Quote:The Buffalo developer and member of ths local school board made the statements to Artvoice when asked what he wished to see happen in 2017. "Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford," he said. "He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarrett, who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her." Paladino then moved on to his racially charged comment about Michelle. "I'd like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla." The Buffalo News reached out to Paladino to verify the comments. He confirmed he did before attacking the newspaper's editors for asking. "Of course I did," Paladino told the publication Friday. "Tell them to all go f--- themselves." "Tell that Rod Watson I made that comment just for him," he continued. Watson, an editor and columnist at the publication, is black.

Quote:In response to the new sanctions and the broader discussion of Russia’s efforts to place Trump in the White House, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) claimed on MSNBC Thursday afternoon that President Obama’s “main motivation is to delegitimize this election.” Then Franks suggested that Russia may have provided America with a public service with its targeted attacks on Democrats. “If Russia succeeded in giving the American people information that was accurate,” Franks claimed, “then they merely did what the media should have done.” As a reminder, the Russian-backed hacks targeted business emails exchanged within the DNC, as well as the personal email account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. It is generally considered bad form for reporters to hack either an organization or a famous person’s email and then dump the contents of those emails online. Nevertheless, Franks apparently feels that it is the media’s job to engage in such illegal hacking. Not wishing to engage in such illegal activity ourselves, ThinkProgress asked Franks on Twitter if, given his new position on public transparency, he would voluntarily provide us with the password to his personal email account.