two Moon Jump (Multiplayer):

D009C7EC 0040
811BD390 40F2
D009C7EC 0040
801BD343 0000

Player Three Moon Jump (Multiplayer):

D009C7F4 0040
811BF000 40F2
D009C7F4 0040
801BEFB3 0000

Player Four Moon Jump (Multiplayer):

D009C7FC 0040
811C0C70 40F2
D009C7FC 0040
801C0C23 0000

Shield-penetrating weapons. This code allows you to shoot through some enemy shields that it is not normally possible to. Using this code, for example, you can blow up the patrol robot in Chicago or shoot the Skedar king to death. Fun. Code by Ryan Toluchanian.

80255108 0020

Lights out. This code automatically turns off all of the lights in the game that can be destroyed. Different from the Perfect Darkness cheat, the effect is quite different and creepy. Code by Ryan Toluchanian.

8022169C 0020

Weapons in the CI. Ever want to grab a machine gun from the Carrington Institute firing range and blast those rude CI employees? Well now you can! Simply enable this code, go to the firing range, start an exercise with the weapon you want, and then abort right away. You'll still be holding the weapon and will be able to take it anywhere in the building you want! Whenever you need more ammo or want to switch weapons, just head back to the range and repeat the process. Code created by Ryan Toluchanian.

802C92C4 0020

Kill CI employees. This great code will let you kill the normally invincible Carrington Institute employees in traning mode! Great fun! Combine it with the previous code to take weapons off the firing range and go on your very own workplace rampage with the weapon of your choice.

This code also has other odd effects. It makes all enemies inactive in solo missions and occasionally eliminates background music, environmental effects (like rain), and even cinema scenes.

Since this code also deactivates almost all enemies in solo missions, so it is also useful for setting up two-player Co-Operative and Counter-Operative deathmatches, since guards and other enemies won't harass players.

Code by Ryan Toluchanian.

8022EE80 0020
802C92C4 0020

Infinite Psychosis Gun ammo. Even with the game's two built-in infinite ammo cheats activated, you are still normally limited to four shots with the Psychosis Gun. With this code, you can brainwash your enemies into allies all you want and raise a virtual army. Have fun. Codes by Crocc.

Player One Infinite Psychosis Gun Ammo:

80207EA3 00FF
801EEEA3 00FF
801D5EA3 00FF

Player Two Infinite Psychosis Gun Ammo:

80209B13 00FF
801F0B13 00FF
801D7B13 00FF

GoldenEye Weapons in Combat Simulator. Using this code, all players will begin every multiplayer match with the classic GoldenEye guns already in their inventories! Furthermore, they will not be lost upon death. All you need to use them is ammunition. You can get this by activating either of Perfect Dark's infinite ammo cheats. In you haven't earned them, or simply prefer to pick up ammo off the ground like normal you can stock your levels with the following weapons, each of which comes with ammunition that the GoldenEye guns can use. Check the following chart for compatability. Happy deathmatching! Code by Crocc.

Falcon 2 (any), MagSec 4, Mauler, Phoenix - PP9i, CC13
CMP150, Cyclone, Laptop Gun - KLO1313, ZZT (9MM), ZMG, RC-P45
Callisto NTG, RC-P120, Dragon, K7 Avenger, SuperDragon, Sniper Rifle - KF7 Special, AR-53

D01BCF0F 001E
801BCF10 0007
D01BEB7F 001E
801BEB80 0007
D01C07EF 001E
801C07F0 0007
D01C245F 001E
801C2460 0007

CarrolSims. This one is great. This code will turn all the Simulant characters in multiplayer games into Dr. Carrol! They will even fight (unarmed only) and explode when defeated, making distinctive Dr. Carrol noises when shot or killed. Code by SubDrag.

800AC548 003E
800AC594 003E
800AC5E0 003E
800AC62C 003E
800AC678 003E
800AC6C4 003E
800AC710 003E
800AC75C 003E

Two player deathmatch in Carrington Institute! This code will let you play a two-player deathmatch in the Carrington Institute training level (not CI - Defense, so Carington and company will still be walking around and talking to you while you fight). Just input the following code, start up in high-res mode, and begin any solo mission.

For complete details, read my CI training deathmatch FAQ.

Main code by Ryan Toluchanian.

8009DFE9 0026
8009DFEB 0080
802C92C4 0020
D01BCF0F 001E
801BCF10 0007
D01BCF0F 001E
801BBEFB 00FF
D01BCF0F 001E
801BC69F 00FF
D01BEB7F 001E
801BEB80 0007
D01BEB7F 001E
801BDB6B 00FF
D01BEB7F 001E
801BE30F 00FF

Turbo Jo. This neat code will make Joanna Dark run at incredible speeds. Much faster than a hoverbike. It's a lot of fun. Code by Ryan Toluchanian.

8001AC0F 0000
8001AC1F 0080
8001AC4B 0081
8001AC5B 0001
8001AC6B 0081
8001AC7B 0001
8001AC8B 0081
8001AC9B 0001
8001ACAB 0081
8001ACB7 0001

Initial character placement. This is a very cool and very weird code. It lets you view every character in solo levels in their initial placement, including character that normally only show up in cinema scenes. This includes Elvis on Air Force One - Antiterrorism and Trent Easton in Air Base - Espionage. Every solo level in the game reveals strange new surprises with this code enabled. Code by Ryan Toluchanian.

8023E698 0020

Music modifier. This code will let you modify the music that plays on the Perfect Menu. Just change the "??" to any value of your choice. The digits 15, 75, and 3C correspond to previously hidden "beta" music tracks. Code by SubDrag.

800AA5FB 00??
800AA66B 00??

Monticello Officially Recognizes The Rest Of Thomas Jefferson’s Children

Our founding father, my 6th great-grandfather, had 6 children with his slave Sally Hemings

By Lucian K. Truscott IV / Salon

June 16, 2018, 4:37 AM GMT

When my brother Frank and I visited our great aunts Mary Walker and Agnes Randolph at their home in Charlottesville in the early 1950s, they used to load us into the back seat of the family Buick and drive up the mountain to Monticello and drop us off for the day. My aunts had been born at Edgehill, the Randolph family plantation, just a few miles down the mountain. My aunts treated Monticello as the family home, and we were given the run of the place.

We played on our sixth great-grandfather's bed, we ran around upstairs in the unfinished bedrooms and played marbles in the Dome Room. We explored the cave-like work and storage rooms beneath the house, and we crawled out one of the upstairs windows onto the roof and playfully dropped pebbles on tourists as they passed by on the walks below.

If you took a tour of the place back then, you were unlikely to hear the word “slave.” Tours made it sound like Jefferson built the place and was the only person living there. The truth was far different. Jefferson owned as many as 600 slaves during his lifetime, and in the years after he retired to Monticello from the presidency, there were some 100 to 125 slaves living and working at his plantation every day.

Thomas Jefferson’s slaves built Monticello. They cleared the land and felled every tree, they sawed and finished every board, they made and laid every brick, they forged and pounded every nail in that house. They planted and harvested his vegetable garden and crops. They made his life at Monticello possible. Without slaves, Thomas Jefferson would not have had the time in the day to write the Declaration of Independence. Without slaves, the White House wouldn’t have been built. Neither would the Capitol building. In this and so many other ways, slaves are truly among the Founding Fathers and Founding Mothers of this country, and yet up there at Mr. Jefferson’s house, it was as if they never existed.

Tours of the house and grounds at Monticello over the last couple of decades have recognized the lives and work of the enslaved community. I took a tour there a few years ago in mid-winter, with nearly a foot of snow on the ground outside. Our tour guide, William Bergen, had gone into the archives and came up with the number of slaves it had taken to cut and carry the firewood necessary to heat Monticello for a single day. He also pointed out the woodwork that had been done by John Hemings, the brother of Sally Hemings, in Jefferson’s bedroom and library, and the furniture he had built that Jefferson designed.

Today at Monticello, the descendants of Jefferson’s slaves will have their history formally recognized when a space where slaves lived will be opened to the public. The quarters that were occupied by Sally Hemings will be accessible, much as Jefferson’s bedroom has been open to the public all of these years. The space was used for many years as a public restroom until archaeologists and historians at Monticello discovered that it had been the place where Sally Hemings had raised the children she had with Thomas Jefferson.

In conjunction with the opening of the Hemings quarters, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, has issued a definitive affirmation that Thomas Jefferson fathered all six of Sally Hemings’ children. They are removing qualifiers such as “most likely” from the foundation’s previous position on Jefferson’s paternity in favor of evidence including Hemings’ family oral history, a DNA study carried out in 1998, a written history of Hemings’ and Jefferson’s son Madison published in an Ohio newspaper in 1873, and evidence taken from Jefferson’s own writings in his “Farm Book” confirming that he was present at Monticello each time Sally conceived.

The Foundation also took what I consider to be the extraordinary step of specifically refuting claims made in letters written by my fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, and my great aunt, Ellen Randolph Coolidge, that Samuel or Peter Carr had fathered Sally’s children. The Carr brothers were the sons of Jefferson’s best friend Dabney Carr and Jefferson’s sister Martha. They were raised at Monticello after their father’s untimely death at age 30 and were present on the mountaintop for much of their boyhood.

The Monticello Association, comprised of the white descendants of Jefferson, took the position for more than 100 years that the Carr brothers fathered Sally's children, based on these letters, which were apparently written to cover up Jefferson’s paternity. The 1998 DNA study took samples from Carr descendants. No Carr DNA was found in Hemings descendants, conclusively ruling out Peter and Samuel Carr as the fathers of Sally's children.

Thomas Jefferson Randolph lived at Monticello in the last years of Jefferson’s life, was close to his grandfather and clearly knew the truth about Sally’s children. The letters between him and Ellen Coolidge were lies written in order to cover up Jefferson’s paternity, knowing they would become part of the historical record. The white Jefferson descendants in the Monticello Association were only too happy to use them to spread the lie perpetrated by the family. Most historians accepted this version of the story for the next hundred years.

In 1998, during an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show with my Hemings cousins, I invited them to be my guests at the family reunion at Monticello. In May of 1999, about 50 of them joined me and attended all of the family events, including a service at Jefferson’s grave. Many white Jefferson descendants are buried there, including my brother and my parents, great grandparents, and great aunts and uncles. One day, I will be buried there alongside the rest of my family.

One of the things my Hemings cousins and I were seeking in attending the family reunions in 1999 and over the next several years was the right to be buried at Monticello in the graveyard, should any of the Hemings family express that desire. This became a key issue for the Monticello Association, and finally, in 2002, they took a vote on formally admitting our Hemings cousins into the family.

They voted 95 to 6 against the Hemings. Five of the six members voting “yes” to admit the Hemings were Truscotts.

My Hemings cousins and I no longer attend the Monticello Association family reunion each year in May, choosing instead to attend Hemings family events, which have been held there several times over the years. My Hemings cousins and I were invited to Monticello for the unveiling of Sally’s quarters this weekend. I will be unable to attend, but many of my cousins and the descendants of other slave families will be honored guests at the unveiling.

Monticello has laid to rest once and for all who fathered Sally’s children. The rest of my white Jefferson cousins can say what they want, but the place where Jefferson lived has recognized what our Hemings cousins have known for more than two centuries. Thomas Jefferson is their great grandfather, just as he is mine.

You can judge him morally as a slave owner and as a man, but the controversy is over. Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings’ children, and Monticello, where they lived and worked, is now as much the family home of my Hemings cousins and all the other slave descendants as it was mine when my Randolph great aunts used to drop off my brother Frank and me there for the day years ago.

Today Monticello is telling the world an uncomfortable truth about our history. It is a glorious day for Monticello, for our family, and for the greater family of all Americans.

Judge sends Russian spy Paul Manafort directly to jail

Paul Manafort will be jailed after being accused of witness tampering while awaiting trial on federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The order to imprison resident Trump’s former campaign manager came Friday in a federal court hearing after Manafort had been asking to post a $10 million bond and end seven months of home detention.

It was not immediately clear when Manafort would be imprisoned or where. Proceedings before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia were ongoing.

The order marked the latest fall for the political power broker and confidant of Republican presidents dating to George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

Prosecutors alleged that by committing a new crime while on release, Manafort violated terms of his home confinement in Alexandria, Va., and they asked the judge to revoke or revise it. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/manafort-ordered-to-jail-after-witness-tampering-charges/2018/06/15/ccc526cc-6e68-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html 

Trump tries to ‘steal the grief’ of fallen soldiers

Lawrence O'Donnell reacts to Donald Trump's lie about the parents of American soldiers killed in the Korean War, and explains that Donald Trump's lying is unique in American history.

Baby Boomers Are Responsible For Unleashing Mad Man Trump On The World

By Lucian K. Truscott IV / Salon

Just look at what we’ve done to this poor country. Bill Clinton, the first Baby Boom president, is ours, complete with the cigar and stained blue dress and denial that he “had sex with that woman.”

On his heels came Baby Boomer president number two, George Bush, who along with Baby Boomer Vice President Dick Cheney, lied us into the most disastrous war since Vietnam and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Barack Obama was a reprieve, but look who’s in there now, flapping his tiny hands and tweeting his tiny tweets and disassembling everything from our federal government to the Western Alliance, but Donald J. Trump, Baby Boomer resident number three.

Trump is 72. I’m 71, and I’m ashamed. Every morning I wake up and realize that me and my generation unleashed this flaming madman on the world, and I want to crawl back under the covers and hide. WTF were we thinking?

I lived in New York during the years Trump was surfing the tabloid wave to fame and invented fortune, and we just sat there and lapped it up. Oh, look! Another photo of Trump boogieing at Le Club, the private watering hole in the 70’s on the Upper East Side where boomers went to show off and misbehave. I wasn’t a member, but I went to Le Club with friends who were. I saw Trump making a fool of himself in there, his arm slung over the shoulders of this hot babe or that one, tie flying as he pretended to do The Hustle, or whatever it was we were doing back then. I’d be sitting across the room at a table, sucking up bottles of champagne charged them to someone’s membership account, laughing at the big buffoon with the weird hair (even then!) acting like he owned the world.

That was the problem, see? We all acted like we owned the world. On any given night, me and my boomer pals and our boomer girlfriends and wives were swinging at Le Club, or bouncing from table to table at Elaine’s, chumming it up with Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron and Gay Talese, or this week’s hot literary agent or last week’s hot movie star.

I wrote a story once called “Felker’s Fall,” about how Clay Felker, who owned New York Magazine and the Village Voice, lost his empire to Rupert Murdoch. The first paragraph was set in Elaine’s, describing the minions hovering around Felker at his premier table up front on The Row where the A-listers sat. They “pecked at him like ducks,” I wrote, because Clay was On Top, and he was at Elaine’s, and so was I, and Elaine’s was The Place to Be, and we Ran the World, or thought we did.

We weren’t princes of the city. We were princes of the fucking universe. We were forever ascendant. There was no place to go but up. Nothing was going to stop us. Our friends were running movie studios out in L.A. They were Senior Editors at the top publishing houses. They edited the big-time magazines. They signed pay checks to us, and initialed our expense accounts, and put us in First Class on planes to The Coast. We chowed down at The Palm. We lunched in the Grill Room at The Four Seasons, alongside the swells we were moving in on and taking over their fiefdoms in advertising and journalism and film and politics and finance.

Over there across the room too many times to count was Trump. My name was on The List at the Door at Studio 54. One night I went to Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday party there, the night she rode into the room on a white stallion, and you could practically hear the hoovering sucking noise of coke going up a hundred nostrils at once. There was Trump, standing with Roy Cohn and Halston and Calvin Klein, and it was all one big happy family. Shirtless waiters in short-shorts were passing by with trays of the bubbly. Trump was waving to this starlet, groping that one. Roy Cohn was watching it all with his lizard eyes, scanning the room for somebody who was an easy touch, somebody who would be impressed with meeting Donald Trump, somebody the two of them could take on a ride for tens of thousands or maybe a cool mil the next day.

And everywhere was our generation. We ran the list at the door. We got you into the VIP area. We dealt the coke. We owned the night.

Look at what we were doing! Trump was surfing the tabloid wave? Hell, the day after the Elizabeth Taylor party, Robin Leach, a tabloid hack who would go on to become the host of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” called me up and said if I didn’t mind, he was going to put me in his column as the date of some starlet a flack friend of his was pushing. I had a novel on the bestseller list. I was “hot.” What did I do? I said, go ahead! All grist for the mill. Long as you spell my name right.

There I was later that day, in a tabloid column, dating some starlet I’d never heard of. I didn’t grope her — hell, I didn’t even know her — but I was no better than Trump.

Just over the horizon: Clinton. We ran him, we elected him, and we stood by as he and his whiz-kid meritocratic oligarchs started running the SS United States aground. Years later, I realized that the apotheosis of the baby boom buffoonery was the so-called “Renaissance Weekends,” an invention of boomers, by boomers, for boomers. Do you remember those clubby clusterfucks? They were weekend “retreats” held at cushy resorts down on Hilton Head Island for “leaders” in finance, government, the media, religion, business, medicine, technology and the arts.

Even before Clinton took office as president, he and Hillary were regulars, and once he was president, the damn Renaissance Weekends turned into a Domestic Davos. In 1993, his first year in office, the retreat’s founder, Philip Lader (by then, deputy White House Chief of Staff) and President Clinton hosted a New Year’s Eve panel on “What I’ve Learned,” while Hillary and Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun led a discussion on “Choices.”

“What I’ve Learned?” “Choices?” Jesus. They may as well have had a bunch of boomer geniuses on a panel called “Whither Peace?” and probably did.

You know who else attended those intellectual circle jerks? Boomer luminaries like the journalists Wolf Blitzer, Howard Fineman, Joe Klein, and Andrea Mitchell; Senators Chuck Robb, Ernest Hollings, and Barbara Mikulski; Governor Evan Bayh of Indiana; and singer Mary Chapin Carpenter.

You get the picture. The goddamned things cost $1,500 a couple to attend, and that was a lot of money back then. Do you think any of the regular Joes and Janes who ended up voting Trump into office were invited, or could afford to attend? If they showed up, do you think Andrea, or Wolf, or Howard or any of the rest of them would have given them the time of day?

Not likely.

Boomers patched together this teetering edifice with “merit” and “achievement” and “elite education” and “expertise,” and it was such a gigantic fake that all it took to bring it down was a half-assed push by a certifiable goofball like Donald Trump. I’ve wasted literally thousands of words in these pages cataloging Trump’s lies, but the biggest lie of all was the ersatz boomer machine that begat him.

He didn’t come from nowhere. He came from our loins. We birthed him. We sat by and laughed while he piggy-backed on the baby boomer scam that what really mattered was graduating from The Right School, having your name on The List at the Door, getting The Best Table at the Hottest Restaurant, living at The Right Address, and finally, having the Coolest Guy as our president. For boomers, life has been high school forever.

The thing about Donald Trump is that he was never one of the Cool Guys. He was the schmuck over there across the room who was feeling up women and picking our pockets while we looked the other way. He ran a campaign that said, you know the club they would never invite you into? I’ve been there, and it’s all bullshit, and I’m going to tear it down, the whole stinking meaningless system run by these people who have looked down on you from their suites in Davos and the Renaissance Weekends, the places they kept you out of while they were making decisions about your lives and not listening to anything you had to say.

He sold it to the people we left out like a condo with marble bathrooms in one of his buildings, the kind of gaudy show places we laughed at while our pals at the elite levels of boomerdom pontificated on panels like “Whither Peace?”

I laughed at him while he was running back in 2016. I pointed at the TV screen and held my sides as he howled his gibberish at rally after rally after rally. He was the same buffoon he had been in New York when he ruled the tabloids with his marital exploits and buildings with stories he never built that we never bothered to count.

That was the problem. With the exception of a few intrepid reporters like Wayne Barrett, we never bothered to count the fake floors in his buildings he never built, or track his pay-offs to crooked pols, or catalog his chumminess with gangsters. But he was ours. We made him. We delivered him to you.

We sat there and laughed at him on his stupid reality TV show. We laughed at him as he told lie after lie about Obama’s birth certificate. We ignored him when he was sending us signals about what a racist he was with his war on the Central Park Five. And we laughed when he stood up there in 2016 and actually told us that when he reached the White House, he was going to tear the whole fucking thing down.

Donald Trump is our fault. He was in the headlines for decades pulling his scams, telling his lies, flaunting his fakery. He was one of us, and he was telling us exactly who he is, and we didn’t take him seriously.

We didn’t do shit about him. I, for one, am ashamed.

Conservatives Finally Speak: "He's Acts Like He's A King"

Posted by Rude One

Finally, at long last, Republicans could take no more.

Senator Ted Cruz said, "Undeterred, resident Trump appears to be going forward. It is lawless. It is unconstitutional. He is defiant and angry at the American people. If he acts by executive diktat, resident Trump will not be acting as a resident, he will be acting as a monarch.”

Lou Dobbs pronounced that resident Trump's actions are "evidence of his unilateral, even occasionally authoritarian inclination."

Senator Rand Paul claimed, "The resident acts like he's a king. He ignores the Constitution...These are not the words of a great leader. These are the words that sound more like the exclamations of an autocrat." Indeed, Paul went so far as to tweet out a photo of a crown, scepter, cape, and throne with the words, "The 'residentt who thinks he's a king' starter pack."

The Speaker of the House said, "The resident has said before that 'he's not king' and he's 'not an emperor,' but he sure is acting like one."

Chris Christie exhorted, "This resident wants to act as if he is a king, as if he is a dictator." And Jeb Bush added, "To use executive powers he doesn't have is a pattern that is quite dangerous." Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that Trump "is acting as a king, acting as a dictator" by doing what is "absolutely contrary to what the Constitution allows."

Conservative editorial writers finally got into the game, with one at USA Today saying, plainly, "The idea that resident Trump acts as if he is the king of the United States or a tyrant, instead of resident, has become a cliché." Asking for a restoration of the balance between Congress and the resident, Charles Cooke, in the National Review, opined, "The United States is a constitutional republic, replete with a set of rules that govern how power may be wielded and by whom. There exists no provision within its codified order that ties the power enjoyed by each branch to that branch’s transient popularity. If there is a constitutional problem with the scope of the administrative state, it obtains regardless of the opinion polls."

But, in honor of that valedictorian from a high school in rural Kentucky who, in his speech at graduation, said he was quoting Trump, to great applause, only to reveal that the line was really from Obama, obviously every single one of those conservatives was talking about President Obama and not Donald Trump.

They were upset about some executive orders by Obama, mostly the one that expanded immigration enforcement protection to the parents of kids born in the U.S., but also ones on guns and transgender rights, and they cried out that Obama was a king, which is something that the Tea Party had been saying from the second Obama was elected.

The difference back during Obama's presidency is that many on the left and center-left were uneasy with the executive orders, too. There is a consistency here that conservatives, who didn't give a damn when George W. Bush used signing statements and executive orders with alarming frequency, certainly lack when it comes to Trump's assertions of a tyrannical authority to proclaim himself innocent of crimes by self-pardoning.

Ted Cruz refused to answer a question about it. Rand Paul said such an action would be "condemned," but that Trump has the right to do it.

Some on the right were more consistent, having qualms about Trump's self-pardon. Cooke in the National Review again explained that Congress needs to act (which it won't). Christie at least admits it would be a political problem, even if he doesn't declare that Trump thinks himself a king.

At the end of the day, each president has pushed the limits of presidential power. Congress and the courts are supposed to keep them in check. But Congress hasn't done that. Now, we can argue about whether Bush blocking funding for stem cell research or Obama deciding how immigration law enforcement are valid exercises of executive power. Still, each was asserting their power in pursuit of a policy goal, which doesn't take away the troubling part of it, but, at the very least, the justification was for their view of the greater good.

But Trump is asserting something quite different than either of them, and it's of a piece with his entire residency. By saying that he can pardon himself and that it is impossible for him to obstruct a Justice Department investigation because he's the ostensible boss of it, Trump wants to contort executive power merely to protect himself (and, presumably, his family). He is above the law and has absolute and uncheckable power when it comes to federal laws, especially when he's in trouble.

In other words, everything that conservatives falsely feared about Obama is true with Trump. And their refusal to broadly condemn it means that they're just fine with a dictator, as long as he's a rich white guy who hates immigrants and cuts taxes.

Constitution Talk

Larry Kudlow has a heart

By Jeremy Diamond, CNN

US resident Donald Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow suffered a heart attack, the resident tweeted as he arrived for his summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"Our Great Larry Kudlow, who has been working so hard on trade and the economy, has just suffered a heart attack. He is now in Walter Reed Medical Center," Trump tweeted, 25 minutes before he was set to meet with Kim for the first time.

Our Great Larry Kudlow, who has been working so hard on trade and the economy, has just suffered a heart attack. He is now in Walter Reed Medical Center.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2018

Kudlow, 70, was not traveling with the US resident in Singapore, but he had just returned to the United States from the G7 summit in Canada, where trade tensions dominated the atmosphere.

The Washington Post reported that Kudlow's wife, Judith Kudlow, told the newspaper, "He's doing fine" and the doctors are "fabulous."

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed the resident's tweet in a statement Monday night.

"Earlier today National Economic Council Director and Assistant to the resident Larry Kudlow experienced what his doctors say was a very mild heart attack," Sanders said.

"Larry is currently in good condition at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and his doctors expect he will make a full and speedy recovery," she continued. "The resident and his Administration send their thoughts and prayers to Larry and his family."

Kudlow's heart attack came less than three months after Trump tapped the former CNBC host and commentator to chair the White House's National Economic Council.

Kudlow has been at the center of the US resident's trade feuds in recent months, joining US delegations in Beijing and Canada to address trade disputes. Though he has long been opposed to tariffs, he has supported Trump's decision to erect tariffs against both China and key US allies like Canada, Mexico and the European Union, calling them a useful tool.

Kudlow was front-and-center in the administration's rebuke of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday, accusing Trudeau of having "kind of stabbed us in the back" during a news conference after Trump had departed the summit early.

Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted Monday night that he and second lady Karen Pence "are praying for our dear friend @Larry_Kudlow tonight."

Kudlow suffered a cocaine and alcohol addiction in the 90's, taking leave from the financial firm Bear Stearns to check himself into rehab.

He told The New York Times in March he has been sober for 23 years, calling it "the center of my life."

CNN's Sophie Tatum and Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.

After fleeing the G-7 in a pique, Trump the Russian spy traitor heads to Singapore

By Hunter

 

The chicken and his spare ribs

The United States government is currently headed by a traitor. We should mention that before anything else, and keep mentioning it until it finally dawns on the nation that puttering around on the outskirts of that conclusion is doing nobody any good, and is doing a great deal of harm.

All currently available evidence supports this statement. We know from the emails released by Trump Jr. that the campaign orchestrated a Trump Tower meeting between themselves and Russian government go-betweens specifically for the purposes of receiving information about his opponent, during the midst of a Russian espionage campaign against that opponent. We know from the text of that email that the meeting was arranged as "part of" the Russian government's support for Donald Trump, making certain that Trump and his team knew their collaboration was with a foreign government. We know that as sitting resident Donald Trump, when confronted with the imminent public exposure of this meeting, ordered and orchestrated a statement intentionally designed to cover up its true purpose.

And we know the meeting was not isolated, but part of an ongoing effort by numerous members of the Trump campaign to seek out Russian "channels" during a period of time in which, according to the now-public determinations of our nation's various intelligence agencies, the Russian government was conducting both espionage and propaganda campaigns against the U.S. in order to throw that election to Trump's team.

So that makes Donald Trump a traitor to his nation, according to the dictionary definition of the term. What that makes Republican lawmakers still seeking to sabotage the government investigation of his acts–from the unsubtle Nunes to his consistent enabler, Paul Ryan–is open to debate.

At present, however, the traitor is in Singapore, likely getting a good long preparatory nap before meeting with a North Korean dictator who he has treated with more respect than he has mustered for the leaders of most of our nation’s allies. He has just left a summit with those allies in which he skipped out on some meetings, arrived at others late, badgered the other leaders about tariffs that appear to exist primarily in his mind, and scuttled whatever progress the rest of the group thought they were making with a cowardly statement released only after he had fled the scene because he is a gigantic baby.

Based on Justin'™s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2018

Take a moment to absorb not how petulant, but how genuinely cowardly this man is. He had to flee the meetings before taking this bold new stand of … reversing himself on a largely meaningless diplomatic letter. He imagines himself a great negotiator, but every negotiation he has ever had, from his hotel business to international “diplomacy”, seems to universally consist of Donald Trump pouting, whining, and reversing himself on whatever he previously agreed to just as soon as the ink has dried. This is not genius. It is petulant tantruming, but of the sort that we revile in our children but celebrate in any sociopath with a few million dollars to play with.

Trump's only notable non-tantruming contribution to the G-7 summit, however, was to insist that the very nation whose espionage he has repeatedly publicly dismissed and whose aid he conspired with others to cover up be re-admitted to the elite group. His argument was that Russia did not invade Ukraine; past U.S. leaders, in their weakness, made them invade Ukraine. This logic is so self-evidently stupid that willful treason is, if anything, the generous interpretation. The ungenerous interpretation is incompetence, buffoonery, or dementia.

But we have still not come to terms with any of this, as a nation, in large part because each of Trump's failures is so foundational that the nation's press cannot grasp—or willfully refuses to grasp—its implications. His campaign indeed conspired, with full knowledge, with a Russian government plot against America. He has, as resident, sought to personally enrich himself and his family using the trappings of office—openly and repeatedly. He has, as resident, pardoned political allies and demanded investigations of, and imprisonment of, government officials investigating crimes committed by other allies. These are things that happen in other countries, in failing democracies and in authoritarian-minded kleptocracies; our press, largely dull-minded and self-captured by a mantra that suggests there is no true good or bad, in political acts, no truth-telling or lying, and when it comes down to it no true laws at all, only an infinite murk of partisanship that must be balanced, word for word and column for column, at all costs, continues to write about it as if every one of them has joined the celebrity gossip beat.

And so on the eve of a Trump summit with a North Korean strongman, the press is still full of cartoonishly silly hot takes on how the buffoonish, self-absorbed hotel magnate and gleeful traitor, on the heels of a summit with close U.S. allies in which he proved the clown at every opportunity, might somehow transform his mattress-buying and contractor-stiffing talents into Churchillian greatness.

When President Trump declared that he did not really need to prepare for his legacy-defining meeting with North Korea’s leader, he drew sighs or snickers from veterans of past negotiations. But he had a point: In his own unorthodox way, Mr. Trump has been preparing for this encounter his entire adult life.

This, by the way, may be the stupidest thing ever written in the New York Times, opinion or otherwise, ever. I challenge you to find a worse one.

We do not know how this new "summit" will go, and that is entirely because Trump is such a buffoon that any and all outcomes are possible, from the establishment of friendly ties to a rogue nuclear dictatorship to the child leaving in a huff because he does not like any given statement, decoration, or dessert. North Korea has accomplished what they set out to from the outset; within their nation, they will point to the summit as the arrival of their dictatorship as true world power, as the evidence that the rogue nuclear program for which their citizenry suffered innumerable hardships was indeed the path to national greatness their leader had promised all along.

Trump's desires are the same, and that should be more alarming than it is. He has no goal other than recognition of his own legitimacy and greatness; even the most dull-minded in the press are willing to admit that his motive for a North Korean summit is simply because he wishes to be perceived as doing something past American leaders could not, or would not. His motives are strictly self-promotional, yet again; his instincts are to coddle those leaders who have something he desires—the possibility for self-promotion or other personal gain—while dismissing those leaders who he perceives as being unwilling to offer such. As with his petulance towards U.S. allies like Canada and his obsequious toadying to his own personal ally Putin, whether the outcome is good for the nation or is bad is irrelevant; Donald Trump came into the office as a traitor to begin with. He does not give a damn what fires he starts in his quest for supposed personal greatness. But still, we will persist in pretending at some greater design; we will insist on pretending the traitor is something better than he is.

He is not, of course. He has never been. Donald Trump has been a cretin his whole life, a snide racist and a gleeful cheat, a man whose wee little empire has been built from petty grifts and exists in a fog of money-launderers and thugs. He is a traitor, but the press, his party, and his willing allies will still persist in not discussing that part it until he has either lost power, rendering such criticisms impotent, or he has done something so immeasurably worse that pointing it out no longer even rates as controversial.

Why is this traitor still in office? Send this mother fucker a message this November, and vote all of the Republican cocksuckers that support this moron out of office.  dlevere.

The 101 Most Useful Websites On The Internet

Here are the most useful websites on the Internet that will make you smarter, increase productivity, and help you learn new skills. These incredibly useful websites solve at least one problem really well. And they all have cool URL's that are easy to memorize, thus saving you a trip to Google. 

Source

The Most Useful Websites and Web Apps

1. archive.is — take a snapshot of any web page and it will be exist forever even if the original page is gone.
2. autodraw.com — create freehand doodles and watch them magically transform into beautiful drawings powered by maching learning.
3. fast.com — check the current speed of your Internet connection.
4. slides.com — create pixel-perfect slide decks and broadcast your presentations to an audience of any size from anywhere.
5. screenshot.guru — take high-resolution screenshots of web pages on mobile and desktops.
6. dictation.io – accurate and quick voice recognition in your browser itself.
7. reverse.photos — upload an image and find similar pictures on the web.
8. copychar.cc – copy special characters and emojis that aren’t on your keyboard.
9. codeacademy.com – the best place to learn coding online.
10. noisli.com — ambient noises to help you improve focus and boost productivity.
11. iconfinder.com – millions of icons for all kinds of projects. Also try icons8.com and flaticon.com.
12. jotti.org – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching   – see more wolfram tips.
14. flightstats.com – track flight status at airports worldwide.
15. unsplash.com – the best place to download images absolutely free.
16. videos.pexels.com — an online library of free HD videos you can use everywhere. Also see videvo.net.

Also see: The Best Android Apps

17. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones.
18. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.
19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.
20. earn.com — replace your email with a mailbox that pays when you reply to someone’s email.
21. myfonts.com/WhatTheFont – upload an image of any text and quickly determine the font family.
22. fonts.google.com – the best collection of open source fonts that you can use anywhere without restrictions.
23. fontstruct.com — draw and build your own fonts and use them in any application.
24. calligraphr.com — transform your handwriting into a real font.
25. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools.
26. youtube.com/webcam — broadcast yourself live over the Internet without any complicated setup.
27. remotedesktop.google.com — access other computers or allow others to remote access your computer over the Internet.
28. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3D.
29. pdfescape.com – lets you quickly edit PDF in the browser without Acrobat.
30. draw.io – create diagrams, wireframe and flowcharts in the browser.
31. web.skype.com — make voice and video calls in your browser with Skype.
32. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs – see other OCR tools.
33. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.
34. file.pizza — peer to peer file transfer over WebRTC without any middleman.
35. snapdrop.com — like Apple AirDrop but for the web. Share files directly between devices in the same network without having to upload them to any server first.
36. hundredzeros.com – the site lets you download free Kindle books.
37. app.grammarly.com — check your writing for spelling, style, andgrammatical errors.
38. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online ( review).
39. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents.
40. kleki.com – create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes.
41. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already.
42. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.
43. color.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs.
44. canva.com — make beautiful graphics, presentations, resumes and more with readymade template designs.
45. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own.
46. midomi.com – when you need to find the name of a song.
47. history.google.com —  see all your past Google searches, also among most important Google URLs
48. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services.
49. tinychat.com – setup your own private chat room in micro-seconds.
50. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read.
51. domains.google.com – quickly search domain names for your next big idea!
52. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not?
53. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.
54. builtwith.com — find the web hosting company, email provider and everything else about a website.
55. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words.

Also see: The Best Mac Apps and Utilities

56. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight.
57. flightstats.com – Track flight status at airports worldwide.
58. mymaps.google.com – create custom Google Maps with scribbles, pins and custom shapes.
59. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam.
60. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
61. todo.microsoft.com — a beautiful todo app and task manager. Also see Trello.
62. minutes.io – quickly capture effective notes during meetings.
63. talltweets.com — Turn Google Slides in animated GIF presentations.
64. ifttt.com – create a connection between all your online accounts.
65. namechk.com — search for your desired username across hundreds of social networks and domain names.
66. gist.github.com — create anonymous and secret text notes and much more.
67. flipanim.com — create flipbook animations, includes an onion skin tool to let you see the previous frame as you draw the next one.
68. powtoon.com — create engaging whiteboard videos and presentations with your own voiceovers. Also see videoscribe.co.
69. clyp.it — Record your own voice or upload an audio file without creating any account. Also see soundcloud.com.
70. carrd.co — build one-page fully responsive websites that look good on every screen.
71. spark.adobe.com — make stunning video presentations with voice narration and wow everyone.
72. anchor.fm — the easiest way to record a podcast that you can distribute on iTunes without have to pay for hosting.
73. duolingo.com — learn to speak Chinese, French, Spanish or any other language of your choice.
74. webmakerapp.com — an offline playground for building web projects in HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
75. pixton.com — create your own comic strips with your own characters and move them into any pose.
76. designer.io — a full-featured vector drawing tool that works everywhere.
77. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.
78. vectr.com — create vector graphics and export them as SVG or PNG files.
79. twitterbots — create your own Twitter bots that can auto-reply, DM, follow people and more.
80. headspace.com —  learn the art of meditation and reduct stress, focus more and even sleep better.
81. class-central.com — a directory of free online courses offered by universities worldwide.
82. googleartproject.com — discover museums, famous paintings and art treasure from all around the world.
83. instructables.com — step-by-step guides on how to build anything and everything.
84. flowgram.com — make data-driven graphics, charts and infographics. Also see adioma.com and eas.ly.
85. marvelapp.com — create interactive wireframes and product mockups.
86. slide.ly — make marketing videos and branded stories for Instagram, Facebook and YouTube trailers. Also see animoto.com and biteable.com.
87. gohighbrow.com — Take bite-sized courses on a variety of topics, chapters are delivered by email every monning.
88. htmlmail.pro – send rich-text emails with gmail mail merge.
89. wirecutter.com — whether you need a vacuum cleaner or an SD card, this is the best product recommendation website on the Internet.
90. camelcamelcamel.com — Create Amazon price watches and get email alerts when the prices drop.
91. mockaroo.com — download mock data to fill the rows in your Excel spreadsheet.
92. asciiflow.com — a WYSIWYG editor to draw ASCII diagrams that you can embed in emails and tweets.

Also see: The Best Add-ons for Gmail, Docs and Sheets

93. buffer.com — the easily way to post and schedule updates on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook.
94. 10minutemail.com — create disposable email addresses for putting inside sign-up forms.
95. whereami — find the postal address of your current location on Google maps.
96. sway.com — create and share interactive reports, newsletters, presentations, and for storytelling.

Also see: The Best Websites to Learn Coding

97. apify.com — the perfect web scraping tool that lets you extract data from nearly any website.
98. thunkable.com — build your own apps for Android and iOS by dragging blocks instead of writing code. Also see: glitch.com.
99. zerodollarmovies.com — a huge collection of free movies curated from YouTube.
100. upwork.com — find freelancers and subject experts to work on any kind of project.
101. duckduckgo.com – a clean alternative to google search that doesn’t track you on the Internet.

Charles Krauthammer says he has 'only a few weeks left to live'

By Brian Stelter

2 hrs ago

© Fox News

"This is the final verdict. My fight is over."

Charles Krauthammer, the famed conservative columnist, informed readers on Friday that he is confronting an aggressive form of cancer.

"My doctors tell me their best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live," he wrote.

Krauthammer shared the devastating news in a short, matter-of-fact note on the website of the Washington Post, where he has been a columnist since 1984.

"I leave this life with no regrets," he wrote in the farewell message. "It was a wonderful life -- full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended."

Krauthammer was also a longtime commentator on Fox News.

He had to step away from both jobs last August for surgery to remove what he called a "a cancerous tumor in my abdomen."

There were numerous complications.

"Special Report" anchor Bret Baier occasionally gave updates to viewers about Krauthammer's recovery.

"Colleagues and viewers alike had held out hope that he would return to the evening show he helped establish as must-viewing," Fox's story on Krauthammer noted on Friday.

Last month Baier offered some good news via a message from Krauthammer: "The worst now appears to be behind me."

But then Krauthammer received the worst possible news.

"Recent tests have revealed that the cancer has returned," he explained Friday. "There was no sign of it as recently as a month ago, which means it is aggressive and spreading rapidly."

In his note to readers, he thanked colleagues, readers, and viewers "who have made my career possible and given consequence to my life's work." He wrote: "I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking. I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation's destiny."

Nintendo Switch Super Smash Bros.

To celebrate the launch of the newest game in one of their most beloved franchises, Nintendo is holding a tournament dubbed the Super Smash Bros. Invitational 2018, and they’ve invited some of the biggest names in the competitive scene to face each other in the new “Smash” for Switch, including luminaries like Armada, MkLeo, and ZeRo.  

Variety caught up with two of these Smashers to ask them their thoughts on the new game, the future of the competitive game, and what they hope to get out of the E3 tournament come Monday. 

Trump will have ‘the same fate as Nixon’ writes MSNBC’s Morning Blow Joe Scarborough

Trump is hurtling toward a Nixonian ending

resident Trump at the White House on Thursday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

 

By Joe Scarborough June 7 at 8:17 PM

 

The anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination has long served as a stark reminder of all that was lost on that day in 1968, and of what American politics might have become had the New York senator survived that turbulent year. Wednesday’s 50th anniversary of the tragedy saw a deluge of tributes remembering a man both haunted by history and driven by the vision of an America redeemed. 

Esquire’s Charles Pierce this week describes Kennedy as a man uniquely capable of standing against the “foul gales” that were then rising in American ­politics. Pierce believes, as do I, that Kennedy’s election to the presidency could have healed a nation pushed to a breaking point by a cacophony of cultural tremors. Despite campaigning against the bleak backdrop of Vietnam, torched American cities, heightened racial ­tensions and political assassinations, RFK would have stitched together the shredded fabric of American culture and healed the soul of a country that remains, as Pierce writes, “perpetually ­redeemable.”

In a new book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham reminds readers of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s belief that for all of this country’s failings, the trend of American civilization is forever upward. That is an invaluable reminder during a time when the president proclaims his power unrestrained by Madisonian checks and balances, including ignoring federal subpoenas, killing Justice Department investigations, obstructing justice to protect his personal interests and even pardoning himself. The resident’s hapless lawyers seem to have convinced Donald Trump, like Richard M. Nixon before him, that “when the resident does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

But that twisted interpretation of presidential authority is dead wrong. Even in resident Trump’s America, no man is above the law.

It may come as little relief to those unsettled by the commander in chief’s autocratic impulses that this resident will likely face the same fate as Nixon if he acts upon his lawyers’ ignorant legal opinions. But perhaps take comfort from Meacham’s insight in “The Soul of America” that “to know what has come before is to be armed against despair.”

History does, in fact, show that a president cannot pardon himself. Days before Nixon resigned in 1974, the Justice Department issued an opinion that echoed centuries of American and English law by declaring, “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself.“

The history of Bill Clinton’s presidency also undermines recent claims from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani that Trump is legally entitled as resident to ignore a subpoena from Robert S. Mueller III. 

But do not take my word for it. Read instead Giuliani’s own words from 1998. “You gotta do it. I mean, you don’t have a choice,” the former U.S. attorney said of Clinton’s legal options if he received a federal subpoena to testify to Whitewater investigators.

Other claims of unchecked residential authority by Trump and his lawyers are so preposterous that they warrant little discussion here. What Time magazine describes as the White House’s “increasingly broad claims of presidential impunity” would likely be struck down in a unanimous opinion by the Supreme Court. And even Trump’s most timid quislings on Capitol Hill would never suggest (like Giuliani) that Trump could have murdered former FBI director James B. Comey and escape indictment as long as he was in office. Perhaps there are constitutional excesses that even Trump apologists will not yield to in their unending efforts to defend Trump.

On the same day Americans marked a half-century since Kennedy’s death, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) defended the FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign and told reporters that no man is above the law. Ryan’s performance may have met only the bare-minimum standard for political courage. But as one who still sees America as perpetually redeemable, forgive me for believing this president’s worst instincts will be checked, our country’s rule of law will be preserved and the upward arc of American civilization that FDR once spoke of will again be restored.

Read more from Joe Scarborough’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

A retrospective of Unreal, from the people who made it

Unreal turned 20 years old this month. The extraterrestrial first-person shooter spawned (and showcased) a game engine whose descendants still motor on today.

To commemorate all those screaming prisoners and innocent alien creatures killed at the hands of jumpy players, Brendan Caldwell got in touch with a handful of the original team and asked them to share their memories of making the first Skaarj conflict.

This is how Unreal was made, from the perspective of the programmers, designers, artists and musicians who were there.

The Return Of The Unbelievable Trump

Note to Racists: It's Not Racist To Call You "Racist"

Posted by Rude One

Let's get this out of the way early here so you can determine if you want to continue: If you voted for Donald Trump, you are racist. If you still support Donald Trump, you are racist. You are racist because you are supporting someone who is not just personally racist but who wants the nation to have policies and laws that are racist. Even if you are a rich person who is just a greedy asshole and voted for Trump for the tax cuts, you are still a racist.

I am making this distinction not because I want to excuse Trump's racism on a personal level, but as a way of trying to explain to racist Trump voters why they are racists even if, in their hearts, they believe they have no issue with people of other races. That part doesn't matter if you helped put someone in office who regularly says racist things and regularly, deliberately does things that target non-whites, including the Muslim travel ban, the savage immigration policies, and the attacks on African Americans who protest violence against them. You can't say, "I believe that everything Trump is doing is making America great again" and then follow that with "But I'm not racist" because that's plainly a lie.

Are we clear then? I am calling you "racist" because you're racist.

Earlier this week, when I implied that Trump voters are racist because Roseanne Barr showed how racist they are, someone tweeted at me that racism is "Taking a group of people and bunching them up in assumptions and accusations." I've gotten this quite a bit, that because I say Trump voters are racist, I'm engaging in a type of racism. But that leaves out a crucial aspect about racism. Can you guess? It's that it's based on race. It's not simply any random "group of people" who have some unifying belief. If you take race out of "racism," then you don't even have the word.

You wouldn't think that would have to be explained, but this is the way we live now.

After Barr said that Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett looked like an ape, several people responded by pointing out how Bill Maher and many others have said that Donald Trump looks like an orangutan. Of course, that's because of his hair and weird tan, both things he chooses. Believe it or not, he wasn't born orange.

Still, if you don't understand how comparing a black person to any kind of monkey taps into an entire history of racial bigotry and degradation, then you're too stupid to understand any of this and should probably spend your time jacking off on r/The_Donald. The same thing goes if you don't understand how Samantha Bee calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt" is different than what Barr said. It's not racism. And you have to struggle to make it sexist.

Calling you "racist" isn't political correctness run amok. It isn't an attempt to shut down debate. It isn't even really meant as an insult (even though, yes, it is one). It's a way of defining your beliefs. If you think that people should be treated differently because of the color of their skin or if you voted for leaders who believe that and act on it, then what else should you be called? I mean, "Republican" works, too, except that there are still one or two Republicans who aren't motivated by hatred of non-whites. So "racist" is just a shorthand way to describe an ideology. And, yeah, I do think racists are bad people because, well, they're racists. But that's not racism on my part.

You wanna call that prejudice? Fine. You're right. You've nailed me. I am prejudiced against racists. I don't think those people (yes, "those people") should have a voice in the public sphere. They should be treated as pariahs, mocked, and condemned until they are too ashamed to say those things out loud. You have free speech, sure, and the rest of us have the free speech to say that you are pathetic and have stopped the human race from advancing and that you should be accountable for the horrible things you say and do. Because, see, you're a racist.

The other thing that Trump's racists like to say is "What about Bill Clinton?" Or, as my tweeter accused, "You're putting people in a group and saying they all act/think the same? You're are a Democrat, so since Bill Clinton was as well, then you're a womanizing weasel. See how ridiculous that is?" Yeah, it is ridiculous, but only because of how false it is to even begin to equate the two. See, it's not just about the failings of two flawed men.

Calling out Trump and his supporters for racism is different than supporting Bill Clinton, who you can accuse of all kinds of things in his personal life but whose policies did not reflect whatever level of repugnant you think Clinton is. You might think Clinton is a rapist, but he did not try to pass laws to make it easier for rapists to rape nor did he pardon rapists. You might think Clinton was a serial sexual harasser, but he never tried to get legislation passed that would legalize sexual harassment. I'm not excusing Clinton. I was very clear back in the 1990s that Clinton should have resigned or temporarily stepped aside during the Lewinsky saga because of the massive distraction that it was and that fooling around with an intern was pretty fucked up.

But here is the difference, and it's subtle, so see if you can follow along:

When Donald Trump says or does something racist, you cheer. When he says, "Build the wall," you chant it. When he calls immigrants "animals," you scream your approval. When he called for a "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," you shouted how much you love him. And when he issues executive orders that break up immigrant families or threatens to deport DACA recipients or calls places "shitholes," you say he's just doing what you elected him to do. That's because you're racist.

On the left, we never cheered for Bill Clinton's affairs or alleged harassment. At worst, we said it was a personal issue between him and Hillary. At best, we condemned him. If I recall, my exact quote in 1998 was "If you're gonna be president, keep your dick out of it." So, no, it's not comparable. Not even vaguely.

My advice, racists? Do like all of the overt racists are doing and own that shit. Or, if you don't want to be called "racist," if being called a "racist" makes you feel bad or ashamed, then stop being racist. And that would mean no longer supporting Donald Trump.

But you won't do that because you're a racist and you're too fucking dumb to get out of the pit of shit you love wallowing around in.