Hasta La Gadget!

Brexit seemed harmless and cute at first — like a Labradoodle — but it was more like a Sharknado. The British referendum on whether to leave the European Union became a freak cyclone that flooded the city of London with shark-infested seawater.

OK, enough dramedy. Brexit is probably not that bad, and it’s not funny that British Prime Minister David Cameron sold his soul to the devil in exchange for 10 Downing St. in 2015, when he promised a referendum on England’s continued membership in the European Union if reelected.

The seemingly harmless political ploy of Cameron’s to smooth over rough patches within the Conservative Party in England instead created a big, festering pimple that popped Thursday following “a campaign punctuated by numerous claims that have little relationship to the facts, with sharp tones of xenophobia, racism, nativism and Islamophobia,” according to the New York Times.

The Brex-zit sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Here in the U.S., a campaign untethered to facts, filled with white pus, xenophobia, racism, nativism and Islamophobia rings a bell bigger than Big Ben.

Nonchalantly selling their souls to extremists while the floodwaters of hate rise all around them is what American conservatives have been doing, too, at their own little Tea Party.

Just like Cameron has no one to blame but himself for the stunning Brexit vote — one that economists and business people across the globe believe will cause major disruption, chaos and instability — the Republican Party in the United States has no one to blame but itself for the rise of Donald Trump. It has tolerated and even encouraged anti-government fervor and anti-intellectualism across the country, and the result is bad government populated predominantly by stupid people.

Look at our national politics. Republicans control the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, and we can’t get a bill passed that bars people on a terrorist watch list from buying assault-style weapons, let alone reform the tax code, pass long-term budgets or confirm judges and political appointees to vacant positions. With Republicans in charge we can’t even get a ninth Supreme Court justice on the bench.

In the states, the Republican Party has more market share than Walmart. It has a trifecta in 24 states, controlling both the governor’s mansion and both houses of the Legislature. It has majorities in 70 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers and controls both chambers in 30 states, plus Nebraska’s single chamber, and 31 governor’s mansions, including the Blaine House.

No wonder the electorate is angry. We’ve got a bunch of bozos and banksters running things around here — people who don’t believe in science or the rule of law. Large swaths of America’s elected officials aren’t doing their jobs tackling poverty and income inequality because they are too busy getting rich. The median net worth of lawmakers was just over $1 million in 2013, or 18 times the wealth of the typical American household, according to research by the Center for Responsive Politics. And while Americans’ median wealth is down 43 percent since 2007, the net worth of members of Congress has jumped 28 percent.

Republicans elected to govern most of America aren’t crafting public policy to best cope with globalization. They aren’t fixing a broken immigration system. They aren’t reducing poverty, increasing security for seniors or tackling global warming. Instead, they spend time blocking the president at every turn, chasing kids in and out of bathrooms and bromancing the National Rifle Association.

President Obama has done everything possible to keep America strong and in the driver’s seat. He’s pushed hard to help families, small businesses, kids, immigrants, the LGBT community, seniors and the planet thrive and be secure. But he’s led the fight for average Americans with a monkey the size of the Republican Congress and the handicapped Supreme Court on his back.

The Republican establishment running our country is leading us off a cliff – and now it plans to nominate a casino millionaire braggart-with-a ducktail to be president of the United States in the next referendum here? We can only hope the results are a stunning rejection of the rot that’s been eating away at the fabric of America.

The extreme right has got to go or we too shall perish – and you can bet that America will not follow England down the jackalope hole. Business leaders from Netflix and Dropbox are supporting Hillary Clinton, along with an impressive list of other Republican and Democratic leaders who declared allegiance to sanity, including Jim Cicconi, the senior executive vice president at AT&T who served in both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and donated $10,000 last year to Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise superPAC but now says he’s voting for Clinton in November.

“Hillary Clinton is experienced, qualified, and will make a fine president. The alternative, I fear, would set our nation on a very dark path, ” Cicconi said.

Also this past week, Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser for two Republican presidents, endorsed Clinton for president, saying her experience, judgment and understanding of the world prepare her for the job of commander in chief. Meanwhile, Democratic members of Congress stood up against House Speaker Paul Ryan’s refusal to bring a vote to the floor on gun control by sitting down. They staged a protest and spoke out instead of caving to the status quo of do-nothingness and offering a moment of silence.

Brexits happen, so we must look for the light at the end of the Chunnel. Extremism and ignorance are un-American. Republicans who nonchalantly ignore the threat of a Trump presidency do so at their peril.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

“Data, technology, creativity all coming together – that was just starting 5 years ago. Was programmatic a word 5 years ago? I don’t think so. And now it is THE word.”

During Cannes Lions last week, I spent some time with my dear friend, David Cohen, who is MAGNA Global’s newest President for North America. This interview was particularly exciting for me as David was one of my first interviews at Cannes back in 2011.

Watch as he and I discuss the convergence of data, technology and creativity, the challenges in cross-screen measurement and how much and how little has changed in our industry over the last 5 years.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Eight children and two adults were injured when a roller coaster derailed at a Scottish amusement park on Sunday.

A car on a ride called The Tsunami went off the rails, collided with the ride’s structure and plummeted to the ground, Lanarkshire Police said in a statement posted to Facebook.

Emergency workers rushed to M&D’s theme park, near Motherwell, which was evacuated following the crash. The park is still closed, according to a statement on the park’s website. 

Authorities said all the injured roller coaster riders were taken to area hospitals for treatment but did not immediately share details regarding the injuries. 

The Tsunami can reach speeds of up to 40 miles per hour, CNN reports.

“People were trapped upside down on the ride” following the accident, one witness told the BBC.

Other witnesses described the scene on Twitter.

A statement on the park’s website appeared as follows:

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By John Shiffman

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Last year, after a Minnesota dentist sparked an uproar by killing a popular lion named Cecil while on safari in Zimbabwe, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service placed similar African lions on the endangered species list, making it illegal to import them as trophies to the United States.

But for African lions and other threatened and endangered species, there’s an exception to this rule: Hunters, circuses, zoos, breeders and theme parks can get permits to import, export or sell endangered animals if they can demonstrate that the transactions will “enhance the survival” of the species.

Often, records show, this requirement is met in part by making a cash contribution to charity – usually a few thousand dollars. The practice has angered both animal-rights activists who say it exploits wildlife and exhibitors who describe the process as unfair and arbitrary.

In the last five years, the vast majority of the estimated 1,375 endangered species permits granted by the Fish & Wildlife Service involved financial pledges to charity, according to agency documents reviewed by Reuters.

For a $2,000 pledge, the Fish & Wildlife Service permitted two threatened leopard cubs to be sent from a roadside zoo to a small animal park. After a $5,000 pledge, the agency approved the transfer of 10 endangered South African penguins to a Florida theme park.

An application now under final consideration would permit a South Carolina safari park operator to send 18 endangered tigers to Mexico to participate in a multimillion-dollar movie – for a $10,000 donation to charity.

Craig Hoover, a senior Fish & Wildlife Service official, said his agency considers many factors before granting an endangered species permit – among them, a species’ biological needs, threats and population size.  Charitable contributions to conservation programs are just one factor in granting permit evaluations, and not a requirement, he said.          

“It’s not necessarily all that is considered,” said Hoover. “There may have been an education component, an outreach component, a captive breeding component.”

“INDIRECT BENEFITS” TO WILDLIFE

Under the Endangered Species Act, exception permits may be granted only “for scientific purposes or to enhance the propagation or survival of the affected species.”

According to a recent Fish & Wildlife Service document reviewed by Reuters: “Very few of the Endangered Species Act permits that we issue have direct benefits to the species in the wild. Most applicants provide an indirect benefit, such as monetary support, to meet the enhancement requirement.”

Late Friday, U.S. Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat who serves on the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees, asked the agency to halt the practice.

Boyle said exemptions to the endangered species law are intended for humanitarian or environmental purposes, such as providing medical attention to a wounded animal, not commercial uses. He said the charity pledges are “unreliable at best and amount to an empty promise in exchange for an exemption to our bedrock species conservation law.”

The agency usually does not try to independently confirm that donations are actually made or that the charities, often located overseas, are worthy, an agency document says. “Typically, we rely on the applicant,” the document notes. Hoover said applicants supply this information through annual reports and agency grant programs.

“PAY TO PLAY” FOR ELEPHANTS

Last year, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued the Fish & Wildlife Service over a 2014 endangered species permit issued to Tarzan Zerbini Circus of Webb City, Missouri. The permit allowed Tarzan Zerbini to take two elephants, Shelly and Marie, on a Canadian circus tour – on the condition that it pledge $15,000 annually to an elephant charity and raise another $50,000 annually from patrons.

“We call it ‘pay-to-play’ because that’s what exactly what’s going on, allowing these people to promise money in exchange for being able to harm endangered animals,” said PETA general counsel Jeff Kerr. “The Fish & Wildlife Service is actively conspiring and cooperating with people to violate the Endangered Species Act through this program.”

The agency defended itself against PETA’s claim that the process is illegal, but the lawsuit apparently triggered a government investigation of Tarzan Zerbini’s financial pledge. Records show the service determined that the circus had only contributed half the amount promised and had raised little, if anything, from patrons. On April 21, the permit was suspended. Last week, PETA withdrew the lawsuit.

Larry Solheim, a Tarzan Zerbini consultant who served as general manager for 26 years, said the circus made good-faith efforts to comply with its pledges. He said honest mistakes and misunderstandings caused the other half of the money to be contributed late and said technical issues hampered efforts to raise the $50,000 from patrons.

Solheim said the concept of requiring conservation efforts is a good idea. But he described the permit process as too focused on foreign donations. He called it “a game” that can resemble “political extortion.”

“You’re just essentially buying a permit if you pay this conservation fee,” he said. “It’s just totally subjective – if they want to have this kind of requirement, they need to have clear guidelines.”

John Cuneo, whose Hawthorn Corp leases endangered animals to circuses and is often criticized by PETA, said he has lost business for failing to promise to make the charitable payments.

“It makes me so mad,” Cuneo said. “It feels like a scam.”

Hoover, the agency official, said PETA and the animal exhibitors are wrong.

“TIGER ISLAND”

“We would deny any form of ‘pay to play policy’ is in place, formally or informally,” Hoover said. He added: “We would deny that we tell people they must” make charitable contributions, “but if they are engaging in activity where the import or export isn’t contributing to conservation, then there must be some other means by which they must be contributing conservation.”

The permit application to send 18 tigers to Mexico for a Hollywood movie was filed by Bhagavan Antle, who operates the Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina. Antle declined to name the people behind the movie, which is tentatively titled “Tiger Island.” The plot revolves around tigers living on an abandoned island, and a group of children who end up shipwrecked there.

The permit is still pending, but records show that Fish & Wildlife officials directed that Antle confirm a pledge of $10,000 to charity and a promise that the movie will have a conservation theme. He has agreed to do so, and said he thinks the agency’s process is good because it helps endangered animals. Antle said $10,000 is a fair contribution for the right to use 18 tigers on a multimillion-dollar motion picture.

“The movie company thinks it’s a hardship – to spend $10,000 for what used to be free,” Antle said. But he added, “If it becomes a big hit movie, that will change more hearts and minds than a $10 million contribution to conservation.”

PENGUINS TO MIAMI

Last year, the Fish & Wildlife Service approved the sale of 10 African penguins from a California theme park to the Miami Seaquarium.

“We are thrilled that our guests will be able to observe these fascinating creatures and at the same time learn about this endangered species and what we can do to help preserve our feathered friends,” Andrew Hertz, the Seaquarium’s general manager, said in a press release in February. A spokeswoman said Hertz wasn’t available for an interview.

The sea park built a new exhibit for the birds called “Penguin Isle,” a spectacle that includes a 9,000-gallon pool with an acrylic underwater swimming tunnel, allowing visitors to come “face to face” with the penguins, the release says. The Seaquarium, which averages about 600,000 customers a year, charges $99 for a family of four.

As part of the endangered species permit approval, the seller agreed to make an annual contribution for five years to a South African charity that rescues penguins soiled by oil spills.

The annual pledge: $1,000.

(Edited by Michael Williams)

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