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A Florida Porn Company Is Apparently Looking for 'Trump Honeys'

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A company billing itself as agents for "adult websites and content producers" has put out a casting call for "Trump Honeys'"—women who will allegedly make money by wearing MAGA apparel at unspecified public events.

The advertisement for Trump Honeys, which was making the rounds online on Thursday, comes from the website of something called Professional Talent Services Group, which appears to be mainly interested in recruiting women to work in the adult entertainment industry, a.k.a. porn. The website is registered to a home address in Port Richey, Florida, but it's unclear who owns it. The company is not registered with the state's Division of Corporations, and a man who lives at the residence according to public records said over Facebook messenger that he was not affiliated with the business. When asked if he knew it was registered to his home, he stopped responding. (The man's social media profile indicated he was a Trump supporter.)

According to the want ad, applicants stand to make about $300 for approximately five hours of work. Some of the jobs will require partial nudity, but it was unclear what or where these gigs would be—it doesn't seem as if there is any connection whatsoever to the Trump administration or Donald Trump's business.

Interested parties are encouraged to "include a photo or two of [themselves] in [a] #MAGA hat, Trump shirt, American flag themed swimsuit, etc." According to an FAQ on the site, anyone skeptical about participating is free to meet with a rep in person to have any and all questions answered.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.


The Healthiest Way to Channel Your Trump Rage

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There's a great line in The Outlaw Josey Wales when Clint Eastwood tells his about-to-be-besieged friends that the only way to save themselves is to get "plumb mad-dog mean."

I'm going to guess most of you reading this aren't especially mean in real life. But if you're like me, and you're watching the countdown to inauguration with more dread for our future than you've ever felt in your life, you're probably feeling pretty fucking bad.

I could barely sleep for the first few nights after the election. I'd start to doze off, and then I'd remember that the president-elect promised to take away my family's health insurance as his first order of business. And, worse, a lot of people I know and love voted for him in hopes he'd do exactly that.

The days haven't been much better than the nights, with constant reminders of the new president's conflicts of interest; his unprecedented alliance with the president of Russia, whose hackers data-raped the Democratic Party; and his cabinet appointees who oppose the very existence of the agencies he wants them to run.

I knew I was in bad place. A life of simmering rage doesn't help me, and it certainly doesn't stop him. So I turned to an expert for advice.

Read more on Tonic

How Hard Is It to Change a Mind?

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The question of how to change a mind—or get someone to hop the political fence—has likely never been more important, or discussed more frequently, than in today's age. Last year, despite a constant series of bombshells about Donald Trump's evasion of taxes, allegations of sexual assault, racism and xenophobia, and his ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the billionaire reality star was—with stunning support—elected to highest office in the world, based almost entirely on egregious lies, political theatrics, and unhinged emotion.

Almost 400 years earlier, renowned English philosopher Francis Bacon published one of his most notable pieces of work— Novum Organum. Within it, Bacon made a statement that, when viewed through the correct lens, reflects the modern climate of political debate quite perfectly.

"Once a human intellect has adopted an opinion (either as something it likes or as something generally accepted), it draws everything else in to confirm and support it," Bacon wrote, describing the phenomena now widely described as "confirmation bias" or "the backfire effect."

"Even if there are more and stronger instances against it than there are in its favor, the intellect either overlooks these or treats them as negligible or does some line-drawing that lets it shift them out of the way and reject them."  

Imaging results from Kaplan's study show high activity in regions of the brain associated with emotion and identity when participants were challenged on political belief.

Since then, scientists have dedicated a lot of time to studying human psychology, and the way in which people accept convenient lies. Last month, a paper published in Scientific Reports detailed the way in which humans, when challenged with facts that dispute their own conceptions of the truth, actually become more entrenched in their political belief—not less.

The study tested participants in two ways: first, it presented statements to the participants that were devoid of politics. "Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb," for example, was one such statement. For the most part, participants agreed—citing the history they were taught in school and the commonly-held belief that Edison really did create the light bulb.

The researches presented seven more statements similar to this, and then presented evidence that contradicted each statement.

"Edison might have patented the lightbulb, but there were earlier examples of others who had created forms of lighting via electricity long before Edison made the incandescent," Jonas Kaplan, lead author of the study, told me, describing an example of conflicting evidence presented to the participants. When presented with this evidence— which Kaplan notes is actually untrue and purposely misleading—most participants reported to have changed their belief that Edison was the principal inventor of the light bulb.

"In some way, we were able to convince them of complete lies," Kaplan told me. "We found that [the participants] almost always saw the other side as a revelation, and not an insult to their intelligence."

The second portion of the study involved the same process of eight statements and eight conflicting arguments—except, this time, the statements were political.

"The US should reduce its military spending"—just one example Kaplan described—set off a reactionary response in subjects, which were recorded via MRI scans of the participants' brains.

"With the political portion of the study, we saw lots of activity in the amygdala and insular cortex. These are the parts of brain heavily associated with emotion, feelings, and ego," Kaplan says. "Identity is inherently political, so when people feel like their identity is being attacked or challenged, they seize up."

Data from the Kaplan's study.

All of the political statements, Kaplan says, were crafted to emotionally incite liberal-minded participants. The researchers (including popular left-wing author and journalist Sam Harris, and Kaplan's colleague Sarah Gimbel) purposely recruited from the Los Angeles area, and screened participants for left-leaning beliefs via self-reported opinion tests.

"I would really like to see what the response would be on the conservative side of the spectrum—just for the sake of it—but the fundamental problem here, I imagine at least, would still be the same."  

Obviously, this can be problematic for any politician or political movement trying to make progress (or at least find some common ground with their opponent). Prime example: during both of Barack Obama's terms as president, the Republicans were chastised for creating a self-induced gridlock of legislative sessions through excessive walkouts and overuse of filibusters. In fact, there was such little compromise in the last eight years that the 112th and the 113th congresses have been labelled the two least productive congressional assignments in the history of the United States.

As Mark Longabaugh (formerly chief strategist for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign) tells me, the modern state of political debate is much like a "cage match of emotions." Policy, once a primary weapon in the ring, is now merely a warm-up for the real siege weapons to win hearts and minds—personality, controversy, and, as Sanders learned in his uphill battle against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, name recognition.

Longabaugh notes that, while Sanders movement ultimately shaped much of the Democratic Party's new platform, many Democrat voters simply could not convince themselves that anyone but Clinton was the candidate for the job. She was, as Longabaugh puts it, the "safe and sure" bet to many, despite the fact that Sanders brought both the progressive policy and fiery prose that could combat Trump's twisted populism.

"If you think about the two candidates who had the biggest impact on their respect parties last election, it was Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. They both had a narrative to tell, and that's the one thing that [Clinton] ultimately failed to tap into," Longabaugh says.

"When Bernie first announced his run, media across the country labelled him as a joke—completely uninspiring. What in fact happened was the opposite. Mr. Sanders had a message—that the working, middle class of his country was suffering and that economic inequality was, in many ways, at the heart of a lot of [American] problems...[Trump], as much as I disagree with him on many things, retained that core economic narrative. He told people there was a problem very simply, and stuck to a vague argument that he would fix it."

Ultimately, however, Longabaugh says that the future of politics is not about changing minds. Rather, it's about getting those who are undecided to join the right side of history in the first place. In context of the election, he points to swing voters—those who either didn't vote, or voted third-party—as the real focus for political campaigns going forward.

A somewhat dreary statement in some ways—an argument that old dogs can't be taught new tricks, and established conservative or liberal voters can't be simply moved from party lines but throwing conventional issues at them. Still, Longabaugh doesn't see it that way. He's actually quite optimistic.

"We don't need to change minds," he tells me, noting the spike in millennials who turned out for Sanders during the primaries as a source of hope for the future. "The real tragedy here isn't that we can't convince opponents to join our side. That has never, and will never be, the ideal political environment. We need opposing minds to find compromise, and we need young people to believe that can happen."

Lead illustration by Jane Kim.

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.


Revisiting George Saunders's Great, Forgotten Children's Book

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In a Summer 2016 New Yorker piece, fiction writer George Saunders reported on Trump rallies. After stops in American cities like Fountain Hills, Arizona and Eau Claire and Rothschild, Wisconsin, Saunders wrote that what he found in common in the people he met there was what he had come to think of as "usurpation anxiety syndrome—the feeling that one is, or is about to be, scooped, overrun, or taken advantage of by some Other with questionable intentions."

This is one sort of character that Saunders has written about for more than 20 years—sometimes filleting them with dark absurdist humor, and more recently extending some precarious empathy. These individuals obsess less about keeping up than they do about falling behind. In his recent short story collection, Tenth of December, a father, comparing himself to the richer people in town, writes in his journal "Lord, give us more. Give us enough." In the novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, Saunders writes, "If we have a National Virtue, it is that we are generous. If we have a National Defect, it is that we are too generous."

In anticipation of Saunders's first-ever novel, Lincoln in the Bardo—out on February 14—now is a good time to reconsider one of the most haunting stories Saunders ever wrote about the anxiously self-interested. The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, a children's book, is an often-overlooked item in Saunders's catalog. Illustrated by Lane Smith (of The Stinky Cheese Man and The Very True Story of the Three Little Pigs), The Gappers of Frip tells the melancholy story of a seaside village that contains three struggling families: the Romos, the Ronsens, and a little girl and her father.

The village of Frip is plagued by gappers: orange, softball-sized creatures that latch onto goats and screech with glee. But the goats can't make milk when there's too much screeching, so every few hours, the children of Frip pick the gappers off the goats, load them into a bag, and return them to the sea.

Each family has its struggles and peculiarities, but each family gets by. But when the gappers begin to disproportionately target certain goats—leaving others unbothered—the health of the community comes under dangerous strain. Exhausted from trying to save their goats, the little girl goes to her father late in the night and says, "I can't keep up. Our goats are dying."

She sends a letter ("The gappers are too much for me. They're killing our goats. Please help, I beg you.") and visits the Romos and Ronsens. They all indignantly refuse her. "I believe we make our own luck in this world," one of the Ronsens says, "I believe that when my yard suddenly is free of gappers, why, that is because of something good I have done."

This ethos is a close representation of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism. The Atlas Society, an organization dedicated to promoting objectivist ideas, writes, "Rand dramatized her ideal man, the producer who lives by his own effort and does not give or receive the undeserved." In Rand's mind, people earn what they merit—without exception.

"In college, I was a budding Republican, an Ayn Rand acolyte," Saunders wrote in his piece on Trump supporters. "I'd been a bad student in high school and now, in engineering school, felt (and was) academically outgunned... I conjured up a set of hazy villains, who were, I can see now, externalized manifestations, imaginary versions of those who were leaving me behind; i.e., my better-prepared, more sophisticated fellow-students. They were, yes, smarter and sharper than I was…but I was . . . what was I? Uh, tougher, more resilient, more able to get down and dirty as needed. I distinctly remember the feeling of casting about for some world view in which my shortfall somehow constituted a hidden noble advantage."

Saunders successfully—and almost respectfully—channels his tragically flawed characters because he's been one of them. With dark humor, Saunders knows how to help readers face up to their self-importance, too. "If you want to explore a political idea in the highest possible way," Saunders says in an interview, "you embody it in the personal because that's something that no one can deny." The tragic humor of Saunders's storytelling stems from his ability to present us with characters we recognize in our own selfish and damaged selves.

More recently, Saunders's storytelling has aspired toward further compassion. Saunders says that he's been married for 25 years and has great kids. He says that he's started wondering if there was a way to get that balance more into the stories—"that things could go wrong, but also things could go right, and when they do, the human activity that makes that possible." Almost 20 years ago with a strange children's book, Saunders was already beginning to reveal his profound capacity to do that.

In The Gappers of Frip, the "good luck" and "hard work" of the Romos and the Ronsens runs out. The gappers target the Romos first. "We must all accept our lot in life," Carol Ronsen says to her desperate neighbor. Then the gappers come for the Ronsens. "Accept your lot in life! Ha ha! You snoots. Let's see how you like it," Bea Romo responds.

Meanwhile, the little girl sells her goats and—despite significant discouragement—learns to fish. She catches a lot of them. First she enjoys comparing her great triumph to her neighbors' dark circumstances, but soon she finds "that it was not all that much fun being the sort of person who eats a big dinner in a warm house while others shiver on their roofs in the dark." She tells her father that they'll be having company.

Many great children's books are both dark and charming, and The Gappers of Frip is just that. It asks questions about how people can help each other—or even just face each other—under the threat of poverty, hunger, or being cheated. But like a lot of great children's books—and like Saunders's more recently tender and hopeful fiction—despite the darkness, the characters find a way to endure.

The Gappers of Frip captures much of what's so beautifully heartbreaking about Saunders's fiction. It acknowledges the profound and disappointing ways we have of failing each other—of doing the selfish thing, of letting each other down. It embodies and confronts that impulse, and plays it out to its bleak end. Then it believes maybe we can try again.

Follow Nathan Scott McNamara on Twitter.

I Ate a Chicago Restaurant's Five-Course Dinner Inspired by Salvador Dalí Paintings

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Before Salvador Dalí and his deranged cookbook entered my life, I had never eaten a cricket. I had never eaten an ant. I led a humble, largely vegetarian life—chickpeas, avocados, fried eggs, and so on. Then I got invited to a $125-a-plate dinner at the Chicago restaurant Ruxbin—a dinner inspired by the second printing of Dalí's 1973 cookbook, Les Dîners de Gala—and everything changed.

Dalí's cookbook is celebrated for its overwhelming Dalí-ness. The original print run was tiny, and the copies that survive today are wildly expensive, but this winter, Taschen re-released the book in all its glory. It begins with a stern warning to "calorie counters," cautioning that the recipes that follow are "far too impertinent" for their ascetic palates. (For example, his twist on avocado toast involves mashed lamb brains.) There's an entire chapter on aphrodisiacs, a dessert called "Toffee with Pine Cones," and tons of original illustrations, including one where Joan of Arc bleeds profusely atop of a tower of crayfish. In honor of the re-release, Ruxbin, a restaurant known for bending culinary rules in its tiny 32-seat dining room,decided to throw a dinner inspired by the cookbook.

Gastronomy—much like visual art—can be profoundly alienating if you don't have a certain taste. When it comes to food, I certainly don't. Heading to the dinner, which would be served at a communal table, I had the feeling of someone on their way to a party of strangers who'd all grown up together. That feeling only increased when I sat down to the table at Ruxbin, where each course was based off a painting of Dalí's. Our table was decorated with roses and frozen fish heads, and the waitresses wore feathers and pom-poms. When a pork belly amuse bouche materialized, topped off with a couple of crunchy weaver ants (a famous symbol of decay in Dalí's work), I heard people discussing the distinctive "pop" that an ant's abdomen makes in one's mouth as you bite into it. It was not unlike standing in front of a sculpture and listening to people discuss references and techniques that you'd never be able to name yourself. I swallowed my ant whole.

Beet rose, black sesame dirt, foie gras torchon, brioche, winter lettuce, aerated persimmon, hazelnut, feta, endive. Inspired by "Rose Meditative."

The first course—inspired by the painting "Rose Meditative," in which a gigantic rose floats against the sky—included a rose, shaped from petals of beet, floating on a cloud of foie gras. To the chef, Edward Kim, the foie gras mirrored the painting in that it came from an animal who inhabited both the land and the air.

Fois gras is possibly the most controversial dish there is. Controversy is expected in the art world, but when it shows up on our plates, we have to confront it in a way that's far more literal. Do we put it in our mouth? Do we not?

Of course, there's a beauty to the grotesque that is undeniable. I believe Chef Kim knows this, which is why he presented his diners with this carnal, almost feral array of animals in such lovingly constructed displays. Later, he would serve a lamb saddle, which was a reference to Dalí's painting "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)," and which Chef Kim said connected the red meat, strife, and war.

Egg a la coque sabayon, squid ink noodles, sea urchin, walnut miso, radish, and venison tataki. Inspired by "The Accommodations of Desire."

The second course was laid out on gray stones, mimicking the painting "The Accommodations of Desire"—a bowl of squid ink pasta topped with a sea urchin and bulbous basil seeds that were inspired by the swarming ants; another bowl holding pink venison crowned with walnut miso; an eggshell cupping a frothy egg custard, seasoned with the juice of pickled mussels.

It was a luxurious, flavorful combination, but the taste that stood out to me the most was the urchin, which tasted exactly like the ocean. Dalí supposedly loved sea urchins, and would sit down and eat 30 at a time, plucking the meat from the shells.

Pan-seared red snapper and frog leg, taro root, coconut milk curry, oyster, pomegranate, and tiger sauce. Inspired by "Dream caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening."

Bodies, in the third course, were represented just as Dalí liked to represent them: as something warped, outlandish, and not-right. Each plate held a one-legged creature whose leg was a perfect miniature of a human one, like an edible Barbie limb. One had been formed by a piece of red snapper melded to the leg of a frog using the enzyme transglutaminase—which chefs call "meat glue"—to bind the animal proteins together. The result was a new, lopsided being, like something that evolution left behind. The inspiration for the dish was the painting "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening," in which a fish vomits forth a tiger which vomits forth another tiger which vomits forth a bayonet. "A seafood Turducken," my dinner companion remarked.

There was something that looked like a french fry perched atop the Frankensteinian fish, but it turned out to be the red snapper's deep-fried spine, removed from its body and placed outside of it.

Back in the 1980s, Roland Barthes declared that gastronomy was "a kind of ethnographic ceremony by which man celebrates his own power, his freedom to burn his energies 'for nothing.'" As inspiring as molecular gastronomy and haute cuisine can be, these are arts that requires a lot of money, and a lot of knowledge to appreciate them. To recognize a deep-fried spine as a delicacy requires a certain amount of in-the-know-ness. Plus, as the writer Michel Delville pointed out, this sort of culture implies an audience that is already full, and can thus appreciate their meal on a conceptual level. Fine dining is not for those who are starving. Spines don't fill you up.

But the use of the spine comes from a humble tradition: using every last scrap of the creature. There's a joy, as a cook, in using every part of the animal," Kim told us. "Speaking of the surreal, in dining and food we remove ourselves very much from the fact that this was a living being. It always boggles my mind when people ask for the whole fish but then say, 'Can you remove the head?'"

Just then, I heard a tell-tale crunch. I didn't even have to turn my head to know what had happened.

"You just ate the spine," I whispered to my friend.

"Sorry," she responded. "I'll try to be less audible."

Sunflower butter truffle cake, concord grape, celery, fennel, honey, and crickets. Inspired by "The Persistence of Memory."

The last course, our dessert, was inspired by Dalí's most famous painting, "The Persistence of Memory." The painting is a nostalgic, drippy, horrible thing, but the dessert, which was also meant to conjure up nostalgia, was far simpler: a take on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"There are very few things that are more childlike in the US than a PB&J taken to school," said Kim. "We wanted to do something that was very reminiscent of those flavors but acknowledged that our palates have matured." He replaced the peanut butter with sunflower butter and topped the sandwich off with a tiny segment of ants-on-a-log, but with the "ants" represented by crickets instead of raisins. The crickets were meant to invoke the feeling of being a child, of opening your lunchbox, and of realizing that—oh, gross!—ants had invaded. "Every kid has a similar memory," said Kim. I thought about the time my brother ate a live cicada on a dare. The persistence of memory is a tricky thing. Not wanting to be the one who wouldn't try a cricket, I gulped one down.

In his memoirs, Dalí wrote, "I know exactly, ferociously, what I want to eat!" For him, nothing was off limits, "whether it be the sublime viscosities of a fish-eye, the slithery cerebellum of a bird, the spermatozoal marrow of a bone or the soft and swampy opulence of an oyster." Unlike the famed Surrealist, much is off limits for me—I'm too squeamish to even eat the insides of most creatures. But after my Dalí-inspired dining experience, it strikes me that food can rise to the level of art and that artists can lose themselves in a plate of sublime food. Both can engage in a dialogue about life and death and experimentation—the things that disgust us, and the things that are important enough to save.

PAC Pro League

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VICE Sports explains the new alternative professional league for football players straight out of high school that opt out of college play.

Trump’s Labor Secretary Could Be a Disaster for Restaurant Workers

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Of all the nominees for cabinet positions in Donald Trump's White House, the one that may have the most direct and immediate impact on restaurant and food industry workers is Andy Puzder, the current pick for United States Secretary of Labor.

Although CNN recently reported that the polarizing fast-food executive—currently the CEO of CKE restaurants, the parent company of Carl's Jr., Hardee's, and the Green Burrito and Red Burrito brands—may be having "second thoughts" about the appointment, Puzder tweeted that he is looking forward to his confirmation hearing, which is likely to take place next month.

Regardless of who is ultimately confirmed for the position, the next labor secretary's policies could greatly affect roughly 14.4 million American restaurant workers, nearly four million of whom work in the fast food sector. Puzder's nomination, however, has many food policy and labor experts deeply worried. They say his history of opposition to minimum wage, overtime, and other pro-worker regulations portends a new era of strife for low-income workers—and may even lead to the replacement of workers who speak out with machines.

Puzder expressed his antipathy to minimum wage in a 2014 op-ed for The Wall St. Journal, where he argued that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25—as the Obama administration advocated at the time—would drive business owners to "cut jobs or rely more on technology." Using his own business as a case model, Puzder offered a maxim that he would repeat time and time again: If the government regulates the food industry too heavily, businesses will automate the workers right out of their jobs. In the WSJ op-ed, Puzder said that if the minimum wage was raised, fast-food franchisees would resort to automated ordering systems, as were being tested at "almost every restaurant chain in the country from Applebee's to McDonald's."

Read more on MUNCHIES

Read Obama's Thank You Note to America

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Well, the day is here—Thursday marks President Obama's final day in office before passing the keys to the White House (and the country) off to Donald Trump.

But before he and his family leave 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Obama wrote a few parting words directly to the American people on the White House website. The letter echoes some of the same sentiments he carried through his final farewell address earlier this month, reiterating the importance of upholding democratic ideals.

"And when the arc of progress seems slow, remember: America is not the project of any one person," Obama writes. "The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word 'We.'"

It sort of reads like a dad writing to his kid before they head off to college for the next four years or something, if that college was Trump University where students get swindled out of all their money. Regardless, it quells some of the uncertainty many people may feel about what lies ahead and offers reassurance that he'll be "right there with you every step of the way."

Thanks, Obama.


Game Developers Speak Up in the Face of Obamacare Repeal

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Sam Coster never worried about his health. About to finish college, the young and athletic 20-year-old had no reason to consider insurance plans and market exchanges. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (more commonly referred to as "Obamacare," in both negative and positive lights), health insurance concerns remained sidelined, the law allowing him to stay on his parent's insurance plan until the age of 26.

At the age of 23, after founding his own game development studio, Butterscotch Shenanigans, with his two brothers, Coster was diagnosed with Stage Four B Lymphoma, an advanced strain of cancer that begins in a single lymph node and eventually extends to other organs.

"They didn't actually know how I was still alive when I got into the hospital," Coster says. "They thought I was going to be dead within two weeks if I didn't start getting treatment."

For several years, Coster was able to curtail the nearly insurmountable costs of his medical treatments through his parent's insurance, and then later a plan acquired through the ACA's health insurance exchange portal. Six rounds of chemo appeared to eradicate the cancer by the summer of 2014.

Six months later, Coster discovered a tumor in his left chest wall while showering and was re-diagnosed. Forced to enter multiple intensive rounds of "salvage chemotherapy," BEAM chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, and four weeks of being quarantined inside a hospital with skyrocketing fevers and no immune system, Coster finally found some semblance of resolution.

Altogether, Coster's bill cost over $1,500,000. But through the ACA, Coster paid roughly $96 a month, with just a $2,500 out of pocket maximum.

Read more on Waypoint

A Look Back at the Memes of the Obama Administration

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In 1976, Richard Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene, coined the term "meme." 40 years later, Donald Trump, a living meme, won a presidential election. Between these two watershed events, Barack Obama enjoyed the honor of being the first American president to serve the entirety of his term in an era both drowning in and shaped by internet memes.

Sure, some clips of George W. Bush awkwardly dancing in Africa or getting a shoe chucked at him enjoyed The Daily Show virality and made their way to the image flash sites of the proto-internet, but the tech and infrastructure was not yet in place to give every grandparent in the world the power to wield and consume dank memes.

While the rest of the journalistic world looks back on Obamas myriad accomplishments, we thought we'd give the memes he inspired their own retrospective.

BROCK OBAMA


After a 200-plus year history of electing white dude presidents with super white dude names, it's still a marvel that the American public (temporarily) swallowed its fear of foreign-sounding stuff and elected a guy named Barack Hussein Obama.

People came to familiarize themselves with this new political player's name in a number of ways. Some fear-mongered about the non-Anglican sound of it, while others noted that "Barack" sounds a lot like "Brock," a gym trainer from Pokémon.

As these were simpler times, the apolitical "Brock Obama" mashup lived out its short existence as some YTMND videos, Facebook pages, and many crude photoshops of the cartoon's head on the human's body.

CURSING OBAMA

Before he was president, Barack Obama was an accomplished author, his memoirs, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope were both New York Times bestsellers. While these literary efforts earned him critical praise and accolades (even Grammys), the best thing to come of them was undoubtedly the author-read audiobooks, wherein we get to hear the soon-to-be POTUS say very un-presidential things about "sorry-ass motherfuckers," "ignorant motherfuckers," and people who need to buy their "own damn fries."

As Obama ascended into his role as leader of the free world, both internet pranksters and morning zoo DJs alike enjoyed the comedy goldmine offered by soundboards where the new Commander in Chief said naughty words in his then-already-iconic cadence.

HOPE POSTER

Google Image Search


Shepard Fairey, the guy who turned a close up of Andre the Giant's face into a street art and clothing brand, joined the ranks of all-time great propaganda poster artists like James Montgomery Flagg with his unofficial "HOPE" poster for the 2008 Obama campaign.

With a simple "word + face" format, the poster lent itself to easy parody and similar tri-colored images of John McCain, The Joker, and other pop culture figures soon flooded the internet. Paste Magazine even launched a (now-defunct) Obamicon.Me photo generator in early 2009. A testament to the staying power of the meme, a number of "GROPE" posters surfaced in the style of the original in the wake of Donald Trump's infamous Access Hollywood video.

ZOMBIE MCCAIN


At the end of the third debate of the 2008 Presidential campaign, the moderator told Senator McCain that he was exiting the stage in the wrong direction. Channeling the bit of Michael Scott awkwardness we each have inside us, McCain chose to diffuse the situation by making a goofy "bleh" face and turning around. Unfortunately for McCain, Reuters photographer Jim Bourg captured the moment as a highly exploitable image of the aged Senator looking like a zombie chasing quarry.

INTERRUPTING BILL CLINTON


In 2010, photographer Drew Angerer captured a surprise visit from former President Clinton at a press briefing on a tax bill. The photo shows an exasperated-looking Obama juxtaposed with a lively, flamboyant Clinton. Coupled with Clinton's scandalous history, the photo sets up Obama as the straight man foil to Clinton's sex jokes and shenanigans, a motif that would be repeated years later with Biden-centric memes.

"NOT BAD" FACE


During a 2011 visit to Buckingham Palace, Barack and Michelle were photographed making silly faces that seemed to signify begrudging approval of something. Their "not bad" faces were summarily vectorized and added to the growing "rage face" catalog of the era.

During his 2012 Reddit AMA, Obama completed this meme's life cycle with a heavy wink and nod as he described his experience with the website as "NOT BAD!"

UPVOTE OBAMA

Taken at an Irish pub in Washington D.C., this photo of Obama giving thumbs up while holding a beer was used to signify a generous doling out of internet points or approval, the most common phrase associated with it being "Fuck it, have an upvote."

Despite its similarity to the "not bad" Obama meme, Upvote Obama existed more as an image macro outside of the dwindling-in-popularity rage comic format.

CELL PHONE OBAMA


At the tail end of the 2012 Presidential election, an AP photographer caught yet another "oh, exploitable" pic of Obama holding a phone with a smug look on his face. The expression fit perfectly with the pixelated sunglasses "deal with it" meme that had been making the rounds at the time and, thus, a new Obama meme was born.

Ironically, according to journalist Devon Dwyer, who was there for the shot, this "smug" face was actually the result of Obama dialing a wrong number while fundraising.

"THANKS, OBAMA!"

Probably the richest life cycle of any meme on this list, "Thanks, Obama" started as a sarcastic mockery of right-wingers who sought to blame all their woes on the Obama administration, even irksome everyday frustrations.

"Thanks, Obama" initially rose to prominence at the same time as over-exaggerated infomercials where people failed at simple tasks like moving plates of food or combing their hair. Pairing a "thanks, Obama" with a gif of a man knocking over a comically large bowl of chips perfectly encapsulated just how far certain groups were willing to go to vilify the President.

Obama himself even got in on the scapegoating in a very meta video (above) wherein a cookie he's eating is too large to be dunked in a glass of milk.

Occasionally, during dips in his popularity, the meme would be used to express actual disapproval. But towards the end of his second term, as people reflected on the accomplishments of his administration, particularly in instances of LGBTQ rights or healthcare, the meme took on its final form as a sincere expression of gratitude.

FUCCBOI OBAMA

In 2015, a doctored photo of Obama with a "fuccboi" haircut surfaced with a caption indicating that "nah, me and Michelle don't talk no more." Soon after, Obamas with Drake-esque beards, dreadlocks, and other looks made the rounds on social media.

This fuccboi persona was given a second wind when a 2016 photo surfaced of Obama in very fashionable athleisure, replete with "dad hat," snapped at Fort McNair in front of a giant "69" building number. With real life confirmation of what was once a stream of Photoshop jokes, the internet was once again set ablaze with quips about the Commander in Chief looking like the kind of guy who would ghost a girl after a one-night-stand.

BIDEN BRO


The Obama Presidency ended with a fairly wholesome and over-covered meme template of the President once again playing straight man while the VP made crude jokes or set up pranks at the expense of President-elect Trump.

Borrowing from the real life bromance between Joe and Barack that had the two awarding each other friendship bracelets and Presidential Medals of Freedom, this meme's call-and-response format, coupled with the variety of photos of its two subjects, also signified a maturation of internet memes as a whole, away from Impact font over one specific photo and towards a more fluid, free-form, genre-bending comedy landscape.

Why I Rejected President Obama's Clemency Offer

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For many of America's prisoners, applying for presidential clemency has seemed a little like buying a lottery ticket. Tens of thousands of federal inmates, most of them nonviolent drug offenders, have appealed to President Obama for a commutation of their sentences; so far, the president has granted 1,715 of those petitions—more than any other president in history. Still, he's rejected many thousands more.

Arnold Ray Jones was one of the lucky ones. A federal inmate from Texas serving 19.5 years for selling cocaine, Jones received a commutation this past August.

But Jones decided to turned the president down and serve out the remainder of his sentence. He's the only inmate to have rejected clemency from Obama.

Jones's surprising rejection made headlines last year, though he did not speak to the press at the time. In a recent letter to and phone interview with VICE, Jones said he wanted to explain his decision as Obama was leaving office.

Jones intended the rejection as a "silent protest" of the President's clemency policies—the fact that thousands of nonviolent inmates are being rejected for commutations, and that some of those who win the clemency lottery get breaks, but with "strings attached."

"President Obama is handing out crumbs," Jones told me. "It's not just about me. I would ask President Obama to sign each of the clemency petitions for nonviolent inmates, and let them go home to their families, so they can be productive and change themselves from the outside in."

In November 2002, Jones, a restaurant owner in Waco, Texas, was convicted of selling less than 50 grams of crack cocaine. Thanks to strict sentencing laws in place at the time, he was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for a crime that included no violence.

Congress passed a law in 2010 that reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. If Jones were convicted of the same crime today, he would receive a much shorter sentence. But the new law wasn't retroactive, which helped compel Obama to commute the sentences of more federal inmates.

On the morning of August 3, 2016, Jones finallygot the news he had been waiting for. The warden of his prison called him into his office and told him he had received a commutation. Jones was filled with joy. "I thought I was going home soon," he said. "I called my family right away."

Then, two days later, he got a message through the federal prison email service from the US Pardon Attorney's office. The email explained that Obama had commuted his sentence to expire on August 3, 2018, and that the commutation was contingent on him completing a drug treatment program.

The program, called RDAP—Residential Drug Awareness Program—is an intense, months-long process. Jones said he had originally applied to participate in 2014 when he was at his previous prison, but was denied because he wasn't using drugs prior to his arrest. "They make people jump through additional hoops," he said.

Taking into account good behavior time, Jones was set to be released—even without a commutation—in April 2019. "I did the math and quickly realized that by the time I completed the [program], the clemency would only take a total of eight months off of my sentence," he wrote me. In the context of a nearly 20-year sentence, the man decided, that wasn't worth it. So Jones told the President (or at least his pardon officials), "No, thanks."

Several officials at the prison urged him to take the commutation. "They were saying I need to take what the president is giving me and be thankful, but I refused," Jones said. "I've already served the majority of a far overreaching and disproportionate sentence." He conceded his family was "heartbroken" when he told them he wasn't coming home immediately, as they initially believed he would.

Check out James Burns's solitary confinement project at VICE.

P.S. Ruckman, a professor at Rock Valley College in Illinois who studies presidential clemencies, told VICE that Jones is the only inmate he knows of who has rejected clemency from Obama. "It's very unusual," Ruckman said, nothing that people have turned down clemencies under past presidents.

In recent months, Obama has granted more commutations with conditions, requiring inmates to complete a drug program or serve more prison time—or both—before being released. "For some, the President believes that the applicant's successful re-entry will be aided with additional drug treatment," Neil Eggleston, the counsel to the President, wrote in a blog post last year.

Criminal justice activists suspect clemency grants will dry up under the Trump administration, as the president-elect criticized Obama's clemencies at a rally last year. "Some of these people are bad dudes," he told supporters in Florida. "These are people out walking the streets. Sleep tight, folks."

But Jones is hopeful that Trump will work to fix the system, in part by granting more commutations to nonviolent offenders. If he could have voted in November, Jones would have voted for Trump, he said.

"From my perspective, he's an individual who has shaken up the status quo," Jones explained. "He's looking at the problems people have, the red tape that the government has. The criminal justice system is a swamp he needs to drain—no government program is more wasteful."

Jones suggested that Trump meet with Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared, who served time in federal prison for tax evasion, false statements to the feds, and witness tampering.

Meanwhile, with a little more than two years left in his sentence, Jones, now 50, is staying upbeat.

"I am thankful to President Obama for the clemency I received," he wrote VICE. "I'm disappointed by the idea of granting clemencies with strings attached… I'm praying that Trump will look at this system and clean it up."

Follow Casey Tolan on Twitter.

Judging Obama's Progressive, Flawed, Conflicting Legacy

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Years from now, Americans will know how they're supposed to feel about Barack Obama. Time has a way of flattening the dimensions of a presidency, of creating a conventional narrative: Jimmy Carter was a weak-willed failure, Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union, Abraham Lincoln and FDR saved America at times of crisis. Arguments over Obama's legacy might be academic, but they'll also be important—will his administration represent a high-water mark for sensible, center-left government that liberals yearn to return to, or a symbol for what doesn't work?

It goes without saying that conservatives hate Obama for expanding the regulatory state, allegedly being insufficiently rah-rah in his patriotism, and forcing bakers to create wedding cakes for gay couples. But for those on the left, Obama is a more complex subject—a president who left behind a trail of compromises, half measures, and outright failures that are difficult to excuse.

When he first ran for president in 2008, Obama emerged as the progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton. He was opposed to the Iraq War—which Clinton voted for—back in 2002, when that was actually a bold stance. As a candidate, his healthcare plan called for allowing anyone to buy insurance straight from the government, a.k.a. the "public option." He talked about aggressively fighting climate change, and pledged to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. And of course just the idea of a black man being elected president was a progressive dream—not a signal that racism was over, just an important sign that America was perhaps edging toward equality.

No one expects a politician to deliver on every promise he or she made in the heat of a campaign. And Obama, who for most of his terms faced a Republican Congress that had no interest in compromising on major issues, achieved results that liberals can hold up as examples of real progress. The Affordable Care Act altered the landscape of healthcare in this country, saving tens of thousands of lives along the way. The economy came most of the way back from a deep recession. In Obama's second term, he got around that obstructionist Congress by using executive orders and rule changes to advance some parts of his agenda. That meant undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children and undocumented parents of citizens were protected from deportation. The Justice Department has been investigating cases of police abuse and misconduct across the country. The administration mandated that employers give more salaried employees overtime. The first bill he signed allowed women to sue employers if they were being paid less than a man would be; during his last weeks in office he granted clemency to many prison inmates, most notably Chelsea Manning.

With Trump taking office, there's an impulse for liberals to look back at Obama through rose-tinted glasses.

Donald Trump and the Republicans will surely roll back some or all of those measures, but that doesn't mean Obama's efforts didn't matter. It also seems unfair to blame Obama for congressional inaction on climate change, gun control, or criminal justice reform, all of which he pushed for. If you're keeping score at home, you should also give Obama points for his speeches, which are sure to inspire future generations, and the undeniable symbolism of having a black family in the White House.

With Trump taking office, there's an impulse for liberals to look back at Obama through rose-tinted glasses and celebrate those achievements while shrugging off anything they don't like as the fault of those nasty Republicans. That lets Obama off too easy.

The Obama administration continued the bailing out of banks and big business in the wake of the financial crisis. But almost no bankers were ever prosecuted for their role in the collapse of the economy; meanwhile, a program meant to help homeowners whose lives were wrecked by the crisis was poorly supervised and ineffective. Those efforts to close Guantanamo were defeated not just by hardline Republicans but by the White House's own lack of support. Before Obama defended some undocumented immigrants from deportation, he deported millions of others, to the outrage of advocacy groups. Though Obama claimed credit for working to "reform our laws governing surveillance to protect privacy and civil liberties" during his farewell address, he was perfectly content with the surveillance state before the Snowden revelations forced him to publicly change his tune. His administration continued the long trend of expanding executive branch power, a topic that concerns both the left and libertarians. In 2008, he may have been the anti–Iraq War candidate, but he was not been philosophically aligned with the broader antiwar movement as president, as his expansion of killer drone operations indicates. His administration also supported brutal Saudi Arabian military operations in Yemen—when Obama canceled an arms deal to the Saudis last month, it struck many as not nearly sufficient.

The list of liberal and leftist critiques of Obama goes on; I'm sure I'm missing some. But in brief, the problem is that many hoped he would be a president who ushered in an era of actual change but instead sided far too often with Wall Street and other established, monied interests that have traditionally dominated American politics—even as he kept telling liberals what they wanted to hear. The story of the public option is an example of this: After campaigning for the popular insurance reform, as president Obama declined to fight for it when it came time to negotiate the specifics of the Affordable Care Act. Seven years later, in an op-ed for the Journal of the American Medical Association, the president said he supported a public option.

For liberals wrestling with all this, a great deal depends on how they measure a president. Obama fell short, repeatedly, of the ideals he espoused. He was not a populist nor even a radical, even if the right painted him—relentlessly—as one. But it's also difficult to imagine a realistic alternative who would have lived up to those ideals. Partially that's because, well, they're ideals. But it's also because the Democratic Party that Obama came out of was relatively centrist.

Obama's liberal critics may have been eloquent and earnest, but they failed to force his hand when it came to most key issues.

On the other side of the aisle, the conservative movement, and the Tea Party in particular, has pushed the Republican Party toward ideological purity. That kind of groundswell of uncompromising fury hasn't consumed the Democrats. At least not yet—Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign maybe gives us an example of what a left-wing Tea Party would look like, in all its divisiveness and fervor. But during the Obama years, Sanders didn't have too many allies in Congress, whereas Tea Party senators like Ted Cruz had plenty of juice. This asymmetry pushed DC in a particular direction—Democrats, by and large, didn't have to worry about being burned in effigy for compromise votes, while Republicans constantly feared being outflanked to the right by primary challengers. Obama's liberal critics may have been eloquent and earnest, but they failed to force his hand when it came to most key issues.

Now that the Democrats are out of power, maybe the party will move leftward—Congressman Keith Ellison, a Progressive Caucus co-chair, might win the top spot at the Democratic National Committee. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have leadership positions in the Senate now. AndSanders supporters, fired up by his surprising primary run, could volunteer for more progressive campaigns or even run for office themselves.

It's by such inching, almost invisible steps that a country shifts. Obama didn't run or govern in a vacuum; whoever the next Democratic president is, they will be constrained and supported by the politics of the party around them. If it seems naive to call Obama a hero and unfair to brand him a failure, maybe the best way to look at him is to quote his own final speech: "We're not where we need to be. All of us have more work to do."

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

Stephen Harper Returns From the Dead to Throw Shade At Trump

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It seems like the forthcoming inauguration of Donald Trump has caused former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper to break his vow of silence.

Speaking in the keynote slot at the 2017 Raisina Dialogue, a conference held annually in India by the Observer Research Foundation, Harper took a look at what the geopolitical impact of the incoming president could be.

He started by calling Trump "the elephant in the room." (Except everyone is talking about him. Come on, Steve.)

"[The United States] elected the most non-establishment presidential candidate in the history," Harper continued. "What does it mean?" (It means we are all doomed, Steve.)

"Top line is this, without a doubt: A Trump presidency is a major source, for a time to come, of global uncertainty. We also need to admit that when it comes to specifics we do not have a clear idea of where the president will head." (First time I have ever agreed with you, Mr. Harper.)  

Harper went on to say that with the broad outlines the incoming administration has given, there are "two things on international affairs" that he believes are going to be "game changers." The first is that Trump is going to "reverse the cornerstone of seven decades of foreign policy," meaning that he is going to reject the notion that America has a responsibility for global affairs.

"The US under Trump will focus squarely on America's vital national interest, narrowly defined, especially its economic interest," he said. (Yes, Mr. Harper.)

"This does not mean the United States will be unwilling to work with friends and allies on shared interests, it will, but only when such friends and allies are prepared to bring real assets to the table." (Canada has assets, Steve?)

Harper believes this will impact Europe "first and foremost" and that it may lead to a more stable US foreign policy. However, he added, this will have impacts on a world scale saying it "is going to take us into a world that we have not known in eight decades." (Is this a Hitler reference, Mr. Harper?)

"A world devoid of one or two dominating powers and the risks of that are significant." (Stop scaring me, Steve.)

The second foreign policy game changer, Harper said, is the view that America will take towards China—no longer will America view the growth of the eastern country as "benign."

"The Trump administration to China extends way beyond the mere trade imbalance. It has to do with a series of issues, the belief of that massive trade imbalance is financing the rise of a potential geopolitical adversary." (Gawd, bored now, Steve.)

Harper said that he believes both of these policy changes are reflected by the opinion of the American people "whether we like them or not."

"The American public has long been much more skeptical than the establishment consensus has been on China, it has long viewed China as much more of a threat than an opportunity." (Wanna watch Red Dawn, Mr. Harper?)

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter

CNN Is Hiring a Real Reporter to Investigate Fake News

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During his first contentious press conference since the election, president-elect Donald Trump accused CNN of being "fake news." Now the cable news organization is trying to fight that claim by taking steps to hire a real fake news reporter—someone who can actually investigate the origin of the lies that are spread, mostly on social media, by the electorate.

On Thursday, CNN Media posted a job listing looking to hire a senior writer whose entire job would be to chase down stories like the one that aide to a Maryland lawmaker planted about Hillary Clinton buying fraudulent ballots in Ohio or the one about her being involved with a pedophile ring in the basement of a DC pizza restaurant.

"We're going to be examining the wave of 'fake news' stories and the people behind them, but more than that we're going to be looking at truth—what happened to it, why so many of us no longer believe it, and where those people are going to get their information instead," the listing reads.

Additional qualifications include debunking myths, confronting the "real" media about their hand in the fake news lifecycle, and probably a very tough skin in order to deal with all of the online trolls who will deem the reporter's work as "fake." Oh, and candidates should also have six years of experience. You know, experience in the media before it was all "fake."

CNN is the first news organization to actively try to combat and devote time to the fake news phenomenon. Back in December, Facebook launched its own initiative to try to curb the site's role in spreading articles from the cottage industry of website purveyors who capitalized on the fractured political environment of the presidential election.

So, if you are an experienced journalist who wants to focus on a trend that no one can seem to define nor has any idea how to stop, then CNN has the job for you. No salary is listed, but whatever the amount, there's no way it is enough.

Behind Bars for Six Months, Teen Accused of Killing Abusive Father Awaits Justice

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On January 20, her next day in court, Bresha Meadows will have spent 175 days behind bars. Last summer, when she was only 14 years old, Meadows was arrested for allegedly shooting her father to death as he lay sleeping. Meadows and her family maintain that the girl, her siblings, and her mother were subject to years of his brutal abuse and say she was acting in self-defense—not just to protect herself, but to save her family members, as well.

It's an account that's backed up by court records, including an order of protection that Meadows' mother, Brandi, filed in 2011. According to news accounts, Meadows often found herself on the other end of the barrel; the gun she used to do the deed was one her father allegedly used to taunt and coerce his family.

Meadows is being tried for aggravated murder, but her supporters see her as a victim—both of her father's abuse, and of a series of callous and unjust institutions. According to news accounts, Meadows twice ran away to her aunt, a police officer, to ask for help. Her aunt notified social services, but the social workers reportedly interviewed Meadows' parents together, making a disclosure of domestic violence all but impossible. And, despite potential red flags of abuse, including her dropping grades, nobody else in Meadows' life attempted to intervene.

Read more on Broadly


George H.W. Bush Is Feeling Better, but Not Enough to Attend the Inauguration

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As America will soon find out, healing takes time. And George H.W. Bush—who was admitted into the Houston Methodist Hospital ICU on Wednesday—is apparently healing up, but he still won't make it to Donald Trump's inauguration.

The former president, who had been suffering from pneumonia, is "on the upswing," according to family spokesman Jim McGrath. Nonetheless, the 92-year-old will remain under medical supervision and stick with his original plan of skipping Donald's big day, as explained in a January 10 letter to the PEOTUS.

"My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it likely will put me six feet under. Same for Barbara," wrote Bush.

Presumably satisfied with the excuse, Trump chose not to disparage the absentee Bushes, instead offering Twitter wishes of a "speedy recovery" to both President 41 and his wife, Barbara Bush, who had also been hospitalized with a case of bronchitis.

McGrath, who relayed Barbara's condition as "a thousand percent better," couched expectations by adding, "they may not be out of the woods yet, but we can see the edge of the forest."

Former President George W. Bush will be attending the inauguration, though without his brother Jeb!

After 20 Years in Prison for Crack, Bobby Reed Caught a Break

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Bobby Reed was in a tough place when his auto parts store started going under the in mid 1990s. The way he tells it, he had to borrow cash from a local drug dealer to keep his family afloat.

"Well, time came to pay, and I didn't have the [drug dealer's] money," he told VICE on HBO back in 2015. "Well, basically he said, 'Here, take this, and get the money.'"

Reed started moving drugs to work off his debt—until 1996, when he was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, among other related offenses, and given a life sentence at the apex of the War on Drugs. But on Tuesday, as President Barack Obama's decision to commute most of Chelsea Manning's remaining sentence shocked people around world, Reed's family back in Fort Worth, Texas, was much more interested in another name on the Department of Justice's latest clemency list. After more than 20 years behind bars, Reed has a release date, assuming good behavior: July 19, 2022.

VICE first met Reed as part of Fixing the System, in which CEO and host Shane Smith traveled to El Reno, Oklahoma with Barack Obama, who became the first-ever sitting president to visit a federal prison. As part of a broader push for criminal justice reform in his second term, Obama specifically called out racially-charged sentencing disparities and America's overcrowded corrections system. It's not hard to see why: Despite having only 5 percent of the world's population, the United States houses almost a quarter of the Earth's prisoners.

Watch the full VICE on HBO special where President Obama visits a federal prison and meets Bobby Reed.

As recently as a couple years ago, Obama was regarded as rather stingy when it came to issuing pardons and commutations. But his administration has since trumpeted an initiative to encourage non-violent drug offenders to seek clemency, one in which inmates who would likely receive more lenient sentences today have been given special preference.

In 2010, Obama signed a law modestly reducing the glaring disparity in the disproportionate amount of prison time imposed for the same amount of crack versus powdered cocaine. Reed, who was held accountable for at least 50 grams of crack and five kilograms of coke, argued for relief due to the revision.

"Every time a list comes out, my family is checking it anxiously looking for names," Reed's niece Latoya Stewart told VICE via the phone. "And so when the last list came out in December, just knowing that it was getting really close to the end of the term for this particular president, we were cautiously optimistic––but more cautious than optimistic."

Reed's family has been working to bolster his clemency application by collecting letters of support from business, community and religious leaders. And even though he doesn't get out immediately, Stewart noticed a major difference in Reed's tone of voice upon talking to him over the phone. Imagining her uncle being home is surreal––she can't wait for him to take her son fishing, for instance and for the huge celebration that will no doubt welcome him back to Texas.

But even if Stewart feels incredibly lucky, that doesn't mean she's made peace with how criminal justice operates in America.

"While I am thrilled about my uncle's sentence being commuted, I am also really clear that there were [many thousands of] applications for clemency, which speaks to a system that is severely broken," she said. "And while my family is in a position to celebrate, there are some families who are not as fortunate. We shouldn't be patching Band Aids, we should be looking at systemic issues, and I remain committed to that effort."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Drug Kingpin El Chapo Extradited from Mexico to US

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Notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has been extradited to the United States, Mexico's government said Thursday evening, less than a day before Donald Trump's presidential inauguration.

Mexico agreed to the transfer last year under the condition that Guzman wouldn't receive the death penalty. He faces numerous charges including drug trafficking, murder, and money laundering in states throughout the US.

The leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel became a worldwide phenomenon over the course of the past two decades thanks in part to a series of elaborate escapes from maximum security prisons.

He had been held in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

This story is developing. Check back on VICE News for updates.

Action Bronson Loves Tortas

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On an all new episode of Fuck, That's Delicious, the whole crew heads to Chicago to indulge in all of the windy city's culinary offerings from Michelin-starred restaurants to Polish Festivals.

Fuck, That's Delicious airs Thursdays at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head here to find out how to tune in.

Watch the First Clip from Netflix's Bizarre JonBenét Ramsey Documentary

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Right now, movie critics, fans, and distributors are all hunkering down for a long week of trudging through the snow to see the best that indie cinema has to offer at the Sundance Film Festival.

The first film to be acquired this year was Casting JonBenét—a strange documentary hybrid that is both a product of the recent fascination with the 20 year old death of the young pageant queen JonBenét Ramsey, and also a meta-commentary about that fascination. Now, Netflix has released the first clip from the movie before its debut on Sunday at Sundance.

While making Casting JonBenét, director Kitty Green traveled to Boulder, Colorado, where Ramsay was killed on Christmas day in 1995, and asked the residents there how the crime affected them and what legacy it left behind. Some of them even explain themselves in performance, which should probably make you very nervous, since there seems to be nothing worse than interpretive dance about cold cases, but we'll see how it plays out.

This is just the latest in a swarm of Ramsey-related television programming that has hit the airwaves over the last year thanks to interest churned up by the crime's 20th anniversary. Lifetime aired Who Killed JonBenét? in November, Investigation Discovery aired JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery in September, A&E aired The Killing of JonBenét: The Truth Uncovered in September, and CBS aired The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey that month as well. Each show fits into the exact kind of frenzy that Casting JonBenét is interested in investigating.

The most consequential of those shows was The Case Of, which hired a bunch of crime experts to try to reenact the scene of the crime and find out who was responsible for her murder. They pointed the finger at Burke Ramsey, JonBenét's older brother, and he reacted by filing a $750 million defamation lawsuit against the network in December.

One thing is for sure, the story of JonBenét Ramsey and the fallout from her murder is far from over. If you aren't at Sundance this weekend, you'll have to wait until April to see the doc for yourself when the film launches both on Netflix and in a limited theatrical release.

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