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link originally posted by: Kashai Hyperloop one is a about a transportation system that is really fast and technologically feasible to the extent that in relation to investors, easily Is on the fast tract to half a billion from investors in the not to distant future. Despite announcing a $50 million investment in mid-October, Hyperloop One plans to raise as much as $250 million in its next funding round early next year and is already seeking tens of millions in new financing, according to an investment document obtained by Forbes. Meanwhile, according to another company document, internal estimates of the cost of Hyperloop One projects could greatly exceed predictions from the concept’s architect, billionaire tech industrialist Elon Musk. www.msn.com... li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp As offered in this link by 2021 we will be carrying freight and passengers with this technology. In so far as what this technology is.... Levitation Rig The Hyperloop Levitation Rig is another unique test stand designed, fabricated and built by the Hyperloop team. This test stand is housed in an 18 cubic meter environmental chamber that is capable of achieving pressures down to 1/1000 of atmospheric. The rotor achieves surface speeds in excess of 300 m/s. These speeds are necessary to simulate Hyperloop’s cutting edge levitation systems that will be adapted for use on the Hyperpod. hyperloop-one.com... Intro The first several pages will attempt to describe the design in everyday language, keeping numbers to a minimum and avoiding formulas and jargon. I apologize in advance for my loose use of language and imperfect analogies. The second section is for those with a technical background. There are no doubt errors of various kinds and superior optimizations for elements of the system. Feedback would be most welcome – please send to [email protected] or [email protected]. I would like to thank my excellent compadres at both companies for their help in putting this together.PDF Now I am not an Engineer but clearly this seems a step forward in transportation technology. I have seen a couple YouTube vids debunking this.. Or at least pointing out how hard it will be to actually pull it off..and it not kill every one at the slightest mishap... Kinda like ethenol, it might be a red herring of sorts.. That said ANY time you try and create new tech some good comes out of it. Every mistake could invent something you weren't even trying for... Take NASA for example..EVERY single day we use some plastic or polymer that didn't work for space, but made a really good pencil eraser.. Money is fake...just some BS we tell ourselves. Labor, materials and KNOW how are all that matter. So IMHO reguardless or cost invention wins. | 0 |
Multiple polls show that the GOP’s Ryancare healthcare plan is even more unpopular than the perpetually unpopular Obamacare plan or the Democrats’ 1993 “Hillarycare” plan, says FiveThirtyEight. com, which analyses polls, surveys, and data. [The GOP overhaul “is much more disliked than the ACA [Obamacare] and [President Bill] Clinton’s health care reform bill were when they were first introduced,” the site reported. March 23. “Across nine surveys, the [American Health Care Act] has garnered an average of just 32 percent in favor compared with 45 percent opposed. ” Clinton’s 1993 healthcare plan was dubbed “Hillarycare” by GOP opponents because first lady Hillary Clinton played a central role in designing the doomed proposal for a healthcare network. Opponents are also more enthusiastically opposed to Ryancare than its supporters are supportive, says the site, adding: enthusiasm is on the side of those against change — just as it was in 1993 and 2009. In the most recent Fox News poll, only 17 percent of Americans strongly favored the AHCA … Forty percent strongly opposed it. SurveyMonkey and YouGov polls show comparable splits. These numbers look a lot like an NPR poll from late July 2009, in which only 25 percent of Americans were strongly in favor of Obama’s health care bill and 39 percent were strongly against it … Even in early November 1993, a Wirthlin Group survey found that those strongly opposed (27 percent) [to Hillarycare] outnumbered those who were strongly in favor (21 percent). The new report was backed up by a Quinnipiac poll released March 23, which showed that swing voters and GOP supporters dislike the bill, which was drafted under the supervision of House Speaker Paul Ryan. : Whites a college degree (Trump’s base) oppose AHCA by 26 points. https: . pic. twitter. — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 23, 2017, Read it all here. | 1 |
TEHRAN — With Iran calibrating how to deal with President Trump, its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, caustically thanked the new American leader on Tuesday for revealing “the true face” of the United States. “We are thankful to this newcomer,” Ayatollah Khamenei told Iranian Air Force commanders, according to a report posted on his official website. Iranian officials had been showing caution since Mr. Trump took office last month. Despite expressing anger at his policies and comments, even have taken care not to provoke the new American president. But on Tuesday, it became seemingly apparent to Iran’s leaders that Mr. Trump is not easily ignored. After Ayatollah Khamenei spoke out sarcastically about Mr. Trump, others expressed worries. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said in an interview with a local newspaper that he expected “difficult times ahead” for Iran, now that Mr. Trump was in charge. Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, defended the nuclear agreement between his country and six world powers, including the United States, by saying that the deal was “ ” for all. But Mr. Trump — who has described the nuclear agreement as “really, really bad” but has not made any moves to alter it — disparaged Iran again on Twitter, this time in a defense against criticism that he is too close to Russia and its leader, President Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Trump wondered how President Barack Obama could have made a nuclear agreement with Iran, a country Mr. Trump described as “#1 in terror. ” Mr. Trump seemed to be summarizing comments by his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who on Sunday called Iran the “biggest sponsor of state terrorism. ” Many Iranians have expressed astonishment and ridicule at such assertions, pointing to terrorist groups that despise Iran and the West. First Al Qaeda, responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and more recently the Islamic State, which has been killing thousands in the Middle East and is responsible for committing and inspiring attacks in Europe and the United States. “Trump is trying to corner Iran, to make us bow before the U. S. and change our behavior, or face confrontation,” said Nader Karimi Joni, a political activist close to Mr. Rouhani’s government. Mr. Trump included Iran on a list of seven predominantly Muslim countries whose citizens have been barred from entering the United States under an executive order that has been blocked, for now, in the American court system. Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, warned Tehran last week that it had been put “on notice” after an Iranian missile test. Washington imposed new economic sanctions on 25 people and entities after the missile launch, which Mr. Flynn said had violated a 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution approved after the United States and other world powers reached an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. Iran has asserted that its missile tests do not violate that resolution and fall within its rights to . In another possible move against Iran, Mr. Trump’s advisers are debating an order intended to designate its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, according to current and former officials in the United States briefed on the deliberations. For Ayatollah Khamenei, Mr. Trump’s ascent appears to have vindicated many suspicions harbored by the Iranian leader, who has said many times that the United States cannot be trusted. “He has proven what we have been saying for more than 30 years — we would always speak about the political, economic, moral and social corruption in the U. S. administration — this man revealed it during the election campaign and since then,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to a translated text of the speech. Hamidreza Taraghi, a political analyst close to Iran’s leaders, said Mr. Trump’s “threatening and ranting” style reflected a miscalculation of Iran’s power. “He will soon realize Iran will not be intimidated,” Mr. Taraghi said. The history of animosity between both countries is long and deep. Several American administrations, including Mr. Obama’s, have argued for years that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, because of its support for the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which the United States regards as terrorist organizations. Iran has also been held responsible by the United States for several terror attacks, most decades ago. One of them, of course, was the seizure of 54 members of the American Embassy staff in Tehran for 444 days during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Iran also has been accused of involvement in a 1983 bomb attack at a Marines barracks in Lebanon, where 241 service personnel died. In 2003, a federal judge ruled that Hezbollah carried out the attack at the behest of Iran. Several judges have ordered Iran to pay billions of dollars in damages. Iran denies the accusations. Iran has pressed several claims against the United States. Iran holds the United States responsible for having supported Saddam Hussein with intelligence, funds and weapons after he attacked Iran in 1980, dragging both countries into a war where thousands of Iranians and Iraqis died. In 1988, an American naval vessel, the Vincennes, shot down an Iran Air commercial plane, flying over the Persian Gulf to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. All 290 people aboard died. Iran called the attack deliberate and the United States called it a mistake. Under a settlement at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the United States offered no apologies and was ordered to pay around $60 million in damages to families of the victims. Some of Mr. Trump’s top aides apparently view Iran and its clerical leaders as a leading source of evil. During his inaugural speech, Mr. Trump vowed to “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the Earth. ” At the time, many thought he meant the Islamic State, but in books and speeches both Mr. Flynn and Mr. Mattis said Iran was radically Islamic and described the country as the biggest threat to peace in the Middle East. In a Twitter post on Friday, Mr. Trump said: “Iran is playing with fire — they don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!” Ayatollah Khamenei responded to Mr. Trump’s Friday posting in biting fashion with his own remarks on Twitter. “Iran should’ve appreciated Obama!” he wrote, adding, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State: “How come? Appreciate him for #DAESH, war in Iraq Syria or public support for 2009 unrest?” In a post, he said that Iranians would hold a rally on Friday, the 38th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, to show “their position toward threats. ” | 1 |
Home › POLITICS | US NEWS › ERICA GARNER BLASTS CLINTON CAMPAIGN OVER DISCUSSIONS STAFFERS HAD ABOUT HER FATHER’S DEATH IN WIKILEAKS EMAILS ERICA GARNER BLASTS CLINTON CAMPAIGN OVER DISCUSSIONS STAFFERS HAD ABOUT HER FATHER’S DEATH IN WIKILEAKS EMAILS 0 SHARES
[10/27/16] Erica Garner, the daughter of police chokehold victim Eric Garner, ripped the Hillary Clinton campaign in a series of tweets Thursday after new campaign emails released by WikiLeaks showed how the Democratic nominee’s staffers discussed the death of her father.
“I’m troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed ‘using’ Eric Garner … Why would you want to ‘use my dad?” Garner tweeted along with a link to emails released by WikiLeaks. “These people will co opt anything to push their agenda. Police violence is not the same as gun violence.
“I’m vey (sic) interested to know exactly what @CoreyCiorciari meant when he said ‘I know we have an Erica Garner problem’ in the #PodestaEmails19,” added Garner.
Garner also tweeted links to hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta released this week by WikiLeaks that show internal communications among top Clinton staffers about how to best word an editorial piece on gun violence that was slated to run in the New York Daily News. Post navigation | 0 |
[ link to www.zerohedge.com ] 1Kings 18:27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.Luke 1:19-20 19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.20 And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. Page 1 | 0 |
Wednesday on “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN during a discussion about President Donald Trump’s apparent errant tweet that had “covfefe” instead of the word coverage. However, during that segment in which network chief political analyst Gloria Borger was critical of Trump, CNN’s chyron had Borger identified as “CNN cheif political analyst. ” Partial transcript as follows: COOPER: Gloria, I mean a lot of people have been enjoying certainly all day on this year. You were reporting yesterday it was interesting though that Pres. Trump based on sources you talked to people who talked to the president say that he’s just kind of angry, not trusting people around him, not happy with much of anyone around him. Does this tweet figure into that the? GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it kind of does, Anderson. I mean imagine him home alone at the White House, it’s a midnight, and he’s tweeting about his negative press coverage. And, clearly, he’s something that he is obsessing about constantly, and even at midnight, and he is — and then, I don’t know why he ended the tweet with covfefe, but he gave up essentially. But you can imagine him being alone and mad and feeling as nobody to talk to when he has to do his own press. And so he started but then he stopped in the middle of it. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
0 комментариев 0 поделились Действительный член РАН, директор Мурманского морского биологического института, председатель Южного научного центра РАН Геннадий Матишов
— Геннадий Григорьевич, в ы регулярно участвуете в заседаниях международной целевой группы Арктического с овета (АС) по вопросам морского сотрудничества в Арктике. Недавно вернулись из США, где в Портленде участвовали в очередном заседании г руппы. Что можно сказать о его итогах?
— На это заседание собрались представители министерств и ведомств Дании, Исландии, Канады, Норвегии, США, Финляндии, Швеции, организаций коренных народов Арктики (саами, алеуты, инуиты), программ ООН, Всемирного фонда дикой природы и др. Участвовала и российская делегация под председательством МИДа РФ. Стоит подчеркнуть, что заседания группы — это не научные мероприятия. Однако все решения и комментарии подкрепляются научно-обоснованными выводами, согласованными с научной общественностью стран-участниц АС.
Из мероприятия в Портленде можно сделать однозначный вывод — Арктика едина. Вновь признано, что границы морских экосистем не обязательно совпадают с границами национальной юрисдикции, отдельных государств. Во главу угла положен именно экосистемный подход, а это подразумевает скоординированный подход к управлению морскими районами Арктики, в том числе за пределами национальной юрисдикции. Именно поэтому за столом совета и его групп собрались не только ученые, но и шефы министерств стран-участниц. Не раз отмечалось, что уровень такого представительства необходимо повышать.
Ясно, что выработка согласованных решений — очень сложное дело. Ведь никто на заседании не отрицал того факта, что прибрежные государства Северного Ледовитого океана обладают суверенными правами над своими участками континентального шельфа. Что арктическое региональное сотрудничество должно вестись так, чтобы не ограничивать указанных прав. Повторю, что интересы нашей страны в Портленде помогал отстаивать представитель российского МИДа.
Данные обсуждения, как и предшествующие им в Рейкьявике в июне этого года, велись отчасти в контексте работы подготовительного комитета ООН. Там разрабатывается международный юридически обязывающий инструмент (в рамках конвенции ООН по морскому праву) для сохранения и рационального использования морского биологического разнообразия районов, находящихся за пределами национальной юрисдикции. Возможно, в перспективе появятся особо охраняемые морские акватории, в том числе в районе открытого моря в центральной части Северного Ледовитого океана.
В то же время я считаю, что роль науки в освоении Севера в нашей стране все еще принижена. Уверен, что необходимо инициировать в Российской академии наук отдельную федеральную программу по Арктике и Антарктике. Она должна объединить усилия различных федеральных министерств — транспорта, природных ресурсов и т. д. Программа могла бы способствовать выполнению долгосрочных научно-исследовательских работ в высоких широтах, решению социально-экономических задач.
— В этом году в Университете Тромсё (Норвегия) прошла уже X международная научная конференция "Арктические границы — 2016", в ы там выступили с докладом. Что в нем было главное?
— Доклад был посвящен радиоэкологическим исследованиям в Арктике Мурманского морского биологического института РАН и Южного научного центра РАН. Я рассказал о наших многолетних исследованиях в сфере атомной безопасности в Баренцевом регионе. Они проводились, в частности, в рамках финско-российско-норвежского проекта по охране окружающей среды и радиационным исследованиям Европейской Арктики. Вот лишь некоторые выводы.
Так, ученые сравнили существующий уровень содержания искусственных радионуклидов в почвах, дикорастущих грибах и ягодах с аналогичными данными предыдущих лет. Вывод однозначен: на всей территории Евро-Арктического региона наблюдается устойчивое снижение радиоактивного загрязнения всех элементов наземных экосистем. С точки зрения радиационной гигиены употребление в пищу "продуктов леса", собранных в северных районах России, Финляндии и Норвегии, абсолютно безопасно.
Что касается Баренцева моря, то анализ многолетней динамики радиоактивного загрязнения воды, донных отложений и биоты показал: по сравнению с 1960-ми годами активность искусственных радионуклидов многократно снизилась и достигла минимальных значений, возможных в "ядерную эпоху". Сыграли свою роль естественные океанологические процессы и радиоактивный распад.
— Есть ли перспективы совместных исследований по Шпицбергену?
— В принципе, да. Есть шанс дополнительного финансирования в рамках российско-норвежского сотрудничества от Научно-исследовательского совета Норвегии и РФФИ, возможно, минобрнауки РФ. Заявок на такие проекты традиционно не очень много, поддерживаются в итоге три-четыре проекта. Причем есть условие — должно быть привлечено финансирование со стороны бизнеса в размере 35 процентов.
Мы рассматриваем возможность своего участия в таких проектах. Они могут быть в области аквакультуры — по выращиванию трески, других видов рыб. Прибавьте такие аспекты, как разработка рецептуры кормов, паразитологические исследования и др. Актуальны исследования по снижению смертности на этапе перехода от личинок к молоди.
Возможно, стартует совместный проект по губам арктических архипелагов — Шпицбергена и Новой Земли. Есть и другие планы.
— На юг России все чаще приезжают различные китайские бизнесделегации. Каковы общие точки соприкосновения между учеными наших стран?
— Многого мы ждем и от сотрудничества с китайскими коллегами. Контакты установили с Университетом города Ланьчжоу, где взялись за изучение одного из самых распространенных видов почв — лёссов — Евразии. Наши партнеры интересуются также климатом в глобальном масштабе.
Скажете, какая тут связь — почвы и климат? Самая прямая. Есть параллели между изменениями климата и палеопочв. Изучая, какими были почвы в различные геологические эпохи, как они менялись, можно понять, каким был тогда климат. Это своего рода климатическая "археология". Правда чтобы продвинуться в ней, одной теории недостаточно — необходима программа бурения почв. Возможно, она появится в рамках российско-китайского проекта по сравнению осадочных хребтов в океане и на суше. Надеемся на поддержку РФФИ и Фонда научных исследований Китая.
Мы также обсуждаем с китайскими коллегами еще один проект — по разработке подходов к комплексному управлению водными ресурсами и землепользованием в условиях маловодья и динамики климата. География проекта — это наши Приазовье и Нижний Дон, а также Тибетское нагорье и бассейн реки Амур на территории КНР.
Возможно, в будущем году мы возьмемся за новую научно-исследовательскую программу по изучению ландшафтно-климатических изменений вдоль Великого шелкового пути. Имеется в виду его северная ветка, которая может протянуться от берега Каспия через систему Маныч-Чограй до Азово-Черноморья. В работе смогут участвовать и ученые из Казахстана, Азербайджана и Туркмении. Такая программа полезна для развития сотрудничества стран в рамках стран БРИКС.
Беседовала и подготовила к публикации Вероника Белоцерковская
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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Venus Williams’s ability to get around a tennis court quickly is well known. She is and nearly can get from one side to the other in a single . Less known is her speed in taking meetings. Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Ms. Williams hit nearly every department of her fashion and interior design companies in about an hour and a half. It was a few days after she had returned from Rio de Janeiro, where she won a silver medal in mixed doubles tennis, and one day before she was to leave for New York for the United States Open, which begins Aug. 29. In the morning, she had practiced for two hours in the sweltering sun of South Florida in summer, run home for a shower and then come to the office with Harry, her Havanese, in tow. Dressed in a hot pink tank top, heather gray capri yoga pants and hot pink sneakers, she hovered over a couch on which a panoply of tennis clothes had been draped: tennis dresses with a bright geometric pattern skirts in the same pattern blue tank tops visors headbands a fuchsia hoodie. “I have been waiting to wear this dress, it is such a fun dress to wear,” she said as she decided on one of the graphic dresses, the flagship piece of the new Prism collection, which she will debut next week on her own sort of New York runway, a tennis court in Queens. The agenda for this gathering was “scripting,” in which an athlete chooses which outfits she will wear for tournament play. “What about this?” asked her marketing director, Marlon LeWinter, pointing to a blue sleeveless top. “If it’s daytime,” Ms. Williams answered, “I may want something else because that color can actually attract a lot of heat. ” To all of her matches at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, in fact to all of her matches everywhere, Ms. Williams, 36, wears EleVen by Venus Williams, her fitness and athleisure clothing line. At the Olympics, she wore a Wonder dress of her own design, and had red strands woven into her braids (“my Olympic hair,” she called it). As she sifted through the Prism options, she was rethinking her braids. “The big question is what hair color now,” she said as she pointed to splashes of blue and magenta in the dress’s pattern. She quickly dismissed a suggestion that she braid in strands of all the colors. “Too schizophrenic,” she said. “I’m liking the orange. ” Next meeting. Ms. Williams became a professional tennis player in 1994, when she was 14 years old, and quickly emerged onto the national tennis scene. She has won seven Grand Slam singles events and 14 more in women’s doubles, playing alongside her sister Serena, 34. Venus has won five Wimbledon singles titles. In 2002, she became the first woman to earn the world’s top ranking in tennis since the onset of the open era in the late 1960s. By 2011, though, her tennis career had been slowed by illness and injury. She announced she was suffering from Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that results in joint pain and sometimes crushing fatigue, among other symptoms, and withdrew from the second round of the United States Open. But she has regained momentum. She reached the semifinals in women’s singles at Wimbledon this summer and won doubles with her sister. Venus is once again in the top 10, ranked sixth in the world (Serena is ranked No. 1) and is seeded sixth at the United States Open. “I never would have predicted I would have played this long, apparently you can play this long I am learning,” she said with a laugh. “At some point it’s got to end and it will be an extremely sad day. ” But not yet. Even when she doesn’t win, she (and her sister) still garner plenty of attention. Though Venus lost in the first round of singles at the Olympics — she spiked a fever of 103 degrees the night before the match — her record became one of the biggest stories to come out of the tennis portion of the Games when a British broadcaster congratulated Andy Murray on being the first tennis player to win two gold medals. Mr. Murray corrected him, replying, “Venus and Serena have won four each. ” “People have been talking about this a lot,” Venus said when asked about this. “Kudos to Andy Murray. ” She trains every day, playing a few hours of tennis and then hitting the gym for plyometrics or other programs. She tries to take a day off, here and there. She takes November off altogether, no workouts at all, except for the dance classes that she began to take regularly once she and Serena added a dance competition to their annual Williams Invitational reunion. Venus attributes her confidence as a designer to her sister. When Venus started out, her first collection was too conservative, she said, and had to be scrapped. “The real EleVen started to emerge after,” she said. “I designed a dress and I asked Serena what she thought. She said, ‘Oh my god, I love it!’ That’s when my shoulders went up and I started feeling confident. Because you know sisters, they’re always honest. ” About 10 years ago, she began to build a foundation for life off the tennis court by studying fashion and interior design, and business. In deciding on an undergraduate program focused on business administration, Ms. Williams contacted David Frantz, a professor of management at Indiana University East. “When she called up I thought it was one of my friends playing a practical joke,” said Professor Frantz, who became Ms. Williams’s adviser. “She was an excellent student. ” She graduated with a bachelor of science degree in business administration in August 2015. She said she is now studying for a master’s degree in interior architecture. All the coursework has fed into her two main businesses. EleVen, a company, is undergoing a serious reboot since Ms. Williams hired two seasoned retail executives last year to help her centralize and take charge of operations. With a focus on getting the tennis skirts, yoga pants and lesiurewear into more boutiques and starting to leverage Ms. Williams’s international popularity, sales volume has increased by three times, according to Ilana Rosen, EleVen’s chief operating officer and Ms. Williams’s close professional confidante. Also operating from the same space is Ms. Williams’s V*Starr Interiors, a design firm with seven employees, and clients ranging from tennis clubs to luxury residential developers. The two companies sometimes collaborate. V*Starr designed the hangout space adjacent to a rooftop tennis court in the Hamptons and covered in EleVen fabric. Steven Schwartz, the chief executive officer of the Midtown Athletic Club chain, recently met with Ms. Williams and Ms. Rosen. He has decided to both carry the EleVen line and to hire V*Starr to help design the tennis lounge and some hotel suites at its flagship club in Chicago, which is under renovation. “She wins Wimbledon doubles on Saturday afternoon and she comes to Chicago on Tuesday,” Mr. Schwartz said. “We met with her all afternoon. Athletic ability fades, and she is smart enough to know this, and she is humble enough to work with. ” At the office, she showed easy camaraderie with her employees. “Everyone here is in their lane, but they’re expected to speed,” she said. Ms. Williams sketches the EleVen designs herself on vellum paper she worked on her most recent batch in Paris, while playing in the French Open. Sipping a green juice (she drinks so much water on the court that she avoids it elsewhere) she sat on a swivel chair as V*Starr designers filled her in on current projects. Sonya Haffey, the company design director, explained that they were almost finished with a proposal being sent to a Miami hotel developer. Ms. Haffey was concerned about some of the constraints imposed by the potential client. “The art needs come in under $130 per piece,” she said, with an accessories budget of $200 an item. Ms. Williams leaned back. “Well,” she said, “let’s find the best lamps we can for $200. ” She turned her chair to look at a floor plan for a space they were designing for a luxury multifamily building. Since she had last seen the plans, the client had asked the V*Starr team for alterations. “I am still brokenhearted over the changes,” Ms. Williams said. “I guess I need to move on. ” Then she did, calling out a question to a woman sitting a few desks away. “Lorena, you started class yet? You need to teach me AutoCAD,” she said, referring to a computer software application for design and architecture. Lorena Baldridge is an intern who has been at V*Starr for two months. Ms. Williams eventually headed back into the warehouse space from where the orders of EleVen activewear are shipped to online customers and the boutiques, spas and fitness clubs that carry it. The inventory had been reorganized to make room for incoming shipments of the Prism collection. She climbed ladders and rooted through bins looking for certain pieces to pack into a box. She likes occasionally to tuck handwritten notes into packages going off to unsuspecting customers. “I pitch in, every little bit helps, though I think they secretly check the boxes I pack to make sure I didn’t screw anything up,” she said. Ms. Williams’s main office is still the tennis court. On Tuesday, she arrived for practice at her preferred court at BallenIsles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. a little later than she had planned. She was running a fever the night before. Today’s practice, she said, would be modified. Instead of cardio baseline drills, there would be drills. And she would forgo her workout. “I usually just power through,” she said. “I’m trying to make better choices. ” To help combat the effect of Sjogren’s syndrome, she pays close attention to her diet. She is “chegan,” as she put it, a vegan who sometimes cheats. (“I like butter,” she said.) When Serena told her she was cutting out sugar, Venus followed suit. “It’s working very well for helping with energy,” she said. “I’m on Day 58. I have a little app and it keeps track. ” For the United States Open, particularly, she needs to maintain her energy. “The U. S. Open is very New York,” she said. “It is intense, you have to fight. Just getting is an effort. ” She arrived for the practice session with her hitting partner, Jermaine Jenkins. He lives in Orlando, Fla. but had come to town to help her practice after Rio and before the year’s final major. He has been hitting with her the past year, since they met the year before at the French Open. Also joining was her assistant of six weeks, Zebe Haupt. His mother is friends with Venus’s mother. This is how things work in her life: Her network springs from her family. On her court, she and Mr. Jenkins worked on her backhand. She thwacked the ball and unleashed a signature grunt. “Let me try that again,” she called out to him. He fed her another and another. Harry puttered around on the adjacent court, which is where Serena usually practices. He will travel with her to New York but was unable to go to Rio. “I couldn’t get an Olympic pass for him,” Ms. Williams said. On a water break, she tipped her head toward a couple practicing several courts away. “I need to congratulate her, I haven’t seen her since they got married,” she said, and remarked that similar fitness interests are good for family ties. “Look at us,” she said, “Serena and I are still playing doubles. ” Read More: Venus Williams Gave Me a Tennis Lesson Serena is a huge part of Venus’s life even in her absence, that is obvious. When you ask Venus a question about her life or tennis, she often answers using the pronoun “we. ” (Are her parents proud of her? “I think they’re proud because we are good daughters,” Venus said.) They have played against each other in the finals of eight Grand Slam events Serena has beaten Venus six times. Venus seems prepared for the inevitable questions about sibling rivalry. “You probably want to win because you’re the older sister and the younger sister wants to win because she’s the younger sister. We don’t talk about it much,” she said, later adding, “Losing is no fun no matter who you lose to. Beating her is not as exciting as beating someone else. I care. I care if she wins or doesn’t. ” As she has gotten older, she has become more nervous watching Serena play. “It’s hard for me to watch her matches,” she said. Venus becomes animated when she talks about Serena. It’s endearing. “When you’re a big sister,” she said, “it’s a great job. I don’t know how little sisters feel about their job, but when you’re a big sister, you’re supposed to take care of everything. And you feel good about it, I do. ” Perhaps this has informed Venus’s role advocating fair treatment of women tennis players. She began arguing for pay equity in prize money as far back as 1998, when she was 18, and then more famously took the case to a Grand Slam committee in a boardroom at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in 2005, the day before she would win at Wimbledon. She was the subject of a documentary, “Venus Vs. ” made by Ava DuVernay, the trailblazing filmmaker whom Disney selected to direct “A Wrinkle in Time. ” More recently, at Wimbledon this year, she spoke out for fair court assignments for women, after playing a match on one of the club’s courts. Munching on kale chips in the EleVen conference room last Tuesday, Ms. Williams said her goal is to point out realities to people who may not be fully aware of them, and to give them a chance to do the right thing. “I don’t think anyone wants to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m ’ they don’t see themselves that way and you can’t treat them that way,” she said. “But you have to tell the truth. It’s important to be respectful of the things that have been accomplished but also to acknowledge what hasn’t been accomplished yet. ” Even she realizes she is taking on a lot, but she seems happy, incapable of idleness. “I need that pressure in my life,” she said. She carries with her a that tries to anticipate the next shot, the next point, the next set. “I have always said that after sport, I wanted a life, I wanted an opportunity, I wanted to be able to do something,” she said. “And if something happens — the economy falls out or the dollar is worthless, anything could happen — you have to be ready to work. And I’m ready. ” | 1 |
filmmaker Michael Moore has launched a new secure website where whistleblowers can leak and share information from inside President Donald Trump’s administration. [Moore’s website “Trumpileaks” allows whistleblowers to post leaked information via encrypted messaging apps, like Single, Whatsapp and Peerio, and even gives detailed instructions on how to send digital communications. In an open letter on the site, the director says leaking administration documents and information may be “dangerous” and “may get us in trouble” but “it’s our patriotic duty” to “blow the whistle in the name of protecting the United States of America from tyranny. ” “Today, I’m launching TrumpiLeaks, a site that will enable courageous whistleblowers to privately communicate with me and my team,” the wrote, citing the historical significance of the 1778 whistleblower protection law. “Patriotic Americans in government, law enforcement or the private sector with knowledge of crimes, breaches of public trust and misconduct committed by Donald J. Trump and his associates are needed to blow the whistle in the name of protecting the United States of America from tyranny. ” “We’ve put together several tools you can use to securely send information and documents as well as photographs, video audio recordings” Moore’s message says. “While no form of digital communication is 100 percent secure, the tools we’re using at TrumpiLeaks provide the most secure technology possible to protect your anonymity (and if you don’t require anonymity, you can just email me here). ” The launch of Trumpileaks comes amid reports that the Justice Department has charged contractor Reality Leigh Winner for allegedly leaking a National Security Agency report on Russian Election hacking to news site The Intercept. In March, Moore called on Democratic lawmakers to declare a “national emergency” until the FBI could complete its probe into alleged connections between President Trump, his campaign staff. and the Russian government. “The Democratic Party needs to declare a National Emergency,” Moore wrote on his Instagram. “For the first time in our history, the President of the United States and his staff are under investigation for espionage. This announcement, by the head of the FBI, is a shock to our democracy. ” Last month, the Marley and Me director announced plans to bring an original play to Broadway. Michael Moore (@MMFlint) unveils Broadway play, including excursions to Trump Tower https: . pic. twitter. — Ashley Lee (@cashleelee) May 1, 2017, The new whistleblower website and his satirical Trump Broadway show are all part of Moore’s “ strategy” to remove Trump from office, which include: “1. Mass Citizen Action 2. Take Him To Court Nonstop 3. YOU Run for Office 4. An Army of Satire. ” 1. Mass Citizen Action. 2. Take Him to Court Nonstop. 3. You Run for Office in 2018. 4. An Army of Satire Will Defeat Them All. #ourplan, — Michael Moore (@MMFlint) May 21, 2017, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
A Florida man who admitted that he had burned a mosque attended by Omar Mateen, the gunman behind the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Fla. last year, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. The man, Joseph Schreiber, 32, pleaded no contest — effectively a guilty plea — during a hearing on Monday in St. Lucie County. Mr. Schreiber, who had a previous criminal record and who had posted views on social media, told detectives he set fire to the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which in 2016 also fell on Eid an important Muslim holiday, Assistant State Attorney Steve Gosnell said. The mosque was so badly damaged — photos published online show a gaping hole in the roof and an interior burned to a crisp — that it is expected to be relocated. The mosque, about an hour’s drive north of Palm Beach, was occasionally attended by Mr. Mateen, the Islamic State supporter who shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 others on June 12 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Mr. Mateen was killed by police officers responding to the mass shooting. Before Mr. Schreiber was sentenced, he read aloud a lengthy statement in which he said the arson had been driven by anxiety, not hate. Florida, he said, could be targeted in another terrorist attack. “My message is this to all the Muslim communities on the face of the Earth: Make peace with America and make peace with Israel and stop the killings, stop the attacks,” he said. Mr. Gosnell, the prosecutor in the case, said Mr. Schreiber had told detectives that he believed Muslims were “trying to infiltrate our government” and that “the teaching of Islam should be completely illegal. ” Mr. Schreiber’s sentence was based on his previous criminal record and on arson evidencing prejudice, essentially a hate crime in Florida, the prosecutor said. The Sunni mosque is central to Islamic life in Fort Pierce, but it has drawn scrutiny in recent years as a place of worship for young men who staged terror attacks. In addition to the connection with Mr. Mateen, the Islamic Center had been a frequent stop for Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who carried out a suicide bombing in 2014 in Syria. The F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, said the men had known each other casually. | 1 |
Hillary Clinton emails recently discovered on Anthony Weiner’s computer revealed, among other things, that as secretary of state, she helped Clinton Foundation donors. [Clinton aide and Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin connected State Department officials to a Russian cultural organization, per a request by Clinton Foundation donor, Eddie Trump (no relation to President Trump). According to a May 10, 2010, email obtained and published by Judicial Watch, Abedin told Doug Band, a Bill Clinton aide who formerly headed the foundation, that she “hooked up” people who recommended Trump to the “right people” at the State Department. Trump had apparently recommended that Abedin connect Russian American Foundation Vice President Rina Kirshner with people at the State Department. Abedin wrote to Kirshner on Mon, May 10, 2010, at 9:41 PM, “Hi Rina — wanted to connect on meeting at state department. Eddie trump passed on your email. Will be in touch soon. ” Two days later, Kirshner wrote to Abedin, thanking her and telling her that a State Department official had invited her to be part of a “ Cultural Group” the next week: From: Rina Kirshner, Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 11:29 AM, To: Huma Abedin, Subject: Re: Eddie Band, Ms. Abedin, Just wanted to follow up and express our gratitude. I was contacted today by Ms. Christina Miner who invited us to be part of the Cultural Group meeting next week. Thank you very much for all your assistance — if there is any way we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Rina Kirshner, Abedin then forwarded that email to Band, writing, “We hooked her up with the right people here”: From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail. com] Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 12:19:12, To: Doug Band, Subject: FW: Eddie Band, fyi — we hooked her up with the right people here, According to Judicial Watch, the Russia American Foundation was staffed by Clinton political supporters and operatives, received more than $260, 000 in grants for “public diplomacy” from the Clinton State Department, and its leadership was supportive of former President Barack Obama’s Russia policies. Another email, two days later, showed that Abedin forwarded Trump’s name and information for inclusion on the guest list for a State dinner, even though he missed the time to RSVP, and only spouses, not guests, were allowed. “I thought people could bring spouses but not guests. But ill [sic] send,” Abedin wrote. | 1 |
Posted on October 27, 2016 by Tim Brown
Well, leave it to the Democrats in Nevada to do something like this. Not only are they engaged in illegal acts concerning voter registration , but now they have ruined the good name of Cliven Bundy by sending out 700,000 mailers to households throughout Nevada and contaminating the jury pool, which has led the defense to call on the court to “change the venue” so that Bundy might receive a fair trial.
The flyer reads, “This man’s armed standoff led to the deaths of two Las Vegas Police Officers and he’s supported by Congressman Hardy.” It also contains Cliven Bundy’s name and mug shot in front of a row of prison cells. This was also paid for by the Nevada State Democratic Party.
Attorney for journalist Pete Santilli , Chris Rasmussen, joined with Nevada’s public defenders in a motion to compel the court for a “change of venue.” Rasmussen received one of the flyers and entered it into evidence with the court claiming that Bundy would not receive a fair trial due to the obvious propaganda sent out by the State of Nevada.
This story about tying the Bundy’s or anyone at Bundy Ranch to Jared and Amanda Miller, the Las Vegas shooters , is bogus. By his own account, Miller was sent home from Bundy Ranch . Here’s Miller’s comment to a YouTube video claiming that very thing.
In fact, the media jumped all over the false narrative that Miller and his wife were tied to the Bundy’s, labeling them right wing extremist terrorists , and attempting to use the propaganda for advancing attacks on the Second Amendment . The media never mentioned the fact that the Millers were involved in the Occupy Movement and it never informed the public that they were Vegas police informants .
What’s worse is that this attempt to smear patriots for standing against the illegal and unconstitutional acts of the DC government and their willing accomplices in the Bureau of Land Management , FBI, and corrupt politicians, both in DC and local, is the fact that this was already dealt with once as Constitutional Sheriff Richard Mack was wrongly connected to the Millers.
Deb Jordan adds , “Las Vegas Metro Police and the Clark County Sheriff’s Department cannot produce any report of violence or destruction of property during the Bundy Civil Rights Protest, except in those instances where the Bureau of Land Management were the perpetrators.”
“Sheriff Douglas Gillespie, the then Sheriff of Clarke County said at the time, there was no direct link to the couple’s killing spree and Cliven Bundy – noting that the two had arrived in Las Vegas in January of 2014 and that they had their own agenda for starting a revolution,” she added. “Gillespie made clear he had seen NO evidence that the Miller’s had come to Nevada seeking out Cliven Bundy.”
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore also took time to call out this injustice .
“This mailer is completely unacceptable she said, and somebody needs to be held accountable for putting this false narrative in Nevada mailboxes,” she said. “Clearly the Bundy’s Civil Rights were being violated by a United States Government – Terrorist Organization – known as the BLM, and we all saw it happening with our own eyes. I was not the only elected official at that protest and what I want to know is, where the hell are they now?”
Fiore also said :
The level of propaganda being allowed by the Democratic Party must come to an end. We have men whose lives are on the line here in Nevada, and poisoning the jury pool with a downright lie must be dealt with. Not only do we have a case here that is already out of balance because it is being overseen by Judge Gloria Navarro, a left winger who was recommended by Harry Reid and appointed by Barack Obama, and Steven Myhre a Liberal Prosecutor who could obviously care less about fairness and truth, now we add to that more unfairness by allowing a left-wing propaganda machine to send out the message, that Cliven Bundy is directly responsible for the death of two of our Metro Police officers.
This case should be awarded a change in venue in the fairness of law, and my peers should stop being cowards and get back to representing the truth about this case.
Cliven Bundy held a peaceful protest on his own property and even though the Federal Government was not invited, they came anyway.
They literally beat up on his family, set trained snipers on hillsides overlooking his ranch, came at them with stun guns and dogs, tried to restrict them to a first amendment area, killed and buried their cattle on public lands – in mass graves, threatened everyone who came to a lawful protest with lethal force, had armed helicopters and drones flying all over the place, and now they honestly want the American people to believe the Bundy’s were the bad guys — come on …
The Government has stacked the odds against these men, and I am telling you right now;
I will not stand by and watch them be railroaded by a bunch of left-wing extremist and sent to prison for crimes they did not commit.
This case should not only be moved out of the State of Nevada, it should be dismissed altogether.
I have no regrets for doing the right thing here when it comes to the Bundy’s — As hard as it is, I would rather lose every single race for office, before I would lose one nights sleep knowing I had betrayed them .”
Fiore is correct. The men in Nevada were more peaceful than the agents who surrounded them. So, what are you going to do America? Will you sit quietly by at your keyboard and rage at the machine, or will you take action?
You can contact the responsible party here: Address : 6233 Dean Martin Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89118 | 0 |
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According to a DNC source, they are rapidly looking for a replacement for the Democratic nominee in the wake of news that the FBI has re-opened its investigation into her private email server while Secretary of State… They are diverting money down to House and Senate races in attempt to hold on to current seats https://t.co/VxF9eKrUI4
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 29, 2016 "The legal people are meeting to see how we can replace her" https://t.co/VxF9eKrUI4 | 0 |
by Yves Smith
By Silvia Merler, an Affiliate Fellow at Bruegel who formerly worked as Economic Analyst in DG Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission. Originally published at Bruegel Tim Duy ’s Fed Watch says that, as expected, the Federal Reserve left policy unchanged this month and the statement itself was largely unchanged as well. The near term inflation outlook improved from September to November, and with the year-over-year impacts of oil prices falling out of the data, headline inflation will track back upwards, which is not a big surprise. With regards to the timing of the next move, Duy argues that the language suggests conditions are moving in the right direction, but the Fed is still waiting for some “further” evidence. A continuation of recent trends will likely be sufficient as the “further” evidence needed to justify a rate hike in December. Would a Trump victory derail a hike in December? Duy does not think this is likely at this juncture, and we should rather be focusing on the labour market. A slowdown in hiring to something closer to 100k a month would probably end the downward pressure on the unemployment rate and raise questions about the Fed’s basic forecast that the unemployment rate will continue to decline in the absence of additional rate hikes. We get two employment reports before the December meeting. For the Fed to stay on the sidelines yet again, we probably need to see both reports come in weak. The bottom line is that the Fed is looking past the election to the December meeting for its second move in this rate hike cycle and probably it would take some unlikely softer numbers to hold them back again. Greg Ip , on the other hand, writes in The Wall Street Journal that Tuesday’s election matters. Typically, the Fed is guided by the economic data and elections are just transitory nuisances with little significance for the outlook. But this is no typical election, as one of the candidates represents a dramatic break with economic orthodoxy – with promises of protectionism and tax cuts but few details. Trump’s election would dramatically raise uncertainty, which is the reason why the stock market has tended to go down when his odds of winning go up. For the Fed, lower stock prices translate into less wealth, which is negative for the outlook in its own right. Additionally, the Fed will assume that uncertainty in the rest of the economy will mirror what happens in the markets. All of this reduces the odds it would actually raise interest rates in December. Ip argues that the Fed can take politics into consideration without being motivated by politics: when political decisions can potentially change the course of the economy, the Fed has to incorporate that into its decisions. Thus, a Trump victory would probably cast enough of a pall over the outlook to give the Fed reason to delay its next rate increase into next year. Ironically, Mr Trump may discover that he, not Mr Obama, is the reason the Fed hasn’t tightened. Richard Clarida , commenting the FOMC statement over at PIMCO’s blog, says that there was little expectation that the Fed would announce a hike in November. The committee members said nothing in their public remarks since the September meeting to suggest that a rate hike was under serious consideration this week. Indeed, the odds of a November hike as priced by the fed funds futures market were only 16%, and for at least the past 20 years the Fed has never moved when the market has priced less than a 50% chance of a move. As for the balance of risks, the language remained in the statement after making its first appearance this year in the September Fed statement. This is relevant because it would be difficult for the Fed to justify a hike if it believed that risks were tilted to the downside, or if the outlook were so uncertain it could not even characterise the risks. Clarida does not think that the Fed is trying to signal that the odds for a December hike have diminished. A year ago, the Fed wanted to boost market odds of a hike when it thought those odds were too low. Going into today – with those odds at 70% – the Fed appeared to be content to make minimal changes to the statement only six days before the US election. Whereas in September 2016 three FOMC members dissented, at this month’s meeting dissenters were only two. So this Fed statement seems aimed at making as few waves as possible: it is a placeholder until the Fed next meets and a rate hike in December continues to be likely, if not a done deal. Natixis’ Philippe Waechter argues that the Fed is ready for December, under the assumption that Clinton wins the election. He argues that the language on inflation is the only noticeable change in the language of this statement as compared to the previous one – together with the remarks on consumption that appears less strong than in September. The Fed wants to recover room for manoeuver in its monetary policy and this is the reason why it is by now ready to accept an increase in the rates. Nevertheless, it is also acting in a context where it needs to signal that it remains vigilant. In an asymmetric approach to monetary policy, the Fed prefers to act too late (at the risk of inflation) than too early (at the risk of a slowdown in economic activity). Tiffany Wilding , again on PIMCO’s blog, looks at one indicator on which Fed’s officials have recently trained a lens: the labour force participation rate. The participation rate has risen 0.5 percentage point over the past year, and the rise has occurred despite demographic and other secular trends implying that it should have declined about 0.3 ppt. During the news conference following the Federal Reserve’s September meeting, chair Yellen highlighted this development as a reason to believe there is more slack in the labour market than previously thought. Wilding argues that the rise is not primarily the result of previously discouraged workers reentering the labour force, but stems largely from a decline in the number of long-term unemployed individuals (25 to 54-year-olds) dropping out. Notably, the decline comes on the heels of a very elevated pace of dropouts in 2014 and 2015, suggesting only limited scope for additional improvement. On the surface, it’s a good sign that people are now looking for a job longer. However, the CPS data suggest the number of marginally attached and underemployed individuals as a percentage of the working-age population hasn’t declined significantly since the participation rate started to increase last year. Taken together, these developments could indicate declining and more limited labor market slack. With respect to the participation rate, Wilding believes that the demographic and other secular forces which have driven trend declines in the participation rate will likely take over again. She views participation rate trends as a downside risk to the case for two to three hikes in the federal funds rate by the end of 2017. Meanwhile, Kenneth Rogoff says markets nowadays are fixated on how high the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the next 12 months. This is dangerously shortsighted: the real concern ought to be how far it could cut rates in the next deep recession. Given that the Fed may struggle just to get its base interest rate up to 2% over the coming year, there will be very little room to cut if a recession hits. The two best ideas for dealing with the zero bound (negative rates and higher inflation target) are off-limits for the moment. Of course, there is always fiscal policy to provide economic stimulus. But it is extremely undesirable for government spending to have to be as volatile as it would be if it had to cover for the ineffectiveness of monetary policy. There may not be enough time before the next deep recession to lay the groundwork for effective negative-interest-rate policy or to phase in a higher inflation target. But that is no excuse for not starting to look hard at these options, especially if the alternatives are likely to be far more problematic. The Economist’s Free Exchange argues that not every argument for keeping interest rates low is a good one. Central bankers may be too keen to spot inflation in the data, but if monetary policy operates with a lag, it makes sense to raise rates before you hit the target, to prevent overshoot. When doves reject this logic, they are implicitly criticising the Fed’s 2% inflation target, not its strategy for achieving its goal. Inflation targets do not call for making up for past mistakes, and central banks should try to do what they say they are trying to do. This also means that in an equal and opposite situation where the Fed must bring inflation down after an upward shock, it should loosen policy while inflation still exceeds 2%. It is easy to dismiss these points as academic, given that inflation has been below target for too long. At present, the biggest threat to central bank credibility is clearly on the downside. But when doves deny the logic of changing policy in advance of achieving the inflation target, they overreach. The data show plenty to be dovish about: doves should simply point that out and, if they want a price level target, say as much. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 |
Univision senior anchor Jorge Ramos declared on Friday that the United States belongs to Latino migrants, emphatically stating to a audience that “it is our country, not theirs. ”[Ramos took an unusual tack, pivoting from talk of diversity and togetherness into boasts of conquest. Mass immigration, particularly illegal immigration, was a fait accompli. There is nothing the U. S. can do about it, and they must accept that America is “not their” country and that illegal aliens, particularly Latinos, “are not going to leave,” he said. “I am an immigrant, just like many of you,” Ramos said in Spanish, as translated by the Media Research Center. “I am a proud Latino immigrant here in the United States. My name is Jorge Ramos, and I work at Univision and at the Fusion network. ” “And you know exactly what is going on here in the United States. There are many people who do not want us to be here, and who want to create a wall in order to separate us,” he said. “But you know what? This is also our country. Let me repeat this: Our country, not theirs. It is our country. And we are not going to leave. We are nearly 60 million Latinos in the United States,” he continued. “And thanks to us, the United States eats, grows and, as we’ve seen today, sings and dances. ” “So when they attack us, we already know what we are going to do. We are not going to sit down. We will not shut up. And we will not leave. That is what we are going to do,” he added. Ramos gave his speech on Friday during Premios Lo Nuestro, or “Our Awards,” on Univision. Ramos, who immigrated to the U. S. from Mexico, frequently portrays American law as unjust and prejudiced and supports open borders. “The taboo issue of an open border should be tackled. Not now. Politically it is impossible even to discuss that. But I don’t see why we can’t have in North America the same immigration that they have within the European Union,” Ramos said to Time magazine in 2014. The U. S. should not enforce its immigration laws even after illegal aliens kill Americans, he said during a CNN interview in August 2015, because that would be “completely unfair” to the illegal population. In June of 2016, Ramos told a crowd of illegal aliens gathered in Houston, Texas, “I think you the DREAMers are the Rosa Parks of this time. ” And Ramos’ views are not fringe ones in Mexico: A 2013 poll found that 66 percent of Mexicans believe the U. S. government has no right to limit immigration, while 52 percent said Mexicans have a right to be in the United States. Another 88 percent said it is fine to enter the U. S. illegally if one needs money. Over half, 56 percent, said they had friends or family who tried to immigrate to the U. S. illegally. | 1 |
By Jameson Parker Election 2016 , Politics November 2, 2016 Trump Says His Favorite Book Is No Longer The Bible – His NEW Favorite Book Proves He’s A Narcissist
In August of 2015, while trying desperately to convince Evangelical Christians that he would be a better choice for president than the laundry list of other potential Republican candidates, Donald Trump made the outrageous claim that his favorite book was the Bible . He even placed his own book just behind it. “[The Art of the Deal] is my second favorite book of all time,” said Trump. “Do you know what my first is? The Bible! Nothing beats the Bible,” he added to applause.
The feigned adoration for the Christian holy book was undone by the fact that Trump had quite literally never shown an interest in religion prior to that moment, couldn’t name a single New Testament passage when pressed, and years earlier once remarked that he didn’t believe adultery – one of the Ten Commandments – was a sin.
Now that Trump is the nominee and Christian conservatives have stood by him despite his disgusting hate campaign and torrent of sexual assault allegations, he’s apparently feeling a bit more confident. He doesn’t need to fake it anymore. It was fun while it lasted!
When asked by Extra ‘s A.J. Calloway what his favorite books were, Trump seemingly forgot that “nothing beats the Bible.” He put his own books back on top. When given a “rapid fire” quiz about his two favorite books, without hesitation Trump went with “The Art of the Deal” and “Surviving at the Top,” both of which were written by ghostwriters but with Trump getting a byline.
It’s particularly interesting that Trump with “The Art of the Deal,” considering the man responsible for writing it has since disavowed Trump and now acts as his biggest critic .
“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”
As with every answer Trump gives off-the-cuff, this one is very revealing. Here is a man so caught up in worshiping himself that when asked what his favorite book is he can only think of the ones with his own name on the covers. It really does say everything about his personality.
Watch Trump bumble his answer below:
Featured image via Extra | 0 |
In their reporting and social media coverage, Britain’s Daily Telegraph has strongly implied Islamist Khalid Masood went on a killing spree in central London because he’d once been a victim of racism in the past. [‘First picture of Khalid Masood reveals how he went from teenager to London attacker’ — the Telegraph article, which seeks to make sense of the murder with the very little information about the individual presently available to the general public, relies heavily on details of a conviction of Masood dating back to 2003. Reporting an incident where Muslim convert Masood stabbed a cafe owner in the face with a knife, the Telegraph reports: “Masood, may have eventually snapped because of racism in his village”. This is based upon Masood’s own account of why he attacked a neighbour in a picturesque East Sussex village, when he told Hove crown court that villagers had “ostracised” him. Why they’d do a thing, given his response, one can only imagine. While this was merely his claim in defence of a presumably disfiguring attack on a shopkeeper, the Telegraph‘s social media output amplifies the certainty of the claim by stating, : “London attacker Khalid Masood snapped because of racism in his village”. The implication of the article, that Masood’s life was normal until the early 2000s and was totally thrown off the rails by an argument with “racial overtones” in the village stores, is a nonsense, and doubly so given how little we actually know. By furthering this idea, the Telegraph are falling for the leftist of Structuralism, that societal forces can push people into crime and this is something ‘victims’ of these forces have no control over. This logic denies individuals — like Masood — their agency by absolving them for personal responsibility for actions. It is so often the case that we are told that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are pushed into petty crime by bad schools, or that majority migrant neighbourhoods show a higher propensity to criminality purely because they are poor. The same logic is so often applied to terrorists — Islamist killers — because they have apparently experienced alienation and Islamophobia. This pushes responsibility for these despicable acts from the shoulders of killers onto those of normal Western folks who just aren’t caring and welcoming enough to the kill instinct out of religious fanatics. These ideas deny the very real free will of all humans to do good or bad regardless of their upbringing and environment, but which is sadly sometimes turned to terrorism. So, who was really responsible for Wednesday’s attack? Khalid Masood, or the people of Northiam, East Sussex. The Telegraph seem to have made their minds up. | 1 |
British scientists have created an artificial intelligence program that can allegedly predict when a patient with heart problems will die. [The program, which was developed by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) reportedly has an 80% accuracy rate, with researchers claiming that it could be vital in discovering how “aggressive” a patient’s treatment needs to be. “The researchers’ programme assessed the outlook of 250 patients based on blood test results and MRI scans of their hearts,” explained the International Business Times. “It then used the data to create a virtual 3D heart of each patient which, combined with the health records of ‘hundreds’ of previous patients, allowed it to learn which characteristics indicated fatal heart failure within five years. ” “The LMS scientists claim that the software was able to accurately predict patients who would still be alive after a year around 80% of the time,” they continued. “The computer was able to analyse patients ‘in seconds’ promising to dramatically reduce the time it takes doctors to identify the most individuals and ensure they ‘give the right treatment to the right patients, at the right time. ’” LMS lead researcher Dr. Declan O’Regan claimed it could “transform” the way patients are treated. “This is the first time computers have interpreted heart scans to accurately predict how long patients will live. It could transform the way doctors treat heart patients,” he proclaimed. “A doctor equipped with this new cardiac imaging approach would therefore be able to make more informed judgements about outcome than if they were relying only on current ways to investigate patient data. ” “We would like to develop the technology so it can be used in many heart conditions to complement how doctors interpret the results of medical tests,” added Tim Dawes, who who created the program’s algorithms. “The goal is to see if better predictions can guide treatment to help people to live longer. ” The researchers are now planning to test the program in London hospitals in an attempt to verify their results. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
6 2050 0 9 After being hit by a 5.4 earthquake earlier on Wednesday, Italy has been struck by a second quake measuring magnitude 6.4.
The quakes occurred in central Italy, near the city of Perugia and Visso, roughly 100 miles northwest of the capital of Rome. © AP Photo/ Sandro Perozzi A view of the damaged cemetery of Castelsantangelo sul Nera, Italy, Wednesday, Oct 26, 2016 following an earthquake.
No injuries or fatalities are known at this time.
A 6 magnitude earthquake struck the region in August , causing damage in the regions of Umbria, Lazio, and Marche and killing over 290 people. ... | 0 |
A Baltimore man was sentenced to four years behind bars for illegally trafficking food stamps. [U. S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Mohammad Shafiq, 51, to four years in prison and three years of supervised release after his sentence ends, in addition to making him pay $3. 7 million in restitution, the Baltimore Sun reported. Shafiq was the latest defendant to be sentenced in a series of prosecutions of 14 retailers in the Baltimore area. A federal grand jury indicted the retailers in August 2016 for food stamp and wire fraud. The 14 retailers stole a total of $16 million from the U. S. Department of Agriculture by illegally exchanging food stamps for cash, according to the indictment. Twelve out the 14 defendants pleaded guilty, and two were sentenced this week, according to the Sun. Multiple stores across the country have been cited for millions of dollars in food stamp fraud. Investigators found more than $20 million worth of food stamp fraud at retailers in Florida, and 140 stores in Chicago were cited for food stamp fraud. | 1 |
Videos Hillary Clinton FBI PANIC! Hillary LIES In First Press Conference While A LEAKED PHOTO From Her Airplane Reveals The Truth
0 comments Hillary is trying to present a strong front but the truth continues to emerge, in VIDEO and in PHOTOS! Hillary was traveling to Iowa when news broke of the FBI’s newly-reopened investigation of her email practices. Her plane sat on the tarmac for thirty minutes before she emerged, and, of course, the media was hungry for a statement. Last night, the press got their wish, as Hillary tried to appear strong in her first press conference following the bombshell news. Watch Hillary’s statement below:
Mostly, Hillary is echoing her Campaign Manager, John Podesta, who is calling for the release of more information from the FBI.
Right out of the gate, Hillary is already lying in an attempt to minimize the damage that this new investigation is causing.
She clearly states in the video above that the FBI sent the investigation announcement to Republicans in Congress. As a former Senator, Hillary knows this to be untrue, and she is trying to paint the issue as a partisan attack. Fact check: Contrary to what Clinton said, Comey sent letter to both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. @benyc
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 28, 2016
Multiple media sources have reported that the FBI found new information while investigating the sexting scandal of former Congressman Anthony Weiner. Weiner is married to Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin. When asked about the reports, Hillary responded:
“You know, we’ve heard these rumors. We don’t know what to believe and I’m sure there will be even more rumors that’s why it’s incumbent upon the FBI to tell us what they’re talking about because, right now, your guess is as good as mine and I don’t think that’s good enough.”
Hillary is trying to appear defiant and in control. But, speaking of Huma Abedin, take a look at this leaked photo from inside of Hillary’s airplane after the news had broken: Image surfaces of Huma Abedin crying on plane as Clinton Campaign finds out the FBI has re-opened the email investigation. #HillarysEmails pic.twitter.com/2yIUgiYOsV
We hate to see a lady crying, Huma, but when the company you keep includes Anthony Weiner, sometimes you have good reasons to cry. Perhaps Hillary’s Campaign is not so strong after all. Related Items | 0 |
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Senator Angus King ( ) argued that Russian interference in the 2016 election is “the most serious attack on the United States since September 11th,” and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions “doesn’t seem very interested in it. ” King said, “The other thing that was troubling though, that didn’t get as much publicity, I asked him [Sessions] did you ever get a briefing on the — what the Russians did? Did you seek a briefing? Did you ask about it? And he said, no, I only know what I read in the papers. This is the most serious attack on the United States since September 11th, and the chief law enforcement officer doesn’t seem very interested in it. ” ( Daily Caller) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
When the Trump transition team told Congress that American taxpayers would finance the construction of the border wall with Mexico, with reimbursement to come later from the Mexican government, it was treated as a major policy retreat by the media. For example, here’s the CNN report:[The move would break a key campaign promise when Trump repeatedly said he would force Mexico to pay for the construction of the wall along the border, though in October, Trump suggested for the first time that Mexico would reimburse the US for the cost of the wall. Trump defended that proposal Friday morning in a tweet, saying the move to use congressional appropriations was because of speed. “The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed) will be paid back by Mexico later!” Trump tweeted Friday. “When you understand that Mexico’s economy is dependent upon U. S. consumers, Donald Trump has all the cards he needs to play. On the trade negotiation side, I don’t think it’s that difficult for Donald Trump to convince Mexico that it’s in their best interest to reimburse us for building the wall,” Rep. Chris Collins ( ) explained to CNN. It’s a bit rich to see the media that staunchly defended Barack Obama doubling the U. S. national debt in a single presidency — the media that thinks quibbles about deficit spending only come from heartless grinches looking for an excuse to defund social programs so they can enjoy watching poor people die — suddenly become deeply concerned about Trump launching the border wall project before the last pallet of cash has been delivered to the White House by the government of Mexico. Trump is, quite obviously, correct to note that if building the wall is an urgent project, waiting for the tricky business of securing Mexican financing to be completed first would result in an unacceptable delay. Unlike most of what Democrats routinely blow billions in taxpayer cash and imaginary deficit dollars on, the border wall is an actual bona fide duty of the federal government — a duty that was supposed to be fulfilled long ago. As the Associated Press observes, congressional Republicans believe no new legislation will be necessary to secure financing, because existing law “already authorizes fencing and other technology along the southern border. ” Trump’s proposals for making Mexico pay for the wall have never assumed the funds would be collected from them before the wall was built. For example, he wrote a memo to the Washington Post in April 2016 outlining how trade tariffs, visa cancellations, increased border crossing fees, and a ban on cash remittances from Mexicans living in the U. S. could be used to either compel the Mexican government to pay for the wall, or collect the necessary monies from them over time. All of the methods Trump outlined in this memo would require time to work the most draconian measure he discussed, blocking the roughly $24 billion annually sent back to Mexico through remittances, would probably be the fastest. Trump said this would be a for Mexico: “Make a payment of $ billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year. ” He did not say improvements in border security had to wait until Mexico paid up. Point Number 1 on the “10 Point Plan to Put America First” on Trump’s campaign website reads as follows: “Begin working on an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border, on day one. Mexico will pay for the wall. ” (Emphasis mine.) No clever parsing is needed to see that building the wall comes first, and must begin immediately, while collecting Mexico’s financial contribution comes later. (Remember how much liberals love to call taxes “contributions” when they’re talking about squeezing money out of Americans.) Trump’s Plan to Put America First goes on to make the same points he included in his open letter to the Washington Post, including hard numbers about the cost of illegal immigration that make building the wall as much of a for Washington as it is for the Mexican government. To reformulate the question Trump asked of Mexico: Doesn’t it make sense to save a healthy portion of the $300 billion annual cost of current immigration policy by spending $ billion one time, to build a wall, and then telling the Mexican government it can keep $24 billion a year in remittances flowing by reimbursing America for that $ billion? Trump has also taken pains to explain how constructing a solid border wall would directly benefit Mexico. “No one wins in either country when human smugglers and drug traffickers prey on innocent people,” he observed, after meeting with President Enrique Pena Nieto in Mexico City in August. “We want to make sure the people of the United States are very well protected. You equally expressed your feelings and your love for Mexico,” he said to Nieto at the beginning of their joint press conference. Trump is right, but only American leadership can get a project of this magnitude moving. The terms of the hemispherical conversation will change if America shows it’s finally serious and starts building those border improvements. Sitting around and waiting for other countries to take the lead, with occasional carping from the sidelines about how they’re on the “wrong side of history” when they drag their feet, was Obama’s style, not Trump’s. During a Fox News town hall in April, Trump steadfastly insisted Mexico would end up paying for the wall, but made it clear construction had to begin quickly. “They’ll pay, they’ll pay — in one form or another. They may even write us a check by the time they see what happens,” he said on the subject of financing, which could be taken as a prediction that either Mexico will knuckle under to pressure, or they’ll grow more enthusiastic about contributing when they see the wall is really happening. As for the construction timetable, Trump estimated about two years from start to completion, then added, “We’ll start quickly, we’ll start quickly. And it will be a real wall. ” Once again, he was clearly stating construction had to begin before the financial argument with Mexico was settled. Another financing plan floated during the presidential campaign is that money seized from Mexican cartels would help pay for the wall. That sort of collection will take time, and building the wall first will assist with the process, not to mention benefiting Mexico’s government by weakening the cartels. Again: wall first, money later. Mexico has already released its 2017 budget, and it pointedly did not include any money for the wall, but it came to about $234 billion altogether. There’s wall money in there, but it will take time to convince Mexico to allocate it, and then more time for their own executive and legislative organs to make the necessary budget changes. Delaying the breaking of ground until that process is fully complete would be the real betrayal of Trump’s campaign promises. The last thing the American people want to hear from this new administration is the same old song about how border security must wait until a long list of other priorities are addressed first, because we all know how that story ends … or, more to the point, doesn’t end, ever. | 1 |
Pop singer Joy Villa arrived Sunday at the 2017 Grammy Awards wearing a simple white outfit — until she removed it on the red carpet, revealing a dress in the style of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” presidential campaign posters. [Before she arrived at the Grammys, Villa shared a “sneak peek” of the decoy outfit, as well as a message that her “whole artistic platform is about LOVE!” Sneak Peek … 😱😝🎉💋#grammys2017 #grammys #joyvillagrammys #joyvilla #singerlife #singersongwriter #singer #style #grammysfashion #blessings #beautiful, A photo posted by Joy Villa (@joyvilla) on Feb 12, 2017 at 12:30pm PST, 💥My whole artistic platform is about LOVE! 🎶💕💋 I couldn’t be where I am today without the love and tenderness of those beautiful supporters and friends around me. Thank you ❤️ I hope you enjoy tonight’s @grammysawards2017 and remember to forget your problems and focus on your future! You are infinite and beautiful and no one can stop you but you. 💋So go out and celebrate yourself as a winner no matter what, together with those you adore! #happygrammysday #blessings #beautiful #love #grammys2017💝 #happyvalentinesday #celebration #style #postivevibes #love, A photo posted by Joy Villa (@joyvilla) on Feb 12, 2017 at 12:40pm PST, However, love was the last thing on the minds of many leftists reacting to the young star’s fashion statement: . @Joy_Villa is just doing this for attention. let’s give her some. screw you @Joy_Villa pic. twitter. — Jay Franzone (@JayFranzone) February 12, 2017, @Joy_Villa you’re cancelled, — steven j. horowitz (@speriod) February 12, 2017, Here’s the coon with the Trump dress. I’m truly outdone. @Joy_Villa, — . (@eIectricgold) February 12, 2017, But … why, Joy Villa? #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — TV Guide (@TVGuide) February 12, 2017, Attention seeking @Joy_Villa is cancelled #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — Karen Civil (@KarenCivil) February 12, 2017, I think I speak for everyone when i say ”who the fuck is Joy Villa and why is she so thirsty?” — Damian Holbrook (@damianholbrook) February 12, 2017, Uh oh, someone’s been at Joy Villa’s Wiki … pic. twitter. — Alex Hannaford (@AlHannaford) February 12, 2017, Everyone please be aware that Joy Villa is the worst. pic. twitter. — Sammy Nickalls (@sammynickalls) February 12, 2017, who the fuck is Joy Villa and why is she wearing that godawful Trump dress at the #Grammys?? — Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) February 12, 2017, Villa has a modest entertainment résumé and social media following where she promotes herself as an actress, and vegan bikini bodybuilder. In past years, the entertainment world has ranked her as one of the “Worst Dressed” at Grammys for skimpy and outlandish outfits. In a recent vlog, Villa shares how she overcomes much of the criticism she has received. She encourages aspiring performing artists to “tell the haters to eff off, because they have no say over your life — and as a performing artist, people are going to criticize you ’til you’re black and blue. ” | 1 |
Former Michigan Congressman and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Wednesday regarding Sally Yates’ testimony before the Senate and the Comey firing by President Trump. [Said Hoekstra on Trump firing Comey, Democrats “are now in a very awkward position. They have a President that they don’t like who did exactly what they wish their president, President Obama, had done months ago and that is fire James Comey. And now it’s kind of like, well, what are we supposed to do now? How are we supposed to react to this?” Hoekstra continued to mock the Democrats, adding, “We don’t like anything that Donald Trump does. That’s our standard operating procedure and he’s now done exactly what we’ve been asking for for months. So, we have to now come up with a rationale why we don’t like this decision and why all of a sudden James Comey is our hero. ” Hoekstra also said he felt Comey had become a distraction for the FBI and a liability to its reputation and the firing was appropriate. He also said Obama would have fired Comey before Hillary Clinton took office had she won in November, allowing her to pick her own director. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 1 |
A new slick video released by Speaker Paul Ryan’s office features Donald Trump, as his team tries to refocus Republicans in favor of his effort to replace Obamacare. [The video features news anchors like Jake Tapper, Maria Bartiromo, and Wolf Blitzer reporting bad news about Obamacare in the last seven years. It also features Obamacare criticisms from former President Bill Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The video leads up to a dramatic climax, featuring words from none other than the president, Donald Trump. “Action on Obamacare is an urgent necessity,” Trump says as the the video fades to a slogan from Ryan’s office. “Now is the time,” the slogan reads, sending viewers to the Speaker’s website. Ryan continues to press for his Obamacare replacement bill, despite conservatives who have derided the effort as ‘Obamacare Lite’ or ‘Obamacare 2. 0.’ | 1 |
DALLAS — When Andre Stubblefield leaves his dilapidated apartment complex in southern Dallas, he always carries his work gloves, vest and hard hat, even when he is not going to work. The police have stopped him regularly over the years, asking for identification — about four times in the last four months alone. So he carries his work attire to show that he is a working man, not a criminal. “I got to fake like I’m wearing my work stuff, so they won’t mess with me,” said Mr. Stubblefield, 30, who works in demolition. In the wake of last week’s sniper shooting that left five Dallas police officers dead, many people have lamented that it happened in this city, with a black police chief who even critics say has made inroads with the community and worked to steer his force away from its history of racism and abuse. Since Chief David O. Brown took over the department in 2010, complaints have dropped 64 percent, and he has started training and a successful community policing program. But for all the progress that the Dallas police have made, this remains one of the most segregated big cities in the country, with yawning racial gaps in housing, schools and employment. Decades of discriminatory federal, state and local policies have concentrated the city’s black population in deeply poor and underdeveloped neighborhoods south of Interstate 30, which serves as a line of demarcation between opportunity and neglect. While downtown Dallas is flush with glassy skyscrapers and restaurants, large tracts of the city’s southern sector are empty and ragged. “People look at the Black Lives Matter movement as people protesting against police brutality,” said Terry Flowers, the executive director and headmaster of St. Philip’s School and Community Center in South Dallas. “I think it is much larger than that. People are protesting against a social engineering of inequity. In the broader community here, there is tension. You get pulled over by a police officer, there is automatic tension. ” So while the Dallas Police Department has gained national acclaim, the extent to which these reforms have changed how black residents view the police, and the extent to which they have altered the way the city’s most marginalized residents interact with the police, depend largely on whom you ask. A 2014 survey by the Embrey Family Foundation found that while 67 percent of Dallas’s black residents believed that the city’s black men received “a lot” of discrimination, only 37 percent of white people thought the same. From his small brick home in a predominantly black, part of Oak Cliff in southern Dallas, Yafeuh Balogun, 32, said that complaints might be down in Dallas, but that police harassment of community members and police killings of unarmed citizens had not gone away under Chief Brown. That is why Mr. Balogun helped found the Huey P. Newton Gun Club in 2014. The group is named for the Black Panther who advocated armed and its members go on patrols with rifles on their backs in an effort to watch the police and to reduce their presence by guarding their own neighborhoods against crime. The club was created after a Dallas police officer killed an unarmed black man in an Oak Cliff apartment complex and injured a child with a stray bullet. Chief Brown defended the officer, who was not disciplined. Perched at a computer in his home and wearing camouflage pants, Mr. Balogun said he and other activists had already fought for the release of data on use of force, petitioned City Hall to overhaul a process that has failed to hold police officers accountable for fatal shootings, and protested what they perceived as police brutality. “We found out those actions were not enough,” Mr. Balogun said. So, they decided to pick up guns. Armed he said, is a more means of resisting police brutality. Mr. Balogun’s group is part of a constellation of militant black nationalist groups in Dallas, birthplace of the New Black Panther Party, born out of a legacy of police brutality stretching back at least 40 years. The most infamous case was the 1973 death of a Latino boy, Santos Rodriguez, after an officer who believed he had stolen money from a vending machine killed the handcuffed child in a game of Russian roulette. The officer served just two and a half years. Members of the black nationalist groups sometimes find their way into Connection, an Afrocentric store where the owner, Akwete Tyehimba, said she tried to direct their “energy to the more positive areas. ” Her store, which sells items like books, Bobo masks and Kuba cloths, promotes the “unification of African people around the world,” she said, and disavows violence. One young man who wandered into her store during a Malcolm X celebration in May was Micah Johnson, the sniper in last week’s fatal shootings, she said. Mr. Johnson showed no signs of militancy, she said. Instead, he was enamored of the store’s collection, as though “he was maybe coming into some level of of his culture,” Ms. Tyehimba said. “He was very warm,” she added. “He said he had never seen anything like this before. ” Mr. Balogun met Mr. Johnson briefly in the months before the shooting. He said that Mr. Johnson did not mention his plan, but that the videos of officers killing Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and that frustration over the lack of police accountability had probably led to his killing rampage. Activists from the group Mothers Against Police Brutality were among the protesters on Thursday when Mr. Johnson began shooting. They said the crowd was protesting national events, but also homegrown police killings. Collette Flanagan, 53, helped found the group after the Dallas police killed her son, Clinton Allen, who was unarmed, in 2013. The officer who fired his weapon said that Mr. Allen had been choking him, and he was not charged criminally. Ms. Flanagan has not been impressed by Chief Brown’s supposed efforts at transparency. She pointed to an April department newsletter in which Chief Brown cited pressure from the Justice Department for police agencies to release data as the reasoning behind the department’s publishing the information. “By doing it on our own terms, we can release this information in our own format, which allows us to tell our story,” he wrote. That has led to data that is not as transparent as it seems, activists argue. For example, Ms. Flanagan’s son is listed as an armed suspect in the police shootings data. His weapon? His hands. “Clinton wasn’t a martial arts expert or a professional boxer,” Ms. Flanagan said. “Yet all of their investigations find in favor of the officer. ” But from the small living room of a home in a tidy subdivision of Oak Cliff, a few minutes’ drive from Mr. Balogun, the view of the police under Chief Brown looked decidedly different. With the smell of Sunday’s dinner — collard greens, pulled pork and baked mac and cheese — wafting from the kitchen, Carol Hampton and her group of friends discussed the positive impacts of Chief Brown’s reforms. “Community policing is working,” Ms. Hampton said. The friends, all of them black, had been appalled by the deaths of Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile, but did not believe policing was a problem in Dallas anymore. “I don’t think we have those issues,” Kevin Walker, 48, said. “I think about harsh policing in Louisiana, and people getting stopped 20 times a month. I don’t hear about that kind of harassment here. ” Yet all five people in the living room who had sons said they would still give them “the talk” about how to react if stopped by the police. Hilari Younger, 35, the youngest adult there, was the only one among them who had attended the protest last week. “My neighborhood is very hostile to the police,” Ms. Younger said. “The police look for every little reason to stop you. ” Quaneque McCarver, 23, learned that the hard way. A couple of years ago, she said, the police mistook her for a prostitute and briefly cuffed her and made her sit on the ground while she was pregnant. Still, that has not changed her attitude toward the police in general, she said. “I wasn’t hurt,” she said. “They let me out of my handcuffs, and they let me go about my business. ” The police have also helped her in the past. So the shooting angers her, she said, because she believes it will only stoke tensions between the police and black communities. Mr. Stubblefield, too, was upset about the shooting, saying it would only worsen a bad situation for black men like himself. About three years ago, he said, he worked for a party rental company and set up a bouncy house for a children’s party in a predominantly white part of Dallas. As he used his phone to take video of the house for his boss to make sure they had set it up correctly, the police rolled up. Someone had complained, they said, that he was taking pictures of people without their permission. So they pulled him to the side and made him sit on the ground with his hands behind his back. “It made me feel like, that’s embarrassing,” he said. “Kids coming with their parents, looking, whispering. ” | 1 |
On Thursday, Fox Sports 1 “The Herd” host Colin Cowherd weighed in on the MLB Hall of Fame balloting, saying the sports media is keeping pitching great Curt Schilling off their ballots because of his outspokenness on social media regarding his politics. “The political media’s trust is at an low, and sports media I think continues to dip because of agendas,” Cowherd stated. “Curt Schilling is a borderline Hall of Famer. I’ve always said I would put him in simply because he elevated not one but two baseball cultures: the losing Red Sox who had a loser’s mentality and the irrelevant Arizona Diamondbacks. He led both to World Series titles, and I think he changed the culture. Curt Schilling, though, you can argue like a Mike Mussina, if he is not a Hall of Famer, he’s darn close. ” He continued, “Schilling has now gone on social media and become a little unhinged and has been, what I would say, a little inappropriate. There is nowhere a voter is asked to consider somebody’s personality. In fact, the rules say voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team on which the player played. It says nothing about once you retire. ” According to Cowherd, these agendas by the media only contribute to the public’s lack of trust. “This is how you lose the trust of the public — when you start voting on things you’re not asked to consider and you have an agenda,” he added. “I don’t like what Curt Schilling said about the media, but I know I’m not asked to consider it voting for the hall of fame. It never says, ‘Consider integrity.’ It never says that. It says consider it on your team or plural teams. If you didn’t consider it with Jackie Robinson and Ty Cobb, don’t go political with Curt Schilling. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
Previous Mass Casualty Drill In S. Carolina-Is This the First False Flag?
With Hillary’s future in jeopardy, people are on edge for a possible false flag event. I was just telling a friend that so far today, we have been lucky. Well, I might have jumped to conclusions. Here is an email from a listener/viewer that I am highly concerned about.
Our best exposure is the light of day. In that spirit, I present the following:
Hey Dave. I was looking for some part time work yesterday when I came across an ad for role players in Orangeburg sc for a mass casualty drill. I called and will be participating Saturday . We meet Friday for more info. At that time we will be told what disaster be it a train spill w chemicals or dirty bomb or nuclear blast. ADEC is the company holding it. Bob Jones is facilitating. If you want me to get more details to you Friday I can. Keep up the good work.
Need people for Role Players for National Guard Exercise. (Orangeburg) compensation: $100.00 per day employment type: contract Individuals acting as role players needed to participate in a training exercise with your local National Guard. Role players will be rescued, triaged and put through a decontamination process and other exciting tasks. With your help, we will make this exercise as realistic as possible. See what it feels like working next to your National Guard. Compensation will be $100 for the day. The date of the exercise will be November 5, 2016 in Orangeburg South Carolina. Requirements: Must be 18 years or older with a valid drivers license. We will be hiring 20 role players. Interested parties contact Bob Jones @ (770)841-8335 . Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster. do NOT contact us with unsolicited services or…… | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Whenever a major conservative plan in Washington has collapsed, blame has usually been fairly easy to pin on the Republican who insist on purity over practicality. But as Republicans sifted through the detritus of their failed effort to replace the Affordable Care Act, they were finding fault almost everywhere they looked. President Trump, posting on Twitter on Sunday, saw multiple culprits, including the renegade group of conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus and outside groups like the Club for Growth. Those groups, which do not always work placidly together, had aligned against the president and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the ultimate symbol of their dismay with the entrenched ways of the capital. At the same time, some saw the president as pointing a finger at Mr. Ryan when Mr. Trump urged his Twitter followers on Saturday to tune in to a Fox News host, Jeanine Pirro, who went on to call for Mr. Ryan’s resignation. For eight years, those divisions were often masked by Republicans’ shared antipathy toward President Barack Obama. Now, as the party struggles to adjust to the political order, it is facing a nagging question: How do you hold together when the man who unified you in opposition is no longer around? Mr. Obama provided conservatives with not just a health law to loathe and a veto pen to blame, but also a visage that allowed their opposition to be more palpable. “With Obama no longer being there, the emotional element of the opposition is drained away,” said Rich Lowry, the editor of the conservative National Review. Republicans also have to contend with an outsider president who never had much of an affinity or loyalty for their party, and who, as a novice politician, has not built the relationships in Washington that are usually needed to get big deals done. “There’s this disjunction,” Mr. Lowry added. “He doesn’t have a congressional party. He doesn’t even really have a wing of a congressional party. ” In the health care fight, it was not just the far right, egged on by outside groups, that split from the Republican leadership. There were dissenters among the more conservative lawmakers, those representing suburban communities outside Philadelphia and Washington and rural states like Louisiana. Even party leaders like Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, opposed the bill. Interest groups on the right were also divided, with natural allies like Americans for Tax Reform, the outfit, and Americans for Prosperity, a group backed by the Koch brothers, on opposing sides. While Republicans often said they would deliver freedom and good fortune if given their turn at the wheel, they are now jolted by the realization that their struggles to reach a consensus have thrown into doubt whether they can reach deals on other priorities like a tax overhaul, infrastructure, trade and immigration. “It is a challenge for the modern Republican Party and the Trump administration to figure out how to get to 218 on a regular basis,” said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, who supported the Republican health care bill that failed last week. Generally, 218 is the number of votes needed to pass legislation in the House. Mr. Norquist said the desire for sweeping change had distorted some conservatives’ perceptions about what could be achieved and how quickly. “They want to change the rules,” he added. “But until you actually change the rules, they’re there, and you have to live by them. ” In a sign of just how deeply this episode has shaken the conservative faction of the party, one of the Freedom Caucus’s members resigned in protest on Sunday, saying he no longer believed the group was effective. “Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do,” said the lawmaker, Representative Ted Poe of Texas. What makes progress on any issue so complicated is the fundamental clash between the belief systems of Mr. Trump, whose instincts are more populist than conservative, and Republican leaders in Congress, who are more oriented toward a policy vision. “Trump, whatever else he is, was able to see that what was being offered to Republicans was not really what they wanted,” said David Frum, the conservative writer and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. “They wanted more health care for themselves, less immigration and no more Bushes. And what they were offered was no more health care, more immigration and a third Bush. ” The Trump administration wants to focus next on a tax overhaul. And on that Mr. Trump will probably find agreement with the Republicans in Congress. But crafting a plan that pleases most conservatives will not be simple. They remain split on some crucial details, like taxing imports. Some in the party, like Mr. Ryan, have favored such a plan, while others, like the political advocacy groups, argue that it could set off trade wars and drive up manufacturing costs. Speaking to the dismay among many on the right after the health care fight, Ann Coulter, the writer and pundit, attacked Mr. Ryan for pursuing “standard G. O. P. corporatist stuff. ” “What made Donald Trump stand apart from the crowd, and apart from the crowd from every presidential candidate for 20 years,” she said on Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” “was immigration, trade, infrastructure, building a wall. Obviously, that was very, very popular. ” As for Mr. Trump’s Twitter post on Saturday, a White House official said that it and Ms. Pirro’s attack on Mr. Ryan were a coincidence, but the president has been pressed by some advisers to consider Mr. Ryan’s role in the health care defeat. How Republicans resolve issues of debt and deficit spending also loom as tripwires to the kind of legislative progress Mr. Trump craves — especially after a rocky start to his presidency. These issues, which Mr. Ryan and many other Republicans have been waiting eagerly to tackle since they took power, are not especially important to Mr. Trump, who is more focused on the kinds of projects that are natural to him as a developer, like infrastructure. And esoteric debates over deficit spending will not matter nearly as much to voters as how their personal finances look. “When he goes back to Rochester in a campaign, he can’t talk about what’s changed in the deficit — no one will care,” said Frank Cannon, a longtime conservative activist. “But if he can talk about labor rate participation, jobs, jobs that are paying more, that’s what he’ll be judged on. And that’s what Republicans are going to live and die by in the next election cycles as long as he’s president of the United States. ” | 1 |
Lieutenant Governor of California and former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to fight the technology that’s replacing human jobs around America, according to The Guardian. [At a commencement ceremony for students of Computer Science, Newsom warned an audience that the “plumbing of the world is radically changing. ” “The tech industry that would make them rich, Newsom declared, was also rendering millions of other people’s jobs obsolete and fueling enormous disparities in wealth,” reported The Guardian. “‘Your job is to exercise your moral authority,’ he said. ‘It is to do the kinds of things in life that can’t be downloaded.’ “That is not the kind of message computer engineers tend to hear. But Newsom, who has been waiting in the wings as California’s lieutenant governor for the past seven years, has put the consequences of automation at the center of his campaign,” they continued. During an interview with The Guardian following his speech, Newsom called the increasing dependency on technology “code red, a firehose, a tsunami that’s coming our way. ” “We’re going to get rolled over unless we get ahead of this,” he declared. Newsom, however, considers some of the top technology leaders as friends, including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. “I’ve grown up in and around this world. I could tell you 10 founders who I did their weddings, quite literally married them,” he claimed. “Very, very close a number of them are godparents to my kids. ” He is also “not opposed” to the popular Silicon Valley policy of a universal income. “I’m struggling to figure it out,” Newsom proclaimed during his interview. “So I don’t have the damn answer. ” Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
Steven Seagal receives Russian citizenship on Putin’s personal decision AP photo Steven Seagal, a US actor, has received Russian citizenship. The decision has been made by Russian President Vladimir Putin . Previously, Seagal himself admitted such a possibility. The decree about the decision to grant Russian citizenship to US actor Steven Seagal has been published on the official website of the Kremlin. "To bestow citizenship of the Russian Federation to Seagal Steven Frederick, born on 10 April 1952 in the United States of America," the decree reads. The decision was made in accordance with Article 89 of the Russian Constitution. In mid-September, Seagal admitted that could obtain Russian citizenship. "I think Russian citizenship is somewhere on the horizon," he said. Seagal said that he would like to spend a few months a year in Russia with his friends - "with the people who love me and wait for me here," the actor said. In 2014, Steven Seagal said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta that there was no restriction in the United States for holding foreign citizenship. He also said that he did not intend to renounce his US citizenship." "I am an American and I love my country," the actor added. In early January, Steven Seagal became a citizen of Serbia . Steven Seagal is a frequent guest in Russia. In 2014, he came to attend an armory show in the town of Zhukovsky. In 2014, a promotional contract was announced, in which Steven Seagal was supposed to advertise products of Kalashnikov Concern. Later, a company spokesman told the Izvestia that the contract did not materialize. Pravda.Ru Steven Seagal to ask for Russian citizenship | 0 |
Surge of Migrants Illegally Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border Ahead of Election Manuel Bojorquez, CBS News, October 25, 2016
Every day, dozens of men, women and children stream through the streets of McAllen, Texas to a migrant center at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
They have just illegally crossed into the U.S. and have been released by border patrol, with ankle monitors, while they file for asylum.
{snip}
“We’re getting mass spikes of people crossing and turning themselves in,” said Agent Chris Cabrera, who is with the local border patrol union.
Cabrera said on some days, they’ve encountered up to a thousand immigrants along this stretch of the border. He said the election is partly to blame for the surge.
“The smugglers are telling them if Hillary gets elected, that there’ll be some sort of amnesty, that they need to get here by a certain date. They’re also being told that if Trump gets elected, there’s going to be some magical wall that pops up overnight and once that wall gets up, nobody will ever get in again,” Cabrera said.
{snip} | 0 |
Benjamin A. Gilman, a New York congressman for 30 years and a leading Republican critic of the Clinton administration’s foreign policy initiatives, died on Saturday in Wappingers Falls, N. Y. He was 94. His death, at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, was confirmed by his wife, Georgia Gilman, who said he had been hospitalized for more than three years after hip surgery. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1972, Mr. Gilman was a moderate Republican who focused on foreign affairs throughout most of his years in Washington. From 1995 to 2000, he was chairman of the International Relations Committee, as the House Foreign Affairs Committee was then known. He was named to lead the panel after the Republicans won control of the House in 1994. Mr. Gilman accused President Bill Clinton of favoring Russia over other former Soviet republics, and said the president was indecisive on issues involving Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia. “Instead of a strong, steady signal on foreign policy coming from the nation’s capital, regrettably the world has heard a series of wavering notes sounded by an uncertain trumpet, leaving our allies concerned and our adversaries confused,” he said in one assessment. Believing that Mr. Clinton was not shaping a sufficiently tough policy on North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, Mr. Gilman introduced legislation to prevent the president from lifting economic sanctions against that country until it made major concessions on freezing its nuclear weapons program and halting missile tests. He also contended that the Clinton administration had a “lethargic approach” toward helping Iraqis who wanted to overthrow President Saddam Hussein. A staunch supporter of Israel, Mr. Gilman accused the administration of bullying Israel into accepting unfavorable terms in talks with the Palestinians. A week after making that accusation, in May 1998, Mr. Gilman spoke to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at a luncheon at the Capitol. “We want you to know that you’re not only among friends, but among mishpocheh,” said Mr. Gilman, who was Jewish, using the Yiddish word for family. Although reflecting conservative Republican positions on many foreign policy issues, Mr. Gilman eschewed the firebrand tones of some of his party colleagues. He also departed from most congressional conservatives on issues like abortion rights and the environment, and was seen by many as a moderate in the tradition of Nelson A. Rockefeller. The Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion endorsed both him and his unsuccessful 1996 Democratic challenger, Yash P. Aggarwal, citing their equally strong abortion rights positions. The League of Conservation Voters listed Mr. Gilman among House members who supported measures to protect the environment. Mr. Gilman also focused on legislation to combat illegal drugs. In 1986, he and a colleague introduced a measure to provide $230 million for state and local police departments to set up divisions. Mr. Gilman expressed anger when the Reagan administration released budget plans that sharply cut funding for such efforts. Earlier in his congressional career, Mr. Gilman helped to negotiate the releases of several Americans imprisoned abroad. As a result of one such negotiation, an American who had tried to smuggle some East Germans out of their country was released in 1978 by East Germany, and an Israeli was freed by Mozambique, which was then a Soviet ally, in exchange for the release of a convicted Soviet spy imprisoned in the United States. Mr. Gilman and the Israelis involved in the trade used code names while communicating by cable Mr. Gilman was called “Uncle Ben. ” In 1980, Mr. Gilman led an informal House committee that successfully negotiated with a Cuban diplomat for the release of 30 Americans imprisoned in Cuba. He left Congress in 2002 after the redistricting that followed the 2000 census consolidated his district and that of a fellow Republican, Sue W. Kelly. Mr. Gilman was seen as the underdog in a primary race between them, and he decided not to run again. He had won all of his previous elections. His district in the 1970s included Rockland and Orange Counties and some of Ulster County, and his later districts comprised Rockland and parts of Orange, Sullivan and Westchester Counties. Benjamin Arthur Gilman was born in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. on Dec. 6, 1922. He served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, flying 35 missions over Japan and earning a Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, he graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and from New York Law School. He was an assistant New York State attorney general in the 1950s, then a lawyer in private practice. He was a New York assemblyman from 1966 to 1972. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Jonathan and Harrison a daughter, Susan a stepdaughter, Nicole Pappas a stepson, Peter Tingus and 11 grandchildren. A son, David, and a daughter, Ellen, died before him. Two previous marriages ended in divorce. After leaving Congress, Mr. Gilman founded the Gilman Group, a lobbying and consulting business in Washington specializing in international matters. In 2003 and 2004, he was the United States representative to the 58th session of the United Nations General Assembly. | 1 |
November 11, 2016 By Shawn Helton Leave a Comment
Shawn Helton 21st Century Wire
Anti-Trump street protests linked to the Soros’ funded organization MoveOn.org have cascaded across the nation for the third day following the 2016 presidential election result.
Mainstream media outlets like CNN and MSNBC have given the protests around-the-clock media coverage, drowning out all other news stories, including a successful transition meeting between the President Elect and President Barack Obama.
‘OUTSIDER VS. INSIDER’– Manufactured social unrest incited after announcement of Trump presidency. (Photo Illustration 21WIRE’s Shawn Helton)
The Free Thought Project weighed in on the new developments concerning a series of centrally coordinated anti-Trump protests organized in part by by the George Soros NGO MoveOn:
“Washington, D.C. – Billionaire globalist financier George Soros’ MoveOn.org has been revealed to be a driving force behind the organizing of nationwide protests against the election of Donald Trump — exposing the protests to largely be an organized, top-down operation — and not an organic movement of concerned Americans taking to the streets as reported by the mainstream media.
Wednesday saw protests in the streets of at least 10 major U.S. cities. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn., Seattle , and several other cities saw protests, according to USA Today.
In light of the protests and rioting that have transpired since the election of Trump, a closer analysis of the dynamic at play is warranted to gauge whether it’s an organic grassroots movement, or something much more organized, sophisticated and potentially dangerous.”
Soros’ affiliated organization MoveOn.org released the following press release yesterday afternoon:
“Americans to Come Together in Hundreds Peaceful Gatherings of Solidarity, Resistance, and Resolve Following Election Results
Hundreds of Americans, dozens of organizations to gather peacefully outside the White House and in cities and towns nationwide to take a continued stand against misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.
Tonight, thousands of Americans will come together at hundreds of peaceful gatherings in cities and towns across the nation, including outside the White House, following the results of Tuesday’s presidential election.
The gatherings – organized by MoveOn.org and allies – will affirm a continued rejection of Donald Trump’s bigotry, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and misogyny and demonstrate our resolve to fight together for the America we still believe is possible.
Within two hours of the call-to-action, MoveOn members had created more than 200 gatherings nationwide, with the number continuing to grow on Wednesday afternoon.”
Soros Agit-Prop Empire
Last year during the ongoing European migrant crisis, startling claims were levied by Hungarian PM Victor Orban (left photo), concerning the role played by Soros.
PM Orban contended that the founder and chair of Open Society Foundations (Open Society Institute), was entrenched in a “ circle of activists,” that “inadvertently become part of this international human-smuggling network.”
The stunning declaration by Orban recalled the misguided machinations of ‘The Occupy Movement’ ( aka OWS) in 2011, as well as the Soros funded protests in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, along with other Black Lives Matter protests this past year – all of which were uniquely designed to push naive participants (along with paid provocateurs) into violent action and social unrest.
Back in January, MoveOn publicly endorsed the Bernie Sanders campaign in what appeared to be a call to action for BLM associated groups seen backing Sanders. It’s worth mentioning, that MoveOn also supported the Obama campaign in 2008 and according to the website, Sanders was the only other candidate to reach the “threshold for an endorsement.”
As we said back in March, professional political agitator flash mobs, had been mobilized at future Trump campaign events, making it very difficult to run a normal campaign – as ‘activists’ attempted to take away Trump’s ‘strength in numbers’ at his rallies. This was confirmed at events in both Ohio, and at a Trump primary campaign event the University of Illinois Chicago earlier this year, where hundreds of BLM activists and Sanders supporters, triggered voilent clashes inside the venue and even stormed the stage , shortly after Trump started speaking, then again at Reno he was birddogged just prior to his election forcing secret service to escort Trump away.
In a Politico article in early 2016 entitled “ Major donors consider funding Black Lives Matter ,” we gained deeper insight into the political funding for BLM and the Soros linked Democratic Alliance:
“Major donors are usually not as radical or confrontational as activists most in touch with the pain of oppression,” said Steve Phillips, a Democracy Alliance member and significant contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. He donated to a St. Louis nonprofit group called the Organization for Black Struggle that helped organize 2014 Black Lives Matter-related protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police killing of a black teenager named Michael Brown. And Phillips and his wife, Democracy Alliance board member Susan Sandler, are in discussions about funding other groups involved in the movement.”
It worth noting how Soros, a long time contributor to Hillary Clinton, donated $2 million in PAC money in 2015 and January of 2016, Soros reportedly gave $8 million to “boost” Clinton’s campaign . Soros also recently funded $15 million to Latino groups looking to stop Trump’s rise towards a potential GOP nomination and beyond.
Look for these political engineers to pit choreographed conservative and liberal groups against each other across the country – as all of these hostile uprisings are designer engineered by party linked alliances.
‘SOCIAL ENGINEERING’– Political memes and staged political flash mobs have been sparked by media, NGO’s and social media. (Image Source: abc news )
During the last month, it was revealed how investigative non-profit Project Veritas found evidence that the DNC paid participants to incite violence at Trump rallies during the course of the 2016 election.
If those reports are accurate – reports which have gone unchallenged so far – this would be in violation of both election bylaws and also US criminal law.
PAID PROTEST?’– Social justice warriors incite anti-Trump violence across the US. (Image Source: youtube )
USA Color Revolutions
Both the purpose of these types of agitation activities seems to be to first cause a public disruption, and also to foment are a form of modern class warfare. These political protests are designed in such a way as to disguise its true intentions. Ultimately, a radical globalist and cultural marxist “progressive” agenda is at play – eroding the legitimacy of a democratically elected government through a series of artificial ‘color’ upheavals, and where possible – weakening a country’s national sovereignty through forced dependency on multilateral globalist institutions like the UN or IMF, while presenting shock and awe imagery in order to manipulate the public’s political perspective.
This is how the US and its CIA conduct their destablization ‘color revolution’ campaigns overseas , and now astute observers will be able to see these exact same methods being deployed here inside the US.
Overseas, Washington tends to use the same cast of NGO fronts to build-up pro-US political opposition groups, as well as plan and generate civil unrest. They include the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House and later the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the financial and contractor arm of the Department of State.
Inside the US, deep state actors in Washington generally work through Democratic Party affiliated organizations like MoveOn.org , as well as through labor union organizations like AFL-CIO , and UNITE HERE . These, along with many other similar organizations have been involved in organizing this week’s protests.
It still remains to be seen if Trump’s stated dynamic political vision for America can unite an embattled nation by restoring international relations throughout the world, in addition to helping economic woes at home, or will it simply push the country further into authoritarianism. This remains to be seen.
Certainly, judging by President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s total silence over their own party’s role in fomenting this week’s unrest – one can only conclude that both party leaders approve of the protests and riots. The political motivation is undeniable – to help delegitimize a new Trump presidency.
But one thing is for sure – there’s no doubt now that a systematic design is in place to unsettle the 45th president and the public should question why.
Legal Action Against Soros Groups
In a recent report featured at RT news we learn that George Soros and BLM activists will be sued for the deaths of slain police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge: “The father of the Dallas police officer who was killed by a lone gunman during a Black Lives Matter protest is suing the organization’s activists and George Soros for $550 million . In a separate suit a Baton Rouge police officer is suing for injuries sustained during a BLM protest.
The father of Patrick Zamarripa filed a lawsuit against Black Lives Matter and other groups for allegedly “inciting a war on police” that led to the death of his son.
The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Dallas on Monday seeks $550 million in damages.
“While Defendant Black Lives Matter claims to combat anti-black racism,” the lawsuit said, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, “the movement has in fact incited and committed further violence, severe bodily injury and death against police officers of all races and ethnicities, Jews, and Caucasians. Defendant Black Lives Matter is in fact a violent and revolutionary criminal gang.”
The misguided machinations behind the anti-Trump protests have dominated any peaceful transition into power for the president-elect. Will these protest groups be a reboot of the OWS movement, occupying the masses with their own hateful rhetoric as we move into 2017 and beyond?
More from the Duran below…
‘NEO BLACK BLOC?’– Black bloc provocateurs, have violently escalated protest movements since the 1980’s, all the way through 2011’s Occupy Wall Street Movement and beyond. The riotous scene above is from the anti-trump protests in Portland. (Image Source: willamette week )
George Soros begins his color revolution in America, as MoveOn “activists” march against Trump
By Alex Christoforou The Duran
Anti-Trump protesters march through the streets of New York shouting ‘Not my president’.
MoveOn.org is a George Soros NGO…and George Soros NGOs have nothing to do with charity or justice, and everything to do with political leverage, and in extreme cases government insurrection.
We have seen Soros begin destructive movements to remove those he deems unsuitable to govern in a variety of countries, most recently in Ukraine, with the Soros sponsored Maidan coup.
Now it looks like Soros may be setting his sights on sabotaging the forthcoming Trump presidency.
We do know, thanks to Wikileaks, that George Soros was a huge supporter of Hillary Clinton, as Hillary Clinton was always looking out of George Soros’ best interests.
We are certain Trump’s victory is a bitter pill for globalist Soros to swallow. Between Putin and Trump, Soros may finally be starting to feel his power on the world stage falter.
More from Duran here …
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This year’s SXSW festival is taking on President Trump, according to The Hill, which reported that the proceedings largely focused on negative rhetoric against the president. [“The centerpiece of the panel discussions is a series titled ‘Tech Under Trump,’” reported The Hill on Saturday, adding that the panel discussions “aren’t pulling any punches. ” “NPR reporter Sam Sanders is hosting an event titled the ‘2016 Election: How We Got it Wrong! ,’ reflecting on his experiences covering the 2016 presidential race,” they continued. “Another discussion titled ‘Building Bridges When Others Want to Build Walls,’ is intended to highlight the uncertainty facing immigrants. One panel is discussing ‘From Trump to Trolls: How Muslim Media Fights Back. ’” “Some of the panels aren’t but do highlight the tech industry’s policy priorities, including a discussion titled ‘Can You Hear Me Now? The Rural Broadband Debate,’ featuring Rep. Vicente González ( ) and Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield,” The Hill concluded. “Even the festival’s art and music events are taking on a stronger political tone than in years past. One music showcase is titled ‘Contrabanned,’ and will feature acts from countries including Libya and Somalia, whose citizens are banned from entering the U. S. under Trump’s travel executive order. ” “I’ve never seen in my lifetime an atmosphere of fear as I’ve seen now,” said Sen. Cory Booker at the festival. “I feel a sense of pain about my country right now. “[Trump] isn’t backing away from his rhetoric. But if we don’t engage, we are the source of the problem, not the elected person we don’t like,” he added. In a SXSW session titled “Dark Days: AI and the Rise of Fascism,” Microsoft’s Kate Crawford even attempted to compare the rise of artificial intelligence with fascism. “Just as we are seeing a step function increase in the spread of AI, something else is happening: the rise of rightwing authoritarianism and fascism,” Crawford declared. “We should always be suspicious when machine learning systems are described as free from bias if it’s been trained on data. Our biases are built into that training data. ” SXSW’s chief programming officer Hugh Forrest praised the political slant on this year’s festival. “There is definitely a degree of politics or political focus that may not have been there in previous years,” said Forrest. “We hope people walk away with a little better understanding of issues and the players driving the issues. ” Forrest, who voted for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, previously claimed to be “grieving” following President Trump’s victory in November. He also claimed to be excited about SXSW’s “role” in “paving a more progressive path to the future. ” Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
posted by Eddie Anomalous signals from deep space often evoke a quick pulse of gossip and speculation about aliens that dies off soon thereafter, when scientists are able to explain it. Usually, the explanation involves a natural cosmic process — an asteroid, space detritus, or frequencies from an exploded star. Sometimes, however, the signals are too mysterious to explain. There’s a reason why you may have seen a sustained social media buzz regarding aliens this past week. A few days ago, two scientists from Laval University in Quebec released a paper arguing they may have just received our first communication from extraterrestrials. First, a bit of context. This has been an exciting decade for those of us who stargaze in awe, wondering how many sentient beings live in this incomprehensibly enormous universe of ours. First, the search for exoplanets accelerated dramatically, aided by the Keplar telescope, which has identified over 1,000 planets outside of our solar system. While scientists have long known that our Milky Way galaxy alone probably contains several hundred billion planets , the ability to study them had eluded us until fairly recently (this ability will be exponentially augmented when the James Webb telescope allows us to analyze exoplanets’ atmospheres and search for traces of industrial gasses). Additionally, the discovery of Earth-like exoplanets — some of which are conceivably close enough to visit in a few decades — has tantalizing ramifications for our near future human race. Earlier this year, scientists announced the incredible observation of a series of inexplicable brightness frequencies from the star KIC 8462852, which led many to speculate the signals could have been originating from a Dyson sphere , a theoretical megastructure by which an advanced alien race (a Kardschez type 2 civilization ) could harness the power of its sun. The newest discovery from this star has made it even more unlikely that the signals are from natural causes. The newest strange signals hail from a gaggle of some 234 stars identified by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which analyzed the spectra of 2.5 million stars. E.F. Borra and E. Trottier, the two astronomers who discovered the anomalies, discussed them in their paper , which was originally titled “Signals probably from Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” “We find that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an [extraterrestrial intelligence] signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this hypothesis,” they wrote. “The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis.” Of course, it is far from certain that these are actual alien messages. In an interview with none other than Snopes.com , Borra claimed he never actually used the word ‘probably’ and that further confirmation was needed. The director of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute , Andrew Siemion, issued an admonishing response: “You can’t make such definitive statements about detections unless you’ve exhausted every possible means of follow-up.” So why is everyone so excited? The discovery appears to match a prediction Borra made in 2012 when he claimed aliens could very well use intermittent bursts of laser as a means of communication. For his part, Siemion plans to use his Breakthrough Listen Initiative to more closely assess several stars from the 234 sample. Meanwhile, Borra andTrottier, Borra’s graduate student, will continue observing the mysterious signals. It’s an exciting decade for space research. With plans for a mission to Mars in the hopper, as well as an exploratory probe that will be sent to the moon Europa, we may be witnessing the rebirth of the Space Race. What better incentive could there be to venture further into space than the call of an alien species? Let’s hope that by the time we meet them, our own species will have transcended its addiction to war and unsustainable resource allocation. source: | 0 |
David Simon, creator of HBO’s famed crime drama The Wire, suggested that those who oppose Donald Trump should “pick up a goddamn brick” if the president fires special counsel Robert Mueller. [“If Donald Trump fires Robert Mueller and is allowed to do so, pick up a goddamn brick,” Simon tweeted Monday. “That’s all that’s left to you. ” If Donald Trump fires Robert Mueller and is allowed to do so, pick up a goddamn brick. That’s all that’s left to you. — David Simon (@AoDespair) June 12, 2017, The — whose credits also include the HBO drama Treme and the upcoming series The Deuce — continued to taunt social media users who accused him of inciting violence. “Given that you were provoked to a keyboard, inciting stupidity is a more likely plea bargain in my future,” he tweeted at one user on Tuesday. Given that you were provoked to a keyboard, inciting stupidity is a more likely plea bargain in my future. https: . — David Simon (@AoDespair) June 13, 2017, Simon was defiant, still, after another Twitter user said they would make the United States Secret Service aware of his tweet, which the user said appeared to condone violence against President Trump. “Don’t just call the Secret Service, ya rube,” he wrote. “Call the Justice League. They’re the first line of defense against disturbing rhetoric. Go big!” he said referring to the DC Comics superhero group. Simon has been a vocal critic of the president. In April, the producer slammed Trump’s proposed budget cuts, asking, “Anybody sentient among the crowd that wants to take a crack at this?” Anybody sentient among the crowd that wants to take a crack at this? https: . — David Simon (@AoDespair) March 16, 2017, According to a PBS News’ Judy Woodruff, Trump considered firing Mueller this week. The special counselor appointed to oversee the investigation into alleged connections between the president and Russia has reportedly hired several attorneys who have donated almost exclusively to Democratic politicians, according to CNN. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 1 |
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THE unapologetically pro-life vice president-elect Mike Pence is to visit Ireland in a bid to learn more about how best to run a country where women are treated as little more than incubators, and access to abortion is practically non-existent, WWN can exclusively reveal.
The VP-elect, who claimed that he would make sure the US’s ‘Roe Vs Wade’ ruling that entitles all American women to the right to an abortion was ‘consigned to the ash-heap of history where it belongs’, will jet over to Ireland following the inauguration of Donald Trump in January to ‘learn how the pros do it’ when it comes to abortion.
Pence has stated that he regards Ireland as the ‘standard-bearer’ when it comes to dragging your political feet on abortion reform, and is hoping to bring many of this country’s human rights violations back home to America where they can be exacted on US women too.
“We’re excited to welcome vice president-elect Pence to Ireland,” said Taoiseach Enda Kenny, while buttering his morning toast on the correct side.
“He can take a look at all our high-profile abortion cases, our laws, our panels of ‘experts’ that decide what is best for a woman, and of course we’ll be bringing him up to speed on the best way to ignore any movement that springs up to protest against these laws”. | 0 |
There will be no immediate overhaul or reforms to the foreign guest worker visa program, according to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. [In a media briefing, Spicer said President Donald Trump would be reviewing a number of immigration issues that include visas, but said any reforms to the system before foreign workers could begin applying for the visas on April 1, 2017 would not occur. “I think there is the legal part of immigration and then the illegal part of immigration,” Spicer said, according to The Hindu. “The President’s actions that he’s taken in terms of his executive order and other revamping of immigration policy have focused on our border security, keeping our country safe, our people safe. And then, obviously, whether it’s visas or the other one — spousal visas — other areas of student visas, I think there is a natural desire to have a full look at — a comprehensive look at that. ” The open borders lobby has shifted much of their focus away from Trump’s initiatives on illegal immigration and are now in defensive mode on the issue of visas, as Breitbart Texas reported. media and open border groups are particularly worried of any kinds of changes to the visa program, as the system largely favors young, male Indian workers who fill American jobs. The Trump Administration’s inaction to move on the visa program could see pushback from immigration hawks and voters, as only 30 percent of Americans see the program as necessary, Breitbart Texas reported. Trump does remain aware of issues regarding the current legal immigration system. In an interview with POLITICO, Sen. Tom Cotton ( ) said Trump seemed to endorse his and Sen. David Perdue’s ( ) “RAISE Act,” which will cut legal immigration by 50 percent over a period of time. The legislation would also reduce the number of green cards issued every year from about one million to 500, 000 end extended family chain migration to the U. S. eliminate the 50, 000 visas granted to foreigners under the diversity visa lottery and permanently cap U. S. refugees resettlement to 50, 000 per year. Some 85, 000 visas are allotted to foreign workers every year through the U. S. government’s visa lottery program, which has long been criticized by Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions. John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
If there was one child Mohammad Rahami had to worry about bringing shame upon the family, it was Ahmad. In the fifth grade, his teacher complained to Mr. Rahami that Ahmad acted like a king in class. In junior high, he broke a friend’s nose. Even worse was high school — after Mr. Rahami arranged for Ahmad to marry a good Afghan girl from Kabul, Ahmad dated a Dominican girl, getting her pregnant in his senior year. The shame. They had so many of them. In the beginning, because Ahmad was just becoming too American for his conservative Afghan parents, who had moved to New Jersey after Mr. Rahami fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets as part of the mujahedeen in the 1980s. And then, in the last few years, they fell out over much darker fears. Ahmad spent hours watching videos on the internet espousing violent jihad, embracing some of the most prominent purveyors of that message: Bin Laden, Awlaki, Adnani, the men who in that world needed no first names. Mr. Rahami said he asked Ahmad to stop. “This is wrong,” Mr. Rahami recalled telling his son, one of eight children. “You don’t know if they are real Muslims. You shouldn’t watch them. You have nothing to do with them. ” But nothing stopped Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, who now stands accused of bombings in New York and New Jersey and a string of other attempts: not Mr. Rahami’s entreaties to his son that such a fascination with jihadi videos was “a disease,” and not the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into Ahmad in 2014. In many ways, Ahmad’s story is similar to those of the perpetrators of other recent terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe: a disaffected immigrant, straddling two worlds and unable to fit into either a young man who had not yet found a meaningful path in life, easily recruited into a cause that promised divine rewards. It is particularly similar to the life of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the popular, outgoing high school student sentenced to death a few years after graduation for his role in the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon. But Ahmad’s story has nuances, showing how difficult it was for him to make it in America while trying to break out of his conservative family, something, for a while, he seemed to want desperately. His earliest rebellion was not against the West. It was against his father, a conservative, proud man who tried to run his family like he would have back home. And then, later, Ahmad gave up that fight for another, seemingly seeking out jihad on his own and spurning the country that had welcomed his family as refugees. In his recent planning, Ahmad appeared to be isolated and occasionally conflicted. There was no brother to lead him, as in the case of Mr. Tsarnaev. No terrorist cell appeared to be actively helping him. No wife bent on jihad as well, as with the couple in the December shootings in San Bernardino, Calif. No group rushed to claim him or his attacks. Not Al Qaeda and not the Islamic State, despite Ahmad’s praise of figures from both groups in the notebook found on him. That notebook also showed his fear: that he would be caught before he completed his mission, the authorities said. So what turned Ahmad, the class clown, the man who once wanted to be a police officer or a translator for the United States military, into the man now accused of orchestrating the most serious terrorist strike in New York City since the Sept. 11 attacks? Much remains unanswered, but one thing is certain from interviews with his father and friends: He found jihad on the internet, at a time when there was nothing particularly bad in his life, but nothing particularly good. His life was standing in place. Even as his brothers moved on, graduated from college, drove for Uber, Ahmad was stuck. He tried jobs and failed, and ultimately fell back on the one thing he knew, and wanted to get away from: his family’s business. Years of small indignities piled up, the minor court cases, like the one with the neighbor who allegedly conned him in a bank swindle that involved transferring someone else’s money to him and paying her back. He asked her in a text message, “Yo this is solely your money tho rite. ” (It was not.) There were two main phases of Ahmad’s life — before he started watching the videos in 2013 and after, as he grew ever more radical. As a teenager, Ahmad embraced America. To his friends, he was not Ahmad — he was Mad or Ack. He wore baggy jeans, Air Jordans and hoodies, sent slangy text messages proclaiming “na meen,” instead of “know what I mean. ” He was a cutup, a clown. He had girlfriends. He wrote love poems in a spiral notebook. Back then, Mr. Rahami’s desire to send Ahmad to Afghanistan as a way to bring him into a right way of thinking and curb his excesses was seen as a threat, as a punishment, not as a gateway to an extremist cause. But then came the last trip. In April 2013, Ahmad left for a nearly yearlong stay in Pakistan. While there, he took trips to Turkey and Afghanistan, according to immigration and law enforcement officials in Pakistan and the United States. A relative in Quetta, Pakistan, where Ahmad was staying, began to fret about what was becoming of him, his father said. Ahmad had fallen under the sway of a radical cleric in Quetta, a man called Mullah Qudri, according to a close relative in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting family members. Ahmad came home, angry and violent. A few months later, he stabbed his mother, a brother and a sister. His father was so worried that he talked to the F. B. I. But then, with that investigation closed, Mr. Rahami tried to reconcile with his son. This is a tightknit Afghan family, after all — a father will forgive many things in a son. By this year, Ahmad seemed to be doing better. He agreed to take over his father’s restaurant. He even moved into a room in the family apartment upstairs. And then, over the summer, he put a lock on the door. The story of the Rahami family is a typical one for the Afghan diaspora, tracing the fallout from the wars in Afghanistan. Mohammad Rahami, a Pashtun from Kandahar, joined the fight against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan shortly after the Soviets invaded in 1979, when he was only 16. In the war, backed by the United States, he fought both with or the Islamic Party, comprised mainly of ethnic Pashtuns, and with a faction of the or Islamic Society, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, who would become Afghanistan’s president during the civil war in the 1990s. Mr. Rahami would later show a prized photograph to a neighbor who served in the Marines in Afghanistan: of himself as a young man, a traditional brown pakol perched on his head, with three or four other men, all brandishing rifles. In 1984, Mr. Rahami moved his home base over the Pakistan border into Quetta, a city teeming with refugees, one that would later become a stronghold for militants. He settled with his wife, Najiba, and other family members. The Rahamis started a family, first a daughter, Aziza, then a son, Mohammad Khan. Ahmad was born in 1988. Najiba was pregnant in 1989, with another son, Qasim, when Mr. Rahami left Pakistan for New Jersey to claim refugee status, about the time that the Soviets fled Afghanistan. He was all of 26 years old, and his war, his own jihad, was already behind him. Najiba and their four children followed in 1995. Four more children would come later. They endured the travails of so many immigrants with little education: hard work, a confusing legal system, limited opportunity and a sea of slights for things that would make no sense back home. Mr. Rahami moved his family from one home to the next one on the New Jersey ladder, from the sprawling Ivy Hill apartment complex in Newark to the Galloping Hill Estates subdivision in Union to the Blueberry Village apartments in Edison, names that all evoked possibility and peace. But all the while, problems piled up: the small lawsuits, his children’s with the police, and Ahmad, always Ahmad. Mr. Rahami made his way in America like many Afghans at the time in the New York area: in fried chicken, just like the Afghans who started Kennedy Fried Chicken, the shop that has spawned hundreds of restaurants since the first one opened in the 1970s. When Afghans first arrived, they would work for another Afghan, and then they would join together with other Afghan workers to start their own chicken restaurants, to be their own bosses, with aspirational names like Royal Fried Chicken, formerly known as Hollywood Fried Chicken. “In the community, it’s a good way to get started,” said Mohammed who incorporated businesses in New Jersey, including one of Mr. Rahami’s first ones in Newark. So in the 1990s, Mr. Rahami helped run Tasty Pizza Fried Chicken. In 2002, he would open his flagship, which was really just a hole in the wall, named for the country that embraced him as a refugee: First American Fried Chicken. Within two years, he had joined a Kennedy Fried Chicken franchise in Asbury Park. Other relatives opened chicken shops. His sons would work in all of them, long hours into the night. The family lived for nine years in Ivy Hill, a magnet for immigrants. Ahmad was known to neighbors as the kid who tagged along with his big brother. Mohammad, older by about two years, was tall and skinny. Ahmad was short and plump, his weight something that would continue to bother him. When they saw their elders, they would both say “salaam,” a respectful greeting. When they saw their friends, it was, “Hey, what’s up guys?” They played basketball and went to the park. With their parents, they spoke Pashto, a neighbor recalled. The apartment complex allowed its Muslim residents to create a mosque in the basement. They put carpets down and installed and called it the Ivy Hills Masjid. The Rahami children wore jeans and most of the time but traditional clothes on Fridays, for the most important Islamic prayer of the week. “You line them up, it was like the von Trapp family, times two,” said Ken Creegan, a regular at the chicken restaurant who became friendly with the family. Ahmad was interested in politics in his teens, said a close friend who has known him for about 15 years and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to get swept up in the investigation. He railed against Pakistan and its main intelligence agency, the Intelligence directorate, better known as the ISI, which he blamed, like many Afghans, for messing up his ancestral land. “As a teenager, he was angry at Pakistan, saying ISI created the Taliban — he was angry about it,” the friend said. Little nuisances always seemed to snowball for the Rahamis. Some of the issues should have been simple enough to fix, like the $242 gas bill from Tasty Pizza Fried Chicken in July 1998. The elder Mr. Rahami did not pay it. He let it haunt him for six years, until the gas company finally sued him. Then there was the matter of being sued by a man who claimed he broke a tooth on a hamburger at Kennedy Fried Chicken. That was a minor irritant, really, but it came just days after Aziza, his eldest daughter, a high school junior, was arrested on suspicion of taking about $565 worth of jewelry and perfume from a Filene’s store. Not only that, a brief about it ran in a newspaper, although the outcome of the case is unclear. The year 2004 was not a great one for the family: Despite all his business endeavors, Mr. Rahami said he earned only $10, 000, a court filing showed. Just try raising eight children on that. Mr. Rahami filed for bankruptcy in October 2005, a decision that for a prideful Pashtun man had to have been tough to make. He owed almost $46, 000, for things like a Macy’s card and a doctor in Union, N. J. and a 1999 Chevrolet Suburban. He claimed to earn only $1, 447. 33 a month from his chicken restaurant, somehow feeding his family on $200 of that. He had just $100 in the bank. Ahmad was also becoming a source of anxiety. The teenager had enjoyed his popularity with a certain group of girls, a male friend said, and the attention “sometimes puffed up his head. ” His father fretted that he was absorbing too many of the negative aspects of American culture. So off Ahmad went to relatives in Quetta in the beginning of what should have been his junior year, his first trip out of America in five years. He stayed until January 2006, and then returned to Edison High School in Elizabeth. Imani Podhradsky sat next to him in Algebra 2, but said Ahmad spent more time socializing than solving math problems. Maria Mena, whose family was from the Dominican Republic, became Ahmad’s sweetheart. A photograph shows the couple in a swimming pool, with another couple and three friends, a diverse group, Maria smiling broadly and hugging Ahmad from behind. Mr. Rahami was furious at the relationship. The family had arranged for Ahmad to marry a woman in Afghanistan. He told his son that he could not have a girlfriend while he was engaged to someone else. No surprise, but Ahmad did what he wanted. By senior year, Maria was pregnant. The teenagers were excited, holding hands in the hallways, grinning and touching each other. In a prom picture, Maria is pregnant, wearing a shy smile and a white dress. Ahmad seems happy, too, wearing a shiny pink vest and a matching tie over a white shirt. His father had had enough. One day, Ahmad came to school upset, Ms. Podhradsky said. His parents were forcing him to move back to Afghanistan after graduation. In early July 2007, just after Ahmad graduated, he was put on a plane — to Pakistan, it turned out — leaving behind his girlfriend, who would give birth to their daughter without him. When Ahmad came home the next March, he tried to put his life back together. He moved in with Maria’s family that year. He worked a job at Kmart, which paid him $485. 69 a week, court records show. The life that he was building was small, but he was doing it on his own, and that was something. He tried to be a good father. In July 2008, when he was 20, he spent $10. 68 for a modest purchase at a toy store. At the time, his bank balance was only $406. 41. The Rahami family also continued to rack up legal problems. For years, it seemed as if the family’s main encounters with the outside community were negative ones, in the courtroom, involving lawsuits over small, unpaid bills. Qasim was arrested as a juvenile. At one point, even the mother, Najiba, was arrested, charged with abusing the couple’s and sent to parenting classes. Around this time, the City of Elizabeth started coming after First American, which had become a spot for local teenagers to hang out at night. They staged rap battles in the back. The dispute became heated, with the city slapping tickets on the restaurant for staying open past 10 p. m. and the Rahamis arguing that such tickets should never have been issued. After what seemed like countless confrontations, Mohammad Khan, the eldest brother, and another sibling, Qasim, tried to record a police visit in June 2009. They complained of selective enforcement. There was a confrontation, and the two were jailed. Qasim was released Mohammad Khan eventually pleaded guilty to a minor charge. The Rahamis then filed a federal civil rights suit, claiming in part that they were being targeted because of their faith. That lawsuit fizzled out. Ahmad is strangely absent from those court documents. But at some point, he came back to the family, strapped with an incomprehensible $996 a month in child support, now estranged from Maria. He tried to find his footing. He enrolled in September 2010 in a program at Middlesex County College, but he would give it up in two years. About the same time, he told his close friend who had known him for 15 years that he went to Washington to try to get a job as a translator in Afghanistan with the United States military. But he knew only Pashto, one of the two main languages in the country. “They rejected him and told him to learn Dari,” the friend recalled. Nothing was working out. He started working nights, from 6 p. m. until 3 a. m. manning the register at Royal Fried Chicken in Elizabeth. On one of the nights he had visitation rights to his daughter, he brought her to work, said Amarjit Singh, a and high school friend. He held her, refusing to let her go. His life kept going in fits and starts. Ahmad finally married his fiancée on a trip to Pakistan in 2011. But the next year, he was fighting with his in court. He was slapped with a restraining order — it was not clear by whom — and jailed for violating it eight days later. By 2013, he was becoming someone else. A friend from high school, who had once watched the movie “Hellboy” with Ahmad, found out that his friend’s tastes in videos had changed. Ahmad had started watching YouTube videos of extremists, said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was afraid of repercussions. At one point, the friend said, Ahmad showed him a lecture by the leading Qaeda propagandist Anwar killed in a C. I. A. drone strike in September 2011. “He put his hands in this,” is the expression Mr. Rahami used to describe his son’s growing extremism, which he first saw in 2013. So when Ahmad went to Pakistan the last time, in April 2013, he was already dabbling in extremism. Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province and a haven for Taliban leaders and other extremists, would have made it easy for him to be drawn in deeper. The irony was clear: As a young teenager, he had hated the Taliban and Pakistan. And now he embraced them, even though a relative had been killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan around this time, the friend of 15 years said. His close relative in Afghanistan said Ahmad fell under the spell of a man named Mullah Qudri, whom he met through friends in California. “This Mullah Qudri has brainwashed Ahmad,” the relative said, adding that Mullah Qudri was even spending nights with Ahmad at the house where he was staying in Quetta. Ahmad traveled to Afghanistan for several weeks early on in his trip, according to Pakistani immigration authorities. He also made a short detour in early 2014 to Turkey — the gateway to Syria and the Islamic State — although it is not clear what he did there, law enforcement officials said. When Ahmad came home in March 2014, he was flagged by customs officials, who pulled him aside for a second screening and alerted a federal agency that assesses potential threats, two law enforcement officials said. It was the first time he came to the attention of federal authorities. But nothing happened. And there Ahmad was again, living now with his brothers in an apartment in Perth Amboy, N. J. working in the chicken business, even as his brothers were moving on to other things. Only now, he favored wearing more traditional clothes. Only now, he was angry and erratic. His wife, Asia Bibi Rahami, had just given birth to their son but was having trouble getting a visa to come to the United States. When Ahmad showed up at the local congressman’s office to ask for help, he was gruff and abrupt, asking the office to mail a letter to Islamabad demanding to know why it was taking so long. One day in August, he stabbed his brother, his sister and his mother none of the injuries were grievous, but still. Mr. Rahami, who had seen his son watching these horrible videos, who feared what he was becoming, called the police, a difficult decision, calling in the very people who had never done his family any favors. He described his son to them as a “terrorist. ” Ahmad was charged with stabbing his brother Nasim in the left leg. Mr. Rahami, in interviews last week, did not want to say much about the attack, so it is not clear why Ahmad was charged only with his brother’s stabbing. Ahmad spent a little more than two months in jail, and Mr. Rahami said he talked to the F. B. I. about his concerns about his son’s growing extremism. The F. B. I. which challenged Mr. Rahami’s recollection, never interviewed Ahmad. And about three weeks after the stabbing, the review was formally closed. Life went on. Ahmad’s wife eventually made it to the United States. Mr. Rahami and Ahmad were mostly estranged, although in an Afghan family, where family life is paramount, such estrangements are rarely forever. So then came this year, when the elder Mr. Rahami and his wife and their youngest children planned to move to Roanoke, Va. near relatives, where they would open up another restaurant. Ahmad’s brothers were doing well. One was driving for Uber. Another had graduated from college. So Mr. Rahami offered his wayward son a shot: If he wanted, First American was his. The restaurant deal lasted less than six weeks. After a bitter dispute between father and son, Mohammad Rahami came back at the end of May to run the business until he could sell it. Ahmad left the restaurant and started working shifts at two other restaurants in the area. But Ahmad stayed in his father’s apartment, keeping a lock on the door of his room, Mr. Rahami said. His son grew so suspicious of his father trying to get inside, even through the windows, that he changed the lock. In June, Ahmad started ordering supplies from eBay, the slingshot steelies, the citric acid, the circuit board, according to the federal criminal complaint against him. He planned. At some point, he allegedly scrawled his thoughts in a notebook, along with thoughts of his muses, Awlaki, Bin Laden and a founder of the Islamic State. “Inshallah the sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets,” the journal finished. “Gun shots to your police. Death To Your OPPRESSION. ” The bombs went off last weekend, but the elder Mr. Rahami was busy in his chicken restaurant, keeping it open into the wee hours, the best time to make money, after the bars let out and people were hungry. On Monday morning, Mr. Rahami closed the business just before 3. He said his prayers, and then he went to bed. But then he heard a loud racket outside. Two officers burst into his apartment and told him to raise his hands, he said. They handcuffed him, he said, and put him on the floor, before marching him outside his bedroom. There, he saw three of his sons — Mohammad Khan, Qasim, Nasim — also handcuffed. He looked from one to the next and he had one thought: “Where is Ahmad?” | 1 |
ERBIL, Iraq — Mosul’s residents are hoarding food and furtively scrawling resistance slogans on walls, while the city’s Islamic State rulers have feverishly expanded their underground tunnel network and tried to dodge American drones. After months of maneuvering, the Iraqi government’s battle to reclaim Mosul, the sprawling city whose population lent the most credence to the Islamic State’s claim to rule a fledgling nation, has finally begun. In the early hours Monday, an announcement by Prime Minister Haider of the campaign’s opening was accompanied by artillery barrages and a rush of armored vehicles toward the front a few miles from the city’s limits. Those forces will fight to enter a city where for weeks the harsh authoritarian rule of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, has sought to crack down on a population eager to either escape or rebel, according to interviews with roughly three dozen people from Mosul. Among them were refugees who managed to sneak out in recent weeks and residents reached by contraband cellphones in the city. Just getting out of Mosul had become difficult and dangerous: Those who were caught faced fines, unless they were former members of the Iraqi Army or police, in which case the punishment was beheading. While the civilians described stockpiling food in basement hiding places, the jihadists were said to be frantically making military preparations within Mosul, temporarily fleeing the streets — most likely to an extensive tunnel network below — at the first signs of an airstrike, according to the new accounts. Some of Mosul’s remaining one million or more residents had grown bolder in showing resistance to the Islamic State force ruling the city — numbering 3, 000 to 4, 500 fighters, the United States military estimated. Graffiti and other displays of dissidence against the Islamic State were more common in recent weeks, as were executions when the vandals were caught. Early this month, 58 people were executed for their role in a plot to overturn the Islamic State that was led by an aide of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Reuters reported. When fewer than 1, 000 Islamic State fighters forced about 60, 000 Iraqi Army and police defenders to abandon Mosul in June 2014, many among its Sunni population cheered their arrival. They saw the militants as fellow Sunnis who would end corruption and abuse at the hands of the Iraqi government and security services. But much of that local good will dissipated after more than two years of harsh rule by the militants, a mix of Iraqis and Syrians with a grab bag of foreign fighters. Mosul residents chafed under social codes banning smoking and calling for splashing acid on body tattoos, summary executions of perceived opponents, whippings of those who missed prayers or trimmed their beards, and destroying “ ” historical monuments. “Anyone who has accepted Daesh before? They’ve changed their minds now,” said Azhar Mahmoud, a former Education Ministry official who recently fled his home village near Mosul, and who initially accepted rule by the Islamic State. In addition, there were recent reports of at least some underground resistance within the city, if mostly symbolic. Photos and oral accounts abounded of the Arabic letter M scrawled on walls — standing for moqawama, or resistance. The Islamic State beheaded two men in front of one such slogan, and posted a video of the killings. Another execution video identified the victims, punished for internet use, as members of the resistance group Suraya Rimah, according to the group’s leader, Omar Fadil who is based in the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil, about 50 miles east of Mosul. “People are just waiting for liberation so they can fulfill their promises to take revenge on Daesh and kill them,” Mr. Alaf said. Compounding the militants’ problems with the population was a growing economic crisis, according to American officials. In recent months, the Islamic State lost control of oil fields near Raqqa in Syria and Qaiyara in Iraq, and trade with parts of Syria was choked off because of the group’s military reversals. Electricity, once plentiful before Kurdish forces took back the Mosul Dam from militant control, has been typically available for only a couple of hours a day, residents say. Some areas lack running water, with residents forced to use personal generators to pump water from wells. Schools had not opened at all this year, absent funding and teachers willing to work for nothing. The local economic crisis hit the militants as well, with reports that they cut the pay for their fighters to less than $100 a month, from $400 in 2014, said Abu Bakr Kanan, a former leader of the Sunni religious affairs office in Mosul, who said he was in regular touch with residents there. Many of the residents contacted described the militants as conducting a recruiting drive among to males, depicting enlistment as a religious duty, but with apparently decreasing success. A car mechanic who left the city just over two weeks ago, and asked not to be identified because he still had relatives there, said that on his final Friday in Mosul he attended prayers at which a prominent Islamic State imam harangued the worshipers about volunteering, but seemingly won no one over. The militants’ security preparations have been directed not only at the city’s borders — particularly toward the south and east where Iraqi forces, allied militias and Kurdish pesh merga fighters are arrayed — but also internally. Traffic on secondary roads in the city was banned, and searches — for weapons and any signs of organized resistance — were carried out in many neighborhoods. Last month, a YouTube video surfaced of Suraya Rimah fighters appealing to residents of Mosul to kill their Islamic State rulers when the offensive began. Resistance groups in the city — at least five claimed to have a presence — say they concentrated on assassinating individuals, said Abdullah Abu Ahmed, who described himself as a leader of an brigade in Mosul called The Resistance. He was reached by telephone through intermediaries. “All Mosul people, whenever they have the chance to fight and kill ISIS terrorists, they do so,” he said. He cited a recent attack on a jewelry market in which two members of the Islamic State were killed. Over the past few weeks, coalition airstrikes began more intensively targeting the suspected homes of senior Islamic State figures in Mosul. Residents said those senior militants, many of whom had relatively high public profiles in the city, became conspicuous by their absence on the streets. There have also been a notable number of desertions from the Islamic State. Kurdish officials said they had found 300 suspected deserters, or potential infiltrators, in recent months. Most were caught among the refugees escaping from territory who arrived at the Dibaga Camp, the main site for refugees, south of Erbil, said Ardalan Mohiadin, who is in charge of the camp’s reception center. Dibaga Camp now has 43, 000 refugees from Mosul and other Islamic State strongholds, with about 11, 000 arriving in September alone, Mr. Mohiadin said. Despite months of preparation for a much larger wave of refugees from the city, aid officials warned that it was unlikely to be nearly enough once the fighting intensified. “The United Nations is deeply concerned that in a scenario, the operation in Mosul could be the most complex and largest in the world in 2016, and we fear as many as one million civilians may be forced to flee their homes,” said Lise Grande, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator for Iraq. Airstrikes on the militants in Mosul led many of them to move in among civilian residents, the locals said. A woman who arrived at Dibaga Camp recently said her family had been forced to take in a Chechen ISIS fighter, and shortly afterward an airstrike hit the home, killing the militant but also two members of the family. The woman’s daughter was trapped under a collapsed wall. The girl survived and is with her mother in the camp now. Nearly all of the Mosul residents contacted spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Islamic State retaliation. Even most refugees did not want to be identified because they still had relatives in Mosul. “We are suffering from so many problems, we feel like the living dead,” said a woman who identified herself only by the initials S. A. In addition to American air support, President Obama this month approved 615 more American troops to aid the Mosul offensive by providing intelligence and logistical assistance. That brings the American forces in Iraq to more than 5, 000. Some in Mosul described how militants had begun going house to house to collect used tires that could be set on fire to generate smoke screens. “We expect everything,” said Sabah the spokesman for the Iraqi Counterterrorism Force. “We know this is the last station for ISIS — there is nowhere else for them to go. We have to prepare for a very tough fight. ” | 1 |
Mitt Romney was excoriated during the 2012 presidential campaign for paying $4. 9 million in federal income tax, or an average of just 14 percent of his adjusted gross income, in the two years for which he released returns. No one should be surprised, though, if Donald J. Trump has paid far less — perhaps even zero federal income tax in some years. Indeed, that’s the expectation of numerous real estate and tax professionals I’ve interviewed in recent weeks. Even with hundreds of millions in gross revenue from his vast real estate empire, “it’s both possible and legal that Donald Trump would pay little or no income tax,” said Len Green, an accountant and chairman of the Green Group, a tax and accounting advisory firm. Mr. Green is also a real estate investor, teaches at Babson College and is the author of the forthcoming “The Entrepreneur’s Playbook. ” “I would expect he’s paying little or no tax,” agreed Steven M. Rosenthal, a veteran tax lawyer and senior fellow at the Tax Policy center. That’s because Mr. Trump, as a prominent and active developer, can take advantage of some of the most generous tax breaks in the federal tax code to reduce his reported income to near zero, or even report a loss. Few tax advisers to major real estate developers would speak for attribution, because their clients benefit from the same tax breaks available to Mr. Trump. But all told me they knew developers in Mr. Trump’s league who pay little or no income tax despite hundreds of millions in cash flow. “Real estate is notorious for throwing off huge deductions,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “That coupled with wide latitude in the timing and recognition of income make real estate development extremely attractive from a tax standpoint. ” The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment, nor did William F. Nelson, a former general counsel to the Internal Revenue Service and partner at Morgan, Lewis Bockius, one of Mr. Trump’s tax lawyers. Mr. Trump has said in the past that highly paid corporate executives “get away with murder” on their taxes while boasting that he pays as little as the law allows. At the same time, he has insisted that his federal income tax payments are “substantial. ” No one I spoke to has seen Mr. Trump’s tax returns, because he has not released them. One obvious potential reason is that he reports little or no taxable income, and thus pays very little to support the government he wants to run. He is not obligated by law to make his returns public, but every candidate since Richard Nixon refused to has done so. (Gerald Ford released summaries.) Mr. Romney was harshly criticized for releasing just two years’ worth, and it became a major campaign issue four years ago. Even though his recent returns are confidential, the notion that Mr. Trump has paid little or no tax is not entirely speculative. It’s consistent with Mr. Trump’s returns from the late 1970s, which he filed with the New Jersey Casino Control Commission when applying for a casino license in 1981. Mr. Trump reported losses and paid no federal income tax in 1978 and 1979 and paid only modest sums — a total of less than $75, 000 — for the prior three years. David Cay Johnston, a former reporter for The New York Times who has written extensively about Mr. Trump, reported in The Daily Beast in June that Mr. Trump also paid no income tax in 1984, citing a New York State Division of Tax Appeals ruling. Their conclusions are reinforced by Mr. Trump’s extensive financial disclosures required of presidential candidates. His latest filing in May lists 564 entities in which he holds a position, usually president, director or “member. ” Most are corporations, usually owned in turn by a limited liability company and associated with a specific property, such as the office tower at 40 Wall Street (the subject of four such L. L. C. s, each of which owns a major interest in the other). That does not count entities in which Mr. Trump does not hold any position. He lists 188 entries under “employment assets and income. ” Candidates are only required to list assets from which they earn more than $200 reporting ventures is optional. L. L. C.s pass on income (and, equally important, losses) to their owners. Real estate L. L. C.s can generate enormous losses, even with millions in revenue, because of depreciation, interest payments, real estate taxes and operating costs. Mr. Trump can use paper losses to offset taxable income, such as interest, dividends, royalties and employment income. That’s a loophole that was eliminated for most investors in the landmark tax reform legislation in 1986. But because of aggressive lobbying by the powerful real estate industry, active developers like Mr. Trump were exempted from restrictions on using such paper losses to offset ordinary income. The tax value of Mr. Trump’s paper losses may well exceed his investment in the underlying properties, because he and other developers typically make minimal down payments and use as much debt as possible to finance a purchase. To take just one example, Mr. Trump bought what is now the Trump National Doral Miami resort and golf club for $150 million while it was in bankruptcy proceedings and financed the purchase with $125 million in loans from Deutsche Bank. Interest payments on mortgages and loans are deductible. How much total debt Mr. Trump’s properties have incurred is not known, but based on his latest financial disclosure (which shows only ranges) it’s at least $250 million and probably far more than that, with some estimates close to $1 billion. At an average interest rate of 4 percent, that deduction alone is worth at least $10 million a year and perhaps $40 million or more. At least interest is a cash payment. Depreciation is a noncash charge, and is largely an accounting conceit that benefits real estate investors. The theory is that real estate loses value over time and is eventually worthless. As everyone surely knows, most real estate has historically appreciated in value. How much Mr. Trump’s property investments might throw off in depreciation depends on what he paid for them, how much he’s spent on capital improvements and how the assets are categorized (some assets qualify for accelerated depreciation). But the depreciation schedule for commercial property, and purchases and capital investments of $2 billion (a modest estimate, given that Mr. Trump values his assets at $10 billion) would generate depreciation deductions of $50 million a year. Depreciation is ordinarily recaptured and taxed when an asset is sold. But Mr. Trump and other developers can benefit from provisions that make that unlikely. If they sell appreciated properties at a large profit but use the proceeds to buy other real estate, the transactions may be considered a “ ” exchange. If so, there’s no tax on the gain. Critics have called exchanges an outrageous tax loophole that benefits wealthy real estate developers and other investors to the tune of $33 billion in lost tax revenue a year. The Obama administration has called for repealing it, and several bipartisan measures to do so have been introduced in Congress, all to no avail given the gridlock over tax reform. “It’s a big loophole,” Mr. Rosenthal said of the exchange provisions. “It allows and taxpayers to defer their tax liability potentially until death. ” Mr. Trump’s business entities also deduct real estate taxes and all their operating costs and expenses, which might well include most of Mr. Trump’s living and travel expenses, because his personal and business lives are so intertwined. (Even his suits are presumably a business cost, because he has a men’s wear line.) “The difference between business and personal costs can be a very fine line,” Mr. Green said, “especially for someone like Trump. ” If Mr. Trump’s losses exceed his income, they can be carried over into subsequent years and used to offset future income. Politico reported in June that documents from New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement and Casino Control Commission indicate that Mr. Trump had such in the 1990s, when his casino operations were under stress. This may also explain why Mr. Trump has not disclosed many large charitable contributions, because the charitable deduction would be of scant value if he has little or no taxable income. The enormous tax benefits available to real estate developers like Mr. Trump make yet another a compelling case for overhauling the tax system. But that’s not to say he’s done anything wrong. “People aren’t obligated to pay taxes they don’t owe,” Mr. Green said. “It’s the job of tax professionals to use every legal means to minimize taxes, and I’m sure Trump has some of the best working for him. Many wealthy people pay no tax. ” But they’re not running for president. “It is disqualifying for a presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters,” Mitt Romney recently said on Facebook. He, of all people, should know. | 1 |
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WWN’s VIRAL TEAM has been monitoring some of the 400 Irish sites which regularly post the latest Coláiste Lurgan videos and the Galway gang are back with another song!
The melodies are note perfect, and the chorus brings forth that by now familiar wave of goosebumps on the skin, but in a strange departure from their other work this latest ditty is in English and so it’s shite.
It’s hard to put our finger on why 60 girls and boys singing their hearts out in an emotionally evocative fashion leaves us cold, when on the previous 40 occasions we were floored, stunned and totes in awe and had bags of grá for them.
Their stirring version of Eminem’s classic ‘Smack That’ should have left us feeling 179% more Irish than we already feel, but alas the choice to sing in English robs the song of any greater meaning, therefore garnering not so rave reviews.
A casual look below the video in the comments section of Youtube reveals we’re not the only ones who feel this way.
“In English? Die #feelingbetrayed,” wrote one livid internet user in English.
Calls for a government inquiry to be launched have been growing in momentum this morning with Twitter user @Gra32 summing up everyone’s feelings.
“Is this some sort of sick joke?” @Gra32 queried.
At the time of this article’s publication, Coláiste Lurgan has yet to apologise. | 0 |
On the emotional fulcrum of New York City size and setting are forever in sway. Does a park view trump a guest bedroom? Is a vast kitchen worth settling blocks from a trendy thoroughfare? Usually, a compromise is struck. Unless it isn’t. For a small but resolute faction of New Yorkers, living in a particular neighborhood, or even on a certain street, is an unwavering desire. These partisans happily renounce many comforts for the privilege — even though it means squeezing into a minuscule space. These are not individuals who have been painted into a corner, nor are they young professional types starting out in the new . Many are simply realizing the fantasy of moving to a charmed setting, home size be damned. For others, safe and socially or culturally rich environs are far more alluring than square footage. And then there are those who prize geographic convenience, as well as the emotional liberation of (really) living. For some, the ultimate New York neighborhood may be Greenwich Village, defined by its winding streets, historic architecture, cozy but chic storefronts and diverse dining options. Roomy digs are less essential when a neighborhood serves as an extension of your living room, wherever in the five boroughs it may be. Vicki Behm and her husband, Glenn Coleman, are Chicago transplants who have lived in New York for 20 years. Their residential history is a handbook for urban downsizing, as they have managed to achieve, in four happy translocations, the equivalent of reducing a cow to a bouillon cube. “Before buying this place, we sat down and said, ‘This is little, even for us,’ ” recalls Ms. Behm, a painter and public school teacher, while sitting in the snug living studio of her residence on West 11th Street in Greenwich Village, several blocks from the Hudson River. An accomplished artist who once favored large, abstract canvases — “Not anymore I draw at this table” — she had long been drawn to the neighborhood. The couple’s real estate journey in New York began in 1996 when they rented a comfortable apartment in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Two years later they purchased a nearby 1840s townhouse, with three bedrooms and two working marble fireplaces. Four years later, for reasons personal and professional, they decided to move to Manhattan, even if it meant downscaling. Being devotees of modern art, the couple gravitated to the landmark 1936 Rockefeller Apartments, built in the curvaceous International Style, on West 55th Street. Their was augmented by a terrace. The building had a private garden and a captivating neighbor, the Museum of Modern Art. “It was nice, well run and fit us well,” Mr. Coleman, a financial journalist, said of the Rockefeller. “Although I don’t miss cutting 24 checks at Christmastime. ” Several years later, they contracted the highly contagious Village virus. “When we were living in Midtown, we used to walk around this neighborhood and say, ‘Gosh, wouldn’t it be great to live here someday?’ ” Ms. Behm recounts. “I never got that out of my mind. ” One day they happened upon a in a in a brick compound of five contiguous buildings that wrap around West 11th and Washington Streets. The setting was ideal. “But the apartment was in really rough shape,” Ms. Behm said. “Even the halls were bad, with that surface like icing on a cake that you can cut yourself on. ” A big plus was the shared roof garden with trees, plants and views of the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building. They bought the for $660, 000. They executed a complete, historically minded overhaul, including redoing walls and ceilings, and installing period woodwork and period black doorknobs. One small bedroom was turned into a closet, study and TV room, while the other remained a sleeping space. “Once we got used to it, and it took a little time, we were happy with the move,” Ms. Behm said. “Except those stairs,” Mr. Coleman said. They loved the neighborhood. As the Village goes, West 11th delivers on the swoon meter: gracious old brownstones, inviting restaurants, cafes and bars, an art gallery and a tiny spa. But last summer they learned through the grapevine that a in the compound was going on the market. Because the tiny place opened onto a handsome courtyard of about 2, 000 square feet, the locals referred to it as a “cottage. ” “And I have always wanted to live in a cottage,” Ms. Behm said, beaming. She soon learned that her infatuation with cottages was shared by a number of other New Yorkers. On the day of the open house, an estimated 250 prospective buyers queued up around the block. Being residents of the Ms. Behm and Mr. Coleman were on the inside track and purchased it for $825, 000. Their current dwelling is not exactly a cottage, but it feels like one. The courtyard just outside, where they have put a small table and chairs, belongs to their Ms. Behm said, but is seldom used by others. After minor alterations, the couple moved in last September. They are more than content. Of course, the smaller you go, the more you heave overboard, Ms. Behm said. “So out goes the Herman Miller sofa and credenza out go my big art books — that was hard. The big turkey platter had to go, also my nine cake pans — I’ll buy that flourless chocolate cake. ” She also sold all but one of her large paintings. Their cheerful room features a working fireplace (wood is stored at the bottom of bookshelves) hardwood floors, tall windows facing the courtyard and an ceiling. A napkin’s toss away are a bedroom with a closet, a cleverly arranged galley kitchen and a small tiled bathroom. The entrance hallway serves as a coat closet. “The apartment doesn’t feel as small as it is,” Mr. Coleman says, “because for seven to eight months of the year the courtyard is part of our living space. ” Christine Kudrav, 30, an executive at a philanthropic foundation in Manhattan, arrived in New York in 2008 from Virginia, landing a apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, of more than 1, 000 square feet. A roommate came with the package, but considering her means, that was to be expected. ”It was fine,” she recalls. “But back then there were few amenities there, like restaurants and bars, not like it is today. ” This paucity of amenities occasioned a move to a sizable apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (also shared) then a residency in Manhattan in Chelsea — three bedrooms, three roommates. After that came a stint in a moderately sized place in a in Brooklyn Heights with a boyfriend. When her relationship took a downward turn last year, she decided to end her courtship with city rentals and buy something. After exploring Brooklyn neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Gardens, she set her sights on vibrant Clinton Hill, even though she knew it might be expensive. “I always really loved Clinton Hill, and was willing to go smaller to live there,” she said. And so it was that she bought a apartment in an 1870 limestone building on Clinton Avenue for $300, 000. Ms. Kudrav had immediately fallen in love with the block — an architectural farrago of mostly structures — and the diverse social diversions it afforded. “I like dive bars,” she said. Clinton Hill, it turns out, amply satisfies this thirst. Her home is also a bicycle ride away from two parks, Fort Greene and Prospect — “I’m at both constantly when the weather is nice,” she said. Two of her favorite restaurants are in the ’hood: Emily and Taqueria Tepango. She also frequents Olea Mediterranean Taverna and the Greenlight Bookstore in nearby Fort Greene. Like many downsizers, Ms. Kudrav rationalized her choice by noting that what she sacrificed on the inside was more than made up for outside. She says the block has become a wing of her home. “I don’t feel closed in,” Ms. Kudrav said. Nor does she miss the clothing and kitchen items she jettisoned. Her building has a wide, handsome marble and oak foyer where one can envision the children of the original owner, a Union officer in the Civil War, sliding down the gleaming banister. Ms. Kudrav’s dwelling features ceilings, tall rounded windows and two clothes closets. A small but functional cooking area is built into one wall — she cooked a dinner for eight friends days after moving in — with an island that doubles as a table. One item is a large wooden wall panel that opens to reveal a Murphy bed. Ms. Kudrav provides a demonstration, lowering the technological marvel and proudly demonstrating how two large pillows can be employed as a headboard. Rather than surrender space to a television, she plans to buy a projector that can display programs on a screen or wall and can be stored in a drawer. “At the beginning, I have to say, I was a little nervous about whether I could make such a small place work,” she conceded. “But this is where I wanted to live, and I feel I made the right decision. ” Nick Demos, 44, a theater producer and director who has a sideline as a yoga teacher, only recently discovered the transcendental contentment of shoe box living. “Look over here,” he called out to a visitor. “This is my tiny kitchen with my tiny refrigerator, my tiny stove and tiny sink. ” The tiny kitchen was aseptically clean, unsullied by edible substances. “I eat out all the time,” he says. A native of Montana, Mr. Demos, whose trim, muscular physique speaks to his earlier career as a Broadway dancer, resided for eight years in Oklahoma City, where he was the artistic director of the Lyric Theater of Oklahoma. When New York called, in 2008, he sold his ranch, in one day, for the asking price of $150, 000. “I was very, very, very lucky,” he adds. “This was two months before the economy fell. ” Having read about a renaissance in Harlem, he gravitated there, purchasing a condo in a contemporary building on 148th Street and Bradhurst Avenue, overlooking Jackie Robinson Park — comfortable and cheerful enough, with a terrace, a sizable kitchen, good natural light and various amenities for $395, 000. This arrangement sufficed for a number of years, but after a while, the commute to the theater district became old. What is more, the neighborhood’s predicted cultural reawakening was too slow in coming to suit him. “I always, always wanted to live in the Village,” he said. “But until then, especially coming from Oklahoma, I was not sure if I was ready to go as small as it might take to do it. ” Last year, he sold his condo for $550, 000 and went small, really small — as in small. (Well, almost that small: That square footage doesn’t include the dollhouse kitchen or the bathroom.) His spare but sunny studio on West 13th Street near the Avenue of the Americas cost him $425, 000 and is nestled in the rear of a small brick with a sleek lobby and a doorman. While the block is not as serene as areas farther west, the kind of amenities he desires are nearby: the New School, the Quad Cinema, an Italian restaurant called Da Andrea and the Jade Hotel Greenwich Village. The apartment, about neatly made bed, accommodates a small work desk, a bureau, a bath and what passes for a living room. “This sofa you are sitting on,” he said with a grin, “is half of a sectional — got rid of the other half. I could never entertain here. ” He estimates that he has condensed his possessions by 80 percent since Oklahoma. Like many others who have drastically downsized in order to realize their neighborhood dream, Mr. Demos noted that what he has lost in square footage he has gained in convenience and peace of mind. “There is a sense of security in paring down to just the things you absolutely need,” he said. “I work, I go out, I travel, I’m in the neighborhood I want, I come home, I sleep — what more do you really need?” | 1 |
DONALD TRUMP SKIPS MEDIA: Delivers Transition Update Straight To The People [Video] Audience members booed Pence as he entered the theater and after the cast’s curtain call, the statement was read. Cast member Brandon Dixon stopped Pence on his way out of the performance to publicly shame him in front of the audience and cast members of Hamilton. Dixon’s message was written by show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, director, Thomas Kail and lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, according to the New York Times. ‘We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us,’ Dixon said, reading the message aloud. But cast members were able to give input. RadarOnline investigated whether or not the actors had voted and revealed many leads hadn’t in years. Dixon’s records show he didn’t vote during president Obama’s reelection bid in 2012. Javier Munoz, playing the titular role of Hamilton, registered to vote in 2006 and voted in the mid-term elections, but hasn’t been on record as voting since.
Seth Stewart, who plays Thomas Jefferson, voted in 2008 when Obama ran for the first time. He did not vote in 2012. Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan, who players James Madison and Hercules Mulligan, registered to vote in 2005 but hasn’t been on record voting since. Since the clash with the Hamilton cast, Pence told Fox News he wasn’t offended by the message and said the booing ‘is what freedom sounds like’. – Daily Mail
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Email (Rawalpindi, Islamic Republic of Pakistan)-- President Vladimir Putin in a rare interview with Asia Times revealed that Moscow offered a comprehensive roadmap to solve Kashmir's crisis which has festered for decades. The Russian proposal supports self-determination to the inhabitants of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir, based on a choice of three courses to be voted on in a referendum within four years after the establishment of peace. "It is unrealistic to expect the Muslim population to accept the idea of integration into India. We support the inalienable right of Kashmiri people to determine their future. A UN-sponsored ceasefire is needed," the state-run Asia Time quoted Mr. Putin as saying, adding, the Indian army disguised as Hindu zealots are indiscriminately targeting Muslim civilians. The main anti-Indian Kashmiri opposition party, widely known as Azad Kashmir (Free Kashmir), has recently reopened its political office in Moscow after five years when Russia suddenly severed all its ties with the Muslim separatists. "Indian army acts as ruthless bandits, though we seek a permanent solution to the conflict in Kashmir. UN must hold a plebiscite in those disputed areas to determine the wishes of Kashmiris on the final disposition of their state. I hope both side--Indianans and Pakistanis--eventually reach a mutual understanding and agree on reasonable term to end this bloodshed. | 0 |
Most College Students Think America Invented Slavery, Professor Finds Kate Hardiman, College Fix, October 31, 2016
For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture.
The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said.
“Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America,” Pesta told The College Fix . “They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very fuzzy about the history of slavery prior to the Colonial era. Their entire education about slavery was confined to America.”
Pesta , currently an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, has taught the gamut of Western literature–from the Classics to the modern–at seven different universities, ranging from large research institutions to small liberal arts colleges to branch campuses. He said he has given the quizzes to students at Purdue University, University of Tennessee Martin, Ursinus College, Oklahoma State University, and University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
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Before even distributing the syllabus for his courses, Pesta administered his short quizzes with basic questions about American history, economics and Western culture. For instance, the questions asked students to circle which of three historical figures was a president of the United States, or to name three slave-holding countries over the last 2,000 years, or define “capitalism” and “socialism” in one sentence each.
Often, more students connected Thomas Jefferson to slavery than could identify him as president, according to Pesta. On one quiz, 29 out of 32 students responding knew that Jefferson owned slaves, but only three out of the 32 correctly identified him as president. Interestingly, more students–six of 32–actually believed Ben Franklin had been president.
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What’s more, he began to observe a shift in his students’ quiz responses in the early 2000s. Before that time, Pesta described his students as “often historically ignorant, but not politicized.” Since the early 2000s, Pesta has found that “many students come to college preprogrammed in certain ways.”
“They cannot tell you many historical facts or relate anything meaningful about historical biographies, but they are, however, stridently vocal about the corrupt nature of the Republic, about the wickedness of the founding fathers, and about the evils of free markets,” Pesta said. “Most alarmingly, they know nothing about the fraught history of Marxist ideology and communist governments over the last century, but often reductively define socialism as ‘fairness.’”
Pesta also noted that, early on, his students’ “blissful ignorance was accompanied by a basic humility about what they did not know.” But over time he said he increasingly saw “a sense of moral superiority in not knowing anything about our ‘racist and sexist’ history and our ‘biased’ institutions.”
“As we now see on campus,” Pesta said, “social justice warriors are arguing that even reading the great books of Western culture is at best a micro-aggression, and at worst an insidious form of cultural imperialism and indoctrination.”
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Are Detroit’s Most Terrible Schools Unconstitutional? Geoffrey R. Stone, New York Times, October 21, 2016
At one Detroit school, just 4 percent of third graders scored proficient on Michigan’s English assessment test. At another, 9.5 percent did. Those students are among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last month that asserts that children have a federal constitutional right to the opportunity to learn to read and write.
Illiteracy is the norm at those “slumlike” schools and others in Michigan’s biggest city, according to the plaintiffs. The facilities are decrepit and unsafe. The first thing some teachers do each morning is clean up rodent feces before their students arrive. In some cases, teachers buy the books and school supplies, even the toilet paper.
Lawyers for the students are arguing, in effect, that Michigan is denying their clients the right to a minimally adequate education, an issue that has been raised over the years in courts in other states under their state constitutions.
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Now the litigation in Detroit is raising this issue under the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court has never addressed whether disparities among schools would be constitutionally permissible if, as the court put it in 1973, a state failed “to provide each child with an opportunity to acquire the basic minimal skills necessary” for success in life.
In that bitterly divided 5-4 decision, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the court upheld a Texas law that produced unequal levels of education to students living in different school districts based on the property tax revenues of each district.
The majority maintained that the law was constitutional because it served a rational policy of permitting each school district to decide for itself how much money to spend on education. Whether the level of education was at least minimally adequate in the state’s poorest schools was not at issue in the case.
In what is likely to be the opening chapter in a long legal saga, a federal district judge in Michigan must determine if a state can constitutionally provide a vast majority of its students with an excellent or at least adequate education while a minority of students receive an education that denies them the chance to acquire the minimum skills the court spoke of 43 years ago in Rodriguez.
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But in the case of children who are attending a public school, how do we know whether a state has denied some of its children even the minimal level of education required by the 14th Amendment? That is the burden that the plaintiffs in the Detroit case must meet. After reviewing their evidence, the case seems to be open-and-shut.
As the plaintiffs demonstrate, “decades of state disinvestment in and deliberate indifference to the Detroit schools” have denied these children “access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.” At the schools involved in this litigation, which serve almost exclusively low-income minority children, the student proficiency rates “hover near zero in nearly all core subject areas.” At one school, for example, 100 percent of the sixth graders scored below proficiency in reading.
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President Obama is so disciplined that his wife has teased that he eats precisely seven lightly salted almonds each night. George W. Bush was an exercise buff, obsessed with staying trim by mountain biking and clearing brush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex. But Donald J. Trump is taking a different approach: A junk food aficionado, he is hoping to become the nation’s fast food president. “A ‘fish delight,’ sometimes, right?” Mr. Trump told Anderson Cooper at a CNN meeting in February, extolling the virtues of McDonald’s. “The Big Macs are great. The Quarter Pounder. It’s great stuff. ” Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign is improvised, undisciplined, rushed and . And so is his diet. In an era of gourmet dining and obsession with healthy ingredients, Mr. Trump is a throwback to an earlier, more carefree time in American eating, when nobody bothered to ask whether the tomatoes were locally grown, and the first lady certainly didn’t have a vegetable garden, complete with a bee hive, on the South Lawn of the White House. But in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts, Mr. Trump has broadcast his culinary preferences to the nation — devouring a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (while reading The Wall Street Journal) feasting on a McDonald’s burger and fries (to celebrate clinching the Republican presidential nomination) and chowing down on a taco bowl (in an effort to woo Hispanic voters). He is a lover of diner fare and fast food grub, of overcooked steaks (“It would rock on the plate, it was so well done,” his longtime butler once observed) and the bland nourishment of Americana. He prefers burgers and meatloaf, Caesar salads and spaghetti, See’s Candies and Diet Coke. And he shuns tea, coffee and alcohol. But his highbrow, lowbrow image — of the mogul who takes buckets of fried chicken onto his private plane with the seatbelt buckles — is also a carefully crafted one. If President George Bush revealed his patrician upbringing by requesting “a splash” more coffee at a truck stop in New Hampshire, and John Kerry helped reinforce his image as a New England blue blood by trying to order a cheese steak with Swiss in South Philadelphia, Mr. Trump’s diet also telegraphs to his base that he is one of them. “There’s nothing more American and more than fast food,” said Russ Schriefer, a Republican strategist and ad maker. “It is the peculiarity of the brand that he’s able to be on his jet with the gold and black branding and colors, and at the same time eat KFC — and what makes it perfect is he does it all with a knife and fork, while reading The Wall Street Journal. ” Or, as Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster on the Trump campaign, put it, “It goes with his authenticity. ” “I don’t think Hillary Clinton would be eating Popeye’s biscuits and fried chicken,” she said. Last April, Mrs. Clinton did, indeed, visit a Chipotle near Toledo, Ohio, stopping into the chain restaurant unrecognized, in black sunglasses, and ordering a chicken burrito bowl. And President Bill Clinton was perhaps the nation’s first fast food commander in chief, famous for ending his jogs at McDonald’s. (Mr. Clinton now adheres to a largely vegan diet.) Still, Mr. Trump seems to come by his appetite for fast food genuinely. While junk food has long been a staple of campaign trail life — Mitt Romney’s 2012 press corps coined the term “slunch” to refer to the unhealthy phenomenon of the “second lunch” — Mr. Trump’s reliance on fare is driven more by a combination of speed, efficiency and, above all else, cleanliness. Though he often orders from the Trump Grill when working out of Trump Tower in Manhattan, he eats fast food several times a week while on the road because “it’s quick,” as he told The Daily Mail last year while munching on Burger King on his Boeing . Mr. Trump has even suggested doing away with state dinners, in a fit of cost and time savings. “We should be eating a hamburger on a conference table, and we should make better deals with China and others and forget the state dinners,” he said. A man always prone to distraction and uninterested in small details, he has never approached food as anything other than a problem to be solved, quickly, as Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, an occasional dining partner, once told The Washington Examiner. As the two men ate at in Manhattan in 2002, Mr. Trump ordered briskly and imperiously from the head chef and owner, Mr. Christie recalled. “ remember the appetizer you made for me last week when I was here?” Mr. Trump asked the owner. “We’ll take two of those. And remember that main course you made, the special thing you made for me? We’ll take two of those, too. ” Mr. Christie watched with confusion and a bit of awe, he recalled in the interview. Mr. Trump looked at him and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll love it. ” But Mr. Trump, who frets about germs and prizes cleanliness, also loves fast food because of its consistency and the promise, at least, of a basic level of hygiene. “One bad hamburger, you can destroy McDonald’s. One bad hamburger, you take Wendy’s and all these other places and they’re out of business,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Cooper of CNN. “I’m a very clean person. I like cleanliness, and I think you’re better off going there than maybe someplace that you have no idea where the food’s coming from. It’s a certain standard. ” Still, he added, “I think the food’s good. ” Mr. Trump’s dining habits also bespeak a certain lack of creativity, and parochialism — the kid from Queens who made it across the river to Manhattan’s glistening skyline, but never cottoned to the city’s haute cuisine. He once praised the “imagination” of his wife, Melania, in the kitchen — before citing, as examples of her culinary spaghetti and meat sauce, salads and meatloaf. (He still keeps a copy of his mother’s meatloaf recipe.) Along with McDonald’s, his favorite fast food joint, a family member said, is Jackson Hole Burgers. He is also a stickler for manners, attacking his primary race rival, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, for scarfing down meals during impromptu news conferences. “I’ve never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion!” Mr. Trump told a crowd. And Mr. Trump, who sometimes sips his Diet Coke through a straw, once caused Manhattan foodies to weep into their quinoa when he took Sarah Palin to a Famous Famiglia pizza restaurant in Times Square — and then proceeded to cut his oversize slice with a plastic knife and fork. He has other pretensions, as well. Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist, recalled traveling on Mr. Trump’s plane and watching him rip the buns off his McDonald’s patties before plying the burgers with ketchup. (“Do you know how many calories you save that way?” Mr. Trump asked Mr. Carr.) And Mr. Trump also told US Weekly that he tries to save calories on pizza. (“I scrape the toppings off my pizza — I never eat the dough,” he said.) So pronounced are Mr. Trump’s fast food preferences that Philip E. Beshara, a lawyer, joked on Instagram that, as president, his cabinet would probably be staffed by Colonel Sanders, the Hamburglar and the Taco Bell Chihuahua. And, of course, the Republican nominee’s dining whims also keep his team on its toes, with staff members worrying not just about the backdrop for his speeches — but also where to find the nearest . “There’s never any real planning for food,” said one, between events on Friday. “It’s always just whatever he is craving, which is more often than not McDonald’s. ” | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. A Times investigation reveals how Russia aimed the perfect weapon at the U. S. presidential election: cyberattacks honed in elections elsewhere. Intelligence officials believe an operation to collect information evolved into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump. Above, the Democratic National Convention’s hacked server on a table in the organization’s basement, next to a reminder of a past breach: a filing cabinet jimmied in the Watergate burglary of its offices in 1972. _____ 2. Mr. Trump is lining up veteran members of the Republican foreign policy establishment to endorse his choice for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, above. Mr. Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil chief executive, faces sharp scrutiny over his ties to President Vladimir V. Putin and the billions of dollars his company has at stake over United States sanctions against Russia. Mr. Trump also picked Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, to oversee the country’s aging nuclear arsenal as head of the Energy Department — an agency Mr. Perry has suggested abolishing while forgetting its name. Here’s the latest on the transition. _____ 3. Russia, Turkey and Syrian rebel groups reached an agreement for rebels to leave their last pockets of territory in the ravaged city of Aleppo. Evacuations were expected to begin shortly, leaving the city fully in the hands of government forces, a definitive victory. But there was confusion over whether the deal would assure safe passage for civilians, scores of whom have been shot in the streets, according to the U. N. Above, the remains of the Umayyad Mosque. _____ 4. Looking ahead: The Federal Reserve meets Wednesday amid near certainty that it will raise its benchmark interest rate. Our analyst cautions that Mr. Trump’s stimulus plan may overheat the economy and prompt a rapid series of rate increases. As part of his quest to create jobs, Mr. Trump plans to meet with tech leaders, including Elon Musk of Tesla, above, Timothy D. Cook of Apple and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. _____ 5. The latest contract between Major League Baseball and the players’ union bans a hazing ritual inflicted on rookies: forcing them to dress in drag, as Hooters waitresses or cheerleaders, for instance. The contract bars offensive costumes of any kind or requiring rookies to consume alcohol. Making them fetch coffee or go on snack runs will still be permitted. _____ 6. Fracking can contaminate drinking water, an Environmental Protection Agency study concluded, reversing an earlier finding. The comprehensive report comes as the incoming Trump administration plans to expand fracking and to install an opponent of regulation as the E. P. A. head. _____ 7. Meet Waymo. Google’s parent company spun off its car project into its own company, a major step toward a commercial fleet. In another potential transportation milestone, federal highway regulators proposed rules that would require all cars and trucks to broadcast data to one another about their speed, location and direction in order to avert accidents. _____ 8. A child sex abuse scandal is exploding across British soccer. Since Andrew Woodward became the first professional player in Britain to go public with his account of repeated rapes by a childhood coach, at least 20 former players have come forward. One, above left, was comforted by Mr. Woodward. The police are investigating the possibility of hundreds of victims at 98 soccer clubs, from the amateur ranks to the Premier League. _____ 9. Plan ahead. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” opens nationwide on Friday, with projections of one of the biggest December debuts. No spoilers in the ordinary sense here, but our reviewer’s take is unforgiving — the film’s pleasures are “meager and disposable. ” Intent on going? There are some good reviews out there too. _____ 10. One of our articles today looks at the future of political comedy, and how Al Franken, the onetime “Saturday Night Live” star turned Democratic senator, is confronting the incoming administration. “Donald Trump never laughs,” he said. _____ 11. Finally, the U. N. ended its designation of a cartoon superhero as its ambassador for women and girls. A spokesman said that Wonder Woman’s tenure was not unusual, noting the brief duration of other honorary ambassadorships, including the single day the “Angry Birds” character Red presided on climate issues. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Malick Sidibé, whose photographs of young partygoers captured the exuberance of newly independent Mali in the 1960s and ’70s and made him one of Africa’s most celebrated artists after his work was shown abroad in the 1990s, died on Thursday in Bamako, Mali. He was 80. His son Karim Sidibé said the cause was complications of diabetes, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Sidibé started out taking pictures at weddings and christenings in the 1950s, using a Kodak Brownie camera, but after opening his own studio he branched out into a more ambitious form of social reporting. He attended parties at which young Malians, dressed to the nines, danced the twist, the rumba and the merengue to the Beatles, James Brown and music. This was Mali’s youthquake, and Mr. Sidibé was its photographic witness. “For me, photography is all about youth,” he told The Daily Telegraph of London in 2008. “It’s about a happy world full of joy, not some kid crying on a street corner or a sick person. ” His photographs, surrounded by a brown tape border, were intended to be kept as souvenirs or sent as postcards. But after Western collectors discovered his work in the 1990s, they began presenting it, in enlarged sizes, in galleries and museums in Europe and the United States. He quickly became, with the older Seydou Keita, Mali’s most famous photographer and an international star. Mr. Sidibé was the first African to receive the Hasselblad Award, in 2003, and at the 2007 Venice Biennale he received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, the first given to either a photographer or an African artist. “He really changed the way Westerners look at Africa,” said Jack Shainman, whose Manhattan gallery currently has an exhibition of Mr. Sidibé’s work. (It runs through next Saturday.) “He captured the newfound freedom after colonialism — that time, and that moment,” he said. Malick Sidibé was born in 1935 or 1936 in Soloba, a village in what was then French Sudan. He grew up in an extended family of 60 and herded sheep and cattle for his father. He was chosen by the village chief to be the first child in his family to attend school, a white institution in Yanfolila, where he learned French. His skill at drawing with charcoal earned him a place at the Sudan School for Craftsmen (now the National Arts Institute) where he was trained as a jewelry maker. A French expatriate photographer, Gérard hired Mr. Sidibé to decorate his combined studio and shop, Photo Service Boutique, and then took him on as an apprentice. While running the cash register and delivering photographs to customers, Mr. Sidibé closely observed Mr. Guillat and absorbed the fundamentals of photography. Before long, he started working commercially. “I did the African events, the photos of Africans, and he did the European events — the major balls, official events,” Mr. Sidibé told the photography website gwinzegal. com in 2008. After going out on his own, he created Studio Malick in 1958, where he specialized in portrait photography with his own distinctive touch. He coaxed his subjects into more informal poses that gave his work a lively, vibrant quality. Tonally bold and beautifully composed, they often showed subjects glorying in a new possession — a sheep or a motorcycle — or showing off in modern clothes. “Generally, women come to get photographed as soon as they have a new hairdo or purchase a trendy piece of jewelry: a bracelet, a necklace, a handbag,” Mr. Sidibé told The Los Angeles Times in 2002. “For men, it’s when they buy a new bicycle or motorcycle. ” He found a rich subject in the parties and dances put on by social clubs with names like the Sputniks, the Black Socks and Las Vegas. On some nights, he would attend four parties, one after the other, photographing young Malians able, for the first time, to dance close together. “At that time, young people were very motivated,” he told the French newspaper Libération in 1995. “Every Saturday night you had to dress elegantly. People would plan their outfits all week long. To make an impression, you had to be impeccable, with a trouser crease so sharp you could cut off the head of a chicken with it. ” He later produced a portrait series called “Vue de Dos,” which showed women with their backs turned to the camera. In the early 1990s, when he had turned to camera repair work to earn a living, Mr. Sidibé was discovered by the photographer Françoise Huguier and by André Magnin, a curator who had been sent to West Africa by Jean Pigozzi, a French collector. Mr. Magnin organized an exhibition of Mr. Sidibé’s work at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, and a book appeared soon after. In 1999, Jeffrey Deitch showed Mr. Sidibé’s party photos in Manhattan in the show “The Clubs of Bamako. ” A documentary about him, “Dolce Vita Africana,” was shown on British television in 2008. He is survived by three wives and 17 children. As he grew older, Mr. Sidibé stopped going to the parties, unable to blend in, but he remained sentimental about the era and the free and easy way that young Malians of all classes mingled on the dance floor. “I loved the music and the atmosphere, but above all I loved the dancers,” he told The Telegraph. “The moments when young people dance and play as though the stars belong to them — that’s what I loved the most. ” | 1 |
CNBC reports: In the first visit to Singapore by an Israeli head of state in 30 years, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday issued a call for greater diversity and tolerance. [Netanyahu gave a roughly speech to Jewish community members gathered at the tightly guarded Maghain Aboth Synagogue, built in Singapore in the late 1800s. Netanyahu spoke of his recent visits to countries Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, noting that he visited a synagogue in the latter. “Jewish children in Kazakhstan were singing Hebrew songs as they sang here, in a Muslim state and that reflects the kind of world we like to see: a world of tolerance, a world of diversity as opposed to the world that is being challenged today by the forces of barbarism and intolerance,” he said. “This is a battle for the future of humanity. ” Read more here. | 1 |
Posted by Madeline | Oct 26, 2016 | 2016 , Daily Blog | 0 | Thanks Gre!
Bovendien
Former Defense Minister of Canada, Paul Hellyer, has filed a lawsuit along with several others at the State Canada on the CETA treaty. CETA stands for comprehensive economic and trade agreement, a trade which are entered according to prosecutors constitutional and international rights of people with feet. Paul Hellyer called the treaty therefore Comprehensive Trade and Takeover Agreement. With this convention, which comes out of the hat of the international bankers, 62 families will obtain control over almost the entire world. Constitutions of member countries will no longer apply, only the will of the 62 families (the elite) will apply.
The lawsuit was officially filed on October 21 of this year and actually consists of four
namely separate indictments; the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to sign, execute and implement treaties without the express prior authority of Parliament through an Act of Parliament
the federal government has no constitutional right to sign CETA and / or perform without having this treaty first by the Parliament through official channels. (2) the solid majority of the CETA articles and Their Impact encroach on exclusive Provincial spheres or forum-protected by the division of powers under the Constitution Act, 1867
Most of the CETA provisions and their impact undermine exclusive legal rights protected by the Canadian Constitutional Law, 1867 the CETA gouge and extinguishes the constitutionally protected Judiciary in Canada by creating foreign tribunals to determining property and legal issues in Canada without any judicial oversight or Jurisdiction of the Canadian Courts over the disputes; and
CETA removes the constitutional legal system by setting foreign tribunals have to judge between property and other legal issues without overlooked may be the Canadian legal system, and various articles of the CETA violate constitutional enshrined rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms , and over-rides Charter Guarantees That ground Canada’s ability to mount public programs on Health, Education, Social Services, and public utilities-including the elimination of subsidies, monopolies, and state enterprises for public welfare. In short, the treaty places the rights of private foreign investors about Those of the Canadian Constitution and Canadian citizens.
various provisions of CETA violated constitutional built-rights enshrined in the document Charter of Rights and Freedoms and transcend guaranteed rights that Canada has the opportunity to develop public programs in the fields of health, education, social services and public funds, including the termination of subsidies , monopolies and state enterprises for the public interest. In short, the treaty puts the interests of private foreign companies over those of the Canadian constitution and its inhabitants.
But this is not all! Paul Hellyer, which is so you can immediately see and hear his call to Canadians and the rest of the world, his mind has put on the roll of the largest crime syndicate has ever known the world, the international bankers, international intertwined the main industries in which the owners of the revenues come from only 62 families.
Paul Hellyer remembers the Canada which was separate from the bankers, yet not so long ago. Until 1974 the Canadian government expressed its money itself, there was no such thing as inflation, poverty and debt. Canada was one of the largest financiers behind the allies that Europe was liberated from the Germans at that time. Life was good, cheap and everyone had enough money to do the things they wanted to do. From one day to the issued money creation in 1974 the central banks and money was no longer free. Within a few years, Canada had a huge debt that is recovered just as us on the civilian population through numerous taxes. Paul Hellyer has evidence that this happened in unconstitutional manner and wants to decide turn back to Canada to give it right back himself pressing her money to spend. This affects every Canadian citizen a large sum of money to free education, health, housing, etc. can be paid without causing debts. Paul Hellyer does the same as Foundation for Our Money aims but in a turbo version! He lets no grass grow, does not perform educational skits for the people who maintain this crime for years, Paul Hellyer goes straight for the scapegoat.
Now the video of Paul Hellyer where he explains personally exactly what is going on and how they want to approach this.
Dear readers. This could be the big break. This information should be shared very broadly as to all countries under the thumb are the bankers, the same applies. We can deliver all of this unfair system where our benefit only a handful of people. The power over the creation of money is a sovereign matter since no one has more to do with it. We want a better and fairer world, then this is the opportunity that everyone has been waiting for!
Privatized money is the reason for all wars, privatized money is the cause of poverty, oppression, exploitation, neglect of our elderly and less fortunate. Privatized money is the root of all evil on this beautiful planet. Now is the chance to get out from under the yoke, to stand up for the future of ourselves and our children. Now is the chance to rid the world of those people who make a huge mess for over 100 years with one goal, to keep the creation of money in their hands and with it the power over almost anything this planet has to offer.
The Earth is not a handful of bankers and politicians, the earth belongs to everyone! | 0 |
When the Federal Reserve made its first tentative step toward ending its era of extraordinary monetary intervention, it earned a nickname: the taper tantrum. Global financial markets metaphorically bawled like a toddler on news that the Fed planned on “tapering” its stimulus program. That was nearly four years ago. Ever since, the Fed has moved to decrease access to easy money with the caution of a technician defusing a powerful bomb. After raising its target above levels in December 2015, the Fed waited a full year before doing so again, the slowest pace of rate increases in the modern history of the central bank. But the era in which the Fed has moved so gingerly toward tighter money looks to be ending this week. Under the chairwoman, Janet Yellen, the Fed is likely to raise its target interest rate a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday — a mere three months after the last one. It will probably signal that two more rate increases, barring economic setbacks, are on the way in 2017. It’s not the policy alone that is striking. Over several days this month, half a dozen senior Fed officials made public comments that suggested greater collective confidence and unanimity that the economy can handle tighter money than has been on display since the onset of the financial crisis nearly a decade ago. Fed officials seem to believe that the United States economy is nearing its full economic potential, that the expansion is more sturdy than it was just a year ago, and that inflation is closing in on the 2 percent mark that the Fed aims for. The advent of unified Republican control of Congress and the White House also brings the possibility of tax cuts and other stimulative measures that would mean the economy needs less support from low interest rates to keep growing. “Recent developments suggest that the macro economy may be at a transition,” said Lael Brainard, a Fed governor, in a March 1 speech, describing a situation of “full employment within reach, signs of progress on our inflation mandate, and a favorable shift in the balance of risks at home and abroad. ” Making the comments all the more notable: Ms. Brainard was perhaps the Fed’s most vocal advocate of caution on rate increases just a year ago, arguing that geopolitical risks loomed large. But something deeper may be afoot than just an improvement in the economic data. In both their tone and actions, Fed officials are displaying greater confidence that they know where the economy is heading — namely that it is converging on a state of full employment and inflation near their 2 percent target. “We are seeing an evolution away from a tactical approach toward a strategic approach,” said Mohamed chief economic adviser at Allianz. “Their stance now is that they will focus on the destination, not the journey, and that they will lead markets rather than be led by markets. ” Indeed, the biggest contrast with this time a year ago is that financial markets seem to believe it. At the start of 2016, Fed officials were envisioning raising rates four times over the course of the year, but bond market prices suggested investors weren’t buying it and thought only one or two rate increases were on the way. The markets were right. With some weak economic data and tumbling oil prices and volatile stock markets, the Fed stayed its hand. The start of 2017 could hardly feel more different. Stock markets are booming, as are measures of consumer and business confidence. Economic data, including jobs numbers Friday, have been solid. Investors see a 60 percent chance that the Fed will raise rates three or more times this year, based on prices in futures markets Friday. This time, in other words, the market actually believes the Fed will follow through with its plans to gradually raise rates. One piece of evidence is that Fed officials, during the week of Feb. 27 to March 3, confidently signaled that a March 15 rate increase was imminent. By doing so before the February jobs report was released, they were making clear that even if that report had been soft, they were committed to rate increases. The officials appear to have plotted a course to raise rates a few times a year with expectations of reaching the neutral rate — at which monetary policy is neither stimulating nor slowing the economy — near the end of 2019. As of their December meeting, Fed leaders think that neutral rate is 3 percent. But at the Fed, the momentum now evident in the economy feels hard won, and officials may be reluctant to risk it by tightening the monetary spigots prematurely. Even if the central bank’s most recent forecasts become reality, it will represent a historically slow pattern of monetary tightening — four years to raise interest rates by about three percentage points. In the 1994 cycle, engineered by the chairman Alan Greenspan, a rate rise of that scale happened in just 13 months. The big question for the months ahead is what it would take to change direction once again. Would a new soft patch in the economic data, a new bout of market turbulence or a new crisis lead Chairwoman Yellen and her colleagues to again retreat to the school of increases? “I do think there’s some greater willingness to tolerate some shortfall in the data compared to expectations,” said David Stockton, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Fed official. “They are exhibiting more confidence in the economy, but that doesn’t mean that confidence couldn’t dissipate in the face of some scary event. ” The new, more confident, Fed will last, in other words, as long as events allow it to. | 1 |
On a recent afternoon in Montevideo, a young couple approached the counter at Futuro Refuerzos, a snug sandwich shop that features artisanal breads, spreads and locally sourced meats. The woman was wearing a felt halt and carried a vintage leather handbag the man sported tousled curls, forearm tattoos and skinny jeans. There was nothing remarkable about this scene — stylish ordering gourmet sandwiches in a rustic space — except that it unfolded in a destination that has seemed immune to hipsterdom. Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, is almost invariably described as and . But in the past few years, an energetic cadre of entrepreneurs with social media proficiency and a keen awareness of global trends has begun to breathe fresh life into this traditionally sleepy South American city. Most are design and millennials who are opening up restaurants and boutiques, organizing street festivals and supper clubs, and daring to stand out in a society that has typically rewarded modesty. “Thanks in part to social media, young Uruguayans have a global and are very motivated,” said Mónica Zanocchi, the founder of a popular fashion and lifestyle blog called Couture. “There are a lot of creative professionals entering the work force, and since established companies can’t absorb all of this new talent, they end up becoming entrepreneurs. ” Futuro Refuerzos is led by Fermín Solana, a food writer and rock musician who grew frustrated with the lack of options in Montevideo. “There was nowhere to eat a decent sandwich beyond the old places that make chivitos,” he said, referring to the traditional steak sandwiches that are offered in neighborhood joints or local chains. “I looked at Santiago and Lima, where the sandwiches are incredible, and decided to take a risk. ” Soon after opening in late 2015, Futuro Refuerzos had garnered a following thanks to creations like “gol,” handmade pita filled with spiced meatballs, sweet blood sausage and red cabbage. Mr. Solana is part of a group of young restaurateurs and chefs fueling the city’s small but growing foodie circuit, which right now includes over a dozen restaurants, cafes and specialty stores (until recently, Montevidean epicures spoke of living in a culinary wasteland, so this is a noticeable improvement). There is Estrecho, a tiny restaurant in the historic district with simple décor belying a sophisticated lunchtime menu prepared by Cali Diemarch, a chef trained in the United States who invents his daily dishes on the fly, such as a deconstructed chivito made with filet mignon, poached egg, caramelized pancetta and fried onions. La Pasionaria, a concept store and restaurant on a quiet nearby street, recently welcomed a new young chef, Luciana Fia, who makes pasta, ice cream and other food by hand, using fresh, local ingredients. At Sucré Salé Bistro, a casual spot near downtown, on the back patio of the Alliance Française de Montevideo, Florencia Ibarra often sneaks refined dishes like rabbit in mustard sauce with boulangère potatoes into her unfussy menu. Leading the pack is the and Jacinto, headed by Lucía Soria, an alumna of the famed Argentine chef Francis Mallmann. Ms. Soria frequently appears on television, participates in food festivals like Degusto and headlines as the top guest chef in supper clubs like Mesabrava. “Finally, we have good places to eat, good live music and a generation of people who are breaking away from the old molds,” Mr. Solana said. “I think the city’s lighting up. ” Montevideo’s new vibe is closely linked to fashion and interior design, as seen in a surge of shops selling locally made clothes, accessories and home accents. Last year, one of the most dynamic new labels, Rotunda, unveiled a sleek multistory boutique in the Punta Carretas neighborhood, complete with its own photography studio, where the owners, Kevin Jakter and Sofía Dominguez, showcase their expanding line of minimalist women’s clothing, eyewear, shoes, and jewelry. Ten blocks away in the residential and commercial district of Pocitos, a trendy multibrand store, Tienda, sells labels like Pastiche, which specializes in denim, and Mutma, a maker of leather shoes and handbags. Casa Baném, a home décor store set in a villa in upscale Carraco, also stocks a variety of homegrown brands like Don Baez, known for its throws and pillows made with Uruguayan merino wool, and Home Touch, which makes lighting. This design boom can be gauged at MoWeek, the local fashion week held in April and October, which began in 2010 with six showrooms and now includes more than 60. “They’re all independent brands started by a new generation, which is impressive,” Ms. Zanocchi of Couture said. “Montevideo is still quiet, but there are some very interesting alternative scenes that are seeping into the mainstream. ” | 1 |
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Dr. Duke and Pastor Dankof quote Jews Boasting of Jewish Media Power.
Today Dr. Duke had Reverend Mark Dankof as his guest for the hour. They presented a combination of new information and past proclamations by leading Jewish authors that demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt not just the Jewish domination of the media but also the nefarious ends that they are pursuing. They document everything from the news media to the porn industry, all of which are designed to weaken traditional white Christian morality, identity, and solidarity.
Rev. Dankof quoted an article by former Reagan Administration Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts that goes farther than he has ever done before in identifying the Jewish nature of the power establishment in America, the very same establishment that is fighting President-elect Trump tooth and nail. There seems to be the start of a sea change in which people are becoming more willing to point out that the emperor has no clothes.
This is probably the most powerful show Dr. Duke has ever done on Jewish domination of the media. Anyone you share it with will be jolted wide awake.
Our show is aired live at 11 am replayed at ET 4pm Eastern and 4am Eastern. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The Senate approved complex health care legislation on Wednesday that would increase funding for disease research, address weaknesses in the nation’s mental health systems and vastly alter the regulatory system for drugs and medical devices. The vote sealed a final legislative victory for President Obama, who strongly supported the bill against objections from many liberal Democrats and consumer groups. In many ways the bill, known as the 21st Century Cures Act, is a return to a more classic approach to legislation, with policy victories and some disappointments for both parties, and potential benefits for nearly every American whose life has been touched by illness, drug addiction and mental health issues. Years in the making, the measure passed 94 to 5 after being overwhelmingly approved by the House last week. One major winner — and a donor to both parties — was the pharmaceutical industry its role set off fierce but futile opposition by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. On many of the areas addressed by the bill, pharmaceutical companies were in step with the interests of patients desperate for cures, an unusual and emotionally charged alliance between an industry and its consumers. The bill was a test of Ms. Warren’s muscle, exercised from the far left of the Senate Democratic caucus, and it is one that did not go well. “I will fight it,” she said of the bill last week on the Senate floor, “because I know the difference between compromise and extortion. ” In the end, however, not a single member of her home state, which has many medical research centers joined her. Nor did anyone else apart from three other senators — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both of Oregon — and Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah. The measure would benefit people with mental illness and chronic diseases, biomedical researchers, pregnant women, hospitals, children with diabetes, people addicted to opioid drugs, children who are bullied, and those who are gravely ill. “I doubt that there is a family in America who will not be touched by this important legislation,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. In a statement issued after the Senate vote, Mr. Obama said, “The Cures Act makes important investments that will save lives. ” “This is a reminder of what we can do when we look out for one another,” the president said. “Like Joe Biden and so many other Americans, I’ve lost people I love deeply to cancer. I’ve heard often from those whose loved ones are suffering from Alzheimer’s, addiction and other debilitating diseases. Their heartbreak is real, and so we have a responsibility to respond with real solutions. This bill will make a big difference, and I look forward to signing it as soon as it reaches my desk. ” Mr. Obama has noted that the bill includes money to combat the opioid epidemic, to advance his Precision Medicine Initiative, which aims to collect genetic data on one million American volunteers so scientists can develop treatments, and to support Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ’s “moonshot” to cure cancer. Mr. Biden — whose son, Beau, died of a brain tumor last year — presided on a procedural vote to move the bill forward in the Senate Monday night, a moving moment for most members of the Senate. While Republicans and Democrats often fight over government spending, the bill benefited from its largess to one agency that has broad support, the National Institutes of Health. “I don’t think there is enough money that we can put into the N. I. H. ,” said Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, “because it is important and it affects all Americans independent of political party, race, sexual orientation — you name it. ” The bill gives the health institutes the authority to finance research using special procurement procedures, as opposed to more conventional grants and contracts. It also requires the agency’s director to establish “Eureka prize” competitions to advance biomedical research and improve treatments for serious illnesses. The bill raises the status of mental health issues by creating a new assistant secretary for mental health and substance use, to be appointed by the president. It directs federal agencies to step up enforcement of laws that require equal insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses. Federal laws and rules requiring mental health parity have been adopted with bipartisan support over the last 20 years, but a White House task force found recently that compliance was lagging. “We didn’t get everything we needed,’” said Representative Tim Murphy, Republican of Pennsylvania, the architect of provisions to improve the treatment of mental illness, “but we needed everything we got. ” Major provisions of the bill push the Food and Drug Administration to speed the review and approval of drugs and medical devices. Kim Monk of Capital Alpha Partners, a policy research firm for investors, described the bill as “a holiday win for much of the health sector. ” Scott Whitaker, president and chief executive of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a trade group for device makers, hailed the bill for creating “an expedited pathway for breakthrough medical technologies — those that offer the best hope for patients with diseases” and few treatment options. In reviewing new devices, the bill says, the F. D. A. shall consider the “least burdensome” means of showing their safety. In considering whether to approve new drugs or new uses for medications, the bill says, the F. D. A. shall pay more attention to “patient experience data” showing the impact of a disease or treatment on patients’ lives, and their treatment preferences. The legislation does not include provisions to rein in prescription drug prices, a significant victory for the pharmaceutical industry. Consultants to the industry said that drug makers had kept a low profile in their lobbying on the legislation, knowing that any conversations on Capitol Hill could turn quickly to drug prices. “When the cost of our prescription drugs is skyrocketing, this bill does nothing to combat excessive prices,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee on health and human services. She voted against the measure. “While the bill authorizes $4. 8 billion to the N. I. H. over the next 10 years — on average, a mere $480 million a year — this is barely a quarter per year of what the House passed last year,” Ms. DeLauro said. “There is also no guarantee that the appropriators will follow through and provide funding each year. ” Representative Kathy Castor, Democrat of Florida, who voted for the bill, said she too wished that more of the money had been guaranteed. “Medical research in America today should not be subject to the whims of congressional budget battles or political fights,” she said. | 1 |
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s government, rallying behind its defiant leader, rounded up thousands of military personnel on Saturday who were said to have taken part in an attempted coup, moving swiftly to control after a night of chaos and intrigue that left hundreds dead. By midday, there were few signs that those who had taken part in the coup attempt were still able to challenge the government, and many officials declared the uprising a failure. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking to hundreds of supporters outside his home in Istanbul on Saturday evening, declared that “the strong aren’t always right, but the right are always strong. ” He called on the United States to arrest an exile living in Pennsylvania who Mr. Erdogan claimed was behind the coup attempt. As the insurrection unfolded Friday night, beginning with the seizing of two bridges in Istanbul by military forces, Mr. Erdogan was not heard from for hours. He finally addressed the nation from an undisclosed location, speaking on his cellphone’s FaceTime app — a dramatic scene that seemed to suggest a man on the verge of losing power. But in the early hours of Saturday, he landed in Istanbul, and steadily found his voice again, lashing out at his opponents, and one in particular. Mr. Erdogan placed blame for the intrigue on the followers of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, who was the president’s ally until a bitter falling out three years ago. Mr. Gulen’s followers were known to have a strong presence in Turkey’s police and judiciary, but less so in the military. On Saturday morning, Mr. Erdogan said, referring to Mr. Gulen, “I have a message for Pennsylvania: You have engaged in enough treason against this nation. If you dare, come back to your country. ” On Saturday evening, Mr. Erdogan, standing atop a bus outside his home, pressed this theme in a thundering message to his supporters, calling on the United States to arrest Mr. Gulen and send him back to Turkey. Even before Mr. Erdogan’s speech, the gist of which American officials have heard before, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that he would listen to any inquiries Turkey might have about the cleric. “We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr. Gulen,” he said. In a statement released on the website of his group, Alliance for Shared Values, and in an interview with The New York Times on Saturday, Mr. Gulen condemned the coup, denied any link to it and expressed support for the democratic process, saying that “through military intervention, democracy cannot be achieved. ” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, calling the insurrection “a stain in the history of democracy,” put the death toll in the clashes at 265, including civilians, forces and troops involved in the coup attempt, and said 1, 440 people had been wounded. He added that 2, 839 military personnel had been detained. Later in the day, Defense Minister Fikri Isik said that the state authorities were in full control of all areas in Turkey but that vigilance was required. “We have prevented the coup,” Mr. Isik said, “but it is too soon to say that the danger is over. ” Noting the intensity of the violence that had erupted, Mr. Erdogan said that Turkish fighter jets had bombed tanks on the streets of Ankara, and that a military helicopter being used by the coup plotters had been shot down. There was also a battle early Saturday at Turkey’s intelligence headquarters in Ankara, which government forces later secured, and a Turkish official said the intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, had been taken to a secure location. In a news briefing on Saturday, Turkey’s top military officer, Gen. Umit Dundar, the acting head of the general staff, said that “the coup attempt was rejected by the chain of command immediately. ” “The people have taken to the streets and voiced their support for democracy,” he said, adding that “the nation will never forget this betrayal. ” General Dundar emphasized that only a small minority within the military, including members of the air force, a police force and armored units, had revolted. “The army is ours,” Mr. Erdogan said Saturday night. “I am the chief commander. ” Supporters of the government demonstrated in Istanbul and other cities on Saturday night, chanting their disdain for the coup attempt as drivers honked their horns. “We will not fall, everything for our country,” some people shouted as they waved large Turkish flags in the air. Even as it appeared that the elected government had control, many questions remained, including who was behind the plot and what damage had been done to the political system of Turkey, a NATO ally and important partner to the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. Much of the violence overnight related to the coup attempt was in Ankara, where different branches of the security forces fought one another over control of government buildings, including the Parliament building, where several explosions were reported. Early Saturday, soldiers surrendered on a bridge that traverses the Bosporus, one of two bridges that the military shut down as the coup attempt began Friday evening. Footage showed abandoned military clothing and helmets along the bridge. The government also moved on a military school in Istanbul, arresting dozens. Disciplinary actions extended to the judicial system on Saturday as an oversight body, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, announced that 2, 745 judges had been dismissed, the Anadolu agency reported. Turkey has a long history of military involvement in politics — there have been three coups since 1960, and the military forced another government to step down — and as the country became deeply polarized in recent years between supporters of Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist government and those loyal to Turkey’s secular traditions, many wondered if the military would intervene. Some, quietly, had even hoped it would. But once the coup was attempted, people in the country, even those bitterly opposed to Mr. Erdogan, seemed to have no desire for a return to military rule. Turks across the political spectrum, including the main opposition parties that represent secular Turks, nationalists and Kurds, opposed the coup. So did many top generals, highlighting that the attempt apparently did not have deep support even in the military. Speaking from Luxembourg, Mr. Kerry reiterated the United States’ support for the Erdogan government. “We stand by the government of Turkey,” he said. Mr. Kerry said it was not surprising that the United States and Turkey’s other NATO allies had not been aware of the coup before it occurred. “If you’re planning a coup, you don’t exactly advertise it to your partners in NATO,” Mr. Kerry said. “It surprised everybody, including the people in Turkey. I must say it does not appear to be a very brilliantly planned or executed event. ” Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier of Germany expressed concern about the developments in Turkey and called for a return to the rule of law, under the democratically elected government. Ms. Merkel said political change should take place only through democratic procedures. “Tanks on the streets and attacks from the air against their own people are against the law,” she said. | 1 |
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MANILA, Philippines ( The Adobo Chronicles, Manila Bureau) – Rappler CEO Maria Ressa’s widely-quoted statement, “Time to take back the Internet” might just come back to haunt her. Just in time for Halloween.
Ressa has been very vocal about the proliferation of “fake” news sites and trolls that have left her online news organization lagging behind in terms of followers and reader engagements. She was particularly critical of entertainer-turned-political blogger, Mocha Uson, who has more than 4 million followers, twice that of Rappler.
Now, the Philippine government may soon ‘take back the Internet’ from Rappler because it appears it has violated the Philippine Constitution.
Article XVI, Section 11 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution specifically states that the mass media must be wholly-owned and managed by citizens of the Philippines.
But Rappler is partly-owned by a foreign company, Omidyar Network. How do we know? Rappler itself told us so way back on November 5, 2015:
So, before Rappler can take back the Internet, it may first have to give it up! Rate this: | 0 |
Drew Stratton November 12, 2016 Prep Blog Review: 18+ Tips For Healthy Preppers
The true challenge nowadays is to stay healthy in a toxic environment. Today we have access to medication and doctors, but what if we are in post SHTF environment and there is no way to get help?
One thing’s for sure: when SHTF health becomes your first concern and to stay healthy in a survival situation requires a proper diet, hygiene and sleep. Of course, there are many other skills required, but those make the subjects of other articles.
For this week’s Prep Blog Review I’ve gathered five articles with useful tips, most of them simple home remedies, for healthy preppers.
1. 10 Home Remedies For Oral Thrush
“Scientifically referred to as orophangeal Candidiasis, oral thrush is basically a yeast infection that tends to develop on the tongue. It’s unpleasant to look at, and even painful when you have it. The frustrating thing about this condition is that it might be drug-resistant, especially if the Candida rejects anti-fungal medication.
But guess what? I will provide you with top 10 home remedies for oral thrush, all of which are safe and proven to treat the condition. But before we look at these remedies, it’s only wise you know what causes oral thrush. After all, that’s where the treatment starts!”
Read more on I Keep Healthy .
2. 17 Uses For Listerine In A Survival Situation
“Many of us are familiar with the distinctive taste of Listerine. Whether it’s in the morning or before bed, the extreme tingle of Listerine is a familiar part of our daily routine.
But did you know that Listerine has many other uses besides a mouthwash? Listerine’s unique antiseptic properties lend well to many other applications, especially in survival situations.
Topical antiseptic
Listerine does such as great job of helping clean the mouth, it shouldn’t be surprising that it also works great for disinfecting minor cuts and wounds. This is due to Listerine’s high alcohol content.
Listerine may not work as well as dedicated antiseptics, nor be as comfortable to use (alcohol can really sting!), but it definitely works in a pinch to kill bacteria, reduce the chance of infection and speed up the rate of healing.”
Read more in Ask A Prepper .
3. 4 Natural Steps To Rebuilding Your Gums
“It’s common for people these days to have issues with their gums. Many people have been told that their gums are “withering away” or thinning, and even have tooth loss as a result. One young woman I spoke with in the past few months was only in her 20s, and yet her dentist told her she would need three implants and would eventually lose all of her teeth.
Others have periodontal disease and can’t seem to make any progress. They do what the dentist and hygienist says, and yet their mouth never improves.
The teeth weren’t constructed in such a way that missing a day or more of brushing or flossing would be the entire cause of these gum diseases. Instead, you have to look at what is happening in the entire body. The gums are made from tissues synthesized in the body from all the appropriate building materials – protein, silica, vitamin C, copper, zinc and other nutrients.”
Read more on Off The Grid News .
4. Why You Need Sunlight Everywhere You Go
“With the apparent elimination of rickets at the turn of 20th century, following the discovery of the role that vitamin D plays in the elimination of this disease, most may think that vitamin D deficiency is a problem of the past. While vitamin D deficiency is not often found in North America, insufficiency is still very common.
This should not be surprising, being that there has been an unprecedented increase of indoor computer use as social media and remote-access work continue to rise in popularity. The acclimatization of modern people to a lifestyle that is primarily indoors is a recipe for disaster when considering the importance of vitamin D and bone health.
The following will discuss some of the major reasons why you need as much sunlight exposure as you can obtain within reasonable limits and how you can remove the primary obstacles that could be in your way.”
Read more on Ready Nutrition .
5. 18 Natural Home Remedies For Acne
“Before learning about the home remedies for acne, let us first define what acne is. Acne is a superficial skin condition that starts when pores are clogged with oil, dead skin cells, and bacteria. It may come in several forms like pimples, cysts, whiteheads and blackheads.
It may be caused by a combination of several factors but is commonly present during adolescence due to excessive oil production.
There are many acne solutions in the market today, mostly artificial in nature. But why not try these natural ways to clear the stubborn acne in our faces. We’ve included an infographic to serve as a cheat sheet for you to download or pin for later at the end of this article.”
Read more on Ultimate Home Remedies .
This Drew Stratton for Survivopedia. 7 total views, 7 views today | 0 |
Today, I cast the 51st vote to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. It is a vote I am proud of, and I hope to remain proud of for decades to come. [Republicans fought hard to confirm Justice Gorsuch, and with good reason. The reason many of them gave the full strength of their support was because they believed Justice Gorsuch would follow the Constitution — adhering to the original text and meaning. He is from a group of legal scholars who consider themselves “Originalists. ” While many Republicans fawned over this quality, they displayed remarkable cognitive dissonance when it came to applying it to a very public event the very day they approved the Gorsuch nomination. You see, too many of my colleagues have forgotten what it means to be an “Originalist” on the matter of going to war. Our Founding Fathers found this to be one of the most important discussions at the time, and they were quite concerned about giving the power to declare war to the President. They were concerned an executive with that kind of power could choose to rule like a King. Before sending our young men and women into battle, we should have a thoughtful and honest discussion about the ramifications, authorization, and motivations for war. That could be done if we were all Originalists not just for the court, but for our legislative duties as well. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution grants the Congress and Congress alone the power to declare war. The President is given the power to direct the military only after the Congressional declaration has been passed. This is our law and was generally our practice. However, like in many areas, we began to abandon our founding principles for expediency. We have not declared a war since World War II and we have too often used our military without even a more modest Authorization for the Use of Military Force. This is dangerous. As Madison wrote, the Constitution supposes what history demonstrates, that the executive is the branch most interested in war and most prone to it. The Constitution therefore, with studied care, vested that power in the legislature. I salute the nomination and confirmation of Justice Gorsuch and his Originalist views. I salute and applaud my colleagues for their work to get him to the bench, and for the words they used attributing their vote to his views on the Constitution. But I can’t say I don’t find it ironic that on the very day they did these things, they also turned a mostly blind eye to an illegal and unconstitutional military strike. I will hold politicians of both parties and both branches accountable. I ran for office to protect our Rights and swore an oath to uphold the Constitution to the best of my ability. That means defending the Constitutionally granted power to declare war as one belonging to Congress, just as our Founding Fathers intended. | 1 |
The ‘P’ in PBS Should Stand for ‘Plutocratic’ or ‘Pentagon’ Posted on Oct 27, 2016 ( WikiMedia )
In a television commercial that the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) ran for years, “PBS NewsHour” host Gwen Ifill declared that she loved her job because it allowed her to “ask not only all of my questions but also and more importantly all of your questions .” This assertion was and remains absurd, just like her network’s regular fundraising claim to be free of corporate sponsors.
The claim has long been contradicted by the string of corporate-image commercials (purchased by leading financial, defense, auto, insurance and rail corporations) that appear before the network’s nightly “NewsHour” broadcast—along with a list of corporate-sponsored foundations and superwealthy individuals who pay for the show, along with “regular viewers like you.”
Consistent with those commercials and despite its name, the news and commentary one finds on PBS is in rich tune with the narrow capitalist parameters of acceptable coverage and debate that typify the more fully and explicitly for-profit and commercialized corporate media. As progressive journalist David Sirota suggested two years ago , reflecting on recent investigations showing that supermoneyed, right-wing capitalists such as the Koch brothers and Texas billionaire John Arnold had (along with more liberal software mogul Bill Gates) influenced PBS content through multimillion-dollar donations, the “P” in PBS often seems to more properly stand for “Plutocratic,” not “Public.”
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None of this should be surprising to anyone familiar with the distinctively big-business-dominated history of U.S. broadcast media . Because the United States fails to provide anything like adequate funding for public broadcasting, both PBS and National Public Radio (a regular vehicle for neoliberal business ideology) depend upon foundations, corporations and wealthy individuals to pay for much of their programming. Beneath their standard claims to have no interest in shaping public media content, these private funders have bottom-line agendas, meaning that their contributions come with strings attached—strings that undermine the integrity of the “independent” journalism they bankroll. (For what it’s worth, between 1994 and 2014, the “NewsHour” was primarily owned by the for-profit firm Liberty Media . Liberty Media was run by the conservative and politically active billionaire John Malone, who had a majority stake in MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, the show’s producer.)
The Pentagon Broadcasting System?
What might seem more surprising, perhaps, is the remarkable extent to which the “P” in PBS often seems to stand for “Pentagon,” or perhaps “Presidential,” when it comes to foreign policy content. Whatever the global issue of the day or week, “NewsHour” anchors and their invited “experts” can be counted on to report and reflect in accord with the doctrinal assumption that Washington always operates with the best of intentions. They almost uniformly treat the U.S. as a great, benevolent and indispensable force for freedom, democracy, security, peace and order in a dangerous world full of evil and deadly actors.
The show’s invited commentators are drawn primarily from the nation’s imperial establishment. They are commonly current or retired insiders from within the Pentagon, the White House, the “intelligence community” and/or the nation’s elite network of foreign policy think tanks: the Council on Foreign Relations (the granddaddy of all U.S. ruling-class think tanks ), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Aspen Institute, the Atlantic Council, the Rand Corp. and the Hoover Institution, to name a handful. “NewsHour” anchors and guests generally agree that the United States’ officially designated enemies are malevolent bad guys who need to be contained, controlled and even attacked by the ultimate good guy, Uncle Sam.
Not surprisingly, the long and ongoing record of U.S. imperial arrogance and criminality (more on that below) is swept down George Orwell’s memory hole even as new entries are added to the ugly registry. When reported by the “NewsHour,” horrific crimes committed by the U.S. military are always treated as well-intended mistakes. Along with the rest of the mainstream U.S. media, the “NewsHour” “insist[s] that Russia deliberately bombs hospitals, etc., whereas if we do it, it is, of course, an accident .”
There’s some room for disagreement between and among the show’s invited experts—including the show’s semi-loopy foreign policy authority, Margaret Warner—about specific U.S. foreign policy tactics, strategies and actions. There’s no space for serious debate about the immorality, lawlessness or imperial nature of that policy. On the rare occasions “NewsHour” anchors seem to challenge guests from the White House or Pentagon on foreign policy matters, it is generally to ask why the U.S. isn’t going harder at the officially certified bad guys.
America as Umpire, Not Empire
The foreign policy coverage and commentary doesn’t get much better in the documentary division of PBS. A recent documentary (first aired nationally last week) shown by PBS bears the risible title “American Umpire”—an obvious World Series season play on what the filmmakers see as the preposterous notion of an American empire. It is narrated by ex-Marine and former “NewsHour” host and producer Jim Lehrer. Developed by the right-wing Hoover Institution and “targeted for PBS” (the organization’s own revealing phrase), “American Umpire” takes the doctrinal “American exceptionalist,” U.S.-good-and-civilized-rest-of-world-dangerous-and-bad narrative to absurd lengths.
It provides extensive “expert” commentary from such former imperial operatives as Madeline Albright (the onetime U.S. secretary of state who led the charge to criminally bomb Serbia and who went on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to say that the death of more than half a million Iraqi children killed by Washington-led “economic sanctions” was “a price worth paying” for the advance of U.S. foreign policy goals), Condoleezza Rice (George W. Bush’s neoconservative national security adviser before and during the arch-criminal U.S. invasion of Iraq), Gen. Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis (an Iraq invasion commander and a former chief of the U.S. Central Command, who two years ago told a San Diego audience that “it’s fun to shoot people”), George Schultz (the Reagan-era secretary of state who called the Sandinista government in Nicaragua “a cancer in our own land mass” that must be “cut out”) and Karl Eikenberry (a retired Army lieutenant general who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan 10 years ago).
With further commentary from a handful of mostly conservative academicians—above all the nationalist Texas A&M historian Elizabeth Cobbs ( author of a book on which the documentary is based), “American Umpire” portrays 20th and 21st century U.S. foreign policy as nothing more than a noble effort to selflessly provide welcome and fair rules and discipline on the rest of a childish, dangerous and reckless planet (think “Lord of the Flies”) that lacks the exceptional historical experience bequeathed to U.S. leaders by the nation’s far-seeing Founding Fathers. The only substantive criticism of U.S. foreign policy in “American Umpire” is the complaint, voiced by numerous interview subjects, that America harms itself to the benefit of others (the Europeans above all) by taking upon its shoulders too much of the burden of benevolently policing the planet. We are just too good for our own good.
Our Real Task
There is not space here to discuss in responsible detail the epic historical deletions and distortions this narrative imposes. The omissions are staggering. They range from the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos resisting U.S. imperial invasion and occupation at the last century’s outset to the restoration of de facto slavery in Haiti and the Dominican Republic after World War I; the unnecessary atom bombing of Hiroshima and, even worse, of Nagasaki (really the first shots of the Cold War ); the toppling of more than 50 governments by U.S. coups and invasions since the end of World War II; the liquidation of perhaps as many as 5 million Southeast Asians in the so-called Vietnam War between 1962 and 1975; the Cold War-era sponsorship of Third World fascism from Chile to South Africa and Indonesia; the attempted assassinations of Fidel Castro and numerous CIA-directed terror bombings in socialist Cuba; the near instigation of global thermonuclear war on at least three occasions; the development and sponsorship of Osama bin Laden and other radically arch-reactionary, jihadist Muslim, paramilitary forces to fight the Cold War against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan; the “Highway of Death,” when U.S. warplanes engaged in an aerial traffic jam as they rushed to slaughter tens of thousands of surrendered Iraqi troops retreating from Iraq in 1991; the coordination and sponsorship of a mass-murderous civil war on peasants, workers and intellectuals (with a death toll well into the many hundreds of thousands) in Central America during the 1970s and 1980s; the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq (responsible for at least 1 million Iraqi deaths); the calamitous U.S. toppling of the Libyan Gadhafi regime; the calamitous destabilization of the Syrian regime; the U.S. funding and encouragement of civil war in central Africa; the enablement and protection of a vicious right-wing coup in Honduras in the spring and summer of 2009; the criminal U.S. global war of terror, replete with rampant “targeted assassinations,” torture, illegal renditions, endless drone war and special-forces killing operations across the Muslim world and other places as well.
“American Umpire” hides these horrific transgressions and the imperial calculations behind much of U.S. foreign policy past and present. As numerous key U.S. planning documents reveal over and over, the goal of that policy was to maintain and, if necessary, install governments that “favor[ed] private investment of domestic and foreign capital, production for export, and the right to bring profits out of the country.” Given the United States’ remarkable possession of half the world’s capital after World War II, Washington elites had no doubt that U.S. investors and corporations would profit the most. Internally, the basic, selfish, national and imperial objectives were openly and candidly discussed. As the “liberal” and “dovish” imperialist, top State Department planner and key Cold War architect George F. Kennan explained in Policy Planning Study 23, a critical 1948 document: “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. … In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. … To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming. ... The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”
The necessity of dispensing with “human rights” and other “sentimental” and “unreal objectives” was especially pressing in the “global south.” Washington assigned the vast periphery of the world economic (capitalist) system—Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the energy-rich and thus strategically hypersignificant Middle East—a less than flattering role. It was to “fulfill its major function as a source of raw materials and a market” ( actual State Department language ) for the great industrial (capitalist) nations (excluding “socialist” Russia and its satellites). It was to be exploited both for the benefit of U.S. corporations/investors and for the reconstruction of Europe and Japan as prosperous U.S. trading and investment partners organized on properly capitalist principles that were hostile to the Soviet bloc.
“Democracy” was fine as a slogan and benevolent, idealistic-sounding mission statement when it came to marketing this core, underlying, ultra-imperialist U.S. policy at home and abroad. Because most people in the “Third World” had no interest in neocolonial subordination and subscribed to what U.S. intelligence officials considered the heretical “idea that government has direct responsibility for the welfare of its people” (what post-World War II U.S. planners called “communism”), Washington’s real-life commitment to popular governance abroad was strictly qualified, to say the least. “Democracy” was suitable to the U.S. as long as its outcomes comported with the interests of U.S. investors/corporations and related U.S. geopolitical objectives. It had to be abandoned, undermined and/or crushed when it threatened those investors/corporations and the broader imperatives of business rule to any significant degree. As President Richard Nixon’s coldblooded National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger explained in June 1970, three years before the U.S. sponsored a fascist coup that overthrew Chile’s democratically elected leftist President Salvador Allende, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”
The selfish imperial cynicism of U.S. foreign policy continues to this day, into the post-Cold War and post-9/11 era. As leading Dutch political scientists Bastiaann van Apeldoorn and Nana de Graaff write in their important new volume , “American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks: The Open Door Since the End of the Cold War,” “From the end of the 19th nineteenth century onward, American grand strategy has pursued a liberal expansionism aimed at the creation of a global hegemony premised upon open, “free” markets, to which global capital—and, above all, U.S. transnational capital—has full access. … The global Open Door has continued to define the ends of the American grand strategy throughout the post-Cold War era.” Because—as during and before—the Cold War’s end, Washington’s commitment to “democracy” and “human rights” is conditional and hypocritical: The noble principles are fine insofar as they serve the free-market hegemony of global and especially U.S. transnational capital. They are dispensed with, even as U.S. policymakers trumpet them, when they do not. | 0 |
BERLIN — One of the most powerful people in Brussels, Günther Oettinger, has come under fire for reportedly referring to Chinese people as “ ” and “sly dogs” in a speech to business leaders in Hamburg. Leaders in Berlin and Brussels sought on Monday to tamp down the uproar after Mr. Oettinger broke his silence over the weekend to explain the comments. Although the comments about Chinese people were not captured on video, he has not denied multiple reports that he made them. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, published on Sunday, Mr. Oettinger, who was appointed by Germany to the European Commission, said his comments were intended to rattle his German audience out of a sense of complacency. But to some observers, Mr. Oettinger only dug himself into a deeper hole. Die Welt said to Mr. Oettinger, “You spoke of ‘ .’ ” Mr. Oettinger responded, “It was a rather crude expression that was in no way meant to be disrespectful to the Chinese. ” Die Welt: “What did you mean when you spoke of ‘sly dogs’ and ‘ ’? ” Mr. Oettinger: “I wanted to show how dynamic the world is in the digital sector, and generally in sectors influenced by technology. And the challenges we face in catching up to the enormous tempo of countries such as China and South Korea. And I wanted to warn against complacency in this context. ” Die Welt: “What does that have to do with ‘sly dogs’?” Mr. Oettinger: “The Chinese are simply very clever, and they see exactly where Europe has a technological advantage. How can they catch up? And then they come and buy up what they can’t catch up to. On the flip side, European companies face great hurdles. ” The uproar was fueled by a video clip of the end of the speech, in which he went on to make disparaging remarks about homosexuals. In that video, which was posted to social media by Sebastian Marquardt, a publisher who was in the audience, Mr. Oettinger suggested that marriage might soon be “obligatory” in Germany. (Germany offers registered life partnerships but does not have marriage.) Officials in Berlin and Brussels found themselves struggling on Monday to account for the remarks by Mr. Oettinger, who is in line for an even more powerful job, that of vice president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union. In Berlin, Steffen Seibert, the chief spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, told reporters that Mr. Oettinger “of course” still enjoyed the support of the chancellor and her government. He declined to comment further. In Brussels, Margaritis Schinas, the chief spokesman for the commission, said the interview with Die Welt was an adequate response to the matter. “He provided some pretty clear explanations and made his position pretty clear, and I don’t think the commission has anything to add to what he said,” he said at a news conference in Brussels. When reminded of reports that Mr. Oettinger had also made disparaging comments about women, gay people and the Wallonia region of Belgium — his comments about Wallonia, which Mr. Oettinger reportedly said was “run by communists,” nearly scuttled a trade deal between the European Union and Canada — Mr. Schinas took a guarded approach. “As to why, and the explanations around this video, I think that we have to listen to what Günther Oettinger has to say,” Mr. Schinas said. “I will refrain from any characterization or value judgment that one can make of the explanations. ” Mr. Schinas said the European Commission did not have the power to investigate Mr. Oettinger for his choice of words. Asked if Juncker, the president of the European Commission, had discussed the matter with Mr. Oettinger, Mr. Schinas suggested that he had not. “We were 100 percent occupied with CETA,” he said, referring to the trade deal, which was signed on Sunday. While Brussels is known for carefully parsed language, Mr. Oettinger is not the first to stir concerns there with disparaging remarks. In 2004, Frits Bolkestein, a Dutch politician and a European commissioner for trade among member states, drew criticism for saying that Ukraine and Belarus would be more easily accepted into the European Union than Turkey because “those countries are more European than Turkey,” a comment that was seen as an implicit reference to Turkey being a nation. Also that year, Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian nominee to become the justice and home affairs commissioner, acknowledged considering homosexuality to be sinful. “I may think that homosexuality is a sin, and this has no effect on politics, unless I say that homosexuality is a crime,” he said. (Mr. Buttiglione eventually withdrew his nomination after a storm of criticism.) Mr. Oettinger has found both critics and detractors. Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German member of the European Parliament, likened Mr. Oettinger’s remarks to those of Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president of the United States. “This is the moment where EU leaders can prove that they won’t let someone like Trump top decision maker,” Mr. Albrecht, a member of the Greens, wrote on Twitter. Paul Magnette, the leader of Wallonia, reacted angrily to a speech last week in which Mr. Oettinger disparaged it as a “ ” that he said was “blocking” Europe. “The comments by Mr. Oettinger are unworthy of an E. U. Commissioner,” Mr. Magnette, a former political science professor, wrote on Twitter. | 1 |
My fellow Americans, we are watching history unfold before us with such sound and fury that we are likely to never witness comparable events again in our lifetime. As of today, I am now convinced that the deep state has turned on Hillary Clinton and will unveil damning evidence in the next few days that will end the Clintons’ reign of terror over America and collapse her bid for the presidency.
Via BeforeItsNews
The mainstream media, of course, will never report this news for the simple reason that they are the propaganda arm of the criminal Clinton cartel. As such, they will lie to the public to the bitter end, even as the Clinton Titanic sinks with all of them on board (in deep, frigid waters, no less, with no more lifeboats to be found).
Please Scroll Down For Videos Below The so-called “deep state” — the powerful insiders who really run the intelligence services and inner layers of untouchable bureaucracy — has decided Hillary Clinton is too damaged to defend any longer. Even if she were to win by stealing the election, she would be so mired in criminal investigations and political illegitimacy that she would rip the nation to shreds while fighting for her own political survival.
It has now been decided, I believe, that Hillary Clinton will be taken out of power by releasing criminally damaging emails which have long been held by the NSA and FBI. This will likely happen before the coming weekend. Once that is accomplished, the next goal will be to wait for President Trump to take office, then destroy the U.S. economy through a controlled, global debt collapse so that Trump can be blamed for the near collapse of western economies. (Remember: The deep state isn’t pro-Trump. They’re still all about defending the establishment. But Hillary is one bridge too far for even the statists to stomach…)
Instead of allowing Hillary Clinton to take power and destroy America from the top, in other words, deep state power brokers have reverted to “Plan B” which is to let Trump take the White House, then destroy America through the controlled demolition of its currency and economy. This is simpler than it sounds. Bringing down the debt pyramid of a nation carrying nearly $20 trillion in national debt isn’t exactly rocket science. All they have to do is stand back and stop manipulating the markets and stop printing new money for a few months while raising interest rates. Monetary gravity will do the rest…
In the mean time, Hillary Clinton and a long list of her co-conspirators are going to find themselves charged with obstruction of justice, lying under oath, destruction of evidence, conspiracy, corruption and other serious charges that will lead to serious prison time for many.
The criminal racket of the Clintons is about to implode. The participants will be charged under the RICO Act for “racketeering” activities, for which ample evidence already exists.
A new video from Steve Pieczenik describes some of this
In this video, intelligence insider Steve Pieczenik lays out how high-level intelligence insiders are now working in concert to “reverse the Clinton coup” that’s attempting to take over America and destroy it from within.
Even if you don’t believe Pieczenik — and I fully realize he’s controversial in his own way — this short video is a very important “must watch” explanation to know what people in the intelligence community are doing… “we’ve initiated a counter-coup…”
The Clintons are going to go “full murder” in a last ditch, desperate effort to save themselves
Beware of what may yet unfold in the coming days. Like a cornered wild animal, the Clintons are extremely dangerous when they realize they have nothing to lose by going “full murder” in an attempt to save themselves.
I will not be surprised the least bit if bodies of people in high places start piling up over the next week. Watch for news reports of mysterious car crashes, swimming pool accidents or “natural” deaths involving people like James Comey, who’d better have armed security personnel around him at all times.
Look for desperate measures such as the Clintons attempting to blackmail Obama, Comey or anyone who they think might serve as leverage to save their own skins. We might also see desperate false flag attacks unfold in the next few days, although that’s increasingly unlikely since it seems the Clintons are now on their own (they would need the assistance of Obama to pull off another Sandy Hook, you see).
A deal has already been struck with Obama
Most likely, deep state operatives have already struck a deal with Obama to avoid prosecuting him for his own serious crimes as long as he stays out of the way as Hillary Clinton’s head is served up on a platter. This likely explains why Obama is now publicly saying he trusts Comey (and refuses to go to bat for Hillary). There’s no love lost between Obama and the Clintons (remember 2008?).
As all this is going down, the propaganda ministry of the Clinton regime — CNN, NYT, Washington Post, etc. — is going to explode into an all-out “bat-s##t crazy” conspiracy theory phase where they blame the Russians, extraterrestrials, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster for everything that’s imploding around the Clintons. Mainstream media news reports are going to increasingly sound like sociopathic babble from crazy people grasping at whatever outlandish theories they can invoke. Maybe crop circles were created by the Russians as a secret code to Wikileaks and Donald Trump, eh?
Meanwhile, conspiratorial operatives like George Stephanopoulos fully realize they are probably going to jail for collusion and sedition, so they have nothing left to lose by desperately trying to put Hillary in the White House via any means at their disposal, including totally faking negative news against Donald Trump (which is, of course, the entire news mission of CNN at this point, a disgraced propaganda network run by anti-American traitors).
If the vote is stolen for Hillary Clinton, all hell breaks loose
Should the globalist Soros operators manage to steal the vote, bribe the electoral voters or rig the black box voting machines sufficiently to place Hillary Clinton in the White House, all Hell breaks loose across America:
• The FBI goes into full indictment mode to push criminal charges for the Clinton criminal regime.
• Donald Trump launches a massive legal challenge to the election outcome, dispatching an army of lawyers to level a vast assortment of charges involving coordinated voter fraud, the rigging of voting machines, the attempted bribery of Electoral voters and so on.
• The U.S. military revs up its plans for an armed military coup to depose Clinton and restore democracy. This one should be especially entertaining to watch unfold if it gets activated… (and yes, YOU will beg for a short-term military dictatorship as long as they promise to depose Clinton and restore open, fair and free elections).
• Armed U.S. citizens prepare for a massive march on Washington to take back their democracy and restore a lawful society where the political elite don’t get away with corruption, fraud and murder. Expect this march to be joined by police officers and federal law enforcement officials of all kinds.
• The NSA likely goes into “full dump” mode to unleash every scrap of damning criminal evidence against Hillary Clinton. This will likely be joined by CIA assets who already have the goods on the Clintons and their “Lolita Express” pedo joy rides.
• Wikileaks, Anonymous and every former NSA analyst goes into “destroy the Clintons” mode and begins to hack and expose every last shred of email evidence ever possessed by the Clintons and anyone close to them. Anonymous alone has enough technical clout to accomplish this with little or no outside help. (I expect Kim Dotcom to be aiding this entire effort as well, as he rightly holds extreme hatred toward Hillary Clinton… as do we all, come to think of it.)
• The establishment Republicans in the U.S. Congress will, as usual, meekly surrender to the democrats, pulls down their britches and bend over to prepare to take it in the rear because that’s what they do best when the going gets tough. Totally useless politicrats like John McCain can’t get their pants around their ankles quickly enough when democrats start accusing them of something. These useless heaps of human baggage will be tossed out of Washington as the revolution unfolds, replaced with individuals who actually honor the U.S. Constitution (like Rep. Louie Gohmert).
I root for all groups working to save America and expose the criminal politicians
Bring out the marshmallows and wieners, folks: This is going to be the most bizarre campfire front row seat to U.S. history that anyone has witnessed in over 200 years. Try not to trip and “face plant” into the flames as all this unfolds. It might be a smart idea to have some preparedness supplies at the ready, since no one really knows just how nasty this is all going to get. (And thank God Hillary doesn’t have her fingers on the nuclear launch codes, or she’d probably launch them just to change the narrative…)
As for me, I’m with anybody who’s trying to save America, restore democracy and throw the establishment criminals in prison. Like almost everybody else, I’ve had enough of the lies, the corruption, the media deceptions and the incessant blood sucking parasites in Washington D.C. who are too arrogant and stupid to realize just how much they’re universally despised. The revolution is ON. Anonymous, Wikileaks, Project Veritas, the FBI and the NSA have all been activated. There’s no stopping them now, and all the details of all the crimes of the Clintons are about to spill onto the stage of history, dirty deeds and all.
Be warned, you are probably not psychologically prepared for the truth about what the Clintons really are. You will probably vomit.
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Many of President Donald Trump’s critics are grappling with the reality the U. S. government will actually build the border wall Trump had pledged to repeatedly during his campaign. [However, those critics are still arguing the money put toward the project would be a waste. The main question now is how the government will pay for it, to which Trump had said throughout the 2016 presidential campaign that Mexico would be responsible for the project’s financing. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell estimated the cost would be between $ billion. Similarly, House Speaker Paul Ryan had put the price tag at between $ billion. Assuming the cost is on the high end of those estimates at $15 billion, the total cost of the border wall would constitute nearly 0. 4 percent of the federal government’s $3. 8 trillion FY 2015 budget. While there are many other big ticket items on the federal budget, many of them dwarf the cost of a U. S. border wall. Here are a few: 1) The War on Poverty: On the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty in 2014, the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector estimated taxpayers have footed a $22 trillion bill for the effort. As Rector also points out, however, is that in that timespan, the poverty rate was the same that was when President Lyndon B. Johnson began the “war on poverty. ” “The U. S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report,” Rector wrote. “The report claims that in 2013, 14. 5 percent of Americans were poor. Remarkably, that’s almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started. ” In case you were wondering, the cost of this ongoing war would be enough to foot the bill for 1, 466 border walls. 2) The Lockheed Martin Stealth Fighter Jet Project: According to Reuters, the cost to build the fighter jet program is estimated to be $379 billion, which would be roughly the cost of 25 border walls. Back in December in a tweet, Trump criticized the costs of the project, which have been plagued with problems and cost overruns, and said he was asking Lockheed Martin competitor Boeing to price out a similar project. Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin I have asked Boeing to a comparable Super Hornet! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016, Early on, some anticipated that throughout the lifespan of the the federal government could spent up to $1 trillion overall in building the fighter jet and for its maintenance. 3) A Day and a Half of Running the Federal Government: The federal budget is currently around $3. 8 trillion. If you take there are 365 days in a year, 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour, that comes to a total of 525, 600 minutes per year. Divide that $3. 8 trillion by 525, 600 and you will find the U. S. government spends about $7. 2 million per minute. At $7. 2 million per minute, that is $432 million per hour and nearly $10. 4 billion a day. With the wall at a cost of $15 billion, that would be roughly a day and a half of operating the federal government as a whole. 4) Medicare, Medicaid Improper Payments: A 2015 Government Accountability Office report estimated in 2014 the federal government made $59. 9 billion in improper Medicare payments and $17. 5 billion in improper Medicaid payments for a grand total of $76. 4 billion, or roughly the cost of five border walls. That same report found that when the $76. 4 billion figure was combined with 122 programs, including the EITC, that number in FY 2014 comes out to $124. 7 billion in improper federal government payment, which was up from $105. 8 billion a year earlier. 5) Maintenance of Vacant and Unused Properties: The federal government reportedly spent $25 billion annually in 2009 on maintaining vacant and unused building. The figure was cited in a 2009 Heritage Foundation report, which was calculated by Oversight Subcommittee chairman Sen. Tom Coburn ( ): Unused Federal Property: The figures have been revised downward over the year, to $8 billion in 2013 and to $1. 7 billion in 2016. However, the cumulative amount over the past decade would have been more than enough to finance a border wall. 6) The Littoral Combat Ship Program: The U. S. Navy’s controversial Littoral Combat Ship program comes in with a price tag of $29 billion. The project, which includes ship prototypes built in Mobile, AL and Marinette, WI, has been fraught with problems and targeted for those problems and cost overruns on a bipartisan basis by the ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chairman Sen. John McCain ( ) and ranking Democrat Sen. Jack Reed ( ). “Until these actions are taken, we will have significant concerns about supporting the procurement of additional LCSs,” McCain and Reed wrote to Navy officials last fall in a letter according to Bloomberg News. 7) Earned Income Tax Credit Program Improper Payments: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is regarded by its critics as nothing more than wealth transfer program that exists under the guise of eliminating poverty. According to the Brookings and Urban Institutes’ Tax Policy Center, in 2015 the ETIC provided an estimated $69 billion in benefits to 28 million recipients. However, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York pointed out, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration stated, “The IRS estimates that 23. 8 percent ($15. 6 billion) of EITC payments were issued improperly in Fiscal Year 2015. ” Cost of building wall roughly equal to one year’s worth of improper payments in Earned Income Tax Credit program. https: . — Byron York (@ByronYork) January 26, 2017, At $15. 6 billion, that is roughly the cost of the border wall. 8) U. S. Postal Service: Even though the postal service generates revenue by charging for certain services, it still loses money that is absorbed by the taxpayer. The U. S. Postal Service has fallen on hard times given more efficient means of communication have replaced the need for the agency’s mail. For FY 2012 alone, the USPS lost $15. 9 billion. Although they have shrunk over the last four years, the agency has continued to post losses, including $3. 9 billion in 2013, $5. 5 billion in 2014, $5. 1 billion in 2015 and $5. 6 billion in 2016 for a grand total of $36 billion since 2012. The USPS also enjoys a federal monopoly on access to mailboxes and is exempt from local regulations and taxes that its privatized competitors do not enjoy. 9) NASA: Even though the last U. S. manned space flight was in 2011, NASA still has an annual budget of $18. 5 billion. A sizable chunk of that budget is dedicated to the agency’s Earth sciences division estimated at $2 billion, which has been at the forefront of climate change research. However, a recent Guardian article by Oliver Milman anticipates funding on climate change to stripped and rededicated to deep space exploration under President Trump. For the time being, NASA has been reliant upon the Russians to send U. S. astronauts to the International Space Station, which came at a $457. 9 million cost in 2014. 10) Farm Subsidies: According to Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, the federal government through the Department of Agriculture spends at least $25 billion on farm subsidies. “The particular amount each year depends on the market prices of crops and other factors,” Edwards wrote last October for DownsizingGovernment. org, a project of the Cato Institute. “Most agricultural subsidies go to farmers of a handful of major crops, including wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton. Roughly a million farmers and landowners receive federal subsidies, but the payments are heavily tilted toward the largest producers. ” To Edwards’ point, farm subsidies often go to those not necessarily of financial assistance from the government. Among those receiving those subsidies according to a 2015 Economist magazine piece are Walmart heirs Alice, Jim and Rob Walton, rockers Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen and CNN founder Ted Turner. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
During a March 10, 2015 press conference meant to address the growing controversy surrounding her private email server, Hillary Clinton famously claimed the emails she deleted were “within the scope of my personal privacy” — including messages about her yoga routines, family vacations and her daughter Chelsea’s wedding. [On Thursday, the State Department released 371 emails from the batch of about 15, 000 that were reportedly uncovered during an FBI investigation of Clinton’s server. Among the newly released correspondence was a message about Clinton’s yoga, with the email in question also involving the transmission of a secure document. The message citing yoga, dated February 12, 2010, was sent to Clinton by her top aide Huma Abedin. Typed in lower case letters, the email stated: “i am going to have the secure document from jake faxed to the house while you do yoga. also, i am getting (redacted) tomorrow in case we land sunday and have to go straight to work right now she is coming at 1 pm. ” Clinton responded, “Ok. Pls have secure stuff faxed to justin. ” “Yes, I connected with him,” Abedin replied. Below is a screenshot grab of the email: Clinton was known to have had a secure fax machine at her house. The newly released email was not necessarily deleted by Clinton. The Hill reported on the most recent batch of released emails from the 15, 000 uncovered by the FBI: Many of the documents — consisting of about 1, 031 pages — are “near duplicates” of documents Clinton provided to the State Department in 2014 and have already been made public, according to the agency. … Clinton deleted about 30, 000 emails from the private server she used while secretary of State, saying they were not before turning over thousands more to the government. But during its examination, the FBI recovered some additional emails that could be relevant to the FOIA lawsuit. A preliminary review of the 15, 000 emails revealed that about 60 percent were of a purely personal nature. Around 37 percent — or 5, 600 documents — were deemed but of those, a “substantial number” were exact duplicates of the 30, 000 emails that Clinton turned over to the agency in December 2014, according to State Department lawyers. This is not the first Clinton email to be made public that involves yoga. A September 3, 2009 email posted on WikiLeaks was titled “Yoga” and contained a list of times — seemingly for yoga classes. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Joshua Klein. | 1 |
The continuing refusal by the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to stand during the playing of “The Banner” before games has set off a debate about patriotism, protest and professional sports. But it has also raised another fraught question: Is our national anthem itself racist? The journalist Jon Schwarz, writing in The Intercept, argued yes, denouncing the lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, as “a celebration of slavery. ” How could black players, Mr. Schwarz asked, be expected to stand for a song whose rarely sung third stanza — which includes the lines “No refuge could save the hireling and the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” — “literally celebrates the murder of ”? That argument drew outrage from some conservative news outlets, as well as a more scholarly rebuttal from Mark Clague, a musicologist at the University of Michigan and the founding board chairman of the Star Spangled Music Foundation. We spoke with Mr. Clague, who is writing a book about the song, about the anthem’s history and shifting meanings. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. Why do you think those who call the song racist are wrong? The social context of the song comes from the age of slavery, but the song itself isn’t about slavery, and it doesn’t treat whites differently from blacks. The reference to slaves is about the use, and in some sense the manipulation, of black Americans to fight for the British, with the promise of freedom. The American forces included as well as whites. The term “freemen,” whose heroism is celebrated in the fourth stanza, would have encompassed both. Few people know “The Banner” has a third verse, since it was often left out of sheet music publications. Why? I don’t think people were afraid of offending but of offending the British. It was their blood that “has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution,” as the third verse puts it. But when we became allies in World War I, we really started reversing course. Part of the difficulty of parsing the anthem seems to that Americans know so little about the War of 1812. Why is public understanding so murky? It’s something in our history we would probably rather skip over. Nobody won, nobody lost. The British burned down the White House. We invaded Canada. It was sort of a bizarre war. But while it didn’t really change much, it was pivotal as far as American identity went. The naval buildup really created the modern American national state. That’s part of the reason why “The Banner” seems so natural and true and permanent and sacred to us today. It didn’t really describe America in 1814, when Key wrote his lyrics, but it was a vision of the unified power the country would become. For your project “Poets Patriots,” you tracked down around 100 different sets of lyrics written by others. How do these alternate versions help us understand the meaning of the song? There are versions that talk about temperance, about women’s suffrage, about presidential campaigns, including Abraham Lincoln’s. The one I wish everyone knew about was one about abolition from 1844, beginning “Oh say, do you hear … ” It repeats Key’s phrase “the land of the free” but as an ironic statement. I wish teachers would contrast that version with Key’s, as a way of showing how singing the anthem isn’t a mindless, rote ritual, but part of a long history of exploration of what the country is about. Does that same kind of revision go on today? By the 20th century, we were treating the anthem as a religious hymn, and it became counterproductive to alter the lyrics as social commentary since changes to the anthem tend to make people so upset. In the 20th century, commentary became less about the lyrics than about the performance. Take Jimi Hendrix’s version. It was a combination of patriotism and protest. Here you have an man, speaking largely to white youth but really to all youth, about their own potential to create the country at a moment when they were old enough to be drafted, but not necessarily old enough to vote. What do you see as the most important part of the anthem? For me, it’s the punctuation that ends the part we sing. After “land of the free,” we have a question mark, not an exclamation point. Is the flag and what it represents still there? Are we winning the battle for freedom that this country was founded on? That’s where Colin Kaepernick has started a productive conversation. If there are people who don’t feel the song represents them, we need to pay attention to that. But if we just reject the song as racist, or declare that it isn’t our anthem anymore, we don’t fix the problem. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — Ryan Lochte, the Olympic medal winner who claimed to have been robbed here last weekend by men identifying themselves as police officers, issued an apology on Friday “for my behavior” in an episode that has cast a pall over the Games. The apology came as testimony emerged from other American swimmers challenging Mr. Lochte’s initial version of events. In sworn statements to investigators, the other swimmers described Mr. Lochte, 32, as drunk and unruly, saying he had damaged property at a gas station and later misrepresented what happened. The case has ignited a debate that goes well beyond sports, eliciting an apology from American Olympic officials and outrage from Brazilians who accuse Mr. Lochte of smearing Rio’s reputation as it held one of the most important international events in Brazil’s history. In his original account, Mr. Lochte said he and three other American swimmers had been pulled over by armed men calling themselves police officers, one of whom put a gun against his head before taking the cash from his wallet. But police investigators said Thursday that Mr. Lochte had fabricated central elements of the encounter. The investigators said the swimmers had vandalized a gas station bathroom after leaving a lavish party and were confronted over the damages by security guards. At least one of the guards brandished his gun in their direction, the police said. “I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend — for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning,” Mr. Lochte said in a statement on Instagram. Mr. Lochte did not give a full account of what happened during the episode, or explain the ways in which his earlier depictions of events were inaccurate. But he insisted that a gun was pointed at him and that he was forced to hand over money. “It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country — with a language barrier — and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave,” he said in the statement. In sworn statements to Brazilian investigators, Mr. Lochte’s teammates said that he was drunk and disorderly, had damaged property and was in need of calming down as they discussed the situation with an armed security guard. Two of the swimmers — Gunnar Bentz, 20, and Jack Conger, 21 — described public urination, vandalism and other drunken antics by the swimmers, the police said. In his testimony, Mr. Bentz said that the situation spiraled out of control shortly after the swimmers left a party in a taxi early Sunday and stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom. Once there, the men urinated around the bushes, and Mr. Lochte damaged a sign, according to a police description of Mr. Bentz’s account. The police said a bathroom door and a soap dispenser had also been damaged. Fernando Deluz, a D. J. who was passing by the gas station, said he interpreted for the swimmers, none of whom speak Portuguese, in an effort to prevent the situation from escalating. “There was a moment when they tried to escape, and that’s when the security guards stopped them,” Mr. Deluz said in nationally televised comments. “At no moment did anyone brush up against them,” he added. And when employees of the gas station discussed calling the police, the swimmers pleaded with them not do so, Mr. Deluz added. “They were saying, ‘Please, please, no please,’” Mr. Deluz said, explaining that the swimmers began asking in English how much they needed to pay for the damages done to the gas station. The swimmers then handed over Brazilian and American currency totaling about $50 to Mr. Deluz, who said he gave the money to a security guard, who then passed it to a gas station employee. “Then I talked to them and said, ‘That’s O. K. ’” Mr. Deluz said. The swimmers then went on their way to the athletes’ village, where they were captured on camera joking with one another and in possession of their phones and watches, items that are often taken from victims of armed assaults in Rio. Mr. Bentz said the swimmers tried to leave the station, having sensed that they could get into trouble after employees witnessed their behavior, the police said. But two men with guns — security guards at the gas station — approached the car, brandished their weapons and prevented them from leaving, Mr. Bentz said. The group of swimmers, which also included Jimmy Feigen, 26, then got out of the car. After being told by the guards to sit down, “Ryan got up and began talking to the men,” Mr. Bentz told investigators. At that point, Mr. Bentz said, he “asked Ryan to calm down and sit down again. ” In his testimony, Mr. Conger told investigators that he described the episode to his mother after arriving back at the athletes’ village and having breakfast with Mr. Feigen. He then saw Mr. Lochte’s accounts in the news media, telling investigators that he “perceived that Ryan was lying about what had happened. ” As the scandal over the swimmers grew this week, judges in Brazil sought to prevent the men from leaving the country. But Mr. Lochte had already flown to the United States before the police moved to seize his passport. The police removed Mr. Bentz and Mr. Conger from their plane as it prepared to leave Rio, but after providing their testimony, the two men flew to the United States. The police said they were planning to charge Mr. Lochte and Mr. Feigen with providing false testimony about a crime. But Mr. Feigen’s lawyer said that his client had agreed to pay about $10, 800 to a Brazilian charity as part of a deal to avoid prosecution, allowing him to leave the country. The International Olympic Committee also said Friday that it would start a disciplinary inquiry into the episode involving the four swimmers. In his apology, Mr. Lochte said that he was grateful to “the people of Brazil who welcomed us to Rio and worked so hard to make sure that these Olympic Games provided a lifetime of great new memories. ” But many Brazilians felt that the statement fell short. “Lochte apologizes but doesn’t admit lying,” said Rodrigo Mattos, a sports commentator for UOL, one of Brazil’s largest news websites. “He’s still portraying himself as a victim. So much arrogance. ” | 1 |
أردوغان يؤكد مواصلة "درع الفرات" بسوريا
تاريخ النشر: 26.10.2016 | 20:02 GMT | انسخ الرابط http://ar.rt.com/i5hr أكد الرئيس التركي رجب طيب أردوغان أن بلاده ستواصل عمليةَ درع الفرات في سوريا حتى طرد داعش من مناطق حدودية.
أما الجيش التركي فقال إن مروحية سورية قصفت فصائل ما يسمى بعملية درع الفرات التي تدعمها أنقرة قرب بلدة أخترين بريف حلب الشمالي | 0 |
On January 5, Representative Blake Farenthold ( ) introduced legislation that protects the gun rights of military families by allowing the spouses of deployed military personnel to buy guns “in the state where they live due to military orders. ”[This legislation is needed in light of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which bars citizens from purchasing handguns outside their state of residence. Farenthold’s bill recognizes that “exceptions” to that prohibition were made “for active duty military personnel,” but no exception was made for their spouses. This means spouses of a deployed military member could easily find themselves in a home unarmed — i. e. defenseless — for months at a time. Farenthold’s bill is titled, “Protect Our Military Families’ 2nd Amendment Rights Act. ” In the press release which accompanied the Act’s introduction Farenthold said, “Our military spouses give up a great deal to support their active duty service member, often moving far from home and far from family to be with their spouse. Military spouses should not be denied their Second Amendment rights based on the orders of the military member. They have the right to defend themselves and their families just like anyone else. ” A text of the Act was sent to Breitbart News and its language amends current codes so that military spouses’ residency is determined like the residency of active duty military personnel, as relates to the exercise of Second Amendment rights. The Act says: A member of the Armed Forces on active duty, or a spouse of such a member, is a resident of — ‘‘(1) the State in which the member or spouse maintains legal residence ‘‘(2) the State in which the permanent duty station of the member is located and ‘‘(3) the State in which the member maintains a place of abode from which the member commutes each day to the permanent duty station of the member. ” In the wake of recent, heinous attacks witnessed against our stateside military personnel at Chattanooga (July 16, 2015) and Fort Hood (November 5, 2009 and April 2, 2014) — as well as at other installations — taking steps that protect military families who are also near these installations is a necessity. 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 |
By Claire Bernish On Thursday, police from no less than five states sporting full riot gear and armed with heavy lethal and nonlethal weaponry, pepper... | 0 |
Here are the top 10 comments of the week on our digital platforms, as selected by our readers and the journalists who moderate nearly every comment. 1. I’ve been lucky to see many great sports moments in my life (Dave Wottle’s 1972 Olympic victory might still be number one) including the Super Bowl two years ago. But, this is in the top three somewhere. The poise, the coaching, the team spirit and personal achievement that lets a comeback like this happen without really any one big sensational long td play (although Edelman’s catch — one of the greatest ever) or unfair call in their favor, cannot be touched in the history of the SB. Without slighting any of the amazing players on their team, I couldn’t be prouder today to be a [Tom] Brady and [Bill] Belichick fan. It is about remarkable character, organization and discipline. — David H. Eisenberg in Smithtown, N. Y. reacting to an article about Super Bowl LI, won in overtime by the New England Patriots over the Atlanta Falcons. 2. Anyone who knows Lady Gaga’s music knows it’s socially conscious, drilling the point home about love and acceptance. Pepsi knew this when they asked her to perform. So who is really sending the message? Bravo, Pepsi for not being afraid. — Rebecca Rutigliano Davis on The Times’s Facebook page, responding to an article about Lady Gaga’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. 3. Buckle up, Mitch: Hell hath no fury like a woman warned. — J. Burkett in Austin, Tex. reacting to an article about Republican senators, led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who voted to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, on the eve of Senator Jeff Sessions’ confirmation vote. This comment received more than 4, 500 reader recommendations. 4. It was appropriate that Senator Warren should take her seat after she continued reading an inflammatory, unproven information. We need a return to reason. I am glad to see that the Senate is still functioning amid such hysteria. Senator Warren is championing a hysterical and inflammatory approach toward moving forward. She is convinced of her own righteousness, and is unfit for office, as she and others like her are the bigots, filled with hate and unwilling to hear nor consider opposing points of view. — Let’s Be Grown Ups in Louisiana. 5. Do we really want judges making national security decisions? I think the Constitution and the statutes do give presidents broad powers over immigration. We liked that during President Obama’s term. I believe the ban is vulnerable on religious discrimination grounds, but it seems to me that people outside the U. S. do not have any Constitutional rights (unless they have visas or green cards which do give them some rights). — JT NC in North Carolina, reacting to an article about a federal appeals panel unanimously rejecting President Trump’s efforts to reinstate a ban on travelers entering the United States from seven largely Muslim countries. 6. I am currently 14 hours into labor with my first child, and this is all the pain relief I need. — Anne in San Jose, Calif. This comment received more than 3, 700 reader recommendations. 7. My husband and I still pay the rent for our daughters, one of whom is in culinary school, the other a college student. Yes they have jobs. Yes they pay some of their own bills, but they don’t make enough money to pay rent and we live too far from their schools for them to commute. They will eventually be in a position to be on their own, but for now, we are guaranteeing that they have the chance to succeed. — Dena Kendig on The Times’s Facebook page, responding to an article about the nearly half of urbanites in their early 20s whose parents provide them assistance with their housing costs. This comment received more than 340 likes. 8. Part of being an adult is living within your means — not within you and your parents’ means. I feel like the younger generation has missed out on that lesson. — Jesse in Houston. This comment received more than 170 reader recommendations. 9. If theaters are going to sell wine and special mixed drinks in souvenir cups, they must have potty parity. — Clio in Michigan, reacting to an article about the paucity of bathrooms in many old Broadway theaters and the ensuing long lines at intermission. 10. Mr. Darcy was more ballet dancer than beefcake. Nevertheless, she persisted. — Heather Bahniuk Martin on The Times’s Facebook page, responding to an article about a study by British literature professors positing that Mr. Darcy, the romantic hero of “Pride and Prejudice,” would not have been as romantically appealing to modern eyes as Colin Firth, the actor who portrayed him in BBC’s 1995 adaptation. This comment received more than 270 likes. | 1 |
After his wife suffered a devastating asthma attack and later died, the Boston writer Peter DeMarco wrote the following letter to the intensive care unit staff of CHA Cambridge Hospital who cared for her and helped him cope. As I begin to tell my friends and family about the seven days you treated my wife, Laura Levis, in what turned out to be the last days of her young life, they stop me at about the 15th name that I recall. The list includes the doctors, nurses, respiratory specialists, social workers, even cleaning staff members who cared for her. “How do you remember any of their names?” they ask. How could I not, I respond. Every single one of you treated Laura with such professionalism, and kindness, and dignity as she lay unconscious. When she needed shots, you apologized that it was going to hurt a little, whether or not she could hear. When you listened to her heart and lungs through your stethoscopes, and her gown began to slip, you pulled it up to respectfully cover her. You spread a blanket, not only when her body temperature needed regulating, but also when the room was just a little cold, and you thought she’d sleep more comfortably that way. You cared so greatly for her parents, helping them climb into the room’s awkward recliner, fetching them fresh water almost by the hour, and by answering every one of their medical questions with incredible patience. My a doctor himself as you learned, felt he was involved in her care. I can’t tell you how important that was to him. Then, there was how you treated me. How would I have found the strength to have made it through that week without you? How many times did you walk into the room to find me sobbing, my head down, resting on her hand, and quietly go about your task, as if willing yourselves invisible? How many times did you help me set up the recliner as close as possible to her bedside, crawling into the mess of wires and tubes around her bed in order to swing her forward just a few feet? How many times did you check in on me to see whether I needed anything, from food to drink, fresh clothes to a hot shower, or to see whether I needed a better explanation of a medical procedure, or just someone to talk to? How many times did you hug me and console me when I fell to pieces, or ask about Laura’s life and the person she was, taking the time to look at her photos or read the things I’d written about her? How many times did you deliver bad news with compassionate words, and sadness in your eyes? When I needed to use a computer for an emergency email, you made it happen. When I smuggled in a very special visitor, our tuxedo cat, Cola, for one final lick of Laura’s face, you “didn’t see a thing. ” And one special evening, you gave me full control to usher into the I. C. U. more than 50 people in Laura’s life, from friends to to college alums to family members. It was an outpouring of love that included guitar playing and opera singing and dancing and new revelations to me about just how deeply my wife touched people. It was the last great night of our marriage together, for both of us, and it wouldn’t have happened without your support. There is another moment — actually, a single hour — that I will never forget. On the final day, as we waited for Laura’s organ donor surgery, all I wanted was to be alone with her. But family and friends kept coming to say their goodbyes, and the clock ticked away. About 4 p. m. finally, everyone had gone, and I was emotionally and physically exhausted, in need of a nap. So I asked her nurses, Donna and Jen, if they could help me set up the recliner, which was so uncomfortable, but all I had, next to Laura again. They had a better idea. They asked me to leave the room for a moment, and when I returned, they had shifted Laura to the right side of her bed, leaving just enough room for me to crawl in with her one last time. I asked if they could give us one hour without a single interruption, and they nodded, closing the curtains and the doors, and shutting off the lights. I nestled my body against hers. She looked so beautiful, and I told her so, stroking her hair and face. Pulling her gown down slightly, I kissed her breasts, and laid my head on her chest, feeling it rise and fall with each breath, her heartbeat in my ear. It was our last tender moment as a husband and a wife, and it was more natural and pure and comforting than anything I’ve ever felt. And then I fell asleep. I will remember that last hour together for the rest of my life. It was a gift beyond gifts, and I have Donna and Jen to thank for it. Really, I have all of you to thank for it. With my eternal gratitude and love, Peter DeMarco | 1 |
Black Lives Matter leader DeRay McKesson endorses Clinton McKesson praised Clinton's platform for seeking to reform parts of her husband's 1994 crime bill Mallory Shelbourne | The Hill - October 26, 2016 Comments Top Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson on Wednesday endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
“Clinton’s platform on racial justice is strong: It is informed by the policy failings of the past and is a vision for where we need to go,” McKesson wrote in a Washington Post op-ed . Clinton hosted a meeting with McKesson and other Black Lives Matter activists in the fall to discuss the Campaign Zero plan to end police violence. McKesson wrote that Clinton “didn’t appear to understand the urgency of the need to address racism” when she began running for the White House but that her position on racial justice is now “strong.” | 0 |
The kiosks in New York were designed to replace phone booths and allow users to consult maps, maybe check the weather or charge their phones. But they have also attracted people who linger for hours, sometimes drinking and doing drugs and, at times, boldly watching pornography on the sidewalks. Now, yielding to complaints, the operator of the kiosks, LinkNYC network, is shutting off their internet browsers, but not their other functions, while it works out a Plan B with city officials. The switch, announced on Wednesday, is a case study in unintended consequences, commendable goals gone somewhat awry. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s aim of providing modern technology to the masses ran headlong into the reality of life on the city’s streets. After months of complaints from residents, businesses and other elected officials, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, conceded that combining unfettered internet access with free was a recipe for bad behavior. The retreat comes just seven months after the mayor introduced the network amid much fanfare as a key plank of his promise to bridge the digital divide in the city. The kiosks would replace more than 7, 500 public pay phones and bring free and phone service to every neighborhood. Users were expected to make short stops at the kiosks. But the sites quickly attracted homeless people and other idle users who took full advantage of the unlimited access to the internet to turn the kiosks into al fresco living rooms, watching movies and playing music for hours. “People are congregating around these Links to the point where they’re bringing furniture and building little encampments clustered around them,” said Barbara A. Blair, president of the Garment District Alliance, a business group in Manhattan. “It’s created this really unfortunate and actually deplorable condition. ” Ms. Blair said her organization of Midtown merchants and property owners had welcomed the kiosks as an overdue replacement for increasingly outdated phone booths that were attracting vagrants and drug dealers. “We’re a modern city we should have ” Ms. Blair said. “But when something has an outcome that you completely weren’t anticipating, then you have to go back and reconsider. Maybe other cities don’t have this problem. ” Councilman Corey Johnson, a Democrat whose district encompasses Greenwich Village, Chelsea and part of Midtown, said police officials had asked for the removal of “several problematic kiosks” along Eighth Avenue. He said he had observed people watching pornography on the kiosk screens with children nearby. “These kiosks are often monopolized by individuals creating personal spaces for themselves, engaging in activities that include playing loud explicit music, consuming drugs and alcohol, and the viewing of pornography,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a letter last month to officials of the city and LinkNYC. In a Sept. 1 meeting at his office, Mr. Johnson said, officials agreed to his demand for a moratorium on the installation of additional kiosks on Eighth and Ninth Avenues in his district. But a spokeswoman for the mayor, Natalie Grybauskas, said the Police Department had not made any official request for kiosks to be removed. In a statement explaining the decision, Ms. Grybauskas said: “There were concerns about loitering and extended use of LinkNYC kiosks, so the mayor is addressing these complaints head on. Removing the internet browser from LinkNYC tablets will not affect the other great services LinkNYC provides — superfast free phone calls or access to key city services — but will address concerns we’ve heard from our fellow New Yorkers. ” Jen Hensley, general manager of LinkNYC, said the consortium that built and operated the kiosks had begun “removing the internet browsers while we look at ways to enhance the service. ” She said those changes could include adding services, as well as bringing back the browsers with limitations on their use. Ms. Hensley described the process of designing the kiosks as “iterative,” noting that several changes had already been made, including turning down the volume of the speakers at night and adding filters to prevent users from accessing pornography. The latest change would not slow the planned rollout of the kiosks throughout the five boroughs, she added. So far, about 400 have been installed in the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. Continuing to build the network is critical for the consortium, which is relying on the sale of ads on the sides of the kiosks. It has pledged to share at least $500 million in ad revenue with the city over the first 12 years. Despite the efforts to filter out objectionable material, city officials have continued to receive complaints about people watching pornography at the kiosks. The filters do not affect internet access using the signals on personal phones or tablets. Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, who had demanded changes to the kiosks, said she was pleased to hear about the shutdown of the browsers, and noted that the free was the true benefit of the kiosks. “I don’t think anybody should be able to sit there and watch movies all day long,” Ms. Brewer, a Democrat, said. “People are pulling up sofas or chairs or what have you. ” She likened turning off the browsers to the decision during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s to block pay phones from accepting calls. All along Amsterdam Avenue, she said, crack dealers were using pay phones as business offices. “When we changed the incoming calls, we got rid of the drug dealers at the phone booths,” Ms. Brewer recalled. “I don’t know where they went, but they were gone. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — As he grappled on Thursday with his first major decision involving military action, a and frustrated President Trump turned to his two top aides and told them he had had enough of their incessant in the media. “Work this out,” Mr. Trump said, according to two people briefed on the exchange. The admonition was aimed at Stephen K. Bannon, the tempestuous chief strategist, and Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, over a series of with Jared Kushner, the president’s and senior adviser, and the top economic adviser, Gary D. Cohn. But they may not be able to. The president is said to be aware that a meaningful reconciliation will take work to achieve between Mr. Bannon, who sees himself as the keeper of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises, and the competing ideologies of Mr. Kushner and Mr. Cohn, a longtime Wall Street executive and a Democrat. And he is considering a of his senior staff, according to four people with direct knowledge of the process. Whether he acts on it remains to be seen. Mr. Trump has often pondered making changes for several weeks or even months before making them, if he does at all. He has a high tolerance for chaos, and a unique gift for creating it — and, despite his famous “You’re fired!” tagline from the show “The Apprentice,” an aversion to dismissing people. But this past week, one that some of his aides considered the best of his presidency, was marred by fits, starts and wounds — and the constant churn of news accounts of a White House at war with itself finally wore the president out. And notice of a possible was a warning shot to his team to make adjustments. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, insisted that such accounts were untrue. “Once again this is a completely false story driven by people who want to distract from the success taking place in this administration,” she said in an emailed statement. “The President’s pick for the Supreme Court (a decision that has generational impact) was confirmed today, we hosted multiple foreign leaders this week and the President took bold and decisive military action against Syria last night. The only thing we are shaking up is the way Washington operates as we push the President’s aggressive agenda forward. ” But two people who have spoken with Mr. Trump said he recognized that the continuing state of drama was unsustainable. No changes are imminent, they said. But the president is considering a range of options, including a shift in role for Mr. Bannon, who has become increasingly isolated in the White House as other power centers have grown, as well as additional senior staff. Mr. Priebus has been a source of contention for a number of Mr. Trump’s former advisers, with the president pushing back on criticism with the response that the former chairman of the Republican National Committee is a “nice guy. ” Mr. Bannon, a confidant of the president’s whose roving job in the White House has given him influence over policy and hiring decisions, now finds himself in the undesirable position of being caught between the president and his family. That is a position that others have not survived, most notably Corey Lewandowski, the first of the president’s three campaign managers. Mr. Bannon, whose portfolio is broad but vague as a chief strategist, has told people he believes Mr. Kushner’s allies have undermined him, that he has no plans to quit and is digging in for a fight. One option being discussed is moving Mr. Bannon to a different role. His allies at an outside group supporting him run by his main benefactor, the investor Rebekah Mercer, have also discussed him joining them to provide strategy. Mr. Kushner, 36, a government neophyte who has taken on a much larger portfolio as a top West Wing aide and foreign envoy, was said to be displeased after hearing that Mr. Bannon made critical remarks about him to other aides and Trump associates while he was in Iraq recently. Mr. Bannon has told confidants that he believes Mr. Kushner’s contact with Russians, and his expected testimony before Congress on the subject, will become a major distraction for the White House. Kushner allies have also raised the issue with the president of the increasingly unflattering coverage that Mr. Kushner is receiving from Breitbart News, the website that Mr. Bannon used to run. But Mr. Bannon has his own core of supporters outside the White House. And he has argued that Mr. Kushner’s efforts to pull his more to the center on issues like immigration would poison him with the conservative base — a hopeless position to be in because Mr. Bannon believes so few Democrats would ever consider supporting Mr. Trump. In the White House blame game, no one is safe. Mr. Bannon’s team is blamed for the contested and controversial travel bans. Mr. Priebus was damaged by the failure of health care legislation. Mr. Kushner has yet to show he can master his own portfolio, and his role is so large that miscues will be magnified. Mr. Trump does not like any staff member gaining too much attention, including those who are related to him. He had three campaign in the 2016 cycle, and he tends to make changes based on instinct. As he learns the job of a president, his allies say, he was destined to make such changes. There is a long history of presidents making staff changes, and one of Mr. Trump’s predecessors, Bill Clinton, made changes within the first six months of his administration. Newt Gingrich, an informal adviser to Mr. Trump and a former House speaker, said, “I think first of all a very high amount of tension in the White House is normal. ” “I think they have particular tension right now because the health bill failed,” he added. The stories about infighting “probably bother him some,” Mr. Gingrich said. “But do I think they’re damaging to his prospects? I think they’re noise. ” | 1 |
MCALLEN, Texas — A fugitive Mexican governor who continues to be on the run is now facing additional charges after authorities unsealed a new indictment. [Breitbart Texas learned that federal prosecutors recently obtained a second superseding indictment against fugitive former Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores accusing him of multiple money laundering and bank fraud charges. Federal authorities listed Hernandez as a fugitive in 2015 when they unsealed an indictment accusing him of conspiring to launder illicit sums of money and of funneling funds into the U. S. The allegations point to Hernandez using a network of individuals to funnel embezzled funds and cartel bribes. The original indictment also includes his brother in law Oscar Manuel Gomez Guerra. While listed as a fugitive in the U. S. Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR) confirmed on Monday that they do not have an arrest warrant for him in Mexico. Breitbart Texas published a leaked document that proves that the State of Tamaulipas under a previous administration had been assigning state cops to serve as the personal bodyguards for Hernandez and another fugitive governor named Tomas Yarrington. Despite being wanted by the U. S. Department of Justice, he continues to make public appearances in Mexico. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, in recent months, various individuals tied to the upper echelons of political society have been indicted or pleaded guilty to various money laundering charges that stemmed from the Hernandez administration. Under Hernandez’s term, Mexican drug organizations like Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartels went largely untouched while multiple government officials received hefty bribes. The criminal cases still have several names that remain under seal. Last month, Breitbart Texas reported on the arrest of Monica Roca Perez, a Tamaulipas socialite arrested in the U. S. in connection with another money laundering conspiracy also linked to Hernandez. Roca Perez appears to have allegedly purchased a home on behalf of Adriana Gonzalez, the wife of Eugenio Hernandez. Authorities have not charged Gonzalez with a crime. Hernandez is the second governor of Tamaulipas to be indicted in the U. S. on money laundering charges. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting this week, tensions arose between the U. S. government and the Mexican government over the extradition of Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba, a former governor of Tamaulipas who was arrested in Italy last Sunday. Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR) tried to take credit for the arrest when in fact the case was based on the work of agents with U. S. Homeland Security Investigation and Italian authorities. During a series of stories since the day of the arrest, Breitbart Texas has caught the PGR in twisting facts and lies in an effort to save face. According to the indictment in that case, during his time as governor, Yarrington allegedly took bribes from the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas in exchange for protection and giving them operational control of Tamaulipas. Then after serving as governor, he allegedly worked with Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva Cartel to move large shipments of drugs using the Port of Veracruz. Eugenio Hernandez 2nd Superseding Indictment by ildefonso ortiz on Scribd, 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 Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. | 1 |
Yahoo appears to be making progress in efforts to sell itself, despite some initial skepticism. The latest piece of evidence: Among those vying for the company is the unusual combination of the investor Warren E. Buffett and Dan Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. That consortium is one of several suitors that have moved into the second round of bidding for Yahoo, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Gilbert is leading the bid, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. Mr. Buffett’s conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, is offering to provide financing, as he has done with the investment firm 3G Capital in its takeovers of H. J. Heinz and Kraft, and is leaving the negotiations to Mr. Gilbert, according to the people. The unusual presence of Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Buffett in the bidding suggest just how far Yahoo and its advisers have cast their net to find potential buyers for the embattled Internet company. The two are joined in the second round by a range of other bidders, including Verizon Communications and private equity firms such as TPG Capital and a group that comprises Bain Capital and Vista Equity Partners, people briefed on the process have previously said. Several other strategic bidders are also in the second round. Yahoo declined to comment. Representatives for Quicken Loans and Berkshire did not return requests for comment. The companies in the second round of bidding are seeking to buy one of the names in Silicon Valley — though one that ceded a longtime hold on the Internet to younger rivals like Google and Facebook. Repeated efforts to reinvent itself, led by a string of chief executives, including the company’s current leader, Marissa Mayer, have failed to take hold. As Yahoo and its bankers canvassed for preliminary bids, the company received criticism, including from some prospective bidders and from the activist hedge fund Starboard Value, over the state of the sales process. Yet Yahoo can point to progress. It settled a looming board fight with Starboard, offering the investment firm four director seats. One of those is held by Starboard’s chief executive, Jeffrey Smith, who now sits on the special board committee overseeing the potential sale. Yahoo executives, including Ms. Mayer, and advisers have been sitting down with bidders in the second round, furnishing those suitors with additional details. Among them is Mr. Gilbert, who built his fortune with the financial empire. But he is also an active investor in his own right, having taken stakes in a number of online . Yahoo would be orders of magnitude larger than those other technology investments and significantly more troubled. But Mr. Gilbert’s consortium, like other bidders, has been interested in the digital footprint that the company possesses, including its popular finance and sports sites. Backing him is his friend Mr. Buffett — who has long spoken of his aversion to technology companies, outside of an investment in IBM. But the role of Berkshire in the Gilbert bid would be financial, and Mr. Buffett’s conglomerate would collect interest from its financing with the opportunity to convert those holdings into an equity stake in the company. Both men are familiar with Yahoo in other ways. Mr. Buffett turned to Yahoo Finance for the live stream of the session at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting on April 30. And one of Berkshire’s directors is Susan L. Decker, a former president of Yahoo. Providing advice to the Gilbert consortium are the former senior Yahoo executives Dan Rosensweig, who is now chief executive of the education company Chegg, and Tim Cadogan, now the head of the online advertising platform OpenX. Neither has expressed interest in rejoining Yahoo, one of the people briefed on the matter said. Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gilbert have another — albeit more troubled — tie to the Internet company. In 2014, Berkshire, Quicken Loans and Yahoo briefly united to offer a “Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge” tied to the NCAA basketball tournament that year, though the contest was called off and devolved into a morass of lawsuits. Reuters previously reported the existence of Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Buffett’s bid, while Recode reported the presence of Mr. Rosensweig and Mr. Cadogan as advisers to the group. | 1 |
by Dr. Mercola
Most people in the U.S. first heard of Zika virus about a year ago. It was October 2015 when officials in Brazil reported a possible association between infection with Zika virus and the birth defect microcephaly.
The virus, however, was first identified in Uganda in 1947, in monkeys. Several years later, in 1952, Zika virus was found in humans in the same area as well as in the United Republic of Tanzania. Outbreaks have occurred ever since, although infections in humans were limited to Africa and Asia.
The year 2007 marked the first large Zika virus outbreak, which took place on the remote Island of Yap, a tiny island in the Federated States of Micronesia. Then, in July 2015, Brazil reported Zika virus infection appeared to be linked to the autoimmune disease Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Zika virus is transmitted primarily by Aedes mosquitoes, although it is sexually transmitted as well.
It has since spread to a small area of the U.S. (southern Florida), but fewer than 1,000 U.S. pregnant women have lab evidence of Zika infection (this includes not only locally transmitted cases but also those that occurred via sexual contact). In other words, it’s extremely rare.
Further, many questions remain about its risks. While the World Health Organization (WHO) says there is a “scientific consensus that Zika virus is a cause of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome,” [1] other experts have questioned this link.
Despite the many unanswered questions, efforts are underway to eradicate the disease, including by releasing controversial man-made and genetically engineered (GE) mosquitoes, with largely unknown effects to the environment. Army of Man-Made Mosquitoes to Be Released in South America
Scientists are planning to release millions of man-made mosquitoes in Brazil and Colombia in 2017.
The $18-million project, funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , involves mosquitoes that have been infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which stops viruses from growing inside the mosquito and therefore from being transmitted between people.
The Eliminate Dengue research program, which has been working to develop such mosquitoes for a decade, claims the method is “self-sustaining and has the potential to transform the fight against life-threatening viral disease.”
The altered mosquitoes have been tested in open trials in dengue-affected communities since 2011, but not yet on the scale expected in Brazil and Colombia. The mosquitoes are expected to be released in large, heavily populated urban areas.
The mosquitoes are described as a refinement of a natural method, as Wolbachia bacteria is present in about 60 percent of insect species, including some mosquitoes. However, it is not naturally occurring in Aedes mosquitoes.
It took decades for researchers just to figure out how to introduce Wolbachia into Aedes mosquito eggs, but once they did they started experimenting with releasing them into the wild. Field tests suggest the bacteria spread to the vast majority of local mosquitoes, and as Eliminate Dengue said, is a “self-sustaining” system.
That’s both the point and the problem. Other experimental GE mosquitoes have been genetically engineered to die in the absence of the antibiotic tetracycline (which is introduced in the lab in order to keep them alive long enough to breed).
They were designed this way assuming they would not have access to that drug in the wild, a failsafe (though not a perfect one, especially since antibiotics are now showing up in waterways) to ensure that the GE insects could theoretically be removed from the environment.
In the case of the Wolbachia mosquitoes, once they’re released (and they already have been), there’s no stopping them from mingling with wild mosquitoes. While this may help to reduce the spread of certain viruses (although this remains to be seen), it may also have other unintended, as yet unknown consequences. GE Mosquitoes Aim to Wipe Out Mosquito Populations
Eliminate Dengue’s Wolbachia mosquitoes are only one variety of GE mosquito now circulating the globe.
Biotech company Oxitec has created its own variety, which has been genetically engineered to carry a “genetic kill switch,” such that when they mate with wild female mosquitoes, their offspring inherits the lethal gene and cannot survive. [2]
To achieve this feat, Oxitec inserted protein fragments from the herpes virus, E. coli bacteria, coral and cabbage into the insects. Millions have already been experimentally released in Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands, and the GE mosquitoes have proven lethal to native mosquito populations.
In the Cayman Islands, for instance, 96 percent of native mosquitoes were suppressed after more than 3 million GE mosquitoes were released in the area, with similar results reported in Brazil. [3]
Oxitec, in partnership with the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD), also has plans to release the GE mosquitoes, which go by the name of OX513A, in Key Haven, Florida, an island of the Florida Keys located about one mile east of Key West.
Residents, however, are not overly keen on being guinea pigs in this experiment. A vote is expected November 2016 to determine if the GE insects will be released. Adding to the controversy of releasing GE creatures of any kind into the environment are the unknown consequences of wiping out mosquito populations.
While they’re primarily viewed as a nuisance and vector for deadly diseases like malaria, there may be “undesirable side effects” of eradicating them entirely, according to Florida University entomologist Phil Lounibos. BBC News reported: [4]
… [Lounibos] says mosquitoes, which mostly feed on plant nectar, are important pollinators. They are also a food source for birds and bats while their young — as larvae — are consumed by fish and frogs. This could have an effect further up and down the food chain.
… He warns that mosquitoes could be replaced by an insect ‘equally, or more, undesirable from a public health viewpoint.’ Its replacement could even conceivably spread diseases further and faster than mosquitoes today. Gene-Drive Mosquitoes Are Coming
Gene-drive technology is incredibly controversial because it gives scientists the ability to control and potentially quickly eradicate entire populations of species. The technology allows a certain gene to spread to 99 percent of offspring instead of the typical 50 percent.
Gene-editing tools like Crispr have made the use of gene-drive technology a reality. “By encoding the Crispr editing system itself into an organism’s DNA, scientists can cause a desired edit to reoccur in each generation, “driving” the trait through the wild population,” the New York Times explained. [5]
At Imperial College London, for instance, a gene was created to cause female mosquitoes to become sterile. With gene-drive technology, the gene could cause mosquitoes in the wild to become extinct, fast. According to MIT Technology Review: [6]
A gene drive is an artificial ‘selfish’ gene capable of forcing itself into 99 percent of an organism’s offspring instead of the usual half.
And because this particular gene causes female mosquitoes to become sterile, within about 11 generations—or in about one year—its spread would doom any population of mosquitoes.
If released into the field, the technology could bring about the extinction of malaria mosquitoes and, possibly, cease transmission of the disease.
Earlier this year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the advisory group for the U.S. government on scientific matters, endorsed continued research on gene-drive technology, [7] even though the risks are immense. What Are the Real Risks of Zika Virus?
We know there are risks of releasing man-made and GE organisms into the environment. The risks of Zika virus remain unknown, however. Chris Barker, a mosquito-borne virus researcher at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, told WebMD: [8]
I think the risk for Zika actually setting up transmission cycles that become established in the continental U.S. is near zero.
Barker expects Zika to go the way of other tropical diseases spread by mosquitoes, such as denguepop fever and chikungunya, in the U.S. with perhaps small clusters of outbreaks in southern states and little activity elsewhere. The rising panic of Zika is reminiscent of many past diseases that failed to cause the devastation health officials warned of. Remember SARs, bird flu, swine flu and Ebola ? Or even the measles “outbreak” in 2015?
There was widespread fear, outrage and panic that the disease would sweep across the U.S., affecting populations from border to border. Calls for experimental drugs and vaccines were made and millions, if not billions, of dollars were spent. And for what? In most cases, the diseases fizzled out on their own, exacting a far less sensational health toll than the media and, often, the government had you believe.
As reported by PRI, Zika’s million-dollar question is, where are the birth defects? Perhaps that question should be answered before man-made and GE mosquitoes are introduced into the environment, possibly permanently. PRI continued: [9]
Tens of thousands of Zika cases have been confirmed or suspected in countries like Colombia, Venezuela and Nicaragua since late 2015. The infected have included thousands of pregnant women. But those infections have not led to a dramatic rise in reported birth defects like microcephaly, in which a baby develops an abnormally small head and brain.
This is confounding to researchers … ‘Researchers are absolutely curious,’ said Julie Fischer, co-director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University. “It’s an enormous relief that the surge in microcephaly cases that was first noticed in northern Brazil has not spread everywhere that the Zika virus has been detected.’
See Also : | 0 |
Texas leaders and farm owners secured a victory in the battle against the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) attempted land grab along the banks of the Red River. The federal agency announced it is suspending the surveys ordered during the Obama Administration to justify the attempted takeover of 90, 000 acres of land. [The BLM admitted this week admitted in a letter issued on March 29 (attached below) that it used an “incorrect methodology” in its justification for the attempted taking of land that had been in the possession of many Texas landowners for generations. “Having reviewed this deposition testimony and other new information, the BLM believes the survey methodology was used in error and may have caused errors in identifying the location of the Gradient Boundary,” Acting Cadastral Survey Chief Stephen Beyerlein wrote in the letter. “The BLM’s admission that it used incorrect methodology in these surveys and the decision to suspend the surveys is welcome news,” U. S. Representative Mac Thornberry ( ) said in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “The portions of the river that the agency has surveyed strayed widely from the accepted gradient boundary survey method established by the Supreme Court in Oklahoma v. Texas. It is encouraging that the BLM has admitted their error and that all administrative action will be suspended until the matter is resolved. I will continue working with the landowners, local and state officials, and Senator Cornyn ( ) until this issue is resolved once and for all. ” Thornberry is the author of the “Red River Gradient Boundary Survey Act” which passed earlier this year. Texas farmers applauded the action by the BLM. “We’re pleased the Bureau of Land Management has done the right thing by admitting that the land surveys do not take the movement of the Red River into consideration,” Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) President Russell Boening said in a written statement. “TFB has been involved in this situation for years. We take it very seriously when government decides that private property no longer belongs to those who have purchased, paid taxes and hold titles to it. ” “When this was brought to our attention by TFB member Tommy Henderson, we knew we had to act,” Boening said. “We sent a video crew to Tommy’s place to document his fight for family land along the river. That video went viral and brought light to the situation. ” Following a tip from Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, Breitbart Texas initially brought national attention to the issue that the BLM’s actions threatened landowners like Tommy Henderson whose family owned some of this land for generations. “Several local news outlets had written about the issue,” BLM Spokesman Paul McGuire told Breitbart Texas at the time. “But when Breitbart wrote about it, I called Washington and said, ‘This thing is going to blow up now. ’” And blow up it did. The following day, many national outlets picked up the story and ran with it. Attorney General Greg Abbott said, in an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas the next day, ““I am about ready to go to the Red River and raise a ‘Come and Take It’ flag to tell the feds to stay out of Texas. ” He fired off a letter to Director Neil Kornze demanding answers on the issue. The BLM responded they weren’t taking the land because “It is already ours. ” Texas’ leadership including General Greg Abbott, . Governor David Dewhurst, Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson, and State Senator Craig Estes ( Falls) joined with Texas’ U. S. Senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and U. S. Rep. Mac Thornberry to try to get the BLM to release the land back to the Texans who had believed they owned the land, in some cases for many generations. Then Governor Rick Perry weighed in on the issue in May when he said the “the federal government already owns too much land. ” Following the BLM’s announcement, Abbott said, “The BLM’s prior actions have been hostile to landowners and their property rights, and I’m pleased an end has come to this unconscionable land grab. (This) decision by the Trump administration is a victory for Texas landowners along the Red River and for our constitutional rights. ” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in federal court in November 2015 challenging the federal encroachment on Texas land. “The borders of any state are a fundamental expression of its sovereignty, and are established through extensive surveys and legal precedent,” Paxton said at the time in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “We will not allow the federal government to arbitrarily infringe upon Texas land and undermine the private property rights of our citizens. The federal government must follow the law and recognize our correct borders, consistent with decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court defining the boundary formed by the Red River. ” The following month, Texas General Land Office Commiccioner George P. Bush also joined in the lawsuit defending the Texas landowners. Paxton praised the decision made this week by the BLM to back down on the land grab issue. “This latest action by the Trump administration protects the property rights of Texans as defined by the U. S. Supreme Court and prevents the federal government from infringing upon Texas’ sovereign borders,” the Texas AG said in a written statement. “It was our contention all along that the BLM’s surveys were conducted improperly and unlawfully. We will vigilantly defend Texas’ border from federal overreach. ” The BLM has suspended all administrative actions regarding these 90, 000 acres of sovereign Texas land, the TFB stated. In August 2015, Tommy Henderson won his personal battle with the BLM over the acreage his family lost in a federal lawsuit. He regained full ownership and control over the land after being forced to pay a “statutorily required payment of $1. 25 per acre,” for the land his family had owned since 1904. In response to this week’s action by the BLM, Henderson told the TFB, “The fight’s not over yet, but we’ve made a pretty good step. We have to get this fixed, so BLM never comes back again and tries this. ” Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 1 |
Sam Sifton emails readers of Cooking five days a week to talk about food and suggest recipes. That email also appears here. To receive it in your inbox, register here. Good morning. Nigella Lawson wrote a terrific article for us a few years ago about the pleasures of cooking ahead rather than, as the French put it, à la minute. She included in it a recipe that would become one of our favorites for fall: spiced beef in red wine. You could make that today, cool it, bag it in single portions and freeze them for use later — order in some Chinese food for dinner. Or you could just eat it for dinner tonight, accompanied by some rice, or polenta. Fall Sundays are great for either way. On Monday night, if you’re not celebrating Rosh Hashana, maybe give Anna Jones’s recipe for a spaghetti dinner with tomatoes and kale a try. As our Tejal Rao wrote last week, “you boil the raw pasta not just with water, but also with halved cherry tomatoes, lemon zest and greens. By the time the pasta has cooked, the liquids have reduced to form a thick, starchy sauce. ” At the start of the week, that sounds pretty great. Of course, if it’s not just the start of the week for you, but the start of a new year, maybe you’ll need more substantial fare. Cooking Melissa Clark’s braised brisket with plums, star anise and port today will allow it to cure nicely in the refrigerator overnight. Reheat and serve! While you’re at it, give one of Joan Nathan’s new recipes for a Rosh Hashana dessert a try. Choose between a plum almond tart and an apple cider honey cake. Or make both. On Tuesday, maybe you could cook Melissa’s recipe for sweet and spicy roast chicken? (It’s awesome with couscous.) Or Mark Bittman’s curried tofu with soy sauce? Wednesday, we’re eating fish. Would you like some salmon with parsley sauce? Or some arctic char with spinach butter? If it’s chilly enough, and you have a fireplace (lucky you) you could make Tamar Adler’s fireplace trout. Read Trollope afterward by candlelight, and check on the horses before bed. Then, on Thursday, how about a warm bread salad to beat all bread salads, from the indefatigable Florence Fabricant, via the late, great Judy Rodgers? Accept no substitutions. And then on Friday night, you could wrap the week up with a big, fat turkey meatloaf. Or if that does not inspire, with a thick steak. No? O. K. let’s make it a quinoa and rice bowl and call it a week. There are many, many more recipes on Cooking that you might make this week. Please save the ones you’re interested in to your recipe box, and rate them when you’re done cooking. (Share them around, as well, on email and social media: People you know need to see, right now, this easy, awesome Nancy Silverton recipe for roasted chicken thighs.) And if you run into trouble, or have something to tell us for good or for ill: cookingcare@nytimes. com. Operators are standing by. Now, do you know the term “subtweet”? Here’s an example of an excellent one, from Michiko Kakutani — and it’s not even on Twitter! See you tomorrow. | 1 |
(mis à jour 22:51 26.10.2016) URL courte 5 1033 2 4 Dans 15 à 20 ans, un tremblement de terre dévastateur pourrait secouer Téhéran. Selon Bahram Akkasheh, sismologue iranien qui a accordé une interview à Sputnik, il faudrait examiner la possibilité de transférer la capitale dans des régions moins dangereuses.
Déjà en 2009, en raison de la localisation de Téhéran dans une zone sismique, l'idée du transfert de la capitale iranienne avait été avancée par l'Ayatollah Khamenei. Suite à son initiative, le Conseil de discernement recommandait de se préparer au transfert de la capitale. © AP Photo/ Niranjan Shrestha Un tremblement de terre géant dans le Pacifique pour bientôt Ces derniers temps, cette idée a gagné en popularité, surtout en raison du scénario apocalyptique proposé par des scientifiques japonais qui mènent des recherches en Iran. Selon eux, le séisme pourrait atteindre sept ou huit sur l'échelle de Richter, ce qui pourrait faire plus d'un million de victimes et provoquer la destruction de 80 % des bâtiments. Les séismes, qui sont devenus récurrents aux alentours de Téhéran, témoignent de l'accumulation d'énergie dangereuse dans le sous-sol. « Le père de la sismologie iranienne », Bahram Akkasheh, a présenté en détail les conditions réelles dans lesquelles se retrouve actuellement la capitale de l'Iran.
D'après les recherches menées par M. Akkasheh, les tremblements de terre dans les alentours de Téhéran ont un caractère cyclique : le dernier de magnitude 7.1 a secoué Téhéran en 1830 ayant détruit les murs du Palais du Golestan et le bâtiment de la mission diplomatique du Royaume-Uni. Plus de doutes! Le phénomène du Triangle des Bermudes enfin expliqué Les tremblements de terre « ont lieu tous les 200 ans. (…) Si on se réfère au cycle, il existe une possibilité que dans les quinze prochaines années un tremblement de terre secoue Téhéran », a expliqué M. Akkasheh.
Il n'est possible de prédire le début du tremblement de terre que quelques jours ou heures à l'avance, voici pourquoi la menace est imprévisible : « Nulle part dans le monde, ni aux États-Unis, ni au Japon, un début de tremblement de terre n'a été prédit avec certitude. Une fois, en Chine, on a réussi à le faire par hasard », explique le sismologue.
Selon lui, la possibilité de tremblement de terre à Téhéran est assez haute :
« Chaque année, la crête d'Alborz grandit de quelques millimètres puisqu'annuellement, le plateau iranien s'étend de huit mm. Tout cela prouve qu'ici, l'écorce terrestre est en mouvement perpétuel ». Italie: ce chat survit après 32 jours dans les décombres après le séisme Il y a plusieurs régions en Iran qui sont exposées aux séismes de magnitude 7 sur l'échelle de Richter. Pourtant, il existe des régions où la magnitude peut atteindre 8 sur l'échelle de Richter et elles sont exposées à un plus grand danger. « Ce n'est pas par hasard que nous avons signé un accord de coopération avec les Japonais pour examiner l'activité sismique des lieux où se trouve Téhéran. Je me souviens que lors de cette recherche commune, le maire de Téhéran avait déclaré qu'à la suite d'un tremblement de terre à Téhéran, le nombre de victimes pourrait se chiffrer en millions. La ville peut être effacée de la surface terrestre », prévient M. Akkasheh.
Le président de l'Iran a chargé six ministres d'étudier les rapports préparés par M. Akkasheh, et par la suite un état-major de crise a été créé sous contrôle de la mairie.
« On a crééégalement ces états-majors dans toutes les provinces du pays. Plusieurs provinces, où le risque sismique est le plus fort, ont commencéà se préparer aux cataclysmes naturels. (…) Pourtant, on ne pourra vérifier le niveau réel de l'alerte qu'en pratique », conclut le sismologue.
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James Comey to be taken out, knows too much about Clintons 08.11.2016 | Source: AP Photo James Comey, Director of the FBI, can be sacked for a 'thoughtless step' - intrusion into elections. Valerie Jarrett, Obama's adviser, managed to convince him of necessity to undertake such a step, Daily Mail reported with a reference to a source in the White House. At the same time, other sources assert that Comey himself is ready to resign, not waiting for Obama's decision. In the FBI many believe that the Director has prejudiced reputation of the bureau and lost his weight among employees . Reopening of investigation against the presidential candidate Hillary Clinton 'for no apparent reason' and spontaneous closure of the case... Isn't Comey though a political figure? Could he have initiated everything by himself? Viktor Olevich, a political analyst , has commented Pravda.Ru on the issue. James Comes is a high-ranking political manager in the American system. He has long-standing relationship with the Republican party, he has been its adherent for several decades. He was taking various stances, which correlated with the Republican party's policies, including that regarding a conflict between the US law-enforcement and Afro-American community, where his stance was closer to the Rights than the current Administration of the White House. Head of the FBI took part in a corruption investigation regarding Bill Clinton in the early-2000, when a multimillionaire Marc Rich was pardoned by the president Bill Clinton. As a result of the investigation, the former president was not prosecuted. Nonetheless, Comey's attitude to Clintons is still quite suspect, negative. It's not by chance that last Friday, 11 days before elections, investigation was renewed by decision of the FBI Director. Moreover, a dossier on that investigation of Clinton's corrupt activity - Jams Comey carried out 15 years ago - was leaked via the FBI Twitter account. These are absolutely interrelated events. In such way, Comey tried to pressurize Clinton's campaign. However, just two days ago Comey announced that the new investigation was stopped. It's clear that certain negotiations between Comey's bureau and other parts of the US establishment took place. Those talks resulted in the fact that a case on potential disclosure of a state secret while using a private server when Hillary Clinton was a State Secretary, was closed yer again. It's no surprise that Obama's Administration is going to get rid of unwanted head of the FBI and substitute him for a person that will be favourable for new administration of Hillary Clinton, as she will evidently win today. Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru
FBI Plan B fails: Clinton to be next president | 0 |
Posted on October 28, 2016 by Daisy Luther
Let’s talk about Wikileaks .
First of all, the organization was founded by Julian Assange back in 2006. Their website explains what they are all about:
“WikiLeaks specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying, and corruption. It has so far published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses.”
In the 11 years that they’ve been publishing documents, they have not been disproven a single time. Their record for authentication is perfect. (Learn more here and here .)
So this means that a person would be pretty silly to disregard anything in the reams of information about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party, the Clinton Foundation, and the political shenanigans that would put the Machiavellis to shame.
Here are 21 of the most important things that have come out about Hillary Clinton, that unfortunately, no one is reporting on in the mainstream. In the interest of brevity, each topic has a link to an article that goes deeper into the leak. (In no particular order.) John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign had a nice cozy dinner with Peter Kadzik, one of the top officials in the Department of Justice…the day after the Benghazi hearing . Kadzik’s son also asked for a job on the Clinton campaign, and, the icing on the corruption cupcake? Kadzik led the effort to nominate Loretta Lynch, who famously met with Bill Clinton on her private plane right before Hillary’s interrogation about Emailgate. ( source ) We all knew that the Clinton Foundation was just a way for the Clinton family to launder money, and now there’s proof. Zero Hedge writes, “…today’s Wikileaks dump included that memo which reveals, for the first time, the precise financial flows between the Clinton Foundation, Band’s firm Teneo Consulting, and the Clinton family’s private business endeavors.” A pundit called this leak “The Rosetta Stone of the Clinton Foundation,” meaning that with this document, all of their shady financial dealings could be unraveled and translated. ( source ) Clinton is unable to speak for very long without a podium to lean on . Numerous leaked emails reference how certain interviews have to be kept short because she’d be without one. And this article references a very interesting reason why this may be the case – surprisingly it isn’t related to her health. ( source ) The leaks also show that Clinton intends to do her best to restrict the Second Amendment. Brian Fallon, the national press secretary for the Clinton campaign, wrote, “ Circling back around on guns as a follow up to the Friday morning discussion: the Today show has indicated they definitely plan to ask bout guns, and so to have the discussion be more of a news event than her previous times discussing guns, we are going to background reporters tonight on a few of the specific proposals she would support as President – universal background checks of course, but also closing the gun show loophole by executive order and imposing manufacturer liability .” According to an analysis on The Daily Sheeple, “Imposing manufacturer liability means that after Sandy Hook, Bushmaster and Remington Arms would have been prosecuted for having a hand in the murder of children and school staff members for firearms that were legally sold.” ( source ) The campaign was concerned that the sexual escapades of Bill Clinton could be likened to those of another disgraced celebrity, Bill Cosby . Political operative Ron Klain sent an urgent email saying that Hillary should anticipate the following questions, ” How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did? Is his conduct relevant to your campaign? You said every woman should be believed. Why not the women who accused him? Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband and his allies?” ( source ) Clinton’s campaign deliberately leaked an embarrassing photo of a swimsuit-clad Bernie Sanders to the press, ironically insinuating that it was proof he was bought off by Wall Street. Perez Hilton wrote, “ Bernie Sanders lounges at elite Martha’s Vineyard pool, summer 2015 after helping raise money from Wall Street lobbyists .” ( source ) Clinton admitted she is out of touch with the middle class in a speech to Goldman-Black Rock in 2014. “And I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I was growing up. Never. I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were. My father loved to complain about big business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing. We had good public schools. We had accessible health care. We had our little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money, didn’t believe in mortgages. So I lived that. And now, obviously, I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy , but I haven’t forgotten it.” ( source ) She made this rather NWO remark at a 2013 paid speech to Brazilian bank Banco Itau: “ My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders , some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” ( source ) In a leak of yet another paid speech, this time to the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago in 2013, Clinton said that Jordan and Turkey “ can’t possibly vet all those refugees so they don’t know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.” Meanwhile, if Clinton has her way , we will be warmly welcoming 65,000 refugees a year, which makes Obama’s 10,000 a year look like small potatoes. ( source ) Clinton blackmailed the Chinese by telling them that the US would base missiles in the region if they didn’t exert some control over North Korean aggression. “ So China, come on. You either control them or we’re going to have to defend against them ,” she purportedly told the audience at a Goldman Sachs conference in June 2013. ( source ) In May 2015, Clinton was no longer Secretary of State but was ready to announce she was running for President when she was invited to attend a summit in Morrocco. The implication from the leaked emails was that a $12 million “donation” from the king of Morocco was dependent on Clinton attending the summit. Human Abedin, usually loyal to her boss, had concerns . “ If HRC was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter. She created this mess and she knows it. Her presence was a condition for the Moroccans to proceed so there is no going back on this,” Abedin wrote to Robbie Mook in a November 2014 email. Incidentally, Clinton didn’t attend. Bill and Chelsea went instead and the $12 million donation was not forthcoming. (source ) Podesta attacked Clinton’s primary election rival Bernie Sanders for criticizing the Paris climate change agreement. “ Can you believe that doofus Bernie attacked it? ” said Podesta. ( source ) Clinton told a Goldman Sachs conference she would like to intervene secretly in Syria . “ My view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene,” she told employees of the bank in South Carolina, which had paid her about $225,000 to give a speech. “We used to be much better at this than we are now. Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves. They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: Look what we’re doing and I want credit for it. ” (source ) There is indeed a definite link between the Clinton campaign and what MSM is allowed to say. The campaign has colluded directly with media spokespersons that read like a Who’s Who in American Media : Dan Merica from CNN, Haim Saban of Univision, John Harwood of CNBC and the NY Times, Rebecca Quick of CNBC, Maggie Haberman of NY Times and Politico, John Harris of Politico, Donna Brazile formerly of CNN, Roland Martin of TV-One, Marjorie Pritchard of The Boston Globe, and Louise Mensch of Heat Street. ( source ) As everyone knows, the DNC deliberately screwed Bernie Sanders out of the nomination ( Bonus: Wikileaks also released some of the DNC’s voicemails on the topic ). There are emails that prove who is actually pulling HRC’s puppet strings and that puppeteer is George Soros . The shadow government is not just a conspiracy theory – it really exists and Hillary’s job is to keep George Soros happy. ( source ) Excerpts from her speeches to Wall Street read like a guide to two-faced treachery. In them, she clearly points out that sometimes you “need” to lie. “If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.” ( source ) Wikileaks emails show that back when she still worked for CNN and before she became an employee of the Clinton campaign, Donna Brazile gave Hillary the questions in advance for her “impromptu” CNN Town Hall questions. ( source ) The campaign got to “approve” articles in influential publications like NY Times, HuffPo, CNN, NBC, CBS, NYT, MSNBC, and Politico, showing a massive collusion with the mainstream media, who has hounded Trump relentlessly in an effort to distract from HRC’s abysmal candidacy. ( source ) Through the treasure trove of Wikileaks emails, we can gain an accurate picture of how Hillary really feels about us all (spoiler: basket of deplorables, basement dwellers and right wing conspirators) ( source ) President Obama knew the whole time that her emails were not coming from the secure State Department server. Cheryl Mills wrote to John Podesta, “ W e need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov .” You see, Obama’s emails all have to be from”whitelisted”addresses. So someone, somewhere, added her nonsecure email to his whitelist. ( source )
And finally, here’s the real reason that treacherous shrew is involved in politics. And let me tell you, it isn’t because she yearns to make things better for anyone but herself. (emphasis mine.)
At the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit, Clinton responded to a question from chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who quipped that you “go to Washington” to “make a small fortune.” Clinton agreed with the comment and complained about ethics rules that require officials to divest from certain assets before entering government. “ There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives, ” Clinton said. ( source ) Together, we cannot be ignored. I am on a mission between now and the Presidential Election on November 8th and I hope that you will join me. I am going to work day and night to provide the coverage that the mainstream media is not. It isn’t until we combine all of our voices that we can make people listen to the scandals, the rigging, and the corruption, not only in this election but in the system in general. Please join your voice with mine by liking, sharing, and spreading the word. Together, we cannot be ignored. Together, we are an army. Courtesy of Daisy Luther Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 0 |
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Wednesday that an alleged draft executive order titled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants” “is not a White House document. ”[“I have no idea where it came from,” stressed Spicer. Various mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times (NYT) and the Washington Post (WaPo) published the contents of this document, suggesting it was a legitimate draft from White House officials. The alleged draft directs national security officials to “recommend to the president whether to a program of interrogation of alien terrorists to be operated outside the United States,” and addresses whether to lift the ban on the use of “black site” prisons overseas implemented by Barack Obama. Moreover, it orders the Pentagon chief to “maintain and continue to use the detention and trial facilities at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base for the detention and trial by military commission of alien enemy combatants [already] captured in the armed conflict … including for the detention and trial of newly captured alien enemy combatants” not only affiliated with the Taliban and but also the Islamic State ( ). NYT acknowledged in their report that the Trump White House did not respond to a request for comment on the draft order. Today, the White House press secretary denied any affiliation with the document. The alleged draft order would have also directed U. S. Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis to work with the Attorney General and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to “review the military commissions system and recommend to the president how best to employ the system going forward to provide for the swift and just trial and punishment of unlawful enemy combatants detained in the armed conflict with violent Islamist extremists. ” | 1 |
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More dirt on the Clinton camp in WikiLeaks’s latest Podesta dump. In one email sent by Clinton soldier Brent Budowsky to the campaign chairman, Budowsky complains about what he calls the “plan” of fellow Clinton lackey David Brock to rely on the stupidity of black voters. The controversy centers around a previous email sent to Podesta regarding a Bernie Sanders campaign ad that featured “many black faces.”
Here’s the money portion of the email:
Oops! Democrats have always taken the black vote and black Americans for granted. The black voting bloc has always been expected by Democratic candidates, despite the Democratic Party’s long history of gross racism. One has to wonder how much damage has been caused to that relationship by the WikiLeaks revelations over the past few months. No wonder Hillary wants to drone Julian Assange! | 0 |
France — Two years ago, Elisabeth Lavarde decided to quit her office job in Paris and start a new life in a small town with two butchers and one baker just south of the capital. Ms. Lavarde, 39, is now an apprentice farmer at a farm that grows organic vegetables, sold directly to local consumers. New farmers like Ms. Lavarde usually make what they see as a decent salary of about 1, 500 euros, or about $1, 600, a month, slightly above the French minimum wage. “I wanted a job with more meaning,” she said. “I felt like I was tilting at windmills. ” Alongside the experienced farmer she has been paired with as part of a training program set up by an association that nurtures farmers, Ms. Lavarde grows around 40 kinds of organic produce, including tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflowers and carrots. As the sun was about to set behind rows of cauliflower plants on a recent afternoon, Ms. Lavarde gazed over the land she cultivates. A few yards away, a large shelter of tarpaulins rippled in the wind. Ms. Lavarde and her farming tutor, Guilain Vergé, 31, use the shelter to do their bookkeeping and to keep track of their crops on a whiteboard as they wait for authorization from the local government to build a decent barn. It’s all hard work, she acknowledges. But, she says, “Seeing the sky every day, be it blue or gray, it’s amazing. ” More younger people like Ms. Lavarde are making lives as farmers in France, drawn in some cases by idealistic notions of tilling the land and of getting away from the rat race of the cities. They often leave behind jobs, as well as relatively comfortable lives that they nonetheless find unfulfilling. Powering this farming drive is a thriving market for organic food that amounted to nearly €7 billion in France in 2016, according to Agence Bio, which tracks the trade in the country. The drive has also been bolstered by an increased awareness of the environmental and health benefits of consuming local products. Before they can set up shop, however, new entrants have to overcome a range of obstacles, including navigating their way through a labyrinthine bureaucracy that oversees building permits and the distribution of land. The Duke of Sully, a minister of King Henri IV of France in the early 17th century, once described “plow and pasture” as the lifeblood of the French economy, and farming has long been romanticized in a country that values gastronomic treasures like Camembert cheeses and Bordeaux wines. But the reality is much bleaker for most farmers, who say they feel constrained by European Union regulations and who have been hit by global competition, shrinking margins and poor harvests in recent years. Generous agricultural subsidies mostly benefit large farms. In France, a farmer commits suicide almost every other day, a rate 20 percent higher than the national average, according to a 2016 report by the national public health agency. That dire outlook, however, has not deterred people like Ms. Lavarde from taking up farming, even if established farmers view their efforts with skepticism. Standing near a frozen wheat field near Ms. Lavarde’s farm, Bruno Gilles, 47, a farmer who grows cauliflowers, tomatoes and other vegetables, was skeptical about Ms. Lavarde’s chances of success, citing narrow margins and competition from farms that produce vegetables . “It’s going to be very hard,” Mr. Gilles said, his arms folded over a military sweater. The first test for new entrants might be their hardest: finding land. “I find myself to be extremely lucky,” Ms. Lavarde said. “When I see other people around me, access to land truly has been an obstacle for them. ” Since the 1960s, that access has been tightly regulated through regional agencies that act as intermediaries between and those either selling or renting. The agencies have traditionally favored established farmers over new entrants, many of whom grow alternative products based on organic farming and have modest farming experience. Ms. Lavarde said that when a young farmer she worked with set out to find agrarian land in the area of she discovered that a tract had been allocated to a conventional farmer without anyone informing her that it was available. Ms. Lavarde found a plot to farm through Les Champs des Possibles, which translates roughly as Realm of the Possible, a nonprofit that pairs new farmers with experienced farmers on test farms for two or three years. “We provide them with land if needed, with a status, with means of production, with professional support,” said Cavalier, an agronomist at Reneta, a national network of 70 testing grounds, of which Les Champs des Possibles is a member. At the end of their training period, aspiring farmers have agrarian experience, some money in the bank and mentors to vouch for them when they fill out papers to apply for land. Part of the problem with land allocations is the lack of farms on the market, said François Purseigle, a sociologist at an agronomy engineering faculty in Toulouse, in southern France. “We have guys in the fields that think: ‘I’m keeping my farm. My children are teachers or doctors, so they’re not going to take over. I have a crummy pension. I’ll still keep that property because, you never know, it could gain in value,’” Mr. Purseigle said in a telephone interview. Vincent Martin shielded his eyes from the sun on a recent morning at a farm near the village of St. about a drive east of . He said much of his future as a farmer relied on finding agrarian land. “Land is key,” said Mr. Martin 36, a single farmer who made a living selling health club memberships in Paris until he left his job about five years ago, eventually to take up farming. To find agricultural land in the area, he was counting on word of mouth rather than on the regional agencies, despite having filled out piles of application forms. His tutor, Philippe Caron, 58, who took up farming a few years ago, said he and his wife, Anna, would do all they could to help Mr. Martin get started. The other challenge facing new producers is distribution, which for larger, established farms usually involves dealing with middlemen selling products to supermarkets and stores around the country. For small producers, the system cuts deeply into meager profits. The solution has been to find ways of selling directly to consumers, mostly through nationwide networks like the Association for the Defense of Agriculture, known by its French acronym, AMAP. Under one AMAP plan, consumers sign up for a year and get a basket of vegetables, meat, cheese or fruits each week, delivered by a local producer. Prices for a basket range from €12 to €24, and customers, by paying in advance, agree to take their share of the risks that come with climatic contingencies. Hélène Rouet, 43, a former logistics manager volunteering in one AMAP office, quit her job to live in the country with a local producer. She said customers who took the produce baskets had a unique link to the food. “The farmer tells us about the difficulties he’s faced it’s like he’s bringing us his babies,” she said. Even when they’ve found land and distribution, some still find themselves having to commute to their land, whereas older farmers often live on the edge of their fields. New entrants often can’t afford to buy the buildings on their farms, if there are any. Some buy shabby trailers to stay in near their farms or sleep in their cars. Mr. Martin said it sometimes took him over two hours to commute to the farm. He started work at dawn to plow, sow or harvest, depending on the season. “It’s worth it,” Mr. Martin said, “for now. ” | 1 |
Pulitzer columnist Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal about the efforts to take out White House strategist Steve Bannon. While offering a candid assessment of Bannon’s shortcomings and strengths, Noonan summarizes Bannon’s populist and nationalist worldview as outlined in a speech he gave at the Vatican in 2014 — a speech that predicted the issues that propelled Trump to victory in 2016. [From Noonan’s column: But there’s something low, unseemly and ugly in the efforts to take [Bannon] out so publicly and humiliatingly, to turn him into a human oil spot on the tarmac — this not only from his putative colleagues but now even the president. “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Mr. Trump purred to the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin. … What will take its place if [Bannon] leaves the White House or recedes as a figure? What worldview will prevail, to the extent Mr. Trump does worldviews? Policy changes accompanying Mr. Bannon’s diminishment this week included the president’s speaking approvingly of the Bank and NATO, declaring that China isn’t a currency manipulator after all, suggesting the dollar may be too strong, and hitting Syria and Afghanistan. None of that sounds like Candidate Trump. It is possible what we are seeing is simply the rise of a more moderate or conciliatory or establishment Trump White House. But it also looks like the rise of the Wall Street Mr. Bannon painted as tending to see people as commodities. Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, is said to be Mr. Bannon’s most effective internal foe. He is the new rising figure. There are many Wall Street folk — some from Messrs. Bannon and Cohn’s old stomping ground, Goldman Sachs — in influential administration posts. They don’t come across as the kind of people who exhaust themselves pondering the meaning of the historical moment or tracing societal stresses and potential responses. Read the rest here. | 1 |
They're not crossing the Rio Grande, they're invading Mexico from the south. < No, Mexico Doesn’t Have A Wall On Its Southern Border—But If Trump Wins It Might Build One > November 6, 2016, 10:55 pm
Many people say Mexico has a wall on its southern border. It doesn’t . It should. And if it did, we Americans wouldn’t have to deal with all the Central Americans coming to our own border. It would be better for both our nations .
Some outlets are reporting Mexico is going to build a wall against migrants. [ Mexico builds its own wall against migrants , by James Fredrick and Jude Webber, Financial Times, September 14, 2016]. (The article is paywalled, but you can access it here ).
But the title is misleading. It’s not a literal wall, but a metaphorical “wall,” and not even an effective one.
The piece takes the view of a Central American planning to come to the United States and claims “Mexico already acts as a formidable barrier.” It also quotes a nun who runs a shelter for illegals in Mexico City . She moans: “Mexico has become a wall for migrants. The current [Mexican] policy is to arrest migrants to stop them from getting to the US border.”
Thus, the term “wall” is a metaphor for “some Central Americans get caught in Mexico and deported back to Central America.” Not very impressive.
The Mexican policy for dealing with its own illegals is a hodgepodge. Though Mexico doesn’t have walls on its borders with Guatemala and Belize, Mexican authorities do detain and deport illegal aliens . And the American government has reportedly put pressure on Mexico to do more. Nonetheless, plenty are still getting through. According to the article, Mexico deported a record 175,000 Central Americans last year, but the United Nations estimates 400,000 enter Mexico annually.
There is a pre-election “surge” of illegals on the U.S.-Mexican border, as migrants want to get in now regardless of who wins. If Hillary wins, they expect amnesty. If Trump wins, they expect The Wall . Illegal immigrants surging to US-Mexico border in race against #ElectionDay . https://t.co/VwFlS1BNRW pic.twitter.com/0OeeKvljLT
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) November 4, 2016
We’ve been told for some time now there is zero net Mexican immigration to the United States [ More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to U.S., by Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Pew, November 19, 2015] But this misses the point. Illegals coming across the southern border are coming from Mexico. As Mexico can’t or won’t stop them, we need a barrier on our border with Mexico.
Which brings us to another question. If Trump wins the election and builds The Wall, the Mexican government may be stuck with Central Americans who can’t continue north to the U.S. And they really don’t want that.
In 2012, after the election of current Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto but before his inauguration, his coordinator Arnulfo Valdivia discussed the new administration’s goal in this area. The new Mexican president wanted “to create the necessary filters so that those who cross by the southern border [of Mexico] do not stay stranded in their attempt to cross to the United States. “Valdivia also said a goal was to “diminish the number of indocumentados [illegal aliens] who are concentrated on the northern border [of Mexico] without possibilities of crossing it, forming belts of poverty [in Mexico].”[ Peña quiere `patrulla fronteriza` mexicana , by Miriam Castillo, Milenio , October 9th, 2012]
In other words, if they cross Mexico and get to the United States, we don’t care, as long as they don’t stay in Mexico. And Mexico admits these illegals bring poverty. Indeed, Mexican authorities are quite cynical about this. A new report indicates the Mexican government is granting Haitians 20-day transit documents to reach the U.S. border, resulting in a 1,800% in illegal Haitians c rossing the border in 2016. As Duncan Hunter’s chief of staff Joe Kasper said, “Mexico doesn’t want them, but it’s entirely content with putting migrants—in this case Haitians—right on America’s doorstep.” [ DHS Documents Reveal How Mexico Is Helping Haitians Reach the U.S. Illegally , Numbers USA, October 11, 2016]. Remember this the next time somebody claims Mexico is our partner in securing the border.
But a President Trump who, like the Israelis, shuts down illegal immigration would force Mexico to build a border barrier if they don’t want to be flooded by Central Americans. This is no easy task, given the geographical situation. Mexico’s border with Guatemala alone is 541 miles long—about a quarter the length of the U.S.-Mexican border. It’s sparsely populated and crosses forested regions, rivers, lakes, farmland, pasture, valleys and mountains, some of which are in the 13,000 feet above sea level range.
But where there’s a will there’s a way. Some form of effective fencing could be done depending on the particular ecosystem, by utilizing natural barriers (such as mountains, rivers and valleys) as part of an overall border security plan.
And it’s already being suggested in the Mexican press. A bold editorial in Mañana , a newspaper from the Mexican border city of Reynosa, openly calls for a border wall with Central America Sí al muro fronterizo…Pero en el sur de México [“Yes to the Border Wall…But in the South of Mexico,” July 24, 2016]. It argues Mexico’s borders with Guatemala and Belize “only give us problems because these crossings are utilized for a new invasion, that of Central Americans who utilize our country to cross to the United States”. That’s very provocative language, using the term invasion ( invasión in Spanish).
The editorial also claims Central Americans are deported from the U.S. back to Mexico, even if they’re Central Americans and not Mexicans. The greatest number are supposedly deported to Reynosa, where they wait to try to enter America again. But while they wait, “Many of these migrants, not finding an honest way of earning a living, dedicate themselves to crime, resorting to assault, kidnapping and extortion, and in the worst of cases joining organized crime gangs.”
This Mexican editorial says deported Central American illegals commit crimes in Mexico! What intolerance! It might as well have been written by Trump!
Indeed, the editorial blames Central American illegals for much of the lawlessness of the border region: “Peace and tranquility have ended on the Mexican border and much of that has been due to the Central Americans who are deported from the U.S., backed up with false documents, who stay in Mexican territory.”
The editorial proposes a solution. “Trump’s idea [of a wall] is good [!], but more necessary than constructing a wall on the northern border of Mexico is to make one on the south/southeast border to stop the passage of Central Americans to both countries.” Furthermore, the Mexican government should also demand “migratory documents for the foreigners who enter our country.”
Though this editorial advocates a wall on Mexico’s southern border, not the American southern border, there’s no reason we can’t do both. And it’s unlikely the first will happen unless preceded by the second.
The editors of this paper have guts and are true Mexican patriots. But in order to help Mexican patriots, we need an American patriot in charge of our own country.
American citizen Allan Wall ( him) moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after many years residing in Mexico. Allan`s wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here ; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here ; his News With Views columns are archived here ; and his website is here . | 0 |
In Coudersport, Pa. a town in a mountainous region an hour’s drive from the nearest Walmart, Cole Memorial Hospital counts on two Jordanian physicians to keep its obstetrics unit open and is actively recruiting foreign specialists. In Fargo, N. D. a gastroenterologist from Lebanon — who is among hundreds of foreign physicians in the state — has risen to become vice president of the North Dakota Medical Association. In Great Falls, Mont. 60 percent of the doctors who specialize in hospital care at Benefis Health System, which serves about 230, 000 people in 15 counties, are foreign doctors on work visas. America relies on a steady flow of doctors from around the world to deliver babies, treat heart ailments and address its residents’ medical needs. But a recent, decision by the government to alter the timetable for some visa applications is likely to delay the arrival of new foreign doctors, and is causing concern in the places that depend on them. While the Trump administration is fighting, in the courts of justice and public opinion, for its temporary travel ban affecting six countries, the slowdown in the rural doctor pipeline shows how even a small, relatively uncontroversial change can ripple throughout the country. In Montana, for example, where nine counties do not have a single physician, it means Benefis Health does not know when a Romanian doctor trained in kidney transplants will arrive. The health care company spent months recruiting the doctor and had been expecting her in July. “Our health system already has nine months invested in her, and now we have no idea when she can start,” said Erica Martin, who recruits doctors for the company. The doctor, Silviana Marineci, who is completing a fellowship at the University of Minnesota, said she was frazzled by being in limbo. “I won’t have an income, I don’t know if I will afford rent, I don’t know where I will be,” she said. “It’s insane. ” The procedural change regards temporary visas for skilled workers, known as visas. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced that it would temporarily suspend a “premium processing” option by which employers could pay an extra $1, 225 to have applications approved in as little as two weeks, rather than several months. Companies using that option, the government said, have effectively delayed visas for others who did not pay the extra fee. A spokeswoman for the immigration agency, Arwen Consaul, said in a statement that the measure was necessary to “work down the existing backlogs due to the high volume of incoming petitions. ” The program has raised questions about whether it displaces American workers, particularly in computer programming and engineering jobs, for which most of the visas are issued. recipients also include foreign physicians who practice in places shunned by American doctors for personal and professional reasons. About 25 percent of all physicians practicing or training in the United States are foreign, but in some inner cities and most rural areas, that share is significantly higher. There were 211, 460 international medical graduates practicing in the United States in December 2015, according to the latest data available from the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates. Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat Susan M. Collins, Republican of Maine and Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, have urged the agency to continue premium processing. “Slowing down this successful program and the doctors it brings to rural areas will hurt families across North Dakota and rural America,” Ms. Heitkamp wrote in an email. It was a North Dakota senator, Kent Conrad, who in 1994 proposed to relieve a shortage of doctors by tapping foreign physicians who have completed medical education in the United States. His program waives the requirement that foreign doctors who graduate from residency programs in the United States return to their home countries for two years before working here. It lures such graduates to practice in underserved areas by offering them the chance to apply for a green card to live permanently in the United States after three years. The program must be reauthorized by Congress every two years. Ms. Klobuchar, who twice has introduced legislation to make the program permanent, plans to do so again in the coming weeks. Since the program’s inception, tens of thousands of foreign physicians in a variety of specialties have flocked to clinics and hospitals in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta region, the Great Plains and elsewhere. Many of them, such as Dr. Fadel E. Nammour, the vice president of the North Dakota Medical Association, put down roots and never leave. The friendliness that he found in Fargo reminded him of his home country, Dr. Nammour said. As a token of his gratitude, one of his first patients brought him a Styrofoam box filled with freshly caught walleye, a fish that thrives in the state’s lakes. “We provide not only the care but also our leadership,” said Dr. Nammour, who is now an American citizen. “The focus should be on making it easier to bring people in to cover the physician shortage we have. ” The delay also could affect the roughly 400 foreign medical graduates who come each year to participate in residency programs at teaching hospitals. The doctors were matched on Friday for residencies starting July 1 across the country. “Everyone around the country will be in a mad scramble to figure out this visa situation,” said Michelle the director of international student and scholar services at the University of Colorado in Denver, which usually takes 10 or 12 residents on each year at its Anschutz Medical Campus. The immigration agency said in a statement that applicants could still request an approval on an “expedited basis,” if they could prove there was an emergency or humanitarian justification. Immigration lawyers said that it was extremely difficult to meet that standard, and that they doubted whether the agency could handle a flood of such requests. “If they don’t have the manpower to do premium processing, I don’t see how they are going to do special requests,” said Andrea Szew, a lawyer in Los Angeles. In the meantime, hospitals and clinics are adjusting to the possibility of being without some doctors for a while. Ms. Martin of Benefis Health said the hospital would have to give other doctors additional shifts or hire costly temporary physicians, who are frowned upon because they cannot develop a rapport with patients during their brief stints or provide continuity of care. Ms. Martin said Benefis Health was also recruiting other foreign physicians who could end up in the same situation as Dr. Marineci. “The most problematic thing is the unknown” about when the doctors can start, she said. Rom Satchi, a Canadian who completed his pediatric residency at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, was invited for interviews at facilities in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Pennsylvania and several other places desperate for a pediatrician. Ultimately, Dr. Satchi signed a contract with Mama Mia Pediatrics in northern Las Vegas, a area that has been struggling to handle a swelling patient caseload. He agreed to start in . But now, it is uncertain whether he will be able to get his visa in time. “At this point, I have no voice,” said Dr. Satchi, who plans to return to Canada and wait, jobless, until the visa is approved. “I can’t do anything. ” | 1 |
« Previous - Next » The Genes Of This Tribe Carry A DNA Of A Third Unknown Human Species
New evidence found by scientists has started to suggest that the people living on the islands of Melanesia could have human DNA the world has never seen.
The theory is that the DNA does not come from a Neanderthal or Denisovan (which are the two ancient species we most closely relate humans with). Scientists believe that they come from a new undiscovered species that derived from the South Pacific, northeast of Austrailia. Is There a New "Human" Species Waiting to be Discovered?
Bohlender a scientist who studies DNA and its historical significance conducted a study looking at humans and how they are linked to Neanderthals and Denisovans. He concluded that at this current point we are not looking at humans ancient history fully.
Bohlender is not saying we are not closely connected to Neanderthals and Denisovans but that we have a connection with another species that is unidentified. It is common knowledge that 100,000+ years ago our ancestors migrated out of Africa and were introduced to other hominid species living in Europe and similar areas .
We see this through various studies that state we have anywhere between 1.5 to 5 percent of out DNA. As well a study done this year linked DNA from Neanderthals to diseases (i.e. Depression, heart attacks, etc.) and that HPV was transmitted between Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Through these highly credible sources, Bohlender estimates that what we know about the history of Neanderthals could be quite different. He states that because of these various things that happened to the Neanderthals and their significant species timeline there must have been more connections we do not know about.
This is where Bohlender introduces his third species that had a critical role is there period and can help explain why we have unknown DNA in humans. Although all of these may be true we do not have that much are evidence that this third species even existed.
Only a few teeth, bones and missing links have been found. This does not mean that there are a whole different species waiting to be discovered because we do not have enough proof or peer review to stamp this information factual.
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If there is one thing some conservatives are good at, it is ruining a good thing. The Tea Party movement and President Donald J. Trump have successfully delivered to the Republican establishment exactly what they said they wanted: a unified, government. [Unfortunately, instead of recognizing victory and unifying to ensure the best conservative ideas are embraced, certain conservative leaders, particularly from the elitist D. C. segment, have decided to line up a good ol’ circular firing squad. Hours before President Trump took to the stage for his home run speech to the Joint Session of Congress, we heard cheap shots at him about budget rumors — since no presidential budget has been submitted yet. Republican Senators were asserting that any budget that included desperately needed cuts to the bloated State Department would be “dead on arrival. ” They are joined by a group we can only term as Conservative Bubble Boys and Girls. They’re a small, but vocal group of entrenched politicos who have clung to the conservative label as a way to stay relevant in the D. C. bubble. Regrettably, they spend far too much of their time finding fault with what other conservatives are doing. They’ve been out of touch for so long, it seems like they don’t really know whose team they’re on. Following President Trump’s speech on Tuesday, I released the following statement: Since 2012, Tea Party Express has hosted the official Tea Party response to the President’s address. Last night was the first night that our address wasn’t necessary. Not because the ideas of limited government and economic growth have fallen out of vogue — because they surely haven’t — but because that speech was delivered on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives by the President of the United States. President Trump delivered an eloquent address, where he clearly and deliberately laid out his conservative vision for America. It should now be clear to everyone that the Tea Party movement is more than rallies and protests. We have arrived in D. C. through our elected representatives, to fulfill our mission and finally rein in government. But instead of covering this milestone for the conservative movement, the Bubble Boys and Girls used it to write the Tea Party’s obituary, claiming that we were dead because we somehow embraced a big government agenda void of a conservative vision. Huh? The Weekly Standard published the piece “RIP, Tea Party: ” and claimed, “The movement embraces big government. ” Why? Because they claim the President did not outline specific budget cuts, but only talked about spending priorities. Thus, they conclude — before a single piece of legislation is introduced — that he is a “big government conservative. ” Then, a senior editor at National Review asserted, “Maybe I’m crazy, but I’d bet that if President Obama (or a President Jeb Bush) had made a similar speech with similar spending commitments and no explanation of how to pay for them, the Tea Party Express would have mustered enough objections to respond. ” Yes, the National Review writer is right. We had no confidence that Barack Obama was going to rein in the size and cost of government we would have proudly stood with Jeb Bush if he had a cabinet. We would have given a lot of room to a President who had appointed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, or Scott Pruitt to the EPA or Tom Price to head up HHS. Furthermore, both authors oddly marginalized the President’s agenda, which includes historic tax cuts, massive regulatory reform, and bold education changes that will affect millions of children across the nation. And that doesn’t even touch the Administration’s unequivocal commitment to repeal and replace Obamacare. These are major conservative priorities — and priorities that have defined the Tea Party movement — but the Bubble Boys and Girls won’t let facts get in the way of an opportunity to bash the President. Admittedly, there are plenty of details to work through as the Administration and Congress prepare to honor the promises they made to voters. And none of us are under any illusion that we’ll be happy with 100 percent of every decision made. If the President or Congress deviates from the will of the voters, we should call them out — I know that Tea Party Express will. However, instead of impulsively attacking President Trump and fellow conservatives, let’s try to keep our powder dry and wait for there to be a fight. Maybe that way we will be ready and united to actually win some of the impending battles and deliver the best solutions for conservatives. Taylor Budowich is the executive director of Tea Party Express, the nation’s largest Tea Party political action committee. | 1 |
This woman has literally done it all to secure funding for her 172 children. Credit: Maria Cristina Foundation
Maria Conceicao is astonishingly dedicated to her 172 children living in Dhaka, Bangladesh and has gone to great lengths to provide them with the funding they need to get an education and reach their full potential.
It all started in 2005, when Conceicao was working as a flight attendant with Emirates Airlines. She had a 24-hour break in Dhaka, Bangladesh and wound up visiting a hospital where a 16-year-old orphan had just given birth to twins. She was sickened by what she saw and told Arabian Business,
“After going to the hospital in Bangladesh, I just wanted to throw up. It was filthy, dirty, lacking hygiene. There’s no beds like we have here, they stay on the floor and they have to fight and compete for floor space. I thought it was so inhumane…. I couldn’t understand how someone who is really sick and goes to a hospital and a doctor to get better, could get better [at that hospital]. Going to that hospital was like meeting suicide, their situation would have been worse.”
Maria found herself incapable of going back to her normal life after witnessing the atrocities occurring just 4 hours from where was living. She made a vow to help these children and their families, first by asking for donations from family and friends and then by starting a foundation called the Maria Cristina Foundation to make a bigger difference in their lives. Credit: Maria Cristina Foundation
Though funding was abundant when she first started out, the 2008 recession hit charities very hard, and Maria said the funding disappeared overnight. The school her foundation had set up was closed and the children and their families had to go back to being day laborers and begging for money.
In an effort to get their lives back on the right track, Maria secured the children’s spots at a nearby private school but she agreed to pay their tuitions. With no funding, Maria had to get creative with how she would raise awareness and $250,000 annually to pay the tuition and improve the lives of these children. Credit: Maria Cristina Foundation
That’s where her amazing journey began: she knew she would have to gain attention by doing something shocking, so she set her sights on some of the most dangerous treks in the world to become known internationally. Though she had no athletic inclination prior to these highly athletic feats, she began training diligently to quickly accomplish what many others have spent decades working to achieve.
Here are just a few things she’s accomplished since she started her endeavor in 2010: Last Degree to North Pole Expedition, first Portuguese woman to climb Mount Everest, 7 full marathons in 7 days across 7 Emirates, UAE, 7 ultra marathons in 7 days in December, and 6 time Guinness World Record Holder. Credit: Maria Cristina Foundation
As time has gone on and people have become impressed with her accelerated progress in training, people have lost interest just as fast as they’ve gained it. That’s why she jumped from treks and climbing to extreme running and, now, to swimming.
Swimming the English channel is extremely difficult and dangerous; by comparison, fewer people have successfully completed the English Channel swim than have reached the summit of Mount Everest. What makes it so challenging is the extremely cold water, which makes hypothermia very likely, and its constant flow of ship traffic that creates currents and obstacles. One year prior to her August 27th attempt, Maria didn’t even know how to swim. Credit: Maria Cristina Foundation
Her attempt at the swim was going well, but she was stopped 7 hours into the swim by an official boat pilot because strong tidal currents prevented her from picking up pace. She said this several days after her attempt:
“I am disappointed with the outcome. I know I still had so much more to give, but unfortunately allowed myself to be persuaded to stop by the official boat pilot 7 hours into the swim. I wasn’t struggling, I wasn’t cold, I was just slow. However, I have been overwhelmed and overjoyed by the support that I have received. I have never receive d such strong support for previous challenges.”
Maria’s struggle to provide for her children, who also call her their mother, continues and she will certainly be making another attempt to reach her target fundraising goal. If you would like to donate to her current campaign, you can do so here. Her foundation has already helped so many families and some of her children are even on their way to top universities, something that would have been unfathomable without her dedication and supporters.
Humanitarian Attempted Dangerous English Channel Swim To Save 172 Children | 0 |
Rep. Dave Brat ( ) faced unending interruptions at a town hall meeting in Richmond on Tuesday night. [Before Brat could even speak, the crowd chanted “read our questions,” and repeatedly yelled out “you lie” as he tried to make his remarks. “I’m trying to listen to the people on the key issues of our day” Brat yelled over the continuous heckling. “If we go this route it’s going to be very hard to have rational, civil discourse all night. ” “I’m trying my best here,” Brat said in a video of part of the town hall that was posted on YouTube. When Brat tried to explain how the American Health Care Act passed by the House last week would cover conditions, people booed and tried to shout him down. Activists cheered when someone asked about Trump’s tax returns and about why the Congressional Budget Office had not scored the GOP health care bill before it was voted on. Brat said he agreed a score was needed, but he was still jeered by people in the audience, some dressed in that read “RESIST” and others showing support for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The Associated Press reported the town hall this way: “Critics of Republican U. S. Rep. Dave Brat and the House health care bill he voted for packed a raucous town hall meeting in his Virginia district Tuesday night, booing and shouting down the congressman from start to finish. Brat is the latest in a series of lawmakers across the country who have gotten an earful from constituents at town hall meetings since last week’s passage of the House health care bill that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. ” “Hundreds of people packed the suburban Richmond church for the meeting Brat with a Republican state senator, and dozens of protesters lined up outside ahead of its start, many of them holding signs shaped like tombstones. Inside, opponents appeared to far outnumber supporters. ” Much of the town hall focused on the American Health Care Act, which passed last week on a vote in the House, with Brat voting for it. But Brat, like other members of the Freedom Caucus, opposed the first version of the act and only came on board this round after the amendment was added to allow states to obtain a waiver to avoid some Affordable Care Act regulations. Brat was also asked about Trump firing FBI Director James Comey and whether he would push for a special prosecutor to investigate any ties the president might have with Russia. Brat said he would not and added, “In this country you are innocent until there’s evidence. “And this applies to all of you, right?” Brat said. “No one wants the federal government coming after you unless there is evidence and no one can stand up and give me the evidence. ” | 1 |
BELGIUM: Leftist bleeding heart activists whine about Muslims being targeted in counter-terrorism crackdown MOLENBEEK: Belgium’s hotbed of violent Islamic jihad where up to 80% of the population is Muslim and ISIS terrorists are considered heroes, Muslims being questioned by police complain of being “insulted and humiliated,” says Human Rights Watch, who accuse police of overly harsh treatment of terrorist suspects. Belgium, with a population of just 11million and about a half million Muslims – has produced more jihadi fighters per capita than any other country in Europe. Molenbeek-Saint-Jean – home to just 90,000 habitants – has become known across the world as Europe’s “jihadi conveyor belt”. Coordinated attacks in Paris at sites including a concert hall and sports stadium killed 130 people and injured hundreds, as well as coordinated attacks at the Brussels international airport and a metro station that killed 32 people and injured hundreds ALL were linked to Belgium, the country with the highest reported number of recruits to Islamic jihadist groups per capita in Western Europe. The one-finger salute of ISIS in Molenbeek In response the Belgian government has enacted a raft of new counterterrorism laws and regulations, and deployed more than 1,800 soldiers in major cities. The Belgian police have carried out several hundred raids, detentions and stops and searches, many in Molenbeek, the neighborhood of Brussels that was a home or way station to many of the Paris and Brussels attackers. These actions have helped the authorities convict 43 suspects and charge 72 others for terrorism-related crimes. But left wing ‘rights’ groups such as Human Rights Watch claim the terrorist suspects are the ones being persecuted. | 0 |
By Allison Vincent Election 2016 , News , Politicians Behaving Badly , Politics , Racism October 29, 2016 CNN’s Van Jones Has Some Reality For Trump: If He Were Black We’d Call Him A ‘Thug’ (VIDEO)
On Wednesday night, Donald Trump had a black man kicked out of his rally in North Carolina.
“We have a protester! Were you paid $1500 to be a thug?”
Well, the joke was on Trump, because the man he called “thug” was actually there supporting him, and for some odd reason…he still is.
RELATED: Trump Calls Black Man At Rally A ‘Thug,’ Kicks Him Out – Except There’s One Big Problem
On Friday night’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher , CNN’s Van Jones sat down with Maher, one on one, and addressed the issue of Donald Trump’s dangerous, racist rhetoric and said that if Trump were black, people would be hearing his words in a completely different way.
“If Trump were black, we’d be calling him a thug!”
Bill Maher took that point further saying that if Barack Obama were caught on tape saying, “Give me a tic tac”, because when you’re a “community organizer,” they’ll just let you do whatever you want –“grab em by the p*ssy,” people would be outraged.
Let’s face it — President Obama wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the White House if he did the things that Trump has been caught doing, and would likely be under indictment (or possibly in prison) for sexual assault. Why does it continue to be acceptable for Trump to behave this way and get away with it? The double standard is really getting old.
Watch the full interview here:
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RIO DE JANEIRO — Early in 1987, Kerry Lynch, a bright hope of the American ski team for an Olympic medal, boarded a plane for Germany. There, he met an American doctor who performed a transfusion that packed his blood with red blood cells, an elixir for endurance athletes. A few days later, at the 1987 world championships, he finished second in the Nordic combined, a grueling event that featured ski jumping and skiing. It was the best performance ever by an American in that event. The plot came undone, Lynch confessed, and it turned out that Jim Page, director of the United States Nordic program, had given his blessing to the doping. The International Ski Federation booted Page for life. The United States Olympic Committee was far gentler. Page remained and became its managing director of sports performance. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, the United States had a pervasive doping problem in Olympic sports that was enabled by the U. S. O. C. Test results disappeared, athletes ran and jumped and swam their way to medals, and complicit coaches prospered. Our Olympic leaders and corporate sponsors and many of us in the news media placed hands over eyes and blocked ears at talk of American doping. I page through this history not by way of offering a backdoor defense of Russia. Two exhaustive reports establish that the Russian government engaged in doping, and that is a blot on world sport. More athletes now are speaking out on doping, and the timidity of the International Olympic Committee in punishing the Russians dishonors their efforts. But as we rage and stomp about Russia’s doping, we might recall those decades when doping was a slice of American pie. Ours had no labs creating Frankenstein drugs and athletes, nor did government officials play a role. But we had much malfeasance, from Lance Armstrong and his United States Postal Service team to Carl Lewis, who dominated several Olympics and was the greatest American track athlete of his time. In 2003, Lewis admitted that he had failed three tests for stimulants in 1988 and that Olympic executives had looked the other way. In fairness, Lewis tested positive for a small amount of stimulants, which, he said, came contained in a cold medication. Perhaps this is so. His statement, however, spoke to a culture of complicity. “There were hundreds of people getting off,” he said in 2003. “Everyone was treated the same. ” A few examples: Dr. Wade Exum, the U. S. O. C.’s antidoping director, claimed in a lawsuit filed early in the last decade that the committee’s lust for medals had helped it overcome moral good sense. His lawsuit was dismissed, but he gave documents to Sports Illustrated that showed that American Olympic officials had covered up more than 100 tests from 1988 to 2000. The Orange County Register revealed some years back that at least 34 American track and field athletes had tested positive before the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and had most likely gone on to compete and win medals. The next Summer Olympics was in Seoul in 1988. Pat Connelly, a prominent track coach, later testified in Congress that as many as 20 American female athletes had “probably” used anabolic steroids in preparation for those Games. Evelyn Ashford, a top American sprinter, testified that she knew of two female American gold medalists who had used steroids, although she declined to identify them. On and on it goes. It is striking how many of the best track performances from that time still stand as world records. Doping tolerance suffused our culture: American baseball rode the broad backs and swings of the in the 1990s with the knowledge of its leaders and team owners the N. F. L. per usual, was an zone. I called up Max Cobb, president of U. S. Biathlon, who is a courageous crusader for clean sport. He looks back at that time with a grimace. “In the 1970s and the 1980s, it was the wild, wild West out there,” he said. Russia’s defenders might clap at this as hypocrisy exposed. Let’s pause before tumbling down that rabbit hole. I’m not inclined to shrug off conclusive evidence that Russia, with the helping hands of its state security service, has overseen systematic doping. Those athletes who wished to remain clean found that their access to the best coaches and to the most competitive meets had disappeared. Late last year, the recently defrocked chief of Russia’s antidoping agency wrote an email to a British reporter, saying he wanted to write a book about sports doping in Russia and the country’s secret laboratory. Two months later, this man went out to do some skiing and died. “It was,” the Russian minister of sport noted, “a very unexpected death. ” About the same time, another general director of the antidoping agency also died unexpectedly. book deals, not to mention knowledge of the inner workings of Russian sports, appear to be bad for your health. Thomas Bach, the pliable chief of the I. O. C. has made it clear this week that the idea of barring Russia from the Rio Olympics fills him with horror. To levy such a punishment, he said, would result “in death and devastation. ” I have no idea what interior horror movie Bach was living through when he uttered those words. If we’ve learned anything from America’s experience with decades of athletic doping, and its efforts to clean up that culture, it’s that the unyielding effort by antidoping agencies carries its own reward. The United States Agency now aggressively pursues dopers and bars their coaches. I am not a fan of lifetime bans I dislike playing grand executioner. But Justin Gatlin, the best of the great American dash men, offers a case study in the new approach to dopers. He was booted for four years in 2006 after testing positive for testosterone. His punishment resulted in humiliation and lost earnings that ran into millions. That strikes me as suitably tough, in that it allowed him a second chance. This, however, has not pleased the Madame Defarges in the press corps, who adore denouncing Gatlin. “The expectation in the United States now is that you will be tested and there will be no shortcuts,” Cobb said. “We have really narrowed the advantage that can be obtained through doping. ” A coda, perhaps. But after decades in the wilderness, an expectation has been set, a standard established. | 1 |
DEAD MUSLIMS SOCIETY will sue to force small Massachusetts town to allocate space for 16,000 dead Muslims Negotiations to put a Muslim cemetery in the small town of Dudley have broken down in acrimony, and the contentious issue — replete with charges and countercharges of bigotry and grandstanding — appears to be headed for resolution in the courts, aided and abetted by the litigation jihadists of designated terrorist group CAIR. Boston Globe The Islamic Society of Greater Worcester ended talks this week after the Board of Selectmen did not accept its latest proposal for a graveyard on 55 acres of abandoned farmland , according to the society’s attorney. A counter-offer by the town also was not accepted. Neither side provided details of the private discussions. People are opposed to casket free Muslim burials which could contaminate the water supply Jay Talerman, the Islamic Society attorney, said Thursday the group will now pursue the plan in the courts, following a 10-month process that failed to produce an agreement but generated plenty of heated rhetoric. “Each time, the selectmen retreated to a position that involved violating my client’s rights,” Talerman said. “The most disappointing part appears to be that they never sincerely or genuinely had any intention to accommodate us.” (What a surprise. NOT) A suit filed by the society is pending in Massachusetts Land Court. In addition, the ACLU of Massachusetts is preparing to file a civil rights suit in US District Court, said Sarah Wunsch, the organization’s deputy legal director. The Obama thugs of the US Attorney’s Office in Boston already has launched an investigation into whether civil rights violations occurred. The state Attorney General’s office has been in talks with both sides. The town’s attorney, Gary Brackett, said that the issue always has been about the size and impact of the cemetery — not whether one would be permitted. Throughout the process, Talerman said, “the selectmen never expressed a willingness to abandon procedures that are a direct affront to my clients.” Brackett denounced Talerman’s repeated accusations that anti-Muslim bias tainted the cemetery application. Large crowds have come out to every meeting to protest the proposed cemetery “I would compare Mr. Talerman’s broad-brush claims regarding the citizens and officials of the town of Dudley as being the equivalent of Donald Trump’s attempt at portraying Muslims,” Brackett said. Dr. Amjad Bahnassi, the president of the Islamic Society, said he attributed part of the opposition to a “misunderstanding” of the Muslim religion and said the issue has become a civil rights concern for many of the estimated 5,000 Muslims in Worcester County. “We’re being denied unfairly what is granted to us by the law,” Bahnassi said. At issue is the Islamic Society’s attempt to buy farmland with enough space for an estimated 16,000 graves that, if filled, would be the largest Muslim cemetery in the state. The society currently uses a graveyard in Enfield, Conn., 60 miles from Worcester, which Muslim leaders said poses a hardship for many families. When the society’s plans became public early this year, townspeople expressed fears that burials would contaminate well water, because Muslims traditionally do not use coffins, and that the nearby rural roads would become congested. Muslim leaders continued to pursue their application through town government, even though Talerman said the society was not required to seek approval because the organization is a religious group seeking the land for a religious purpose. The town’s Zoning Board of Appeals rejected the cemetery application in June, and the Islamic Society filed suit in Land Court. The town also began efforts to buy the land under a right of first refusal for certain agricultural property. However, the Islamic Society, which already had signed a purchase-and-sale agreement for the property, argued again that the town had no such right. Facing intensifying pressure, the town eventually waived that claim. On Thursday, Talerman reiterated his longstanding contention that bigotry lies behind the lack of an agreement. “We gave this town an opportunity to lock arms with us and welcome a benign use into their town that would dispel any notion that they were biased or bigoted,” he said. “They have not taken up the olive branch and instead have doubled down on strategies that are solely intended to delay or kill our project.” (Yes, and once Trump is in office you can take your lawsuit and stuff it) RELATED STORIES/VIDEOS: | 0 |
Philippines President turning his country away from the US and pivoting in the direction of China.
Often called the Donald Trump of the Philippines, this new President is turning away from America as an ally and is embracing China.
This threat to national security cannot be overstated. If we lose the Philippines as an ally, China will have free military reign of Asia. South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam will be in grave danger. An analysis of this potential threat is contained in the following video.
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