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Is Nic Cage hair a alien? I think it might be a shapeshifter. doomish Re: Is Nic Cage hair a alien? **Some people just need a high-five. With a chair. In the face.** Anonymous Coward Re: Is Nic Cage hair a alien? lols Re: Is Nic Cage hair a alien? HEY! Dont disrespect Nic Cage. That man is a legend at starring in shitty movies. Page 1 08/12/16 2 10/21/09 3 04/13/16 6 Mail with questions or comments about this site. "Godlike Productions" & "GLP" are registered trademarks of Zero Point Ltd. Godlike™ © 1999 - 2015 Godlikeproductions.com Page generated in 0.008s (7 queries) | 0 |
usapoliticsnow admin 2016 Election , US News , World News
Gunman have launched an attack on a retirement home in France leaving at least one killed and a hostage situation.
Independent.co.uk reported: At least one person has been killed after a gunman launched an attack on a retirement home for Catholic missionaries near the French city of Montpellier.
Armed police were deployed to the Maison de Retraite des Missions Africaines (African Missions Retirement Home) in Montferrier-sur-Lez on Thursday night.
“An individual, who was masked and armed with a knife and a sawn-off shotgun came into the retirement home where 70 missionaries live,” a source told the AFP news agency, adding that the man’s motivations were unknown.
Local media reported that at least one person had been found dead, with the e-Metropolitain news website reporting a female supervisor had been killed with a knife after she raised the alarm.
Her body was found on the first floor of the building by police and the location of the attacker remained unclear as searches continued.
Source @ www.independent.co.uk | 0 |
SAN FRANCISCO — Waymo, the car business spun out of Google’s parent company, claimed in a federal lawsuit on Thursday that Uber was using intellectual property stolen by one of Google’s former project leaders. In a federal court filing in San Francisco, Waymo said Anthony Levandowski, who runs Uber’s autonomous car division, downloaded 14, 000 files from Google a month before leaving to start his own car company, Otto. Uber acquired Otto in August for $680 million, about seven months after Mr. Levandowski left Google. “Otto and Uber have taken Waymo’s intellectual property so that they could avoid incurring the risk, time, and expense of independently developing their own technology,” the company said in the filing. “Ultimately, this calculated theft reportedly netted Otto employees over half a billion dollars and allowed Uber to revive a stalled program, all at Waymo’s expense. ” Uber did not respond to requests for comment. In its filing, Waymo said it was inadvertently copied on an email from one of its suppliers with drawings of Uber’s circuit board design for its lidar technology, short for light detection and ranging, ” that are sensors used in cars. Waymo said Uber’s design bore “a striking resemblance” to its proprietary and highly secret design and infringed on Waymo’s patents. Waymo also said that a number of Google employees, who subsequently left to join Mr. Levandowski at Otto, downloaded additional trade secrets before departing. These included supplier lists, manufacturing details and technical information, Waymo said. The suit accuses Uber of stealing trade secrets, infringing on patents and competing unfairly in an effort to catch up on autonomous vehicle technology. Otto was the brainchild of a handful of former Google employees who pioneered autonomous vehicle research at the search giant. Mr. Levandowski, who had been at Google nine years, led that effort. He is a prominent figure in the world of vehicles, having worked on the technology for more than a decade and achieving some degree of renown as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2004, when he designed a motorcycle that was entered in the Pentagon’s first contest for autonomous vehicles. Later, when Google began working on cars, it acquired Mr. Levandowski’s 510 Systems. Mr. Levandowski left Google in early 2016 to found Otto with Lior Ron, who also was experienced in autonomous vehicle research and digital mapping. Waymo noted in its suit that the sale to Uber closed shortly after Mr. Levandowski received his final “multimillion dollar” compensation payment from Google. Companies in Silicon Valley and Detroit are betting big on car technology. And the intense interest has spawned a string of expensive investments and lawsuits. Last year, General Motors paid more than $1 billion for Cruise Automation, an autonomous vehicle technology and Ford recently announced plans to invest $1 billion over five years in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence formed in December. In January, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Sterling Anderson, a former director of the company’s Autopilot program, saying that he broke his employment contract by trying to recruit Tesla employees to join a new car company. Tesla’s suit, filed against Mr. Anderson and his partner Chris Urmson, a former Google employee, also claims that Mr. Anderson took proprietary information and tried to cover his tracks by destroying information. In December, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said that its autonomous vehicle project was spinning off from its research lab X and would operate as a company called Waymo. Alphabet said its decision to spin out Waymo was a signal that the company thought its technology had advanced beyond research project status and was ready for commercialization. Waymo executives have said it is open to using the technology in many ways, including a service to compete with Uber. For Uber, Otto represents a significant bet on the future of transportation. Mr. Levandowski was named vice president of Uber’s technology, and he reports directly to Travis Kalanick, the company’s chief executive. Mr. Levandowski leads Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, the epicenter of the company’s testing and efforts. Uber has said it could be years before vehicles enter wide mainstream use. But the company has already deployed early tests in Pittsburgh and Tempe, Ariz. where the public can travel in prototype vehicles. In Fort Collins, Colo. Otto recently completed its first truck delivery, a beer delivery for Budweiser. Uber has also struck a deal with Volvo to jointly develop a vehicle, the early versions of it have been released in some cities. In December, Uber ran into opposition to a test of its Volvo in San Francisco, an operation the California Department of Motor Vehicles said was illegal because Uber did not hold the proper permits. One week later, Uber relented, redirecting its test to Tempe and pulling a fleet of its cars out of the Bay Area. Uber, now privately valued at nearly $70 billion, has raised a dizzying amount of money from venture capitalists around Silicon Valley. One of its early investors was GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet. In August, David Drummond, a longtime Alphabet executive who was instrumental in GV’s $250 million investment in Uber in 2013, stepped down from his seat on Uber’s board of directors as it became increasingly clear the two companies were on a collision course. It has been a difficult week for Uber. The company is still reeling from a blog post written by Susan Fowler, a former Uber employee, who claimed she was sexually harassed by a manager at the company and was ignored when she complained to the human resources department. The company said it was investigating Ms. Fowler’s claims and other concerns about a toxic workplace culture. Mitch and Freada Kapor, early investors in Uber, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that they are frustrated with the company’s inability to change its culture, despite their attempts to help. They also expressed concern about the independence of the investigation, which will be led by Eric H. Holder Jr. the former United States attorney general, and Arianna Huffington, an Uber board member. Mr. Holder has been paid to work on behalf of Uber since at least 2016, they wrote, and Ms. Huffington’s board seat also compromises her independence. Mr. Holder and Tammy Albarran, a partner at the law firm Covington and Burling who is working on the investigation, said the inquiry would be “thorough, impartial and objective. ” | 1 |
The Wells Fargo bank account scandal took center stage in the news last week and in all likelihood will continue to make headlines for many weeks to come. What Wells Fargo employees did in opening bank accounts without customers’ authorization was obviously wrong, but in true Washington fashion the scandal is being used to deflect attention away from larger, more enduring, and more important scandals.
What Wells Fargo employees who opened these accounts engaged in was nothing more than fraud and theft, and they should be punished accordingly. But how much larger is the fraud perpetrated by the Federal Reserve System and why does the Fed continue to go unpunished? For over 100 years the Federal Reserve System has been devaluing the dollar, siphoning money from the wallets of savers into the pockets of debtors. Where is the outrage? Where are the hearings? Why isn’t Congress up in arms about the Fed’s malfeasance? It reminds me of the story of the pirate confronting Alexander the Great. When accused by Alexander of piracy, he replies “Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an emperor.”
Over two thousand years later, not much has changed. Wells Fargo will face more scrutiny and perhaps more punishment. There will undoubtedly be more calls for stricter regulation, notwithstanding the fact that regulators failed to detect this fraud, just as they have failed to detect every fraud and financial crisis in history. And who will suffer? Why, the average account-holder of course.
Any penalties assessed against Wells Fargo will be made up by increasing fees on account-holders. Clawbacks of bonuses, if they occur, will likely face resistance from the beneficiaries of those bonuses, leading to protracted and costly lawsuits. Even if the Wells Fargo CEO and top executives of Wells Fargo step down, the culture at Wells Fargo is unlikely to change anytime soon. As one of the largest banks in the world, Wells Fargo knows that it is not only too big to fail, but also too big to prosecute. At the end of the day, no matter how much public posturing there is, Wells Fargo and the regulators will remain best buddies. And those regulators who failed to catch this fraud will be rewarded with more power and larger budgets, courtesy of the US taxpayer.
Through all of this, the Federal Reserve will continue its policy of low interest rates and easy money. Retirees who hoped to be able to live off the interest on their investments will find themselves squeezed by continued low interest rates. Those living on fixed incomes will see their monthly checks buying less and less as the prices of food staples continue to rise. The fat cats on Wall Street will continue to have access to cheap and easy money while those on Main Street will face a constantly declining quality of life.
It is well past time for the Federal Reserve to face the same music as Wells Fargo and the bad actors on Wall Street. It is, after all, the Federal Reserve’s creation of money out of thin air that enables all of this fraudulent behavior in the first place, so why should the Fed remain untouchable? Let’s hope that someday Congress wakes up, hauls the Federal Reserve in for questioning, and puts as much pressure on the Fed as it does on private sector fraudsters. | 0 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — Michaëlle Jean, secretary general of the International Organization of la Francophonie, spent a recent morning at the sultry Lagoa Olympic venue, where the world’s most exciting rowing was taking place. She was not so interested in what was happening on the water. “You will notice that the commentators are not speaking French,” she said, indignantly. “In the venue, none of the signs are in French. ” Monitoring the use of French at the Olympics is a frustrating and quixotic job, particularly when the Games are being held in a country preoccupied with matters like street crime, economic chaos and how to cram thousands of excitable spectators into the beach volleyball venue. But Rule 23 of the Olympic charter states that the Games have two official languages, and Ms. Jean’s organization, which represents 80 Francophone countries, is determined to make sure nobody forgets that one of them is French (the other is English). “It’s a struggle each time you have the Olympic Games, in a different country and a different city,” Ms. Jean said. “We must be there to make sure the French signs and documents and information are there. We have 3, 000 athletes and a lot of people in the public from Francophone countries. ” Rule 23 is no accident. As the founder of the modern Olympic Games at the turn of the 20th century, Pierre de Coubertin got to choose what language they would be in, and he was French. But as the century wore on, and English became more dominant as a common international language, French usage at the Games began to fall by the wayside. This alarmed the world and the Francophonie organization, one of whose goals, it says, is to “combat the perverse effects of globalization on languages. ” At each Olympics since Athens in 2004, the group has appointed a person known as le Grand Témoin — the Great Witness — whose job is to make the case for, and keep track of, French usage at the Games. This year’s Grand Témoin is the internationally celebrated jazz saxophonist Manu Dibango of Cameroon. (Ms. Jean, a former governor general of Canada, had the job in London in 2012.) Responsibilities include negotiating with the International Olympic Committee and the host country, closely monitoring the French situation at the Games, and producing a report afterward. The reports tend to reflect a mixture of hopefulness and dismay. “In Beijing, all Olympic signage appeared first in French, then English and Chinese,” the Sochi report says, for instance. “In Sochi, the signage addressing the international audience was trilingual, but that addressing the spectators appeared in Russian and English. ” In addition, it pointed out, “the arrival of some new sports to the Olympic program (slopestyle and halfpipe) was not accompanied by a terminology sufficient for these disciplines to be discussed with French terms in the media. ” The Olympics are “obviously a very important showcase,” said Mr. Dibango, who is also serving as a cultural ambassador, performing with Brazilian and musicians in Rio as a way to promote the international nature of French. “I see the job as being the of the 300 million people around the world who speak French,” Mr. Dibango said. The average member of the public may have little idea that any of this is going on, but the Francophonie organization takes the issue so seriously that no sooner does one Olympics end than it starts negotiating the terms of the next one. Early discussions about French at the Rio Games were positive, Ms. Jean said, because the Brazilian government was sympathetic and because Carlos Nuzman, the president of the Brazilian organizing committee, speaks fluent French. But then the economy collapsed and the friendly government fell. When the new government came in, it had a lot on its mind, and that did not include the use of French at the Olympics. As the day of the opening ceremony approached, the Francophonie organization had no idea how the evening — traditionally a fine time for the world to hear and appreciate a lot of beautifully enunciated French spoken by important international officials — would go. It turned out to be a runaway success. All the main announcements and speeches were delivered in French, along with English and Portuguese. Even better, Ms. Jean said, “everything was announced first in French — did you notice?” The opening ceremony is one thing the rest of the Olympics is another. Ms. Jean visited the athletes’ village, only to discover that there were signs in the cafeteria but nowhere else. She attributed it to Rio’s budget woes — translation is expensive — and the frantic nature of preparations. While she understood, she said, “We were very disappointed at the situation. ” Visitors to the Games, too, will see that the thousands of signs at the various event venues are printed only in English and Portuguese, not in French. (Not that the English signs are anything to get excited about, seeming at times to owe more to Google Translate than to a sentient being. “Press the wheelchair button if you have locomotion issues,” a sign next to an elevator at the media center reads. ) At the rowing venue on Saturday, the events moved along so quickly that sometimes it was all the announcers could do to pack in the commentary in both Portuguese and English, never mind any other languages. In the stands, several ( ) spectators said that, to be honest, language was not at the forefront of their minds. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” said Amy Burba, 44, of Virginia. “But I heard the people behind us speaking French. ” Scott MacRae, a Scottish chef who was holding a beer and wearing his Union Jack on his head as a form of sun protection, said that except at the opening and closing ceremonies, French should be kept out of the Olympics. “I like the French passion,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s appropriate to use French at the Olympics when you have them in a country that is not France. ” Several rowing officials at the site bemoaned the loss of French not just at the Olympics but also in sports (and in the world) in general. Americans in particular, they said, do not speak other languages and do not really want to. French used to be the official language of rowing’s governing body, FISA, but it is now used less frequently, said Jean Christophe Rolland, FISA’s president. Even FISA, whose acronym stands for Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Aviron, has had to adopt a zippy English World Rowing, which it uses for “commercial purposes” but which is slipping more and more into the rowing lexicon, he said. As Mr. Rolland talked nostalgically about the days when rowing meetings were held in French and English speakers had to listen to the translation on headphones, the Rolling Stones song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” began playing over the loudspeakers. “It’s a daily fight,” he said. “A daily fight. ” | 1 |
Coverage of the leaked 2005 audio tape of Donald Trump speaking in lewd language about women has produced an onslaught of reader mail, mostly because of the vile words contained in the coverage. The majority of those writing in are asking how the decision was made rather than complaining about the choice to include such words. I went to the Times political editor Carolyn Ryan to ask some of the readers’ most frequent questions. Spayd: The public editor inbox is full of readers asking why The New York Times decided to use some of the most vile language spoken by Donald Trump in the audio released Friday. The words were used both on the home page and on A1. Can you explain the thinking behind this decision? Ryan: Yes, it is not a decision we made lightly. We had a spirited discussion among top editors about it, led by (executive editor) Dean Baquet. The argument against using the words was driven by a concern that it would be jolting to readers, especially given that the story would be played so prominently on page one, and that there were other ways we could signal what Trump said without relying on the actual vulgar words. Ultimately we decided that the words themselves were newsworthy, and that omitting them or merely describing them or slyly hinting at them would not have been forthright with our readers. Spayd: Has The Times ever used such vulgar language in such a prominent position before, or in any manner? Ryan: It is very rare, but we have done it in the past. One recent example: In 2013, Andrea Elliott wrote a powerful narrative about an homeless girl growing up in New York City, which captured how rough and desolate her life was. We quoted her mother cursing at her, which was in keeping with the rawness and roughness of the narrative. But again, it is quite rare. Spayd: In this case, the words appear both in print and online. Was it part of the discussion to consider using the words only online or is the standard the same for both? Ryan: We proceeded with the idea that whatever we decided would be applied to the print and the online story. One reality we faced was that, regardless of what we said in the story, we were going to run the video without editing it. So it seemed to us it would be especially awkward to run the video, in full, and then omit the vulgarities in the story. Spayd: Finally, several readers asked why The Times didn’t characterize Trump’s words as bragging about sexually assaulting women rather than just groping them, at least in initial coverage. What was the thinking about that? Ryan: This is a really important point and one that we tried to highlight — I think the first version of the story described Trump as “pushing himself on women,” but also included a quote from Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, saying bluntly that this was sexual assault. Since the news of the tape broke, our stories have become more explicit in calling what Mr. Trump is boasting about “sexual assault. ” *** Here’s my view. It should be the extraordinary case when such words are used by The Times, but this is one of those cases. Trump is the Republican nominee for the president of the United States. He alleges to have sexually assaulted women, and the words used in this tape are propelling many members of his own party to abandon him, or at least to publicly condemn him. In all their vulgarity, these words could turn the election. | 1 |
You’ve visited the Louvre, Notre Dame, . You’ve been to Versailles and perhaps even made a trip to the chateaus of the Loire Valley. Is there anything else of the same caliber near Paris for those who love the classic ideals of French architecture and decorative arts? The answer is a resounding yes: the Château de Fontainebleau. Far less familiar to travelers than Versailles, and drawing fewer than the number of visitors who flock to the Sun King’s domain, Fontainebleau, 45 miles south of Paris, isn’t exactly unknown. But given its centuries of history at the center of the French monarchy, and the richness and variety of its buildings, inside and out, its relative obscurity is something of a mystery. No site in France can compare as a royal residence: It predates the Louvre itself by 50 years, and Versailles by five centuries. Nor is it a simple “chateau” as that term has come to designate a great country house held by a noble family. Fontainebleau’s singular attraction to an unbroken line of French kings spanning eight centuries was originally as a hunting lodge, perfectly situated at the edge of the ancient Forest of Fontainebleau — in effect, a royal game preserve. But as each king took up residence for two months of hunting every fall, the relatively modest medieval structure was added to, then added to again, by the sovereigns who brought their court with them to the vast forest. They developed a succession of structures and styles that span many centuries and yet — magically, convincingly — cohere in a pleasing whole. Some of France’s greatest architects — Philibert Delorme, Gabriel and André Le Nôtre among them — fashioned buildings, courtyards, interiors and elaborate grounds, adding to what they found while resisting the impulse to replace or destroy. What greets the visitor today is the single greatest assemblage over time of French architecture and décor still in its original state. A word of caution: Fontainebleau is immense, and immensely varied. The roof alone has a surface area of five acres, and covers more than 1, 500 rooms. The gardens and outer grounds extend over 230 acres. Rather than trying to “do it all” in a single day, plan your time depending on your interests, which parts of the chateau are open on the day of your visit, and the weather. In the morning, ask about the special guided tours available that day they vary considerably, and can include Marie Antoinette’s Turkish boudoir, the imperial theater of Napoleon III, the private rooms of Napoleon I and Josephine, and others. Then arrange to take one of these tours (about an hour) and also pay the general admission of 11 euros (about $12) for a tour of the public rooms. Audio guides are available, and the staff is used to visitors. The chateau dates from 1137. Thomas Becket consecrated its original chapel in 1169, and Saint Louis himself (Louis IX, who was canonized by the church) founded a convent there in 1259 whose charge was to arrange for the ransom of Christian prisoners captured in Egypt by the forces of the Ayyubid sultan during the Seventh Crusade. However, most of what you’ll see dates from the early 1500s and later, when François I transformed the medieval fortress and hunting lodge into a royal palace, bringing the arts of the Italian Renaissance to northern France for their first full expression in a royal domain. The result is a unique amalgam of Italian exuberance and artistic genius joined to French subtlety and classical restraint. The rooms that date from the 16th century are among the most breathtaking in France, but their richness can be overwhelming. Take your time, and look carefully: elaborate frescoes and paintings, sculpted frames, coffered ceilings, carved wall paneling, faceted doors. Every single part of the environment was imagined as part of a pleasing whole your efforts will be rewarded when you begin to apprehend a decidedly French notion of elegance, suitable to its time. The room that François I left is the gallery that bears his name, a remarkable passage, 200 feet long by 20 feet wide, that leads from what is now the front of the chateau to its inner recesses. It is said that the king kept the key to this inner sanctum around his neck, allowing only a few visitors to lay eyes on it, and you can understand why when you see the space. In all of France, there was nothing remotely resembling the effusions of splendor and carnal beauty that grace its walls. The work of Italian artists, including the architect Sebastiano Serlio and the master woodcarver Francesco Scibec da Carpi, the Galerie François I combines masterly frescoes, stucco figures, elaborate wainscoting, delicate painting and gold leaf detailing. A series of powerful frescoes by Rosso Fiorentino illustrates stories from antiquity, drawing allegorical parallels to François as a great king. His emblem, the salamander, is everywhere, as is his royal monogram, “F. ” Each panel is surrounded by sumptuous stucco figures in white plaster that protrude from the wall, many of them the work of Francesco Primaticcio. The groupings mix female nudes, winged angels, satyrs, muscled heroes the effect is both sensual and entirely captivating. Resist the inclination to walk through this unique space as if it were just a fancy hallway. Take in the entire effect, and consider the views across the pond to the forest in the middle distance. When you imagine what the effect must have been in a France only recently emerging from the Late Middle Ages, the décor coheres and is deeply satisfying. It is one of the defining works of what is now known as the First School of Fontainebleau, and a recognized masterpiece of the Renaissance in northern Europe. The other masterwork at Fontainebleau is the Salle de Bal, the ballroom, built by François’s son, Henri II, in 1558. Delorme designed the space, and Niccolo dell’Abbate and Primaticcio filled its massive bays with magnificent scenes of classical figures, resplendent in the rich hues of Italy. Its decoration is a startling mix of dramatic color (Italian frescoes again) and the exquisite reserve of the glorious woodwork on the ceiling and the walls and the vast patterned oak floor. Perfectly proportioned at the heart of the chateau, it looks out on the cobbled Oval Courtyard on one side and, on the other, across colorful beds of flowering plants worked in symmetrical patterns called “broderie” (embroidery) to the forest. The walls and ceiling bear the coats of arms of Henri II and his wife, Catherine de Medici. Also present in thinly disguised form is the monogram “D” for the king’s mistress of more than 20 years, Diane de Poitiers. When Henri was fatally wounded in a jousting accident, he languished for 11 days before dying. Diane was kept from him by the queen and exiled from court at the moment of his death. The intrigues must have been endless, but the beauty of the surroundings makes you wonder if such considerations didn’t occasionally subside when the king was entertaining in this room. For centuries it has been used for ceremonies, parties and dinners. Even the Germans, who requisitioned the chateau for their army during World War II, used it for concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic at the beginning of their occupation of France. They then quickly sent film of the event back to the home front, showing another spoil of war to those in the fatherland. The figure most closely associated with Fontainebleau in our day is among the last in the long line of monarchs who lived there, Napoleon Bonaparte. His golden “N” blazes from the iron gate at the entrance in fact it was he who pulled down a wing of the chateau to open up the formal courtyard and make it more clearly the stately entrance to his palace. Among his many attributes can certainly be counted a showman’s flair for the dramatic. He famously referred to Fontainebleau from his last exile in St. Helena as “a house for the ages” and “the true abode of kings. ” Cynicism aside, there is real affection in those words, and a sense of how this chateau was a special retreat for so many French rulers. It is grand, yes, but not coldly solemn the way Versailles can feel. It’s not a coincidence that court members generally savored their annual visits: Protocol was greatly relaxed, the stables and forest were right out the back door, and a tradition of voluptuary delights — hunting for boar and deer, lovemaking, comfortable rooms — must have made it more of a true home for the king and his courtiers. This doubtless is the reason Marie Antoinette enjoyed her visits. After Versailles, it was an escape like no other available, a “house in the country” where the cinch of rules and expectations could be somewhat loosened. She left two small, deeply personal spaces here, each of them a splendid example of a “boudoir,” the private room that a woman of her rank would have had for stepping out of the public eye. The first is the Turkish boudoir, built for her in 1777 to the plans of Richard Mique, an Orientalist confection of a room set well away from the other royal apartments. Here she would entertain an inner circle of friends, enjoying her private retreat from court life. Napoleon’s Empress Josephine also loved this room, and had it refurnished after Marie Antoinette’s items were lost in the Revolution. You can visit it on private tours only. The other private space, sometimes called the silver boudoir, was offered to the queen by her husband, Louis XVI, in 1787, a mere two years before France drove the Bourbons from the throne. It, too, is rich in its details, though the conceit here is classical antiquity rather than exoticism. Coming near the end of the tour of the royal apartments, it tends to be overlooked because it is small and not overly showy. Don’t make that mistake. Its spare furnishings and architectural details concentrate a form of refinement and elegance in French taste that was about to be eclipsed by events, never to reappear. The list of rooms and of the kings who built them is very long: Henri IV’s wing, as well as one of the few remaining intact indoor tennis courts (“Jeu de Paume”) in France Napoleon I’s opulent throne room Napoleon III’s jewel box of a theater and many others. Resolve to return and see them at your leisure. But don’t leave this extraordinary site without indulging yourself in a walk around the grounds. Wear sturdy shoes! Anyone who ventures across the cobbled courtyards wearing shoes with heels or stiff soles is asking for trouble. Louis XIV’s Grand Parterre, the vast orderly gardens that are said to be the largest in Europe, provides the perfect vantage point for looking back at the long and irregular mass of the chateau’s linked buildings. At once you see how a form of grandeur can develop not only from a unified vision in a single age, as at Versailles or Chambord, but also can evolve as an accretion of architectural detail over time, both varying and enriching the overall effect. This is part of Fontainebleau’s particular genius. On the other side of the distant wall of buildings lies a small hidden garden that epitomizes another of the chateau’s facets, this one less grand, more mysterious and unapologetically feminine: the Garden of Diana. Its scope is intimate and lovely, its meandering paths the opposite of formal symmetry and rumblings of glory. Pots of cascading red and purple petunias surround the fountain in summer, maples and willows grace the asymmetric stretches of perfect lawn, and mature pines flank the edges of the garden. At the focal point sits a fountain that could only be French, over which Diana the Huntress presides. Her bronze likeness, set above a stone basin, pulls an arrow from the quiver as she strides forward, a small deer bounding at her side. Four hounds and four stag heads are arranged above the pool. A sense of the tutelary spirit prevails — not just of the hunt, but of the ancient forest itself. This, too, is Fontainebleau. Walk those paths and see for yourself. | 1 |
I recently wrote about the Canadian triathlete Julie Miller, who was disqualified from the Ironman Canada race last summer and stripped of her finish in her age group. Officials said it would have been impossible for her to complete the course as quickly as she claimed. Other athletes suspected her of cutting the course, possibly by failing to complete one of the laps in the marathon, but no one could prove how she did it. Among other things, Miller finished the race without her timing chip, meaning that there was no information about her split times — interim times reflecting an athlete’s progress along the course. Miller emphatically denied the accusations. “I did not cheat in the Whistler Ironman competition,” she said in an email, “nor would I ever cheat or have I ever cheated in any competition. ” After The New York Times published the article, I was contacted by FinisherPix, a company that creates personal highlight videos for athletes competing in Ironman races using video from cameras positioned along the course. The company had six video cameras filming constantly along the marathon course at Ironman Canada — one at the start, four at the finish, and one at a point in the course that runners had to pass twice. FinisherPix shared its video with The Times to help determine whether Miller had completed the race fairly. The first camera was positioned at the start of the marathon, after athletes had finished cycling and were embarking on the next phase of the race. It shows Miller beginning her run exactly eight minutes behind Susanne Davis, a triathlete who went on to win their age group, women ages 40 to 44, after Miller was disqualified. (Miller is identifiable by her bright compression socks.) The second camera was positioned 3. 8 miles into the course. Athletes were required to pass that point twice to complete the run, but the camera recorded Miller passing it only once — 9 minutes 15 seconds before Davis passed it on her second lap. So, according to the video provided by FinisherPix, it appears that Miller skipped the first lap of the marathon course. We still have no way of knowing what she did during that time. But under this possible sequence of events, she the race later, positioning herself far enough in the lead in her age group that she could go on to cross the finish line about five minutes ahead of Davis. I emailed Miller to tell her about the video and ask her if she could explain why it shows her passing the second camera just once. She did not respond. | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — One of the world’s most evasive digital arms dealers is believed to have been taking advantage of three security vulnerabilities in popular Apple products in its efforts to spy on dissidents and journalists. Investigators discovered that a company called the NSO Group, an Israeli outfit that sells software that invisibly tracks a target’s mobile phone, was responsible for the intrusions. The NSO Group’s software can read text messages and emails and track calls and contacts. It can even record sounds, collect passwords and trace the whereabouts of the phone user. In response, Apple on Thursday released a patched version of its mobile software, iOS 9. 3. 5. Users can get the patch through a normal software update. Apple fixed the holes 10 days after a tip from two researchers, Bill Marczak and John Scott Railton, at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, and Lookout, a San Francisco mobile security company. “We advise all of our customers to always download the latest version of iOS to protect themselves against potential security exploits,” said Fred Sainz, a company spokesman. In interviews and manuals, the NSO Group’s executives have long boasted that their spyware worked like a “ghost,” tracking the moves and keystrokes of its targets, without leaving a trace. But until this month, it was not clear how exactly the group was monitoring its targets, or who exactly it was monitoring. A clearer picture began to emerge on Aug. 10, when Ahmed Mansoor, a prominent human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates, who has been tracked by surveillance software several times, began receiving suspicious text messages. The messages purported to contain information about the torture of U. A. E. citizens. Mr. Mansoor passed the messages to researchers at the Citizen Lab, who confirmed they were an attempt to track him through his iPhone. This latest effort was far more sophisticated than what was found aimed at his devices before. The researchers found it was connecting to 200 servers, several of them registered to the NSO Group. Strewn throughout the spyware code were references to Pegasus, the name of an NSO Group spyware product. Citizen Lab brought in Lookout to help examine the code. Together, they discovered that the spyware relied on three previously unknown iOS vulnerabilities — called “zero days” because Apple didn’t know about them and had zero days to patch them. In many cases, the NSO Group had designed its tools to impersonate those of the Red Cross, Facebook, Federal Express, CNN, Al Jazeera, Google and even the Pokemon Company to gain the trust of its targets, according to the researchers. “NSO Group was very professional, and very effective in staying silent,” said Mike Murray, a vice president at Lookout. In recent years, zero day flaws have been traded among hackers, brokers, companies like the NSO Group, and spy agencies and law enforcement networks eager for ways to break into devices. Flaws in Apple’s iOS software are sold at a premium. Last year, a similar exploit in Apple’s iOS software was sold to Zerodium, a Washington buyer and seller of for $1 million. Earlier this year, James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced that his agency had paid hackers who found a way for the F. B. I. to crack into an iPhone used by one of the shooters in last year’s mass killings in San Bernardino, Calif. Neither the hackers nor the F. B. I. have told Apple how this was accomplished. Apple’s software update patches the NSO Group’s exploits, but it is unclear whether the company has patched the vulnerabilities used by the F. B. I. to crack into its iPhone. Apple recently began a “bug bounty” program to pay hackers who report vulnerabilities in its systems. Among the other NSO targets, besides Mr. Mansoor, were Rafael Cabrera, a Mexican journalist, who broke a story on conflicts of interest among Mexico’s ruling family. In several cases, NSO Group’s tools had been crafted to target users in Yemen, Turkey, Mozambique, Mexico, Kenya and the U. A. E. Zamir Dahbash, an NSO Group spokesman, said in an email, “The company sells only to authorized governmental agencies, and fully complies with strict export control laws and regulations. ” Mr. Dahbash added that NSO Group does not operate any of its systems and requires that its customers use its products in a “lawful manner. ” “Specifically,” he said, “the products may only be used for the prevention and investigation of crimes. ” He would not say if the software is used by government agencies in the U. A. E. or Mexico. In 2014, NSO Group sold a majority stake to San private equity firm Francisco Partners Management LLC for $120 million. Francisco Partners declined to comment. Mr. Mansoor said in an interview that the discoveries were a sad reminder that no matter what he does to protect his devices and digital security, he will continue to be a target for companies that provide this sort of spying technology. “I guess I am their regular customer,” he said. “I am the guinea pig. ” Bill Marczak, the researcher at Citizen Lab who has been helping Mr. Mansoor protect his digital security, said that the surveillance experienced by Mr. Mansoor is likely to expand. “The targeting of these activists and dissidents is a taste of what’s to come,” Mr. Marczak said. “What they’re facing today will be faced by ordinary users tomorrow. ” | 1 |
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton talked on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily about the various hacking and wiretapping allegations to emerge from the 2016 presidential campaign. [Fitton agreed with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow’s contention that Trump “changed the debate” when he alleged surveillance resources were improperly used against him by the Obama administration. “Many of us have been concerned not so much about the ‘unicorn theory’ of the election that the Left has been running, but about the fact that there was surveillance done of the Trump team, and then that surveillance — which was classified in part — was illegally leaked in an effort to destroy them,” Fitton said. “If suspicions are correct that it was Obama administration officials, former officials who leaked that information, then those individuals could go to jail,” he noted. “That’s how serious the leaks were. ” “By President Trump’s highlighting the fact that he was surveilled, allegedly personally — whether he’s right in the specifics or not, I don’t know, but I think he’s right generally in the sense that he was targeted with some type of surveillance, he and his team. Whether the surveillance was for other reasons and his team were picked up incidentally or not, that’s to be found out. But we do know that surveillance was misused, and in my view, if it was misused, maybe it was done for improper purposes, as well,” he said. Marlow noted that while mainstream media coverage strongly suggested an intensive investigation of Trump’s campaign was in progress throughout the 2016 election, with plenty of surveillance, officials and congressional committees are now saying no “wiretapping” was conducted. “Who’s right on this thing?” he asked. “I don’t even know what ‘wiretapping’ means,” Fitton replied, comparing loose use of the term with former President Bill Clinton’s notorious argument about the precise meaning of the word “is. ” “Was there surveillance? Was there intelligence being gathered, and did it pick up either the Trump organization in terms of their internal communications or external communications, or his associates, either on the campaign or people close to him? That’s what the media had been telling us for months and months and months,” he pointed out. “And now, the media wants to have their cake and eat it too, in the sense that once Trump said, ‘Hey, why was I being surveilled here?’ they said, ‘Oh, no, you weren’t being surveilled.’ Well, they had been reporting that people around him had been surveilled for months, and it, therefore, suggested collusion between the Trump people and Russia on the campaign. And now, we’re told, well, that’s not necessarily the case,” he said. “That’s why we’ve got, frankly, independent FOIAs and two lawsuits designed to figure out what was going on directly,” Fitton said of Judicial Watch’s perspective on the controversy. “I don’t trust Congress to get at it directly because I think the intelligence committees, generally speaking, aren’t going to really hold the intelligence agencies to account in any significant way. That’s why you need an independent third party like Judicial Watch asking these questions. ” Marlow turned to a flurry of recent court decisions by activist judges, including a block on President Trump’s executive order to suspend visas for six nations and even a possible judicial order to double the number of refugees accepted into the United States. He noted Fitton has warned about a “judicial war” against Trump. “I think some judges are letting their concerns about Donald Trump get in the way of their judicial ” Fitton said. “A lot of these decisions seem more than a traditional judicial decision that carefully applies the law. The analysis, for instance, in the Hawaii court about Trump’s concern about Islamic terrorism — it’s just one judge substituting his political judgment and policy disagreements with President Trump and mistaking that for the real law. ” “This is something that judges aren’t supposed to do,” he noted. “You had five judges in the Ninth Circuit essentially call out their fellow colleagues on this, saying, ‘We’ve got to be careful here. We can’t let our policy disagreements or our concerns one way or another for President Trump color our .’ That’s pretty extraordinary to say. ” “There’s this Deep State approach in the administration, the executive agencies, and the bureaucracies. That way of thinking is infecting too many judicial decisions related to the president’s executive orders,” he charged. Marlow said the Deep State has been on Breitbart News Daily in recent days. He asked Fitton for his conception of the Deep State and how much of a threat it poses to President Trump’s agenda. “It’s the permanent bureaucracy. It’s the recent hires of President Obama, obviously. But we should recognize that individuals who are in government for 10, 20, 30 years aren’t in government because they’re tea partiers. They’re there because they like the idea of the government, generally speaking, any more than someone’s working at McDonald’s for 30 years because they hate McDonald’s,” Fitton replied. He said these lifetime bureaucrats “tend to have contempt for political appointees,” especially Republican political appointees. “With Trump, there’s a particular animus because they don’t think Trump deserves to be president, and so they’re going to fight him, and organize against him, and quote ‘resist’ him. ” “You see it in this unholy alliance in the Hawaiian decision, where you have the DHS, you may recall, issues some sort of sketchy staff report undermining the president’s executive orders by suggesting we don’t have to worry about terrorism from these foreign countries that he’s concerned about, these six or seven countries. It wasn’t a final product. It wasn’t approved by anyone they just leaked it, and that report is being cited by the District Court judge in Hawaii as a reason to suggest Mr. Trump’s order was not valid. Isn’t that convenient?” Fitton said sarcastically. He said Judicial Watch was still working to resolve pending lawsuits for documents related to Hillary Clinton’s email server and various Obama administration controversies. “We had about 60 pending against the Obama administration on Inauguration Day, and when the president raised his hand, President Trump raised his hand and took the oath, they became against the Trump administration,” Fitton said. “We’re still waiting for the Trump administration to come to power in many respects because currently on FOIA, nothing’s changed. They’re defending the Clinton emails as if Obama was running the show — a further example of the in place,” he said. In addition to those suits, Fitton said Judicial Watch is trying to monitor “lawlessness in the bureaucracies” and challenge bureaucratic mischief related to immigration, such as San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” policy and “the University of California’s illicit tuition policy for illegal aliens. ” “On top of that, we’ve got the election fraud crisis, the voter fraud crisis that the president aptly highlighted. Those battles continue in states across the nation,” he said. “The crisis caused by the Left’s attack on the rule of law has not abated in significant ways, and it frankly continues,” Fitton declared. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
Pittsburgh Penguins players will have a hard time justifying missing any due to injury this postseason after learning what one of their fans endured, just to watch their Game 1 victory against Columbus. [On Wednesday night, police found a man bleeding from a cut on his scalp. It turns out the man, a 43 auto detail shop owner from Pittsburgh, had been stabbed in the head by someone with a screwdriver earlier that night. Now, at this point most people would call it a night. Maybe say a prayer of thanks for still being alive, perhaps even seek some medical assistance to deal with the blood loss and possible infections that could result from getting stabbed in the head. But hey, it’s NHL playoff time, where normal goes to die. So, instead of seeking treatment for his gaping head wound, this happened: “Police said the victim refused treatment for the laceration from paramedics on the scene, stating he would drive himself to UPMC Mercy hospital at the end of the game,” according to The Guardian. I tweeted this last night. This is just amazing dedication to the Pens. Look at the last line. Unreal. pic. twitter. — Colin Dunlap (@colin_dunlap) April 13, 2017, Pittsburgh won their series opening game against the Blue Jackets. But, let’s just hope this fan isn’t superstitious, because if he thinks he has to continue taking part in screwdriver fights in order for the Penguins to win, things could unravel very quickly. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
By Daisy Luther
Let’s talk about Wikileaks.
First of all, the organization was founded by Julian Assange back in 2006. Their website explains what they are all about:
“WikiLeaks specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying, and corruption. It has so far published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses.”
In the 11 years that they’ve been publishing documents, they have not been disproven a single time. Their record for authentication is perfect. (Learn more here and here .)
So this means that a person would be pretty silly to disregard anything in the reams of information about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party, the Clinton Foundation, and the political shenanigans that would put the Machiavellis to shame.
Here are 21 of the most important things that have come out about Hillary Clinton, that unfortunately, no one is reporting on in the mainstream. In the interest of brevity, each topic has a link to an article that goes deeper into the leak. (In no particular order.)
John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign had a nice cozy dinner with Peter Kadzik, one of the top officials in the Department of Justice…the day after the Benghazi hearing . Kadzik’s son also asked for a job on the Clinton campaign, and, the icing on the corruption cupcake? Kadzik led the effort to nominate Loretta Lynch, who famously met with Bill Clinton on her private plane right before Hillary’s interrogation about Emailgate. ( source ) We all knew that the Clinton Foundation was just a way for the Clinton family to launder money, and now there’s proof. Zero Hedge writes, “…today’s Wikileaks dump included that memo which reveals, for the first time, the precise financial flows between the Clinton Foundation, Band’s firm Teneo Consulting, and the Clinton family’s private business endeavors.” A pundit called this leak “The Rosetta Stone of the Clinton Foundation,” meaning that with this document, all of their shady financial dealings could be unraveled and translated. ( source ) Clinton is unable to speak for very long without a podium to lean on . Numerous leaked emails reference how certain interviews have to be kept short because she’d be without one. And this article references a very interesting reason why this may be the case – surprisingly it isn’t related to her health. ( source ) The leaks also show that Clinton intends to do her best to restrict the Second Amendment. Brian Fallon, the national press secretary for the Clinton campaign, wrote, “ Circling back around on guns as a follow up to the Friday morning discussion: the Today show has indicated they definitely plan to ask bout guns, and so to have the discussion be more of a news event than her previous times discussing guns, we are going to background reporters tonight on a few of the specific proposals she would support as President – universal background checks of course, but also closing the gun show loophole by executive order and imposing manufacturer liability .” According to an analysis on The Daily Sheeple, “Imposing manufacturer liability means that after Sandy Hook, Bushmaster and Remington Arms would have been prosecuted for having a hand in the murder of children and school staff members for firearms that were legally sold.” ( source ) The campaign was concerned that the sexual escapades of Bill Clinton could be likened to those of another disgraced celebrity, Bill Cosby . Political operative Ron Klain sent an urgent email saying that Hillary should anticipate the following questions, ” How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did? Is his conduct relevant to your campaign? You said every woman should be believed. Why not the women who accused him? Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband and his allies?” ( source ) Clinton’s campaign deliberately leaked an embarrassing photo of a swimsuit-clad Bernie Sanders to the press, ironically insinuating that it was proof he was bought off by Wall Street. Perez Hilton wrote, “ Bernie Sanders lounges at elite Martha’s Vineyard pool, summer 2015 after helping raise money from Wall Street lobbyists .” ( source ) Clinton admitted she is out of touch with the middle class in a speech to Goldman-Black Rock in 2014. “And I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I was growing up. Never. I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were. My father loved to complain about big business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing. We had good public schools. We had accessible health care. We had our little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money, didn’t believe in mortgages. So I lived that. And now, obviously, I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy , but I haven’t forgotten it.” ( source ) She made this rather NWO remark at a 2013 paid speech to Brazilian bank Banco Itau: “ My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders , some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” ( source ) In a leak of yet another paid speech, this time to the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago in 2013, Clinton said that Jordan and Turkey “ can’t possibly vet all those refugees so they don’t know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.” Meanwhile, if Clinton has her way , we will be warmly welcoming 65,000 refugees a year, which makes Obama’s 10,000 a year look like small potatoes. ( source ) Clinton blackmailed the Chinese by telling them that the US would base missiles in the region if they didn’t exert some control over North Korean aggression. “ So China, come on. You either control them or we’re going to have to defend against them ,” she purportedly told the audience at a Goldman Sachs conference in June 2013. ( source ) In May 2015, Clinton was no longer Secretary of State but was ready to announce she was running for President when she was invited to attend a summit in Morrocco. The implication from the leaked emails was that a $12 million “donation” from the king of Morocco was dependent on Clinton attending the summit. Human Abedin, usually loyal to her boss, had concerns . “ If HRC was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter. She created this mess and she knows it. Her presence was a condition for the Moroccans to proceed so there is no going back on this,” Abedin wrote to Robbie Mook in a November 2014 email. Incidentally, Clinton didn’t attend. Bill and Chelsea went instead and the $12 million donation was not forthcoming. (source ) Podesta attacked Clinton’s primary election rival Bernie Sanders for criticizing the Paris climate change agreement. “ Can you believe that doofus Bernie attacked it? ” said Podesta. ( source ) Clinton told a Goldman Sachs conference she would like to intervene secretly in Syria . “ My view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene,” she told employees of the bank in South Carolina, which had paid her about $225,000 to give a speech. “We used to be much better at this than we are now. Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves. They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: Look what we’re doing and I want credit for it. ” (source ) There is indeed a definite link between the Clinton campaign and what MSM is allowed to say. The campaign has colluded directly with media spokespersons that read like a Who’s Who in American Media : Dan Merica from CNN, Haim Saban of Univision, John Harwood of CNBC and the NY Times, Rebecca Quick of CNBC, Maggie Haberman of NY Times and Politico, John Harris of Politico, Donna Brazile formerly of CNN, Roland Martin of TV-One, Marjorie Pritchard of The Boston Globe, and Louise Mensch of Heat Street. ( source ) As everyone knows, the DNC deliberately screwed Bernie Sanders out of the nomination ( Bonus: Wikileaks also released some of the DNC’s voicemails on the topic ). There are emails that prove who is actually pulling HRC’s puppet strings and that puppeteer is George Soros . The shadow government is not just a conspiracy theory – it really exists and Hillary’s job is to keep George Soros happy. ( source ) Excerpts from her speeches to Wall Street read like a guide to two-faced treachery. In them, she clearly points out that sometimes you “need” to lie. “If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.” ( source ) Wikileaks emails show that back when she still worked for CNN and before she became an employee of the Clinton campaign, Donna Brazile gave Hillary the questions in advance for her “impromptu” CNN Town Hall questions. ( source ) The campaign got to “approve” articles in influential publications like NY Times, HuffPo, CNN, NBC, CBS, NYT, MSNBC, and Politico, showing a massive collusion with the mainstream media, who has hounded Trump relentlessly in an effort to distract from HRC’s abysmal candidacy. ( source ) Through the treasure trove of Wikileaks emails, we can gain an accurate picture of how Hillary really feels about us all (spoiler: basket of deplorables, basement dwellers and right wing conspirators) ( source ) President Obama knew the whole time that her emails were not coming from the secure State Department server. Cheryl Mills wrote to John Podesta, “W e need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov .” You see, Obama’s emails all have to be from”whitelisted”addresses. So someone, somewhere, added her nonsecure email to his whitelist. ( source ) And finally, here’s the real reason that treacherous shrew is involved in politics. And let me tell you, it isn’t because she yearns to make things better for anyone but herself. (emphasis mine.)
At the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit, Clinton responded to a question from chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who quipped that you “go to Washington” to “make a small fortune.” Clinton agreed with the comment and complained about ethics rules that require officials to divest from certain assets before entering government. “ There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives, ” Clinton said. ( source )
Together, we cannot be ignored. I am on a mission between now and the Presidential Election on November 8th and I hope that you will join me. I am going to work day and night to provide the coverage that the mainstream media is not. It isn’t until we combine all of our voices that we can make people listen to the scandals, the rigging, and the corruption, not only in this election but in the system in general. Please join your voice with mine by liking, sharing, and spreading the word. Together, we cannot be ignored. Together, we are an army. Source: Daisy Luther
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Dr. David Duke and Pastor Dankof discuss the Magnificent victory of Donald Trump against the globalist warmongers and criminals! November 9, 2016 at 11:43 am
Dr. David Duke and Pastor Dankof discuss the Magnificent victory of Donald Trump against the globalist warmongers and criminals!
Today Dr. Duke and Pastor Mark Dankof discuss the historic victory achieved last night. Although Dr. Duke came up short amidst the most unfair and rigged system in his own bid for the U.S. Senate, there is no doubt that the Alt-Right movement that propagated Dr. Duke’s narrative far and wide was decisive in Donald Trump’s win last night.
With just enough of our people having woken up in the nick of time, we can now avoid the global Armageddon that Hillary’s Zio handlers were lurching towards. But there is much work to be done. We need to build a wall and even more importantly repeal the 1965 immigration act. We need to build our own media so that the American voters are no longer fed lies and deceit unchallenged. And most of all, we need to “red pill” the public to the existence of Jewish domination of our society so that we truly can take back our country and Make America Great Again.
Our show is aired live at 11 am replayed at ET 4pm Eastern and 4am Eastern.
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As concern rises over the effect of continuous use of headphones and earbuds on hearing, a new paper by federal researchers has found something unexpected. The prevalence of hearing loss in Americans of working age has declined. The paper, published on Thursday in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology — Head Neck Surgery, used data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey, which periodically administers health tests to a representative sample of the population. The investigators, led by Howard J. Hoffman, the director of the epidemiology and statistics program at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, compared data collected between 1999 and 2004 with data from 2011 and 2012, the most recent available. Hearing loss in this study meant that a person could not hear, in at least one ear, a sound about as loud as rustling leaves. The researchers reported that while 15. 9 percent of the population studied in the earlier period had problems hearing, just 14. 1 percent of the more recent group had hearing loss. The good news is part of a continuing trend — Americans’ hearing has gotten steadily better since 1959. Most surprising to Mr. Hoffman, a statistician, was that even though the total population of to grew by 20 million over the time period studied — and the greatest growth was in the oldest people, a group most likely to have hearing problems — the total number of people with hearing loss fell, from 28 million to 27. 7 million. Hearing experts who were not associated with the study said they were utterly convinced by the results. “It’s a fantastic paper,” said Brian Fligor, an audiologist with Lantos Technologies of Wakefield, Mass. which develops custom earpieces to protect ears from noise. “I totally believe them. ” “Initially, I was surprised,” said Dr. Debara Tucci, a professor of otolaryngology at Duke. “But then I thought about all the reasons why hearing loss might be declining. ” It is a long list including the closing of noisy factories, reduced use of medications like some antibiotics that can cause hearing loss, immunizations to prevent childhood illnesses like measles that can affect hearing, and better health in general in the population. In her region, Dr. Tucci said, many patients used to work in noisy textile factories, most of which are now closed. “I used to see a huge amount of hearing loss,” she said. “I don’t see that so much anymore. ” Mr. Hoffman said — and others agreed — that although years of exposure to very loud noise can damage hearing, concerns that loud music being played through headphones is diminishing the hearing of a generation are as yet unproven. If there were a headphone connection, it might have shown up as an increase in hearing loss among people in their 20s, because the issue of people wearing headphones for extended periods of time has been around for more than decade. But people in their 20s had no more hearing loss than people that age a decade ago. “We are going to keep studying this,” Mr. Hoffman said. The study found that men — at all ages — were more likely to have hearing problems than women, and that the greatest risk factor for hearing loss was age. While the new data is gratifying, Mr. Hoffman cautioned that hearing loss remains a problem. “This doesn’t mean we have prevented hearing loss,” he stressed. “It just means it is delayed. ” Still, other researchers said the declining prevalence of hearing loss was part of a broad health trend internationally, with almost every major disease and disability on the wane and occurring later in life. The hearing loss data, said James Vaupel, director, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, “is consistent with other research showing a delay in aging. ” “The evidence suggests that 70 is the new 60,” Dr. Vaupel said, “with health and mortality of today being similar to the health and mortality trends of half a century ago. ” | 1 |
OAKLAND, Calif. — New York Times reporters are investigating the devastating fire that killed 36 people this month at a warehouse called the Ghost Ship in Oakland, Calif. We’re also doing something new: providing regular updates on our findings. Do you have information, advice or feedback? Send email to oaklandfire@nytimes. com. The first update can be found here. Among the targets of our reporting is finding out about the owner of the sprawling warehouse that burst into flames on Dec. 2. Property records show that her name is Chor Nar Siu Ng and that she bought the building in 1988. Did Ms. Ng know anything about the dangers at the Ghost Ship? And if so, what did she do to fix them? For the past week, I’ve been trying to learn more about Ms. Ng, combing through records at the Alameda County ’s office, interviewing people all over Oakland’s Chinatown — where she owns several properties — and trying to track down her children, who helped her run her businesses. So far, no one has found her. (The Los Angeles Times did speak with her daughter, Eva Ng, who said the family hadn’t known that anyone lived at the Ghost Ship.) Through documents and interviews, here’s what we’ve learned about Chor Nar Siu Ng: • First, Ms. Ng owns several properties in the Bay Area — roughly 10 — most of which are in Oakland. She owns the warehouse that burned, at 1315 31st Avenue, as well as an adjacent lot to the south and an adjacent building to the north. That building houses a Boost Mobile store, a boutique called Moda and a religious goods shop called Botanica 3 MMM. • Second, the city has spent years fining Ms. Ng for what it calls “nuisance or substandard or hazardous or injurious” conditions at the lot south of the warehouse and at the building to the north. While it’s difficult to determine exactly how much Ms. Ng has paid because of these conditions, tax records offer a clue: Between 2005 and 2014, Ms. Ng paid $26, 570. 20 in “code enforcement” fees to the city of Oakland for the lot next to the Ghost Ship. I’ve reached out to the city to ask about the specifics of what led to these fines. Messages were also left with two of Ms. Ng’s children, as well as with a lawyer named Gerard Lam, who represented Ms. Ng in a previous dispute with a tenant. There’s been no response yet. • Third, it’s clear that Ms. Ng had at least some presence in the warehouse area. Several people who used to live at the Ghost Ship have said Ms. Ng or her daughter would come by the warehouse, first alerting Derick Ion Almena, the man who rented the place from them. What’s not clear is whether the Ngs entered the building and saw what was inside: a staircase, a blocked exit upstairs, webs of extension cords, propane tanks used to heat water and piles of flammable debris. Now that it’s evident that Ms. Ng has a string of properties around the city, it will be important to try to find her tenants. What did they think of how she ran her buildings? Did they feel safe? For about 20 years, Griselda Ceja and her family rented a portion of the building next to the burned warehouse. From there, Ms. Ceja ran a beauty salon she called Griselda’s. (The salon is still listed on Google Maps.) “She never took care of the building,” Ms. Ceja said. “We were scared. We were all scared. ” Ms. Ceja, 43, described troubling conditions: a circuit box and light fixtures that sparked as she dried customers’ hair. A blocked emergency exit. An aged electric system that failed constantly. There were also rats in the walls and holes in the floors. She wanted to go elsewhere but couldn’t afford to, she said. Ms. Ceja said she complained frequently to Ms. Ng and her relatives, communicating through letters, phone calls and text messages. After about a year, Ms. Ceja said, the Ngs added a second circuit box, an effort to stop the sparking. Ms. Ceja said she called the city once, about a decade ago, to complain about the rats. She said an Oakland official came by, but she didn’t press him to take action. “He said the building would close if he did something about it,” she said, “and everyone would go out of business. ” A request has been sent to the city for documents that would confirm this. Ms. Ceja suggested talking to Leo Barrera, who had worked with her at the salon, to verify her account. “We told them many times: ‘Please, if you could fix this, we need light, or water, or an emergency exit,’” Ms. Barrera, 36, said at her new beauty shop. “The most basic. Nothing more. We weren’t asking for luxuries,” she said. “In the case that the building caught on fire,” she added, “how would we have exited?” Did everyone have such problems? On Friday, I went to Chinatown, where at least three properties are in Ms. Ng’s name. Michelle Leung, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, who speaks Cantonese, came along to interpret. At a grocery, a Vietnamese restaurant and a building that houses the California Chinese Orchestra, no one knew her. But at Sum Yee Pastry, the owner — a man who would not give his name — said his family had rented from Ms. Ng for a decade. No major problems, he said, just a few leaks, which he fixed himself. Later, back at the scene of the fire, a woman named Rose Martinez, 31, was standing outside Botanica 3 MMM near tears. Her family started the business about 20 years ago, she said. The fire had caused considerable water and smoke damage, and the business is now closed. The Ngs had been good to them, she said, even letting the family skip rent one month after her father died. But the faulty electricity and the rats had been a real problem, Ms. Martinez said. Of the fire, she said, “losswise, I don’t know how to put it into words. ” WHAT’S NEXT: I’d like to speak with the Ngs, with any of their business associates, and with people who have lived and worked at their properties, as well as with more residents of the Ghost Ship. How often did they see Ms. Ng or her family members at the warehouse? And it’s important to hear from city officials about their interactions with the landlord. Lastly, all of this is a part of a larger question: Who will ultimately be held legally responsible for the fire? Could lawyers who’ve worked on other cases involving major fires provide any advice? P. S.: Readers, I want to know when the warehouse at 1315 31st Avenue was built and what it had been in past years. A canning factory? A dairy? The Oakland History Room, the Oakland Heritage Survey and the University of California’s Earth Sciences and Map Library have all provided some clues, but nothing definitive so far. Suggestions? — JULIE TURKEWITZ When we took on this project last week, we hoped for feedback from readers. What we got was well beyond our expectations: a torrent of tips, expertise, links to documents and anguished readers describing their experiences with the housing crisis in the Bay Area. Architects, fire marshals, lawyers, artists and concerned residents were among the hundreds of readers who wrote us, creating a trove of contacts for the reporters working on the project. Janet Van Ham, a photographer, wrote to describe precarious spaces that she has rented in Oakland. When I called Ms. Van Ham to follow up, she said she had an epiphany over the summer at her loft in an old warehouse. “I remember thinking, ‘If there was a fire in here, how would I get out? ’” she said. “There was no safety plan, no enforcement. ” She moved out in August. Serena Elston, a carpenter and wood sculptor who lives in a loft in Fruitvale, the neighborhood where the Ghost Ship is, wrote about the plight of artists and the powerful but intangible sense of community in Oakland among them. I drove to Ms. Elston’s converted warehouse with Jim Wilson, our San Francisco bureau photographer. Ms. Elston’s studio, filled with power saws and timber, has a sprinkler system. But we spoke about the many other people in Oakland who live more precariously. “It’s a don’t ask, don’t tell situation,” Ms. Elston said. “Let’s say you know your electrical system is super messed up. Are you going to call your landlord in? Is he going to fix it or kick you out?” We are grateful to all those who wrote, and we welcome more information as we continue the project. — THOMAS FULLER | 1 |
Videos Thursday, 03 November 2016 Hillary Clinton: "I'm Sick and Tired of the Negative, Dark, Divisive, Dangerous Vision and Behavior” of Trump Supporters Email
Now that her coronation appears to be escaping her grasp, Democrat Party presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is showing another side of her personality . On Tuesday night a heckler interrupted her speech, waving a sign that read “Bill Clinton is a rapist.” Her response, instead of showing her usual controlled aplomb and restraint, surprised the crowd at its intensity and ferocity. Pointing at the offender and shouting at the top of her voice, Clinton exploded: I’m sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and behavior of people who support Donald Trump!
The protestor was immediately led away and his sign was torn apart. It turned out that the protestor was vying for a cash prize being offered by Alex Jones of InfoWars.com to anyone appearing either on television or at a Clinton rally chanting “Bill Clinton is a rapist” and wearing a t-shirt bearing the same slogan.
NBC News tried to downplay the interruption, noting that while other protestors have shown up at rallies featuring President Obama and Bill Clinton himself, they are bringing attention to “decades-old allegations from three women who accuse Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct. The former president has denied all of the allegations.”
The video of Hillary’s outburst is here:
There’s an old saying, “A measure of a person is the size of the thing that gets her goat.” Hillary’s goat, in the form of a protestor interrupting her speech, was sufficient to expose how close to the edge Hillary lives when things don’t go her way.
TNA contributor Selwyn Duke has posted numerous verbal tirades from Clinton on his website, none of which are acceptable to be printed here. They do, however, reflect the mental instability of an individual behaving like a child when her candy is taken away. Her foul mouth shows the degree of corruption from which she suffers, as explained in James 3:5,6: Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
Jesus Himself said it best of all: What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.
Clinton has spent nearly her entire adult life seeking power. Now that the ultimate prize — once so close she could taste it — is escaping her, the real Hillary is being exposed.
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
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Four years after Hurricane Sandy, my condominium development at the Jersey Shore is finally fully back. Many of the residents around us in Ortley Beach — a Toms River beach town that was described as New Jersey’s “ground zero” in the hurricane — are still struggling through recovery, and some have abandoned their efforts and property. No one who was affected by that storm — or Hurricanes Katrina or Andrew or any other big natural disaster — will look at an approaching storm without deep trepidation. Here are some tips, learned through experience. ■ If they tell you to get out — get out. You put emergency crews in danger if you refuse to leave, and once the storm hits, your window of opportunity to leave is minuscule. ■ If you insist on staying, have a logical, achievable escape plan, and set a threshold for activating it. If you wait until the last minute, it will be too late, as an acquaintance of mine learned: He and his son had to jump out of an window, into the rising sea, and swim for their lives to a condominium development farther inland, where they kicked in a door and rode out the storm on the third floor. ■ Water rises swiftly and is more powerful than you can imagine. See anecdote above. ■ If you are in the evacuation zone and staying — or if you are just outside the zone — find a place in your home that can withstand extreme wind. Relatives of mine locked themselves in an inner bathroom during Hurricane Andrew, holding the doorknob for dear life when the wind died and they opened the door, there was nothing left of the rest of the house, but they were unharmed. ■ Put your important papers, your wallet, your purse and any jewelry that you hold near and dear into your safest space (someone online suggested a washer, dryer or refrigerator). Put other valuables, like family photographs, in tightly wrapped garbage bags and place them somewhere off the floor. You will need those papers to put your life back together after the storm. ■ Have numbers for your insurance company programmed into your cellphone (and make sure it is charged). ■ If you have loved ones in a nursing or an facility, or a hospital, get cellphone numbers and other contact information so you can check on them after the storm passes. If the facility does not contact you to share its storm plans, make sure you pin them down before it hits. ■ Many insurance companies will fight you tooth and nail on your claims. Document your valuables before the storm and be meticulous in keeping track of your losses and recovery expenses. Then be prepared to devote a large part of your life to fighting for what’s due. (Hopefully, this will not happen to you, but it did for far too many people I know). What are your tips? Let us know by leaving a comment. | 1 |
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U.S. War Policy Has Created The Multi-polar World Brandon Turbeville, Activist Post
As the United States squanders the enormous good will and respect it once had by marching forward on the tired legs of a dying empire, the U.S.’ enemies-of-its-own-making are beginning to forge new alliances that might not have been a reality had the U.S. at the very least pursued a strategy of positive reinforcement and cooperation as opposed to a policy of tension, pillage, and war.
The first major crack in the iron curtain of the Anglo-American world hegemon started becoming apparent with the emergence of the U.S. destabilization and proxy war against Syria. While the NATO/American proxy war has left hundreds of thousands of Syrians dead, hundreds of thousands more displaced, and destroyed much of the Syrian infrastructure as well as crippled the Syrian economy, another result of American policy in Syria is that it has strengthened and even created alliances that otherwise may not have existed not only between Middle Eastern countries but European, Asian, and African nations as well.
Unfortunately for the United States, these new alliances of its targers were created out of a political, economic, and military necessity by which to survive the Western onslaught of destabilization, sanctions, and war aimed at these respective nations. Thus, if the West wanted to break resistance to its hegemonic system, it has managed instead to encourage the opposite.
While already an axis of mutual interest, the crisis in Syria has resulted in the strengthening of ties between Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. Not only a strategic alliance, this arc of resistance has solidified ties that are slowly pulling Iraq away from the influence of the United States. Indeed, the Iraqis are still tethered to the United States due largely to bribery, deception, economic threats, and the decreasing dependency on the United States for military assistance to combat ISIS.
Syria itself is spreading its wings as it mops up America’s terrorists. Reaching out to not only the nations of the resistance axis and Russia, it is reaching out and solidifying relationships with Russia and China as well as with other European and African nations like the Czech Republic and Egypt.
Likewise, if the ties between Iran and the Houthis were not strong enough before the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition, they certainly are now. Despite no credible evidence that Iran is providing weapons to the Houthis, there is little doubt that the Iranians are providing whatever support they can in whatever form that can take and that they will do so in the future.
Russia, of course, factors in as the biggest and most important player in the strategic realignment with its insistence (which has come as a result of the U.S. aggression across the planet) in the emergence of a “multi-polar” world. Russia’s reunification with Crimea, support of the Ukrainian rebels, as well as its support of Syria is only the tip of the iceberg. A growing cooperation with China and with a host of other nations throughout the world – by virtue of the carrot as opposed to the stick – is rapidly drawing more and more nations into the Russian fold.
Iran, too, having not expressed a desire for empire nonetheless is now beginning to express interest in stretching its muscles and expanding its own influence. How much of this newly expressed desire is innate and how much is simply a necessary act of self-defense against and encroaching war machine that sees Iran as next in line for destruction is unclear. The fact that it is happening, however, is not in doubt.
These new alliances may not have ever taken shape and solidified had the United States not insisted on acting as the battering ram for the Anglo-American system across the world and squandered all the respect and good will that existed for it in so many nations. The U.S. could easily have won many nations over by using positive reinforcement and enticement such as development, higher living standards, and peace. Instead, it has bombed, burned, bribed, and destabilized itself across the globe to the point that it has become the number one threat to world peace, a reality that is being acknowledged by more and more countries by the day.
What could have been the greatest force for peace, stability, democracy, and high living standards has been utterly squandered into being the greatest force for the opposite. If the United States continues down this path of imperialism, it will soon find itself not only hated the world over, but collapsed, weak, and bitter while the nations it has targeted in the final days of its war push have united against it. We can only hope that they have more restraint, good will, and compassion than what the U.S. has shown to them. | 0 |
By Sarah Jones on Fri, Oct 28th, 2016 at 9:04 pm So Donald Trump's warnings about almost non-existent voter fraud were right after all. The only problem is that it was a Donald Trump supporter who committed voter fraud by voting twice. Share on Twitter Print This Post
So Donald Trump’s warnings about almost non-existent voter fraud were right after all.
The only problem is that it was a Donald Trump supporter who committed voter fraud by voting twice.
Terri Lynn Rote, 55, was booked into jail Thursday on a felony charge of first-degree election misconduct after being arrested for suspicion of voting twice, according to the Des Moines Register .
Authorities say the registered Republican cast two electoral ballots in Polk County. She was held in jail on a $5,000 bond and released Friday.
Terri Rote caucused for Donald Trump: Terri Rote plans to caucus tonight for @realDonaldTrump down on the east side of Des Moines pic.twitter.com/dMdeH7sX0V
— Leigh Munsil (@leighmunsil) February 1, 2016
This does make it pretty awkward for Republicans, especially Trump supporters who’ve been told to “monitor” areas where liberals and Democrats vote, which is actually called voter intimidation and is also against the law.
In fact, Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that the election is rigged got the Republican Party sued for voter intimidation. And now one of Trump’s own supporters is arrested over voter fraud.
Makes sense. | 0 |
PARIS — New embezzlement allegations emerged on Wednesday against the French presidential candidate François Fillon, adding uncertainty to an already tightly contested election. Mr. Fillon’s campaign was thrown into turmoil last week after Le Canard Enchaîné, a weekly newspaper that mixes satire and investigations, reported that his wife, Penelope Fillon, was paid with taxpayer money for a bogus job as a parliamentary assistant to her husband and his deputy in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. On Wednesday, the newspaper published new accusations, reporting that Ms. Fillon had held the bogus job for even longer than initially reported — from 1988 to 1990, between 1998 and 2007 and finally from 2012 to 2013 — and that she had been paid 831, 440 euros, or nearly $900, 000, much more than the figure published last week. Mr. Fillon, a former prime minister, won primary elections in November to become the candidate for the Republicans party. But the allegations have seriously damaged his presidential bid, and the French media, which until last week portrayed him as the favorite, is now openly wondering who might replace him if he drops out of the race. The allegations are especially damaging for Mr. Fillon because he has pledged to reduce wasteful spending and has fashioned himself as a stern and honest politician, untouched by the corruption scandals that have plagued some of his opponents. Le Canard Enchaîné also reported that Mr. Fillon paid two of his five children as parliamentary aides when he was in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, from 2005 to 2007. In an interview on French television last week, Mr. Fillon said that he had hired them temporarily for their expertise as lawyers. But the French news media was quick to point out that the children, his oldest daughter and a younger son, were not lawyers at the time, only law students, and Le Canard Enchaîné reported on Wednesday that they were paid a total of €83, 735 as parliamentary aides, or over $90, 000. Under French law, it is not illegal for members of Parliament to hire relatives as aides, provided that the work is genuine. But the initial report in Le Canard Enchaîné prompted prosecutors in Paris to open an investigation to determine if Ms. Fillon actually did the work. Investigators have searched Mr. Fillon’s office at the National Assembly and questioned his wife and him, as well as Marc Joulaud, Mr. Fillon’s former parliamentary deputy. Mr. Fillon has denied wrongdoing and has said he would only drop out of the race if placed under formal investigation and charged. His supporters have mounted a confusing defense of Ms. Fillon, with some suggesting, for instance, that she was never seen in Paris because she worked exclusively in Sarthe, the region of France that Mr. Fillon represents. Others suggested the opposite. Antonin Lévy, Mr. Fillon’s lawyer, was mocked on social media for suggesting that the work of a parliamentary aide was not always “tangible. ” The investigation is also focusing on Le Canard Enchaîné’s report that Ms. Fillon was paid €5, 000 a month from May 2012 to Dec. 2013 by La Revue des Deux Mondes, a political magazine owned by Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, a wealthy friend of Mr. Fillon’s. Ms. Fillon is suspected of having done little besides a handful of short literary reviews. Speaking to lawmakers on Wednesday, Mr. Fillon accused his opponents on the left of orchestrating an “institutional coup” and asked his colleagues stay loyal to him, according to French news reports. Thierry Solère, a Republican lawmaker who is also a spokesman for Mr. Fillon, said later that “nobody” would prevent Mr. Fillon from reaching the first and second rounds of the presidential election. But others in the party openly questioned Mr. Fillon’s candidacy on Wednesday. Georges Fenech, a Republican in the National Assembly, told France Info radio that the situation was “very, very compromised. ” “I think I am saying out loud what many, many lawmakers are thinking to themselves,” he said, calling for top party officials to designate a new candidate. “We can’t just watch like the orchestra on the Titanic, and continue to play while the ship sinks,” he said. In France, any number of candidates can run in the first round of voting, but only the two top make it to the runoff. This year, the first round is set for April 23, and the runoff for May 7. An internet poll by the Elabe polling institute, published on Wednesday for Radio Classique and the newspaper Les Échos and conducted before Le Canard Enchaîné’s new allegations, found that Mr. Fillon, who was the favorite in the elections until last week, would not make it to the second round. The French left is deeply divided, and the candidates who have benefited the most from Mr. Fillon’s drop in popularity are Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister under the current Socialist government who is running as an independent, and Marine Le Pen, the head of the National Front party. Ms. Le Pen is facing her own allegations of financial misconduct at the European Parliament, where her party is accused of paying its staff members with European Union funds, which can only be used for parliamentary aides. Ms. Le Pen is refusing to repay the €300, 000 that the European Parliament is seeking to recover. | 1 |
By Nadia Prupis Canadian free speech advocates slammed recent revelations that Montreal police tracked a journalist’s cell phone calls, text messages, and locations in an... | 0 |
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Hundreds of people turned up today to join Breitbart Senior editor MILO in a march across UC Davis after their event on campus was cancelled last night due to violent protests.[ As hundreds of MILO and Martin Shkreli fans turned up to greet the dynamic duo as they marched on the UC Davis campus to protest the speech activists who shut down last night’s event, the same fascist protesters arrived in an attempt to cause trouble. Despite the protesters best efforts, MILO was still surrounded by hundreds of fans (and more than a few members of the press) who roared their approval. Watch a livestream of the event below. | 1 |
Untitled A decade ago, “truthiness” and fact-checker ratings like “Four Pinocchios” and “Pants on Fire” weren’t part of the political vernacular. Disagreements
Michel | 0 |
PARIS — No bells tolled. No fists were raised. No sirens blared. Instead, a penetrating silence enveloped Paris on Sunday morning as thousands of people across the city massed under a leaden sky for the anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attacks in France’s postwar history, a year to the day after they shook the nation. In somber ceremonies at the Stade de France, the Bataclan concert hall and cafes where Islamic State militants unleashed synchronized assaults, massacring 130 and leaving hundreds wounded, President François Hollande stood amid heavy security before survivors, victims’ families, medics and throngs of the grieving to unveil marble plaques memorializing those whose lives ended abruptly last Nov. 13. Mr. Hollande, too, remained silent. He arrived at each site without making a speech and quietly lifted the blue, white and red French flag, the Tricolore, from the grim tableaus to reveal the names of the dead, which an announcer then read off one by one. For the survivors and the victims’ families, it was a moment to gather, take measure of their grief and seek to move past it. For many French citizens, as well as foreigners who were present at the massacres and returned to Paris during the weekend in a show of solidarity, it was an attempt to overcome trauma, despair or anger, and to push forward with heads held high. As the day went on, thousands of people made their way to the Place de la République, a central rallying point in Paris, lighting candles and piling flowers on the pedestal of an immense bronze statue of Marianne, the personification of the French Republic. Posters were raised around the city, emblazoned with the Latin words “Fluctuat nec mergitur,” the ancient slogan of Paris, which translates to: “It is tossed by the waves, but does not sink. ” “This is a coming together for remembering — but also to forgive,” said Mark Colclough, a psychotherapist based in Copenhagen who was near the cafe La Bonne Bière when the terrorists stormed its terrace and five people before continuing their rampage across the city. Mr. Colclough attended a memorial there before making his way to a ceremony at another cafe, La Belle Équipe, to support a friend who had escaped death as the assailants mowed down 19 people around her. “What’s remarkable is that there’s no hatred, no anger here,” he said as flowers and candles piled up at a makeshift shrine. “There’s a very deep feeling of humanity. ” The ceremonies took place a day after the Bataclan reopened to the public for the first time since three terrorists entered with assault rifles and killed 89 concertgoers at close range. The death toll reached 90 after one of the wounded died. Headlining the hall’s reopening was the British musician Sting, who said the concert and the concertgoers had “two jobs: to remember those who lost their lives in the attack a year ago and to celebrate the life, music, which this historic concert hall represents. ” He ended by saying, “We will never forget them. ” In a city where memorial plaques abound, reminding citizens of deportations during the Holocaust and assassinations of major French figures, the placement of Nov. 13 plaques will prove a constant reminder of another grave and pivotal moment in French history. “Every day, we have to walk by a plaque when we go to school, or when we go buy our groceries, or we go out for a drink,” said Matthias, who lives near Le Carillon and Le Petit Cambodge, two other cafes struck by the terrorists, and declined to give his last name. “It’s here. We can’t deny that it happened. It’s necessary. ” On Sunday, others called for tolerance and freedom, as Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced that the government might prolong a state of emergency imposed after the attacks. That policy was extended after an assailant affiliated with the Islamic State used a truck to kill 84 people in Nice on Bastille Day in July it includes heightened surveillance of French citizens and an increased military and police presence around the country. Michael Dias, whose father died when one of three suicide bombers at the Stade de France detonated an explosive vest, urged the government to combat stigma and division, warning that doing otherwise could fan the flames of hate. “If we wish to live in liberty, we need to practice tolerance,” he said in a speech. For others, however, no measure of reconciliation seemed possible. Patrick Jardin, whose daughter, Nathalie, was killed at the Bataclan while attending a concert by Eagles of Death Metal, said the anger would never leave him. He and several other relatives of victims refused to participate in the commemorations on Sunday, calling them useless. “We cannot respond to Kalashnikovs with candles,” Mr. Jardin said in an interview with France Bleu Nord radio. “I was told that with time, the pain would fade. But it gets worse every day. ” The reopening on Saturday was the first chance for the public to see the Bataclan since the attacks, although the families of those who died and the survivors had been invited back twice before: after it was cleaned up, and after its renovation. The orchestra pit and bar were crowded, and so was much of the balcony. Despite Sting’s exhortation to embrace normal life, much has changed in Paris. Entering the Bataclan and many public buildings and museums in Paris now almost uniformly requires bag searches, if not body searches. At the Bataclan on Saturday, there were two sets of police checkpoints and an additional identification check inside. Searches are now an accepted part of life even on entering larger supermarkets in Paris. Many of those in the audience appeared to have some connection to those who were at the concert last year. One of them was Georges Salines, the father of Lola Salines, a who died in the attack. A thin, man wearing a beret, he started an association for the families of victims of the attacks and for survivors. “It was of course the worst day of my life, and immediately I decided I had to do something, because the organization, at least as far as the information process was concerned, was terrible,” Mr. Salines said. “I wanted to help fix it,” he said, and that was what prompted him to start 13onze15: Fraternity and Truth. The name 13onze15 signifies the date of the attacks. “I am convinced that in order to fight terrorism and to win, we have to build a more friendly society, and on a lot of levels we have to be inclusive,” he said. “If we rely only on the military and the police, we will fail. ” At La Belle Équipe, Mr. Colclough was hoping for a similar future. “I really wish that our politicians would see the trials we have as a society together and see that as a humanitarian movement, of us moving together,” he said as a fine rain began to fall. “We need to have forgiveness and reaching out,” he said, “rather than a closing down. ” | 1 |
President Donald Trump’s tougher border security and immigration enforcement plans have driven up human smuggling fees being charged by coyotes. [“We are seeing an increase in the fees charged by human smugglers along the U. S. southwest border,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John F. Kelly said in a written statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “Since Nov. 2016, ‘coyotes’ have hiked their fees in some areas by roughly 130 percent — from $3, 500 to $8, 000 in certain mountainous regions. ” Kelly attributed the increased fees charged to newly implemented changes in DHS policy regarding the detention of apprehended aliens. “As directed in my memoranda implementing the President’s executive orders, we remain committed to carrying out fair, impartial and humane enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws,” Kelly wrote. Coyotes have become dependent on human smuggling fees, often earning as much from smuggling people as drug runs. Breitbart Texas reported in the days before the November 2016 Election, smugglers were using the contest as a “marketing tool” to get people to travel in advance. “The cartel uses what happens in the U. S. as a marketing tool in Central America,” McAllen Mayor Jim Darling said during an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas. “The need is there (in Central America) but what happens in Washington and the way the news media presents it, they (cartels) say you better get up here. So that causes the surges. We”ll see what happens after the election to see if it slows down. ” After the election, it did not slow down. The months of November, December, and January, all saw increases in apprehensions compared to the same months in the prior year. Following the release of December’s numbers showing a large increase in apprehensions, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Marlene Castro said, “We’re not a deterrent because they’re looking for us, so we can be standing there and [the smuggler will] still send them across,” during an interview with Fox News Channel’s William La Jeunesse. “It’s been a group, and then maybe five minutes later another group, and then half an hour later you’ll see another one. ” With the swearing in of President Trump in January, the numbers finally began to subside. While still higher than January 2016, the numbers were down from December. The first full month of the Trump Administration brought a dramatic drop in migrant apprehensions between ports of entry along the southwest border. Apprehensions not only dropped from January to February they dropped to the lowest level of any month in the past five years. “The drop in apprehensions shows a marked change in trends,” Secretary Kelly said. “Since the Administration’s implementation of Executive Orders to enforce immigration laws, apprehensions and inadmissible activity is trending toward the lowest monthly total in at least the last five years. ” “Since President Trump took office on January 20, we have seen a dramatic drop in numbers,” Kelly stated. “We will remain vigilant to respond to any changes in these trends, as numbers of illegal crossings typically increase between March and May. However, the early results show that enforcement matters, deterrence matters, and that comprehensive immigration enforcement can make an impact. ” “The decrease is also encouraging news because it means many fewer people are putting themselves and their families at risk of exploitation, assault, and injury by human traffickers and the physical dangers of the treacherous journey north,” the DHS secretary concluded. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. | 1 |
U. S. House campaigns on both sides of the political spectrum hit fundraising records in the first quarter of 2017, according to findings from the Federal Election Commission. [Donors gave a record $96. 1 million in the first quarter of 2017, a 45 percent increase over the previous record of $66. 2 million raised in the same amount of time two years ago, Bloomberg Politics reported. The maximum contribution amount stayed the same for both periods of time. Republicans raised $49. 8 million, while Democrats raked in $46. 3 million. The reason for this surge in fundraising on both sides can be attributed to President Trump’s first actions as president on immigration, cutting regulation, tax reform, and healthcare reform. groups have seen a surge in demonstrations and fundraising to fight against Trump’s efforts as president, but conservatives have also seen a boost in fundraising during the first few months of the Trump administration. “Heightened partisanship is good for fundraising,” said Michael Beckel, manager of research, investigations, and policy at Issue One, a group that advocates limiting the role of money in politics. “Republicans and Democrats are trying to keep their donor bases active at the dawn of the Trump presidency. ” But the biggest surge in fundraising has come from donations. House campaign committees for both parties received a total of $13. 7 million in donations from donors who gave $200 or less. President Trump has also benefited from donors, who propelled him to victory in 2016 and helped him raise $13. 2 million for his 2020 . | 1 |
TMZ Sports spoke with Pittsburgh Pirates star center fielder Andrew McCutchen about Boston Red Sox fans yelling racial slurs at Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones last week. McCutchen said he played at Fenway Park for the first time earlier this season and did not experience any racism from the fans. “Everyone was pretty cool, pretty normal,” McCutchen stated. The reporter then asked McCutchen about New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia saying all black players “expect” racism in Boston. “[E]veryone has different experiences in different divisions,” he said. “CC’s been around longer than I have and he’s played in different divisions, so he probably experiences a lot more than I have. I’m sure he probably just expects that that’s going to happen. You hate that you have to think that way, but sometimes that’s part of it and you just gotta turn the other cheek and move on. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
LONDON — Without fanfare or flourish, the Cherry Jones has calmly established her place as one of the major stage actresses in the United States. She has won two Tony Awards, received an Emmy for her role as President Allison Taylor in “24,” and earned rave reviews both on and off Broadway. But she had appeared in just one production in Britain — at last year’s Edinburgh International Festival, in John Tiffany’s production of Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie. ” As Amanda Wingfield — a desperate single mother trying to hold on to her alienated son, Tom, and find a viable life for her disabled and shy daughter, Laura — Ms. Jones triumphed both in the production’s original run on Broadway in 2013 and in Edinburgh. She was “an Amanda that may someday be spoken of with the awe that surrounds Laurette Taylor’s creation of the part nearly 70 years ago,” the critic Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times after the Broadway opening. Now Mr. Tiffany (who directed the hugely successful “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” in London last year) has brought that production to the Duke of York’s Theater in London’s West End, where it opened this week. (Michael Esper and Kate O’Flynn will play Tom and Laura, with Brian J. Smith as the Gentleman Caller.) There, Ms. Jones, 60, has finally made her London debut, some 40 years after she created a folder and named it “My Career on the British Stage. ” In a Skype call from Paris, Tenn. where she grew up, Ms. Jones talked about her early desire to act, her initial resistance to the role of Amanda and her growing love for the character. Here is an edited and condensed version of the conversation: Is there any reason that you’ve never performed in the West End? No, not really. It’s strange, because I have always wanted to work in England, I didn’t care where. My mother was a teacher of English and American literature, and she lived and breathed all things British. I first went there when I was 14. My parents had saved up and we went for the most wonderful two weeks, traveling all over. Afterward, I made a folder titled “My Career on the British stage. ” So you knew very early that you wanted to act? I never wanted to do anything else. I was always creating wonderful adventures with my neighborhood friends, assigning roles to people. My family was very supportive. And it all went pretty smoothly. I never had tremendous ambition, I was just thrilled to be in a repertory company, and when I came to New York and could work Off Broadway, or get little movie roles, I would feel so fortunate. Given your Southern background, Amanda Wingfield seems like a natural role for you. But you have said in interviews that you never wanted to play her. Why? I think I had a Southern chip on my shoulder. I felt she didn’t speak to me, I didn’t know who this woman was. I auditioned for the role of Laura several times, but I was too large. Then John Tiffany and I met through a mutual friend, at the time that my sister and I were clearing our family home here in Paris, Tennessee. I was telling John about the letters from my mother that I had found, and he said: “We’re going to work together and you are going to be my Amanda. ” Once you began to study the part, how did you feel? The moment I spoke her words in a reading, I knew who she was. I had grown up with her not quite with women in her situation, but women in dire straits. I am the last generation who really remembers those Southern women they had an elegance and nobility, and a real charm and style. When I was about 10, they were in their 70s and 80s, and I was mesmerized by the way they moved and spoke. For a long time I thought “war” was spelled “wawa” because of the way they said it. And the way they smelled, a lovely light powdered smell and the slight mustiness of mothballs, and hot chocolate and cheese biscuits. It was heaven. The language too, is so spot on. Every idiom, the musicality of it, is perfect. So perhaps your resistance to playing Amanda came from that closeness? Yes, perhaps I felt protective of those women, that the play was too exposing. When I did the first reading — with Michael Esper, who then came to the show for Edinburgh and now again in the West End — he made me understand the play and the family in a way I hadn’t before. I saw the possibilities in what he did with his role the love and gentleness he had. This isn’t a family that hate each other. They love each other, and we wouldn’t care, otherwise. Then John Tiffany seemed to understand the tone of each scene so beautifully. I didn’t realize what a loving, fearless woman Amanda is. She has to push her children, cajole, charm. I have never felt a woman more determined. Perhaps Tennessee Williams was creating the fighter that he would have liked his mother to be. This will be your third run in this production. Has your interpretation changed since the first Broadway season? I think it’s just the longer you do the part, the richer the memories get. What I mean is that I have her memories I can see those carriage rides in the country, those afternoons with the gentlemen callers. And I do believe there were 17 of them, and half of them were gay! No one had any money, they had a bit of ’s silver and bought her some cotillion dresses, and the gay boys and straight boys would come over and they would drink sherry and have a rollicking good time. Philip Roth, the novelist, said that when writing, he can get to a point when he is not creating, he is just remembering his character’s memories. It’s like that. | 1 |
The president of the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday addressed problems with global antidoping efforts, which are led by officials from his organization. Tacitly acknowledging that the current structure was rife with conflicts, he ordered a complete rethinking of it. “We want to make the antidoping system independent from sports organizations,” the I. O. C. ’s president, Thomas Bach, said at a meeting of global sports officials in Switzerland. “The antidoping system has some deficiencies. ” A New York Times investigation this month found that the World Agency, the global watchdog for sports doping, was hampered by politics and possible conflicts of interest. For years, the agency’s leadership failed to pursue allegations of widespread cheating in Russia. Many within WADA had varying views on the organization’s core purpose, some seeing it as more of a passive coordinator than a proactive policing authority. The organization is jointly funded by national governments and sports organizations, including the I. O. C. Its decision makers are government and Olympic officials, people who might not be inclined to reveal doping transgressions that could mar the integrity of the Games or discredit athletes from their countries. “We’re not going to turn to people and say, ‘These are the rules obey them,’” the agency’s current president, Craig Reedie, told The Times. Mr. Reedie, who is also an I. O. C. vice president, said WADA had not investigated tips from inside Russia because the agency did not have explicit authority to do so until 2015. Mr. Bach, designating WADA as the leader in the global antidoping effort, said, “Everybody has to understand better who is doing what and who is responsible for what. ” Mr. Bach called on WADA to strengthen its investigative abilities. Last week, in the wake of the Times report, WADA announced that it was hiring a director of intelligence and investigations, Günter Younger, who currently leads the cybercrime unit in a division of the German criminal police. Mr. Bach said an Olympic summit meeting set for Oct. 8 would focus broadly on how to improve the antidoping system, and he called on WADA to convene an international meeting on the topic next year. Mr. Bach also expressed support for last week’s decision by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the ruling body of track and field, to bar Russian track and field athletes from the Rio Olympics. He openly questioned the integrity of athletes from Russia and Kenya, another country where antidoping efforts have been found lacking. But Mr. Bach suggested amending a key detail of the ruling against Russian athletes while emphasizing that specific sports federations had supreme control. The I. A. A. F. said Friday that only Russian track and field athletes who had been living outside the country and subjected to rigorous drug testing could petition to compete in Rio — and for a neutral team, not for Russia. Mr. Bach said, however, that Russian athletes who cleared that high hurdle could possibly compete under the Russian flag, and he defended the integrity of Russian Olympic officials. “The Russian Olympic Committee is not suspended,” he said, calling the organization ”very helpful in clearing up the difficult situation in Russia. ” After the announcement, the I. A. A. F. reiterated its belief that any Russian athletes who were cleared to compete “on an exceptional basis” should not compete on behalf of Russia. The organization said it planned to work with Olympic officials “to ensure the decision is respected and implemented in full. ” Russia has been accused of a doping program extending across sports, although most investigations have been limited to track and field. Russian sports officials have apologized for doping problems but denied state involvement. In a statement on Tuesday, the Russian sports ministry expressed support for the I. O. C. ’s decision. As recently as this month, WADA said, Russian sports officials helped athletes evade drug testing, and federal customs agents and members of Russia’s Federal Security Service tampered with doping samples and intimidated drug testers. Responding to an outcry from athletes wanting broader inquiries, Mr. Bach on Tuesday called on the 27 other organizations overseeing summer Olympic sports — from gymnastics to weight lifting — to individually scrutinize athletes from Russia and Kenya and assess their ability to compete in Rio in six weeks. The allegations against Russia and Kenya, he said, “put very serious doubts on the presumption of innocence for athletes coming from these countries. ” The I. A. A. F. noted on Tuesday that a majority of athletes from Kenya competed in track and field. The organization said that Kenya’s runners were subject to rigorous testing and that their doping samples had been examined in Qatar and Stockholm in recent months. (Africa’s only testing lab was decertified this year.) “This does not mean we can guarantee that all Kenyan athletes are clean,” an I. A. A. F. spokeswoman said. “We cannot give such guarantees for any country’s athletes. But we can be confident that an effective testing regime is in place. ” Any athlete who may take issue with a sports federation’s decision can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, Mr. Bach noted. He said he had learned that Russian athletes or the Russian Olympic Committee would probably file an appeal regarding the track and field decision. “That is the good right of everybody,” he said. WADA disciplined the national antidoping programs in Russia and Kenya in the wake of news media reports that called their integrity into question. For a country to be declared noncompliant by WADA means little, but depriving a nation’s antidoping operation of WADA’s endorsement is a strong signal to the I. O. C. and sports federations. Russia’s sports ministry said Tuesday that its track and field athletes were prepared to undergo a minimum of three extra drug tests before the Olympics. But last week, Rune Andersen, a former WADA official and the current chairman of the I. A. A. F. committee that is monitoring Russia, expressed skepticism about athletes’ ability to prove definitively that they were untainted by a possible doping program. The former antidoping lab director in Russia has described a sophisticated system whereby athletes on drugs avoided testing positive. “Two or five or 100 negative tests do not mean an athlete is clean,” Mr. Andersen said. “History has shown that is not the case. ” | 1 |
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I earnestly recommend that everyone watch Peter Thiel’s 13-minute address at the National Press Club this morning. He hits a number of nails on the head.
A few at random:
[ At 1m08s ] The truth is, no matter how crazy this election seems it is less crazy than the condition of our country.
Thiel checks off some of the craziness: the national debt, healthcare costs, student loans, income stagnation, …
And wars :
[ At 2m52s ] While households struggle to keep up with the challenges of everyday life, the government is wasting trillions of dollars of taxpayer money on faraway wars.
Right now we’re fighting five of them: in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.
Which is the more enthusiastically pro-war party? The Democrats!
[ At 7m55s ] Yet even after these bipartisan failures, the Democratic Party today is more hawkish than at any time since it began the war in Vietnam.
What’s the root problem? Optimism !
[ At 8m55s ] For a long time our elites have been in the habit of denying difficult realities.
Why is Trump the solution?
[ At 10m54s ] Nobody would suggest that Donald Trump is a humble man; but the big things he’s right about amount to a much-needed dose of humility in our politics.
Very unusually for a presidential candidate, he has questioned the core concept of American exceptionalism. He doesn’t think that the force of optimism alone can change realities without hard work.
Just as much as it’s about making America great, Trump’s agenda is about making America a normal country.
The only nail whose head Thiel leaves un -hit is immigration. This is a bit odd, as there is probably no other single issue that accounts for so much of Trump’s popular support.
It’s somewhat less odd to those of us who recall Thiel taking up an interest in the immigration issue some years ago, then quickly dropping it as, apparently, too radioactive.
We at VDARE.com are bolder; which is one reason — although, so be sure, a very minor one — why we have much, much less money than he does.
It is none the less heartening to see a successful entrepreneur speaking so clearly and eloquently in support of Trump. Watch the whole thing on YouTube . (Reprinted from VDare.com by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
PARIS — A former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bemba, was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years in prison for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by militiamen under his command during a rampage of looting, rape and murder in the Central African Republic. The sentence, handed down by an international panel of judges in The Hague, is considered significant for a number of reasons. Notably, Mr. Bemba was convicted even though he was far away from the militia fighting under his orders and was not present during any of the war crimes the court said he was culpable because of his command responsibility. He should have halted or prevented the crimes, the judges said. Mr. Bemba, who is now 53, was a businessman and scion of a prominent Congolese family before rising to the vice presidency — successful, rich and believed to be untouchable. In 2002, he sent an expeditionary force of his political party, the Congolese Liberation Movement, into the Central African Republic to help put down a military coup there. Though Mr. Bemba rarely visited the troops, the judges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague found that he closely monitored their activities, and convicted him in March. Sylvia Steiner, the presiding judge in the case, read out a summary of the court’s reasoning at the sentencing on Tuesday, saying that Mr. Bemba’s “knowledge of the crimes was unquestionable. ” He did more than tolerate them, he deliberately “encouraged attacks on civilians,” the judge said. The force of about 1, 500 militiamen rampaged through towns on their path, claiming afterward that they had been poorly paid and that they were rewarding themselves by raping and pillaging. The sentence given to Mr. Bemba heavily emphasized the militia’s unrelenting campaign of rape, “committed throughout the operation,” against women and men, adults and children. The judges cited instances of gang rape, and took note of the lasting physical and social harm that rape victims suffered, including stigmatization, ostracism and disease. Because of the large number of rapes and what the judges called their particular brutality, rape as a war crime and a crime against humanity received more weight in sentencing even than murder — 18 years for the charges, with concurrent sentences of 16 years for murder and pillaging. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence, and may appeal the sentence as too lenient, experts following the case said. Victims’ groups had asked for Mr. Bemba to be sentenced to the maximum possible penalty, without citing a specific figure. Mr. Bemba had already been detained for eight years before and during his trial, so he would presumably now have 10 years left in his sentence if it stands at 18 years. It has been customary at international tribunals to deduct of the total sentence, so Mr. Bemba may be eligible for early release in as little as four years. Largely because of pressure from human rights advocates and women’s groups, organized or mass rape is increasingly being recognized and prosecuted as a weapon of war rather than as a byproduct of war. Other international courts have convicted defendants of rape as a war crime and a crime against humanity, but Mr. Bemba’s was the first such conviction by the International Criminal Court. In two earlier cases involving Congolese warlords, instances of rape were widely reported but not prosecuted. In another twist, Mr. Bemba and four associates, including his former lead lawyer, are on trial in a parallel case at the same court, charged with trying to bribe witnesses in the war crimes case. Hearings in the trial have been completed, and a verdict is expected later this year. Witness tampering has become a major issue at the court, with allegations of bribery or intimidation occurring in almost every case so far. Some critics have called the contempt prosecution against Mr. Bemba and his associates a waste of time and resources, but lawyers who follow the matter say the court wanted to send a strong message by pursuing it. In Kinshasa, the capital of Congo, members of Mr. Bemba’s political party, which he still heads, criticized the sentencing on Tuesday. “We will continue, and we will never cease, denouncing the selective justice of the I. C. C. ,” Eve Bazaiba told a few hundred supporters, according to Reuters. Géraldine of Human Rights Watch said the sentence offered a measure of justice to victims in a country where armed groups have preyed on civilians with impunity for more than a decade. Ms. who recently visited the Central African Republic, said that “many grave crimes, including the systematic use of sexual violence, remain unpunished” both there and in Congo. More than 5, 000 civilian victims participated in the court proceedings and may be awarded reparations payments. Judge Steiner said the court would deal with reparations in a separate ruling. | 1 |
Monday, 14 November 2016 "What just happened?"
In a miraculous and purely patriotic act, the Electoral College, a group of officials no one has ever really seen, have decided that it would be in the best interest of the nation and the world, to dissolve their group and allow the majority of voters, (over two million more voted for Hillary Clinton) to elect the next President of the United States, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Seeking approval from the highest court in the land, the measure to dissolve the Electoral College was immediately swift-boated to the Supreme Court, where in a miraculous and patriotic act that would be in the best interest of the nation and the world, the measure passed with a majority vote of seven to one. Justice Alito dissented.
Whoopee!
Who says that justice and intelligence isn't alive, and still a beating heart in the United States of America?
Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm theme song used on the John Oliver November 13th program, best describes the mental machinations moving about in the brain of Donald Trump. No 'Whoopee' cheer from Trump Tower.
In Marlon Brando fashion, from the On The Waterfront film, Trump is saying to Rudy Giuliani, "... You was my brother, Rudy, you shoulda looked out for me... I coulda been president. How can they dissolve something nobody's seen and make crooked Hillary president?"
At her home in Chappaqua, New York, Hillary is in the process of being revived from a medically induced four-year coma, which is shared by the entire electorate who voted for her. She is also in the process of being measured for an inaugural red, white and blue pantsuit, designed by Ralph Lauren, and questioning, "What just happened?"
It was explained to the new president elect, that in a miraculous and patriotic act for the good of the nation and the world, the Electoral College has dissolved itself, with the approval of the Supreme Court, and the election will be instead decided by the unanimous vote of the people.
"You are Madame President."
"He has a court date for Trump University next week."
Read more by this author: | 0 |
House Republicans have an ambitious plan for overhauling the way American businesses are taxed. A short list of the plan’s potential benefits looks awesome: It would give companies more incentive to keep jobs in the United States, less to overextend themselves on borrowed money and provide vast savings by reducing what companies spend on tax lawyers, who help them game the current system. Yet these changes could also set off a cascade of more harmful effects. The plan could shift trillions of dollars of wealth from Americans to foreigners set off an emerging markets financial crisis wreak havoc in global oil markets and cause sustained harm to the American higher education and tourism industries (including, as it happens, luxury hotels with President Trump’s name on them). Welcome to the real world. The tax code has been flawed and inefficient for a very long time, precisely because fixing it could be so terribly disruptive. In a nutshell, the corporate tax issue provides an excellent case study of the problem of “path dependency” in public policy. The United States might well have a better, more efficient tax code today if, starting a century ago, lawmakers had designed it so that businesses were taxed on where their sales and expenses take place, as the Republicans’ plan calls for. But that is not what happened. Instead, lawmakers took what seemed to be a logical approach: They focused on taxing businesses on their profits. Today, that choice shapes arrangements in every corner of the economy. It affects the values of currencies and financial assets. Every business has devised its structure and organization to maximize its advantage within the existing system. Given all that, any fundamental change in the corporate tax code will create powerful ripples — some quite predictable, others less so — across the business and financial landscape. Essentially, for a politician trying to decide whether to support the new legislation, the question boils down to whether you think the potential gains are big enough to justify the probable and disruptions. A closer look at the disruptions that moving toward a “ cash flow tax” would create makes clear why it would be no small event. The tax has a feature called “border adjustment,” under which exports are not taxed but imports are. That, at first glance, may seem to penalize companies that import goods, like retailers, and subsidize those that export, like makers of jumbo jets. But economists believe the change in the tax code would lead to shifts in the currency markets that offset those moves, namely to a sharp rise in the value of the dollar compared with other currencies. The most vigorous opponents of the plan include retailers and consumer goods companies, which worry that currency adjustments won’t fully offset the damage they will suffer (they have a newly formed group fighting it, Americans for Affordable Products). But beyond the obvious problems, the proposed change in the tax code would cascade through the economy in many other ways. A 25 percent rise in the value of the dollar, the most widely used currency on the planet, would have enormous consequences. Supporters think the dollar will rise that much if the plan is enacted — indeed, it must happen, to avoid sticking Americans with much higher prices for imported consumer goods. But according to calculations by Michael J. Graetz, a Columbia law professor, a currency shift of that scale implies that Americans who hold foreign assets would lose $6. 1 trillion, and foreign holders of assets in the United States would gain as much as $8. 1 trillion. Meanwhile, because the dollar is the world’s benchmark currency, many businesses and governments outside the United States borrow in it, especially in countries where confidence in the domestic currency is low. That means that a steep in the value of the dollar generally makes those debts more onerous, and causes big trouble for countries including China, South Korea and Turkey. Consider that the Asian financial crisis in 1998, the Latin American crisis in 2001 and an emerging markets slump in 2015 all had their roots in debt problems and a spike in the dollar. What’s more, global markets in oil and other commodities are priced in dollars, so a dollar spike could unleash reactions from commodity producers. Oil would become much more expensive, and oil price shocks have helped set off recessions in the past. Perhaps the most consequence of such a tax overhaul — which would, presumably, be signed by President Trump — would be the damage to the tourism and education sectors in the United States. These businesses would have a serious problem, unlike conventional exporters — companies that ship things overseas, say. For the exporters, the disadvantages caused by a in the dollar would just cancel out the advantage received from changes in the tax system. But businesses that are not exporting anything across the border would suffer from the damage of a more expensive dollar without receiving advantages from border adjustment. As Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute has noted, that applies to any organization that serves a large number of foreign customers within the United States’ borders. Think of, say, a Trump international hotel, or amusement parks like Disney World, or any American university that bolsters its finances with foreign enrollment at tuition. All of these sectors would see their prices rise because of the dollar without any countervailing tax benefit. Lest any of these ripple effects seem like academic abstractions, keep in mind that tax changes can have powerful spillover effects. Some obscure provisions around depreciation rules in the 1986 tax reform act set off a downturn in the commercial real estate industry that, in turn, was a major factor in the 1990 recession. The problem of policy path dependency isn’t limited to the tax system, of course. The Obama administration faced it when it began to overhaul the health care system eight years ago. Many liberals argued that the United States should move toward a system in which the government pays for all health care, called a system. The Obama team saw that approach as appealing in theory, but too disruptive in practice so many Americans had become accustomed to receiving health insurance through their employer that it didn’t seem feasible to make a wholesale shift to a new and, perhaps, more efficient system. In other words, decisions that lawmakers made decades or even a century ago have essentially locked us into ways of doing things, as the cost of changing looms more heavily than the potential benefits of trying something different. And people who have much to fear from a change tend to be louder than those who have something to gain, a central dynamic that tilts policy in the United States toward conservatism. All of this is frustrating for anyone who believes that the existing system, whether for corporate taxes or health care, is broken and needs radical reform. But the bigger the change, the bigger the side effects. | 1 |
In light of a renewed FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s secret email server , Clinton urged voters to rush to the polls and vote for her ASAP.
“I would urge everybody to get out and vote early in all the states that have early voting ,” Clinton said during a short 3 minute press conference Friday, noting she believes her email scandals have already been “factored in” in voters’ minds.
From RCP :
REPORTER: You have 11 days to go. What would you say to a voter who right now will be seeing you and hearing what you’re saying, saying I didn’t trust her before. I don’t trust her anymore right now. And they’re heading to the ballot box tomorrow.
HILLARY CLINTON: You know, I think people a long time ago made up their minds about the e-mails. I think that’s factored in to what people think and now they are choosing a president. So I would urge everybody to get out and vote early in all the states that have early voting because I think Americans want a president who can lead our country and get the economy working for everyone, not just those at the top and who can bring our country together. I offer that I can do that. And I’m very confident that the American people know that and we’re going to continue to discuss what’s at stake in this election because I believe that it’s one of the most consequential elections ever.
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CHANHASSEN, Minn. — Prince Rogers Nelson had an unflinching reputation among those close to him for leading an assiduously clean lifestyle. He ate vegan and preferred to avoid the presence of meat entirely. He was known to eschew alcohol and marijuana, and no one who went on tour with him could indulge either. But Prince appears to have shielded from even some of his closest friends that he had a problem with pain pills, one that grew so acute that his friends sought urgent medical help from Dr. Howard Kornfeld of California, who specializes in treating people addicted to pain medication. Dr. Kornfeld, who runs a treatment center in Mill Valley, Calif. sent his son on an overnight flight to meet with Prince at his home to discuss a treatment plan, said William J. Mauzy, a lawyer for the Kornfeld family, during a news conference on Wednesday outside his Minneapolis office. But he arrived too late. When the son, Andrew Kornfeld, who works with his father but is not a doctor, arrived in Chanhassen, the Minneapolis suburb where Prince lived, the next morning, he was among those who found the entertainer lifeless in the elevator and called 911, Mr. Mauzy said. Emergency officials arrived but could not revive Prince. He was dead at 57. As law enforcement officials continue to investigate exactly what killed the pop and rock icon, there is mounting evidence that he had become seriously dependent on painkillers, something sure to rattle some of those who knew him well. Many have insisted in recent days that they never even saw Prince take pills, let alone abuse prescription medication, even though some knew he had had hip surgery years ago. When his private jet had to make an emergency landing in Moline, Ill. in after he went unresponsive, friends decided they may need to intervene, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. Prince assured his friends in the following days that nothing was wrong. He had the flu, his publicist said. “I’m doing perfect,” Prince told his lawyer, L. Londell McMillan, two days after the emergency landing. Three days after that conversation with Mr. McMillan, though, Prince’s representatives were looking for help from an addiction doctor. Prince’s penchant for privacy may help explain how he kept his secret from so many. At the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall near here, where Prince was a worshiper, congregants scoffed at the first reports that Prince may have been abusing painkillers. And rarely did he let the musicians who toured with him know how much his hips actually hurt from decades of performances, jumping onstage in platform heels. They would only notice small things, like that he stopped doing splits. “There wasn’t a tour we did where he wasn’t sometimes performing in pain,” said Alan Leeds, Prince’s former tour manager in the 1980s and later the president of the singer’s Paisley Park Records. “He was that kind of old school, guy, so the idea of him medicating himself in order to perform isn’t strange to me. ” But Mr. Leeds and others said Prince never discussed pain pills with him. And questions about how he felt would often be met with a shrug or an assurance that he was O. K. Unlike many stars of his magnitude, who are known to employ extensive entourages and teams of staffers to handle everyday business, Prince was also surprisingly autonomous, friends and associates said, often driving himself around and making appointments without the knowledge of his assistant. Such insistence on maintaining his independence may have made keeping a secret easier, they said. Many of Prince’s closest friends, relatives and associates have declined to answer questions about his health. So it is unclear who contacted Dr. Kornfeld, but a person with knowledge of the situation said the musician had willingly sought treatment. The younger Mr. Kornfeld was sent to Paisley Park to try to get Prince’s condition stabilized, Mr. Mauzy said. Dr. Kornfeld then contacted a doctor in the Minneapolis area who cleared his schedule on the morning that Prince was found dead so that he could have time to meet with and assess Prince, Mr. Mauzy said. “The hope was to get him stabilized in Minnesota and convince him to come to Recovery Without Walls in Mill Valley,” Mr. Mauzy said. “That was the plan. ” Dr. Kornfeld “felt it was a lifesaving mission,” Mr. Mauzy said. Prince began taking painkillers for his ailment years ago and ultimately decided to have hip surgery in the after which he was prescribed more pain medicine, according to a person who worked with him and requested anonymity because of the nature of the case. Jason Kamerud, chief deputy at the Carver County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the death, said that investigators are looking into, among other things, whether Prince may have overdosed from painkillers at his residence. But Deputy Kamerud declined on Wednesday to comment on Mr. Mauzy’s statements. The sheriff’s office has said that it did not believe suicide or murder were to blame for Prince’s death. Officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that they were joining the investigation. The mystery of Prince’s death mirrors the enigma of his life. He shunned the selfie culture and didn’t allow people to take his picture at his estate. Yet at the same time, he regularly opened his doors here and invited the public in for house parties where he would address the crowd. On the Saturday before he died, Prince had done just that, giddily unveiling a new purple guitar and piano before about 200 guests. He had just started on his memoir, tentatively titled “The Beautiful Ones. ” He had tour dates lined up in eight cities across the country. Yet people who knew Prince wondered whether he was in a malaise, his ailments limiting his ability to tour, and battling melancholy after the death in February of Denise Matthews, also known as Vanity, a former girlfriend and collaborator. In Australia during a show on Feb. 16, the day after she died, he became emotional. “Someone dear to us has passed away,” Prince told the crowd before dedicating the song “Little Red Corvette” to her, according to local news media accounts of the show. Later, he told the audience, “I’m trying to stay focused, it’s a little heavy for me tonight. ” Concerned friends said they had recently been discussing Prince’s emotional state. He had told some people that he was feeling depressed, and some suspected he was going through a period of professional stagnancy. In fact, Prince shunned an $85 million offer to do a world tour in favor of smaller shows, said Kim Worsoe, his tour coordinator. “I don’t do tours, I do events,” Mr. Worsoe recalled Prince telling him. Others said they did not detect any depression. His small concerts, said Damaris Lewis, a friend and dancer, were an indication that he had found peace with himself. “His fans were his family,” she said. For his final acts, Prince, who on New Year’s Eve had given a powerful show in the Caribbean, shunned his performances with a big band for something more intimate and less taxing: just himself, playing piano and singing. The “Piano and a Microphone” tour, he called it. In March, he held a party and performance in New York to announce his memoir. He held three concerts in Canada before returning home on March 23 and attending a service at his Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall, dressed in a suit and tie, his hair slicked back. Prince was baptized into the faith in 2003 under the guidance of Larry Graham, a bass guitarist whose band regularly performed with Prince and who moved his family to Minnesota to be near the entertainer. As a witness, he would go door to door with a fellow congregant in their territory, quoting the Bible and introducing himself as Rogers Nelson. “He was very into spiritual things,” Mr. Graham said. “He already had been interested in the Bible and a love for God. ” Associates said that Prince’s dedication to religion, in addition to his commitment to pure living, may have contributed to a sense of shame about his growing dependency on medication. Prince’s next scheduled tour dates were two shows on April 7 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. But as she was brushing her teeth around 10 on the morning of the show, Lucy the Atlanta promoter, said she got a call from Mr. Worsoe: Prince was sick with the flu. “He can barely speak his voice is really hoarse,” she recalled Mr. Worsoe telling her. It was the first time in the more than a that he had worked with Prince that the artist canceled a show, Mr. Worsoe said. But two days later, Prince rescheduled the show for the 14th. On the rescheduled date, Prince landed in Atlanta late day and needed a police escort to make it to the theater on time. He said he was still feeling sick, but back in the dressing room where water and fresh fruit was awaiting Prince, Mr. Worsoe said he did not notice any visible signs of illness. With his Afro picked out, Prince took the stage, sidling up to his purple piano and surrounded by candelabras. He performed two sets, at 7 and 10 p. m. “He was epic,” Ms. said. No signs of the flu. Prince said it was his best show ever, Mr. Worsoe recalled. But afterward, Prince said that his stomach hurt. Prince wanted to go back to Minneapolis to get checked out by a doctor, Mr. Worsoe said, and asked to postpone shows in St. Louis, Nashville and Washington that were scheduled, but not yet announced, for the next week. Prince and two other passengers boarded his private jet, which left at 12:51 a. m. Eastern on the Friday after his Atlanta show. Just over an hour in, the pilot radioed to air traffic controllers that he had an unresponsive passenger on board. The plane, only about 48 minutes from its destination of Minneapolis, turned around and quickly landed in Moline, touching down at 1:18 a. m. Prince’s bodyguard carried him off the plane to emergency responders waiting on the ground, according to city records. They rushed him to a hospital. Prince was treated with a Narcan shot, typically administered to those suffering from an opioid overdose, according to published reports. But he stayed at the hospital for only a few hours before flying back home. A master of image control, Prince started shaping the narrative right away. He hastily organized a party at his home for the following evening. Later, he casually rode a bicycle in a stripmall parking lot. Prince’s representatives asked Jeremiah Freed, a blogger who runs drfunkenberry. com, to help spread the word of the party on Saturday night. Before that night, Mr. Freed said, he never really had any concerns about Prince’s condition, though he was struck by something that the musician told him in January. Prince spoke of David Bowie’s death, Mr. Freed recalled, saying he was having lucid dreams in which he communicated with people who died. When Prince first strolled into the party, before he was in full view of the public, “He looked upset to me,” Mr. Freed recalled. They locked eyes, he added. “When I saw him, there was no smile. ” Other friends reached out to Prince over the weekend, concerned about what had happened to him on the plane. He had a resounding message: I’m O. K. Knowing how much Prince, who didn’t use a cellphone but was constantly surfing his silver MacBook, valued his privacy, friends said they did not press him. On Monday, April 18, Ms. the Atlanta promoter, said that Prince’s representatives told her to hold off on confirming the eight tour dates she had arranged for him. He was going to take a break that week, and they would get back to her the next Monday, April 25, to confirm the concerts. Prince seemed to lead a mundane life from there, stopping by a show at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis on Tuesday, April 19. The next day, police said, someone dropped him off at his compound at about 8 p. m. He was found dead the next morning, setting off the sweeping investigation. “If we really want to be accurate and get it right, I think you have to pump the brakes,” said Deputy Kamerud of the Carver County Sheriff’s Office. “Some investigations are like puzzles, some are like a puzzle. This one is the latter. ” Mr. Freed, the blogger, said he could hardly believe reports of the painkiller dependency. Prince, he said, would help anyone in his band with a drug problem and even pay the cost of their recovery. If you abused drugs, he said, “you weren’t going to work with him. You didn’t have a job. ” | 1 |
Trump has signaled that he will not be prosecuting Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that it was one of his main promises on the campaign trail.
But the move isn’t exactly a surprise, as Trump’s cabinet picks have come into view and many of his statements have shifted to ‘unify the country.’
This stinks of a deal, or if you prefer, of an opponent that never was. Perhaps wrestling choreographers turned to political choreography for better salaries and higher stakes.
Trump campaign manager Kellyann Conway made the announcement.
via Breitbart :
“I think when the President-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content to the members,” Conway said. “And I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that the majority of Americans don’t find her to be honest and trustworthy. But if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that is a good thing.
Henry Kissinger emerged yesterday, issuing a bizarre statement that excused President-elect Trump from resembling anything like candidate Trump.
After Kissinger claimed that Trump didn’t need to keep his campaign promises, campaign manager/spokeswoman Kellyann Conway carried the chorus. As Kurt Nimmo wrote :
“One should not insist on nailing [Trump] into positions that he had taken in the campaign,” Kissinger told Zakaria .
Kissinger argued that it is counterproductive to demand absolute consistency from presidential administrations … “The art now would be to develop a strategy that is sustainable, that meets the concerns that have appeared during the campaign but that can be linked to some of the main themes of American foreign policy.”
Trump’s Conway mirrored Kissinger’s exact words.
“Look, I think, he’s thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren’t among them,” Conway said.
SHTF made the call shortly after Trump’s victory speech during which he described Hillary Clinton as a tough fighter, and said the nation owed her a debt of gratitude, etc.
He changed tones immediately as the election results signaled a sudden end to the rhetoric.
BREAKING: Trump Won’t Pursue Charges Against Hillary, Will “Help Her Heal”
Did Kissinger hypnotize the Trump people or what?
Read more:
Did Trump Make a “Secret Deal NOT To Prosecute Hillary” In Exchange for Her Concession?
Trump Will Be President – How Alt-Market Predicted The Outcome Five Months In Advance | 0 |
A judge at Leicester Crown Court praised a van driver who deliberately mounted a pavement and ran down five men during Ramadan as “a good family man” who was behaving “completely out of character”. [According to a report in the Daily Mirror newspaper, Lugman Aslam, of Warren View, Leicester, had gotten into a physical altercation with the men after backing his van into one of them, during which he alleged he was racially abused. Recorder (circuit judge) Justin Wigoder described how, following this incident, a vengeful Aslam returned to his van, mounted the pavement and ploughed through the group, in order to “get [his] own back”. “I’ve seen it on CCTV and you deliberately mounted the pavement and drove straight at them and right through the middle of them at speed,” Wigoder said. “Some were thrown to the side and three were struck by your vehicle with one going over the bonnet and hitting the windscreen. “It’s quite remarkable that nobody was seriously hurt or killed and the only injuries complained of were bruises and scratches. “One indication of the force of the collision was your windscreen was smashed — you claimed it had been hit by an animal when you got it repaired. “You accept your intention, driving at them, was to cause serious injury and that’s what makes this case so serious. “The motivation was driving at them to get your revenge, to get your own back from the fact they’d assaulted you. ” However, the judge then went on to say that he accepted the potentially deadly attack “was completely out of character” for the perpetrator, whom he praised as “a good family man” with glowing references. “You’re of very positive good previous character and I’ve received a considerable number of references setting out all the good that is in you,” he said. Nadeem Aullybocus, defending, explained that Aslam “was fasting [for Ramadan] on that day and had been doing so for about 20 days” when he carried out the attack. He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and attempting to inflict intentional grievous bodily harm, and ultimately received a sentence and a year driving ban. With the automatic parole provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, it is unlikely he will serve more than half of his prison term in custody. The relatively light sentence follows a number of deadly attacks on pedestrians in Britain and Europe, including the Westminster Bridge attack on March 22nd and the London Bridge attack on June 3rd. | 1 |
Police fear Salman Abedi may have armed more Islamists before carrying out his deadly attack in Manchester, after discovering a “working bomb factory” at his address. [The Telegraph reports police “discovered a working bomb factory with a huge stash of explosive chemicals and other components”. A security source who spoke to the newspaper offered a warning:”The worry is there was enough to build two or three bombs and we can’t rule that out. ” It is believed the Manchester Arena bomb was assembled by Abedi himself, with David Videcette, a former Metropolitan Police constable who participating in the investigations, saying he probably learned his deadly craft overseas. “This is not something you can just put together by reading a book or watching a YouTube video,” he said. “[Abedi] will have spent time at a camp somewhere, possibly in Libya, being shown how to do it. “But once you have the skills and the materials, assembling the device itself can be done fairly quickly. ” Islamist groups gained rapidly in power and influence in Libya after a military intervention, led by former Prime Minister David Cameron and former President Barack Obama, toppled Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. Abedi’s father Ramadan, a Libyan migrant granted refugee status in Britain, returned to his native country shortly before Gaddafi’s death. He has since been connected to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) a jihadist organisation linked to and proscribed by the U. S. The British Government has not implemented or pursued a ban on travel to and from countries like Libya, meaning Abedi was free to visit Ramadan there prior to carrying out his attack. Ramadan now been detained, along with Abedi’s younger brother Hashem, by the Special Deterrence Force — a militia which is itself described as a hardline Salafist organisation. He had been an administrative manager in Tripoli’s security forces. Abedi’s sister, also in Libya, declared that her brother “did what he did in revenge, and in love for Islam“. | 1 |
In September, the Colonial pipeline – the largest pipeline in the US – made headlines after it ruptured, leaking 336,000 gallons of gasoline into the countryside of Central Alabama. Workers... | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Monday secured the votes necessary to filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, presaging a bitter confrontation this week that threatens to further unravel a chamber where bipartisanship and decorum have eroded for years. The show of solidarity from the minority came as Republicans advanced Judge Gorsuch’s nomination in the Judiciary Committee, clearing the way for his consideration on the Senate floor. Republicans vowed Monday to confirm him by the end of the week. The implication was not subtle: If they must change longstanding rules to bypass the filibuster, elevating President Trump’s selection on a simple majority vote, they will not hesitate. “We have no alternative,” Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the Republican in the Senate, said alongside his Judiciary Committee colleagues after a vote, 11 to 9. It was the beginning of what both parties consider a seminal week on Capitol Hill, likely to fundamentally reshape the way the Senate conducts its business. Though lawmakers have long deployed the filibuster — a procedural device that allows for continued debate to block or delay a vote — to suit their circumstances, Supreme Court confirmations have been viewed as another matter, insulated at least somewhat from the body’s most partisan passions. Under current rules, Republicans cannot break the filibuster if fewer than 60 senators vote to move the nomination to an Senate vote. That would require eight Democrats to join the Republican majority. As of Monday evening, only four Democrats had announced support for an vote. Judge Gorsuch’s fate will depend on whether Republicans follow through on plans for the nuclear option, as Mr. Trump has urged, to circumvent the filibuster for a Supreme Court pick. “The Republicans are free actors,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Monday, urging a withdrawal of the nomination if Judge Gorsuch cannot earn 60 votes. “They can choose to go nuclear or they can sit down with Democrats and find a way forward that preserves the grand traditions of this body. ” Such was the theme of Monday’s proceedings: a series of meditations on grand traditions, a resignation to their imminent demise and an insistence that the other side was to blame. During the committee vote, senators took turns lamenting the state of the institution they serve, although none pledged to buck their own party on either the Democratic filibuster or the Republican push for a rule change. What comes next, it appears, is a dismantling of senatorial standards and practice, scheduled for demolition over several days. “This is a new low,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, said of the likely filibuster, “but not entirely surprising. ” Of course, Democrats identify Mr. McConnell as the chief purveyor of new lows. From the beginning, the Gorsuch nomination has been shadowed, in large measure, by Judge Merrick B. Garland, whom President Barack Obama nominated in March 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia the month before. Mr. McConnell led Republicans in refusing to even consider the nomination during a presidential election year. But Democrats insist that their opposition to Judge Gorsuch is not about payback. They have cited his record on workers’ rights and his degree of independence from Mr. Trump and conservative groups like the Federalist Society, among other concerns. Perhaps no member sounded as pained on Monday as Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the Senate’s member. He first argued that the treatment of Judge Garland had convinced Judge Gorsuch that “this committee is nothing more than a partisan rubber stamp,” allowing the nominee to evade straightforward questions during his hearings. Mr. Leahy suggested that Mr. McConnell had no qualms about “forever damaging the United States Senate. ” And he wondered aloud how the Capitol had become so unrecognizable to him, after 42 years. “I cannot vote solely to protect an institution when the rights of Americans are at risk,” Mr. Leahy said. “Because I fear that the Senate I would be defending no longer exists. ” Republicans have in turn faulted Democrats for what they call two escalations of hostilities: a series of filibusters against judicial nominees under President George W. Bush and a vote in 2013, when Democrats controlled the Senate, to bar filibusters for the president’s appeals court and executive branch nominees. That shift left the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations untouched. Supporters of Judge Gorsuch have appeared incredulous that the Senate — whose members approved Justice Scalia unanimously and did not use a filibuster for even some fiercely contested nominees like Justice Clarence Thomas — could come undone over a judge they view as plainly qualified and uncontroversial. “It’s pathetic,” Mr. Hatch said, “that they’re so stupid that they picked somebody of his quality and ability” to oppose. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and the committee’s chairman, accused Democrats of searching in vain for credible reasons to vote against “a judge’s judge. ” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, pressed the case that Judge Gorsuch’s nomination carried a “superlegitimacy” because voters last year knew that the next president would get to fill the seat. (Before the election, he had suggested trying to leave the seat open indefinitely if Hillary Clinton won.) Yet even some Republicans who planned to support a rule change if necessary said they worried about what would come of it. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, predicted that a threshold for Supreme Court confirmations would lead to the elevation of future judges who are “more ideological, not less. ” Every Senate race, he added, would effectively become a referendum on the Supreme Court. “This is going to haunt the Senate, it’s going to change the judiciary, and it’s so unnecessary,” Mr. Graham said after the vote. Though some Democrats have expressed concerns, in public and private, about pushing ahead with a filibuster, they are also aware of their political hand: The party’s progressive base has called on lawmakers to oppose Mr. Trump at every turn, reminding them of the extraordinary dynamics at play. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, linked his vote opposing Judge Gorsuch, at least in part, to the current investigations into connections between Mr. Trump’s orbit and Russia. “It is about the constitutional crisis that may well be looming,” he said, arguing that Judge Gorsuch had not demonstrated sufficient independence from Mr. Trump. Mr. Blumenthal added that the prospect of the Supreme Court needing to enforce a subpoena against the president was “far from idle speculation. ” Even lighter fare on Monday could not coax consensus from committee members. At one point, Mr. Grassley asked the senators how they would like to manage their lunch schedule: a break for everyone or an uninterrupted hearing with senators peeling off one by one to eat. The room appeared split. “Could the majority cater this lunch?” asked Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota. A few Republicans raised their hands to convey a desire to keep going. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s top Democrat, smiled slightly, her hands clasped. The committee, she said quietly, could not even agree on lunch. | 1 |
Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • In a series of Twitter posts, the ethics watchdog for the United States government revealed legal advice that would normally be confidential: that Donald J. Trump must divest his financial stake in his businesses. It was unclear whether Mr. Trump’s pledge to take steps to separate from his businesses would clear that bar. Mr. Trump plans to hold rallies in states that were crucial to his victory. _____ • Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, an outspoken critic of political Islam, has described China, North Korea, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela as conspirators. Here’s a list of those picked for cabinet positions and other possible selections — including Sarah Palin, under consideration for secretary of veterans affairs. And here’s the latest on the transition. The ’s reliance on social media has raised a question for news organizations: Is everything Mr. Trump posts on Twitter news? _____ • Iraqi security forces retaking territory from the Islamic State are uncovering mass graves on a despairingly regular basis. Most of the dead were killed recently, after the campaign for Mosul began. We met a Syrian reporter, Hadi Abdullah, 29, above, as he was traveling to Aleppo. “I don’t expect anything to stop me but death,” he said. _____ • The European Union plans to spend 5. 5 billion euros a year to help governments acquire military hardware, including helicopters and drones, and to develop military technology. The pledge comes as the U. S. appears to be taking a step back in its role in the world. _____ • It took nearly three weeks, 12 closely fought games and a day of tiebreakers to decide the World Chess Championship, but at the end of play, victory went to the defending champion, Magnus Carlsen. The victory for Mr. Carlsen, who is from Norway, also fell on his 26th birthday. _____ • The pilot of the chartered plane that crashed in Colombia, killing almost all aboard, including members of a Brazilian soccer team, had radioed controllers that he was running out of fuel. “Fuel emergency,” he said in one of his last transmissions. _____ • Lufthansa flights resume today. Its pilots’ strike has become the latest example of how the fabled competence of German conglomerates has fallen into crisis. • Maxim Oreshkin, 34, is Russia’s new economy minister. President Vladimir V. Putin will deliver his annual state of the nation speech today. • OPEC’s deal to cut production by 1. 2 million barrels a day sent oil prices soaring. • Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, is headed for a blockbuster I. P. O. next year. Spectacles, Snap’s sunglasses, are among the most compelling tech devices of recent years. • Eurozone unemployment figures, released today, are expected to fall below 10 percent for the first time since 2011. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Ukrainian missile tests due to start today near Crimea could become another flash point in tensions with Russia. [Kyiv Post] • Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, proposed the creation of a unity government with Hamas, the militant rival faction that controls the Gaza Strip. [The New York Times] • Colombia’s Congress approved a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a vote that was most likely the final hurdle in ratifying the agreement whose earlier version had been rejected in a referendum this fall. [The New York Times] • Melania Trump, the future American first lady, warned Slovenians not to use her name and likeness without her consent. [Politico] • In Gambia, voters will decide whether to reinstall President Yahya Jammeh, who is 22 years into his pledge to stay in power for a billion years. [The New York Times] • China’s 30 million “missing girls” may simply have not been registered, not aborted or killed after birth, new research suggests. [The Washington Post] • Eduardo Mendoza won this year’s Cervantes Prize, the world’s highest literary honor, for bringing a “new narrative style to Spanish fiction. ” [Associated Press] • The inventor of the Big Mac, Jim Delligatti, died at 98. [The New York Times] • Unesco declared Belgian beer culture as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. Monks in the Italian town of Norcia, above, hope their beer brewing operation can help the town recover from the country’s worst earthquake since 1980. • “The world is crumbling, the machine rusting. ” This is a poem by Birgitta Jonsdottir, the politician trying to form a government in Iceland, where poetry is a national pastime. • Scotland said its bank notes were free of animal products after the Bank of England dismayed vegans by saying a new note contained a substance usually made from animal fat. • Using complex optics, a camera in Berlin creates portraits directly onto photo paper. • Pirelli, in its 2017 calendar, demonstrated that there is beauty and audacity at any age. • And here’s a Times investigative reporter reminiscing about how the Austrian Alps rekindled his passion for skiing. More than 30 years ago, a cow set a record for the most milk produced in 24 hours. Ubre Blanca (White Udder) was said to yield 110. 9 liters, or 29 gallons, that day. Her master was Fidel Castro. The supercow is one of many tales Cubans will remember as they say goodbye to their longtime leader this weekend. Ubre Blanca was part of Mr. Castro’s effort to solve a milk shortage. Long before Dolly the sheep or goats engineered to produce silk, Mr. Castro used artificial insemination to combine the Asian zebu’s hardiness with a Holstein’s high yield. Ubre Blanca was born in 1972 to instant stardom. Daily reports of her progress became news, though in the end, she was more or less the only success from the breeding experiment. Mr. Castro had a love for all things dairy, which included “Cuban Camembert” and a quest to build an ice cream parlor, Coppelia, to rival the American restaurant chain Howard Johnson’s. His ice cream obsession was also the closest the United States got to a successful assassination attempt — poison was to be slipped into Mr. Castro’s milkshake, but it froze to the side of the freezer instead. As for Ubre Blanca, she died in 1985. A government official saluted her, saying, “She gave her all for the people. ” _____ Remy Tumin contributed reporting. Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Marc Zell, co-chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel speaks as the Republican Party launches its first ever election campaign in Israel in Modiin, Monday, Aug. 15, 2016.
Donald Trump’s adviser on Israel said on Wednesday that Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank are not illegal, adding that he believes the candidate agrees with him, putting the pair at odds with much of the world.
Speaking to AFP at a rooftop restaurant on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion after a pro-Trump rally, David Friedman also said the US presidential candidate was “tremendously sceptical” about the prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
About 150 people, including right-wing Israelis and evangelical Christians, attended Wednesday’s Trump rally outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, near the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
The compound is holy to both Muslims and Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. Located in East Jerusalem, it was occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.
Asked whether Trump viewed the West Bank as part of Israel, as many far-right Israelis do, Friedman did not answer directly.
“I don’t think he believes that the settlements are illegal,” Friedman said.
Myself and . @realDonaldTrump senior #Israel advisor David Friedman at the #JerusalemForever event that was held tonight at the old city. pic.twitter.com/2JxEWRrk8o
— Israeli for Trump (@davidweissman3) October 26, 2016
Israeli religious nationalists see the Palestinian territory as part of the country, citing Jews’ connection to the land from biblical times.
The US has intensified criticism of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank in recent months, warning that it is eating away at hopes for a two-state solution.
Settlements in the West Bank are viewed as illegal under international law and are major stumbling blocks to peace efforts because they are built on land seized in the 1967 war which Palestinians see as part of their future state.
At an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in March, Trump described an “unbreakable bond” between the US and Israel.
“When I become president, the days of treating Israel like a second-class citizen will end on day one,” Trump told delegates, in a speech that heaped praise on Israel and derided Palestinians as perpetrators of violence.
Recalling rounds of failed peace talks between the two parties, Trump blamed Palestinian leaders.
“To make a great deal, you need two willing participants,” Trump said. “We know Israel is willing to deal. Israel has been trying to sit down at the negotiating table without preconditions for years.”
Friedman reiterated that Trump would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there – which would break with decades of precedent and put Washington at odds with most UN member states.
There were chants of “lock her up” when Trump’s Democrat rival Hillary Clinton’s name was mentioned at the rally ahead of the 8 November vote – a common refrain among Trump supporters who want to see her jailed over an emails scandal.
“I hate Hillary. She’s the same like (Barack) Obama,” said Ran Hofman, 54, who waved an Israeli flag. “They screw up the whole world.”
A brief video message from Trump of about one minute was played at the event.
“Together we will stand up to the enemies like Iran, bent on destroying Israel and her people,” Trump said. “Together we will make America and Israel safe again.” | 0 |
Changes in Rainfall Threaten Food Production Posted on Oct 31, 2016
By Jan Rocha / Climate News Network Cattle farming and roads are major causes of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon region. (Kate Evans/CIFOR via Flickr)
SÃO PAULO—The UN’s latest State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report warns that rainfall patterns will have changed so drastically by the end of this century that agriculture, forestry and fishing will all be seriously affected.
“It will become more and more difficult to harvest crops, rear animals and manage forests and fisheries in the same places and in the same way as before,” says the report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
And that is a major concern for regions such as Latin America that are economically dependent on agriculture, and the Caribbean, which is heavily reliant on fisheries.
In Brazil’s northeast, for example, rainfall is expected to decrease by 22%, while in the southeast of South America, which covers parts of Chile and Argentina, it could increase by 25%. Rainfall changes
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The report says these changes in rainfall mean “that the capacity to face shortages or excesses of water will be fundamental in the efforts to improve productivity in a sustainable way”.
A separate study carried out earlier by the FAO, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and the Latin American Integration Associatio n (ALADI) shows that agriculture accounts for 23% of regional exports, employs 16% of the economically active population, and contributes 5% to regional GDP.
The SOFA 2016 report predicts that climate change will bring more drought and increases in temperature that will reduce productivity in tropical and sub-tropical regions. It foresees more salinisation and desertification in the arid areas of Chile and Brazil, while along the Pacific coastline some fish species will move further south. “The capacity to face shortages or excesses of water will be fundamental in the efforts to improve productivity in a sustainable way”
In the Caribbean, the greater frequency of storms, tornadoes and cyclones will harm aquaculture (the farming of aquatic organisms such as crustaceans, molluscs, and aquatic plants) and fisheries, and temperature changes could alter the physiology of freshwater fish species and cause the sinking of coral reef systems.
Forested areas could be transformed into savannas, while Amazonia will face the risk of frequent fires. In Central America, climate change could lead to 40% of mangrove species being at risk of extinction.
The report notes that although governments in the region see a reduction in deforestation as the main method of combating climate change, forests continue to be converted for farming and cattle breeding, which are the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the region. Causes of emissions
These emissions have three main causes. In 2014, they were: enteric fermentation—the product of the digestive systems of ruminants (58%); manure deposited in areas of pasture (23%); and artificial fertilisers (6%).
The FAO warns that climate change would affect food production, reducing not only the amount available but the variety of foodstuffs. Extreme events in areas of large-scale production will have severe implications for trade, affecting the international supply of food.
The report concludes that the climate changes it foresees would affect food and nutritional security in the region, causing abrupt variations in the incomes of families who depend on agriculture, or, where there is a fall in demand for paid rural labour, a reduction in their capacity to buy food.
The effects could also include big changes to the diet of the population, with a fall in food variety and in healthy foods, leading to poorer nutrition.
All in all, the FAO report offers a fairly bleak perspective if countries continue on their present path of sleepwalking into the future, with many governments unaware of or unwilling to face up to the challenges of climate change.
Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian. TAGS: | 0 |
Donald J. Trump has renewed his defense of his charitable foundation, insisting on Twitter that all of the money raised by the organization has gone to charity even as the New York attorney general continues to investigate claims to the contrary. “I gave millions of dollars to DJT Foundation, raised and recieved millions more, ALL of which is given to charity, and media won’t report!” Mr. Trump wrote on Monday night. “100% of the money goes to wonderful charities!” he said in another post. It was the latest concerning the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which emerged as a source of contention during the presidential race and has continued to bedevil Mr. Trump since his election. On Saturday, Mr. Trump said he would shut down the organization, a move that the New York attorney general’s office said would require state approval. Last month, in its 2015 tax filing, the foundation itself indicated that it may have violated rules meant to protect against such as using charity resources to benefit one of the organization’s central people. The filing came after The Washington Post reported that Mr. Trump had used $258, 000 from the charity to settle legal disputes involving his businesses. There were other unusual donations from the foundation, including $12, 000 for an autographed helmet from the football player Tim Tebow and $20, 000 to an artist for painting a portrait of Mr. Trump. It also made a $25, 000 donation to a political committee supporting Pam Bondi, the Florida attorney general, a contribution that drew scrutiny during the campaign and resulted in a penalty for running afoul of tax regulations. Eric T. Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, announced in September that his office was investigating the foundation, telling CNN at the time that he was concerned that it “may have engaged in some improprieties. ” Later that month, Mr. Schneiderman ordered the charity to cease in New York after his office found that the foundation was not properly registered to solicit donations. At every turn, Mr. Trump has dismissed criticism. He insists that he has made significant contributions to his foundation over the years while also donating directly to causes. According to the charity’s tax records, Mr. Trump gave about $6 million to the foundation over the past three decades, but halted his giving entirely from 2009 to 2014. During those six years, the foundation was supported by the generosity of others, taking in more than $4 million in outside donations, the records show. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has refused to release his tax returns, which would give a more complete and accurate view of how much money he reported giving away. Amid broader questions about the potential conflicts of interest posed by his business empire, Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he had directed his lawyer to initiate the closing of the foundation. “The foundation has done enormous good works over the years in contributing millions of dollars to countless worthy groups, including supporting veterans, law enforcement officers and children,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “However, to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as president I have decided to continue to pursue my strong interest in philanthropy in other ways. ” But a spokeswoman for the New York attorney general’s office said that any move to close the foundation required state approval, given the investigation into how it spends its money and courts donations, and the state’s order that it stop . | 1 |
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Back in the before Google even existed, the world’s best guides to the internet sat in Silicon Valley cubicles, visiting websites and carefully categorizing them by hand. They were called surfers, and they were a collection of mostly — including a yoga lover, an a divinity student, a recent college grad from Ohio hungry for adventure — all hired by a called Yahoo to build a directory of the world’s most interesting websites. Today, with more than one billion websites across the globe, the very notion seems mad. Even then, there was a hint of insanity about the enterprise. Yet, sitting in the shadow of a sculpture of Elvis, the surfers built Yahoo. com into the home page for a generation of web users. Their work helped define the early internet. Two decades after Yahoo’s founding — the equivalent of several lifetimes in Silicon Valley — Elvis still serenades the surfers at the headquarters here in Sunnyvale, and Yahoo is at a crossroads. The company, long since eclipsed by Google and Facebook, now commands just a tiny fraction of people’s attention and advertisers’ dollars. Yahoo is auctioning itself off. Bids are due on Monday, the same day the chief executive, Marissa Mayer, is expected to report yet another quarter of dismal financial results. Most, but not all, of the surfers have scattered across Silicon Valley and the world. The careers of some followed the arc of the tech world’s obsessions and idiosyncrasies over the last 20 years. Others took their stock windfalls and dropped out to pursue other passions. Taken together, the surfers, about 10 of whom are still in the building, embody the technological and cultural changes that transformed the valley and the world — and left Yahoo in the dust. Back in 1994, when the directory was born, search engines were rudimentary and ineffectual. Newbies were just learning how to navigate the World Wide Web. The very idea of a website was novel. Two Stanford graduate students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, saw opportunity. Working from a trailer on campus, they began compiling websites into a list, organized by topic. They eventually named it Yahoo, an acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. It quickly became one of the most important gateways to the web. The value proposition was simple, said one longtime surfer, Dave Sikula: “We’ve done the work for you — we’ve gone through the web and these are the best sites. ” That required an army of people, said Srinija Srinivasan, employee No. 5 at Yahoo, who was hired to build the original surfer team. It was serious work, deciding how to label things and where to put them. What do you call a category that includes skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan? What kind of pornography should be considered for inclusion, given that “sex” was the most popular search term from the start? Much was left to individual judgment. Matthew Mustapick, who quit a job at Wells Fargo to become a surfer in 1995, recalled creating the “cannibalism” category. He found sites explaining how to butcher a human body but decided they were too distasteful to include. Amey Mathews, who worked as a Yahoo surfer from 1998 to 2002 (and is now married to Mr. Mustapick) discovered in the course of her work that the Irish originally carved their ’ from turnips, not pumpkins. After that, the surfers held a contest every Halloween. The directory survived until 2014. But by then, most of the surfers’ time already went to other projects. Many of them worked to improve Yahoo’s search engine as it battled with Alphabet’s Google subsidiary. Still, Yahoo’s star continued to fade, particularly with the rise of smartphones and social applications like Facebook and Twitter. Today, some former surfers ponder the company’s fate with sadness and a hint of regret at opportunities missed. “Yahoo Mail is still my primary email. My home page is still My Yahoo. I still look at the sports page,” said Mr. Sikula, who is a stage director and freelance editor after being laid off in 2010 as part of a big surfer cutback. “But I don’t know why the company exists. And I think that’s what they are trying to figure out, too. ” Srinija Srinivasan‘THE NATURE OF BEING’ If she hadn’t chosen to study Japanese at Stanford, Srinija Srinivasan would never have found herself in charge of building Yahoo’s directory into a guide to the internet for a curious world. Ms. Srinivasan, who grew up in Kansas, was an undergraduate attending a Stanford program in Kyoto, Japan, when she got to know two fellow students over shared meals — Jerry Yang and David Filo. After graduation, she was working on the Cyc Project, an early effort to create artificial intelligence, when the pair asked her to help them turn their directory into a real company. “Jerry and David knew that I alphabetized my CDs,” Ms. Srinivasan, 44, said in an interview in her Palo Alto, Calif. home. “My sock drawer is quite beautiful. ” When she joined, her business card read Ontological Yahoo, a term reflecting her philosophical approach to the job. “This is not a perfunctory exercise. This is defining the nature of being,” she said. “Categories and classifications are the basis for each of our worldviews. ” Faced with the vastness of the web, Yahoo surfers hoped to identify the most complete, relevant or interesting sites on a given subject. To choose which topics to focus on, the surfers relied in part on a daily log of visitors’ top queries. Once in a while, surfers made mistakes. For instance, they initially categorized Messianic Judaism as a Jewish sect, failing to notice that its adherents, who follow many Jewish traditions, believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, a defining trait of Christians. “We had faxes coming in nonstop from rabbis,” Ms. Srinivasan said. Yahoo also offered automated search tools by teaming up with various companies, including AltaVista and Google. Eventually, though, Yahoo realized that it had to develop its own version of the technology. Human judgment — what Mr. Yang referred to as “the voice of Yahoo” — remained a core value of the company. When the Grateful Dead musician Jerry Garcia died in August 1995, Yahoo searches on him spiked immediately. The surfers put a Garcia link on the home page. “That was the birth of Yahoo News,” Ms. Srinivasan said. Today, it remains one of the most popular online news portals. The surfers’ role as corporate conscience expanded with the company. They worked on a version of Yahoo, called Yahooligans. They selected the news headlines worthy of display. Over time, Ms. Srinivasan and her team even fielded questions like how much cleavage to allow on ads. Despite its efforts, Yahoo kept losing ground to Google in search. Microsoft made an unsuccessful hostile bid to buy the weakened company in 2008. Ms. Srinivasan left two years later, soon after Mr. Yang stepped down as chief executive. “In Japan, they have a saying: Leave when the cherry blossoms are full,” she said. Ms. Srinivasan now splits her time between Palo Alto and Brooklyn, where she is working on a music Loove. The company is trying to revamp how the music industry works and help audiences understand the full story behind what they listen to, much as the movement did for food. She also sits on the board of trustees of her alma mater, Stanford, a school that has churned out several generations of Silicon Valley moguls. But unlike many former technology executives, Ms. Srinivasan focuses her attention there on the arts and humanities. “Tech is sexy. It’s employable. Parents love it,” she said. “All of that isn’t worth a hill of beans unless we know why, to what end. We call it the humanities for a reason. ” Seana MeekCAPTAIN CANADA Yahoo, like the early web itself, was largely focused on American content. But it had global ambitions. Seana Meek, an Alberta native and a single mother, was working for Futurekids, which taught children computer basics, when Yahoo hired her to organize the Canadian sites in its directory. For Ms. Meek personally, it kicked off a career odyssey through modern Silicon Valley and some of the tech industry’s most significant trends: virtual reality, — even a mobile haircut app. When she started, Yahoo was fumbling in Canada. Technically, it had a separate Canada site, but it relied on the American directory for its searches. Employees asked her why the most popular search term among Canadian users was the word Canada. “That’s not a mystery,” Ms. Meek, 41, recalled saying. “In Canada, you do ‘government’ and you get American results. So you do ‘government Canada.’ You do anything and then you add ‘Canada’ to it. ” After the bubble burst in 2000, Yahoo’s dysfunctions began to surface. In 2002, the company transferred Ms. Meek’s job to Toronto. Less than 90 days later, it closed that office and sent her and two engineers back to the American headquarters. She got a promotion from the mess: Yahoo put her in charge of the content, ads and business deals for Yahoo Canada. She was nicknamed Captain Canada and had a ringside seat to one of the company’s biggest decisions — dumping Google as a search partner and switching to technology from its Inktomi acquisition instead. “They were scared to do it. So they did it in Canada first,” she said. In 2008, she left the company, embarking on a journey through Silicon Valley’s laboratory of business ideas, big and small. First she joined a tiny Picateers, that was trying to reinvent the school portrait business. It folded a year later. From there she went to Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, the tech industry’s first big foray into virtual reality. Players interacted with one another online in a simulated world, where they could buy and sell things, make friends, or just gawk at the scenery. Second Life was an extraordinary experiment in human behavior, she said. An employee could change something in the virtual world, then just watch what happened. “You are literally a god,” she said. Next for her was Eventbrite, an online and ticketing company. There she worked to protect against credit card fraud. In 2013, she abandoned the corporate life to make a movie, a indie thriller, called “Veracruz. ” Now she runs her own firm, Snare Labs, which helps small merchants detect suspicious transactions. She is also working with her nephew on an app, Sharpcut, to summon barbers on demand. And she says, she is casting about for the next challenge. “It’s a funny time in my life where there is definitely no script,” she said. Matthew Mustapick and Amey MathewsYOGA AND ACOUSTIC GUITARS Working long hours in close quarters, it was inevitable that some surfers would find romance. For Matthew Mustapick and Amey Mathews, working at Yahoo didn’t just lead to love. The lessons they learned — and the money they made from the stock they received as early employees — allowed them to achieve a different kind of Silicon Valley dream: dropping out of tech to do their own thing. Ms. Mathews, who had a fine arts degree from Stanford, joined in 1998 after responding to an ad looking for a speaker of Scandinavian languages. “I told them I didn’t speak any Scandinavian languages — but I speak Italian and you should have someone who speaks Italian,” she recalled during an interview at the couple’s home in Soquel, Calif. Yahoo had an Italian speaker already, but she got a job anyway. Mr. Mustapick sat in a nearby cubicle, and they eventually became a couple. Surfers were free to reflect their personal interests in the directory. Ms. Mathews loved animals and indexed all the dogs, cattle, even miniature donkeys, she could find. Mr. Mustapick was fond of cataloging oddities like prosthetic testicles for pets that had been neutered. Mr. Mustapick left Yahoo in early 2002. Ms. Mathews followed later that year. Ms. Mathews, who became a yoga teacher while at Yahoo, started teaching full time when she left. Yahoo, in fact, became one of her first clients. The Yahoo stock provided a vital cushion. “I could afford to lose money for a whole year when no one came to my class,” she said. Mr. Mustapick turned toward music. “I always wanted to learn how to play electric guitar like Scott Henderson,” he said, referring to the jazz and blues guitarist. That interest led him in an unexpected direction — he began building acoustic guitars with an eye toward selling them. Having looked at hundreds of thousands of websites while at Yahoo, he had a good sense of how to market online, well before the era of Twitter and as a national pastime. He built a website and posted photos of guitars he was building so customers could watch the progress. And he consciously befriended the right people. “They just put the word out for me,” he said. “That was the sort of thing I learned at Yahoo that you could do. ” He ended up making about 100 guitars, selling them for $3, 000 to $10, 000 apiece, before closing the business a few years ago. Mr. Mustapick, 47, is now studying jazz piano. Today, neither of them wishes to return to an office job. Ms. Mathews, 43, has found her bliss teaching yoga, blogging about veganism and painting. Still, she remembers Yahoo fondly. “I loved being around that many smart, interesting, engaged people,” she said. “I actively miss that in my daily life — not enough to go get a job and give up what I’m doing, but I do miss it. ” Gordon HurdBACK FOR ROUND 3 Nine years ago, Gordon Hurd quit Yahoo for the second time. In June, he began working for the company again — Round 3 — this time as a freelance writer. In the intervening years, Mr. Hurd toured the struggling landscape — first, the Yahoo archrival AOL then, Interactive One, a network of black news and culture sites later, First Look Media, created by the eBay founder Pierre M. Omidyar and most recently, a men’s fashion site, Man’s Life. There was even a brief stint at McKinsey Company, the consulting firm and “the most corporate place you could go,” he said. He is one of many surfers who left, then came back through the revolving door, sometimes unexpectedly. One group of jumped to Polyvore, a social shopping founded by three Yahoo engineers in 2007, only to wind up back at Yahoo last year when it bought the company. Mr. Hurd’s first run with Yahoo started in 1998 when he was hired to organize the business and finance parts of the directory. The starting pay was only $35, 000 a year, he recalled. But there were stock options. “I didn’t make millions by any means,” said Mr. Hurd, 45, in a phone interview from Brooklyn, where he lives. But he bought a house. A restless soul, he left Yahoo in 2002 to become an investigative reporter for a local magazine. Less than a year later, with a second child on the way, Mr. Hurd returned to Yahoo, eventually helping run the influential home page. In 2007, he hopped to McKinsey and then quickly to AOL, where he ran Asylum. com, a lifestyle site aimed at men age 18 to 34. The business model was to create vast amounts of content in the hope that visitors would click on ads. That didn’t happen. “What it underlined is how much of a commodity content was,” Mr. Hurd said. Asylum was shut down. Mr. Hurd moved on to Interactive One, the digital arm of Radio One, the largest radio broadcaster in the United States, which struggled to crack the content code, too. Volume trumped quality. “You know people will click on a video, but you want to talk about what it’s like to be a millennial of color,” Mr. Hurd said. First Look Media, although funded by a tech billionaire, was plagued by internal strife. Man’s Life wound down after less than a year. Which is how, today, Mr. Hurd is back at Yahoo, writing articles for its style site while he ponders his next move. More than ever, he thinks there is a need for the type of work that Yahoo’s surfers did 20 years ago. “The web has gotten so big that you need people to curate it,” he said. However, he sees that curation coming from subject experts, not sites like Yahoo. Niche sites with a devoted following could work with select sponsors hoping to reach a particular audience, he said. “If you’re a person who’s really dedicated to the art of handmade knives, and you set out to categorize the sites of handmade knives, only you can do that. Google can never do that,” Mr. Hurd said. Becky UlineA GRAND ADVENTURE When Becky Uline graduated from Bowling Green State University in Ohio in 1996, she didn’t really know what she wanted to do with her life. A friend was raving that he had discovered paradise — living in Northern California and working for a company few people had ever heard of, Yahoo. She and another Bowling Green graduate, Michelle Heimburger, thought it would be a grand adventure. They both got hired as surfers and rented an apartment together. The building was so empty at first that surfers would zip through it on skates. “We would sleep under our desks,” Ms. Uline, 42, recalled during an interview at her current home in Oakland, Calif. Her roommate, Ms. Heimburger, made headlines a few years later when she spent $350, 000 — part of her Yahoo stock windfall — to buy the Franklin Castle in her hometown, Cleveland. To celebrate, she threw a huge housewarming party, inviting all of Yahoo and the Cleveland Indians baseball team to the festivities. In 2001, Ms. Uline gave her notice. She wanted to travel the world, financed in part by her Yahoo nest egg. Paris became a favorite haunt. “I would sublet my apartment out for a few months and just go and work from wherever,” she said. She freelanced for Yahoo and also tapped the vast network of surfer alumni, landing work at the SearchMe and elsewhere. Six years ago, she stopped wandering and decided to focus on her music. The year 2013 was big: her band, the Northerlies, released its debut album she married the guitar player, Brian Anderson, who had worked at Excite, another early search site and their son, Neil, was born. Yahoo’s decline is sad, Ms. Uline said, but she still feels a connection. Her closest friends are former Yahoos, including Ms. Heimburger, who married yet another surfer and lives in London. A few months ago, Ms. Uline, said, she dropped Yahoo as her home page, but she missed it and changed it back. “I still use Yahoo search. I want them to get the revenue,” she said. ConnieAlice HungateSURFING BY ANOTHER NAME When Yahoo set out to hire surfers, it invented a new job category. The closest match may have been bookstore clerk — and Kepler’s Books in nearby Menlo Park turned into a recruitment hotbed. About a dozen surfers were hired away from the shop, including ConnieAlice Hungate. Ms. Hungate, 46, is still at Yahoo more than 18 years later, supervising what remains of the surfer team. She said the group, renamed content analysis and management, is still vital to the company’s ambitions to remain a player in web search. Search ads bring in nearly half of Yahoo’s revenue. Under a 2010 deal with Microsoft, Yahoo uses Microsoft’s Bing search engine for most basic queries and ads. Ms. Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, has devoted vast resources to search technology — particularly on mobile devices — in an attempt to leapfrog Google, though the company has little to show for it so far. Ms. Hungate said her team helped train Yahoo’s search algorithms to provide more relevant results. The mobile search app, for example, now automatically pulls up suggestions for nearby places to eat when lunchtime rolls around. The surfers also worked on the recent release of Yahoo’s Radar travel app, which uses a interface to recommend restaurants and activities based on data from TripAdvisor and Yelp. “We’re doing all kinds of experiments every day,” Ms. Hungate said. The Elvis sculpture, a 1998 gift from a Yahoo user, still watches over the department, and the contest is held every Halloween — with results posted on Flickr, the service owned by Yahoo. Ms. Hungate said she was not worried about what would happen to the surfers if the company was sold. “Information management is a core need in technology,” she said. “We’ll adapt. ” | 1 |
A Cry for Help: Texas Homeschooled Children Continue to Suffer in State Custody and Public School
by Health Impact News/Medical Kidnap.com Staff
Claire and William Rembis say they are heartbroken. They say their children are heartbroken also. Their 10 children are remaining in Texas State custody, even though there are no abuse or neglect findings, and even though the children are suffering and want to come home. The children remain in public school and State custody, despite Judge Hart’s previous ruling to allow the children to be homeschooled. See previous story: Texas Judge Allows Mother to Homeschool Her Own Children – Denies Request to Vaccinate Children While in State Custody
Judge Hart ruled on September 20th that the Rembis children should continue to homeschool while in State custody “for purposes of consistency – to keep the children in the same school setting they were in before entering state custody – since they will continue to be homeschooled once they go home,” and added that the children would be going home “quickly,” according to Claire.
When CPS defied Judge Hart’s ruling to allow the Rembis children to continue to homeschool, the Rembis’ were certain that Judge Hart would have no option but to send the children home on October 5th, and punish the social workers who defied his ruling. See previous story: Texas CPS Defies Judge’s Order to Homeschool, Keeps Rembis Children in Public School
But when they went to court on October 5th, the Rembis said it was like Judge Hart was a “completely different person” than he had been during the Adversary hearing in September, and rather than dealing with CPS’ refusal to homeschool the children, the hearing focused only on presenting a lengthy list of “services” the Rembis’ must complete before they can get their children home and out of public school and State custody. William Rembis with some of his children during a CPS supervised visit.
Claire and William maintain that their children should never have been taken into State custody in the first place, and that the list of “CPS services” they must now complete are a not only a waste of tax-payer money, but also a waste of time, since there never was any abuse or neglect, and CPS allegedly never even substantiated any of their allegations.
Although there were some “supervision concerns” since their 2-year old “escape artist” got into the front yard momentarily without their knowledge, the Rembis say that their daughter getting into the yard alone was an accident (and could happen to any family), and once they learned of it, locks were immediately added to the garage doors to prevent any further “escapes.”
The Rembis’ are outraged that their family’s lives have been turned upside down, their children abused and traumatized in state custody, their reputation slandered in the media, and the main “eye-witness” who called CPS and started this entire ordeal is not even a credible witness, according to Claire:
The caller that called CPS to begin with, ended up changing her story several times under oath & was discovered to be a meth manufacturer who sells it, is a felon with a 12-yr long criminal record that may have been on drugs when she made that CPS report that started this nightmare. Rembis Children Remain in Custody as Retaliation?
Claire recalled that at the close of the Adversary hearing on September 20th, Judge Hart declared that he saw “nothing to necessitate Terminating Parental Rights,” and that his only concerns were some “supervision issues that could be easily fixed.”
Yet, even though there was no substantiated “abuse or neglect,” Judge Hart ruled that the children had to remain in custody, saying “ his hands were tied ” because the Rembis family left Lubbock in August, before bringing the children in for CPS interviews, even though there was no court order preventing the family form leaving the state, and they allegedly did nothing illegal by doing so.
The Rembis’ explain that they left Texas to protect their children from the overzealous CPS worker Kris Stecklein who was harassing them at home and traumatizing the children. The Rembis’ also contend – and they have spoken with attorneys who agree – that the children were illegally extradited from Colorado back to Texas. According to the Rembis’, CPS has defied judges’ orders, broken laws, and committed perjury over and over, yet they suffer no consequences. The Rembis family, who claim their only wrongdoing was “making a mistake” and not noticing when their 2-year-old followed William Rembis outside, continue to suffer at the hands of a corrupt system.
Are the Rembis’ being “made an example of” because they left Texas and exposed corruption within Lubbock CPS? The Rembis family believes that Judge Hart’s ruling to keep the children in State care is retaliation because the they continue to expose the corruption of CPS and the Family Court system.
Studies have shown that children are worse off in foster homes than if they remained in a “troubled home,” and many argue that foster care itself is a form of “child abuse,” causing long-term emotional trauma for children.
In despair for her children, Claire cries:
I didn’t think my body could make this many tears. Their joy is gone. Their happy faces are sad now. Oh Lord, Heavenly Father, please Lord PLEASE don’t let anything happen to them!
Are they living with genuinely abused kids that are acting out towards them?
My husband & I are supposed to just sit back, hands tied & NOT HELP THEM? We’re to hang tight knowing that abused kids & possibly sicko adults are living amongst them in the heavily populated group home?
For more information on grim foster care statistics, see: The U.S. Foster Care System: Modern Day Slavery and Child Trafficking No Consequence for CPS Defying Homeschool Ruling?
It was shocking to the Rembis’ that CPS could get away with “defying” the Judges’ previous ruling about homeschooling their children. According to Claire:
CPS said that they tried to find a homeschool curriculum but were unsuccessful. They mentioned something about a schooling option to do at the foster homes but that each kid had to have a laptop in order to do it so it was not an option they say. They also said that they spoke to Texas Homeschooling Coalition & that they didn’t offer anything that would allow CPS to take the kids to for their schooling. They said that they couldn’t find a foster family willing to homeschool the children.
They said that the kids are doing really well in school. They said that they aren’t having any behavioral issues. They said that the schools have reported that the kids, “brighten up the school”& that they enjoy having them as students. They said that the kids are enjoying school, except for Sebastian.
Claire was heartbroken that Judge Hart would not even let her discuss any of the options she had written down to present in court as to how to make homeschooling work, and she was even more heartbroken that her children were remaining in State custody:
My heart hurts too bad. I feel like I’m slipping away. I don’t even know how to describe this. It feels like I’ve been thrown into a room with a crowd of people with dementia & Alzheimer’s. Then the room is locked from the outside so I can’t get out. Then I’m listening to these people discuss what to do to the kids, how to do it, when to do it, etc…
And then they point at me & talk about me as though I’m a strange, non-human, defected being that they must bind up & put into a strait jacket with duct tape on my mouth. All the while I can still see & they force me to watch our kids being hurt & crying out in pain, suffering & miserable. Their arms reaching out to me, them crying out to me but I can’t do anything but sit in a chair, unable to move & unable to talk. Can CPS Lie in Court without Consequence?
Claire says she was appalled at how CPS workers could lie in court on October 5th, without any repercussion:
Judge asks for case plan. He asks why we haven’t started it since CPS says we received it on 9/23.
I told him that we hadn’t received it & that we were told that it would be emailed to us on 9/27. CPS argued that I wasn’t told this. I told the judge that the meeting in which we were told this was recorded.
I also told him that the attorneys (my husbands & the standby one for me) hadn’t received it until the morning of the hearing. He didn’t have a response to this.
I pointed out that the CPS attorney & CPS workers lied about the case plan. I said to him, ‘I need to point out to you that these (pointed to the CPS, “team”) CPS workers just told you that we received the case plan on September 23rd.’ Then I said to him, ‘This case plan states on the front page that it was created on October 3rd.”
The CPS team were visibly annoyed, one tapping her foot, the other rolling her eyes. There was silence as he looked at the papers. He didn’t acknowledge what I had just said, just moved on & started asking someone else questions. Claire Claims Judge Hart Insulted Her in Court – Asking if She Knew How to Read and Write Meme supplied by Rembis family.
Claire was disheartened at the treatment she received from Judge Hart on October 5th:
After we had a recess of 15 minutes to look over the case plan, I told the judge that I needed more time to look at the case plan; he told me that I needed to put my concerns in written format to submit for another hearing – A hearing simply to go over the case plan.
Then he asked me if I could read & write!
I asked him to repeat it. He said the same thing, & I said, ‘Are you serious?!’ & sorta chuckled. He said that he was because he wanted to make sure that if I needed any, ‘special accommodations’ he wanted to provide me with them.
In hindsight, maybe he was being sarcastic. He is the judge that we had to file a complaint on for violating Williams’ disability rights. He laughed at Willie when he told him that he needed to get closer to the stand in order to hear the judge. Then the judge called him a liar when William explained that he was legally deaf. New Attorney Says Case Should Never Have Gotten This Far
Claire was reluctant to accept the court-appointed standby attorney Bill de Haas, but after talking to him, she and William are hopeful that de Haas will actually fight for them, and not just be a Family Court puppet-attorney. Claire reports that the attorney has told them that this case should have ended at the first hearing, and the children should never have been taken into custody.
William fired his other court-appointed attorney, and he and Claire have now accepted de Haas as their legal counsel. They say that de Haas has been very helpful, explaining that it was illegal for Texas to extradite the children from Colorado, and he has been advising them about how they can get the case moved to Colorado, where William has been offered a good-paying job. Alex’s Outcry for Help
At their October 17th visit, Claire’s 15-year-old son made an “outcry for help,” through a poem he wrote describing his group home, which he gave to his parents. “Dearest String,” a poem by Alex Rembis, given to Claire at a visit. Concerns Over Son Alex Escalate – Suffering in Group Home
The parents are very concerned about their son Alex:
Alex is at the end of his rope. He is in the darkest frame of mind that we have ever seen him in. We have asked Andrew to tell us what is happening. The last time I asked him he told me that he couldn’t say – he was staring at a CPS worker when he said this.
We have the impression that the kids are too afraid to say anything because all of our visitations are monitored by CPS workers. They listen to EVERYTHING we all say. About 5 visitations ago, Aurora was weeping the entire time. She kept stopping to whisper to us that she didn’t want to tell us why because the CPS workers were listening to her. Before we had to leave that day, she just curled up in a ball & screamed, while crying, “I want to go home!!!”
So, their ability to report & escape abuse is very much hindered. I’m also very concerned about them being manipulated & threatened into keeping quiet about the abuse. “Meet Alex Rembis in happier times. Alex was illegally kidnapped for Texas CPS on 8/24/16. He was taken from a Christian, homeschooling family on false allegations of neglect.” – Claire Rembis
On October 18th, Claire learned that Alex had a seizure at school:
Alex was in the hospital. He had a seizure at school this morning. The CPS worker was there but not us. They didn’t take care of him the way that his neurologist told us to if he had another seizure. Jennifer tried to say the seizure was mild and no big deal, but from what she described to me on the phone, it did not sound like a mild seizure. Tragically, the lack of adequate response by CPS/fostercare/school workers could’ve had devastating consequences on his health.
On October 26th, Alex had a follow-up neurology appointment, where she says she learned that the reason for Alex’s seizure the previous week was because the “group home” failed to give him his daily medication.
Claire says that during the appointment, she was informing Alex of his rights to talk to the Judge or his attorney, and wrote down some information for him on a note. Claire reports that Garlett wouldn’t let Alex have the note, and when he tried to record his mother’s advice “for his record,” Garlett allegedly put her hand over the recorder and called for security. Social Worker Jennifer Garlett. Photo taken at the recent neurology appointment for Alex Rembis. Boys Depressed and Abused – Want to Come Home
Claire says that the children have told her that “for some reason the people at the home are being really mean to the boys and that the boys are being abused.”
Claire and William are very worried for their children’s safety, saying that two of the boys, who live in a group home, confided in her at the October 24th visit that they are depressed and want to come home:
Holding back tears, Alex shared that he’s depressed because he can’t come home. His brother (14), in the same cottage as him, confided in me that he feels the same way & that he cried himself to sleep because he couldn’t go home.
This isn’t our son. Alex is a very sweet, joyful, intelligent young man who loves to make people laugh. I told Alex that everyone is praying for him. – I reminded Alex that Jesus’ price paid for healing also includes the healing of the mind. I encouraged him to pray for healing from the depression. I reminded him to seek Jesus who is w/him 24/7 & that Jesus will comfort him.
I told him how everyone loved his poem & that we ARE listening. Please pray for Alex & his siblings to be returned to their loving home where they belong, before Christmas. The children write and draw on a board during visits. Alex wrote on the board at the 10/24/16 visitation, “I wanna go back to my real home! – Alex” (Photo provided by family) Children Continue to Suffer in Foster Care
Claire continued to report to Health Impact News about how her children are suffering in state care:
The kids have been so sick ever since they were taken. The CPS worker says that she is their advocate & the one looking out for their healthcare needs. However, not only is she not getting them the medical care that they need, she is LYING TO US about their health.
We are POWERLESS over this. We have to sit back, hands tied, mouths shut, forced to watch them suffer but not being able to alleviate it. They need help! That is why God chose our family for them; He’s equipped us to care for them. THEY NEED US NOW.
At one visit, Aurora had a severe stomach ache and was crying. At the next visit, Aurora was so sick, she couldn’t talk during the visit. Claire writes:
When the CPS worker Jennifer was answering my questions, Aurora was writing down the answers & correcting her.
After I asked her why Aurora couldn’t talk, Jennifer said that Aurora wasn’t sick. She then said that Aurora wasn’t on any medication. To that Aurora wrote the response below.[I’m taking meds to make me better]
When I questioned Jennifer about Aurora not seeing a doctor after complaining about intense abdominal pain the week before at visitation, Aurora wrote down that she had thrown up a few days prior to the visitation.
During one visit, when Claire changed her toddler’s diaper, she was distressed when she discovered a rash on her daughter’s body from her chest to her feet. Even more troubling, was the fact that the social workers allegedly tried to dissuade Claire from even changing her child’s diaper, saying they would do it later. (Many families have reported that CPS would label parents with “abuse and neglect” had the child been in the family’s care, and wonder, “why is not abuse and neglect when it happens in State care?” ) Editorial: What is R eally Going On with Texas CPS and Foster Care?
Unfortunately, there are still many readers who read stories like this one incredulously, thinking, “there must be more to the story,” and “CPS would not take children away from good parents without just cause.” While it’s nice to believe that CPS only rescues truly abused and severely neglected children from awful parents, sadly, this just isn’t the case.
Over 75% of CPS cases nationwide are “neglect cases” due to poverty, simply based on the biased opinion of the caller or social worker that some “basic necessities are being denied.” Once children are moved into foster care, the State’s CPS system can start receiving federal funds for foster care, social workers, judges, medical doctors, attorneys, psychiatrists, therapist, counselors, etc. – for all those who derive a living from this industry. Are we punishing poverty at the expense of future generations, using children as a commodity to create job security for CPS and Family Courts?
See: Child Kidnapping and Trafficking: A Lucrative U.S. Business Funded by Taxpayers Called “Foster Care”
Have we allowed the State the dictate the standards for material possessions each member of a family must possess for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?
The Rembis’ and their supporters agree that the removal of their children is not only a violation of their Civil and Constitutional Rights , but has caused unjustifiable trauma and abuse to their children and unnecessary stress and hardship to their family.
This is the type of CPS’ abuse that many families across the country who contact us face every day. Until CPS is exposed for what it truly is – a federally-funded multi-billion-dollar child-trafficking and adoption business – and until families across the world demand that those they elect defund CPS, no family is safe from the tyranny which CPS agents can unleash on them should their family ever come into CPS’ sights.
Claire shares:
So many things are uncertain right now. So much fear, so much scary & crazy stuff. We can’t understand how something so terrible can happen. We don’t understand how it can happen to so many families and continue without massive outcry. But what we DO know, is that God is a solid rock. We know that we can trust Him. We know that our time here on earth will be spent allowing Him to work through us. Our eternity will be in paradise, with our Savior, safe & tucked away for His glory. So, as always, we must obey God, rather than man.
The abuses in Texas CPS and Foster Care have been exposed repeatedly, even in the mainstream media in Texas. For more information see: | 0 |
A new policy at Syracuse University includes in its long list of examples of “bias incidents” signs for male and female students. [The new policy, which is called “STOP Bias,” encourages students to report instances of discrimination. As an example of a gender bias incident, students are encouraged to file a report if a campus sign is “ pink for girls and blue for boys. ” We believe that every student should be given a college experience that is free of crime, discrimination, sexual harassment, and any other violation. We strive to foster learning and growth in an environment that is safe and secure, and we lead the way with STOP Bias at Syracuse. Other possible offenses include “using the phrase, ‘no homo,’” “telling jokes based on a stereotype,” and “making a joke about someone being deaf or hard of hearing, or blind, etc. ” incidents, while abhorrent and intolerable, do not meet the necessary elements required to prove a crime. However, incidents do require the active participation of a community committed to fundamental human dignity and equality to successfully address them. Please report incidents to ””>recent study from Stanford University concluded that Americans are now more like to discriminate on the basis of political party affiliation than they are on the basis of race, gender, or sexuality. Americans now discriminate more on the basis of party than on race, gender or any of the other divides we typically think of — and that discrimination extends beyond politics into personal relationships and behaviors. Americans increasingly live in neighborhoods with partisans, marry fellow partisans and disapprove of their children marrying mates from the other party, and they are more likely to choose partners based on partisanship than physical or personality attributes. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about social justice and libertarian issues for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 1 |
Rebels Continue Offensive Against Western Aleppo by Jason Ditz, October 30, 2016 Share This
A coalition of rebels including al-Qaeda’s-Nusra Front and the Free Syrian Army are continuing their offensive against the government-held western half of Aleppo . The UN harshly criticized them for their use of “ indiscriminate ” weapons, warning it could amount to war crimes.
Perhaps the biggest issue, though as-yet-unproven, is reports that the rebels have begun to use chlorine-filled shells in their attacks. Syrian media reported 35 civilians were suffering from effects of the toxic gas, though the rebels denied using them.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least 21 people killed over the weekend, amid heavy fighting around western Aleppo. The offensive began Friday, with the Nusra-led rebels trying to end a siege of their eastern half of the city.
This has been a recurring situation in Aleppo since it boiled down to just the military and this rebel faction, with both sides having repeatedly launched offensives and counter-offensives over the last several months, trading sieges and strikes against one anothers’ neighborhoods.
This has resulted in heavy casualties for the civilians stuck in the city, facing regular sieges that they are rarely as able to survive as the combatants, and taking the brunt of the rockets, airstrikes, and artillery attacks. The addition of chemical weapons, even primitive ones, threaten to make the matter far worse. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
CUMANÁ, Venezuela — With delivery trucks under constant attack, the nation’s food is now transported under armed guard. Soldiers stand watch over bakeries. The police fire rubber bullets at desperate mobs storming grocery stores, pharmacies and butcher shops. A girl was shot to death as street gangs fought over food. Venezuela is convulsing from hunger. Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná, home to one of the region’s independence heroes, marched on a supermarket in recent days, screaming for food. They forced open a large metal gate and poured inside. They snatched water, flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, potatoes, anything they could find, leaving behind only broken freezers and overturned shelves. And they showed that even in a country with the largest oil reserves in the world, it is possible for people to riot because there is not enough food. In the last two weeks alone, more than 50 food riots, protests and mass looting have erupted around the country. Scores of businesses have been stripped bare or destroyed. At least five people have been killed. This is precisely the Venezuela its leaders vowed to prevent. In one of the nation’s worst moments, riots spread from Caracas, the capital, in 1989, leaving hundreds dead at the hands of security forces. Known as the “Caracazo,” or the “Caracas clash,” they were set off by low oil prices, cuts in subsidies and a population that was suddenly impoverished. The event seared the memory of a future president, Hugo Chávez, who said the country’s inability to provide for its people, and the state’s repression of the uprising, were the reasons Venezuela needed a socialist revolution. Now his successors find themselves in a similar bind — or maybe even worse. The nation is anxiously searching for ways to feed itself. The economic collapse of recent years has left it unable to produce enough food on its own or import what it needs from abroad. Cities have been militarized under an emergency decree from President Nicolás Maduro, the man Mr. Chávez picked to carry on with his revolution before he died three years ago. “If there is no food, there will be more riots,” said Raibelis Henriquez, 19, who waited all day for bread in Cumaná, where at least 22 businesses were attacked in a single day last week. But while the riots and clashes punctuate the country with alarm, it is the hunger that remains the constant source of unease. A staggering 87 percent of Venezuelans say they do not have money to buy enough food, the most recent assessment of living standards by Simón Bolívar University found. About 72 percent of monthly wages are being spent just to buy food, according to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis, a research group associated with the Venezuelan Teachers Federation. In April, it found that a family would need the equivalent of 16 salaries to properly feed itself. Ask people in this city when they last ate a meal, and many will respond that it was not today. Among them are Leidy Cordova, 37, and her five children — Abran, Deliannys, Eliannys, Milianny and Javier Luis — ages 1 to 11. On Thursday evening, the entire family had not eaten since lunchtime the day before, when Ms. Cordova made a soup by boiling chicken skin and fat that she had found for a cheap price at the butcher. “My kids tell me they’re hungry,” Ms. Cordova said as her family looked on. “And all I can say to them is to grin and bear it. ” Other families have to choose who eats. Lucila Fonseca, 69, has lymphatic cancer, and her daughter, Vanessa Furtado, has a brain tumor. Despite also being ill, Ms. Furtado gives up the little food she has on many days so her mother does not skip meals. “I used to be very fat, but no longer,” the daughter said. “We are dying as we live. ” Her mother added, “We are now living on Maduro’s diet: no food, no nothing. ” Economists say years of economic mismanagement — worsened by low prices for oil, the nation’s main source of revenue — have shattered the food supply. Sugar fields in the country’s agricultural center lie fallow for lack of fertilizers. Unused machinery rots in shuttered factories. Staples like corn and rice, once exported, now must be imported and arrive in amounts that do not meet the need. In response, Mr. Maduro has tightened his grip over the food supply. Using emergency decrees he signed this year, the president put most food distribution in the hands of a group of citizen brigades loyal to leftists, a measure critics say is reminiscent of food rationing in Cuba. “They’re saying, in other words, you get food if you’re my friend, if you’re my sympathizer,” said Roberto the director of the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a human rights group. It was all a new reality for Gabriel Márquez, 24, who grew up in the boom years when Venezuela was rich and empty shelves were unimaginable. He stood in front of the destroyed supermarket where the mob had arrived at Cumaná, an endless expanse of smashed bottles, boxes and scattered shelves. A few people, including a policeman, were searching the wreckage for leftovers to take. “During Carnival, we used to throw eggs at each other just to have some fun,” he said. “Now an egg is like gold. ” Down the coastal road in a small fishing town called Boca de Uchire, hundreds gathered on a bridge this month to protest because the food deliveries were not arriving. Residents demanded to meet the mayor, but when he did not come they sacked a Chinese bodega. Residents hacked open the door with pickaxes and pillaged the shop, venting their anger at a global power that has lent billions of dollars to prop up Venezuela in recent years. “The Chinese won’t sell to us,” said a taxi driver who watched the crowd haul away all that was inside. “So we burn their stores instead. ” Mr. Maduro, who is fighting a push for a referendum to recall him this year over the country’s declines, said it was the political opposition that was behind the attacks on the stores. “They paid a group of criminals, brought them in trucks,” he said on Saturday on television, promising compensation to those who lost property. At the same time, the government also blames an “economic war” for the shortages. It accuses wealthy business owners of hoarding food and charging exorbitant prices, creating artificial shortages to profit from the country’s misery. It has left shop owners feeling under siege, particularly those who do not have Spanish names. “Look how we are working today,” said Maria Basmagi, whose family immigrated from Syria a generation ago, pointing to the metal grate pulled over the window of her shoe store. Her shop was on the commercial boulevard in Barcelona, another coastal town racked by unrest last week. At 11 a. m. the day before, someone screamed that there was an attack on a kitchen nearby. Every shop on Ms. Basmagi’s street closed down in fear. Other shops stay open, like the bakery in Cumaná where a line of 100 people snaked around a corner. Each person was allowed to buy about a pound of bread. Robert Astudillo, a father of two, was not sure there would be any left once his turn came. He said he still had corn flour to make arepas, a Venezuelan staple, for his children. They had not eaten meat in months. “We make the arepas small,” he said. In the refrigerator of Araselis Rodriguez and Nestor Daniel Reina, the parents of four small children, there was not even corn flour — just a few limes and some bottles of water. The family had eaten bread for breakfast and soup for lunch made from fish that Mr. Reina had managed to catch. The family had nothing for dinner. It has not always been clear what provokes the riots. Is it hunger alone? Or is it some larger anger that has built up in a country that has crumbled? Inés Rodríguez was not sure. She remembered calling out to the crowd of people who had come to sack her restaurant on Tuesday night, offering them all the chicken and rice the restaurant had if they would only leave the furniture and cash register behind. They balked at the offer and simply pushed her aside, Ms. Rodríguez said. “It is the meeting of hunger and crime now,” she said. As she spoke, three trucks with armed patrols drove by, each emblazoned with photos of Mr. Chávez and Mr. Maduro. The trucks were carrying food. “Finally they come here,” Ms. Rodríguez said. “And look what it took to get them. It took this riot to get us something to eat. ” | 1 |
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No wonder Bill went elsewhere to fulfill his “sexual addiction,” as Dolly referred to it. After all, what else can you do when you’re married to a stinky woman who doesn’t shower and isn’t attracted to men anyways? Although an affair is never justified, it’s easy to sympathize with Bill on this one. But, I digress.
The bigger point here is what the two are willing to do in order to remain in power. Most people know that you can’t trust Hillary as far as you can throw her – which isn’t very far – so the fact that she has any supporters is beyond baffling at this point. This woman is corrupt and fake to the core. Let’s just hope all of America wakes up to this reality before it’s too late and she can do any more damage than she already has.
Bill and Hillary Clinton just can’t stay out of the spotlight these days, and the most recent leak about them could be the most damaging yet. As it turns out, someone once close to the duo just came forward to share Bill’s revealing nickname for his wife — but the worse comes as their dirty bedroom habits were exposed.
It’s no mystery that Bill Clinton is a sexual deviant, but the most recent account given by the woman who had a 3-decade affair with the man is damning, to say the least. According to an exclusive interview given to Mail Online, Dolly Kyle was behind the scene’s long enough to not only know the two’s darkest secrets but even their dirty sexual habits – and now, she’s telling everyone.
The connection between Dolly and Bill began when she was just 11-years-old. He was about 13-years-old at the time, but Dolly states that there was an immediate attraction, even then. As the years progressed, the two became romantically involved and stayed that way through several of their marriages over the next 30 years.
The real affair began in 1974 just after Dolly divorced her first husband, and although Bill wasn’t married yet, he would be within the year. Although she was never interested in sharing the intimate details of the relationship, she states that she snapped when she heard Hillary recently say that all sexual assault victims have the “right to be believed.”
Knowing full well just what Hillary had done – between the threats and the lies – to the many women who either had an affair with or were sexually assaulted by her husband Bill, Dolly knew she had to do something about it. Unfortunately for Hillary, Dolly is now coming forward with the dirty 2-word nickname Bill husband once called Hillary, among other things.
According to Mail Online, Bill approached Dolly at their high school’s 35-year reunion to talk about “ the warden” – a.k.a. Hillary. Saying he was unhappy with his life and marriage, this was the least significant account Dolly had to share.
In fact, Dolly recalls that Bill mentioned something about having a baby to her. Although she thought he was saying he wanted to have one with her, he was actually talking about Hillary. He wanted to put to bed the rumors that Hillary was a lesbian, even though everyone in their hometown already knew it to be true.
Dolly states that the worst came when she met Hillary for the first time. “In that moment I noticed that the woman emitted an overpowering [body] odor of perspiration and greasy hair. I hoped that I wouldn’t gag when she got in my car,” she said. “The sandal-shod woman with lank, smelly hair stood off to the side and glared at everyone.”
No wonder Bill went elsewhere to fulfill his “sexual addiction,” as Dolly referred to it. After all, what else can you do when you’re married to a stinky woman who doesn’t shower and isn’t attracted to men anyways? Although an affair is never justified, it’s easy to sympathize with Bill on this one. But, I digress.
The bigger point here is what the two are willing to do in order to remain in power. Most people know that you can’t trust Hillary as far as you can throw her – which isn’t very far – so the fact that she has any supporters is beyond baffling at this point. This woman is corrupt and fake to the core. Let’s just hope all of America wakes up to this reality before it’s too late and she can do any more damage than she already has. | 0 |
All programs for National Novel Writing Month, Camp NaNoWriMo, and the Young Writers Program are free, but tax-deductible donations are gratefully received. NaNoWriMo has been a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization since 2005. - Advertisement -
Hundreds of novels which were first drafted during NaNoWriMo have been published: the site lists nearly 400 traditionally published and 200 self published novels. Collage of book covers by Meryl Ann Butler for OpEdNews License DMCA
Barnes & Noble News lists eight bestsellers that started out as NaNoWriMo projects:
Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants , was on the best seller lists for over a year and was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson - Advertisement -
Erin Morgenstern's award-winning The Night Circus , spent seven weeks on the NY Times bestselling list and has been published in several languages, film rights were sold to Summit Entertainment.
Hugh Howey, author of Wool, began by selling ebooks, then he signed a six-figure deal with a major publisher and sold the film rights to 20th Century Fox.
Marissa Meyer's New York Times-bestselling series of YA redoux of classic fairy tales, including Scarlet, Cress and Cinder, started out as NaNoWriMo projects, as well as Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl , and Jason Hough's The Darwin Elevator
Each year, authors offer mentorship to participants through pep talks . Past author mentors have included Gene Luen Yang, John Green, N. K. Jemisin, and Veronica Roth.
Everyone has a story inside. Want to write it in a month? Just sign up. Tell your story | 0 |
The Pulitzer Prizes awarded Monday encompassed, among other topics, reporting done on the presidential election a fatal fire in Oakland, Calif. and the attempts by the Russian government to assert its power. • The New York Daily News and ProPublica won the public service award for a series on the New York Police Department’s abuse of a law to force people from their homes over alleged illegal activities. • The New York Times won three prizes, the most for any news organization. • Colson Whitehead and Lynn Nottage were among the winners in the arts categories. Here is the full list: PUBLIC SERVICE ProPublica and The Daily News The series by The Daily News and ProPublica exposed the widespread abuse by the New York Police Department of a law to bar hundreds of people from their homes and businesses over alleged criminal activity. The investigation, which was led by Sarah Ryley, 36, a journalist for The Daily News, found that the Police Department almost exclusively targeted households and shops in minority neighborhoods. The reporting spurred New York City to pass sweeping reforms. __________ BREAKING NEWS REPORTING The East Bay Times Dozens of journalists at The East Bay Times worked on the coverage of the deadly “Ghost Ship” fire in Oakland, Calif. in December, which killed 36 people at a warehouse party. “We had everybody involved, from investigative reporters to artists to breaking news reporters,” said Neil Chase, the paper’s executive editor. Mr. Chase said the paper, whose reporting also revealed the city’s shortcomings in preventing the tragedy, was donating the cash prize that comes with the award to a local fund for the victims. __________ INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING Eric Eyre, The Charleston Mr. Eyre (pronounced AIR) 51, won the award for a series of articles about the opioid abuse epidemic in West Virginia. Mr. Eyre, the paper’s statehouse reporter, began his multipart series with these words: “Follow the pills and you’ll find the overdose deaths. ” It took Mr. Eyre years to acquire the documents most important to his reporting, and he did it “in the face of powerful opposition,” according to the Pulitzer citation. A lawyer defending a drug wholesale company said that it was vital to protect crucial court records “from the intrusive journalistic nose of the . ” __________ EXPLANATORY REPORTING The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and The Miami Herald A sprawling network of journalists was awarded the prize for their explosive articles on the Panama Papers. The Pulitzer board commended the “collaboration of more than 300 reporters on six continents to expose the hidden infrastructure and global scale of offshore tax havens. ” The work was originally submitted for the international reporting award, but the board moved it to the explanatory reporting category. __________ LOCAL REPORTING The staff of The Salt Lake Tribune The prize honored reports about “the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment given to sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University. ” The Tribune’s first article said that the university, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Saints, investigated students who reported sex crimes — and sometimes disciplined them for breaking rules on curfews and dress codes. The Tribune also found that the school’s Title IX office, to which students could report sexual assaults, regularly alerted the honor code office, which looked into the rule violations. In November, Brigham Young took steps to restructure the Title IX office. The school also said that students who reported sexual assaults would no longer risk having their conduct reviewed by the honor code office. __________ NATIONAL REPORTING David A. Fahrenthold, The Washington Post Mr. Fahrenthold was cited for his reporting during the 2016 presidential campaign, which cast doubt on Donald J. Trump’s “assertions of generosity toward charities. ” A month after Mr. Trump skipped a Republican debate in Iowa to attend a for veterans, Mr. Fahrenthold found that only about half of the money had gone to veterans’ charities. Mr. Fahrenthold, 39, later found that Mr. Trump had used his own foundation’s money for legal settlements and purchases that included two portraits of himself. In October, Mr. Fahrenthold received a tip about a video that showed Mr. Trump talking about women in vulgar terms. “The voice you’d heard in so many other contexts was talking in a way we’d never heard before,” Mr. Fahrenthold said Monday. “That’s what made it so powerful. ” __________ INTERNATIONAL REPORTING The staff of The New York Times In “Russia’s Dark Arts,” a team of New York Times journalists across two continents chronicled the covert and sometimes deadly actions taken by President Vladimir V. Putin’s government to grow Russian influence abroad. The series, which began last spring, explored the rise of online “troll armies,” the strategic spreading of disinformation and Russia’s unprecedented — and politically consequential — cyberattack on the 2016 American presidential election. __________ FEATURE WRITING C. J. Chivers, The New York Times Mr. Chivers, 52, spent months crafting his portrait of a young combat veteran haunted by his experiences in Afghanistan, who was imprisoned after a violent fight with a stranger. Unflinching yet empathetic, the reporting by Mr. Chivers — himself a former Marine — prompted the state of Illinois to vacate the veteran’s jail sentence. “The truth literally set a young man free,” Jake Silverstein, the editor of The New York Times Magazine, where the story appeared, said Monday. __________ COMMENTARY Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal Ms. Noonan, 66, has been a longtime observer and participant in the political sphere, having worked as a speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan. Her winning columns addressed the bruising 2016 campaign season and the rise of Mr. Trump, analyzing his populist appeal and his effect on the Republican Party. Paul Gigot, the editor of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, wrote in a memo to the newsroom, “Peggy didn’t shrink from addressing Trump’s many flaws as a candidate, but she always showed great respect for the intelligence of voters and explained the currents of American life and politics that catapulted Trump to the White House. ” __________ CRITICISM Hilton Als, The New Yorker A staff writer at The New Yorker since 1994, Mr. Als, 56, was praised for reviews that “strove to put stage dramas within a cultural context,” particularly when it comes to themes of gender, sexuality and race. Mr. Als, who was a finalist last year, is known for stylish and trenchant prose, and won the honor for a set of 10 pieces that covered works including “The Color Purple” and “Dear Evan Hansen. ” American theater, he said in an interview, is an a transitional state. “We’re living in an amazing age,” he said. “All kinds of stories are going to be told now that just didn’t get an audience before. That’s thrilling to me. ” __________ EDITORIAL WRITING Art Cullen, The Storm Lake Times There is no mistaking the anger in the voice of The Storm Lake Times when it writes about the legacy of big agriculture: “Anyone with eyes and a nose knows in his gut that Iowa has the dirtiest surface water in America. ” That voice is personal, too. It belongs to Mr. Cullen, 59, who owns the newspaper with his brother John. The Times comes out twice a week and has a circulation of 3, 000. Among its admiring readers were Pulitzer jurors. They cited Mr. Cullen’s “tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing. ” __________ EDITORIAL CARTOONING Jim Morin, The Miami Herald The looming ogre of “Nationalism,” armed with a malevolent grin and the club of “Racism,” opened the door and cast his menacing shadow last June. “Hello,” he said. “Remember me?” For this and other work portraying a frightening America, Mr. Morin, 64, earned his second Pulitzer Prize. (The first was in 1996.) The Pulitzer jurors said he “delivered sharp perspectives through flawless artistry, biting prose and crisp wit. ” __________ BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY Daniel Berehulak, The New York Times Mr. Berehulak, 41, was recognized for work that showed “the callous disregard for human life in the Philippines brought about by a government assault on drug dealers and users. ” On Monday, Mr. Berehulak described observing “an assembly line of murder” over 35 days in Manila. He dedicated his award to the families of those killed, saying he hoped “their pain might somehow be remedied by justice. ” He was previously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 2015 for his work documenting the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. __________ FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY E. Jason Wambsgans, The Chicago Tribune Mr. Wambsgans, 44, was honored for his portrayal of a boy and his mother after the boy survived a shooting in Chicago. He has mainly photographed violence in the city for the past four years. “Because he and his mother were so open, it was just a deeper level of intimacy than we’re typically able to convey,” Mr. Wambsgans said. “It’s kind of a bittersweet thing because there’s not a week that goes by that I don’t worry about this boy and his future. ” __________ FICTION Colson Whitehead, “The Underground Railroad” When he was working on his hallucinatory and chilling novel, which reimagines American slavery, Mr. Whitehead studied works by masters of magical realism, including Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude. ” His aim was to write about “the fantastic with a straight face. ” Mr. Whitehead, 47, said the critical reactions to the book have been enormously gratifying (the novel also won the National Book Award). But one of the most meaningful responses came from a stranger who approached him in a bookstore. “She said, ‘Your book made me a more empathetic person,’” he said. __________ DRAMA Lynn Nottage, “Sweat” Ms. Nottage’s play explores alienation in Reading, Pa. a city that has been hurt by deindustrialization. The Pulitzer citation called “Sweat,” which is currently running on Broadway, “a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream. ” “I was trying to understand how economic stagnation is reshaping our cultural narrative,” Ms. Nottage said, “and wanting to tell the story of what was happening to people on the ground in a way that was truthful and emotional and unapologetic. ” This is the second Pulitzer Prize for Ms. Nottage, 52, who won in 2009 for “Ruined,” a play about rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo. __________ HISTORY Heather Ann Thompson, “Blood in the Water” Ms. Thompson spent 13 years researching this account of the Attica prison uprising, which the Pulitzer board cited as “a narrative history that sets high standards for scholarly judgment and tenacity of inquiry. ” In addition to extensive archival research, Ms. Thompson, 53, interviewed dozens of survivors, participants and observers, many of whom spent decades fighting to uncover the truth about the violent retaking that left 39 prisoners and hostages dead. “This was a story that the people inside of that prison have been trying to tell for 45 years,” she said. __________ BIOGRAPHY Hisham Matar, “The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between” Mr. Matar was a student in England when his father, a prominent critic of the government of Col. Muammar living in exile, was kidnapped and taken to a secret prison in Libya. This memoir recounts Mr. Matar’s return to his homeland 22 years later, after the fall of that government, to find out what happened to him. The Pulitzer citation called it “a elegy for home and father,” executed with “controlled emotion. ” In an interview last year with The New York Times, Mr. Matar, 46, was asked to imagine what his father would have made of his journey. “My failure to cure myself of Libya would have amused and perhaps even comforted him,” Mr. Matar said. “My search for him would have not. He wanted me, above all things, to be free and happy. ” __________ POETRY Tyehimba Jess, “Olio” Mr. Jess’s second book of poems is a kaleidoscopic and formally ambitious collection about artists between the Civil War and World War I, and the ways in which they both fought against and tried to make creative use of the cultural pressures of minstrelsy. Scott Joplin plays a prominent role in the book’s imagination, as do less figures, most but not all musicians. “American music is critically and fundamentally tied to the experience, the experience of a people who were denied access to literacy for most of our time in this country through slavery,” Mr. Jess, 51, said in an interview in March with The New School. “They were forced to forge another kind of literacy through the music. ” __________ GENERAL NONFICTION Matthew Desmond, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” In his meticulously reported book, Mr. Desmond, a sociologist, followed eight impoverished families in Milwaukee as they struggled to make rent. Mr. Desmond, 37, a director of the Justice and Poverty Project at Harvard, said he decided to investigate the causes and the repercussions of evictions as a way to write about the systemic causes of poverty in the United States. “America’s the richest country, with the worst poverty,” he said. “That ugly fact has troubled me for a long time, and I wanted to understand the role that housing plays. ” __________ MUSIC Du Yun, “Angel’s Bone” Ms. Du, 39, won for her savage chamber opera, a collaboration with the librettist Royce Vavrek, which finds an allegory for human trafficking in the story of two angels who are brutally mistreated after they in a suburban backyard. “In the U. S. trafficking seems very far from us, in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe,” she said. “But it’s happening right in front of our eyes. And that’s how this arose, to be able to create a platform that’s not didactic, but a work that allows ideas to blossom. ” | 1 |
The Email That Got John Podesta Hacked Latest WikiLeaks dump reveals phishing email that compromised Podesta Mikael Thalen - October 28, 2016 Comments
The email that lead to the hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account was published online Friday by WikiLeaks.
The malicious March 2016 email, which claims to be from Google, asked Podesta to change his password due to unauthorized access from an IP address in the Ukraine.
Clinton campaign staff members who viewed the email were convinced it was genuine. Clinton insider Sara Latham argued “The gmail one is REAL” while even Clinton campaign IT specialist Charles Delavan said “This is a legitimate email.”
The first suspicious aspect of the email, unnoticed by the Clinton camp, was the “bit.ly” password reset link. Bitly, a website that shortens long web addresses, would not be found in an official email from Google.
As first reported by Motherboard earlier this month, examination of the Bitly link that redirected Podesta to a fake Google webpage also contained several red flags.
The Bitly link helped hide not only the fact that the landing page ended in “.tk” instead of “.com” but that the web page itself failed to use HTTPS encryption. Such links were also likely used to fool Google’s spam filters.
Prior analysis of the phishing link by cybersecurity group SecureWorks revealed the hackers also made a significant operation security mistake – they failed to make their two Bitly accounts private.
The public accounts revealed the hackers had created 8,909 similar links to use against 3,907 Gmail accounts between October 2015 and May 2016.
SecureWorks notes that the targets included “individuals in Russia and the former Soviet states, current and former military and government personnel in the U.S. and Europe, individuals working in the defense and government supply chain, and authors and journalists.”
Accounts linked to the 2016 election were also in the hackers’ sights.
“Specific targets include staff working for or associated with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), including individuals managing Clinton’s communications, travel, campaign finances, and advising her on policy.”
Thomas Rid, a professor at King’s college, displayed on Twitter how decoding the phishing links could reveal the specific emails being targeted.
Click to enlarge Interestingly, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose emails were released by the website DCLeaks in September, was also targeted by the same hackers.
Click to enlarge This connection suggests the hackers who provided WikiLeaks with the Podesta emails and DCLeaks with the Powell emails are likely one in the same. The Bitly accounts are also behind the malicious email sent to retired four-star General Philip Mark Breedlove – whose emails appeared on DCLeaks in April.
Numerous cybersecurity groups have accused the Russian government of being responsible not only for the above election season hacks but for creating DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0. to disseminate the data. The U.S. government also publicly blamed Russia on October 7 just one week before the CIA was tasked with preparing a possible retaliatory “ cyber strike .”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied involvement, arguing that the contents of the hacks are far more important than who is responsible.
“Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?’’ Putin said on September 1. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.’’
Putin again dismissed US “hysteria” concerning the hacks on Thursday during an annual speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi.
“Hysteria has been whipped up in the United States about the influence of Russia over the U.S. presidential election,” he said. “It’s much simpler to distract people with so-called Russian hackers, spies, and agents of influence. Does anyone really think that Russia could influence the American people’s choice in any way? Is America a banana republic or what? America is a great power.” NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles | 0 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter While I was at university, many of my peers would take Adderall, a drug commonly used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D.), to help them study or maintain focus while writing an exam. It was somewhat of a social norm and no one seemed to care why because it was so popular; however, I believe it is a clear representation of the social and academic pressures imposed on children to be “successful.” It also begs the question: How are so many kids gaining access to Adderall? Author and journalist Alan Schwarz explains that American children are not only severely over-diagnosed with A.D.H.D., but also frighteningly under-educated on the drugs they’re being prescribed, so they end up selling the pills instead of taking them. Well-known for his investigative reporting on how Big Pharma manufactured the “A.D.H.D. Nation” through advertising and doctor bribery, Schwarz recently published his book A.D.H.D. Nation using a term he coined to describe the widespread mishandling and misdiagnosis of the disorder. How A.D.H.D. Became An Over-Diagnosed Disorder According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 11% of children between the ages of 4 and 17 have been diagnosed with A.D.H.D. as of 2011. However, if you ask the American Psychiatric Association, they maintain that even though only 5% of American children suffer from the disorder, the diagnosis is actually given to around 15% of American children. This number has been steadily rising , jumping from 7.8% in 2003 to 9.5% in 2007. Schwarz identifies two main themes involved with A.D.H.D. misdiagnosis: the pharmaceutical industry’s role in pushing A.D.H.D. drugs, and doctors failing to identify the root cause of children’s behavioural issues. In an interview with Scientific American , Schwarz explains: “Many kids have problems and need help—but those problems in many cases will derive from trauma, anxiety, family discord, poor sleep or diet, bullying at school and more. We must not abandon them. We must help. But we must also be more judicious in how we do that, rather than reflexively giving them a diagnosis of what is generally described as a serious, lifelong brain disorder.” Big Pharma’s Role in Widespread A.D.H.D. Misdiagnosis It’s no secret that pharmaceutical companies essentially buy out the medical industry. As with many other diseases and disorders, when it comes to A.D.H.D., pharmaceutical companies have paid doctors and researchers to overstate the dangers of A.D.H.D. and the benefits of taking their drugs and understate the negative side effects. It’s easy for people to believe this misguided information when it’s affiliated with well-known universities like Harvard and Johns Hopkins. Many people don’t even realize that these studies are funded by the very companies that profit from the drugs’ sale because that relationship is hidden in small print ( source ). Even though many of the advertisements Big Pharma has released state that A.D.H.D. medication is “ safer than aspirin ,” these drugs can have significant side effects and are actually considered to be within the same class as morphine and oxycodone due to high risk of abuse and addiction. You can’t just blame all doctors, either; many of them genuinely believe they’re helping these children because of the information they’ve been given in these studies and by Big Pharma. Big Pharma creates advertisements for A.D.H.D. drugs that are specifically targeted at parents, describing how these drugs can improve test scores and behaviour at home, among other false claims. One of the most controversial ones was a 2009 ad for Intuniv, Shire’s A.D.H.D. treatment, which included a child in a monster costume taking off his terrifying mask to reveal his calm, smiling self with a text reading, “There’s a great kid in there.” The FDA has stepped in multiple times, sending pharmaceutical companies warning letters or even forcing them to take down their ads because they are false, misleading, and/or exaggerate the effects of their drugs ( source ). The following New York Times video was created by Schwarz and Poh Si Teng: What Is A.D.H.D. and Is It Even Real? If brain scans are performed on people with A.D.H.D., there are clear structural differences; however, the majority of A.D.H.D. diagnoses are confirmed by observation, and often not even by a doctor. Parents or school teachers are typically responsible for observing a child’s actions, and if they fit the “criteria” for A.D.H.D., doctors confirm the diagnosis and hand them a prescription. Instead of getting to the root of these children’s “attention deficit,” they are told they have a medical condition that can only be fixed with medication. This is not only unethical, but also clearly damaging to a child’s self esteem. Many of these kids could simply be uninterested in the subject matter, suffering from some sort of emotional trauma, or even have heightened creativity and energy! Many doctors question the legitimacy of A.D.H.D. in general and whether or not it should be classified as a mental disorder. This is largely because the definition of this and similar disorders is usually heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. American psychologist Lisa Cosgrove and others investigated financial ties between the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) panel members and the pharmaceutical industry. Their findings showed that, of the 170 DSM panel members, 95 (56%) had one or more financial associations with companies in the pharmaceutical industry and 100% of the members of the panels on ‘mood disorders’ and ‘schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders’ had financial ties to drug companies (read our article about it here ). Keep Evolving Your Consciousness Inspiration and all our best content, straight to your inbox. Neurologist Richard Saul spent his career examining patients who struggle with short attention spans and difficulty focusing. His extensive experience has led him to believe that A.D.H.D. isn’t actually a disorder, but rather an umbrella of symptoms that shouldn’t be considered a disease. Thus, Saul believes it shouldn’t be listed as a separate disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual. You can read more about his opinion in our article here . No matter what your stance on A.D.H.D. is, it is clear that too many children are being diagnosed with it and handed prescriptions without proper medical evaluations. If you or a loved one has just been diagnosed with A.D.H.D., I suggest you do your own research on the subject instead of simply taking drugs for a “mental disorder” that may have been falsely diagnosed. Related CE Articles: | 0 |
advertisement - learn more Prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in the world. If that’s not enough to make you shriek, I’m not sure what will. The pharmaceutical industry is committing a silent holocaust around the globe. It works like this: People are sick because they aren’t getting proper nutritients. Then they are covering up their sickness with a doctor-prescribed pill. But this is causing some serious side effects, leading their doctors to prescribe more pills to conceal those side effects. Rinse and repeat. The following is a list of the 7 most dangerous and heavily promoted prescription drugs with some natural alternatives. 1) Prednisone or Cortisone What’s the deal? U sed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, asthma, allergies and many other conditions. Corticosteroids mimic the effects of hormones your body produces naturally in your adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys. When prescribed in doses that exceed your body’s usual levels, corticosteroids suppress inflammation. What are the side effects? High blood sugar, which can trigger or worsen diabetes Increased risk of infections Thinning bones (osteoporosis) and fractures Suppressed adrenal gland hormone production Thin skin, easy bruising and slower wound healing Alternatives: Raw whole food diet. Read about Maya’s story HERE. 2) Methotrexate & Other Chemotherapeutic Agents What’s the deal? For the most part, Methotrexate is used alone or together with other medicines to treat several types of cancer such as breast, head and neck, lung, blood, bone, lymph node and uterus cancers. What are the side effects? Cause fetal death and congenital anomalies. Liver and Kidney toxicity. Lung disease which can be fatal. Reacts with NSAID’s which can be fatal. May cause intestinal bleeding and ulceration. Depresses the immune system. Alternatives: Read more HERE . 3) Coumadin or Warfarin What’s the deal? Anticoagulant (blood thinner) which prevents the formation and migration of blood clots. What are the side effects? Haemorrhage (bleeding) Alternatives: Vitamin C – 1,000 mgs. daily . Vitamin C coats the red blood cell (RBC’s) walls and prevents them from breaking and bleeding. However, too much Vitamin C inhibits the absorption of calcium. Vitamin E - 400 IU. Vitamin E coats RBC’s and binds collagen in blood vessels to prevent bleeding and strokes. OPC 165 (all natural anti-oxidant blend) . 4) Cholesterol Lowering Drugs What’s the deal? There are multiple types. Some of these drugs ( Atromid and Lopid) work by absorbing bile acids which are produced from cholesterol in the intestinal tract and cause them to be excreted, thereby lowering the levels of cholesterol circulating in the blood. Statin drugs reduce production of cholesterol in the liver and alter the way in which LDL cholesterol enters the cells. What are the side effects? Myositis – inflammation of the muscles. Rhabdomyolysis (rare) – W ith this condition, muscles all over the body become painful and weak. The severely damaged muscles release proteins into the blood that collect in the kidneys. The kidneys can become damaged trying to eliminate a large amount of muscle breakdown caused by statin use. This can ultimately lead to kidney failure. Alternatives: Fish, whole foods – oats, nuts, beans, spinach, avocado. 5) Prozac (anti-depressants) What’s the deal? Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lovan and Luvox belong to a class of drugs which alter the mechanism that balances levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. Serotonin affects mood, agitation, anxiety and sleep. These drugs mock the re-uptake or removal of serotonin by nerve cells in the brain, thus leaving more serotonin to bind to the receptor sites. This has been shown to alter mood and behavior. What are the side effects? The FDA has admitted that antidepressants can worsen depression and suicidal symptoms in some patients. Other side effects include: nausea increased appetite and weight gain loss of sexual desire and other sexual problems, such as erectile dysfunction and decreased orgasm fatigue and drowsiness | 0 |
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law Thursday that crack downs on the vexing epidemic of sexual misconduct by the state’s teachers with students. [“Unfortunately, a small number of teachers are tarnishing the image of some of our best and brightest teachers,” said Abbott at a signing ceremony in the State Capitol building flanked by several key legislators, notably Senator Paul Bettencourt ( ) who authored this piece of legislation, Senate Bill 7, and has called the year upward surge in these improper relationships a statewide plague. “Texas has racked up a dubious ranking, a ranking that has an incredibly high number of inappropriate relationships,” added Abbott. “Today, by signing this law, we’re saying no more are we going to allow that to happen. ” Abbott continued onto say that under S. B. 7 Texas is “going to impose real and stiff consequences for any teacher who dares to have an inappropriate relationship with one of his or her students. ” The Governor expressed dismay that “unbelievably” some of these purported teacher sex offenders against whom accusations are made and cases even proven “have faced no real consequences. ” This law mandates the automatic revocation of a teaching license when an educator receives deferred adjudication or must register as a sex offender for this abhorrent behavior. It may also result in jail time. S. B. 7 also holds principals and superintendents to account with fines and jail time when they look the other way and purposely fail to report teacher wanton misdeeds to the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Even an administrator’s unintentional failure to report sexual misconduct results in a $500 fine. S. B. 7 also criminalizes when an educator becomes romantically involved with a student under 18 years old, regardless of what school district the teacher works or where a student attends classes, which, until now, was not an offense. While the law does not not name a particular curriculum, it requires that teachers attend an ongoing percentage of professional development classes to ensure they maintain “appropriate relationships, boundaries, and communications between educators and students. ” Abbott concluded: “I am proud to sign S. B. 7 to restore the trust that should exist between teachers and students, and also between parents and teachers to ensure that our schools remain a place where a child can go into that school with excitement to explore, to learn and to advance. ” Breitbart Texas reported that, since 2008, the number of these cases opened by the Educator Investigations Unit of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) jumped 80 percent to an alarming all time high of 222 reported incidences in the school year. So startling the numbers, the TEA asked state lawmakers to fund nearly $400, 000 in their academic budget for hiring two investigators and one administrator to better tackle the problem. The agency opened 159 new cases between September 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017 they estimated a 65 percent increase in these improper sexual interludes statewide from April 2015 to April 2017. At the signing ceremony, Abbott thanked Bettencourt for his leadership. Also present were Education Commissioner Mike Morath Representative Tony Dale ( Rock) who authored companion House legislation plus two adopted S. B. 7 amendments and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who named this issue one of his top 10 legislative priorities for the state’s 85th Legislature. During the interim session, Patrick charged Senate Education Committee members with developing policy solutions for this troubling problem. Representative Gary VanDeaver ( Boston) attended in the place of the bill’s House sponsor Ken King ( ). S. B. 7 has been among the few education related bills both chambers agreed upon, passing unanimously through the Senate and the House. Following the signing ceremony, Bettencourt commented, “It is very clear that the scourge of teachers preying on students for sexual relationships will not be tolerated. ” He thanked Abbott for signing the bill and Patrick plus his fellow legislators for their full support. “It’s time for inappropriate relationships to be stamped out. ” This law goes into effect on September 1. Follow Merrill Hope, a member of the original Breitbart Texas team, on Twitter. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Four hours behind schedule and 300 miles from their destination in Bahrain, the crews of two Navy patrol boats figured they had to make up time somehow. Immediately after leaving port in Kuwait, they veered off their planned route through the Persian Gulf, and their troubles began. First they accidentally sailed through Saudi Arabia’s territorial waters. Then one of the boats broke down while passing less than two miles from an island. When Iranian military boats swarmed the American vessels, they tried to get away. But the Iranians blocked their path and took the crews captive. Navy officials on Thursday gave that account of the encounter in January that resulted in the detention of 10 American naval personnel for about 15 hours by the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. In a stinging report, the officials described numerous mistakes in the way the mission was planned and executed, and they laid out the reasons some sailors were responsible, both on the boats and up the chain of command. Nine officers and enlisted sailors — including a captain and the commanding officer of the boats — face discipline, with some being relieved of command because of the episode, which embarrassed the service and occurred just hours before President Obama gave his last State of Union address. “Our actions on that day in January and this incident did not live up to our expectations of our Navy,” Adm. John M. Richardson, the chief of Naval operations, said Thursday. He added: “Big incidents like this are always the result of the accumulation of a number of small problems. And so it’s just the nature of these things.” At the time of the encounter, Republicans assailed the Obama administration for tolerating the way the sailors were treated by their Iranian captors, who blindfolded them and held them at gunpoint. But senior administration officials — including Secretary of State John Kerry, who corresponded with his Iranian counterpart during the episode — thanked the Iranians for quickly resolving it. Administration officials said that was a positive outgrowth of the diplomatic channels between the United States and Iran opened by the nuclear deal struck last year. The report issued Thursday was much more critical of the Iranians and painted a starker picture of what occurred after one of the boats — known as riverine command boats — began having engine problems. As it was being repaired, two Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps navy boats approached the American boats at high speeds, the report said. Shortly thereafter, two more Iranian boats arrived at the scene. “Now overmatched, the riverine command boat crews submitted to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps navy’s direction,” the report said. The Iranians “boarded, searched and seized the riverine command boats, and then searched, blindfolded and bound the crew. They struck the U. S. flag, replacing it with their own. Two sailors were forced at gunpoint to drive the riverine command boats to Farsi Island. ” On the island, the crews were put in a room and interrogated as a group. Then several of them were questioned individually, and at least some of those interviews were taped. The following morning, the crews were given food and filmed by an Iranian television crew. The crew’s captain was given a script to read off to the camera, apologizing for the episode. He refused but was told that if he did not read it, they were not going to be released. He read the statement, and this was shown on Iranian television. The crews were then blindfolded, taken back to their boats and given permission to leave. They met up with an American Navy ship and were taken off the boats and flown to an American base in Qatar, where the military interviewed the sailors. The report acknowledged that the American boats were in Iranian waters, but said Iran had violated international law by preventing them from leaving. “These two boats and their crew members had every right to be where they were on that day,” Admiral Richardson said at a news conference at the Pentagon. Although the Iranians were within their rights to investigate why the boats were near the island, Navy officials said, they violated international law by holding the sailors at gunpoint, videotaping interviews with them and damaging equipment on their boats. In a speech a day after the episode, Mr. Kerry said that “all indications suggest or tell us that our sailors were well taken care of, provided with blankets and food, and assisted with their return to the fleet earlier today. ” He said “this kind of issue was able to be peacefully resolved and efficiently resolved, and that is a testament to the critical role that diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure and strong. ” But in March, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran may have violated international law when it seized the sailors, saying “Iran’s actions were outrageous, unprofessional and inconsistent with international law. ” The report released Thursday was far more explicit. | 1 |
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Jill Stein, a medical doctor who is running for President on the Green Party ticket, has claimed that the pharmaceutical industry has a corrupting influence on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). She has also claimed that she was part of a public-health movement that led to the removal of mercury from childhood vaccines. In reality, we have no evidence that the mercury in childhood vaccines was causing any harm. Nor was any grassroots organization, other than the American Academy of Pediatrics, involved in the decision to stop using a mercury compound called thimerosal as a preservative in vaccines. (Stein is an internist, not a pediatrician.) The decision to make childhood vaccinations mercury-free was made by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Prominent antivaccination activists started speaking out about mercury in vaccines only after the vaccines became mercury-free.
It is disturbing that Republican and Green Party presidential hopefuls, including some medical doctors, have been using the talking points of the antivaccination movement. What's worse is that any medical doctor, and especially any medical doctor who wants to be chief executive of the federal government, does not seem to know how the federal government works to protect public health.
Many laymen were horrified to hear that a mercury compound was ever being used as an ingredient in childhood vaccines. Yet that mercury compound is a powerful preservative that was being used to solve a serious safety problem. This problem became obvious in 1928, in a disaster called the Bundaberg Tragedy. A bottle of diphtheria vaccine in a doctor's office in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, became contaminated with a bacterium called golden staph (Staphylococcus aureus). The bacterium was probably carried into the bottle by the needle that was used to draw out one of the first doses from the bottle. Then, the bacteria grew inside the bottle as it sat on a shelf between doses. Twelve of the children who received vaccine from this contaminated bottle died. Five others became seriously ill but recovered. To prevent a similar tragedy from happening in the United States, the US Code of Federal Regulations (21CFR610.15) requires vaccine makers to put a preservative in multiple-dose containers of practically all vaccines. Single-dose containers can be preservative-free but are more expensive.
The regulation does not specify which preservatives must be used. However, it does say that the preservative must be "sufficiently nontoxic so that the amount present in the recommended dose of the product will not be toxic to the recipient." Also, the preservative must not interfere with the potency of the vaccine. Thimerosal has been used since the 1930s as a preservative in vaccines because it was the most effective option, it did not interfere with the potency of the vaccine, and it was well tolerated. Thimerosal has also been used as a preservative in contact-lens solutions. Even today, despite an extensive research effort, we have no evidence that the use of thimerosal in vaccines has caused any health problems.
The person who raised the question of the mercury content of medicines (not specifically vaccines) was Frank Pallone, a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey. In 1997, he introduced an amendment to the FDA's reauthorization bill. This amendment gave FDA two years to compile a list of all medicinal products that contain mercury compounds as ingredients. The FDA had to analyze what kind of mercury compound was in each product, and how much of each mercury compound the product contains. In response to this congressional mandate, the FDA revisited the question of how much exposure children were getting to thimerosal through their vaccinations.
Because of the introduction of some new vaccines, the amount of thimerosal that children were receiving had gone up. In 1999, scientists at the FDA calculated that the recommended vaccines would deliver a total of 187.5 micrograms of mercury. (A microgram is a millionth of a gram.) However, there was no reliable way to judge whether this amount of mercury exposure is a problem. In the human body, thimerosal is broken down into ethylmercury, but the federal guidelines on mercury toxicity were based on methylmercury. To be on the safe side, the scientists assumed that ethylmercury would be just as dangerous as methylmercury. (We now know that it is not, because it is quickly eliminated through the kidneys.) So they suggested that steps be taken to reduce thimerosal exposure. Back in 1999, we had no evidence that the thimerosal in vaccines was causing problems. By now, we have evidence that it was not causing any of the health problems that were investigated. However, it did become a serious public-relations problem. - Advertisement -
The FDA and the CDC take vaccine safety seriously. As a result, the recommended vaccines are amazingly safe. Yet there is one thing that we can do to improve safety still further, while restoring public trust in the public-health authorities. We must focus on driving diseases like polio, measles, and rubella into extinction through vaccination. Once a disease is extinct, everyone is protected against it, forever. As a result, children do not need to be exposed to even the minimal risks, and the discomfort, of the vaccination. Instantly, the sales of the vaccine drop to zero. By working to eradicate a vaccine-preventable disease, we public-health activists make it crystal clear that our goal is public health, not private profit. - Advertisement - | 0 |
Nicely done! | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump takes medication for three ailments, including a drug to promote hair growth, Mr. Trump’s longtime physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said in a series of recent interviews. The other drugs are antibiotics to control rosacea, a common skin problem, and a statin for elevated blood cholesterol and lipids. Dr. Bornstein, who spoke by telephone in four interviews over the past month, also said that Mr. Trump takes a daily baby aspirin to reduce the risk of a heart attack. Over all, he pronounced Mr. Trump healthy and his medical care “as exactly up to date. ” Dr. Bornstein granted the interviews after The New York Times asked him to discuss his role in Mr. Trump’s care and to clarify and expand on earlier statements he made about his patient’s health during the presidential campaign. In recent decades, The Times has interviewed presidents, presidential candidates and their doctors about their health. At 70, Mr. Trump is the oldest person to become president. White House officials declined to comment on Wednesday night on the information provided by Dr. Bornstein, and would not say whether he was still Mr. Trump’s physician. The disclosure that Mr. Trump uses a drug to maintain growth of his scalp hair, which has not been publicly known, appears to solve a riddle of why Mr. Trump has a very low level of prostate specific antigen, or PSA, a marker for prostate cancer. Mr. Trump takes a small dose of the drug, finasteride, which lowers PSA levels. Finasteride is marketed as Propecia to treat baldness. Dr. Bornstein said he also took finasteride and credited it for helping maintain his own hair and Mr. Trump’s hair. “He has all his hair,” Dr. Bornstein said. “I have all my hair. ” Dr. Bornstein, 69, has a private practice on the Upper East Side of New York, was educated at Tufts University for college and medical school, did his fellowship in gastroenterology at Yale, and was Mr. Trump’s personal physician since 1980. He said that he had had no contact with Mr. Trump since he became president, and that no one from Mr. Trump’s White House staff had asked for copies of the medical records that he has kept for the last 36 years, or called to discuss them. Dr. Bornstein said that Mr. Trump had gone to his East Side office for annual checkups, colonoscopies, and other routine tests every year since 1980. Before that, Mr. Trump was a patient of Dr. Bornstein’s father, Dr. Jacob Bornstein. At times in the interviews, Dr. Bornstein was moody, ranging from saying that Mr. Trump’s health “is none of your business” to later volunteering facts. He also meandered, referring to his longtime study of Italian and stories about medical schools floating cadavers to an island off the waters of New York. He said he liked the attention he got from friends now that he was publicly known as Mr. Trump’s doctor but disliked “the fun made of me” by the news media and strangers who have thrown objects at his office window and who have yelled at him on Park Avenue. Dr. Bornstein’s first brush with the public was in December 2015, when he released a hyperbolic letter about Mr. Trump’s health. “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” Dr. Bornstein wrote. He offered scant medical evidence for his prediction beyond saying Mr. Trump had no significant illness and nothing that required treatment outside of his office. Eight months later, Dr. Bornstein stirred controversy by saying he wrote the letter in five minutes while a limousine sent by Mr. Trump waited outside. A second letter in September 2016 was more sober, although it omitted a number of details that would be part of a customary summary of a patient’s health. The letter did say that Mr. Trump is weighs 236 pounds, has a normal blood pressure of and takes a drug called rosuvastatin (marketed as Crestor) to lower cholesterol and other lipids. Dr. Bornstein did not say how high the lipids were before the statin therapy, but he reported that the levels were in the normal range in recent tests: cholesterol, 169 HDL cholesterol, 63 LDL cholesterol, 94 triglycerides, 61. In both letters, Dr. Bornstein wrote that Mr. Trump’s PSA level was 0. 15. The low number led urologists not connected with Mr. Trump to say that he must have been treated for an enlarged prostate or prostate cancer. But Dr. Bornstein said in the interviews that Mr. Trump had had neither ailment and that his PSA level is low because of Propecia. In the interviews, Dr. Bornstein said he refilled Mr. Trump’s prescriptions for a tetracycline, a common antibiotic, to control rosacea. The skin ailment can cause easy blushing or flushing with visible blood vessels. It also can spread over the face, and sometimes the chest and back. In different forms it can resemble acne and cause bumps. Dr. Bornstein also addressed questions about Mr. Trump’s recent description of himself as a “germophobe. ’’ Dr. Bornstein said he had never discussed that phenomenon with Mr. Trump, but “we are very careful to keep the examining rooms spotlessly clean, which we do anyway. ’’ He added, “He always stands there and changes the paper on the table himself” after an examination. “Other than that, nothing. ” Dr. Bornstein said that he was sure that Mr. Trump was up to date on an H. I. V. test, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all adults get at least once. He said if he became the White House doctor he doubted that he would include in Mr. Trump’s annual checkup any psychometric tests as a base line for potential dementia. Mr. Trump’s father, Fred, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease in his eighties and a number of experts have urged that older political leaders undergo such tests. Dr. Bornstein also said he had cared for Mr. Trump’s first and third wives, and occasionally for the second. “I am probably the only person in the world who has every phone number for him and all the wives,” Dr. Bornstein said. About a month ago, Dr. Bornstein said he told Mr. Trump’s secretary, Rhona Graff, “You know, I should be the White House physician. ” Past presidents like Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush brought their own doctors to the White House, but others have used a White House physician. Dr. Bornstein was invited to Mr. Trump’s inaugural, although he said it was not as pleasant an experience as he expected. He had to walk a long way to a spot where he thought there would be a chair — he said he has a painful back ailment and nerve damage to a leg — but when he got there, there was no chair. He stood behind a tree and “never heard anyone speak because I was so uncomfortable from my back and being cold. ” He felt, he said, “absolutely miserable. ” It seemed to take forever to leave because of the heavy security, he said. The situation was the same at an inaugural ball where there were no tables and chairs. So, he said, unable to chat comfortably with others, he and his wife, Melissa, returned to their hotel early. | 1 |
Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • A Times investigation reveals how Russia aimed the perfect weapon at the U. S. presidential election: cyberattacks honed in elections elsewhere. Intelligence officials believe an operation to collect information evolved into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump. Above, the Democratic National Convention’s hacked server on a table in the organization’s basement, next to a reminder of a past breach: a filing cabinet jimmied in the Watergate burglary of its offices in 1972. _____ • Mr. Trump is lining up veteran members of the Republican foreign policy establishment to endorse his choice for secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson. With Mr. Tillerson as chief executive, Exxon Mobil clashed with China and befriended Vietnam over disputed territory in the South China Sea. Mr. Trump, above at Trump Tower on Tuesday, also selected Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, to lead the Energy Department, placing him in charge the country’s aging nuclear arsenal. Here’s the latest on the transition. _____ • Jobs, jobs and more jobs. That will be the issue when Mr. Trump holds a summit with some of America’s tech leaders, including Elon Musk of Tesla, above, Timothy D. Cook of Apple and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. The tech community, which was largely averse to Mr. Trump’s campaign, may be asked to spread its wealth beyond places like Silicon Valley and Seattle. And the Federal Reserve is expected to give the American economy a vote of confidence, raising interest rates slightly for the first time in a year. Our analyst cautions that Mr. Trump’s promised stimulus could set off a round of rapid rate increases to stave off inflation. _____ • Russia, Turkey and Syrian rebel groups reached an agreement for rebels to leave their last pockets of territory in the ravaged city of Aleppo. Evacuations were expected to begin shortly, leaving the city fully in the hands of government forces, a definitive victory. But there was confusion over whether the deal would assure safe passage for civilians, who the U. N. said had been shot in the streets by the score. _____ • In Indonesia, the Christian governor of Jakarta, at the start of his trial on blasphemy charges, tearfully denied that he had meant to insult Islam. Critics say the case threatens Indonesia’s reputation as a model for religious freedom and democracy in the region. _____ • A child sex abuse scandal is exploding through British soccer. Since Andrew Woodward, above, became the first professional player in Britain to go public with his account of repeated rapes by his childhood coach, at least 20 former players have come forward. The police are looking into the possibility of hundreds of victims at 98 soccer clubs, from the amateur level to the Premier League. • India’s demonetization crisis has catapulted millions of small and into a cashless economy, with the country’s leading electronic money service now reporting a half a million new customers each day. • Japan’s Asahi will pay $7. 8 billion to InBev for a group of some of the most popular beers in Central and Eastern Europe. • A Southern California Apeel, has created an imperceptible, edible coating for fruits and vegetables that extends shelf life and could bring sweeping changes to the produce industry and grocery aisles. • And don’t view retirement as a light at the end of a career tunnel, our personal finance writer warns. He offers a few tips to rearrange your work life. • Wall Street stocks are up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • More than 8, 000 people gathered in Nanjing for China’s third annual national memorial day for the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Japanese invasion in 1937. [Xinhua] • South Korean lawmakers will question medical staff members over President Park ’s whereabouts directly after a deadly 2014 ferry disaster. [Reuters] • Communist rebels in the Philippines, the National Democratic Front, said they would sign a formal if President Rodrigo Duterte agreed to release political prisoners. [Manila Times] • Malaysia’s Federal Court rejected a final appeal by the former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to overturn a jail term for sodomy. [Malaysiakini] • Anastasia Lin, a Canadian who was barred from the 2015 Miss World competition in China because of her criticism of the Chinese government, has been ordered by pageant organizers not to speak publicly during this year’s finals, now underway in Washington. [The New York Times] • Mexico’s 17, 063 homicides by the end of October was the country’s highest tally since 2012, raising fears of a return to warfare among criminal gangs. [The New York Times] • A review of data from 151 countries found wide gaps in education among followers of the world’s major religions. [The New York Times] • Smuggled TV shows, movies and radio programs are helping North Koreans see the outside world, and planting seeds of doubt about their government, a prominent author argues. • Satellite images provide a picture of how the world’s lakes and rivers have been altered over the past three decades by drought and global warming. • Some road trip. A trip through six African countries with five children. What could go wrong? • “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” opens this week in Asia and the U. S. with projections of one of the biggest December debuts. Here’s our review. We told you last week about a fight in Canada over a proposed official bird, the gray jay. Canadians have also sparred over whether poutine (fries topped with cheese curds and gravy) should beat out maple syrup as their most representative food (no). In some places, trademark foods are not so . Many Britons consider chicken tikka masala, a colonial adaptation featuring a bright orange sauce, as their national dish — more so than fish and chips. The concoction, one official said, “is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences. ” In other places, there’s no question about the winner. For example, New Mexico reveres the local chile. It’s nowhere near as hot as peppers in China, India or the Caribbean, but it is perhaps the most consistent ingredient in the state’s dishes. Lawmakers in the late ’90s declared the state’s official question to be “Red or green?” As in: Which variety of chile sauce do you want? One answer plays no favorites. Order “Christmas,” and you’ll get both. Can’t handle the heat? Reach for a glass of milk, which neutralizes the capsaicin that makes your taste buds sting. It’s also the official beverage of 21 states. Anna Holland contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
SOCHI, Russia — Russia mounted an expansive operation in the Black Sea on Monday for the passengers and the fuselage of a military passenger plane that crashed a day earlier, killing all 92 people on board, including dozens of members of a storied army choir. In Moscow, famous performers and ordinary citizens, some of them in tears, dropped flowers at the entrance to the headquarters of the choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble. Another mountain of red carnations and candles piled up outside the Ostankino television center, as a tribute to nine journalists who were accompanying the choir to the Khmeimim Air Base in Syria. The plane was carrying 68 performers and staff members of the ensemble, including an army choir and orchestra loved for its renditions of classical Russian songs and folk tunes. The most likely area where the plane plunged into the water moments after taking off from the southwestern resort city of Sochi has been identified, Lt. Gen. Viktor N. Bondarev, commander of the Russian Air Force, said at an early morning news conference at the airport. General Bondarev said that he did not expect the plane’s fin, where the flight recorders are situated, to be as damaged as the fuselage, raising hopes that the recorders might be intact. Several chunks of the fuselage were located on Monday on the seabed about a mile offshore, initially by sonar and then by divers, the Ministry of Emergency Situations announced. The transportation minister, Maxim Sokolov, who is leading a commission looking into the crash, said that terrorism had not been ruled out, but that it was unlikely to be the cause of the crash of the Tupolev 154, which was flying members of the choir and others to Syria for a New Year’s Eve concert for troops stationed at an air base near Latakia. “In order to organize our work, we need to understand what happened,” Mr. Sokolov said at the news conference. “As far as we know, the main versions do not include the terrorist act, so we base our work on the premise that technical malfunction or pilot’s error caused the catastrophe. ” Some analysts have pointed to the possibility of terrorism, citing the sudden disappearance of the airplane from radar screens and the lack of an emergency call from the pilot. At the same time, officials emphasized that the airplane should have been technically sound, because it underwent repairs and resumed service in December 2014, and the pilot was experienced and had 1, 900 hours of flying time at the control of Tupolev 154s. “The plane was technically fit,” General Bondarev told the news conference. “The pilot was well prepared. ” Criminal investigators as well as a Defense Ministry committee are in charge of determining the cause of the crash. Search efforts involving 45 ships and 135 divers continued on Monday. The bodies of 10 victims, as well as dozens of body parts that have been recovered, were flown to Moscow for identification, Russian officials said at the news conference. The government discouraged relatives of those on board from coming to Sochi during what was expected to be a long recovery operation, and the few that had done so were being isolated from journalists. The plane took off from Chkalovsky military airfield near Moscow and stopped in Sochi for refueling before crashing at 5:27 a. m. about a mile from the shore. Russia observed a national day of mourning on Monday, with the main government television channels repeatedly playing mournful music and eulogizing those killed. A memorial service was conducted at a small chapel inside the Sochi terminal, with the airport’s employees and carrying flowers and candles. In Khosta, a suburb of Sochi, security guards cordoned off a long strip of seashore. A number of men perused the pebbled beach looking for traces of material from the doomed jetliner. At a makeshift memorial heaped with flowers near Sochi’s old seaport, Oganes G. Melikyan recalled his old army friend, Valery M. Khalilov, who was the artistic director of the ensemble. “He was extraordinarily intelligent with a great sense of humor,” Mr. Melikyan, a construction worker, said as he held photographs of the orchestra from his own days in the army. “Kind and good are not enough to describe him,” said the army veteran, adding that news of the death hit him “like a ton of bricks fell on my head. ” Several couples were ensnared in the disaster, according to various Russian news reports. Dmitri Papkin, 35, a choir singer, was on an earlier plane that had already arrived in Syria. His wife, Maria Klokotkova, 34, believed to be in the dance troupe, died on the second flight. Mikhail Vasin, 25, a basso profundo in the choir, proposed to Ralina Gilmanova, a ballerina, last New Year’s Eve. She accepted, and the couple were planning to get married early in 2017. Both were aboard the flight that crashed. Scattered band members survived because they did not go on the trip. The lead soloist, Vadim P. Ananyev, had stayed home to help his wife with their newborn. The stunned singer told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, “I don’t even have the words” to describe the tragedy. The civilians on board included Yelizaveta P. Glinka, a prominent philanthropist who received a state award this month from President Vladimir V. Putin for her humanitarian work. She was taking a shipment of medicine to Syria. “We never know if we will return alive, because war is hell on earth, and I know what I am talking about,” Ms. Glinka said at the ceremony in the Kremlin. “But we are sure that goodness, compassion and mercy are more powerful than any weapon. ” The Tupolev 154 was once a workhorse of the Soviet air transportation system. Most civilian airlines have phased them out, but they are still used by government agencies. The plane that crashed over the weekend was built in 1983. Russia deployed military forces to Syria in September 2015, mainly air force bombers. Mr. Putin said at the time that he was sending forces there to fight Islamic extremists, but so far the main goal appears to have been shoring up the rule of President Bashar . Syrian government forces with Russian backing recaptured the eastern half of Aleppo, a key rebel stronghold, last week. The Russian plane crash was the second deadly episode in a week linked to Syria, after Moscow’s ambassador to Turkey was assassinated on Dec. 19 by a Turkish gunman saying he was taking revenge for Aleppo. After another crash last year, when a Russian civilian Airbus went down in the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board, the Russian authorities did not confirm for weeks that a bomb had been responsible, despite the Islamic State claiming responsibility hours after the episode. | 1 |
JERUSALEM — In an effort to appeal to Palestinians ahead of hotly contested elections, the party of President Mahmoud Abbas listed one of its main achievements as having “killed 11, 000 Israelis. ” The party, Fatah, made the incendiary claim on Tuesday in an post on one of its official Facebook pages. “For the argumentative … the ignorant … And for those who do not know history,” begins the Facebook post, “The Fatah movement killed 11, 000 Israelis. ” Fatah also claimed to have “offered 170, 000 martyrs,” and hundreds of its followers, it said, were in “Israeli occupation jails. ” By Thursday the post had been shared 30 times and liked 163 times. The post garnered additional attention after it was translated into English by Palestinian Media Watch, an organization that monitors and statements in the Arab news media. The website noted that it was the second time Fatah had made the inaccurate claim. The first was in August 2014. Israelis and Palestinians have long accused each other of incitement to violence. But in Israeli eyes, Palestinian leaders starting with Yasir Arafat, the father of Palestinian nationalism who helped found Fatah in 1959, have had a habit of saying one thing in Arabic and another in English. In the early 2000s, at the height of the second Palestinian uprising, Mr. Arafat led crowds in the West Bank city of Ramallah in a chant of “To Jerusalem, we are going, martyrs in the millions!” days after writing an article in The New York Times about the Palestinian vision of peace. Mr. Abbas, who succeeded Mr. Arafat, has repeatedly said he supports nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation. But Fatah has historically championed armed resistance as a central tenet of its doctrine for the liberation of the Palestinian people. Fatah is now a large and unwieldy movement, and its activists often make statements that do not reflect Mr. Abbas’s position. “President Abbas’s party boasts about committing mass murder and yet it is called ‘moderate’ by many,” said David Keyes, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. “Imagine if Palestinian leaders spent their time praising coexistence instead of terror. ” Husam Zomlot, the strategic affairs adviser to Mr. Abbas, first questioned whether the Facebook page was official, and then said it was probably the work of some “ youths. ” Mr. Zomlot said that Israeli officials frequently wrote incendiary Facebook posts, and that Fatah’s concerns were elsewhere. “I’m from Fatah and one of its leaders,” he said. “We present a complete political platform, and the most important thing is to end the Israeli occupation. ” The comments on the official Fatah Facebook page came in the context of coming local and municipal elections that are expected to be held on Oct. 8. The prospect of the elections is already whipping up strong emotions. They will be the first to be held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a decade since Fatah, the mainstream, secularist party that has long dominated the Palestine Liberation Organization, suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Hamas, the Islamist militant group, in legislative elections in 2006. A year later Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, routing Fatah’s forces there and confining Mr. Abbas’s influence — and that of his Palestinian Authority, which is largely staffed by Fatah loyalists — to parts of the West Bank. The West Bank and Gaza have since been divided by a bitter schism. Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and has battled Israel several times in recent years. The coming elections are seen as an important barometer of public sentiment in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Fatah activists appear particularly nervous about the elections, because Hamas is widely seen by Palestinians as the less corrupt and more efficient party. | 1 |
For much of a year, Gonzalo P. Curiel, then a federal prosecutor in California, lived officially in hiding. He hunkered down for a while on a naval base and in other closely guarded locations under the protection of United States marshals. Even his siblings did not know exactly where he was at times. The reason: In a secretly taped conversation inside a San Diego prison, a man accused of being a gunman for a Mexican drug cartel said that he had received permission from his superiors to have Mr. Curiel assassinated. “It was kind of scary,” said Mr. Curiel’s brother Raul. “He had to be protected. He always had one or two bodyguards with him. ” Nearly 20 years later, Gonzalo Curiel, now a federal judge, is being targeted in a very different way. The presiding judge in a lawsuit filed by former students of Trump University, he has been called a “hater” of Mr. Trump by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee himself. At a rally last week, Mr. Trump said the judge “happens to be, we believe, Mexican,” suggesting that he was biased because of Mr. Trump’s calls to build a wall along the border to prevent illegal immigration. Angry supporters have been calling the judge’s chambers. Mr. Trump repeated his argument in an interview on Thursday. “I’m building the wall, I’m building the wall,” Mr. Trump said. “I have a Mexican judge. He’s of Mexican heritage. He should have recused himself, not only for that, for other things. ” While Judge Curiel has declined to discuss the case publicly, those who know him best say he is handling the unfriendly glare of the Trump case with the resolve that got him through his toughest days as a prosecutor. “He’s cool,” said Gregory A. Vega, a former federal prosecutor who has known Judge Curiel since the ninth grade. “I don’t think he’s giving it a second thought. ” Judge Curiel, 62, was born in East Chicago, Ind. to parents who had emigrated from Mexico. Raul Curiel said their father, Salvador, arrived in Arizona as a laborer in the 1920s, eventually receiving citizenship and becoming a steelworker. Their parents were married in Mexico in 1946, and their mother, Francisca, became a citizen after joining her husband in the United States. Gonzalo Curiel went to Catholic school, fell in love with music and played the guitar in a band before following in the footsteps of his older brother, Antonio, and turning to law. The Curiels lived in a diverse section of East Chicago called Indiana Harbor, where blacks, whites and Hispanics lived and worked together. Discrimination was rarely an issue, Raul Curiel said, but the family did face it on occasion. He recalled Gonzalo being turned away from a wedding venue in the 1970s because of his Afro hairstyle. After graduating from Indiana University’s law school, Judge Curiel worked in private practice in Indiana and California. In 1989, he became an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of California, a job that immersed him in the war on drugs. Judge Curiel was a prosecutor at a time when the American authorities were trying to help Mexico confront the Arellano Félix brothers, the heads of a murderous cartel that controlled a torrent of narcotics coming into the Western United States. In a period when Mexico was reluctant to send its drug lords for trial in the United States, Mr. Curiel’s job involved working with informants and Mexican officials to win convictions in this country and in Mexico. In one 1990s case, when he was pushing to extradite two men accused of being Arellano gunmen to Mexico, he found himself defending witness testimony against the men that had most likely been obtained through torture by the Mexican police. “The government is not here to deny there is a possibility of torture,” Mr. Curiel told a federal judge. “But the forum for those allegations to be aired is the government of Mexico. ” The cartel kept Mr. Curiel in its sights. One of the suspected gunmen, according to court filings, was recorded in prison saying he “had requested and received permission from the leaders of the Arellano cartel to have Curiel murdered,” forcing Mr. Curiel to live for a while under guard. He and Mr. Vega, whose father also was Mexican, met regularly with their counterparts across the border. Mr. Vega said their ability to speak Spanish and their Mexican roots were helpful, ultimately leading to the first extradition of a suspected Mexican drug kingpin to the United States in 2001. Judge Curiel was appointed to the bench in San Diego in 2007 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. President Obama nominated him to the federal bench in late 2011, and he was confirmed by the Senate the following year. Judge Curiel, whose parents are deceased, is married to a probation official and has a young daughter. For his family, the attacks on their heritage have not gone unnoticed. Raul Curiel said that Mr. Trump was “ignorant” for calling his brother Mexican, noting that they were born in the United States. He said that he speaks to his brother regularly and that the most frustrating part of the Trump episode were the questions about his professionalism. “Trump called him a hater, and regardless of whether he is or not, that has nothing to do with how he’s doing his job,” Raul Curiel said. Mr. Trump and his supporters have said that Judge Curiel is treating him unfairly in the case, in which some former students of Trump University claim they paid thousands of dollars for worthless real estate classes. Mr. Trump’s supporters have pointed to Judge Curiel’s affiliation with La Raza Lawyers of California, a Latino bar association that Mr. Trump asserts is an advocacy group, and to his appointment by Mr. Obama as evidence of a conflict of interest. In the interview on Thursday, Mr. Trump said that Judge Curiel also had a conflict of interest because he was friends with one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers that lawyer told The Wall Street Journal that they were federal prosecutors in the same office but had never seen each other socially. Despite citing the judge’s heritage as a source of the conflict, Mr. Trump said that as president he would have no problem appointing judges. “I would love to,” he said. “I would do it in an instant. ” Judge Curiel is allowing the case to go to trial, and he recently ordered the unsealing of documents that included testimony from former managers calling the classes a “lie” and a “scheme. ” (He later ordered some of the documents temporarily resealed so that some personal information could be redacted.) In the unsealing order, he noted that Mr. Trump had “placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue. ” Experts in legal ethics say that seeking to discredit a judge is not a winning strategy and that the suggestion that Judge Curiel could not treat a case fairly because of his ethnicity raises questions about Mr. Trump’s ability to appoint judges. Deborah L. Rhode, a professor at Stanford Law School and the founding director of the university’s Center on Ethics, said that calls for Judge Curiel to step down from a case because of his Mexican roots were akin to saying that Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice, should never have been able to decide civil rights cases. “If race were a disqualifying factor, nobody could preside over these cases,” Ms. Rhode said. Mr. Vega, now a corporate lawyer who was the best man at Judge Curiel’s wedding, said he did not think that the attacks by Mr. Trump would taint the judge’s approach to the case. But, remembering when his friend, then a prosecutor, arrived at his house for a barbecue flanked by bodyguards, Mr. Vega noted the irony of Mr. Trump’s criticizing someone who had risked his life to slow the flow of drugs coming from Mexico into the United States — an issue that is dear to Mr. Trump. “A lot of us have never been tested like that,” Mr. Vega said. | 1 |
"Virginia Roberts Affidavit" a teen diary of Randy Prince Andy and Alan Dirtbag0witz at Orgy Island. This AD report is consistent with Veterans Today on the ruling Demonic Warlords kiddy diddling ring. BTW....lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein is Ken Starr.... | 0 |
Welcome to Our Picks, a guide to the best stuff to read, watch and listen to from around the internet. Check this space for the article, the next great podcast for your commute, the tweetstorm. And yes, we’re also tooting our own horn here. We’ll share can’ Times stories from the week and reveal some gems you might have overlooked. We want to hear from you! Send us feedback about our selections to ourpicks@nytimes. com. • Do most people know the difference among the terms “Sell By,” “Use By,” and “Best If Used By”? Expiration labels are so darn confusing, and people end up throwing away a lot of food. The grocery industry is looking to change both with a new set of standardized product labels to clear up confusion. [The Washington Post] • “As a I find myself drawn into the same capitalistic pitfall that many young professionals are drawn into — a need to prove my adulthood with midcentury furniture. ” Thus begins a wonderful little essay about profound disappointment with one very specific West Elm sofa. [The Awl] • A cool history of the Rorschach test reveals how the ubiquitous inkblots went from psychological assessment tool to cultural meme. [The New Republic] • If you’re in the mood for an uplifting story, read this account of how a “miracle” face transplant gave one young man a new lease on life. [AP via STAT] • Last week, a lengthy note in The Yale Law Journal argued that Amazon should draw the attentions of antitrust regulators. If you’d like to know more, but feel intimidated by the legalese, you can check out the New York Observer’s slightly more accessible explanation of this “epic analysis. ” [The Yale Law Journal and New York Observer] • After sustaining multiple concussions that took him out of the racing scene in 2016, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is returning to Nascar. Even if you’re not a fan of the sport, you’ll enjoy this profile on the athlete and his new perspective. [ESPN Magazine] • “I’m not at that camp because I’m bad at math. I’m there because I’m good at math. ” This New York City camp is trying to inspire a new generation of black and Latino math whizzes. • Are you a Blanche, a Dorothy, a Rose or a Sophia? Fans of “Golden Girls,” that enduring electric blanket of American television, are flocking to a new restaurant dedicated to Rue McClanahan. Yes, there is cheesecake. • “Many of us have more love inside than we know what to do with but are too bottled up. Which is where dogs can come in. ” Amy Sutherland wrote a moving Modern Love column last week about matchmaking at an animal shelter you may remember her widely emailed 2006 Modern Love column, “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage. ” • The Oscars are on Sunday, so there’s still time to stream the nominated movies and fill in a winning ballot. (Your prize: bragging rights.) • The Sunday wedding announcements in The Times have long been a fertile hunting ground for writers of parodies and other forms of snark. But we don’t mind. Much. • Bruce Springsteen invited one lucky teenager onstage with him during a recent concert in Australia’s Brisbane Entertainment center. The song they performed? “Growin’ Up,” of course. [Variety] • If you haven’t watched “Planet Earth II” by now, drop everything and do that. Then, watch this video on the magic of the BBC production. [Vox] • We’re biased, but we find this GIF mesmerizing: Want Our Picks delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the What We’re Reading newsletter, a email featuring great stories from around the web selected by members of the New York Times staff. | 1 |
Political leaders on both sides of the debate in Britain over whether to leave the European Union are now saying distinctly different things about some central issues than what they said before the referendum. Here are some examples. BEFORE Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the “Remain” campaign, said that if the country voted to leave, he would begin the formal process of leaving the union immediately by sending what is called an Article 50 notification to Brussels. He also said he would try to remain as prime minister. AFTER The morning after the referendum, Mr. Cameron said he would resign once a successor could be chosen and would leave it to his successor to issue the notification. BEFORE The “Leave” campaign promised that Britain would be able to save 350 million pounds a week, or about $462 million as of Monday, that could be spent on the National Health Service, schools and housing. A slogan on the Leave campaign bus went further, promising explicitly to use that money to “fund our N. H. S. instead. ” (The savings figure was widely disputed by economists, Remain campaigners and the Office for National Statistics.) AFTER Leave leaders, including Nigel Farage of the U. K. Independence Party, and Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith of the Conservative Party, maintained that they had never promised that £350 million a week would be given to the N. H. S. Mr. Duncan Smith called the figure “an extrapolation. ” Mr. Farage said that the £350 million claim was “one of the mistakes that, I think, the Leave campaign has made” and that anyone who voted to leave because of the promise “made a mistake doing that. ” BEFORE George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, warned that a vote to leave would touch off an economic crisis that would require the government to adopt an emergency budget with spending cuts and tax increases. AFTER In an effort to calm the financial markets, which plunged after the referendum, Mr. Osborne said on Monday that Britain had the resources to weather the immediate crisis and that an emergency budget could wait until Mr. Cameron’s successor had taken office and assembled a new cabinet. BEFORE Leave campaigners promised to swiftly reduce the number of immigrants coming to Britain from other parts of Europe, which Mr. Johnson said could not happen while Britain remained in the union. Michael Gove, the justice secretary and an ally of Mr. Johnson’s, said a vote to leave would “bring down the numbers” by 2020. AFTER “Frankly, if people watching think that they have voted and there is now going to be zero immigration from the E. U. they are going to be disappointed,” said Daniel Hannan, a prominent Leave advocate and member of the European Parliament. To keep vital access to the European single market after leaving the union, Mr. Hannan acknowledged to the BBC, Britain would have to accept free movement of workers, as Norway and other nonmember states have. | 1 |
Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • President Trump revised his travel ban, removing Iraq but leaving six other predominantly Muslim nations on a list of those whose citizens are barred from entering the U. S. Officials said the rewrite was meant to address legal concerns quickly to deal with what they say is a national security threat. But in the Middle East, it is still seen as amounting to a ban on Muslims. Separately, the White House said Mr. Trump “firmly believes” that former President Barack Obama had him wiretapped, though the F. B. I. director has said otherwise. Since Mr. Trump took office, he and Mr. Obama have criticized each other to an unusual degree. _____ • Republicans in the U. S. House of Representatives unveiled their plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The bill would scrap the mandate for most Americans to have health insurance in favor of a new system of tax credits. But some Republican lawmakers have already expressed misgivings. _____ • Top officials for the Republicans, the French party, say they will continue to support François Fillon, the embattled presidential candidate. Mr. Fillon got a reprieve earlier in the day when Alain Juppé, a prominent rival, said he had decided “once and for all” not to run. But some in the party still doubt that Mr. Fillon’s campaign can overcome corruption allegations stemming from his employment of family members. _____ • Germany and Turkey are in an intensifying war of words about overseas campaign efforts for a Turkish referendum that would expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After two campaign rallies for Turks living in Germany were canceled over security concerns, Mr. Erdogan accused Berlin of using Nazi tactics. His critics say the Turkish president is defending his right to free speech in Europe, while denying it to dissident voices at home. Analysts say relations could calm down after the referendum in April. _____ • Nuclear concerns are on the rise. In Europe, there is serious talk about using France’s arsenal to establish an E. U. nuclear weapons program. And in South Korea, the United States has begun deploying an antimissile system, above, strongly opposed by China, a day after North Korea’s launch of four ballistic missiles. Japan is on heightened alert over North Korea’s capabilities, weighing whether it could be testing a “saturation attack” meant to overwhelm missile defenses. _____ • When Wilbur L. Ross, the new U. S. commerce secretary, was vice chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, he was more interested in forcing out Russian board members than working with them. • Two big British financial firms, Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management, have agreed to merge in a $4. 7 billion deal that would create one of Europe’s largest asset managers. • Turkey’s antitrust authority will look at whether Google unfairly promotes its app store and digital services by tying them to its Android operating system. • Office values in central London could decline as much as 20 percent this year amid concerns over Britain’s withdrawal from the E. U. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Members of Parliament called on the British government to tighten rules against dress codes that force women to wear high heels in the office. [The New York Times] • A Russian lawmaker wants to ban the new Disney movie “Beauty and the Beast” over a scene with a gay character. [The New York Times] • E. U. foreign and defense ministers reached a deal to create a military training headquarters, despite concerns about possible overlap with NATO. [The New York Times] • The police in France are searching for the remains of a family of four after a relative confessed to killing them over an inheritance dispute. [BBC] • Israel passed a law that prohibits entry to foreigners who publicly support an boycott. [Reuters] • The U. S. government has opened a criminal investigation into a secret Facebook group of Marines that shared thousands of naked and private photos of female colleagues. [The New York Times] • Should supplements be a part of your morning routine? The science is still mostly lacking. • Recipe of the day: Elegant mini almond cakes can be filled with cherry jam or, with a little effort, chocolate ganache. • In the Galápagos, the booby has no real predators, so the birds live proud, public lives. That has helped scientists learn their habits and even why the shade of their feet matters. (The color signals health.) • The Dutch soccer clubs PSV Eindhoven and AZ Alkmaar are exploring whether cognitive training can improve players’ mental performance. Experts have their doubts. • An apartment listed on Airbnb offered a prime location, luxurious appointments and a lot of security: It was inside Trump Tower in New York. The U. S. Postal Service’s stamp issue this week pays homage to the federal arts program that launched some of the 20th century’s most famous American artists. But it might not have. In the during the height of the Depression, unemployment was soaring at 25 percent. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration to put Americans back to work. Artists, who often didn’t have regular jobs in the first place, weren’t certain to be included. But Harry Hopkins, who directed the W. P. A. decided they should be. “Hell,” he said, “they’ve got to eat just like other people!” So the Federal Art Project of the W. P. A. was created. Over nine years, it spawned more than 100, 000 paintings and murals and nearly 20, 000 sculptures. Some of the artists the program employed would later be among America’s most famous, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. “I changed my attitude toward being an artist,” de Kooning famously reminisced. “Instead of doing odd jobs and painting on the side, I painted and did odd jobs on the side. ” Evan Gershkovich contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Read the latest edition of the U. S. briefing here and the latest for Asia and Australia here. What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
For years, the Obama administration prodded, cajoled and beseeched China to make commitments to limit the use of fossil fuels to try to slow the global effects of climate change. President Obama and other American officials saw the pledges from both Beijing and Washington as crucial: China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, followed by the United States. In the coming years, the opposite dynamic is poised to play out. President Trump’s signing of an executive order on Tuesday aimed at undoing many of the Obama administration’s climate change policies flips the roles of the two powers. Now, it is far likelier that the world will see China pushing the United States to meet its commitments and try to live up to the letter and spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement, even if Mr. Trump has signaled he has no intention of doing so. “They’ve set the direction they intend to go in the next five years,” Barbara Finamore, a senior lawyer and Asia director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in New York, said of China. “It’s clear they intend to double down on bringing down their reliance on coal and increasing their use of renewable energy. ” “China wants to take over the role of the U. S. as a climate leader, and they’ve baked it into their plans,” she added, referring to the economic development blueprints drawn up by the Chinese government. Even before the presidential campaign last year, Mr. Trump had made statements consistent with climate change denial, including calling climate change a hoax created by China. He has also threatened to formally withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Since Mr. Trump’s election in November, senior Chinese officials and leaders have been taking the high ground on the issue by urging all countries, including the United States, to abide by their climate commitments. The biggest rhetorical turning point came in January, when Xi Jinping, China’s president, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the Paris Agreement was “hard won” and should remain in force. “All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it, as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations,” he said. Other Chinese officials at Davos repeated that message, including the energy minister, Nur Bekri, and top executives of enterprises. In an interview before the recent climate conference in Marrakesh, Chai Qimin, a climate change researcher and policy adviser, said that policies adopted at a recent Communist Party meeting showed that China “has attached ever greater importance to ecological civilization and green development. ” “Everyone is taking this more and more seriously,” he added. On Wednesday, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said at a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing that all countries in the Paris Agreement should “fulfill their commitments” and that China would stick to its pledges “regardless of how other countries’ climate policies change. ” Global Times, a nationalist newspaper, used harsher language in an editorial chastising the Trump administration for “brazenly shirking its responsibility on climate change. ” “Washington is obliged to set an example for mankind’s efforts against global warming, and now the Trump administration has become the first government of a major power to take opposite actions on the Paris Agreement,” the newspaper said. “It is undermining the great cause of mankind trying to protect the earth, and the move is indeed irresponsible and very disappointing. ” The editorial also questioned why China was making concessions on use when the United States was scrapping its promises: “How can China, still underdeveloped, give away a chunk of room for development, just to nourish those Western countries that are already rich?” Chinese participation is critical for global efforts on climate change. With its economic growth and rampant infrastructure construction, China consumes as much coal as the rest of the world combined. The burning of coal, which is at the core of the power, steel and cement industries in the country, generates enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. So environmental advocates and officials around the world constantly say China must break its coal addiction. But unlike in the United States, Chinese leaders and senior officials have consistently said that climate change is a serious problem and acknowledged that changing the energy mix to move away from sources is important. And because of its air pollution crisis, China announced policies in 2013 to limit the use of coal in the country’s three largest population centers. More recently, scientists have said that there is a dangerous cycle at work: Weather patterns from climate change are exacerbating the smog. “China is cutting back on coal because of its lethal costs to human health as well as its high carbon emissions, and plans to transition to the energy sources of tomorrow, rather than yesterday,” said Isabel Hilton, founder of Chinadialogue, a prominent website that reports on environmental issues and policy. “President Trump seems intent on reviving a energy source rather than pursuing the promise of the 21st century. ” Mr. Trump’s talk, and the unlikelihood that his administration will pressure China to cut back on fossil fuels, might mean that interests in China, including among energy companies, will try harder to push back against officials putting limits on coal. But in recent years, coal consumption in China has declined slightly, surprising many analysts and researchers. China’s economic slowdown — from decades of annual growth to 6. 7 percent last year — has been a major factor. Analysts say there appeared to be an increase in coal use during part of 2016 because of economic stimulus policies, but preliminary statistics released in February indicate that overall coal consumption declined last year compared with 2015. Given such numbers, researchers say China may reach a carbon emissions peak in 2025 — five years ahead of its stated goal of 2030. China has also made pledges on the percentage of total energy that will be generated by sources, which include hydropower, nuclear power, wind and solar. Mr. Xi has said that by 2030, 20 percent of China’s energy will come from such sources. Chinese officials are now grappling with the complex problem of getting energy generated by wind and solar sources onto the grid and properly used. “Trump’s rejection of regulatory action on climate change creates a vacuum in global climate leadership that China can now seize,” said Alex L. Wang, a law professor and China environmental expert at the University of California, Los Angeles. “In recent years, a variety of factors — crisis levels of pollution, economic opportunities from green development and concerns about the domestic risks of rising temperatures — have pushed China to action on climate change. Trump’s actions don’t affect these underlying drivers. ” In addition, China has said that it will put in place by the end of this year a national market for greenhouse gas quotas, commonly known as a program. It has experimented with seven such regional markets, and there have been problems with them, but the government is determined to set up a national program to put a price on carbon and impose a cost on companies that generate large amounts of carbon dioxide, Chinese policy advisers say. China appears to be overperforming on other targets besides its carbon emissions peak date. It had stated that by 2020, 58 percent of its energy would come from coal consumption. Official statistics indicate China might meet that target early. Chinese officials now say they expect to get the number down to 60 percent this year. A report released in January by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, based in Ohio, said China was the world leader in domestic investment in renewable energy and associated sectors, with $103 billion invested in 2015. And China is going global with that strategy — last year, it invested $32 billion in large overseas deals involving renewable energy. “There are clear differences between the Chinese approach and the Trump administration on climate change,” Ms. Hilton said. “While Trump’s administration seems to believe that action on climate change is a waste of money and threatens jobs in the U. S. China sees investment in action as essential to secure a safe and prosperous future for Chinese citizens, as well as a strategic opportunity to develop and supply the technologies of the future. ” | 1 |
Los Angeles police faced a brief shootout and were led on a chase through the streets of the San Fernando Valley and southbound along the Interstate 405 Monday night by an armed attempted murder suspect wanted for allegedly shooting his early Sunday morning. [“The guy shot through the window,” a Los Angeles Police Department officer told Breitbart News. “Eventually, he came out of his car and surrendered. ” The 405 was still closed on Tuesday morning, the officer said, “because there were shots fired and they have to do a full investigation. It should be open by now. ” Another officer, Jeff Nuttall, told Breitbart News that the 405 was closed for approximately six or seven hours due to an “ shooting. ” “One of our police dogs bit the suspect and he was taken into custody. I don’t know the exact location of the shooting, but I do know it was sometime during the pursuit. That’s why it was closed. It was all part of the shooting investigation. I would say it reopened at around 7 a. m. ” According to ABC 7, the suspect is believed to be Marcos Tulio Flores, 32. He drove a silver Acura. His is reportedly hospitalized in critical condition. Video footage of the chase shows the suspect constantly slowing his car and then speeding it up as approximately 13 police cars followed him from behind. The entire video of the chase was posted to YouTube: ABC 7 reported that the suspect also threw items out of his windows including clothing. Eventually, the officers administered a PIT (precision immobilization technique) move on the vehicle, which sent him spinning and immobilizing him. The cop car drove into the back of the driver’s side of the vehicle which sent it spinning and causing the suspect to lose control. Authorities then surrounded the suspect’s vehicle and took him into custody using the help of a . A series of other chases have also taken place throughout the Golden State. In December, “a man who appeared to be under the influence of some substance” led police on a wild chase after he “breached a secure area at San Francisco International Airport” and ran onto a tarmac at the busy airport. Just four months prior to that, in San Diego, a Chinese family vacationing in the area led police on a chase after becoming confused following their failure to yield o a police officer’s sirens after evading a stop. This past July, an “unusual” video of an unidentified driver racing down the Interstate 880 in Oakland went viral. Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz | 1 |
Eight ways to strengthen our democracy beyond voting The strength of our civic life depends on what we do outside elections. By Chuck Collins Chuck Collins
Throughout this trying election season, we’ve been told how much is at stake with our vote. But the success of any democracy depends on continuing to pay attention long after we cast our ballots.
So let’s pledge to strengthen our democracy with a few resolutions to focus our intentions and keep us moving forward over the next four years.
1. Change your media diet .
Way too much ink, airtime, and mental real estate has been consumed by the horserace reporting on elections—it’s all about who’s winning and losing. So unplug from the talk shows that interview pollsters and engage in partisan bickering all day. Find the commentators and independent media outlets that strengthen our civic life.
2. Turn off corporate media.
This election has been very profitable for big media corporations, but bad for our democracy. As CBS chairman Les Moonves remarked , “Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? The money’s rolling in and this is fun.”
Our differences have been compounded by media reports that amplify the loudest and most partisan utterances. Election coverage this year has encouraged us to view one another as cartoon caricatures, not neighbors.
3. Reject the consumer mentality in elections .
We’re encouraged to view national elections like consumers buying a car, but presidential elections can make most of us feel like spectators, not participants. Election Day is a small part of our real democracy—think of voting as a tiny fraction of your civic life.
4. Make your voice heard .
Pledge to communicate with your elected officials all year round, not just when they want your vote. Call, write, email, and attend community forums. When a politician hears from a dozen constituents with the same concern, it matters.
A few resolutions must address our polarized political atmosphere. The only way to break through this is by connecting with people we don’t always agree with.
For instance, the liberal California sociologist Arlie Hochschild spent five years interviewing conservative Tea Party activists in Louisiana, making friends and asking deep questions. She urges us all to scale the “empathy wall” and learn each other’s stories.
Here’s a few easy ways to get started.
5.Try a social media fast.
Social media is amazing, but it mostly serves as an echo chamber to reinforce our existing views. It’s not a substitute for talking to people, asking questions, and learning why people support certain policies.
6. Practice the art of civil discourse .
Find ways to meet others face-to-face to engage in conversations, not soapbox speeches and debates. Look at the “ Living Room Conversation ” movement that brings people together across political divisions. Their goal is to encourage “authentic, respectful conversations” to “strengthen relationships and advance understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and solutions before us.”
Finally, other resolutions should focus on changing our polarizing election system.
7. Eliminate the wealth primary .
Long before voters cast their ballots in a primary, big money donors have winnowed the field and selected who will stand for election. People all across the political spectrum agree that we need fundamental campaign finance reform to reduce the influence of big money, including the repeal of Citizens United .
8. Break the two-party duopoly .
A growing number of voters have declared independence from the two major parties. So why do we allow other voices and perspectives to be excluded from presidential debates? Our democracy would benefit if we had real choices outside the two major parties, as they do in most other countries in the world.
The strength of our civic life depends on what we do outside elections. And especially after the deeply toxic experience of 2016, we all need to step up to protect our real democracy from those who profit from division.
Chuck Collins co-edits Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies and is author of the new book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good . Distributed by OtherWords.org. permalink . | 0 |
Two More Hollywood Films For Men That Leave Today’s SJW Movies In The Dust Two More Hollywood Films For Men That Leave Today’s SJW Movies In The Dust Bob Smith
Bob Smith is a man in search of the truth. His favorite quotes are, "We're all fools on this earth, and I can be no different"; "I know it's true, I read it at the LIE-brary"; and "The truth is not misogynistic, it's just the truth". November 11, 2016 Culture
Today we are going to take a quick look at two epic Clint Eastwood films, one of which is a well-known, Western classic ( The Outlaw Josey Wales ). The other one is a little-known, under-the-radar gem, which showcases the psychotic insanity of the deranged Western female ( Play Misty for Me ).
Both of these superb RPO films will leave any red-pill male feeling wholly satisfied, shortly after viewing them, and, well, that’s what these movie reviews of your old Uncle Bob’s are all about, are they not…helping you find the bona fide gold nuggets amid the endlessly steaming piles of SJW Hollywood crap? Yes indeed.
So let’s get crackin’. 1. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976 – Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Bill McKinney, John Vernon)
Clint Eastwood directed and starred in this sweeping, extremely well-crafted, post-Civil War epic film, and the cinematography and direction are undeniably excellent. But Eastwood’s portrayal of the Southern-sympathizer, Josey Wales, who has a major score to settle after Union troops burn his house down and murder his wife and children, is in itself a major cinematic achievement.
Out for blood and taking no prisoners, Eastwood’s merciless Josey Wales thunders across the plains and prairies of the American West, blowing scores of Northern soldiers away in the process, as he makes a desperate dash towards Mexico, and what he hopes will be sanctuary. But Wales gets sidetracked along the way, collecting a stray dog and a few stray human beings as well, which proves that the only thing a man can truly count on in this life is change.
There’s a great scene early on in the film, involving Josey Wales’ partner in crime, Jaimie (played by Sam Bottoms), where he starts babbling incoherently, while faking a state of fever-induced delirium from underneath a blanket, as the two outlaws are confronted by a pair of backwoods yahoos who are looking to collect the bounty that has recently been placed on Wales’ head.
Here, we clearly see the behavior of the typical, frightened, woefully outmanned beta male, as character actor Len Lesser (who portrays the overmatched bounty hunter Abe) starts yapping and barking in a very loud voice, while jerking around excitedly, shortly after getting the drop on Eastwood’s alpha-male killing-machine.
If you’re an alpha male and you’re in good shape, you’ve undoubtedly seen similar beta-male behavior. Probably at a bar, when some paunchy beta asswit, who’s sitting with his cucked crew, has had one too many beers and starts cutting you down in a passive-aggressive manner, from your periphery, as he barks and yaps in an excited voice about how tough he used to be, or how he doesn’t need to lift weights to be a man, or how he doesn’t think it’s cool to wear tight shorts (a hostile barb born of envy, uttered because he feels his package is inadequate). Yup, you know the routine.
In the film’s wow-we-almost-had-a-gangbang scene, featuring a somewhat-turned-on Sondra Locke (see above photo; Locke portrays Kansas-born settler, Laura Lee), as she’s confronted in the back of a covered wagon and dragged outside by a group of lusty Comancheros, which was obviously a blatant exaggeration, because, as we already know, all rapes are committed by totally unattractive, deranged, horribly evil, light-skinned men who smell badly and have absolutely zero neck tattoos—“ E , ” etc.—Clint’s character comes riding to the rescue out of the hills and guns the would-be rapists down, which probably made SJWs and feminists at the time scream with unbridled outrage at the theater screen, “She was giving her consent ! Didn’t you see it ? It was in her eyes ! It’s her right to express herself sexually, with however many men she might choose ! Murderer! Creeper! Pussy-blocker !”
Unfortunately, just like today, there were feminists and SJWs aplenty back in 1976. Their numbers have been growing with a vengeance since roughly the mid-1960s, and after more than 50 years in the saddle, they still keep going round and round in circles, yelling preprogrammed buzzwords and catch-phrases, while unknowingly speeding up the destruction of freedom of speech, but hey, Uncle Bob, tell us something we don’t already know, and yeah, I’ll get back to the film review now.
My favorite scene in the movie occurs when Josey Wales (who, now that I think about it, is a bit of a white knight, hmm…), rescues a Native American woman who is about to be double-teamed against her will by a pair of drunken white trappers.
Eastwood’s mad-dog character ultimately gets the drop on the would-be bounty-collectors, and he blows them straight to hell in an impressive hail of gunfire, which, I’ll have to admit, is pretty darned cool in itself. I mean, that’s why we watch films like this, isn’t it – for the violence, and the babes, and the red-pill messages? Well, there are plenty of those to be had in this no-holds-barred, epic Western film.
Maybe I’m going to have to rethink this movie in terms of it being perceived as a wholly red-pill film. Clint’s character stepped up and stopped a potential gangbang, as well as a three-way, and nobody asked him to do it. So this might have been a sly, Hollywood warm-up for the series of blatant white knight films we see today, but I don’t really want to think that way about Clint, so I won’t. I’ll just gulp down a quick blue pill right now—ah, much better.
I mean, Clint played Dirty Harry Callahan, for chrissakes, in a film that I will hopefully be reviewing at a later date, if I don’t get hit by a truck driven by an illegal alien who’s sporting 20 arrests for murder while having no driver’s license; or lynched by a swarm of rabid SJWs who are on the hunt for any white male who isn’t a media CEO or a billionaire.
The film bogs down a bit after about the two-thirds mark, in my opinion, but it still gets high marks across the board in every other critical category. If you haven’t seen it, rectify that soon. You can’t miss by watching this top-drawer, RPO film for men. 2. Play Misty for Me (1971 – Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills)
Unless they are over-the-top, laughingly ridiculous, obviously fictional slasher films, red-pill movies like this one just don’t get made in Hollywood any longer.
When you think of Clint Eastwood, you usually think of Dirty Harry , or The Outlaw Josey Wales , or Unforgiven , or Gran Torino, but Clint made a few obscure films that were both solidly red pill, and truly excellent movies, although they’ve been swept under the rug and locked away in the film vaults by today’s liberal-leaning film-hiders.
In this well-directed, highly suspenseful thriller, Carmel-by-the-sea disk jockey, Dave Carver (Clint Eastwood) lives a freewheeling, alpha male lifestyle, regularly banging out an assortment of hot women who listen to his live jazz broadcasts on a nightly basis. Carver is living the dream, pounding most of the available hot babes, and thoroughly enjoying his rightfully appointed alpha male privilege (or is that white male privilege?…er…SJW moment there, sorry).
That is, until Jessica Walter’s psycho-stalker character, Evelyn, walks into his life.
Now, you may have encountered a few of these yourself. Or maybe it’s just me. Sometimes I think I have an invisible sign on my forehead that only the initiated can read, which proclaims, “If you’re hot and insane—I’m your guy.” But Clint Eastwood shows us exactly what it’s like to be pursed by an attractive, psycho, female stalker. From writing creepy notes to him in lipstick on his mirror, to cutting up his clothing, to attacking his cleaning lady in a fit of jealous rage, Clint’s disk-jockey character quickly begins to realize that he bit off a hell of a lot more than just pussy when he started banging actress Jessica Walter’s batshit-crazy Evelyn.
I’ve always had a feeling that actresses who were really good in these psycho roles, were just being themselves. But I could be wrong about that. (I was wrong once before—it was in the third grade and she didn’t really love me.) Be that as it may, Jessica Walters really brings her A-game in the role of the totally unhinged Evelyn. If you’ve ever had a relationship with a woman like this one, watching the film will send chills down your spine, and result in some serious flashback imagery.
(Have you ever done this—what Clint is doing in the above photo—namely, hold and comfort a crazy woman who somehow managed to weasel her way into your life, by skillfully turning you into both an enabler and a caretaker…if so, I definitely feel your pain. And I’ll bet Clint has experienced it a time or three himself, or he probably wouldn’t have done this film.)
Play Misty for Me is absolutely worth watching for myriad reasons; but the most important reason of all, I wholeheartedly believe, is because it will clearly demonstrate to you, in no uncertain terms, the subtle and overt signs that a man absolutely has to be able to recognize, in order to avoid being blindsided by a psychotic, unhinged female. And for that reason alone, it’s a must-see classic, no doubt about it; when Clint’s character ultimately gets revenge on his tormentor, at the very end of this excellent RPO film, you’ll feel all warm and fuzzy inside, too—and in a weird, viscerally satisfying way—which makes the whole experience just that much more gratifying.
By boycotting all modern SJW Hollywood cinema, you are sending a message to the power structure that is loud and clear—you are not being fooled by their deliberate attempts to poison people’s minds and socially engineer them to be pussified, dumbed-down, blue-pill-sucking robots.
Always research the plot lines of any films for which you are seriously considering buying a ticket, or renting on DVD. And if you smell an SJW rat, don’t spend your money. It’s that simple. In the end, it’s just like investigating a potential LTR candidate. You have to conduct your due diligence. Otherwise, you might just get taken for a ride. | 0 |
November 21, 2016 By 21wire Leave a Comment
William McGurn Wall Street Journal
Let’s get this straight. Calling Hillary Clinton a “bigot” has reporters asking every Republican in sight if Donald Trump has gone too far. But the Clinton campaign releases a video saying Mr. Trump is the candidate of the Ku Klux Klan, and it’s all okey-dokey?
Then again, Mr. Trump has already been likened to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. Small wonder there’s a collective ho-hum when Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine says Mr. Trump is peddling “KKK values.”
This is what Democrats do. It didn’t start with Mr. Trump, either. For years Democrats have portrayed the GOP as one giant hate group.
Each presidential election, the drill goes like this:
After Republicans nominate someone, he immediately finds himself having to prove he’s not a hater – of African-Americans, of women, of gays, etc.
This year Democrats added a twist. Mr. Trump, they claim, represents a break with all those decent and lovable Republicans such as Mitt Romney , John McCain and George W. Bush . Of course, this isn’t what they were saying back when these men were running for president.
• In 2000, for example, an NAACP ad recreated the gruesome murder of James Byrd to imply that then-Gov. Bush was sympathetic to lynching black men. Over footage of a chain being dragged by a pickup truck, Mr. Byrd’s daughter says, “So when Gov. George W. Bush refused to support hate-crimes legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.”
• When John McCain ran in 2008, Barack Obama warned that Republicans would scare people by saying, “You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills.” The McCain campaign fired back, accusing Mr. Obama of playing the race card from the “bottom of the deck.” Funny thing: All those reporters always hearing “dog whistles” from Republicans somehow didn’t hear this one.
• In 2012, when Mitt Romney went to the NAACP and told them face-to-face about his opposition to ObamaCare, the stories were all about how he was really just trolling for the racist vote. Vice President Joe Biden put it more explicitly, telling a largely African-American audience that if Mr. Romney were to win, he’d “put ya’ll back in chains.”
The only difference today is that Republicans now have a nominee giving as good as he gets… | 0 |
It’s been reported that Speaker Ryan is going to speak to a room full of manufacturing leaders at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) today. Ryan’s office is billing as his first major address on tax reform this year, and that Ryan will participate in a session afterward. [This should be interesting. Paul Ryan has zero experience with manufacturing. There is not one instance of Ryan ever holding a job managing manufacturing operations tasked with competing against local or foreign manufacturers. However, I’ve run heavily engineered manufacturing businesses around the globe. So I’ll take this opportunity to pose a few questions for Speaker Ryan that those in attendance might think about asking him: It’s been reported Ryan will say something to the effect of, “With more jobs, higher wages, and a stronger economy, American workers and families would be the greatest beneficiaries of this reform,” Ryan’s office said. “That’s why, following the principles outlined earlier this year by President Trump, the House, Senate, and administration are working together to meet this historic opportunity. ” Does Paul Ryan realize that foreign manufacturers will flock to the U. S. when the Corporate tax rate is dropped to 15 percent? Does Paul Ryan realize that the engine plant that left Kenosha for Canada did so because the tax rate in Canada is 15 percent? Does Paul Ryan realize that the GE plant that just announced it is leaving Waukesha is doing so because Canada offered $2B and a 15 percent tax rate? Canadian workers are inferior to American workers. I can say so with authority because I closed a Canadian factory in 2015 while with Neptune and brought those jobs back to America — more profitably I might add. While with Tyden and SPX, I moved Mexican and Chinese factory jobs back to the U. S. — again more profitably. I’d do so again in a heartbeat. The Speaker’s office last week said Ryan chose to give the speech at the NAM conference because one of his goals is to encourage companies to bring jobs back to the U. S. That’s odd. Then why would you refuse to do the one thing that would drive that more than any other, reduce the Corporate Tax rate to 15 percent like President Trump suggests? “We want tax reform now. We think it’s really important,” said Dorothy Coleman, vice president of tax and domestic economic policy at NAM. The Hill reported that she added that it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the U. S. tax code is holding businesses back. It is very encouraging: NAM is one of several prominent business groups that has not taken a stance on the border adjustments proposal. NAM should take this opportunity to reject the BAT and endorse President Trump’s 15 percent Corporate tax. Ryan and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady ( ) have touted the BAT as “removing the Made In America tax. ” That’s just, as my grandfather would say, hogwash. Paul Nehlen is not another lifelong politician, but a business executive and inventor. Nehlen started out on the factory floor, and through God’s grace, grit, and determination rose to lead Fortune 500 manufacturing businesses around the world. Nehlen challenged Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s 2016 First Congressional District to stop Partnership and secure America’s border. Today he is waging the battle against the refugee resettlement racket and leading the cause to fight for America’s values. Nehlen has announced he is challenging Ryan in the 2018 Wisconsin First Congressional District primary. He lives in Delavan, Wisconsin. | 1 |
Donald Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer pressed reporters to question Democratic lawmakers about the treatment Sen. Jeff Sessions ( ) gets during his confirmation hearing for United States Attorney General as protesters continuously interrupted the hearing. [“It is somewhat sad to watch someone — the folks on the left — to try to interrupt the Democratic process,” Spicer stated to reporters on a conference call on Tuesday morning. Spicer said he was peppered with questions during the campaign process about the type of individuals that support Trump and whether or not he would denounce these certain individuals and that he hopes the media ask Democratic leaders the same about the actions of these protesters. “I would hope that you on the call relentlessly ask the leaders in the Democratic Party … whether or not they equally denounce the tactics by … groups to interrupt the Democratic process,” Spicer challenged the press. During Sessions’ confirmation hearing, several groups interrupted him as well as other lawmakers, including one group dressed as members of the KKK in an attempt to call Trump and his administration fascist. Two more guys disrupt Sessions hearing. ’No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!’ Gonna be a lot of this. Sessions resumes. Then another one! — Byron York (@ByronYork) January 10, 2017, Before Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing for attorney general began, protesters wearing KKK garb were escorted out https: . pic. twitter. — CNN (@CNN) January 10, 2017, Woman with @codepink removed after laughing out loud when one Senator praised Sessions civil rights record. pic. twitter. — NAACP (@NAACP) January 10, 2017, | 1 |
هل بوسع التحالف حسم الموصل والرقة معا؟
تاريخ النشر: 26.10.2016 | 19:17 GMT | انسخ الرابط http://ar.rt.com/i5hl
مدينة الرقة السورية ستكون الوجهة التالية للتحالف الدولي، هذا ما تم اعلانه في اختتام إجتماع وزراء دفاع دول التحالف الدولي في العاصمة الفرنسية باريس، وبحسب وزيري الدفاع الامريكي والفرنسي فقد بدأت التحضيرات لعزل هذه المدينة السورية تمهيدا لتحريرها، بالتزامن مع معركة تحرير الموصل التي بدأت منذ نحو عشرة ايام فقط.فما واقعية الحديث عن طرد داعش من اكبر معقلين له في سوريا والعراق؟ لماذا في هذا التوقيت؟ وما هي الحسابات السياسية والميدانية لهذه المعارك. | 0 |
Radio Aryan October 27, 2016
Sven Longshanks joins Matthew Heimbach to discuss the ongoing fall out from President Hollandeâs treacherous solution to the Calais jungle problem. Instead of rounding all the invaders up with extreme prejudice and sending them back to Libya, he has decided to make every town in France a gift of 50 jungle monkeys each. He must love what they have done to Calais so much, that he wants the same for every town in the country. Diversity really does mean destroying every White community in the world by filling then all up with a quota of hostile invasive species.
Sven brings us the shocking news that five âSyrian migrant childrenâ have already gang raped a child at the British childrenâs home they were placed in this week. These âunaccompanied minorsâ were supposed to only be coming to Britain if they had family in the country, but thanks to an amendment added to the law by a Jew called Dubs, any brown person claiming to be under 18 whose life would be better in Britain than where they are now, has to be let in. This stupid law means that every juvenile in the third world could lay claim to a right to be allowed into Britain. This Jew is directly responsible for that child being raped and Matt reminds us of the fact that it is traitors in our own governments everywhere who are doing this to us.
George Soros and other global players have been funding the criminals at Calais while they lie in wait to ambush a lorry and break into Britain and we see similar patterns emerging there that we see among the other groups that he funds. Black Lies Matter burned down Ferguson and the squatters at Calais burned down the Jungle last night too, but not before first taking some time out for another gang rape. Sven points out that this goes on regularly in Africa where it costs little to replace a burned down straw hut or dung shelter, but in the developed world it costs a fortune to repair the damage these Blacks cause.
After bringing up the subject of how much it costs to care for those who hate us, Matt brings us some good news on the British economy, which we had been told by the lying media was bound to plunge into recession if there was a vote to leave the EU. It has actually increased by a percentage and Sven finishes the podcast by giving us a quick rundown of the state of play with Brexit, the Conservative Party and UKIP, who it is hoped will soon be led by Paul Nuttall.
Presented by Matthew Heimbach and Sven Longshanks
The Daily Traditionalist: The Calais Cancer Metastasizes â DT 102716 | 0 |
“People are not happy. BIG lines. What is going on?”
Steve Watson Prison Planet.com October 27, 2016
GOP Nominee Donald Trump, who has for weeks warned that the election could be rigged against him, shot out a tweet Thursday indicating that he is aware of reports of machines ‘flipping’ to register votes for Hillary Clinton, when voters choose Trump.
“A lot of call-ins about vote flipping at the voting booths in Texas,” Trump tweeted.
“People are not happy. BIG lines. What is going on?” A lot of call-ins about vote flipping at the voting booths in Texas. People are not happy. BIG lines. What is going on?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2016
As Infowars has highlighted , there have already been numerous reports of early voters in Texas seeing their ballots flipped from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. A d v e r t i s e m e n t
While election officials have dismissed the reports, suggesting ‘user error’ is to blame, tech experts have long warned that the machines can become less accurate over time.
Larry Norden, a voting technology expert, told NPR that the reports usually arise where outdated technology is being employed.
“Over time, as people vote, that calibration becomes less and less accurate,” Norden noted.
During elections over the past decade and more there have been reports of voting machines ‘flipping’. Indeed, the reports were so widespread that even entertainment shows such as The Simpsons drew attention to it:
Meanwhile, The Washington Post has admitted that the press is engaging in voter suppression, bizarrely claiming it is a legitimate way of countering Trump’s ‘rigged’ election claims.
Callum Borchers, author at the Washington Post blog The Fix writes: Since the final presidential debate last week, many news outlets have been delivering an unvarnished message to Donald Trump supporters: Your candidate is virtually certain to lose the election Nov. 8. A day later, the Times’s Upshot blog increased Clinton’s chances of winning to 93 percent , an all-time high. On Monday, Politico’s Ben Schreckinger wrote that “ Donald Trump’s path to an election night win is almost entirely closed .” Here at The Fix, Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake wrote that “ Donald Trump’s chances of winning are approaching zero .” These are accurate, statistically sound statements. But they are something else, too. Declarations that Trump is highly unlikely to win also serve as counters to the Republican nominee’s warning that the “rigged” election could be “ stolen from us .”
The latest polls, which Trump insists are rigged due to oversampling, show Clinton with a double digit lead.
However, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook has warned that Trump’s suggestions that the polls are wrong and he can still win are “absolutely right.”
“We’ve seen polls tighten since the third debate and we expect things to get even closer before Election Day.” Mook said, urging Clinton supporters to vote.
“Make no mistake. With only 10 percent of votes cast, Donald Trump could win this election,” Mook said. 9:15 | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday refused to acknowledge reports that James B. Comey, the F. B. I. director, had asked the Justice Department to refute President Trump’s claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped him during the 2016 presidential campaign, and said Mr. Trump still believes he was spied on. Mr. Comey urged the Justice Department this weekend to push back against Mr. Trump’s claims, but the department has not said anything publicly. The New York Times first reported about Mr. Comey’s request to the Justice Department on Sunday, and other news media organizations followed suit. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, dismissed the stories on Monday. “I have not seen anything, aside from another report based on anonymous sources, that that actually happened,” Mr. Spicer said. “I’m not aware that that occurred. I don’t think that we’re aware that that occurred. ” Mr. Spicer did not say why Mr. Trump or other administration officials had not reached out directly to the Justice Department or Mr. Comey to find out whether Mr. Trump’s accusations are true. And Mr. Spicer provided little evidence to back up Mr. Trump’s claim about Mr. Obama. At one point, Mr. Spicer pointed to comments by Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general in the administration of George W. Bush, as evidence of the eavesdropping. Mr. Mukasey said on television Sunday that based on reports he had read in the press, he believed Mr. Trump was probably right about the surveillance. “There’s no question that something happened,” Mr. Spicer said. “The question is: Is it surveillance, or wiretapping or whatever?” Mr. Spicer said that Mr. Trump still had confidence in the F. B. I. director. “There’s nothing that I have been told by him that would leave me to believe that anything is different than it was prior,” Mr. Spicer said. But the president could be headed for a confrontation with Mr. Comey that would pit the administration against the head of the nation’s leading law enforcement agency, which is conducting an inquiry into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. Mr. Trump, who has already fired his national security adviser and acting attorney general, could dismiss Mr. Comey, but that would probably lead to significant backlash from lawmakers and federal authorities who would see such a move as an attempt to influence the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump started the controversy early Saturday morning with a series of Twitter posts. “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory,” Mr. Trump said. “Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Mr. Trump added: “This is . Bad (or sick) guy!” The White House has not officially said what led Mr. Trump to make the claims. But administration officials have acknowledged that they were primarily prompted by unverified claims by Breitbart News and conservative talk radio hosts that secret warrants were issued authorizing tapping the phones of Mr. Trump and his aides. Mr. Comey was said to be disturbed by Mr. Trump’s claims about Mr. Obama, which insinuated that the F. B. I. had broken the law and raised the public’s expectations about how much evidence federal authorities might have had on Mr. Trump. For the Justice Department to have obtained a warrant to eavesdrop on him, federal authorities would have had to prove to a judge that there was significant evidence that he was breaking the law or was the agent of a foreign power. Along with asking the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to investigate whether Mr. Obama eavesdropped on Mr. Trump, Mr. Spicer called on the committees to investigate what he called a steady stream of national security leaks since Mr. Trump took office. Mr. Spicer said the White House would not commit to accepting the findings of those investigations. “I don’t think you would ever just blanketly say, ‘I’m going to accept any outcome,’” Mr. Spicer said. Some Republicans said on Monday that spying was a hallmark of Mr. Obama’s administration, claiming that during his time in office the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups. Other Republicans defended the impartiality of the Justice Department and F. B. I. “I don’t think the F. B. I. is the Obama team, and I don’t think the men and women who are career prosecutors at D. O. J. belong to any team other than a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales,” Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, said in an interview on Fox News. “We have certain tools this country needs to keep us safe — and it is great and wise and prudent and legal for those tools to be used lawfully and appropriately,” Mr. Gowdy said, referring to wiretapping. “If they are not used lawfully and appropriately, there is a paper trail, and we will be able to find it out. ” Mr. Gowdy, who headed the committee that investigated the 2012 attacks on American outposts in Benghazi, Libya, said that with the Obama administration out of office, “any information that the current Department of Justice has that suggests the previous Department of Justice acted inappropriately — they are welcome to release it. ” Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said he had “never seen anything so outlandish, outrageous or incomprehensible” as Mr. Trump’s claims. “I’ve never seen anything like this — ever — since I’ve been here,” Mr. Leahy said. “It is completely unprecedented, and it is destructive of our democracy. ” | 1 |
It’s clear that President Trump prefers the glamour of his estate in Florida to the woodsy charms of Camp David, the secluded traditional presidential retreat in Maryland. Before winning the presidential election, he told a reporter: Mr. Trump has flown on Air Force One to the club in Palm Beach, Fla. for weekend retreats three times since entering the White House. He is expected to return again this weekend. But he has made zero trips to Camp David, a roughly ride on Marine One from the White House. At this point in their presidencies, Barack Obama had visited Camp David once, while George W. Bush had traveled there three times. During their two terms in office, Mr. Obama racked up 39 visits over 93 days, and Mr. Bush had 149 visits over 487 days. When it comes to running the country or carving out time for a respite, there are perks and drawbacks to both and Camp David. Here’s how they stack up. It comes down to the question: mountains or beach? Camp David had a humbling start. Officially a Navy installation, it was built by the Works Progress Administration and opened in 1938 as Camp 180 acres of public land set aside as a destination for government employees. It was not used by a president until 1942, when Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to escape the muggy climate of Washington, which had taken a toll on his sinuses. The Secret Service scouted for quick getaways within 100 miles of Washington and settled on the site on Maryland’s Catoctin Mountain. The conversion cost back then: $18, 650, according to the National Park Service. The weather is about 10 degrees cooler there than in Washington. The property has cabins, trails, a swimming pool and many, many trees. The president sleeps in the Aspen Lodge. Roosevelt took one look at the site and named it . President Harry S. Truman made the camp the official presidential retreat in 1945. But it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower who “made it a household name,” according to the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Eisenhower renamed it in 1953 in honor of his grandson Dwight David Eisenhower II. Successive presidents have used the retreat to write, meet with top advisers, conduct global diplomacy and forge a historic peace accord. In 1974, The New York Times wrote that the property’s seclusion was its main attraction: It “has provided eight American presidents and their families with perhaps the nearest thing to true privacy that they can know during their terms in public life and in the public eye. ” on the other hand, is a Mediterranean estate on 20 acres between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. The property, costing $8 million, opened in 1927 as the palatial winter residence of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heiress to General Foods. On Ms. Post’s death, in 1973, was willed to the federal government and presented as a possible presidential retreat. President Richard M. Nixon visited the Palm Beach estate to scout it out, but the property was returned to the Post Foundation because of concerns it was too costly to maintain ($1 million a year) and too difficult to secure (it was in the flight path to Palm Beach International Airport). The foundation sold the property to Mr. Trump in 1986, who turned it into a private club in 1995. The property includes a tunnel for guests to travel to the beach (and underneath Ocean Boulevard) and a private pool. * Winner for historical significance: Camp David. We’ll cut to the chase: You are not going to visit Camp David. If you search online for how to get to the site, you’ll most likely stumble upon a site that says cabins can be booked for $1, 200 for a weekend. Ignore it. It’s a parody site. The retreat is closed to the public. You may not be able to get within shouting distance of the president at Camp David. But by joining for a $200, 000 membership fee, you can get fairly close to President Trump. You may even be able to watch while White House officials, sitting feet from you, work by the light of their cellphones to respond to an international crisis. And you can take pictures. Clubgoers have witnessed Mr. Trump dining at the club, meeting with the leader of Japan and, most astonishingly, huddling in plain sight with his aides as they grappled with how the United States should respond to a missile test by North Korea. If you cannot afford the hefty membership fee, you may know a friend who is getting married at and snare an invitation to the celebration. * Winner for accessibility: . Camp David has a seemingly endless number of options to escape the whirlwind pace of the White House or the noise of protesters in Washington. Mr. Obama, for instance, shot skeet and water guns, and played pool and basketball. Mr. Bush had bike trails installed so that he could ride in private. Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H. W. Bush played tennis. is not short on amenities: It offers a spa and a salon and popular sports of yesteryear like bridge (classes are offered by “a certified master instructor”) and croquet. The croquet court is described on the club’s website in Trumpian terms: “Boasting one of the most beautiful lawns in the country, the Club venue will not only challenge both mind and body, but will also add a sense of serenity so seldom found in competitive sports. ” But the club also affords proximity to places where you can play that most freighted of geopolitical games: golf. Trump National golf courses are nearby in Jupiter and West Palm Beach. * Winner for perks: edges out Camp David because even if croquet isn’t our speed, the wonders of the Sunshine State are still available. Even before Mr. Trump called the “Southern White House,” the exclusive club was not easily accessible to the public. It has high walls, which date to when Ms. Post owned the property, and a security gate. Now, when the president visits, roads are blocked off, the Coast Guard patrols the shoreline, a zone is enacted, and the Secret Service is deployed. neighbors are fretting about the logistics headaches and potential loss of revenue whenever the president visits. The security at Camp David is fairly straightforward: It is surrounded by fencing. More important, the site is also known as Naval Support Facility Thurmont, which sums up its level of protection. Members of the Navy and the Marines are permanently stationed there. * Winner for seclusion and security: Camp David. Presidents have hosted royalty and many foreign leaders at Camp David, as well as top advisers and cabinet members. Visitors stay in one of the many cabins on the property. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met there during World War II. In 1959, at the height of the Cold War, Eisenhower hosted Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union. In September 1978, through the intervention of President Jimmy Carter, the retreat was the site of a historic peace agreement (the Camp David Accords) between President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel. Mr. Obama hosted a meeting of the Group of 8 leaders at the retreat in 2012. President Bill Clinton held intense meetings there in 2000 with Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to try to broker a peace deal. The gathering offered a case study in using body language as a power play: An infamous tussle ensued as the opponents grabbed and stepped around each other and tried not to be the first man to go through a door at Camp David, as if that leader would appear to cede some power. was created to entertain, and spares no expense. It was built with stone from Italy, 36, 000 antique tiles from Spain and roofing tile from Cuba. The first references to the villa in The Times, in 1927, were about lavish parties and ballets held there. Ms. Post had a feeling that her Palm Beach villa could be used for presidents and foreign leaders. In 1972, after the villa was willed to the government and offered as a “winter White House,” an adviser suggested that foreign leaders could stay at the estate on their first stop in the United States, rest a few days and then continue on to Washington to meet with American leaders. When Nixon took a helicopter trip to make an unannounced visit to in July 1974 to “determine its potential,” he wandered the property for exactly 31 minutes. Alas, Ms. Post’s hope of having her estate turned into a presidential retreat did not bear fruit then — at least, until the arrival of Mr. Trump. *Winner over all: for at least the next four years, though Mr. Trump may visit Camp David yet. | 1 |
“The theater must always be a safe and special place. ” When I read that Donald J. Trump had tweeted those words on Saturday morning, my gut response was to wish that the great American playwright Edward Albee had been alive to respond to our . Not that Mr. Albee, who died in September, would have objected to the “special” part, or not on grounds other than semantic, “special” being a word of such promiscuous overuse these days. But it was Mr. Albee’s credo that theater — or theater as an enduring art, as opposed to an evening’s entertainment — should be anything but safe. I loved him for insisting on that belief, and for consistently acting on it in everything he wrote for the stage. Theater, as the ancient and exalted public forum that Mr. Albee wanted it to be forever, exists to challenge complacency, to make us uncomfortable with our assumptions. It is a place where conversations of momentous moral, philosophical and political significance can and should be initiated. Such exchanges have been started by dramatists as different as Sophocles, Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Vaclav Havel, David Hare, Tony Kushner and, yes, Mr. Albee. And even when the plays were written decades, if not centuries, ago, the dialogues they began have in many cases never ceased to reverberate. Of course it was a more literal kind of dialogue, one that broke the commonly wall between actors and audience, that antagonized Mr. Trump into a series of admonitory tweets. On Friday night, his vice Mike Pence, attended a performance of the Broadway hit “Hamilton,” a historical (and historic) musical that, among other things, makes the case for the United States as a nation founded and shaped by immigrants. After the final curtain calls that night, Brandon Victor Dixon, the actor who portrays Aaron Burr, stepped forward with a microphone to directly address Mr. Pence, who was leaving the theater. “We, sir — we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us,” he said. He added that he hoped “this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. All of us. ” Mr. Trump quickly made it clear on Twitter, his social medium of choice, that Mr. Dixon and the “Hamilton” team had been “rude and insulting” and owed Mr. Pence an apology. At first, a part of me could see Mr. Trump’s point, or at least feel a shudder of embarrassed empathy for Mr. Pence. If someone were to single me out for a direct plea from the stage in a large theater, I would no doubt want to run home, dive into bed and bury myself under the covers. (Mr. Pence, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” said he was not offended by Mr. Dixon’s words.) Thinking more rationally, I believe it can also be argued that a great work of art — a distinction for which “Hamilton” easily qualifies — should be sufficient unto itself. Though Miranda’s Tony show has been embraced as Broadway’s favorite musical of the moment, this portrait of a revolution is in itself revolutionary, with the provocation and defiance that such a characterization suggests. “Hamilton” makes a sustained and vibrant case for the virtues of an American melting pot. This is as true of its form (which melds rap and into the classic book musical) and its casting (which uses black and Latino men and women to portray the white founders of the United States) as of its content. (Don’t forget, this is a show in which the title character, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette exult on the battlefield: “Immigrants, we get the job done. ”) The very presence of Mr. Pence — whose views on immigration, like those of Mr. Trump, are anything but celebratory — at this particular show (one previously embraced by the Obamas and Clintons) would seem to signal that an unspoken debate was going on that night. In that case, wasn’t Mr. Dixon belaboring the obvious in delivering the statement prepared by him and his associates (including Mr. Miranda)? Was what he said a condescending equivalent of supertitles for the inferentially challenged? Any inclinations I might have had to think that way evaporated in the face of the succeeding barrage of Mr. Trump’s tweets (which were still continuing on Sunday morning). They underscored for me just how much we are living in a world that demands overstatement, in which italicized capital letters are required to highlight sentiments that might otherwise go ignored. Woe unto those who believe that the meanings between the lines will be widely read. Much of the success of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign had to do with his awareness of that reality of contemporary communication. In delivering his plea to Mr. Pence, Mr. Dixon wasn’t just emphasizing that a play is more than a work of art, that it’s a cry of thought and feeling pitched to an audience, a city, a nation, a world. He was also addressing Mr. Trump (through Mr. Pence) on his own blunt terms, albeit in a more eloquent (and, yes, polite) style. He was meeting directness with directness, carefully spelling out what his show had to say. If the recent past is anything to go by, it is fair to assume that Mr. Trump will encounter more direct salvos from theater artists once he assumes the presidency. Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, George W. Bush (Remember Will Ferrell in “You’re Welcome America”?) and Barack Obama have all been the subjects of theater satires while in office. Those portraying Johnson and Nixon — created in a time when the nation was as contentiously divided as it is now, the 1960s and early ’70s — were especially savage in their attacks. So will the political theater of the future prove a match for all the president’s thumbs? In any case, disagreement and dissent should energize art, not paralyze it, and provoke responses to match. I look forward (though perhaps with a wince) to whatever Mr. Trump has to say about whatever is said about him on this country’s stages. The main thing is that the conversation — all sides of it — be allowed to continue. | 1 |
My health insurance company sent my notice for my 2017 health care plan. Guess how much my premium is going up?
EIGHTY PERCENT. Yep. A big fat 80%. Fortunately, my deductible remains at $14,300 (obvious sarc) .
Starting next year, my monthly plan will cost MORE than 50% of my take-home pay.
And I’m not the only one facing this type of an increase.
Remember this at the polls on November 8 th .
DCG | 0 |
Donald J. Trump’s foundation has acknowledged that it may have run afoul of rules that guard against using money meant for charity to benefit principals of the organization, according to its 2015 tax filing. On the filing, the ’s charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, checked “yes” to answer a question about whether its resources had been directed or used to benefit a “disqualified person” — meaning one of the organization’s central people. The tax filing offers new details about Mr. Trump’s charitable giving, which became the subject of intense scrutiny during his presidential campaign after news reports raised questions about whether he had followed through on pledges he made to donate money and his lack of financial support for the foundation. The Washington Post, which first reported the admission on the 2015 form, earlier reported that Mr. Trump had used $258, 000 from the charity to settle legal disputes involving his businesses, possibly violating provisions. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump did not answer messages seeking comment on the filing. Mr. Trump and his advisers have defended his charitable practices in the past, noting that Mr. Trump has made significant donations personally and through the foundation. Lawyers for the foundation uploaded the tax filing on Friday to Guidestar, a national database of nonprofits, and it was then made publicly available, according to representatives from Guidestar. It is unclear whether the Internal Revenue Service has received the filings. The 2015 form showed that Mr. Trump donated a total of $616, 000 that year to his nonprofit foundation, his first contribution to it since 2008 and his largest donation in a decade. The payments were made through two Trump businesses: the Trump Corporation ($566, 000) and Trump Productions LLC ($50, 000). The next largest contribution that year was $150, 000 from a foundation connected to Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian steel magnate. Mr. Pinchuk has been a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, a relationship that drew scrutiny during the presidential campaign as an example of Hillary Clinton’s complex ties to foreign business interests. Douglas E. Schoen, a senior adviser to the board of Mr. Pinchuk’s foundation, said in an email that the payment to Mr. Trump’s charity was “in support of appearance he did by video link at a conference Mr. Pinchuk’s foundation organizes every year in September in Kiev, Ukraine. ” Mr. Schoen said that Mr. Pinchuk and Mr. Trump had met many years ago in New York, prompting the invitation for Mr. Trump to speak at the September 2015 conference. He said the two did not have any business relationship. During the speech, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Pinchuk and Ukrainians, saying, “You have had to endure a tremendous amount, and I just think it is all going to work out well in the future for the Ukraine. ” Mr. Trump’s charity reported paying out $896, 000 in grants for 2015, some of which was disclosed during the campaign. The donations included support for health causes like cancer research and the American Red Cross, as well as $50, 000 for the private school attended by Mr. Trump’s youngest son, Barron. In late September, Eric T. Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, ordered the charity to cease in the state after his office found that the foundation was not properly registered to solicit donations. Mr. Schneiderman’s office is currently investigating Mr. Trump’s foundation to determine whether it is in compliance with state laws. | 1 |
Trump Warns Of ‘Vote Flipping’ On Machines "People are not happy. BIG lines. What is going on?" Steve Watson | Infowars.com - October 27, 2016 Comments
GOP Nominee Donald Trump, who has for weeks warned that the election could be rigged against him, shot out a tweet Thursday indicating that he is aware of reports of machines ‘flipping’ to register votes for Hillary Clinton, when voters choose Trump.
“A lot of call-ins about vote flipping at the voting booths in Texas,” Trump tweeted.
“People are not happy. BIG lines. What is going on?” A lot of call-ins about vote flipping at the voting booths in Texas. People are not happy. BIG lines. What is going on?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2016
As Infowars has highlighted , there have already been numerous reports of early voters in Texas seeing their ballots flipped from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton.
While election officials have dismissed the reports, suggesting ‘user error’ is to blame, tech experts have long warned that the machines can become less accurate over time.
Larry Norden, a voting technology expert, told NPR that the reports usually arise where outdated technology is being employed.
“Over time, as people vote, that calibration becomes less and less accurate,” Norden noted.
During elections over the past decade and more there have been reports of voting machines ‘flipping’. Indeed, the reports were so widespread that even entertainment shows such as The Simpsons drew attention to it:
Meanwhile, The Washington Post has admitted that the press is engaging in voter suppression, bizarrely claiming it is a legitimate way of countering Trump’s ‘rigged’ election claims.
Callum Borchers, author at the Washington Post blog The Fix writes: Since the final presidential debate last week, many news outlets have been delivering an unvarnished message to Donald Trump supporters: Your candidate is virtually certain to lose the election Nov. 8. A day later, the Times’s Upshot blog increased Clinton’s chances of winning to 93 percent , an all-time high. On Monday, Politico’s Ben Schreckinger wrote that “ Donald Trump’s path to an election night win is almost entirely closed .” Here at The Fix, Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake wrote that “ Donald Trump’s chances of winning are approaching zero .” These are accurate, statistically sound statements. But they are something else, too. Declarations that Trump is highly unlikely to win also serve as counters to the Republican nominee’s warning that the “rigged” election could be “ stolen from us .”
The latest polls, which Trump insists are rigged due to oversampling, show Clinton with a double digit lead.
However, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook has warned that Trump’s suggestions that the polls are wrong and he can still win are “absolutely right.”
“We’ve seen polls tighten since the third debate and we expect things to get even closer before Election Day.” Mook said, urging Clinton supporters to vote.
“Make no mistake. With only 10 percent of votes cast, Donald Trump could win this election,” Mook said. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles | 0 |
Life experiences give you an incalculable return on investment. Every. Single. Time. So why is it so hard for us to spend money on them? The reason for me is often that experiences tend to feel like an extravagant expenditure of money, time and energy. Let me give you an example. My wife and I had a chance to leave our kids at home for a few days and go on a sea kayaking trip. The trip we planned was in an unbelievably beautiful part of the world. It would be the first time in over six months that we could do something without the kids. Sounds amazing, right? But then I started adding numbers. It would be $250 for the kayak rental, then a few hundred for food. And the little inn where we wanted to stay was expensive. Before long, our invaluable trip had a tangible value, in the neighborhood of $1, 000. For three days? No way! I spent a few days thinking (O. K. worrying) about this expense. Was it responsible? Did we have the money? If we invested that $1, 000 for 20 years and earned 7. 5 percent, it would grow to more than $4, 200. Eventually, we chose to go. And, predictably enough, it took all of seven minutes on the water on the first day before I thought: “$1, 000? For this? What an incredible value!” Each time I try to do this kind of math, I always run into the same problem. Experiences are incalculable. Invaluable. Priceless. So no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get them to fit into my calculator. So good luck with your equation. If you don’t have the money or aren’t certain you can pay any debt back quickly if you borrow a bit to do the thing, the decision may get easier. The solution to the equation is probably this: No. If so, I feel for you, as I’ve been there myself and stayed there intermittently for years. But once we got out there in the kayak on that water, all I could think about was how happy my wife and I were as we were enjoying that experience together. So, ask me now, was it worth it? Let me just save you a lot of time and energy, and give you the answer to that messy equation: Spend the money! Do you have something you want to do with someone you love, and the money to pay for it, and the only reason you’re not doing it is that you have this nagging feeling that you should be saving the money for some vague goal beyond the basic ones you have already articulated for yourself? Spend the money! Then, do it again. And again. And the next time? Spend the money! Did I mention spend the money? If it feels as if I’m trying to drill this message into your brain, it’s because I am. After all, what else is the money there for? O. K. for when you get sick, for when you get old, for when your kids need some financial help. I know. For a million good reasons. But you already have every “real” financial adviser and financial pornography network under the sun telling you to save. Just think of that as one side of the coin: Save for tomorrow. I’m here to tell you not to forget about the other side: Spend for tomorrow. Because it’s not just money you’re going to need in the distant future. You’re also going to need a lifetime of priceless memories and invaluable experiences to remind you what a great life you’ve lived. I can promise you this: If you find yourself looking back one day, only to realize you have no such memories, you’ll be doing a very different calculation. | 1 |
Posted on October 31, 2016 by Nathaniel Mauka
Congress overwhelmingly voted for the Patriot Act nearly 16 years ago, and our civil liberties have never been the same since. As if this singular bill, passed by George W. Bush, wasn’t invasive enough, allowing big banks to demand our internet data, and more — the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act ( CISA ) makes cyber-spying by the shadow government and the financial entities controlling it, a forgone conclusion.
As with most shadow government legislation, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act is packed with hidden surveillance allowances. CISA was quietly passed to allow government to demand that private companies hand over personal information to them at will. It also allows companies to mine data, under the auspices of government-created urgency.
The mere fact that this act passed in late 2015 is monumental, since it has been before Congress in different forms for over a decade . The election seems to have offered the perfect cover, as Americans and activists were too busy arguing over Trump vs. Hillary.
Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government relations at the Electronic Transactions Association believes the value of sharing our personal data as a means to be alerted of ‘cyber threats’ outweighs any hazard to our civil liberties. Talbott states ,
“The value is that everyone can be alerted to cyber threats and take precautionary countermeasures before they materialize and spread,” he said. “Before CISA, corrective measures could be taken only after the cyber threat had done its damage. CISA allows each company to serve as an early warning system to the entire economy.”
Who exactly would be determining if someone is a ‘threat’ is the meat of the sandwich, though. CISA is ripe for abuse, just as the Patriot Act has been.
The Patriot Act has made it legal for law enforcement to spy on people, without probable cause – to enter their homes, or even to strip search them before they’ve been to court, had the opportunity to argue a case, or given ‘authorities’ a motive for this type of interrogation.
The stated purpose of the Patriot Act was to deter terrorist acts in the United States, but what do you do when the terrorists have already taken over your country? CISA simply expands the reach of a shadow government which has already been proven to reach beyond the boundaries of constitutional law.
More importantly, who specifically is CISA targeting? After multiple hackers have infiltrated computer systems at the White House , the State Department , the Pentagon , and the Office of Personnel Management, along with the Democratic National Committee , and numerous multinational banks run by the cabal, is the shadow government simply trying to create a stop-gap before their most elusive, yet damning information is made public?
CISA certainly will expand the reach of government surveillance on citizens as it has been conducted by the the National Security Agency (NSA) before former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed it.
“I think this bill was meant to be a surveillance bill from the start,” said Justin Harvey, CSO of Fidelis Cybersecurity, adding that he is dubious that the stated intent of the bill – to use collective intelligence to warn of potential cyber attacks and possibly stop them before they occur – will result.
Under the guise of ‘sharing cyber threats’ CISA allows companies to wholesale-collect information that may not even be a threat – and then pass it along for government bodies to determine if it is, indeed a threat. If this sounds like circular logic – it is just the beginning of the odd verbiage within the bill. It’s justifications for entering every possible orifice for data-gathering are more confounded than an octopus in a straight jacket.
The government can already enter your personal property including your home, your body , your cell, and your computer , but now they will have a legal in-roads to declare you a cyber-threat, simply for sending an email . This begs the question – who is the real cyber-bully? CISA seems to be nothing more than a prevarication, covering the acts of an elite few who don’t want their secrets exposed.
Nathaniel Mauka is a researcher of the dark side of government and exopolitics, and a staff writer for Waking Times . This article ( Distracted by Election 2016, No-one Resisted the Deep State’s Patriot Act 2 ) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Nathaniel Mauka and WakingTimes.com . It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution and author bio. Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 0 |
A Barbaric Race Of Underground-Dwelling Giants Once Inhabited The Mount Shasta Region... # www.mountshastasmysteries.com 10
Author Dustin Naef takes viewers into the Sacramento River canyon south of Mount Shasta to examine Native American legends about prehistoric giants, who were said to inhabit underground tunnels and caves hidden in the wilderness.
This is the second installment of a three part video series titled "Mount Shasta's Legends".
Native American lore suggests that an ancient race of prehistoric giants inhabited the mountains of northern California, but most of them perished in a Great Flood. In 1934, a treasure-hunter claimed to have found evidence suggesting that some these giants lived in tunnels underground around the Mount Shasta area, but before he could reveal the location he mysteriously vanished. Tags | 0 |
VATICAN CITY — She was known throughout the world as Mother Teresa, considered a saint by many for her charitable work among the poorest of the world’s poor. On Sunday morning, Pope Francis officially bestowed that title at her canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. “I think, perhaps, we may have some difficulty in calling her St. Teresa: Her holiness is so near to us, so tender and so fruitful, that we continue to spontaneously call her Mother Teresa,” the pope said in remarks during his homily. It was a festive atmosphere at the Vatican, under a broiling summer sun, and several flags fluttered in the light breeze: from Albania, representing the Roman Catholic nun’s ethnic origins from Macedonia, to note her birthplace, Skopje from India, where she spent most of her life, working in the slums of Kolkata and from the many other countries where her humility and selflessness touched countless lives. When Francis proclaimed her St. Teresa at the end of the formal ceremony, in Latin, the crowd erupted in sustained applause. “We are proud of her, all of India is proud,” said Marina Borneo Sam, who traveled from Kolkata with her mother to be at the ceremony. “She may no longer be there, but we still feel her spirit around us. ” For some, Mother Teresa’s saintliness was so evident from the start that her canonization was just a formality. “For me, nothing has changed,” said Giovanna Tommasi, a lay member of the Missionaries of Charity, the religious order founded by Mother Teresa in 1950. “When you were fortunate enough to know her, as I did, then today’s celebration doesn’t change much. ” The canonization was a highlight of the Jubilee year, which the pope had proclaimed to celebrate the theme of mercy, and on Sunday he called Mother Teresa a “tireless worker of mercy. ” His homily was primarily addressed to volunteer workers celebrating the Jubilee. “Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life to the whole world of volunteers: May she be your model of holiness,” Francis said. He also praised her “defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded,” emphasizing her relentless petitioning against abortion. Mother Teresa earned fame and accolades over a lifetime spent working with the poor and the sick, and with orphans, lepers and AIDS patients. She made the cover of Time magazine in December 1975 for an article that acknowledged her as one of the world’s “living saints. ” When told that she had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she said, “I am unworthy. ” A portrait of Mother Teresa, described by Pope John Paul II as an “icon of the good Samaritan,” was displayed on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica and showing her in her distinctive white sari. The portrait was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus and painted by Chas Fagan, an American artist. Because of her celebrity, she stepped where many religious figures do not. “She made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created,” the pope said on Sunday. Mother Teresa’s supporters praise her selflessness and humility, noting that though she associated with royalty, government leaders and popes, she continued to live simply until her death, at age 87, in 1997. “She was one with us,” Sister Mary Prema Pierick, the superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, said at a Vatican news conference on Friday. “She never wanted or accepted anything not common with all the sisters. ” The order that Mother Teresa started with 12 nuns now numbers more than 5, 800 people in 139 countries, including two orders of brothers and one of priests. The congregation continues her work of ministering to the world’s least privileged, those she called “the poorest of the poor. ” Mother Teresa was “both mother and teacher,” Sister Prema said. “She lived the religious life with so much joy and enthusiasm that we all wanted to be close with her. ” Her gift, she added, was “to make everybody aware of their own responsibility,” and inspire people with the knowledge that “each one of us can make a difference. ” Mother Teresa was canonized 19 years after her death, remarkably fast for modern times. John Paul II, who is now also a saint, went against protocol when he allowed the canonization process to begin two years after her death, not the customary five. He beatified her in 2003 after a miracle, the healing of a woman, was attributed to her intercession. A second miracle, recognized by Francis last year, opened the way to sanctity. “I am very grateful for this miracle,” said Marcilio Haddad Andrino, a Brazilian who recovered from a brain infection in 2008 after his family prayed to Mother Teresa. Mr. Andrino came to Rome for the ceremony and was present at the Vatican news conference. “The merciful Lord looks at us all without any distinction,” Mr. Andrino said. “Maybe it was me this time, but maybe tomorrow it will be someone else. ” Mother Teresa, for all her acclaim, was not without critics. Some have questioned the hygiene and medical standards adopted by the sisters in some of the shelters and clinics run by the Missionaries of Charity. Others, like Dr. Aroup Chatterjee, have criticized what they call a “cult of suffering” that was prevalent in some of the homes run by the order. In a book, and in the documentary “Hell’s Angel,” the author and essayist Christopher Hitchens accused Mother Teresa of being an “ally of the status quo,” also calling her a “zealot” and a “fanatic. ” Mr. Hitchens charged that instead of empowering the poor to seek a better future, she instilled the idea that their condition was permanent. Her campaigns against birth control and abortion, which she once called “the greatest destroyer of peace today,” angered feminists and raised concerns with aid organizations. Some doctors and officials in India have also challenged the narrative of Monica Besra, the woman said to have benefited from Mother Teresa’s first miraculous intervention, saying Ms. Besra had been suffering from a cyst, not a tumor. Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 to Albanian parents in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire and now the capital of Macedonia. Today, she is regarded as the city’s most important native, and celebrations for her canonization will be held there for a week. “Skopje and the citizens of Skopje will use this opportunity to thank the saint Mother Teresa and to continue on the path that she unselfishly showed us — the path toward understanding, compassion and love,” said Koce Trajanovski, the mayor of Skopje, where streets and clinics are named for her. A memorial in her honor has attracted more than 700, 000 visitors over the last five years. The canonization was broadcast live on the Vatican’s television station and streamed online through a Vatican website. It was presented on Vatican Radio in seven languages, including Albanian. Tens of thousands of people gathered at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, along with 15 official government delegations, including representatives of India and the United States. The chief Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, said all 100, 000 tickets that the Holy See had made available had been distributed. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan looked out at the crowd that had filled the pews and remarked, “I thought St. Patrick’s would be empty this morning, because when I was watching the Mass this morning, it looked like the whole Catholic world was in St. Peter’s Square. ” Mr. Burke recalled a visit to the Vatican press room that Mother Teresa made “many years ago. ” “She’s not the only saint to have passed through here,” he said, “but there haven’t been many, I think. ” She is the perfect saint for the year of mercy, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the superior general of the Missionary Fathers of Charity, one of the religious institutes founded by Mother Teresa, said on Friday. Mother Teresa was “so aware of her need for mercy before God. She was very much at home with her own poverty,” added Father Kolodiejchuk, the chief promoter of her case for sainthood. “This Year of Mercy is first of all a reminder to all of us that before God we all stand in need of mercy so in this we are all poor. ” | 1 |
President Donald J. Trump is already tired of the leaks coming from his administration, and vows to catch those involved in the “criminal act. ”[“The spotlight has finally been put on the leakers! They will be caught! ,” he wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning. Trump reacted to ongoing news stories surrounding the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, after intelligence sources leaked transcripts of his phone calls with Russian officials. “Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years,” Trump added. “Failing New York Times (and others) must apologize!” On Wednesday, Trump described the leaks as a “criminal act” during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It’s a criminal act, and it’s been going on for a long time before me, but now it’s really going on,” he said. | 1 |
TOKYO — A Japanese boy who disappeared nearly a week ago after his parents left him on the side of a mountain road to discipline him was found unharmed on Friday, the Japanese authorities said. The boy, Yamato Tanooka, wandered onto a military base about three miles from where he was left on Saturday on the northern island of Hokkaido. He was found early Friday morning by soldiers on a training exercise, exhausted but apparently uninjured, the local police said. The boy’s parents have faced harsh public criticism over the case, which has been covered intensively by the Japanese news media since his disappearance. “I’m full of gratitude. From now on, I’m going to take better care of him as he grows up,” Yamato’s father, Takayuki Tanooka, 44, said in comments on NHK, the national broadcaster. Some 200 police officers and volunteer rescue workers had been searching for the boy. The parents initially told the police that their son had become separated from them while they were picking wild vegetables in the mountains. But they later changed their story, saying they had left their son on the side of the road as punishment for throwing stones at cars and people while they were on an outing. They said they had driven off in their car, intending to scare him. But when they went back a short time later, the boy was gone. The police have not indicated whether they intend to pursue criminal charges against the parents. Three soldiers from the Japanese Ground Force found the boy in a cabin on the remote wooded military base on Friday morning, said Hiroki Komori, a spokesman for the 11th Brigade of the Northern Army, which trains there. The soldiers had ducked into the cabin to avoid a rain shower, Mr. Komori said. The soldiers gave the boy rice balls and tea from a canteen, Mr. Komori said. He was taken to Hakodate Municipal Hospital by ambulance. Japanese news reports said the boy had probably been sheltering for days in the cabin. He told the authorities that he had found his way to the area soon after his parents left him and had been subsisting only on water from a nearby stream, reports said. Commentary about the case on social media has been overwhelmingly critical toward the parents. “This isn’t discipline, it’s child abuse,” Kenichiro Mogi, a neurologist, author and television personality, wrote on Twitter on Monday. “It’s the boy’s father who has learned the big lesson,” another social media user said after he was found on Friday. A few said the parents had simply mishandled an otherwise acceptable form of punishment. Some said they had been subjected to the same treatment from their own parents after misbehaving as children. “I understand, I really do, but they should at least have kept an eye on him from behind some trees,” one Twitter post from Sunday read. “There are bears in Hokkaido. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — If they squint hard enough, they can see hope in the form of an ambitious piece of legislation like a big tax cut. Then there is the fact that Hillary Clinton will not be president. And Mike Pence, the faithfully conservative vice is there to keep watch. Those conservatives who insisted that electing Donald J. Trump president would be a grievous mistake — a group that included governors, senators, radio hosts, prominent columnists and some of the most savvy political operators in the country — are now saying they see an upside to four years of a Trump White House. But even as they find small reassurances, those who counted themselves part of the Trump opposition are wondering what their place will be for the next four years in a Republican Party they can hardly recognize. And they have begun to ponder what it all means for a conservative movement they thought they understood better. “Oh God,” said Charlie Sykes, the Wisconsin radio host who became a vocal opponent of Mr. Trump’s during the Republican primaries. He was describing how he had arrived at peace with the election results then, he said, he realized that he had not done so at all. “You kind of have to a lot of what you thought about the shape of reality,” he said. “It’s not just that you’re wrong it’s that you fundamentally misread what happened. ” What is so disorienting for many conservatives is that the Trump victory was the culmination of the unruly populist upwelling in American politics, first manifested in the Tea Party movement, that traditional Republicans thought they could eventually absorb. Instead, those forces have overtaken them one by one — first claiming their House majority leader, Eric Cantor then their speaker, John A. Boehner and then an entire field of presidential candidates. Now it may claim their party. Some on Mr. Trump’s team are already boasting how they plan to break with decades of conservative orthodoxy on government spending and pursue a huge infrastructure spending package that sounds more Roosevelt than Reagan. “The conservatives are going to go crazy,” Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s senior counselor and chief strategist, gleefully told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Friday. “With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything — shipyards, ironworks, get them all jacked up,” said Mr. Bannon, who has aimed almost as much fire at what he regards as establishment Republicans as he has at Democrats. “It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution. ” Some conservatives say they could surely live with a few of the proposals of Mr. Trump’s they find worrisome, like a big spending bill, especially if they come with sweeteners like tax breaks or spending cuts in other areas. The easiest way to forge ahead, many are finding, is to disassociate the man from the policy. “I will do everything I can to help him,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who has refused on numerous other occasions to help Mr. Trump, including voting for him or attending the Republican National Convention. Mr. Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill this week that he believed he could work with Mr. Trump on issues like the military budget, which both men support expanding. Americans for Prosperity, the political advocacy group supported by David and Charles Koch that decided not to spend any money on the presidential race this year despite spending tens of millions to help Mitt Romney in 2012, is also cracking the door to Mr. Trump. The group, however, declined to say whether it had met or spoken to anyone inside Mr. Trump’s transition team. “We’re encouraged on several fronts by the possibility of the Republican Congress working with the new president,” said Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity’s president, citing the prospect of repealing some of President Obama’s energy policies along with the Affordable Care Act. But as with any period of grief, acceptance comes in different ways. Some find catharsis in writing. Others console themselves in data that show they really were not all that wrong. Then there are those who still talk as if they are in mourning: They have good days and bad days. “Life goes on,” said Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor and leading “Never Trump” stalwart, who has written columns about his coming to terms with Trump. Any given day, Mr. Kristol said in an interview, he feels a range of competing sentiments. “I’m sort of somewhere between ‘trust but verify’ and ‘distrust but verify,’ ” he said, using modified versions of Reagan’s famous quote about how he approached negotiating with the Soviets. On the subject of Reagan — it is hard not to talk to conservatives today about Mr. Trump and not have them wistfully invoke their — Mr. Kristol said he feared people were drawing parallels to Mr. Trump that risk setting the wrong standards for success. “The Reagan revolution wasn’t that he beat Jimmy Carter in 1980,” he said. “Not that I didn’t love that. The Reagan Revolution was that he governed successfully for eight years and won the Cold War. ” Others are concerned that the conservative movement missed an opportunity to appeal to a younger and more diverse group of voters. And they wonder how it will do so with someone as divisive as Mr. Trump atop the Republican Party. Steve Deace, a conservative radio host in Iowa and prominent “Never Trump” figure, pointed to the tens of thousands of voters in Wisconsin and Michigan — states Mr. Trump barely won — who voted in other races but did not cast a vote for president, evidently because they could not bring themselves to vote for him. “That’s not lightning in a bottle,” he said, making the point that Mr. Trump repelled so many voters that he almost lost. “That’s like you showed up for work and they said this is your last paycheck and you and your wife go to Las Vegas, put it all on black and it pays off. ” Mr. Sykes, the radio personality in Wisconsin, said he at least felt liberated. By not supporting Trump he does not feel compelled to defend him like so many of his conservative friends do. Mr. Sykes has been writing a new book, which he tentatively titled “How the Right Lost Its Mind. ” But he is struggling to finish it. “Obviously I thought it was going to have a different ending,” he said, asking aloud what he still struggles with. “How did this happen? Who are your friends? What do they actually believe?” | 1 |
Arctic Warming Gives U.S. and Europe the Chills
By Tim Radford / Climate News Network A cold New York winter. Research shows there could be much worse to come. (Gregory Tran via Flickr)
LONDON—Warming in the Arctic—one of the fastest-warming regions on the planet—could be heightening the chances of extreme winters in Europe and the US. As the Arctic warms, the stratospheric jet stream that brings occasionally catastrophic ice storms and record snow falls to the eastern United States could also be on the move, according to new research in the journal Nature Climate Change . The phenomenon is a natural one. Some years the track of the jet stream is wavy, and delivers severe cold weather to the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Some years the pattern alters, and Europe in particular experiences mild winters. The temperate zones have always experienced occasional extremes. But climate change could be tilting the balance. Extreme spells “We’ve always had years with wavy and not so wavy jet-stream winds, but in the last one or two decades the warming Arctic could well have been amplifying the effects of the wavy patterns. “This may have contributed to some recent extreme cold winter spells along the eastern seaboard of the United States, in western Asia and at times over the UK,” says Edward Hanna , a geographer at the University of Sheffield, UK, and one of a team of British, European and US scientists behind the study. “Improving our ability to predict how climate change is affecting the jet stream will help improve our long-term prediction of winter weather” The study doesn’t claim to settle the question: notoriously, climate is what you expect but weather is what you get, and it may be impossible to prove that this or that unexpected event happened because the global average temperatures are now at least 1°C higher than they used to be, before the human combustion of fossil fuels began to increase the concentration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280 parts per million to 400 ppm. But there are changes in the Arctic that are happening because of global warming, and meteorologists have been watching the knock-on effect on the stratospheric winds, especially the jet stream. In the same issue of the journal one group identified a persistent shift and a weakening in the Arctic winter polar vortex , a meteorological monster that plays a role in temperate zone weather patterns. Others identified a link between Arctic changes and the speed of the jet stream, and its effect on transatlantic airline timetables . Yet others have linked Arctic warming to dangerous extremes of heat further south , and yet another group has linked polar climate change to both ice storms and heatwaves . Arctic signals The debate continues. The important thing is to monitor the melting sea ice, the rising sea-surface temperatures and the emerging pattern of severe winter weather. If meteorologists can learn to read the signals from the Arctic, then communities could plan more effectively for the consequences. “Improving our ability to predict how climate change is affecting the jet stream will help improve our long-term prediction of winter weather in some of the most highly populated regions of the world,” Professor Hanna says. “This would be highly beneficial for communities, businesses and entire economies in the northern hemisphere. “The public could better prepare for severe winter weather and have access to extra crucial information that could help make life-saving and cost-saving decisions.”
Tim Radford, a founding editor of Climate News Network, worked for The Guardian for 32 years, for most of that time as science editor. He has been covering climate change since 1988.
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday refused to revive a challenge to Google’s digital library of millions of books, turning down an appeal from authors who said the project amounted to copyright infringement on a mass scale. The Supreme Court’s brief order left in place an appeals court decision that the project was a “fair use” of the authors’ work, ending a legal saga that had lasted more than a decade. In 2004, Google started building a vast digital library, scanning and digitizing more than 20 million books from the collections of major research libraries. Readers can search the resulting database, Google Books, for keywords or phrases and read some snippets of text. The Authors Guild and several writers sued Google in 2005, saying the digital library was a commercial venture that drove down sales of their work. In their petition seeking Supreme Court review, they said “this case represents an unprecedented judicial expansion of the doctrine that threatens copyright protection in the digital age. ” The petition to the Supreme Court also included a brief signed by a group of prominent authors, including the playwright Tony Kushner, the historian Taylor Branch and the novelists Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Peter Carey and Ursula K. Le Guin. “Fair use is not easy and never has been,” the brief stated. “The unprecedented scale of the Google Library Book Project, by itself, warrants a reconsideration of fair use in this case. ” In a statement released on Monday, the Authors Guild said that the Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the case would leave writers vulnerable to copyright infringement. It also suggested the case would have broader impact beyond the book industry. “The denial of review is further proof that we’re witnessing a vast redistribution of wealth from the creative sector to the tech sector, not only with books, but across the spectrum of the arts,” the guild’s president, the novelist Roxana Robinson, said in the statement. In its own Supreme Court brief, Google said both readers and writers were better off thanks to its efforts. “Google Books gives readers a dramatically new way to find books of interest,” the brief said. “By formulating their own text queries and reviewing search results, users can identify, determine the relevance of and locate books they might otherwise never have found. ” On Monday, Google said in a statement, “We are grateful that the court has agreed to uphold the decision of the Second Circuit which concluded that Google Books is transformative and consistent with copyright law. ’’ As is their custom, the justices gave no reasons for declining to hear the case, Authors Guild v. Google Inc. No. . Last year, a unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said that Google’s project was lawful and beneficial. “The purpose of the copying is highly transformative, the public display of text is limited and the revelations do not provide a significant market substitute for the protected aspects of the originals,” Judge Pierre N. Leval, an authority on copyright law, wrote for the panel. | 1 |
Washington — In December 2005, when Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act, tightening restrictions against torture but barring lawsuits by Guantánamo detainees, Neil Gorsuch stood at the center of the internal debate about whether President Bush should issue a signing statement about the bill. Judge Gorsuch, whose Supreme Court confirmation hearing is set to start on Monday, was then a senior official in the Justice Department. He pushed strongly for a signing statement — in part, he wrote in an email, because it could make clear the Bush administration’s view that the new torture ban was “best read as essentially codifying existing interrogation policies. ” An email chain about the development of Mr. Bush’s eventual signing statement, which attracted critics because it also claimed a right to bypass the torture ban under his powers as commander in chief, was among more than 100 pages of emails and documents from Judge Gorsuch’s tenure at the Justice Department that the Trump administration provided to the Senate late on Friday. The executive branch had previously withheld those pages from nearly 175, 000 documents it provided to Congress because it considered them covered by a privilege for confidential internal deliberations. But it waived that privilege after Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested their disclosure. Previous disclosures showed that Judge Gorsuch helped to defend and advance the Bush administration’s positions related to Guantánamo detainees, military commissions and other policy disputes arising in the war on terrorism, although those policies had been set by others. That same caveat applies to the newly available documents. Still, they could provide further clues to Judge Gorsuch’s approach to defining the scope and limits of a president’s power in matters. Disputes about the legality of interrogation and surveillance policies arose in December 2005, and each came to involve Judge Gorsuch. First, Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act. Most of the attention given to the legislation focused on its creation of a new law, championed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that barred officials from inflicting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment on detainees anywhere in the world. The Bush administration, which was running a torture program for terrorism suspects in overseas C. I. A. “black site” prisons, opposed Mr. McCain’s efforts. At the same time, Judge Gorsuch was working with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to include an amendment cutting off Guantánamo detainees’ access to the courts, which the administration supported. Both the torture ban and the components made it into the final bill, setting up the internal debate about whether to have Mr. Bush issue a signing statement, an official document laying out a president’s understanding of a bill as he signs it into law. Judge Gorsuch argued for a signing statement for several reasons, including that such a statement would help advance the view that the measure applied to existing lawsuits and not just to future ones — a view the Supreme Court later rejected — and that it could set the stage for interpreting the torture ban in a limited way. Although his email did not mention it, the context was that earlier in 2005, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, in a memo, had already concluded that C. I. A. interrogation tactics like waterboarding and sleep deprivation did not amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Judge Gorsuch wrote that issuing a statement “would help inoculate against the potential of having the administration criticized sometime in the future for not making sufficient changes in interrogation policy in light of the McCain portion of the amendment. ” Importantly, the email chain also shows that the most disputed part of Mr. Bush’s signing statement — a line that implied the president could bypass the new statute under his purported constitutional powers — was drafted not by Judge Gorsuch but by David Addington, the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney. Another controversy that broke out in December 2005 stemmed from the revelation that Mr. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to wiretap Americans’ international phone calls and emails without warrants, despite a 1978 law that required warrants. The Bush administration argued that its program was legal in part because the president had inherent power to conduct warrantless surveillance for national security. Critics responded that even if the president may do something in the absence of a legal limit, it does not necessarily follow that he can still do it after a law forbids it. In March 2006, Judge Gorsuch helped to draft a statement for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a hearing about the program. An initial draft said the president wielded “inherent” powers to conduct warrantless surveillance in wartime that “cannot be diminished or legislated away. ” But, the internal emails show, Paul Clement, the solicitor general at the time, objected that the suggestion Congress cannot encroach upon how presidents conduct surveillance was unconvincing, so Judge Gorsuch took that line out. Still, in an email distributing the revised draft, Judge Gorsuch made clear that he did not endorse either view. “I am but the scrivener looking for language that might please everybody,” he wrote, “and I have tried to accomplish that in the attached latest draft. ” | 1 |
in: General Health , Sleuth Journal , Special Interests Taking calcium supplements — even at low doses — linked to brain lesions in the first study of its kind. Most calcium supplements are just plain bad news. The idea of taking calcium in pill or tablet form to “keep the bones strong” just doesn’t make that much sense given, first, that we are designed to get our calcium from food. Second, our bone is a living tissue, which requires vitamin C, amino acids, magnesium, silica, vitamins D and K, etc., not to mention regular physical activity, just as much as it does calcium. Taking calcium to the exclusion of these other critical factors doesn’t make sense; nor does it make sense to look at osteoporosis as a deficiency of calcium supplements! As we have reported on extensively in the past, not only is consuming limestone, bone, and the shells of oysters and eggs not a good idea because the calcium can deposit in our soft tissues leading to heart attacks and strokes , but even the goal of maintaining bones as dense as a 25-year old late into life (known as the T-score) is fraught with danger, including a far higher breast cancer risk for those with the highest bone density . Instead of pathologizing aging, and focusing on making the bone denser by any means necessary, the focus should be on bone quality and agility and bodily self-awareness late into life, which helps the elderly prevent the falls that lead to fracture in the first place. In other words, simply having a gait or vision disorder can be at least as an important factor in fracture risk as bone mineral density. The problem with poor quality, inorganic, calcium supplements, however, does not stop with their contribution to cardiovascular disease risk. A combination of factors including low magnesium, vitamin K2 and the presence of fluoride in the water and diet can lead to pineal gland calcification , as well as the calcification of other brain structures, which recently has been hypothesized to be a contributing factor in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease . (click image to enlarge) A truly provocative study on this topic published last year in the British Journal of Nutrition somehow slipped through the cracks, because not only did we miss it but we do not recall it being reported elsewhere. Titled, “ Elevated brain lesion volumes in older adults who use calcium supplements: a cross-sectional clinical observational study ,” the study looked at the possibility that since calcium supplements have now been linked in multiple studies with vascular pathologies associated with cardiovascular diseas they may also be associated with the occurrence of brain lesions (known on MRI scans as hyperintensities) in older adults. These brain lesions, visible as brighter spots in MRI scans, are known to be caused by lack of blood flow (ischemia) and subsequent neurological damage. According to the study, “Brain lesions,also known as hyperintensities, are areas of damage observed on brain MRI ( See Above ). These lesions are common in older adults and increase the risk of devastating health outcomes, including depression, cognitive decline, dementia, stroke, physical disability, hip fracture and death. Postmortem studies have determined that these lesions form primarily due to ischemia, especially larger lesions (.3mm) and lesions found in depressed individuals.” The observational study enrolled 227 older adults (60 years above) and assessed food and supplemental calcium intakes. Participants with supplemental calcium use above zero were categorized as supplement users. Lesion volumes were assessed with MRI scans. Key findings were: Greater lesion volumes were found among calcium supplement users than non-users The influence of calcium supplements was of a magnitude similar to that of the influence of high blood pressure (hypertension), “a well-established risk factor for lesions.” The study found that the amount of calcium used was not associated with lesion volume and that “even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes.” Even after controlling for food calcium intake, age, sex, race, years of education, energy intake, depression and hypertension, the association between calcium supplement and lesion volumes held strong. The study details were summarized as follows: “In the present cross-sectional clinical observational study, the association between Ca-containing dietary supplement use and lesion volumes was investigated in a sample of 227 older adults (60 years and above). Food and supplemental Ca intakes were assessed with the Block 1998 FFQ; participants with supplemental Ca intake above zero were categorised as supplement users. Lesion volumes were determined from cranial MRI (1.5 tesla) scans using a semi-automated technique; volumes were log-transformed because they were non-normal. ANCOVA models revealed that supplement users had greater lesion volumes than non-users, even after controlling for food Ca intake, age, sex, race, years of education, energy intake, depression and hypertension (Ca supplement use: β = 0.34, SE 0.10, F(1,217)= 10.98, P= 0.0011). The influence of supplemental Ca use on lesion volume was of a magnitude similar to that of the influence of hypertension, a well-established risk factor for lesions. Among the supplement users, the amount of supplemental Ca was not associated with lesion volume (β = – 0.000035, SE 0.00 015, F(1,139)= 0.06, P= 0.81). The present study demonstrates that the use of Ca-containing dietary supplements, even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes. Evaluation of randomised controlled trials is warranted to determine whether this relationship is a causal one.” What is the mechanism beneath this association? The researchers discussed the already established link between calcium supplementation and increased ischemic stroke risk, indicating that calcium supplementation may contribute to calcium deposits in the vasculature (i.e. arterial calcification), mainly in the fatty deposits (atheromas) that contribute to blocking the opening (lumen) of the blood vessels. They state that this process can lead to lack of blood flow and subsequent oxygen deprivation (ischemia), ultimately leading to the development of brain lesions. Another mechanism by which excess calcium may have a direct neurotoxic effect on the brain is the influx of excess calcium into brain cells, which lead to cell death. This possibility is greatly increased if the blood-brain barrier is compromised. The researchers also highlighted the importance of the finding that calcium supplementation may have as significant a deleterious effect on brain lesions as high blood pressure (hypertension): “If this finding is confirmed in longitudinal studies, it could have important health implications – because it is obviously much easier to cease Ca supplement use than to medically manage hypertension.” In other words, hypertension is often caused by toxic antihypertensive drugs that may actually increase the risk of cardiac mortality . Why not remove one of the modifiable causes: calcium supplementation, which would strike to one of the root causes of the problem and resolve it. The researchers concluded their study as follows: “The use of Ca [calcium] -containing dietary supplements by older adults was found to be associated with greater brain lesion volumes, even after controlling for the usual amount of dietary Ca intake. Interestingly, neither the amount of supplemental Ca nor the duration of supplemental Ca use was associated with lesion volume. These findings indicate that adverse biochemical effects of supplemental Ca use may exist in older adults, regardless of the dose.” So, what do we do instead of taking calcium supplements? First, consider why you think you need calcium supplements. Is it because of the dairy industry promoting for decades the concept that we need calcium (from milk)? Or, is it because your doctor is throwing around terms like osteopenia and osteoporosis carelessly, without explaining to you that the present day bone mineral density (BMD) reference ranges assume that aging is a disease and even if you are 60 or 100 for that matter you are still supposed to have the BMD of a 25-year old young woman; an absurd and dangerous idea. Please read the expose, “ Osteoporosis Myth: The Dangers of High Bone Mineral Density ,” in order to understand how millions of healthy women were made to believe that aging is a disease, with worse health outcomes as a result of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Now, when it comes to calcium, focus on food sources. The site NutritionData.com lists about 1,000 of the highest calcium-containing foods, categorized by food group: Foods highest in Calcium . Also, remember that the accelerated bone loss that occurs later in life in women, is triggered by hormonal changes associated with the exhaustion of the ovarian reserve. Nature, however, provides ‘back up’ support for the ovaries in the form of pomegranate . Other hormone-modulating foods include the fermented soy food miso , prunes , and even vitamin C , which has recently been found to regenerate steroid hormones . For a far more extensive research resource on bone health, you can view our page dedicated to the topic here: Bone Health . © November 2, 2016 GreenMedInfo LLC . This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter . Submit your review | 0 |
Cartel gunmen have murdered a woman who led the search for her daughter’s remains and other victims in northern Mexico. The gunmen killed her on the day Mexico celebrates Mother’s Day. [Mexican authorities have confirmed the murder of Miriam Elizabeth Rodriguez Martinez, on the night of May 10 in the city of San Fernando, Tamaulipas. As Breitbart Texas reported, San Fernando has a long history of being a stronghold of Los Zetas Cartel, one of the most ruthless criminal organizations in Mexico. Two former Tamaulipas governors are wanted by the U. S. Department of Justice on money laundering charges for their roles as surrogates of the Los Zetas. One of those politicians is also wanted on multiple drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. Los Zetas have been behind the execution of 72 Central American immigrants who were murdered in San Fernando in an apparent show of force. The same criminal organization has been singled out as being behind the disappearance of hundreds of victims from San Fernando. In 2011, close to 200 victims were discovered in shallow graves in rural areas near San Fernando. At the time, authorities revealed that the victims may have been kidnapped off passenger buses or may have been motorists traveling one of the state’s main highways near the city. In 2012, cartel gunmen kidnapped the daughter of Miriam Elizabeth Rodriguez Martinez. Despite the lack of cooperation from the Mexican federal government, the activist formed a support group that focused on pressuring the government and helping locate missing victims. Rodriguez Martinez was able to locate the mass grave where the gunmen buried her daughter’s body. Through her work, Martinez was able to contribute to the arrest of nine Los Zetas gunmen directly responsible for her daughter’s kidnapping. According to the Tamaulipas government, Rodriguez Martinez requested government protection after learning that Enrique Yoel Rubio, the main suspect behind her daughter’s murder, was named among the dozens of inmates who broke out of a state prison earlier this year. As Breitbart Texas reported in May, at least 29 members of Los Zetas used a tunnel to break out of the state prison in Ciudad Victoria. The breakout came after the cartel was undergoing an internal fight for territorial control. While federal authorities ignored Rodriguez’s cry for help, state authorities provided her with a series of police checkups at her home. Information provided to Breitbart Texas by Tamaulipas authorities revealed that Rubio had been arrested shortly after the breakout and has remained behind bars since. Despite state cops checking in on Rodriguez, unknown cartel gunmen were able to carry out the assassination earlier this week. State officials issued a strong condemnation and claimed they would not let the murder go unsolved. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart. com. | 1 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter It’s no secret that a small group of elite people, many of whom own some of the largest corporations and banks in the world, controls our healthcare, political, food, and banking systems. The elite gained power by dictating and manipulating people’s beliefs, controlling their finances, and instilling fear within them. They have complete control over mainstream media, allowing them to fabricate stories and publicize “terrorist attacks” that are, too often, funded and/or facilitated by the state — otherwise known as false-flag terrorism . As more people continue to wake up to the “Matrix” we live in, we must ask ourselves: Will we stand by and continue to enable corruption, or will we stand up and change the system ourselves? Anonymous recently answered this question in a video, demanding for the public to take action and explaining how we can create sustainable change through a nonviolent revolution. advertisement - learn more Why We’re Ready For a Revolution For years, we’ve been watching the support system that holds the elite on their pedestal slowly break. More and more people are learning how this system works and seeing through the lies. The more awareness the public has, the less power the elite holds over them. In turn, the movement to take power away from the global elite is gaining momentum. More people are losing trust in mainstream media and faith in their government, especially since WikiLeaks exposed emails from political party members further proving that the U.S. elections are rigged . It’s clear that many of us want change; however, the difficulty lies in identifying what we want our current system to be changed to and how to do it effectively. In the past, many revolutions didn’t end with any sort of large-scale resolution because their end goals weren’t properly defined in the first place. Anonymous explains, “Revolutions begin with a NO and they end with a Yes. Revolutions begin when you say NO to those who claim to have power over you, and revolutions end when you accept a new status quo, a new normal, whether that new normal is an improvement or not.” To address this issue, Anonymous outlined their three-step process in designing a successful revolution, or what they refer to as “the conscious revolution paradigm.” The Conscious Revolution Paradigm In order for a revolution to be successful, it needs to be properly defined, strategically designed with multiple phases and specific goals, and well executed. Anonymous suggested implementing a three-phase revolution to take down the global elite. Phase one defines the collective’s interests and articulates them in a clear message, which Anonymous essentially just did. Delivered with a clear sense of urgency, the message declares that a revolution needs to take place to end the corruption of the global elite once and for all. Another crucial part of phase one is to expose the truth, undermine people’s belief systems, and inspire people to want change, all of which is still ongoing. Phase two involves creating a clear vision of the desired end goal, determining what will replace the current system. It’s important to note that this cannot be a “utopian fantasy”; we must recognize that there isn’t one right way to live on this planet. This revolution will not be about convincing the world that we need to accept one belief system, but rather that we can live harmoniously and peacefully with each other through a set of common principles. This must involve a leadership structure that is decentralized and non-hierarchal. We need to abandon the current “one at the top” presidential philosophy and implement a system where no one has more power than anyone else, representing true equality. This can be done through leaders who volunteer to stand beside us rather than get paid to stand ahead of us. The third phase would see us implement a plan of action and develop a clear understanding of the rules of engagement, which can only happen when we’re ready to transition from the old way of power to our new way of being. Nonviolence is clearly our best option to help facilitate this, not only since we are fighting for world peace, but also because we cannot beat the elite using violence when their strongest weapons include the military and finances. To watch Anonymous’ full message, check out the following YouTube video: What We Can Learn From This There is a significant shift in consciousness taking place on Earth right now. More people are starting to understand that we’re all connected to each other, ultimately raising the vibration of the collective. In order for a revolution to be successful, it must be founded in love. You literally cannot spell the word “rEVOLution” without love. In the past, revolutions haven’t been successful because they were fuelled by discontent and fear. The elite have shown us that fear is a dangerous force that should not be used as a tool for change. Instead of building fear in one another like the elite does, we should be inspiring each other to be passionate about creating positive change. We need complete unification in order for this to work and love is a fundamental part of that. Revolutions are almost entirely psychological in nature. If you can educate someone on what’s happening in the world and why we need the current system to change, then that’s one more person standing with us. Not only do you need to convince others of the urgent need for change, but you must convince yourself, too. You need to abandon the fear that change won’t happen and start believing that this movement will be successful — and it starts with you. Anyone can be a leader!
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 0 |
Video: Time for a real dialogue between Russia and the United States At the recent Fort Ross Dialogue event at Stanford University, a number of top thought leaders, diplomats and academics shared their thoughts on the importance of bilateral exchanges between the U.S. and Russia At the recent Fort Ross Dialogue event at Stanford University, a number of top thought leaders, diplomats and academics shared their thoughts on the importance of bilateral exchanges between the U.S. and Russia.
Video by Igor Davydov
Amidst the political rhetoric accompanying the current confrontation between Russia and the United States, many leaders in both nations have lost sight of the importance of dialogue during this difficult period. At a time when political leaders are closing down potential opportunities for diplomacy, informal discussions and non-governmental meetings between Russians and Americans are more important than ever.
With that in mind, Russia Direct recently organized a roundtable event within the Fort Ross Dialogue , an annual forum that brings together Russian and American thought leaders, businessmen, diplomats, politicians and students.
This year the forum took place on Oct. 24 at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California and marked its fifth anniversary. Participants discussed the future of U.S.-Russia relations . The agenda primarily dealt with the subject of bilateral educational exchanges.
With the support of Transneft, the roundtable of Russia Direct brought together a number of experts who gave their views on the future of U.S.-Russia exchanges. As a result of the event, Russia Direct produced a video that features the following individuals:
- Dan E. Davidson , President of American Councils for International Education;
- Anna Vasilieva , Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey;
- Kathryn Stoner , Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University;
- Victoria I. Zhuravleva , Professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities;
- Anton Fedyashin , Director of the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History at American University;
- Sarah Sweedler , CEO of Fort Ross Conservancy;
- Mathew Rojansky , Director of the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute;
- Michael McFaul , former U.S. ambassador to Russia and Stanford professor;
- Andrew McGrahan , President of Chevron-Neftegaz;
- Sergey Petrov , Russian Consul General in San Francisco;
- Mikhail Margelov , Transneft Vice President;
- Nikolay Kolesnikov , Sovcomflot Executive Vice President.
For more information about the Fort Ross Dialogue read: " Fort Ross forum: Fostering a new dialogue between Russia, the US " The Fort Ross Dialogue was sponsored by Transneft, Sovcomflot and Chevron. Russia Direct extends special thanks to Transneft and Sarah Sweedler, CEO of Fort Ross Conservancy, for the support of its panel discussion. | 0 |
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