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A girl in Hoke County, North Carolina, was suspended for one day after she made a “shooting motion” with a stick shaped like a gun. [The girl — Caitlin Miller — was playing “Kings and Queens” at recess on Friday and her role in the game was “to protect the royals. ” She picked up a stick shaped like a gun to do this and, according to ABC 11, “Hoke County Schools said Caitlin posed a threat to other students when she made a shooting motion, thus violating policy 4331. ” Caitlin’s mother, Brandy Miller, says her daughter “was alienated by her friends and teachers as a result of the suspension” and is hopeful that the school will apologize to Caitlin. As of the now, the school system is standing by the suspension. They issued a statement, saying: Hoke County Schools will not tolerate assaults, threats or harassment from any student. Any student engaging in such behavior will be removed from the classroom or school environment for as long as is necessary to provide a safe and orderly environment for learning. Hoke County School Superintendent Freddie Williamson knows about the suspension. On March 23 Breitbart News reported that Hunter Jackson was suspended for seven days from his A Place to Grow, for bringing an empty . 22 casing to school. Hunter’s mother said “a stone faced teacher” handed her a letter announcing the suspension and told her that Hunter had brought a “shotgun bullet” to school. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
A London council has become the first nationwide to allow its schools to opt out of providing Christian assemblies.[ schools are required by law to offer a daily act of worship which must be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character” unless granted special dispensation by the local authority. But Brent Council in London has used that loophole to offer all its schools an encouraging them to take up the option and replace Christian worship with assemblies, the Mirror has reported. Its approach has been lauded by the Accord Coalition, an alliance of religious groups, humanists, trade unions, and human rights campaigners who lobby against faith schools, which has recognised Brent Council in its Inclusivity Awards 2017. Chair of the judging panel, Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain MBE, said: ”Society may be but is with many also of no and so uniform worship should no longer be compulsory for our educational system. “The current worship laws are unpopular and prevent schools from providing an inspiring programme of assemblies that are truly inclusive of all staff and children. “Some schools find the laws so unworkable that they have stopped providing assemblies altogether. “As society does not have a shared faith, we cannot worship together. Brent Council’s ground breaking approach rescues an opportunity for pupils to communally explore and forge shared values, in a way that is workable and respectful. “We hope all other local authorities will take inspiration from Brent Council’s approach, which we highly commend. ” Christian campaigners, however, have expressed dismay, arguing that a shared understanding of Christianity underpins social cohesion within the country. Tim Dieppe of Christian Concern told LBC radio that the measure marked a step backwards. Explaining that the was intended for faith schools, he said: “I’m not sure this is the right approach. “The Rabbi mentioned social cohesion — I think social cohesion is very important, and what has provided the social cohesion for this country for many centuries up [un]til now is Christianity — as a basis for our moral foundation and our spiritual foundation, and the basis for many of our laws and culture. ” | 1 |
The job market is fine. That’s the most important single idea to take out of the June employment report published Friday morning. A month ago it looked as if there might well be an economic slowdown underway to add to the mix of a polarizing presidential election, geopolitical turbulence and violence. The good news is that doesn’t appear to be the case. The blockbuster 287, 000 jobs the Labor Department reported employers added in June surely overstates the pace of improvement, just as surely as the miserable 11, 000 jobs reported to have been added in May understated it. (The May number was originally reported as an 38, 000.) A Verizon strike contributed to the seesaw, but most of it is probably driven by a mix of sampling error and the sometimes weird effects of seasonal adjustment. So as a starting point to gauge how the economy is actually doing, we can average the two months. The 149, 000 jobs added per month is consistent with many other signs we see, such as steadily positive readings on surveys of businesses about their growth and hiring intentions. It is, however, a step down from the speedier job growth in the recent past. In 2015 the economy added an average of 229, 000 jobs a month. Still, in some ways that slower pace of job creation is utterly foreseeable, and not even necessarily bad news. After the 2008 recession, employers could add jobs almost as rapidly as they wished, because so many unemployed people were waiting on the sidelines of the job market available to be hired. With the unemployment rate now below 5 percent, it was inevitable that the pace of job growth would slow to something in the ballpark of 100, 000 jobs a month. It shouldn’t be surprising, or cause for alarm, that that’s exactly what’s happening in 2016. But the payroll numbers that get the most attention are only a piece of the story. What do the other data buried in the report tell us about how the economy is doing as we push toward Election Day? There, the news is mixed. The unemployment rate rose to 4. 9 percent for a combination of good and bad reasons. The good news is that the labor force rose by 414, 000 people, partly reversing a negative trend from the previous two months. If it continues, that would be a sign that higher wages and steady job growth are coaxing people to work. The bad news is that most of those people didn’t find work the number of people unemployed rose by 347, 000. Translation: More Americans said they wanted work, but couldn’t find it. But that is in many ways better than indications that they don’t even want work. It suggests that over time they will find jobs and provide a lift to incomes and economic growth, even if they were still on the sidelines in June. Similarly mixed: Average hourly wages rose only 0. 1 percent in June, below the 0. 2 percent analysts had forecast. But those numbers are jumpy, and the 2. 6 percent rise in hourly earnings over the last year does imply a rising standard of living in this time of very low inflation. So halfway through 2016, where are we? The economy continues to grow and the job market continues to improve — not at the blockbuster pace that the June payrolls number might imply, but at a steady rate that is likely to put Americans to work and deliver higher wages over time. The fear that the May numbers induced should subside for now. These numbers are for a period that predates Britain’s vote to exit the European Union, but that, too, is likely to have only indirect effects on America’s economy (through global financial markets, for example). The job market is what we thought it was: not great. Not awful. Fine. | 1 |
House Freedom Caucus and moderate Republicans are edging closer to a deal on repealing Obamacare. [The agreement, brokered by House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows ( ) and Tuesday Group Tom MacArthur ( ) would allow states to eliminate Obamacare’s community rating system, a rule that prohibits health insurers from pricing health care plans based on age, gender, or health status. States that repeal Obamacare’s community rating rules would have to join a federal pool or establish a local pool to obtain the waiver. The deal, known as the MacArthur amendment, would also reinstate Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits, although states could waive Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits if they were to prove that eliminating those regulations would lower premiums, increase the number of people insured, or “advance another benefit to the public interest in the state. ” Essential Health Benefits require that health insurance plans must cover certain services such as doctors’ services, inpatient or outpatient hospital care, prescription drugs, pregnancy, childbirth, and mental health. House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows explained to Breitbart News exclusively earlier this month that he expected House Republicans to unite around common principles and pass an Obamacare repeal that will lower premiums for Americans soon. Meadows told Breitbart News: I’m optimistic that we’ve at least found some potential common ground. Conservative requests and those from those that represent districts that may have a more moderate constituency don’t want to suggest anything other than the discussions have been extremely good over the last 72 hours and the conditions that must be addressed on behalf of the president and certainly most members of our GOP conference including myself, that issue is where we’re working very diligently to make sure we cover it in the legislation but then we also cover it in a number of ways whether it be through a pool or through a guaranteed issue provision that’s out there. So, we still believe providing waivers at the state level from many of the Obamacare mandates that drive up costs might be a real path forward so I would say that conversations between moderates and conservatives are very constructive and it’s been due in no small part to the active involvement of the White House and leadership in trying to make sure we get a good bill — a better bill — going forward over to the Senate. Meadows also predicted that the renewed negotiations would create a better Obamacare repeal bill. Meadows said: I can tell you the president has communicated to me on more than four different occasions that he wants the very best bill possible for the American people and that he believes that not only will we get a better bill but with everyone’s input — not just conservative members, but conservatives, moderates and those that are in between — that we’ll get a better bill and we’ll shock the American people when they actually see their healthcare insurance premiums come down. I’m confident we’re going to get there mainly because the president literally not only wants to repeal and replace Obamacare, but the other part of that is he wants to drive down premiums for all Americans. Freedom Caucus sources say that that the MacArthur amendment would secure 25 to 30 more votes from conservatives and that the new bill would get “very close” to 216 votes. Sources revealed that 18 to 20 of those “yes” vote would be new. House leadership scheduled a conference call this Saturday with members of the GOP to discuss the MacArthur Amendment. Speaker Ryan suggested that Republicans are close to a deal on repealing Obamacare. He said, “We’re in the midst of negotiating sort of finishing touches. ” | 1 |
Is too much 'screen time' hurting your kids' mental growth?
Daniel Barker Tags: children , screen time , limits (NaturalNews) In an effort to steer away from its previous one-size-fits-all policy, the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued a new set of guidelines regarding how much time children should spend in front of television and computer screens.Until now, the AAP had recommended no more than two hours of "screen time" for children – regardless of their age, the type of content viewed or which medium was being used.Recognizing that such a blanket approach could not effectively address the issues at hand, the AAP has recently taken steps to broaden its policies.From Gizmodo.com:"In a series of papers published today in the science journal Pediatrics, it's clear that the AAP has significantly revised its thinking on the matter, breaking down media use according to all these criteria. And to support parents with these new recommendations, the AAP has published an interactive, online tool that families can use to create a personalized Family Media Use Plan." AAP's new 'screen time' guidelines The new recommendations are aimed at the unique circumstances of various age groups. For example, the AAP recommends that children under 18 months should avoid screens altogether, except for limited occasions, such as social media sessions with grandparents.Children between the ages of 18 and 24 months may be introduced to digital media, but the content should be "high-quality programming," and watched together with parents.Kids between the ages of 2 and 5 should be limited to one hour of high-quality programming, which also should be watched in the presence of parents.Parents should impose "consistent limits" on the time spent in front of a screen by children 6 and older, especially for entertainment purposes. Children should not be allowed to sleep with their smartphones, tablets, etc., and should have one media-free hour before bedtime.Media-free times such as during meals should be established, and media-free zones in the household should be defined.Making sure kids get an hour of daily exercise and enough sleep at night is also part of the equation, according to the AAP. Parenting in the digital age ain't easy As logical as these recommendations may sound, implementing them may not always be easy. Most parents know that limiting their kids' online time isn't always easy, and many would be forced to admit that digital media can be a helpful tool in managing children :"Parents obviously want to raise healthy children who aren't constantly glued to computer screens, but these devices are a godsend for those moments when a parent needs to make dinner, or when they simply need to go to the bathroom. ..."When it comes to limiting screen time , there's a tradeoff between parental health, and the needs of a child—and that needs to be acknowledged."Let's face it, smartphones play a big part in our children's lives now, for better or for worse. There is also an age when a parent can no longer police a child's online activity without invading his or her privacy.The best thing a parent can do is to set consistent rules for younger children's screen time, and to try to help them learn to use the technology without becoming hopelessly addicted to it.One way to accomplish that is by setting an example. How much time do you spend in front of a TV, computer or smartphone screen yourself in the presence of your children?Many adults are as hopelessly addicted to digital media as their teens or children are. If you expect a child to limit their time online, you must be willing to do the same.You might even try doing something completely out of the ordinary, like reading a book to your child, or having your child read one to you.As crazy as it might sound, there was a time when such practices were common. ... Sources: | 0 |
Posted on November 6, 2016 by Eric Zuesse. Eric Zuesse At 2:47 in this video about a key moment in the 7 September 2016 “Town Hall” ‘debate’ between Trump and Clinton where Matt Lauer has asked her about her privatization of her State Department emails, Ms. Clinton says, “but the real question is the handling of classified materials, which is I think what the implication of your question was.” Lauer did not deny that; he was following the line of Comey, that only the classified emails could pose a criminal problem for her. However, that assumption is flat-out false, and both Hillary Clinton knows it (which is why she tried there to narrow the meaning of his question to the classified-information issue ), and also Comey knows it (which is why he has his FBI exclude from its consideration the illegality of her privatization of official email itself — her theft of U.S. government information, her abuse of even non-confidential information, her destruction of evidence by destroying her government emails, etcetera — there are several laws she broke which have nothing to do with “confidential information,” but both the FBI and the ‘news’ media (at least until Comey’s about-face on October 28th) were ignoring them, and they still do ignore each one of them. Here are six of those laws . They describe what nobody denies that she did, and the maximum sentence under all of them, if the FBI were to “throw the book at her,” would be 72 years. Conviction of her under them would be a slam-dunk, but all of these laws are being simply ignored. So, the questions here are: Why is the FBI ignoring those criminal laws, which she clearly did violate? Why are America’s ‘news’ media ignoring the FBI’s ignoring these laws? | 0 |
The airfare for your family vacation to Orlando, Fla. cost you $500 a person. Your friend snagged tickets there during the same week for nearly half the price. What gives? It may not be pure luck, according to Rick Seaney, the founder of farecompare. com, an airline ticket comparison site. “There are ways to save on airfare, but you have to know the tricks,” he said. Here, he shares his top ones. If you’re traveling within the United States, flying on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday will get you the lowest airfare because there are fewer fliers on these days, Mr. Seaney said. “You can save between 10 and 40 percent per ticket, if not more, compared to a Monday, Friday and Sunday, when air traffic is heavier,” he said. (Thursday falls between the two categories.) If you can’t both depart and return on the cheapest days, you still get half the savings if you pick one for your inbound or outbound flight. For flights, Monday through Thursday are the cheapest, though the savings are only around 5 percent compared with Friday through Sunday. For domestic travel, buy your ticket three months before your departure date for travel, buy five months beforehand. Any further in advance has no benefit, according to Mr. Seaney, because airlines have not yet included cheap seats as part of their inventory. But be sure to buy 30 days before departure because prices increase substantially thereafter. The exception to this rule is if you plan to travel over a busy holiday period, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. Airlines don’t offer discounts during the holidays, so it’s best to buy your ticket as soon as possible. The airline departments that create fare sales usually do so on Monday afternoons. These sales are then distributed to travel sites such as Expedia. com and also posted on the airline’s own site. Competing airlines see these sales the next morning and adjust their fares accordingly, and final sale pricing hits reservations systems at 3 p. m. Eastern Standard Time. “This is when you get the maximum number of cheap seats,” Mr. Seaney said. Most of these sales last only for three days so don’t procrastinate. Reservation systems at airlines and travel sites sell tickets at the same price to all the fliers on one reservation. If you’re buying airfare for your family of four, for example, it does not matter if the airline has three seats for sale in a lower price category and the fourth at a higher one. “All the travelers under the reservation will automatically get the higher price, and you won’t know that there are cheaper tickets available,” Mr. Seaney said. To find out for sure, he advised shopping for one flier at a time to see if there is a price difference compared to buying multiple tickets together. If there is, make separate purchases to get as many tickets as possible. | 1 |
The stars of some of FOX’s biggest shows are featured in a new Super Bowl aimed at promoting “the great many things that unite us” on Super Bowl Sunday. [The advert sees cast members from FOX’s primetime lineup, including Empire, New Girl, and Gotham, among others, celebrating the millions of people “of every race, every color, every religion” coming together and watching the biggest sporting event of the year. Actors including Taraji P. Henson, Queen Latifah, Terrence Howard and Damon Wayans take turns reciting the same message spliced together around one inspiring theme of unity. “Very soon, over 100 million people around the world will be watching the Super Bowl,” the celebrity ensemble says in the commercial. “From the smallest towns to the biggest cities, people of every race, every color, every religion, are sharing this moment together, which proves once again that the things that divide us are small compared to the great many things that unite us. From all of us at FOX, thanks for watching. ” The subtle political tone of FOX’s new ad follows comments made by Super Bowl halftime performer Lady Gaga, who hinted earlier this week that her performance may include some political statement. “I don’t know if I will succeed in unifying America. You’ll have to ask America when it’s over,” the pop star said earlier this week during a press QA. “But the only statements that I’ll be making during the halftime show are the ones that I’ve been consistently making throughout my career. ” Super Bowl LI airs on February 5 on FOX. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
It was just before noon on a swampy July morning when Nick Kyrgios came walking through the parking lot of the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla. on his way to practice. He wore black shorts and a black basketball jersey, and his haircut straddled the line between a and a fade a racket bag was slung over his shoulders, and his eyes were fixed on two smartphones, one in each hand. Kyrgios, a Australian of Greek and Malaysian descent — and quite possibly the most gifted tennis player to come along since Roger Federer — was accompanied by an improbable crew: a from Philadelphia named Tauheed Browning and a from Maryland named Langston Williams, two promising juniors who were training at the academy. They had bonded with Kyrgios over a shared infatuation with Pokémon GO, the blockbuster mobile game, and the three were apparently now inseparable. They had gone to the movies and the mall together. They were playing the game, laughing and talking excitedly, as they arrived at the practice court. Kyrgios, who recently reached a ranking of No. 16 in the world, took a seat, put down the phones, opened his bag and pulled out a racket. “It’s important to find a balance between Pokémon and training,” he said, with only the faintest hint of sarcasm. Browning eyed the racket for a moment, then asked, “What strings do you use?” Kyrgios said they were supplied by his racket manufacturer, Yonex. So what did he do when all of his strings broke? “Then I don’t practice till I get to the next tournament,” Kyrgios replied. I laughed, but Browning seemed to take this answer seriously, and Kyrgios gave no indication that he was joking. Maybe he wasn’t. When I asked Kyrgios what size racket head he used, he shrugged and said, “No idea. ” His girlfriend, a player named Ajla Tomljanovic, was out on the court, hitting with her father the family dog ran between them, furiously trying to intercept the ball. Tomljanovic, who is two years older than Kyrgios and applied for Australian citizenship last year, didn’t appear to mind sharing her boyfriend’s attention with Browning, Williams and Pokémon — although later in the day, at a photo shoot in West Palm Beach, she expressed some mild exasperation when Kyrgios, summoned to the wardrobe room, implored her to take over his game. “I’m not playing Pokémon with your friend,” she said. Kyrgios quickly corrected her, albeit incorrectly: “He’s 10, not 7. ” Kyrgios would be leaving the next day for Toronto, to play in his first tournament since Wimbledon. He had an eventful Wimbledon this year. On the plus side, he won three tough matches and left fans and commentators swooning over his flashy play — particularly a lob against his opponent, the crafty veteran Radek Stepanek, which might have been the shot of the fortnight. With his bullying serve, haymaker forehand and knack for carnivalesque shots, Kyrgios is wildly entertaining to watch. Pretty much everyone around the game agrees that he has the talent to reach No. 1 and win a fistful of majors. But Kyrgios is as tempestuous as he is precocious, and his strong play at Wimbledon was overshadowed by his occasionally foul language, the invective that he hurled at his entourage and, above all, the ignominious way that he exited the tournament. In his match, he faced Andy Murray, the eventual champion, on Centre Court. Two years earlier, on the same court, Kyrgios upset Rafael Nadal, then ranked No. 1, in a match, a victory that signaled his emergence as a rising star doing the same to Murray would have cemented his status as the next big star of men’s tennis. But after dropping a tight first set, Kyrgios gave up. He didn’t entirely stop trying, but it was obvious that he just wanted to be on the next flight out of Heathrow. “This is Wimbledon!” John McEnroe fumed. “How much better a chance are you going to get to play a match and step up?” That was bad enough it didn’t help when he later admitted that he had spent the morning playing video games. In his postmatch press conference, Kyrgios was somber and uncharacteristically . “I think when things get tough, I’m just a little bit soft,” he said. Soon enough, though, he was back to his normal pugnacious self. Kyrgios is notorious for his Twitter spats, and when he saw a series of caustic tweets from the British media figure Piers Morgan — calling him, among other things, a “petulant little brat” — Kyrgios couldn’t let the insults go unanswered. (“EAD,” he replied the E is for “eat,” and you can look the rest up.) The Murray match wasn’t Kyrgios’s lowest moment. That remains the incident in Montreal last summer, when he told the Swiss star Stan Wawrinka between points that his girlfriend had slept with another player. (Kyrgios later apologized.) Still, his desultory Wimbledon performance left the tennis world scratching its head. Before the tournament, there was much talk about Kyrgios’s need for a coach he’d been without one for more than a year. Afterward, some observers, including Murray, gently suggested that perhaps what Kyrgios needed even more than a coach was a psychologist. Presumably, though, Kyrgios would tell a shrink the same thing that he tells journalists: His problem is tennis. “I don’t love this sport,” he said during the Wimbledon press conference. When we spoke in Florida, Kyrgios insisted he was being honest about this: “If I won a Grand Slam, I’d say the same thing. ” He told me that he almost never watches tennis (“no chance, Jesus, I’d rather watch Piers Morgan”) and that he plans to quit playing it by age 27 (“that’s the absolute max”) after which he can pursue his true passion: basketball. He hopes to play professionally, perhaps in Europe. He played competitively as a kid and still plays every chance he gets. During a visit to Nike’s Oregon headquarters, he spent all his free time on the basketball court at tournaments, he organizes pickup games with other tennis players. His style on the tennis court, with its passing shots and razzmatazz, sometimes makes him look as if he’s trying to play basketball there too. People around the game have trouble believing Kyrgios is really as down on tennis as he claims they figure the ambivalence is just his way of deflecting pressure. The expectations for him are huge, and not just because he is so talented. Tennis is approaching a period of transition. Federer just turned 35, a step closer to retirement. The Williams sisters are in their . Kyrgios, with his billboard looks and outsize personality, is seen as the one emerging star who can attract new fans and keep old ones from drifting away. (He’s terrific with fans — funny, charming and unusually generous with his time, even working the crowd during matches.) His agents are convinced he could become the sport’s most bankable star yet. Justin Gimelstob, a former player now working as an analyst for the Tennis Channel, put it succinctly when I asked him about Kyrgios: “He’s box office. ” Ever since the retirements of McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, it has been fashionable to claim that tennis lacks “personalities. ” In tennis, the word connotes rogues, rebels and freethinkers, although Martin Amis had a point when he wrote that “personalities” was just for “a duosyllable starting with an A and ending with an E. ” (It’s almost exclusively applied in men’s tennis. The women’s game has had plenty of charismatic figures but not so many and potty mouths, thanks in part to the usual double standards about acceptable behavior — double standards that Serena Williams’s occasional outbursts are just beginning to challenge.) It is certainly true that McEnroe and Connors, along with Ilie Nastase, set standards for lewdness and irascibility that no one since has come close to equaling. But it’s not quite true to say the game hasn’t produced any colorful characters in their aftermath: Players like Andre Agassi, Marat Safin and Goran Ivanisevic were tortured figures whose matches often turned into psychodramas. Lately, however, men’s tennis isn’t turning out stormy souls as reliably as it did in the past. With a few exceptions, the players behave impeccably, on the court and off they exude equanimity and seriousness of purpose and are careful not to say anything offensive. A surfeit of gentlemen is far from the worst fate to befall a sport, and complaining about it might seem obscenely coming at the end of the most spectacular era that the men’s game has ever seen — Federer with a record 17 Grand Slam singles titles Nadal, 14 Djokovic, 12, the three combining to win 43 of the last 53 majors. Still: Even greatness can get a little tedious, and the fact is that fans, especially casual ones, are drawn to firebrands and eccentrics. Tennis was perhaps never more popular than when McEnroe and Connors were scandalizing the sport’s old guard. Even Federer, a beacon of Old World graciousness, has bemoaned the current shortage of salty characters, complaining that players are now “almost too nice to each other. ” Why did men’s tennis become so much tamer? Money is surely part of it. Tennis is much more lucrative than it was 30 years ago, and the players tend to think of themselves as precious brands — the Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic describes himself without irony as the “C. E. O. of Milos Raonic Tennis. ” When Agassi pitched Canon cameras by declaring that “image is everything,” the line was celebrating his own iconoclasm (the denim shorts, the blond rattail) today’s players agree with the sentiment but prefer an image that’s likable, decorous and safe. One paradox of tennis is that what’s good for the sport — clashes, controversies and divisive figures — can be bad for individual players’ bottom lines. I suspect the gentility also has something to do with how the game itself has evolved over the last : What used to be a battle of finesse and guile is increasingly a test of strength and endurance, full of matches and rallies. It’s so demanding, physically and mentally, that keeping emotions in check and avoiding distractions is a necessary survival strategy. Kyrgios’s refusal to submit to convention is a refreshing departure from all this. It says a lot about his talent that he has managed to break into the top 20 while spurning the standard recipe for success — even basics like having a coach. But the maverick act can wear thin. What made players like McEnroe and Connors such intriguing figures was that amid all the meshugas, they rose to the pinnacle of the sport. If they hadn’t won majors, hadn’t reached No. 1, they would have become cautionary tales, not legends. The question for Kyrgios is whether he can achieve similar success without changing his approach and becoming more committed. That seems unlikely, as even he implicitly acknowledged when we spoke. Because he was his own coach, I asked what advice he would give himself if he wanted to win majors. He thought about it for a moment, then said: “Train more than four times a week. ” After a pause, he continued. “I don’t have a doubt that if I wanted to win Grand Slams, I would commit,” he said. “I’d train two times a day, I’d go to the gym every day, I’d stretch, I’d do rehab, I’d eat right. But I don’t know what I want at the moment. Am I content? I don’t have a coach, I can train every now and then. I can take it easy and be maybe my entire career. Am I O. K. with that? I don’t know. ” “Chubby, mouthy, but unbelievable hand skills. ” Those were the words that John Morris, one of Kyrgios’s agents, jotted down in his notebook the first time he saw him play, during the juniors competition at the 2010 Australian Open. Morris, a from Britain, was in Melbourne scouting potential clients. It’s hard to believe when you look at Kyrgios today — now a sinewy with chiseled features — but just six years ago he was relatively short and quite pudgy, a raw talent from Canberra whose prospects seemed to be limited by his waistline. Nick was the last of three children born to Giorgos and Norlaila Kyrgios. Giorgos immigrated to Australia from Greece as a child and works as a house painter Norlaila was born in Malaysia and moved to Australia with her mother when she was 12. Neither played much tennis, but all three of their children took up the sport. Kyrgios says his parents pushed him to choose tennis over basketball when he was 14, but they were not pushy “tennis parents” by all accounts, they were and quite gracious. Kyrgios himself was said to have been a bit spoiled, indulged in the way that babies of the family often are. Still, in the Canberra tennis community, he was generally well regarded, as were his parents. He was overweight from a young age. He told me he didn’t have a poor diet as a kid, although his grandmother often treated him to Kentucky Fried Chicken after school he just ate a lot. The weight made him slow and limited his endurance. It was his effort to find a way around these liabilities that helped turn him into the player we see today. To compensate for his lack of speed, he learned to read the game better than other kids, to know where an opponent’s shot was likely to land before the ball was even struck. And because he needed to end points before his stamina flagged, he developed the attacking style that is the hallmark of his game. Somehow, he managed to do all this while resisting the rote drilling that is the bedrock of tennis training. From the start, he had no patience for that kind of practicing he just wanted to play, and he was so competitive that if no one was keeping score, he wasn’t interested. That is still the case. In 2011, at 16, Kyrgios played with the Australian squad at a Junior Davis Cup tournament in Mexico. Pat Cash, a former Wimbledon champion, was the captain of the team. When Cash and I spoke in the players’ lounge at Wimbledon this year, he told me he’d been struck by the racket speed that Kyrgios generated: “His arm was so fast, it was like he was playing with a toothpick. ” He was also blown away by Kyrgios’s rare combination of power and control. Cash played against a Nadal, and what he saw in Mexico convinced him that Kyrgios was every bit as promising. There were some red flags, though. Cash took the players out for dinner one night and watched Kyrgios inhale two massive burritos — “the biggest things you’ve ever seen, must have been 4, 000 calories” — which made him wonder if Kyrgios would ever lose his paunch. Kyrgios was also prone to inexplicable meltdowns and moments of rebellion. During one match, he was crushing a player from Argentina when he suddenly came unhinged, shouting, “I can’t play, I have no rhythm,” before throwing away the second set. On the night before the semifinals, Cash was horrified to discover that Kyrgios, despite nursing a strained muscle, organized a competition with teammates on a nearby field. “He was the ringleader, the cheeky one, the one with the jokes,” Cash told me. Despite the high jinks, histrionics and burritos, Cash came away convinced that Kyrgios was special. At the end of the tournament, he took him aside and said: “Nick, no offense to these other guys, but you are unbelievably talented. You can make it. You can be holding the big trophies. ” Fifteen months later, Kyrgios, who had finally experienced a growth spurt and was slimming down, won the Junior Australian Open boys’ singles title. The victory instantly marked him as a great hope for Australian tennis — no easy role. Australia is a nation, and because it has turned out so many celebrated players (Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, Margaret Smith Court, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Pat Cash, Patrick Rafter, the list goes on) tennis is central to its sporting identity. These players weren’t just great champions, either they embodied a culture and an ethos. They were athletes, tenacious competitors but also paragons of good cheer and sportsmanship. Kyrgios is the prodigal heir to this tradition. With his brash manner and flamboyant personal style — showy haircut, sculpted eyebrows, gold chains — he seems more American than Australian, and his misbehavior and occasional lack of effort infuriate many of his compatriots. At this point, about Kyrgios has become a popular Australian pastime. Last year, the cricket legend Shane Warne posted an open letter to Kyrgios on Facebook, saying, “You’re testing our patience, mate,” and urging him to shape up. After Kyrgios was fined $1, 500 for shouting an obscenity at a tournament last fall in Shanghai, the football star Taylor (Tex) Walker blasted him on Twitter: “When is this absolute galoot going to learn. What a dead set flog! !” Kyrgios has reason for hard feelings, too. Some of the criticism he has received can take on racial undertones. There was unmistakable nativism at play when the former Olympic champion swimmer Dawn Fraser said last year that if Kyrgios and the fellow tennis bad boy Bernard Tomic, whose parents are from the former Yugoslavia, didn’t improve their behavior, they should “go back to where their fathers and parents came from. We don’t need them here in this country. ” (She later apologized.) The two came under fire again in May, this time from the chef de mission of the Australian Olympic team, a former pentathlete named Kitty Chiller, who warned that if they didn’t curb their antics, they could be kept home from the Rio Games. Her decision to put the players on public notice struck even people not normally sympathetic to Kyrgios as needlessly confrontational. Tomic immediately announced that he would be skipping Rio Kyrgios followed suit a few weeks later. Although they had a spat earlier this year, after Tomic suggested that Kyrgios faked illness to get out of a Davis Cup match, the two players are good friends and enjoy the kind of spirited relationship you would expect of guys in their early 20s with bank accounts — like the time Kyrgios, along with a few other players, Tomic’s Lamborghini. Two days after I saw him in Florida, Kyrgios lost his match in Toronto to a Canadian teenager ranked No. 370 in the world. Before the match, Kyrgios tweeted: “Eat, Sleep, Pokémon GO,” and he evidently still had Squirtles and Venusaurs on the brain when he took the court he served an appalling 18 double faults, 10 more than Murray coughed up over the course of two weeks and seven matches at Wimbledon. In a press conference, he pointed out the enthusiastic backing his opponent received and took a swipe at his own countrymen: “I think Canadians support their athletes a little better than the Australians do,” he said. In 2015, Kyrgios signed a contract with the sports management colossus whose tennis clients include Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams. But he did not cut loose John Morris, so he now has two agents: Morris and Carlos Fleming, a veteran whose clients also include the N. F. L. star Cam Newton. Morris travels with Kyrgios and handles management Fleming supports the growth of the Kyrgios brand. When we met at Wimbledon, in the backyard of a stately house rented for the tournament, Fleming told me the agency tracked Kyrgios’s progress over a number of years before going after him in earnest. It was after he beat Nadal at Wimbledon two years ago that Fleming and his colleagues pressed to bring him into their stable. “That set off the alarm bell,” as Fleming put it. To hear Fleming tell it, Kyrgios’s supposed vices were actually virtues. His combustive personality might rankle tennis traditionalists and some members of the media, but it was a boon for the sport. “He’s unscripted, he can bring in casual fans — he’s one of the few athletes who can do that,” Fleming said. “It’s extremely refreshing. ” He went on to say that Kyrgios, a product and exemplar of what he called “modern urban youth culture,” could unlock all sorts of unprecedented opportunities for himself and, by extension, for tennis. He cited Kyrgios’s endorsement deal with Beats by Dre and also told me that the N. B. A. had expressed interest in working with him on activities. To Fleming, Kyrgios had the potential to become a trendsetter and marketing phenom beyond anything tennis has seen. But he quickly added a qualifier: “Winning is the first thing. ” And despite all the distractions and all the ambivalence, Kyrgios has done a lot of winning. In the last two years, he has notched victories over Nadal, Federer and Murray. In February, he won his first A. T. P. title in Marseilles, and he won his second earlier this month in Atlanta. His forehand — heavy, sharply angled — is spoken of with awe by his peers, but his serve may be an even bigger weapon, because of both the pace he generates (as high as 130 miles an hour on his first serve when the racket strikes, it sounds like a tree limb snapping) and his ability to place the ball. He plays very fast, and when he is serving well, he closes out games in barely a minute. He faced Raonic in the quarterfinals of a tournament in Miami in March, and over the course of four service games in the second set, he surrendered just one point. It’s the kind of efficiency that invites comparisons to Federer and Pete Sampras, who held the record for major titles until Federer eclipsed him. But Kyrgios is still a raw talent, and if he wants to break into the top 10 and contend for majors, he’ll probably need a coach. He has found a mentor of sorts in Radek Stepanek, who is basically his antithesis — a tennis lifer who adores the game and plans to keep playing until his body gives out. When I talked to Stepanek the day after the two faced off at Wimbledon, he said that they’d struck up a friendship after practicing together in Miami, and that he had offered Kyrgios some general suggestions, along with tips for playing specific opponents. But the first thing they talked about, he said, was attitude: “I told him, ‘If you don’t want to be here, then you should go home. ’’u2009” Stepanek said that he was happy to contribute what he could to Kyrgios’s development, but he had no interest in becoming a coach he was busy with his own career. A number of people have expressed interest in coaching Kyrgios, but others wonder whether it would just be wasted effort. “You have to be willing to listen, and you have to have some respect,” Pat Cash says. “His behavior toward a lot of people shows that he may not be good at either of those things. ” His second match at Wimbledon — against Dustin Brown, a dreadlocked renowned for his shotmaking prowess — illustrated the challenge a coach would face. Kyrgios was the better player, but it was clear from the start that he had no intention of ceding the highlight reel to Brown he was determined to match him, crazy shot for crazy shot. The first set was tennis’s version of contest, a showboating extravaganza. A coach would have implored Kyrgios to stick with plain vanilla tennis, but it’s doubtful he would have listened. As Kyrgios told me, “I like to hit fun shots. ” He ended up beating Brown in five sets, but his lack of discipline made the match far more difficult than it might otherwise have been. Could the “fun shots” be Kyrgios’s way of finding pleasure in a sport that he says doesn’t offer him a lot of fulfillment? It’s possible that the ambivalence he expresses about tennis really is his way of deflecting pressure, or that he does it just to get a rise out of people he’s only 21, and his game has matured much faster than he has. But maybe, when he says that he doesn’t love tennis, he is telling the truth. It wouldn’t necessarily doom his career: Agassi reached No. 1 and claimed eight major titles even though he spent much of his life hating tennis. John Morris told me Kyrgios is so competitive — they play I Spy on car trips, and Kyrgios goes bonkers if he doesn’t win — that he might end up atop the sport in spite of how he feels about it. For now, he remains one of those players who gratify and torment tennis fans in equal measure. Some athletes spend their careers thrilling us, others spend their careers frustrating us and some do both. Maybe Kyrgios is destined to be one of those. That Saturday in Boca, though, recharged by a recent visit home and together with his girlfriend, Kyrgios seemed content to be on the tennis court. He was practicing with a pair of Americans, Gianni Ross and Sam Riffice, in a typical Kyrgios practice session: He just wanted to play points, while keeping up a running commentary for his audience, a group that included me, Ross’s parents, Tomljanovic’s father, a couple of teenage girls who were apparently there to ogle and Robbye Poole, Serena Williams’s hitting partner, who happened to be at the academy that day. His Pokémon buddy Tauheed Browning was perched by the fence on Kyrgios’s side of the court. At one point, I overheard Kyrgios jokingly upbraiding him, saying, “You’re supposed to be my coach!” After maybe 30 minutes, Kyrgios decided it was time to kick back. He summoned Browning, Langston Williams and Poole to join in for some Touch Tennis, a game in which players stand close to the net and hit delicate flick shots back and forth until someone misses. Browning ended up losing and was promptly exiled to the far end of the court for a round of Butts Up, in which a player stands motionless while the others try to hit serves into his posterior. Just as he was on that Mexico trip with Pat Cash, Kyrgios was the ringleader and the guy having the most fun — laughing, shouting, throwing his racket in feigned disgust. This was tennis on his terms, and he seemed genuinely happy. | 1 |
When the FBI Has a Phone It Can’t Crack, It Calls These Israeli Hackers Source: The Intercept
Earlier this year, at the height of a very public battle between the FBI and Apple over whether the computer maker would help decrypt a mass murderer’s locked iPhone, it appeared that a little-known, 17-year-old Israeli firm named Cellebrite Mobile Synchronization might finally get its moment in the spotlight.
After weeks of insisting that only Apple could help the feds unlock the phone of San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook, the Justice Department suddenly revealed that a third party had provided a way to get into the device. Speculation swirled around the identity of that party until an Israeli newspaper reported it was Cellebrite.
It turns out the company was not the third party that helped the FBI. A Cellebrite representative said as much during a panel discussion at a high-tech crimes conference in Minnesota this past April, according to a conference attendee who spoke with The Intercept. And sources who spoke with the Washington Post earlier this year also ruled out Cellebrite’s involvement, though Yossi Carmil, one of Cellebrite’s CEOs, declined to comment on the matter when asked by The Intercept.
But the attention around the false report obscured a bigger, more interesting truth: Cellebrite’s researchers have become, over the last decade, the FBI’s go-to hackers for mobile forensics. Many other federal agencies also rely on the company’s expertise to get into mobile devices. Cellebrite has contracts with the FBI going back to 2009, according to federal procurement records, but also with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, and DHS’s Customs and Border Protection. U.S. state and local law enforcement agencies use Cellebrite’s researchers and tools as well, as does the U.S. military, to extract data from phones seized from suspected terrorists and others in battle zones.
The company is poised to seize a prominent and somewhat ominous place in the public imagination; just as Apple has come to be seen as a warrior for digital protection and privacy against overreaching government surveillance, Cellebrite is emerging as its law-and-order counterpart, endeavoring to build tools to break through the barriers Apple and other phone makers erect to protect data.
“Vendors … are implementing more and more security features into their product, and that’s definitely challenging for us,” says Shahar Tal, director of research at Cellebrite. “But we’ve solved these challenges before [and] we continue to solve these challenges today.”
In July, months after the unknown third party provided the FBI with a method for getting into the San Bernardino phone — an iPhone 5C running iOS 9 — Cellebrite announced that it had developed its own technique for bypassing the phone’s password/encryption lock. And the company is confident that it will be able to deal successfully with future security changes Apple may make to its phones in the wake of the San Bernardino case. | 0 |
I wonder if I t will really happen?? if so then , I say this world and society are falling apart! | 0 |
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Albert Pujols hit a grand slam for his 600th homer, becoming the ninth member of the club during the fourth inning of the Los Angeles Angels’ victory over the Minnesota Twins on Saturday night. [Pujols reached the milestone in theatrical style, putting a low pitch from Ervin Santana ( ) into Angel Stadium’s short porch for his 14th grand slam. The Anaheim crowd roared while fireworks soared overhead for the ’s ninth homer of the season and his 155th for the Angels. Pujols moved to the West Coast nearly six years ago after 11 spectacular seasons in St. Louis. Andrelton Simmons and Kole Calhoun hit homers in the third inning for the Angels. Max Kepler homered for Minnesota. Matt Shoemaker ( ) pitched ball into the seventh inning for his fourth victory in his last five starts. Pujols staked the Angels to a lead with his ninth homer this season. After going three straight games without a homer since hitting No. 599 on Tuesday, Pujols became the player to reach the club — and the first to join it with a slam. Santana had yielded just one earned run in 29 innings on the road this season before struggling at Angel Stadium, where he was Pujols’ teammate during the 2012 season after the slugger signed as a free agent and before Santana was traded to Kansas City. Santana dropped to in his four career starts against the franchise that signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2000 and employed him for 13 years. He still ranks fifth in Angels history with 223 games started and seventh with 96 victories. After Minnesota took a lead in the first inning on Kepler’s RBI single, Shoemaker found his groove and largely limited the Minnesota lineup that scored 11 runs on Friday. The Angels went ahead in the third when Simmons delivered a shot to left for his sixth homer and Calhoun added a shot to right for his eighth. Pujols came up next with a chance to give the Angels homers — but he struck out on three pitches. An inning later, Pujols made history. TROUT OUT, Mike Trout will get the cast off of his left hand Sunday, and he begins rehabilitation Monday on his injured left thumb. He’s still expected to be out for at least five more weeks, and he says he won’t stop sliding headfirst after injuring himself doing just that in Miami. “I just think I have to have more control when I dive headfirst,” Trout said. “They say ( ) doesn’t slow you down, but it feels like it slows you down. ” TRAINER’S ROOM, Angels: OF Cameron Maybin hasn’t swung the bat since going on the disabled list with a bruised side muscle. Manager Mike Scioscia isn’t sure whether Maybin will be ready to return on Friday as previously hoped. … Reliever Cam Bedrosian (groin) had a solid rehab appearance and could be ready to return Tuesday. UP NEXT, Twins: Jose Berrios ( 2. 70 ERA) makes his fifth start of the season in the series finale. Angels: Ricky Nolasco ( 5. 07 ERA) faces the Twins for the first time since they traded him and Alex Meyer to Los Angeles at the 2016 trade deadline. Nolasco and Meyer are both in the Angels’ rotation. | 1 |
Страна: Китай 26 сентября 2016 г. США ввели санкции против китайской компании, связанной с северокорейской программой развития ядерного и ракетного оружия. Речь идет о Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development (сокращенно — «Хунсян груп»), которая занимается поставками промышленного оборудования, и её четырёх представителях. Министерство финансов США официально включило их в санкционный список. Всё имущество и активы компании и её руководства на территории США замораживаются, и ряд южнокорейских источников сообщают, что компания фактически прекратила деятельность, а ее сайт закрыт. Китайские правоохранительные органы также расследуют дело корпорации «Хунсян груп», привлекая связанные с ней северокорейские компании, в том числе северокорейский банк «Квансон», который входит в список объектов санкций СБ ООН, но является главным акционером логистической компании в Даньдуне, входящей в состав «Хунсян груп». Глава представительства банка в городском округе Даньдун провинции Ляонин был вызван для дачи показаний, а северокорейским торговым представителям запретили выезжать из страны. В чем провинилась данная корпорация? «Хунсян груп» подозревают в поставках Северу комплектующих и материалов, имеющих отношение к ядерной программе, в том числе оксида алюминия, триоксида вольфрама и иных товаров двойного назначения, которые можно использовать для обогащения урана. Главный источник обвинений — совместное исследование южнокорейского института Асан и американского центра продвинутых оборонных исследований (U.S. Center for Advanced Defense Studies). Также, как сообщил и.о. замминистра финансов США Адам Шубин, сотрудники «Хунсян груп» стремились уклониться от санкций, введённых США и ООН, облегчая доступ Пхеньяну к американской финансовой системе. Они, в частности, предоставляли финансовые услуги вышеупомянутому банку «Квансон», который управлял средствами «Хунсян груп» и расчётами при выполнении экспортных и импортных операций с КНДР. Предположительно, компания отмывала северокорейские деньги через подставные компании, работавшие с банками США. По данным южнокорейских экспертов, которые будто бы и обратили внимание на данный факт, в 2011-15 гг. компания вложила в северокорейский бизнес 532 миллиона долларов, при том что строительство реактора в Енбене стоило менее 700 млн. Китайскую фирму обвиняют даже в поддержке северокорейских хакеров! Как отмечает СМИ США, впервые администрация Обамы ударила по китайской фирме, и история Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co является примером как китайской поддержки режима Ким Чен Ына, так и того, что США могут сделать для обрыва таких контактов. При этом в Америке открыто говорят, что введение санкций против компании Hongxiang должно сыграть роль, аналогичную репрессиям против Banco Delta Asia в 2005 г. — сигнал китайским компаниям прервать отношения с КНДР или испытать ту же участь. Правда, пока минюст США отметил, что против связанных с Hongxiang банков КНР обвинений не выдвигается, и это вызывает негодование сторонников жесткого курса. В открытом письме Обаме 19 сенаторов указали, что Банк Китая предположительно помог клиентам, связанным с КНДР, получить из американских банков 40 млн долларов, и хотя предположения и связанность клиентов с Северной Кореей еще надо расследовать, санкции вводить надо – иначе как еще остановить угрозу и преподать урок нарушителям!? Как заявил 21 сентября 2016 г. высокопоставленный представитель Белого дома, заместитель советника по национальной безопасности Бен Родс, КНР обязан предотвращать экспорт в КНДР запрещенных товаров, особенно продукции двойного назначения. Он заявил, что от Пекина ожидается соответствующий ответ на провокации, которые могут привести к дополнительным санкциям. С ним согласен главный специалист СНБ США по вопросам нераспространения Джон Вульфсталь: резолюции ООН ясно запрещают экспорт любых товаров, которые могут использоваться для развития ракетно-ядерной программы Пхеньяна, даже если речь идет о карандашах . Запрещаем все, кроме того, что можно убедительно обосновать как «поддержку гуманитарных целей». На этом фоне между США и КНР разгорается еще одно противоречие, связанное с торговлей углем между Пекином и Пхеньяном. Если Америка пытается прервать эти поставки то, как заявил 28 сентября официальный представитель МИД КНР Гэн Шуан, эта торговля ведётся в соответствии с предписаниями и резолюциями, а также национальным законодательством и нормативными актами КНР, не нарушает норм международного права и резолюций ООН с санкциями в отношении Пхеньяна, которые вполне допускают торговлю Севера углем. Это заявление было ответом на выступление помощника госсекретаря США Дэниела Рассела, в котором он заявил, что США работают над перекрытием лазеек для получения Севером валюты. В этом контексте Рассел отметил, что Север ежегодно зарабатывает от продажи угля в Китай 1 млрд долларов, что составляет треть общей суммы северокорейского экспорта, однако пункт о возможности экспорта северокорейского угля был включён в резолюции СБ ООН с учётом позиции Китая. Хотя южане пытаются представить дело так, что Резолюция 2270, принятая СБ ООН в марте 2016 года, вообще запрещает импортировать северокорейский уголь, речь идет о запрете на поставки, доход от которых может пойти на развитие ракетно-ядерной программы. В результате объем ввоза угля в Китай увеличивается. 24 сентября японская газета «Нихон кейдзай» опубликовала статью, в которой отмечается, что в апреле этого года объем импорта угля из СК в КНР резко сократился на 38% по сравнению с аналогичным периодом прошлого года, и такая тенденция продолжалась до июля. Однако в августе данный показатель начал расти, увеличившись на 27,5% в годовом исчислении. Общий объем торговли между СК и Китаем также увеличился на 30%. Эксперты РК полагают, что восстановление импорта в Китай северокорейских товаров произошло из-за смягчения контроля китайского правительства, которое выражает недовольство по поводу размещения ПРО THAAD на Корейском полуострове. Так что попытка навязать Пекину односторонние санкции пока не удается. И более того, там постоянно подчеркивается, что «Китай выступает против односторонних санкций, которые не помогают разрешить вопрос». Так, в частности, заявил 15 сентября министр иностранных дел КНР Ван И в телефонном разговоре со своим японским коллегой Фумио Кисидой, и та же позиция прозвучала 22 сентября на встрече спецпредставителей правительств КНР и РК, где обсуждались ответные меры в отношении проведённого Пхеньяном пятого ядерного испытания. Сообщается, что южнокорейская сторона потребовала от Китая принятия более жестких санкций в отношении Пхеньяна, в том числе запретить наземную перевозку грузов, на что китайская сторона ответила отказом. Скрываемый разлад нашел свое отражение и в заявлении генсека ООН Пан Ги Муна, который высказал недовольство относительно задержки принятия дополнительных санкций в ответ на пятое ядерное испытание КНДР. По его словам, СБ ООН затрачивает на это излишне много времени. Между тем позиция КНР в отношении санкций против Севера вполне ясна. Как отмечается в представленном на сеульском форуме «Объединение Кореи и вопросы безопасности» докладе старшего научного сотрудника Института Седжона Чун Чжэ Хона, Китай не склонен поддерживать применение против КНДР санкций, которые приведут к падению в стране существующего режима и ухудшению положения северокорейцев. По словам докладчика, крах режима Ким Чен Ына «чреват непредсказуемыми последствиями», включая и объединение обеих Корей под руководством Сеула. Пекин не хочет появления у своих границ объединенной Кореи, являющейся союзником США, и сделает все возможное для срыва такого сценария. Соответственно, выполняя резолюции ООН и не превышая их за счет дополнительных односторонних мер, как это делают США или их союзники, китайское правительство четко ограничило уровень санкций в отношении Пхеньяна, который ни при каких обстоятельствах не превысит. Константин Асмолов, кандидат исторических наук, ведущий научный сотрудник Центра корейских исследований Института Дальнего Востока РАН, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи | 0 |
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This election is arguably the most important our nation has ever faced, and things seem to be reaching a boiling point for America. Proving just that is the bad news Barack Obama just got after the FBI exposed the damning thing he quietly did to Hillary Clinton – and it means trouble for everyone involved.
As many Americans were made aware on Friday, the FBI has reopened the investigation into Hillary’s email scandal. However, a few theories circling the web indicate that the recent turn of events points to something much darker.
In fact, as Internet sleuths have more time to dig around the deepest corners of the web, it seems as though FBI Director James Comey’s hand may have actually been forced when it comes to the investigation. Seeing how both Wikileaks and famed hacker Kim Dotcom have Hillary’s 33,000 emails and are intent on releasing them in the upcoming week, the FBI was forced to make a move – but things only get more interesting the further down the rabbit hole we go.
At this point, the media is taking Wikileaks very seriously, and considering who could be implicated in the leak, something had to be done. In short, the theory suggests that several high-ranking officials up to and including Barack Obama are actually involved in Hillary’s little scandal. (Photo Source: Red State Watcher )
Although she thinks otherwise, Hillary is actually a very small fish in the big pond of established politicians, and she’s about to find that out the hard way. In fact, it seems that Obama may actually be responsible for the FBI pressing forward on the investigation.
With the theory picked up by Rush Limbaugh , a recent caller expounded on the belief a bit more, saying that Obama was facing a time crunch. In essence, knowing he would be implicated if the full email leak was made public, it would show his complicity in Hillary’s illegal behavior, meaning that he has a pretty serious bullet to dodge. I know where Hillary Clintons deleted emails are and how to get them legally @TGowdySC @seanhannity @realDonaldTrump . 100% true. Retweet. pic.twitter.com/eir8r0FJ8M
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 26, 2016
Furthermore, seeing how Kim Dotcom told everyone how officials could legally get their hands on Hillary’s emails, this made the reality even more pressing. As more came out, Obama realized the only thing he could do to save his own skin would be to have Comey come forward and say that they “miraculously” found new emails pertinent to the investigation.
In order to do this, Obama and the other Democrats involved must have made a joint decision to throw Hillary under the bus. When all is said and done, America will be so focused – with many extremely pleased – that no one will even think twice about what’s in the rest of those emails. (Photo Source: Red State Watcher )
Although this sounds like a win, many Americans want to turn it into a win-win and take down two birds (or maybe more) with one stone. Those emails are going to come out either way. Although Obama would like to divert your attention elsewhere, justice should come to all of those who break the law. Frightened Failed Obama gets Heckled & Dodges Reporters as They Scream Questions of James Comey Huma Abedin Hillary Clinton #HillarysEmails pic.twitter.com/bNw5XdDEjb
— DEPLORABLE TRUMPCAT (@Darren32895836) October 28, 2016
We’ve been told lies too many times from both Obama and Hillary, and it seems that the web they weaved is becoming rather tangled at this point. We all know that there is no loyalty in politics unless it directly benefits the person giving it.
Barack Obama was endorsing Hillary Clinton, but it only stands to reason that the moment he was threatened, he’d throw her under the bus in the name of self-preservation. The jig is up and the Democratic party is going down. Let’s just hope the FBI decides to sink those final nails in Hillary’s coffin before the election and announce official charges against her. We the people are fed up, and just as Hillary once said, “No one is too big to jail.” Those words are coming back to bite her in the end. | 0 |
VIDEO : MICHIGAN REVS UP FOR TRUMP! VIDEO : MICHIGAN REVS UP FOR TRUMP! Breaking News By Amy Moreno November 7, 2016
I am originally from Michigan, so my heart leaped with JOY when I watched Trump’s rally.
I have spent many a summer nights at Freedom Hill (back when it was called Pine Knob) catching a concert – and I can honestly say that I have never in my life seen that amphitheater look so ENERGIZED and rock SO HARD as I did when I watched Sunday night’s Trump rally.
It was AMAZING beyond words and made me SO PROUD to be from Michigan.
What we’re witnessing is more than a movement, folks.
It’s a REVOLUTION.
Watch the video: 500+ days of campaigning across America – comes down to just 2 days before the biggest election of our lifetime. This was MICHIGAN tonight. pic.twitter.com/BoUQoz3HJV
— Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) November 7, 2016 This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
2016 elections by Robin D.G. Kelley
The author writes: “I am not suggesting that white racism alone explains Trump’s victory. Nor am I dismissing the white working class’s very real economic grievances. It is not a matter of disaffection versus racism or sexism versus fear. Rather, racism, class anxieties, and prevailing gender ideologies operate together, inseparably, or as Kimberlé Crenshaw would say, intersectionally.” Trump Says Go Back, We Say Fight Back by Robin D.G. Kelley
This article previously appeared in Boston Review .
“We need to reject a thoroughly bankrupt Democratic Party leadership that is calling for conciliation and, in Obama’s words, “rooting for [Trump’s] success.”
“If we are to keep the enormity of the forces aligned against us from establishing a false hierarchy of oppression, we must school ourselves to recognize that any attack against Blacks, any attack against women, is an attack against all of us who recognize that our interests are not being served by the systems we support. Each one of us here is a link in the connection between antipoor legislation, gay shootings, the burning of synagogues, street harassment, attacks against women, and resurgent violence against Black people.” — Audre Lorde, “Learning from the 60s”
Donald J. Trump’s election was a national trauma, an epic catastrophe that has left millions in the United States and around the world in a state of utter shock, uncertainty, deep depression, and genuine fear. The fear is palpable and justified, especially for those Trump and his acolytes targeted—the undocumented, Muslims, anyone who “looks” undocumented or Muslim, people of color, Jews, the LGBTQ community, the disabled, women, activists of all kinds (especially Black Lives Matter and allied movements resisting state-sanctioned violence), trade unions. . . . the list is long. And the attacks have begun; as I write these words, reports of hate crimes and racist violence are flooding my inbox.
The common refrain is that no one expected this. (Of course, the truth is that many people did expect this, just not in the elite media.) At no point, this refrain goes, could “we” imagine Trump in the Oval office surrounded by a cabinet made up of some of the most idiotic, corrupt, and authoritarian characters in modern day politics—Rudolph Giuliani, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, John Bolton, Ben Carson, Jeff Sessions, David “Blue Lives Matter” Clarke, Joe Arpaio, to name a few. Meanwhile, paid professional pundits are scrambling to peddle their analyses and to normalize the results—on the same broadcast media that helped deliver Trump’s victory by making him their ratings-boosting spectacle rather than attending to issues, ideas, and other candidates (e.g., Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein). They deliver the same old platitudes: disaffected voters, angry white men who have suffered economically and feel forgotten, Trump’s populist message represented the nation’s deep-seated distrust of Washington, ad infinitum. Some liberal pundits have begun to speak of President-Elect Trump as thoughtful and conciliatory, and some even suggest that his unpredictability may prove to be an asset. The protests are premature or misplaced. All of this from the same folks who predicted a Clinton victory.
“Trump’s followers are attracted to his wealth as metonym of an American dream that they, too, can enjoy once America is ‘great’ again.”
But the outcome should not have surprised us. This election was, among other things, a referendum on whether the United States will be a straight, white nation reminiscent of the mythic “old days” when armed white men ruled, owned their castle, boasted of unvanquished military power, and everyone else knew their place. Henry Giroux’s new book America at War With Itself made this point with clarity and foresight two months before the election. The easy claim that Trump appeals to legitimate working-class populism driven by class anger, Giroux argues, ignores both the historical link between whiteness, citizenship, and humanity, and the American dream of wealth accumulation built on private property. Trump’s followers are not trying to redistribute the wealth, nor are they all “working class”—their annual median income is about $72,000. On the contrary, they are attracted to Trump’s wealth as metonym of an American dream that they, too, can enjoy once America is “great” again—which is to say, once the country returns to being “a white MAN’s country.” What Giroux identifies as “civic illiteracy” keeps them convinced that the descendants of unfree labor or the colonized, or those who are currently unfree, are to blame for America’s decline and for blocking their path to Trump-style success.
For the white people who voted overwhelmingly for Trump, their candidate embodied the anti-Obama backlash. Pundits who say race was not a factor point to rural, predominantly white counties that went for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but now went for Trump, and to the low black and Latinx voter turnout. However, turnout was down overall, not just among African Americans. Post-election analysis shows that as a percentage of total votes the black vote dropped only 1 percent compared with the 2012 election, even while the number of black ballots counted decreased by nearly 11 percent. (Why this happened is beyond the scope of this essay, but one might begin with Greg Palast’s findings about voter suppression and the use of “crosscheck” to invalidate ballots.) Moreover, claims that nearly a third of Latinxs went for Trump have been disputed by the website Latino Decision, whose careful research puts the figure at 18 percent. The turnout does not contradict the fact that Trump drew the clear majority of white votes. This is not startling news.
“We cannot ignore the fact that the vast majority of white men and a majority of white women, across class lines, voted for a platform and a message of white supremacy.”
If history is our guide, “whitelash” usually follows periods of expanded racial justice and democratic rights. In the aftermath of Reconstruction, there were many instances in which southern white men switched from the biracial, abolitionist Republicans to the “redeemers,” whether it be the Democrats or, in states like Texas, the “White Man’s Party.” (No ambiguity there.) Or in the 1880s and ’90s, when white Populists betrayed their Black Populist allies in a united struggle to redistribute railroad land grants to farmers, reduce debt by inflating currency, abolish private national banks, nationalize railroads and telegraphs, and impose a graduated income tax to shift the burden onto the wealthy, among other things. Many of these one-time white “allies” joined the Ku Klux Klan, defeated the Lodge Force Bill of 1890 which would have authorized federal supervision of elections to protect black voting rights, and led the efforts to disfranchise black voters. Or the late 1960s, when vibrant struggles for black, brown, American Indian, Asian American, gay and lesbian, and women’s liberation, the anti-war movement, and student demands for a democratic revolution were followed by white backlash and the election of Richard Nixon—whose rhetoric of “law and order” and the “silent majority” Trump shamelessly plagiarized.
Of course, Hilary Clinton did win the popular vote, and some are resorting to the easy lament that, were it not for the arcane Electoral College (itself a relic of slave power), we would not be here. One might add, too, that had it not been for the gutting of the Voting Rights Act opening the door for expanded strategies of voter suppression, or the permanent disfranchisement of some or all convicted felons in ten states, or the fact that virtually all people currently in cages cannot vote at all, or the persistence of misogyny in our culture, we may have had a different outcome. This is all true. But we cannot ignore the fact that the vast majority of white men and a majority of white women, across class lines, voted for a platform and a message of white supremacy, Islamophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-science, anti-Earth, militarism, torture, and policies that blatantly maintain income inequality. The vast majority of people of color voted against Trump, with black women registering the highest voting percentage for Clinton of any other demographic (93 percent). It is an astounding number when we consider that her husband’s administration oversaw the virtual destruction of the social safety net by turning welfare into workfare, cutting food stamps, preventing undocumented workers from receiving benefits, and denying former drug felons and users access to public housing; a dramatic expansion of the border patrol, immigrant detention centers, and the fence on Mexico’s border; a crime bill that escalated the war on drugs and accelerated mass incarceration; as well as NAFTA and legislation deregulating financial institutions.
Still, had Trump received only a third of the votes he did and been defeated, we still would have had ample reason to worry about our future.
“White privilege is taken for granted to the point where it need not be named and can’t be named.”
I am not suggesting that white racism alone explains Trump’s victory. Nor am I dismissing the white working class’s very real economic grievances. It is not a matter of disaffection versus racism or sexism versus fear. Rather, racism, class anxieties, and prevailing gender ideologies operate together, inseparably, or as Kimberlé Crenshaw would say, intersectionally. White working-class men understand their plight through a racial and gendered lens. For women and people of color to hold positions of privilege or power over them is simply unnatural and can only be explained by an act of unfairness—for example, affirmative action. White privilege is taken for granted to the point where it need not be named and can’t be named. So, as activist/scholar Bill Fletcher recently observed, even though Trump’s call to deport immigrants, close the borders, and reject free trade policies appealed to working-class whites’ discontent with the effects of globalization, Trump’s plans do not amount to a rejection of neoliberalism. Fletcher writes, “Trump focused on the symptoms inherent in neoliberal globalization, such as job loss, but his was not a critique of neoliberalism. He continues to advance deregulation, tax cuts, anti-unionism, etc. He was making no systemic critique at all, but the examples that he pointed to from wreckage resulting from economic and social dislocation, resonated for many whites who felt, for various reasons, that their world was collapsing.” Yet Fletcher is quick not to reduce white working-class support for Trump to class fears alone, adding, “This segment of the white population was looking in terror at the erosion of the American Dream, but they were looking at it through the prism of race.”
A New York Times poll shows that Trump supporters identified immigration and terrorism, not the economy, as the two most important issues in the campaign. Immigration and terrorism are both about race—Mexicans and Muslims. That there are “illegal” immigrants from around the globe, including Canada, Israel, and all over Europe doesn’t matter: anti-immigrant movements target those who can be racially profiled. And while Trump’s America fears “terrorism,” it does not disavow homegrown terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, despite the fact that white nationalist movements are responsible for the majority of violent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. On the contrary, Trump was not only endorsed by white nationalists and U.S.-based fascists, but during the campaign he refused to renounce their support, and Trump’s leading candidate for attorney general, Rudy Giuliani, has openly called Black Lives Matter “terrorists.”
So where do we go from here? If we really care about the world, our country, and our future, we have no choice but to resist. We need to reject a thoroughly bankrupt Democratic Party leadership that is calling for conciliation and, in Obama’s words, “rooting for [Trump’s] success.” Pay attention: Trump’s success means mass deportation; massive military spending; the continuation and escalation of global war; a conservative Supreme Court poised to roll back Roe v. Wade, marriage equality, and too many rights to name here; a justice department and FBI dedicated to growing the Bush/Obama-era surveillance state and waging COINTELPRO-style war on activists; fiscal policies that will accelerate income inequality; massive cuts in social spending; the weakening or elimination of the Affordable Care Act; and the partial dismantling and corporatization of government.
What must resistance look like? There are at least five things we have to do right now:
1. Build up the sanctuary movement.
In the 1980s, when nearly one million refugees fled U.S.-backed dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador, churches offered shelter, sanctuary, and assistance to those seeking political asylum, and over thirty cities were subsequently designated “sanctuary cities” by their local governments. The Obama administration’s deportations of undocumented workers rebooted the sanctuary movement, along with a vibrant immigrant rights movement that pushed the president to use executive authority to launch the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). Trump has vowed to end both programs, leaving some five million immigrants vulnerable to deportation and identifiable through their applications, and he has promised to immediately cut all federal funding for sanctuary cities. To those who argue that millions of undocumented people are not “political refugees,” I counter that Trump’s war on immigrants is driven entirely by his quest to take power—they will become casualties of his political machinations. Some states have already outlawed the longstanding principle of sanctuary status, but this should not deter us from strengthening and expanding the sanctuary movement to other institutions. For example, many of us who work in the University of California system are working to turn our campuses into sanctuaries—preferably with legal and administrative backing. But even without the law behind us, we must act on moral principle.
2. Defend all of our targeted communities.
We must defend against hate crimes, Islamophobia, anti-black racism, attacks on queer and trans people, and the erosion of reproductive rights. There is no need to reinvent the wheel since there are already hundreds of organizations across the country dedicated to the fight, including INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence, Radical Women, the Immigrant Solidarity Network, the Praxis Project, the Praxis Center, CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), the African American Policy Forum, the Network Against Islamophobia, and Causa Justa, to name only a few. One of the main targets of attack, of course, is the Movement for Black Lives, along with the dozens of organizations upon which it was built—Black Lives Matter, the Dream Defenders, Million Hoodies, Black Youth Project 100, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, We Charge Genocide, and Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), among others. We need to support these movements and institutions, financially and by doing the work. And we must defend the political and cultural spaces that enable us to plot, plan, build community and sustain social movements. Here in Los Angeles this means spaces such as the L.A. Black Workers Center, the Labor/Community Strategy Center and its new community space, Strategy and Soul, the L.A. Community Action Network, the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, the Community Coalition, and Revolutionary Autonomous Communities, among many others. In New York we can point to Decolonize This Place; in Detroit, the Boggs Center; in St. Louis, Organization for Black Struggle, and so on. There are literally hundreds of centers around the country building for local power, and while none were immune to state surveillance in the past, we can expect heightened monitoring and outright attacks under this extreme right-wing regime. Now is not the time to retreat to our identity silos. We need solidarity more than ever, recognizing that all solidarities are imperfect, often fragile, temporary, and always forged in struggle and sustained through hard work. In our state of emergency, political disagreements, slights, misunderstandings, and microaggressions should not prohibit us from fighting for peoples rights, privileges, and lives.
3. Stop referring to the South as a political backwater, a distinctive site of racist right-wing reaction.
First, white supremacy, homophobia, and anti-union attitudes are national, not regional, problems. Second, black and multiracial groups in the South are at the forefront of resisting Trump’s authoritarian agenda and building power outside the mainstream Democratic Party. Among them are Project South, Southerners on New Ground (SONG), the Moral Mondays Movement, Kindred: Southern Healing Justice Collective, Jackson Rising in Mississippi, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) in Louisville, Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Atlanta, and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights.
The frontline battles that preceded Trump’s election must not be abandoned. On the contrary, they need to be strengthened. We must redouble our fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline and support the Standing Rock Sioux Nation’s historic resistance. There is no question that Trump’s election has further empowered the corporation behind the pipeline—the Texas-based Fortune 500 company Energy Transfer Partners—to continue to build no matter what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or the Obama Justice Department says. We need to recognize Standing Rock as not only a struggle for environmental justice but an episode in Native people’s five-hundred-year resistance to colonialism. And speaking of colonialism, the crisis in Puerto Rico has not abated—not in the least. As I write, Puerto Ricans on the island and in the U.S. mainland are using every means at their disposal to resist PROMESA, the U.S. plan that empowers a seven-member, unelected board to impose austerity measures as a way of restructuring its debt—measures that include wage reductions, selling off public assets, altering retirement plans for public employees, and fast-tracking changes even if they violate existing laws.
4. Support and deepen the anti-Klan and anti-fascist movement.
We must especially support groups such as Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been on the frontlines of this movement for decades. Although the fight against white supremacist organizations has been continual since the 1860s, the federal government has never successfully outlawed the Klan and similar vigilante groups (although in the 1950s the state of Alabama succeeded in outlawing the NAACP). With Trump’s election we are likely to see a surge in white nationalist and other right-wing terrorism, including attacks on black churches, synagogues, mosques, abortion clinics; and against non-white, queer, and trans people and immigrants. Some on the left will argue that resisting the so-called “alt-right” is a secondary issue since these are fringe movements and building class unity across racial lines ought to be our priority. But with the memory of Colorado Springs and Charleston seared into our memory, this argument rings hollow. And while President Obama’s poignant rendition of “Amazing Grace” at Reverend Clementa Pinckney’s funeral moved much of the nation, the truth is that it is easier to pass laws criminalizing organizations that support the boycott of businesses and institutions complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine than it is to outlaw the Ku Klux Klan.
5. Rebuild the labor movement.
As obvious as this may seem, the entire labor movement is under attack on a global scale. Today labor unions are portrayed as corrupt, bloated, a drain on the economy, and modern-day cartels that threaten workers’ “liberty.” Corporations and the CEOs who run them are portrayed as the most efficient and effective mode of organization. In our neoliberal age, emergency financial managers are sent in to replace elected government during real or imagined economic crises; charter schools organized along corporate lines are replacing public schools; universities are being restructured along corporate lines with presidents increasingly functioning like CEOs; and a businessman with a checkered record, a history of improprieties and legal violations and allegations of sexual assault, and no experience whatsoever in government is elected president.
Today’s economic debates focus not on alternatives to capitalism but on what kind of capitalism—capitalism with a safety net for the poor or one driven by extreme free-market liberalization? A capitalism in which the state’s role is to bail out big banks and financial institutions, or one where the state imposes (or rather restores) greater regulation in order to avoid economic crises? In both of these scenarios, a weakened labor movement is a given. The once-powerful unions are doing little more than fighting to restore basic collective bargaining rights and deciding how much they are going to give back. Union leaders are struggling just to participate in crafting austerity measures. In the New Deal era, the state’s efforts to save capitalism centered on Keynesian strategies of massive state expenditures in infrastructure, job creation, a social safety net in the form of direct aid and social security, and certain protections for the right of unions to organize. All these measures were made possible by a strong labor movement. There was a level of militant organization that we did not see in our post-2008 collapse, in spite of Occupy Wall Street. While Occupy was massive, international, and built on preexisting social justice movements, it lacked the kind of institutional power base and political clout that organized labor had in the 1930s. Of course, labor unions have also been powerful engines of racial and gender exclusion, working with capital to impose glass ceilings and racially segmented wages, but the twenty-first-century labor movement has largely embraced principles of social justice, antiracism, immigrant rights, and cross-border strategies.
“I am talking about opening a path to freeing white people from the prison house of whiteness.”
Obviously there is much missing here, like abolishing the Electoral College and continuing to wage a fight for local power in the legislative and electoral arenas as well as in the streets. Local campaigns to raise the minimum wage, for example, have not only produced key victories but served to mobilize people around issues of injustice and inequality. The sites of resistance will become clearer as the political situation becomes more concrete, especially after January 20.
But I want to return to the white working class and how we might break the cycle of “whitelash.” First, we cannot change this country without winning over some portion of white working people, and I am not talking about gaining votes for the Democratic Party. I am talking about opening a path to freeing white people from the prison house of whiteness. True, with whiteness comes privilege, but many of the perceived privileges are inaccessible to most, which then generates resentment. Exposing whiteness for what it is—a foundational myth for the birth and consolidation of capitalism—is fundamental if we are to build a genuine social movement dedicated to dismantling the oppressive regimes of racism, heteropatriarchy, empire, and class exploitation that is at the root of inequality, precarity, materialism, and violence in many forms. I am not suggesting we ignore their grievances, but that we help white working people understand the source of their discontent—real and imagined.
Is this possible? The struggle to recruit the white working class is an old story. Black movement leaders have been trying to free white working people from the paltry wages of whiteness since Reconstruction, at least, and it seems to always end badly. This history is not necessarily legible because we tend to conflate populism and fascism with what Henry Giroux astutely identifies as authoritarianism. Populism is the idea that ordinary people ought to have the power to control their government and their communities, especially along lines that benefit the collective. In the 1880s and ’90s, the black populist movement adopted a vision of a new society based on cooperative economics. The great writer and activist Timothy Thomas Fortune gave their unique vision eloquent voice and plans for action in his book Black and White: Land, Labor and Politics in the South (1884), which offered a path for the emancipation of the nation as a whole, not just black people. He attacked America’s betrayal of Reconstruction, identified monopoly and private ownership of land as the central source of inequality, and articulated a vision of a democratic, caring political economy based on equity and fairness. The National Colored Alliance members had advanced beyond printing more money or demanding free silver, adopting instead a more radical redistribution of wealth and power. They wanted more than a short-term alliance just to raise wages for picking cotton or reducing debt. But Fortune understood that a genuine cooperative commonwealth is not possible unless white workers and farmers join the movement. “The hour is approaching,” he wrote, “when the laboring classes of our country, North, East, West and South, will recognize that they have a common cause, a common humanity and a common enemy; and that, therefore, if they would triumph over wrong and place the laurel wreath upon triumphant justice, without distinction of race or of previous condition they must unite!” Whatever unity they managed to create proved ephemeral. As in so many other scenarios, most whites chose white supremacy over liberation.
The lessons here are crucial. We cannot build a sustainable movement without a paradigm shift. Stopgap, utilitarian alliances to stop Trump aren’t enough. I concur with Giroux, who calls on all of us to wage “an anti-fascist struggle that is not simply about remaking economic structures, but also about refashioning identities, values, and social relations as part of a democratic project that reconfigures what it means to desire a better and more democratic future.” Robin Davis Gibran Kelley is the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA. | 0 |
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A NATIONWIDE appeal, led by fed up parents, has been launched which is pleading with children to ‘cut the shit’ and refrain from acting the maggot as the midterm draws to a close.
Maggotry, to give it its technical name, can involve children doing anything from refusing to eat their vegetables to burning down their own homes as part of a bog-standard temper tantrum.
“I’d use stronger language than maggot, but then my eldest would repeat it round the clock like the little bollocks he is,” explained exhausted father Peter Varley, who looked fairly stressed out if we’re being honest.
While not citing specific maggot-based behaviour, parents presumed anyone who has seen a child out and misbehave in public would get the picture.
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask, I’m running on 2 hours sleep for the last 11 years, just a slight reduction in the levels of outright dickheadedness from my two boys would be much appreciated,” shared mother of two Shona Laffin, “the midterm has been a testing time,” added Laffin, who was so fed up with the playacting that she’s convinced the midterm is actually 47 weeks long.
The campaign has received the support of Gardaí, who earlier this year began a crackdown on children who failed to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
It is believed children were unavailable to comment as they were either scrawling on the walls with crayon or swiping a naggin from the drinks cabinet. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Obama had “an intense conversation” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday in which he expressed concern on the eve of his visit to the Middle East and Europe about the fragile Syrian peace talks and increased violence in Ukraine, White House officials said. In a strongly worded statement, the White House said that Mr. Obama had urged Mr. Putin to use his influence with President Bashar of Syria to press him to stop attacks against opposition forces and abide by his commitment to a partial . The cessation of hostilities, brokered by Russia and the United States in February, has shown signs of crumbling in recent days, with increasing ground clashes and airstrikes. Syrian government forces have been mounting an offensive near the northern city of Aleppo, while rebel groups have reportedly made advances against government positions in the areas of Latakia in the north and Hama in the center of the country. A statement released by the office of Mr. Putin said he had stressed the need for moderate opposition leaders in Syria to distance themselves from the Islamic State and other extremist groups. On Monday, efforts to negotiate a political settlement to the conflict grew more difficult when opposition representatives pulled out of formal talks in Geneva. The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said that the opposition High Negotiating Committee had told him that it was suspending its participation because of the surge in fighting and a decline in deliveries of humanitarian aid. “Since these talks began in Geneva, the Assad regime has worsened the situation on the ground,” Salem a spokesman for the opposition coalition, said in a statement. “The progress in Geneva is directly connected to the realities faced by our people in Syria. If the ground situation is not improved, it will affect the advancement of the political process. ” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that while the call between Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin was “intense,” there was not an impasse between them over Syria. “It’s an opportunity for the president to, once again, make the case to President Putin that he should use his influence with the Assad regime to live up to the commitments that they’ve made in the context of the cessation of hostilities,” Mr. Earnest told reporters. For Mr. Obama, the phone call with Mr. Putin offered a chance before his arrival in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to demonstrate his resolve in moving toward a political solution in Syria. Mr. Obama is expected to urge Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations to renew their focus on helping to end the Syria conflict and fight the Islamic State. Last week, Rob Malley, the president’s top Middle East adviser, said in a briefing for reporters that the “has held so far,” adding that “we’re far from having achieved the goals that we set, but the trend line is positive. ” Mr. Obama’s call with Mr. Putin appears to have been less optimistic. In describing the exchange, Mr. Earnest cast blame on Mr. Assad, saying that “unfortunately, we’ve seen that the cessation of hostilities continues to be fragile and increasingly threatened due to continued violations by the regime. ” The statement from the Kremlin said that the two leaders had “reiterated their commitment to strengthening the ” and that “additional measures will be put in place for rapid response to violations of the . ” The latest round of indirect talks in Geneva, the third so far, began last week and had been focused on a political transition. Extremist groups like the Islamic State and the Nusra Front are not included. Mr. de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy, told journalists that the peace process would continue and that opposition negotiators would stay in Geneva for “technical discussions. ” He said that on Friday he would take stock of the prospects for continuing the talks, adding that “ups and downs” in the peace process were to be expected. Mr. de Mistura said there was hope that aid convoys would be able to head for besieged areas. In the political talks, though, “the gap is clearly wide,” he said. Opposition negotiators flatly rejected an idea floated by Mr. de Mistura on Friday that would allow Mr. Assad to remain as president, with three vice presidents nominated by the opposition. The coalition representatives have insisted that any transitional government exclude Mr. Assad. During the phone call on Monday, Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin also discussed the situation in Ukraine, where fighting has continued between government troops and separatists. A in Ukraine has reduced the violence, but a political resolution, known as the Minsk agreement, has yet to be fully put in place. Mr. Obama is also traveling this week to Britain and Germany, where the situation in Ukraine is expected to top a list of European challenges he will discuss. The president urged Mr. Putin to end what the White House called a “significant uptick in fighting” in eastern Ukraine, along the border with Russia. The Kremlin said that Mr. Putin had told Mr. Obama that he hoped the Ukrainian government would “finally start taking concrete steps towards implementing the Minsk agreements of Feb. 12, 2015. ” | 1 |
A teacher is claiming that her strict Muslim childhood “repressed” her and contributed to her desires to have sex with students who attended a New Jersey high school, court records show. [Linda Hardan, a teacher at Manchester Regional High School in Haledon, New Jersey, was arrested and charged with sexual contact with at least two male students, one a and another a . Her contact began with explicit text messages and graduated to sexual contact, police said. But Hardan’s defense counsel insists that her strict Muslim upbringing served to repress her, causing her behavior. He also requested therapy for his client instead of prison time, according to the Daily Mail. The victim was “disgusted” and “upset” about the sexual encounter. Hardan began explicitly texting him and eventually got him in her car, drove to a secluded area, “and performed a sex act on him. ” The student reported he was so repulsed that he jumped out of the car and walked two miles back home. The convict reportedly perpetrated similar acts with the older boy, prosecutors proved in court. Prosecutors had worked out a deal with Hardan’s legal team, and she accepted a sentence, which was then presented during the sentencing phase of her trial. But Passaic County Superior Court Judge Miguel de la Carrera decided on a lesser sentence, citing the mitigating factors of her childhood. Judge de la Carrera imposed a sentence. “She had classmates and friends, but somehow, perhaps because of limitations on her dating life, she didn’t find the proper outlet among males of her own age,” the judge insisted during the sentencing. “She did not learn how to interact with guys her age,” de la Carrera added. Still, the judge refused to put her sentence off until she finished a college class she was taking at a local community college. Hardan will be eligible for parole, with good behavior, in a year. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Fox has ordered a new reality series titled You the Jury that will let viewers at home vote to decide the outcome of real civil court cases. [According to the Wrap, Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro will host the show, with each episode featuring a courtroom battle based on the day’s topics like free speech, gay rights and religious freedom. After the facts and evidence in each case are presented, viewers will get to vote — American through text messages and the Fox Now app — on the outcome of the case, with both the plaintiff and the defendant agreeing beforehand to abide by the decision of the voters. While Eastern and Central time zone viewers will get to weigh in earlier, the verdict could be overturned on the West Coast broadcasts if the cumulative number of votes from all viewers is enough to sway the outcome. The Wrap also reports that the “closing arguments” in the cases — traditionally delivered by attorneys for the plaintiff and defendant — will instead be delivered by the plaintiffs and the defendants themselves as they sit across from each other. “Welcome to the new face of American justice,” Pirro says in the promo for the series (above). In addition to Pirro, the show’s cases will be presided over by former California Superior Court judge LaDoris Cordell and six attorneys are set as regulars: Jose Baez, Benjamin Crump, Joseph Tacopina, Areva Martin, Mike Cavalluzzi and Charla Aldous. You the Jury premieres Friday, April 7 at 9 Eastern on Fox. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — After erroneously taking credit for the arrest of a fugitive governor, Mexican officials are backing away from their extradition claims against the United States. [A diplomatic official with direct involvement in the case confirmed to Breitbart Texas that on Monday afternoon, the Mexican Deputy Attorney General for Organized Crime called the U. S. Department of Justice attache at the embassy in Mexico City. The purpose of the call was to inform the U. S. government that Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR) agreed that former Tamaulipas Governor Tomas Yarrington would be extradited to the U. S. As Breitbart Texas reported, Italian authorities apprehended Yarrington on Sunday at a restaurant. While the arrest was based on an investigation by U. S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents in Brownsville, Texas, and Rome on Sunday night, Mexican authorities took credit and claimed the politician would be extradited home. The move by Mexican authorities set off tensions between the international agencies as they fought over Yarrington. Yarrington is wanted in Texas for multiple drug trafficking and money laundering charges. The indictment alleges that while governor of Tamaulipas, Yarrington took bribes from Mexican drug cartels in exchange for giving them protection. Yarrington is also accused of having played a role in the trafficking of drugs through the Mexican state of Veracruz. On Monday, Italy’s Polizia di Stato issued a news release revealing that they had worked with U. S. authorities in capturing Yarrington — who was previously spotted in the town of Paola. At the time of his arrest, Yarrington claimed to be a Mexican businessman by the name of Morales Perez and presented false documents. The news release makes no mention of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office or other party taking part in the operation. Mexico’s PGR held a news conference on Monday to backtrack statements claiming they contributed information leading to the capture. The agency stated the final decision of for Yarrington’s extradition remains with Italian authorities. 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. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. | 1 |
Next Swipe left/right Two elderly sisters hilariously bicker while giving directions Two sisters with a combined age of 199 wind each other up with their incessant bickering over driving directions. (NSFW language)
You might remember the pair from last year, when this clip of them doing even more bickering went viral. | 0 |
It’s always nice to know that some people aren’t as concerned with the election as they are with the “big picture.” For Lance Wallnau, that constitutes turning America into a Fundamentalist Christian nation. Wallnau is a Seven Mountains Dominionist (so is Ted Cruz) who thinks that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy, even though he says he’s not really a conspiracy buff. There’s some cognitive dissonance for you.
Appearing on The Jim Bakker Show on Wednesday, Wallnau opened up his big bag of blarney and laid out his theories about the left-wing’s diabolical plans to destroy conservatives, especially Christian conservatives. Wallnau thinks that the left has a web of progressive organizations like MoveOn.org, Media Matters and Right Wing Watch that controls the media and decides what Americans think and talk about.
“They are all independent organizations coordinated by one group of people like us who handle the money. So they’ll show up where there’s race issues—boom, and make them inflammatory. They’ll show up where there’s a campus issue—boom, and make it inflammatory. Then the media machine kicks in, Media Matters, which is run by one of their organizations, and they come in and they get it into the social media channels so it’s in Facebook and everything. And you would think all of America’s ablaze. It’s a handful of funded, executed strategists with entities called 527s that are disciplining America.”
Where to start with this stew of projection? No one group handles the money for all the liberal advocacy groups. The idea is absurd. These groups do not plot to turn any single issue into an inflammatory one; that happens organically depending on what life brings us. He’s never heard of the “shit happens” theory, I guess. Media Matters is not a media group unto itself, it exists to keep the actual media honest. Social networks? You think anyone can control those? If so, you really are stupid. And those horrible 527s that are controlling this “disciplining” of America? There are plenty of those on the right, as well. The 527 designation just means it’s a non-profit advocacy group. A quick look at the top fifty 527s in this election cycle shows that all sorts of issues and ideologies are represented.
But Wallnau hasn’t emptied his can of crazy yet. Showing an amazing capacity for projection, he explains why Christians are feeling that things are not quite right:
“The web literally is coming down on America. And what’s sad is, how many Christians feel this fog on their head at times? Do you feel that? It’s almost like everything’s going wrong. And that fog that’s on Christians is the collective witchcraft that comes over the Body of Christ because there’s spirits being authorized to be released.”
He goes on to blame the imaginary left-wing syndicate for authorizing Satan to run things. Authorize? So Satan has to get a rubber stamp of some kind? Is he the one authorizing the release of those spirits? If he is, he must have mountains of paperwork. One wonders when he has time to tempt anyone.
Like most pseudo-Christians, Wallnau loves to fall back on the idea that his devil is running things when those things aren’t going his way. That’s toddler-level thinking. What else would you expect, though, from someone who thinks God sent Donald Trump to be their savior?
The charge of witchcraft obliges me to repeat things I may have said before but that always bear repeating. Witches do not sit around in groups of 13 trying to figure out ways to ruin the lives of others. We have our own problems and we don’t need or want more stuff to deal with. We are not some cabal intent on turning America into a macrocosm of our own ideology. That’s the Dominionist’s thing. We are quite happy to live out own lives and let others do the same.
That said, we do get involved in elections. Just like any other American, we volunteer for our candidates. We phone bank and go door-to-door. We vote and encourage others to do the same. If we are working any witchcraft it is the magic of working together to better the lives of everyone. Jim Bakker and Lance Wallnau ought to try it sometime.
Here’s the clip from our conspiracy mates friends at Right Wing Watch
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Media skeptic If Russia Wanted to Fight the West, It Would Have Invested More in Arms
Despite the screaching over Russia's old cold war-era Kuznetsov putting to sea, it really just shows Moscow never planned for a conflict with the west New Eastern Outlook
Hysterics are the western leadership’s most effective weapons against imaginary Russian foes. Or are imaginary Russian foes the cause of idiotic hysterics by western leaders? Whatever the case, it’s easy to get confused these days. Black is white, truth is a lie, Russia a friend or a foe, today the only certainty is more uncertainties and warmongering. Russia’s sailing a rusty aircraft carrier to Syrian waters is sure to cause an international arms race now. Is Putin’s Russia bent on attacking Europe by Sea, or is NATO fomenting another blood ritual?
I often chuckle at the stupidity of “so-called” experts, especially reporters. However silly and uninformed western media parrots may be though, the idiocy of NATO member countries’ leadership is more ridiculous by far. Take the example of Russia sending a small task force of its Northern Fleet to stand-off Syria in the eastern Mediterranean. The media in Britain, for instance, reports on a naval buildup akin to the Spanish Armada, while Brit citizens line the cliffs of Dover to photograph the elegant (if aged) profile of a gray lady Russian aircraft carrier sliding by. Just looking at the imagery brings to mind seafaring lore attached to a once indomitable Soviet naval presence. On the other hand, naval warfare aficionados could be sad, watching what’s left of Russia’s mighty surface fleet lumber onward to assist in killing terror. I cannot decide which element of this latest development is more pitiful, the European hysteria over Russian navy pieces on the move, or the fact a remnant of Cold War days is rusting to pieces.
When elements of a naval group headed by Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s only aircraft carrier, left the port of Severomorsk at 3:00 p.m. Moscow time (12 noon GMT) on October 15 for the eastern Mediterranean, scant news of the departure could be found. Then when Russia’s lone carrier and the the battle cruiser Peter the Great neared England, all media hell broke loose. Frothy waves of reporters employed by BBC, Rupert Murdoch’s ilk, and the propaganda nests of NATO went collectively bonkers over 8 ships sailing by Dover like old ducks in a shooting gallery. The Swedes and Norwegians were the first to sound “General Quarters” over the aging fleet’s passing. Norwegian media outlet VG.no called the Russian naval group’s cruise “the biggest demonstration of Russian military power” in recent years. And Sweden shadowed the vessels like yapping little terriers on the scent of some dying old bear. The hype and bullshit turned razor sharp idiotic once the small flotilla neared the English Channel, and nobody, nobody portrayed the story as it was. No one told viewers or readers the Kuznetsov has been in seawater 31 years now, and having spent 20 of those at the tail end of military funding. More importantly, the NATO-EU media failed to tell us this is the ship’s fourth deployment to the Med, or that she had previously laid off Scotland for refueling and replenishment during another deployment. No, this sailing is being built up into a Russian armada and a Putin provocation instead of what it really is.
Russia’s military might is not contingent on its navy, it never was. While projecting power from mother Russia was a necessity in the Cold War, the world’s biggest country has always been defensive. This is unarguable, and a matter of historic fact. Secondly, Russian naval prowess was never focused on surface warfare, but on ballistic submarine counter-deterrent. This is another reason her lone carrier stands a better chance of springing a leak and sinking, than being torpedoed by a British submarine. Putin has sent this group to Syria for more practical reasons than any media is telling us, the ships are part of the most economical way to finish off ISIL, even in a rusty bucket state of repair, they serve as anti-air and ground attack platforms, as well as amphibious warfare elements if the need arises. But let’s get down to brass tacks here.
While the United States does possess a couple of so-called “Supercarriers” as old as the Admiral Kuznetsov, the availability of paint and varnish in the US Navy is supported by 1000 times the budget of the Russian Navy’s long counterweight. This US Navy budget (PDF) for FY 2016 details a navy with 11 super-carriers and a maintenance budget in excess of $9.4 billion for a baseline, this does not address refurbishments. On the other hand Russia’s entire military budget ($68.2 billion 2013) is less than one third that of the US Navy alone. While the hysterical whining from NATO generals grows loud, this is only to create a bigger festering wound in between NATO members and Russia.
Finally, despite the Kuznetsov’s unseaworthy and arthritic existence, the larger strategy from Putin is what’s more interesting here. A paid troll of a western media reporter named Michael Weiss, writes for the Daily Beast and for ousted Russian oligarch (slash mobster) Mikhail Khodorkovsky. I mention him because he has a penchant for mixing an ounce of truth with a pound of anti-Putin bullshit, and because he recently commented on “Russia’s sinking fleets”. As lacking as the Russian navy is though, sending a battle group to Tarsus and Syria is the correct strategy. And it is THIS that has NATO peeing its pants. Not many realize that a big objective of the Ukraine-EU ascension was to eliminate Russia’s only warm weather port in the south, at Crimea. Russian naval power, in open waters in the southern regions of Europe, it’s a strategic nightmare for the NATO alliance. So rust bucket or not, the Kuznetsov group are valuable chess pieces Putin had to commit to this operation. Make no mistake though; the movements were not intended as a provocation or saber rattling, but rather a move of necessity.
The sailing of the Admiral Kuznetsov and these other ships proves once and for all Russia’s defensive posture historically, and with regard to recent events. Please understand, Russia has never been, is not, and probably never will be a major naval threat to the United States. With the exception of her ballistic missile submarine deterrent, Russia’s sole military objective has always been defending the motherland – period. The US and allies have surface and submarine fleets that quite simply dwarf Russian and Chinese naval power, but here’s the thing. The Admiral Kuznetsov, and in particular the “battlecruiser” aspects of her design, are fuel for an unnecessary alarmist view from the likes of NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Even the capability of the accompanying nuclear powered battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy, and the two Udaloy Class Destroyers can only be considered defensive by nature. Mr. Putin is only defending his country’s servicemen already engaged in the air war in Syria, and his country’s southern borders in the event of a wider NATO aggressiveness. With talk of a Hillary Clinton White House seeking a “no fly” zone over Syria, the Russians would be stupid not to sail these ships to serve as a first line of defense.
NATO, the White House, the houses of leadership in Europe have now seized upon a situation they caused in the first place. Russia as the aggressor, given all that we have seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s just a comedy. The United States and her allies (satraps) have invaded, or outright overthrown governments around the world, and now Russia is aggressive for protecting her closest interests? An aircraft carrier from the Reagan era sent out alone to conquer the world? Nobody in their right mind could believe this. CNN is calling the move “Heavy Metal”, and The Mail calls the vessels “Nuclear Battleships” to garner readership, while another article speaks of “Putin’s Satan II” killer missile with it’s 40 megaton payload. But no media outlet depicts the real situation. No news reflects who has really been building up arsenals for a potential war. The United States has increased in multiplicity systems aimed not at conflicts with Arab lands, not in defense against global terror, but for engaging more powerful foes. When the sole Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov was sitting in port collecting barnacles and rust the last 15 years, American companies planned and cranked out devastating new weapons. The trillion dollar F-35 can’t fly well yet, but sooner or later it will. The Gerald R. Ford super-carriers may have design flaws, but they were planned long before Russia reemerged as any advertised threat back in 2005. There are 100 examples of an ongoing US military buildup meant aimed at Russia and China, but Congress makes no secret of the US mission with regard to armed superiority, as this Congressional Research Service paper from September, 2016 shows:
“The U.S. goal of preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon in one part of Eurasia or another is a major reason why the U.S. military is structured with force elements that enable it to cross broad expanses of ocean and air space and then conduct sustained, large-scale military operations upon arrival. Force elements associated with this goal include, among other things, an Air Force with significant numbers of long-range bombers, long-range surveillance aircraft, longrange airlift aircraft, and aerial refueling tankers, and a Navy with significant numbers aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered attack submarines, large surface combatants, large amphibious ships, and underway replenishment ships.”
Now my point seems well made. Had Vladimir Putin and Russia been intent on taking over the world, Military developments beyond the new Armata T 14 tanks, fifth generations fighters and some missiles would have been ramped up long before now. It’s crystal clear to the keen observer that Putin’s Russia was in infrastructure and economy building mode up until Senator John McCain played cheerleader for the Ukraine revolution in Kiev. Today, with NATO posturing on every Russian frontier, Vladimir Putin is making the best use of what his nation has in order to defend against the unthinkable. This is the truth of these matters.
And still the blood ritual is drummed out before the campfires of Europe – the big bad wolf, or a giant Russian nemesis is out to take over a bunch of poverty-refugee-economic stricken countries for what? So that Russia can once again prop up Eastern Europe? So Vladmir Putin can reign supreme over a rusty Eiffel Tower? What is there in Europe the Russians need so desperately, after all? Shopping malls and Christmas markets must be the coveted lure, for there’s certainly no natural resources left to squander.
Maybe the people in the west should consider all this? | 0 |
IOC bans 2 Russian athletes after positive doping tests from 2012 Olympics October 27, 2016 TASS olympics2012 , Doping scandal , olympics The IOC stated that reanalysis of doping samples of Ikonnikov and Starodubtsev "from London 2012 resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substance dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol)." Source: Reuters
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) ruled on Oct. 27 to sanction two Russian track and field athletes after their doping samples collected at the 2012 Summer Olympics tested positive for banned performance enhancing drugs.
The two Russian athletes at the issue are hammer thrower Kirill Ikonnikov and pole vaulter Dmitry Starodubtsev.
"Kirill Ikonnikov, 32, of Russia, competing in the men’s hammer throw event (qualification and final) in which he ranked 5th and for which he was awarded a diploma, has been disqualified from the Olympic Games London 2012," the IOC said in its statement.
"Dmitry Starodubtsev, 30, of Russia, competing in the men’s pole vault event (qualification and final) in which he ranked 4th and for which he was awarded a diploma, has been disqualified from the Olympic Games London 2012," according to the IOC. The Russian Olympians who refuse to return their medals and winnings
The world’s governing body of Olympic Games stated that reanalysis of doping samples of Ikonnikov and Starodubtsev "from London 2012 resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substance dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol)."
This is the second announcement of positive doping results of Russian athletes made by the IOC within the last two days. The IOC ruled on Oct. 27 to strip Russian runner Ekaterina Volkova of her bronze medal, won at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing in 3,000-meter steeplechase, following positive results of her doping sample’s reanalysis.
The Executive Board of the world’s governing Olympic body convened a special session on May 17 discussing efforts of stepping up the fight against the drugs cheats and furnish measures to protect clean athletes ahead of the Olympics in Rio. As part of its anti-doping efforts, IOC ordered reanalysis of doping samples of athletes from 2008 Olympics in Beijing and 2012 Olympics in London.
Following two rounds of re-testing, over 100 Olympians were reported to test positive for banned substances - at least 60 from the 2008 Games and about 40 from the 2012 Games. Among them were over 25 medalists from both Olympics. | 0 |
UN special rapporteur on Palestine blasts Israe By Stephen Lendman
How many years of illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine are too many? How long will the international community tolerate its vicious persecution of millions of defenseless people?
How long will its longstanding slow-motion genocide policy be allowed to continue unchallenged?
Every day is Kristallnacht in Palestine, especially in lawlessly blockaded Gaza under siege, subject to Israeli terror-bombing and incursions at its discretion, slaughtering civilians indiscriminately because who’ll intervene responsibly to stop the horrors Palestinians endure.
In his first report to the UN General Assembly, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Palestine Michael Lynk described deplorable conditions, unacceptable, yet persisting, with nothing in prospect likely to change things without international community intervention.
Calling for an end to nearly half a century of illegal occupation, he said that “[t]he Palestinian economy is without parallel in the modern world. Israel’s occupation is denying Palestine’s right to development and severely hampering its ability to attain even the minimum targets of the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs ).”
Israel systematically breaches fundamental international laws unaccountably. Apartheid worse than South Africa’s is institutionalized. State terror is official policy. Israel treats Palestinians the way Hitler persecuted Jews.
“Poverty is rising,” said Lynk. “Unemployment is rising to epic levels. Food insecurity is becoming more acute. The Palestinian economy is becoming more stifled and less viable under the occupation. Israel’s deliberate fragmentation of [Occupied Palestine] and lack of development has negatively impacted human rights.”
Conditions are “seriously deficient in its respect for the legal principles and obligations embedded within the right to development.”
“The deepening of the occupation, the constriction of basic human rights and the utter absence of a political horizon leading to self-determination for the Palestinians have reinforced an atmosphere of despair and hopelessness.”
Praising regional human rights groups for their courage and commitment to justice, Lynk explained that “[t]hey face scorn and worse . . . If a just and compassionate peace is ever to come to the Middle East, we will owe much to these fearless advocates.”
In mid-October, in testimony before Security Council members, B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad called for UN action to end nearly half a century of illegal Israeli occupation.
Israeli UN envoy Danny Danon accused him of “defam[ing] us in front of the international community.” Israel threatened to revoke his citizenship.
Human rights workers for Palestinian liberation risk life and liberty. El-Ad concluded his remarks, saying: “For most of my country’s existence, the world has allowed it to occupy another people. I have lived my entire life, every single day of it, with that reality.”
“Millions of Israelis and Palestinians know no other reality. We need your help. Fifty years of ‘temporary’ occupation are too long for even a single person on this planet to accept such a contradiction in terms.”
“The rights of Palestinians must be realized; the occupation must end; the UN Security Council must act; and the time is now.”
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book as editor and contributor is “ Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III .” Visit his blog at sjlendman.blogspot.com . Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. Commentary . Bookmark the permalink . | 0 |
Following up on a campaign promise that appealed directly to his Rust Belt base, Donald J. Trump said Thursday that he had reached out to the Carrier air conditioner company in Indiana to ask it not to move more than 2, 000 factory jobs from Indiana to Mexico. In a post on Twitter Thursday morning, Mr. Trump said: “I am working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A. C. Company to stay in the U. S. (Indiana). MAKING PROGRESS Will know soon!” During both the primary and general election campaigns, Mr. Trump frequently cited the February decision by Carrier and its corporate parent, United Technologies, to close two Indiana factories and move production to Mexico as an example of how Nafta and other agreements had failed American workers. In a recent New York Times article, workers at one plant in Indianapolis warned that they would withdraw their support for Mr. Trump if he did not keep his promise to bring back overseas jobs. The two plants — a Carrier factory employing more than 1, 400 workers in Indianapolis and a United Technologies plant with 700 employees in Huntington — are profitable, but pay workers $15 to $26 an hour — about what the company’s workers in Monterrey, Mexico, earn in a day. In a time of slow economic growth and intense pressure from Wall Street to improve profits, moving production south of the border seemed like too good of an opportunity for United Technologies’ executives to pass up. However, a shaky video of the announcement on the Carrier factory floor — and the furious reaction of workers — went viral in February. It caught Mr. Trump’s attention, prompting a furor throughout the campaign. In a tweet Thursday after Mr. Trump’s tweet, Carrier confirmed that the had reached out, but refused to say what steps, if any, management was now considering. “Carrier has had discussions with the incoming administration and we look forward to working together,” the company said. “Nothing to announce at this time. ” For workers in Indianapolis, the Twitter exchange provided a ray of hope on an otherwise anxious Thanksgiving holiday. “Everyone is posting about it on Facebook and there’s a lot of excitement,” said Paul Roell, who has worked at Carrier for 17 years and was an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Trump in the election. “I’m a little more optimistic now,” he said. “Others are saying, let’s see if he’s really going to do this. ” “I was very surprised to see it on Thanksgiving today,” Mr. Roell added. “I figured he’d be like everyone else today, with his family, not thinking of Carrier. ” Earlier in the week, Indiana state officials had come to the factory to describe what benefits workers could expect as layoffs approach, Mr. Roell said. The first production lines are expected to shut down in August 2017. “If he can get them to stay here, I’m all for it,” said Robin Maynard, a Trump supporter. “I’m hoping he can get stuff done and also save me from having to look for a new job. ” Other workers, especially those who did not support Mr. Trump in the election, were more skeptical. “It’s baloney,” said Jennifer who has worked at Carrier for a decade and a half and earns over $21 an hour, well above what similar jobs pay in the area. “I could see him reaching out to Carrier, but I don’t think anything will happen,” said Ms. who added that she “reluctantly” voted for Hillary Clinton this month. “He can try and talk to them, and it’s good that he mentioned it, but I think Carrier will still leave. ” | 1 |
Somewhere Santa is mourning. More than 300 reindeer were found dead in Norway on Friday, their bodies sprawled across a hillside on the Hardangervidda mountain plateau. Experts say that lightning most likely caused the grisly sight. But for many people who have seen images and video of the eerie scene that answer has raised some suspicion. How could a lightning strike create so many casualties? “Lightning does not strike a point, it strikes an area,” said John Jensenius, a lightning safety specialist with the National Weather Service. “The physical flash you see strikes a point, but that lightning is radiating out as ground current and it’s very deadly. ” It’s possible that a single bolt could have hit one or two reindeer directly, he said, but the majority of the carnage was caused by ground current. When the electric discharge touches down it spreads out in search of places to travel. The reindeer, with their four hooves on the grass, presented potential pathways where that current could flow. “The electricity would go up one leg of the body and stop the heart and go down and out another leg,” he said. “In an instant, of course. ” The same thing can and does happen to humans, Mr. Jensenius said, but animals are particularly vulnerable because they have more legs and their legs are further apart. The greater the distance between two legs, the greater the chance that electricity will try to flow through them, and the stronger that charge will be. Though the reindeer were in a herd when they died they did not have to be touching to get electrocuted. They only had to be touching the ground within an area about 160 to 260 feet in diameter from where the strike or strikes hit. The 323 reindeer most likely dropped dead from cardiac arrest where they stood and did not go flying in the air, like in some movies. Mr. Jensenius said that it’s likely the lightning would have struck that location whether the reindeer were there or not. He added that this case is unusual because of the large number of reindeer that were killed, but that it isn’t uncommon for livestock to be felled by lightning. The most cattle ever killed by lightning is 68 according to the Guinness World Record. There are also reports of lightning apparently striking many types of animals, including 53 pigs and 143 goats in China, 16 bulls in Scotland, a giraffe at Disney World, and even one historical account of two bolts killing 654 sheep in Utah. Lightning is dangerous to people as well, and in June of this year more than 70 people in India were killed by lightning. Mr. Jensenius said that we can learn from the reindeer’s misfortune. “It should be a lesson to the people as to what can happen in a thunderstorm,” he said. “When thunder roars, go indoors. ” | 1 |
When Technology Becomes Religion And Science Becomes God By Michael Snyder, on March 1st, 2015
Are we in love with how smart we are? In America today, there are technology companies that have a much larger “cult following” than any religious organization. And there are millions upon millions of Americans that freely confess that they “believe in science”. So what does this say about us? Does it say that we have discarded ancient “superstitions” and instead have embraced logic and reason? Sadly, in most cases the truth is that we have simply traded one form of religion for another. Scientists and technology gurus have become our new high priests, and most of us blindly follow whatever they tell us. But in the end, just like with so many religious organizations, it is all about the money. Those with the money determine what the science is going to say, who the high priests are going to be, and what messages are conveyed to the public. For example, once upon a time the big tobacco companies had armies of doctors and scientists that swore up and down that smoking cigarettes was not harmful. In fact, many doctors and dentists in America once personally endorsed specific brands of cigarettes. Of course millions of Americans were getting sick and dying, but this was dismissed as “anecdotal evidence”. And over in Germany, “science” was once used to prove that the Germans were the master race. We look back in horror now, but at the time the best “science” in the world was used as justification to promote some horrible untruths. And of course the same thing is happening today. We are told over and over that “the science is settled” regarding genetically-modified food, climate change and vaccine safety, and yet those of us that think for ourselves know that isn’t the case at all. But if you do not believe in the “official story”, you don’t get to be part of the “scientific establishment”. By definition, the only people that get to be “scientific experts” are the ones that embrace the “doctrine” of those that control the big corporations, that fund the research studies at the major universities and that own the big media outlets. Everyone else is not permitted to be part of the discussion.
As I have written about previously , I spent eight years studying at public universities in the United States. And over time, I got to see where most “scientific truths” come from these days.
Most of the time, the theories that people believe are so “scientific” were simply pulled out of thin air. In other words, they were just the product of someone’s overactive imagination. In recent decades, there have been countless examples of “existing science” being overturned and rewritten when more information and evidence become available. This is because the “existing science” did not have any foundation to begin with.
And yet we continue to make the same mistake today. Instead of calling them “theories”, which is what they should do, scientists all over the world are so eager to make bold pronouncements about the wonderful new “discoveries” that they have made. These bold pronouncements are then repeated over and over and over again until they become “facts”. But of course they are not facts at all.
For instance, at one time it was a “scientific fact” that it was perfectly safe to smoke cigarettes. The following comes from a recent article by Tony Cartalucci …
It wasn’t long ago when big-tobacco had armies of “scientists” citing the latest “studies” confirming the health benefits and safety of smoking. Of course these were paid liars, not scientists, even if many of them had PhDs. And it was lies they were telling, even if mixed with shades of science.
In case you are too young to remember those days, Cartalucci included the following compilation of old tobacco ads in his article …
Even worse is how the Nazi used science.
To them, the “facts” of Darwinism proved that they were the master race …
Hiding behind science is nothing new. Darwinists hid behind it to prop up their racism, which in fact inspired the Nazis to hide behind it to scientifically prove they were the “master race.” The Nazis, in fact, loved science, and used it with horrible precision.
At any point in history, has “science” ever had all the answers?
Of course not.
And without a doubt, someday people will look back and mock all of us for how stupid we were.
But we never stop to consider that. Instead, we are all just so proud of ourselves and our accomplishments.
In fact, as I mentioned above, there are a lot of people out there that virtually worship technology these days. Just consider the following excerpt from a Los Angeles Times article entitled “ How Steve Jobs and Apple turned technology into a religion “…
Decades after Apple’s founding, we’ve grown used to referring to lovers of the company’s products as a “ cult .” The devotion of customers to Apple products has long been the envy of competitors for its fanatical fervor.
It turns out that the religious intensity with which people follow the company is not entirely by accident. In a new book, “Appletopia,” author Brett Robinson examines the way that Steve Jobs drew on religious metaphors and iconography to elevate his products specifically, and technology more generally, into a kind of religion .
“The creative rhetoric around Apple’s technology has favored religious metaphors,” Robinson said in an interview. “Some of it is conscious on Apple’s part. Some of it is unconscious.”
But certainly this is less strange than what a lot of religious people do, right?
After all, there are millions upon millions of people out there that do some really strange things in the name of religion. For example, on the other side of the globe 400 men cut off their own testicles in an attempt to get closer to God.
Many would say that our worship of science and technology is evidence that we have evolved beyond our ancestors. In fact, there are some “scientific minds” that are now proclaiming that science will one day eliminate belief in God altogether. For example, the following comes from an article entitled “ Will Science Someday Rule Out the Possibility of God? “…
Over the past few centuries, science can be said to have gradually chipped away at the traditional grounds for believing in God. Much of what once seemed mysterious — the existence of humanity, the life-bearing perfection of Earth, the workings of the universe — can now be explained by biology, astronomy, physics and other domains of science.
Although cosmic mysteries remain, Sean Carroll, a theoretical cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology, says there’s good reason to think science will ultimately arrive at a complete understanding of the universe that leaves no grounds for God whatsoever.
Carroll argues that God’s sphere of influence has shrunk drastically in modern times, as physics and cosmology have expanded in their ability to explain the origin and evolution of the universe . “As we learn more about the universe, there’s less and less need to look outside it for help,” he told Life’s Little Mysteries.
Personally, I find this laughable.
Darwinists have been trying to move God out of the picture for decades, but they are fighting a losing battle. Over time, more and more evidence has come out that has shot the theory of evolution full of holes. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “ 44 Reasons Why Evolution Is Just A Fairy Tale For Adults “.
And as far as whether or not God exists, this is something that I have been investigating for many, many years. My legal training has taught me to think critically and to allow the evidence to speak for itself. Over time, I came to learn that there is a vast that leads to one inescapable conclusion. In the end, the overwhelming conclusion that I reached was that God is very, very real. You can find a few of my thoughts in an article entitled “ Did You Know? ”
So what do you think?
Does our society worship technology?
Has “science” become a god in America?
Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below…
Sign Of Judgment? Total Solar Eclipse On March 20th Falls In The Middle Of The Four Blood Red Moons » GetReal4U2
God is…very…very…real…Another great article Michael…the “end times” are drawing near…it’s so freaky how the word of God is literally being fulfilled before our very eyes…the miracle of the state of Israel and how it would become a stumbling block for the entire world…the prime minister is speaking to congress…and the current administration is having a fit,,,yep…the very countries named in end time prophesy…(Russia/Iran etc…) are lining up just as it said…the coming solar eclipse and blood moon on passover…are more signs of the end coming soon…the looming economic collapse is very near…ushering in the one world government…sadly most don’t believe it…or worse…even care… MichaelfromTheEconomicCollapse
Very well said. guest
Well let’s see here, They have their astrologers, diviners, soothsayers, wizards, seekers and speakers of the ‘secret’ things, knowers of ‘truth’, priests and preistess’s. They have all of the false gods of the O.T. and try to legitimize them with a covering of ‘science’. I’m waiting for the return of ‘nimrod’. I think he is going to offer them the ‘tree of life’. When the locusts come out of the pit to torment them and Death hides from them, then only might they begin to understand that the devil gave them the desire of their hearts, but it wasn’t quite what they imagined. Too late. DJohn1
You bring up a very interesting question in this article. I am proud of you for doing so. The conflict between science and religion has been going on for a very long time. It dates back to at least the 15-16th century. Long before Darwin and his theories of evolution in the 1850s.
As a child I asked a lot of questions. Usually we were in a Methodist Church or a United Brethren Church being instructed on religion. I was told as a child that Heaven was above us and Hell was below us. If you were not good but evil then you would most likely end up when you die go below us in Hell. If you were a Christian the all is forgiven and you go to Heaven.
By the time I was 13 I had read the Bible cover to cover in old English which is what the King James Bible is written in. It was originally written in the 1620s. Or thereabouts. So was Shakespeare. Being of English Origin, my original vocabulary did come a little closer to Old English than American English did. I still did not understand everything.
The fly in the ointment is that Science discovered the true nature of this Heaven and Hell that they were speaking about when it was discovered the Earth is not flat, it rotates around the Sun, and the core of the Earth is possibly 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. So the churches adapted. Now these places are very seldom described in churches as to an exact location at all. In the 1880s or thereabouts, a bishop in the Catholic Church added up all the ages of the various people in the Old Testament, added in the time of Christ’s birth to the present time and came up with a number that was the age of the Universe. To this day, a lot of people believe that number. The Earth cannot be more than 6,000 years old! There are people that take that age as gospel. Science is no better. They believe we originated from evolved creatures related to the apes. Well, they might be partially correct or not. We do not have the same number of chromosomes as apes.
Our chromosomes show considerable evidence of manipulation because two chromosomes are merged into double sized chromosomes. That it reproduces is amazing. We currently have over 400 genetic diseases or errors in the genetic code. Far too many for it to be normal. That spells an artificially created animal. That is a direct opposition to evolutionary theory. Science ignores it whenever they can. Their tenure is based on following religiously the original Darwin theory. The universe is at least 15 billion years old. I question that figure. I think it is older. I base that on the speed of light being 186,125 miles per second, and that being the top speed that something can travel without passing backwards in time. The known universe is huge. There are over 100,000 known galaxies and that number is probably conservative. I think there are a whole lot more than that. God says in the Bible I am the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. I believe God. He defines himself as I am that I am. If ever English were inadequate to describe the original translations of the Bible this would be it. Meantime back at the local Church, Synagogue, Temples, etc. this pretty much goes undiscussed by religious authorities. The common person does not ask a lot of questions. The church authorities are probably grateful for that small blessing.
A lot of religions discourage questions and I understand why. IF. That is the real question. IF Science is right? IF the universe is as large as they say it is? IF God is as old as the Universe? Then that makes God something so powerful that no one is even aware just how powerful and old God really is.
I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I have faith in Jesus. I have faith in prayer. I believe that when (not if) my body dies, my brain dies, that the operating soul then departs the body. That soul IF I am correct will go to be with Jesus. The rest of it is unknown as to how it all works. I have seen more than one miracle in my time here on Earth. I was privileged to know a priest that lived through Burma. 2,000 went in and 200 came out of Burma alive. He was the only Chaplain of God to survive. I remember clearly he did a Mass and pulled most of the energy from me one Saturday. 3 days later a female I was close to in Denver(I was in Niagara Falls AB, New York) wrote me a note and specified the exact time it happened. She asked what happened. All the power went out of her the same time it happened to me. In my 40s, a doctor diagnosed me with heart trouble. I was with a Pentacostal Singles Group and I was very worried. They laid hands on me and prayed for a cure. I went in and joined the artery club. They probed my heart through an artery in my leg. They could find nothing wrong. My Father was dying. He had a blood disease. He had some tooth work done and it would not quit bleeding. I called on prayer partners for my Mother’s sake. The only clotting compound left in the country (the FDA had banned it) was at the hospital they took him to. He lived. I believe.
Reason says none of this could have happened. Faith says it did. MichaelfromTheEconomicCollapse
Thank you for sharing all of that DJohn.
Michael Guest
You did not read the King James Bible in “Old English.” The King James Bible was written between 1604 and 1611, and was written in Early Modern English (or, basically, just “English” since it’s not that much different from our modern-day language.
You would not be able to read Old English without training, since Old English was used from about the 600s – 1066, and is basically a completely different language, since it’s much closer to German or Scandinavian. DJohn1
By Old English I was referring to the language used in the Bible and Shakespere.
English itself is a conglomeration of different languages and was a trade language originally. Thank you for the information, I was not aware that it also referred to language from 600-1066. That date 1066 is also significant for William the Conquerer.
When a book is written with numerous words that have multiple meanings then that becomes a problem. We have over 250 denominations of “Christians” in the United States alone. Probably that number is too conservative. England itself was a mixing pot of genetics and language. K
So scientists will one day prove there is no God. Sorry God already proved to me, real scientists don’t exist. VigilanteCaregiver
Serious science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God – that’s not what it’s for. Serious sciences like physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc. can help you form an argument in favor of a creator, but it doesn’t provide anything that can prove definite existence… and I like to think He did this on purpose. Mike
I would have to say that observing creation through the sciences points to a creator with a purpose. Therefore, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” Psalm 19:1 VigilanteCaregiver
I’ve been saying this for years and most trolls here go bat &#$% crazy. Science is not capable of being a religion anyway; just those who crave power and utilize politicized pseudoscience myths like evolution, deviant marriage, eugenics, and so on. It just sounds cool to say you believe in science. Of course faith is a vast part of science (you have to believe your results after all), but it’s not a faith in a creator nor a faith leads to strong values and character, freedom and responsibility, nor the ability to grow and develop. It’s a worship of base things and stuff. It’s a worship of earth and the goods of the earth… worship of Baal. guest | 0 |
Behind the headlines - conspiracies, cover-ups, ancient mysteries and more. Real news and perspectives that you won't find in the mainstream media. Browse: Home / Bishop Williamson on Putin, Putin’s Meeting with Pope Francis, and the Fr. Gruner-Russian Meeting Essential Reading Soros/CIA Plan to Destabilize Europe By Wayne Madsen on September 28, 2015
The same forces that orchestrated the various ‘colour revolutions’ and the ‘Arab Spring’ are behind Europe’s migrant crisis. Wayne Madsen explains The Essene Gospel of Peace II By wmw_admin on April 26, 2007
Translated by Purcell Weaver and Edmond Szekely from its original Aramiac, a language that today few know but 2000 years ago was the language that Christ spoke and taught with In ‘Eisenhower’s Death Camps': A U.S. Prison Guard’s Story By wmw_admin on May 4, 2007
In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets; many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement. The Illuminati Chronicles Part II By wmw_admin on November 28, 2007
A Short History of the New World Order Part II By [email protected] Aug. 10, 1973 – David Rockefeller writes an article for the “New York Times” describing his recent visit to Red China: “Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also […] The Advent of the Anti-Christ By Rixon Stewart on August 2, 2010
A few words on the market meltdown and how it may assist the debut of a truly sinister figure Dov Zakheim 9/11 Mastermind Video By wmw_admin on May 15, 2010
Using legal injunctions, Dov Zakheim’s lawyers forced this website to remove an article we posted with the same title; which tells us he may have something to hide. Seems like others also think so as this video indicates. Watch it while you still can Holocaust, Hate Speech & Were the Germans so Stupid? – Updated By wmw_admin on March 23, 2011
The brilliant examination of the ‘Holocaust’ by Anthony Lawson has since been censored on the basis of a false Copyright infrigment. But as Lawson explains, this just another attempt to stiffle freedom of expression | 0 |
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The National Guard, no less.
Mohamad Bailor Jalloh later said he would like to carry out an attack in the style of Fort Hood mass murdering Muslim Nidal Hasan . He also praised Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who killed five U.S. service members in Chattanooga, Tenn., last year. And Jalloh wanted to assassinate “someone known for organizing contests for cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.”
“Ex-National Guard member pleads guilty to terror charge,” AP , October 27, 2016:
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A former National Guard soldier from Virginia has pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge after admitting that he traveled to Africa and boarded a truck to join the Islamic State group before ultimately bailing out.
Twenty-seven-year-old Mohamed Jalloh, of Sterling, was arrested in July after a sting operation in which he discussed launching a Fort Hood-style attack. At a plea hearing Thursday in federal court, new details emerged showing Jalloh made contact with the Islamic State before the government became aware of him.
Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen, admitted Thursday that he traveled to his native Sierra Leone last year and connected with an Islamic State facilitator. While he backed out of traveling to join the Islamic State in Libya, he gave hundreds of dollars to support recruits.
Article posted with permission from Pamela Geller . Don't forget to Like Freedom Outpost on Facebook , Google Plus , & Twitter . You can also get Freedom Outpost delivered to your Amazon Kindle device here . shares | 0 |
There have been a wide array of reports suggesting that the U.S. government is preparing military and Homeland Security assets for widespread election fall out. Given the mainstream media’s inclination towards Hillary Clinton and recently presented evidence that Democrat operatives have been attempting to illegally influence the ballot box through falsifying votes and electronic tampering , it appears that concerns surrounding a rigged election are not necessarily unfounded, as President Obama would have us believe.
With the election just days away, the fix appears to be in and some Americans are readying themselves for a confrontation should one be necessary.
As the most divisive presidential election in recent memory nears its conclusion, some armed militia groups are preparing for the possibility of a stolen election on Nov. 8 and civil unrest in the days following a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton.
They say they won’t fire the first shot, but they’re not planning to leave their guns at home, either.
…
Trump has repeatedly warned that the election may be “rigged,” and has said he may not respect the results if he does not win. At least one paramilitary group, the Oath Keepers, has called on members to monitor voting sites for signs of fraud
…
Over the past week, some prominent Trump supporters have hinted at violence.
“If Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket,” former Illinois Representative Joe Walsh wrote on Twitter last week. Conservative commentator Wayne Root fantasized about Clinton’s death while speaking at a Trump rally in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Back in Georgia, the Three Percent Security Force wrapped up rifle practice in the midday sun. They then headed further into the trees to tackle an obstacle course with loaded pistols at their sides, ready for whatever may come.
Source: Zero Hedge via Raw Story
The story comes from the mainstream media, of course, and ties in the Oklahoma City bombing, Waco and the Ruby Ridge incidents, all of which involved people with ties to militias.
The way the report itself is framed appears to have the purpose of sowing seeds of “crazy conspiracy theorists” into the minds of the general public so that if push comes to shove government actions will be justified in the eyes of the American citizenry.
But whatever the narrative, it is clear that the possibility of post-election chaos is becoming all the more probable . Whether the initial outcome shows a Trump win or a Hillary win, there are going to be tens of millions of very pissed off people in this country. And there’s a very good chance that some of them will take action, which according to Mike Adams could subsequently lead to open warfare on the streets of America:
As I’ve publicly predicted numerous times over the last year, if Donald Trump wins, the radical extreme leftists go on a violent rampage that leads to the rest of us begging for martial law. After half a dozen cities burn with riots and looting, Trump invokes a national emergency, deploying National Guard troops across the most devastated urban areas, and the radical left finds itself in a shooting war with the government.
If Hillary Clinton wins, all the Trump supporters who have been violently assaulted, spat upon and physically attacked by the radical left un-holster their concealed weapons and start shooting back. This quickly escalates into open warfare between lunatic leftist Hillary supporters and armed Trump “Second Amendment” people who basically figure they’ve got nothing left to lose anyway, so why not fight to save America?
Full Report: The Election Is A Ticking Time Bomb: “Chaos Will Erupt In Less Than 100 Days”
It would only take a small group, perhaps even one that’s operating under a false flag, to light a wildfire that could spread from coast to coast. The assets, as Jeremiah Johnson warns , have already been put into place by the Obama administration:
In summary, the U.S. is prepositioning its “enemy-assets” to blame – on what the administration does – for a collapsed election labeled as “rigged” or the suspension of the election for any number of reasons , real or illusory, such as a genuine attack the U.S. provokes or an attack the U.S. carries out on itself . Civil unrest and/or war are the escape hatches to bail out of the Constitution and to take control of the country…not letting either crisis go to waste. With civil rest or a world war, the administration will be handed the country on a platter – indefinitely – and the election will be a moot point, whether it happened or not.
Full report: The United States Is Pre-Positioning “Enemy Assets” In Preparation For A Rigged Election
All of this may sound extreme, but this Presidential election has been nothing short of insane thus far.
Whatever the outcome, there will be calls of rigging from both sides, especially if it happens to be Hillary Clinton who , as evidence shows, has been rigging things all along.
It only took one bullet in 1914 to lead to widespread global confrontation. In the end, no one really cared who fired it or who got shot. The assets had already been positioned ahead of time and were just waiting for someone to detonate the powder keg.
If this is the case in America today, then this election will not end on November 8th, but could drag on for weeks or months as we saw with Bush vs. Gore in 2000.
Should tensions heat up and lead to confrontation, it is possible that President Obama will call for a national emergency and activate the Doomsday Executive Order to “restore order.” In this instance, the entire country could be on lock-down, so preparing for this outcome now in the event of curfews, rationing or any number of other potential scenarios is in order.
Related:
The Prepper’s Blueprint – A Step-By-Step Guide To Prepare For Any Disaster
The Election Is A Ticking Time Bomb: “Chaos Will Erupt In Less Than 100 Days”
Leaked Military Drill Anticipates “No Rule of Law” After Election Results
United Nations Soldier Says They Will Soon Occupy America: “Going Door-to-Door Taking Guns Or Shooting To Kill”
Ad Shows Army Prepping for Martial Law: “This Is Not Battle Training. This Is Riot Control”
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First published October 31, 2016
Iraq is going to invade and destroy Saudi Arabia. They would have done it back in 1990 except for waffling by George H.W. Bush who had initially authorized the move and then rescinded approval, according to statements made by former Congressman Ron Paul, based on WikiLeaks State Department hacks.
Saddam was blocked in 1990, and that may well have been a huge mistake on the part of everyone involved. When the US returned in 2003, it was Saudi cash that financed the Sunni Wahhabist was against the coalition government in Baghdad, a war that continues to this day, with the same cast of characters, the same Saudi cash, but they now call it “ISIS.”
5000 Americans died fighting Saudi paid jihadists.
Saudi Arabia has always known that Iraq has only allowed them to continue their mischief so long as they served a purpose. When the war with Iran ended in 1988, that purpose had ended also.
Saudi mischief in Iraq, playing tribe against tribe, pushing for Kurdish separatism and partnering with Israeli intelligence, ramped up as America scaled back her military presence under President Obama.
By 2014, a logistics and command structure to destroy both Syria and Iraq had been established, headquartered in the Saudi embassies in Beirut and Amman and operating military operations centers, designed and built by the Israelis, at key locations in Turkey and quickly bolstered by satellite facilities across Iraq and Syria. The Saudi’s were feeling time getting away from them, their decades of military buildup, based on endless oil and investment performance, no long sustainable. They had to knock out Syria and Iraq, using Israel, Turkey and NATO as surrogates, push the US into destroying Iran and cleanse Yemen of threats.
They bribed everyone they got near. Were the Saudi’s really the ones behind the Arab spring? Do we see the hands of Saudi Arabia when Israel channels Hamas fighters into the Yarmouk Camp, outside Damascus, to bolster ISIS forces? These are the telling events few see, but that prove the hypothesis and provide what is needed to predict a future that may well no longer include the Dark Kingdom.
With a world obsessed with Islamic extremism and terror threats, why is no one looking at where it comes from, who finances, whose ideas are behind it and who it serves? With fingers pointing at the Mossad or CIA and so many others, the real issue is Wahhabism and the real root of it all is Saudi Arabia.
There is no version of 9/11 that doesn’t credit Saudi Mohammed Atta as planner of 9/11, whether assisted by Israeli art students or Osama bin Laden, depending on which theories you follow. The Saudi’s did it and American civil courts are busy now assessing the damages.
Oil money and sovereign immunity and, oh yes, control of the UN Human Rights Council, from which Russia was just expelled, protect them also, despite their abuses and love of head chopping. Pro-Iran militias in Iraq
What is playing out now will lead only one direction , to a stronger Iraq, one under Shiite control with the economically powerful Sunni families, quietly migrating to their second homes in Dubai and Qatar.
The crippled military the US saddled Iraq with will be gone, replaced by powerful Iranian-trained militias.
The American-trained army joined ISIS. Had Prime Minister Maliki, back in 2014, been more aware of the threat, he would have moved against the Army. That, however, would have renewed the civil war, a war that could only have been ended with Iranian military intervention and Iran was still reeling with sanctions and the threat of American invasion.
That threat is gone also. That world is gone, or soon will be as is being played out in Mosul and Aleppo. No one would have imagined Baghdad’s resolve or the partnership between Russia and Iran. Still in question is Turkey’s role. It is clear someone promised them Aleppo and Mosul, as is reflected in their military incursions into Syria and Iraq.
If Saudi Arabia thinks Turkey will lift a hand to block Iraq’s wrath, they are delusional. Turkey knows it can have peace with Iran and that both share similar ideas about the Kurds. This far outweighs any Turkish ambitions to the South. Turkey may well be planning a new Ottoman Empire, but Saudi Arabia is not in the cards for Turkish occupation. Members of the Abbas combat squad, a Shia militia, trained with Iraqi soldiers in Basra
This leaves the protection of the United States and the upcoming election. Is there any American political leader that would oppose Iraq were they to hit Saudi Arabia, by 2020 or 2021?
The prediction is that Iraq will come out of this war intact and, if they do, with a victorious army for the first time genuinely answerable to Baghdad and reeling from the battle of Mosul, likely to leave 20,000 civilians dead in its wake or more, the national enmity for Saudi Arabia will know no bounds.
The Sunni gangsters from Anbar that aligned with the Saudis are mostly dead, many beheaded by ISIS. The promised Kurdish state in Erbil, the so-called “Barzani Sultanate” will not be handed control of the massive Kirkuk oil fields and the Ceyhan Pipeline by ISIS, as may well have been planned.
Without these assets, Erbil will still enjoy a strong commercial presence but will never be able to reach into the Kurdish diaspora and bring the millions home and under questionable rule, subject to Erbil’s deal making with everyone. Eventually Erbil will become a ghost town, the sons that returned will again migrate and Turkish ambitions, seemingly undone, will be fulfilled.
As it appears now, Iraq will survive. Iraq also knows that what Saudi Arabia tried twice, they will try again and that the only way Iraq can be free is if Saudi Arabia falls.
And then there is Iran. Iranian aircraft have carried out strikes against the Islamic State. (Photo: TomoNews US) Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War who has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues, and is a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook .” | 0 |
Tenured , of course.
He calls the Bundy verdicts “nullification”— which they ain’t, since the jury did its job based on the facts.
By the way, nullification is fine when called for. In the nineteenth century, the jury’s common, and not the judge’s instructions, guided the verdict.
Then he claims that armed Americans should “scare all Americans.”
Again, translated: “Those who refuse to do what the government tells them are a danger to the country!”
And, laughably, this statist winds it up by pretending he supports “law and order”!
And the good news? He really is mad. And that’s good. Better than having him gloat over a cowed jury’s guilty verdict. | 0 |
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FBI informant Terri "Momma Bear" Linnell tells why she became an informant, and what she told the FBI during the Bundy occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns Oregon earlier this year, in her first-ever interview. The occupation of the refuge ended with the death of rancher Robert "LaVoy" Finicum and the arrests of dozens of other protestors.
Only much of what she said was a lie, and interviewer Bobby Powell, Publisher of The Truth Is Viral news program, knew it. Eye-witness testimony from three separate individuals dispute Linnell's account of events during the raid of a campground in Maryland during Operation American Spring by more than 40 agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, Maryland State Police, and the Secret Service.
The witnesses all say Linnell was escorted away from the campground by the Secret Service while her friends and fellow campers were on their knees with automatic assault rifles pointed at their heads for hours.
There is also evidence to indicate, including a slip of Linnell's own tongue, that she has been an informant for the FBI, and possibly even a paid agent, since the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2010. shares | 0 |
President Trump says that the United States’ persistent trade deficit is a scourge that must be eliminated. But new data Tuesday shows the complexity of the costs and benefits of trade — and how reducing the trade deficit, if not done right, could leave Americans worse off. What really matters is not whether the trade deficit is rising or falling. What matters is why. The trade deficit rose 9. 6 percent in January, to the highest level since 2012 (though it remains lower as a share of the total economy). It’s in the details of that $48. 5 billion gap between what the United States exported and what it imported, though, that you see why the economy is more complex than the “trade deficits are bad” framing of the Trump administration. Picking apart the January numbers, you see just how that way of looking at trade can be misleading. The challenge for the Trump administration, if it sticks to its guns of reducing the trade deficit as a top economic goal, will be to do so by focusing on what really matters for Americans’ standards of living. The trade deficit fell a great deal during the 2008 recession, for example. No one would argue it made Americans (or pretty much anyone else) better off. The United States actually exported 0. 9 percent more goods in January than it did in December (the numbers are adjusted for the usual seasonal variations). If your concern is that other countries haven’t been buying enough goods made in U. S. factories, the January numbers pointed in a positive direction. The United States exported $1. 3 billion more in automobiles and $2. 1 billion more in industrial supplies in January than it did in December. The details show the economic idea of specialization at work. The $1. 3 billion rise in automotive exports was paired with a $900 million rise in automotive imports. The overall balance didn’t shift much, but that suggests that the United States is shipping cars and trucks that it makes more efficiently while importing those that others make more efficiently. The reason the trade deficit rose is that imports rose faster than exports. But even that isn’t entirely a negative. Imports of consumer goods rose by $2. 4 billion in January, with a particularly strong rise in imported cellphones. That reflects the relative strength of the U. S. economy. American consumers have rising incomes, and inevitably they spend part of that income on imported goods. In effect, the higher trade deficit in January is in significant part caused by U. S. economic strength. It is the inverse of what happened during the 2008 recession. Buying more imported consumer goods because you are making more money is generally a good thing, not a bad thing. Some exports of products were down in a few sectors where the United States has important competitive advantages. Exports of civilian aircraft — think Boeing jets sold across the globe — fell by $611 million, and shipments of other capital goods like aircraft engines and telecommunications equipment were also down. Such sectors tend to be volatile, so these may turn out to be blips. But if global demand softened for these products made by skilled workers with advanced technology, it would be bad news for Americans. Meanwhile, a persistent strength of the U. S. economy has been in services, but the balance of trade in services worsened by $5. 3 billion. This may reflect a rise in the value of the dollar. For example, when travelers from abroad visit the United States and spend money at hotels and restaurants, that counts as a services export. That number fell by $89 million in January. It is worth watching whether that falls further, as it might should the dollar keep rising and should the Trump administration’s ban on travel from several countries dissuade travelers. Given the vast numbers of American jobs tied to service industries, it would be bad news if that trend continued. A big piece in the rise in imports was crude oil and other petroleum products. They were up by a combined $2. 2 billion. (Exports of those products also rose, by $1. 2 billion, but combined that means oil contributed to the widening of the trade deficit.) But that seems less worrisome if you know that the price of crude oil rose 9 percent from the start of December until the start of January. A rise in the price of oil or any other commodity benefits its producers and costs its consumers. It will affect, over time, patterns of imports and exports of that product. But when the trade deficit rises or falls because of those shifts, it’s not really because of trade per se, but because of underlying shifts in supply and demand for the commodity in question. Put it all together, and while the January trade report has some weak spots and areas for concern, it is not nearly the unabashed bad news that a simplistic reading of the trade deficit would suggest. If the trade deficit falls during the Trump administration because sales of automobiles, jet airliners or services overseas boom, that will be great news. If it falls because Americans’ spending collapses, it will be bad news. If it falls because of commodity price swings, it will depend on which commodities exactly, and where they’re made. The trade deficit is important. But using it as a simplistic scorecard doesn’t tell the full story. | 1 |
Ohh God the horror! Trump is so evil for talking dirty and being horny on some pu**y tape 12 years ago so let’s show the world how pure and divine we are by using the same language.
Liberals are such disgusting animals. No brains, no empathy, no logic, average 70 IQs, zero political knowledge but who cares? They are famous, they think they get a pass on whatever they do because of that.
They are truly the filth of the earth! Many Americans are struggling with their health plans, jobs, debt, foreclosures and everything but these privileged filthy human wastes are coming to lecture you, to tell you that you are a scumbag redneck for wanting change.
They are privileged wastes, remember that! They are not going through what you’re going, they are tweeting hate from their multi-million dollar mansions while you’re struggling to put food on the table.
They have ruined America. You think America’s $20 Trillion debt is a joke? Who is going to pay it? Will these celebrity wastes pay your debt when the economy implodes? What happens when America will reach Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation rates? You think Hillary will fix the economy? First of all she doesn’t want to fix anything and second she wouldn’t even know how to even if she wanted.
Open your eyes America, this is your last chance to stop your country from transforming into Brazil > Venezuela > Zimbabwe and finally North Korea. It would be a slow painful process but you have the power to put an end to it by voting for Trump today!
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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton walk in to a bar.
Donald leans over, and with a smile on his face, says,
“The media is really tearing you apart for that Scandal.”
Hillary: “You mean my lying about Benghazi?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean the massive voter fraud?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean the military not getting their votes counted?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Using my secret private server with classified material to hide my Activities?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “The NSA monitoring our phone calls, emails and everything else?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Using the Clinton Foundation as a cover for tax evasion, hiring cronies, and taking bribes from foreign countries?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean the drones being operated in our own country without the benefit of the law?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Giving 123 Technologies $300 Million, and right afterward it declared bankruptcy and was sold to the Chinese?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean arming the Muslim Brotherhood and hiring them in the White House?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Whitewater, Watergate committee, Vince Foster, commodity Deals?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Turning Libya into chaos?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Being the mastermind of the so-called Arab Spring that only brought chaos, death and destruction to the Middle East and North Africa?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Leaving four Americans to die in Benghazi?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Trashing Mubarak, one of our few Muslim friends?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “The funding and arming of terrorists in Syria, the destruction and destabilization of that nation, giving the order to our lapdogs in Turkey and Saudi Arabia to give sarin gas to the “moderate” terrorists in Syria that they eventually used on civilians, and framed Assad, and had it not been for the Russians and Putin, we would have used that as a pretext to invade Syria, put a puppet in power, steal their natural resources, and leave that country in total chaos, just like we did with Libya?
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “The creation of the biggest refugees crisis since WWII?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Leaving Iraq in chaos?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “The DOJ spying on the press?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean HHS Secretary Sibelius shaking down health insurance Executives?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “Giving our cronies in SOLYNDRA $500 MILLION DOLLARS and 3 months later they declared bankruptcy and then the Chinese bought it?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “The NSA monitoring citizens?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “The State Department interfering with an Inspector General Investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “Me, The IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “Threats to all of Bill’s former mistresses to keep them quiet?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean the INSIDER TRADING of the Tyson chicken deal I did where I invested $1,000 and the next year I got $100,000?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean when Bill met with Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, just before my hearing with the FBI to cut a deal?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean the one where my IT guy at Platte River Networks asked Reddit for help to alter emails?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean where the former Haitian Senate President accused me and my foundation of asking him for bribes?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean that old video of me laughing as I explain how I got the charges against that child rapist dropped by blaming the young girl for liking older men and fantasising about them. Even though I knew the guy was guilty?
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean that video of me coughing up a giant green lunger into my drinking glass then drinking it back down?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean that video of me passing out on the curb and losing my shoe?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean when I robbed Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party Nomination by having the DNC rig the nomination process so that I would win?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “You mean how so many people that oppose me have died in mysterious ways?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “Travel Gate? When seven employees of the White House Travel Office were fired so that friends of Bill and mine could take over the travel business? And when I lied under oath during the investigation by the FBI, the Department of Justice, the White House itself, the General Accounting Office, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, and the Whitewater Independent Counsel?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “The scandal where (while I was Secretary if State) the State Department signed off on a deal to sell 20% of the USA’s uranium to a Canadian corporation that the Russians bought, netting a $145 million donation from Russia to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 speaking gig for Bill from the Russian Investment Bank that set up the corporate buyout? That scandal?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “That time I lied when I said I was under sniper fire when I got off the plane in Bosnia?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “That time when after I became the First Lady, I improperly requested a bunch of FBI files so I could look for blackmail material on government insiders?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “That time when Bill nominated Zoe Baird as Attorney General, even though we knew she hired illegal immigrants and didn’t pay payroll taxes on them?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “When I got Nigeria exempted from foreign aid transparency guidelines despite evidence of corruption because they gave Bill $700,000 in speaking fees?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “That time in 2009 when Honduran military forces allied with rightist lawmakers ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, and I as then-Secretary of State sided with the armed forces and fought global pressure to reinstate him?”
Trump: “No, the other one:”
Hillary: “I give up! … Oh wait, I think I’ve got it! When I stole the White House furniture and silverware when Bill left Office?”
Trump: “THAT’S IT, THAT ONE”
Hillary: “I thought I’d got away with that one dammit !!!”.
The post Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton walk in to a bar appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 0 |
WASHINGTON — During a private meeting with congressional leaders on Monday, President Trump asserted that between three million and five million unauthorized immigrants had voted for his Democratic opponent and robbed him of a victory in the national popular vote. There is no evidence to support the claim, which has been discredited repeatedly by numerous . That did not stop Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, from standing by the president’s words on Tuesday during a briefing with reporters at the White House. “As I said, I think the president has believed that for a while based on studies and information he has,” Mr. Spicer said. That much appears to be true. Mr. Trump repeatedly raised doubts about the integrity of the American voting system in the period before the election in November and has falsely said since his victory that millions of people voted illegally. Pressed to present the evidence on Tuesday, Mr. Spicer appeared to conflate two different studies that Mr. Trump’s staff had previously cited in defending his claim. “There’s one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who voted were noncitizens,” Mr. Spicer said. “There’s other studies that have been presented to him. ” Neither study Mr. Spicer apparently referred to supports Mr. Trump’s claim. The first study was conducted in 2014 by professors at Old Dominion University and discussed on Monkey Cage, a blog hosted by The Washington Post. Using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, the researchers found that 14 percent of noncitizens who responded to the survey in 2008 and 2010 said they were registered to vote. The problem is that the study relied on flawed data and was roundly criticized by political scientists who said that a more careful examination of the data revealed no evidence that noncitizens had voted in recent elections. The second study, conducted in 2012 by the Pew Center on the States, found that 24 million voter registrations were no longer valid or “significantly inaccurate” that more than 1. 8 million dead people were still listed on the voter rolls and that almost three million were registered in multiple states, probably because they had moved from one state to another. The study did not find evidence that those errors led to voter fraud, however, simply that they presented avoidable costs and inefficiencies in the electoral process. The primary author of the study, David Becker, made that plain in a Twitter post in November. On Tuesday, he wrote on Twitter that voting integrity in the November election had in fact improved. The absence of studies supporting the claim is not all that is working against Mr. Trump. Election and law enforcement officials all over the country, who monitored reports of voter fraud state by state, have said they found no credible evidence of widespread fraud. Mr. Trump’s assertion likewise found little backing from his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill. “I’ve seen no evidence to that effect,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters on Monday when asked about the purported voter fraud. In an interview with CNN, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, urged Mr. Trump to “knock this off. ” “This is going to erode his ability to govern this country if he does not stop it,” Mr. Graham said, adding that the president needed to present evidence for his beliefs if he was going to continue to profess them. Others simply deflected questions about Mr. Trump’s claims. Asked about the accuracy of the president’s assessment, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, chose to answer a question no one had asked. “It does occur,” he said of voter fraud, declining to quantify the scope. “There are always arguments on both sides about how much, how frequent and all the rest. ” | 1 |
Ivanka is not her father, no more than you are yours. No one is perfect and making Ivanka responsible for Don’s actions are bullshyte. I suuport her, even though I cannot afford her products!
I am a woman and Donalds remarks did not fall out of Ivanka’s mouth. | 0 |
Tweet Widget A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
Under President Obama, Democrats threw away their mandate to fight for health care for. Instead they let insurance companies concoct Obamacare, sketchy policies, skimpy coverage, high deductibles and co-pays for half the uninsured and empty promises for the other half. A Gallup Poll confirms that 58% of Americans want to see Obamacare replaced with a single payer system to guarantee health care, not health insurance for everybody. Time For the Real Left To Double Down on Single Payer Medicare For All A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
The Affordable Care Act, which President elect Trump promises to repeal and replace with nobody knows what, was never all it was cracked up to be.
The promise to deliver affordable health care was a key campaign issue in 2007 and 2008. But while most Americans demanded a single payer system to replace the private insurance companies, and guarantee health care for everyone, the 44 th president his corporate funded Democrats instead delivered Obamacare –- billions in tax dollars to insurance companies for policies with skimpy coverage and such high co-pays and deductibles that many families cannot afford to use their new health insurance. Worse still, Obamacare only provided these sketchy policies to about half the uninsured leaving the rest to the tender mercies of state governments which control Medicaid.
Ever since 2009 corporate Democrats have justified their treachery with claims that single payer Medicare For All was impossible to get through even the majority Democratic Congress of 2009 and 2010. Hillary Clinton also declared single payer dead on arrival should she be elected. But Hillary was not elected, and even though this is the fourth consecutive Republican dominated Congress, and Republican politicians hate Medicare For All just as much as their Democratic rivals, the popular mandate for single payer health care is very much alive.
A May 2016 Gallup Poll confirms that “...58% of U.S. adults favor the idea of replacing the law (Obamacare) with a federally funded healthcare system that provides insurance for all Americans.” The question for the left, however you read that term is what do we do about this? The answer has to be that we fight for what we know people want and need with all the means at our disposal. In the present era, the willingness to organize, to agitate, to educate, to demonstrate and to demand health care –- not health insurance, but health care for everybody as a human right is one of the markers by which we can tell actual flesh and blood leftists and their organizations from those who merely fake the funk until the next Democrat takes office. It’s worth noting that the Green Party’ candidates Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka were the only ones in this election calling for single payer health care.
A 2009 study by the National Nurses Union reveals that adoption of Medicare For All would create 2.6 million new jobs, from doctors and nurses to a host of health care professionals and technicians. That’s as many jobs as were lost in the 2007-2009 recession. It would inject #75 billion per year into the US economy, including $100 billion in wages alone. President Trump won in part because he told people he’d “bring back the jobs.” But steel mill jobs are imaginary, fictitious. Health care jobs are real.
The tens or hundreds of thousands in streets each night justifiably protesting the ascension of a crotch grabbing racist con man to the White House would be well advised to not repeat the mistake of Occupy a few years ago. They and others who want to be relevant in this new era urgently need to put forth some concrete demands which if struggled for will make them opinion leaders, and if won will improve the lives of millions. Quality single payer health care NOW is one of those demands.
Trump’s threat to dismantle Obamacare is an invitation for us to reopen the struggle for health care as a human right. And this time we know we’re struggling against Republicans AND Democrats.
For Black Agenda Radio I’m Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com . Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and serves on the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. He can be reached via email | 0 |
Did Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, actually read the full text of the UNESCO resolution on Palestine and Israel, before he raved with anger?
“I think this is a mistaken, inconceivable resolution,” he said.
“It is not possible to continue with these resolutions at the UN and UNESCO that aim to attack Israel. It is shocking and I have ordered that we stop taking this position (his country’s abstention) even if it means diverging from the position taken by the rest of Europe,” he added.
Renzi, who became Prime Minister in 2014 at the relatively young age of 39 knows exactly how the game is played. In order to win favor with Washington, he must first please Tel Aviv.
His country has abstained from the October 12 vote on a resolution that condemns Israel’s violations of the cultural and legal status of Occupied East Jerusalem. This decision has ignited the ire of Israeli Ambassador to Rome, Ofer Zaks, who riled up the Jewish community in Italy to protest the abstention. Renzi, in turn, was converted into a champion of the ‘Temple Mount’, the name Israel uses to describe the Palestinian Muslim holy site.
Renzi cravenly went on damage control mode without truly understanding the nature of the resolution, which merely condemned Israel’s obvious violations of international law, and only calls for Israel to respect the status of Palestinian culture in the occupied city.
None of procedures that led to the vote on the UNESCO’s resolution – voted by 24-6, with 26 abstentions – violated protocol, nor was any of the wording inconsistent with international law. In fact, UNESCO was merely doing its job: attempting to protect and preserve the historical and cultural heritage of the world.
Jerusalem is a sacred and a holy city to a majority of humanity, simply because it is significant to the spiritual wellbeing of the adherents of the three monotheistic religions. In fact, the resolution stated so:
“Affirming the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions …”
Renzi’s outburst is quite disappointing, to say the least, for the young, eager politician simply tried to score cheap political points with Israel – thus the United States – without a full, or even partial comprehension of what the UNESCO resolution resolved. Nor did he seem aware of the fact that such text is largely a repeat of what has been discussed by the world’s leading cultural organization in April, and repeatedly before that date.
“If anyone wants to say something about Israel, let them say it, but they should not use UNESCO… To say that the Jews have no links to Jerusalem is like saying the sun creates darkness,” he said, paraphrasing the sentiment displayed by the Israeli Prime Minister.
It would be rather sad if Renzi sees a mentor in Benjamin Netanyahu, for the latter is one of the least liked world leaders who has made a mockery of international forums and derided the United Nations itself as anti-Semitic and its process as ‘theater of the absurd’.
This is what Netanyahu had said in response to the resolution and shortly before he suspended his country’s membership in UNESCO. Using a language that is as amusing as his cartoon depiction of the Iranian nuclear bomb in his famous UN spectacle in 2012, he said:
“To say that Israel has no connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is like saying that China has no connection to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the Pyramids.”
Other Israeli officials followed suit with a chorus of denunciations, included Israeli President, Reuven Rivilin, who described the decision as an “embarrassment” for UNESCO. Culture Minister, Miri Regev, cut to the chase, by labeling the resolution “shameful and anti-Semitic.”
In fact, it was neither.
In addition to Renzi’s odd reaction, the United States and other western governments reacted with exaggerated anger, again without even addressing the situation on the ground, which prompted the resolution – and numerous other UN resolutions in the past – in the first place.
Even the Czech parliament jumped on board, voting to condemn what they described as a “hateful, anti-Israel’ sentiment.”
I have read the resolution repeatedly to pinpoint the specific text that could possibly be understood by Israel’s friends as hateful, to no avail. The entirety of the text was based on past international conventions, resolutions, international law, and refers to Israel as the Occupying Power, as per the diktat of the Geneva Conventions.
The Italian, Czech, American anger is, of course, misdirected and is largely political theater.
But, of course, there is an important context that they refuse to address.
Israel is working diligently to appropriate Muslim and Christian heritage in East Jerusalem, a city that is designated by international law as illegally occupied.
The Israeli army and police have restricted the movement of Palestinian worshipers and is excavating under the foundation of the third holiest Muslim shrine, Haram al-Sharif, in search of a mythological Temple.
In the process of doing so, numerous Palestinians, trying to defend their Mosque from the attacks staged by Israeli occupation forces and extremist Jewish groups, have been killed.
How is UNESCO to react to this?
The resolution merely, ‘called on Israel’ to “allow for the restoration of the historic status quo that prevailed until September 2000, under which the Jordanian Awqaf (Religious Foundation) Department exercised exclusive authority on Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif.”
Moreover, it ‘stressed’, the “urgent need of the implementation of the UNESCO reactive monitoring mission to the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls.”
Where is the ‘hate’ and ‘Anti-Semitism’ in that?
Israel’s anger is, of course, fathomable. For nearly fifty years, following the illegal occupation and annexation of the Palestinian Arab city, Israel has done everything it could possibly do to strip the city of its universal appeal and Arab heritage, and make it exclusive to Jews only – thus the slogan of Jerusalem being Israel’s ‘eternal and undivided capital.’
Israel is angry because, after five decades of ceaseless efforts, neither UNESCO nor other UN institutions will accept Israel’s practices and designations. In 2011, following the admission of ‘Palestine’ as a member state, Israel ranted and raved as well, resulting in the US cutting off funding to UNESCO.
The latest resolution indicates that Israel and the US have utterly failed to coerce UNESCO.
What also caused much fury in Tel Aviv is that UNESCO used the Arabic references to Haram al-Sharif, Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim religious and heritage sites. The same way they would refer to Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza and China’s Great Wall by their actual names. Hardly anti-Semitic.
Since its establishment atop Palestinian towns and village, Israel has been on a mission to rename everything Arabic with Hebrew alternatives. Recent years have seen a massive push towards the Judaization of Arab Christian and Muslim sites, streets and holy shrines, a campaign spearheaded by the Israeli right and ultranationalist groups.
To expect UNESCO to employ such language is what should strike as ‘absurd’.
Not only should the UNESCO resolution be respected, it should also be followed by practical mechanisms to implement its recommendations. Israel, an Occupying Power should not be given a free pass to besiege the holy shrines of two major world religions, restrict the movement and attack worshipers, annex occupied territories and destroy what is essential spiritual heritage that belongs to the whole world. Join the debate on Facebook Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London). His website is: ramzybaroud.net | 0 |
ah...it's Aloha Snack Bar... | 0 |
Does it fly funny like that as an evasive action,or becasue that's how it seeks the target? | 0 |
ALTO TURIAÇU INDIAN TERRITORY, Brazil — Deep in the Amazon jungle, a squad of nerds is on the loose. One of its members spent more than a decade as an environmental activist for a nonprofit. Another studied Arctic oceanography in Germany. Their commander is a former high school science teacher. But together they have forged one of Latin America’s most feared elite fighting units, on the front lines of Brazil’s struggle to curb the destruction of the Amazon. The team’s commander, Roberto Cabral, laughed when I asked him recently how his assemblage of Special Ops nerds came together. “In the universe of illegal activities in Amazonia, there’s deforestation, gold prospecting, bush meat hunting, clandestine logging and animal smuggling,” said Mr. Cabral, 48, who was shot in the shoulder in 2015 while pursuing gunmen who were razing tracts of forest. “We wanted to combat these dealings with brains as well as boots on the ground. ” I went on a grueling patrol in March with the unit, which has the decidedly unglamorous name of Grupo Especializado de Fiscalização, or Specialized Inspection Group. The squad, better known by its Portuguese acronym, GEF (pronounced ) operates in some of the most lawless swaths of the Amazon River basin — places so remote that it takes days to reach them by riverboat or truck from the nearest settlement. Facing such logistical obstacles, GEF, which operates as part of Ibama, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, usually patrols in helicopters, using satellite images and intelligence gathered through Ibama’s regional offices, to detect deforestation and signs of illegal mining. The unit, which Ibama created in 2014, needs all the help it can get. Deforestation is surging once again in the Brazilian Amazon, climbing 29 percent between August 2015 and July 2016. Nearly two million acres of forest were destroyed during the period, according to estimates by the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil. But even as GEF relies on technology, its missions often resemble an elusively frustrating game of cat and mouse. On the first day that I accompanied an operation in Maranhão State on the fringes of the Amazon, members of the unit rose at 3 a. m. Clad in combat fatigues, body armor and bulletproof helmets, they strapped Taurus assault rifles around their shoulders and journeyed for hours in pickup trucks along potholed roads from São Luís, the state capital, to Santa Inês, an outpost in the interior. Then they waited for the weather to improve. Heavy rain prevented the unit’s two Bell helicopters from taking off for patrols over Maranhão and the vast neighboring state of Pará. After hours of standing by, the choppers finally lifted off around midday, flying for monotonously long stretches over lands cleared for cattle ranching. “You have to see the Amazon from above to get a sense of how much of it has already been devastated,” said Maurício Brichta, 44, an oceanographer who specialized in studying Arctic algae at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research before joining Ibama. “As you can imagine,” he added with a grin, “there wasn’t much demand in Brazil for expertise in the Arctic regions. ” Like nearly everyone else in the unit — which includes forestry engineers, a wildlife biologist, a fisheries specialist, even someone who used to work in advertising — Mr. Brichta said he never expected to take up arms to protect the Amazon. Before this phase in his life, he was a father in Jakarta and New York, cities where his was stationed as a diplomat for Brazil’s Foreign Ministry. After returning to Brazil, Mr. Brichta said he was drawn to Ibama by the agency’s sense of idealism and the strides it had made in lowering deforestation rates from alarmingly high levels at the start of the previous decade. When GEF was created, he made the cut by completing a punishing survival course in which candidates endure jumping out of helicopters, protracted treks through the jungle, foraging for food, treating snakebites, going for long stretches without food and sleep, and training for gun battles and knife fights. “Obviously, this kind of work isn’t for everybody,” said Eduardo Rafael de Souza, 39, a bearded, military veteran who often pilots the helicopters used for GEF’s missions. The unit’s members returned in a closelipped mood to Santa Inês after the first day on patrol with nothing to show for their efforts after flying for hours over remote logging roads in search of deforestation crews. Some wondered if there could be moles in Ibama’s ranks that could have tipped loggers off about their patrols. Like other parts of Brazil’s federal government, Ibama has grappled with its own graft scandals, sometimes involving inspectors effectively acting as double agents to protect the interests of ranchers or logging outfits. But environmental activists argue that a major reason for resurgent deforestation in Brazil involves efforts to reduce Ibama’s sway, drawing parallels with the Trump administration’s plans to overhaul the Environmental Protection Agency. Since 2013, Ibama’s budget was slashed by about 46 percent. Either way, GEF’s fortunes shifted on the second day of their patrol. Homing in on indigenous lands where logging crews make forays to illegally extract coveted hardwoods, the squad spotted from the air a makeshift sawmill near the boundary of the Alto Turiaçu Indian Territory, home to the Ka’apor people. “I saw their helicopter land in a clearing, like a scene out of some Hollywood movie,” said Francinaldo Martins Araújo, 43, who was arriving in his truck to buy scraps of discarded timber from the sawmill as the unit swooped down for its raid. Members of the squad, some hiding their faces behind balaclavas out of fear of retribution if their identities are made public, quickly went to work. They set the sawmill on fire and destroyed two domed furnaces used to make charcoal, before setting out again in the helicopters for their next target. A few minutes later, they hit pay dirt again when one of the pilots observed a truck on a logging road. The unit jumped out of the choppers in a nearby clearing, as one member punctured the truck’s fuel tank and set the vehicle on fire. Then the shouting came from the forest. While searching for the logging crew, two GEF members stumbled across a tractor used for hauling felled trees. A chain saw, still warm from being used minutes earlier, was left stuck in a tree, evidence of a hasty getaway. The unit set fire to the tractor and chain saw before resuming the search for the loggers. Nerves were on edge. It was on such an operation in a nearby jungle that Mr. Cabral, GEF’s commander, was taken by surprise by a fleeing logger and wounded by gunfire. No shots were fired this time, but the loggers managed to elude the squad, fleeing into the forest. A pilot radioed the coordinates of the exfiltration point and the unit started the long trek back to the choppers in humidity so thick it felt as if they could slice through it with their hunting knives. Drenched in sweat as they boarded the helicopters, the squad could see the smoke billowing from the destroyed vehicles, a small victory in the battle against deforestation. “I never dreamed that I would hold a rifle in my hands to defend the Amazon,” said one GEF member, a former environmental activist who declined to disclose his name because of security fears. “But this is war, and war can open your eyes to what needs to be done. ” | 1 |
LOS ANGELES — A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Thursday that the Second Amendment of the Constitution does not guarantee the right of gun owners to carry concealed weapons in public places, upholding a California law that imposes stringent conditions on who may be granted a permit. The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, overturned a decision by a panel of the same court and was a setback for gun advocates. The California law requires applicants to demonstrate “good cause” for carrying a weapon, like working in a job with a security threat — a restriction sharply attacked by gun advocates as violating the Second Amendment right to bear arms. “Based on the overwhelming consensus of historical sources, we conclude that the protection of the Second Amendment — whatever the scope of that protection may be — simply does not extend to the carrying of concealed firearms in public by members of the general public,” the court said in a ruling written by Judge William A. Fletcher. The case was brought by gun owners who were denied permits in Yolo and San Diego Counties. The plaintiffs did not immediately say whether they planned to appeal to the United States Supreme Court. “This is a huge decision,” said Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. “This is a major victory for gun control advocates. “ The Supreme Court has ruled that individuals have a right to possess a weapon in their home. Thursday’s ruling centers on the next frontier in the debate. “Probably the most important battleground of the Second Amendment has been whether there is a right to carry guns outside the home, and if there is, to what extent can states and localities regulate that right,” said Jonathan E. Lowy, the director of the Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Gun advocates swiftly condemned the ruling. “This decision will leave good people defenseless, as it completely ignores the fact that Californians who reside in counties with hostile sheriffs will now have no means to carry a firearm outside the home for personal protection,” Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement. With Thursday’s decision, the Ninth Circuit joins several other federal appeals courts in allowing state or local governments to put restrictions on the granting of licenses. Mr. Winkler, the law professor, noted that the best indicator of whether the Supreme Court would take up a constitutional issue was there was a split among district courts. “Without a split in the circuits, the Supreme Court is less likely to take up the case,” he said. But Mr. Lowy said that given the stakes of the decision — and the long history of litigation on the issue — he would not be surprised if the court decided to step in. “There is no circuit split, but it’s certainly possible that the court could decide it wants to address this,” he said. “I’d be surprised but not shocked if Supreme Court took this for review. ” The decision by the panel of the Ninth Circuit had thrown out the requirement that a gun owner demonstrate “good cause” for getting a weapon. Within days of that decision, in 2014, counties across the state, which administer the permits, reported getting a flood of applicants seeking concealed weapons permits. Although the decision was stayed pending appeal, some county sheriffs began issuing permits the status of those permits was not immediately clear. In a dissent to Thursday’s ruling by the full court, Judge Consuelo Maria Callahan said that the Second Amendment protection to gun owners that applied in the privacy of one’s home — upheld in a 2008 Supreme Court decision involving a law in Washington, D. C. — “extends beyond one’s front door. ” “Like the rest of the Bill of Rights, this right is indisputably constitutional in stature and part of this country’s bedrock,” she wrote. Kamala Harris, the state attorney general who asked the full court to reconsider the decision by the panel, said the ruling “ensures that local law enforcement leaders have the tools they need to protect public safety by determining who can carry loaded, concealed weapons in our communities. ” | 1 |
Terrorists are being killed, locked up, and running scared now that a has replaced an . [Terror mastermind Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was placed under house arrest in Lahore on January 30, less than ten days after Donald Trump took office. For years, Saeed had been living in the open in Pakistan in spite of a $10 million American bounty for information leading to his arrest and conviction. And yet it took new leadership in Washington D. C. to force the Pakistani government’s hand in getting serious about fighting Islamic extremism. Lost in the misleading reports about “Muslim bans” and debates about vetting on refugees from the Middle East has been the Trump administration’s quiet but successful effort behind the scenes to advance policies that crack down on terrorism and the Islamist ideology that fuels it. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed to take a new line toward Pakistan — the Islamist government that actively backed the Taliban in its infancy and, in turn, was pivotal in the fundamentalist movement’s ascent in Afghanistan. And Americans won’t soon forget that Osama bin Laden, once the world’s number one terrorist, was found in a conspicuous, $1 million compound in Abbottabad, only hundreds of yards away from a prestigious training center for Pakistani army officers. Though Saeed isn’t a name known widely in the United States and though his arrest barely registered in Western headlines, he was the chief planner behind the 2008 Bombay attacks that killed dozens of Indians. In 1990, he founded (Army of the Pure) deemed by terrorist experts as “probably the most dangerous terror group in the world. ” The group, among other horrific exploits, orchestrated “India’s ”: the 2008 rampage on the Taj Hotel and the Jewish Chabad House in Mumbai, which left 166 people dead and more than 600 injured. Up until the inauguration of Donald Trump, Pakistani officials considered Saeed a state hero because of his willingness to attack Pakistan’s longtime nemesis, India. What changed? “It is (Indian Prime Minster Narenda) Modi’s insistence and Trump’s instigation,” Saeed himself asserted. Islamabad, he added, “is helpless before the pressure of Trump and Modi. ” On this issue, the terrorist is right. The Pakistani government correctly appreciates that, not only there’s a new and tough sheriff in town, but that he’s got a skilled and receptive partner: a new U. S. alliance is a mortal threat to Islamist terrorism everywhere. President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Modi together are the worst enemies of terrorists. The two are kindred spirits: committed nationalists and willing to forego the niceties of the political elites in both countries to get things done on behalf of a population eager for more jobs and economic growth. I introduced Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi for their first meeting in July 2016. A deepened relationship between the US and India is already advancing the war against Islamic extremism by leaps and bounds. India is literally on the front line of the defense of freedom it shares a border with Pakistan, a nuclear weapons nation and one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism. (By contrast, the border is roughly 1, 255 miles.) Moreover, 84 percent of Pakistan’s 180 million Muslims support sharia law as official law while only 28 percent hold an “unfavorable” view of ISIS. Trump and Modi, both proud unapologetic patriots and champions of entrepreneurialism, have been friendly for a while. This has become especially apparent though within the past several months. On October 15, the Republican Hindu Coalition held the Humanity United Against Terror charity event at the New Jersey Convention Expo Center in Edison, New Jersey. In his speech, candidate Trump promised India and the US would be “best friends. ” He continued, “There won’t be any relationship more important to us. ” After the election, he — revealingly — reached out to Modi before contacting the head of any major European nation. The White House subsequently issued a statement, stressing, “the United States considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world. ” Quartz heralded the arrival of a “bromance. ” Robust and enduring is the bond between America, the world’s oldest democracy, and India, the world’s most populous democracy. It was from the very beginning forged by a mutual reverence for liberty and constitutional republicanism. It was quickly reinforced by a mutual passion for industry and innovation. And today it is further bolstered by a shared yearning to eliminate, once and for all, the scourge of Islamic extremism. We must rejoice that the people replaced an with a . We ought to celebrate the fact that, finally, the international relationship exists to strike at the heart of an enemy that Obama’s administration refused to even name. And, out of an unending love of freedom, we should welcome strengthened ties between Washington and New Delhi. Given its long overdue crackdown, Pakistan clearly recognizes the dynamics have fundamentally changed. If Islamic extremists didn’t also realize this after 10, 000 Indian Americans rose to their feet and loudly cheered Trump in October and more than two million Hindus voted for Trump in November, then they soon will. Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar is Chairman and CEO of AVG Advanced Technologies. He was a member of Trump’s Transition Finance and Inauguration Committee and founding chairman of the Republican Hindu Coalition. You can follow him on Twitter @iamshalabhkumar. | 1 |
A Group Of Reluctant Men Hold Kittens For The First Time. Hilarity Ensures By Tiffany Willis on September 14, 2014 Subscribe Screengrab via YouTube
Not everyone is a cat fan, and not everyone finds kittens adorable. I confess: I’ve always been a dog person, actually, but in recent years, I’ve become very attached to my adorable cats , too.
In this video, a group of big burly guys visited a feral cat rescue shelter and were given the opportunity to play with the kittens. They were reluctant, but you can quickly see how they transformed. This is priceless.
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Tiffany Willis is the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with ?the least of these? and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. She’s passionate about their struggles. To stay on top of topics she discusses,?like her? Facebook page ,? follow her on Twitter , or? connect with her via LinkedIn . She also has?a? grossly neglected personal blog ?and a? literary quotes blog that is a labor of love . Find her somewhere and join the discussion. About Tiffany Willis
Tiffany Willis is a fifth-generation Texan, a proponent of voluntary simplicity, a single mom, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with “the least of these" -- disadvantaged and oppressed populations, the elderly, people living in poverty, at-risk youth, and unemployed people. She is a Certified Workforce Expert with the National Workforce Institute , a NAWDP Certified Workforce Development Professional, and a certified instructor for Franklin Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens . Follow her on Twitter , Facebook , or LinkedIn . She also has a grossly neglected personal blog , a Time Travel blog , a site dedicated to encouraging people to read classic literature 15 minutes a day , and a literary quotes blog that is a labor of love . Find her somewhere and join the discussion. Click here to buy Tiff a mojito. Connect | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile that American officials say violates a landmark arms control treaty, posing a major test for President Trump as his administration is facing a crisis over its ties to Moscow. The new Russian missile deployment also comes as the Trump administration is struggling to fill key policy positions at the State Department and the Pentagon — and to settle on a permanent replacement for Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned late Monday. Mr. Flynn stepped down after it was revealed that he had misled the vice president and other officials over conversations with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington. The cruise missile at the center of American concerns is one that the Obama administration said in 2014 had been tested in violation of a 1987 treaty that bans American and Russian missiles based on land. The Obama administration had sought to persuade the Russians to correct the violation while the missile was still in the test phase. Instead, the Russians have moved ahead with the system, deploying a fully operational unit. Administration officials said the Russians now have two battalions of the prohibited cruise missile. One is still located at Russia’s missile test site at Kapustin Yar in southern Russia near Volgograd. The other was shifted in December from that test site to an operational base elsewhere in the country, according to a senior official who did not provide further details and requested anonymity to discuss recent intelligence reports about the missile. American officials had called the cruise missile the . But the “X” has been removed from intelligence reports, indicating that American intelligence officials consider the missile to be operational and no longer a system in development. The missile program has been a major concern for the Pentagon, which has developed options for how to respond, including deploying additional missile defenses in Europe or developing or cruise missiles. Russia’s actions are politically significant, as well. It is very unlikely that the Senate, which is already skeptical of President Vladimir V. Putin’s intentions, would agree to ratify a new strategic arms control accord unless the alleged violation of the treaty is corrected. Mr. Trump has said the United States should “strengthen and expand its nuclear capability. ” But at the same time, he has talked of reaching a new arms agreement with Moscow that would reduce arms “very substantially. ” The deployment of the system could also substantially increase the military threat to NATO nations, depending on where the highly mobile system is based and how many more batteries are deployed in the future. Jim Mattis, the United States defense secretary, is scheduled to meet with allied defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday. Before he left his post last year as the NATO commander and retired from the military, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove warned that deployment of the cruise missile would be a militarily significant development that “can’t go unanswered. ” Coming up with an arms control solution would not be easy. Each missile battalion is believed to have four mobile launchers with about half a dozen missiles allocated to each of the launchers. The mobile launcher for the cruise missile, however, closely resembles the mobile launcher used for the Iskander, a system that is permitted under treaties. “This will make location and verification really tough,” General Breedlove said in an interview. While senior Trump administration officials have not said where the new unit is based, there has been speculation in press reports that a missile system with similar characteristics is deployed in central Russia. American and Russian relations were on a better footing in December 1987 when President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, signed an arms accord, formally known as the Nuclear Forces Treaty and commonly called the I. N. F. treaty. As a result of the agreement, Russia and the United States destroyed 2, 692 missiles. The missiles the Russians destroyed included the . The Americans destroyed their Pershing II ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, which were based in Western Europe. “We can only hope that this agreement will not be an end in itself but the beginning of a working relationship that will enable us to tackle the other urgent issues before us,” Mr. Reagan said at the time. But the Russians developed buyer’s remorse. During the George W. Bush administration, Sergei B. Ivanov, the Russian defense minister, suggested that the treaty be dropped because Russia still faced threats from nations on its periphery, including China. The Bush administration, however, was reluctant to terminate a treaty that NATO nations valued and whose abrogation would have enabled Russia to build up forces that could potentially be directed at the United States’ allies in Asia, as well. In June 2013, Mr. Putin complained that “nearly all of our neighbors are developing these kinds of weapons systems” and described the Soviet Union’s decision to conclude the I. N. F. treaty as “debatable to say the least. ” Russia began testing the cruise missile as early as 2008. Rose Gottemoeller, who was the State Department’s top arms control official during the Obama administration and is now the deputy secretary general of NATO, first raised the alleged violation with Russian officials in 2013. After years of frustration, the United States convened a November 2016 meeting in Geneva of a special verification commission established under the treaty to deal with compliance issues. It was the first meeting in 13 years of the commission, whose members include the United States, Russia and three former Soviet republics that are also party to the accord: Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. But Russia denied it had breached the treaty and responded with its own allegations of American violations, which the Americans asserted were spurious. The Obama administration argued that it was in the United States’ interest to preserve the treaty. Having failed to persuade the Russians to fix the alleged violation, some military experts say, the United States needs to ratchet up the pressure by announcing plans to expand missile defenses in Europe and deploy or nuclear missiles. “We have strong tools like missile defense and counterstrike, and we should not take any of them off the table,” General Breedlove said. Franklin C. Miller, a longtime Pentagon official who served on the National Security Council under Mr. Bush, said the Russian military may see the cruise missile as a way to expand its target coverage in Europe and China so it can free its strategic nuclear forces to concentrate on targets in the United States. “Clearly, the Russian military thinks this system is very important, important enough to break the treaty,” Mr. Miller said. But he cautioned against responding in kind by seeking to deploy new American nuclear missiles in Europe. “The last thing NATO needs is a bruising debate as we had in the late ’70s and early ’80s about new missile deployments in Europe,” Mr. Miller added. “The United States should build up its missile defense in Europe. But if the United States wants to deploy a military response, it should be . ” Jon Wolfsthal, who served as a nuclear weapons expert on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, said the United States, its NATO allies, Japan and South Korea needed to work together to put pressure on Russia to correct the violation. The response, he wrote on Twitter, should be taken by the “alliance as a whole. ” The Trump administration is in the beginning stages of reviewing nuclear policy and has not said how it plans to respond. “We do not comment on intelligence matters,” Mark Toner, the acting State Department spokesman, said. “We have made very clear our concerns about Russia’s violation, the risks it poses to European and Asian security, and our strong interest in returning Russia to compliance with the treaty. ” | 1 |
Tweet Home » Silver » Silver News » It’s Going to Change RADICALLY With Silver – HUGE Demand Coming | Cliff High
Data mining expert Cliff High says the economy is much worse than most people think, and that bubble is going to pop after Election Day. Inflation is also coming, and that will be very positive for precious metals . High contends, “ Gold and silver are going to rise relative to the falling currencies. Gold and silver in actual purchasing power will also rise. They won’t be saying an ounce of gold bought a good suit 100 years ago and an ounce of gold will buy a good suit now. That’s going to change, and it’s also going to change radically with silver . Also, in our data sets between 2019 and 2024 , silver becomes the metal to have… You need to have silver .
2017 Gold Pandas and 2017 Silver Pandas Are Now Available! Secure Your 2017 Panda Coins Today at SD Bullion! | 0 |
The European Union’s competition authorities are poised to announce a major tax ruling against Apple’s tax dealings with the Irish government on Tuesday, a decision that will likely increase tension over how some of the world’s largest companies pay taxes on their global operations. The ruling, expected to be announced early Tuesday in Brussels, will result in Apple having to pay back taxes to the Irish government, according to three people briefed on the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The amount is anticipated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, one of these people said. The decision is set to further stoke tensions between American officials and their European counterparts, with Europe claiming the right to oversee tax policies for companies like Apple and Amazon, among others, that have used complicated tax structures in nations like Ireland and Luxembourg to reduce the amount of corporate tax they pay in other countries. The Obama administration and Congress have strenuously fought to defend Apple, the company that made the iPod music player and iPhone global bywords for American prowess in technology. They have accused the European Commission of leading a campaign against American corporate success and suggested that it would be overstepping its authority by issuing a formal tax order. American officials have said reforms to corporate taxation first need to be agreed to internationally. “This will be framed by the U. S. as Europe overreaching,” said Edward Kleinbard, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law and a former chief of staff to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “That overreaction will make it a lot more difficult to police companies’ international tax structures. ” Apple, Irish authorities and European competition authorities declined to comment. The tax decision was earlier reported by RTE, the Irish broadcaster. Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s top antitrust official, is expected to say on Tuesday that the Irish government gave Apple preferential treatment on its local tax arrangements. These deals, related to agreements from 1991 and 2007, gave Apple an unfair advantage over other companies, and broke Europe’s rules that forbid any government from providing unfair assistance to certain companies over others, she is expected to say. Ireland can appeal any judgment by suing in the Court of Justice of the European Union to stop any resulting penalty, and Apple could seek to support such an appeal. Such appeals are likely to take years. For Apple, the potential tax clawback would be a blow to the company’s approximately 30 years of activity in Ireland, where it currently employs around 5, 500 people, mostly in Cork, a city in the south of the country. The tech giant has repeatedly denied that it received unfair tax treatment from Irish authorities, saying that it complies with all tax laws wherever it operates. While Apple has a large operation in Ireland, the company said its main corporate tax liabilities remain within the United States where it is based and conducts the majority of its research and development. In an interview last week with The Washington Post, Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said that he hoped his company would get a fair hearing in Europe on the tax issue and that “if we don’t, then we would obviously appeal it. ” The European Commission has been seeking a greater say over tax issues for decades. Those efforts accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis amid complaints that prosperous corporations were enjoying tax breaks while citizens faced mounting tax demands and cuts to their public services. Ms. Vestager has already ordered Luxembourg to claw back 30 million euros, or $33 million, from Fiat, the Italian carmaker, and the Netherlands to recover a similar amount from Starbucks. Both Luxembourg and the Netherlands have appealed those decisions. She still is investigating similar cases in Luxembourg affecting Amazon and McDonald’s. Last year, in another case, Ms. Vestager ordered France to recover €1. 4 billion, or $1. 6 billion, from Électricité de France for failing to pay enough corporation tax in 1997. At the time, E. D. F. said it would make the reimbursement but was considering an appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union. “Our aim is very simple,” Ms. Vestager said in an interview earlier this year. “Profits should be taxed where profits are made. ” The European Union’s investigation into the Irish treatment of Apple began under Ms. Vestager’s predecessor, Joaquín Almunia. It was prompted in part by a United States Senate investigation in 2013 that found that Apple, the world’s largest public company by market capitalization, sheltered tens of billions of dollars in profit from tax in offshore entities including in Ireland. The European Commission opened a formal investigation in June 2014 into whether the tax deals granted to Apple in Ireland amounted to illegal state support. At the time Mr. Almunia indicated that austerity measures as a result of the European debt crisis made it even more important for large multinational corporations to pay fair taxes to governments. Ireland strongly objected to the investigation. The ruling is likely to be a hard pill to swallow for the country, which has spent decades championing its low corporate tax rate and other tax breaks to entice American companies to its shores. The Irish government has said that it will appeal any tax decision announced by European officials, putting the country in the somewhat odd position of turning down potentially billions of dollars of extra revenue from Apple. “The decision by the Irish government to fight this case is bizarre,” said James Stewart, a professor at Trinity College, Dublin. “The Irish government is opposed to any global tax harmonization because it will harm its ability to attract foreign direct investment. ” | 1 |
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Facing trial in Russia over the theft of a drawing valued by its creator at $1. 55, Nikita Kulachenkov, a Russian forensic accountant involved in anticorruption work, fled to Lithuania to avoid what he decided was a doomed battle against charges. What he did not realize was that Russia’s reach these days extends far beyond its borders. Arriving in Cyprus from Lithuania in January to join his mother for a holiday, Mr. Kulachenkov was stopped at airport passport control, questioned for hours by immigration officials and then taken in handcuffs to a police detention center. “They told me there was a problem with Russia and kept asking me what crime I had committed,” Mr. Kulachenkov recalled. Cypriot immigration and police officers seemed as mystified as he was, he said, by a note in their computer systems that described him as a wanted criminal requiring immediate arrest. The wanted notice had been put there in August last year by Russia, where the theft of millions and even billions of dollars by the politically connected goes mostly unpunished but where the alleged theft of a street sweeper’s drawing has been the focus of a lengthy investigation involving some of the country’s most senior law enforcement officials. The arrest demand, known as a “diffusion,” had gone out to Cyprus and 50 other countries through the international police organization, Interpol. It had not been endorsed by Interpol, which is “strictly forbidden” by its Constitution from any action of a “political character,” but nonetheless labeled the anticorruption activist as a criminal in databases around the world. Determined to punish domestic opponents who flee abroad, as well as whose lives and finances it wants to disrupt, Moscow has developed an elaborate and strategy in recent years of using — critics say abusing — foreign courts and law enforcement systems to go after its enemies. Some countries, including Russia, “work really hard to get Interpol alerts” against political enemies, said Jago Russell, the chief executive of Fair Trials International, a human rights group in London, because “this helps give credibility to their own prosecution and undermines the reputation of the accused. ” “It is also potentially a good threat to use against people still in the country: ‘You may be able to leave, but don’t assume you will be safe,’” he added. The efforts have often fallen flat in the end, but have succeeded in tying up their targets in legal knots for months and years. Acting on a Russian request, a British court, for example, froze the worldwide assets of Sergei Pugachev, a former close friend of President Vladimir V. Putin’s who fell out with the Kremlin in a squabble over property and fled to Britain, then France. Russia has also used British courts and Interpol to pursue what many Western governments view as a vendetta against William F. Browder, an British citizen. Mr. Browder was convicted in absentia in Russia of tax fraud after he fled to London and mounted an international campaign against Russia over the killing of his jailed Moscow lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. Mr. Browder defeated a libel case in 2013 brought in London by a Moscow police officer whom the financier had accused of involvement in a fraud uncovered by Mr. Magnitsky. But he faces a new fight as Russia seeks to get British courts to find and freeze his assets and enforce a civil judgment against him in Russia. The only winners in most such cases are expensive lawyers, for whom pursuing Russia’s foes in foreign courts has become a highly lucrative business. Russia pushed three times between 2012 and 2015 to get Interpol to issue arrest orders against Mr. Browder. Having failed each time to convince the police organization that it did not have political motives, it announced this summer that it would try yet again. “The Russians try stuff a hundred times, and sometimes it works,” Mr. Browder said. “They can fail 99 times, but the 100th time it could work. For them, that makes it all worthwhile. ” He described the practice as “lawfare. ” Based in Lyon, France, and comprising 190 countries, Interpol defines its role as enabling “police around the world to work together to make the world a safer place. ” It has often done this, allowing police forces to share information about the whereabouts of mafia bosses, murderers and other criminals, and to secure their arrest. But the Interpol membership of nations — like Russia, Iran and Zimbabwe — that routinely use their justice systems to persecute political foes has stirred worries that wanted notices can be easily misused. In September, the congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission heard a litany of complaints about abuse from experts and victims of Interpol notices during a discussion of how to reform the police organization’s system of red notices. Interpol issues such notices, which amount to an international arrest warrant, at the request of a member country seeking help in catching a fugitive who has fled abroad. Interpol’s computer system also circulates diffusions like the one against Mr. Kulachenkov. These are less formal than red notices, but are also used to request the arrest or location of an individual, or information, in relation to a police investigation. Interpol does not release figures for how many red notices or other arrest alerts are issued through its computer system by each member country, but the number of people identified in Interpol’s databases as wanted criminal suspects has risen sharply in recent years. In 2004, Interpol issued just 1, 924 red notices at the request of member countries. Last year, it issued 11, 492, as well as 22, 753 diffusions. As a result of one of those, Mr. Kulachenkov spent nearly three weeks in a Cypriot jail while the authorities in Cyprus reviewed a request from Moscow that he be sent to Russia to stand trial in a case that even Russia’s prosecutor general had initially ruled was not worth pursuing. The drawing he is accused of stealing was done by Sergei Sotov, a street sweeper and artist who had left it and other examples of his work hanging on railings around Vladimir, a city east of Moscow. The street sweeper made no complaint to the police when the drawing disappeared, and said he was glad that someone liked his work. In the end, Cyprus decided not to extradite Mr. Kulachenkov after Lithuania advised it that he had no criminal record and had been granted political asylum because of his work in Russia with Alexei Navalny. A prominent anticorruption campaigner and Kremlin opponent, Mr. Navalny himself has been ensnared in a tangle of apparently criminal cases in Moscow, including the supposed art theft. The Russian authorities, said Mr. Kulachenkov, whose name has been purged from Interpol’s databases, “don’t really care about me, but they wanted to send a message that if you get involved with Navalny, we will make problems for you, even if you leave Russia. ” Stung by criticism that its role fighting real crime is being hijacked by repressive regimes, Interpol has moved to strengthen safeguards against abuse, particularly since the naming of a new secretary general, Jürgen Stock, in late 2014. Mr. Russell, of Fair Trials International, acknowledged that the group “is trying to make it more difficult to game the system. ” Interpol said last year that it would not issue arrest notices against people who had been granted political asylum or other forms of refugee status, though this did not help Mr. Kulachenkov when he traveled to Cyprus in January. Asked about that, a spokeswoman for the Interpol General Secretariat in Lyon said that she could not comment on individual cases, but that the policy of not targeting recipients of political asylum for arrest would work only if countries passed on information about who had been granted such a status. In most cases, she added, “this information is not available to the General Secretariat” when red notices or diffusions are issued. Whatever Interpol finally does to stop the gaming of the system, it is too late for Petr Silaev, a Russian editor. Mr. Silaev took part in demonstrations against the destruction of a forest in Khimki near Moscow in 2010 and fled to Brussels seeking refuge after several protesters were badly beaten and the authorities branded the protests an armed riot. He was later given political asylum in Finland and felt safe, until he took a trip to Spain to visit friends. Two days after his arrival, Spanish antiterrorism police officers stormed a hostel where he was staying and arrested him on the basis of a red notice issued against him by Interpol at Moscow’s request. Held for nearly two weeks in a Spanish prison while a Madrid court approved his extradition to Moscow, he finally managed to phone a lawyer in Finland and contact Fair Trials International, which has campaigned against abuses of Interpol by repressive governments. After appeals from a German member of the European Parliament and a storm of protest in the European news media, the authorities released Mr. Silaev from prison but ordered that he report to the Spanish police once a week. Six months later, in early 2013, a Madrid court canceled Mr. Silaev’s extradition order and allowed him to return to Finland, where he spent another year pleading with Interpol to purge his name from its database. “Interpol is a very organization,” Mr. Silaev said, describing it as “absolutely nontransparent” and easily manipulated by governments that regard protesters as no different from “rapists and murderers. ” Interpol says it cannot publicly share information that belongs not to itself but to the member countries that provide it. “It is a nightmare that keeps coming back if you don’t know how to fight it,” said Kross, a member of Parliament in Estonia and former coordinator of the country’s intelligence services who has been targeted for arrest at least twice by Russia through Interpol. Pilloried on Russian state television as a dangerous criminal, Mr. Kross has battled for years to purge international arrest orders issued against him. He and Estonian government officials say the orders are based entirely on fabricated claims by Russia that he was involved in hijacking a cargo ship off the coast of Sweden in 2009. Mr. Kross, who is the son of a prominent Estonian writer arrested by the Soviet authorities and a frequent critic of Russia’s direction under Mr. Putin, believes the Russian accusations are payback for his work helping Georgia during its 2008 war with Russia. “All Western institutions, particularly those in law enforcement, are based on good faith in government,” Mr. Kross said. “It is not foreseen that governments themselves are criminal. They can cook up anything they want and put it in the system, and the whole system starts to work against its purpose. ” Invented criminal cases, he said, “work like a computer virus: You put it in the system, and it starts to create havoc. ” Mr. Kulachenkov, the accused Russian art thief, said friends had warned him that Russia might try to get at him through Interpol. After his flight from Moscow to Lithuania in 2014, he wrote a lengthy letter to the police organization, pleading that it not list him as a criminal. “It has become evident that Russian authorities use local investigation bodies and criminal justice systems to pursue their own political objectives,” he wrote. He detailed the Russian case against him for the supposed theft of the crude drawing that even Russian investigators, after inflating the artist’s initial evaluation of less than $2, valued at just $75. He said he wished he had never taken the drawing, which he and a colleague gave to Mr. Navalny as a birthday gift. Taking the art “was a bad idea, but it was not a criminal offense,” Mr. Kulachenkov said. “This whole thing is not about the drawing or me, but about Alexei,” he said of Mr. Navalny. “They are making him toxic. Anybody involved with Alexei gets a criminal case. ” | 1 |
at 11:29 am 2 Comments
Election 2016 has been extremely bittersweet for me. On the positive side, through both the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump grassroots movements, we have seen clear proof that a huge number of Americans accurately understand that the current system is totally rigged and simply not working for them. These people didn’t migrate toward these two candidates for some tweaks to the system here and there, their supporters want full scale paradigm level change.
As such, rather than dwelling on the differences between these two populist movements, let’s consider some of the areas where they overlap.
1. Trade — Opposition to NAFTA and current “trade” deals such as TPP, TTIP, and TISA have been central to both the Sanders and Trump campaigns.
2. War and militarism — Whether you believe Trump is sincere or not, opposition to Obama/Clinton interventionist overseas wars were key talking points for both Trump and Sanders.
3. The system is rigged — The painful acknowledgment that the U.S. economic system is a rigged scam that fails to reward hard work, and is more akin to a parasitic, predatory oligarchy with very limited social mobility, has been a key campaign theme for both Trump and Sanders. The economy is increasingly dominated by near-monoploy giants who relentlessly push for more power and more profits irrespective of the cost to society, whether that cost be war, poverty or social unrest.
4. Money in politics — The rigged economic system described above aggregates wealth into an increasingly small number of hands. Those hands then buy off politicians and rig the political process. A rigged economy and rigged political system perpetually feeds itself and endlessly grows at the expense of the public like a terminal cancer. Both Trump and Sanders emphasized this problem.
5. Rule of law is dead — Sanders focused on Wall Street bankers, while Trump focused on Hillary and her inner circle of cronies, but the overall point is the same. Rich and powerful oligarchs are above the law. We all know this, but Washington D.C. refuses to do anything about.
Despite all of the above, the ultimate status quo candidate, Hillary Clinton, has a very good chance of winning tomorrow’s election. Why? Primarily because Donald Trump is a very divisive figure who focused too much on polarizing issues such as building a wall, stop-and-frisk, supporting torture, advocating for internet censorship and libel laws, etc. While he got his act together toward the end of the campaign, he spent far too much of it marginalizing people like me who desperately want to vanquish the status quo, but couldn’t get comfortable with Trump.
This is where the election took on a decidedly negative tone for me on a personal basis. I’ve dedicated the last six years of my life to fully exposing and combating status quo corruption, but when the populist revolt finally arrived, the only choice I was given for change was one I couldn’t embrace. For someone so passionately yearning for positive, paradigm-level change, that’s been a crushing letdown. Personally, I’ve passed the point where I’m willing to vote for someone I don’t believe in or trust. As such, I won’t be voting for either one. That said, my individual vote is irrelevant, and I don’t want to focus on that. The bigger question is, who do I think will win?
On that question, I don’t have a strong opinion at the moment. Ultimately, it depends on whether Americans go into the voting booth and see status quo vs. blowing up the status quo, or if they see Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton. If they see the former, odds are in Trump’s favor. If they see the latter, it’s a matter of which personality Americans find least repulsive.
So here we stand. Despite the fact that a huge percentage of Americans deem both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to be “unelectable,” one of them is about to be elected. As such, we really need to start thinking and strategizing about the future. In that regard, I propose we look at the five points of Sanders/Trump overlap I highlighted earlier. If we can stay focused on those existential issues after the election irrespective of who wins, “we the people” have a good chance of uniting a clear majority of the population and ultimately turning this national disaster around.
Or we can allow ourselves to be divided and conquered into oblivion. The choice is ours.
In Liberty, | 0 |
Microsoft scientists have demonstrated that by analyzing large samples of search engine queries they may in some cases be able to identify internet users who are suffering from pancreatic cancer, even before they have received a diagnosis of the disease. The scientists said they hoped their work could lead to early detection of cancer. Their study was published on Tuesday in The Journal of Oncology Practice by Dr. Eric Horvitz and Dr. Ryen White, the Microsoft researchers, and John Paparrizos, a Columbia University graduate student. “We asked ourselves, ‘If we heard the whispers of people online, would it provide strong evidence or a clue that something’s going on? ’” Dr. Horvitz said. The researchers focused on searches conducted on Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, that indicated someone had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. From there, they worked backward, looking for earlier queries that could have shown that the Bing user was experiencing symptoms before the diagnosis. Those early searches, they believe, can be warning flags. While survival rates for pancreatic cancer are extremely low, early detection of the disease can prolong life in a very small percentage of cases. The study suggests that early screening can increase the survival rate of pancreatic patients to 5 to 7 percent, from just 3 percent. The researchers reported that they could identify from 5 to 15 percent of pancreatic cases with false positive rates of as low as one in 100, 000. The researchers noted that false positives could lead to raised medical costs or create significant anxiety for people who later found out they were not sick. The data used by the researchers was anonymized, meaning it did not carry identifying markers like a user name, so the individuals conducting the searches could not be contacted. A logical next step would be to figure out what to do with that search information. One possibility would be some sort of health service where users could allow their searches to be collected, allowing scientists to monitor for questions that indicate warning flag symptoms. “The question, ‘What might we do? Might there be a Cortana for health some day? ’” said Dr. Horvitz, in a reference to the company’s online personal assistant software service. Although the researchers declined to offer specific details, Dr. White is now the chief technology officer of health intelligence in a recently created Health Wellness division at Microsoft. They acknowledged that data generated from web search histories was still new territory for the medical profession. “I think the mainstream medical literature has been resistant to these kinds of studies and this kind of data,” Dr. Horvitz said. “We’re hoping that this stimulates quite a bit of interesting conversation. ” The new research is based on the ability of the Microsoft team to accurately distinguish between web searches that are casual or based on anxiety and those that are genuine searches for specific medical symptoms by people who are experiencing them, he noted. Both a computer scientist and a medical doctor by training, Dr. Horvitz said he had been exploring this area in part because of a phone conversation with a close friend who had described symptoms. Based on their conversation, Dr. Horvitz advised him to contact his doctor. He received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and died several months later. The availability of vast sets of behavior data based on individual web queries using the search engines offered by companies like Google and Microsoft has for a number of years been seen as a potential indicator of information. In 2009, Google published a research paper that explored the potential of early detection of flu epidemics based on statistical analysis of web search logs, though the results of that effort ultimately fell short of what had been hoped. More recently, Microsoft researchers have had significant success in finding early evidence of adverse drug reactions from patterns observed in web logs. In 2013, they detected unreported side effects of prescription drugs before they were found by the Food and Drug Administration’s warning system. The researchers are exploring evidence related to a range of devastating diseases. They also said that unlike the drug interaction data, which would be of direct value to the F. D. A. as an early alert, it was possible that symptom alert data might be made available as part of a broader online health service that a company like Microsoft might offer. | 1 |
Former FBI Director James Comey is now leaking details of a private dinner with President Donald Trump to the media, through some of his close associates. [According to the New York Times, the FBI director had dinner with Trump in January after the inauguration, citing private details of the meeting that portray Comey as a martyr. Comey’s people, “who have heard his account of the dinner” and spoke anonymously, insist that Trump asked the director to pledge his personal loyalty to him, but he declined. They added that Comey was wary about dining with the president, but believed he couldn’t turn him down. The White House, however, disputed the report. “We don’t believe this to be an accurate account,” said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy press secretary. “The integrity of our law enforcement agencies and their leadership is of the utmost importance to President Trump. He would never even suggest the expectation of personal loyalty, only loyalty to our country and its great people. ” According to the White House, one of the many reasons Comey was fired was because he failed to stop sensitive leaks of information to the media. In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump said he asked Comey whether he was under investigation during a dinner with the FBI director and also spoke with him on the phone. “I said, if it’s possible would you let me know, am I under investigation? He said, ‘You are not under investigation. ’” Trump told Holt. Trump said Comey was “a showboat” and “a grandstander. ” “You know that, I know that. Everybody knows that,” he said. “You take a look at the FBI a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil, less than a year ago. It hasn’t recovered from that. ” Trump said that he was anxious for the results of the FBI investigation into Russia’s efforts to disrupt the election. “If Russia or anybody else is trying to interfere with our elections, I think it’s a horrible thing and I want to get to the bottom of it and I want to make sure it will never ever happen,” he said. | 1 |
Kathy Griffin said in a statement Tuesday afternoon that she does not condone violence of any kind following the massive backlash generated by the release of a photograph in which she posed with the fake bloody, severed head of President Donald Trump. [The shocking photo, first posted Tuesday by TMZ, was part of a photo shoot the comedian conducted with L. A. artist Tyler Shields, who is known for his provocative artwork. “I caption this “there was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his … wherever” Also @tylershields great maker,” the My Life on the star wrote in a message on her Twitter account Tuesday. “OBVIOUSLY, I do not condone ANY violence by my fans or others to anyone, ever!” she added. “I’m merely mocking the Mocker in Chief. ” I caption this ”there was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his … wherever” Also @tylershields great maker. pic. twitter. — Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) May 30, 2017, OBVIOUSLY, I do not condone ANY violence by my fans or others to anyone, ever! I’m merely mocking the Mocker in Chief. — Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) May 30, 2017, The photograph generated a significant uproar on social media and on Griffin’s own accounts when it was posted Tuesday morning, with users flooding the comedian’s Facebook page with calls to boycott her upcoming concert tour. Representatives for CNN, where Griffin New Year’s Eve festivities with Anderson Cooper, did not immediately respond to Breitbart News’ request for comment, nor did representatives for Griffin. The Secret Service has not yet responded to Breitbart News’s request for comment, but the agency’s Twitter account sent out this message Tuesday afternoon: Threats made against @SecretService protectees receive the highest priority of all of our investigations. #ProtectionNeverRests, — U. S. Secret Service (@SecretService) May 30, 2017, Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
(Before It's News)
This article highlights the dysfunction of MNsure. While it isn’t surprising, it’s still aggravating. The story starts by saying “Rep. Roz Peterson, R-Lakeville, said at a Monday news conference that a constituent had contacted her after receiving a voter registration form from MNsure, the state-run health insurance exchange, even though the person in question is […]
Continue reading MNsure caught wasting time
. . . → Read More: MNsure caught wasting time | 0 |
When the anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a bombshell lawsuit accusing the Fox News chairman Roger Ailes of sexual harassment, Fox’s corporate masters moved fast. A major law firm was hired to investigate. Two weeks later, Mr. Ailes was gone, ousted from the network he ran for two decades. Rupert Murdoch stepped in as chairman, sending a clear message: This is a fresh start. But the grim tales about life under Mr. Ailes keep coming. More women have come forward — the latest was a former daytime host, Andrea Tantaros — describing a culture of intimidation and misogyny, and telling of settlements they received to leave the network. Some of Mr. Ailes’s top deputies who remain in charge at Fox News have been accused of aiding his behavior. Inside the newsroom, employees are still on edge about what new stories might surface and which executives could be ensnared. If the Murdoch family wanted to leap ahead of this scandal, it is now at risk of falling behind. Some people at Fox News are asking if meaningful change can occur inside a workplace still stocked with loyalists to Mr. Ailes. “People are waiting to see,” one staff member said. Leaders at 21st Century Fox, eager to contain the fallout from Mr. Ailes’s departure — and keep the profitable news network humming during a election — have remained quiet amid the new accusations. The company is also facing scrutiny over whether it knew, or should have known, about Mr. Ailes’s alleged behavior. “What this has illustrated quite well is, if it wasn’t understood before, there was clearly a corporate control problem with respect to Fox News,” said Brian Wieser, a media industry analyst at Pivotal Research in New York. A spokesman for 21st Century Fox, Nathaniel Brown, said in a statement on Wednesday, “The fact is, we have a robust compliance structure and strong controls embedded across our company. ” In response to questions about the claims of a hostile work environment made by other female employees after Ms. Carlson filed her lawsuit, Mr. Brown said: “We have demonstrated a willingness to act. ” The calculus for Mr. Murdoch and his management team is, to say the least, complex. Officials at 21st Century Fox think that removing Mr. Ailes sent an unequivocal signal — to employees and the outside world — that the company is taking harassment concerns seriously. They say that lawyers from Paul, Weiss are pursuing an aggressive internal investigation. Investigators so far have been focused on accusations of improper behavior by Mr. Ailes, not by others, according to people briefed on the inquiry. But the people have said the investigation is also looking at others who might have known of that behavior and not acted on it. Several women who have come forward with accusations said that investigators had not contacted them. In an interview, Ms. Tantaros, a former daytime host, said that the former chairman, in meetings, complimented her figure, asked questions about her dating life and requested a hug, making her uncomfortable. Ms. Tantaros said that Fox News managers dismissed her complaints, then demoted her. Fox News officials denied this, saying that Ms. Tantaros was removed after publishing a book without previous approval, a breach of contract. “The real issue that makes women so fearful and so afraid is what comes next,” she said. “At Fox, you have a company that not only sexually harasses, but is willing to empower its executives and use company resources to carry out ongoing harassment in the form of retaliation. ” Complicating matters for 21st Century Fox, Ms. Tantaros claimed that several Ailes lieutenants ignored her concerns, including the current general counsel, Dianne Brandi, and Bill Shine, a veteran producer who is now overseeing Fox’s newsroom alongside Mr. Murdoch. Ms. Tantaros said in the interview that she complained about Mr. Ailes’s behavior and subsequent retaliation to Mr. Shine, who she said told her, “Don’t fight this. ” Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Shine replied: “Andrea never made any complaints to me about Roger Ailes sexually harassing her. ” Ms. Brandi also disputed Ms. Tantaros’s assertion. Mr. Shine is a popular figure with some of the network’s veteran anchors. Removing Mr. Shine, temporarily or not, could reagitate the newsroom just as the fall presidential campaign begins, with tens of millions of dollars in advertising on the line. Corporate governance and ethics experts say that 21st Century Fox and its board ought to have been aware of problems involving sexual harassment accusations at the network, as well as any payouts related to them. If the parent company was unaware of the settlement, it would indicate “lax oversight,” Lucy P. Marcus, a corporate governance expert, wrote in an email. “If they had been aware of it, they should have investigated it years ago. The board and executive team needs to dig deeper into the culture to root out the cliques and culture that allowed this to carry on for so long. ” Of particular issue is a $3. 15 million settlement that Laurie Luhn, a former booker at the network, said she received in 2011. In an interview with New York magazine, Ms. Luhn said that Mr. Ailes forced her into a yearslong sexual relationship. Executives at 21st Century Fox have said they were only made aware of the settlement recently. On Wednesday, when asked to clarify exactly when it learned of it, the company declined to respond. “One would hope that a $3 million settlement for sexual harassment would flow up the line to somebody in corporate management,” said Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “At least today, that kind of settlement should come to the attention of the audit committee of the board. ” Mr. Hanson added: “The question is, did they have procedures in place to look at issues like this? And secondly, did they have someone try to report this that was then quashed by Rupert Murdoch or anyone else?” Fox News officials said that Ms. Tantaros reported accusations of sexual harassment — and not directed toward Mr. Ailes — only after she was informed that she was in breach of contract for publishing a book, featuring a provocative cover, without advance approval. Barry Asen, an outside counsel for Fox News, said in an interview that the network investigated her claims and found them baseless. “We wound up interviewing 12 or 15 people, all of whom denied everything she was alleging,” Mr. Asen said. Ms. Tantaros maintains that she was within the terms of her contract and that the network is using it as an excuse to diminish her complaints about sexual harassment. Fox’s parent, 21st Century Fox, is a global corporation, with $27. 3 billion in revenue and thousands of employees. Some on Wall Street have appeared unbothered by the scandal, which merited little mention on a recent earnings call. “Most investors would just hope that there wasn’t a bigger problem and move on to the next thing,” said Mr. Wieser, the media analyst. The company’s stock closed on Wednesday at $25. 58 a share, down nearly 8 percent since Mr. Ailes’s ouster. | 1 |
The Conservative Party is on track to win as many as eight Scottish seats in the general election as the party opens up a lead over its Labour rivals north of the border. [A poll of 1, 001 Scottish adults taken by Survation for the Sunday Post following the Prime Minister’s announcement of a snap election revealed that 28 per cent are planning to vote for the Scottish Conservatives, nearly doubling their 15 per cent support at the last election, while just 18 per cent back Scottish Labour. The Scottish National Party (SNP) has leaked support since their historic 2015 election result which saw the party secure half of all votes cast, but remains firmly ahead of its rivals on 43 per cent. The 2015 result delivered the SNP all but three of Scotland’s Westminster seats while the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour took one apiece. If the poll proves accurate, the Conservatives will take a further seven seats from the Scottish Nationals, taking their tally to eight, while the Liberal Democrats would gain a further two seats, totalling three. Labour, meanwhile, would hold their one seat north of the border. The pollsters also quizzed Scots on whether Scotland should be in independent nation, finding that 53 per cent would vote No in a referendum, against 47 per cent who are in favour when the undecides were excluded. However, should the Conservatives win the general election in June, 38 per cent of Scots said they would be more likely to back independence, including 41 percent of those who are currently undecided. 40 per cent said such a result wouldn’t change their vote either way, but just 16 per cent said they would be less likely to vote for an independent Scotland. A Scottish Labour spokesman told the Sunday Post: “This poll makes clear that people in Scotland stand by the decision they made in 2014 when they voted to remain in the UK. It’s time for Nicola Sturgeon to respect that decision. “If you vote Labour you will elect a local champion. If you vote SNP you will elect an MP only interested in a second independence referendum. The Tories simply cannot beat the SNP in seats across Scotland — only Labour can. ” | 1 |
BATON ROUGE, La. — The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation on Wednesday into the fatal shooting of a black man by the Baton Rouge, La. police after a searing video of the encounter, aired repeatedly on television and social media, reignited contentious issues surrounding police killings of . Officials from Gov. John Bel Edwards to the local police and elected officials vowed a complete and transparent investigation and appealed to the city — after a numbing series of racially charged incidents elsewhere — to remain calm. “I have full confidence that this matter will be investigated thoroughly, impartially and professionally,” Mr. Edwards said in announcing the federal takeover of the case. “I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least. ” Urging patience while the investigation takes place, the governor said: “I know that that may be tough for some, but it’s essential that we do that. I know that there are protests going on, but it’s urgent that they remain peaceful. ” Two white officers were arresting Alton B. Sterling, 37, early Tuesday after responding to a call about an armed man. The officers had Mr. Sterling pinned to the ground when at least one of them shot him. The video of the shooting propelled the case to national attention, like a string of recorded police shootings before it. The shooting has prompted protests here in the Louisiana capital, including a vigil with prayers and gospel music that drew hundreds of people Wednesday night to the storefront where it happened. C. Denise Marcelle, a state representative who recently announced that she would run for mayor, made impassioned pleas that the crowd remain calm. “This is not Ferguson,” Ms. Marcelle said. “This is Baton Rouge, Louisiana. ” Sandra Sterling, an aunt who said she had raised Mr. Sterling, also called for peace. “I’m mad,” she said, but added, “I’m not angry enough to hurt nobody. ” LaMont O. Cole, a city councilman, had some of the harshest words for the two police officers. “Those two officers who perpetrated this brutal attack, and then murdered this young man, are cowards,” he said. The decision to have the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the F. B. I. and the United States attorney’s office in Baton Rouge conduct the investigation was welcomed by a lawyer for Mr. Sterling’s family. “We’re confident that it won’t be swept under the rug,” said the lawyer, Edmond Jordan, who is also a state representative. “I think people are confident that justice will be pursued. ” Officials identified the officers as Blane Salamoni, who has been with the force for four years, and Howie Lake II, with three years’ experience. Both were placed on administrative leave. A call to a phone number for Mr. Salamoni was answered by a man who said he was not the officer, but who would not identify himself. “When all the facts come out, they did what they had to do,” the man said, and then hung up. Mr. Salamoni is the son of Noel Salamoni, a captain in the department who is in charge of special operations. Local and state officials endorsed the federal takeover of the case. “We feel it is in the best interest of the Baton Rouge Police Department, the city of Baton Rouge and this community for this to happen,” the police chief, Carl Dabadie Jr. said. In other cities with deaths of people in police custody, when local law enforcement agencies have kept control of the investigations and prosecution, they have often drawn intense criticism for their handling of the cases. There are multiple videos that may show the conflict with Mr. Sterling, in addition to the one recorded by a bystander that has been made public, said Lt. Jonny Dunnam, a police spokesman, at a news conference. Mr. Jordan, the family lawyer, called on the police to release the videos, but Lieutenant Dunnam said that for now, the department was providing them only to the federal authorities. “We have camera video footage, we have body camera video footage and there is video at the store,” Lieutenant Dunnam said. Of the recordings from the body cameras the officers wore, he said: “That footage may not be as good as we hoped for. During the altercation those body cameras came dislodged. ” At an earlier news conference on Wednesday, family members, elected officials and civic leaders demanded to know why Mr. Sterling had been killed. Some of them, including the local N. A. A. C. P. president, Mike McClanahan, called on Chief Dabadie to resign. Cameron Sterling, Mr. Sterling’s son, wept uncontrollably as his mother, Quinyetta McMillon, delivered a statement. “The individuals involved in his murder took away a man with children who depended upon their daddy on a daily basis,” Ms. McMillon said, adding, “As a mother I have now been forced to raise a son who is going to remember what happened to his father. ” On Tuesday, a person called the police to report that a black man in a red shirt selling music CDs outside the Triple S Food Mart had threatened him with a gun, the Police Department said. Two officers confronted Mr. Sterling about 12:35 a. m. Mr. Sterling had a long criminal history, including convictions for battery and illegal possession of a gun, but it is not clear whether the officers knew any of that as they tried to arrest him. The graphic cellphone video shot by a bystander, which was released later in the day, shows an officer pushing Mr. Sterling onto the hood of the car and then tackling him to the ground. He is held to the pavement by two officers, and one appears to hold a gun above Mr. Sterling’s chest. At one point someone on the video can be heard saying, “He’s got a gun! Gun!” and one officer can be seen pulling his weapon. After some shouting, what sound like gunshots can be heard and the camera shifts away, and then there are more apparent gunshots. A second video of the shooting, filmed by the owner of the store and first posted by the local newspaper, The Advocate, on Wednesday afternoon, showed the shooting from a different angle. It also shows one of the officers taking something out of Mr. Sterling’s pocket after he was shot and was lying on the ground. Witnesses have said they saw a handgun on the ground next to him. Mr. Jordan, the lawyer, said Mr. Sterling’s relatives were not aware of him owning a gun. Arthur Reed, the founder of Stop the Killing, the group that released the cellphone video, said he saw a gun only after Mr. Sterling had been fatally shot. The group, a mentoring program for youths, had heard reports on a police scanner about an arrest at the store, and showed up to gather video for potential use in a documentary about urban violence. Mr. Reed said the group decided to release its video after he heard that the police had accused Mr. Sterling of reaching for a gun. “He never reached in the video,” Mr. Reed said. “He never did anything. ” William Clark, the coroner of East Baton Rouge Parish, said that Mr. Sterling had died at the scene from gunshot wounds to the chest and back. Lieutenant Dunnam declined to say whether both officers fired their guns, or if either of them used an electric stun device on Mr. Sterling. Mr. Sterling’s name began trending on Twitter Tuesday night. In a statement on the killing, Hillary Clinton said, ”Something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans have reason to believe that our country doesn’t consider them as precious as others because of the color of their skin. ” By Wednesday evening, the parking lot of the Triple S was jammed with protesters and TV cameras. The protesters, young and old and nearly all waved signs declaring that black lives matter. Anthony Anderson, 62, a tour bus driver, and his cousin, David Jones, 60, who is said they had had enough. “I just think it looked like there could have been another way to handle that situation,” Mr. Anderson said of the video. He said that it seemed to him that the police here had long been harassing black people. The videos made just as little sense to Leroy Tackno, 60, the manager of the Living Waters Outreach Ministry transitional housing center where Mr. Sterling kept a small bedroom for $90 a week. He said that Mr. Sterling had never been any trouble. “I’m just trying to figure out what did he do,” Mr. Tackno said. “All he did was sell CDs. ” | 1 |
Officials at the National September 11 Memorial Museum in Manhattan said on Monday that one of their security guards should not have stopped a North Carolina middle school choir from singing the national anthem on the plaza last week. “The guard did not respond appropriately,” Kaylee Skaar, a museum spokeswoman, said. “We are working with our security staff to ensure that this does not happen again with future student performances. ” About 50 students from Waynesville Middle School in western North Carolina were at the memorial on Wednesday and had just started singing “The Banner” when a guard told them to stop. Martha Brown, a teacher from the school, said on Monday that a different security guard had given permission for her students to sing. But the second guard said, “You just can’t do this you’ve got to stop now,” Ms. Brown said. “So we very reverently and quietly stopped what we were doing and complied with his request and quietly exited the park. ” Video posted afterward by an adult on the school field trip had prompted outrage and led to an invitation for the students to sing the anthem live on Fox News. Ms. Brown and Trevor Putnam, the school’s principal, joined the students for their performance at the school on Monday. Ms. Brown said her students learned from the experience. “We turned it into a teaching moment and taught them that even if you don’t agree with it, or understand it, you must respect authority,” she said. Mr. Putnam echoed the sentiment. “The lesson learned here is always to respect authority,” the principal said in a telephone interview. “And I’m so proud of our kids for conducting themselves the way they did. ” Crystal Mulvey, a parent who accompanied her daughter on the trip, said she was shocked that the guard interrupted the national anthem because “it’s kind of a sacred song to us. ” But, she added, “On the flip side, I completely understand following rules. ” Striking a balance between remembering those killed by terrorists and rebuilding a bustling commercial district has been a challenge since the attack in 2001. Tourists paying their respects to the dead now share the memorial plaza with neighborhood residents and office workers from the new World Trade Center towers eating lunch under the trees. Officials at the memorial said groups wishing to perform on the crowded plaza are supposed to pay $35 to apply for a permit and obey a list of rules that includes not using amplified sound and not interfering with the flow of traffic. Ms. Brown said she was not aware of the permit requirement. | 1 |
It was rare for poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen to venture into the realm of politics, however, quite a few of his songs, including some of his love songs, were infused with a bleakness that confronted morality and the darkness of humanity. He also wrote a song of hope and possibility about the experiment of democracy in the United States that, perhaps, takes on a new kind of resonance in the wake of the election of Donald Trump.
Cohen was asked in 2014 if songs can offer solutions to political problems. He replied, “I think the song itself is a kind of solution.”
And so, to pay tribute to a troubadour who died at 82 and whose artistic work only seemed to get better as he aged and his voice grew deeper, here is a retrospective on some of the more philosophical and sociopolitical songs he composed.
“Joan Of Arc” (1971) Cohen declared in an interview for Rolling Stone in 1971, “Women are really strong. You notice how strong they are? Well, let them take over. Let us be what we’re supposed to be – gossips, musicians, wrestlers. The premise being, there can be no free men unless there are free women.” He believed it was just for women to gain control of the world.
With that context, this elegiac narrative takes on greater gravitas. It consists of a dialogue between Joan of Arc and the Fire, as she is burnt at the stake. The women’s movement was flourishing at the time, and Cohen saw Joan of Arc as a symbol of courage. Yet, he also recognized she may have been lonely because she had to disguise herself as a male soldier, and he imagined what it was like to fight English domination of France and in her final moments face down the fact that she would never return to what could be considered an ordinary life.
“Dance Me To The End Of Love” (1984) During a CBC radio interview in 1995, Cohen said the song came from “hearing and reading or knowing that in the death camps” during the Holocaust “beside the crematoria” the string quartet would be “pressed into performance” while “this horror” unfolded. Cohen sings in the opening, “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin. Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in. Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove.” The song represents an embrace of passionate acts in the face of atrocities and death.
“If It Be Your Will” (1984) This is a truly grim song in which Cohen is probably using the specter of a benevolent oppressor or fascism as a metaphor for the next stage of a relationship. And yet, the lyrics are subtle enough that Cohen may be addressing morality and how easy it is to convince men to carry out heinous acts. He sings, “All your children here in their rags of light/In our rags of light/All dressed to kill/And end this night/If it be your will.”
“First We Take Manhattan” (1987) The song is about terrorism or militant extremism. It is told from the perspective of an individual who tried to work within the system in order to change it. That failed. Now the individual has taken solace in the “beauty of his weapons” and turned to Manhattan and to Berlin to make his or her mark.
In a 2007 interview for XM Radio, he said, “There’s something about terrorism that I’ve always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises. That position is always very attractive. I don’t like it when it’s manifested on the physical plane. I don’t really enjoy the terrorist activities, but psychic terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I’ll give you a paraphrase of it. It was ‘well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there’, he says. ‘But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The whole world is still quaking.'”
What Cohen meant, albeit in a very cynical way, is the philosophies of these people have such a history of being used to justify horrible acts. He never engages with the subject fully (and probably never wanted to do so), but Cohen’s song clearly approaches the issue of state-sponsored political violence versus political violence of the individual.
“Everybody Knows” (1988) It is one of the most well-known songs he ever recorded. The wry cynicism diagnoses the realities of a cruel world. In the neoliberal age of austerity, the opening lyrics are exceptionally appropriate, “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows that the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.”
Cohen sings, “Everybody knows that you’re in trouble.” Those in charge of the social order are indifferent to the pain and suffering of the masses. But are the owners and politicians capable of maintaining control? Because everybody also knows that it is coming apart.
“Democracy (1990) Cohen described in an interview with Paul Zollo that he wrote the song after the Berlin Wall came down. “Everyone was saying democracy is coming to the east, and I was like that gloomy fellow who always turns up at a party to ruin the orgy or something. And I said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to happen that way. I don’t think this is such a good idea. I think a lot of suffering will be the consequence of this wall coming down.'”
That seems strikingly backward. But it motivated Cohen to ask, “Where is democracy really coming?” He thought there may be more democracy coming to the United States. From a love of America, he wrote a song that is really about the irony of America, “a song of deep intimacy and affirmation of the experiment of democracy in this country.” He added, “This is really where the experiment is unfolding. This is really where the races confront one another, where the classes, where the genders, where even the sexual orientations confront one another. This is the real laboratory of democracy.”
Given the American exceptionalism of Cohen’s statement, he could have easily produced something with lyrics Lee Greenwood would have proudly belted out on stage. However, each time Cohen sings, “Democracy is coming to the USA,” there is a raw irony it, like he does not believe the forces running this nation are capable of democracy. Then, there’s the inimitable line, “I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean. I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.” It makes it clear Cohen was a disappointed idealist. Like so many, he liked the idea of America but seeing it play out on that “hopeless little screen” was never quite what he had in mind.
“The Future” (1990) For this song, Cohen’s character looks into the future, and it is not good at all. It is so frightening, in fact, that he thinks he would be willing to see fascist society restored. “Give me back the Berlin wall. Give me Stalin and St Paul. Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima.”
The song hurdles onward into more nostalgia for familiar horror, “Destroy another fetus now. We don’t like children anyhow. I’ve seen the future, baby: it is murder.” He has no hope that humanity can right itself. Civilization can try and erect a social order with a tyrant or it can unravel tyranny and push for something more just. Yet, inevitably, to Cohen’s character, there will be murder. In which case, what really is the right thing to do?
“On That Day” (2004) Cohen wrote this as a response to the September 11th attacks. It is an artifact that represents reactions to what happened. He sings, “Some people say it’s what we deserve for sins against god, for crimes in the world.” There are others who blame it on the fact that women live “unveiled” or because the country has its fortunes as well as people who are subjugated. Whatever the case may be, Cohen does not seek to settle the discussion. Rather, he seems more interested in whether those who survived were able to press onward. So he poses a rhetorical question: “Did you go crazy or did you report on that day?” Then the song abruptly ends.
“Amen” (2012) This song comes from the latter era of Cohen’s life, where the sultry nature of his music took on a much more wistful and brooding characteristic. He wrote about love but love in a time of war or love with inescapable horror all around.
In “Amen,” the character Cohen channels desperately wants to love. He must first see through the terror around him. He does not think he can love until the “victims are singing and laws of remorse are restored.” He does not think he can love until the “day has been ransomed and night has no right to begin.” He awaits some kind of redemption and only then will he be able to feel wanted again, but there is too much despair and destruction right now for the character to indulge in pleasure.
“Almost Like the Blues” (2014) We live in a world of permanent war, and so, in this gorgeously layered piece of music, Cohen grapples with atrocities he witnessed. “I saw some people starving. There was murder, there was rape. Their villages were burning. They were trying to escape. I couldn’t meet their glances. I was staring at my shoes. It was acid. It was tragic. It was almost like the blues.”
Few of Cohen’s songs are as profound. The song, which appears on “Popular Problems,” could easily be grappling with what goes through the minds of war criminals. He sings, “I have to die a little between each murderous thought, and when I’m finished thinking, I have to die a lot.” The soldier witnesses torture or is party to it. He witnesses killing or is party to it. “And there’s all my bad reviews.” It seems his superiors are unhappy with his performance. Maybe, they do not think he is killing enough. Whatever the case may be, he has lost his grip on morality entirely and finds himself confronting the scope of his sins.
“A Street” (2014) To Cohen, “Popular Problems” was all about dealing with defeat . He told the Telegraph the lyrics were about facing down failure, disappointment, bewilderment—especially the “dark forces that modify our lives.” What is a person to do?
“Recognize that your struggle and your suffering is the same as everyone else’s,” Cohen suggested. “I think that’s the beginning of a responsible life. Otherwise, we are in a continual savage battle with each other with no possible solution, political, social, or spiritual.”
While referring to “A Street,” which is about a faltering romance during war, he added, “When I say ‘the party’s over but I’ve landed on my feet . I’m standing on this corner where there used to be a street,’ I think that’s probably the theme of the whole album. Yeah, the scene is blown up, but you just can’t keep lamenting the fact. There is another position. You have to stand in that place where there used to be a street and conduct yourself as if there still is a street.”
In a very basic sense, the master of romantic despair, the high priest of pathos, has now gone up to that Tower of Song, meant people have to find ways to keep living. They have to exist, and by existing, that is in and of itself an act of resistance to all the depravity that unfolds around them.
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IN A bid to clear up any confusion about their latest ruling on the cremated remains of loved ones, the Vatican confirmed it is still alright to scatter paedophile priests wherever they want, but not ashes.
Yesterday the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church urged followers not to scatter the ashes of the dead after cremation and instead to store them in places approved by the Church.
“We’ll make all the decisions on who and what goes where, thank you very much,” German cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, the prefect of the doctrinal watchdog, told WWN, “Scattering the remains of loved ones on unholy ground will only ruin their chances of staying in heaven. But the scattering of peadophile priests is fine, though; when we’re doing it,” before adding, “Please leave all the important decisions on the welfare of others to us. We won’t let any of our worshipers down”.
The latest move comes just 53 years after the Vatican ‘legalised’ cremation, mirroring the amount of time it takes for the church to act on various different subjects, including child sex abuse.
“We don’t make decisions lightly here, so we like to take our time,” the Cardinal admitted, “But when we do, we like to make sure that they are the best decisions tailored for the financial gain of our multi-billion euro a year organisation”.
A two-page instruction issuing new rules on cremation also said that there were even some cases where a Christian funeral could be denied to those who request that ashes be scattered.
“There is absolutely no profit for us if someone gets cremated and spread over some field for free,” Muller pointed out, breathing on a 24 carrot ring on his hand before polishing it on his silk gown, “We offer an array of allotments across the world, and at a bargain price too. We’ll even throw in an annual mass and a few prayers graveside for any cremated relative wishing to be buried on sacred ground”.
Allotments can range anywhere between €5,000 to €19,000 for a family plot, with the church charging over €20,000 for extra holy burial slots. | 0 |
The children of late Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss brought their battle over the team into the public spotlight when controlling owner Jeanie Buss moved for a restraining order against her two brothers last Friday. [Family trusts for the three siblings — Jeanie, Jim and Johnny — make up 66 percent of the team’s ownership, according to the Los Angeles Times. That allows election of three of the team’s five board members. In late February, Jeanie replaced her brother Jim with Magic Johnson in the position of the team’s vice president of basketball operations. Three days later, brother Johnny gave Jeanie notice that there would be a March 7 Board of Directors election meeting. The brother promoted four names as potential board members, according to court documents cited in the report. None of the four was Jeanie. Jeanie’s role as controlling owner requires her to hold a position on the board. The Times reported, “The trusts mandate the — Johnny, Jim and Jeanie — take all actions to ensure Jeanie Buss remains controlling owner of the Lakers. She has occupied the role since their father, Jerry Buss, died in 2013. ” Court filings indicate the Buss family could lose control of the team if Jeanie Buss does not retain the position of controlling owner. The motion for temporary restraining order was withdrawn Friday and a judge set a trial date of May 15. The Lakers have performed poorly over the last several seasons, despite a roster of veteran . They last won the NBA championship in 2010, and fell short in 2011 after being swept in the Western Conference by the eventual winners, the Dallas Mavericks. The team’s base has been frustrated, creating a new local opportunity for the vastly improved Los Angeles Clippers, despite that team’s own ownership challenges in recent years. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 1 |
TEHRAN — Until two weeks ago, Iran’s clerics felt comfortable leading worshipers in a chorus of “Death to America” while simultaneously signing a $16. 6 billion deal with Boeing. Now, that status quo seems very long ago and the establishment is treading carefully, with even most concerned that the smallest provocation could lead to military conflict. But some question how long their caution will last in the face of a Trump administration that has brought a new level of hostility and confrontation to a relationship that under President Barack Obama had been brittle but stable. Tensions flared this week after Iran confirmed that it had conducted a missile test and the national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, warned Iran that it had been put “on notice. ” On Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, gave a mild rejoinder, saying, “It is a shame that the U. S. government, instead of thanking the Iranian nation for their continued fight against terrorism, keeps repeating unfounded claims and adopts unwise policies that are effectively helping terrorist groups. ” Mr. Flynn also made clear that the challenge to Iran extended beyond the missile test, holding Tehran responsible for an attack on a Saudi warship by Houthi rebels in Yemen, who the United States says are supported by Iran. Iran denies that, but the remark was taken as a veiled warning about Iran’s support of regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq. “The Trump administration condemns actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout the Middle East and place American lives at risk,” he said. Later, President Trump posted on Twitter that “Iran is rapidly taking over Iraq,” its neighbor, “while the U. S. squandered three trillion dollars there. Obviously long ago. ” During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump spoke favorably of unpredictability in foreign policy, pointing to President Ronald Reagan as an example of the benefits of keeping opponents off balance. Since taking office, he has been good to his word, and Iranians have noticed. “Trump is not predictable for Americans, not for Europeans and not for us,” said Nader Karimi Joni, a war veteran and analyst close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani. “He and his team are not trustworthy. They will not honor any agreement. Nothing good is coming from this. ” Certainly not for Mr. Rouhani, a moderate who came to power promising to ratchet down tensions with the West, cinch a nuclear deal and get Iran’s economy moving again. Now, all those goals are in jeopardy, and Mr. Rouhani’s this spring is far from assured. On Thursday, an aide to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called Mr. Trump’s remarks “hollow rants” and said that they “would bring losses for his country’s national interest. ” The adviser, the former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, also said that Iran would continue to test missiles. Mr. Rouhani has called Mr. Trump a political novice. But there is little doubt that the clerics have been thrown off balance. One analyst with access to government deliberations said that in Iran were confused and did not know how to deal with the situation. Some in the establishment are opting for the same rhetoric and tactics they used under Mr. Obama, but in reality, this is uncharted territory, he said. Mr. Trump has filled his foreign policy team with advisers like Mr. Flynn and the secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, who consider Iran to be the greatest cause of instability in the Middle East, if not the world, and who think the Obama administration treated Tehran with kid gloves. When Iran test fired a missile on Sunday, it did not announce the launch on state television, something the country’s leadership usually likes to do to send a message to its adversaries. Missile tests are commonplace in Iran, but Sunday’s muted test was clearly meant to test the Trump administration’s reaction. Mr. Flynn did not elaborate what he meant by saying he was putting Iran on notice. But in Iran, many agreed that whatever it meant, it did not bode well. “When they say we are put on notice, it means we should be very careful,” said Soroush Farhadian, a reformist journalist. “We need . Our military men need to be prevented from making blunders. One incident in the Persian Gulf can lead to conflict right now. ” In recent months, speedboats belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have made a practice of aggressively approaching United States naval vessels, then veering off. During the campaign, Mr. Trump vowed that if they tried that under his watch, he would “blow them out of the water. ” There have been no reported incidents since Mr. Trump took office. Ayatollah Khamenei was uncharacteristically mute during a visit on Thursday to the martyr’s graves, usually a moment for brief remarks about current affairs. The position of Mr. Rouhani is more sensitive, as he has been promoting ties with the United States and executed the nuclear agreement, with the blessing of Ayatollah Khamenei, who also has been critical of the deal. Having tied his political future to the nuclear agreement and promised to normalize relations with the West, Mr. Rouhani is rapidly losing influence, analysts say. He now finds himself faced with an American travel ban for his citizens and an American president who thinks the nuclear pact “is a really, really bad deal. ” are deeply critical of Mr. Rouhani and are increasingly dismissing him as a figure of the past, the right answer in the Obama era but the wrong one now. Many expect the next president to be a far more combative figure, in the mold of the former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “For this Trump, we need to talk and act tough,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, a analyst. “Mr. Rouhani speaks beautiful words, but they are empty. We can deal with Mr. Trump. He is a businessman, but we should not compromise. ” | 1 |
As I told my teenage daughter…Trump was voted, to be our country’s next President. That decision, made by the people must be respected. Why would you dramatize the hearsay to a teen? | 0 |
LEEDS, England — A member of Parliament was gunned down outside a library in northern England as she was wrapping up a meeting with constituents on Thursday afternoon, a rare act of gun violence in a nation that strictly regulates firearms. The lawmaker, Jo Cox, 41, who was considered a rising star in the opposition Labour Party and a passionate advocate for victims of the civil war in Syria, was shot in Birstall, a town about six miles southwest of the city of Leeds. A man was slightly injured in the attack. A man was arrested in Ms. Cox’s killing, and the police said they were not looking for any other suspects. No motive has been established, officials said. The suspect was identified in the British news media as Thomas Mair. On Thursday night, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported on its website that Mr. Mair was a “dedicated supporter” of the National Alliance, a organization in the United States. The center, which tracks hate groups, said Mr. Mair bought a manual from the alliance in 1999 that included instructions on how to build a pistol. It based its reporting on invoices it said it had obtained, copies of which were published on its website. Mr. Mair’s brother Scott told The Daily Telegraph that he was “struggling to believe what has happened. ” “My brother is not violent and is not all that political. I don’t even know who he votes for. He has a history of mental illness, but he has had help,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. Gun ownership in Britain has been tightly controlled since a 1996 massacre at a school in Scotland, and historians said it was the first time a sitting member of Parliament had been killed since 1990, when the Irish Republican Army assassinated a Conservative lawmaker, Ian Gow. The killing occurred one week before a referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union, and both sides immediately halted campaigning out of respect for Ms. Cox. “The death of Jo Cox is a tragedy,” Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain wrote on Twitter, describing Ms. Cox as “a committed and caring M. P. ” and “a great star. ” He said, “It’s right that we’re suspending campaigning activity in this referendum. ” Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, wrote on Twitter, “The whole of the Labour family, and indeed the whole country, is in shock and grief at the horrific murder of Jo Cox. ” Ms. Cox, like most other Labour politicians, supported Britain’s continued membership in the European Union. In her maiden speech in Parliament last year, she spoke of the diversity of her district, which includes Irish Catholics and Indian Muslims. “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us,” she said. Last week, she wrote on Twitter: “Immigration is a legitimate concern, but it’s not a good reason to leave the E. U. ” On Wednesday, her husband, Brendan Cox, took part in a joust between campaigners from both sides, an event nicknamed the Battle of the Thames. Mr. Cox issued a statement on Thursday evening, saying, “Hate doesn’t have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous. ” In Birstall, where the last census recorded nearly 17, 000 residents, the police cordoned off the area around Market Street, where the suspect was arrested. The police were summoned at 12:53 p. m. and found Ms. Cox with severe injuries. She was taken by an air ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary, where paramedics tried to save her. A doctor pronounced her dead at 1:48 p. m. Dee Collins, temporary chief constable of the West Yorkshire Police, said at a news conference. Constable Collins said that several weapons, including a firearm, had been recovered from the scene and were being analyzed. “This is a very significant investigation, with large numbers of witnesses that have been spoken to by the police at this time,” she said, adding, “We are not in a position to discuss any motive at this time. ” Speaking at the same news conference, Mark the police and crime commissioner for West Yorkshire, described the killing as “a localized incident, albeit one that has a much wider impact. ” The BBC quoted a witness, Hithem Ben Abdallah, 56, who was in a cafe next to the library when the attack occurred, as saying he heard screaming and went outside. “There was a guy who was being very brave and another guy with a white baseball cap who he was trying to control and the man in the baseball cap suddenly pulled a gun from his bag,” Mr. Ben Abdallah said. Ms. Cox was shot while trying to intervene, he said. His account could not be independently verified. In a telephone interview, Sanjeev Kumar, an employee at the Kwik Save store near the library where Ms. Cox met with constituents, said he saw her lying on the ground after her attacker fled. “She was lying on the floor and two girls were helping her,” Mr. Kumar said. “She was bleeding from the mouth and nose — the ambulance was on its way. She couldn’t talk, or move, or do anything. It looked serious. ” Mr. Kumar said the attack was the sort of event that “never, never happened here. ” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mr. Mair sent about $620 to the National Alliance for items from its publishing imprint, National Vanguard Books, including works that instructed readers on the chemistry of powder and explosives. Also purchased was a copy of “Ich Kampfe,” a book published by the Nazi Party in the early 1940s. Heidi Beirich, the director of the center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks and produces reports on extremist groups, said in an interview that it had found the invoices in a database of records it maintains. When Mr. Mair’s name surfaced on Thursday, Ms. Beirich said, the Intelligence Project matched it with invoices in its possession. She said those records were authentic because they had been leaked by members of the National Alliance. Further, she said, she was confident the records were linked to Mr. Mair because the address on the invoices matched his home address. The West Yorkshire police could not be reached for comment early Friday on the law center’s report, and there was no indication that Mr. Mair’s apparent ties to the National Alliance had anything to do with the shooting. Ms. Cox was elected to Parliament in May 2015 to represent Batley and Spen, a generally safe Labour seat. The district has a large number of retirees and a substantial population of people of South Asian origin. Ms. Cox’s colleagues have described her as an eloquent and effective lawmaker. She was to celebrate her 42nd birthday next Wednesday, and had been spoken of as a potential future minister. According to her personal website, she was born and raised around Dewsbury, England. She graduated from Cambridge in 1995, the first in her family to complete university. Ms. Cox was involved in causes. She was an aide to Joan Walley, a British member of Parliament who supported European integration, and to Glenys Kinnock, a former Labour member of the European Parliament. She also worked with Oxfam, the charity with Sarah Brown, wife of the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, to reduce child and infant mortality and with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to combat modern slavery. She was married with two children, and lived part of the time on a boat on the Thames. The campaigns representing the two sides in next week’s European Union referendum — Britain Stronger in Europe, which favors remaining in the European Union, and Vote Leave, which advocates departure from the bloc — halted their campaigning. Opponent of Britain’s departure said they would suspend their campaign until the weekend. Mr. Cameron called off plans to visit Gibraltar, the British territory, to rally residents to vote in favor of remaining in the bloc. The killing of Ms. Cox triggered an outpouring on Twitter by politicians, past and present. Although no member of Parliament has been assassinated since 1990, there have been two attacks on lawmakers meeting constituents, as Ms. Cox was doing. In January 2000, a mentally ill man attacked a Liberal Democratic lawmaker, Nigel Jones, with a samurai sword, killing an aide to Mr. Jones. In September 2010, Stephen Timms, a Labour member of Parliament for the East Ham district in London, was stabbed and critically injured by an Islamist extremist angered by his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Gabrielle Giffords, a former member of Congress who survived an assassination attempt in 2011 by a gunman who killed six others, wrote on Twitter that she was “absolutely sickened to hear of the assassination of Jo Cox. ” She added: “She was young, courageous, and hardworking. A rising star, mother, and wife. ” | 1 |
Scientists reviewing video from camera traps watched dumbfounded as a badger worked four days to bury a calf carcass. Badgers, carnivores native to the American West, are generally nocturnal and spend most of their time in burrows. They are known to cache food to eat later — squirrels and rabbits, typically. No one has ever seen a badger put away such a large hunk of meat. The scientists had put out seven calf carcasses in an attempt to study scavenging behavior. At one site, the carcass had completely disappeared. A look at video from the camera trap was enough to see what had happened. After burying the carcass, the badger built a den next to his large food supply. No other badger visited the site. “It’s a substantial undertaking,” said Ethan H. Frehner, an associate instructor in biology at the University of Utah. | 1 |
LONDON — British voters will go to the polls this month to decide whether their country should remain in the European Union. As the date, June 23, approaches, the “leave” and “remain” campaigns are dialing up the volume, with claims and counterclaims flying, many with only a tenuous relationship to facts. According to those who favor leaving the bloc, Britain is the victim of faceless, highly compensated bureaucrats in Brussels who meet in secret and churn out regulations costing businesses billions of pounds a year. They say British citizens are subjected to taxes and other measures by a supposedly unaccountable European Parliament, while Britain as a whole sends far more money each year to Brussels than it gets back. Above all, perhaps, they say Britain is virtually powerless to stop the influx of migrants — more than 300, 000 arrived last year. Those who support remaining in the bloc play down those issues, focusing on what a seemingly inexhaustible supply of government officials, economists, bankers and business executives call the dire consequences of leaving: a weakened currency, job losses, slower growth, depressed trade, the end of London’s status as a world financial capital and a loss of influence in European affairs. Immigrants, just over half from European Union member states, give the economy energy, youth and creativity, they say, contributing to the economic vitality that makes multicultural London the envy of the world. Some have called the campaign the “Trumpification of politics” in Britain. With dubious assertions flying around, the debate can appear unseemly. Here are a few of the claims, and some judgments about their veracity: The “Leave” side says: Britain sends 350 million pounds a week to the European Union. According to the U. K. Statistics Authority, Britain owed a gross contribution to the European Union of 19. 1 billion pounds, or about $28 billion, in 2014. That’s £367 million a week. However, Britain gets an immediate rebate off the top, negotiated in 1984 by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, so it actually sent £14. 7 billion, or £283 million a week, in 2014. Brussels also returns money to Britain for sectors including agriculture, regional development, science and universities. The actual net contribution from Britain is about £9. 9 billion a year. That’s about £190 million a week, a little more than half of what Vote Leave claims. It is roughly 0. 5 percent of British gross domestic product and around 1. 3 percent of the current British budget of about £770 billion. _____ The “Remain” side says: Three million jobs in Britain depend on membership in the European Union. Doubtful. The original study simply said that “3. 45 million jobs depend upon exports to the E. U. ” But there is no question that Britain would continue to export to the European Union and elsewhere even if it left the bloc. Trade might be more complicated and expensive outside the single market, but the United States and China, to name just two countries, do a lot of trade with the European Union without being members. _____ “Leave” says: Britain has lost 75 percent of the 131 cases brought against it before the European Court of Justice, and thus has lost a crucial element of sovereignty. True, at least the first part. But the European Commission, for example, brings only cases it thinks it can win. And 91 of the cases were brought by the commission because of Britain’s failure to put in effect European law, as it is obligated to do. France, by comparison, has lost 90 percent of the last 50 cases brought to the court. _____ “Remain” says: A British exit would cost each household £4, 300 a year by 2030. It depends on your assumptions, but some loss of national income is inevitable. Those who favor staying in the bloc cite a study by the British Treasury that looked at three alternatives to European Union membership. For comparison, the Treasury chose one, a negotiated bilateral agreement with the European Union, like the ones the bloc has with Switzerland and Norway. The figure cited represents an annual loss of gross domestic product per household after 15 years, estimating 6. 2 percent lower growth nationally by 2030. But this does not translate to cash, and it is based on numerous assumptions. And, of course, there is no way of knowing what kind of relationship Britain would have with the European Union after a Brexit. Michael Gove, a leader of the “leave” campaign, has said Britain would not want a bilateral deal that required it to accept freedom of movement and labor, so it would choose a simpler World Trade Organization relationship with the European Union, like the ones held by Brazil and Russia. That kind of relationship, the Treasury suggests, would mean a bigger annual loss of G. D. P. per household by 2030 of £5, 200. Still, every alternative the Treasury examined would reduce G. D. P. a position accepted by most economists. _____ “Leave” says: “Uncontrolled migration” imposes “huge unfunded pressures on the N. H. S. and on other public services,” said Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, referring to the National Health Service. Pressures, absolutely. Unfunded, not exactly. An estimated 85 percent of European Union citizens in Britain are economically active, contributing a net £22 billion to the Treasury. But is immigration “uncontrolled”? Citizens of European Union countries have the right to live and work in any member state. But Britain, which is not a part of the Schengen zone of largely travel, has the right to check everyone at its borders and can deny entry for a host of reasons. Net annual migration to Britain rose slightly, to 333, 000, in 2015, according to the Office for National Statistics. European Union citizens made up 55 percent of that figure (184, 000). Britons migrate to other European Union countries, too, especially retirees who can live more cheaply elsewhere and still get free medical benefits. About 300, 000 Britons left the country last year — more than the 184, 000 European Union citizens who moved to Britain. About one million Britons live in Spain, about 255, 000 in Ireland and about 175, 000 in France Britain has taken substantial measures to try to reduce immigration, raising the skills requirement for Union citizens and reducing incentives for European Union citizens coming into the country for jobs. As for strains that immigration puts on public services, there is no question. Rapid population increases in some cities and towns across Britain have put pressure on hospitals, housing, schools and policing. Since the 2000s, the East Midlands and Northern England have experienced the biggest percentage increases in populations. Boston, a town of 67, 000 in the Midlands, experienced a sixfold increase in residents, driving many people out of town for doctors’ appointments and emergencies because practitioners in town were overstretched. At one point, the town’s Council arranged for children to be taken by taxi to schools in neighboring towns because there were not enough places locally. The crisis eased somewhat as increased tax revenue, a result of the growing population, helped finance new schools and hospitals. A 2011 government study found that national spending per person on health care attributed to foreigners, who are mostly young adults, was lower than for Britons spending on education was higher, but outlays for government aid for both groups were comparable. But immigrants also contribute substantially to the National Health Service, which relies on them to function. Immigrants make up at least 20 percent of the service’s work force. There is a chronic shortage of nurses, radiologists and emergency medicine specialists, among others, according to a government list of occupation shortages. About a third of nursing shifts covered by agency staff hired by the National Health Service are immigrants with temporary visas. _____ “Remain” says: A British exit from the bloc would throw the country into recession and result in a loss of 500, 000 jobs, lower wages and lower house prices. The cost of vacations would also go up by an average of £230, Prime Minister David Cameron says. The macroenomic claims cite a Treasury study looking at the economic effects of leaving the European Union, modeled on economic assumptions about the level of “shock” a departure would bring — regular or severe — and on estimates for a weaker pound. Economists from both sides of the membership debate agree that there would be a economic shock and slower growth. But estimates of how much vary, and the Treasury’s numbers are considered a bit pessimistic, but generally correct. As for vacations, Mr. Cameron points to the likelihood of a weaker pound, coupled with increased airfares and higher cellphone roaming charges. By 2018, he says, the cost for four people to take a vacation in Spain would be £225 more. For two weeks in the United States, it would be £620 more. Again, there are many assumptions. But those who favor remaining in the European Union hope that voters will take note of the specific figures, even if based on unprovable estimates and judgments about the future. _____ “Leave” says: The British economy is choking on a mass of regulations from Brussels. To some extent, the truth is in the eye of the beholder on this one. The House of Commons Library has warned that “there is no totally accurate, rational or useful way of calculating the percentage of national laws based on or influenced by the European Union,” concluding that it is “possible to justify any measure between 15 percent and 50 percent or thereabouts. ” Britain has the regulated economy in Europe, after the Netherlands, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the “remain” campaign says many European Union regulations are aimed at maintaining market competition and, on balance, save Britain about $30 billion a year. _____ “Leave” says: Not only does the European Union rule on the curvature of bananas, it will not allow them to be sold in bunches larger than three, Mr. Johnson said. There is no rule on how, or how many, bananas may be sold. Mr. Johnson has also said that after leaving the union, “U. K. asparagus will be just as sprouting, just as delicious, in fact even better!” The proof of the pudding is in the eating. | 1 |
The last time Steve Kerr was in Beirut, his birthplace, with the bombs pounding the runway and the assassination of his father six months away, he left by car. The airport was closed. There was talk of taking a cruise ship to Cyprus, or accompanying an ambassador on a helicopter to Tel Aviv or even crossing into Israel on a bus. A military plane headed to Cairo had an empty seat, but it went to someone else. Finally, a hired driver took Kerr over the Lebanon Mountains and across the Syrian border to Damascus, then on to Amman, Jordan. It felt like an escape. “I’m fearful that all this uncertainty and inconvenience, not to mention even a sense of physical danger, has not done Steve’s image of Beirut much good, and in his present mood he wonders what any of us are doing here,” his father, Malcolm H. Kerr, the president of the American University of Beirut, wrote to other family members that day in August 1983. A few months later, Malcolm Kerr was shot twice in the back of the head outside his university office. Steve Kerr was 18 then, quiet and . He was a lightly recruited freshman at the University of Arizona, before it was a basketball power. It took a vivid imagination to see him becoming an N. B. A. champion as a player and a coach, now leading the Golden State Warriors. But perhaps it should be no surprise that, at 51, Kerr has found his voice in public discourse, talking about much more than basketball: heavy topics like gun control, protests, presidential politics and Middle East policy. With an educated and evenhanded approach, he steps into discussions that most others in his position purposely avoid or know little about, chewing through the gray areas in a world that increasingly paints itself in bold contrasts. In many ways, he has grown into an echo of his father. “The truly civilized man is marked by empathy,” Malcolm Kerr wrote in a foreword to a collection of essays called “The Confrontation of June 1967: An Arab Perspective. ” “By his recognition that the thought and understanding of men of other cultures may differ sharply from his own, that what seems natural to him may appear grotesque to others. ” In a rare and sometimes emotional interview this fall, Kerr spoke about the death of his father and his family’s deep roots in Lebanon and the Middle East. Some of the words sounded familiar. “Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and look at it from a bigger perspective,” he said. “We live in this complex world of gray areas. Life is so much easier if it could be black and white, good and evil. ” Providing commentary on the state of today’s politics and culture is not a prerequisite for Kerr’s job. There are sports fans, maybe the majority of them, who wish athletes and coaches would keep their nonsports opinions to themselves — stand for the anthem, be thankful for your good fortune, express only humility, and provide little but smiles and autographs. Kerr understands that. Sports are a diversion for most who follow them, “only meaningful to us and our fans,” he said. In a sports world that takes itself too seriously, that perspective is part of the appeal of Kerr and the Warriors. They won the 2015 N. B. A. championship, were last season and remain a top team this season. They seem to be having more fun than anyone else. But Kerr also knows that sports are an active ingredient of American culture. He knows, as well as anyone, that players are complicated, molded by background, race, religion and circumstance. And Kerr is, too: a man whose grandparents left the United States to work in the Middle East, whose father was raised there, whose mother adopted it, whose family has a different and broader perspective than most. The Kerrs are a family touched by terrorism in the most personal way. Malcolm Kerr was not a random victim. He was a target. That gives Steve Kerr a voice. His job gives him a platform. You will excuse him if he has a few things to say. “It’s really simple to demonize Muslims because of our anger over but it’s obviously so much more complex than that,” he said. “The vast majority of Muslims are people, just like the vast majority of Christians and Buddhists and Jews and any other religion. People are people. ” He delved into modern Middle East history, about World War II and the Holocaust and the 1948 creation of Israel, about the War in 1967, about peace accords and the conflict and the Iraq War and the United States’ scattered chase for whatever shifting it has at any particular time. “My dad would have been able to explain it all to me,” Kerr said. Instead, he absorbed it as a boy and applies it as an adult. “He at least gave me the understanding that it’s complex. And as easy as it is to demonize people, there’s a lot of different factors involved in creating this culture that we’re in now. ” Malcolm Kerr was a professor at U. C. L. A. for 20 years, and the sprawling ranch house where the family lived in Pacific Palisades, Calif. has a flat driveway and a basketball hoop bolted to the roof above the garage. Steve Kerr spent countless hours in the driveway practicing the shot that would give him the N. B. A. record for career percentage that still stands. But not all memories in the driveway are about basketball. “I remember when the Camp David accords happened,” Kerr said, recalling the 1978 peace talks between Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar of Egypt, shepherded by President Jimmy Carter. Kerr had just entered his teens. “One of my best friends was a guy named David Zuckerman, a Jewish guy, and his father was an English professor,” Kerr said. “Mr. Zuckerman and David drove me home from baseball practice or something, and we pull up in the driveway and my dad sees us and comes running out. Mr. Zuckerman’s name was Marvin, and my dad said: ‘Marvin, Marvin! Did you see the picture today of Begin and Sadat?’ It was the biggest thing. It would have been the equivalent of the Dodgers winning the World Series. He was so excited for that moment because that is what he really hoped for: Middle East peace. That was his dream. That day, I’ll never forget it. ” Kerr paused. “And then it was only a short time later that Sadat was killed,” he said. The Sadat assassination was in October 1981, just 27 months before Malcolm Kerr was killed. Malcolm Kerr’s parents, Stanley and Elsa Kerr, were American missionaries who met in the Middle East after World War I. He worked for American Near East Relief in Turkey during the slaughter of countless Armenians (detailed later in his memoir, “The Lions of Marash”). She had traveled to Istanbul to study Turkish and to teach. They married in 1921 and moved to Lebanon to run orphanages. They went on to teach at the American University of Beirut for 40 years. Malcolm was one of their four children. He went to the United States for prep school and graduated from Princeton before he returned to A. U. B. for graduate school. It was there that he met Ann Zwicker, an Occidental College student from California spending a year studying abroad. Beirut was a cosmopolitan, city on the Mediterranean, a mix of Christians and Muslims seemingly in balance, if not harmony. A. U. B. was founded in 1866 (it celebrated its 150th anniversary on Dec. 3) as a bastion of free thought and diversity, welcoming all races and religions. As wars and crises suffocated the Middle East in recent decades, it has often felt like an island, protected by prestige and . Malcolm and Ann married and raised four children: Susan, John, Steve and Andrew. The first three were born in Beirut. Malcolm Kerr took a teaching job at A. U. B. but the Kerrs settled in California when Steve was a toddler. Malcolm Kerr’s tenure at U. C. L. A. was sprinkled with sojourns and sabbaticals that persistently pulled the family back to the Middle East. Steve Kerr spent two separate school years in Cairo. There were summers in Beirut and Tunisia, another year in France, and road trips circling the Mediterranean in a Volkswagen van. Steve “was not always thrilled,” he admitted, to leave friends and the comfort of California. He hated to miss sports camps and football and basketball games at U. C. L. A. where the Kerrs had season tickets. In hindsight, though, his family’s long history in the Middle East, beginning nearly 100 years ago, shaped him in ways that he only now realizes. “It’s an American story, something I’m very proud of, the work that my grandparents did,” Kerr said. “It just seemed like a time when Americans were really helping around the world, and one of the reasons we were beloved was the amount of help we provided, whether it was after World War I, like my grandparents, or World War II. I’m sort of nostalgic for that sort of perception. We were the good guys. I felt it growing up, when I was living in Egypt, when I was overseas. Americans were revered in much of the Middle East. And it’s just so sad what has happened to us the last few decades. ” Kerr was in high school when his father was named president of A. U. B. in 1982. It was Malcolm Kerr’s dream job. But the appointment came as Lebanon was embroiled in civil war. Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, expelled from Syria, had its headquarters in Beirut. Iranian Shiites, followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had moved into Lebanon and given voice to the impoverished Shiite minority there. The Christian population was shrinking, and Lebanon was in the middle of a tug of war between Israel and Syria. “I bet there’s a chance I’ll get bumped off early on,” Malcolm Kerr told his daughter, Susan, in March 1982, she recalled in her memoir, “One Family’s Response to Terrorism. ” He accepted the job the next morning. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the countermove by the Iranians to send its Iranian Revolutionary Guards there through Syria, began in June 1982, weeks before Malcolm Kerr was to start the new job. In the chaos, militants were organizing and would eventually become Hezbollah. Malcolm Kerr was kept in New York until things settled, but A. U. B. ’s acting president, David Dodge, was kidnapped in July, and A. U. B. was in need of leadership. Malcolm Kerr arrived in August, expressing hope that the destruction and death closing in on the campus could be kept outside its walls. (Dodge, who was released by his captors after a year, died in 2009.) Back in California, Steve began his senior year and starred on the basketball team. “I wanted him to be at games, but I knew that he was doing what he loved,” Kerr said. “And when you’re 16 or 17, you’re so . You just want to play and do your thing. ” Malcolm Kerr wrote letters home almost daily. They detailed tense meetings with political leaders, the latest assaults on Beirut, the assassination in September 1982 of the Lebanese Bashir Gemayel, the interviews with foreign journalists. Most were filled with optimism and good humor. “The thought of being in Pacific Palisades for Christmas is more appealing than I can say, and I wouldn’t miss the chance for anything,” he wrote in one. “Hopefully I’ll get there in time to catch a few of Steve’s basketball games and watch Andrew wash the cars. ” That December, the Kerrs posed at their California house wearing matching A. U. B. sweatshirts. Steve Kerr went with his mother and brother Andrew to Beirut in the summer of 1983, before he went to play at Arizona for coach Lute Olson. A few months before, militants had bombed the United States embassy in Beirut, killing 63, including 17 Americans. But the visit fell during what felt like a lull in the war. “We went hiking in the mountains above Beirut and swimming in the Mediterranean,” Kerr said. “The house where they lived was on campus — the presidential house, the Marquand House. It was beautiful. It was surreal. There was a butler. We didn’t have that back home. But now he was living the life of the president. We had a great time during the day, and then we played cards after dinner outside. ” The trick was leaving. Ann Kerr went with Steve to the airport in August. “There was some question about whether flights would be going out because of everything that was happening,” Kerr said. “We were in the terminal, and all of a sudden there was a blast. It wasn’t in the terminal but on the runways. The whole place just froze. Everybody just froze. People started gathering, saying, ‘We’ve got to get the hell out of here.’ My mom grabbed me, and I remember running out of the terminal and through the parking lot. It was really scary. I remember thinking, ‘This is real. ’” The Kerrs pondered options for getting Steve out. They learned that a private plane of diplomats was going to the United States Marine base and there might be an available seat on the flight back out. Steve spent hours waiting, talking to Marines. In the end, there were no seats. The Kerrs eventually made arrangements for a university driver to take Steve over the mountains, through Syria to Jordan. (The driver, a longtime friend of the family, was killed by a sniper in Beirut in 1985.) On an early morning in October 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the Marine barracks. Among the dead were 220 Marines and 21 other service members. “I remember looking at all the photos afterward,” Kerr said. He started to cry. “I see all these, the nicest people, who I met and they were showing us around the base and just trying to do their jobs and keep the peace. And a truck bomb?” Kerr said he recognized some of the faces of the dead. “There is a chaplain who had come over and kind of taken us under his wing,” he said. “The nicest guy. And I saw his face. . .. ” Kerr wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. “What has it been, 30 years? And it still brings me to tears. ” In December, John visited his parents in Beirut. They had a videotape of Steve’s first game for Arizona a couple of weeks before. The picture was fuzzy, shot without sound from a camera high in the gym, and they could not always tell which player was Steve. It did not matter. “I think he scored three baskets, and we must have watched each of them 10 times, rewinding the tape over and over again just to relish every detail,” John wrote in an entry for a family scrapbook made on an anniversary of Malcolm Kerr’s death. He called it “Dad’s and my high point as sports fans. ” In the middle of a night in January 1984, Kerr got a call in his dorm room from Vahe Simonian, a family friend and a vice president at A. U. B. who was based in New York. Simonian told Kerr that his father had been killed. The assassination on Jan. 18, 1984, was international news, including on the front page of The New York Times. Malcolm Kerr, 52, had stepped off the elevator toward his office in College Hall and was shot in the back of the head. The two unknown assailants escaped. A group calling itself Islamic Holy War took responsibility later that day. “Dr. Kerr was a modest and extremely popular figure among his 4, 800 students and faculty, according to his colleagues here,” Times reporter Thomas L. Friedman wrote from Beirut that day. “He was killed, his friends insist, not for being who he was, but because now that the Marines and the American Embassy in Beirut are smothered in security, he was the most vulnerable prominent American in Lebanon and a choice target for militants trying to intimidate Americans into leaving. ” Andrew Kerr, who was 15 at the time, heard about his father’s death on a radio in a shop near A. U. B. ’s campus. Ann Kerr learned about it while waiting at a campus guardhouse, out of the rain, for a friend. She ran to College Hall, to the second floor, where she found her husband “lying on the floor, face down, his briefcase and umbrella in front of him,” she wrote in her memoir, “Come With Me From Lebanon. ” A memorial service was held a few days later. John came from Cairo and Susan came from Taiwan. Steve was the only one of the children who did not attend. He missed another one at Princeton, but attended a third in Los Angeles. “It sounds bad,” he said. “Obviously, the basketball wasn’t more important. But the logistics were really tricky. And it was cathartic for me to just play. ” He had a breakout game in a victory over rival Arizona State two nights after his father’s death. The Wildcats had been but won eight of their final 14 games. The next year, they reached the N. C. A. A. tournament on their way to becoming a lasting national power. Four years later, Kerr was the target of pregame taunts at Arizona State. A group of students shouted, “P. L. O. P. L. O. ,” “Your father’s history,” and “Why don’t you join the Marines and go back to Beirut?” “When I heard it, I just dropped the ball and started shaking,” Kerr said at the time. “I sat down for a minute. I’ll admit they got to me. I had tears in my eyes. For one thing, it brought back memories of my dad. But, for another thing, it was just sad that people would do something like that. ” Ann is 82, wears Keds and keeps her hair in a bob. She is the longtime coordinator of the Fulbright program at U. C. L. A. and oversees a class called “Perceptions of the United States Abroad. ” She is also an emeritus trustee at A. U. B. and usually goes back to Beirut once a year for meetings. She remarried in 2008. She and Ken Adams share the California house that she and Malcolm bought in 1969. The stately living room, with a grand piano and views of the Pacific Ocean, is neatly decorated with treasures of a life, like etchings of Cairo and Ann’s framed watercolors of Tunisia. The mantel has an photograph of Steve and Andrew in a field of flowers in Morocco. “I would say Steve’s intellectual interests really blossomed in the last 10 years,” she said. “But I don’t think of Steve being like Malcolm. ” They shared a passion for sports (the children’s limit for television did not apply to sports) and an irreverent sense of humor. But Steve is more diplomatic than his father, she said. A nearby guest room was where the three Kerr boys slept. The bunk beds that Steve and Andrew shared are gone, but there is a painting that Steve did as a boy — a of him in a U. C. L. A. shirt and a Dodgers cap, his blond hair hanging past his ears. The bathroom has a painting of poinsettias he did when he was 9, and a closet contains his screen prints of boats in Cairo. “Here’s a picture of Steve, the ornery teenager,” said on a recent Sunday afternoon, stopping in a hallway lined with family photographs. “He was always snarling in pictures. Now he has to smile for photos. The irony of it all. ” Across the hall is the room that Malcolm used as an office. His children harbor happy memories of the sound of his typewriter clacking and the smell of the popcorn that he liked as a snack. The backyard, with wide ocean views that test the flexibility of the human neck — from Los Angeles on the left, to the Santa Monica Mountains on the right — features a broad patio. On Sunday afternoons, it was frequently filled with professors, neighbors, visiting dignitaries and friends from around the world. It was the family’s connection to the Middle East that made his childhood unique. “It would be totally different without that,” Kerr said. “Totally different. I wouldn’t be exposed to not only the travel and the interaction with people, but I wouldn’t be exposed to the political conversations at the table and at barbecues about what was going on in the world. ” But talk around the house was more likely to involve the Dodgers or Bruins. Malcolm was a good athlete, a basketball player growing up and an avid tennis player until the end. He and Steve spent a lot of time at the high school hitting and fielding, and Malcolm sometimes joined Steve in the driveway. “He was a lefty and had a nice hook shot,” Kerr said with a laugh. Kerr credits his father for his demeanor on the sideline as an N. B. A. coach: calm and quiet, mostly, and never one to berate a player. Kerr was not always that way. “When I was 8, 9, 10 years old, I had a horrible temper,” Kerr said. “I couldn’t control it. Everything I did, if I missed a shot, if I made an out, I got so angry. It was embarrassing. It really was. Baseball was the worst. If I was pitching and I walked somebody, I would throw my glove on the ground. I was such a brat. He and my mom would be in the stands watching, and he never really said anything until we got home. He had the sense that I needed to learn on my own, and anything he would say would mean more after I calmed down. ” His father, Kerr said, was what every Little League parent should be. The talks would come later, casual and nonchalant, conversations instead of lectures. “He was an observer,” he said. “And he let me learn and experience. I try to give our guys a lot of space and speak at the right time. Looking back on it, I think my dad was a huge influence on me, on my coaching. ” Kerr played for some of the best basketball coaches in history — Olson at Arizona, Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls and Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs among them. By the standards of basketball coaches, they were worldly men with interests far beyond the court. “I remember Phil talking to the team about gun control, and asking the players: ‘How many of you have guns? How many of you know that if you have a gun in your house you’re more likely to have a fatality in your house? ’” Kerr said. “It was a real discussion, with guys saying that we need to have some level of protection, because we are vulnerable in many ways, too. “And I remember one presidential election, it was probably 2000, I was with the Spurs and we did two teams shooting — the silver team against the black team or whatever,” he said, referring to a drill run by Popovich. “Pop was like, ‘O. K. Democrats down there, Republicans down here.’ I think it was about 12 against two at that point, so he had to even up the teams a little bit. He would just make it interesting. ” Kerr — who has three children, all young adults, with his wife, Margot — has never talked about his father in front of the team, and Warriors players have only a vague notion of Kerr’s family history. It is context, mostly, an unstated part of his background. “I really realized from Pop and Phil that I could use my experience as a kid and growing up to my advantage as a coach,” Kerr said. “And connect with players and try to keep that healthy perspective. Keep it fun, and don’t take it too seriously. ” It was during Kerr’s tenure with San Antonio that the family, after years of reflection following the 1996 passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, decided to sue Iran. The Kerrs came to believe that Hezbollah had targeted Malcolm. “I didn’t need revenge, I didn’t need closure,” Steve Kerr said. “So I was indifferent to the lawsuit. But then I recognized that it was important to a couple of members of my family, my sister and my younger brother, in particular. ” When it came time to testify in United States District Court in Washington in December 2002, Kerr was with the Spurs, in the last of his 15 seasons in the N. B. A. He did not want to miss games. “There’s nobody better than Pop to talk about something like this,” Kerr said. “I told him, ‘I don’t really want people knowing what it is.’ I didn’t want the attention. But I also don’t want people thinking I’m injured. So Pop said: ‘You missed two games for personal reasons. Big deal. Your reputation precedes you. Nobody is going to question what’s going on with you.’ And he was right. I told my teammates and nothing ever really came of it. ” He testified in a nearly empty courtroom, missing two Spurs’ road games on the West Coast. The Kerrs learned two months later that they had won the suit — millions of dollars that they may never see. But money was never the point. “It provides a structure to enable people to channel their feelings through justice and the rules of law, rather than become vigilantes,” his sister, who is now known as Susan van de Ven, said in a phone interview from England, where she is involved in politics as a county councillor. “It gives a very focused approach to people who are rightly and insanely aggrieved. That’s the kind of culture we should have. We shouldn’t be responding with violence. I’m sure that’s why Steve talked about guns. It’s all related, isn’t it?” Her book detailed the family’s experience with the lawsuit. The night before the Warriors visited President Obama to celebrate their 2015 N. B. A. championship, Steve had dinner with Andrew, who works for an architectural design and residential builder in Washington. They discussed what Steve might say to the president. Andrew recommended complimenting him on his efforts toward gun control. Kerr did. In June, at the end of a podcast with Bay Area sports columnist Tim Kawakami, Kerr asked if he could raise one more topic. Our government is “insane,” he said, not to adopt stronger background checks on guns that most Americans agree upon. “As somebody who has had a family member shot and killed, it just devastates me every time I read about this stuff, like what happened in Orlando,” Kerr said, referring to the June massacre at a Florida nightclub. “And then it’s even more devastating to see the government just cowing to the N. R. A. and going to this totally outdated Bill of Rights, right to bear arms. If you want to own a musket, fine. But come on. ” Since then, Kerr has become a voice in sports for matters of bigger meaning. It surprises his family in some ways, knowing that he was probably the quietest of the siblings as a child. “He’s carrying around the family business in another discipline,” said John Kerr, a professor of community sustainability at Michigan State. “There was no way he would do anything for a living that didn’t involve sports. No way. And now that he’s at the pro level, he has the opportunity to speak out. He’s smart enough to realize he can do it. ” N. B. A. training camps began just as debate swirled over the decision by Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, not to stand for the national anthem, a protest over the killing of unarmed black men by police officers. Amid the divisiveness, Kerr was a nuanced voice in the middle. “Doesn’t matter what side you’re on on the Kaepernick stuff, you better be disgusted with the things that are happening,” Kerr said. He added: “I understand people who are offended by his stance. Maybe they have a military family member or maybe they lost someone in a war and maybe that anthem means a lot more to them than someone else. But then you flip it around, and what about nonviolent protests? That’s America. This is what our country is about. ” In November, after the presidential election, Kerr was among the N. B. A. coaches, including Popovich, who criticized the state of political discourse in the age of Donald J. Trump. “People are getting paid millions of dollars to go on TV and scream at each other, whether it’s in sports or politics or entertainment, and I guess it was only a matter of time before it spilled into politics,” Kerr said. “But then all of a sudden you’re faced with the reality that the man who’s going to lead you has routinely used racist, misogynist, insulting words. ” It is no surprise, then, that Kerr also has opinions on the Middle East. Like his father decades ago, Kerr said he believes that American policies have muddied the region. The heart of the problem, he said, stems from the lack of a solution for Israel and Palestine. The Iraq War made things worse. “To use Colin Powell’s line, ‘If you break it, you own it,’ and now we own it,” Kerr said. “And it’s, like, ‘Oh, my God, wait, it’s so much more complicated than we thought.’ Everybody looks back and thinks we would have been way better off not going to war. That was really dumb. But history repeats itself all the time. We didn’t need to go into Vietnam, but circumstances, patriotism, anger, fear — all these things lead into war. It’s a history of the world. It just so happens that now is probably the scariest time since I’ve been alive. ” In Beirut, A. U. B. still thrives. On its campus overlooking the Mediterranean is a new College Hall, a virtual replica of the one where Malcolm Kerr was killed, the building destroyed by bombs in 1991. There is the dignified Marquand House, where Malcolm Kerr lived when he was a young professor and returned to when he became president. In an oval garden between College Hall and the chapel, there is a banyan tree that Malcolm Kerr climbed as a boy and carved with his initials, now high out of sight. Under the tree is a Corinthian column that the family chose in the days after his death to mark the spot where his ashes were buried. “In memory of Malcolm H. Kerr, ” the engraving reads. “He lived life abundantly. ” Those were the words that Susan wrote on a piece of paper that marked the site until the stone was etched. The paper is still there, on a plaque that also features an excerpt from ’s book. “We are proud that our dad and husband came to A. U. B. ,” Susan wrote, in words that are now faded with time. Steve Kerr has never seen it. He has not been back since his father was killed. But, more and more, he hears the echoes. | 1 |
TRUNEWS 10/28/16 Dr. Yvette Isaac | Weiner-Gate Derails Clinton Campaign October 28, 2016 Will Weiner-Gate be the scandal that derails the Clinton campaign? Today on TRUNEWS, Rick Wiles details the fallout from FBI Director James Comey’s historic decision to re-open the investigation into Hillary’s private email server. Rick also speaks with Dr. Yvette Isaac, the General Director of Roads of Success, about the Godless genocide of Syrian Christians at the hands of ISIS jihadists. Lastly, Fior Hernandez provides an update on the persecution of Georgia Pastor Dr. Eric Walsh, who was subpoenaed to relinquish his sermons and Bible for a politically correct governmental review.
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By Sean Colarossi on Wed, Oct 26th, 2016 at 8:34 pm Not even an overwhelming victory by Hillary Clinton is likely to convince Republicans that they should do their job. Share on Twitter Print This Post
Since Republicans have essentially conceded that Donald Trump is going to lose the general election to Hillary Clinton, they’re already making plans in the event that she decides to do her job and nominate Supreme Court justices.
According to a report from the Huffington Post on Wednesday, one conservative thinker says that John McCain’s recent suggestion that his party should block any nominee put forward by Clinton isn’t that farfetched.
The report:
Some conservatives certainly seem to be warming up to McCain’s controversial suggestion last week that Senate Republicans should dig in their heels and block any and all Supreme Court nominees put forth by a future President Hillary Clinton.
Who needs a fully functioning Supreme Court after all?
“As a matter of constitutional law, the Senate is fully within its powers to let the Supreme Court die out, literally,” wrote the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro in a column Wednesday on The Federalist.
Shapiro is well-versed in constitutional issues, and his argument has a legal, if contorted, basis. Nothing in the Constitution explicitly stands in the way of senators who would be willing to destroy the nation’s highest court ― if not an entire branch of the federal government ― to stop Clinton from selecting judges who share her views.
…
To Shapiro, there’s nothing wrong with even more Senate obstructionism because “the Constitution is completely silent” on how the upper chamber provides its “advice and consent” on the president’s nominees.
…
“So when you get past the gotcha headlines, breathless reportage, and Inauguration Day, if Hillary Clinton is president it would be completely decent, honorable, and in keeping with the Senate’s constitutional duty to vote against essentially every judicial nominee she names,” he concluded.
The original argument from Republicans was that they would block President Obama’s Supreme Court appointment until voters had a chance to weigh in via the Nov. 8 election. Forget the fact that this isn’t how the constitutional system is meant to operate, but that was their reasoning.
Now, faced with the growing prospect that Hillary Clinton will be elected the 45th President of the United States, they are beginning to change their tune.
The obstruction that defined the Republican Party throughout Obama’s presidency looks like it will be sticking around after he is gone. It’s yet another reason why down-ballot races are more critical than ever this year. | 0 |
On today’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham said people protesting President Donald Trump’s policies are pushing “to bring this powder keg moment” to what she called a point that force would have to be used so they can then claim “a police state. ” Ingraham said, “The protesters, they call themselves protesters, many of them are criminals. And they are criminals because they are denying a government official the ability to do government business at a public school. I’m talking about the secretary of education, DeVos. They complain that she doesn’t know anything about public schools, she hates public schools, she is going to kill all public schools. They put all that caricature out. Then she goes to a public school and the most vicious, horrible things are said about her, preventing her from actually entering the school at some point. ” “So I think that there is a good point to be made that the resistance movement that has been fueled by many in Congress who are encouraging it, even former president Obama is heartened by the enthusiasm,” she continued. “Enthusiasm, protest, fine, what we have been seeing at Berkeley, and even at this Betsy DeVos thing, which I think frankly gets scary, is that there is a push to bring this powder keg moment where at some points force will have to be used to keep people safe. Then ‘you see, police brutality, Trump has a police state. It’s martial law.’ The volume of pitches being brought up because they lost, they are bitter about it, and they have nothing to do except stop other people from speaking. Resistance is fine, peaceful protests are fine. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to decide whether George W. Bush administration officials — including John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller III, the former F. B. I. director — may be held liable for policies adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks. The case began as a class action in 2002 filed by immigrants, most of them Muslim, over policies and practices that swept hundreds of people into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on immigration violations in the weeks after the attacks. The plaintiffs said they had been subjected to beatings, humiliating searches and other abuses. The roundups drew criticism from the inspector general of the Justice Department, who in 2003 issued reports saying that the government had made little or no effort to distinguish between genuine suspects and Muslim immigrants with minor visa violations. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, let the case proceed last year. “The suffering endured by those who were imprisoned merely because they were caught up in the hysteria of the days immediately following is not without a remedy,” Judges Rosemary S. Pooler and Richard C. Wesley wrote in a joint opinion. “Holding individuals in solitary confinement 23 hours a day with regular strip searches because their perceived faith or race placed them in the group targeted for recruitment by Al Qaeda violated the detainees’ constitutional rights,” the judges said. In dissent, Judge Reena Raggi said the majority had erred in allowing a lawsuit against “the nation’s two law enforcement officials” for “policies propounded to safeguard the nation in the immediate aftermath of the infamous Al Qaeda terrorist attacks. ” “It is difficult to imagine,” she wrote, “a public good more demanding of decisiveness or more tolerant of reasonable, even if mistaken, judgments than the protection of this nation and its people from further terrorist attacks. ” The full Second Circuit divided, 6 to 6, over the government’s request to rehear the case. In its petition seeking Supreme Court review, the Obama administration urged the justices to put an end to the litigation. “The Court of Appeals concluded,” the petition said, “that the nation’s highest ranking law enforcement officers — a former attorney general of the United States and former director of the F. B. I. — may be subjected to the demands of litigation and potential liability for compensatory and even punitive damages in their individual capacities because they could conceivably have learned about and condoned the allegedly improper ways in which their undisputedly constitutional policies were being implemented by officials during an unprecedented national security crisis. ” Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the plaintiffs, said the cases, Ashcroft v. Turkmen, No. and two others, involved fundamental principles. “No one is above the law,” she said. “To suggest that the most powerful people in our nation should escape liability when they violate clearly established law defies the most fundamental principle of our legal system. ” “At a time when racial and religious profiling are put forward as serious policy proposals for dealing with everything from immigration to terrorism, it is more important than ever that the high court affirm that government officials, especially those at the highest levels, can be held accountable when they break the law,” she said. Unless the Senate confirms a new justice in time for arguments, the cases will be heard by just six justices, as Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan have recused themselves. They did not say why, but Justice Sotomayor used to be a judge on the Second Circuit and Justice Kagan was formerly United States solicitor general. They had presumably been involved in the cases in those capacities. | 1 |
George Michael, the pop superstar and icon of the 1980s and ’90s, died on Sunday, provoking an outpouring of fond and reaction from fans around the world, many of them celebrities in their own right. The rapper the singer LeAnn Rimes Cibrian and the actor William Shatner all echoed a frustration shared by many on social media in response to a raft of recent celebrity deaths: The year had claimed yet another respected soul, they lamented. The actor Rob Lowe and the songwriter Josh Groban, as did many others, praised Mr. Michael’s striking singing voice. While others, like Questlove, the drummer for the group the Roots the rock band OneRepublic and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, remembered him simply as a legendary musician. Some found themselves short on words to describe what they felt. Others remembered him for the role he played as a gay icon who came out in 1998 and had long supported gay rights. | 1 |
SEATTLE — Microsoft has made its most ambitious move in years to reassert itself in a technology market it once dominated. The software giant said Monday morning that it would acquire LinkedIn in a $26. 2 billion cash deal. The acquisition, by far the largest in Microsoft’s history, unites two companies in different businesses: one a big maker of software tools, the other the largest social networking site, with more than 400 million members globally. The deal is Microsoft’s biggest bet yet that the traditional software business is shifting quickly to cloud computing, a model in which customers rent software and other services delivered over the internet. While LinkedIn does not have the household name of Facebook, a much larger and more lucrative social network, it is the most widely used site for people to advertise their professional skills and work history. It is also further evidence that Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, sees the company’s future further and further removed from the PC software that once helped the company’s Bill Gates turn Microsoft into the world’s most valuable company. Though they operate in different businesses, Microsoft and LinkedIn make most of their money by catering to professionals. Executives involved in the deal said that the common thread prompted the acquisition. “This deal is all about bringing together the professional cloud and professional network,” Mr. Nadella said in a telephone interview. So valuable is the data that recruiters spend thousands of dollars a month to use it to fill job openings. “They know the interconnections of the business world,” said Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner, a technology research firm. “That could really benefit Microsoft from a sales standpoint. ” Microsoft has bought its way into new businesses before, though most of its largest deals have not turned out well. In 2014, it paid nearly $9. 4 billion for the smartphone operations of Nokia and some years earlier spent more than $6 billion for aQuantive, an internet advertising company, but ended up writing off most of the value of those deals after they performed poorly. Mr. Nadella, who took over as chief executive in February 2014, was not involved in those deals. Since assuming leadership of the company, he has made mostly smaller acquisitions, with the exception of the $2. 5 billion deal to acquire the maker of the game Minecraft. Mr. Nadella said that when Microsoft pursued deals that hewed closer to a strict set of criteria, one of which is that the acquired company operates in areas that are core to Microsoft’s business, the deals have worked out. “Every time we’ve gotten it right, we’ve had success in those dimensions,” Mr. Nadella said. In a joint interview, Mr. Nadella and Jeff Weiner, the chief executive of LinkedIn, said that their conversations began in February, when the two began talking about different ways in which the companies could work together. Mr. Weiner, for his part, said he began thinking about a LinkedIn combination with Microsoft long before he sat down with Mr. Nadella. He and Mr. Nadella first met a couple of years ago at a conference for chief executives at Microsoft’s headquarters. “I’ve had a lot of admiration for the work Satya had done since taking over as C. E. O. ,” Mr. Weiner said. Microsoft was once a reviled company in Silicon Valley, where LinkedIn is based, but as its dominance in the industry ebbed it came to seem far less threatening. Mr. Nadella has further improved Microsoft’s image in the technology industry by being more open to partnerships with tech rivals like Salesforce. com. He has accelerated the company’s shift from traditional software to cloud applications and services, and its stock has risen significantly under his leadership. And with more than $100 billion in cash and investments as its disposal, Microsoft is an attractive suitor for companies that decide they are better off joining forces with a bigger entity. Microsoft is paying considerably less for LinkedIn than it would have just last fall, when LinkedIn shares were trading over $260 a share. Disappointing earnings helped slash the value of the company. The deal calls for Microsoft to pay $196 a share to buy LinkedIn, a healthy premium to the $131. 08 its shares closed at on Friday. “This is a good time for LinkedIn to sell,” said Michael A. Cusumano, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at M. I. T. “They lost money last year. They’ve found it’s very expensive to keep growing. They’re probably as valuable as they will ever be. ” Microsoft could have acquired LinkedIn for even less a little over a decade ago. Microsoft held discussions with LinkedIn about acquiring it for $250 million, the venture capitalist and former LinkedIn executive, Keith Rabois, tweeted on Monday. Mr. Rabois confirmed in an email that LinkedIn was receptive to such a deal. Yet big challenges remain for the company in today’s technology landscape, where new powerhouses like Amazon. com, the leader in cloud computing, have a significant head start. LinkedIn could help Microsoft accelerate its shift to the internet by giving it a large online property that has became the de facto standard for posting résumés online. The site is heavily used by recruiters for finding new workers. Microsoft is one of LinkedIn’s biggest customers. “The mission statements of LinkedIn and Microsoft have different words, but are essentially the same,” Mr. Weiner said. “We’ve come at it from different perspectives. LinkedIn built a professional network. Microsoft built a professional cloud. ” LinkedIn will give Microsoft access to a lot of potentially sensitive information that it will have to be careful about guarding — for example, when LinkedIn users are talking to job recruiters. “The burden will be on them to put controls in place to ensure privacy is maintained,” said Dimitri Sirota, chief executive of BigID, a that provides privacy management tools. Microsoft was advised on the deal by Morgan Stanley and the law firm Simpson Thacher Bartlett, while Qatalyst Partners, Allen Company L. L. C. and the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati advised LinkedIn. Microsoft’s courtship of LinkedIn began to heat up in April. Wary of Microsoft’s missteps with past acquisitions, the companies decided that allowing LinkedIn to operate independently was best. Mr. Weiner will remain chief executive of LinkedIn, which will operate as an independent brand, following the lead of other technology acquisitions like Google’s purchase of YouTube and Facebook’s buy of WhatsApp. In April, Mr. Nadella and Mr. Weiner had dinner to dig into details for how the deal would work, joined by Reid Hoffman, the and executive chairman of LinkedIn, and Qi Lu, a Microsoft executive who used to work at Yahoo with Mr. Weiner. On Sunday night, the Microsoft and LinkedIn executive teams had a final meeting together at Mr. Hoffman’s house before the deal was announced. As a conversation starter, each participant had to share something with the group that was not on their personal LinkedIn profile. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Trump Organization scored a major victory on Thursday when the agency in charge of overseeing federal government property ruled that its Trump International Hotel in a historic government building on Pennsylvania Avenue did not violate the terms of its lease when Donald J. Trump became president. “The tenant is in full compliance,” Kevin M. Terry, a contracting officer at the agency, the General Services Administration, wrote in a ruling. The decision came after Democrats in Congress and several government contracting experts and ethics groups had questioned if language in the 2013 lease between the G. S. A. and Mr. Trump and three of his children prohibited an elected federal official from participating in the deal. “No member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States or the Government of the District of Columbia, shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom,” the lease says, referring to the Old Post Office building, which the Trump Organization converted into the hotel late last year. After the election, Mr. Trump resigned from his executive positions at the Trump Organization and turned over management of its enterprises to his two oldest sons, as well as to other executives who work at Trump Tower in New York. He also put his assets in a trust controlled by his sons, and made himself the ultimate beneficiary of the trust. To further address the concerns related to the lease, the Trump Organization agreed this week that during Mr. Trump’s White House tenure it would not distribute proceeds from the Washington hotel to his trust. The agreement also says no proceeds will go “to any other entity in which President Trump has a direct, indirect or beneficial interest,” meaning he would not profit from its operations in any way. The Trump Organization, in a statement on Thursday, praised the ruling, which Mr. Trump’s son Eric Trump, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, predicted in an interview last month. “We would like to thank the G. S. A. for their diligent review of this matter,” the statement said. “We are immensely proud of this property and look forward to providing our guests with an unrivaled luxury experience for years to come. ” Mr. Terry of the G. S. A. wrote in an decision memo, backed up by 158 pages of other documents and exhibits, that the Trump Organization had invested $200 million in the Old Post Office, which was decrepit before the deal. He also noted that at the time the hotel opened late last year, the government had already been paid $5. 1 million in rent. Mr. Terry said that the Old Post Office’s “historic integrity has been restored, and the wasting asset is now being put to productive use. ” The ruling was criticized by ethics watchdog groups and certain House Democrats, who pointed out that with Mr. Trump in control of the federal government, he in effect controls the General Services Administration. The agency “changed the position it held before President Trump took office,” Representatives Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Peter DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon, said in a statement. “This decision allows profits to be reinvested back into the hotel so Donald Trump can reap the financial benefits when he leaves the White House. This is exactly what the lease provision was supposed to prevent. ” The G. S. A. ruling does not put the issue away. Mr. Trump is being sued by a restaurant in Washington, the Cork Wine Bar, which says that it has lost business as a result of an illegal advantage the hotel holds from its association with Mr. Trump. (The hotel contains several restaurants.) Steven L. Schooner, a former federal government contracting officer and a lawyer who is helping represent the restaurant owners, said that even with the ruling, the conflict of interest still existed, as Mr. Trump was both the landlord, in essence, and the tenant. “The contracting officers’ decision favors the president, who, in effect, is his supervisor,” said Mr. Schooner, who is also a professor specializing in federal procurement law at George Washington University. “We want the public to have confidence in the integrity of the government, and this smacks of cronyism. ” The hotel has also become a target of criticism because, after Mr. Trump’s election, it marketed itself to foreign government officials, urging them to hold their events there. Critics have suggested that Mr. Trump might be violating a provision in the Constitution that bars federal officials from taking payments or gifts from foreign governments, and he is being sued over the provision in federal court. Mr. Trump has said that he intends to donate to the United States Treasury any profits at his hotels from foreign government payments. | 1 |
We Are Change
Article by Aaron Kesel
Project Veritas continues with it’s series of videos – this time an undercover reporter exposed early Clinton email witness Cindy Almodovar.
In the video, Cindy Almodovar – who spoke with Huma Abedin about email issues that were going on – admits that the FBI didn’t interview her.
In December 2010, U.S. Department of State IT Systems Administrator Cindy Almodovar reported that she met with Huma Abedin for thirty minutes regarding emails at the then unknown, but now notorious, @ clintonemail.com site. Here’s is the text from that email exchange: “From: Almodovar, Cindy T Sent: Friday, December 17, 2010 11:17 AM To: SES-IRM_Tech Cc: SES-IRM_FO-Mgt Subject: Meeting with Huma I met with Huma for about 30 minutes to go over mail issues. She gave me some examples listed below, but also, things are inconsistent. But issue #1 is of an e-mail which was sent to her twice this morning, did get received on <REDACTED> but was not delivered. See details below. I have a contact for the @clintonemail site, his name is Bryan Pagliano and he actually now works for State, but he apparently set all of this up.
Huma sent several tests from her clintonemail account to Lona and myself – they were received. But there are many messages and responses not received.
She sent a message this morning from her state.gov account to [email protected] 12/14, [email protected] sent a message to [email protected] and [email protected] at 10:03 pm . The subject line was blank. Huma received at Clinton address, but Lona did not receive on her state.gov account.”
As a result of subsequent investigations regarding Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. State Department reported the following: From the unclassified May 2016 State Department report ESP-16-03: Two staff in S/ES-IRM reported to OIG that, in late 2010, they each discussed their concerns about Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email account in separate meetings with the then-Director of S/ES-IRM. In one meeting, one staff member raised concerns that information sent and received on Secretary Clinton’s account could contain Federal records that needed to be preserved in order to satisfy Federal recordkeeping requirements. According to the staff member, the Director stated that the Secretary’s personal system had been reviewed and approved by Department legal staff and that the matter was not to be discussed any further. As previously noted, OIG found no evidence that staff in the Office of the Legal Adviser reviewed or approved Secretary Clinton’s personal system. According to the other S/ES-IRM staff member who raised concerns about the server, the Director stated that the mission of S/ES-IRM is to support the Secretary and instructed the staff never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again. The director referred in the OIG report is John Bentel. In 2010, he was the State Department employee who managed IT security issues for the top echelon of the department. He told FBI investigators those conversations back in 2010 never occurred. In March of 2016, Bentel refused to answer questions from Senate investigators and asserted his Fifth Amendment right 87 times during a deposition for a civil lawsuit related to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.” Here’s a transcript of the exchange between Project Veritas’s journalist and Cindy Almodovar. PV Journalist: I’m working on a story. I’m interested. I want to know the truth and I want to know if you’re one of the people who came, who went to John Bentel and said they were concerned about Hillary’s private server. Almodovar: I don’t know anything about that. PV Journalist: You weren’t involved in that at all? Almodovar: You’ve got to stop this because this is like harassment. PV Journalist: This will be the last time you see me. I just want to know the truth. I’m interested. I want to know if the FBI has talked to you. Almodovar: No they haven’t. PV Journalist: They haven’t at all… …PV Journalist: I’m sure reporters and people have been coming to your door. Almodovar: No. No one has come to the door. You’re the first one.
“Even though her name stands out in the emails released by the FBI, no one from the FBI ever spoke to Aldomovar,” said Project Veritas Action founder James O’Keefe. “No one interviewed her or made any attempt to get to the bottom of what information she might have about this case that is so important to national security. It made us wonder…who else the FBI neglected to talk with.” The post Project Veritas Video Exposes Utter Neglect in FBI’s Clinton Probe appeared first on We Are Change .
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SOFIA, Bulgaria — With one foot in the West and the other in the East, Bulgaria has long engaged in a delicate balancing act. But now the country, and its new president, Rumen Radev, will have to learn how to balance Donald J. Trump and an increasingly energized Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Radev contemplated his new role as balancer in chief two days before he was sworn in on Jan. 19, sitting across the street from the presidential palace in the labyrinthine former headquarters of the Bulgarian Communist Party. “We have a clear road map to follow,” Mr. Radev said. “Staying in the E. U. and staying in NATO. But at the same time, we have a deep historical relationship with Russia. ” Countries like Bulgaria have spent decades balancing East and West, and playing one off the other. But the prospect of President Trump’s moving closer to Mr. Putin has scrambled that strategy, as have the conflicting messages coming out of the new American administration. Mr. Trump has seemed eager for closer Kremlin ties, even echoing Moscow’s disdain for NATO and the European Union. But last week, his new ambassador echoed the Obama administration’s harder line, saying the United States would not withdraw sanctions against Russia until the country pulled its troops out of Crimea. At the same time, Mr. Putin has been showing new signs of swagger in his dealings with Russia’s neighbors on Thursday he arrived in Hungary for his first foray into Europe in the Trump era. Bulgaria is an eager member of the European Union, but as rising nationalism caused support for the union to wane, here and elsewhere, Russian influence has crept in. On the surface, this suggests that Mr. Trump’s outreach to Moscow, if genuine, would be good for Bulgaria — and, indeed, nationalists are thrilled. But Bulgaria has also known so many betrayals and occupations that this sudden lurch has inspired as much worry as elation, including fears that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin will forge a bargain between themselves that serves their two nations but carves up the region into spheres of influence, just as the major powers did at the end of World War II. For many reasons, including economic necessity, a common culture and deep historical ties, Bulgarian politicians, including the president, want closer relations with Russia, but not so close that their nation loses its cherished ties to the West and falls firmly into Russia’s orbit. It is unclear whether Bulgaria’s old balancing act will work in the emerging international order. Indeed, similar calculations are being made throughout Central and Eastern Europe as leaders wait to see what Mr. Trump has in mind. It was the subtext of the meeting in Budapest last week between Mr. Putin and Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, at which the two expressed the desire for friendly relations but did not mention sticky issues like the Crimean sanctions. For Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union and the one with the deepest ties to Russia, the ride has been a particularly turbulent one. After the initial euphoria over the collapse of Communism and membership in the European Union in 2007 and NATO in 2004, disappointments followed. The slow pace of economic growth, persistent corruption, domineering oligarchs and a dependence on Russian oil and gas caused many politicians in Bulgaria and elsewhere to pivot eastward. A growing number of populists and nationalists found much to admire in Mr. Putin’s autocratic approach. When Bulgaria was accepted into the European Union, the country turned westward with great zeal. Money poured in from Brussels. Hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians seized the chance to move to Britain, Germany and elsewhere. But the growing ambivalence about the union was apparent as recently as last month when the 10th anniversary of Bulgaria’s entrance into the union passed with barely any public celebration or notice. Now voices are on the defensive in Bulgaria, and the tenor of national politics has shifted in a more way. How confusion over Mr. Trump’s actual intentions toward Moscow will affect that dynamic remains to be seen. Mr. Trump’s manner of talking has already emboldened nationalists and populists throughout Central and Eastern Europe — including Mr. Orban and Milos Zeman, the Czech Republic’s president — to sharpen their own talk and offer the Kremlin an even friendlier hand, even as many analysts warn against creeping influence from Russia. “The more you go to the East, the more you see more authoritarian systems and more corrupt practices,” said Ognyan Minchev, executive director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Sofia. “If it is not guarded, it will erode, and this process will move to the West. It is a battle, and it is a battle for a region that is historically defined as no man’s land. ” A big question hanging over the European Union this year is how much Mr. Putin will try to influence critical elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands — as well as in less prominent contests like November’s vote to replace a Czech Parliament that has remained firmly despite its president’s friendliness toward Mr. Putin. “The are in retreat. In the coming year, Merkel may fall,” said Ruslan Stefanov, director of the economic program at the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia, referring to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. “The Netherlands may leave the union. Italy. France. It’s a brave new world. ” Historical and cultural ties between Russia and Bulgaria are deeply emotional, one reason that sentiment is gathering political momentum. “Improving relations with Russia is good for Bulgaria, the United States and the world,” said Nikolai Malinov, the chairman of the National Movement of Russophiles, founded in 2003. “When you are banging weapons, or imposing sanctions, it is not good. We have to heal those wounds. ” Mr. Malinov’s group, which claims 35, 000 members, describes itself as a cultural organization, staging concerts, maintaining monuments to Bulgaria’s past with Russia, erecting monuments and pushing for more training. In Bulgaria, the president acts as head of state and commander in chief of the military, but most political power resides with the prime minister. Boyko Borissov, who took a slightly more tilt but also strongly favored close ties with Moscow, stepped down as prime minister after Mr. Radev’s victory. Mr. Radev had 20 opponents in his race for president, said Ivo Indzhev, a journalist. Just one, he said, explicitly echoed the alliance’s language toward sanctions against Russia over its seizure of Crimea. Yet the paradox of this eastward shift is the growing anxiety that Bulgaria could become a geopolitical bargaining chip. “This is nothing new for Eastern Europe, to be part of a game plan that is reminiscent of Yalta,” said Ilian Vassilev, Bulgarian ambassador to Russia from 2000 to 2006. “President Trump can do whatever he wants to do within the bounds of the U. S. Constitution, but he cannot replace the feeling Eastern Europeans have that they are being betrayed. A deal is going on over their heads. ” Bulgaria has a stubborn culture of corruption and oligarchic control, which the Kremlin has been adept at exploiting in service of expanding its influence. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for the Study of Democracy released a study in October. Called “The Kremlin Playbook,” it characterized Bulgaria as the most deeply penetrated by Russia financially. Investment with Russian roots, direct and indirect, accounts for more than 22 percent of Bulgaria’s gross domestic product, marking the country as a “captured state,” said the study, of which Mr. Stefanov was an author. Increasing Russian penetration was also found in Slovakia, Latvia, Serbia and Hungary. “In one way or another, all of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have become captured states of the oligarchic network which emerged from the old security services of the Communist regimes,” Dr. Minchev said in an interview. “They went underground and as this new, business elite. ” Peter Kreko, a Hungarian political analyst and visiting professor in the central Eurasian studies department at Indiana University, thinks the talk of friendlier relations between Washington and Moscow is already having an impact on European nationalists. “Definitely, it’s seen as a green light for populist and nationalist leaders across Europe to accelerate their moves toward Russia,” Dr. Kreko said. But he thinks those leaders — who see the alliance and its emphasis on democracy and human rights as threats to their power — are fooling themselves if they believe that a grand bargain between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin will benefit them. “If there is a big deal, if there is a big bargain, will they play any role in that?” Dr. Kreko said. “I don’t think so. ” The larger worry, he and other analysts said, is that such a grand bargain would propel Mr. Putin’s goal of again declaring spheres of influence between East and West — resulting in a reduced American presence in the region and a greater Russian one. “For those of us who have always believed the U. S. is a beacon of hope, it is a shock,” Mr. Vassilev said. “The most guys in Bulgaria are turning against America because they cannot tell the difference between Putin and Trump. ” | 1 |
President Donald Trump thundered against Obamacare in Ohio on Wednesday, calling it “one of the biggest broken promises in the history of politics. ”[The president met with families who had their lives upended by Obamacare, addressing reporters at the Ohio airport before his infrastructure speech. “Obamacare is dead, I’ve been saying it for a long time, everybody knows it, everybody that wants to report fairly about it does,” Trump said. He delivered a speech after Anthem announced that they were pulling out of the health care exchanges in Ohio, due to prohibitive costs to the company. “That’s it, . Wave ” Trump said. “What a mess. ” Trump commented during his speech that Democrats suffered immensely politically for their actions, as they were voted out of office. “That’s why they lost the House. They lost the Senate. They lost the White House,” he said. Trump warned both parties in Congress to pass an Obamacare replacement quickly, and commented that Senate Majority Mitch McConnell was working to get a proposal finished as soon as possible. He specifically called out Democrats for trying to stop Republican efforts to fix the problem. “We’re having no help, it’s only obstruction from the Democrats,” Trump said. “The Democrats are destroying health care in this country. ” He added that the eventual bill would be a strictly Republican effort. “Republicans or bust,” he said. | 1 |
China’s state newspaper The Global Times published an editorial criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to conduct airstrikes in Syria, suggesting it was made “in haste,” but also observed that Trump appears to want “prove to the world that he is no ‘businessman president. ’”[As the Communist Party of China controls the content of the Global Times, its editorials are often interpreted as unfiltered opinion from the government itself, often significantly more belligerent than the diplomatic statements out of China’s Foreign Ministry. “The US military attack on Friday took place despite no definitive results from the investigation by an international organization, and was carried out in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution. The Trump administration wasted little time in striking its targets, marking a stark contrast with its predecessor,” the Times observed. “The US’ decision to attack the Assad government is a show of force from the US president. He wants to prove that he dares to do what Obama dared not,” the article continues, referring to President Barack Obama’s declaration that using chemical weapons was a “red line” after Assad was accused of using them, but not issuing any military response to the act. Trump, the Times concluded, “wants to prove to the world that he is no ‘businessman president’ and that he will use US military force without hesitation when he considers it necessary. ” The article concludes that the strikes themselves “leave an impression that the decision was made in haste and are not without contradictions. ” President Trump announced late Thursday that he ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian army airbase believed to house the equipment used for an alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib province. The Pentagon issued a statement confirming that the objective of the strikes was “to deter the [Assad] regime from using chemical weapons again. ” The Global Times response to the strikes differed significantly from the official Chinese Foreign Ministry statement. Spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that Chinese officials “oppose the use of chemical weapons by any country, organization or person for any purpose and under any circumstance” and that China “supports relevant UN agencies in carrying out independent and comprehensive investigations into all uses or suspected uses of chemical weapons and, on the basis of solid evidence, reaching a conclusion which can stand the test of history and facts. We have noted the latest developments. ” While emphasizing support for a “political solution” to the Syrian Civil War, Hua refused to answer whether China considers Assad’s regime “the sole legitimate government in Syria” and did not directly criticize the U. S. airstrikes, instead stating, “the Chinese side always opposes the use of force in international relations. ” President Xi Jinping is currently meeting with President Trump in Florida, on a visit scheduled long before the escalation of affairs in Syria. Trump reportedly said of their meeting, “I think, we are going to have a very, very great relationship and I look very much forward to it,” predicting “lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away. ” According to the Chinese state news outlet Xinhua, Xi invited Trump to visit China and enjoyed “ friendly and conversation” with Trump. | 1 |
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Steven Seagal, the American actor whose career peaked in the 1990s with movies like “Under Siege” and whose specialty was portraying action figures who spoke softly but blew up buildings and assassinated bad guys, has taken on a new role off screen: that of a Russian citizen with the passport to prove it. President Vladimir V. Putin personally handed over the actor’s new Russian passport on Friday in a scene at the Kremlin that was considerably more muted than those in Mr. Seagal’s movies. The actor sat across a table from the Russian leader in Moscow, his arms folded or, at times, his hands clasped in a gesture of thanks. After the Russian leader presented him with the document, Mr. Seagal signed it, according to the Russian news agency TASS and other news outlets. Mr. Putin told Mr. Seagal, according to TASS, that the two would not “politicize” the event. But the Russian leader, who has said he hoped for better ties with the United States after the election of Donald J. Trump, was also quoted as telling Mr. Seagal: “I would like to congratulate you, and I also hope that this small step will mark the beginning of the gradual improvement in our interstate relations. ” Mr. Seagal replied in Russian, “Thank you very much,” according to TASS. Mr. Seagal, who is 64 and was born in Michigan, follows in the footsteps of another Western actor whose fame crested decades ago but who managed to emerge in the embrace of Russia: Gerard Depardieu, the French actor, was given Russian citizenship in 2013 after renouncing his native citizenship in a protest over high taxes. The American boxer Roy Jones Jr. also became a Russian citizen in 2015, The Associated Press reported. The Kremlin announced on Nov. 3 that Mr. Seagal had received Russian citizenship, but it was not immediately clear why he sought that status. On Twitter, Mr. Seagal has said that he has family ties to Russia but that he never intended to give up his American citizenship. Mr. Seagal, whose movies are popular in Russia, has defended his forays into that country over the years, especially during times when relations between Washington and Moscow were frosty. (Relations have been severely strained since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, with the United States leading the charge, with European allies, to impose sanctions. With the election of Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin has telegraphed his hopes for better ties.) The actor has been criticized for his seemingly warm relationship with Mr. Putin. In 2014, he said on his website that he had been misquoted in reports about his opinions on Mr. Putin, saying he had never called him the “world’s greatest leader,” but rather “ONE of the World’s Great Leaders. ” Mr. Seagal’s foray into Russia calls to mind other American celebrities who have drawn attention for their visits to countries whose ties with the United States, if they exist at all, have been exceedingly cold. Dennis Rodman, the former professional basketball star, has made a series of bizarre trips to North Korea, even as that country detained and paraded American visitors in a geopolitical spectacle. In January 2014, Mr. Rodman even took part in birthday celebrations for Kim the North Korean leader, who is said to be a fan of basketball. Mr. Putin, for his part, is a fan of the kind of movies that Mr. Seagal has executed in his Hollywood career, Reuters reported. The actor first burst onto the national stage with “Above the Law” in 1988. In 1991, a New York Times review of Mr. Seagal’s movie career described him as the reigning star of the time, a “guy with a scowl, a ponytail and an attitude” whose first three films had worldwide and video receipts totaling more than $200 million. Later, he emerged as a Tibetan Buddhist master. Mr. Seagal also has dozens of acting and directing credits to his name, and according to IMDb, the film site, he has several projects in the works for next year. In one of his latest films, “Code of Honor,” which was released this year and called “laughably awful” by The Los Angeles Times, he plays a colonel who does the dirty work of many men by going after drug dealers and gang members as he avenges the fatal shooting of his wife and child. “I still love my country, I still love my family, and I am still an honorable man,” he says in a Southern drawl in a scene from the movie trailer. “If I am the bad guy, what does that make you?” | 1 |
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On Sunday, President Obama met with a 12-year-old boy who was attacked by Trump supporters while being removed from a rally. Yesterday, this young man was kicked out of a Trump rally. As he was leaving, people kicked at his wheelchair. Today, he met his President. pic.twitter.com/VI4g2tKANG
— Steve Schale (@steveschale) November 6, 2016
J.J. Holmes has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. He and his mother, Alison Holmes, attended a Trump rally on Saturday to protest the GOP nominee’s mockery of people with disabilities. As they were being removed from the rally by security, Trump’s supporters began pushing and kicking the child’s wheelchair.
“The crowd started chanting ‘U-S-A’ and pushing his wheelchair,” Alison said. “We were put out by security. Mr. Trump kept saying, ‘Get them out.’”
“I hate Donald Trump. I hate Donald Trump,” J.J. said through his vocalization device.
The next day, J.J. and his mom got to meet the President of the United States after a rally for Hillary Clinton in Kissimmee, Florida. The experience was the polar opposite of what they had experienced the day before.
If kicking a child’s wheelchair isn’t deplorable, I don’t know what the hell is. You can watch a video of the appalling incident below. Protestor pushing a child in a wheelchair appears to be kicked by Trump supporter. Happens :03 seconds in. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/LDr6E5NHvT
— Tom Llamas (@TomLlamasABC) November 5, 2016
Featured image via Twitter | 0 |
The Daily Sheeple – by Melissa Dykes
Josh Earnest… what a stupid name for a guy who obviously thinks we’re all as stupid as he sounds at this press conference.
When confronted with a question on the Project Veritas undercover videos showing all kinds of Dem operatives admitting on tape that they created the Trump protests and other such nasties to incite violence at Trump rallies in an attempt to throw this election Hillary’s way, Earnest told the reporter in his best condescending grown up voice that ‘we have to take these videos with not just a grain of salt but a whole bag because we can’t believe what we see…’
Watch for yourself.
Don’t believe your own eyeballs. That’s the White House’s official response. That’s the best they could do.
Again, it’s undercover video he’s talking about here. Not only that, but Robert Creamer did go to the White House over 340 times . It’s all on record.
Come on, dammit. | 0 |
US Drone Pilots May Be ‘Illegally’ Acquiring Targets From UK Bases Source: Motherboard
Creech Air Force Base , Nevada, is widely known to be the heart of the United States’ overseas drone operations, from where more than 100 drone flights per day —mostly in the Middle East—are controlled. Notions of this base’s overworked drone pilots, sitting in stuffy trailers monitoring and killing targets 8,000 miles away, have been popularized by movies such as Good Kill and Eye in the Sky.
But a British human rights campaign group says it has uncovered documents that show the US is also conducting its military drone operations from within Royal Air Force (RAF) bases in the UK, an act that would be deemed in breach of international laws , argues the group. The British government denies this however, stating , “the US does not operate RPAS [remotely piloted aircraft systems] from the UK.”
Publicly available job listings and résumés, shown to Motherboard by human rights campaign group Reprieve, show that US military personnel based in the UK have been working on drone missions at RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire near London. Another job ad is looking for a “targeting analyst” to work at Molesworth “for conducting thorough analysis on traditional and non-traditional targets for the purposes of creating electronic target folders for nation state and non-state actor systems.” A further job ad from private military contractor Leidos is looking for a video intelligence analyst to be based at Molesworth.
While the Molesworth base belongs to the RAF, parts of it are currently leased to the US for its European Command’s intelligence analysis operations, known as the Joint Analysis Center. US operations at Molesworth are in fact currently preparing to merge with operations at Croughton RAF base, where a $160 million US operations center will be established . "The British Government has questions to answer"
“Simply to say that drones are not flown from the UK is missing the point, if it is personnel on British soil that are at the top of the so-called ‘kill chain’ and British agencies who are feeding targets into those lists,” said Jennifer Gibson, staff attorney at Reprieve. “The US drone programme, conducted in the shadows, has killed hundreds of civilians without any accountability. The British Government has questions to answer over its own involvement in this secret war and how much responsibility it bears for those deaths.” | 0 |
In today’s, 25th, Wikileaks release of hacked Podesta emails, one of the notable highlights is a March 2, 2015 exchange between John Podesta and Clinton aide Cheryl Mills in which the Clinton Campaign Chair says “ On another matter….and not to sound like Lanny, but we are going to have to dump all those emails. ”
Back in July 2016, FBI didn’t go after Hillary because director Comey said “didn’t find any intent”. Well here’s your “intent” thanks to Wikileaks.
The email, which may indicate intent, was sent at the same time as the NYT story “ Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules ” – which for the first time revealed the existence of Hillary’s email server – hit, and just days before Hillary’s press conference addressing what was at the time, the stunning revelation that she had a personal email account, and server, in her home.
The proposed “dumping” on March 2 takes place two days before the House Select Committee on Benghazi sent Hillary Clinton a document retention subpoena on March 4, 2015, with some hinting the NYT report may have served to tip off the Clinton campaign about the upcoming subpoena.
Mills’ response to Podesta: “Think you just got your new nick name.”
It is unclear which “Lanny” is referred to: the infamous former DOJ staffer Lanny Breuer who quit in January 2013 after telling Frontline that some banks are too big to fail, or, more likely Lanny Davis, special counsel to President Bill Clinton, and spokesperson for the President and the White House on matters concerning campaign-finance investigations and other legal issues
It is also unclear – for now – which emails Podesta is referring to in the thread, but Podesta adds: “better to do so sooner than later.” We can hope that a subsequent response, yet to be leaked by Wikileaks, will provide more color.
If the exchange is shown to disclose intent to mislead, it will negate the entire narrative prepared by Clinton that she merely deleted “personal” emails and will reveal a strategic plan to hinder the State Department and FBI “investigation.”
This is the first time that particular exchange has emerged among the Podesta emails.
Furthermore, a search for Lanny Davis reveals the following curious exchange between Robby Mook and John Podesta from March 8, 2015, just days after the abovementioned exchange, in which Mook says:
We gotta zap Lanny out of our universe. Can’t believe he committed her to a private review of her hard drive on TV.
It seems the Clinton campaign was not happy with being set on a course of transparency by Bill Clinton’s special counsel.
Finally, in a separate email sent out in the first week of March 2015 , by Clinton campaign communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, we get yet another confirmation that the president actively mislead the public when he said he didn’t know Hillary was using a private email address:
Suggest Philippe talk to Josh or Eric. They know POTUS and HRC emailed. Josh has been asked about that. Standard practice is not to confirm anything about his email, so his answer to press was that he would not comment/confirm. I recollect that Josh was also asked if POTUS ever noticed her personal email account and he said something like POTUS likely had better things to do than focus on his Cabinet’s email addresses.
Perhaps while the DOJ/FBI is taking a second look into Huma Abedin’s emails, it can also take a repeat look at some of these, especially the ones involving POTUS.
Source
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The Democratic National Committee just hauled Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee into a federal court demanding that they cease the program of minority voter intimidation that Trump has inspiring his supporters to carry out. The DNC’s lawyers asked a New Jersey federal judge to hold the Republican Party in contempt for violating a 35-year old consent decree to enforce the Voting Rights Act, and to issue an injunction to enforce the terms of the agreement, which will force Republicans to cease their efforts to suppress votes in minority communities during this year’s general election. The DNC lawyers cited Donald Trump’s frequent statements to supporters, as well as one of vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s speeches where he admitted that the RNC was directly coordinating “ballot integrity” initiatives, which are explicitly banned under the agreement.
Trump’s overt actions to call his supporters to watch polls in “certain areas” are a classic attempt to concoct an illegal “ballot security program,” which is why we exclusively predicted this lawsuit could happen three weeks ago. Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) weighed in with an op-ed published in the Washington Post urging the party to take action. This week, the Democratic Coalition Against Trump also took it upon themselves to lodge a new FBI complaint , over Trump’s voter suppression campaign which violates the same Voting Rights Act provisions covered by this recent DNC action which could land Republicans involved in the illegal campaigning – like Roger Stone – in criminal court. However, the Democratic Party’s action is based on a legal decision, so it’s going to be expedited in court, and is likely to yield a rapid order from the federal judge against the Republican party and Trump.
Here’s a summary of what the DNC’s lawyers filed in federal court today: (see below for complete document )
Defendant Republican National Committee (“RNC”) has violated the Final Consent Decree… by supporting and enabling the efforts of the Republican candidate for President, Donald J. Trump, as well as his campaign and advisors, to intimidate and discourage minority voters from voting in the 2016 Presidential Election. Trump has falsely and repeatedly told his supporters that the November 8 election will be “rigged” based upon fabricated claims of voter fraud in “certain areas” or “certain sections” of key states.
Unsurprisingly, those “certain areas” are exclusively communities in which large minority voting populations reside. Notwithstanding that no evidence of such fraud actually exists, Trump has encouraged his supporters to do whatever it takes to stop it—“You’ve got to get everybody to go out and watch . . . and when [I] say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right?”—and has been actively organizing “election observers” to monitor polling stations in “certain areas.” Trump has even encouraged his “watchers” to act like vigilante law enforcement officers.
Although certain RNC officials have attempted to distance themselves from some of the Trump campaign’s more recent statements, there is now ample evidence that Trump has enjoyed the direct and tacit support of the RNC in its “ballot security” endeavors, including the RNC’s collaboration on efforts to prevent this supposed “rigging” and “voter fraud.”
In a rally in Denver, Colorado, on August 3, 2016, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, admitted that the RNC was directly coordinating with the Trump campaign on “ballot integrity” initiatives, stating that “the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee are working very very closely with state governments and secretaries of states all over the country to ensure ballot integrity.”
The RNC’s support of Trump’s efforts to recruit “watchers” who are intended to intimidate voters at their polling places violates this Court’s Consent Decree as modified in 2009, which explicitly forbid the RNC from engaging in so-called “ballot security” measures directly, indirectly, or through its agents or employees. The RNC’s conduct also violates the Consent Decree under well settled law prohibiting defendants from evading court orders by acting in concert with third parties.
Donald Trump’s master of dirty tricks, Roger Stone is specifically named in the complaint because is the very same political operative, whose minority voter intimidation tactics landed the Republican party in hot water for 35 years in the first place for rigging a close New Jersey gubernatorial election! (which was won by the GOP candidate)
Roger Stone, one of Trump’s top advisors, has amplified Trump’s message. Stone was a key advisor to the 1981 campaign of former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, in which a “ballot security” force wearing black armbands engaged in widespread voter intimidation in Newark, Camden, Paterson and other minority neighborhoods in the State, leading to this very action and the Consent Decree that Stone is helping to violate today.
Stone is currently running a website called “StopTheSteal.org” that is actively signing up Trump supporters to “volunteer” to fight “voter fraud.” #StopTheSteal is a popular hashtag among Trump supporters on Twitter, and Stone’s group maintains an active Facebook presence. On October 23, 2016, Stone sent out a (now deleted) message via his Twitter feed deliberately designed to mislead Democratic voters by representing—using Secretary Hillary Clinton’s likeness and logo—that supporters can “VOTE the NEW way on Tues. Nov 8th” by texting “HILLARY to 8888,” after which voters would apparently “receive official confirmation.
Even worse, Roger Stone is trying to hide his voter suppression plan behind the facade of exit polling. DNC lawyers slammed the lunatic Republican political operative for his deception, and the court could order him to jail for contempt of court for his behavior.
Stone is also using social media to promote the common plan that Trump supporters—and particularly those who have agreed to engage in vigilante “ballot security” efforts—wear red shirts on Election Day. Further Stone is actively recruiting Trump supporters for “exit polling,” specifically targeting nine Democratic-leaning cities with large minority populations. This “exit polling” serves no legitimate purpose: Stone does not run a polling operation. Rather, the plain purpose of this plan is to intimidate minority voters.
If Donald Trump does not cease his open calls for voter intimidation, the DNC’s legal action could land him in contempt of court – and facing a jail term.
The RNC is working in active concert with Trump, the Trump campaign, and [Roger] Stone to intimidate and harass minority voters in violation of this Court’s Consent Decree. The Court should use its inherent contempt powers to remedy those violations , and enforce future compliance with the Consent Decree, with sanctions.
Upon a finding that the RNC has violated the Consent Decree, this Court should issue an order extending the Consent Decree for another eight years, according to the terms of the Decree.
Republicans have spent a massive amount of time and money litigating to escape this Consent Decree just seven years ago, and obtained a new concession to limit it’s term from infinite – which they agreed to in the 1980s – down to an eight year term which would’ve expired next December. Now that the DNC has taken Trump and the Republican Party back to court, it’s very likely that the terms of the decree will be extended for another eight years through 2025, which will take it through the next two Presidential election cycles.
Donald Trump has wasted the entire last month complaining about a “rigged election” and encouraging vigilante poll watchers to visit minority neighborhoods. Now, a federal judge will have to step in to keep his campaign from breaking election laws across the country, and the Republican party will pay the price for his ignorance of election law for years to come.
“The notion of widespread voter fraud in modern American politics is itself a fraud,” said the DNC, “Every attempt to verify the presence of voter fraud has proven fruitless.”
Read the full complaint here: | 0 |
Actress and feminist activist Lena Dunham took to social media this week and shared that her dad taught her how to use a tampon and how that experience inspired her to invest in an organic tampon startup. [In a lengthy message on Instagram, the Girls creator recounts the terrifying moment she “became a woman. ” “It was late August and I was hiking at sunset with my father when I felt something trickling down my leg. My first reaction was, naturally, that I had peed myself a whole bunch,” Dunham wrote to her 3. 3 million followers. “When I realized it was blood I shrieked wildly — my first suspicion is always fatal injury — as my father looked at me, . ‘This, this mountain, is where we were the moment you became a woman,” she wrote. “In many cultures you’d have to start birthing children now.’ I was like ‘can we please get home right f — king now and off this mountain? ’” Dunham said she and her father, Carroll, “booked it” back home, where he handed her a “tampon that was older than [she] was. ” He proceeded “to explain it to me through a crack in the door,” she said, adding that she asked, “Up and … back?” “I wept and shrieked and called all of my aunts AND my friend Harris’s mom on the cordless phone,” said Dunham: When I got my period I was 14 and still totally boobless, sure that it would arrive when I was approximately 24. I’ve told this story before but it just makes me laugh too hard: it was late August and I was hiking at sunset with my father when I felt something trickling down my leg. My first reaction was, naturally, that I had peed myself a whole bunch. When I realized it was blood I shrieked my first suspicion is always fatal as my father looked at me, . ”This, this mountain, is where we were the moment you became a woman. In many cultures you’d have to start birthing children now.” I was like ”can we please get home right fucking now and off this mountain?” We booked it home — never moved that fast before or since — and he handed me a tampon that was older than I was (my mom was already menopausal at this point) and tried to explain it to me through a crack in the door. ”Up and … back?” I wept and shrieked and called all of my aunts AND my friend Harris’s mom on the cordless phone #lolamoments 🌺 I love being a #lolainvestor because they’re helping make the tampon dialogue more open than it was 16 years ago. I also love that @lola has our backs for all our firsts, whether it’s your period, childbirth or some grand formal occasion where you’re bleeding unjustly. Let’s do this right. (Drawings ✏️ by @dokanstudio) A post shared by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Jun 7, 2017 at 3:58pm PDT, The star, a constant critic of President Donald Trump, has long supported Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. As a spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Dunham stumped hard for the Democratic candidate from Iowa to New Hampshire. The actress also spoke in primetime at the Democratic National Committee and headlined rallies for Clinton in the final weeks of the election. While she promised a “100 percent” chance that she would move to Canada if Trump won the White House, Dunham later said she would not leave and would, instead, “fight” Trump’s agenda in America. After Clinton’s loss, Dunham began blaming Trump’s victory on “privileged” white women. In February, Dunham said the “ pain” of Trump’s victory triggered her massive weight loss. Dunham recently announced the cancellation of her feminist Lenny digital newsletter tour due to complications stemming from her ongoing battle with endometriosis. In her Instagram post, Dunham confirmed that she is an investor in Lola, a company that produces, among other things, organic tampons. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson. | 1 |
Reuters
A juror in the trial of seven militia members charged with seizing a U.S. wildlife refuge in Oregon at gunpoint earlier this year was dismissed for bias, a federal judge said on Wednesday.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the case agreed to the dismissal of the juror, who formerly worked for the federal Bureau of Land Management, after U.S. District Judge Anna Brown said the juror would be questioned more closely about comments he may have made about his bias.
“It’s a new jury, a new day, a new start,” Brown said.
Brown said deliberations by the jury would start over. An alternate will step in for the dismissed juror.
The attorney for Ammon Bundy, the leader of those charged, asked the court in a motion on Wednesday morning to dismiss the juror in question and order the jury to begin deliberations again or declare a mistrial.
The jury’s integrity came under scrutiny on Tuesday when it sent the judge a letter saying one juror admitted being “very biased” as deliberations began last week.
“Can a juror, a former employee of the Bureau of Land Management, who opens their remarks in deliberations by stating ‘I am very biased …’ be considered an impartial judge in this case?’ the letter stated, according to the motion by Bundy’s lawyer, Marcus Mumford.
While it was unclear whether the supposed bias of the juror, identified as Juror No. 11, was for or against the government, Mumford had said further questioning of the person was needed.
Brown interviewed the juror in private on Tuesday and said she found “no basis” for determining he was biased. Prosecutors had previously opposed additional interrogation of the jury. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday said it was shifting $81 million away from biomedical research and antipoverty and health care programs to pay for the development of a Zika vaccine, resorting to extraordinary measures because Congress has failed to approve new funding to combat the virus. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, told members of Congress in a letter that without the diverted funds, the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority would run out of money to confront the illness by the end of the month. That would force the development of a vaccine to stop at a critical time, as locally acquired cases of Zika infection increase in Miami. As of last week, 7, 350 cases of Zika had been reported in the United States, most in Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Burwell said that 15 infants had been born with birth defects. The virus can cause abnormal brain development and other serious defects in children born to infected mothers. The local spread of the illness in the continental United States, with the first cases reported late last month, has raised the political stakes surrounding the federal government’s response. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday made a campaign stop in Wynwood, the Miami neighborhood that has had a rash of locally transmitted Zika cases, and pressed Congress to return from its break to approve emergency funding to fight the virus. President Obama and congressional Republicans have been at odds for most of the year over Zika. In February, Mr. Obama requested $1. 9 billion in emergency funding. Republicans balked, demanding a more detailed accounting of where the money would go. Lawmakers have feuded for months over how much money should be earmarked and how it should be spent. Last month, Democrats blocked consideration of a Republican measure that would have allocated $1. 1 billion to fight Zika but included provisions that would have banned funding for Planned Parenthood to provide contraception related to the virus, which can be sexually transmitted. The deadlock prompted the White House in April to shift $589 million in Ebola funding to the Zika effort, about of it designated for domestic use. On Thursday, Ms. Burwell said that her department had used most of that money, and that it would be gone by the end of August. “The failure to pass a Zika emergency supplemental has forced the administration to choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to temporarily avoid these delays,” Ms. Burwell wrote. Democrats seized on the announcement to berate Republicans for failing to provide additional money for Zika. At a news conference, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, called on Representative Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, to bring Congress back to advance such a measure. “Every possible option is being exhausted, and now we’re going into the National Institutes of Health, which is supposed to be a priority,” Ms. Pelosi said. Aides to Mr. Ryan said that shifting the funds was a step that the Obama administration had delayed to squeeze maximum political advantage out of the Zika issue. The National Institutes of Health announced last week that it had begun clinical trials of a Zika vaccine on 80 human subjects, and hoped to begin a second phase in “ countries” in early 2017. But without more funding now, officials said Thursday, the research would halt in its tracks. Ms. Burwell said she would transfer to the Zika efforts $34 million in N. I. H. funds that had been designated to find treatments for other diseases, including cancer and diabetes. Another $47 million will be transferred to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which supports the development of drugs and vaccines to respond to public health emergencies. That money will come out of a variety of accounts, including $19 million from a program that supplies heating oil subsidies for families and $4 million from substance abuse programs such as those for opioid addiction. Even then, Ms. Burwell said, the additional money will last only through next month, at which point agencies would have to “severely curtail many of their critical efforts” against Zika without action from Congress. In the last four months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent $60 million to help states protect pregnant women, $25 million to strengthen their Zika preparedness and response plans, and $16 million to help them create systems to quickly detect microcephaly and other syndromes. | 1 |
On this weekend’s broadcast of CBS’s “Sunday Morning” during a segment about the polarized media landscape in America, an exchange by CBS contributor Ted Koppel and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity was featured that Koppel said Hannity was “bad for America. ” Koppel suggested he was skeptical that the American public and more specifically Hannity’s viewers could differentiate an opinion show and a news show. He added that it was bad over the “long haul” because the audiences Hannity and others are reaching are more concerned with ideology than facts. Partial transcript as follows: HANNITY: We have to give some credit to the American people that they’re somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show. You’re cynical. KOPPEL: I am cynical. HANNITY: Do you think we’re bad for America? You think I’m bad for America? KOPPEL: Yeah. HANNITY: You do? Really? KOPPEL: In the long haul I think you and all these opinion shows — HANNITY: That’s sad, Ted. That’s sad. KOPPEL: No, you know why? Because you’re very good at what you do, and because you have attracted a significantly more influential — HANNITY: You are selling the American people short. KOPPEL: No, let me finish the sentence before you do that. HANNITY: I’m listening. With all due respect. Take the floor. KOPPEL: You have attracted people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts. Later after the segment aired, Hannity challenged CBS News in a tweet to release the entire interview. ”Fake Edited News” @CBSNews release the Unedited 45 minute interview so people can see the BS games you play in the edit room. I dare you! https: . — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 26, 2017, Watch the full “Sunday Morning” segment, ( The Hill) Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter This is something I have always had a bit of a hard time with growing up. Seeing what success means to the world and how it has been defined as having money, a good job, working hard, sacrificing etc. Sure this may only be the western world, but that’s where I grew up so that’s what I was exposed to. If I grew up somewhere else maybe it would have been different. I’m sure people don’t even think of the word success or put any particular meaning to it in some places. advertisement - learn more It wasn’t until I really began to see through the whole idea of success as I got into my later teens that I realized we are all chasing a common dream. Something that has been defined for us. It’s not even something we feel passionate about inside or that we absolutely love doing that will lead us to success. It’s simply that we are chasing an idea of what success is. I saw this picture recently and it made me laugh. Mainly because it’s soo true. Have a look below.Here you got this one “unsuccessful” guy on the bottom, who’s just having a nice stroll, crisp smile going on, real nice strut and then you got this “successful” guy above who’s sitting in traffic yelling on his cell phone or to the driver in front of him. The truth is, when we see these two scenarios we often think that someone who just strolls through life, takes it slow, doesn’t go hard at chasing money is not as successful as someone who is wearing a suit, has nice things, is working to get to the top of their company and who may be rich. You literally hear this stuff all the time. It’s all just an illusion of success. But ask yourself the questions: does it really feel resonant inside to chase money? To do what you don’t want to be doing simply to be considered successful? To have to sacrifice and slave for more toys? How about being in competition with everyone so you can get ahead? Wouldn’t you rather live in and experience a world where you could just do what it is you felt inspired to do the most? And then be able to change at any point the moment you wish to experience something new? The truth is, success is literally everything we are doing. No matter what situation you are in, what circumstance you are experiencing, you were successful at creating that. We don’t need to judge any experience as being more successful than the other because we are here to experience! We are here to have a variety of dynamic experiences that give us different circumstances and we are choosing all of them. advertisement - learn more We are all successful, plain a simple. And it’s not even that we need to be or need to focus on success. It’s simply that we don’t need to chase it or define ourselves by it. We simply do what we feel inspired to do and all we need will come from choosing to experience in that manner. Much Love
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 |
Progressives Find ‘White Trash’ More Threatening Tnan Nuclear War
Paul Craig Roberts
The American electorate’s preference for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders has established two facts. One is that the majority of the American people do not believe the media presstitutes. The other is that only the “progressives” and “liberals” who inhabit the Atlantic Northeast and Pacific West coasts believe the presstitutes.
Trump’s election to the presidency has confirmed these holier-than-thou souls in their strongly held belief that America is a white trash racist country. They have told us this all day long today.
From these people and from the presstitutes we hear that white supremacy elected Trump. This is their propaganda, the intention of which is to discredit a Trump administration before it is inaugerated. Funny how white supremacy elected black Obama twice previously.
Truthout has lost it completely. John Knefel declares “The David Dukes of the World Prevail.”
Kelly Hayes declares “White Supremacy Elected Donald Trump.”
William Rivers Pitt declares “We have elected a fascist that Mussolini would have recognized on sight.”
Hillary carried only a handful of states, the states that comprise the One Percent’s stomping grounds. Yet Amy Goodman of Democracy Now sees meaning in political writer John Nichols claim that as Hillary carried New York and California, she won the popular vote and should be in the White House. I remember a few days ago George Soros saying that Trump would win the popular vote, but that the electoral vote would go to Hillary, thus ridding the oligarchs of Trump.
Earth Justice promises to hold Trump accountable. Trump who promises to end the threat of nuclear war with Russia and China, thereby doing more to save animal and human life than the entirety of the Democratic Party and environmental organizations, is going to be held accountable by an organization that allegedly is beyond politics and is dedicated to preserving animals from destruction.
The ACLU, of which I am a member, has also put “on notice” the president-elect who has said he will save us from nuclear war. Faced with this idiocy from the ACLU, I will not renew my membership.
Feminists tell us that we are “grieving, scared, and in shock,” and that “it is critical that we stand together and support each other.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami of the J Street Jewish Community tells us that it is “an incredibly sad and difficult day. For tens of millions of Americans who share a core belief in tolerance, decency and social justice, the election results are a severe shock. In this challenging moment, we turn to one another for comfort and community. During this election, J Street made unequivocally clear our conviction that Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States.”
Van Jones, a CNN commentator, said that Trump’s election is a nightmare, “a deeply painful moment,” a “whitelash” against minorities. While he bemoaned the pain inflicted upon poor little presstitute Van Jones, he didn’t mind insulting the American electorate and the President-elect of the United States. After all, Van Jones sees that as his racist prerogative.
And so, the holier-than-thou crowd prefers Hillary, despite her unambigious position that she would maximize conflict with Russia and China, provoke direct military conflict between the US and Russia by imposing a no-fly zone in Syria, attack Iran and other of Israel’s targets, further enrich her Wall Street handlers by privatizing Social Security, and prevent any dissent from the lowly people class of her high-handed ways. If William Rivers Pitt sees Trump as a Mussolini fascist, Trump is too mild for Pitt. He prefers Hillary, a Hitler to the third power.
The progressives have totally discredited themselves just as the presstitutes have done. Their need for a bogyman to nourish their hysteria indicates serious psychological disturbance. They actually prefer the risk of Armageddon to peace among nuclear powers. As their 501(c)3s live off corporate contributions, they prefer globalist corporate profits to jobs for ordinary Americans.
These are the people who think of themselves as our instructors and our betters.
If only Trump could exile the lot of them. They are anti-American to the core.
The post Progressives Find ‘White Trash’ More Threatening Than Nuclear War — Paul Craig Roberts appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 0 |
Serial killer Aaron Hernandez claimed another victim Wednesday morning. [The convicted murderer escaped conviction in the slayings of two immigrants on Friday. But he ultimately proved a hanging judge over his own existence in meting out rough justice to himself at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center on Wednesday. Using a bedsheet and a window, he put himself permanently to sleep as his fellow inmates enjoyed temporary rest. Despite last week’s day, which prompted defense attorney Jose Baez to suggest that he may appeal Hernandez’s conviction in the murder of Odin Lloyd as an encore, the tight end felt the comedown after the victory. The former New England Patriot committed suicide on Patriots’ Day, the anniversary of the first battles of the American Revolution. Less coincidentally, he took his life on the day when his teammates celebrate their comeback Super Bowl victory at the White House. Aaron Hernandez could catch a pass. But never grasped the first lesson of football: get up after you get knocked down. The juxtaposition of his teammates celebrating a comeback at the White House on the day Hernandez put the exclamation point on his misspent life hanging in a dank prison cell is just too easy. He was an until he wasn’t. He won a national championship with Tim Tebow at Florida but the QB did not rub off on him. He caught a touchdown pass from Tom Brady in the Super Bowl but he never caught the QB’s infectious, attitude. Ultimately what wasn’t eclipsed what was. He stopped haunting NFL defensive coordinators as a nightmare matchup as a tight end that moonlighted beyond the numbers, in the slot, and occasionally in the backfield. He ceased playing ying to Rob Gronkowski’s yang. He did not win the two Super Bowl rings that he did in the counterfactual version of his life. He became a human cautionary tale. What went wrong? Dennis Hernandez died from routine hernia surgery at 49 when Aaron was 16. The son lost more than a father. He began using drugs, hanging around unsavory characters, and rebelling against rules and authorities. The talent went to the New England Patriots in the fourth round. He continued to use narcotics, including angel dust, and hang around with losers when not around winners on the practice field. Despite blessings of talent and an organization known for discipline, number 81 pulled defeat from the jaws of victory as remarkably as his college and professional quarterbacks did the reverse. Aaron Hernandez died a long time ago. At 4:07 a. m. Wednesday, his body finally caught up to his soul’s situation. | 1 |
New Yorkers live lives, and tourists are the busiest people in town. Who else dashes in time from the World Trade Center to Rockefeller Center, to Trump Tower to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, pausing for selfies at each stop? And when you hit the Met with your meter running, what can you do? The place is huge ridiculous. Macy’s, but more. So you have a decision to make. If you restrict yourself to a special show, or a gallery or two, you’ll be able to see some art in a focused way, though you’ll miss the breadth that makes the Met so awesome. If you opt to cover a lot of ground fast, you’ll get the lay of the land, but as a blur. Let me propose a compromise: a thematic tour, or set of tours, that would take in the multicultural mix of a great global museum, but selectively, in a purposefully hopscotching way, with an eye on the clock tours that would last somewhere under an hour, the span of a workday lunch break. In the future, The New York Times will apply this model to several museums, in and out of the city, only a few of them . But I’ll start with my home museum, and I’ll take as a shaping theme images both of, and by, women in the collection, specifically women of power, with power expansively defined. The choice is partly inspired by a moment in time that might have given us our first female president, and gave instead a . It’s also a personal choice. Images of, and by, women are some of the most beautiful and complex in the museum. Even with a thematic frame, organizing a tour is tricky. It would be nice to follow a neat chronological route, but the Met isn’t laid out that way. Nor, for that matter, is history: Timelines of art in different cultures don’t run on parallel tracks at any given point, forms of art that were hot in Europe were irrelevant in, say, China, and vice versa. And again, with the Met, there’s the inventory issue: unmanageable tons of stuff to consider, even within a theme. So we’ll break the tour up into subthematic . Some will have you the museum’s length and breadth (it covers nearly 14 acres) others will keep you more or less in one place. All will require the same gear: soft soles, minimal luggage and a floor map, with all galleries numbered, available at the Met’s information desks. And you’re off. You can start with ancient and monumental. Enter the Egyptian Wing from the Great Hall, on the first floor, and head straight back. It’s a hike, but sensationally scenic, taking you past wall reliefs, mummies and the fragmentary head of a New Kingdom queen cut from jasper and glowing like a lantern, till you come to Gallery 115, devoted entirely to images of one person, the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. She ascended the throne around 1478 B. C. as regent for a nephew, declared herself king and ruled, effectively solo, for more than 20 productive years. During that time, she kept the peace, revived Egyptian trade and commissioned major art and architectural projects, including countless sculptures of herself. The gallery has several. In the largest she has the leonine masculine bulk that was considered the monarchic ideal. But in the center of the gallery, set up as a cross between throne room and a chapel, she sits, nearly carved in pale stone, looking youthful and lithe in a sleek sheath dress. Works melding features of goddess and queen stretch across cultures and account for some of the Met’s most glamorous images. Dash upstairs to Gallery 240 in the Met’s Asian Wing and you’ll find another in a fabulous South Indian bronze temple sculpture of the goddess Parvat, her arms like vines, her hands like flowers. Or sprint the length of the museum to Gallery 352 of the Africa, Oceania and Americas collection and take in a superb ivory pendant mask owned by a Benin king in Nigeria. It’s a portrait of his mother, a queen, and he wore it as if it were a combination of searchlight, shield and talisman. Near it, in Gallery 357, is a recent addition to the collection, an arched and turreted gold repoussé crown, studded with emeralds, from Spanish colonial Colombia. It was made for a statue of the Virgin in her role as Queen of Heaven. Glowing in church candlelight, she must have been an imperious sight, though not all her images are so regal. A short walk away in the museum’s Medieval Hall is one that conveys the opposite impression. Isolated in an inconspicuous spot near a door, and indifferently lighted, it’s a sculpture of the Virgin Enthroned from Scandinavia. Just under three feet tall, cut from a piece of poplar, she has the recessive, posture of a shy adolescent and the face of a dove. She’s one of my usual destinations in the museum. I often check in with her, say hello. Were it not for her veil, the Virgin Enthroned could be male or female, boy or girl. She’s a reminder of how much religious art can look or . That’s the story with Hatshepsut. (A current show at the Brooklyn Museum, “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” addresses the subject.) And it’s true of the Buddhist deity Avalokiteshvara, who appears in a female manifestation given the name Guanyin in China. The Met’s Chinese collection has several examples, including, in Galley 208, a marvelous one notable for its voluptuous torso, tapering fingers and hauteur. For their part, the ancient Greeks had Amazons — not divine maybe, but for sure. Herodotus claimed they wore trousers, packed arms and hunted men. To the xenophobic Greeks, they were the original Nasty Women, an embodiment of the Other, despised and feared. But they had attractions, too, evident in “Wounded Amazon” in Gallery 153. A Roman marble copy of a Greek bronze, it’s of a strappingly handsome woman in a skimpy chiton. She has taken a hit in battle but is still on her feet, bearing her pain with a defiant indifference that the sculptor clearly admires. Images of warrior women are relatively rare at the Met, though you’ll see a couple of thrilling ones in a loan survey of paintings by the French artist Valentin de Boulogne on the second floor, in Gallery 999. The pictures, with their David Lynch lighting, both depict the Jewish heroine Judith, who leveraged her sexual charms to gain access to and decapitate the Assyrian general Holofernes. In one picture, we see her slicing through his neck with a sword. (Artemisia Gentileschi also painted this scene.) In another, Judith, deed done, lifts a hand in an air pump as if to say “Score!” though benign, is the female figure in a Mughal manuscript painting called “Goddess Bhairavi Devi With Shiva,” in Gallery 463 of the Islamic Wing on the same floor. It, too, is of a decapitation: the Great Goddess, with rage, seems to be cutting up a male corpse, head first. But as her devotees would know, her fury is a purposeful illusion. She’s an aspect of the god Shiva, creator and destroyer, an entranced male version of whom sits nearby. The goddess may appear to be going ballistic, but it serves the cosmic balance, for which the positive charge of female energy is indispensable. In secular portraiture, supernatural power translates into force of personality. The Met has charismatic examples, of and by women. Many are in the European Painting galleries several are audience favorites. Johannes Vermeer’s “Study of a Young Woman” (circa 1665) in Gallery 632 is one. It isn’t exactly a portrait, but like his “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” it’s a image of the fashionable type, an “it girl” of the day. Here, the subject’s shaved eyebrows and plucked hairline give her the slightly amphibious look of an E. T. Rembrandt’s “Woman With a Pink,” two rooms away, is more certainly a portrait, though it, too, suggests an illustrative dimension: It catches the moving shadow of age in action. Age is a phenomenon that the Italian realist Giovanni Battista Moroni embraces in his extraordinarily candid portrait of the Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova, hanging in Gallery 608. And it’s a reality that the French salon painter Adélaïde defies in her majestically assured “ With Two Pupils: Marie Gabrielle Capet and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond,” in Gallery 613. The picture is above all a tribute to female artists, generations of them. So, in this gallery, is Marie Denise Villers’s backlighted portrait of the young Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes sitting with a sketch board and interrupted at work. It’s a portrait of a female artist, by a female artist whose older was a contemporary of . Over in the American Wing, in Gallery 764, Thomas Eakins’s “The Artist’s Wife and His Setter Dog” is, in its ambiguous way, a tribute to a female artist, too. From the 1880s, it’s a portrait of Susan MacDowell Eakins, who had been the painter’s student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, had married him and weathered the scandal that engulfed him — he insisted on nude models, male and female, in his class — and led to his being fired. Whatever the tenor of their marriage, it sapped her ambitions for painting. She gave up art to promote Eakins’s career, and only returned to it after his death. The Met has one of her early pictures, “Woman Reading,” but it’s not in the galleries. It hangs chockablock with the numerous other items in open storage on the American Wing mezzanine, dim behind thick plexiglass and hard to find. It’s a good picture, of a young woman, probably MacDowell’s sister Elizabeth, absorbed in a book not, in other words, just sitting there blank and staring, but focused, occupied, the way the reading, talking and listening women in Mary Cassatt’s paintings are, and the way Gertrude Stein is, just by being there, a human magnet, in Picasso’s marmoreal portrait in Gallery 911 of the Modern and Contemporary Wing. “Picasso never painted another woman like that,” the New York artist Deborah Kass once said about this work, “who looked like that, with that kind of presence, who wasn’t a thing!” It’s an image — you get the sense that Stein’s personality forced it out of Picasso — of a woman thinking critically. In a different way, Florine Stettheimer’s “Cathedrals of Wall Street” (1939) a few rooms away, with its insouciant image of the financial district, the capitalist heart of the nation, packed with preening politicians and soldiers, is the product of an artist painting critically. So is Alma Thomas’s “Red Roses Sonata” from 1972, an abstract view of nature as a gorgeous but tattered curtain of red and blue. Thomas’s painting is in Gallery 923, near the museum’s southwest corner, all those acres away from Hatshepsut’s room. And if during your tour you’ve tracked down and stayed with even a fraction of the images of and by women en route, lunchtime is long over it’s probably too late to go back to the office, and your travel group has moved on and left you behind. So you might as well stay and look further: for an ancient Greek oil jug with paintings of women spinning yarn a Zandra Rhodes wedding dress, pure ’70s punk for an exquisite willow basket by the Native American artist Datsolalee, patterned with dancing flames. The more you look, the more there is. So keep touring till closing time. Yes, you can dash around checking the boxes of traditional highlights as you peer at this El Greco or that Goya, and, of course, the Temple of Dendur. Here is what the Critic recommends instead. GODDESSES AND QUEENS 50 minutes. Four stops on two floors, heavy on sculpture, taking in Egyptian art on the first floor Asian works directly above on the second then back to the first floor, but at the opposite end of the museum for African art and finally, in the middle of the first floor, a straight line from the museum entrance, the Medieval Hall. SHIFTING GENDERS 30 minutes. Two stops: the Asian galleries on the second floor and the Greek and Roman galleries at the opposite end, on the first. VIOLENT FEMMES 30 minutes. A quick and bloody tour in two stops, both on the second floor: Gallery 999, a special exhibition space near the European Paintings, and, in an attraction of geographical opposites, the Islamic Wing. PORTRAITS OF AND BY WOMEN 50 minutes. Three stops, all on the second floor, all featuring paintings. Start in European Paintings and then head next door to the American Wing and then back through the European galleries to the Modern and Contemporary Wing. | 1 |
At 2:30 p. m. on Thursday, Representative Maxine Waters was on the floor of the House of Representatives, arguing for the importance of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “At this time,” Ms. Waters, Democrat of California, said, “with a bill that would basically take our cop on the block, the S. E. C. and literally obliterate — — ” Alas, politics junkies, news editors and anyone else who was watching the broadcast online did not learn how that sentence ended. Ms. Waters was cut off. Instead, they heard the jangling music of a feed from RT, a Russian television network that has been accused of helping its government interfere in the American election. Some on social media immediately assumed that the interruption, which lasted about 10 minutes, had nefarious implications. in a statement, had a simpler explanation: It was probably a technical error. ’s television broadcast continued uninterrupted. Noting that RT is among the news feeds it regularly monitors, it said: “We don’t believe we were hacked. Instead, our initial investigation suggests that this was caused by an internal routing error. We take our network security very seriously and will continue with a deeper investigation, which may take some time. ” RT America, which is broadcast by cable companies within the United States, did not respond to an email requesting comment on Thursday afternoon. A recent declassified intelligence report accused Russia of interfering in the election and said that RT “aimed at undermining viewers’ trust of U. S. democratic procedures. ” — a private company that, according to its website, is available in 100 million American homes — receives no government money but broadcasts all live congressional proceedings, providing a direct feed of the daily stuff of politics to Americans who find themselves interested in what their representatives are doing. Howard Mortman, a network spokesman, said he could not provide numbers for ’s online viewership at the time of the interruption. ’s newsroom monitors many other channels for breaking news, including domestic networks like CBS and CNN as well as various international networks. Its statement suggested that a routing error had caused the RT feed it regularly monitors to be broadcast accidentally. Mr. Mortman said the network’s early explanation for the interruption came from an internal analysis. He said that he was not aware of any previous such interruption. Timothy Burke, the video director at Deadspin, who regularly monitors 20 to 30 online news feeds from his home in Tampa, Fla. was among the first to comment on Twitter about the sudden interruption. He said he had assumed “somebody just flipped a wrong switch somewhere. ” Had Mr. Burke and others who were watching online at the time not been interrupted, they would have heard Ms. Waters mention Russia and Donald J. Trump several times before she ended her turn on the floor. In a phone interview Thursday, she was perplexed. She said no one had satisfactorily explained “how this happened or why it happened, or if it’s happened before. ” “I just think it’s strange,” Ms. Waters said. “At a time when our intelligence agencies are very confident and basically have confirmed that Russia hacked the D. N. C. and other political interests, and then we have, while I’m on the floor of the House, talking about Trump and Russia, I get interfered with and interrupted by Russia Today. ” “It’s strange. It’s odd,” she said. | 1 |
Trump spent five years spreading racist lies meant to convince people Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. He spent the 2016 election calling him the worst president of all time. And upon finally meeting President Obama face-to-face… he now says he likes him?
In one of the oddest tweets Trump has ever sent, the president-elect said he had a “really good meeting” and “great chemistry” (what?) with Obama. He added that his wife really liked Michelle Obama, as well. A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry. Melania liked Mrs. O a lot!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016
“Chemistry?” Really? What a creep.
The feeling did not appear to be mutual. After the meeting, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the two men had views that were so radically different from one another that neither man even tried to discuss them during their first meeting. Obama also reiterated that he stood by calling Trump “ unfit ” for office.
Asked whether the President still considers Trump “temperamentally unfit” and “uniquely unqualified” after the pair met for the first time Thursday morning, Earnest said that Obama stood by those remarks.
“Look, the president’s views haven’t changed,” Earnest said. “He stands by what he said on the campaign trail. He had an opportunity to make his argument. He made that argument vigorously. He made that argument in states all across the country. But the American people decided.”
It was also reported that the Obamas decided to cancel a photo op with Donald and Melania Trump scheduled for after the meeting. (The White House denied that anything was meant by the cancellation, naturally.)
Trump’s sudden aboutface on Obama only reinforces what many had suspected all along. His nasty remarks, his damaging rhetoric, his vicious smears on the president were all lies he used as a blunt force instrument to convince his base to vote for him. He knew they were lies when he said them, he simply didn’t care if they were being used to destroy Obama’s reputation to get what he wanted. Now that he’s won the election, those lies have outgrown their usefulness.
But lest one think this represents a “pivot” to maturity, just eight minutes later, he promptly descended into a temper tantrum unbecoming of a president. Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016
The man who up until the day of the election was screaming about rigged voting machines and illegal voters suddenly thinks protesting his election is “very unfair.” He also tapped into his favorite few scapegoats –“professional protesters” (i.e. Democrats) and the media. In one tweet, we get a glimpse at just how ugly Trump’s administration will be. People who criticize him will be publicly attacked by the president himself. The media who covers him will be demonized. And Trump will spend more time whining than governing.
Pathetic.
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BOMBSHELL: 2006 Audio Emerges of Crooked Hillary Clinton Proposing Rigging Palestine Election “I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” said Sen. Clinton. “And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.” 28, 2016 Chomsky recalls being taken aback that “anyone could support the idea—offered by a national political leader, no less—that the U.S. should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Donald Trump, as usual, knows what he’s talking about when it comes to a rigged system with a rigged election . Today’s story brings you a never-heard-before audio tape of then Sen. Clinton talking about rigging the elections in Palestine to ensure the outcome preferred by the United States government. Looks like Crooked Hillary thinks nothing of rigging an election – any election – to suit her personal purposes.
On September 5, 2006, Eli Chomsky was an editor and staff writer for the Jewish Press, and Hillary Clinton was running for a shoo-in re-election as a U.S. senator. Her trip making the rounds of editorial boards brought her to Brooklyn to meet the editorial board of the Jewish Press.
The tape was never released and has only been heard by the small handful of Jewish Press staffers in the room. According to Chomsky, his old-school audio cassette is the only existent copy and no one has heard it since 2006, until today when he played it for the Observer.
The tape is 45 minutes and contains much that is no longer relevant, such as analysis of the re-election battle that Sen. Joe Lieberman was then facing in Connecticut. But a seemingly throwaway remark about elections in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority has taken on new relevance amid persistent accusations in the presidential campaign by Clinton’s Republican opponent Donald Trump that the current election is “rigged.” Listen to never-before-seen audiotape of Crooked Hillary talking about rigging election in Palestine:
Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats).
“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” said Sen. Clinton. “And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.” Chomsky recalls being taken aback that “anyone could support the idea—offered by a national political leader, no less—that the U.S. should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.”
Some eyebrows were also raised when then-Senator Clinton appeared to make a questionable moral equivalency.
Regarding capturing combatants in war—the June capture of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants who came across the Gaza border via an underground tunnel was very much front of mind—Clinton can be heard on the tape saying, “And then, when, you know, Hamas, you know, sent the terrorists, you know, through the tunnel into Israel that killed and captured, you know, kidnapped the young Israeli soldier, you know, there’s a sense of like, one-upsmanship, and in these cultures of, you know, well, if they captured a soldier, we’ve got to capture a soldier.” Trump on Election Rigging | Third Presidential Debate Highlights
Equating Hamas , which to this day remains on the State Department’s official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, with the armed forces of a close American ally was not what many expected to hear in the Jewish Press editorial offices, which were then at Third Avenue and Third Street in Brooklyn. (The paper’s office has since moved to the Boro Park section of Brooklyn.) The use of the phrase “these cultures” is also a bit of a head-scratcher.
According to Chomsky, Clinton was “gracious, personable and pleasant throughout” the interview, taking about an hour to speak to, in addition to himself, managing editor Jerry Greenwald, assistant to the publisher Naomi Klass Mauer, counsel Dennis Rapps and senior editor Jason Maoz.
Another part of the tape highlights something that was relatively uncontroversial at the time but has taken on new meaning in light of the current campaign—speaking to leaders with whom our country is not on the best terms. Clinton has presented a very tough front in discussing Russia, for example, accusing Trump of unseemly ardor for strongman Vladimir Putin and mocking his oft-stated prediction that as president he’d “get along” with Putin.
Chomsky is heard on the tape asking Clinton what now seems like a prescient question about Syria, given the disaster unfolding there and its looming threat to drag the U.S., Iran and Russia into confrontation.
“Do you think it’s worth talking to Syria—both from the U.S. point [of view] and Israel’s point [of view]?”
Clinton replied, “You know, I’m pretty much of the mind that I don’t see what it hurts to talk to people. As long as you’re not stupid and giving things away. I mean, we talked to the Soviet Union for 40 years. They invaded Hungary, they invaded Czechoslovakia, they persecuted the Jews, they invaded Afghanistan, they destabilized governments, they put missiles 90 miles from our shores, we never stopped talking to them,” an answer that reflects her mastery of the facts but also reflects a willingness to talk to Russia that sounds more like Trump 2016 than Clinton 2016.
Shortly after, she said, “But if you say, ‘they’re evil, we’re good, [and] we’re never dealing with them,’ I think you give up a lot of the tools that you need to have in order to defeat them…So I would like to talk to you [the enemy] because I want to know more about you. Because if I want to defeat you, I’ve got to know something more about you. I need different tools to use in my campaign against you. That’s my take on it.”
A final bit of interest to the current campaign involves an articulation of phrases that Trump has accused Clinton of being reluctant to use. Discussing the need for a response to terrorism, Clinton said, “I think you can make the case that whether you call it ‘Islamic terrorism’ or ‘Islamo-fascism,’ whatever the label is we’re going to give to this phenomenon, it’s a threat. It’s a global threat. To Europe, to Israel, to the United States…Therefore we need a global response. It’s a global threat and it needs a global response. That can be the, sort of, statement of principle…So I think sometimes having the global vision is a help as long as you realize that underneath that global vision there’s a lot of variety and differentiation that has to go on.”
It’s not clear what she means by a global vision with variety and differentiation, but what’s quite clear is that the then-senator, just five years after her state was the epicenter of the September 11 attacks, was comfortable deploying the phrase “Islamic terrorism” and the even more strident “Islamo-fascism,” at least when meeting with the editorial board of a Jewish newspaper.
In an interview before the Observer heard the tape, Chomsky told the Observer that Clinton made some “odd and controversial comments” on the tape. The irony of a decade-old recording emerging to feature a candidate making comments that are suddenly relevant to voters today was not lost on Chomsky, who wrote the original story at the time. Oddly enough, that story, headlined “Hillary Clinton on Israel, Iraq and Terror,” is no longer available on jewishpress.com and even a short summary published on the Free Republic offers a broken link that can no longer surface the story.
“I went to my bosses at the time,” Chomsky told the Observer. “The Jewish Press had this mindset that they would not want to say anything offensive about anybody—even a direct quote from anyone—in a position of influence because they might need them down the road. My bosses didn’t think it was newsworthy at the time. I was convinced that it was and I held onto it all these years.” | 0 |
Among the rare areas of agreement in the aftermath of a contentious presidential election: Families with working parents, especially those with lower incomes, are having too hard a time. Many can no longer count on lives that look like the ones their parents led. manufacturing jobs have been disappearing, especially for men. Fewer people are marrying, and more children are growing up in unstable families. Parents are struggling to work while raising children. Donald J. Trump vowed to help the working class, and whites in particular helped propel him to victory. Although quite a few economists disagree with him on the merits of his prescriptions, he has said cutting taxes, restricting immigration and renegotiating trade deals will ultimately raise incomes of struggling families. Mr. Trump has said he understands the needs of working parents. “These solutions must update laws passed more than half a century ago when most women were still not in the labor force,” he said in September in a speech unveiling his child care proposals. His daughter Ivanka has pushed ideas like paid leave and seems to be taking a role in devising new policies. In a statement last week, she said she was distancing herself from certain aspects of her company in order to “broaden her efforts to take a stance on issues of critical importance to American women and families. ” Which policies will Mr. Trump pursue to directly address the needs of working and families? A look at what he has said — along with the wish lists of Republicans in Congress, scholars and advisers — provides some clues. A striking thing happened during the campaign: For the first time, both Republican and Democratic candidates made paid family leave a part of their policy agenda. As recently as 2014, Hillary Clinton said of paid leave, “I don’t think, politically, we could get it now. ” Now it could find bipartisan support. Mr. Trump has proposed six weeks of paid maternity leave, which he said would offer “a crucial safety net for working mothers. ” Currently, 87 percent of workers get no paid family leave, and 95 percent of those in the lowest quarter of earners get none, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most Americans support a paid leave policy. It can ease the burdens on families with two working parents and increase the likelihood that parents stay in the labor force. Still, the details could prove contentious. Should fathers also get leave, or just mothers? What about gay or adoptive parents, and people who need to care for sick children or aging relatives? And how should it be paid for? Mr. Trump’s proposal would apply only to new mothers, and he said he would pay for it with savings from reducing unemployment insurance fraud, though it’s unclear how that would work. The Family Act, a bill stalled in Congress, proposes paying for it with a small increase in payroll taxes. Republicans have previously proposed giving businesses a tax credit for providing paid leave, but making it voluntary. “If he structures it in a way that it’s not a burden on businesses and does not work against women’s work force participation, I think more Republicans will get behind it,” said Aparna Mathur, a resident scholar in economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Democrats have argued that by limiting parental leave to new mothers, Mr. Trump ignores the role fathers play in raising children, exposes women to discrimination in hiring and neglects the needs of people with ailing or elderly family members. “It was fantastic to see the Republicans stepping up and having this debate,” said Heather Boushey, the executive director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, who was the chief economist for Hillary Clinton’s transition team. “It really spoke to how important these issues are in terms of economic policy. But I hope that the actual policies are really grounded more in the evidence of what works than what he’s put out so far. ” Another policy that analysts say is important to families is paid sick leave, so that workers can care for themselves or for ill family members. It’s unclear whether Mr. Trump will push for it. percent of workers over all and 66 percent of those in the bottom quartile of income get no paid sick leave. Some Republicans have instead proposed letting certain workers — those in the private sector who are not exempt from overtime laws — substitute time off for overtime pay. Another Democratic dream that Mr. Trump raised on the campaign trail was financial help for child care. “For many families in our country, child care is now the single largest expense, even more than housing, yet very little meaningful policy work has been done in this area,” he said in September. His proposal would allow parents earning less than $250, 000 individually or $500, 000 jointly to deduct the average cost of child and elder care from their income taxes. In a nod to social conservatives, he said parents who stayed home with children would also get the child care tax deduction. “The idea here is letting the family choose how the money is spent,” said Bradford Wilcox, director of the national marriage project at the University of Virginia. For families, Mr. Trump proposed child care spending rebates as part of the tax credit. He also said he would make pretax dependent care savings accounts available to everyone, not just people whose employers offer them, and give tax deductions to employers that offer child care. Democrats have favored refundable tax credits over deductions because they say they are more helpful to families, who might not make enough to pay income taxes. Also, credits directly reduce someone’s tax bill, while deductions reduce taxable income but not necessarily the final bill. Democrats see the ultimate goal as universal care for young children. There seems to be bipartisan support for a small step in that direction. “What we’ve got there is a tremendous amount of support from women — Democrats, Republicans, independents — to move forward,” said Representative Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee. Mr. Trump has pledged to create 25 million jobs over the next decade. Analysts and policy makers on both sides of the aisle say one route toward that goal is apprenticeships. They are viewed as a way for people to acquire vocational skills while earning money, as opposed to attending college and building up debt. Not only would they address unemployment among people without college degrees, advocates say, but they could also lead to more stable families. The unemployment of men has been a prime reason for the decline in marriage and rise in single motherhood, researchers have found. When job opportunities are plentiful, people are more likely to marry before having their first child, Andrew Cherlin, a professor of public policy at Johns Hopkins, found in a study published in August in the American Sociological Review. “It’s likely if we can improve the job picture for young adults, they’d have family lives that are more stable,” he said. The construction industry already uses apprentices, so perhaps Mr. Trump is familiar with their benefits, said Robert I. Lerman, a fellow at the Urban Institute. They would be possible in a range of industries, like health care and information technology, he said, and in jobs like hotel management. They could also be useful in putting people to work building the new infrastructure that Mr. Trump has promised. “People want to have earnings, they want to have dignity, they want to show that they’ve been able to master a certain profession, and that gives them a kind of identity,” Mr. Lerman said. “It has both a social as well as an economic dimension. ” Though the idea has received bipartisan support, some Republicans have resisted registered apprenticeships, which are overseen by the Labor Department, because of their association with unions. Some Democrats have questioned whether apprenticeships lead to a wage system, and have focused instead on making college accessible to more people. Policy makers and researchers have a long list of other policy ideas for Mr. Trump that they believe could help families. Some have historically appealed to Republicans, like those that encourage marriage. Others, like mandating predictable work schedules for hourly workers, have been promoted by Democrats. With both parties fighting even more for the allegiance of the working class, there actually might be some movement on some or all of these issues. | 1 |
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